Author: Sharanyan

Sharanyan Sharma is an Award-Winning Full Stack Digital Marketer and a Certified Performance Marketing Consultant who worked with Forbes 2000, and Fortune 500 listed Startups and Large Enterprises over the past decade.

5 Simple Tricks To Write Blog Headlines That Get Clicks

Imagine yourself writing a long blog post, publishing it on your blog, expecting many people to read it, only to be greeted with the fact that nobody reads it. What’s wrong with your post? You’ve written the most highly valuable post that you can publish on your blog, and nobody reads it. Why? That’s because your headline can’t hook their attention and motivate them to click and read your post. This simple and seemingly unimportant factor can lead you into the big disaster in blogging. And what’s the biggest disaster that you can experience in blogging? It is blogging without an audience. In other words, you are writing for no one, because no one is willing to read your blog. Why? That’s because your headline is not catchy enough. That’s why you have to learn how to write better headline for your blog. Here are 5 simple tricks to write blog headlines that get clicks:

1) Take A Look At Headlines From Popular Blogs

What? You can’t write a catchy headline because it’s too difficult to do so? Well, you don’t need to worry. You just need to take a look at the popular headlines that you see all over the web and use them as your inspiration to create your own wonderful headline. It’s not too difficult to do. Look at the most popular blogs that you visit often. They will have popular posts that are getting lots of comments. Why they are so popular? That’s because their headlines work well to attract their audience’s attention. Create your own swipe file and use it often to craft your own headlines.

2) Think Twice When You Write Your Headline

Most people will write their headline in a flash. Very quickly. But, they will often feel disappointed with the result of their headline. It flops right away. Nobody is interested to read their content. When you write your headline, be sure to think twice before publishing it on your blog. Why? That’s because your headline will account for 80% of your traffic. So, don’t just write a single headline. Write 5 headlines for your content. And then, think carefully about which headline you will pick for it. Remember, it needs to be able to attract attention quickly.

3) Your Headline Should Be About Your Content In A Nutshell

Most people write vague headline, hoping that people will become curious and then click their headline. But, it’s a wrong way to write your headline. Think about it. If you write a headline like this: “This Image Will Shock Your Mind,” well, that headline can really pull your audience’s attention. But, it is too vague and your audience will not understand what your headline is all about or what content will you give to them. Thus, it will discourage people from clicking it. But, when you write a headline that is clear and not vague, you will be able to literally promote your content with your headline, without being misleading toward your audience.

4) Exploit The Question, News, And List Format

If you are still having trouble in writing headlines that are good for your blog, why don’t you follow the most popular types of headline format? There are three types of headlines that will naturally attract your audience’s attention. These are question, news, and list headlines. Headlines that contain question, news, and list elements will often get instant attention compared to any other types of headline. So, why reinvent the wheel? You can always use what’s already proven to pull the attention of your audience.

5) Touch Your Audience’s Emotional Side

Do you know the easiest way to attract people’s attention and motivate them to click on your headline? The easiest way to do this is insert an emotion to your headline. People respond well to emotional headlines. Marketers know about this very well. They always create emotional headlines in their sales message in order to boost their conversion rate. Do you know why? That’s because human beings interact on the basis of emotion. So, if your headline is emotionless, then you will not attract much attention from your audience. But, if you can touch your audience’s emotional side with your headline, you will see that your blog traffic will soar.

You can write the best content in the world, but if your headline sucks, nobody will read it. So, learn from the tricks above to fix your headline mistakes and craft your own attention-pulling headlines for your blog easily. So, do you have your own strategy to writing killer titles and headlines ? if so how are you implementing them ?

Guest Blogging for SEO, No Longer will it Please Google?

Finally, what Matt Cutts announced on his personal blog in January 2014 has now become a shocking reality with a guest blogging network been penalized recently by Google. The distinguished Engineer Matt Cutts had already advised the Webmasters to stop guest blogging as a link-building strategy for gaining juice. Similarly, great emphasis was laid on accepting a blog post that is written by someone you can assure in terms of credibility and quality, which is also applicable to a site on which you submit the post. The announcement had already alerted the SEO community but the practical trailer has actually proven the power of the decision taken.

After taking a look at this penalization, I guess most ( paid ) guest blog authors, as well as webmasters accepting such posts, will stop with their work. After all, nobody wishes that their sites get penalized, particularly after passing through the havoc of the former updates of Panda and Penguin. So, does this mean that Google will no longer consider guest posts? Well, this is not going to happen so soon. So, heaving a sigh of relief, let us find out why!

Fall in Quality and Rise in Spam: Motivation to Take Such a Decision!

Well, the only reason here is spamming happening through guest blogging. This clearly conveys that the admired Engineer has no problem with guest blogging but with the way in which it is done. Cutts has already pointed that guest blogging has become a more spam SEO tactic over time. In his personal blog on ‘The decay and fall of guest blogging for SEO’, he also revealed an email received wherein the unknown sender offered money for publishing a guest blog post with one or two ‘dofollow’ links in the body. Concisely, the sender intended to purchase links from Cutts, which is a lucid violation of the quality guidelines of Google.

The ‘follow’ or ‘dofollow’ link is enviable, as it can pass some authority and PageRank to the destined site to which that anchor tag points. Instead of using it in the right sense, a few guest bloggers have misused the benefit of getting the PageRank. They have caused an excessive influx of low-quality content masked as a guest blog. Not only does this betray the readers but also puts the online credibility of the site owner at risk, who accepts such posts. This is perhaps because a majority of readers expect the site owner to guarantee the quality of its content.

In addition, it has become a much more widespread tactic for the authors to offer money for publishing their blog posts on what they observe as high-quality sites. This allures many owners as an easy way to make money but the reality is that the authors are simply masking paid links in the realm of a guest post whose content is usually of low quality, just stolen, or is least relevant for that site on which it is published.

Alternate Option for SEO?  Will it Really Work?

It seems that Google has removed ( paid or sponsored ) guest blogging going out of the SEO world for saving the naive webmasters who are unaware of the spammers’ selfish motives. While this is on the positive side, many may also look upon it as Google’s tactic to move people to its PPC plan that was not used by many because of guest blogging. So now, if we assume that paid guest blogging has gone, then the only option for the webmasters will be to use PPC (Pay per Click) through AdWords. However, the biggest limitation of this tactic is that the search results for a specific searched keyword will show the Google ad-based sites in the initial pages but there will be still no guarantee whether those sites will have quality and relevant content for the readers.

High-Quality Guest Blogging: Still Encouraged?

Apparently, yes! Matt Cutts added more clarification with the additional context in order to calm down the storm in the SEO community. According to Cutts:

A webmaster should accept a guest blog post only if he knows the author well.

– Matt Cutts

He also affirmed that there are yet many good reasons to choose guest blogging, which include branding, exposure, and increased reach. Nobody can deny these reasons, as they were present before Google and that they will continue even in the future. Cutts also accepted that there are truly some incredible, high-quality guest bloggers and that ‘multi-author blogs’ were not under Google’s sharp monitoring eyes. In short, Google does not like guest blogging for the goal of SEO.

In short, guest blogging is still viable for the reasons that Cutts specified, provided it offers high-quality, relevant content with ‘no-follow or social media page links. The only difference will be that one will now think of such posting as readers, not as a link-building source.

10 Inspiring Tips – How to be a Successful Business Person

Success is not enduring and failure is also not the end unless you don’t have a clear vision about yourself!! If you actually don’t know that who you are and what your strength and weakness are then probably you are a non-visionary person! I’m just an ordinary business person like you. It’s actually not about me and my success or failure stories, but it is all about how you can motivate yourself, how you can sharpen your mind, and most significantly how you can help others by living your life!

” Don’t just read success stories, Read failure stories You will get some ideas to get success! ”  Dr. Abdul Kalam

The Best Dreams Happen

Let me share with you a great thing which happened last week! I usually re-invest a specific percentage of the yearly net profit to the fresh startups of an entirely different niche. You can see my investor profile from Angel.co or ClubAh!  I have recently received an investment opportunity from a venture capital firm, based in Bangalore, India, which is consenting to invest with my parent company, Extreme SEO Internet Solutions.

They checked my company profile, my business plan, my sales traction, and other important aspects! Thereafter they’ve also conducted the Off-site due diligence report of my company by the Colombo-based business consultancy agency! A day before yesterday I finally received their final response which pointed out two main aspects:

  • My company is located in the Northern Province, Vavuniya! So it is highly affected and war zone border
  • Lankan banks don’t allow to send the remittance outside Sri Lanka for any business purpose till you have the approval of BOI and CBSL and this process is really not easy.

Therefore, they said, if I would relocate my business to India, Singapore, or to Malaysia then there are 100% chances to get funding! Well, that’s simply impossible!!! The first aspect is absolutely a false statement, yet agree with their second reason.

However, I have another investor as well.  There is always a left loophole for each problem, the question is how you will manage this situation instead of playing a blame game and blaming the government and its policies. You need to find out a legal way for managing this situation! Hence, I wrote some helpful and important tips which are the step-by-step plan of action. Here we go:

1) Don’t play the victim role

Believe in yourself and in your own abilities! We are often encouraged to blame our own shortcomings on the actions of our parents, the obstacles placed in our way by the government, or on those that we believe want us to fail. While, in some circumstances, it may be true that these factors are working against us, letting them keep us from reaching our goals denies the simple truth that you have control over your own life and your own success.

2) A life led by a purpose

People who are successful know that they are doing what they were always meant to do. This doesn’t mean that your purpose cannot change or that one person can have many different life goals. It is simply that life is fuller, happier, and more rewarding when we strive for our own individual purposes. Do not let the winds and whims of life lead you. Instead, make clear decisions, especially when it comes to your entrepreneurial endeavors.

3) Learn to embrace sacrifice

All great and worthwhile things will come at some cost. Time, money, relationships—whatever the cost is, consider carefully if you are willing to pay it or not. Those big and beautiful things that we all want in life may be wealth, security, and a fast car. You may want them, but are you prepared to sacrifice what is needed to be sacrificed in order to get them? Decide now whether or not your goals are worthy of the required sacrifices. 

4) Establish achievable goals 

The hardest part about setting a goal is actually staying focused enough to achieve it. With all the other demands on your time, it can be beyond difficult to actively and constantly work towards the goal you want to achieve. The truth is that you will have to give up some things. You will absolutely have to cut some things from your life in order to obtain that larger payoff down the line. Do not give up and use smaller goals to keep you motivated while the long-term, harder goal comes to fruition. 

5) Gain authority in your field

I love this amazing quote” Give it a try, Fail faster” from Avinash Kaushik. If you are an authority in your field, people will seek you out. This reflects the seriousness in building your career, without which, you would ultimately fail. When you are constantly working to become the best in your field, you will continuously be improving and working harder. Be the best in everything that you do and do not waste your time on useless things. Remember, every moment can be used to striving for excellence.

6) Make a timeline for goal achievement

So, you have spent countless hours writing your 2014 resolution plan. But how many of you seriously will implement it in your planning? Lofty goals are achievable, but only when you figure out how to reach them, not just that you want to achieve them. When you set your goals, also set your achievement plan.

7) Failure is out of the question

If there is a goal you really want to achieve, you cannot give up. If it is something that you really, desperately want, quitting will not be one of your options. If it ever feels like an option, remind yourself of why you have started everything. When you first begin, assume that there will be points you want to give up and plan your escape route. Learn how to motivate yourself, and when you start to feel that it becomes too much, step back and remind yourself why you wanted this, why this is beneficial, and how you can keep moving forward. You do not have to make significant progress every day. Remember, even tiny steps are steps forward. When you feel like stopping, look back at all you’ve achieved.

8) Use your time wisely

You are responsible for your next second, so don’t let time control you! There are so many things in our lives that make us waste time and procrastinate. While it is impossible to cut all off these things from our lives, keep in mind that you only have a short amount of time to make things happen. When that time is up, if you have not done what you needed to do, you will fall behind. Do not let this discourage you, instead use it to work harder and faster.

9) Take a break once in a while

As important as it is to make practical use of your time, remember that overworking yourself is just as bad as not working hard enough. It will stifle your creativity and you will make it impossible to progress. Give yourself some room to breathe. Many people, especially creative people, get their best ideas when they are not even trying to work. Sometimes, you will be sitting in a nice, warm bath, just trying to relax, and you will have a brilliant idea. Taking some time away from work will give your brain the time and space it needs to process information, so don’t neglect your vacation time.

10) Invest passion in your business

If it is just something you “like” (not something you love), it will become a chore, just like any other job before it. Instead, make sure that it is something you want to throw your life into. If it’s not, do not feel bad about choosing a different path. Life is short, and it should be spent doing something you truly love.

Conclusion:

I wrote this post based on my past experience and the events that happened in my life! Sharing such information with same-minded people will be a good idea where you don’t want to commute the same way I did! Now it’s your time, What’s your passion? Already following above mentioned hacks? Awesome! I’d love to hear all about them in the comment 🙂

How to avoid Getting Your Website Penalized for Using Rich Snippets

The concept of rich snippet spamming is totally intriguing as it looks a lot like the old-fashioned meta-keyword spamming technique. It remains hidden in the website code so the users are not aware of them. However, it seems that the abuse of rich snippets affects the users in terms of search results. Therefore, Google has decided to take serious action against the website that uses this type of Rich Snippets spams black hat strategies. If you are a totally legitimate website, you should be concerned about this issue because if you are reported multiple times, Google might actually block you from showing those snippets for your site. On the other hand, spam reporting is not the best strategy that Google should use, so detecting abuse can be a little bit difficult.

The Usage of Rich Snippets

In case you are not familiar with the rich snippets concept, you have to know that they are used in order to bring an enhancement to the web page results display. These snippets will include images and information like rating, reviews, last update or publishing time, and so on. Google states that the rich snippets have the role, to sum up the page content so that the user can grasp the essence of the page and its relevance in terms of search results. Here is an example of rich snippet underlines by the black boxes.

The information may draw attention to the page and it is likely that the user will click on it more often. The truth is that if you do not know how to use the rich snippets for your own website, you might be missing a chance to attract a lot of organic traffic.

The Rich Snippets Data Types

Depending on what your website contains, you will be able to use a series of snippets. They will be different from one search engine to the next. However, the snippets that are used by Google are the following:

  • Authors – You can include the name and photo of the author, together with its Google + profile or circles. The Google guideline states that you need a Google + profile that has a decent photo in order to use this snippet.
  • Products – It is possible to add prices, pictures, or ratings of the products that you advertise. You can get extra guidelines from the Google answer page.
  • Organizations and businesses – You can add customers’ reviews or locations and some restaurants like to include their price range. Find out more right here!
  • People – You can insert the contact information, occupation, or significant photos. You can get the needed codes for all the information that you want to insert from here.
  • Videos – The best snippet for videos is inserting a preview thumbnail that can be accessed right away by the users.
  • Music – The Google team suggests that you insert links to play the songs or even lyrics in the snippets.
  • Recipes – Publishing recipes include the photos, rating, required time, and even calorie content.
  • Events – You get the time and location of the event together with the date. In order to make an interesting appearance, you should check these guidelines.

Setting Rich Snippets for a Website

 

The secret behind the rich snippets is that you have to implement them in the proper way in the coding of your website. You have to mark the page data so that the search engines will get vital information about the pages that you have. The truth is that this whole process can be a little bit complicated. There is no such thing as an automatic function in the CMS that implements everything right away. So you need to get deeper into the technical knowledge in order to get the markup that you want.

Another crucial thing is that the structured data presents no guarantee of a snippet display in the search engine. However, it does make them possible, but Google will be the one that decides whether to use them or not. Here are the possible formats that you should use:

  • Microdata – This is a good way to label your content so that it describes a kind of information like events, personal info, reviews, and so on. You can use the code from here.
  • RDFa – This manner of labeling items or entities is based on a number of properties. In the case of a person, the properties are email address, company, job, address, and name.
  • Microformats – These are conventions that will describe your product, business, review, event, and so on. Google gives a really good example of such a format.

Quick Tips for Clean Rich Snippet Usage

If you do not want to get penalized for using the rich snippets in the wrong manner, you should follow these quick tips. They are easy to use by any webmaster and you should check all of them.

1. Structured Dashboard – You need to pinpoint the Structure Data menu on your webmaster account. In most cases, it will be under the Search Appearance menu. Make sure that you identify the data types on the website in the form of a list so that there are no technical problems or errors connected to them.

2. Testing tools – There is the possibility to use a testing tool for rich snippets. This will ensure that Google is able to get your structured data like PageMaps, authorship, metadata, and markups with ease. The following data is displayed by this tool:

  • Extracted markup
  • Search results preview
  • Sorting and restricting keys
  • Authorship information
  • Meta Tags
  • Page Map
  • Rich Snippets

 

Below you will find an example of what this tool offers for the above-mentioned recipe page.

Four Mishaps to Avoid on your Website

Even if it is tempting to use the power of rich snippets in the wrong way, you have to know that this may cause you permanent damage. So play it clean and avoid these things that might get you penalized.

  • Usage of hidden content – This aspect is crucial because all your content should be visible for visitors and for the search engines. It is possible that the data used are not seen in the way you want it. However, you should not use CSS coding, display: any, or another type of ways in which you hide the date. This is viewed as spam by Google.
  • Various markup formats – You need to use only one markup format on a certain page, otherwise, you may experience problems in reading the data.
  • No matching structure data – You need to make sure that the structure data are in alignment with the page content.
  • Poor nesting – This is more of a technical problem as the current items contain other alien structure data than the exact type for a specific review. You should read the proper nesting guideline from Google in order to get things right.

Conclusion:

It is true that when you let people give you data that will be included in the search results, like in the case of rich snippets, there is always the prospect of abuse. However, you need to know that these black hat SEO approaches will get you some benefits in the really short term. The search engines will eventually figure things out for your website and penalties are about to come. So before you use the rich snippets in the wrong way, you should wonder if it is worth the risk of penalization after all that hard work.

Conversion Rate Optimization Strategies for E-commerce Sites

Therefore, this process rules the manner in which a user interacts with a site for increasing the chance of their conversion into leads. Its goal is to increase the number of conversions from the current traffic as opposed to boosting traffic.

According to the conversion rate optimization report, around 28% of the surveyed companies are satisfied with their conversion rates, which marks the highest hike of 6% since 2009. Therefore, it is clear that more companies are taking CRO seriously. It is vital for them to know that several factors affect conversion rates, such as color, videos, and social media presence.

One needs to consider these factors for designing conversion rate optimization best practices or strategies. Here are the top 10 strategies to consider for your online business site!

1) Improve Call to Actions (CTA’s)

The call to action is the request to the visitor for filling a form, clicking a link to a landing page, or clicking a button. Therefore, it needs to attract attention but without annoying the visitors. Interestingly, small changes to these CTAs can increase conversion rates. For changes, consider using short active verbs such as Register, offer a proposal such as a free trial, remove flashing effect, and make them stand out. For increasing the number of visitors, calls to action on a blog or product information page should direct to landing pages. Being measurable, such a page collects enough user information quickly or gives an opportunity to buy. Designing a landing page is, thus, a vital part of CRO. As one of the conversion rate optimization tips, consider Unbounce for creating the most app landing pages for your site.

The site’s speed has a great impact on the rate of conversion. This is simply because visitors never like to wait for loading or downloading. That is why find out which part of your site is leading to delays via speed testing services such as Pingdom. As a tip, you should remove all unnecessary plugins and ads.

2) Implement Analytics and Split Testing

Because data forms the core of CRO, it is essential to know the effectiveness of a page in obtaining conversions. A few strategies boost conversions but their effectiveness on a specific site is dependent on the visitors. Therefore, split testing of changes, site and landing page Performance optimization, site page speed optimization, A/B, or multivariate testing, is essential, wherein different page versions are served to different users to see which generates the greatest conversion rate. You can see the demo of successful split testing at Think Traffic. In reality, you can do the testing via Google analytics.

3) Have Relevant Images & Right Color Pattern

Usually, the color of your page affects the mood and decision of the visitor. For example, blue denotes security, while purple indicates luxury or spirituality. Further green denotes environmental, while pink stands for love and beauty. Therefore, you can consider giving the right color scheme for your corresponding landing pages. A right color scheme simply increases the conversion rate.

Having too many images can reduce the conversion rate. Moreover, many A/B tests show that pictures on a homepage when clicked lead to fewer sign-ups. Therefore, it is better to have a proper but adequate amount of images at the right place for more conversions.

4) Implement the Right SEO Strategy

 One of the ways to boost conversion is to increase valuable traffic, as not all traffic is valuable. Optimizing for search engine results may bring in qualified leads but that they may be fewer than targeting as many visitors as possible. However, the former one is better in the long run, as conversions do increase in absolute numbers and as a traffic proportion. The latter results in misleading optimization that ultimately increases the bounce rate.

According to a blog post, buttons gain more clicks than links, as they are more obvious. Several other tests have shown an increase in the rate, right from 20 to 200%. Therefore, it makes sense to add buttons wherever there are text links.

5) Capture the Influence of Videos

Marketing videos are another virtual salesperson, Video can prove to be a big asset while explaining or adding value to the product. Giving a short video on products such as those belonging to wealth, security, and finance is quite effective. Having a small video on a landing page can actually help in boosting the conversion rate and of course, you can expect some relevant high converting traffic from search engines through your video landing pages.

6) Power of Social Media Presence

You should consider allowing registration via Twitter or Facebook authentication that makes signup easier. Fetch data from the corresponding social site’s API and pre-populate the form fields so that users do not irritate by filling in their details. Sites such as Digg and Mixcloud have implemented this strategy after which their conversion rate had increased.

There has never been a better time to start promoting your business online. Use these simple tips to optimize your landing pages and sales funnel that will attract clients and sell your services.

Don’t forget to Reward the People Who Helped you

This is my most recent update, and I hope to share it will help people in management who are struggling with putting their company on the right path and making sure their employees are getting the recognition and reward they deserve for their efforts. On September 17, 2008, I started my first e-commerce business called Extreme-Seo.net. Since its inception, we’ve acquired more than 14,000 international customers and over 120 local Sri Lankan customers. We’ve also delivered over 28,000 link-building project reports in the last five years.

From May 2012 to July 2013, I faced so many challenges in my business as well as my personal life, but I believed every problem had a solution. I knew it all depended on my mindset and strategy. If you’re an entrepreneur, then you know that’s the attitude you have to have. However, if you’re a well-educated businessperson who follows strategies you get from a book, then unexpected problems are going to be harder than ever to solve. You have to find something within yourself to solve these problems, and it doesn’t come from any book.

Failure is success if we learn from it

In the past two years, I have won several Sri Lankan and international awards such as “Young Entrepreneur of the Year” and “Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year”. I took all my past problems as opportunities to overcome them and learn something about myself in the process. I did overcome all my obstacles. I even achieved my 2013 goal before the 5th year anniversary of Extreme-Seo.net.

I had a tough situation to deal with at first, but I had a meeting with all my staff members, and I shared all the facts with them without hiding anything. A lot of people in management positions miss this very important stage. Every business will go through tough times. There is obviously some information that you can’t share with your staff members or stakeholders publicly, but as the captain of your ship, you have to share information sometimes, or the whole crew will sink with the boat.

  • Be Transparent with your Staff Members:  Explain the problems you’re having with your staff members because these people are in a position to help offer you advice and give you feedback as to what to do in a crisis situation. They are intimately familiar with your organization. You have to be transparent with your crew because they are the ones who are maintaining the ship that you’re captaining. If they aren’t aware of a problem, then you could all sink. You might have to eventually eliminate staff members who are unnecessary to your organization to cut down on expenses. If you do so, make sure you offer a stunning recommendation letter for the staff member so that they can get a position at another company instantly. Keep giving positive updates to your stakeholders during this time so you don’t lose any funding.
  • Create a Product that sells itself: Instead of spending time copying everyone else, make your own perfect product that the market demands. Give some trial or discount offers for your current customers who are already connected in a business relationship with your company so you can get some feedback. You’ll be able to enter the market with some feedback from existing customers
  • Don’t forget to Reward the People Who Helped you:  If any of your staff members or stakeholders helped you reach your goal, just make sure that you don’t forget them. Reward them according to their contribution. Make sure you give them plenty of rewards for what they’ve contributed.

Alone We can do so little, Together we can Do so much

Inevitably, some staff members are going to jump out of the ship in the middle of the sea and swim to another destination to secure their careers. That is part of the process. You have to learn to accept it.

 

However, there are some staff members who carried a lot more passion than those who swam out. They told you they would stick by you, and they did. With those staff members’ support, they finally reached their destination, and at top speed, and they’re all smiling now. It’s critical you give a reward to the people who stuck by you with promotions, insurance, pay raises, etc. With the support of the people who stuck by you, your company succeeded, so these people need to be recognized for that.

Employees: If you are an employee, and you are thinking about leaving for another company, don’t do it. If you are confident with your skills, then suggest some new ideas to management to make and deploy new products and services to show off your contribution.

Employers: If you are an employer, and you find yourself in a situation, look at it as a challenge and come up with a risk mitigation strategy. Don’t let your business go down fast. Believe in your business, and never let it sink.

I wish you all the very best!

Conversion Rate Optimization – Hearing the voice of the customer

Conversion is by far one of the most important factors in the success of any online business. Conversion rate optimization is the ratio of visitors that convert into actual paying customers after visiting your website.

Even if you have immense traffic to your website, and your website does not convert, it won’t generate many sales for you. Traffic that does not convert is useless as far as ROI is concerned, and that’s why businesses are willing to pay huge sums of money for the experts to enhance their website`s conversion rate. Conversion rate optimization is NOT like changing images, and contents locations! it’s a long-term research and development process, needs time and depth research about the target market, user behavior, Target audience interest, and much more important  Sales and marketing strategies.

Buttons – Their Text and Location: Buttons are of utmost importance when it comes to enticing a visitor to buy your products or services through your website. Buttons play a critical role in adding the Call to Action to any web page. But it’s not only about placing the “Buy Now” or “Contact-us” buttons everywhere on your site; the website should be built with a proper Landing page optimization strategy and after performing the in-depth user behavior analysis.

The color, size, and text that display above the button play a significant role in making an effective Call to Action button that really converts. Similarly, the location where these buttons are placed is of utmost importance to increase your website conversion. In most cases call to action should be placed above the fold so that the user can click on it without requiring scrolling down the page. But the actual location can only be determined after a thorough analysis of the website`s theme and some Split Testing. I’ve been using  CrazzyEgg to understand user behavior and Optimizely for A/B Split Testing purposes. To learn more about conversion rate optimization best practices check advanced conversion rates optimization tools such as Clicktale and user-testing.

Page Speed: In this modern era where everyone has ultra-fast speed internet in their homes and offices, nobody likes to visit a web page that takes a long time to load. It is surprising to see the majority of webmasters or online business owners pay absolutely no attention to the page`s speed which not only decreases their conversion rate but prevents their website from appearing on top of Google as well, as Google prefers fast-loading websites to rank on top.

Try to use CDN Technology and avoid using Heavy images, flash content, fewer images with much text content to increase your website loading speed. Check your website loading speed through Google Page speed, Y slow to understand basic issues.

Eye-catching Yet Descriptive Heading: Make sure that your heading and subheadings are crispy and attractive for your visitors. Instead of just adding your slogan (or keyword) there in the main heading, try to make it a little more descriptive, which helps your visitors know what your website is all about.

Heading that marks a date shows that your website is up to date and thus helps in increasing the conversion rate. Do not try to promote any selling tags within headlines! Headings are like your Ad Copy, try to learn from Facebook and Adwords ads about how to create an eye-catching and sale-oriented heading for your webpage.

Use The Images Wisely: High-quality Conversion driven eye-catching images can make a dead page appear highly attractive. Therefore it is critical to use call-to-action images on your website to attract the attention of your potential customers, however, overdoing it may do you more harm than good.

Therefore choose the right locations for images wisely and do perform some split-testing before deciding which location works best for you, if you are good in CSS, then try to avoid using multiple images and use CSS sprites to optimize image usage

Conclusion:

You have spent thousands of dollars creating a stunning E-Commerce website, but if you don’t have a proper call-to-action, conversion Strategy; then you can’t generate sales. There are various factors that play important role in optimizing your website for the highest conversion, however, it is highly recommended to avail yourself the services of an expert to ensure that you don’t miss any point that may cause serious loss of business.

For the Second Year Venture Engine Empowers Entrepreneurs in Sri Lanka

Last year’s event by Venture Engine was a huge success. Nine different businesses were helped to be more successful, both technologically and financially. Of these nine businesses that were helped, seven were startup businesses. This endeavor went a long way toward improving the economy of Sri Lanka, providing a much-needed boost and an increase in new businesses.

Last year there were seventy applications for the nine selected positions. Anticipation is for at least that many this year and possibly even more. The application period has already begun for this year and will conclude on June 3. Responses are expected to be even greater this year than last. For the entrepreneur looking for a financial boost, this is a wonderful resource.

Details of the opportunity

The website detailing this opportunity offers many resources in addition to the application materials. All will aid you in the application process, but the resources are beneficial in general for day-to-day help to aid a business person in making the best of the information available to them.

Though other areas worldwide have had such programs for some time, this is the first for the Sri Lanka region. The popularity and benefit of this program should indicate great things from the sponsors and founders of the program for a long time to come.

Participants of the program get many benefits, not the least of which is mentoring by established entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. They have the opportunity to pitch to investors and venture capitalists outside the program. There are gifts available for first through third places, based on business plan presentations.

Event Partners and Sponsors

Venture Engine is a combined effort between two companies, the Blue Ocean Ventures, and the Indian Angel Network. The 2012 effort has been hailed as a tremendous success. Expectations are that 2013 will be just as spectacular. This opportunity is one to remember and keep an eye on, especially if you are a new or struggling business.

There are many different styles of entrepreneurship. No two individuals are exactly alike. This brings a great variety in both businesses and in styles of entrepreneurship. But, whichever style suits you best, Venture Engine can make an excellent financial resource that might well mean the difference between success and failure in your own venture.

Important Dates

The applications are due by June 3, and several important dates follow that until the announcement of winners on June 26. These include filter top 20, 10, and 3. Each filtering activity will be prefaced by a pitch of the group involved. These dates are June 4, 13, 18, and 21. Final presentations and awards will be on June 26.

Types of Businesses and Requirements for Application

Both those businesses looking to expand in scope or reach into new realms are welcome. They may only need a bit of financing to move forward, or maybe need just a bit of mentoring to become more successful.

The application components are very specific. They include:

  • Business plan
  • Market research
  • Equity report
  • Projected growth rate
  • Presentation statements

Once applications with the above criteria are submitted, they will be shortlisted according to the quality of their applications. Those lists will be the top 20, top 10, and the final 3 winners. Along the way, the shortlisted groups will have a chance to refine their business plans with the help and mentorship of both established businessmen and venture capitalists.

Even if a business is not one of the top 3, they still win. They receive invaluable information from established businessmen and venture capitalists. This information includes, among other things:

  • Business planning instruction
  • Mentoring to construct a plan to obtain funding
  • Access to potential investors of a high caliber
  • Networking with other entrepreneurs
  • Feedback on business plans
  • Exposure for business and PR blitz

Tech Startup Acceleration Program Meetup

Tech Startup Acceleration – There are lots of ways to ignite your startup and set it ablaze with your profits, and there are several ways of turning those dreams into realities. Being an entrepreneur, you will get ideas every day, and possibly every hour, of your life, and this is one of the incurable diseases of being an entrepreneur.

When I was growing up and living at home in 2008, I was struggling immensely because society and my family hadn’t given me much in life. Even the financial institutions wouldn’t really help me kickstart my efforts. I couldn’t get my dream business off the ground, and it was three months before I made my first sale from a UK customer, and the $5 I made helped me move on with confidence to loftier things. Right now, I own an e-commerce business that’s worth close to one million dollars, and it’s based in Northern Province Vavuniya. The real point here is that

” You don’t need one million dollars to put into your business, but you do need the equivalent one million dollar value of confidence.”

Are You a Freelancer?

If you are a good designer, programmer, writer, or marketing consultant then you can do some part-time freelance work. But if you are a full-time Freelancer you can win financial freedom within a very short period, but the question is If you’re a good designer, programmer, writer, or marketing consultant, then you might be doing some part-time freelancing work. If you’re a full-time freelancer, however, you can have financial freedom in a very short time period. There are some questions, however.

  1. Will your spouse say in public that you’re a freelancer? Will your kids say that you’re a freelancer?
  2. Will any banks or government authorities endorse you or give you any financial help to help start your business?
  3. Will your family members, friends, and neighbors respect you? If you are earning enough, they might smile in front of you. How will they talk in public, though?

The money will only give you financial freedom, but it won’t give you the reputation you want from your family and friends though.

Get a Reputation While You’re on Earth

While you’re on earth, you should strive to give something back to the earth and community, and if you get a good response from the market, then you can offer employment to the community and help people while you’re here. Giving employment to others is a gift from God, and if you give employment to others and practice great business ethics, then your business will reward you with a good reputation. In my personal experience, it doesn’t matter what you do in your personal life, but when it comes to a business, you want to try to maintain excellent ethics and cherish your business name, staff, and every brick of your office as much as your blood relations.

Running a Business When You’re an Entrepreneur

If you wanted to know about the inherent risk involved in a business, some might call it a “painless risk”. If you don’t care about your business, staff, and your stakeholders, then it won’t be a risk. Entrepreneurs are always ready to take that next big risk, and their decisions could disrupt the business environment. However, entrepreneurs always learn from their mistakes because they’re not going to want to listen to hours of needling advice from other people. So, most entrepreneurs won’t put their whole staff and livelihoods at risk.

Do You Have a Great Idea? Let’s Meetup.

It doesn’t matter where you’re living now, or what you’ve studied, all I need is your priceless information about your project concept. Startups are like dreams, and no one can understand your dreams better than your own brain.

This is a Lean Tech Startup Acceleration program and this time, I’m hoping to support Northern Province Budding Entrepreneurs, and, of course, I have a plan to target other provinces as well. So, bring your ideas, and let’s talk.

What can I do for you?

  • Connect you to relevant industry specialists, mentors, and incubators
  • Help you meet other young entrepreneurs and connect you to your dream time
  • Create direct connections to foreign venture capital companies and Angel Investors
  • Startup help from the online media
  • A lot more startup acceleration tips too

Criteria:

  • You must be an innovative “ global “ thinker with a fresh startup idea.
  • You must have a viable project concept and prototype if it’s available
  • You must have computer literacy and basic English skills (mandatory)
  • You must be confident in your project concept

Are there any charges for this?

No! There are absolutely no charges for this Tech Startup Acceleration meet-up. I’m not an angel investor or a venture capitalist, but I have direct connections with some of the most reputed angel investors and venture capitalist companies, and they can help a startup in its early-stage funding, or you can propose seed capital funding if it’s already launched. There are internationally and locally recognized mentors ready to give you mentoring support to your team.

So, what’s the catch?

There is no catch at all! All I’m trying to do is help fellow entrepreneurs to turn their ideas into a reality! It’s a Lean Tech Startup Acceleration concept! so let’s arrange to meet in some public place that’s free because we don’t want to waste a whole lot of money in the start-up’s early stages.

Top 10 LinkedIn Personal Branding Tips To Grow Your Business

If you are an active social network user then you probably already know about the power of LinkedIn for businesses and brands. LinkedIn is a Goldmine for Marketers, Businesses, Investors, and of course, recruiters, let’s take a look at how LinkedIn is transforming the world.

2013 LinkedIn Statistics:

  • LinkedIn has 200 million total users and 135 million active users around the world
  • 77% of job openings notifications  and 48% of recruiters are posting their Jobs on LinkedIn
  • B2B Businesses are now getting a 61% Customer Acquisition Success rate from LinkedIn
  • 71% of American College graduates find their dream jobs via LinkedIn
  • 77%  of research Companies and 65% of Asian and European journalists use LinkedIn as their primary source
  • LinkedIn is now available in 200 countries and in 19 different languages
  • 2.6 Million Companies  have a LinkedIn Business Page
  • 320,000 Srilankans Using LinkedIn, This is 1.49%  of the total population in Srilanka

Based on these mini LinkedIn statistics you can estimate the potential of LinkedIn, but there are so many other professional social networks available on the Internet as well, Yammer, Nimble, Zyncro, etc.  Still, LinkedIn is the Giant Professional Social network so far!  Let’s see how you can add Extra Cheese to your LinkedIn profile to make it professional and stand out from the crowd.

LinkedIn Profile Tips

LinkedIn for Personal Branding:

LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Quora, and Pinterest Profiles are all trusted by Search Engines and all of them have perfect search engine-friendly Profile Architecture. When someone is trying to find out your name on the internet, Your LinkedIn profile name will appear on the first search result pages (SERPs), so maintain your LinkedIn Profile like your own Personal website.

Your Professional Headline: 

LinkedIn also having its own Search Algorithms like Google and Bing, but it’s entirely different from Google’s Algorithm.  If you maintain perfect keyword density in your profile then your profile will appear in the LinkedIn Internal search results. To maintain better keyword proximity you will have to spice up your LinkedIn Headline tag with relevant keywords as your profession or industry specialization name very nicely with a maximum of 120 characters. Good Examples: UX Designer, UI Engineer, Graphic Designer, Multimedia Engineer, etc…
 

LinkedIn Profile Picture:

Your profile picture will say thousands of words about you for your potential audience and a good profile picture will create new ventures, so try using some nice “ Professional “ photos with good resolution.

Do not use LinkedIn Profile pictures that are taken outside with unprofessional backgrounds. Oh yes, if you have a professional photo with a nice smile then it’s perfect for your Linkedin profile, use LinkedIn for your Personal Branding.

Your Experience: 

this is a very important part to attract recruiters and investors; Of course, you can add your previous employer’s name and your position, work experience, etc, etc, but when recruiters, investors, or Venture Capitalists are trying to shortlist for your profile then you will lose your chances from this point! Let’s say if you have more than 5 different Work Experiences within the last 3 years it’s clearly saying you are not working with any companies not more than 12 months and Recruiters and investors will hesitate to shortlist your profile for a long-term business relationship!

But they really don’t know the real story about your job history! So, always try to display a Maximum 3 work experience and make sure you have been there more than 12 months. And don’t forget to use the right keywords, Relevant Images, Slideshare Documents, or any Videos Related to your work Experience field as your Profession.

Secure Your Identity:

This is another priceless gift from LinkedIn; you have an option to secure your own Vanity URL.  When you are changing your LinkedIn Profile URL then keep in mind it should be very tiny and make sure your LinkedIn Public URL reflects your name, profession or your industry Specialization.

  • Right Example: lk.linkedin.com/in/maheshdesigner
  • Bad Practice: lk.linkedin.com/in/pub/Mahesh-lastname/9587-hfja 

 

Education:  

Your Education is going to point out a very strong judgment for your Competitors, Recruiters and of course investors, so try to add enough information about your education details, Do NOT use a short name about your School or Courses. Try using the full name with correct abbreviations.

  • Right Example: Srilanka Institute of Information Technology
  • Bad Practice: SLIIT 

Profile Summary: 

Your Profile (Credo):  Ah, This is very important! I have seen lots of people make huge mistakes in these sections! To write a 2000 characters perfect LinkedIn profile summary You need to think about some different important factors.
Third-Party Point of View: Ask questions about yourself and find out the right answers and make your profile like an interesting story.

  • Call to Action (CTA):  Write some effective call to action words and let the reader find out the answer him/herself to understand the value of the word.
  •  Supportive words:  When you are trying to say something about you or your achievements then try to add supportive words Like “ Awarded by “, “ Offered By “ “ selected by “, etc! Do not say it alone like “I’m “I “, etc! Because readers don’t like to read these words again and again.
  • Serve Nicely:  Try to avoid using long paragraphs or too many spaces between the paragraphs. Give a Subtitle and Write a story match to the subtitle. Eg: Achievements, Business, etc

Get what you want:  people are reading your profile for some reason, which means they need some sort of services or benefit from you, so, this is the right place to market your brand. Just write a few lines about how you can help them because this is what you/they want.

Milestone and Projects:  

If you already did any individual or Group projects then simply add the above Project summary of your responsibility and outcome of this project along with Team members Details.  Based on your project details investors and recruiters can get an idea about your teamwork, commitment, and contribution.

If you don’t have any Group projects or Milestones, No problem simply add your future milestone and upcoming project brief along with team member’s details.

Recommendation: 

Recommendations are the secret weapons representing your identity, skills, and your professionalism! Like I said LinkedIn is a Professional Business network!

You can request recommendations from your Previous Employers, Co-Workers, or School Colleagues. But there is a way to request recommendations J First of all give them a nice recommendation about their Attitude, Experience, and Enthusiasm, now you have the right to request recommendations about you in return.

LinkedIn Connections: 

Creating strong connections is the most beautiful part of LinkedIn Personal Branding. You DON’T need to have thousands of unknown people in your business networks. Establishing a good relationship with people who know about you or you know about them is important. LinkedIn is giving you a chance to gather all your email contacts in one place or you can import your Facebook, Twitter, Gmail contacts using Yahoo as a CSV file and Import all your well-known Contacts in your LinkedIn Network. All I can say, if you maintain a Good business Relationship with your LinkedIn contacts then it will create new ventures for your career.

Good Practice: Sharing some interesting, Informative, Relevant content is a good way to engage your LinkedIn connections.
Bad Practice:  Sending Promotion News, Any Paid Offers, Survey links, Affiliate Links will create a negative view about you.

 
Customize Your Websites: 

LinkedIn gives you a chance to add your personal Website, Business Website URL, and of course, you can connect your Twitter profile as well.  If you have personal Blogs, Different social profiles then there is a chance to get inbound links to your website. But it’s “rel=follow”, but still this is a very effective way to build some backlinks from high authoritative websites to your site.

Be Professional & Stay Updated: 

LinkedIn has its own User Policy, please read and understand LinkedIn Terms of services, Share your updates and collaborate with your connections, follow the latest posts and wall updates as a reader and share your feedback!   It will create brand goodwill about you and you will gain Industry Experience from these regular activities.

If you really love to learn more about Social Media Marketing and Branding Strategies then I strongly recommend ebusinessacademy.org, they are really good at Social media strategy courses!

Conclusion:

As you can see, LinkedIn is the goldmine for Job seekers, Investors, recruiters, companies, and of course Brands! I just shared basic LinkedIn Profile Branding Tips only; there are lots of unrevealed secret strategies available to convert 60% of your LinkedIn connections as a customer and get at least two leads per day on demand using LinkedIn from entirely new unknown LinkedIn users.

 

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