Search Engine Optimization

Many people are good at creating website for business. The importance of website has been realized by many small and medium scale businesses. The internet augment the local business with providing local business information to customers. Well, how far is your business reached your targeted customers? Many business owners could not able to answer this question! Most of them whom for which I worked had little knowledge when it comes to Search Engine Optimization! Many local traders and business man think, once they publish website for them, they will be visible in internet. But they are ignorant of the fact that internet is lot more flooded with spam and duplicate websites. Even if they had some direct search of their business name, they do not have their website listed within the top 10 results of the search engine. 

A survey mentioned that any website which gets to the 1st position in the search result has 80% Click Through Rate (CTR). It means, if you business website get to the top of all the search results, then you have got 80% chance that person searching will click and visit your website. So others who appear in the 2nd to 10th position has got to share 20% CTR. The other pages may not even get a chance to get a click from the search engine result.

A sample WordPress blog on Test with Bing

Here is a sample WordPress.com blog. I used the 'Words of guru' subdomain name. When I get search for the domain I got second spot in Bing search result. So I will lose 80% CTR to the Wikipedia page which define the word 'Guru'.

Note: This blog is hosted under the domain name Words of Guru.

Well, time to end our childhood stories for now. Here we will get into the serious topic.

What is Search Engine Optimization?

Search Engine Optimization or simple called SEO, is a process which employ various method to affect visibility of a website or webpage in search engine's search results. SEO involves mostly with the organic search. Paid search results or ads are different story.

Law Crumb Blog domain level SEO

Well, there are many ways SEO is done. Most common of them is link building. It fetch far more result than just conventional methods of optimizing web pages for search results.

Why SEO important?

Domain name search in Bing

Now, lets take the domain name 'chennailife.tk', It is brand new web blog just had its first post today. It is just raw blog and has one post to its name. For this experiment, I didn't add any bells and whistles of SEO to chennailife.tk. Now, I did a Bing search, entered the domain name in the search box. The result would be startling. You may find surprised that search engine worked as if such a domain was not in existence. To play it fair, I did this search 2 hours after getting that blog live. I guess it is fair time enough to know about a domain. If not, may be after a week it may appear. But the point is most of the local business are in dark inside internet. A little basic SEO like submitting a site to search engine would have yielded some result. It is always good to have something better than nothing. Yet, you can find many other methods to SEO your business.

If proper SEO has been done, then search engine would bring up your website or web page within top 10 results. To have online visibility SEO is the key. Your presence depends on how good the person do the SEO job.

To more about SEO, follow our blog, subscribe through Email to know updates on SEO.

How Budget Smartphone can make you sick

Budget Smartphones

Smartphones, a great utility at present era. A man without smartphone is not good for business. It may be iPhone, Android, Firefox, Symbian, whatever you know. Without smartphone, individual is lost. Even it may result in identity crisis! With increasing smartphone market, especially, in developing countries have raised few questions yet to be answered.

Though the matter of questing the use, adaptability, social condition are out of our control. Now the real point for consideration is how for the budget smartphone made us sick!

It is better to switch our time machine back to early 2000's where smartphones are only for business people who type a lot on the go. Busy with emails and organizing teams to get the job done! With Blackberry took the guardian role when it comes to business relying on smartphone to make executives keep in touch with it workers. Smartphone made the life simple and making the work a touch away.

But with Android and iOS, the theory on smartphone took a twist. It spread like a wildfire among the public. The smartphone usage among the public outrun the top executive who had the monopoly to carry a smartphone.

The smartphone did come with its own effect. The price of the smartphone were too high which made it beyond the reach of majority. Even it took toll on one month pay for an individual. Yet, business is business. None can refute it. The Smartphone makers had other plans to reach masses with budgetary phones. For those, affordability matters, hardware makers produced stripped down version of high end smartphone so everyone could carry one without distinction.

See also: Is your website mobile-friendly? 

But such product has its own wises. 

Strip Down Processing Power: Most prominent point when it comes to budget smartphone is strip down processing power. You won't get as much power as you do when compared to main stream high-end models. The sad part is it is obviously true. When a high-end model comes with new kind of processor, the budget smartphone will come equipped with processor of old high-end model. 

Limited RAM and Multi-tasking: Next crucial aspect for smartphones are Random Access Memory, also simply known as RAM. With limited RAM, apps find very space to linger. Cramped RAM will force close applications and kill background processes which we won't notice at most times. Have you felt delayed notifications for messaging services like Whatsapp, Viber, Hike, etc? When you open those apps, you receive notification that some one has sent you a message! 

And Multi-tasking, with limited RAM, applications find no place to run when you switch to other application. It virtually kills your multi-tasking abilities. Unless the apps provide to saving application state, applications will tend to close when you switch to other app.

Low Internal memory: Flash memory are costlier than SD card memory. To cut cost, budget smartphones will provide limited internal memory space for applications. Virtually, it will constrain the user to very few apps to use. Consider, 1 GB of Internal memory in a budget smartphone. Not more than 10 to 15 apps could be installed provided each app is 30-40 MB of size and occupy some space for App data. Apart from the apps you install, Google updates will start filling up your internal memory. Further, some apps disable the capacity to move apps to internal storage. So if you are kind of person who install apps which don't support SD card storage, you will be constrained to limit your choice of apps. Simply, you have to sacrifice your wish for usability of the smartphone.

And most people who use budget smartphone would have encountered often 'The device has insufficient space' when updating a app from store. Limited internal memory? Then No more app installation and insufficient space to update applications.

Lagging Games: Here comes the interesting part, avid gamers, kiss good bye to your gaming. Budget smartphone will not handle all resource hungry games. If you do manage to install some, the game lags or skip frames and make the game play awkward. Not all smartphone will result in lagging games or force closing the game apps. But some factors play important role. With limited processing power, RAM, it will throttle your gaming experience. If you are avid gamer, who wish to do some fun gaming, better look out for standard model of handsets. Consider yourself as buying PSP or portable gaming device which would cost you more than your smartphone.

Substandard Handset maker: With smartphone market expanding at rapid pace, many handset makers came to play in the market. To cut cost, to improve affordability, some handset makers prefer sub-standard materials. Not all, but some of them. The life of the budget smartphone getting shorter than ever. The low quality materials shorten the life span of mobile handsets. Remember the days of Nokia handset? Rock-solid durable handset which could even survive a fall from 1st floor of the building. Actually, it did. But contemporary smartphone would not able to survive accidental fall to floor.

If you find any missing point that need to be addressed, comment them. Share or tweet if you like the post.

Who Really Uses Whatsapp Marketing

WhatsApp! A cool messaging service with more than 5 million users. Wouldn't that sound great if you are in marketing? 5 Million users to spam with ads! I am not kidding. With whatsapp you got some real users to your audience list. As it uses personal phone numbers to identify individuals, no bot could have an account but for a marketer who wants a schedule post periodically at rhythmic intervals. All right now Who really uses WhatsApp marketing? I am not talking about business which are curious to send out broadcast messages but about people who actually manage those Whatsapp broadcast messages stead of those businesses who don't want their hands wet.

I really wonder who really uses the Whatsapp Marketing? With few incidents in this week, I feel some kind of new comers who failed marketing exams took up the job for the business. Really laughed out loud at the manner in which they did WhatsApp marketing.

See Also: Whatsapp Marketing Strategy

I really fought my dilemma either to freak out or laugh at those WhatsApp Marketers! Some kind of stupid thing which no marketing strategist would have preferred for any product! 

To my fellow marketer who use WhatsApp as a platform to get things done. Take this, never do what was done by this amateur Whatsapp marketers. Never!

To be make it clear, even the dummies involved in the marketing wouldn't have preferred this method. All right, now show time for the blunder which I witness myself in my Whatsapp account.

WhatsApp Marketing

Creating Group For Marketing: The dumbest idea followed by the marketer was to 'Create a Whatsapp group for particular localities'. By adding all the known numbers to the group, he has made mocked himself in public. 

First rule of marketing, never embarrass yourself. The reason is simple, there are others to embarrass you in public. So at least avoid embarrassing yourself my doing such a blunder.

The fellow who started this 'WhatsApp Marketing 5040TN' was not selling any product but making ads for himself and his business of Whatsapp Marketing. But you may wonder, he may not be the first to start such a business in your locality! Yet, this entity is the first to start a separate group for marketing. Really wonder what made them to try this trick!

Welcome Message: Awful to watch that! The one started the group posted a welcome message. It was too much revealing. Remember, a car buyer need to know only about accelerator, clutch, brake and gears. The buyer really do not care about the internal workings. But this marketer has reveal what this group comprised of. But stating the telecom company name in the welcome message, he has made clear that some one in the telecom company is involved in making the numbers public.

Though, the agreement between the telecom companies and individual users might allow telecom operators to divulge information to third parties, it will be considered unethical and unprofessional to do so. Not to the blame the telecoms for making the numbers public. It might have been some insider job to get the work done. For corruption has breached the corporate firewalls? I guess so.

To add insult to the injury, the marketer is ready to negotiate a deal over the personal information collected from the telecos. By stating the telecom companies name, the Whatsapp marketer appears like the one who has authority to trade on information.

See also: Flipkart quits Airtel Zero

Privacy Matters?

Right To Privacy: Even WhatsApp desist from marketing or advertisement as policy document states so. But with increasing penetration of smartphones and tablets, the user base of WhatsApp increases exponentially until last man on the Earth on day will have Smartphone with WhatsApp installed. 

Does this type of messages hurts privacy? This would be debate without an end. So starting it right now will not end this blog post. But as a personal opinion this hurts WhatsApp user privacy. As marketer, we don't own licence to stalk at someone's home. So the personal device!

By creating a WhatsApp group, the marketer not only showed up all the mobile numbers which he had but would have created a bad impression on about his marketing co. I left the group within 2 minutes of creation. By then, 21 other users have left the group. Most positively with bad impression upon the marketer who created the group. As most users feel insecure in a group where most of them are completely strangers to each other. This is one of the important factor play the game of marketing messages in groups.

Note: I did not black out the marketer number. If anybody feel to block this market can do at there own wish. I do not recommend any action to done right now. In other words, your account, your wish.

Setting WhatsApp Marketing Right: Now, not only to this particular marketer, but to all, it would be always wise to use 'Broadcast messages' than the group messages. For the broadcast messages would appear personal than a public announcement in groups. Whatsapp or not, as long as internet lives, spammers live. So to be look like a genuine marketer, create 'broadcast list' than groups where everybody would run away. 

Moreover, people, who are not interested in your advertisement, will ignore simply if it look as a personal message. I am not totally against Marketing but against marketer who lack strategy to market. Marketing is not stalking with products or services. It is novel thing getting users and products/service personal. Building relationship between the product/service and consumer never should be irritant to both the business and consumers.

Comment your opinions on WhatsApp marketing. Found interesting, share on facebook or

Review: Reliance Reconnect mouse

Well, it is a perfect day for a review. The product which is under consideration is plane and normal USB compatible Optical Mouse from +Reliance Digital. For anybody who wants to know about this optical mouse in single sentence review, I would say "Go, buy it". But in the interest of people who are eager to know more about Reconnect optical mouse, I have applied a little effort to bring you the features.

Reliance Digital Reconnect USB Optical Mouse

Let's jump to basic of +Reliance Digital USB optical mouse:

Product: USB Optical mouse

Model:    RAUMG1003

Design:  Ambidextrous design

Mode:    Plug & Play

or connectivity

Price: Rs. 249 (< $5)

The description is clear. If you use some old computers with ps2 connectivity, this mouse is not for you but for the ps2 to USB converters. The design was so good. It was aimed to fit both hands. Especially thumb gets to the right place and provide enough space for fingers. As for as mode of operation, it is just plug and play. No software drivers or complex setup needed to use this mouse. I just plugged it into my laptop and the three button mouse started working without any problem. 

Ambidextrous Design

And next thing, far more important than any specification on the product box is the price. For the built and quality, the price is perfect. Though, Maximum Retail Price (MRP) states Rs. 299, the store sold it for Rs. 249 (< $5). Yet, it is good piece for the price. Any one with low budget could have Reconnect USB optical mouse as an option. It deserves to be. If you find Reliance shop in your locality, you should consider it for sure.

Along with it we got following features with this little one:

Resolution: 1000 DPI

Frame Rate: 3500 FPS

along with 3D navigation capacity

The specifications are good. I tested the mouse for 2 days and found no flaw yet. 1000 DPI make the pointer fly from one end of the screen to other end. With amazing frame rate you would not observe frame skip.

1000 DPI, 3500 FPS with Plug & Play

Performance: Everything is fine so far, now, lets get with the performance. The clicks are feel responsive and the scroll wheel are not that snappy unlike other USB Optical mouses. Scroll wheel feels smooth and do not over shoot. Without resistance, the scroll wheel seems to be accurate.

With accurate tracking it worked in almost all surfaces. The official specification states that it works with Windows and Mac. But it also work fine with Linux. It is a Linux compatible mouse. All buttons worked fine in Ubuntu 14.04. 

Gaming with Reconnect USB optical mouse: Though it seems too accurate, it is not advisable to consider it for serious gaming purpose. Yet, casual gamer could find it useful under budget. But for serious gaming, you need to invest in some other gaming mouse. More over, it lacks DPI switch which is prominent feature in most gaming mouse. With no DPI switch you will get stuck at the stock 1000 DPI, while pro gamer would prefer DPI values from 400-1800. 

Ergonomics: Ambidextrous design fits both hands well. But the mouse is very short. For people with long hands, you need to consider other mouse variants. If you are the one who works with the mouse alot then you need to look out for proper ergonomics that fit your hands. For ergonomics, individual judgement stands good than others advice. 

But for casual programmers, writers, bloggers, internet geeks, I highly recommend the Reconnect USB optical mouse. 

Pros: Price! It is well within the budget. You could afford the product without second thought. 

Fast and accurate! In this price range, the Reconnect USB optical mouse surprise us with its accuracy.

Ergonomics! It fits both the hands with ease. Though some might feel uncomfortable, it is a good bet at this price range. Comparing other optical mouses, Reconnect seems to fit good than the rest.

Cons: One thing which made me write this section is 'Loud Mouse Click'. The click are too loud. If you work at night alone, you could feel the loudness too high. 

Next thing is the cord of the optical mouse. It is not a functional cons. Yet, this mouse lacks unbraided cord which makes cord tangle occasionally. 

Overall, Reliance Digital Reconnect USB Optical mouse is good buy. A value for money. 

Visit: www.reliancedigital.in

Myntra to end Website service from May 15, 2015

Well, if you are viewing this screenshot of Myntra, online fashion and lifestyle e-commerce platform, grab it without second thought. You have been one in billion to have a look at this screenshot of Myntra in Desktop computers. Who knows! One day, you could auction it for a Million dollar! With penetration of smartphone the online retailer has decided to shut it website. For them, it is not mobile first, but mobile only. With increasing smartphone userbase day by day, Myntra has took a brave endeavour to close it desktop business altogether by May 15, 2015. 

What made them close Desktop website?

Many would wonder what made Myntra close desktop website! Well, because they have very good data analytic to support this move. They claim that they received 9 million downloads so far. Is it to be good reason to cheer? Myntra states it positive. With increasing smartphone user base, it is expected to have 5 million downloads in next 3 month. To my wonder, how far data analytics have gone that a great online retailer shuts down it's desktop business infavour of mobile app.

Privacy concerns:

With increasing concerns over privacy on smartphone, switching to mobile only approach would be seen skeptical. Myntra has stated that it need to understand consumers deeply and tailor experiences around that. What would it mean to end consumer? To be make it simple, spying on end users! It seems so rude. Can be take it as tracking user actions and behavior patterns to understand them?! To tailor experience based on users, one must have access to user information. Would that mean Myntra app will start tracking users who install mobile app? 

With struggle of cyber security further augmented by the penetration of mobile phone, any apps could turn as a spying agent. With express statement, Myntra further intended to add tracking with it's new mobile app! Who knows except for the technical team. For us, personalizing experience would mean tracking individual users. No offense intended here. As security experts point, with indiscriminate apps, we expose ourself to unneeded surveillance and tracking. But it does mean Myntra will track. But the statement mentioned by the Myntra would mean it indirectly.

Mobile only policy:

Next issue with us is mobile-only policy of Myntra. Well, it sounds like you do not deserve Myntra shopping if you do not own a smartphone. As simple as that, they have neglected the users who don't shop through a smartphone. The policy of mobile-only will leave behind many users at lurch at start. But at later, they may move to another shopping platform. But what if other online retailers follow the footsteps of Myntra. For capturing mobile market would mean getting access to individual's personal space. 

Time could only answer the questions! Let's see how far the mobile-only policy fetch desired results. 

Update: Well, May 15 passed, How good is the mobile app of Myntra? To get an unbiased view. I checked Google Play Store from my Android Smartphone. When I searched for "Myntra" I found the following. Though, I agree that it is not all for that apps. But top review which showed up in Play Store had negative impact on the Myntra apps. Very unfortunate!

Though Myntra have #BigData right, it has to satisfy all users. Fixing the mobile version must be the priority! All the best Myntra! One brave step forward in ecommerce industry.

Make Your Blog Unique and Original - Simple steps

Blog with unique and original content

Well, we would have known about the importance of content which you post in your blog post. +Matt Cutts, head of Google Webspam team, has made it clear that +Google is much worried about content rather than the SEO. Well, Your content is King. It must stand out of the crowd. But challenge posed before us is how to create a unique and original content? Right, creating content is quite easy but talking about unique and original content, the topic gets serious. The SEO of 2000s are no more useful as it was in the past. With each search engine update, especially Google Search engine update, most people complain about skewed search result. The algorithm behind search engine decides what pages to in the top 10 search results. For business, +Google search is far important as majority of the world depend on Google search. So making your content unique and posting original blog post will get your page stand separated from the crowd. Thus, search engine will knock your doors for your content.

Problems in creating unique and original content:

Finding difficult to create Unique content?

As we all know that Google has made it clear that content is king when it comes to search result ranking. But for us the dilemma start with how to create such unique content and how to make it stand out of the crowded website that are made on same topic. Quite challenging??!! If you are serious about content creating, you should not worry much about the competitors. Worry will not improve your content. All you have to do is produce original and unique content. Worrying must start when you start optimizing content for SEO which will be covered in later topics.

See also: how to start a blog

Unique and Original content:

Alright, we good so far. But what is the unique and original content? Well, you might sound skeptical. But creating such content require lot of home work. If your content creator whom you have employed has to do lot of research before making words out of his mind, then content writer must at least have first hand knowledge about what writer is about to write. 

I know what to do

For a content be unique, you will have to follow some guidelines. The content creation guideline is must. Every organisation who employ a content writer must be provided with a guideline about do's and don'ts. Here is the top 5 content creation guideline:

#1. Forget Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V: Please do not disappoint your readers with redundant and same content. If you want an attractive and enticing web blog, you have to forget Ctrl+c and Ctrl+v. In simple words, do not copy and paste content from other web pages. If readers find copy and paste work, they will lose interest in your blog. To have an engaging crowd around your blog and to make it attractive and enticing, do not copy and paste from other blogs, websites. 

#2. Avoid Keyword stuffing: Next content creation guideline is avoid keyword stuffing. I am talking about people who write content for search engine. Keyword stuff content may appeal good to Search engines such as +Google, yahoo, Bing, so on. Think about use of those content, it will help you get page ranking, but how good is your web page content when it comes to reader experience. Is it living up to the purpose of your business? Ranking in search engine should not be the sole criteria. Your content must be understandable to readers. To make a human read it, it must be in human readable form not in a search engine readable form. 
Though keywords are important ingredients to rank high in search engine results, it should not override the content priority. You may feel that you had created a killer content but not ranking in search engine up do to lack of keyword in the text should not force you to insert keywords which do not fit the text. Better leave those pages alone. If you get a better idea at later stage, you may edit those text make it relevant with intended keywords. 

#3. Avoid Technical Jargon: Your content must be as simple as possible. Write as if you are trying to explain your point to 5th grade student. Anyone who visits must be able to understand your stuff. Hence, it is good to avoid technical jargon while writing content.

For example, think of person who searches for solution which matches with your product or service which he does not know exactly. Here, "glasses for night driving", your company names the product which is used for night driving as "NGlass". As you create a blog or affiliate content, you refer the product as NGlass and whole content emphasize on that particular word which describe the product rather than "glasses for night driving". Google search engine might index your page for the word "NGlass" and leave out the keywords "glasses for night driving". So keep technical jargon out of your blogs or content. If you insist on such terms, then it is good to keep a link explaining those jargon.

Technical jargon are good when it is aimed at a particular community or business. But one who searches for a content, they need content as simple as plain English than with complex scientific terms, legal words and mathematical calculations. So avoid technical jargon in your content and provide pleasant user experience.

#4. Have reader interaction: So far, it is your part, now, you will have to engage readers of your content. While write content, it must create feel like you talk virtually to your readers. The art of content writing, is create engaging yet a unique and original content for readers. The way you present the blog will appeal to your target audience. But you have to create your own style of writing. The key is creating an assumption in the minds of any returning visitor that your new blog will have similar style like a previous posts. This will create engagement. 

Even if you blog content is of 4000 words, just an exaggeration,  the reader will not hesitate to read them as reader know where to skip you and where to read.

#5. Mention the source: Do you remember the rule #1? But it is difficult to follow that rule always. You will have to provide reference to your information source or person from whom you collected info on the subject that you are dealing with. You are under obligation to mention your source from whom you got the information on the subject matter of your blog post.

Example: Consider my blog post on EU antitrust charge on Google, It is from the various sources. The memo mentioned was from Google. While a suggested fix to end the crisis was from Danny Sullivan in his twitter post. In order to credit him I used '+Danny Sullivan' in that blog post. Google plus does the job of mentioning.

So it is good practice to mention the original source of information on which you rely for that content. The practice will show you that you not a person who steal information from various sources. It will not only improve your reputation  for being honest to your readers but also your source gets the credit which deserves the most. 

See also: Importance of crediting original blog post

Trackback: Importance of crediting original blog post in your blogs

Now, you might have started a blog and keep running it. If you don't have a blog, know how to start a blog. You would have started writing unique and original content to your reader. Either it may be for business or personal need, whatever it may be, it is deemed to be blog for all purpose by the audience you receive from internet. Importance of blog in business circle is far important than running a website for business. You might have wonder running a website for local business would be great thing if we were in 1990s. But with 2000s, no business will survive online if you don't run a website of own. Running a website alone will not give you the result, you need a blog. That's apart.

Now, when you start writing a blog post, you might have to rely on sources upon which you write the blog post. It is quite nature that most of the blog post you see on the internet will be based on the any information or source which is seems authentic to public. That how, we build trust. To build trust, either we have to celebrity or rely on trusted sources of information. 

What is Trackback and Advantages of Trackback?

So, now on, you are a blogger, who trust on trusted sources to create your own content. What would be important to make your reader know that you rely on a trusted information? The answer is obvious, mention the original source in the each blog post if available. Some bloggers post about the research, travel experience, personal diaries on internet blogs. For them, none will care about the authenticity of the contents presented. But when it comes to blogging based on technology, medical science, economy, society, anthropology, history, Geological work, etc, it is good to mention your source and info-graphics. This will convey that you did some real work on those facts. 

To be a known as serious blogger, you have to be serious about the source of the information you receive and post to your audience. The topic on serious blogging is different issue which does not fall under this post. 

Well, now time for trackbacks, some blogs or information website enable backlinks which act as trackback. So placing the source of information will help you get new visitors from original blog source. The parent blog to which you have placed a link in your blog will in return place a link stating that you blog discuss on the same topic. So, you will have high probability of any one who visit the parent source would visit your blog for further information. 

To my surprise, I find so many blogs which typically post similar content but also copy and paste content. Many of them do not post what is the source on which they rely. It would appear like a personal blog of authors. To be authentic, one has to provide the source if blog needs one. I am not insisting that every blog post must have mention the source. Yet, if you have one, it is well-advised to post the source. Who knows? You might get links from source websites. Thus, new readers!

Note: Trackback comes with lot of explanations. Yet, the information presented here limited and only stressed the importance of trackback. If you find anything left out, kindly mention them in comments.