SEO- E-A-T and SEO: How Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trust Impact SEO

Most of us read blogs and other online content daily. We almost trust the majority of it, while the rest is questioned for legitimacy till we move on. We confront this dilemma every day, where we are unsure whether the stuff on the internet is real or not. This is where Google’s E-A-T technology comes into play. This notion has solved our problem and changed the way we seek information online.

In this article, we’ll look at E-A-T and discuss its merits. We will also learn how to use it effectively as marketers to improve the ranking of our blogs. 

What is E.A.T.?

E-A-T stands for Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness, was launched by Google in 2014. It is a term used in Google’s search engine optimization (SEO) recommendations to explain the requirements that websites must achieve to appear higher in Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs). This idea is essential because it assists Google in determining which websites are reliable and trustworthy sources of information and should be prominently included in its search results.

Let’s look at each of these E-A-T components in more detail: 

• Expertise: The level of knowledge and experience that a person possesses in a specific profession. It is frequently used to determine the authenticity of a person or website. 
• Authority: The ability to influence or control people. It is typically connected with an official title or position. 
• Trust: Trust is the confidence in someone or something being reliable and trustworthy. It is frequently obtained by continuous, dependable behavior and can be revoked if someone is perceived to be untrustworthy or unreliable. For example, if a customer trusts a company, they are more inclined to buy from it.

Websites that meet E-A-T criteria have expertly written content, established authority in their sector, and a high level of trustworthiness. All of these characteristics contribute to a website’s overall quality, which is a key factor in deciding its position in Google’s search results. This approach has transformed how we search for information online, guaranteeing that the stuff we are shown is of the best quality. 

The Importance of E-A-T in SEO

E-A-T is one of today’s most crucial SEO success components. It is an essential component of Google’s algorithm, used to evaluate the quality of material and decide its ranking in search results. 

Here are some ways that Google employs E-A-T:

Google employs E-A-T to assess the reliability and accuracy of information displayed on a website. It considers the website’s author, the authority of the sources cited, and the quality of the information. It also assesses the website’s design and usability to determine how user-friendly it is.

Google employs E-A-T to analyze whether a website is trustworthy to give accurate and dependable information. This is especially crucial for medical and health-related websites, as accuracy is critical when delivering information on health or medical issues. 

E-A-T is especially significant for firms looking to rank high in search engine results. SEO success requires a well-designed, user-friendly website with high-quality content supported by authoritative sources.

Benefits of E.A.T

• Increased visibility: E-A-T makes websites more visible in organic search results since search engines prioritize sites with higher E-A-T scores. Higher E-A-T scores can result in higher results in SERPs.
• Better user experience: If a website follows E-A-T it will provide quality content leading to a great user experience 
• Trust: Quality content and a great user experience can help create trust with search engines, resulting in higher ranks and visibility.
• Improved credibility: Higher E-A-T scores will lead to higher SERP ranks which would further lead to increased credibility and trust among search engine users.
• Increased traffic: Higher E-A-T scores can boost exposure and ranks, resulting in more website visitors.

Conclusion

To summarise, Google’s EAT in SEO is a strong tool that has proven to be a game changer in SEO. As Google’s algorithms get more complex, EAT will remain an essential aspect of SEO strategies. With EAT, businesses can concentrate on creating high-quality content that is both relevant to their target audience and adheres to Google’s requirements. Businesses can ensure that their content is noticed and appreciated by their target audience while also improving their site’s search engine rankings. The future of Google’s EAT in SEO seems promising, and businesses should take advantage of this powerful tool to maximize their SEO results.

Influencer Marketing Trends 2024: Adapting to Evolving Consumer Behaviors

In today’s digital world, where social media controls the way people connect and communicate, influencer marketing has emerged as a powerful force. As we enter new financial year 2024-25 , the landscape of influencer marketing continues to shift, resulting in new trends, methods, and possibilities. In this article, we’ll look at the dynamic world of influencer marketing in 2024 and how organizations can use it to reach and engage with their target audiences.

Influencer marketing has progressed beyond a fad to become an essential component of modern marketing tactics. As we reach April 2024, it’s evident that this marketing strategy is here to stay, bringing about exciting changes that businesses and marketers must embrace.

Rise of Micro-Influencers

While macro-influencers have long been the show’s stars, 2024 began to see micro-influencers rise. These individuals, with smaller but highly engaged followings, provide a more genuine and personal connection to their audience. Brands are realizing that these micro-influencers frequently produce a greater ROI and engagement rate.

Video Dominance

Video content remains the most important aspect of influencer marketing. Video platforms such as Instagram Reels, and YouTube provide an engaging medium for influencers to share their experiences and suggestions. Brands are using short-form videos to highlight products and provide tutorials to a fast-paced online audience.

Authenticity

Authenticity remains the foundation of influencer interactions. As audiences become more discriminating, they look for real recommendations from individuals they respect. Brands are now focusing on long-term collaborations that enable influencers to integrate things into their life, thereby increasing credibility.

AI in Influencer Marketing

Artificial intelligence is making waves in influencer marketing by providing data-driven insights for more effective collaborations. AI assists in identifying the most appropriate influencers for certain campaigns and in developing personalized content strategies that resonate strongly with the target demographic.

Ephemeral Content

Ephemeral content, available for a limited time, is gaining popularity. Instagram Stories and Snapchat provide insight into influencers’ daily lives, providing a sense of exclusivity. Brands are exploiting this ephemeral yet effective information format to create excitement and urgency for their products.

Global Impact

Influencer marketing crosses borders, connecting brands to varied audiences all around the world. Brands are now adapting their marketing to account for cultural differences, working with influencers who can bridge the gap between global products and local preferences.

Measuring ROI

Measuring the success of influencer initiatives extends beyond likes and shares. Brands are focused on measures such as engagement rate, click-through rate, and sentiment analysis to determine the true impact of their collaborations. These findings help to improve future strategies.

Collaboration Formats

In 2024, brands are experimenting with new collaboration formats. From virtual events and live Q&A sessions to co-created content, these creative ways fascinate audiences while offering a new perspective on product recommendations.

Gen-Z to the Rescue

Generation Z influencers are at the forefront of altering consumer behavior. Their peers appreciate their genuineness and social activism. Brands are working with Gen Z influencers to authentically engage with younger consumers and bridge the generation gap.

Challenges in Influencer Marketing

As the influencer marketing landscape shifts, new obstacles arise. Saturation, audience fatigue, and retaining authenticity when working with well-known influencers are all challenges that brands must successfully overcome.

Legal and Ethical Landscape

With greater scrutiny of influencer marketing methods, transparency, and ethical issues are critical. To establish credibility and trust, brands prioritize explicit disclosure of funded collaborations and genuine endorsements.

New Social Platforms

While Instagram and YouTube remain popular, emerging social platforms have unexplored potential. Brands are looking into platforms like Clubhouse, TikTok, and virtual reality venues to connect with audiences in new ways.

Final Words

Influencer marketing has gone a long way, and as we begin the 2024-25 financial year, its significance grows. The secret to successful influencer marketing is to adapt to the changing scene, cultivate honest connections, and embrace innovation. If you’re ready to leverage the power of influencer marketing for your brand, don’t hesitate to request a demo from e-Cliqs and learn how our cutting-edge technologies can help you enhance your influencer campaigns.

What are Doodle Videos? Are they useful?

What is a doodle video?

Do you remember when you were a youngster, bored during a long arithmetic class, and you would draw goofy little pictures in the back of your textbook? These are (basically) doodles. Imagine if the essence of something could be captured and brought back to life using animation. A doodle video is a type of animation that has a distinct creative and young flair. Doodles are drawings created on the spur of the moment, without much forethought or deliberation.

They’re typically black and white, created with a pen or pencil, and include a lot of inventive, silly aspects. As a result, in the context of animation, doodle videos have a hand-drawn illustration style, are typically black and white with a basic colored background, and are both funny and extremely inventive.

What are the different forms of doodle videos?

There are several niche video types classified as doodle videos. Each variety differs slightly in style, arrangement, or content. So, the four major categories of doodle videos are:

Whiteboard Animation

One of the most popular types of doodle videos is whiteboard animation, which simulates doodles being created on a whiteboard. Frequently, they are designed to appear as if a hand is creating a doodle on a whiteboard before rubbing it out to draw the next graphic in the movie. The sequence of these paintings forms the narrative. These videos are often done in black and white, with simple line-drawn images, and feature a cartoonish style.

Blackboard Animation

Blackboard animation is similar to, but not the same as, whiteboard animation. The style and appearance are largely the same; the major difference is that blackboard animations use a blackboard as a background and ink pens are replaced with chalk.

Notepad videos

Notepad videos once again include hand-drawn, whimsical visuals. However, notepad videos have notepads as the background. This property gives the video type several distinguishing characteristics. For example, the visuals can be ‘painted’ with a broader palette of hues. Furthermore, the animator can choose whether to keep the background basic or to include lined paper (giving the video a pleasant, ‘back to school’ motif). Then, once the drawing is finished, a hand shifts the notepad to the next page to begin the drawing. Notepad videos allow you to fully express the creative, childish character of Doodle videos.

Glassboard videos

Glassboard videos, on paper, look very similar to whiteboard and chalkboard recordings. However, its slightly altered features give the video an entirely different appearance and feel. Glassboard films feature images on a transparent pane of glass, which are created with marker pens held in one hand. Using a glassboard shifts the viewer’s attention away from the school classroom atmosphere of a whiteboard and into a more academic, scientific, or lecture-style of conversation. As a result, these videos are most typically utilized for instructional purposes. They’re an excellent method to make difficult or dry topics more interesting.

Why use doodle-animated videos?

Now you understand what doodle animation videos look like. But the fundamental question is: Why should you use them? What advantages do they offer that other sorts of marketing content cannot match? If you’re still not convinced by doodle videos, check out our five top reasons why you should use them below:

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• They clearly explain a difficult business piece or process – Doodle movies, with their combination of voice-over and clear, basic graphics, are an excellent method to break down complicated material.

• They’re ideal for narrative – the playful design and human nature of these videos lend them an immediate appeal, making it simple to convey a fascinating story.

• They are the epitome of simplicity; we enjoy all animation techniques equally. However, if you prefer a clean, uncomplicated style, doodle videos are an excellent choice.

• They have a human touch – the use of hand-drawn pictures (and, in some cases, a hand in the film ‘creating’ the images) adds a dimension of humanity and relatability to the videos.

• They provide a sense of enjoyment to your brand’s image; they’re not your typical corporate videos. Doodle films provide the same level of clarity in communication but with a more basic and friendly approach.

Take Advantage of Doodle Videos Today!

These are some things to consider when creating doodle films. Use this to ensure that your next video marketing effort is successful.

Do you need assistance with your video production? If so, please contact us and we’ll work together. We are professional and will keep your movies authentic, organized, and entertaining.

Different online advertising avenues a brand can go for

Marketers and advertisers increasingly employ Internet advertisements to promote their brands to both present and potential customers. Unlike traditional marketing, which targets local demographics, online advertisements allow brands to promote their services to worldwide consumers. Learning more about online advertising might help you incorporate it into your marketing strategy. In this post, we will define online advertising, and look at the many sorts that will help you build your knowledge and implement it in your lives.

What is Online Advertising?

Online advertising is a type of marketing that uses the internet to lead consumers to a brand’s website or to promote a product, service, or related task. This assignment could include making a purchase, scheduling a service, or following the brand on social media. Numerous internet platforms meet the requirements of a marketing strategy. To boost brand awareness, marketing teams may use demographic filters in their adverts and pay to have their brand included in internet locations.

9 Types of Online Advertising

Here are seven methods of online advertising you can use:

#1. Paid search advertising

Paid search advertising is a sort of online advertising in which you pay a fee to have your advertisement displayed on a search engine results page (SERP). Pay-per-click advertising (PPC) is one of the most frequent and effective types of online advertising. It advertises the organic results on the SERP, increasing the possibility that a user would click on the link. The SERP places adverts based on several parameters, including:

Landing page quality: 

SERP pages frequently look at how you’ve developed a landing page for visitors and whether it’s optimized for people to browse and perform their duties. SERPs prioritize mobile-optimized pages over other pages.

Auction bids: 

Companies can bid on keywords or phrases related to the products or services they want to promote using the advertisement space. This way, advertising just pays for each click a user makes.

Keywords: 

If a company competes against a rival for paid advertisement placements using slightly different keywords, the company with the more popular keyword will rank higher than the less popular term. Before purchasing a SERP advertisement, you can investigate keyword popularity.

Advertisement extensions: 

When you create an advertisement, you can include several links, such as a link to the company’s website and contact us forms. Advertisements that include a link urge visitors to take action, increasing the possibility that they will click through from the advertisement to the website.

Search context: 

An advertisement may not appear every time a user searches, particularly if it is unrelated to the company. The advertisement you paid for may appear based on the user’s location, keywords, time, and device used to search.

#2. Social media advertising

Social media advertising is a marketing approach that involves promoting a business, product, or service online via networking sites. On these sites, you can create an advertisement using a variety of formats, including video, photos, and stories. Each social media platform uses its algorithm to create advertisements. You often have to pay a charge to create a social media advertisement.

#3. Display advertising

Display advertising is the marketing of a brand, product, or service using movies or photographs that are uploaded on social networking sites or search engines. The social networking site or search engine places an advertisement through third-party sources, such as a banner, photo, or text. You can divide display adverts into three categories:

Site placement: 

With this category, you can select which websites to post advertisements on for users to view.

Contextual advertising

Contextual advertising enables social networking networks to place ads on related websites. For example, if you’re marketing makeup, the platform can show the advertisement on a beauty store’s website.

Re-marketing display advertising

Re-marketing display advertising appears on websites for customers who have departed without making a purchase. This reminds users of the product they were considering, with the hope that they will return to the company’s website to finish the transaction.

#4. Native advertising

Native advertising involves paying a media organization to publish postings featuring a brand’s products. For example, if the company sells skin care goods, a media company can create a piece featuring a list of the top skin care items under a specific price point. In this post, media firms can include their items with other companies that sell similar things. In addition to paying media businesses to write a post featuring your product or service, you can also pay them to share the post on social media, which can help you reach a bigger audience.

#5. Podcast Advertising

Podcast advertising is used by businesses to increase brand awareness, drive consideration, and secure conversions.

Podcast advertising allows your organization to market its products, services, or offers via:

• Baked-in advertisements, which the podcast host(s) read to all listeners.
• Dynamic advertising is dynamically introduced to the podcast based on the listener’s data.

Podcast advertising is a new and successful way to briefly inform listeners about the value of your product, discounts, promotions, personal experiences, and so on. If you do everything correctly, you will earn trust, expand your target audience, reach new demographics, and promote products. Additionally, this sort of advertising generates warm leads. They’re more inclined to purchase from your brand. You achieve higher conversion rates and ROI. 

#6. Email advertising

Email advertising is another successful method of advertising online. With email advertising, you promote your business through third-party email newsletters. Email advertising promotes your business through third-party email newsletters.Email advertising, like podcast advertising, involves extra study because you need to:

• Research potential newsletters.
• Reach out to potential prospects.
• Provide all essential documentation or offers.

 An email marketer may take advantage of the opportunity of sending emails to an agreed set of users by “renting out” spaces inside the emails to other brands so that they can insert adverts in your campaigns. These other brands can advertise using this space to a targeted audience. You can be this other brand and advertise on this email to get visibility and eyeballs of your targeted audience

What you need to take care of is

• Consider only those newsletters that are targeting your audience
• Check the number of subscribers they have and also their open rate
• Provide any necessary information and offers to lure the readers

#7. Digital signage advertising

Digital signage advertising is a new technology that enables marketers to display animated web adverts on buildings like billboards and bus stations. The technology enables structures to display a continuous loop of particular adverts. This can help you get new consumers who see your advertisement on a sign while walking or driving past it.

#8. Programmatic Advertising

Programmatic advertising uses artificial intelligence to automate ad buying. Programmatic advertising networks can purchase the optimum ad space for your company if provided with audience-targeting information such as location, time of day, and interests.

Google, Kellogg’s, and the Intercontinental Hotel Group (IHG) have all experienced success with this digital advertising technique but the good thing is that you don’t have to be a huge, well-known business to implement and/or afford programmatic advertising. Programmatic ads are suitable for businesses of all sizes, making them one of the most effective Internet advertising techniques.

#9. Amazon Advertising

Amazon Advertising is a service that works similarly to Google’s pay-per-click ads: sellers only pay when customers click on adverts, regardless of whether the item sells.

Amazon’s advertising business is rapidly expanding, particularly as it diversifies its offerings across its ecosystem. The Amazon Demand Side Platform enables retailers to programmatically buy display and video advertisements at scale and target audiences on Amazon.com, Fire TV Sticks, IMDb.com, Kindles, Freedive, apps, third-party sites, apps, and platforms.

Summary

In this blog, we covered the seven most common types of Internet advertising: paid search advertisements, display ads, native ads, social media ads, digital signage ads, podcast advertising, programmatic advertising, amazon advertising, and email ads. While we only quickly covered the main types this time, stay tuned for additional in-depth posts on each channel.

Finally, while selecting an advertising media, it is best to establish your target demographic, advertising budget, and investigate which channel your audience is most likely to be active on, and then base your decision on that. Every business and consumer base will be unique, therefore you must choose the medium that best suits you and your current circumstances.

What are social signals? How social media impacts SEO?

SEO is interdisciplinary, which means that working on other aspects of our digital marketing strategy might help our web pages perform better in the SERPs. This includes your social media strategy and efforts to increase the social signals on our websites.

The relationship between social signals and SEO is indirect, therefore improved social signals will not result in higher-ranking positions. However, our attempts to boost our social media presence are undoubtedly tied to our SEO efforts, which is why the relationship is critical for all digital marketers to harness.

This guide will explain the principles of that relationship. Continue reading to learn more about how social signals affect SEO and ranking, as well as how to optimize them.

What are Social Signals?

Social signals refer to any interactions with a social media profile or its content. These interactions are just social media engagement in social media marketing, but in SEO, they are signals that assist search engines like Google evaluate the identity, popularity, and dependability of a user, profile, or post.

When you consider all of the different social media platforms available, numerous measures can be classified as social signals. Here are a few of the most popular by platform:

• Facebook: Follows, likes, dislikes, comments, shares, views
• Instagram: Follows, likes, shares, favorites, save.
• Twitter: Follows, Tweets, Retweets, Quote Tweets, replies
• Pinterest: Follows, pins, views
• LinkedIn: Connections, likes, comments, shares
• Reddit: Upvotes, comments

How do Social Signals impact SEO?

The truth is that studies and experiments and been conducted on SEO practices to determine the precise influence of social signals on SEO performance. Although there is a significant dispute in the industry, we can draw some strong conclusions regarding the indirect impact of social signals on ranking based on how confirmed ranking variables align with a website’s social media profile.

Social Media Profiles:

Google indexes social media profiles, so they will appear in search results. And, because Google wants to connect websites to their social media accounts, we can be certain that Google is looking for signals that link our websites to specific profile URLs.

Although less significant than ranking for your goal keywords, branded search results are critical to your SEO reputation management approach. If you Google your company name, your Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter profile will most certainly appear on the first page.

For Twitter, Google displays the three most recent tweets in the SERP (notice that Google does not display likes or retweets). A strong social media presence mirrored in the SERPs can assist in strengthening your audience’s trust in your brand, resulting in more clicks in the future if they find your web pages through organic search.

More Social Shares:

Backlinks have always been the most essential ranking criteria in search engines. However, when a person Tweets a link back to a web page, it does not truly transmit any link equity to your website, as a backlink on a web page would.

However, having your content shared and spread on social media will result in increased traffic to your web pages, more eyes on your content, and a higher likelihood that a user will find the content interesting and link to it. Being seen is the first step towards becoming bonded. Social media is an excellent approach to reaching a broader audience, therefore it may be part of any link-building plan.

Quality Content:

Assume a web page has been shared thousands of times via social media. Among those thousands of shares, there might be hundreds of thousands of likes, comments, and interactions. If a web page receives that much social proof, it most certainly includes useful content for the user. Web pages that score well in search results frequently include strong social media signals. However, correlation does not imply causation, thus there is no reason to believe that Google is using such social signals to assess quality and set ranks.

However, Google, like social media, rewards quality material. After all, its algorithm is based on Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trust (EAT). Creating exceptional content will help you enhance your exposure and performance in both digital channels, as long as you share it on social media and optimize it for organic search.

Tips to improve your Social Signals for SEO

Because of the linkages made above, investing time in improving your social signals can benefit your SEO and other aspects of your digital marketing approach.

So, here are some strategies for enhancing your social signals to generate those ancillary benefits and increase your website’s total online visibility.

Linking your website & profiles:

As previously announced, Google wants to connect websites to social network accounts.

To make things easier, ensure that your website links to your social media profile pages and vice versa. This is a basic yet important step. Previously, SEOs used social media schema to interact directly with Google about their social media pages, however, Google no longer supports this schema type. Make it easy for Google to automatically identify the connection by using reciprocal linking. However, you don’t want links to social profiles on your homepage diverting attention away from your CTA buttons or lead generation forms. As a result, we recommend that you include social media connections in your website’s footer.

These links may help improve your user experience. Whether a person comes across your website or your social media page first, you want to make it as simple as possible for them to find additional essential URLs related to your company.

Optimize your social profiles:

On-page optimization can help your social media profile pages in the same way that it does for a web page or blog article.

Including target keywords in your About Us, Services, Products, or other editable portions of your social media profile might assist Google in comprehending your website’s relationship to those terms. It’s critical to complete every element of your profile since Google will crawl and render the content of these pages to determine what your company is all about. Each field allows you to enter additional crucial keywords linked to your business.

Claim your knowledge panel:

Google Knowledge Panels are a SERP feature that compiles all of the most important information about a brand for users, including social network accounts. They typically rank for branded searches or when someone searches for your company name.

Google automatically develops Knowledge Panels, thus there is no way to apply for one if your brand does not yet have one. However, if your company’s Knowledge Panel appears, make sure to claim it. This allows you to communicate more directly with Google about the information that is stored there.

Promote regularly:

If you routinely create content on your website, such as blogs, articles, or ebooks, you should also promote it on your social media profiles. The more posts and material you share on social media networks, the more likely you are to receive likes, comments, shares, and engagements.

You may use social media management tools to schedule and automate posts to your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram accounts. If you haven’t yet hired a social media manager, you should think about doing so or outsourcing to an agency.

Here are some suggestions for discovering ways to share your website material daily: 

• Include links to your website’s newest content as soon as it is published.
• Post and link to any updated content that gives new or improved information to users.
• When the topic is mentioned in the news, in conversations, or in trending topics in your industry, share and link to relevant content on your website.
• When a person comments with a question about a certain topic, service, or product, provide a link to further related content on your website that addresses their query.

Add social plugins:

Website users are more likely to share content when it is simple to do so.

Adding social plugins to your content management system allows website visitors to easily share your high-quality material on their social network profiles.

Make your content clickable:

Use Open Graph tags and Twitter cards to make your web pages more interesting for social media users when they’re shared. These are just metadata elements that affect how your web content appears when shared on social networking networks. 

Actively respond to comments and shares:

Being “active,” on social media, is part of enhancing your social signals. This includes responding to comments and shares, as well as demonstrating to users that your profile is administered by a genuine person. Actively reacting to comments and shares may also result in more opportunities to share relevant connections to other pages on your website with users.

If you are preoccupied with other aspects of your business, consider hiring a social media marketing manager or outsourcing your social media chores to an agency.

Final Words

While social media continues to play an important part in SEO, simply sharing links to your website is insufficient. It is vital to communicate with your audience and build relationships for them to share your social media material.

Schedule a session with us if you need SEO or social media marketing assistance. Visit our website and drop a message for a consultation call. Let us take your business to new heights together!

Image SEO: How to Do SEO for Your Images

SEO, or search engine optimization, may appear sophisticated, but at a basic level, you may think of it this way: Everything on the internet is either content or a link (to other material).

Historically, the pieces of material with the most inbound connections from the highest-quality sites have had the best chance of ranking in search engines. That is the foundational premise upon which Google was formed.

“Off-page” SEO refers to the quality and number of a page’s inbound links. However, there are many other on-page SEO aspects to consider, such as image SEO. And it is the focus of our article today. Keep reading till the end to get a thorough understanding of what is Image SEO and other important things.

What is Image SEO?

Image SEO is the process of optimizing photos on your website so that search engines can easily “read” and find them, hence increasing your content’s visibility and rankings in Google and other search engines. Image SEO involves factors such as picture kind, size, and load time, as well as how you use and optimize alt text and keywords in image file names.

Image SEO is one of the most commonly disregarded aspects of on-page SEO, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t crucial. If you’re not careful, poor image SEO can significantly reduce your page’s capacity to collect links, rise in the index, and, eventually, deliver vital organic traffic.

The good news is that you can make a significant impact on your image SEO with just a few steps:

1. Use a compressor to reduce image sizes
2. Serve images in recommended, next-gen formats
3. Scale your images to work with your website
4. Create original, linkable image assets
5. Optimize your image titles, captions, and alt text
6. Make your images shareable
7. Try lazy loading for images

Now, let’s go over these in further detail. Here are our top seven must-follow picture SEO recommendations to ensure that your images are adequately optimized for search.

1. Use a compressor to compress image sizes: 

Site speed has the greatest influence of image SEO on a page’s overall ability to rank and generate traffic. It’s huge—site speed not only affects a user’s ability to navigate your conversion path, but it’s also an active ranking element. Google will not look favorably on slow pages. This is where image compression comes in. You may or may not be aware of PageSpeed Insights. It is quite convenient. Enter any URL from your website, and Google will provide you with a detailed assessment of the aspects that are slowing down that page’s speed. Run a couple of these tests, and you’ll discover a pattern. Improperly sized graphics are frequently the primary cause of page slowness. Because image SEO and page speed are intricately related, picture compression is an essential component of image SEO.

Simply, expand the appropriate tab in your PageSpeed Insights reports to view the images that are the most frequent offenders on your website. You will also see how much space you may save by compressing them.

2. Upload images in next-gen formats: 

Another common advice that will appear in your PageSpeed Insights report is “Serve images in next-gen formats.” The formats discussed here are JPEG 2000, JPG XR, and WebP. If you’ve never heard of any of these, don’t feel left out—they’re not as common as JPG or PNG. While JPG and PNG remain the most popular picture formats, next-generation formats such as JPEG 2000 are superior. Encoding your photographs in these formats rather than older formats allows for faster load times and less data usage on mobile devices. If you wish to start offering photos in next-generation formats, there are many free web converters available. 

3. Scale images to work with your website:

Proper picture size (and we’re talking dimensions, not file size) will vary based on your CMS and the format of the page where you’re uploading the image. Before submitting your images, look out for dimension best practices for your CMS. For example, Shopify suggests 2048 x 2048 pixels for square product photos. An image that seems to blend well with your text might have been automatically resized by your CMS to fit. This resize corrects the dimensions for display; it does not lower file size. In general, photos with more pixels will have larger file sizes. That implies that the best approach to ensure that you’re using the proper image sizes is to determine your site’s optimal image size and then crop photographs before uploading them. If that sounds like a time-consuming process, it may be if you’re sourcing photographs from many websites. However, whether you’re downloading stock photographs or outsourcing product images to a designer, you’ll want to discover a standard size that’s appropriate for your website.

4. Create original image content:

Stock photographs are simple to resize—the majority of the images you get from Adobe Stock, Shutterstock, or other sellers will come in sizes that are suitable for most websites. However, stock photographs aren’t always as effective as original, branded content. On the other hand, curated graphs based on in-house data or high-quality photographs of your product in action are the types of images that are shared on social media and found through reverse image searches.

Most essential, unique, captivating photos are required to make your page distinctive and valuable to the user. When Google experts are asked for a prescription for good SEO or a response to a specific tweak in Google’s algorithm that has resulted in a decline in ranks, they consistently answer the same thing: create pages that are above all beneficial to your audience. That includes selecting photos to provide users with the best experience possible on your pages.

5. Use titles, captions, and alt text liberally:

When deciding which image to return for an image query, Google has little information. At the very least, it has less information available than when indexing entire pages. For image SEO, you must provide Google with as much information about your image as possible within the space allowed to you. There are three main areas to do this:

Alt text: 

Alt text improves the user experience for screen readers or if your server fails to load the image. However, alt text is the primary mechanism by which Google recognizes what your image is, therefore it is important in terms of ranking. As a best practice, include the page’s goal keyword and any ancillary keywords that may relate to a single image, and omit anything that is not descriptive (articles, etc.).

Titles: 

There has been significant controversy about whether picture titles are required in addition to alt text. However, they are ranking factors in the sense that Google uses them to determine the order in which photographs appear in image searches.

Captions: 

This is what Google says about captions. “Google extracts information about the subject matter of the image from the content of the page, including captions and image titles.” So, essentially, putting your image near relevant text will help Google figure out what it is. Using captions is a foolproof approach to ensure that your image is presented appropriately and in context.

6. Ensure Seamless Social Sharing:

Let’s discuss Open Graph tags and/or Twitter Cards. These are HTML tags that ensure that when a page is shared on Facebook or Twitter, photos and description snippets are correctly displayed. Naturally, this is extremely important if you want your photographs to get traction on social media and drive traffic and strong social signals back to your website. If you are unsure whether certain elements exist in your source code, you can search for them. You may also try fake posting your page on Twitter or Facebook to ensure that the post displays correctly. Again, your CMS will determine how you implement Open Graph tags. If you use BigCommerce, for example, you’ll see open graph fields in all of your product listings on the back end (but not on your home page). If you use WordPress, you can locate these fields in Yoast (a fantastic SEO plugin for WordPress). It’s a good idea to look through your most trafficked and business-critical pages and ensure they’re all equally shareable on social.

7. Lazy Loading:

Aside from having a catchy name, lazy loading can help improve page speed by avoiding loading images below the fold until the user scrolls down to them. Take it from Google. Lazy loading can substantially speed up loading on large pages with many images below the fold by loading them only when needed or after the major content has finished loading and rendering. That’s about as positive an endorsement as you can get.

Google also supports lazy loading in its own PageSpeed Insights. You may come across this advice while performing page speed analysis on your website.

That is Google advising you that, in this case, sluggish loading can be beneficial. If you use WordPress, there are a few lazy-loading plugins worth looking at. 

Final Words:

We’ve given you seven simple picture SEO action items to implement on your website. Keep in mind that you do not have to use all of these, but you should try to employ as many of them as possible given the time and experience you have. For example, you may be uncomfortable with hard-coding Open Graph tags, but anyone can add search-friendly alt text or utilize a free application to compress photos efficiently. Decide what is most critical and possible for your approach, and proceed from there!

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A/B Testing of Landing Pages for Better Online Ads Results

When marketers develop landing sites, write email copy, or design call-to-action buttons, it’s easy to use our instincts to forecast what will compel consumers to click and connect. However, conducting A/B testing is far superior to making marketing decisions based on a “feeling,” as this might hurt outcomes. Continue reading to learn what is A/B testing, why it is helpful, and how you can do it!

What is A/B Testing?

A/B testing, commonly known as split testing, is a marketing experiment in which you divide your audience to test variations on a campaign and see which works better. In other words, you can present version A of marketing content to one-half of your audience and version B to the other.

Let’s go over how A/B testing works so you don’t make false assumptions about what your audience prefers.

How does A/B Testing work?

To conduct an A/B test, you must produce two distinct versions of the same piece of content with modifications to a single variable.

Then, you’ll display these two versions to two audiences of equal size and compare how they performed over a set amount of time. A/B testing allows marketers to compare how one version of marketing content performs against another.

A/B Testing in Marketing

A/B testing has numerous advantages for a marketing team, depending on what you choose to test. There are an infinite number of items you may test to evaluate the total influence on your bottom line.

Here are some elements you may want to test in your campaigns:

• Subject Lines
• CTAs
• Headers
• Titles
• Font and Colours
• Product Images
• Blog Graphics
• Body copy
• Navigation
• Opt-in forms

Of course, this list isn’t complete. Your alternatives are limitless. Above all, these tests are beneficial since they are low-cost and high-reward.

A/B Testing Goals

A/B testing can reveal a lot about how your target audience behaves and responds to your marketing effort. Not only does A/B testing assist you in understanding your audience’s behavior, but the results can also help you set your next marketing objectives. Here are some frequent aims that marketers have for their businesses while conducting A/B testing.

Increased website traffic: You’ll want to employ A/B testing to assist you in identifying the perfect URL and title for your landing page/website so you can attract your audience’s attention. Testing different blog or web page titles and URLs can affect the number of visitors who click on the hyperlinked title to visit your site. This may enhance website traffic. A rise in online traffic is a positive thing! More traffic usually leads to more sales.

Higher conversion rate: Not only does A/B testing increase traffic to your website, but it can also improve conversion rates. Testing alternative placements, colors, and even anchor text on your CTAs might affect the number of people who click them to reach a landing page. This can improve the number of users who fill out your website’s forms, provide you with their contact information, and “convert” into leads.

Lower Bounce Rate: A/B testing can assist you figure out what’s driving visitors away from your website. Perhaps the feel of your website does not resonate with your target demographic. Perhaps the colors clash, leaving your target audience with poor taste. If your website visitors quickly depart (or “bounce”), experimenting with different blog post openers, fonts, or prominent images will help you retain them.

Better Product images: You know you have the ideal product or service to offer your target client. But how do you know you’ve chosen the best product image to represent what you have to offer?

Use A/B testing to identify which product image will best capture the attention of your target audience. Compare the photographs and select the one with the highest sales rate.

Lower Cart abandonment: E-commerce enterprises report that 70% of clients leave with things in their shopping carts. This is known as “shopping cart abandonment” and is, of course, bad for any online retailer. Testing alternate product images, checkout page styles, and even where shipping costs are shown might help to reduce abandonment.

Launching test

Let’s say the landing page is ready and there is nothing to do, then launch the test. Let’s launch it step by step.

1. First, ask yourself this question: What could be the cause of a low conversion rate? Sometimes it’s the color of a call to action button. Sometimes it’s a headline or an image. There are numerous approaches to determine what is creating the vicious loop of no conversions, such as heat maps- A heat map depicts a visitor’s interaction with your website. A heat map indicates which elements of a landing page are the most appealing for your users.

2. Prepare two separate versions of your effective landing page. Remember that you must make them differ by only one element to conduct a credible A/B test.

3. Take your time selecting your target audience. Also, remember that it’s usually preferable to test on a new group of clients; they won’t have any prior experience with your website, so their behavior will be clean and dependable.

4. Select the source of traffic. It might be Facebook, Google search, email, and so forth. Now, start testing!

5. Choose a winner! Analyzing the results is straightforward. Simply check which combination resulted in a higher conversion rate. There is only one modification, so you’ll know right away what caused it. 

6. Take another test! We hope you did not assume this was the end! If your first A/B test was successful, it just means there should be more, because with each test, your landing page improves! And as it improves, it achieves higher conversions, CTR, and, finally, sales! Remember, A/B testing is not a single action, it’s an ongoing process. A/B testing makes you the effective landing page you are looking for.

Final Words

A/B testing allows you to discover the truth about what content and marketing your audience wants to see. If you want to learn more about how A/B testing can help your business increase conversions, please contact us online or drop us an email at info@ecliqs.com to speak with a strategist.

We look forward to hearing from you.

References:

1. https://www.crazyegg.com/blog/landing-page-ab-testing/
2. https://www.outbrain.com/blog/landing-page-a-b-testing/
3. https://www.webfx.com/digital-marketing/learn/landing-page-ab-testing-tips/
4. https://www.leadpages.com/blog/ab-testing-split-testing
5. https://landingi.com/blog/a-b-testing-step-by-step/