10 Great Magento Benefits for Your Website

Everyone who is going to launch the online business sooner or later faces the choice of engine for the online store. The variety of eCommerce platforms is quite huge, but today we’ll talk about the most popular eCommerce CMS, the leader of choice and great Magento® benefits.

Focus on eCommerce

Magento is a perfect solution for eCommerce. The opportunities of this powerful platform can satisfy virtually all online store owner wishes and requirements. Magento development is a good well-thought-out solution because you can get the most necessary features and functionalities right out-of-box. The product management is automated here. Such features, as stepped filtration, grouping into sets, last viewed and added products, modules of shipping, cart, payments, feedbacks, and recommendations are accessible by default.

SEO

The search engines play ball with Magento. That’s why it’s not very difficult to lead your website to Top search positions, using the right approach and SEO tools. Automatic settings create XLS website map, which is necessary for the search robots. It has a positive influence on the website traffic and sales.

Simplicity in Management

This CMS is quite complicated, but with a qualitative web development result, the website management won’t be hard. The admin panel is user-friendly and convenient. All its elements are organized clearly and logically. So, editing the website pages and content is pretty easy. It has a great chance to become your favorite way of spending leisure time.

Advanced Catalog Features

Magento is a flexible CMS that allows the website to be user-friendly and easily customized. Comparison, reviews, ratings, and multilevel navigation help the customers to find the product they are looking for very quickly. System catalog management includes:

• approving, editing and removing product tags;
• virtual products;
• personalized products – uploading texts for monograms;
• graphic image management with the opportunity of automated resize;
• the opportunity of redirect for search results.

High Level of Security

Magento based websites are stable, secure, and high-speed. They are resistant to hacker attacks. And the greatest thing is that Magento has a massive community of web developers, who improve it day by day.

Ready Solutions

There are numerous free themes and modules for Magento that can help you to create a cool online store with minimum costs. And thanks to its extensibility, you can order any Magento custom solution, which suits exactly your goals and wishes.

High-Level Analytics and Reports

Magento has all the necessary tools for reporting and detailed analytics, which allows you to manage the website effectively based on the customers’ behavior:

• RSS feed for new orders;
• tax report;
• report on the products in the cart, which were not bought;
• report on the most viewed products;
• report on feedbacks;
• report on the best clients, who gathered more points by the number of orders;
• report on discount coupons.

Great Marketing Tools

Magento will be your reliable partner in your effective marketing strategy. If you need something for boosting your sales, customer loyalty, and the number of clients, discounts, coupons, bestsellers, novelties and other promotional things will do their best for you.

Professional Support

Magento community is developed quite well. The best experts work on this powerful CMS, and it becomes more and more flexible. There you can get an answer to almost any question. Forums, databases, wiki-resources provide you with helpful knowledge.

Grow Sales via Automated Emails

If you are an owner of the online store or just thinking about how to create the online the shop, this article is for you. Everyone will say that he would like to sell more and get more benefits. But have you ever thought about building long-term relationships with a customer? Today we’ll talk about the first step of eCommerce marketing – automated emails.

Online shops are built on the B2C model when a customer buys some product of some company. In this case, there is a very important question: how to build the relationships between one person and the whole company, especially when the number of customers is large, and you need to communicate with everyone?

The great solution is email marketing.

Email marketing is more to relationships than just sales. It’s a way of communication between the company and a customer. Using the good approach, you can build the high level of credibility and interest to your brand. You can implement it in different ways, and if you go right, it will bring many benefits. Let’s look how it works in eCommerce. And the first step you can do is to set up automated emails.

Automated Emails

“Say Hello!” Emails

The first case for automated emails is a customer’s registration in your store or blog. Maybe, you want to say hello. – Just do it! Set up automated emails, which will congratulate the customer with the signing up to your store and announce interesting things you will send him monthly or weekly. It will be the first step towards your long-term communication. And more: you do it with all your customers. It’s like the first meeting when we try to leave a good impression. And here is the first benefit:

You always keep in touch and build a long-term communication.

“Returning to a Store” Emails

Let’s imagine that you have an online bookstore based on Magento®. You get new books and have many customers. Someone views your products, chooses the book, and adds it to the shopping cart. But suddenly he stops, decides to think a bit, and goes away. Then a customer forgets about the book, and you loose him. What can you do with this?

You can send him a short reminding email, that he’s left a product in a cart, and maybe he would like to buy it. And even more: you can also promote some books, which can interest the customer. As the result, you can return the customer to your website and let him do shopping. So now are you thinking about the number of the customers who left their carts? You get a great advantage:

You return the customers to your store, and they can do shopping.

How to do this with such a large number of people? – Set up your automated emails, which the customer gets when he makes some action on the website (in this case, he adds a product to a cart and goes away). If you trust Magento, and it’s a platform of your web store, try our Abandoned cart free module.

“Thanks for the Order” Emails

Have you ever got thankful emails in some online shop? – If yes, how do you think, what the goal of such emails is? – Maybe, when you make an order or buy something in the online store, you want to be sure that your payment is accepted, and everything’s alright.

And what if we say even more? Such emails can thank, clarify the details of the order, and also show the store’s products, which can be interesting for a customer.- Yes, it really works. Your emails could be customizable. You can adjust them according to your needs and goals: send a customer something valuable, like the useful article from your blog, or a discount for the next order, or show him the most popular products from the category related to his ordered product.

But don’t forget to thank 🙂

Also, in several days after the product delivery, you can send the email with an ask to leave the feedback for your products. In such way you gather the feedback, get more traffic to your website and make the customers remember you.The main task is to make a client confident, happy, and satisfied. If the customer gets all necessary information and even some pleasantness, some other time he will return to your store again.

Let the customers be confident – they will feel your care and like your store.

The Main Idea

We have just got acquainted with automated emails and what they can do for your business. They simplify the mailing process but don’t do everything themselves. We should think out such letters carefully and make them completely friendly and valuable.

The main advantages for a customer are the following:

• such emails make him (her) confident and summarize the details;
• they create communication between a customer and a store;
• they can give exclusive opportunities (discounts, useful articles, interesting products).

As for the store owners, the benefits are evident:

• such emails simplify the communication between the whole online store a large number of customers;
• you return your customers to the store;
• you get the feedbacks and additional sales;
• the level of customer loyalty grows.

And here is the main thought: when a customer gives you an email, you get a very valuable thing. It’s like a friend who gives you a phone number. That’s why, we should appreciate this and send only qualitative content, friendly texts, and valuable information. Then we can make a step to a new level of relationships: a customer newsletter. – Let’s talk about how to become friends with a customer in the next release.

Magento 2 Improvements: Meet the Future

The future is coming. An online store becomes more and more powerful. Today we’ll look at one of the best eCommerce platforms, loved all over the world, and it’s a welcome version. Ladies and gentlemen meet Magento® 2, the open-source, innovative, and modern solution! What are the leading Magento 2 improvements, which we face while using and testing it? Let’s look at the benefits of Magento 2!

Top 5 Magento 2 Improvements

Innovative Architecture

The file structure is entirely different from the previous version. Now everything is placed right under the construction of the app. Every module has its own Views directory, which gives you the access to elements and files of any specific module.

What does it mean for you? – It allows the qualitative Magento 2 modules to be compatible with each other and core. It decreases the chance of problems and errors on the website because of the new module installation. This fact allows an administrator to upgrade the online store with minimum risk.

The new structure is a giant step forward. There is no other technology on the market now like this one. So, it happens again: Magento 2 is a market leader like Magento several years ago.

Simplified Web Development Process

With the release of Magento 2.0, the platform becomes more flexible and powerful. Magento framework is improved. Module base code makes the process of website customization more straightforward and convenient. Frontend development becomes more comfortable with Blank Theme. It provides the web developers with a stripped down version of the theme. So they need to add some features and customize their project.

One of the best Magento 2 improvements is that web development process became open. The community uses GitHub as a public development platform. So you’ll get the qualitative support from the developers if you have any issues or need a piece of advice while moving to Magento 2.

Easier Website Management and Update

Magento 2 user experience is excellent. That’s why any experienced user of Magento will be pleased with a new look of the admin panel. Backend UI now is much more comfortable and user-friendly. Users can see the statistic of each store view with the help of the Scope Filter.

A useful feature of Magento 2 is an approach to a menus system. It is grouped into two primary functions: eCommerce and System. That’s why all your menus are organized logically, more user-friendly, and you can see them in a Flat menu type. An updating process also became much easier. Now you can use Composer software to get updates directly.

Website Performance Improvements

One of the significant Magento 2 improvements is that website performance based on Magento 2 increased by 40%. The reason for such significant changes is an improvement of indexers, implementation of the own testing system, that allows creating test environments and test code changes. Also, Varnish caching technology helps to reduce the server load time. All these factors lead to the speed of growth. By the way, the high website performance can increase the conversion rate of your online store. Learn more about page loading speed and conversion.

But also it requires more server resources than Magento. The system requirements are:

• PHP 5.6
• MySQL 5.6

Magento 2 is a new release of Magento with changed architecture, better speed, and more user-friendly management process.

Shopping Cart with Ajax

A handy feature is related to a shopping cart and checkout process. In Magento 2, adding products to the cart feature is implemented with Ajax technology, so this process goes without the page reloading. One of new Magento benefits is that you can edit the cart data in a drop-down block. Also, both Magento Community and Enterprise Editions support a lot of popular payment methods and the needed ones can be added with a use of modules.

Responsive Design vs Mobile Version vs App

How many times do you ask yourself the question about the difference between responsive design and mobile version or app? If you thought about it at least once, you are on the right way! Let’s face it.

It’s really important nowadays to have one of these things. The huge amount of website visitors look through the content, surf the Internet, and even shop online. If your website is not convenient to use on mobile devices, you lose 30% of potential customers on a daily basis. But you can always overcome this situation and choose the most effective solution. Now we are here to do it. Let’s go.

Responsive Design

Responsive web design is a method of markup development, which allows web page adjustment to the screen resolution. Then it looks good on any device.

Pros of Responsive Design

• A website displays correctly on any device.
• It is one website with only one URL, so it’s convenient for users.
• All beautiful design elements are saved and displayed on any device.
• Meets Google’s requirements of usability.
• The price of development is lower than for mobile versions or apps.

Cons of Responsive Design

• Large web pages can slow down the website speed.
• It gives no choice for the user. Whether he likes the responsive design or not, he can’t switch the version.
• Every web page needs changes to become responsive.
• It is not so interactive, as the mobile version. And it couldn’t solve the different tasks for users. Desktop visitors need full features, but mobile users sometimes just want to buy something, look through the contact information, or check the bill.

For Whom

The responsive design suits small projects, like business card websites, and blogs, where it doesn’t require a lot of interaction with the user. Why? – For example, let’s look at the banking system. On a desktop, you need to read the information about the company, search for the bank in your location, check the statement of account, and order a credit card. On a mobile phone, you’ll more likely need to check and top-up an account or look through the bank contacts. The other website items and pages are unnecessary in this case. But the interaction links, menus, and buttons should be better. Here the mobile version wins.

Mobile Version

The mobile version is the other website that is created specifically for a mobile user. It is interactive and user-friendly and developed exactly for the convenient interaction with a website via the hand fingers.

Pros of Mobile Version

• The simplicity of changes. A developer doesn’t need to change each web page. It requires the development of a new website version from scratch.
• High level of usability. It is often the simplified version of the desktop website with necessary features for mobile users. Everything there meets the criteria of convenient use on mobile devices and interaction with a user.
• Page loading speed. As the website is simplified and optimized for mobile devices, there is less content and pages inside. Note, the user is not ready to wait more than 3 seconds for page loading. Learn more about page loading speed and conversion.
• An opportunity of choice. The user can always switch to the desktop website if he doesn’t like the mobile version.
• Meets Google requirements for convenient usage on mobile devices.
• Talking about online stores, it provides the user with the opportunity to buy products with minimum actions (1-3 clicks).
• Entering the market is free.
• Open and accessible for everyone who has an internet connection.
• It doesn’t require downloading and installation.
• It is competitive among the other websites and SEO is useful in this case.

Cons of Mobile Version

• It doesn’t play well with too large images.
• A level of personalization is not high because the mobile version is more focused on services than on a user.
• Not all mobile devices support their offline use.
• It doesn’t access all mobile phone functionalities.
• The price for web development is higher than for responsive web design, and usually, equals to the price for mobile app development.
• Additional costs for maintenance and support.
• A part of the content could be cut out.
• You’ll have several web addresses.

For whom

The mobile version is suitable for the owners of complicated websites, such as online shops, social networks, portals, and mail services. It is useful for those who want to realize the whole spectrum of mobile features and feel their advantages.

Mobile App

A mobile app (or mobile application) is designed only for mobile users, who have access to the App Store.

Pros of Mobile App

• High level of usability and interactivity.
• Access to all device functionalities.
• Ability to use offline.
• Suitable for use on a daily basis.
• It creates an icon on the mobile interface.
• High level of personalization and user orientation.
• Displayed well on any mobile device.
• Supports high-quality graphics.

Cons of Mobile App

• Requires development for several operation systems (Android, iOS, and Windows).
• It can be used only on smartphones and tablets.
• Entering the market is not free. You’ll have to pay for the license to AppStore, Android Market, Market Place.
• It’s accessible only for those who accepted a license agreement.
• Needs, costs, and resources for aiming the top positions are in search. It is competitive on AppStore, Market Place, Android Market, Ovi.
• It requires constant updating and maintenance;
• Most free apps leave up to 30 days, then the interest to them reduces.
• The user should take more action to get access to the app.
• The price of web development is higher than for responsive design.

For Whom

A mobile app is a great solution for large and complicated websites and portals. It makes the user experience very convenient. But before he starts, he should download and install the app. That’s why it’s more suitable for a popular and trusted project. In this case, the users will download a mobile app more likely.

Drupal 8: What Is the New for Us?

Many long years had passed away before we got Drupal 8. But now it is an amazingly powerful technology for everyone who trusts Drupal development. It was improved, got the necessary functionality in core, and became the future of website development.

Learn the greatest changes in our guest post on Ekipa’s blog.

Visual Composer for WordPress: Yes or No?

You are looking at this colorful picture and think that Visual Composer is something easy-going, powerful, and just great. It is one of the best WordPress page builders. Now we are going to make an excursion around this tool and try to decide, whether it’s as good as it seems.

What Is a Page Builder?

Let’s start from scratch. Page builders are the plugins, which help to build web pages using drag-and-drop interface. It means that if you don’t have any coding skills, this is not a problem. With its help, you can create beautiful and user-friendly web pages without any programming knowledge. Just open your editor and build the website like a puzzle:). You see any change you make and can add new elements and blocks by selecting them in special spreadsheets and dragging them into the right places.

Visual Composer: Pros and Cons

Visual Composer is a great tool for WordPress, which helps people to use WordPress completely and create amazing websites according to their wishes and requirements. It has a lot of advantages and features. But also, like any other page builder, it limits your opportunities.So there are enough words, let’s go into details.

Pros of WordPress Visual Composer

Simplicity. It simplifies the life and process of page building for inexperienced users, and people without coding skills. It’s intuitive and well-understandable. Everything there is created to save your time and build the page without great efforts. Also, you can use the way you like: backend or frontend editor.

Flexibility and extensibility. It has many great features and allows you to integrate your plugin with any WordPress theme. It’s compatible with WooCommarce, Yoast, and Translate, and extendable with API.

Many amazing layouts and elements. Yes, if you are not a designer, but have some wishes and inspiration, you can create a really wonderful look of your website, and the choice of elements is large.

Responsive design. Here is the great news: if your theme is responsive, the pages built with Visual Composer will be responsive too.

Independence of the theme. If you create some pages using the specific theme, you are able to switch this theme, but all components of your page will be saved.

History saving. Another good ability of Visual Composer is that it saves the history. And if you even remove this module, it will save all your applied changes.

Google fonts compatibility. Google creates the Internet fashion and style. It’s true. Google fonts are in trend and are most used on the modern websites. So this is a great feature for everyone who wants to be up to date.

Cons of WordPress Visual Composer

A limit of opportunities. You can create wonderful layouts and user-friendly web pages. They will be responsive and include most of the necessary components, but you will be still limited. If you would like to get something custom, something that will be unique and has specific widgets, integrations, and functionality, page builder is not enough.

Don’t expect pixel-perfect design. It means that sometimes, while creating your beautiful web page, you’ll face one, not a pleasant moment – too much white space between the page elements.

Slow page loading. Why? – it’s all because the shortcodes that are used in the page builders. Such codes are usually buggy and dirty, so they slow down your website and create complexity for the web developers when they should change something on your web pages.

Sometimes it’s unpredictable. For example, when you need to save changes. Yes, it saves history, but when it comes to the design, sometimes the changes could be lost after reinstallation.

Only three services and types of prices. Exactly. You can set up only 3 services that you provide and 3 price packages, not more.

A lack of functionalities. You won’t be able to create responsive tables there, integrate your website with CRM, Google calendar or Outlook. So, if you need such things, a page builder is not the best solution.

It doesn’t come for free. You can buy Visual Composer regular license for $34 and extendable license for $170.

Conclusion

As we can see, Visual Composer for WordPress is a great tool for everyone who wants to build pages by himself, using frontend or backend editor, and do it quickly.  And our Web4Pro team has already developed a project based on WordPress with a use of Visual Composer: EquityX. The cons are that it still has limits, as any page builder. If you want to create something custom and unique, you should hire a web developer and designer, who will make a really amazing web solution on a professional level. And it will have a clean code. This gives a point to custom WordPress development. But, it’s up to you. In any case, you can make something that meets your goals.

Wish you a great mood and inspiration for wonderful web pages!

Ubercart vs Drupal Commerce

Hi, guys! If you are interested in Drupal and eCommerce, this post can be helpful for you. Today we are going to talk about two powerful Drupal tools, which allow building complex and simple online shops. And, of course, we’ll compare them.

Meet: in the right corner of the ring is our well-known Ubercart, and in the left corner is the revolutionary Drupal Commerce. Let’s start!

Easiness in Use

Ubercart

It is a stable and well-tried solution with almost 47,000 installations. Ubercart is a free open source shopping cart, which is easy to install, easy to manage, and easy to use. It becomes more and more user-friendly over the years. That’s why, if you are acquainted with Drupal, you’ll have no problems with operating it.

Drupal Commerce

Well, Drupal Commerce is more complex and has a very high level of customization. It is a framework, which allows creating online stores of any difficulty, so the number of almost 68,000 installations speaks for itself. It has more features than Ubercart and is a bit more difficult for understanding. But these facts are just nothings compared to its advantages.

 Functionalities

Both of these solutions have powerful functionality. The difference is in contributed modules, and also the size of your eCommerce project.

Ubercart

In Ubercart, the default configuration settings are ready to run. You’ll need just to make some simple adjustments. The customer accounts are created via their emails, and this option is included into functionality. XML export/import plays well and helps everyone transfer the product information from the old Ubercart version to a new one. Also, it has a useful Activity Loggin feature for finding an order status at any point of purchasing.

Drupal Commerce

This high-level solution is much more complicated and has more advanced features. This framework allows customizing the website according to any required design and structure. The documentation of Commerce is related to Drupal API, and it’s a complete package. Cart and checkout processes are stable and well-thought-out. Also, it allows adding such useful options, as tax calculation, discounts, promo code implementation and more other.

Product Management

And here we come to the most interesting part. One of the main things of any eCommerce website is product management. In this matter, the two solutions are completely different.

Ubercart

It stores each product with all its attributes and options as a content node. This way is perfect for simple products with no variations, like books. So, if you deal with multi-sized and multi-colored products (different clothes sizes and colors modifications), all these data will be stored in one node, like one product. It works great for the small stores, where the products have up to three variations (1-3 different sizes and colors).

Drupal Commerce

As for Drupal Commerce, here the situation is quite different. It stores each variation as its own entry and SKU. This tool is extremely flexible and powerful when it comes to managing products with multiple variations. It is similar to the real-life product management. The products or the set of products are displayed via relationship field. Each size, color, or model is a separate node. This fact helps to keep shipping and payments on a high level.

Shipping and Payment

Ubercart

It has built-in payment and shipping modules. And the user can choose necessary modules or a full package. This process is easy to launch and manage. It works pretty well with not large online stores without the huge number of product variations.

Drupal Commerce

It does not include any payment gateways and shipping modules. You’ll need to install some necessary of them to carry out these operations. But when it’s done, everything will run like clockwork, no matter what size of project you have.

For Whom

Finally, we are on the step of making up our mind. Which of these tools to choose? As said before, it depends on your goals and the size of the Ecommerce store.

Ubercart

Say, it suits simple online shops, where the products have only one or several modifications. If you don’t want to go deep into product management, try Ubercart.

Drupal Commerce

If you are good at Drupal, highly customized Commerce will impress you with its advanced functionalities. It’s great for large and complicated online stores, where the product attributes and modifications are critical. With its help, you’ll have no problems with shipping and billing process. Like a powerful framework, it’ll allow you to build the robust online shop with the particular design, structure, and all needed features.

The Final Choice for Drupal 8

So what about Drupal 8? – The question is still open and has the following solutions:

Ubercart – Alpha2 Release

Ubercart has some improvements in “Shipping” and “Payments” options and compatible with Drupal 8.

Drupal Commerce 2 – Alpha3 Realise

Ubercart is also not production ready. That’s why there are no upgrade methods between the Alphas, and the full reinstallation is required. It’s simplified site management process and is more user-friendly (blog).

As we can see, both of technologies have their pros and cons. If talk about Ubercart, definitely, it stays in hearts of Drupal users who decided to explore eCommerce. Drupal Commerce is much more advanced, highly-customized, and flexible. It is a leader of choice for most website owners who build their eCommerce websites on Drupal. What to choose? – It’s up to you. The great thing is that we always have a choice. And we are here to help you create a great Ecommerce website based on Drupal.

Wish you to make friends with both tools and use them wisely.

If something will go wrong and make irritated, WEB4PRO team is always here to help:)

Make Friends with Google for Perfect SEO

Hi, everybody! Today’s hot topic is SEO, and we continue on. Now we are going to talk about the most useful Google tools that will help us to be in trend and make our websites optimized. Let’s make friends with Google and bring our SEO to the highest level. Let’s Google it!

Set It: Google Search Console

The discovery of Search Console advantages is one of the first things you need to do. Google Search Console is a web tool, which helps the website owners to maintain and observe their websites. It allows you to monitor your website performance and understand how Google Search and users see it.

Here is how it works

You should log in Google Search Console and enter the domain name in the specific field. Then you can discover if Google has your website in the index. There are millions of websites all over the world. That’s why sometimes Google is late in indexation of several pages, or you can have some issues, which don’t meet its requirements. In this case, your web pages can be out of the index. But you can make the query manually. It’s like asking Google to look through your website.

How to learn if your website is in index

Enter the command site: your domain name into the search field and look, if there are some search results. If you see nothing, you have some problems with the indexation and need to solve them manually.

Also, Google Search Console helps to avoid doubles of pages, find the issues on your website, and work with your content by fixing some misunderstandings. To know more about this useful tool, you can read Google’s guidelines here.

Promote It: Google AdWords & AdSense

Google AdWords

If you are going to promote your website using context advertisement, this tool is necessary for you. We can pick the keywords with its help, set our advertising campaign, and monitor progress.

Here is how it works

AdWords has many features inside, such as Keyword Planner, where we can make our keyword research, Display Planner, which helps to get some new ideas and expectations of the most favorable places for business targeting.
How advertisements work

First of all, you create the advertisement with your chosen keywords. It can include the call to action and contact information with a link to your landing page. It should have a powerful title.

Then you set the bid (the pay-per-click). Google places advertisements in order according to the results of the auction. The advertisement with the best relevancy or bid wins the highest position in search results. Ads are those search results, which you see first on the search results page. They have the yellow-colored mark.

Google AdSense

Google AdSense is another tool that allows us to create media advertising. It’s when your ads are shown in different places of the websites related to your topic. These ads can contain images, video, audio, and text. The difference between the context ads and media is that in the first case the ads are shown in Google organic search results, and in the second case they are shown on the websites according to your settings of targeting.

Here is how it works

Using Google AdSense, you can create incredible ads with any type of content. To create your advertisement, work with targeting (choose the criteria of websites for the displaying), and then set a bid. For example, you want to show the ads of the coffee machine on the websites about coffee. So, the users of such websites will see your ads in the chosen place (top, bottom, left, or right).

Analyze It: Google Analytics

Google Analytics is our lawyer, prosecutor, and the judge. It allows everyone to measure results of marketing campaigns, discover a number of website visitors, and learn the information about them. You can even learn the behavior of users on your website, and the main sources of traffic.

Also, Google Analytics includes the opportunities for setting particular goals and measuring them. With its help, you can plan your marketing strategy, discover the interests of your targetted audience, and build the website pages meeting the principles of usability based on this information. Learn more and familiarize yourself with Google Analytics.

Here is how it works

First of all, you need to create an account in Google Analytics and connect it with your website. For this purpose, you’ll generate the code and paste it on your website. Then you’ll get the access to Analytics and will be able to analyze and manage your website data. Be sure that you’ll find many interesting things there.

Share It: Links and Social Networks

You know, if you want your content to be popular, share it. Or no, even more: you should make your visitors and readers share your content. When they do it, Google finds the links to your website and understands, that it’s something interesting, qualitative, and valuable. The more links to your website it finds on the related resources the more popular you become. This fact also increases your chances to get the higher position in search results.

And what about social networks? – Say, it’s one of the closest ways of contact between internet users. And they like to share interesting and useful information. If your content is popular on such networks, like Facebook, Linkedin, and others, it gives the credit to your SEO.

Here is a piece of advice: communicate with your readers, keep contact and be closer to your audience. Try to use all channels to involve more visitors. Comment and share the content of other people and make guest posts. It’s helpful in finding new contacts.

Enjoy The Dessert: Google Digital Workshop

Great news! Google tries to make our lives easier and gives us a bonus. What does it mean? – Now we have a unique possibility to learn more about Google strategy, internet marketing, web analytics, and SEO. They provide us with the free workshop about internet marketing. There you’ll learn many useful features we’ve already discussed and will open quite new horizons. Too many words.

Just look Google Digital Workshop.

Conclusion

It is the end. We’ve already talked about the details of SEO friendly content and keyword research. It was a part of the information you can find on Google. Hope, it’s useful and will help you to create amazing content, which does wonders and boost the popularity of your website, and the main thing – brings the usefulness and pleasure to your visitors.

Inspiration to you and SEO-friendly content of your dream!

How to Make Keyword Research for Websites

Today we continue on our topic about how to write SEO-friendly content and are going to make the keyword research. We have already moved to the most important step of our SEO strategy.

You may ask:”What is keyword research?”. This complex but interesting step can help us to learn more about our visitors, understand their needs, and give them what they are searching for.

How it looks in action

The keyword research or keyword planning is the process of finding the best and most used keywords for writing your content. As we already know, the search engines rank the websites according to their relevancy and quality. When the user enters some words into the Google search field (we call them “keywords”), Google bots scan the website and choose those that contain these words. So the user gets the relevant content he is looking for.

Google ranks the websites depending on their relevancy. So the more exact your keyword is, the more chances to get the higher position in Google search results.

What Kind of Keywords We Can Use

There are 3 types of keywords: generic, broad match, and long-tail keywords. We should use all types to build successful SEO strategy.

Generic Keywords

They are the short words and phrases the users enter into Google search field. They contain the general information that could be relevant for the most web pages, related to this area.

For example, you develop the websites. Here are some best keywords of this type: website development, web development, develop a website. They could be related to the web development company, blog about web development, and web development courses. These keywords start your keyword research, but they can’t make your content high-relevant. We need to add more information.

Broad Match Keywords

This type of keywords builds the base of your SEO strategy. They help us to create high-relevant content and concretize the topic of our website. Using them, we can attract exactly our targeted audience.

For example, you are a web development company. Web development company, web development services keywords tell your potential customers that you develop the websites (not write the articles). Such way you narrow the search area and involve the targeted audience.

Long-Tail Keywords

This funny name can tell us much information. As you understand, they are some long phrases that also narrow the user’s search area. Ask yourself, how many times you typed something like: “How to write SEO-friendly content”, or “How to be a good public speaker”.  Be aware that you typed long-tail keywords. They are interesting, and you can find them using different SEO tools.

We already know enough. Let’s learn how to find keywords.

How to Make Keyword Research

Picking SEO Keywords: Think Logically

First of all, look at your content and think what it is about. Then create a list of generic keywords, you think the visitors can use when looking for your content. Write so many variants of words and word combinations, as possible. Try to step into user’s shoes and follow his logics.

For example, if your article is about SEO, you can write down such words, as SEO, search engine optimization, keywords choice, etc.

Picking SEO Keywords: Broaden Your List

Now we are on the step of choosing the more relevant broad match and long tail keywords. Try several ways:

Think about your targeted audience

Let’s imagine that you sell fresh vegetables and deliver them to the USA. So you can’t sell products in Europe, but you are interested in the USA. So, you can make your keywords relevant for the USA users. How? – It’s very simple, just add the USA, to the fresh vegetable delivery keyword , like vegetable delivery in the USA, or vegetable delivery USA. You can also use this method for the other criteria.

Use Google search tips

Here are several tricks that can help you to know some other most used keywords:

• Google search field autocomplete. Look carefully: when we try to find something in Google, we type the first word or even a part of a word, and Google suggests us the popular search requests. It’s a jackpot. Add these requests to your keyword list.

• Searches related to… So, you’ve typed your keyword into Google search field and pressed Enter. You can see the search results. Now let’s look at the last row of the page. You’ll see something like Searches related to …and several blue-colored word combinations below. Take those of them which are relevant to your content and place into your keyword list.

• Competitor analysis. When you get the search results for your keyword, don’t be lazy to open the websites of 5 Top results and read their texts. You may be surprised, but you’ll find many similar word combinations there. Don’t forget to write them out.

• Google Trends. It is a useful Google tool, which helps everybody not only learn the most popular world topics but also understand the users interests. Go to Google Trends web page and choose Trending Searches in the drop-down menu. You’ll see the hottest topics. Type your keyword into the search field. Then you’ll get a list of the most popular related keywords and learn geolocation of the most interested users. It’s valuable information, isn’t it?:)

Picking SEO Keywords: Welcome to Google Adwords

We have almost know how to find keywords, but the most interesting things are saved for last. Logical thinking is a great skill, but Google has already done some work for us. It has a useful tool for picking the keywords and creating the context advertisement. Its name is Google Adwords. We’ll need a part of this service – Keyword Planner.First of all, you should create an account in Google Adwords. Then choose Google Keyword Planner in Tools menu. It’s something like this:

For choosing the best keywords to use, we should press the green-colored paragraph and begin the search, following our content strategy. So, you have the almost ready keyword list. Now it’s time to check it and choose the most relevant and best keywords. Select the way of finding keywords and follow Google guides. You’ll be asked to enter your list. Do it, separating your keywords with commas.

So, you’ll get the most popular search request. Choose those, which are most suitable to your content. Here is how it looks:

As you can see, there is a list of keywords: white shoes, black shoes, red shoes, and others. The Keyword Planner shows us the search requests analytics. A good advice is to use keywords with a high number of average monthly searches, medium level of competition, and, if you are not going to create the advertisement and want to use the keywords for organic search marketing, choose the variants with high suggested bid.

Add the chosen keywords to your plan and try to include them into your content up to 7%. The main thing is to use the keywords naturally and surround them by related information.

So, you have already got acquainted with the most important things of picking SEO keywords. While practicing them, you’ll discover much more interesting ways and tools. But don’t forget the main goal of the content writing – bringing usefulness. Build your marketing strategy on this principle. Next time we are going to make friends with Google.

Wish you fresh ideas and the powerful keyword list!

SEO-Friendly Content: Tags and Structure

Hi! Today we are starting the series of useful articles about SEO-friendly content. Let’s start from scratch and pay attention to the most important step – the formatting. We’ll learn the first secret of writing SEO-friendly content and how to build its structure using HTML tags. And og course, if you need any help with HTML, our frontend developers can do it for you.

SEO Mechanisms

A Bit of History

HTML is a base of any web page. This language consists of tags and builds the page structure. So when you create the content in any kind of editor (it could be a visual editor or you see full HTML code), your texts, images, and other elements are ranged on the page and get special formatting according to the used tags.

What Google Says

Googlebot scans the web pages and ranges them depending on the quality and relevance of your content. Google has specific requirements for the content structure. If we ignore them, we can be ignored by Google and even don’t get into Google index. Nobody wants to be out of the game, so, let’s cope with it!

5 Elements of SEO-Friendly Structure

SEO-Friendly Title

A title is a name of the post, message, or page. It is one of the first factors that influences Google bot’s attitude to your content. The title should be clear and include the keywords. It shouldn’t be long (up to 100 symbols) but represent the idea of your text. Eye-catching, interesting, and powerful titles attract more visitors to your website and help the search engines understand whether your content is relevant and SEO-friendly.

How it looks in action

When the users search something on the Internet, they get the list of relevant websites, which meet their queries. The blue-coloured names of found web pages, which they see in the search results, are the titles. Looking at them, the user decides, if he wants to click the website or not. Also, we can see the titles while opening the websites. They are the names of our tabs in a browser.

How to add it via tags

You can edit your title via HTML tags. Paste the name of you article (post or page) instead of the words between the tags. The title tag is placed inside the pair <head></head> tag, nearly at the beginning of the page HTML code:

<head>
<title>your content title</title>
</head>

SEO-Friendly Meta Tags

Meta tags are responsible for the keywords and description. You should put them into the specific part of HTML code.

Your chosen keywords should be used not only in the post. It’s better to help the search engines indicate them via correct meta tags. The description is another important part of the content structure. It should include the keywords and describe the content of your web page.

How it looks in action

Keywords give search engines the necessary information. The description itself is also visible for Internet users. When they are looking for some content and get the list of search results, they can see not only blue-colored titles of the web pages. The description of each web page appears below the green-colored link to this web page and includes some brief summary of the content (look at the picture above).You can add some powerful call to action to your description and make the users interested in your content. Also, show the truthful content idea. Don’t try to cheat your visitors. In such case, the Googlebot can rate your content like irrelevant.

How to add them via tags

Keywords and the description are added via the meta tags. Place them after the title tag. Paste your keywords instead of the words in quotes (quotes should be saved).

<title>your title</title>
<meta name=”keywords” content=”keyword 1, keyword 2, …”>
<meta name=”description” content=”add here your description”>

SEO-Friendly Headings

There are several levels of headings in content structure: first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth. There could be more levels, but usually 6 levels are enough. You can add them via tags h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 and should go one by one.

How it looks in action

Headings are usually pointed with the larger font size or in bold. They help you to focus the reader’s attention on the most important key thought in content. Headings are also helpful for the search engines. They should include the keywords.

How to add them via tags

Use the tag of necessary heading level to put headings into your content. Paste the headings instead of the words between the tags:

<h1>you first level heading</h1>
<h2>you first level heading</h2>

SEO-Friendly Paragraphs

Paragraphs are very important for the content writing. They build its structure. If your text is separated into logical parts and has well-readable font type, you win a great chance to gain success.Your visitors will be grateful to you, and the search engines will understand your main idea easily. Paragraphs should include numbered and unnumbered lists to be structured. Don’t use too much bold, italic, and underline font type. They are used only for pointing the most important things. Try to avoid CAPS and text badly-readable colors.

How it looks in action

Your paragraphs should include up to 7% keywords, but not more.The time is running, and Google becomes more clever. Now it values the relevance of the content not only by the keywords. Now the LSI words that surround your keywords are used like the criterium of quality. These are the words related to your keywords. That’s why, first of all, create the content for people, not for robots.

How to add them via tags

HTML includes the specific tag for separating content into paragraphs. It is used in any place of HTML code in “body” part:

<p>your text</p>

SEO-Friendly Images

Google can’t see your images like a man. But! You can help it to understand what on the picture is. How? – It’s very simple. You should name your images using their sense and even the keywords. And that is not all. You should also use the alt-text.

How it looks in action

Look at the funny picture above. Let’s imagine that you are writing the article about dogs. So, you can name your image like “dog” or “pug” in the image title. And what about the alt text? – You can place there something like “ the funny pug” or “a dog wants the cookie”.

Alt-text helps the search engines understand what on the picture is. The alternative text is helpful for the users. When the browser doesn’t load the picture correctly, the alt text appears instead of the image and explains its content.

If you use title attributes, you can say what on the picture is.  A title is also helpful for people with reduced capabilities.How to add them via tags

You can use the special HTML tags for placing the images. If you see the self-closing tag <image> and the link to your image, look at the end of this text. You’ll see something like “your image title.png” (.png, .jpg, .gif – are the image formats). So, place your title instead of the text in the place of “your image title”. Alt-text is added after alt= in quotes.

<img src=”your image title.png” alt=”your alt text”>

If you use some visual editor, you can put the title and the alt-text into specific fields while adding the image.

Now you already know some of the most important rules for writing SEO-friendly content. Of course, it’s not all you need, because Google also take a clear website code into consideration. And if you want to have the professional and proper website, we’ll do it for you with great pleasure. Just press, ‘Askt  Questions” below and drop us a line.

It’s only the beginning of our excursion. In the next releases, you’ll learn how to make the keyword research and other Google SEO features.

Wish you success and inspiring content!