All posts by brainwork

Internet

Best Hashtag = Best Search Results

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The social media has undergone a massive change since its inception. Every day some or other upgrade takes place which wipes out old-fashioned trends enabling the work to be done more easily. Social groups/communities are the most commonly used forms of social networking, these groups provide a common platform for like-minded people where they can share their views, discuss various topics, or provide any guidance. The introduction of “Hashtag” gave a major boost as it supported the fashion of “trending” on these groups. Now one may ask what is “Hashtag”? Is it as simple as tagging # (Hash) sign?

That’s right! Hashtag is the use of # sign as prefix to your word or phrase on social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Flicker, and Google+ etc. As a follower, it is an easy way of tracking topics of interest; whereas as a writer on these social media sites, it widens your reach to a larger group. Use of Hashtag in your post will increase engagement by labeling your content and makes it visible to your audience who is possibly interested. Moreover Hashtag will give access to the people who are not even aware about your topic/posts. Many people fail to capitalize on the tremendous benefits that Hashtags offer. When you use Hashtag, it should be unique, short and appropriate. Let’s consider some of commonly employed practices of using Hashtag:

  • Appropriate Application:

Application of appropriate Hashtag will make your post reachable to your focused audience. Hashtag will make your post visible at the top in your recent activities and also in associated feeds. At the same time you should not overuse it; as the extra usage will not add much value, using Hashtag judicially will fetch maximum benefits for your post.

  • Delve/Dig for Hashtag:

Creating new and unique Hashtag is very important as thousands of Hashtags are created every day. Before adding Hashtag to your post you need to explore various sites to find out Hashtags already in-use. Always try to come up with your own unique Hashtag; because pre-existing Hashtags will support someone else’s post and won’t contribute to your post.

  • Find useful links:

Model your Hashtags on the similar lines as the existing popular Hashtags. The search for useful links plays a vital role in increasing your followers when you join conversations in popular posts.

  • Keep it Relevant:

Maintaining relevance to your subject matter is one of the most important factors. In social media marketing industry, everyone is aware of the importance of keywords. The presence of relevant and appealing keywords in your post really builds its strength; thus making a strong case in front of your existing and prospective followers.

  • Short and Sweet:

You generally have limitations on the word count in any post. Despite having limited scope of words, keeping your Hashtags short & sweet will accrue better results.

Try these simple techniques, use #Hashtags in an innovative fashion and set a benchmark for your posts in the circle of your followers.

SEO

Facebook way of marketing Retail Business

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Brainwork Technologies

These days Social Networking Platforms are expanding their footprints by ever-growing number of users. With these avid fans of social media, these platforms are growing at a rapid pace. Facebook is no exception; it is emerging as the top-most social media site used by millions. Thus it’s also emerging as an effective means to reach out to masses. Have you ever thought of marketing your business through Facebook?… Well, it’s quite an easy and effective way of promoting your retail business. Recently Facebook has taken some definitive steps to enter into marketing area for small and medium sized businesses. Make use of this facility to enhance business appeal. Facebook is an effective way to connect with many people to gain popularity. Creating and maintaining Facebook business page helps to create your brand image. Follow these simple steps to grow your business though Facebook:

  • Create Business Page:

Creating business page aids in providing information about your business to the users. Create eye-catching and informative Facebook business page to attract more visitors. It is a human tendency to remember person (‘people’) rather than business names; hence linking your personal profile as well as profiles of people working with you to your business page is beneficial for gaining publicity.

  • Build your Followers’ Chain:

Once you set up your business page, building followers’ chain is yet another critical task. Facebook ads can help you in this effort. You need to take extra effort in getting large number of quality followers/fans because presence and success of your business lies in their hands.

  • Engage your Followers:

Just building huge number of followers on your business page will not suffice for getting the volume. Create successive string of content on your business page to hold your audience. Post content related to sale, discounts, special deals, offer of the day. By posting unique and appealing pictures, make your followers active and get them at your door step.

  • Maintain Influence:

Keep watch on the behavior, likings on your page. You can then accordingly plan for announcing special discounts, deals, and coupons for specific time period to turn those visits and likings into actual cash. Offer special reward programs for liking the page. When you ask people to ‘like’ your business page they usually won’t do it instinctively; but if you offer them some rewards, there is a high chance that many of them will spare some time for visiting and liking your page.

  • Focus on Location-based Visits:

Always help your followers to share their visits to your specific retail outlet. Make sure they share their experiences, likings for your product/services so that their friends and people in their network will also get know about you.

In a nutshell, building a business page on Facebook has far reaching benefits. It provides you the means to reach out to broader audience, even beyond regular customers through their linked connections. It also helps you to enhance customer experience. Building solid foundation is always essential for building an empire.

Web Development

Different Engagement Models in Web Development

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Using websites for searching something or checking your emails has become part of daily chores these days; but have we ever thought how these websites are developed? Although these shiny, catchy websites may look very simple, their development is a costly and time consuming affair. If you possess necessary skills, you may build a website on your own. However, with the growing content and features, you may need a helping hand or an expert to assist you. The obvious choices are to hire a firm or a developer to develop your website. As with other contracting jobs, this engagement also calls for careful study and determination of engagement contracts or models with their pros and cons.

There is no single governing principal as to which engagement model would work in a particular situation. Business strategies as well as client/consultant firms’ operating models often drive the decision on engagement models. Let’s review some of the common engagement models that are often employed by various businesses:

Engagement Models

Web Development

Dedicated Offshore Resources:

In this type, the resources you hire are dedicated to work on your project. This enables you to employ most experienced and highly skilled resources without having to worry about hiring them on-site and looking after all the related formalities are done. The main advantage with this model is the freedom that you get to change decisions related to team strength and other related areas. This option is at your disposal, whenever you feel the need to step in. You are only required to provide fundamental supplies to initiate. This model is generally used for medium to long term assignments.

Fixed Price:

As the name suggests, contract is awarded for a fixed cost in fixed price model. This is the ultimate model to use when you know the estimated cost before investing, as fixed cost implies low risk. Be sure to define the exact scope and take an extra effort to carefully draft your RFP (Request for Proposal). Scope creep in later stages could severely hamper your budget.

Time and Material:

In cases where the requirements cannot be completely defined upfront and requirements could change over the course of time; it is advisable to use this model. This model is best suited for complex projects. The total expenditure will vary depending on the work, resources and time consumed in the execution of project. However, bear in mind the fact that you may need to shell out extra bucks for every scope change.

Milestone Based Billing:

This model helps to reduce the large project risks and reinforce milestone monitoring. Long term and remotely developed projects are the ideal candidates to deploy this model. Payments are usually predefined in accordance with the accomplishment of milestones. Better visibility of progress aids you in minimizing risks.

The development firms will use various strategies while offering their services and thus use different models. Knowing the underlying differences and understanding the nature of the project helps you to make the appropriate decision for a model selection.

Content Writing

Quality content vs. Quantity SEO team dilemma solved?

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SEO Content Writing

The term Search Engine Optimization or SEO has emerged relatively in recent times but it soon evolved into a billion dollar concept. In internet marketing, SEO is considered as a key in getting more ‘hits’ to your website. SEO works on the aspects of understanding or knowing of how search engine works, the search term or keyword that people usually search for and the preference of search engines by internet users. How frequently your site appears in the users’ search and how would you be able to attract more visitors for your website will only be dependent on SEO. In simple terms it is the process influencing the visibility of a website. There are two main tactics for SEO viz. Quality content and Quantity content. Quality content vs. Quantity content on website is a never-ending debatable issue. One school of thought suggests that quality content is more important whereas another suggests that quantity content is the key; so which approach yields better results? Well, if you want to find out, put yourself in the shoes of the audience.

Quality content and Quantity content both have their own benefits. Let’s take a look:

Benefits of Quality content

  • In the algorithm of search engine, quality content is blessed.
  • As we say if the product is good, the stock will be sellout. Similarly quality content that provides value to your audience help builds a long term relationship with them.
  • Having powerful incoming links which are part of the quality content plays a crucial role in SEO.
  • If you don’t have quality content; you will end up losing out in search engine results.

Benefits of Quantity content:

  • Quantitative content reflects more keywords that will increase the opportunity of having a higher ranking in search engine results and obviously getting more audience.
  • Search engines always welcome more pages on your website as long as they are unique and authentic which bears value.
  • Regular quantitative updates over the period of time on your website are always targeted by search engine and also by the audience. Although updating hundreds of pages is a time consuming activity, one needs to do it rigorously for being on the top of the search result listing.

Both approaches have their own merits which makes it a tough decision to choose one over the other. Adopting a hybrid approach while exploiting benefits from both, would be a wise decision. Both these approaches of SEO bear fruits in one way or other; but you need to keep in mind –

“The success of a page should be measured by one criteria: Does the visitor do what you want them to do?” by Aaron Wall

Now the ball is in your court, whether you choose quality, quantity or a hybrid approach, as consistent and coherent efforts will help you in making your website a success.

Web Development

Why Magento and e-Commerce Go Hand in Hand?

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Magento E-Commerce

When Magento first appeared on the scene in the year 2008, it was just another open source e-commerce web application. However, today, this same application has become an integral part of lives for all those who dabble with e-commerce. Magento aids all those small and big business owners, who wish to take their wares onto a global platform.

For anyone who owns an organization or an online shopping portal, there could be no better choice than Magento. Just some of the reasons why more and more people are opting for Magento include:

  • It is extremely cost effective
  • There is an immense amount of transparency in the source code
  • It can evolve along with the needs of the business
  • It can be customized as per specific requirements

There are so many inbuilt features offered with Magento, that business owners, especially new ones, will be thrilled and well supported. There is the facility of importing large spread-sheets at one time, in addition to creating search patterns as per specific requirements. Since Magento is also Google and SEO friendly, business owners will find it easy to create tags and site navigation mechanisms.

Magento includes a range of features, such as:

  • Mobile templates
  • Product display
  • Multiple options for transactions
  • Functionality in terms of multiple stores as well as sites.

Users also get benefits like:

  • User accounts
  • Loyalty programs with special benefits.

In addition, e-commerce owners will also be able to give their customers discounts and absolute ease of shopping.

It is with the aim of being a truly global application, that the creators of Magento have made it multilingual and usable in all parts of the world. Today, there are small and big businesses that use Magento to ensure that their e-commerce business rises to the greatest of heights.

SEO

How to Optimize Long Tail Keywords?

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Long Tail Keywords Optimization

Long tail keywords were in trend when SEO started, and just like anything from the past, this trend is gradually coming back. It may sound surprising to many of you but long tail keywords reap a lot of website traffic. However since it’s a relatively uncommon practice now and SEO methods have changed from the past, you will have to take a different route to come to the same destination.

If your website is wordy, optimizing for search engines is a big hassle, but with long tail keywords, it becomes fairly easy. It’s surprising but it’s true.

Long tail keywords are very easy to rank because they are less competitive. This means that you can optimize your website for search engines with hardly any work. What’s more, you don’t have to deal with SEO for longtail keywords on a page-to-page basis. You can work the entire website together!

So let’s see how you can go about optimizing your website for long tail keywords.

  • Detailed Content: Using detailed content helps accommodate long tail keywords on its own. But remember to not make it too wordy. Instead choose to create a balance between words and details.

Like for ecommerce websites, going into detail would mean not just writing a “skirt” but a “knee-length red polka dot cotton skirt”. You can work with measurements of products, their material, make, uses etc. You can high conversion terms like buy, find, for sale etc. which are likely to feature in people’s searches.

However, don’t think that just writing and rewriting something will get you there. You need to have a proper description instead of tweaking text to make it longer.

  • Website Size: It is a given with websites providing multiple brand retailing to have multiple pages and it becomes impossible to write content consistently for each and every page and every single product on it.

So instead of writing too much for everything, you can name them SEO-wise so that the customer gets a lot of information in the name itself. The names of the products can be like the example given above. You can even add the brand name to it. If there is a model number, add that too.

  • Optimizing the Regular Way: Long tail keyword optimization is just like optimizing head terms for your website. Only the nature of the keyword will be slightly different. So keep optimizing the way you would for a regular head term, and replace that with a long tail keyword.

Before you know, you’ll have traffic raining in on you like never before!

SEO

Alternatives to Google Analytics You Should Consider

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Since its inception, Google Analytics has remained the impregnable tool in the screen of website analytics. The top 10,000 sites on the planet and 57% of the world are using this tool. Prior to its launch, people did not have access to a tool, but what this brought with it is a powerful, accurate analytics that helped masses and particularly site owners a lot. People now have freedom to make smarter decisions for their website and their business.

Analytics seem to be the starting point for a myriad of tasks that encompass everything from increasing traffic to improving conversions or conceiving great new content ideas. However, as everything comes with a time limit, even the Google Analytics tool now seems to getting shorter on time. The many new tools that have now emerged, some of which are pretty good, has made it possible.

Why get over Google Analytics now?

Therefore, if you still think that why get over Google Analytics, here are few reasons:

  • The ubiquitous nature of Google sometimes causes a hindrance in its path, where people believe that controlling multiple parts can often seem uncomfortable.
  • The complexity of the tool seems off-putting, and with the fifth version being released, this is bound to get intensified.
  • Google Analytics does not have everything and is not for everyone. Besides, some new tools packs far better features than this Google “product.”

So, let us just quickly see what the alternatives available are


The choice of alternatives largely depends on what the user is looking for. So, let us see the top five alternatives that offer something for everyone


Clicky

Clicky seems to have a long list of pros that cannot be just overlooked.

  • It is much easy to use and understand
  • Real-time view of who is on the website, through “spy” is excellent
  • Live web analytics, helps you know how many people are visiting the page you are on now.
  • Clicky offers the freedom to set up alerts that are triggered by specific actions on your website
  • You can get analytics even for your twitter account
  • Recently added heatmaps to help paid users enjoy uptime monitoring
  • This is free to use for 3,000 page views daily.

Cons:

  • Like every coin has two sides, even this comes with one that is a price, which may range from $9.99 to $19.99 a month

Reinvigorate

Some pros that can help you gain real time advantage on the web include:

  • Live auto-updated site activity
  • Hottest heatmaps, help you get the clicks you desire
  • Desktop Snoop helps you know every time you have a visitor, user sign up, sale and more
  • With NameTags, get to know your visitors
  • Granular Graphing
  • Monthly, daily, or hourly real time data for site visitors

Cons:

  • The only one, as everything comes with a price even this asks for one after a free 14 days trial

Piwik

This open-source alternative to Google Analytics, is said to have over 500 features, let’s see the few top ones

  • Offers freedom to install your own server
  • Fully open source
  • Runs on PHP and MySQL
  • Interface is purely web based
  • Myriad of plugins for easy installation
  • Simple dashboard, easy to understand
  • Real time stats
  • Unlimited free version

Cons:

  • The way of tracking bounce rates is similar to that of Google Analytics

Open Web Analytics (OWA)

Available as a self-hosted open source solution, this has many benefits:

  • Can be used to track multiple websites
  • Easy to understand and use
  • Feature rich, free to use
  • Separate stats filtration, Heatmaps and mouse tracking

Cons:

  • Amazing as a free product, but the bounce rate and time on site weakness is same as Google Analytics, not perfect, but somehow the best free version out there.

StatCounter

The better-known alternative of Google Analytics, StatCounter may not look beautiful, but is pretty impressive. Few pros include:

  • It is free of cost
  • Installation is pretty easy and quick
  • Gives insight into popular pages, visits, visitors paths, exit pages, incoming keywords and more

Cons:

  • Although free, but this lacks few bells and whistles that are really important for any tool to be judged as a good analytics tool.

The bottom line:

For any person in search of staying away from the googly-eyes of Google, today there is no shortage of excellent alternatives to Google Analytics. From free tools to paid alternatives, the choices are many, what is needed is creating your own personal list. So, give these a try and get over the Google craze!

SEO

Tools That Can Be Used to Manage SMO Better

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Social media has emerged as the most opportunity-veiling platform that can help get not just increased traffic, but can rally round in generating new leads as well. Having a presence on all major social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn is not just important, but imperative to give your business a brand image on the web. There are some big players on these podiums that have become the gurus on whose footsteps wish to walk all others. So, what are these leaders using to manage their accounts so effectively on web? Let’s take a quick tour of these tools that can help in managing SMO better.

  • Hootsuite is one such tool that helps in managing accounts on multiple networks, measuring campaigns outcomes and tracking conversions by making use of mobile devices and web. This can easily help in keeping track of unlimited social profiles, with enhanced analytics and message scheduling, while helping in getting insight about Google analytics and Facebook integration.
  • Buffer helps in easily scheduling content across most social networks. It’s like a virtual queue that users use to stagger posting times, which can happen all day through. Micro-managing delivery times seem erased now and one can know about the reach of their posts much easily.
  • SocialOomph helps in providing a number of free and paid productivity enhancement features for social networks. Users can enjoy tweets scheduling, keyword tracking, retweeting, viewing mentions, auto-following and more such amazing features. Reciprocating follows by users will seem much easier with this effective tool.
  • Tweetdeck offers many enhanced features for Twitter, while helping in managing Twitter feeds and filtering what matters. Tweets scheduling and staying updated with instant notification alerts can now turn much easy and hassle free.
  • Tweepi is a distinct management tool for Twitter that helps in easily getting rid of unfollowers, cleaning up inactive and reciprocating followers. The pro version helps in unfollowing action of almost 200 users at one time.
  • Sproutsocial helps in offering a single stream inbox created to help users never miss on a message, tools and more, while collaborating and scheduling messages to all the major social media networks.

Above mentioned are just very few of the long lists of tools that have been released to help users and businesses manage their social media optimization campaign better. Remaining active on these platforms can help in creating that brand image for a business and also in experiencing much increased ROI and profits for a company.

Web Development

E-Commerce Plugins in WordPress: Just Few of the Most Common Ones Used

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Today the numbers of people who rely on the internet to buy things have increased dramatically. The boom in ecommerce ventures is an accepted reality now and many big players have entered this industry. Both businesses as well as customers have enjoyed a win-win situation. An ecommerce site is thus crucial, which can be easily created with the help of various plugins in WordPress.

The numbers of WordPress plugins that are a part of the ecommerce website are many. Just few those are clearly the paramount plugins that when integrated in an ecommerce website can offer it the best of everything, have been mentioned here.

Cart66 Lite: Unlike others, this is light and powerful. This is used for selling physical and digital products. Businesses can acquire an international edge with this tool due to its multiple shipping and multi-currency option. Ad placing and affiliate marketing is much easier.

Shopp: The most premium WP plugins known, this offers features like coupon codes, tax control, related products, shipping, RSS feeds, Order management, grid and list preview, email notification and can be easily integrated with a number of payment gateways.

EShop Plugin: Known for its simple controls and many listing products, it is very easy to add products and customize setting with this tool. Simple interface, fast browsing and purchase, multiple merchant payment systems, many shipping options are just few of its unique features.

Jigoshop: This tool is known to offer many important features and takes just a little time to design a fully functional ecommerce store with this one. The categorization of products is distinct, which can help people easily find what they are looking for.

Woocommerce Plugin: This offers many features including the dashboard widget that can help in easily checking the progress of an ecommerce business. The highly customizable nature, multiple payment options, cash on delivery and more such features are offered.

WP Ecommerce Plugin: The 1.5 million downloads makes this the most popular plugin. Its easy installation and easy integration with any theme is liked by developers. The many payment options, customizable interface and the freedom to easily change look and modify templates are just few of its distinct offerings.

Quick Shop Plugin: This adds a sidebar that helps in displaying the buyers shopping cart on the page itself. It supports email functionality and integrated PayPal services. Adding products on pages is much easier and customers have freedom to remove any product from their shopping cart easily.

Above mentioned are just few WordPress tools used in the development of ecommerce websites today, the list however goes much beyond these.

Content Writing

An Effective Travel Review Can Help A Reader Decide

The catch on travel reviews can revolve around different formats and tones, depending on where they are to be published. Therefore, it is best to know the purpose of writing a travel review, before beginning to pen down one. It is not always necessary to use decorative words repeatedly; instead swapping in some synonyms will make the write up more readable and non-repetitive. Travel reviews, which are presented effectively, can help others plan the trip personally. The same being informative, entertaining, and effective is crucial. In addition, the information mentioned must be apt and not exaggerated. It is believed, that no person can write a travel review better, then people who have visited the place.

Just few tips that can help in turning a “travel review” into a “well-written travel review” are written below. Thought it might help!

  • When travelling to any place, its best to carry a diary or notepad along, which can help in writing names of places, restaurants, and even food items that a person thinks, must go in the review.
  • A writer, who is successful in creating a virtual picture in the minds of readers, has the work done at its best.
  • Being honest is important, as finally people will also read this, who have visited the place before. In addition, one who travels after reading your review must have accurate info; suffice to help the person explore the place.
  • Best time to travel, places to visit, places to stay; prices (if possible), are few things that must be a part of any travel review.
  • The facts mentioned (if any), must be double-checked.
  • Adding pictures can help the article turn more appealing, as any picture is worth a thousand words.
  • Writers must make use of the map capsule, which adds utility and visual pizzazz to a review.
  • Adding history of the place, details about location can help in supporting the writer’s personal opinion.
  • It is best to mention about anything that is necessary to carry, when travelling to the place, which may help one from facing troubles later.

A travel review, if presented as the place actually is, can be helpful to any person thinking about visiting the place. Excessive use of jargons and exaggerated tones must be avoided, to finally keep it simple, original, and true to its real sense.