Author: Shefali Pandey

The founder and partner of Flora Fountain, Shefali leads the Content and Technology divisions. A one-time engineer who started her career writing front-end code, she took a detour sometime during her 9 years in New York, studied journalism and started writing prose, poetry and sometimes jokes. She now has 15 years of experience in various segments of digital media and writing.  A lover of all things Bollywood, horror, good food and comedy, she curates #RickPick on Instagram to celebrate everyday kitsch, especially in auto-rickshaws. Her lifelong fascination with Bombay inspired the company's name, serving as its initial home and attracting valued clients. Evolving from a website and content-focused agency with renowned clients like National Geographic Traveller, Flora Fountain has now flourished into a 360-degree digital agency in Ahmedabad. Beyond her entrepreneurial pursuits, Shefali is also a stand-up artist and a co-founder of the comedy collective named Mahila Manch in Ahmedabad. Her creative pursuits in comedy is her way of showcasing her versatility and dedication to exploring new avenues of artistic expression.

Categories
Digital Marketing Agency

How to use Pinterest in a brand’s digital marketing strategy

Pinterest could be one of the biggest drivers of traffic

Just pin it! If you’ve come across this term through a friend, colleague, associate or even your mother, you know you’ve got a Pinner. This is a colloquial term used for people who use Pinterest on a regular basis and they have an evolved sense of exploring the internet.

Now, time for some facts! Around 433 million people use Pinterest every month to find ideas and inspire their next purchase. As of January 2022, Pinterest is the 14th largest social media platform in the world with over 60% of their audience being women, and have also witnessed a 30% year on year increase in Indian Pinners aged 25 to 34 years.

This is music to the ears of every top digital marketing agency in Ahmedabad or anywhere in the world. Wondering why? Read on to know how we use Pinterest in our brands’ marketing strategies.

Convert your Pinterest profile into a business page

Pinterest allows its users to create two types of accounts on its platform, i.e. Personal and Business. The business profiles are professional pages and provide the user with various additional tools like Pinterest Analytics, Visual Search Tool, and Pinterest Ads.

If a user already has an account with Pinterest, they can simply create a linked Business account with a completely separate name, bio, links and pins. Another way is to create a new business page from scratch.

Women's Health Magazine

A Pinterest Business Profile must have the official business name, the logo, a short bio introducing the business and a website, if there is one. To verify the website, Pinterest provides the user with a code snippet that they need to place on their site, with the help of a developer or through WordPress plugins.

Plan your content, build a visual story

The end goal of any business is to sell. So it goes without saying that the content that needs to go up on Pinterest should be in line with the services they provide or the products they sell.

People use Pinterest as a Visual Search Engine, specifically when they just have a vague idea of what they want. So, if a business is a retailer or an online store, they must be taking stunning product photos and turning them into pins.

Grapefruit Rosemary Smash Cocktail

Now, if a business is a service provider, then they can use infographics, visual data or attractive designs to firstly draw the attraction of the user and then make them click on the provided link to lead them to the website. Such a content strategy is also known as creating lead magnets.

Becomeme a part of the community

The bedrock of Pinterest’s success is the strong communities of like-minded people it fosters on its platform. There’s something for everyone on Pinterest. Engagement is the key to success on Pinterest.

By interacting with other users, followers and their accounts, a business can stimulate interest and loyalty towards the brand, and this holds potential to draw them back to the page for ideas, inspiration or even make a purchase.

Another great Pinterest marketing strategy, which helps get a brand’s content out there, is by being a part of and creating community or group boards. Create group boards, invite other users to come join the community and contribute with their content, join communities similar to the industry and contribute using your own pins which promote the brand and business.

Yeah, Pinterest SEO is a thing!

By using keywords throughout your profile, posts, Pins, and boards, you’ll be more likely to organically appear in users’ feeds and searches. Every leading SEO Company in Ahmedabad and all over the globe would suggest Pinterest as a tool to draw traffic to the website.

A business is more likely to feature on users’ feeds and searches when they use relevant keywords throughout the profile or page. These keywords can be peppered across in the bio and profile, pin descriptions, board titles and descriptions, and even the image alt text to improve the chances of organically ranking through search.

keywords on pinterest pin

Further, Pinterest ads also provide a keyword targeting tool to help businesses show their pins to the right audience through paid promotions and increase their conversion rates.

Drive the traffic to your site

One of the most untapped aspects of Pinterest is its ability to drive traffic to the business website. By regularly posting, creating pins and contributing to boards on Pinterest, a business generates interest among users who come across its content. As one of the top digital marketing agencies in Ahmedabad, we engage, educate and delight the followers of our businesses. We engage them with interesting pins, educate them about the products and services on offer, and delight them by drawing them towards the websites and online shops which offer them what they’re seeking for and more.

Start pinning, drive traffic to your website and attract interested people towards your business by ramping up your digital marketing strategy with Pinterest for business using these tips. And the best way to go about it is to get the experts to work, like the creative geniuses at Flora Fountain. Drop us a hi on hello@flora.ffteam.in

Categories
Content Writing

How is AI affecting content marketing in the digital world

Studying analytics and trends

Data research

Keyword research

Studying analytics and trends

Data review

Search engine optimization

And finally content creation!

These are some of the many important tasks that a digital marketer does before actually writing any content. Such tasks add up to take away from some valuable hours that could be spent writing or editing.. However, as artificial intelligence isn’t a thing of the future anymore, it has already started to change the game of content marketing. Content marketing includes marketing content written for social media posts, seo, and websites. It is not just writing but includes researching, editing, uploading, and promoting this content.

So what is AI and how can it impact, or maybe even improve, content marketing?

AI or Artificial Intelligence is the simulation of human intelligence in machines. This technology leverages computers or machines to mimic the problem-solving and decision-making capabilities of the human mind. According to data, the global AI market value is expected to reach $267 billion by 2027.

One of the best digital marketing agencies in Ahmedabad, Flora Fountain is here to help you understand how this technology has affected or should we say benefited the content marketing strategy in the digital world.

Better research & insights

Creating content may seem like it’s an easy job to do. But it involves a lot of time, money, effort and intellect to come up with ideas and convert them into engaging content on social media and other digital media platforms. Research plays an extensive and important role in content creation. In our experience, right from professional content writing in Ahmedabad to strategising and executing local and national campaigns, its efficiency in the digital world depended a great deal on reaching the right person at the right time. And this involved many manual hours of research and data collection done by our teams.

Fortunately, AI exists! AI collects, analyses, and compares data faster than a human. And this data provides them with insights to form a cohesive and smarter content strategy. A strategy that is relevant, trending, and has been curated on the basis of numbers.

For instance, Instagram provides insights of the audience that the brand targets. It even helps detect the best times and channels to publish content. When it shows such insights a marketer or content strategist empowered with this knowledge can come up with a more customised content strategy for the brand.

Better research & insights

Content curation

Coming up with something new to write is a tedious task. And what is all the more difficult is to create perfect copies, captions and blogs that connect the brand with its target audiences. But just like AI helps with the research and data collection for content creation, there are tools which help curate and correct content to ensure the promotional material is error-free. Speaking from our experience of professional content writing in Ahmedabad, we have been able to curate our content, its language and focus on the basis of the region and the audience it is being targeted to.

BuzzSumo showing a keyword’s engagement on different platforms.

AI also helps to create high-quality automatic content in order to waste less time the marketers on small posts. One of the most popular and widely used software tools, Grammarly uses AI to check grammar, spelling, or plagiarism and also provides suggestions. Paraphrasing tools like Quillbot and Spinbot, work as full-sentence thesaurus as they restructure text while maintaining its original meaning.

Grammarly interface

Chatbots

Powered by AI platforms, chatbots are content intelligence tools that you see on websites or apps like Facebook messenger. These bots interact with customers who need answers to their queries immediately. They provide such customers with detailed and appropriate responses to the questions. Earlier, when people used to buy something online and wanted to ask something regarding the items, the executive took time to gather resources to respond. But with the help of AI chatbots, they retrieve relevant information in a fraction of seconds.

Customers feel like they’re having a normal conversation with a human being as opposed to a robot.

Read customer’s pulse with predictive intelligence

Imagine you are browsing Myntra, and you find some items that you like and you decide to save them for later. Next, you open your Instagram and are scrolling through. Suddenly an ad from Myntra appears with the items that you recently saved along with related products. Seeing those items again, makes you go back to the app and purchase that item. This is AI creating personalised content for every individual at the consideration stage.

With the help of predictive intelligence, marketers can track their customer’s behaviour and construct profiles. They can also create personalised content on the basis of the data recorded on the requirements and interests of customers.

AI in action on social media platforms

4.62 billion people around the world use social media, which means brands have a chance to promote their content in front of a large audience. Be it Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, or Twitter, hashtag (#) is an amazing way to drive views, likes and shares on any content. People who are interested in a certain topic find it by searching that particular hashtag. And in this way the brand easily draws attention to their posts. The more ‘niche’ the hashtag is, the more number of the right people can find it.

Similarly, trending songs or audios that are gaining popularity on the most popular feature of instagram, REELS, also helps a video content to go viral.

So this shows how AI empowers a business to prepare for smarter content strategies for their digital marketing. Want to witness it yourself? Let Flora Fountain, the best digital marketing agency in Ahmedabad with its professional content writing help you create better strategies with AI. To start a conversation call 91 95580 79502 or drop us an email hello@flora.ffteam.in

Categories
Ecommerce

B2B Ecommerce: How is it different from B2C

B2B&B2C

Everyone has heard and knows about Alibaba and Amazon. One is a Chinese ecommerce giant and the other is an American multinational entity. Both are known for their digital sales, but there is one thing that makes them very different.

Alibaba is a primarily Business to Business (B2B) shopping platform whereas Amazon is a Business to Consumer (B2C) platform. They both sell, but to different audiences, with completely different business models in place. What separates the two? Let’s take a deep dive into what makes B2B ecommerce different from B2C or retail ecommerce.

The real difference between B2B and B2C

In a B2B business model, a business, that is a manufacturer or wholesaler, sells their products to another business, usually a retailer. While in a B2C business model, the same retailer then sells these goods to the end-consumers. And there are several differences here, right from the expectations of the customers, the margins on products, down to the quantity ordered and even the method of shipping these products.

Yes, this means their ecommerce websites need to be different too

As both business models serve different sets of target groups, their ecommerce websites are developed differently too. As the top ecommerce website development company in Ahmedabad having provided ecommerce website solutions to some of the biggest brands across the country, we’ve listed down the top 7 differentiators between B2B and B2C websites:

Curated homepage

The homepage of a B2B website has a simple, clutter-free design with a focus on the products being sold, accompanied by highly informative product details, alongwith SKUs (Stock Keeping Unit) and reference images. These modules often have a quick order system for buyers who already know the product name or its SKU code.

Curated homepage

In comparison, the homepage of a B2C website has a lot going on. The design is usually intriguing and engaging, with multiple entry points for exploring the product range. The content is quirkier to create desire for the customer to explore the products some more. Often discounts and special offers are highlighted to push the website visitors to buy.

Tailored content and images

The content on B2B websites focuses on providing a lot of information about the product to the visitor, since the target groups here are typically business owners, purchase managers, stockists, etc. who evaluate and compare on the basis of detailed buying guides, demo videos, and in-depth articles. The idea is to give the buyer all the information they could want before placing a bulk order.

Tailored content and images

On B2C websites, the content is tailored to grab eyeballs of visitors with short, enticing and catchy headlines accompanied by multiple high resolution images of the product. Often the images for product images are highly styled and sometimes they will make use of models too, for increasing engagement and relatability. In addition, the content champions the discounts offered, favourable customer reviews and its striking features to convince the buyer to make a purchase decision pronto.

Customer support

Customer support is one of the most crucial aspects of selling online, whether it is to a business or to an end-user. For B2B, there is customer support required on multiple levels, right from the checkout process to after-sales concerns. B2B customer support involves live interactions through chats, human interactions via video calls for demos, answering FAQs of businesses, processing payments, logistics and even reorders.

When it comes to B2C, the customer support is available 24X7 and focused more towards post-sales complaints, returns and exchanges. B2C platforms deploy programmed chat-bots who are capable of answering simple queries and escalate the communication further only if the situation permits it. The idea here is to reduce the customer servicing costs, given the large number of orders B2C platforms process.

Minimum/Maximum Order & Shipping Quantity

B2B platforms usually have a minimum order quantity. This minimum threshold is a common practice for B2Bs, to ensure only serious purchases are done and the expenditure for processing and shipping these orders justifies the value of the transaction. Some platforms even have a quantity in multiples for various products that are sold in packages.

B2Cs have an exactly opposite policy, where it sets a threshold of maximum orders per person. This is done to ensure no malpractice is involved in exploiting the various offers and discounts offered by the sellers to increase for their retail customers.

Call-to-Action Prompts

The call-to-action or CTAs on a B2B platform have multiple channels of contact. There is usually a live chat feature, a messaging module, an official email address and a go-to helpline number of the seller. The placement of these CTA options are usually done in such a manner that they provide multiple touchpoints with both the aggregator platform and the seller.

Call-to-Action Prompts

B2C CTAs are, on the contrary, more on the creative side, with more room to tug the target audience’s emotions, attempting to impress with wit and humour, while creating a sense of urgency too. On B2C platforms, the seller’s contact details aren’t revealed and all the communication passes through the customer service department of the platform or aggregator.

Different Pricing

The checkout process in B2B platforms is usually a combination of automated processes and human interactions. Since these platforms handle high-value transactions, they have negotiable price points to ensure a long-term buyer-seller relationship with their customers. The checkout process has options like Request a Quote, Contact Seller for negotiations, Request Demo, Payment Assistance for options like pay-on-credit, bank transactions, etc. and even Logistics Support.

Meanwhile, B2C checkouts have minimal touchpoints. Instead they have options to create Wishlists, Add To Cart products and continue shopping and modules to apply various discount coupons and referral codes in the checkout process. They provide as many multiple digital payment options as possible to not lose a customer, often providing a Cash on Delivery or COD option as well.

We hope this helped present a clearer picture for your ecommerce business and gave you enough conviction to dip your toes in this ecommerce ocean of possibilities. Still waiting? How about checking out the Ecommerce website solutions provided by Flora Fountain, the top Ecommerce website development company in Ahmedabad. All you have to do is drop us a hello on hello@flora.ffteam.in and get the ball rolling today.

Categories
Digital Marketing Agency

Tap into your loyal customer base & boost sales with remarketing in digital marketing

remarketing in digital marketing

The smooth & delicious Cold Brew is back.
Sleepy Owl is celebrating summer with Cold Brew on discount.
Use code SUMMERISBACK.
Hurry now: https://bit.ly/35XUycs

No, we haven’t pivoted into selling coffee from being a creative advertising agency in Ahmedabad or a digital marketing agency!

But, we’re sure that the above text did remind you of having seen something familiar, either as a text message, email or push notification on the phone. This is an example of a brand trying to lure back its existing customers to keep shopping with them regularly.

This is the brand ‘remarketing’ itself to stay relevant, maintain a loyal customer base and keep the sales going. The example here is of a prominent Indian coffee brand pitching one of its popular summer brews as soon as the weather started getting hotter.

Sleepy Owl is celebrating summer with Cold Brew on discount

BUT, WHAT IS REMARKETING?

Remarketing is a type of marketing activity that focuses on consumers who have previously shown interest in the brand. This interest could be in the form of a visit to the brand’s website, following it on social media marketing, or clicking on any of its ads online.

The idea behind remarketing is to reach out to the most receptive audience and utilize that interest towards the company’s goal like boosting sales with digital marketing. At the core, rekindling the audience’s interest and drawing them back, has more chances of conversions and helps the brand build a loyal audience base.

And before unravelling how to increase sales through digital remarketing, it is important to talk about retargeting.

REMARKETING VS RETARGETING

Remarketing is sometimes considered retargeting. Yes, they do sound eerily similar and both help to boost sales with digital marketing, but there is a slight difference.

Retargeting is usually done to serve ads across various platforms, such as social media and Google Ads Network, to potential customers based on their past interactions on digital mediums with the brand.

Remarketing is reaching out to users and website visitors through messages and emails, by making a sales pitch, with the help of the contact information shared by them while subscribing or while making a purchase earlier.

However, over the years, remarketing has become an umbrella term, of which retargeting is a part alongside the many other marketing activities which engage existing customers and previous visitors.

So how to increase sales through digital marketing targeted to the present customer base?

How to increase sales through digital remarketing

Let us understand this using an example of a remarketing activity that Flora Fountain performed to boost sales with digital marketing as the top digital marketing agency in Ahmedabad for one of our ecommerce clients.

Suppose, Sujith visited www.falguni.shop, the ecommerce website of Falguni Gruh Udhyog, a well-known farsan and snack store in Ahmedabad. He made some purchases and chose to get them delivered to his friend living in New Delhi.

Now, to complete the purchase, Sujith is required to create a profile on the website, hence providing his email ID and contact number. Secondly, for the delivery to be successful, he will be required to provide his friend’s information, like name, address, email ID and contact number.

Jump to a week later. Both Sujith, who is a direct customer for www.falguni.shop, and his friend, an indirect consumer, receive an email that looked something like the one below:

Falguni Gruh Udhyog, a famous farsan and snack store in Ahmedabad

While Sujith ignored the email, it piqued his friend’s interest and later that day, the indirect consumer, ended up visiting the ecommerce website and making a purchase.

And that is how to increase sales through digital marketing or remarketing to be specific! This way you too can boost your sales from digital remarketing.

TYPES OF REMARKETING

You can increase sales through digital marketing with any of the following strategies:

EMail and SMS Remarketing

Customers who have previously purchased anything from the brand’s website or subscribed to the newsletter are the target of this strategy. The brand reaches out to them through tailored text messages or emails with specific offers relevant to them, such as promotions or discounts comparable to what they purchased or showed interest in the past.

This list of customers/users can be segmented too. They can be grouped as:

  • Customers who bought a similar product in the past
  • Customers who added products but abandoned their cart before checkout
  • Customers who looked at a product that wasn’t in stock at the time

This type of focused remarketing increases the chances of conversion.

Display Ads on third-party sites

The most prevalent way to boost sales with digital marketing to previously existing customers is by displaying third-party ads.

It entails reaching out through paid marketing, notably display ads on third-party websites, to users who have visited the brand’s website.

Display Ads on third party sites

There are many platforms to run such display remarketing campaigns, and Google Ads is one of the top and most used platforms.

These platforms track the traffic to the brand’s website using cookies and then target users who visited the site with ads for the products and services of the brand.

Display ads appear on websites that are connected to the ad network the brand is using. If a brand uses Google Ads, then its display ads will appear to users when they visit sites that are part of the Google Display Network.

Push notifications

Push notifications

The take on push notifications on ‘how to increase sales through digital marketing’ is the most interesting and perhaps the most personalised one.

These messages exist for both mobile and desktop devices and can be sent either manually or automatically to contact website or app visitors, whose personal information the brand may not have access to.

For instance, if someone who visited a site or opened an app leaves it halfway, a message can be sent to the user’s browser or device encouraging him/her to return to the site and finish the purchase or revisit the site.

Mobile apps even use this method to create recall, engage with users and pitch offers to the user with the idea of drawing them back to the app and making a purchase.

The best part about it is that no matter what the user is doing on the computer or mobile phone, the message will appear as a pop-up notification on the screen, until he/she either clicks it away or opens it, hence there is no ignoring it.

FAQs

Q1 How Does Remarketing Work?
Remarketing works by using cookies, which are small text files that are stored on a user’s computer or device when they visit a website. These cookies allow brands to track a user’s browsing behaviour and target them with ads as they continue to browse the web.

Q2 What are some benefits of Remarketing?
Boosting sales with digital marketing, increasing conversions, enhancing brand awareness, and improving targeting, are a few benefits of Remarketing.

Q3 How does remarketing impact consumer privacy?
Remarketing relies on the use of cookies to track user behaviour, which has raised concerns about consumer privacy. However, most remarketing platforms allow users to opt out of seeing targeted ads or delete their cookie data if they choose to do so. Additionally, many remarketing platforms adhere to industry standards for data privacy and provide transparency around their data collection practices.

Q4 What are the best ways to increase sales through digital remarketing?
Some of the best practices for remarketing include:

  • Defining your target audience
  • Creating targeted messaging and ads
  • Using compelling ad creative
  • Highlighting your USPs and encouraging CTAs
  • Setting a frequency to avoid overexposure and ad fatigue
  • monitoring and optimising your campaign performance

In Conclusion

Remarketing can be a powerful tool for brands looking to boost sales with digital marketing strategies targeted at previous customers.

Sounds interesting? Getting ideas about how your brand can benefit from remarketing? Get started by dropping us a “hi” at hello@florafountain.in.

Get the best digital marketing company in Ahmedabad, India to back you and your brand in this crowded marketplace that is the Internet.

Categories
SEO

On and Off: Your brand’s guide to creating an SEO strategy

off-page SEO and on-page SEO

93% of all online experiences begin with a search engine like Google.

75% of users never go past the first page of search results.

Knowing such facts is one thing, but internalising them and then acting on them is what helps a brand really shine online.

SEO or search engine optimisation empowers brands to do that. The process of optimising a website to improve its visibility and rank in search engine results is known as SEO. It is a detailed plan which on execution helps a website improve its search engine ranking in order to capture more organic traffic. This plan is built on two different foundational pillars like on-page and off-page SEO. In order to fully optimise a brand’s SEO strategy, a thorough understanding of these two pillars become extremely important.

The difference between on-page and off-page is quite simple. On-page as the name suggests are all the activities done ‘on the pages of your website’. Whereas off-page means all the activities done ‘beyond the pages of your website.’ Of course it’s more than just these two lines.

Read on as Flora Fountain, a top SEO company in Ahmedabad, India, is here to help you get a better understanding of all that SEO jazz.

Let’s jump in!

On-page SEO

The process of optimising individual web pages in order to rank higher and garner more relevant organic traffic in search engines such as Google and Yahoo is known as On-page SEO. It entails optimising both the content and HTML source code of a page. From creating content with keywords, optimising title tags, meta tags, and internally linking relevant pages as per the URL structure, everything that takes place on the website falls under on-page SEO.

Content and keywords

You might already know all about content and keywords, but a refresher never hurts!

Content is indeed the king QUEEN! Most brands, despite knowing this, fail to optimise content. SEO includes looking for the keywords that your audience is using to search for information on the internet, and then creating, optimising, and regularly publishing website content around these keywords. Content also includes the kind of images you put out on your website. So you need to optimise them as well. Make sure that they are not larger than they need to be and are in the right format (JPG and PNG).

The experienced SEO team at Flora Fountain, the best digital marketing company in Ahmedabad, India, also understands how to optimise existing content, in order for a brand to increase its organic traffic.

title and meta description

Title Tag and Meta description

The main heading or the title of the web page is a title tag. And the short description that appears under it is a meta description. Title tag comes up on the search engine results page (SERP) and is a very important factor for the success of on-page SEO. And because Google search engine usually picks up only about 65 letters or characters from the title tag, a brand needs to choose every word, even letter, very wisely! Meta tags on the other hand describe the content on that page but, more importantly, it’s written to help your web page stand out in the list of SERP results. Keep the meta description under 155 characters to ensure your entire description is shown in search results.

Internal Linking

Connecting any link from one page on the website to another page on the same website is known as internal linking. Linking to various relevant pages on the website makes it easier for search engines like Google to understand the relationship between pages on the site and to crawl everything. Internal linking also provides a more immersive user experience that can keep the visitors engaged for a longer time. Though, unlike backlinks, internal links don’t boost the website’s domain authority. But, they funnel existing domain authority built using backlinks and spread it across the website.

Mobile friendly website

A website designed to show the most optimised view as per a device’s screen size, ranging from smartphones to tablets, is known as a responsive website. The overwhelming majority of website users browse on their phones, and yet 44% brands still do not have mobile-friendly websites. Google too favours mobile-friendly websites, pushing up the ranking of the website if it is mobile-friendly. These are all the considerations that go into website development when you hire a top SEO company like Flora Fountain to work on your website re-design from day 1. Just like this Ahmedabad-based school did!

Another thing to keep in mind is that SEO results are different when it comes to mobile pages. A website does not automatically inherit the main site’s SEO ranking on mobile. The search results on mobile are calculated based on the site’s mobile page speed.

URL structure and SSL HTTPS

URL structure is a very crucial part of any website. URLs with relevant keywords allow search engines to crawl from page to page on a website very smoothly. This also makes navigation more efficient for visitors. While creating a URL, a brand should always use the primary keyword for the page and avoid repetitive words to keep it short.

Similarly, an SSL, or Secure Sockets Layer, certificate is also very important as it improves the website’s page security and visibility. With the help of SSL, the likelihood of interference of a third party in between a website’s server and a visitor’s server, decreases, guaranteeing that the content on the website is safe. Moreover, because of this search engines give ranking preference to sites that are SSL enabled.

Website Speed optimization

1,2,3,4,5! If your site takes this much time to load its content completely, chances are that 90% of users will abandon your site before the website loads. This metric is tracked as the bounce rate. And the more time your website takes to load, the higher the bounce rate. While crawling, Google correlates a high bounce rate with lower user engagement which affects your ranking as well. In fact, as per Google guidelines for developers, the site speed does impact search rankings.

So while most website design agencies might not give enough importance to this, from an SEO and user experience perspective, your website must load in under three seconds, so that with the help of SEO services and other on-page and off-page optimization, your website can come up ranking high in Google.

Breadcrumb navigation and Alt Text

Some other important parts of on-page optimisation include adding breadcrumb navigation and alt text. Breadcrumbs inform the website visitors to navigate through the site. It shows them where they are on the website. Moreover, it enables Google to understand the structure of the site. While alt text is a word or phrase that can be attributed to a picture file to help ensure it gets indexed and makes the website more accessible for reading software. Both these factors make a website with alt text for its images rank highly.

As you might have guessed, On-page SEO optimisation is something you have complete control over through your website’s code and content, however that’s not always the case for off-page SEO. So what exactly is off-page SEO optimisation?

Off-page SEO

As mentioned before, this refers to all the strategies and activities planned and executed, outside of your website, to bring traffic to it. It is tremendously valuable because it tells search engines that the website is important to others on the web. Every link that a site receives acts as an endorsement from another source. It shows the quality of the website. This is usually done through backlinks.

Backlinks

Also-known-as inbound links or incoming links, Backlinks are links that are created when one website links to another. They help a website gain more traffic and it also serves as one of Google’s top three ranking factors.

Imagine, a company with a brand new website. And no one links to it and it doesn’t submit the website Google. It can’t be found because search engines will take forever to find it, if at all. But if multiple other websites, especially those with a high ranking or domain authority, link to it, search engines can crawl through that link and index the pages. If this sounds awfully a lot like a popularity contest straight out of high school, that’s because it kind of is. Being linked to by the “popular kids” or high-trafficked websites, usually ranks your website high in search engine’s crawling eyes, and eventually bodes well for your website traffic.

Backlinks

Create. Earn. Build.

These are the three ways to get backlinks.

Creating means when someone manually adds links to their site from other sites. This can be done by regularly leaving blog comments or replying on forums. Earned backlinks or organic backlinks occur when people discover a site’s content after googling it or through social media and choose to link it in their site. This usually happens when the content on your website is rich with information or entertainment, or another quality that the reader highly values. Last but not the least, building backlinks means when a website owner contacts other website owners or editors and requests them to link to their website. This usually works as a barter between websites.

Local SEO

According to studies, more than 50% of ‘near me’ searches result in a store visit and 46% of all Google searches are seeking local information. So your brand needs to show up when someone searches for the service you provide in your area. That means you need to show up in your local google searches. But how does one go about it? With ‘Local SEO’, which helps brands to be more visible in local research on search engines like Google.

As part of local SEO, a citation is an online mention of your business on another’s website, that links not only the name but also the address and phone number of your business. It consists of your business’s name, address, and phone number or NAP. You can submit these citations to the listing sites or can hire an agency to do it for you. These citations work as proof for Google’s algorithm to find out that your brand is a local business.

Social media

Over 93% of regular internet users log into social media. So as a brand make sure to create social media accounts for your business on the platforms where you know your target group is active.

And though it is true that the likes and comments on social media don’t directly impact the website rank, it still enables you to promote your site to 93% of users who are either new or existing customers of your brand. When they see your brand on social media, they get an opening to contact you, and you get to answer them regularly.

Another thing that you can do is join hands with the right influencers and seek collaborations to promote your product or service. When influencers successfully create a buzz for your product, Google takes note of this online chatter and if there are enough shares, they’ll start to prioritise your content over others. Similarly, blog posts are a great way to put out new keywords with more recency, as blogs get indexed by search engines. In such cases, it makes sense to go with a top digital agency, with social media services, content-writing services and SEO services in-house so all the functions can work together without friction.

Reviews

It should come as no surprise that people do a fair share of research on the product they are about to purchase. And 88% of customers trust reviews posted by others online. So the more the reviews, the more your brand establishes itself as a trustworthy online brand among your existing and potential clients.

And according to Google’s local quality guidelines, responding to such reviews can improve your business visibility.

Still on the fence about SEO? Let the SEO experts, at one of the best digital marketing companies and SEO companies in Ahmedabad, India help you get a better understanding, and craft a smart and persistent SEO strategy for you. Give us a call now to inquire about our SEO services.

Categories
Web Design and Development

How we created a mobile-first responsive website for an Ahmedabad school

Shivashish World School Website Desktop

Located in one of Ahmedabad’s fastest developing areas, Shivashish World School (SWS) is a premier co-educational school which started back in the year 1994. A charitable trust started the school with Gujarati medium but with time the school got its CBSE affiliation and introduced English medium. In the year 2021, they went through a major expansion and re-branding exercise, which included a completely new building, identity design and re-doing their digital presence across website and social media.

The school wanted a total revamp of their design and branding, so one of Ahmedabad’s best digital marketing agencies came up with a best in class website to help them achieve a complete image makeover.

The Client’s Problem

Incepted more than 28 years ago, SWS has been imparting high-quality education from kindergarten right to high school. In 2021, they set up a new world class building for their CBSE board, but realized that in the post-pandemic era, most parents were going to discover them online first. Unfortunately, their existing website did not match the scale and aesthetic of the new building. The website was also being used for two different brands, the Gujarat Board school, called Shivashish School, and the CBSE school, called SWS, creating confusion for the user.

Moreover, the old website had been designed primarily for the desktop, with its mobile version created almost as an after-thought. However, a quick look at their analytics showed that up to 90% of their unique users accessed the website through mobile devices. All of whom were being served a sub-par experience.

The school also realized that most of the things that made them unique, such as their pedagogy, amenities and most of all its teaching staff had to be showcased better!

CBSE & GBSE The history of the school as presented in old website

Solution presented by Flora Fountain

Since most parents were accessing the website from a cell phone, we decided to create a mobile-first website, a first for any school in Ahmedabad, that was dynamic and sleek. Modern design concepts like glassmorphism, neumorphism, micro animations, extensive use of swipe, and an almost app-like UI were identified to create a modern website matching the new identity of the school. In order to accomplish this, we decided to design and develop a completely new mobile-first website, which was a first for any school in Ahmedabad.

Neomorphism in the footer of the new SWS website

Phase 1: Analysis

According to research, 61% of mobile users are more likely to contact a local business if they have a mobile-friendly site. That means, more than half of the target audience, parents, would look for schools in their locality on their phones. So on the basis of the research conducted on their website usage and research on the new mobile web technologies, we listed some points to work on.

1) There was a lot of information available for parents, students, and teachers. So the information architecture of the old website needed to be fleshed out better for users to easily navigate through the website.

2) The new website had to reflect and highlight current school values, while at the same time showcasing the facilities and amenities of the new school building, the talents of its students and most importantly, its teaching staff.

3) The new website had to be Search Engine optimized, or SEO optimized, to improve the school’s reach on search engines online

4) The new website had to provide an intuitive and delightful responsive experience for all its audience, especially those accessing it through mobile devices

5) The new website had to be created on a user-friendly CMS like so the client could edit the content and images on their own going forward

Phase 2: Ideation & Implementation

Committing to a Mobile-first approach

After gathering and analyzing the data and noting that parents would be the target audience and that the site should be easy for them to use, we went ahead with our original idea to create a mobile-first website. This means that our product and design team starts by creating wireframes and mockups for mobile first. This means thinking of a more modular layout than a grid-based one. The modules can then be rearranged to create layouts for desktop and mobile.

responsive vs mobile first web design

Neumorphic, Glassmorphic, Animated

The second idea was to incorporate Neumorphism, Glassmorphism and animation in the user interface or UI. Once the wireframes were sketched, our design team created mockups using these two effects on all the various elements that make up a website, right from buttons and tabs, to images and navigation elements. Each page was painstakingly mocked up so there was no room for error while coding. A document was created for all the animation with adequate references.

To implement Neumorphism all this, the front-end team placed UI elements behind a background in CSS, to make it seem like components such as buttons are actually housed inside the background. For the frosted-glass effect of Glassmorphism, a blur effect was added to the background. Contrasting and vivid colours are used in the background to highlight the blurred transparency, giving a subtle border to the translucent objects. For animation we relied on extensive use of jQuery’s animation libraries.

Creating content through writing and photo & video shoot

Since we had put our heart and souls into designing and developing the website, we realized that we would also be the best people to create content for it. We wrote SEO-optimized content using the information provided by the client, adding all relevant meta tags and keywords on each page to target audiences in the nearby 5 km radius. Since that is the most parents are willing to travel to send their kids to school. We also realized the need for high quality photographs and images to bring this vision to life. So we conducted a shoot to get the right expressions of each child and teacher for the website. We also shot scripted videos with the children each presenting school values in an irrepressibly cute way. We overlaid sketched illustrations on some images to give them an element of storytelling. Finally, we added GIFs for each teacher to give the website a fun approachable vibe.

Testing

We extensively tested this website across top 10 mobile devices used by parents, with at least 5% of the website traffic percentage, such as Samsung Galaxy phones, Vivo, Oppo, Google Pixel, OnePlus and Apple iPhone. In addition to this we also tested it across popular desktop browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Edge and Safari.

Result:

And viola, just like that the new website turned out to be as awesome as we had dreamt on paper and Illustrator 🙂

Let’s take a look!

Neumorphic, Glassmorphic, Animated visuals on the new SWS website

The new website highlighted the teachers and the students in a quirky and creative way, in line with the client brief.

SWS Teachers Mobile friendly views of the new SWS website

It showcased the history of the school in a fun and more accessible way, than the usual text format.

And here is the highlight of the website! A 3-d globe showing the alumni of the school spread across the world.

Want to explore this website some more? Check it out here.

Alumni of the SWS school Mobile friendly views of the new SWS website

So this is how Ahmedabad got its mobile-first school website! Time for your brand to do the same! If your brand needs a kickass and memorable website that works equally well on mobile as it does on desktop, one of the best and most thoughtful website development companies in Ahmedabad, Flora Fountain is here for you! Drop us an email on hello@flora.ffteam.in or call 9558079502!