It is an established fact that incoming links give a website authority as well as improve overall rankings.  Apart from links there are several other elements that affect domain authority. Most people still do not understand the real attributes of a link and how it can affect a website’s rankings. Here’s the list of elements that influence link value: Anchor text  Most marketers think that anchor texts are not important; however,  it has its own value and helps a website to strengthen its overall structure. So, use anchor texts. However, if you can get a link without the desired anchored text, don’t hesitate to do so. Domain Authority  Domain authority plays an  important role in SEO. In fact, Google gives prominence and trust to those sites that have high domain authority. So, improve domain authority to gain rankings.  External Links vs Internal Links This is still a matter of debate and contention. In terms of SEO, both external and internal links are important. However,  internal links should be increased because too many external links distract users as well as pass on link juice, which can affect ranking. Relevance This is quite important. For example-if you have a blog on automotive engineering, provide links only to its relevant sites or blogs rather than to dog food or clothing sites.  Spam links  This is the most essential thing to focus on; never share your website’s link with any spammy or suspicious website. This will degrade your site’s overall value and may attract penalties from search engines. Tips:

• Always perform link audit at regular intervals.
• Never trust any spammy website.
• Stay away from link wheeling.
• Do not participate in link schemes.
• Stay away from paid links or malware.

"SEO tools’ demand has increase  by 200% over the past decade and continues to rise". Follow vs No-follow  It is a known fact "follow links" generate good value when it comes to page authority, whereas "no-follows" is used to generate traffic. For better results, focus on generating both. In this way, your website will become more authoritative and eventually generate better traffic. "For better rankings, you should have good number of follow links". "SEMRush is the most popular SEO and link tool in the world, followed by Ahrefs". Here are a few tools that will help you to perform link audit:  

• Ahref
• MozRank and MozBar
• Screaming Frog
• Wayback Machine
• SEMrush

"Lists posts receive 74% more links than any other content type". Benefits of link audit: Link audit improves the quality of existing links.

• It helps to find natural and spam links.
• It helps to identify and fix broken links.
• Avoid Google penalties.

Tips to improve link building efforts:

• Start a blog.
• List your site in trustworthy/authoritative directories.
• Write an excellent and useful guest post.

So, take care of these elements to improve the authority of your site and increase its rankings.

Businesses always rely on popular social media sites, effective online marketing techniques and tools.  They not only invest in paid marketing, but also take opportunity of widely spread tools. Here are a few techniques and tools used by successful online businesses: Publish relevant content  If you want to establish your credibility in the market and improve your sales, you need to develop high quality, industry specific and relevant content for your users. It is one of the best ways to gain traffic, improve conversions as well as increase a website’s visibility. You need to study your competitors and their content marketing techniques to write better and readable content. If you want to get repeat visitors, offer fresh and business specific content. Tips: Always write to inform and educate your customers.

• Write quality content to establish yourself as a growing company.
• Write relevant content to improve interactions with users.
• Publish content regularly to build your brand image and get useful links from authoritative sites.
• Aim to write content that can answer specific questions.

Use Medium (A great place to read, write, and interact)  Medium is an ideal content publishing platform for bloggers, which helps to publish content and make it popular in the community. This platform helps to attract quality traffic. Tips: Use Medium to reach new audiences.

• For maximum impact, add a profile photo and write a short (160-character maximum) bio for your Medium profile page.
• Add tags to your content.
• Add images, videos, and other media to your articles.
• Navigate the "Stats" to measure results.

Automate Twitter sharing  Twitter is excellent for sharing content and ideas. Use it to reach out to people directly. However, if you use it for business marketing, powerful tools such as SocialOomph can provide you with a simple automated solution. SocialOomph allows you to automate a wide range of tweets. (SocialOomph is a popular social media management tool.) Tips: Use it to post and schedule content.

• Follow people and extend your network.
• Try to track competitors’ fans and followers.
• Use Tweetcockpit to manage your Twitter accounts.

 Use Autopilot Autopilot is a flexible, scalable and easy-to-use software tool for multi-channel marketing automation.  Use it to automate your marketing, build customer relationships, reach new audiences, and improve your bottom line. Tips: Use it to acquire, nurture, and grow customers.

• Use it personalise your customer's experience.
• Use it to centralise and organise your contacts.

SumoMe  SumoMe is an extensive suite of free tools that helps to grow a website's traffic. The SumoMe tools are easy to install, flexible, robust and work on any site. Tips: Use it to grow your site’s traffic.

• Use it to grow your email list.
• Use it to view heat maps and analyse content.
• Use it to connect with email management software providers.

 Bonus Tips:  

• Schedule your Tweets ahead of time.
• Don’t underestimate the power of Twitter Video.
• Always track your engagement rate.
• Respond quickly to your customers.
• Improve your social listening skills.

Use the above mentioned tools and techniques to grow your business.

SEO has become an invaluable and holistic tool to drive growth. It is effective, flexible, productive and profitable for all sorts of businesses. However,  to identify and use effective tools is tricky. SEO helps to achieve leads and customers. According to certain online studies, SEO leads has a 14.6% close rate ,while traditional efforts such as print advertising and direct mail, has a close rate of 1.7% only. With the help of certain tools and techniques, you can help your business to grow seamlessly: Ahrefs – Keyword research "Keyword research is the basic building block for any SEO campaign". If you want to achieve success, choose the most suitable keywords for your campaign. Ahrefs’s Keyword research tool is wonderful to identify the best keyword. This tool provides valuable insights (such as Monthly search volume, Top countries where the keyword is searched, Cost per click, Number of search results, Traffic share per domain, and much more. In addition, this tool provides snapshots of the SERPs for your chosen search terms to improve your overall understanding.  SEMrush – Competitor analysis  Competitor’s analysis is vital for marketing.  It gives you a chance to get an in-depth understanding of your competitors. It enables you to choose  right keywords for your SEO as well as PPC campaigns. Use SEMrush’s Competitor analysis tool to receive real time updates and exact figures of millions of domains.  Use it to study display and video advertising analytics, channel wise expenditure strategy, backlinks, traffic sources and much more. Brandwatch – Social media monitoring  Use this tool to get insights into any topic. This tool makes it easier to gather customer feedback and uncover trends. You must use it to:

• Identify social media trends
• Identify potential crisis
• Take smart social decisions
• Stay ahead of your competitors
• Study data
• Chart and map your data
• Identify popular topics
• Determine the rate of engagement
• Analyse author’s demographics

You should also use it to analyse your brand’s reach and visibility. Outbrain – Amplify "Outbrain Amplify drives success for businesses of all sizes".  If you want to  achieve the maximum visibility of your content on the web, you must use Outbrain’s Amplify. This tool helps businesses to publish their content on the top platforms. In fact, worldwide business leaders use this platform to increase their reach. So, use these strategic tools to ensure success.

Social media marketing is the need of the hour; no wonder worldwide marketers use it to promote their businesses. However, there are still some business owners who find it difficult to:

• Devise social media marketing tactics
• Develop an editorial calendar for social media
• Decide the right tool for use
• Monitor and measure the effectiveness of their social media campaigns

Facts:

• Social media marketing offers a great opportunity to businesses to engage buyers.
• Social media marketing improves website’s visibility as well as its ROI.

Here are a few powerful social media marketing tools that can provide tangible results: Mention To gain success, use this easy-to-use monitoring tool. This tool helps you to track social mentions, analyse competitors, find influencers, as well as generate leads. Facts:

• 500,000 companies use Mention daily.
• Mention helps businesses to make smart decisions.

Tips:

• Use Mention to study your competitors.
• Use it to build your brand and protect it from potential harm.
• Regularly check it to know how your brand is perceived online.
• Extract automated reports to receive exclusive business insights and analyse performance.

Tint Use tint to develop unique content. This tool helps business owners create engaging stories and engage their audience. Worldwide marketers use it to integrate user generated content. Tips:

• Use tint to connect one or more social networks.
• Personalise your display (dashboard) according to your requirements.
• Alter your social media marketing strategy to add value to it.

Stencil Use Stencil to create social media posts, graphics, visuals, email images and much more. Facts:

• Stencil is the fastest, easiest and most efficient way to create visuals for social media.
• Stencil is the finest image editing program.

Tips:

• Use Stencil to create unique and engaging content.
• Install Stencil Chrome Extension for better effectiveness and agility.
• Use Pro version of Stencil to create as many images as possible.

Cayzu Cayzu is the most suitable cloud-based help desk software solution. It helps to manage customer service for small and medium sized businesses. Its features include ticket management, Facebook and Twitter integration, mobile apps, and much more. Its dashboard is intuitive and helpful. Use it to improve your customer service as well as business operations. To survive in the complicated digital world, it is important to use efficient social media marketing tools. So, use the above mentioned tools to stay in competition.

Proper use of SEO tools and extensions can help you to improve your SEO activities. Let’s find out how to use these tools and extensions to grow business productivity. Bitly  This is the most popular Chrome extensions that helps you to easily shorten, measure, and optimise your links and share them on social media directly from the browser. This extension is useful for all those who want to use social media platforms. Tips:

• Save content from your browser directly to your Bitly account.
• Create Bitlinks with your unique domain for extra advantage.
• Use bitly to send links directly via email.

BuzzSumo  Use BuzzSumo to view and analyse the most shared content; you can also use it to study top performing content formats on the web. Tips: Use BuzzSumo to share content via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, etc.

• Use it to perform competitor’s link analysis.

MozBar This SEO tool helps you to streamline your SEO efforts. Use it to create custom searches, compare and analyse link metrics, highlight links and keywords, and much more. Tips: Use MozBar to view and validate authorship of a website.

• It is the best tool to view social metrics  of Facebook, Twitter, and Google+, etc.
• Pro marketers use it to perform extensive SERP analysis.
• This tool also helps to take meaningful and strategic SEO decisions.

Impactana  This Chrome toolbar offers information related to SEO, social media, and content marketing metrics. Use it to analyse click-through rate, backlinks, and time spent on each web page, etc. Tips: Use Impactana to find compelling and interesting content.

• Use this tool for brand monitoring as well as reputation management.
• Set up alerts in Impactana to receive email notification.

Bookmark Manager  Use this Chrome tool to organise websites. You can save websites, create folders, and add notes for further reference. You will be surprised to know that you can access your bookmarks from anywhere on all of your devices. Tip: Use Bookmark Manager to organise bookmarks into folders. Grammarly  Make your content easy to read, fluent, effective, and error-free with the help of this application. Grammarly can also fix complex grammatical errors, including subject-verb agreement, article, etc. ToDoist  This is an efficient task management application that helps you to streamline your projects and improve your performance. This tool helps you to connect and collaborate with employees. By the way ToDoist works seamlessly across more than 10 different platforms in 20 languages, Use these smart tools, applications and extensions to enhance your overall productivity.

Businesses always want to dominate search engine result pages and attract organic traffic; however, they often fail to strike the right balance. Here are a few SEO techniques that can help online businesses to gain rankings and traffic: Use of Infographics Infographics are the most effective medium of communication. They provide comprehensive information in simple graphical forms. If you are still to use infographics, use them now. Tips: Always provide facts and figures in your infographics.

• Use easy-to-understand infographics.
• Use high quality infographics creation tools.
• Promote your infographics to the maximum number of social sites.
• Use Canva to create high quality and informative infographics.

Creating  an attractive Profile Create an impressive profile of your business on social sites. It attracts business partners as well as customers. It helps your business to attract quality traffic. Tips: Always provide full business details from address to working hours.

• Optimise your business’s profile.
• Keep your profile up-to-date.
• Create a profile that can reflect your brand’s value.
• Provide links of other social media accounts.
• Use LinkedIn to improve your brand reputation.
• Create business profile according to the platform.

Taking  advantage of internal linking  Internal linking is the most overlooked part of SEO.  Use internal linking to improve users’ experience. In fact it improves rankings of certain keywords. Tips: Use relevant anchor texts.

• Use internal linking to help users to quickly navigate your website.
• Use internal linking to increase the visibility of a website as well as engage users

Guest blogging  If you have complete knowledge of your industry, you should embrace guest blogging. Guest blogging helps to: Educate and help users

• Influence market leaders and industry experts
• Improve website’s visibility and traffic
• Establish your leadership
• Build relationships with users
• Extend network, build solid portfolio and credibility
• Improve writing skills
• Build Domain and Search Engine Authority

This shows that guest blogging improves brand exposure and awareness. So, it goes without saying that you must embrace it to achieve success. Optimise your website Some marketers believe that optimising a website is a sheer waste of time, which is a wrong notion. It has its own advantages and can pave the way for unmatched success. Tips: Include keywords in title tag, URL and in image alt text for better visibility and traffic.

• Write unique content on every page.
• Optimise content.
• Build solid backlinks.
• Simplify site’s navigation structure
• Never ignore rich snippets.
• Remove 404 errors.
• Fix pagination issues

Write press releases  Modern marketers make their presence felt by writing press releases for their products, services and brand. Tips: Submit your press release to the maximum number of sites.

• Promote your PR on social sites.
• Write press releases to attract new traffic to the website.
• Publish your PR on the top PR networks to extend your site’s reach.

Use multimedia Use images, videos and infographics on your website to increase engagement and reduce bounce rate. It is also helpful in attracting new customers. Facts: According to study, relevant images increase the number of views by 94%.

• Images, videos and infographics make a website interactive and pleasing.

Tips: Integrate videos to your home page.

• Use high quality images to boost credibility of your website.

All these elements help to gain good rankings and organic traffic.

SEO is a dynamic process, hence businesses need to create a focused SEO strategy.  With so many emerging platforms, applications, techniques and tools, it is difficult to know which platform will dominate the future. Here are a few trends that may dominate SEO in 2017: Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMPs)  Accelerated Mobile Pages is an open-source protocol that allow webmasters to create pages that can be instantly loaded on mobile devices. This makes your website fast and responsive. You will be surprised to know that Google has started giving prominence to websites that have switched over to AMPs. Therefore, this new technological advancement may likely dominate the SEO market. Dense Content  People are getting sick of reading monotonous content; that is why content marketers are going for dense content. If you want to carve a specific position in the niche, you need to write informative and precise content.  In other words, to the point content is going to rule the roost. Fact: According to a study, content marketing helps to get quality traffic, leads and sales for a business. Application development  Mobile apps are redefining the concept of branding. Today, more and more business owners choose mobile app development to: Attract users

• Build brand image
• Improve communication
• Create public awareness
•  Ensure customer satisfaction
• Study trending products and services
• Strengthen brand and educate customers.

Facts:

• According to a study, 70 % of buying experiences are influenced by how customers feel they’re being treated.
• Mobile devices account for 52 % of their online orders.
• A mobile app may not save your business, but it is a sure way of attaining a strong presence in your industry.

Benefits: Inform users of new products/services and offers

• Stand out from the competition
• Reach out to the maximum number of people in less time

 Cross-channel marketing  Cross-channel marketing means using several channels to market your brand in an integrated manner. The objective of cross-channel marketing is to create a consistent brand presence across multiple channels. In fact, this is the finest way to help customers and improve brand image. According to a survey, 73 % of respondents said that cross-channel marketing had significantly improved the conversion rates. However, it is effective, if you understand your target audience.  Voice search  This is the next big thing to empower market. In fact, it has become one of the fastest growing search options for users. Therefore, you should closely monitor the growing voice search trends and adjust your marketing strategy accordingly. Of course, it is difficult to discuss the dominating trends of future; however, the above mentioned trends are gaining traction and likely to change the course of marketing.

• Want to promote your small business with the help of SEO? 
• Do you want to use the potential of SEO for business?
• Do you want to gain visibility, engage audiences, and promote your products efficiently?

To find out how to develop SEO strategies and use the best tools and techniques for website promotion, read this article. SEMrush SEMrush is the most powerful and flexible competitive intelligence tool for online marketing. Use it for SEO, PPC, social media, video advertising research and much more. SEMrush helps to:

• Compare competitive domains
• Conduct a deep link analysis
• See competitors’ best keywords
• Uncover their online marketing strategies
• Create an effective video ad campaign
• See your competitors' video ad strategies, etc.

Tips:

• Use SEMrush to find the right keywords for SEO and PPC campaigns.
• Try to collect all data in one custom PDF report for comprehensive analysis.

SEOquake If you want to improve as well as promote your website, you must use this browser extension. This extension helps in SEO audit, internal and external links and much more. This tool is easy to use and helps to study a website in a detailed manner. Tips:

• Review all SEO metrics with the help of SEOquake.
• Use SEOquake to identify website errors and warnings.
• Review your site’s mobile and desktop compliance.

  Keyword In Keyword In is the most popular keyword research tool. It helps to find short and long-tail keywords in an easy manner. You can use it for both Google Adwords and PPC programs. It also helps you to find new phrases to optimise your site for SEO. Varvy SEO tool Use Varvy to understand the concepts of SEO. This tool helps you to review Googlebot access, mobile devices, security, accessibility, page speed and much more. Tips:

• Test your site using Varvy to see if it follows the Google guidelines.
• Use it to know about paid links, sitemaps, etc.

Slerpee tool Use Slerpee to see how your site looks in the search results. Use it to fine tune your SEO strategy, it also tells you about Meta titles and descriptions. Slerpee is a user friendly tool and allow people to improve their website’s overall performance Tips:

• Use it to check Google SERP preview in real time.
• Use it to view on-page keywords and density.
• Change your Meta titles and descriptions according to the results.

So, use these powerful SEO tools to promote your online business and reap benefits.

Digital Marketing platforms are changing like never before.  So, it is important to understand the latest digital marketing  developments and recalibrate strategies accordingly. Here are a few latest digital marketing platforms: Snapchat (The most advanced social media platform) Snapchat is the latest image messaging and multimedia mobile application. It lets you talk with friends, view live stories, etc.  Social media marketers cannot ignore this platform as it is more effective and popular than any other social platform. Tips:

• Use Snapchat to create teasers for upcoming products/services.
• Use this application to upload photos or videos of your products to attract users.
• Use this versatile platform for real-time marketing.
• Create multimedia messages for your targeted users.
• Organise contents and offer rewards and coupons to users.

Facts:

• Snapchat is an invaluable marketing tool.
• Snapchat is a convenient mode of communication.

Live video streaming  Live video streaming is one of the best ways to provide video content in real time. With streaming video, a web user does not have to wait to download a file. Use Meerkat & periscope to provide live streaming videos. These two applications help you to broadcast and explore the world through live videos. Tips: Use Meerkat & periscope, if you have a larger audience’s database.

• Use these applications to educate people about your company/brand.
• Use these applications to improve your branding efforts.
• Connect these apps with Facebook and Twitter accounts for live streaming.

Instagram Instagram is one of the most powerful visual platforms. Use it to improve your brand identity and attract the maximum number of people. However, for optimum success, you need to share high quality images. It is a known fact that Instagram drives more traffic than any other social channel. Facts:

• Instagram has more than 500 million users.
• 75% of Instagram users are outside the US.
• 90 % of Instagram users are younger than 35.
• Instagram usage has doubled in the last two years

Tips: Join the community and encourage people to share their images.

• Use Instagram management tools like Sprout Social.
• Use community hashtags and organise contests.
• Take advantage of user-generated content marketing strategies.
• Build trust by using relevant and high quality images.

Pinterest  Pinterest is spreading like wild fire. In fact, it is trending since its launch. Marketers use it to improve their presence and attract users. This platform helps to promote products and services, attract organic traffic as well as share image/video content. Tips: Share high quality and trending images to make your presence felt.

• Connect with more and more people having similar interest.
• Be active and reply to feedbacks regularly.
• Add Pinterest browser button to your favourite browser for better working.

Facts: According to survey, more than 25% of consumers buy a product or service after discovering it on Pinterest.

• 73 % of active users prefer to follow a beauty brand on Pinterest.
• Pinterest allows online businesses to find, understand and engage their audiences.

These are some of the latest digital marketing platforms that will rule the web. So, devise your marketing strategies accordingly and enjoy the sweet smell of success.

Small business owners always struggle to achieve local rankings, as they fail to devise innovative and creative local marketing strategies. Here are a few innovative ideas for small businesses: Embrace content marketing Regardless of the type of business you have, strategic content marketing can be beneficial for you. Embrace content marketing using different types of content formats to convey your messages. For best results, use: •    Blogs •    Infographics •    Case studies •    Presentations Also create compelling videos to communicate with your audiences. This is a great way to retain  existing customers and attract new customers. Facts: •    Around 61% of consumers say they feel better about a company that delivers custom content. •    According to a research, interesting content is one of the top 3 reasons people follow brands on social media. Benefits: •    Content marketing helps to build brand reputation in local market. •    High-quality content published to a website can increase website rankings. Create a business profile Business profile is your identification. Hence, create your business profile on authoritative and recognised websites for better visibility in local region. However, you must provide complete information while creating listings so that users can find you. Benefits: •    Business profile listing improves local visibility. •    Business listings provide an opportunity to tell your company’s story and connect with followers. Tips: •    Create a business listing that is informative, error-free and well managed. •    Always keep your listing updated. Rely on social media Take advantage of social media. It doesn’t matter if you want to dominate local or global markets, you simply can’t afford to ignore social media. Facts: •    Social media helps businesses to maintain relationships. •    Social media marketing helps to achieve realistic goals. •    Social media assists businesses to improve their conversion rate as well as ROI. Use Social Media Management Tools Whether you want to dominate local or global regions, use social media management tools to grow your presence as well as save time. These tools help to manage social communication and monitor social activities. Benefits: •    Social media management tools streamline engagement. •    These tools provide analytics and custom reports to understand user behaviour. •    These tools help to improve social media marketing strategies. Email Marketing Newsletter Email marketing newsletters are the best ways to connect with audiences and keep them informed. Small business owners should create creative and informative newsletters to establish better relationships with customers. Benefits: •    Email Marketing is cost effective, reliable, and measurable form of communication. •    Newsletters are easy to create, track and share. •    Email marketing is useful for sending a commercial message to a group of people irrespective of their location. Facts: •    According to a study, 72% people prefer to receive promotional content through email. •    Email Marketing is a long-term investment. So, start using these marketing ideas today to increase sales and revenue right away.