Category Archives: Search Engine

How visual search impact SEO?

Visual Search Is On the Rise! How Will It Impact SEO?

Instead of using keywords as search queries, in ‘visual search’ you would upload an image into the search bar as the query and in return, you would get information, videos, and images related to your query.

Visual search and the number of opportunities that it provides for eCommerce and marketing is so exciting that we forget to analyze its impact on SEO.

Search engines don’t exactly understand images like humans do, to a search engine an image is just an array of dots. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t use it to boost your SEO strategy.

Imagine this, it’s early in the morning and you really want a strong cup of coffee. You walk into your kitchen, plug in your mom’s coffee maker, but, it doesn’t show any sign of working. You panic, you love your mom’s coffee maker and you can’t imagine parting ways.

Thankfully, a sudden relief falls over you as you pick up your smartphone. You smile, take a picture of your coffee maker, go to your favorite online store, upload the image in the search bar. Right there and then, your search results come up with a similar coffee maker as your mom’s.

Within seconds you order the legendary coffee maker, it might be a newer version but it’s guaranteed to work just as well as the old one.

Guess what reader? This technology actually exists and pretty soon you will be able to use it just like that. The technology that I’ve been going on about is ‘visual search’.

What exactly is visual search?

Simply put, visual search means to locate a particular object in a visual environment or a complex array. Humans are constantly performing visual searches.

Whether you’re looking for the umbrella, searching for clothes in the supermarket or looking for a pair of your socks; It’s all a part of visual search.

However, in technical terms, visual search has a slightly different meaning. When you’re surfing the web, you normally enter some keywords and hit the search tab, in return, you would get information, videos, and images related to your search keywords.

But, in ‘visual search’ you would upload an image into the search bar as the query and in return, you would get information, videos, and images related to your query.

Of course, Google’s been using it:

Over the past few years, visual search has been gaining a lot of popularity. Google has been working to enhance its image search capability, no doubt it has come a long way from the reverse image search method.

By using Google Images, you can upload a picture and in return get images and content related to the picture.

Asides from Google, Pinterest also has an interesting visual search tool.

TinEye has been around for a while now, it’s an excellent tool for matching similar images on the web, but sadly, it failed to identify various objects in an image. On the other hand, Pinterest and Microsoft allow you to pinpoint and search individual items present in an image.

Now, let’s cut the chase to the elephant in the room.

How can visual search impact SEO?

Visual search and the number of opportunities that it provides for eCommerce and marketing is so exciting that we forget to analyze its impact on SEO.

Search engines don’t exactly understand images like humans do, to a search engine an image is just an array of dots. In order to understand images, search engines use the keywords that are associated with the image and its pixels.

For the rising trend of visual search, image optimization is going to be the most important ingredient to make your website SEO friendly.

When users input an image as an inquiry, search engines will use its pixel numerals and metadata to find the relevant results.

So you have to make sure that the images you provide are easily accessible by search engines.

How to optimize images for visual search engines?

Visual search engines use image labels, metadata, and descriptions to analyze images; So obviously the traditional keyword method will still hold its importance.

Better indexing of images will improve your visual search optimization and in return, you will get better search engine rankings. When uploading an image, make sure you go through the following steps:

Optimize Alt text:

If you don’t already know, Alt tags also known as ‘alt descriptions’ are the keywords used to provide an alternate context for your images.

This is very useful for people that are unable to process images. Asides from this, search engines will use alt tag keywords to interpret images. Yes, Content will always be the key to good SEO.

Descriptive File Names:

When you upload a picture to your website, it usually has a default file name. Something like MKD3F.JPG, but, search engines are unable to understand ‘that’ and they will ultimately deduce that your image is irrelevant.

You can simply change the file name using keywords relevant to the content; This will make your site more SEO friendly.

Image Name & Caption:

Don’t name your image helloworld887t53.JPG! No one is going to understand what it is, not even search engines.

After downloading your image, users will have a pretty tough time finding it and search engines will ignore it altogether. Similarly, give a small catchy description for the image caption. Make sure that it is easy to understand.

Image Accuracy:

If you’re going to upload images you want to make sure that they contribute to your site’s content.

The more accurate the images are; the better keywords you can select to identify them. Moreover, accurate and quality imagery is an essential ingredient for a good eCommerce website design.

Size Matters:

More than 50% of consumers abandon a page if it takes too long to load, and that is why ‘loading time’ is also considered a ranking factor by search engines.

Moreover, slow website speed is one of the common mistakes made by startups on websites.

When users visit your site, it takes some time to load, but, the amount of time it takes depends upon the file sizes that you’ve used.

The larger a file, the longer it will take. So you need to make sure that the images you use are light in size. You can use Adobe Photoshop, Gimp, or Fotosizer to reduce the size of images.

Make The Best Out of Dimensions:

Suppose you’re selling Smartphones, it’s a common practice to showcase all the dimensions of the phone. Consumers will want to see how it looks from every angle.

So when you upload images for different dimensions, you can add captions, names and alt text for individual pictures. This bit of extra work will earn you higher search engine rankings.

Conclusion

Visual search means ‘no typing’, ‘no need to remember product names’ and most of all ‘snap and purchase facility’. It all leads to improved user experience and an increase in user interaction.

Moreover, eCommerce websites can benefit the most from visual search, they can better optimize their sites,

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What should you look for in an SEO firm

What Should You Look for in an SEO Firm? 4 Point Checklist

Most entrepreneurs spend money and time in developing their website! However, this effort will yield no benefit if the site doesn’t generate revenue. Your site should generate a steady stream of high-end web traffic.

Some people are searching for the products and services that you specialize in. And a smart way to opt-in for this is by opting in for SEO, to make your site get an increased online rank organically.

How Should You Choose an SEO Firm?

Most of the times, entrepreneurs make a mistake! They assume that SEO is a technical subject, which is best dealt by programmers and other geeks. Do you want to have a clear idea about SEO?

If yes, then you ought to know how Google assesses a site for online ranks. Google professes that a successful SEO for a website successfully makes it rank in a place where a neutral user wants to see it.  To execute a successful SEO process, you need to join hands with an ace SEO Company.

Finding an apt SEO firm is a challenging decision. You may use the steps that Google recommends.

1. Get a two-way review done

When you are selecting a service provider, a one-way interview is the most common process. Since SEO is dynamic, and touches of various aspects of an organization are marketing communications, it should have depth.

Your SEO Consultant should be genuinely interested in your business and attempt to make it a success. Here it’s essential to consider a few crucial questions, such as:

  • What is your brand USP (Unique Selling Proposition)? What’s the way you get customer value?
  • Do you know your users? How do they perceive you presently?
  • What is your site objective?
  • What are the various marketing channels you use?
  • Who are the other market players and your competitors? What are they providing as compared to your product and service?

2. Review the references

Once your SEO has successfully passed the initial test of concentrating on your complete success, there’s more to do.

It is essential to check if the brand has a successful SEO track record. Also, it’s necessary that they gained appreciation or popularity for the past three contacts. You can get talking with another and share pertinent points. You can ask questions such as:

  • How did the company rank on essential keywords? It is especially the case for renowned SEO agencies that have worked for other clients.
  • Were they helpful concerning work?
  • Did the agency deliver work on the committed time?
  • Did they provide a good suggestion?
  • Did they update your team about the way SEO search functions? If yes, then you have inputs to come up with additional links, content, and other navigation content.

3. You need to request for both search and technical audit

It is always better to do away with agencies that didn’t show concern for your company! It is also better to do away with SEO agencies that failed to provide you with adequate references. Now it’s time for you to assess the agencies individually.

You can ask them to conduct a search and technical audit. You need to have trust in these companies, as you will allow them to have a glimpse at some of your essential business aspects.

It’s a smart call to provide them with a limited view. They shouldn’t have the full access to Google Search Console as well as the analytics data.

Understanding search audit

Here the SEO agency should assess the website and its ranks! After that, it is essential to document the recommendations and findings, by simply starting a list of any problems that are making a site rank more. It gets followed by a recommendation list for resolving issues with appropriate actions.

Every problem and recommendation need to get supported with relevant references from published documents by Google. It includes the videos, articles, threads to ensure that this suggestion is current.

It will have a favorable impact on your search ranks. The recommendations should also consider all the technical limitations that an SEO agency might have found out from the development team. It’s essential to highlight the constraints in the audit.

The other things added in a search audit is the recommended place. It comprises of the expense for every step and the expected implementation time.

The search audit needs to infer with expected positive outcomes that you can anticipate in

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use web accessibility to improve SEO?

How to Use Web Accessibility to Improve SEO?

In the first place, you must remember that it is wrong to think that web accessibility has very less to give to web developers. The guidelines of WCA (Web Content Accessibility) and some of the practices of SEO overlap at times.

Use Web Accessibility to Improve SEO?

use web accessibility to improve SEO?

The percentage of users with disability stands at a rate of 25%. However, not all marketers have adopted this feature as essential, rather than treating it as an afterthought.

It is to note here that web developers that are considerate enough these new measures had their websites ranked higher than their competitors on popular web browsers.

If a website appears as inaccessible, it shows a lack of compliance and leaves a negative impact. Individuals with visual disabilities must have additional ways to consume content.

The feature of web accessibility is not limited for web developers only; even marketers must include as part of their strategies. So, they end up missing out on potential opportunities.

Web accessibility will not only improve the interface of your website but also make it more navigable. Thus, increasing the bounce rate with more such advantages.

Benefits of Web Accessibility on SEO

In the field of digital marketing, many such ways positively affect your SEO with proper accessibility. All such suggestions are listed below.

Following are a handful of the many benefits that you can bring forth. Have a look.

1. Small-Screen Compatibility

In today’s world, the number of mobile users has topped over desktop users. A larger amount of content is shared and generated by such users.

Therefore, this indicates the significance of mobile accessibility. Hence, you must ensure that your website is compatible with the smaller screen also. A lack of this practice can adversely ruin your SEO.

You must keep the resizable test option to that of 200% without the indulgence of third-party software. Also, keep in mind that the ratio of color contrast is essential for those suffering from color blindness.

2. Accurate Transcription

Non-text content such as pictures or infographics must include a brief analysis of the content that is to be displayed with alt attributes.

Assistive technology depends on alt attributes for the conversion of the content as per the convenience of the user. Hence, instead of giving a general description, put a more specific description.

For instance, if there is a picture of a baby, do not caption it as “a pic of a baby.” Instead, keep it as “a pic of a baby boy eating an apple.”

In case of video, you must provide transcribed and closed description, without relying on the auto-subtitles. Clips that have precise captions are encouraged by channels such as YouTube.

Thus, you must adhere to these strategies. Transcribing the caption into more languages is another great practice to improve the size of your viewers.

3. Persistent and Advances UI

Easy UI is one of the most striking elements of online marketing. Here, comes the importance of easy navigation. For instance, measures should be taken to make sure that your website is navigable utilizing just a keypad.

Also, ensure that there are numerous landmarks in the digital world of codes users are assisted in navigating a site without hearing to all of the texts.

This is a very important step. In fact, easy navigation is one of the prior targets of web accessibility. The inclusion of all these tactics will help you improve your SEO without any doubts.

4. Language Adaptability

The next important strategy is to ensure that every page has a descriptive and peculiar title. Along with that, it must also include proper codes of HTML that can identify the required language of that moment.

An application such as Screen Readers requires the above information to analyze the need and thereby communicate the content accordingly. Moreover, it is essential to make use of tools that are designed for the translation part.

In short, if you have a multi-lingual user, he/she should be able to analyze the displayed content without any difficulties. Hence, act to remove the language barrier, if there is any.

5. Regular Maintenance

This is the last, but not the least strategy that you must include. Developing a site with web accessibility is not enough. Measures should be taken to maintain it on a regular basis. It should never take a backseat after the initial set-up.

To occupy the top position, you require vigilance as well as consistency. Ensure that the flow of the content faces no obstruction.

Having a website that delves on these factors can make you stand ahead of others. It is a matter of huge responsibility and great pride.

Hence, you need to take special care so that there is no mistake in the information that is conveyed. You can conduct web accessibility testing on regular intervals for assurance.

A small note on ARIA

ARIA stands for Accessible Rich Internet Application. ARIA defines the set and ways of attributes to make online contents more accessible to individuals with disabilities. This set of instructions is developed with the JavaScript.

It works in a way to transmit information to Assistive Technology. For instance, it ensures that navigation landmarks in JavaScript appear from error texts and much more. ARIA attributes may be extended and updated utilizing JavaScript and also houses them directly.

Having Web Accessibility is a must

You must be familiar with the notion of web accessibility, especially if you are

25+ Common SEO Mistakes and How To Fix Them

In the fast-paced world that we live in today, one can’t stress enough on the importance of staying up-to-date with the latest SEO trends and changes if you want to stay ahead of the competition.

The vast landscape of search engine optimization is forever evolving and as such, without implementing the best SEO practices, you’d be losing not only customers but also your rank position on search engines.

More importantly, SEO is the key to a successful online business and thus, you need to be on-your-toes if you want to survive the fierce competition online.

A well-optimized website will help you to boosts your site’s ranking as well as garner organic traffic. It will help boosts your site’s visibility. It will also ensure accurate indexing of your site by search engine robots.

Furthermore, it will help to drastically reduce the bounce rate on your site, thereby helping you improve your revenue. Search engine optimization can be a hard challenge to tackle for newbies, however, with the right resources you’d be able to master it.

Thus, mentioned below is the checklist of SEO mistakes that you need to avoid/rectify post-haste in order to improve your website’s performance.

These SEO mistakes consist of redundant techniques which are no longer useful. Some may be black hat SEO techniques which cause more harm than good.

Others might be silly mistakes (not adding ALT for images etc) that you might have overlooked, which could, nevertheless, hurt your site’s traffic and conversion rate.

The below infographic will help you find these mistakes ASAP, while this comprehensive guide will show you exactly how to fix/rectify these mistakes effectively. Thus, check out the infographic below and for future reference, download the infographic for free and keep it handy.

25+ Common SEO Mistakes

Stay Updated with the Latest SEO Trends

Why It’s Important to Stay Updated with the Latest SEO Trends?

You don’t need more than two years in the industry to know how fast SEO trends can change. All of us remember the days when we could trick Google with smart usage of keywords.

Why to Stay Updated with the Latest SEO Trends?

Stay Updated with the Latest SEO Trends

Today, Google is smarter and more vigilant than ever. It can see through your intentions, thanks to the semantic search algorithm. It is why results are more relevant than ever even if the search query has grammar and spelling errors.

Many SEO strategies that were once successful are now labeled as black hat and can negatively impact your ranking.

If you are not up to date, you will not just stay behind in the race, you will face penalties and disqualification. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are more reasons to stay up to date with the latest SEO trends.

Search Engines Are Evolving at a Faster Rate

Back to the keyword stuffing dates, life was simple, and search engines were even simpler. All they did was match keywords to the text, quite like the search feature of a typical word processor works.

Fast forward to 2019, we have seen more than two hundred updates of Google alone. Many of these updates are phantom updates. They are officially announced, but they are silently released to catch SEO black sheep.

In a nutshell, search engines are now focusing on two things mainly: quality and relevance. No matter how fragmented the query, they can show results that are almost unbelievably relevant.

Technologies such as AI and machine learning are being employed to make search engines equally smart, if not smarter, than an average human. And at this pace, it won’t be surprised if the search engines will get smarter than the smartest human.

In that case, it would be impossible to outsmart them, but at least one can try to outpace a machine in terms of advancement.

If you are wondering how Google got so smart and why search results are so refined and relevant by the day, the answer is 200.

Google uses more or less 200 ranking factors to see if your page is worth a better rank, and this is something that was revealed back in 2009. We don’t know if Google has added a thousand more; they are never clear about it.

Anyhow, SEO trends and techniques depend on these factors, so you need to be aware of what the crawlers are really looking for now.

Consumer Search Behavior is Changing

It isn’t just the search engines. Consumer behavior has also changed drastically, and it keeps changing as new technologies and trends come into the mix.

One of the major forces behind the change in consumer behavior and how people utilize search engines is mobile technology. The availability of high-speed internet on a mobile device has made search engine the best on-the-go buddy for the consumers.

Whether they want to the closest restaurant that serves organic food or they need to compare two products while standing in the mart, they need quick answers. This means brands need to be able to present users with instant answers that can help them make decisions.

It is why SEO is no longer limited to old school blogs and articles. Reviews, ratings and user-generated content is a huge part of SEO strategy. Customers rely on what other customers are saying more than what you say about your own brand.

Moreover, mobile technologies have sparked an industry-wide change that calls for a more responsive approach. Google now favors websites that are built with mobile users in mind.

So, new SEO trends mean you will have to keep making changes to everything from content to design and even the code. That is why SEO is no longer a one-person job, and you might need your local SEO agency by your side.

Search Is Not Longer Limited to Text

Speaking of changing consumer behavior and SEO trends, it is worth noting that users aren’t searching through text anymore. Thanks to Siri, Alexa, and numerous other voice assistants, a huge majority of users now rely on voice search.

Search engines are using a completely different algorithm to process voice queries, and a lot has changed in the way content needs to be optimized.

Not to mention, there is a lot of videos and image-based content that has more weight in the search. Search engines are now capable of processing images to understand the meaning or intent.

They no longer rely solely on tags and labels. Their ability to analyze an image or video will only improve with time. That means SEO will soon impact the way videos are created and produced for digital platforms.

New Regulations Have an Impact

For the sake of understanding, let’s limit this discussion to the GDPR, as it is the most talked about regulation in a while. While it is a regulation passed by the EU, it affects any business that has at least one customer in Europe.

This automatically includes any seller on a global platform such as Amazon. That requires a little SEO update on your Amazon content since GPDR compliance will now affect your ranking.

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