Daily Archives: July 20, 2019

1. SECURITY
This is an extremely important feature. There needs to be high cyber security to ensure that no user data like credit card information gets stolen. When going through the transaction process, there should not be any sort of breaches; the pathway should be secure. One of the ways to establish security is to change the prefix in the address of your website from ‘http’ to ‘https’ after purchasing a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate. This helps avoid online frauds and keeps user’s data safe. Having ‘https’ also boosts your website’s search engine rankings.
2. MOBILE-FRIENDLINESS
Another feature that boosts SEO rankings and essential to an E-Commerce website. You might get customers who would want to shop on the go rather than going home, switching on their computers and then shop. Your website must be able to adapt to any kind of device it runs on to provide a user-friendly experience. Over two billion people use their smartphones to make some sort of online transaction. Another reason to go mobile friendly is that Google penalizes websites that are not mobile friendly.
3.REVIEWS
Whilst shopping, customers are not just going to buy products. One of the factors that affect their decision when purchasing something is the reviews. Customers trust reviews. Do not filter out the negative comments. Negative comments are actually beneficial to your business. Bill Gates once quoted, “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning”.
4. LOADING TIME
Optimize your source code, cut down on loading time and make your website as fast possible. If a webpage takes more than three seconds to load, then bounce rates soars. Google has taken speed into consideration as well when indexing websites. 79% of online customers have said that any minor setback in terms of speed or performance that has occurred affects their decision on returning to the website. Web Tools like Google PageSpeed Insights or KeyCDN calculates the speed and performance of your website and gives a detailed report on what’s slowing your website down.
5. NAVIGATION & USER-FRIENDLINESS
Your website should be user-friendly and easy to navigate through. The customer should be able to reach their destination with a minimal number of clicks. Navigation and user-friendliness improve the overall experience and increases sales. Your website should be as organized as possible. Use easy to read font and font size, display all essential tabs, include a search bar which has the feature of autofill as well and try not to clutter everything in on the main page. For example, if a user is shopping for electronics, sub-categories for electronics can be displayed.
6. CHATBOTS
Suppose, a customer has a question about your product or website but does not have the time to call customer service, that’s where a chatbot comes in handy. A chatbot can help improve your website’s conversion rates and increases engagement. A chatbot does not overwhelm the customer with too much text or complication, it is straightforward. With the development of AI, chatbots have huge potential to propel your business. According to an Oracle Survey, “80% of businesses said they currently use or are planning to use chatbots by 2020”.
7. OFFERS
No customer can resist special offers once they see it. It motivates the customers to buy something. Even if this does not convert into a sale, the engagement time with your website increases. Not only does this boost your sales, but also your search engine ranking.
8. REGION & LANGUAGE
You can provide the option for a change of country within that region. This makes it more convenient for customers, makes it user friendly and improves the overall experience.
9. A WISH-LIST
A wish list allows users to bookmark the items they intend to buy in the future. Consequently, it reduces shopping cart abandonment rates. So, when the same customers return to the website for shopping, they are reminded of what they were planning on purchasing. This brings in more sales and allows the website to analyze customer interests. Customers can even share their wish list with friends and family allowing them to purchase the items for the customer. Not only does this boost sales, but traffic as well.
10. Social Media
Try bringing your business in to the top social media platforms. Users can discover your brand from these different social media platforms. One section of your website should display the company’s social media handles. This allows users to get in touch with you, share the company profile on their social media accounts and help bring in more traffic. You can even post fun videos and pictures, advertisments and share the latest merch on these accounts. It forms a connection with your customers.

Instagram is a social networking app made for sharing photos and videos from a smartphone.

Here are some interesting facts about Instagram you should know.

1. Instagram officially has 1 Billion monthly active users.
2. 500 Million users are active daily.
3. 88% of the users are outside the U.S.
4. 22% of the users log in at least once a day.
5. 38% of the users check Instagram multiple times a day.
6. There are 95 million posts per day.
7. 25 million business profiles.
8. 60% of the users discover new products on the platform.
9. Over 200 million users visit at least one business profile every day.
10. Majority of the users are between the ages of 18 and 29.
11. One in three internet users are Instagram users.
12. 25% of smartphone owners use Instagram.
13. Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo has a whopping 174 million follower count.
14. 70% percent of hashtags are branded.
15. There is a limit of 30 hashtags that can be used.
16. The optimum number of hashtags is 11.
17. Facebook bought Instagram for 1 Billion Dollars in 2012.
18. There are about 4.2 billion likes per day.
19. Number of photos and videos uploaded per day is more than a 100 million.
20. Instagram is worth more than 100 Billion Dollars.

Source: Hashtag Social

The main goal of every website owner is to win the cyber war and emerge at the top in terms of search engine rankings. The Domain Authority (DA) score is there to assist website owners in getting there. Now, what is DA? DA checker is a software developed by Moz that measures how relevant your website is and how it will rank in a search engine result. A DA score ranges from 1-100. Does it affect your website ranking? No, it doesn’t – it predicts your website’s search engine ranking. This score gives you an idea of how strong your website is compared to other websites. So, having a higher score can mean that your website is more likely to rank higher in a search engine result.

Here are some ways to improve your DA score:
CONTENT
Make sure your page has quality and up to date content. Writing content that contains a lot of text doesn’t mean it’s good content. It should be to the point, informative and relevant to the public. Get rid of grammatical errors and sloppiness. Use images and videos to make it look more appealing. No one wants to just see a whole page of text. It becomes monotonous.
INTERNAL LINKING
Within the page content, include links that take users to your older content. But make sure that the older links are related to the current post. This helps users easily navigate through your website and gain more information. When this happens, the engagement time of your website increases. Easy navigation improves User Experience (UX) as well. Furthermore, indexing, done by the search engine, becomes easier.
ACTIVE SOCIAL MEDIA
Make sure that you have social media accounts for your business. Link these accounts to your main website. The social media buttons should be visible to the users. It becomes easier for users to share your content on social media platforms. Try increasing the number of followers on your social media pages. This is likely to improve the number of shares and in turn, boost your website traffic.
MOBILE-FRIENDLINESS
Do not restrict your website to just desktops and laptops. Make sure that your website is responsive and is compatible with any device. If your website isn’t mobile friendly, it majorly affects your DA score and even your search engine ranking. There are almost 5 billion smartphone users. So, if your page isn’t easy to read on a phone, not only does this affect your score, but you also lose out on a large percentage of audience.
TOP-LISTS
Write lists that contain the top competitors in your niche. These experts would love to see themselves being a mentioned in a ‘top – 10,20,30…’ list. Most likely they will share your article on their website or their social media accounts. They might even link your website on theirs. So, you get traffic coming in from their website and this improves your DA score.
TOXIC LINKS
Constantly check your website for broken links or links that lead to unreliable websites. Toxic links decreases UX and increases bounce rate. Users become less reliable on your website. These links hurt your DA score and your search engine ranking. It is definitely an inconvenience to check each and every link on your website, so there are several tools online that do the job for you.
SPEED
Speed of your website affects your DA score and your website ranking. Moreover, it improves UX and even your website’s conversion rate. 40% of users will wait no more than 3 seconds for a website to load. Most of the factors that affect your website speed are technical. So, it is advisable to hire an experienced web developer to help you with the same.
GUEST-POSTING
Provide guest posting services. This increases referral traffic and helps with link building. It also builds a relationship with other companies, increases your brand awareness, secures quality traffic from other websites and improves your domain authority. Guest posting is extremely beneficial to your company.

In conclusion, do not let the DA score get to your head. It just shows you whether you are on the right path or whether you need to improve on your website. There are tools online that calculate your DA score. Be sure to check your DA score periodically and work on your website accordingly.