Factors to get higher Page Ranks

In the past few days I have been interviewing lots of candidates from Search Marketing agencies as well as the potential candidates responsible for managing digital clients and providing Client Servicing and Account Management. Whenever I ask a question on Page Rank and what are the factors that determine higher page ranks I get different answers. I thought this post would help us to put some of those criteria's and thoughts in place.

Ranking plays such a large part in search engine optimization. Let’s look at just what affects ranking. Keep in mind, however, that different search engines use different ranking criteria, so the importance each of these elements plays will vary.



Location: Location doesn’t refer here to the location (as in the URL) of a web page. Instead, it refers to the location of key words and phrases on a web page. So, for example, if a user searches for “puppies,” some search engines will rank the results according to where on the page the word “puppies” appears. Obviously, the higher the word appears on the page, the higher the rank might be. So a web site that contains the word “puppies” in the title tag will likely appear higher than a web site that is about puppies but does not contain the word in the title tag. What this means is that a web site that’s not designed with SEO in mind will likely not rank where you would expect it to rank. The site www.puppies.com is a good example of this. In a Google search, it appears ranked fifth rather than first, potentially because it does not contain the key word in the title tag.



Frequency: The frequency with which the search term appears on the page may also affect how a page is ranked in search results. So, for example, on a page about puppies, one that uses the word five times might be ranked higher than one that uses the word only two or three times. When word frequency became a factor, some web site designers began using hidden words hundreds of times on pages, trying to artificially boost their page rankings. Most search engines now recognize this as keyword spamming and ignore or even refuse to list pages that use this technique.



Links: One of the more recent ranking factors is the type and number of links on a web page. Links that come into the site, links that lead out of the site, and links within the site are all taken into consideration. It would follow, then, that the more links you have on your page or leading to your page the higher your rank would be, right? Again, it doesn’t necessarily work that way. More accurately, the number of relevant links coming into your page, versus the number of relevant links within the page, versus the number of relevant links leading off the page will have a bearing on the rank that your page gets in the search results.



Click-throughs: One last element that might determine how your site ranks against others in a search is the number of click-throughs your site has versus click-throughs for other pages that are shown in page rankings. Because the search engine cannot monitor site traffic for every site on the Web, some monitor the number of clicks each search result receives. The rankings may then be repositioned in a future search, based on this interaction with the users.

Page ranking is a very precise science. And it differs from search engine to search engine. To create the best possible SEO for your site, it’s necessary to understand how these page rankings are made for the search engines you plan to target. Those factors can then be taken into consideration and used to your advantage when it’s time to create, change, or update the web site that you want to optimize.

Moving to CRM 2.0

Many organizations these days are overwhelmed with this new phenomenon: The Social Media. The Social Media which I call as Web 2.0, includes fast-growing peer-to-peer (P2P) activities like blogging, RSS, file sharing, open source software, podcasting, search engines, and user-generated content.Out of the total 50 Million Online user base — 82% of users come from the Urban Cities and out of those 81% now read blogs at least monthly, and 73% are members of a social networking site like Orkut, Facebook or LinkedIn. (Reference)

Even more amazingly, almost one-third of all youth publish a blog at least weekly, and 41% of youth visit a social networking site daily. These new technology and social changes are transforming the way all businesses operate, create products, and relate to customers.

Web 2.0 changes the game for your CRM strategy too — big time! CRM strategies are moving beyond their traditional goal of optimizing a two-way relationship between an enterprise and customer to include the simultaneous relationships that customers have among themselves. Including social networks changes the definition of CRM from the stale exchange of data to a live, vibrant network of connected individuals who share their abilities, expertise, and interests.

So, in this new world Web 2.0 your company will be able to:

Collaborate with Customers and Partners in new ways

This will result in genuine business relationships form, and the external perception of an organization changes from sterile and faceless to a collection of individuals who are ready to help

Collaborate within the enterprise to deliver more value

Online networks with even basic profiles of its individual members' experiences, locations, and interests can cut problem-solving time by enabling faster connection between a questioner and a person who has solved similar problems in the past. An internal social networking capability can also help the individuals responsible for creating relationships with customers to pull together the "right" team of individuals who will resonate with the prospect at a personal level.

What I am now describing are the new methods or new CRM landscape which all the marketers should definitely learn to navigate with.

1. Power up market research with "listening" capabilities.

Traditional: Engaging with customers begins with understanding their needs and goals, behaviors, and their value to the enterprise. This activity has traditionally been the domain of market research.

CRM 2.0: But if you redefine the role of market research to include the capabilities for actively "listening" in the Social Computing context, then you should establish customer sounding boards for researching decisions. You can monitor market buzz and measure ongoing trends and customer perceptions using solutions from BuzzMetrics and Cymfony (a division of TNS Media Intelligence).

2. Make marketing more relevant with "talking" capabilities.

Traditional: The traditional role of marketing is to support outbound communication to prospects and customers to raise awareness for products and services and establish favorable attitudes towards your brand.

CRM 2.0: However, marketing in the world of CRM 2.0 must establish a dialogue between sellers and buyers. This means developing capabilities to have conversations with your customers. Use interactive dialogue and help your brand fans spread your message more easily through social networks like Twitter and Facebook. Establish the ability to communicate continually with customers and monitor responses using blogs.

3. Boost selling with "energizing" capabilities.

Traditional: Old-school CRM thinking defines the role of sales primarily as carrying out the tasks of identifying decision-makers, making contact, and securing orders.

CRM 2.0: Next-generation CRM thinking consider the use of customer opinions to increase sales through ratings and reviews using discussion forums. Learn how to designate lead customers to energize others through brand ambassador programs. Link with and gain introductions to influential customer network members by using business-oriented social networking and contact management solutions like Linkedin and Plaxo.

4. Strengthen service with "supporting" capabilities.

Traditional: In conventional world we support users by addressing there problems and issues through different mediums like Telecon or Videoconferencing and remote access. Sometimes our support people need to personally visit the customers to resolve there issues.

CRM 2.0: In the new world of the social and connected customer, help customers to support each other. To enable customers to solve each others' problems, consider solutions that support customer forums. To enable customers to build solutions together, think about using Wikis like Confluence, Socialtext, and Wikia.

Customers who are using social technologies to seek better experiences threaten to make traditional approaches to CRM obsolete. For the most part, enterprises understand that there's no choice but to jump in and improve how they architect a differentiated customer experience and use some of the new technologies — blogs, communities, wikis, widgets, social networks, and the concepts of dynamic applications — to their own advantage. The most important question is not what technology to use; most important is determining who you're trying to reach, what you're trying to accomplish, and how you plan to change your relationships with your customers.

Hope you found my blog post useful. If you have any comments or queries do mention the same below and I would try to answer the same as soon as possible.

Insights on Digital Campaign

Digital Marketing as we call it requires lots of things to be worked upon when doing a campaign for a brand. These are some of the points which one should definitely look into while working for a campaign in Digital Marketing. Now I am not talking about the 4 P's or the 4 C's as people talk about it most of the time. It is something much more than that. I think it is definitely worth mentioning as it gives you a complete insight on what you are doing with the brand.

1. The First Step is PLANNING.

Now there are various aspects which goes into planning a campaign. You need to understand the brief as there can be different objectives in planning as well once you have a specific goal you need to achieve through Digital Marketing.

• Start by always laying down the OBJECTIVES of the campaign. Example: If there is a campaign for Automobile getting launched then your objective could be - "Create the buzz and generate more visibility of the product". If there is a campaign where you need to sell like a Real Estate property then the objective could be - "Get leads and generate interest / intent for the user to purchase the property". Always make sure that your objective will lead you to the overall strategy of your campaign.

• This is the most common but somewhat difficult in the online space as the availability of data is a little difficult. This part is understanding the TARGET GROUP (TG) / TARGET AUDIENCE (TA). I am highlighting the fact of it being difficult in the online space as you have more mediums where your TA is present than any other medium you are catering to. For Example: In case you want to do a TV AD you already know that either your audience is consuming it while at home or at the friend's house. In case of the online space the audience is either consuming it at home, office, cyber cafe or may be through a mobile. There might be some exceptions but we cannot generalize them. With my experience of doing campaigns for lots of TA like Women or Kids we sometime need to rely a lot on the publishers data or through some assumptions which might be correct or wrong. But still outlining there behaviour as well as there consumption patterns help us a lot in establishing our strategy.

• The next phase of planning is COMPETITION RESEARCH. This is also a bit tricky but definitely much more accurate and visible than the TG / TA part. Specifically on the online space with Social Media being helping a lot. How to go into in detail is something I will take up some other time.

• Once we have done all these activities the next step should be to summarize all this research and put them in perspective with the brand and the campaign strategy. It's definitely an art but still doing all these in the planning phase will definitely bring the credibility in your over all strategy.

2. The Second Step is to map the Buying as well the consumption pattern for the Target Group you have identified. This is the toughest and most helpful part in working on the complete digital campaign.

Establish what are the different media activities they are most likely to consume and then identify the pattern of their engagement with these mediums in each of the customer engaging and buying cycles.

• The first is the Intention to Purchase. Example: Here mostly the user is looking to research for the product he/she intends to buy or know more about. Example: Few of the media which we can choose is "Search Engine Marketing".


• The second is the user looking for some promotional / offers for the product: Example: The user might want to purchase the product but looking for some offers which he can benefit from. Display Advertising as well as the offers mentioned on the website are the most common mediums he may be targeted with.


• Purchase Online / Offline: The reason I am also mentioning Offline is typically because for some of the products it is totally not feasible to purchase online. Automobiles, Real Estate are some typical examples. In the online case e-Commerce enabled site really helps but in the offline you can empower your site with enabling the user to fill a simple form or call your call center for the nearest dealer / reseller in the area.


• Opportunity to Service and Create Loyalty: Your customers are your brand ambassadors and it is now very easy to engage them through the power of social media as well as through CRM activities. Email Marketing as well as making them interact with your service teams through blogs and discussion forums helps a lot.

After establishing the media as well as the behaviour consumption pattern we now go into the detailing of the mediums and what activities we will do in each of the specific mediums.

In case the strategy has the new Website to be built then we should try to showcase some of the layouts. In case it is a Search Campaign then we should go for a complete Keyword as well as the Search competition analysis. For the Display Ad there should be a detailed media plan with some benchmarking in terms of number of visitors / leads we expect from it. The Social Media strategy should lay out the engagement as well as the moderation details in order to maintain the control.

4. And the Last not the least is Measurement and Optimization: You should set up the goals and always benchmark your results based on that. In case you need to go detail refer to the link here http://www.kaushik.net/avinash

Hope this blog helped you in getting some insight on going and creating a Digital Campaign. Will look forward for your comments and suggestions on the same.