LMS Services In India

These are troubled times for individuals and businesses all over the world. As we stay home to battle the coronavirus pandemic, businesses need to find effective ways to keep their employees engaged and productive. And, if you are in the learning and development landscape, you can do a lot of things to keep your employees productive and engaged. Thanks to cloud-based services, you can keep in touch with your employees and let them take up training courses from the cool confines of their homes. Yes, with cloud-based LMS services, you can do what you would have otherwise done in your office. However, you need a reliable LMS services company to make things work for your L&D team.

But with so many LMS vendors out there in the market, how do you select the best for your organization.

As the leading LMS vendor in Noida, India, we think it is the right time to make a few suggestions to help you choose the best LMS services company for your organization. Let us, therefore, take you through how you need to evaluate an LMS vendor so that you get the best for your business. However, before we get down to evaluation, let us try to briefly understand what is an LMS and what it can do for your organization.

What is an LMS?

An LMS is a set of software applications that allows L&D professionals to manage, teach, and learn online. With an LMS in place, you can organize, assess, implement, and track a specific learning path. An LMS not just helps you to deliver content, but it also allows you to monitor employee participation and assess their performance.

With an LMS, you can deliver training programs and educational courses to your captive audience with ease. It allows you to create, manage, organize, assess, and track eLearning courses.

Why do you need an LMS?

Employee training is crucial for the growth and development of every organization. Employees these days are extremely serious about their professional development. It is difficult to attract and retain smart talent without looking after the training needs of your employees.

With compliance, regulation, and record-keeping becoming the norm in most of the economies, it is not surprising that businesses are turning to LMSs and


eLearning to save money and ensure accurate record-keeping. Here is what an LMS can do for your organization:

  1. An LMS not just records the training program your employee has undertaken, but it also helps you assess their performance. That is how it helps you meet your compliance needs. An LMS can record both your eLearning and traditional training programs.
  2. An LMS not just tells you your employee’s training schedule, but it also lets you know when you need to train them again. It helps you to keep your employees up to date on the compliance front.
  3. Since an LMS can record and report who all took the training and how they fared, it helps you in audit purposes in case you want to apply for ISO certification.
  4. With on-demand training, your employees can take up the training from the place and time of their choosing.
  5. Since the course is available online, your learners can revisit the content as and when they want to refresh their knowledge.
  6. Your employees can access the content on the device of their choice, be it a smartphone or a laptop.

With all your compliance and regulatory requirements fulfilled, here is how an LMS can benefit your organization:

  1. An LMS helps improve your employee’s performance.
  2. An LMS helps you save a lot of time, and hence money.
  3. An LMS brings consistency to your training (even if you have multiple locations, you can deliver the same training content to everyone). Everyone remains on the same page.
  4. With an LMS in place, no one in your organization misses training.
  5. An LMS can align training to your organization’s needs.

How to evaluate an LMS service provider?

If you want a seamless learning experience for your employees, you need to make sure that you select the best LMS service provider. But before you invest in an LMS, make sure you schedule a free trial. A free trial is essential to get the best LMS for your business. However, before scheduling a free trial, it is vital to know how to evaluate an LMS service provider. Here is what you should focus on:

  1. Check out the features and functionalities you need – To get the most out of your LMS system, it is vital to know the features and functionalities you need. And, if the LMS is not offering you the required features and functionalities, then there is no point moving forward. Hence, ensure that you get all the features and functionalities you need.
  2. Make sure that the LMS has an easy to use interface – There is no point in buying something which your employees cannot use with ease. If the LMS is difficult to use, your employees will run away from the system, defeating its purpose altogether. Always select an LMS that offers a friendly user interface.
  3. Ensure that the LMS you buy is customizable – Customisation is an important thing to consider. If the LMS service provider is unable to customize the solution to suit your needs, then there is no point in moving ahead. Can you modify the color schemes, fonts, and designs? Does it allow you to incorporate branding elements? Can you customize the dashboards? These are important questions that you need answers to before you invest in the LMS.
  4. Always look for a scalable solution – As an organization, your needs are sure to grow in the times to come. Hence, it is vital to factor in scalability before you finally invest in an LMS. After all, it is not easy to keep changing your LMS in every two years.
  5. Don’t overlook support services – For a seamless learning experience, you would want your LMS to run without any glitches. But on occasions, you might encounter technical glitches. This is where you need customer support. If the service provider is unable to offer excellent customer service, it can become difficult to get the most out of your LMS. Hence, ensure that the service provider is ready to offer proactive customer support on all the fronts.
  6. The LMS you select should offer robust security – With data breaches on the rise, you need to do everything you can to protect your company information. That is why your LMS should have robust security features. The LMS you select should have robust privacy controls and password settings.
  7. Pricing is also a factor to consider – Though pricing is important for every organization, it should not be a limiting factor. Generally, cloud-based LMS services companies charge on a pay-as-you-go basis. You only need to pay for what you use.
  8. If you are looking for a reliable cloud-based LMS services company in India, you should get in touch with vStacks Infotech now. Our product, eZnet LMS, is feature-rich, secure, customizable, secure, and easy to use. You can schedule an appointment today for a free demo.

Mistakes To Avoid When Selecting The Cloud Service Provider For Your Business

The growth in the cloud computing sector has been phenomenal in the recent past, and there are no reasons why the trend won’t continue in the future as well. After all, cloud computing offers several benefits to businesses when they move their operations to the cloud. But if you want to get the most out of the cloud computing revolution, you need to make sure that you move your business operations to the cloud the right way. There are some common mistakes that businesses tend to make while moving their business operations to the cloud.

When you plan to move your business operations to the cloud, one of the most important things to consider is the process of selecting the cloud service provider for your business.

If you want to avoid these common mistakes, then you are in the right place. Let us take you through some common mistakes that you need to avoid when you select the cloud service provider for your business.

But before getting there, let us try to understand what is cloud computing and the benefits it offers?

What is cloud computing and why is it beneficial to businesses?

According to TechTarget, “Cloud computing is a general term for anything that involves delivering hosted services over the Internet. These services are broadly divided into three categories: Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). The name cloud computing was inspired by the cloud symbol that’s often used to represent the Internet in flowcharts and diagrams.”

Moving your business operations to the cloud has several benefits. Some of the cloud computing benefits are:

  1. Cloud computing is cost-efficient
  2. It offers adequate data security
  3. Cloud computing is scalable and flexible
  4. Cloud computing allows mobile access to corporate data
  5. It offers data security
  6. Cloud computing allows complete visibility and control over your data.
  7. It gives you a competitive edge

6 top mistakes to avoid when selecting the cloud service provider

According to Gartner, worldwide public cloud revenue is expected to grow by 17.3% in 2019 to total $206.2 billion, up from $175.8 billion in 2018. There is no doubt that cloud computing offers several benefits, but you need to make sure that you avoid these mistakes when selecting the cloud service provider:

  1. Don’t think that all clouds are created equal – When moving your business to the cloud, you need to understand that all cloud providers and cloud platforms are not created equal. When you plan to migrate your operations to the cloud, you shift a lot of responsibility and trust in your service provider. Hence, it is imperative for businesses to do their homework properly. 

    Different service providers offer different features, pricing plans, network uptime, customer support options, and high-level application integration. That is the reason why you need to do your homework properly. You need to satisfy yourself on all the fronts before finalizing your service provider, and you should do it carefully.

  2. Not reading and understanding the SLAs correctly – Whether you are a start-up or you have been in business for a while, you know it pretty well that getting into a contract is the starting point of doing business between two entities. Getting into a contract is important because it is a legal document which both the parties have to adhere to and fulfill. 

    Likewise, the Cloud Standards Customer Council has an SLA or Cloud Service Level Agreement for network-based platforms. It is important for you to carefully go through the points that are mentioned in the SLAs so that you know what is in store for you. You get to know what exactly your service provider will offer you, and what that means for your business. 

    For example, it is important for you to know the service provider’s disaster recovery plan in case of a data breach

  3. Don’t relax on the security front – With security breaches on the rise, it is important for businesses to know what is on offer on the security front. It is a mistake to assume that your service provider has foolproof security in place and that nothing untoward can happen to your business. It is vital for you to learn in detail about the security measures that have been put in place by your service provider. 

    You should have complete knowledge about all the security features that are there, access control, and the level of privacy that your service provider is offering.

  4. Not knowing your bandwidth requirements – Poor accessibility and sluggish performance is always a concern for cloud computing platforms. But even more worrying is that sometimes systems work perfectly in order and at times they buckle under pressure. There are several reasons for this up and down performance, which include incompatible platforms, and increased network load, and changing or updated systems. It is therefore important for businesses to know in advance what their bandwidth requirements would be, and whether the service provider can fulfill them or not. 

    Another concern which you should know about is the latency issue. Latency is the delay that is typically incurred in the processing of network data. Latency could also lead to transmission delays and processing delays. It is, therefore, important for businesses to know whether the service provider they are planning to engage with has latency issues or not.

  5. Not factoring in your future requirements – Everything changes with time (and it should be for the better). You grow as an organization, your customers change, and your products and services also change with time. Hence, you need to make sure that the service provider you plan to engage with offers up-to-date platforms and tools so that you don’t lose the competitive edge. 

    Therefore, make sure that there is room for you to grow, more so if you have to use new and different applications. Your service provider should provide you the resources you would need a few years down the line for the smooth functioning of your organization. Hence, you need to factor this in at the time of getting into an agreement with the service provider.

  6. Not knowing about a secure backup plan – Though cloud providers have an optional backup service, in most cases, it is not included in the subscription. You need to have clarity on the backup plan before it hampers the functioning of your organization. Even if there is a backup system in place, you need to make sure whether it meets the legal and regulatory requirements. For example, hedge funds and investment companies need to store long-term and lengthy archives of their data.
    Hence, it is important for you to find out whether your service provider has a secure and reliable backup plan in place or not.

If you want to move your business operations to the cloud and are looking for a reliable, trustworthy, and secure cloud hosting provider, then you should get in touch with vStacks Infotech now. You can contact us for shared hosting, VPS hosting, and/ or dedicated hosting. Our cloud servers are fast, secure, and we can offer the bandwidth that will suit your business.

 

Should You Be Using Video Marketing For Your Business?

If you want to do well in the world of business, you need to have an online presence. But it is not a walk in the park to promote your business online. Marketers use various methods to promote their business online. Whatever you do to promote your business, the bottom line for every marketer is that there is no alternative to high-quality content. After all, we all know that content is king.

However, it is a big mistake to create content only in the textual form. You need to add videos in your promotion toolbox to complete your digital marketing strategy.

Businesses who don’t add videos to their digital marketing scheme of things stand to lose a lot. Consumption of video content is on the rise, and the trend is expected to increase in the future.

According to Wyzowl report, 63% of businesses have already started using video content marketing. Out of those, 82% of businesses agree that video is a vital part of their marketing strategy, and 99% of them will keep using videos to promote their businesses. Also, 83% of businesses agree that video gives them a good ROI.

According to Cisco, over 80% of all traffic will consist of video by 2021. Also, live video will account for 13% of traffic by 2021.

Videos are not just easy to share across platforms, but they are a versatile and engaging content format that connects with viewers pretty effectively. People like videos because they are easy to digest, engaging, and entertaining, and marketers love them because they can give a huge return on investment.

Let us take you through some of the main reasons why you need to use video marketing for your business. But before that let us find out the types of videos.

Types of video

Videos are of different types. Different videos are used to convey different messages. Here are different types of video:

  1. Explainer videos – These are videos that are used to educate people about your products or services.
  2. Interview videos – These videos can help encourage conversation between sides or to showcase an influencer or expert.
  3. Product review videos (demo videos) – These videos can be created by brand ambassadors in exchange for free products. It is a very cost-effective way of getting free advertising.
  4. Live video – These are videos that allow you to get close and personal with your target audience, and it particularly works well on social channels.

7 reasons why you need to use video marketing for your business

Without a doubt, video is one of the most profitable and versatile digital marketing tools that you can leverage to promote your business. Here are seven strong reasons why you need to use video marketing for your business:

  1. It can boost your conversions and sales – With smart videos, you can improve your conversions and sales which means it can make you some serious money. If you add a product video on your landing page, it can enhance your conversions by 80%. And, it has been reported that video works well irrespective of the vertical.Video marketing can also result in direct sales. A Wyzowl study shows that 74% of those who watched an explainer video about a product went on to buy the product. Hence, it is in your interest that you quickly add videos to your scheme of things to increase your conversions and sales.It should not be surprising that videos prove to be an effective way of communicating with your audience because vision is our most dominant sense. Our brain processes visual information more readily, and that is why videos prove to be such an effective marketing tool.
  1. Video offers a good return on investment – 83% of businesses agree that investing in video marketing provides good returns. Though it is neither easy nor cheap to make a video, still the return it offers is phenomenal. And, that is why businesses are ready to invest big time in video marketing.Online video editing tools allow you now to conveniently and affordably make videos. Also, you can make videos with your smartphone as well. What you need to be careful about while making a video is to make sure that your message is conveyed to your users appropriately.
  1. It builds trust – Conversions and sales cannot happen without trust. It is important for businesses to develop trust with their prospects. Content marketing is mainly used to develop trust and build long-term relationship. What you need to do is provide your users relevant and useful information, and it will automatically lead to a sale.  And, video is what can do the trick for you because it is likely to engage and ignite emotions among your audience, including the elite ones. When you put out promotional videos, it can foster trust. Even today some customers are sceptical about buying products and services on the internet. However, what effective marketing videos can do is it can present your products in a conversational form.
  2. Google and videos have a special relationship – When you have videos on your site, it ensures that your users spend more time on your website. As people start spending more time on your site, it develops trust which sends a strong signal to search engines that website has quality content. And, your website is more likely to show up first on Google if there is a video on your site. Also, since YouTube is now part of Google, videos can significantly impact your search engine ranking.What you need to do is optimize your videos on YouTube for search engine optimization. You can do this by creating interesting titles, descriptions, and by adding a link back to your website, products, or services.
  3. Mobile users watch lots of videos – Mobile video views are on the rise, and the trend is here to stay. 90% of customers watch videos on their smartphones. YouTube reports a significant jump in mobile video consumption every year. Smartphone users are growing at a steady pace, and people love to watch videos on the go which makes it necessary for businesses to add a video to their scheme of things.According to Google, smartphone users are 2X more likely than TV viewers and 1.4X more likely as desktop viewers to feel a personal connection to brands that show video content or ads on their devices.
  4. Video marketing can help you explain everything easily – People will buy your product or service only when they know how it works. And, video is by far the best way to explain things to your prospective customers. Businesses who plan to launch new products or services can create a video to show their viewers how things work. Most of the consumers watch an explainer video to learn more about a product or service.According to Wyzowl, 45% of businesses who use video marketing stated that they have an explainer video on their homepage. And, 83% of these businesses confirmed that their homepage explainer video proved to be effective.Hence, if you have a difficult concept to explain to your viewers, video is the best available medium. A video can do for you what textual content cannot do. 
  5. It engages well with even the laziest buyers – Video content is not just a great tool for learning, but it is also easy to consume. People are short on time, and it is easy for them to go through a video rather than read the product description in detail. Tech savvy customers these days want to see the product in action.Video marketing can capture the imagination of a wider audience, and it works well on many levels. And, that is why it tackles the laziest customers as well. What you need to ensure is that your video content should appeal to the eyes and ears of your users.
    If you have still not started using videos in your promotion toolbox, you need to re-work your digital marketing strategy. For an effective video marketing strategy, you should get in touch with vStacks Infotech now. We have the expertise and exposure to create high-quality videos that can deliver great results for your business.

Common Mistakes To Avoid When Selecting A Web Hosting Company

If you want to do well in the world of business these days, it is important to have a website in place. But just having an attractive and well-designed website cannot guarantee you all the success. What you need is a fully functional and operational website that offers an excellent user experience to your visitors. You need to understand that design and functionality are two aspects that you should never ignore if you want to succeed in the online landscape. While the design aspect is easy to manage, the functionality front is a bit tricky because it is wholly dependent on the web host you choose for your business.

It is for this reason that you need to weigh your options carefully when it comes to selecting the web hosting company for your business. It is a decision that can make or break your online journey.

Therefore, it is important to select a web hosting service provider with a lot of caution. You need to do some research before finalizing a web hosting company. Here are some common mistakes that you need to avoid when choosing a web hosting company. But before getting into the mistakes, let us try to understand what web hosting means.

What is web hosting?

It (web hosting) is a service that allows businesses and individuals to post a website or web page on the internet. A web host often called a web hosting service provider is an organization that provides all the infrastructure, technology, and services needed for the website to survive and be viewed on the internet. Websites are stored or hosted on computers which are called servers. When people want to view your website, what they need to do is type your website address in their browser, and this is how it gets accessed.

5 common mistakes you need to avoid when choosing a web hosting company

As mentioned earlier, it is in your interest to select the best web hosting service provider. It can be difficult to deal with problems like slow load speed, security breakdowns, poor customer service, and other unforeseen restrictions. Any or all of these problems can negatively impact the performance of your website.

Hence, you need to ensure that you don’t commit these common mistakes when you set out to choose a web hosting company. Here are five common mistakes you need to avoid when selecting a web hosting company:

  1. Don’t fall for the free web hosting services – Nothing in this world comes for free. Companies are not doing business for charity; they are there in the market to make money. Hence, never fall for the ‘free’ trap. It is better to know the cost upfront rather than keep paying the hidden cost for a long time.
    When it comes to web-hosting providers, you only get what you give. For amateur bloggers and those who want to pursue their hobbies, free web hosting might be a suitable option, but it can never be a viable option for organizations that want to make it big in the business world.This is why you need to avoid free web hosting services for your business:I. The service they offer is mostly slow and often unavailable.
    II. They display a lot of third-party advertisements.
    III. You don’t get the option to scale your business.
    IV. It is difficult for you to improve your search engine ranking.

    Hence, it is amply clear that all these problems can hamper the functioning of your website which will only drive away your visitors. That is the reason why you should always opt for a paid hosting service and avoid free hosting services.

  2. Don’t just base your decision on prices – You should not rush into buying web hosting based exclusively on the price because prices alone don’t give you the complete picture about its performance.
    What you need to factor in with the price are the features that the service provider is ready to offer.
    Higher prices do not guarantee you everything; it can just be a smart marketing ploy to attract new customers. Similarly, if you find a service provider offering you cheap rates, it does not necessarily mean that they are underperformers. There is a chance that they are offering discounts to their first-time customers which means they want to attract new customers.
    Hence, it is vital for businesses to know their priorities. You need to know the features you want for your business and do factor in the scalability issue as well. After you know what you want, you can make a list of companies, and then compare their prices.
  3. Don’t fall for the ‘unlimited’ saga – Many a time you will see advertisements offering unlimited features to customers which is more common for service providers offering shared hosting. You need to be careful about such offers because it is mostly to attract new customers.
    Unlimited bandwidth and storage don’t come for free. Service providers who offer shared hosting have a certain capacity, and they usually do not live up to the promises they make. The net result could be poor website performance, slow page load speed, and uptime issues. Some other problems that you can face are:
    I. You don’t get additional POP accounts.
    II. You don’t get website performance statistics.
    III. You don’t get the option to install your software.
    IV. You also don’t get SSH connectivity.
    All these problems can hamper the functioning of your website. According to a report, if your site takes more than three seconds to load, 40% of the users will abandon the process.
    What you need to do is read web hosting specifications in detail and jot down the restrictions so that you know what is in store for your business.
  4. Not checking online reviews – Before taking the plunge, it is important for you to check the online reviews. A web hosting provider can best be judged by the reviews that are there on the internet. If you find that most of the customers are satisfied with the provider, you can go ahead and sign the deal. But if the reviews are not satisfactory, then you need to change your decision.
    There are a lot many things that you can find out from online reviews. You can get to know about their overall performance, security issues, customer service, routine complaints, and various other things.
    But you have to be careful with online reviews because service providers can manage testimonials and even buy positive comments to enhance their online reputation.
    Hence, one way to know about the provider is to speak to their customers and take a first-hand report from them. Alternatively, you can explore and compare their cancellation rates. In case their cancellation rates are high, then you should understand that you are not dealing with a high-quality service provider.
  5. Not paying adequate attention to customer service – Even the best web hosting service providers cannot guarantee you a glitch-free experience all the time. Hence, it is important for you to ensure that they have responsive customer care. You need them whenever you get stuck somewhere. And, if your problem is not resolved quickly, it can erode your online credibility to a great extent. What you need is round the clock customer service which most of the decent web hosting service providers should offer.
    Most of the service providers offer customer service through live chat, email, and phone. Do test them on all these fronts to check whether they have responsive customer care or not.
    If you have to climb the success ladder in the online arena, you need to make sure that you keep your customers satisfied and constantly strive to improve their overall experience. But if your web hosting provider is not up to the mark, it is difficult for you to impress your prospects. And, that is the reason why you need a reliable web hosting provider.
    If you want to do well in the online landscape and are looking for a reliable web hosting service provider, you can get in touch with vStacks Infotech now. We have been in the business of web hosting for long, and we are fully equipped to deliver excellent service.

Why Does Google Suspend Your Local Listings?

Like it or not, but you cannot survive on this earth without the internet. And, if you own a business, it is difficult for you to do well in the world of business without a website. But, having a website alone cannot guarantee you all the success. If you want to beat the competition, you need to have a robust online marketing strategy. Talking of an online marketing strategy, one thing that you cannot ignore while formulating your strategy is Google. Regardless of the vertical and place where you do your business, you have to factor in Google to get ahead of your competitors.

But what will happen if your Google My Business listing gets suspended all of a sudden?

If you want a Google employee to come and tell you the reason for suspension, it is not going to happen. But Google is very clear on one thing – they are not interested in helping those who break the rules.

So, what should you do?

You need to know the reasons why your local listing gets suspended so that you can avoid all the inconveniences that come with it.

For local search results, it is vital for businesses to get listed on the Google search results. So, what is the importance of Google My Business listing?

Why Google My Business listing is important?

Online purchases are on the rise. Customer reviews and Google are the most popular resources that people use these days when making a purchasing decision. What do you do when you want to know something about a product or service? You Google it, don’t you? And, it is not unusual to trust what others have to say about a business. Google My listing is important because it combines the two together which makes it a powerful marketing platform.

The importance of Google My Business is because it helps businesses generate trust, website traffic, sales, and customer engagement.

Before getting down to the reasons for suspension, let us try to find out about the type of suspensions.

Types of suspension

Suspensions are of two different types – soft and hard.

Soft suspension – It happens when you log in to your Google My Business Page and see a “suspended” label which does not allow you to control your listing. You still are listed on Google and Google Maps/ Map Maker. To get over this type of suspension, you need to create a new Google account and re-verify the listing and make sure that you adhere to all the rules in the future.

Hard suspension – It is a more serious type of suspension where your complete listing is deleted from Google along with all your reviews and photos. When you check it up in Google Map Maker, all it says is “removed’. The only thing that you can do is to request Google to reinstate it. However, it is next to impossible to get your listing reinstated because Google removes it only after it decides that listing is not appropriate to be a part of Google Maps.

So, what are the reasons because of which Google suspends your local listing?

Reasons why Google suspends your local listing

Some of the reasons why Google can suspend your local listing are:

  • If your website URL gets forwarded to a different domain – Google has confirmed it publicly that in case your website URL in Google My Business is a vanity URL which gets forwarded to a different domain, then your listing can be suspended. If you don’t follow this guideline, it results in a soft suspension. According to the guidelines, you should not provide phone numbers or URLs that redirect users to landing pages.
  • If you add extra keywords in the business name field – According to the Google guidelines, you should not add needless details to your business names like phone number, marketing taglines, address, product details, location, address, or direction, containment information, store codes, website URLs, special characters, etc. It results in a soft suspension because you are still eligible to be on Google Maps with a different name.
  • If your business is service area related, and you did not hide your address – Google’s service area businesses guidelines state that you can only show your address if customers show up at your address. It results in a hard suspension because the listing is not eligible to show up on Google Maps according to the Map Maker guidelines. It is essential for a business owner of a service-area business to verify its listing because Google My Business allows you to do it, but you can’t do it on Map Maker. What it means is that any non-verified listing which appears on Google Maps for a service-area business can get deleted. And, you stand to lose all your reviews and photos.
  • If you have several verified listings for the same business – Google’s guidelines state that you should not create more than one page for each location of your business (be it a single account or multiple accounts). In most cases, Google suspends both the listings (original as well as the duplicate). It will un-verify the original listing (soft suspension) and delete the duplicate listing (hard suspension).
  • If your business is of a sensitive type or is not permitted on Google Plus – A new and uncommon rule. If your business type (firearms, tobacco, alcohol stores, etc.) is not allowed on Google Plus, it can result in a soft suspension. Google Plus does not allow these business types which can leave your business listing un-verified for Google Maps. The Google Plus guidelines state that regulated goods are only allowed if they set a geographic or age restriction, hence it is still not clear whether Google will reinstate your business or not.
  • If you create a listing at a virtual office or mailbox – According to the Google guidelines, in case your business rents a temporary virtual office at another address (other than your primary business), then you should not create a page for that location unless it is staffed during your normal business hours. Many businesses create multiple listings of virtual offices because they want to be ranked in multiple towns apart from their actual office location. In case Google comes to know of it, it can result in a hard suspension.
  • If you create a listing for an online business without having a physical storefront – The primary eligibility criteria for businesses to get included in the listing is that they must make in-person contact with their customers. And, because online businesses don’t have a physical storefront, Google states that they should create a Google Plus brand page in place of a local page. It means that these businesses cannot rank in the 3-pack on Google Maps. If you don’t follow this guideline, it can result in a hard suspension.
  • If you run a class or service that operates in a building which is not owned by you – Google’s guidelines state that ongoing service, class, or meeting at a location which you don’t own or have the authority to represent are ineligible businesses and cannot be listed on Google Maps. For example, if you run a dance class in the basement of a gym which you don’t own, it cannot be listed on Google Maps.
  • If the industry you are in is cluttered with spam – Despite following all the rules, at times your listing still gets suspended which happens because of the industry you represent. For example, if you have a locksmith business, the listing can get suspended because the spam filter inadvertently takes it down. It results in a hard suspension, and the best you can do is post on the Google My Business forum so that a top contributor can take up your case with Google.

If you want to climb the local search results, you should get in touch with vStacks Infotech now. We will do all the spadework for you so that your website can rank high on the local search results.

Why Do Companies Need A Dedicated Server?

If you want to do well in the world of business, it is important these days to have a website. But how does a website exist on the internet? You need a server to host a website on the internet. When it comes to hosting, there are various types of hosting options available. Some of the common hosting options include cloud hosting, shared hosting, virtual private hosting, collocated hosting, dedicated hosting, among others. Every hosting option mentioned here has some positives and some negatives.

But how do you select the best hosting option for your business?

The answer is simple – businesses should select the hosting option strictly according to their needs.

If you are a growing business, one option you can choose is the dedicated server hosting. It offers several benefits to businesses that have a positive and steady growth trajectory. Dedicated server hosting is a premium hosting service, which is slightly expensive than others, but the advantages it offers are far more than the price you end up paying for the service.

So, why do businesses need a dedicated server?

If your site is expected to handle a considerable amount of traffic in the times to come, then what you need is a dedicated server hosting. But if you have just started your business and you don’t expect a lot of traffic on your website, then shared hosting might be the right option for you.

What is a dedicated server?

According to TechTarget, a dedicated server means the rental and exclusive use of a computer which includes a web server, software, internet connection housed in the hosting service provider’s premises. Simply put, you have to pay the web hosting service provider a fixed amount to rent a server over which you get exclusive rights. If you expect a considerable amount of traffic to come to your site, then you should opt for a dedicated server.

Reasons why your business needs a dedicated server

You might think of having a server of your own and hosting your website on it. However, it is not a feasible option because the infrastructure cost to maintain a server of your own would be too high. When you opt for a dedicated server, it is almost like having a server of your own with the only difference being that it is on rent.

Dedicated server hosting offers a lot of benefits. Here are the reasons why your business needs a dedicated server:

  • It offers enhanced security – If you are doing business on the internet, then security should be your major concern. When you collect sensitive data from your customers, you need to make sure that you keep it safe at all the cost. With cybercrimes on the rise, it is vital that adequate security is in place to protect your customer information from the prying eyes. And, when you opt for the dedicated server option, you can improve your security to combat all the threats.Safety in case of shared hosting is as good as the protection offered by the hosting company. Also, shared servers are vulnerable to security breaches and attacks in the form of hacks, viruses, and other risks. The main issue with shared servers is that you don’t get to know about the updates, patches, firewall, and antivirus installations. It might take you weeks or may be months before you know that there is a security issue with your website. Whereas, in case of a dedicated server, it provides you optimal security for your website and all your stored information.When it comes to dedicated servers, you are in charge of securing your server. Also, many service providers provide managed dedicated servers where they maintain the server, install software, and offer all the security upgrades. Hence, dedicated server hosting is a much better option in terms of security.
  • Load balancing or future growth – If you are expecting a growth in your online business, then you should plan to shift to a dedicated server well in advance. In case you see a consistent rise in traffic to your website, then you need to shift to a dedicated server. If you take too long to switch, then it can prove to be a costly mistake. Plan well in time so that you don’t have any problems. Do your research (about dedicated servers) properly so that you can shift before the start of the problem.Load balancing, on the other hand, refers to the process of distributing workload on a server. When you opt for shared hosting, many different websites use the same resources simultaneously which can cause problems for your website. By the time you realise that there is a load balance problem, your website would start having issues. But when you move to a dedicated server, it allows you to schedule all your jobs and processes ensuring effective load distribution.
  • Server and traffic load – The number of visitors coming to your website every day can have a significant effect on its functionality. If you are getting a substantial number of visitors every day, then you should opt for dedicated server hosting. When you use a server that is hosting several websites with too many processes working at the same time, it can compromise the performance of your website. When you share resources with other websites, you will have limited resources for your site, and so your RAM, bandwidth and other features can be compromised. A high server load can cause problems for your website, especially if you expect large volumes of traffic. Hence, if you opt for dedicated server hosting, then the performance of your website does not take a hit.
  • Custom programming options – When you opt for dedicated server hosting, you get custom programming options which include cron jobs, shell scripts, or any other custom software. But when you opt for shared hosting, you do not get so many custom programming options. In case of dedicated server hosting, you can select the software that you want to use, you can choose the hardware specifications you want, the operating system you want to use, and you can also select various other custom programming options. Simply put, you are in total control of your hosting environment when you opt for a dedicated server hosting.
  • Page load times – Slow load speeds can hamper the performance of your website. In case your website does not load fast enough, your visitors will abandon your website and move to the next one. Page load speeds also have a major effect on the ranking of your website. Your website ranking takes a hit if it does not load fast enough. And, a website that will not rank high on the search engines will get less traffic. So, when you share the resources with other websites, the bandwidth, RAM, and other resources are shared which can make the load speed of your site slow. But when you opt for dedicated server hosting, you don’t have to worry about any of this because you have the exclusive right to the server. It means your website can load faster, and you can rank higher on the search engines.If dedicated server hosting is what you need for your business, you can get in touch with vStacks Infotech now. vStacks Infotech is a software and digital marketing company, and we can handle all your hosting needs. When you opt for a company like us, you can rest assured that you will get complete technical support, your data will remain safe and secure, and there will be a minimum of downtime.

Can Cloud Hosting Have An Impact On Your Website Visibility?

It is highly unlikely that being a website owner, you do not understand the importance of SEO. You need to have some basic knowledge of SEO if you want to do well on the internet. In case you want to succeed in the online circuit, you need to apply search engine optimisation or SEO to your website properly. To make a sound SEO strategy, you need to work on a lot of factors. But in the excitement of SEO, many website owners tend to forget the relationship between hosting and website visibility. The way you decide to host your website can significantly impact the visibility it generates on the search engine results page. It is for this reason that people who are in the know don’t think twice before shifting to cloud hosting to boost their website visibility.

Cloud hosting offers several benefits to businesses – it is cost-effective, secure, flexible, scalable, and above all, it improves website visibility.

Here are some compelling cloud hosting statistics.

Cloud hosting statistics

  • 77% of businesses have a minimum of one application or a portion of their enterprise computing infrastructure in the cloud (Forbes).
  • In 2018, businesses had predicted that they would invest an average of 3.5 million on cloud apps, platforms, and services.
  • 76% of businesses are looking at cloud apps and platforms to accelerate IT service delivery.
  • The Akamai Technologies State of Online Retail Performance report of 2017 has this to say about the website load speed which is a critical factor in SEO:
  • A delay of 100-milliseconds in website load time can bring down your conversion rates by 7%.
  • A delay of 2-second in the web page load time increases bounce rates by as much as 103%.
  • If a mobile site takes more than 3-seconds to load then 53% of its visitors will leave the page
  • So, is there any connection between cloud hosting and website visibility? Yes, there is. Let us take you through how cloud hosting can have a positive impact on your website visibility.
  • Cloud hosting in today’s competitive internet environment is one of the fastest ways to improve your website’s ranking on search engines. And, it also helps increase your page views and boosts your traffic.

Types of cloud computing

  • Broadly, based on a service the cloud model is offering, it is classified as under:
  • Infrastructure as a service or IaaS
  • Platform as a service or PaaS
  • Software as a service or SaaS
  • Or, Storage, Information, Database, Integration, Process Application, Testing, Management, Security as a service.
  • And, based on the deployment type, the cloud is classified as under:
  • Public
  • Private
  • Hybrid
  • Community

    • What is cloud hosting and how does it work?

    Cloud hosting is a method where a series of interconnected servers are used to host your website. The interconnected servers (known as nodes) are spread across geographical locations which makes it easier for your website or application to be accessed by users regardless of their area or device platform. Cloud hosting has grown by leaps and bounds in the recent past, and there are several cloud hosting service providers who now offer competitive cloud hosting packages to host your websites and applications.

    In cloud hosting, the resources for maintaining your website are spread over multiple servers, and you are only supposed to pay for what you use.

    Cloud computing offers some significant benefits which help boost your website’s visibility substantially.

    Here is how cloud hosting can impact your website visibility

    As mentioned earlier, cloud hosting offers several benefits to businesses. And, one of the major benefits is that cloud hosting helps improve the visibility of your website. Here is how cloud hosting improves the visibility of your website:

    1. Increases page load speed – As a website owner, you must be aware that page load speed is a critical factor which impacts your rankings on the search engine result page. The advantage of cloud hosting is that it improves the load speed of your website. Hence, when you move your website to the cloud, it starts loading faster. And, the faster your website loads, the better are your chances of climbing the search engine rankings.If your website takes too long to load, it creates a poor user experience which can decrease the number of visitors coming to your site and increase your bounce rates. And, when your bounce rates are low, it means that you are meeting the expectations of your users which is sure to be rewarded with better rankings. Since cloud hosting makes your website load faster, you can expect a higher page rank, hence improved visibility.
    2. The benefit of local SEO – In comparison to traditional hosting, cloud hosting helps your website gain an advantage in local markets. For local searches, your website needs a country related domain extension or domain name which should indicate that it is part of a particular region or country. For instance, a website with a domain name synergy.co.nz will rank better in local searches in New Zealand and Australia than a website with a domain name synergy.com. In the case of local searches, search engines take into account the details of the local market your website caters to and the place where it is hosted. As a website owner who has opted for traditional hosting, if you want your website to fare well on local searches, you will have to purchase domain names featuring the country extension so that your website is hosted on local servers.But with cloud hosting, you don’t have to worry about all of this because the server nodes are spread all over the globe. There is no need to host your website on different local servers to fare well on the search results. You also do not need to tie your website to a particular ccTLD. With cloud hosting in place, your website can have a presence in any country, and you can fare well on the local search results.
    3. It improves your performance – Cyberattacks, server downtime, and other security complications can seriously impact your SEO efforts. People do not want to engage with a website that regularly performs poorly, does not offer a decent uptime, and is vulnerable to security breaches. But when it comes to cloud hosting, it is extremely reliable. In cloud hosting, the resources you need to run your website is spread across multiple servers. Hence, when there is a problem with one server, the other takes over which ensures that your website remains up and running always. Also, with cloud hosting, you get improved bot protection, and you also get enhanced security to ward off other forms of cyberattacks.Since cloud hosting improves the performance of your website, it is bound to have a positive effect on the search rankings of your website which in turn increases your traffic.
    4. Enhanced mobile compatibility – People these days are increasingly using mobile devices to access the internet. Due to this, major search engines now include mobile responsiveness as one of the ranking factors. What it effectively means is that your website should display properly on all the devices, including mobile devices. And, in case your website does not load properly on mobile devices, you will lose traffic from users who access the internet from mobile devices. It is, therefore, important that you optimise your website for mobile devices which ensures that you get traffic from all the quarters. And, when you opt for cloud hosting, you get the resources and tools which you can use to make your website mobile compatible. When you make your website mobile compatible, it is sure to boost your SEO efforts which ultimately makes your website more visible.
    5. It offers BOT protection – Top cloud hosting service providers make sure that you are protected against bots. Bots or malicious scripts are tasks that can negatively impact your website which, in turn, adversely affects your search engine rankings. Bots are applications that command and attack the search engine. For example, scraping bots which are responsible for duplicating content can negatively impact your SEO ranking and should be avoided at all the costs. And, when you opt for a cloud hosting server, your website is protected against these bots. Link spamming bots are another challenge that cloud solution providers can effectively address. Therefore, cloud hosting impacts your SEO efforts positively.If you want to host your website on the cloud, you can get in touch with vStacks Infotech now. The reason you should select us is simple – our cloud servers are built on powerful machines and offer the bandwidth that helps your website surge ahead in search rankings. Our cloud hosting packages are affordable, and it can help you empower your website as well as business.

What Is Responsive Web Design & Why Is It Essential For Your Business?

It is difficult for businesses to survive and do well these days without a website. But not everyone out there on the internet with a website is doing brisk business. To succeed in the online circuit, you need to make sure that your website has an attractive layout, it has a user-friendly interface, and most importantly, it should have a responsive web design.

It is true that if you want to succeed in the online landscape, you need to have a responsive web design. Responsive web design is essential for your website not only because it offers a better user experience, but it also improves your search engine rankings.

In 2015, Google altered its search engine algorithms to take into account a website’s mobile presence for ranking purposes. What it means is simply this – you need to develop websites that are user-friendly on mobile devices, especially on smartphones. Your users should be able to read the text on mobile devices without zooming it, the design should have adequate space for tap targets, and users should be able to read the text without horizontal scrolling.

So, why is it essential to make your website responsive?

As the number of mobile users increases worldwide, businesses cannot afford to have a web design that is not responsive. Smartphone users worldwide crossed
2 billion in 2016, and according to estimates, in 2018 they will surpass 2.56 billion. Also, mobile searches have seen a steady rise in comparison to the desktop searches which has consistently seen a dip over the years.

What it means for businesses is that you cannot and should not ignore your mobile users. Hence, if your website is not optimised for mobile devices, it can experience a dip in your search engine rankings. And, it is not a cost-effective solution to have different solutions for different devices, so you need to make sure that your website design is responsive.

What is responsive web design?

RWD or responsive web design allows your website to fit into the size of your user’s device without changing the URL and content source. Responsive web design should offer a seamless experience to your users on all the devices. It means your website should look the same on all the devices, namely a desktop/ laptop, tablet, and mobile phones.

Responsive web design uses HTML and CSS to automatically resize a website to make it appear good on all devices, be it a desktop, laptop, tablet, or smartphone.

Earlier developers had to make more than one website to accommodate different screen sizes. But as mentioned above, it is not a feasible option to have different websites for different devices. Having a responsive web design, therefore, is not a trend anymore, it is a necessity which businesses cannot ignore now.

Why is it important for businesses to opt for responsive web design?

With a responsive web design, you can increase your reach to your prospects who use mobile devices. Also, with responsive web design, you offer a seamless experience to your customers which can increase lead generation, boost your sales, and improve your conversions.

Having a responsive web design ensures that analytics, reporting, and tracking can all happen from one place. You also save on time and money in managing the content of your website.

Last but not least, it helps you stay ahead of your competitors.

Benefits of using a responsive website

With Google dominating the search market, there is no way you can ignore it. And, according to Google, smartphone-optimised sites should have a responsive web design.

Opting for a responsive website offers several benefits, here are some of them:

Responsive web design increases your traffic – Mobile users form a formidable chunk of your prospective customers, and you cannot afford to ignore them. Also, it is not a viable option to maintain two websites – one for your desktop users and the other for mobile users. Hence, the best practice is to opt for a responsive website which works well for all the devices. When you opt for responsive web design, you do not need to worry about losing out on your mobile users. This also keeps you abreast with competition.

Responsive web design is cost-effective and low on maintenance – Maintaining two websites (one for desktop and the other for mobile) is not just more time consuming, but it is also a costly option. But when you opt for responsive web design, it turns out to be a cost-efficient option in the long run. Though responsive web design would cost you more initially, it is easy to maintain, and it is also more cost-effective. Moreover, setting up two websites is a more time-consuming option in comparison to creating one that is responsive in design. With only one site to maintain, you can have more time to focus on other areas which need your attention.

It offers a seamless user experience – If you cannot offer a seamless experience to your customers, it is difficult for you to survive in the business world these days. If your website is not responsive, it can distort the appearance of your site on mobile devices which can put off your customers. Nobody likes to do business on a site where the images do not align properly, texts are jumbled, and you have to search endlessly for one single information. And, when it becomes difficult for your users to navigate the site, they might leave you for good. It is, therefore, important to offer a seamless user experience to your prospects. That is why you should have a responsive web design.

Responsive web design adapts easily to all screen sizes – With a responsive web design in place, you do not have to worry about the competition. You can remain ahead of your competition because you can cater to all your clients. When your website adapts easily to all screen sizes, you will not lose out on customers who use smart devices like smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, other IoT devices, etc. When you have a responsive web design, your website can adjust to every screen with perfection.

Most importantly, it improves your SEO efforts – A website with responsive design is likely to rank higher on the SERP. After the Google algorithm update, if your website is responsive in design, it increases your visibility on the search engine because it is mobile-friendly. If your website offers a seamless mobile experience, it is bound to fare well in search results in comparison to the one that is unresponsive. The more seamless the user experience you offer to your customers, the more are the chances of improving your SEO efforts. And, the more you rank high on the internet, the better are your prospects of generating leads, increasing your conversions, and boosting your sales.

For making responsive website design, you should get in touch with vStacks Infotech now. vStacks Infotech is a digital marketing company, and we have the necessary experience and expertise in designing responsive web designs for businesses in all the verticals.

How Small Businesses Should Leverage Social Media?

Effective communication is integral to the growth and development of organisations, both big and small. You need to devise ways and means to effectively reach out to your target audience and keep them engaged.

So, how do you effectively communicate with your target audience?

Without a doubt, social media is one of the best channels available that offer ample opportunity to businesses of all sizes to effectively reach out to their target audience.

If you want to engage with your audience effectively, you cannot ignore social media these days.

But as a small business, are you leveraging social media to your advantage?

In case you are not using social media to your advantage, you are missing big time on opportunities. But small businesses should know how to devise an effective social media strategy to reap its benefits. Here are some of the benefits of social media and how small businesses should leverage social media to their advantage.

Benefits of social media for small businesses

The social media channels have made it possible for small businesses to engage with their customers effectively and scale new markets. In case you want to stay ahead of your competitors and improve customer experience, then it is vital for you to use social media effectively. Here are some of the major benefits of social media for small businesses:

Using social media effectively can improve your website traffic.

Social media increases brand awareness. When used effectively, you can create a space for your brand among your customers.

Social media can be rewarding for your customers. You can ask your customers, who follow you on the social media platforms, to use the promo code in your posts to avail the discount.

Social media can generate the right kind of buzz for your business. Social media is probably the most cost-effective method to generate buzz for your small business.

You can use location-based social media apps to bring in customers from your area.

Social media can help you connect with other businesses.

How should small businesses use social media?

If you are a small business and want to connect with your customers and prospects, you should start using social media effectively to climb the success ladder. Small businesses might feel overwhelmed when it comes to getting started with social media, but there is nothing scary about it. With a bit of planning, you can use social media to your advantage. Here are some social media tips for small business owners:

To start with, you should have a good plan in place – Just like you have a strategy for growing your business, you should also have a plan for social media marketing. Though you can start posting organic posts for free, without a robust social media marketing plan, it will not help you achieve much. To achieve the desired results, you first need to have a definite plan in place. Having a social media plan upfront will ensure that your social efforts support your business goals.

Your social media plan should include the following:

You should set clear, attainable, measurable, and relevant social media objectives and goals for your business. It is important that you base your goals on what you want to achieve from your social media campaign – do you want to increase your customer base or do you want to boost your conversions.

Do a bit of research on what your competitors are doing on social media. It will help you formulate your social media strategy as you would come to know what works and things that you need to avoid.

In case you are already on the social media bandwagon, you should take stock of what your campaign has achieved so far, and where you need to improve.

It is also important to create a social media calendar. It helps your social media campaign if you post the right content at the right time. Try to make sure that you follow the 80-20 rule where 80% of your content should be educational, informational, and entertaining, and the rest can be used to promote your brand or for selling your product.

The second important thing is to know your audience – Understanding your audience is probably the most vital thing for your business. You can compile data on your present customers, and then go further with social media analytics to know what your customers are buying from you and who all are interacting with you online. You can formulate your social media plan according to the preferences of your audience.

If you know your audience well and understand what they want, your social media campaign can generate a huge response.

The next most important thing is to select the right platforms for your social media campaign – Going by your gut feel in selecting the right platforms for your social media campaign would not help you much. For example, if you think you can avoid Facebook, then it is wrong because it remains the most popular social media platform even today. You need to know where your online audience hangs out the most.

These are general trends, but with a bit of research (especially demographic profiling), you can find out where your audience prefers to spend their online time. It is always better to use a combination of platforms to reach a wider audience.

Concentrate on building relationships – Social media allows you to engage directly with your customers, prospects, and followers. Without asking your prospects to buy upfront, you can cultivate strong relationships with them over time. Most people who follow small and medium-sized business on social media, tend to buy from them in the longer run.

People who engage with your content on social media expect you to respond to their queries. And, when you respond promptly, it builds trust which is the building block of developing strong relationships with your customers.

And, one way of developing a relationship with your prospects is to form Facebook Groups. You can build community, develop relationships, and increase brand loyalty among your group members who in turn can act as brand ambassadors for your business.

You can also use social channels to develop relationships with other business owners and influencers in your vertical.

Focus on expanding your audience – You can use social media tools to target new audiences after you have saturated your market. For example, you can use Facebook targeting options to reach out to new audiences. You should never lose focus on your core market, but ensure that you tap into new audiences once you are ready to expand. You can also exploit social media to bring in new customers to your local business.

Make it a point to share captivating visuals – People these days want to see more of visual content. Data from Twitter shows that people are more likely to engage with a tweet that has visual content such as video, GIF, infographic, or photo. Also, some of the other visual-first platforms are Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat. People, especially the younger generation, are more likely to make their travel plans or visit a restaurant after they see their friend’s video or image on social media. All you need to do is do a bit of research online, and you will find many high-quality pictures that you can legitimately share with your content on social media.

Concentrate on quality instead of quantity – Social media spoils you with options. But it is not necessary that you make your presence felt on all the platforms. What you need to do is create quality content and identify the platforms where you think you can connect with your audiences. Your social media posts should offer value to your customers. People will not engage with your content if you only try to sell your product. What you need to understand is that social media marketing is about relationship building.

It is, therefore, important that you start with one or two social channels and after mastering it you can expand your reach.

It is important to select and use the right social media tools – If you want your social media campaign to fetch you great results, you need to make sure that you select and use the right social media tools. Social media tools can simplify your job by automating much of the work. These tools can improve your productivity which increases your social efforts.

Monitor, track and respond to the conversations – Social listening is an important aspect of social media. If you want to make your social media marketing efforts more effective, you should monitor your campaign and respond to all those who engage with your content. You should also keep a tab on the online conversations that are happening about your business and respond to it appropriately.

Also, when you track and monitor your social media campaign, you can fine-tune your efforts so that it produces better results. Monitoring and tracking will also help you determine what is working for you and things that you need to avoid or improve.

If you are the owner of a small business house, and you want to make a mark on social media, you can get in touch with vStacks Infotech now. We will make sure that you get a robust social media marketing strategy so that you can communicate with your target audience effectively. vStacks Infotech has been leveraging social media for businesses of all sizes, and our customers have had tremendous success in keeping their clients engaged.

What You Need To Know About Backlinks, And Its Importance In SEO

If you have a website, you should know the importance of ranking among the top few search results. Every website owner wants to rank high on the search results. However, it is not possible for the search engines to accommodate all the websites on the first page. Only a limited number of websites can figure on the first page.

So, how can you improve your organic ranking on the search engines?

As search engines frequently change their algorithms, it becomes imperative for the website owners to put in place a smart SEO strategy to climb the search engine rankings. SEO or search engine optimisation is a method which is used to increase the quantitative as well as the qualitative traffic to your website through organic or unpaid search engine results. A lot of factors influence your search engine rankings, but backlinks are one of the most vital of them all.

In case you want to climb the search engine ladder, you need to make sure that your website has relevant backlinks. That is the reason why you need to know about backlinks.

So, what are backlinks?

A Backlink or an inbound link is a link from an external website to your site. It is the building block of an effective SEO strategy because these are links that are directed towards your website. In simpler terms, when a website or a webpage has a hyperlink, which redirects to your website is referred to as a backlink.

Search engines, especially Google, considers your website reliable and trustworthy if it has several backlinks that come from reliable sources. And, one thing which website owners need to understand at the start is that the quality of the backlink is much more important than its quantity.

Backlinks are considered to be of high-quality if they come from authority websites that have some relevance to your content. Backlinks that redirect to your website should be real, and it needs to come from a similar niche. For example, if your website is about cookery and your page is linked to a furniture website, then these links become irrelevant because they negatively impact your search engine rankings.

And, why are they important for your website?

Backlinks are known to improve your search engine rankings provided they are of high quality. As mentioned earlier, search engines including Google consider your website to be more trustworthy, reliable, and relevant if they have links that come from authority sites related to your business. But make sure that you never get backlinks from spammy, harvested, or paid sites. Buying backlinks randomly will not improve your search engine ranking; it can only have a negative effect.

Search engines (including Google) measure the relevancy of a website through the number of backlinks it contains. Search engines (including Google) consider that if a web page is linked by other relevant pages several times, then it has the quality and should rank higher. And, this is the main purpose of building relevant backlinks. Also, when you get a backlink from a website, it passes the link juice to your website which is what helps you climb the search engine rankings. Another benefit of creating quality backlinks in SEO is that it helps you to increase your organic traffic.

Hence, if you want to climb the search engine ranking and increase your organic traffic, then you should concentrate on creating relevant backlinks for your website.

Faster indexing is another big advantage of relevant backlinks in SEO. Relevant backlinks in SEO helps your pages to get indexed faster on the search engines. Websites that have several relevant backlinks are picked up faster by the search engine bots for indexing. Hence, if you want Google to index your pages faster, you should create high-quality backlinks for your website.

Types of backlinks

There are two types of backlinks – dofollow backlinks and nofollow backlinks.

  • Dofollow backlinks – Natural linking of one website to another without putting the no-follow tag is termed as a dofollow backlink. These type of backlinks (dofollow backlinks) pass on the link juice to the website which helps it in climbing the search engine ranking.
  • Google crawlers crawl the dofollow backlinks which help Google bots to reach the page that has been given the link. That is the reason why dofollow links are considered vital in search engine optimisation. Every link by default that is given to a website is a do-follow link.
  • Nofollow backlinks – Backlinks that contain the no follow tag are referred to as no-follow backlinks. These links are not all that relevant from the SEO perspective.
  • Google crawlers ignore the links with no tags when they crawl a web page. Google crawlers don’t bother to crawl to the linked website via the nofollow link. Also, nofollow backlinks are not relevant in search engine optimisation, and it does not improve your page rankings.

How to create relevant backlinks?

Now that you know that creating relevant backlinks is vital for your SEO strategy, here are some ways that you should adopt to get relevant backlinks for your website:

  • 1. You should create high-quality content for your website that is relevant to your audience. When you produce high-quality content, people with related content will automatically link back to your site, and this is the most natural way of getting a relevant backlink. Also, high-quality content will attract many followers who can share your content on various social media platforms.
  • 2. Get into a habit of writing guest articles on top forums and blogs.
  • 3. Look for influencers in your niche and request them to review your products on their site.
  • 4. You also need to leverage high-quality Q&A sites like Quora to increase traffic to your site. You can participate in the discussion boards and link it to your blogs. You can comment on these sites to engage with your prospects and increase your brand awareness.
  • 5. You can use tools like SEMrush, Open Site Explorer, Open Link Profiler, and Ahrefs to review backlinks of your competitors and fine-tune your SEO strategy. Here are some more ways that you can adopt to get relevant backlinks for your website.
  • 6. You can start relevant threads in Forums, and then link it to your blog posts.
  • 7. Work on broken link building. Usually, every link on a website links to another page online. However, since websites frequently move their content around, some of the links ultimately break or point to pages that are not in existence (the 404-page error you sometimes see when you click a link). When you find broken links on other websites, try and identify the content they referred to originally, then offer the site the chance to replace the broken link with a valid link. Use Ahrefs Broken Link Checker to get to the links that are not working. You can go to Internet Archive to find out what the original post was about and if you generate relevant content for that broken link, then you can offer the owner of the site to replace your link with the link that is now broken. This is how you get a backlink by working on the broken link building exercise.
  • 8. Social bookmarking is also important (because they are considered as backlinks); hence target sites like Google+, Twitter, Pinterest, Twitter, etc.
  • 9. Submit your blogs posts on blogging communities (BlogEngage, Medium, Ampower, etc.)
  • 10. You can also visit Answer sites and ask questions related to your blog, and then link to your blog in your questions.
  • 11. You can also submit your blogs to top blogging directories.

Backlinks, therefore, are an integral part of an SEO strategy. To get on top of the SEO game, you need to focus on creating relevant and top-quality backlinks for your website.

For an effective backlink building strategy, you can get in touch with vStacks Infotech now. vStacks Infotech is a one-stop shop for all your digital marketing needs. Also, if a smart SEO strategy is what you want for your website, we have you covered.