Learning the Difference between SEO and PPC

Both SEO and PPC are two main ways of generating traffic to a site. Both deliver successful results but work differently. You need to understand the basic concept of both the methods to implement them for your campaign.

SEO is a process of organically increasing the traffic of any site. It works on content and generation of backlinks to increase a site’s authority in the search engines. SEO has changed a lot from the way it worked in the past and is more about pleasing the users and marketing using common sense instead of looking for shortcuts and manipulating Google. This makes it a long term investment over a period of at least 8 months, if not more. However, once a site increases in authority, not only is there a positive effect in its rankings, but it also gets a major traffic increase. However, at the same time, you will have to be patient and have a significant amount to be able to get to the point where you can start reaping its benefits.

PPC, commonly known as pay-per-click, is a method through which you run an advertising campaign against your services and products and as the name suggests charged every time a user clicks on an ad. Unlike SEO, PPC generates immediate traffic to a site. However, as long as the campaign stops, so does the traffic and leads. Check out Medialinkers SEO agency work on SEO vs. PPC to find which a preferable method is for you.

Overview of UX and UI

If you are connected with the digital marketing field, you most probably have heard about UI and UX. In fact, both these terms are sometimes used interchangeably to be used more on the web. And though, both these terms are around for ages and sound quite simple, people fail to understand the exact meaning behind two. What you need to know is that both terms are separate and even though they are used interchangeably, have got separate meanings.

Defining UX and UI

When looking to answer UX and UI, you will probably get a different answer. However, how the majority of people define UX and UI is shared below:

1. User experience is about analyzing the end user interaction with the website, its services, and products.
2. User Interface, on the other hand, is a space which works as an interaction medium between machines and humans.

Regardless of how designers define UX and UI, there are still many people who misunderstand the concepts. The more surprising fact is that even a lot of designers use the terms interchangeably. The confusing element could be “U” in both terms, something which a layman would have in mind. The confusion can also come from the use of same skill-sets included in UI and UX projects. However, the only similarity between the two is that these are related. You can check out a graphical presentation showing the difference between UX and UI shared by Medialinkers web design team.

Trends which will Dominate Social Media in 2016

Social Media is booming with every passing year. 2015 was the year when social streaming apps such as Meerkat and Periscope won over the early adopters. Snapchat now has about 200 million active users. Besides, the video has emerged as another major trend with ever increasing Facebook users logging about estimated 8 billion video views a day.

The biggest question is what the year 2016 holds for social media? Do you expect to see new technologies changing the way we interact with social media and opening up new ways to share real-time experiences? Wondering how 2016 will shape up the year 2016, check out some figures and fact below:

Social Media Virtual Reality

Today, everyone uses social media for personal and professional sharing. This is what Facebook CEO also wrote after Facebook got Oculus, virtual reality company for only $2 billion in March.  Facebook, the most popular social sharing network has started embedding Oculus technology in its 360 videos.  It has given a window of opportunity to marketers for rolling out on the newsfeed, allowing users to experience scenes from the different angles on both the mobile and web devices to create an immersive experience.

Brands are slowly catching up with the virtual reality video technology and have started creating more content to leverage its benefits.  For this reason, fully immersive VR is slated for a release in early 2016. This will open up more possibilities for a newsfeed. Oculus VR has also released a new social app known as Oculus Social Alpha which can be accessed through a Samsung Gear VR headset. Being a movie-watching app, it allows you to sit in a theater and see a video in real-time with other users. This also makes it one true social application of Facebook’s new technology. Check out the emerging trends of social media for the year 2016, by Medialinkers SEO Company.

Knowing When to Redesign a Website

Just like a physical office or a house building needs renovation and maintenance, a website requires it from time to time. However, without proper planning, designing a website becomes a complete waste of time, money and effort. For taking the site to next level, Medialinkers web designers suggest a few steps such as:

You need to know the purpose of a site first, such as leads, users, downloads, education and purchases. What action do you want from the visitors? How can you keep the users engaged? Even though a pretty site is great, a site still has to deliver properly for driving its performance.

Determine site’s purpose by asking customers and stakeholders for ideas and input. Figure out the right components to be published on a site. A site doesn’t have to feature everything so you are required to make some difficult decisions at the same time. The next important step is to plan around. Create mock ups using tools such as HotGloo and Balsamiq for a design overview. Design mock ups are a great way to check the shape of a site without going into the details to make adjustment easily. Some more information is discussed in the infographic below.

What Makes WordPress an Important Website Platform?

WordPress is the most popular content management system available today. For those of you who do not know what a content management system is, well it is a software program implemented for managing and creating HTML content. Content management System (CMS) includes auditing, document control, editing and scheduling content. Content management is not just limited to the HTML documents but includes videos and images in addition to other media forms. Medialinkers web designers share the important features that make WordPress popular.

6 Tips to Follow When Designing a Landing Page

Visitors come and land at a site if its marketing is going fine. Landing page is the most crucial page of any site, since it is the first one encountered with your brand. What they experience on your site is how they talk about the page on social media. This is what makes the first impression so important.

However, a good landing page is not about impressing visitors, it is actually about converting them. This is what makes landing pages a central part of SEO and PPC campaigns. A quality landing page which converts also results in higher rankings at a lower ad cost, where as a bad blog can ruin the entire Ad words account and can have a negative impact on your rankings due to Google’s ever changing policy.

Wondering if the landing page is working fine? Some suggestions offered by Kennesaw web design experts to consider are as follow:

1. Page Speed

Page speed is quite important on the landing pages than other elements. If someone clicks on an ad, they can be converted to a lead, as the window is quite small. The page must load within 1-3 seconds of a click or at most within 4 clicks. However, if takes any longer than that, then the user would happily bounce to another page. There is a Google’s page speed checking tool which will help you in identifying if it is loading fast enough.

2. Easy to Understand

After the users land on a website, they have to be presented with a single call to action and how they need to follow it. You need to present the offer and what have to do to get it right. If they are unable to understand the elements put on your landing page, the users will immediately turn away from it.

3. Avoiding Distractions

Unclear and cluttered landing pages also turn users away. Do not stuff your page with other stuff or branded links, as the landing page is created only to generate leads. It must be kept simple and sharp.

4. Social Sharing

Big brand landing pages deliver messages in this way:

• Business and Products
• The benefits you will receive
• Following the instructions
• Results will be advertised

Social sharing and proof is very important as far as testimonials and reviews are concerned. Majority of people don’t trust an ad based on the first impression and want to see what other things have gone through the process to see what was promised.

5. Making Sure the Working of CTA

Whatever the CTA is, you need to make sure that it leads to the expected results. Forms need to be functional and clear. The download links must also work at all times to make the purchases. Do not trick clients as violating CTA will ruin the scenario for you.

6. Do not Make Your Clients Go Away

What if the clients do not convert on the first offer? Still, don’t lose hope without offering it like a newsletter sign-up. You also don’t have to be pushy about the tactics. Make sure that you do not violate Google’s policy, as tricking people to your site through a fancy JavaScript will only get you banned. Another way to lead them further is to offer a thanks or no thanks button on the offer which will redirect them to a new landing page.

Bottom Line

A landing page is a key aspect between a converted and curious customer.  Last but not the least; also make sure that the quality of landing pages is as good as you have to make it. Follow these tips thoroughly and hire a professional web design agency such as Medialinkers web design to have an immaculate landing page designed for your website.

Finding the Right Time to Post on Social Media Channels in 2016

Timing is a key in digital marketing. As a social media marketer, you need to make sure that timings are right and the content is not sent into a deep dark abyss where no one sees it. The equation is extremely simple, the more viewers equal to more engagement and meaningful connection opportunities to benefit a business.

Highlights of WordPress 4.5 Upgrade

The writers, designers and developers are rejoicing the release of WordPress 4.5. Even though this is not the biggest update by WordPress, they have implemented small changes and quality upgrades to customize a site, edit its text and make platform logging better.

Blogger to WordPress: Migrate Without Losing Backlinks

Blogging has become an extremely popular activity as there are various blogging platforms which help bloggers to share whatever information they want with the world. Blogger and WordPress are the two most renowned blogging mediums. After you use one platform, you will want to shift to another due to the limitations a platform puts on your blogging goals.

However, you can easily switch and transfer files from one blogging platform to another. Wondering how you want to do it without losing the existing subscribers, page rank or Google search traffic? Well, there are options using which you can transfer all blog posts and comments to a new WordPress blog. A lot of work is required in transferring a blog from one medium to another but the most crucial issues which you face include: losing organic search traffic to pages as the permalinks of the altered blog posts.

Users come to a site through search engines, browser bookmarks and backlinks. But, once a blog is migrated to WordPress, blogger does not redirect the new links to a blog automatically. You can also lose the subscribed readership to your blogger RSS feed as they may not subscribe manually to new WordPress RSS feed.

Medialinkers web design agency shares a step by step guide on how to migrate a blog from blogger to WordPress in simple to understand language. It will transfer all the Google Juice of a blogger blog to the WordPress medium.

Getting Started

When starting the migration process from blogger to WordPress, spend some time in getting a blogger blog’s back up. This includes everything from the XML templates, comments and blog posts. Try to get a new domain, web hosting and install WordPress on it. After WordPress installation, it is time to migrate to an existing blog.

Transferring Content

1. You are required to import content present on a blogger blog to a new site. Go to WordPress Admin Dashboard and check “Tools.”
2. Select Tools -> Import -> Blogger option to get a pop-up window where you can click “Install Now.”
3. Press “Activate Plugin & Run Importer” tab.
4. Click “Authorize” to let WordPress access a blogger account, importing all the comments and blog posts to a new WP blog. Click “Allow Access.”
5. This will make you visit a page showing post status and comments to click “Import” for finally transferring the stuff.
6. After the transfer is complete, the import tab becomes “Set Authors” tab. You get to “Author Mapping” page to allocate another writer to the posts. After making the entire Author mapping settings, save changes to proceed. This will complete the process of transferring an existing content to a new domain in a successful way.
7. Visit WordPress dashboard and check settings -> Permalinks. You can select a URL structure best fitting with the one you previously had on a blogger blog. This will also redirect the Blogger blog’s redirection to the WordPress blog.
8. After this work is done, you will have to work on the “redirection” part. Redirection tells a blogger about where the new site is. It helps bloggers to redirect visitors and subscribers to a new blog, keeping the backlinks and rankings intact.
9. You also require a smart plugin such as “Blogger to WordPress” in a WordPress account. Activate and install it for automatically redirecting the blogger blog’s visitors to a new blog. After a plugin is activated, visit WordPress admin to select Tools > Blogger to WordPress Redirection option and click the “Start Configuration” tab.
10. This will take you to another page where you will see a list of transferred Blogger blogs. You will also get an option “Get Code” on your blog, clicking which you will get a generated code. Copy the code, go to the old Blogger blog’s dashboard and check the “Template” menu. Press “Edit HTML” tab of blog’s theme.
11. Paste the copied code to replace the existing code in a template to click “Save Template.” However, before replacing the code, you need to backup the template to rollback to in case something bad happens.

Checking and Testing

After the process of code pasting is complete, check to see if it works well. For doing this, enter the URL of any of your old Blogger’s blog posts to automatically redirect to the same information on the new WordPress blog.

This is it; do not delete your Blogger blog after the transfer of files to WordPress blog is complete, as the Blogger blog will still perform the process of redirecting visitors to a new blog.

Redirect Blogger RSS Feed and WordPress Subscribers

Visit Blogger Dashboard and select Setting -> other. This will show “Post Feed Redirect URL” option where you will click “ADD” letting you enter the WordPress feed URL. “Save Settings” once done.

Congratulations, your Blogger blog is fully transferred to the new WordPress blog with all visitors, rankings and subscribers. You can hire a professional design agency such as Medialinkers web design to design your new WordPress blog.

WordPress Implements HTTPS on All Sites

WordPress is one of the most widely used content management system available with a free and paid market share of 60% or more. A CMS is more than a web hosting platform which helps other people access what you want to publish.  Through WordPress you can publish whatever you want so you not only add, edit or delete material but also monitor what and when has changed, rolling back to what you don’t want to include.

The CMS security affects both you and your readers which means that HTTPS (also known as secure HTTP is nice to have. You can also set up things so your blog and the interface used for editing it use only HTTPS for the use of encrypted connections.

Encryption is one the easiest ways to make sure that there is nothing more important that you forgot to encrypt.  Though working on a “digital paperwork” of getting a website certificate is simple enough, doing it the first time is like taking a trip to a place which you never visited before. This relies on the chain of HTTPS certificates, approved by cryptographic digital signatures offered by one or more certificate authorities. You can also end up in a wrong location with no idea of what you need to do next.

Bringing HTTPS for Free

WordPress announced to register all sites on .com with HTTPS. You will not require a CA for a certificate or install a certificate on your own or wonder what happens next when the certificate expires or to apply it on your own. WordPress will handle everything on your behalf using a project known as Let’s Encrypt to remove the hassle from using HTTPS.

WordPress also uses HTTPS since 2014 on domains that end with .wordpress.com. This is not as difficult as anyone who has a domain such as abc.com can register certificates for covering any sub domains of it, for instance, 3rdlevel.example.com

Subdomains such as abc.com can be covered by voting for *abc.com.  The * character is known as a wildcard and stands for whatever text you like such as “any wordpress.file.”  WordPress users have bought own domain names to the WP ecosystems for example medialinkers.com, hosted by WordPress.com VIP.  Issuing multiple HTTPS certificates automatically and quickly was not easy.

WordPress has placed the bullet on the task for its users and on all the WP hosted sites, such as a *.wordpress.com or a custom domain of your own, to implement HTTPS.  However, if the readers are trying to connect via HTTP, it will redirect it to a more secure HTTPS link.

Why You Must Care?

• Traffic from the encrypted sites can be redirected, modified and intercepted
• Well-educated readers are increasing suspicious encrypted sites
• Search engines such as Google rate pages higher on their HTTPS use

You can also hire professional web development agencies such as Medialinkers web design to develop a WordPress site for your needs.