5 Facts About SEO That'll Make Your Website Stand on End

To understand what people in marketing sector mean by SEO content, it’s helpful to break down the phrase into two component parts:

“SEO” refers to search engine optimization, or the process of optimizing a website so that people can easily find it via search engines like Google.
By “content,” we mean any information that lives on the web and can be consumed on the web (more on the various types of content below).

So, merging these concepts together: SEO content is any content created with the goal of attracting search engine traffic. Have you tried before?

On the other side, in SEO there are different types of search i.e. academic search, video search, local search and pictures search. The web marketing strategy implies that on what people search for in a search engine, target audience liked which search engines, and how a search engine basically works?
Here, I’m not going to talk about every single point of optimizing your content for search engines; that’s a whole ‘other tell you everything you guide. But here’s a super-quick refresher on what you’ll need to do in order to SEO your web content:

Keyword Research: If you want to generate traffic through search, it’s best to do keyword research before you start writing. This way, you can focus on keywords for which a certain amount of search volume already exists – in other words, write toward topics that people are already searching for information about.

Keyword Optimization: Know where and how to use keywords in your content for maximum searchability. (SEOMoz offers a great guide to on-page optimization.)

Content Organization: The content on your site should be organized in a logical way. This is not only good for SEO, it also helps visitors on your site find other related content easily. (The longer they stay on your site, the better.)

Content Promotion: Increase visibility to new content you create by sharing it on social networks and building links to your content (both internally and from external sites).

Once you have decided to create a website, you will need to hire a SEO optimization services, where available, which can then plan to start or redesign your site and the existing site. Make sure you ask for their portfolio, as well as references and also make sure that SEO, Google's Webmaster Guidelines.

Search engine optimization is a lengthy process, which includes both on-site and off-site optimization of your website or blog. In this article I will discuss the five easy steps to do the following On-Page SEO process that can make a huge difference in search engine listings to your blog or website. Keep in mind that these steps are but a small part of the SEO process and do not necessarily guarantee their highest ranking in search engines. Think of these steps, such as your driver's license, what. Now, when you have it you can drive, but you still have a long way to go before you're actually good.

1st Optimize your pages the name of the Pages

Changing the name of the pages that are search engine optimized is the first step to quickly improve SERPs position in search results pages.) Page name must be over 60 to 70 characters long, unique, descriptive, and must be targeted to specific keywords in the page. The names must also be attractive and easy to read and understand the audience that is actively looking for your services or products. A good look at the competition and keyword research is essential before deciding on names.

2nd Optimize your meta description and headings

The header and meta description as well as the name of the HTML elements that appear on the web page header. This is additional information on the web page that contains the clearest and most importantly, that the search engines. Meta description is very important is often overlooked these days. These species can not be a strong search engine optimization process for, but they are used by search engines as a brief description of the page. This description is what users see when they look at your page search engine listings and can make them click on your page or someone else. Meta description should be about 150 characters in length, is the main object and Pages should be attractive to consumers.

3rd The internal reference

Internal links are the way that all pages of your site or blog is to connect with one another. Starting from the landing page to create links to all other relevant pages of your visitors and directing toward the juice (page rank). Use keywords as anchor text, links and try to put links in context.

4th Optimizing the content of the page

One of the most important steps in SEO copy writing is designed to try to optimize, and then select the users that are actively looking for a list of keywords. Once you have your final keywords or key phrases that you choose to optimize, add them to their context, the title and meta tags. But do not spam!

5th Use SEO Optimization Tools

Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytic to monitor site progress. In the online world can find many tools that can help you search engine optimize your site. Sure you use a browser plug-ins or extensions, as they may prove to be very useful for SEO.

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Doing Generate Website Traffic The Right Way

If you are providing online services or you have a business need to grow, I would say you should concentrate on the strategy that increase website traffic and get more hits to website pages. No matter how cool your site or how fabulous your product, you're not going to generate enough sales to make your business viable unless you can generate traffic. You have to get the word out about your site and give people a reason to visit it, or else you'll go the way of the dinosaur.

When there are more people visiting your website and online sales pages, you have a greater opportunity to expand your database of customers and generate revenue by selling more of your products and services. The good news is, there are lots of ways to effectively advertise your site online and drive tons of qualified traffic to your site, all for free! And by qualified, I mean people who belong to your target market and who are most likely to buy the products or services you offer. These are the people you want coming to your site.

Free website traffic is not actually free in the sense that you have done nothing for it. Although you have not paid any money to anyone, the website traffic will have cost you an element of time and effort to get results. Here are 3 easy ways to increase website traffic without it costing you any money.

1. Traffic From Search Engines.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the organic, or natural, search results which are listed on the search engines results pages and show up because of their relevance to the search terms to your online business. The websites that continuously increase website traffic are the ones that regularly produce high quality content. Take the time to learn how to choose keywords, optimize title tags, get backlinks, other SEO fundamentals but primarily focus your attention on creating high quality content. For example, you can;

- Submit your site to the free search engines and online directories.
- Optimize your web site so that it's easily indexed by search engine spiders.
- Pay close attention to your keyword inclusion and placement.
- Create content-rich "information pages" to direct traffic to your site.

2. Partnering With Websites That Are Related To Yours.

Another great way to get website traffic free is to partner with other websites in your marketplace. Let's say your website is about outsourcing. You could offer to write free content for websites that provide cloud services or virtual machines. All you ask for in return is a link back to your website.

 

Next, you might do a joint video series with other outsourcing vendors or experts on how to enhance organization service and performance by adopting outsourcing strategy. In fact, you could even do a video series where you interview experts on different elements of the service. You could create a free ebook or PDF articles about outsourcing strategy. Obviously, the ebook will have your name on it, with a link back to your website.

3. Business networking communities

Business networking communities has a positive impact on generating traffic by allowing their members to create personal profile pages with links to their main business sites. These links can improve a site's ranking with the major search engines.

If you decide to join a networking community, be sure to partner with people whose businesses are complementary to your own. Their sites have to attract visitors who are likely to become your customers as well. Here are some businesses networking communities you may want to check out:

* LinkedIn
* Spoke 

4. Blogging.

A blog is a website or web page where you write information, facts or opinions on a regular basis for a specific target audience. You can build an online audience by publishing information regularly for people who are interested in what you have to say. If you write an interesting blog it will help to generate free website traffic because readers will keep coming back to the blog to read updates. They will also pass the information onto to their friends and colleagues in the industry.

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How Blue Ocean is The Answer To Stand Out Your Business in Crowded Market

When we are planning to establish any business we need to put a plan and strategy about the way that we are moving away from direct competition and create your own model of that business. Is this foolish, or we need to tell ourselves there always small niches that need to be filled in this market.

When I sit with many of friends who have business, actually small business and ask them about their competition, they usually tell me they are offering a similar service to their prospective customers or clients, as they do. And that is just one of the challenges they are competing against.

I would say, to market your business successfully, you need to address your niche in all the areas of competition. You need a marketing strategy, to ensure people know how good you are, before they buy from you or hire you. You need a marketing strategy, to make it easier for them to switch to you than to stay with their current, under-performing provider. You need a marketing strategy, to increase your visibility to prospective clients and customers.

I don’t say just because there is no one selling a particular product or service doesn't mean it's automatically a good idea to try and address your business to that direction. Conversely, a competitively crowded industry shows that demand exists, as well as a viable market. The key to business success isn't finding an empty field, but defining your company narrowly—no matter how crowded a marketplace you're entering.

In this article I would like to talk about how to differentiate in the market and grow a successful business. There are many ways you can differentiate your business, for instance, how Starbucks revolutionized the coffee shop by selling an experience rather than just a beverage. In educational sector American University of Sharjah (AUS) now is a leading educational institution in the Gulf and region. In web media I would suggest Mashable, the company didn’t reach millions of people by accident. They are increased their traffic to millions of visitors.

Therefore, I would strongly say no matter how crowded a market is, you should never allow it to intimidate and discourage you from achieving your goals. Each industry, regardless of how crowded it may seem still has room for one more entrepreneur as long as you are willing to invest and work harder to succeed.

In 2008 I have built a big medical directory web platform that provides healthcare online services for all United Arab Emirates people www.uaemd.net and my goals was to enabling potential customers, when I built the website my goal was to provide valuable health information, tools for managing health profile in all category, and support to those who seek information.

So you should not relax in any small achievement. Keep working towards being a trendsetter in the industry, park away from red ocean and you will stand out from the crowd. Even if you are offering a common product or service like my friends, you should find ways of redefining or creating a model that make it afresh.

Red Ocean and Blue Ocean

Today, it is more difficult in any market to create value in red oceans, but Blue Oceans will eventually become red, as the industry slides into maturity and structures become less flexible. In red oceans, value is limited, as direct competition among players inhibits any exceptional creation of value. Only the best organizations are able to generate value in Red Ocean. I would therefore say any business must create consumer demand and exploit untapped markets, (remember my article about "Position Mapping" in Marketing!). According to this strategy, companies are required to ‘create’ a demand for a particular product and as long as there is a need for it from consumers and the companies continue making profits, more vendors will arrive on the market to serve that need.  Why, because everyone is able to break even and continue in the market.

By Blue Ocean you invent and capture new demand, and you will find a new way to offer your customers a leap in value while also streamlining your costs. What are the results? I assure you for handsome profits, speedy growth—and brand equity that lasts for decades while rivals scramble to catch up.

Come up with creative ways of serving such a significant portion of the market. This works well if you find the right niche and you are a latecomer in a market that is already crowded.

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Let the Content and Keywords Enhance Your Business and Driving Profit!

Pull Up People to Your Website

People usually looking for a content that answers questions or provides information related to your products or services etc.. may not looking for what you offer at that moment. Do the best job you can to unobtrusively let people know what you offer as they look at this type of content on your website. 

For instance, your website is considers step one that makes it easy for people to see what you what offer. You can also make people aware of your products or services your offer with messages in your or reviews and testimonials in your website.  It can be a key content element because they are unbiased comments that prompt visitors to buy.  Here’s another example of providing related information on a website. 

I was planning to do some research about stocks market, and dig deeply to find out the best tools we should focus on as investors when using fundamental analysis and technical analysis specially after the shares fall in global market! . I searched on these tools and strategy requirement to keep shares in safe and get a clear picture about what investors should do when they face such as this unexpected scenarios, and found a very good website to use database with different tools and solutions such as charting, fundamentals, indicators and training. While investors use that database, they are also understand core concepts of the stocks market, and enable them to always make informed decisions about where their money will go. 

I’ll bet in their keyword research they saw people and investors searching for shares analysis and tools requirements and that prompted them to create this database on their website.

Content About Related Information

In the same time, I would like to raise most important point about attract people in the way that makes them like what you publish or write in your website. You can answer some of the questions you see being asked in your keyword research with relevant articles.  If manage a university website, for example, and see people or students are asking various questions about university graduate programs and courses duration, you might write an article that answers the questions. You can link to the article from appropriate product category pages and announce it via your social venues.  Article marketing can be a keystone to a content strategy for many markets. You can host some of your articles on your website while marketing some articles to other web venues.

Sell Your Image On These Pages

One of my friends who provides services have websites that provide only general information about the services that his company offers. When I sat with his marketers team to find out what is the best solution to let people find his website and start interact with the services he offer, I asked them we should we should check the perform keyword research, and then find out if people in the industries and markets our clients’ serve are searching on phrases related to their specific markets.  I found there are many searches being performed for their service within the industries they serve. However, nowhere on his company site did they talk about any of these industries.  So we decided to start rolling out pages of content focused on each of the industries they serve. First, we examine a massive of keywords in a PPC campaign to learn which keywords to focus on. Then I recommended to create a new webpage to focus on that industry.  After that I asked them to build useful articles that relates with these industry in sections, maybe helpful guides and resources, case studies, testimonials, videos etc. This content should not only help their organic visibility, but should help increase conversions to leads at the same time.  In addition, much of this content can be used or promoted on other web venues such as the social sites with which they participate.

Nab The Search Engine

On the other hand, we need to tell search engines where our business is. We can do this by submitting our company site details to search engines. This doesn’t guarantee a better position in the results, but it certainly helps. Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft all have a facility to submit a list of all the pages in your site.

Improve Your SEO

Discoverability means telling the world about your site. Get your website out there; communicate with the online world and your users. And finally, crawlability means making the site accessible and easily navigating to every one of your webpages, without encountering an unexpected dead-end. Help the search engine crawlers find every page on your site and make sure they can understand what they’re seeing.

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International SEO Strategy To Boost Your Business Abroad!

If companies and businesses in Canada planning to reach the rapidly expanding abroad, increasingly sophisticated international internet audience, they must get smarter about international search engine optimization.

I don’t mean the traditional and domestic SEO, I am talking about international version boosts the likelihood that a particular website will rise to the top of search results, thereby enabling increased conversion rates.

The challenge internationally is to sketch out a clear plan and select the right SEO strategies for an enormous number of locales, cultural norms and languages. For those creating and implementing an international SEO program, it’s helpful to adhere to three key principles.

Know the international SEO needs before publish it abroad.

International SEO is instrumental in helping businesses get found online and ensuring your visitors or potential visitors stick around once they land on your site. 

Don’t make your international SEO strategy as step two. It should be part of your planning process from the moment you decide to expand internationally.
That planning process begins with keyword research. Determine what keywords your target customers are likely to use. Will they search for your products using the exact translation, or are there local slang terms you need to know?

This information is essential to developing an international website that is optimized for the key factors evaluated by search engine algorithms: meaningful, fresh content that is keyword-specific; descriptive tagging; rich media; social media distribution plans; and internal and external links.

Don’t make global SEO a follow-up item on your globalization to-do list. It should be embedded in every step of the marketing and sales strategy.

Monitor and update your content periodically and continuously.

You should pay close attention to content that is changing regularly and to keywords used in your business website. If you’re not seeing any results, means there is something wrong and you need to consider updating your keywords and track the impact the changes have on your rankings. Make sure you re-submit your website for indexing every time you make a change to ensure your changes are captured by the relevant search engines.

Align your SEO strategy with social media activity.

If SEO and social media work in different directions and don't communicate nearly enough, they can't form a well-coordinated, comprehensive International marketing plan. Therefore, it's extremely important that SEO is integrated into social media activity. What follows are some specific tactics that can be used to increase the impact that your social media activities have on International SEO performance.

To break into promising regions in the Americas, Europe and Asia, companies need to focus on above principles to all of their electronic communication points with customers and therefore maximizing their prospects for success

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How To Drive Your Website to Achieve Your Business Goals

One of my friends (Heather) is working real estate managing director in Canada. She had worked with a team to redesign company project. The website launched with lovely look and whistles that created by a company graphics designer – but his call was relating with an issue that impact company’s website and was calling me to help with a problem. !!

The problem is - Her beautiful new website wasn’t getting many visitors!  - Please Yasser we need your suggestion.

“Why don’t people want to visit our lovely website and check the properties list and other promotions we have there?” Heather wailed, genuinely puzzled that the results of her intensive efforts weren’t as rosy as she had expected when the redesigned the website.

From the first glance I knew what the problem is, but I couldn't point out where is the defect and I had to soften the impact, and gently explain what went wrong.

Together, we quickly checked the site’s ranking on Google for her top 50 keywords.  They weren’t anywhere in the top 10 results. Or even 20.  You see, the not-so-apparent reason for the ‘failed’ website was the lack of something essential for both higher search engine rankings, and to enhance the visitor experience which can convert a prospect into a customer.  What’s that, you ask? 

Heather’s company new website, though visually appealing and technology-rich, was sorely lacking in a well-planned information architecture and website structure.  But you will ask what “information architecture” is? And how does “website structure” differ from design? 

I would define “information architecture” The art and way of organizing and labeling websites, intranets, online communities, and web plugins to support usability and fundability.”

To understand this better, imagine you strip the website from of all its clothes and look at it as skeleton, shorn of flesh and skin. Focus on the basic fundamentals of building the page from shapes and strengthens it.

In computer engineering school, trainees begin by learning about computer hardware. Knowing what makes up the computer works (and later treat) hardware-software integration that not only focuses on how computer systems themselves work, but also how they integrate into the larger picture.

 

Think of your website like a cake your links, paid search, and social media acts as the icing, but your content, information architecture, content management system, and infrastructure act as the sugar and makes the cake. Without it, your cake is tasteless, boring, and gets thrown in the trash.

At the heart of understanding website structure, and planning your strategy for information architecture, lies a need to know about terms like semantic search, latent semantic indexing and SEO automation.

Semantic search is an attempt to improve search accuracy by predicting the intent of a searcher. The shift from blindly matching keywords typed into a search box against a massive database, to a more “intelligent” form of search that attempts to understand what those words actually mean to the user, has serious implications on strategic SEO for many business owners.

Latent Semantic Indexing is an indexing and retrieval method that was designed to identify patterns in the relationship between terms and concepts within any text.

By providing unique context for each search term or phrase, it ensures that a search for ‘Apple’ computers will retrieve pages with iMac or iPad on it, while a search for ‘Apple’ fruit will pull a different set of results on gardening and growing apples.

I would say, your information architecture must be based on the best ways to serve your visitor, based on an intimate understanding of ‘user logic’. For instance, good SEO begins with good keyword research. After all, if you don’t know the ways people are seeking your content, it’s pretty hard to ensure that your content “speaks” to them using the words they search for.

So for this company’s website, the primary way of organizing information was by target part of segment not by audience and by type. Because of this, I asked Heather (my friend) to modify the primary navigation and relevant page interlinking on the website. I did not discount the keyword research data. I just used the keywords in the right context.

I explained to her and to the team, that search engine optimization is optimizing a website for people who use search engines. Understanding searchers, their contexts and environments, behaviors, and intentions is just as important as understanding how search engines work.

In my opinion, if SEOs are optimizing websites without considering query classification and searcher personas, then they are optimizing more for search engines than for searchers (technology-centered optimization). Keyword classification is crucial for long-term search engine visibility and conversions.

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Do you Know What Resources You Need For Your Business Strategy?

Can you summarize your organization’s strategy or your company business’s strategy in 20 words or less? If so, would your colleagues or your partner put it the same way?

From my experience, I would say that very few executives can honestly answer these simple questions in the affirmative. And the companies that those executives or managers work for are often the most successful in their industry.  Why? Because those executives know what is long-term business planning and how they can work to achieve organization objectives. Companies that don’t have a simple and clear statement of strategy are likely to fall into the sorry category of those that have failed to execute their strategy or, worse, those that they think they have one! This in turn, has a negative impact on frontline employees, and all those in between are frustrated because no clear strategy exists for the company or its lines of business.

The kinds of complaints that abound in such firms include:
“I try for months to work in creating new online marketing campaign to our company, and then it is shut down because ‘it doesn’t fit the strategy.’ Why didn't anyone tell me that at the beginning?”

“Why are we hiring or selecting this vendor again? The vendor submitted an offer last year but did not abide on supplying, and I thought it is not worth it to waste our time and repeat same scenario."

“Should I cut the price for this customer? I don’t know if we would be better off winning the deal at a lower price or just losing the business.”

For instance, I have an experience in IT industry and digital marketing media field; I would therefore talk through this perspective and sketch out the role of IT on company strategy.

Information Technology has become a key business function for almost every organization and most have great expectations of their investment in IT for the future benefits to the business – expectations that will enable the business to:-

-Reduce costs;
-Standardize processes;
-Enhance productivity;
-Improve workflow and communications;
-Sustain repeatable service levels;
-Implement new business strategies;

Despite the growing trend towards building solid business and adoption right concept of strategic tools in a company, there are still real opportunities for IT to make a difference. But the IT contribution is less likely to take the form of the ‘killer’ application that gives specific competitive advantage – it is far more likely that the principal benefit will be derived from having robust, but adaptable, technology throughout the organization, thus facilitating an agile business strategy.

This also includes the digital marketing part and its role in company business strategy especially when we the company plans to grow the business and build up a solid reputation, for instance building a digital tools for trust-based marketing to match company’s objectives, and understanding the role of customers or target audience as a stockholder in business growing

But, if our strategy is not clearly visible – how can we ever hope to align anything with it, let alone the IT function? The answer is that we must move beyond the conceptual level of most strategic thinking, towards a practical, physical expression of the alignment process.

Quite simply, we need a tangible alignment plan that will help us to realize our ambition of complete harmony between our IT and business strategy / or our digital tools and business strategy. ( As mentioned earlier from IT and Digital Marketing aspects)

I would say, organizations that have been able to successfully integrate technology and business strategy have created significant business returns.
Information Technology (IT) and Digital Marketing has become an important enabler of business strategies in such areas of mass customization, competitive differentiation, quality improvements, and process automation and improvement.

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Direct Your Content Marketing To Be Authentic .. It is Time Now!

Last week I was lucky enough to be on of attendees in a session that hosted by Meetup group E-Business to discuss the fundamentals in the field of digital marketing and its effect in and business. And while the entire talk was informative and entertaining, one bit really stood out. He asked a good question about social media “Whether or not it’s a good idea to outsource social media”. One of the participants unequivocally said no, and pushed the need to be authentic. That idea of authenticity struck me. That word used to mean something and it seems has real impact on business. He mentioned the authenticity is still vital for a successful social media campaign, and anyone worth their salt should be striving to present an authentic voice through their social channels.

Content is a king and acceleration for the business growth!

I opened this piece with a story for a reason. I believe you will ask why Yasser Al Mimar needs to go through this part of story to open the subject. I would say, readers like to be able to connect with content, and content is still one of the best ways to keep your online marketing authentic. After all, you are producing and creating the fodder for this form of marketing, so you imbue your content with your personality and voice. It’s as close as your audience can get to talking to you, without really talking to you. That is why I believe that content is still the primary focus for social marketers.  Simply put, content is what your customers are looking for. Specifically, people want detailed and in-depth information that supports their decision to buy something from you. If you can provide this, then you have your foot in the door. Or you’ve got their feet in yours, however way you look at it.

A survey by Social Media Examiner found that 58% of marketers still rank content as their most valuable social marketing tool. Yes, there are SEO benefits to content marketing, but it trumps visuals, audio, and curated posts for reasons beyond search engine ranking – it’s an authentic representation of your voice, and a good reminder for your audience that a living, breathing, thinking person is behind the profiles that they follow.

It can be hard for any business to cultivate its voice. After all, your company isn’t a celebrity and sitting on the throne of stardom in the market place! But your brand does have a voice. And it is that voice that sets you apart from your competitors. People will follow you through your various social channels because they like that voice. So you need to work to cultivate it, and keep your presence authentic.

Good content, quick responses and an actual person to monitor and interact through your feeds will do wonders for your social marketing campaign. Authenticity isn’t just a pointless corporate buzzword– it’s the very keystone to your company’s social success.

In that day, I had discussion with one of keynote speakers and other participants. I had clarified very important point that relates with my work and business.  As webmaster and digital marketing experience, I mentioned: “Content is King.” And everyone in web marketing knows that. A website's content, even more so than its products, is what attracts visitors. People are coming to your website need to have the sign kind of interest to get wherever you are giving and delivering. 

There are two important aspects of web content. For simplicity's sake, I'll call them Quantity and Quality.

Quality means that the content should be well written and be free from those embarrassing typos that make visitors wonder if your website really knows what it's talking about. For our purposes, however, it also means that content should be rich in keywords, informative and interesting, so that the visitor feels they've learned something. Such is the power of Quality content.

Quantity, on the other hand, means that your website should be updated regularly with new content added. A visitor may return to an informational article once, or even two or three times, but if your website's content never changes, eventually, there will be no reason for him to return.

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Business Positioning And Winning Customers in Highly Competitive Markets

You know that your business is offering a great service or product, and you believe that you and your company are special, but your potential customers won't know unless you tell them, Think about it? And they won't care unless they can see how your special angle directly makes their lives easier. In the same time, you need to make sure you know how your product or service works to get customer satisfaction.

It's more than just showing the features of your products or services; you've got to explain the benefits, for instance, if your business is in the educational sector or in the technology services it’s best to slice out specific benefits that will distinguish your products or services in the market.

Therefore, a brand's "position" is where it stands relative to its competitors in the minds of customers. An important aspects of a brand's position in a products or service category is how similar or different the brand is perceived to be in comparison with other brands in the product category.

Positioning has long been acknowledged as a core branding activity (DiMingo, 1988). Positioning is the act of designing an organization's offering and image to occupy a distinctive place in the target market's mind (Kotler, 2000). For example, Samsung is positioned as the industry leader in technology. Panadol is positioned as the painkiller medicine. Walmart is positioned as lowest possible prices for retailing. Each of these brands holds a distinct position in its product category and the organization's product, promotion, distribution and pricing strategies are designed to communicate and support the brand's unique position.

I would consider the positioning decision as crucial strategic decision for a company or a brand because the position can be central to customers' perception and choice decisions. Further, since all the elements of the marketing program can potentially affect the position, it is usually necessary to apply the positioning strategy as a focus for development of the marketing program. A clear positioning strategy can ensure that the elements of the marketing program are consistent and supportive.

I have a good experience in educational sector, and for this reason I would like to input my example at the level of the higher education to clarify the role of positioning in this business.

A university that has a distinct position is able to convey to prospective students what it is and what it stands for (Lowry & Owens, 2001). By directing all of its marketing efforts towards a desired position, a university maintains a coherence and unity in its activities and establishes a specific image (Lowry & Owens, 2001). Effective positioning focuses in what the target market perceives is important and not necessarily what university administrators believe is significant (Lowry & Owens, 2001).

For instance, AUS (American University of Shariah) is one of the organizations in Middle East that offers services which is not intended to make a monetary profit. AUS one of the top universities ranking in the region and it jumps to 390 in world university rankings.

Positioning results from the specific way in which the four key marketing variables of product, price, promotion, and place (referred to as the 4 Ps) are managed (Lowry & Owens, 2001). In a collegiate environment, product becomes academic programs and services, price is tuition and financial aid, promotion is the communications program, and place refers to the delivery system for academic programs (Lowry & Owens, 2001). The size of a school, class sizes, and the student faculty ratio are important elements of the academic delivery system (Lowry & Owens, 2001). The advertising, public relations, admissions materials, and other promotions of the institution should be coordinated to make a unified positioning statement (Lowry & Owens, 2001).

Based on that, the university works to create its position in terms of student’s quality, community, faculty and staff qualification and skills, program, service and facilities. I have sketched out below a diagram with positioning map that has three categories (competitors, attributes and segments)

The most frequently used positioning base is associating the brand with a particular attribute, product feature, or user benefit. For example, Columbia College of Chicago positions itself on the attribute of innovation in the arts with its positioning slogan "create ... change"

Organizations are often tempted to position themselves along multiple attributes. However, positioning strategies that involve a number of attributes can lead to a diluted brand position and confusion in the minds of consumers.

In the positioning map I drew for example, 

GS Style layers are always looking for excellent benefit which includes “Academic Program and Services “. Parents or Guardians of students don’t focus on the price (tuition and fees) versus quality and services; also they prefer safe place with sustain environment to enhance their children for optimal use of energy and learn how to live healthy and sustainable. In the contrast we see UOWD also contain GS segment because some parents are usually seeking for moderate tuition and fees and moderate quality of education

One more important thing which is considered a key element in positioning your business in the market place, it is to monitor the organization's position over time and make adjustments to the marketing strategy as may become necessary. In some instances, companies find it necessary to reposition their brands when either the company fails to achieve the desired position in consumers' minds or when the positioning base is no longer important to consumers. From my perspective American University of Shariah needs more work to market its product or service to its customers or clients. In positioning, the marketing department creates an image for the product based on its intended audience, and this is what AUS should do to enhance its position in the educational market place and differentiate from its competitors 

To sum up, I would strongly say if a university is able to establish a distinctive position relative to its competitors, it enhances its ability to maintain or increase enrollments.

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Going With Fresh Content is A Key For Successful SEO

In 2003, engineers at Google filed a patent that would rock the SEO world. Named Document Scoring Based on Document Content Update, the patent not only offered insight into the mind of the world’s largest search engine, but provided an accurate road map of the path Google would take for years to come.

Google Team have came up with Google’s Freshness Update, which places greater emphasis on returning fresher web content for certain queries. Exactly how Google determines freshness was brilliantly explored by Justin Briggs in his analysis of original Google patents. Justin deserves a lot of credit for bringing this analysis to light and helping to inspire this post.

Although the recent Freshness Update received a lot of attention, in truth Google has scored content based on freshness for years.

How Google Scores Fresh Content

Google Fellow Amit Singhal explains that “Different searches have different freshness needs.”

The implication is that Google measures all of your documents for freshness, then scores each page according to the type of search query. While some queries need fresh content, Google still uses old content for other queries (more on this later.)

Singhal describes the types of keyword searches most likely to require fresh content:

-- Recent events or hot topics: “occupy oakland protest” “nba lockout”
-- Regularly recurring events: “NFL scores” “dancing with the stars” “exxon earnings”
-- Frequent updates: “best slr cameras” “subaru impreza reviews”

Google’s patents offer incredible insight as to how web content can be evaluated using freshness signals, and rankings of that content adjusted accordingly.

Understand that these are not hard and fast rules, but rather theories consistent with patent filings, experiences of other SEOs, and experiments performed over the years. Nothing substitutes for direct experience, so use your best judgement and feel free to perform your own experiments based on the information below.

1. Freshness by Inception Date

A webpage is given a “freshness” score based on its inception date, which decays over time. This freshness score can boost a piece of content for certain search queries, but degrades as the content becomes older.

The inception date is often when Google first becomes aware of the document, such as when Googlebot first indexes a document or discovers a link to it.

2. Document Changes (How Much) Influences Freshness

The age of a webpage or domain isn’t the only freshness factor. Search engines can score regularly updated content for freshness differently from content that doesn’t change. In this case, the amount of change on your webpage plays a role.

For example, the change of a single sentence won’t have as big of a freshness impact as a large change to the main body text.

3. The Rate of Document Change (How Often) Impacts Freshness

Content that changes more often is scored differently than content that only changes every few years. In this case, consider the homepage of the New York Times, which updates every day and has a high degree of change.

"For example, a document whose content is edited often may be scored differently than a document whose content remains static over time. Also, a document having a relatively large amount of its content updated over time might be scored differently than a document having a relatively small amount of its content updated over time."

4. Freshness Influenced by New Page Creation

Instead of revising individual pages, websites add completely new pages over time. This is the case with most blogs. Websites that add new pages at a higher rate may earn a higher freshness score than sites that add content less frequently.

Some SEOs insist you should add 20-30% new pages to your site every year. This provides the opportunity to create fresh, relevant content, although you shouldn’t neglect your old content if it needs attention.

"UA may also be determined as a function of one or more factors, such as the number of “new” or unique pages associated with a document over a period of time. Another factor might include the ratio of the number of new or unique pages associated with a document over a period of time versus the total number of pages associated with that document."

5. Changes to Important Content Matter More

Changes made in “important” areas of a document will signal freshness differently than changes made in less important content. Less important content includes navigation, advertisements, and content well below the fold. Important content is generally in the main body text above the fold.

 Boilerplate Changes Count Less for Freshness      "…content deemed to be unimportant if updated/changed, such as Javascript, comments, advertisements, navigational elements, boilerplate material, or date/time tags, may be given relatively little weight or even ignored altogether when determining UA." 

6. Rate of New Link Growth Signals Freshness

If a webpage sees an increase in its link growth rate, this could indicate a signal of relevance to search engines. For example, if folks start linking to your personal website because you are about to get married, your site could be deemed more relevant and fresh (as far as this current event goes.)  That said, an unusual increase in linking activity can also indicate spam or manipulative link building techniques. Be careful, as engines are likely to devalue such behavior.

"…a downward trend in the number or rate of new links (e.g., based on a comparison of the number or rate of new links in a recent time period versus an older time period) over time could signal to search engine 125 that a document is stale, in which case search engine 125 may decrease the document’s score."

7. Links from Fresh Sites Pass Fresh Value

Links from sites that have a high freshness score themselves can raise the freshness score of the sites they link to.  For example, if you obtain a link off an old, static site that hasn’t been updated in years, this doesn't pass the same level of freshness value as a link from a fresh page – for example, the homepage of Wired.com. Justin Briggs coined this FreshRank.

"Document S may be considered fresh if n% of the links to S are fresh or if the documents containing forward links to S are considered fresh."

8. Changes in Anchor Text Signals may Devalue Links

If a website changes dramatically over time, it makes sense that any new anchor text pointing to the page will change as well.

For example, If you buy a domain about automobiles, then change the format to content about baking, over time your new incoming anchor text will shift from cars to cookies.

In this instance, Google might determine that your site has changed so much that the old anchor text is no longer relevant, and devalue those older links entirely.

"The date of appearance/change of the document pointed to by the link may be a good indicator of the freshness of the anchor text based on the theory that good anchor text may go unchanged when a document gets updated if it is still relevant and good."  

9. User Behavior Indicates Freshness

What happens when your once wonderful content becomes old and outdated? For example, your website hosts a local bus schedule... for 2009. As content becomes outdated, folks spend less time on your site. They press the back button to Google's results and choose another URL. 

Google picks up on these user behavior metrics and scores your content accordingly.

"If a document is returned for a certain query and over time, or within a given time window, users spend either more or less time on average on the document given the same or similar query, then this may be used as an indication that the document is fresh or stale, respectively."

Conclusion:

The goal of a search engine is to return the most relevant results to users. For your part, this requires an honest assessment of your own content. What part of your site would benefit most from freshness?

Old content that exists simply to generate page views, but accomplishes little else, does more harm than good for the web. On the other hand, great content that continually answers a user's query may remain fresh forever.

Be fresh. Be relevant. Most important, be useful.



Source: Cyrus Shepard to Advanced SEO

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