So, why does anyone need a professional or a specialist to write website content? After all, any business owner has the best knowledge of his business. Let see a few reasons why outsourcing content writing services or even having an in-house writer if you have a growing or large company is beneficial.

An objective view: – As a service/product provider, you tend to focus on what you can offer. A professional content writing services agency could work the same content with the perspective of what a customer needs. As on outsider who is looking at your product/service from a totally objective view, he can offer you suggestions of how your content is appropriately placed to match your customer needs in the best possible way. A writer can also brainstorm with you with a customer perspective to evolve newer ideas.Many a times you get carried away with your offering without realising how much content is enough for the website visitor.

Right Skill for the right job: A writer’s core skill is his writing. While you know best on what you provide, a writer will be able to put in the best way to communicate it to your target audience. This also gives you enough time to concentrate on where your core skill lies.  Your skill can be better used to service customers rather than cleaning and editing copy. Another obvious skill is that content writing agency has a good and practiced team who have expertise in the language of his or her writing. This helps ensure that content is focused towards the product / services from a user perspective and also reduces grammatical & punctuation errors in a copy. Even tiny overlooked errors in a web or blog copy makes it look unprofessional and can have a lasting impact on the company image.

Time for the engagement:- Times have changed,today a having a website website and social media engagements etc are an on-going responsibility. Many websites, blogs, social media pages have gone redundant due lack of fresh content on a regular basis. It is possible that you or someone you know could write well enough to start your blog, however, to keep it relevant on a regular basis needs a professional who sets aside time and researches on the best way to do it. A professional content writer also has a niche and can adapt to different tones like business, sales, blog discussions etc depending on what your platform is. As a content writing services agency we can provide various types of content to client anywhere in the world.

Avoid regular clichés – A professional content writer works with a lot of projects. Even if your writer is in-sourced, a good writer always researches and is well read within her forte and the ancillary fortes, this helps the writer to keep your content unique and not like a “copy-paste” of every other similar businesses.

While you work on enhancing your product /service offerings the content writer co-ordinates with the Internet Marketing Services team and ensures that the content is SEO / SEM friendly and builds credibility.

How Much Content is enough :- This is another important question which we are asked regularly. While there is no standard norm my suggestion is that content be written to suit the target audience’ habits and the product / service offering. Content writing for a website needs to be approached differently than specific marketing campaign pages. This means a content writer has to sync with the internet marketing team and understand the product / service, the marketing communication, the mode of marketing whether it is search engine optimisation, Adwords / PPC campaigns, display Branding campaigns, Social Media Marketing etc before laying out a clear content plan. As an agency providing Internet Marketing services we have both Internet Marketing and Content Writing teams to ensure better results for our clients.

There are many more advantages of hiring a professional content writing services agency for your business. Whether it is brand promotion or tactical web engagement, it is always good business sense to invest in good content writing services. Remember search engines too love fresh, unique SEO friendly content.

“It accelerates our efforts to create a simpler, more beautiful Google,” Google Senior Vice President Vic Gundotra stated in a blog post announcing the redesign.

Well some of the design elements echo the now familiar Facebook Timeline. Now you have a cover photo that spreads across the top of the profile – we always missed it, and now there are bigger image and video display panels. The customizable navigation ribbon that runs along the left side of all pages, are are a new introduction to social media.

And guess what, the pretty looks and added features are not the only changes, Google has made efforts to highlight some pre-existing features which was really needed. The new Hangouts page shows Hangout invitations and makes it easier to browse upcoming hangouts. There a new Explore page, that shows trending content. Chat has now shifted to the right hand side column, isnt that like facebook .

As always reactions to the redesign both positive and negative have started pouring from all over the world. Forbes called it “simply more gorgeous than Facebook.” Wired noted that “Overall, the new Google+ look is cleaner and seems to make better use of the real estate.”

What more can you expect, apparently lots. “By focusing on you, the people you care about, and the stuff you’re into, we’re going to continue upgrading all the features you already know and love – from Search and Maps to Gmail and YouTube,” says Gundotra.

I think it spells good news for Internet Marketing Professionals and clients at large. Needless to say Search Engine Optimisation specialists will be on the lookout for the impact of the new google plus on SEO results.

The big question is, can the redesign bring about any major change in Google Plus’s fortunes? will it be enough to speed past others to the top social media hangout position? till then, Happy +ing.

Google jumped into the social media wave with Google+. It can be called as an amalgamation of the social networking services that we have already used and continue to use; it’s just that Google aspires to do it better than most of the social networking sites and why not? It’s got the money and the people and a huge base of users thanks to Gmail and Google search. What Google+ aims to provide is, better networking capabilities among users via different interfaces with innovative names like Circles, Sparks and Hangouts. Like Facebook, Google+ is available both on the web and as a mobile application for almost all mobile smartphones. It has been long debated that Facebook would be the true challenger to Google with social search possibilities and it seems Google+ has accepted the challenge.

Facebook has already made a huge impact on the youth with over 865 million active users under its radar (this number might be up by a few million when you are reading this post). The challenge for Google+ was to be different somehow, and be more user-friendly in order to capture the market of non-Facebook users followed by the obvious Facebook user which by the way is still the most popular social networking site till date. Given the apprehensions, the biggest surprise is that within six months of its launch, Google+ is close to hitting a 100 million user base. The big plus for Google+ users was that those who already had a Gmail account didn’t need to create a separate account for Google+ and could log into it with their existing accounts. If the good run continues unabated, Google+ could hit the 500 million mark soon.

Let’s look at some features :-

Circles :

Google Circles make it easier for users to have a separate group of friends to deal with, thereby making interaction public yet private. It’s more like hanging out with friends in a group in real life with the only difference that it’s virtual now.

Hangouts :

Hangouts are places used to facilitate group video chat (with a maximum of 10 people participating in a single Hangout at any point in time). However, anyone on the web could potentially join the “Hangout” if they happen to possess the unique URL of the Hangout.

Sparks :

Sparks is a front-end to Google Search, enabling users to identify topics they might be interested in sharing with others. “Featured interests” sparks are also available, based on topics others find interesting globally. Sparks helps to keep users informed of the latest updates on the topics of their interest.

The +1 button :

Google+ has a “+1 button” to allow people to recommend sites and parts of sites, similar in use to Facebook’s “Like” button. With the launch of Google+, it seems that users will be able to power search rankings as the +1 button empowers the users to make decision about how good the content really is. This in turn guides other search users on relevancy of the site when it comes up on search results.

If an article receives a big number of “pluses” ideally that would be indicating the high quality of the content. Add to that your Google+ friends would be able to see your recommendations. Thus the links on search would seem more trustworthy and reliable, since it is recommended by someone they know.

If you have been following SEO (search engine optimization) trends, you will note how social media has become highly relevant in internet marketing strategy, especially social media marketing and search engine optimization.

Google+ Pages:

Google+ Pages, allow entities which are not individuals (such as organizations, companies, and publications) to set up profiles, or “pages,” for the posting and syndication of posts. It is similar to Facebook’s similarly-named feature. Social Media has always been a place for real-life sharing, and Google+ Pages are no exception.

For social media users, this means unlimited choices to interact, discuss our summer shopping with a favorite clothing line, or follow a music band on a tour. Essentially, Google+ pages are an attempt to breathe life to everything we find in the real world by allowing online engagement.

This means a huge opportunity for businesses and brand marketers. With Google+ pages, they can connect with prospects, customers and fans. Those interested can connect with a brand by adding them to their circles or pass on the trust with a “+1” recommendation. With Google+, brands and business have a new engagement platform and one which can also help them gain in search rankings.

Pinterest is basically a photo sharing social networking site. It has a pinboard style layout and allows users to manage and create thematic collections of images and create theme image boards or Pin Boards. The basic agenda of the site is to connect people from all around the world via things that they find interesting. Surprisingly this concept seems to have gained popularity among women of all age groups. Now that should mean good news for Brands who want to target women on the internet. The by-invitation only model has within less than 6 months of its release, been listed as among the best 50 websites according to the Time Magazine.

Joining Pinterest needs you to have a friend who’s already an active member of the site. You need to have an invitation from a member of Pinterest or you can also request for an invitation directly from the pinterest website. Being new in the fast growing social media category on the internet, and having to compete against strong opposition like Facebook and Twitter, its adoption of the strategy long ago used by google for gmail seems to be working in its favour. It needs new users to link their new Pinterest account to their Twitter or Facebook accounts. This means users can log into this website via their Facebook or Twitter logins.

Interesting Features

Pinterest unlike other social networking sites has the attributes of the original photo sources pinned to the photos while sharing it directly on the website. The permission of the original author of the picture though isn’t a part of the transaction process but that should not be much of a problem with most of the authors as their work being shared is a promotion of sorts for them.

What makes it different and interesting is that you don’t send links or requests or tweet links here; you are basically collecting images of anything and everything you like on a board and share them. Something you always thought you could do isn’t it? Collect the best images which have inspired you, impressed you or have helped make a dull day bright. The entire concept of having a thematic photo pin board is visually very appealing and I am sure new personalization features in the future would make it more interesting. This also brings out creativity in users in how they want to use their pin boards, a new canvas.

Benefits of Pinterest for your brand or company.

Pinterest, as a social media marketing tool has grown immensely and in an extraordinary way since its inception. With Pinterest growing in popularity,a brand can only benefit from the huge numbers of potential customers that use Pinterest every day. A wonderful addition for those, who keep looking for variety in Internet Marketing Solutions. SEO, SEM, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Google Plus and now Pinterest adds to the variety of media marketing options on the Internet.

From an Internet marketing perspective, Pinterest has yet to make great inroads. No doubt it can be an interesting platform and a creative one but will call for a relook at Internet Marketing strategy. Pinterest is the least bit complicated. With its easy to use interface, comes the ability to create traction and interaction with customers in a hassle free manner. People can “follow” and “Repin” brands more easily as users engage with the ideals and themes of your brand or company. This makes Pinterest one of the most simple and hassle free of platforms for brand engagement.

A lot of companies are using Pinterest as an Internet Marketing ploy to pin their way with a visually appealing and interesting persona of their brands. Viralability is also another interesting factor here. Repinning is akin to retweeting or a “Like” on Facebook. This allows social sharing of and the impact can be tremendous. All marketers need to do is explore the creative aspects of their brands and there is no limit to the possibilities of what Pinterest can do for them.

Happy Pinning .

This announcement came at a recently concluded panel discussion at SXSW named “Dear Google & Bing: Help Me Rank Better!” The SEO professionals and clients have a new learning. Google has been working on a new penalty that will target websites that over optimize pages for search engines.

Matt Cutts mentioned that the new over optimization penalty will become a part of search results parameters as soon as a few weeks. The purpose is to “level the playing field,” Cutts said. Given Google’s unwavering loyalty to relevancy, the idea is to give websites that have great content an opportunity to rank above sites with basic SEO hygiene, than those with not-so-great content but do a better job with Search Engine Optimization.

Let me try to put across what Matt said (this is not a transcription or translation but our understanding of a part of Matt speech)

The idea is to create a level playing field. That’s because there are sites with great content and poor SEO and these are very relevant to the search engine users, and then there are those who are doing good SEO with good content, and those who have poor content but tend to over-optimize as a balancing act. So, there are all those indulging in over optimization or overly SEO – versus those making great content and great websites. The idea is to make the GoogleBot smarter, increase relevance and find those who abuse the system, like using too many keywords on a page, or exchange too many links or go beyond what you normally expect of good SEO.

How is Google going to find the abusers and differentiate between the good and the bad is a question we all are waiting to get an answer for. It’s not only going to be difficult but I believe it will probably bring focus on SEO basics of On-page optimization, and there is room to define inbound links relevancy as well. What Google will also need to look for, is websites which have good content but zero SEO, surprisingly high PR and high SERP rankings.

While this is good news for all those who believe in websites with highly relevant content, it could mean another drop in rankings for those who have not understood the search engines move to increase relevancy since the Panda update.

Is there a solution to this optimisation er..over-optimisation bit. Well yes there is

We have been working with NGOs and as an Integrated Internet Marketing Agency understand their needs of effective reach, credibility and fund raising. As responsible organization wanting to contribute and add to the development of society at large we provide free expertise to NGO’s and Non –profits and implementation at a fraction of cost. It is important for charitable organization and non-profit organizations to develop efficient web presence with websites that facilitate their respective staff to interrelate with benefactors /potential benefactors, volunteers and all other concerned stakeholders.
The potential and benefits for mission-based organizations like NGOs from Internet applications ,Internet marketing services using the right Internet marketing Strategy are now really endless.

It has been presumed, that there would not be any nonprofit organizations who would need convincing on the need and worth of the Internet and computer technology for progress. But unfortunately the fact is that there still exist such organizations who have not been appraised of the benefits of Internet Marketing and special offer available for them to use the Internet as an effective medium for marketing causes. There are still Corporations and Individuals who provide funds to NGO’s and benefactors of nonprofits who are not aware nor recognize many nonprofit organizations and thus are unwilling to fund such. However, visions getting vastly larger numbers of new benefactors and clients, raising massive amounts of new money and smoothly administering funds get a sudden boost with an Internet connection. A web site, a Facebook fan page, a Twitter Account or marketing on search engines like Yahoo, Bing or Google can go a long way in ensuring successful project implementations. Google offers its famous search platforms to registered NGO’s for Free. Not only that it provides advertising funds every month to non-profits who wish to build awareness and raise funds.

NGO managers today believe that, the Internet can solve managerial hassles too. Add to that the unparalleled and rise of the social net adds to marketing prowess. Communication is easy with email accounts, marketing can be more wide spread with Twitter, Facebook and Google plus. These social networking sites today form an integral part of the Internet Marketing Ecosystem providing some very serious and far reaching benefits. With a right Internet marketing strategy implemented by a professional Internet Marketing Ageny NGOs stand to gain. With effective SEO (Search Engine Optimization) more Non-profits can gain visibility on search engines and free SEM (Search Engine Marketing) makes way for enhancing marketing ROI.

As we continue to do our bit for society we call upon businesses big and small and individuals who believe in contributing to society to pitch in and help NGO’s, Non-profits and charitable organizations gain from the Internet. If you would like to fund a website for a non-profit kindly mail us on support@virtualsnipers.com

The fact is, planning a website, hiring a professional web design agency and ultimately putting up a website is just the beginning. It’s the beginning of road to success and calls for little knowledge of Internet Marketing Strategies and techniques. The website design process itself involves Navigation and usability design, Content planning, page planning, customer experience process planning and many such aspects which a professional website design agency like us can help you with. Remember, when you start a website you are laying the foundation of a business in the online world.

Once your website is live you need to get visitors, engage them to achieve your business objectives and keep up with competition. Now isn’t that similar to the way you would run an offline business. Yes! Its almost similar except that your approach to marketing need to be re-tuned to suit the new medium.  Internet marketing services like Content writing, SEO (search engine optimisation), SEM (search engine marketing), SMM (Social Media Marketing), branding etc are required to succeed. All these coupled with personal branding are required at times to generate higher ROI from Internet marketing budgets.

Therefore success with your website calls for investing time and money in Internet marketing. The ROI can be phenomenal but the efforts need to be such as well. You will need expertise which we provide our clients.

So before you decide to go ahead with web design or Internet marketing get yourself a good service provider who can educate you on the nuances of internet marketing and grow with you. An agency like us will provide your value for money solutions. And whatever you do dont think about using cheap webdesign and cheap SEO services or fall prey to ridiculous offers. You may never be able to reverse the adverse affects of cheap implementation.

With an aim to help businesses and entrepreneurs who want to make informed decisions I am writing this post.

There is general belief that everything is negotiable and this has resulted in many Internet Marketing Service providers and individuals buckling under pressure to keep their businesses running. This has lead a mushrooming of so called custom SEO solutions at cheap rates. And that’s what they are cheap solutions. Cheap has never meant quality and quality of seo is very important for success. An experienced SEO professional will tell you that effort needed for developing an SEO strategy, Planning and resource mobilisation for implementation is almost like setting up a micro enterprise. The quality of manpower is an important part of seo implementation. Those in business already know the effect of poor quality manpower and the resultant impact on business.

In the race to find the best solutions at the best prices sometimes. One gets carried away resulting your websites being banned, blacklisted and shot down by search engines. In many cases you are not provided the right problem and this always land up with the wrong solution. That is what really happens when you choose price over knowledge and experience. The truth is that good SEO cannot some cheap. While the definition of cheap may differ from organisation to organisation we all essentially understand what cheap means.

Cheap SEO solutions may mess up your website. The quick solutions to try to convince you will mostly be short term quick fixes and black hat jobs. And before you realise the long term implications you will be hitched and pushed deeper in the quick fix chasm. You should know that it’s not always possible to fix up your site after it has been messed up and if it can be rectified it will means loads of time which in turn will burn more money for you.

Its like buying an expensive laptop and then buying a cheap flea market backpack to protect it. Imagine if you had a high end DSLR and you were to carry it in a plastic bag. What would happen?

What you need a company with good professionals who have the right skill sets to ensure that the right Search Engine Optimisation solutions are implemented. Thanks for reading, hope this helped. If you need SEO you know how to Contact Us .

I have mentioned in my earlier posts how and why SEO should not be ignored. It is an inseparable part of Internet Marketing. It is indeed the low cost avenue to get relevant prospects from the internet. While all SEO companies claim that they do follow white hat approach it may not be easy for you to verify unless you have some basic knowledge about seo. I am aiming that this post will help you do that and take some informed decisions while selecting an SEO agency / professional.

Let’s get started then. White Hat SEO is the set of methods that are search engine approved and appreciated ways of optimizing your website and driving traffic to it. The idea is to follow the rules laid down by search engines in an attempt to gain a higher ranking for select keywords for your domain and website pages, thereby increasing organic visitors and higher ROI for business.

White Hat SEO techniques continue to be developed and good SEO companies like us who understand the value of slow and steady seo implementation will be best to guide your business’s future on the internet. Let’s look at some white hat methods.

Building Internal Links – this is a very important method to ensure that the website visitor is guiding to relevant content on the website. Internal linking refers to the practice of linking relevant page/s on a website using relevant keywords in the content or as links placed on the page. Search engine spiders are able to use these links to browse the site better because it tells them that your site has relevant interconnected content worthy of the visitor.

Content creation – Today every good SEO practitioner knows the value of fresh, relevant unduplicated content. We as an Internet Marketing Services Agency have deployed a team of content writers who ensure that the right content is churned out for our clients. Content planning is an important part of SEO strategy and we start on the plans right from the website designing stage. In case of existing sites we have had to change the content architecture to ensure seo friendliness. Adding fresh content at frequent intervals with relevant keywords, correct keyword density and smart internal links ensure that the site ranks high on the search engines relevancy list. A blog on the website is one of the best ways on adding regular content. This allows a business to establish its authority as also builds on the credibility factor.Building Links (Backlinks / inbound links) – Should just go for a link from a website? The answer is a BIG no. Getting a link back to your site great but you must look for more than just the link. Does the website have any relevance to the product / service you are providing, does it have a similar target audience base, will it allow you to post highly relevant content about your website, and does it have a good page rank (this rubs off on your site as well). Generating proper backlinks will allow for more Google juice for your website and that in turn will lead to faster movement up the ranking ladder. Think about the website visitor whenever you are building backlinks.

Backlinks or inbound links are an important part of the seo process but the manner in which these are implemented define the approach. One of the methods of generating backlinks involves posting highly relevant content on the site as also off it in an attempt to drive the user from that content to the website. Good content gets visitors and also gets shared leading to link promotion across the internet which in turn drives more visitors to the website via the content. This process is pretty exhaustive and time consuming but is the correct way. Site popularity is definitely affected by backlinks but not by the links generated by the black hat type link farming where you will risk your website and your business.

Tags and Codes – Yes each website page has a series of codes many of which are not implemented by inexperienced website design and seo practitioners. Alt tags for images, Meta tags for keywords, description, and title are all very necessary to tell the search engines all about the page you have hosted. This ensures better indexing and thus helps search engines show relevant results to users.

There is one more debated white hat technique called Reciprocal Linking. Debated because there is a thin line between the two seo methods based on the seo strategy selected. Reciprocal linking refers to exchanging links with other webmasters to get additional incoming links to your site. There are many different lines of thought about reciprocal linking among SEO practitioners today and hence this method has lost its value but still has some place in the SEO strategy. Intelligent reciprocal link building will survive the black hat seo test.

URL Structure – many times this small bit gets ignored. But it is important to ensure that each page of your website has a search engine friendly URL structure with keywords built and with the right kinds of parameters for search engines to index.

Site map submissions are another important aspect of SEO which must be followed on a regular basis. Using your webmaster account effectively, implementing analytics to regularly monitor data.

Matt Cutts in his blog in response to some magazine article said, “To Google, SEO only becomes spam when it goes against our quality guidelines and moves into things like hidden text, hidden links, cloaking, or sneaky redirects.” After that Google has made many more algorithmic changes to ensure relevancy despite the new black hat techniques and rightly so.

Happy Search Marketing.

While SEO can be approached in many ways what needs to be clearly understood is the difference between the right and the wrong. The terminologies to do Search optimisation wrt to Internet Marketing Services are called the ‘White hat’ method and the ‘Black hat’ method. I am sure the words White and Black have clearly communicated what each method stands for.

I will delve in the Black Hat Method in this post and then visit the White Hat SEO in my next.

Many a times in business one takes decisions which would either harm competitors (websites in this case) or many a times harm your own websites while attempting to topple competition, such an approach to gain what we call Google Juice (An important bunch of reasons why Google thinks yours is an important website to rank) is the predominant feature of Black hat SEO. It is a practice which is not liked by search engines and SEO practitioners. The biggest risk is that your website can be banned from the search engines listings and THAT will surely hurt because even today a very high number of users do use search engines to search, research, compare and buy products and services.

Needless to say getting banned by search engines will hurt your organizations Image which no businessman would ever want. Reputation and credibility are critical to succeed in an online business. Thus the better way is to go steady with a good strategy and a good SEO agency who know the difference between black hat seo and white hat SEO techniques and will follow the right search engine optimisation methods for your website. Customisation is the key to success in any Internet Marketing plan.

So what’s the stuff that qualifies as the unwanted Black Hat methods.

*Inserting Invisible Texts on web-pages so that they are only visible to search engines and not to the visitors of the website.*

* Keyword Spamming – Over Stuffing Keywords on site pages just because it means more content and more keywords. No doubt it’s an arty thing for a content writer but what about the visitor who has to bear with the unsolicited text. Think reputation when doing this please!!*

*Creating irrelevant pages whose objective is to lead to other pages. One of the key aspects of SEO is to interlink website content. This is to ensure that spiders are able to find all the pages on the website index them. Such pages are also termed as doorway pages which are merely put up as dummies which the website users would never find.

There are more techniques and I would not be wrong in presuming that many new techniques are being developed.

What you need to do is to steer clear of any Search Engine Optimisation techniques that Break search engine norms, present data or content unethically, present a different page to the visitor as compared to what is shown to search engine spiders or create a poor environment for the user who could turn into a prospect.

Risk being banned by the Search Engines or enjoy the fruits of active white hat SEO techniques forever, the choice is yours. See you on the white hat blog post soon.