The 10 Most Prominent Google Partners To Look At in 2019

C GS CGS 2019 | VOL 12 | ISSUE 5

Google Partners Facilitating Trusted Digital Marketing Solutions

Editor Darshan Parmar

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he digital paradigm has opened new avenues for professionals and businesses to explore their reach, beyond the clouds of traditional marketing solutions. Reaching out to the right crowd has never been easier for businesses since the emergence of various digital platforms. These platforms facilitate a palette of options that a business can opt for, to particularly market its products & services uniquely.

The digital marketing space has redefined the way that portrays a business’ potential of delivering the right message to the right customer by providing on-point solutions with a click of a button. On top of that, digital marketing does not only limit to the business organizations and its users. It has also cultivating various employment opportunities. For individuals who are looking for exciting job opportunities, it is availing

professionals to be digitally smart. This is enabling these professionals in contributing towards an efficient and effective way of educating the customers about the services their client business organizations are providing, in a dynamic process. The role not only includes being digitally proficient but it also derives one’s ability to deliver the appropriate solutions as per the clients’ requirements.

The most important question now arises is, how to obtain the proper business solutions provider in terms of digital marketing? The answer to this question is to look for a certified Google partner! The Google Partner program, also known as Google Partners is a training and certification program. This program is for advertising agencies, digital marketing professionals, and various consultants who manage online accounts for Google Ads. The professionals or an agency is rewarded with a Google partner badge, once they pass the Google Ads product certification exams and get up to date with the latest product knowledge.

Once Google recognizes you or your company as a partner; you can add it to

EDITOR’s NOTE your websites, business cards, and marketing materials. A company can display its Google partner badge inorder to validate its authenticity as a trusted solution provider. Google partners help potential clients in comparing agencies and marketing professionals in deciding the appropriate course of action when it comes to meeting their business needs.

These partners are allowed to specialize in Google Ads product areas such as search advertising, mobile advertising, video advertising, display advertising, and shopping advertising.

This month, Insights Success is bringing its readers, the stories which belong to the Indian digital space. In this issue of ‘The 10 Most Prominent Google Partners to look at in 2019,’ the magazine is showcasing exemplary work done by some of the best Google Partners in the country.

On the cover, we have featured CGS Infotech Solutions Pvt. Ltd. It is an authorized partner for Google G Suite, Google Trusted Street View Agency for VR, and the pioneering partner in India for Google AdWords.

This month’s issue has brought a cluster of stories which begins with a tale of a company called Acodez. It is a firm that provides services in segments like digital marketing, website development, software development, and mobile application development. Acodez also acts as a creative agency for other organizations.

Incepted in 2008, Centum

Technologies is a company that strives to provide value-based web-presence solutions to its clients. It has a team of Google certified professionals taking care of its clientele’s business needs.

Another company in this month’s cluster is Whitelake Technology Solutions (WLTS). The company offers its clients, initial consultation to understand their business goals and existing marketing solutions to deliver optimum results and satisfactory services.

The CXO standpoint column in this issue features Umesh Ahirrao. He is the Founder & Managing Director at Osumare, a leading digital marketing company in India. Umesh through the featured CXO is educating us about the Google BERT Update and its working process in entirety. Another CXO standpoint showcases the different ways to be safe online on a black Friday. The piece is authored by Zakir Hussain Rangwala, Director of BD Software Distribution Pvt. Ltd. The firm is one of the leading IT security distributors which offer industryleading and enterprise-level consumer solutions in the Indian market.

In the interview with Insights Success, the two companies that have been featured are IS Global Web and Savit Interactive. So, the readers are requested to dive into the ocean of digital revolution that these companies are striving to bring through their stories. Happy reading!

Darshan Parmar

COVER STORY

INTERVIEW WITH INSIGHTS SUCCESS

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IS GLOBAL WEB

SAVIT INTERACTIVE

Enhancing the Digital Presence

Delivering Innovative Solutions Smartly

C O N T E N T S

COVER STORY

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CXO

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TECH UPDATE

SOCIAL MEDIA KNOWHOW : Tips on Social

Google BERT Update

46 CYBER SENSE

Media Videos

How to Stay Safe Online on Black Friday

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ACODEZ

CENTUM TECHNOLOGIES

Your One-Stop Solution for all Digital Marketing Needs!

Simplifying Complexities with ProямБciency

WHITELAKE TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS : Leader in the

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ARTICLES

Internet Space For More Than a Decade

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ONLINE ADVERTISING

SEARCHING ONLINE

Advertise Your Business Online Creatively

Google Search and Our Dynamics with it!

Editor-in-Chief Pooja M. Bansal Managing Editor Darshan Parmar Contributing Writers Vishal, Sneha Art & Design Head Amol Kamble Associate Designer Poonam Mahajan Art & Picture Editor Deepanjali Jena Co-designer Asha Bange Business Development Manager Megha Mishra Business Development Lead Ashwini Pahurkar Business Development Executive Snehalata Lad Technical Head Pratiksha Patil Technical Specialist Amar Sawant Digital Marketing Manager Prashant Chevale SME-SMO Executive Uma Circulation Manager Tanaji sales@insightssuccess.com

December, 2019 Corporate Ofď€ ces: Insights Success Media and Technology Pvt. Ltd. Off. No. 22 & 510, Rainbow Plaza, Shivar Chowk, Pimple Saudagar, Pune, Maharashtra 411017 Phone - India: +91 7410079881/ 82/ 83/ 84/ 85 Email: info@insightssuccess.in For Subscription: www.insightssuccess.in

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Copyright Š 2019 Insights Success Media and Technology Pvt. Ltd., All rights reserved. The content and images used in this magazine should not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission from Insights Success Media and Technology Pvt. Ltd. Reprint rights remain solely with Insights Success. Printed and Published by Insights Success Media and Technology Pvt. Ltd. RNI NUMBER: MAHENG/2018/75953

COVER STORY Hiten Bhuta Founder & CEO

C GS CGS “

Any business owner can approach us to receive free guidance and coaching on web-hosting, email-hosting, domains, cloud-computing, back-up, etc. We will provide free support, training, and guidance to anyone

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he digital paradigm in India has always been in constant flux. The ever-changing business environment has affected the nature of operations on a timely basis. Various technological advancements and dynamic processes have influenced businesses on a core level. The digital industry in India has shown tremendous growth over the past few years and is currently on a path of attaining greater heights. Even with the new horizons expanding, newer set of the markets are being created and the influence of these markets has become crucial for the industry’s overall survival as the internal competition has become fierce. There are only a few organizations prevailing in such critical circumstances and have been making its mark in the industry for a while now. Forging its path ahead is one such company, CGS Infotech Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

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Our clients have achieved amazing results that simply aren’t possible any other way

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It is an authorized partner of Google for G Suite, Google Trusted Street View Agency for VR, and first partner Google AdWords in India. Google invited CGS to be its partner as it noticed very strong business transactions taking place. “We kept buying thousands of G Suite account from Google for our customers,” claims the team of CGS. Google team keeps track of increased billing for any specific customer. When the team notices a significant improvement in billing, it directly approaches the customer with the motive to provide better services. When google identified consistent improvement in CGS’s billing and sales, its respective account management approached the company with the idea of partnership and intent in helping the firm to scale up and grow. Google has provided innovative ideas and tools to enhance the partnership further.

Since 1995, CGS is providing web hosting, web design, digital marketing, and software services to clients worldwide. The company is currently managing domain, hosting, and email solutions for more than 10,000 clients.

CGS’s key customers include Holiday Inn, Tata Group, Reliance, Raheja Group apart from thousands of small and medium-sized companies. It also has a team of almost 100

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Our G Suite clients enjoy 24×7 immediate phone support, thorough training, excellent account management & billing support

Most Prominent

To Look At in 2019

full-time technocrat staff members and over 600 committed contractors delivering result-oriented digital branding and other technology solutions to the customers with unmatched effectiveness and reliability.

Leading Differently Hiten Bhuta is the Founder and CEO of CGS Infotech. After pursuing his B.E. in electronics from K. J. Somaiya College of Engineering in 1992, he completed his post-graduate program from IIT-Bombay.

In Sept 2014, Hiten received a Certificate of Appreciation from Consulate General of the United States for the contribution he made to India-US trade and technology transfer. He is also serving as National Committee Member for IT for India’s Premier Chamber of Commerce FICCI. He provides leadership for FICCI’s efforts towards the Indo-Gulf trade. In May 2012, Hiten was invited to represent India and speak at Prestigious event, the Indo-Arab Convention which was attended by foreign ministers and business leaders of Top-10 Arab nations. He is a founder and mentor for Sakar Trust which has facilitated over twelve senior citizen entertainment programs and donated resources to several NGOs for the mid-day meal, child girl education, and healthcare improvement. Sakar Trust has had a positive impact on the lives of almost 100,000 people.

Digitally Empowering Partners Google Partners offer distinct and unique value to customers. Google provides continuous training, feedback, and support to its partners.

The partners are aggressive, resultoriented and very keen to serve the customers due to the backing by the tech-giant. Most Google Partners are

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With our ofces in India, USA, Dubai, Canada and cutting-edge online tools like Skype & Hangout, we make it easy for our customers to connect with us. From email-hosting, website hosting, and domain name registration, we handle everything – anytime, anywhere

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led by dynamic entrepreneurs and strong teams. The companies are focused on customer acquisition and building sales. At times, Google Partners are competing with the same set of customers in a geographical area. “Google also competes with its direct selling team with partners in reaching out to customers concurrently,” shares Hiten.

“We primarily start with education and training. Our focus is on creating outstanding value through training, support, and value-added migration service,” describes Hiten.

For some customers, the company provides G Suite for free. Likewise, for many other customers the actual cost of buying G Suite from the firm becomes relatively low from the rest of the competition. The organization comprehends the customer’s business model and its needs. It has a team of members that are capable of designing special G Suite Apps. The proprietary G-suite apps of the company make a profound contribution to customers and help them automate the tasks undertaken and save money. “We have created proprietary G Suite training videos in Indian languages,” says Hiten.

On-point Customer Service The biggest difficulty faced by the firm is unfair and predatory pricing by some of the competitors. Some companies don’t focus on training, support or value-addition. They adopt unfair, corrupt, and fraudulent means to gain customer’s business which creates an unhealthy situation.

“Our clients gain tremendously through our long experience in the industry, 24×7 support, lowest possible pricing, a strong team, and tremendous knowledge,” claims Hiten. The company collaborates with its clients to give an extraordinary experience and tries to add value in its services at every

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We have two decades of experience performing essential and valuable search engine optimization services, web design and web hosting services and providing software solutions for the clients

possible stage. It also gives a free trial, on-site training, and support for the projects. The engineers stay at client’s place to configure, support and train users if the need arises. “We also provide quick turn-around in migration and back-up,” he further adds.

In competitive fields like these, the new partners have to be patient. New partners will have to discover and create new markets. Unless the emerging partners have any unique value proposition, the industry might not treat them nicely as most of the clients know that Google provides discounts to its partners. Hence, the clients also want to share these said discounts which makes the business more rigid and highly competitive.

The Grand Plan Email, Back-Up, Online Document and Spreadsheet will continue to be in demand. Every company will need it in the future. The key challenge is to train and educate customers.

“Our company will continue to provide leadership in responsible, value-added and innovative technology solutions,” addresses Hiten. CGS will provide new ideas, innovation and insights to its customers with an intent to make a real difference in their business. The company will not focus on Google or Technology per se, but will work directly towards fulfilling customer’s needs.

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IS Global Web Enhancing the Digital Presence

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igital Marketing is so powerful in today’s context, that if your business isn’t on the digital platforms, it simply doesn’t exist. But even if you are present, you need to be seen and heard by the target audience you are trying to reach. It might seem like a simple process, but it isn’t. That is why Digital experts and Goggle Partners like IS Global Web has forayed into the market to redeem the businesses, digitally.

In the following interview with Insights Success, Nikhil Agrawal, Director, IS Global Web, speaks about his company, the industry, being a Google Partner and more.

Brief us about the journey of your company– origin, inception, early issues, success stories, and major milestones, to name a few.

Our firm was founded in the year 2009. Since then we are growing continuously and proving ourselves better than our competitors. We offer services in advanced level and implementation of all skills to revive our clients from many crucial issues. We have written many success stories by turning our clients into brands with the help of highly skilled professionals & experts, and their co-related extensive support. “Benham and Reeves UK”, one of my clients, was previously being promoted by one of UK digital agency. This client had been struggling for a long time with Google penalty issues. We were able to diagnose the problem and rescue the website from the penalty and made it worth capable to generate traffic, keywords ranking and online leads for the client using Organic & paid digital marketing techniques. One of the other clients “Holiday Inn, Dubai” was facing thin content and unnatural link problems. We executed and implemented one of the finest link building and content marketing strategy and saved it from any further penalty cases. Being Google partner, we always opt for the White Hat technique for digital marketing which gives us an edge over others. There are many other clients for whom we have designed top-level digital marketing strategies including organic & paid and their successful implementation really supported us for bringing company revenue at a higher level.

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Brief us about your role in the company.

I, Nikhil Agrawal, am the Director of IS Global Web, a leading digital marketing agency that provides high-quality services in search engine marketing and web & application development. I am known as an innovative, dynamic, versatile, and result-driven digital marketing professional with extensive experience across digital marketing verticals for over the past 11 years. I have assisted many businesses in their search traffic, paid traffic, conversion optimization, product launches and have improved their online search rankings & revenue significantly.

Kindly talk about the exclusive products or services offered by your company. How does it distinguish you from your competitors?

We deliver high-quality services to our clients that include SEO, PPC, email marketing, social media & paid advertising, CRO, mobile App & website development and website design. Our Core features such as customer handling and relationship management make us stand out among our competitors as herein IS Global Web we believe in customer satisfaction and that’s why we offer highquality services to retain them for a longer period of time.

We always prefer and recommended the White Hat technique to our client for long term & stable results and this is the reason we have clients since inception!

What is the vision and mission of your company?

Our mission is to help organizations grow digitally. We learn, implement and deliver. By this technique, our goal is to go bigger globally as the best Digital Marketing Partner.

Optimizing performance is our key, and our vision resides in giving the best results to the clients. We maintain a close long-term relationship with our existing and past patrons in the hunt for new opportunities.

What kind of challenges has the company faced industry-wise?

We would like to brief about the core challenges and hindrance which each and every organization faces during December 2019|

INTERVIEW WITH INSIGHTS SUCCESS

Nikhil Agrawal Director

December 2019|

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its growing year. As we all know the initial phase for any start-up is usually tough and filled with many entrepreneurial ambitions & associated business objectives.

Startups have some unique struggles, especially in regard to financing. It had been absolutely challenging for us just because many well existing service providers were already

there in the market. And, it was very tough to influence any new clients for our company. So we started cold calling, but it’s extremely difficult to sell services using that method. In business, you need to meet people who have some connection to you, no matter how slight. That’s why we started contacting every possible connection on my phone list including my friends and known corporate colleagues, had a conversation and successfully converted them into clients. Further, we started promoting my firm by sending offers to all prospective and potential customers. In the end, we got success in grabbing a new client’s inquiry for our business and got a satisfactory initial revenue of approx.

40 to 50 lacs per annum.

Another major challenge we faced was with companies providing similar services at a cheaper cost. We analyzed their target was just to make money and they were not having long term relationship goals. When we started our journey, most of the companies were using Black hat & Grey hat techniques and were making wrong promises to the clients and were giving them a guarantee to rank them on top position within 1 month or so. Being White Hat Google partner, we were aware it is not possible to give a guarantee and as we were putting huge resources and time so our cost was on the higher side. But gradually, we were able to convince potential customers and we got success in converting them and they are now with us since inception.

How have technological advancements and innovation in the industry affected your business?

Technological advancements helped us as we're always on top of it. It is really supportive, lucrative in order to create a fast working environment and hence generate efficient results for our clients within a particular timeline. There has been an evolution of many digital marketing tools and

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channels through which it has become very easy to acquire new leads/clients. Various digital marketing automated tools have provided all features in order to make the process speedy and accurate.

How Digital Marketing is changing the face of businesses in India?

The golden age of digital marketing in India is yet to arrive.

Here in India, small and medium-sized businesses are gaining roots. Digital marketing can help them to achieve their target at a lower budget and it is the beauty of Digital Marketing that is not affected by your organization size. So even if you have a small organization you can steal customers from bigger and better-known competitors by indulging in right digital marketing. Digital marketing is providing a fast track way to promote business through its vast technologies and skills. It has been offered channels like social media, paid advertising, online PR and media promotion, Email marketing and distinctive approaches in order to deliver effective results and revenue at all business levels. The digitalized business has given new wings to reach its services on a vast level by sitting in one place. A business that is well digitally nurtured helping optimistically through the entire society and across the nation.

How do you portray the future of your company in the next decade?

We definitely hope that our company shines, rises and expands in the coming years. As far as the next ten years are concerned, the organization will focus its expansion in terms of revenue, technologies and obviously employee strength. Future markets will be shifting very fast from traditional approaches to the digital approach of marketing.

From purchase to payment, pick to drop, Ticket to travel and many more services which all will be served online hence there would be a high demand to promote business online. Small and Medium-scale Enterprise is the backbone of this industry and plays a key role to attract digital marketing services for many years.

How Google Partners are creating its legacy in the Indian economy?

Basically, working with a Google Partner can enable any business to advance beyond its rivals. India being the under-developing economy, where small business/ entrepreneur flourishes every now and then can compete with the world’s best brands by following Google’s highest standard and best practices and are worthy of being mentioned in the same breath. Being a Google Partner, we can easily work with international clients and gain their December 2019|

trust to invest or to outsource their business promotion to India. Getting more such projects will help to generate more jobs and thus contributing to national revenue. The blue and red Google partner badge symbolize Google Partner companies which is proof of the fact that they fulfill all the guidelines to become Google Partner. This badge also symbolizes that partners have the opportunity to grab international business and to contribute their part in the nation’s economy.

How start-ups are benefiting from digital marketing rather than traditional marketing?

The main reason to use digital marketing is that it is a lowcost way to reach more potential buyers and prospective clients. Digital marketing allows startups to reach new clients and develop relationships at a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing. Some of the core advantages of digital marketing are boost visibility online, develop brand awareness, increase online conversion rates, improve customer engagements, and influence purchasing decision and many more just in fewer packages. These days, all SME’s are majorly based on digital marketing skills because of their low budgets or some financial challenges.

Traditional marketing has gone on second priority just because of online marketing efficient performance and hence, one of the main reasons why many startups fail is that they do not have a proper digital marketing plan.

What advice would you give to the aspiring google partners looking to enter the industry?

The program offers free exams that the aspirant can apply and they also provide free study material. So my only advice is to study their resources, attend online events and training, make a habit to read industry research, product updates, and daily walk through Google Partners Community where they discuss issues with live campaigns.

Explain in detail the various steps involved in making an SEO friendly Ad. In the past, getting a website on the first page was an easy task, but in today’s scenario, it is getting tough with Google updating its algorithms and declining all spam activities, penalizing the website for adopting irrelevant methods to rank. However, as per current trend, Technical SEO is in demand, which refers to website and server optimizations apart from that keyword optimization, playing around with Metas, content optimization, contextual link helps us in gaining authority of a website.

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GOOGLE BERT UPDATE “Google BERT Update Understands Even Better The User’s Search Intent”

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oogle BERT Update, the massive change in Google’s algorithm for five years, affecting one in ten search queries. With this update, Google aims to enhance the interpretation of complex search queries and display and display only relevant search results. Google has greatly improved with this update.

What Does BERT Mean?

The ‘BERT’ stands for Bidirectional Encoder Representation from Transformers and refers to an algorithm model that is rooted in neural networks with the help of Natural Language Processing (NLP).

In a simple term; Google uses BERT to have a clear understanding of the context of the search query and more accurately justify the meaning of every word search. This is set on mathematical models which are known as Transformers. These analyses the word associated with all the other words in the sentence. This is specifically useful when interpreting the meaning of preposition and position of individual words within a search query.

Why BERT Update Is So Important For Google?

As per Google, approximately 15 percent of all search queries are new - that means they are being searched for the very first time. Another factor is the increasing length of search queries - today, 70% of searches can be considered long tail. Nowadays, users turn to Google with fully-formulated questions, and expect precise answers in a fraction of a second - BERT now makes up an essential part of the technology that makes this possible.

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From the past decade’s works on neural networks that can correctly respond to new search queries and enhance the interpretation of content: • Hummingbird: In the year of 2013, Hummingbird was incorporated in the Google Algorithm. This update made it convenient for entire search queries, rather than just searching for the one on one words within the same query.

• RankBrain: In the year of 2015, RankBrain became part of Google’s algorithm and was considered to be the third-most important google ranking factor. This made it possible to process search terms with various implications, or generally complex inquiries that go beyond the ordinary long-tail search.

• Panda: This google algorithm was rewarding with quantity over the quality. The Panda salient update affected strategies where low - quality content was published to the content farms with the link to the business website attached to the keyword recurring throughout the article.

• Penguin: This update was focussed primarily on the way to evaluate the algorithm. The authority of links as well as the sincerity of their implementation in the website content was crucial. However, this meant that if another website posted a link to yours in a spammy or manipulative way, it will negatively affect your search rankings. This meant that webmasters and SEOfocussed businesses required to make use of a disavow tool to inform Google what inbound links they approve.

How Does The BERT Algorithm Affect SEO? It is very important to understand that BERT analyzes search queries, not the content available on a page. Now Google gets better at understanding natural language evoke the actual meaning and context behind its many December 2019|

Tech Update

Umesh Ahirrao Founder & Managing Director

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Umesh Ahirrao is the Founder & Managing Director at Osumare, a leading Digital Marketing Company in India. In a very short period of time, Osumare has become one of the leading companies in its segment. The company was recently awarded as ‘Best Digital Marketing Company in India’ at the huge platform of India Icon Awards 2019.

Umesh is a highly qualified person with titles like BE (IT), MBA in Marketing and Ph.D. in CSR. Umesh has been leading the company since its inception.

Umesh has a contribution in vivid initiatives like providing Free Consultation to budding entrepreneurs and job preference to women encouraging women empowerment program. Also, he provides free internship training programs to the children of farmers with a vision to build their career helping them in securing their future in return.

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search queries, it will also get better at finding the pages that best suits those queries.

The main objective of creating content geared towards the actual question your audience is asking and expecting the valid answers. As far as concerned about featured snippets, marking up pages with FAQ, How-to and Q&A schema is recommended for increasing your page longevity.

defined audience. Google featured snippet seems to endorse that. As Google understands better natural language, focusing on longer tail keywords and on featured snippets, it is clearly showing the big opportunities for content writers to serve their readers with content written more genuinely that answers a searchers’ question as fast as possible and provides much value.

What is Google BERT Targeting?

On-Page SEO An SEO expert can breathe a collective sigh of relief because the Google BERT update is not designed to penalize websites only improves the way the search engine understands and interprets search queries.

Websites that have a lot of informative ‘how-to’ guides and other in-depth content designed to benefit users are going to get the most from Google BERT. This means businesses that aren’t implementing a thorough content strategy are likely to fall behind the curve.

However, because the search algorithm is better at understanding nuances in language, it means websites with higher-quality written content are going to be more discoverable. The BERT update follows Google’s longrunning trend of the trend of trying to improve the ability of its search algorithm to accurately serve conversational search queries.

Now Its time to Amend your SEO strategy Usually, there are three types of queries user may ask while performing a search: 1. Informational based 2. Navigational based 3. Transactional based

The analysis report of Google, BERT will affect 10% of all queries. That's a tremendous percentage, but it might not have caused a visible splash by SEO community standards. That is most likely because the update focuses on longer, more conversational queries, whereas these longer queries are queries that SEO’s don’t target as much.

By applying the BERT models to both rankings and featured snippets in search, google pretends to be able to do a much better job, helping users find useful information. In fact, when it comes to ranking results, BERT will help search better understand in 10 searches and we’ll bring this to more languages.

Identify and Optimize for the Users’ Search Intent Search or keyword intent is the reason why a user conducts a particular search. What and Why they are searching? Are they really trying to figure out the answer to a question or do they just want to reach a specific website?

In this era there is a use of mobile and voice search increasing day by day, where people prefer fast and contextual answers to their questions, that is the reason Google tries to become more and more able to determine the search intent of the user.

Does Google BERT Affect Content Marketing?

Yes, Google asserted that content plays an even more important role, therefore one should focus their full attention on representing relevant content for the user.

Content Marketing implies creating relevant, valuable and consistent content to attract and sustain a clearly 22

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Acodez

Your One-Stop Solution for all Digital Marketing Needs!

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igital Marketing has been transforming businesses into something easily accessible may it be seamless services, products, or a combination of both. Creating awareness and educating a consumer has never been so easy, but various campaigns involved in digital marketing has made a lot of things possible. Be it customers, interested buyers or the business/organization itself, digital marketing is paving the way for growth in a new light.

Similar to this notion, Acodez is a company that provides services in verticals like digital marketing, website development, software development, and mobile application development along with acting as a creative agency. The organization was incorporated in 2011 and its name was derived from three words: Ads, Codes, and Dezigns. Hence, the name Acodez was coined in this way.

It is awarded as one of the top digital agencies in the country by different business magazines and review websites. The firm handles all the requirements of the clients pertaining to online advertising, programming, and software developing as it has an in-house creative team that focuses on creating brand identities.

Acodez envisions of becoming a one-stop solution provider for any company. May it be a start-up or a corporate giant; the company can offer customized solutions as per their individual and collective needs. The firm is focused on maintaining a long-term business relationship with its clients, by taking care of every aspect related to their web and digital marketing requirements.

A Class Apart The things which make Acodez stand apart in the market is its strength and belief in versatility. While promoting versatility, the company ensures that it stays strong in each and every part of the services that are being facilitated to the clients without compromise in the quality aspects of it.

If it is catering to a tech-based company and it requires some assistance in designing or vice-versa, the in-house creative and web-design team is apt in providing on-point solutions to the clients with more than proficient results.

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The firm has worked with clients in more than 80 countries and has won 14 International awards for some of the creative work carried out by its excellent team. The quality of work has been a major factor that had been differentiating Acodez from the rest of its competitors.

Basically, Google Partners help other businesses in setting up campaigns and add value to their operational activities digitally. Acodez is. Google Partner since 2013 and has helped various organizations, which includes companies like Panasonic India, Axis Bank, Anchor Electricals, Agarwal Packers & Movers, etc. It has also helped many start-up companies which were fairly new to the concept of Google Ads; yet the company has created the whole digital marketing campaign on the client’s behalf. By analyzing different variables, the company finds appropriate mediums to enhance the ROI of the client organization and comes up with a solution suitable for them.

Acodez’s function of providing the right solutions at the right time helps in optimizing the campaign of the customers. This process enables the clients in acquiring more traffic on the website and other media platforms while keeping the cost low at every level. Sometimes, when a client has an existing campaign running, Acodez helps such customers in streamlining various aspects of the campaign like the keyword research, campaign setup, AB testing and Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) and UX consultation on the issues on landing pages, etc and thereby improving the conversions and also reducing the ad cost. Hence, a Google Partner makes a difference in areas where one is lacking. The firm assists other organizations to be digitally proficient in a seamless manner while formulating proper strategies for them. For the clients who are planning for a digital marketing campaign, Acodez can add value by reducing their initial cost of the same campaign, or at the same spend, it can help in bringing in more traffic and conversions. “In this way, a Google Partner can bring that sort of value addition to the clients,” conveys Rithesh Raghvan - Director of Acodez (Sales & Marketing).

Leading by Creating Identities Acodez is a market leader in creating digital brand December 2019|

10 THE

Most Prominent

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Whatever may your requirement be, from simple website design, a complex data-driven web application development, an e-commerce website, and native or cross-platform mobile app development, a logo and brand identity design, video production or a full-edged digital marketing campaign - we have a solution for you!

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Rithesh Raghavan Director - Sales & Marketing identities for businesses. The company has adopted this quality of building identities from its distinguished leader Rithesh, who has a rich experience of more than 16 years into marketing out of which more than 12 years are specifically into Digital Marketing. Currently, he handles the Strategy and Marketing operations at Acodez. He has incorporated his exceptional marketing skills in the company and has positioned its growth where it is right now - growing from a 2 people company to a 100+ member team with 6 offices across India.

Rithesh explains how traditional marketing is different than digital marketing and its dynamics that are affecting the Indian business paradigm as a whole. The marketing practices are very different from method-to-method and when it is compared with the existing channels, digital marketing has a game way different than others. It is completely customizable and the campaigns can be set up from anywhere as per the clients’ consideration without their physical presence involved. Developing the right solution becomes way too convenient and the clients get appropriate or even more than expected ROIs with this process. Evidently, digital marketing has made customer identification, acquisition and retention much easier than traditional methods. Google Partners like Acodez is facilitating the right options or services in a way where the beneficiaries are getting effective and efficient digital

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marketing campaigns targeted towards the right audience.

“Reaching the right target audience is a huge advantage of digital marketing,” states Rithesh.

As part of future endeavors, the company has already started an overseas branch in Canada and is very keen on the idea of going global. “We are trying to catch-up with International trends as part of our growth prospectus,” says Rithesh in a conclusive statement.

Aviv Digital – A venture to train and nurture new talents One major challenge that Acodez, like any other company, faced is finding the right talent for the jobs. There were a lot of job seekers, but finding the resources who were passionate about their jobs was very hard. This led to the formation of Aviv Digital, the digital marketing training institute. This was initially started as an in-house training center for Acodez, where students were given personalized training on various digital technologies. However, in 2018, it was incorporated as a full-fledged digital marketing institute, under the name Acodez Educational and Consulting solutions Pvt Ltd which functions in the brand name - Aviv Digital. In the past one year, Aviv Digital has grown into one of the leading digital marketing institutes in South India with more than 300 students successfully completing their courses.

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INTERVIEW WITH INSIGHTS SUCCESS

Bhavin Thakkar Founder and Director

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SAVIT I N T E R AC T I V E

DELIVERING INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS SMARTLY

E

very journey is derived from the perseverance. The capabilities and strategies goes hand in hand when it comes to doing business. Driving with similar sense, given below are the thoughts of an organization striving for success in its industry paving new ground in this digital world.

1. Brief us about the journey of your company– origin, inception, early issues, success stories and major milestones, to name a few.

Savit Interactive was founded in 2004 as an Internet marketing company. Today, we are an ISO 9001:2008 certified SEO company offering various services in the digital marketing arena. The company was conceived with the core purpose of helping SMEs and corporates to pursue their digital marketing needs. We aim to help them leverage the platform in the most effective manner. We have 1700+ SME clients whom we work with day and night to help them generate constant digital inquiries, establishing their digital presence globally. However, it was not always all this rosy.

Initially, we faced ample of hiccups when we were trying to set the company up. We got into the world of digital marketing at the very beginning of the digital era. We were almost as new as the industry which was evolving rapidly.

Back in the day, there wasn’t a clear classification of the different entities that the marketing budgets could be used for. There was a period of trial and error and daily experimentation. We were trying to learn from Google and Google was probably trying to learn from agencies like us by observing the varied ideas we were implementing for our clients. But our never-give-up attitude helped.

Eventually, we could identify the various streams of digital marketing we wanted to offer and identified the right teams for the job.

In our decade and a half of existence, we have serviced hundreds of happy clients, received numerous testimonies, December 2019|

were featured in multiple print & digital magazines and have won multiple awards & accolades.

2. Brief us about the CEO/Founder of your company.

Bhavin Thakkar, the founder-director of Savit Interactive holds a degree in MBA Marketing. He started Savit Interactive with the sole aim to help clients unlock the unlimited potential of the Internet. His goal is to accelerate the growth of the company and our clients by expanding their market reach, help them in generating maximum business leads, and convert bigger sales numbers. His indepth understanding and experience in the subjects of Marketing and Technology have further helped the company get positive results in the area of Internet Marketing.

Our company provides solutions across a spectrum of technology services like website, design and development, search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), pay per click (PPC), domain plus web hosting, and other related products.

Bhavin’s unflinching belief in providing services of the highest quality with true value to our patrons has given our company an extremely illustrious client list consisting of many esteemed organizations in India and oversees.

3. Kindly talk about the exclusive products or services offered by your company. How does it distinguishes you from your competitors?

Although we deal in an array of services, our exclusive services remain SEO and SEM. This leads to the question that, ‘With so many SEO and SEM agencies in the market, how are we different?’

Well, we are different because we have a result-driven approach with a dedicated focus on generating positive ROI for our clients. Our entire strategy is designed in such a way 29

that the media used to post content on behalf of our clients giving maximum positive ROI and meets the clients’ business objectives phase by phase.

Another feather in our hat is our years of experience and the number of projects we’ve managed so far. This helps us arrive at winning strategies for our clients, something that we’ve perfected over the past decade and a half.

7. How Digital Marketing is changing the face of businesses in India?

Digital marketing is changing the face of Indian businesses in a big way. Most companies, today, allot their initial marketing spends on digital marketing only rather than going the traditional way. It has helped start-ups and SMEs take a heads-on approach alongside big, multinational companies.

4. What is the vision and mission of your company?

Savit Interactive has a clear vision. We aspire to become the world’s most preferred company in the field of Internet Marketing and SEO. Our mission is to attain our vision by constantly offering innovative solutions in the said fields.

5. What kind of challenges has the company faced industry-wise?

Any company that is growing faces a number of challenges over time. But one of the ongoing challenges we’ve been facing since our conception is the constantly changing algorithms of Google for SEO. With innovative products, new launches and constant upgrades in SEM too by the various digital entities like Google Adwords (which returned 10 years ago), Facebook, LinkedIn, etc., keeping up with every new nuance of the industry can be difficult.

New and relevant social media platforms are coming up now and then; the social media scene is also constantly changing. So, adapting to new digital channels & platforms and training in-house teams to consistently match SEO & SEM requirements, remains our topmost need and some of our biggest & recurring challenges over the years.

6. How has technological advancements and innovation in the industry affected your business?

We are in the business of technology!

Hence, every advancement and innovation affects our business in a big way. Everything from automated reports to automated audit reports, understanding Google Analytics, figuring out the relevant dashboards made by various companies that aids our day-to-day business, and many more, affects our business.

The use of the Internet and technology has expanded in a big way. This has led to big, technological changes in the geo-economical scenarios. A lot of new users are going digital with their business daily, making digital marketing a very successful and relevant industry.

We are technology! It keeps evolving and we evolve with it.

This helps us continuously improve our business, productivity and cost-efficiency.

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The best part about our business is that it is no longer the case that the more you spend, the more the reach is. In fact, if you spend smartly with digital marketing, come up with engaging strategies and engage in viral content, you can make it extremely cost-effective for your clients too. This has turned the tables and allowed a fair competition in today’s economic scenario.

8. How do you portray the future of your company in the next decade?

The next decade seems quite exciting and challenging as well. In the coming 10 years, we are going to witness lots of new social media platforms and there are going to be many, many changes in the digital marketing industry.

Artificial intelligence is going to become a key factor. We are going to see new tools take over ‘search’ with voice search becoming the key search tool. This trend is a sure shot game changer with the way voice search is increasing day by day.

The future looks pretty exciting with so many impending innovations. The digital marketing agency that can successfully adapt to all the technological advancements is going to be the winning team.

And, we’re ready for that change! We are all geared and charged up.

9. How Google Partners are creating its legacy in the Indian economy?

Almost every digital marketing and SEO agency out there wants to call itself a proven agency. How then can a potential client differentiate between two agencies and identify the one they should trust? I’ll say that you should trust someone, who Google does. Savit Interactive received a Google Gold Partner Badge in the year 2007. Since then, we have been an official Google partner and helped hundreds of brands make their mark in the world of business. A partner badge is a differentiator between a premium digital marketing agency and a freelancer or startup in our domain.

That said, we, as Google partners, contribute to the Indian

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economy by empowering our client’s businesses. Being a trusted partner of the world’s largest or most popular search engine works in the interest of our clients. They acknowledge that they’re being serviced by an agency with a proven track record of generating a sizable ROI for their marketing spends and that trust helps us build our legacy.

We use the latest tech and keep ourselves updated with every new trend in the industry. We also constantly train our teams with the best industry practices. By doing so, we ensure that our clients’ brands receive the best service and care.

10. How start-ups are benefiting from digital marketing rather than traditional marketing?

Digital marketing and traditional marketing are different from one another in far too many ways. It is not an exaggeration to say that digital marketing is a boon for start-ups. Think about the start-up ecosystem without the backing of digital media and marketing. I believe that startups would never survive if we lacked agencies that focused on non-traditional marketing. Digital marketing has boosted young companies in a variety of ways. It works for start-ups because digital marketing spends can be measured and controlled. Not only that, with digital spends, you can always expect them to generate returns on the spends

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almost immediately. There have been so many cases, where we have seen results in the first month itself. With digital and social platforms like Google, Facebook and LinkedIn, it is also possible to design, customised marketing plans to suit a start-up’s target audience.

Traditional marketing may not have lost complete relevance but they are almost obsolete for young companies with a more tech-savvy target audience.

11. What advice would you give to the aspiring google partners looking to enter the industry?

My advice to all aspiring agencies trying to earn google partner badges would be to work in the interest of your clients. Although your end motive is to earn money through your business, putting your clients’ interest before yours is a sure shot way to earn their respect and help them trust you.

Another thing, young companies and new entrants must keep in mind is that a well-trained team leads to your success. Do what’s right for your client and give your employees the scope to keep upgraded and updated, and people will notice you. As you continue on that path, Google too will notice you and, voila! You’ll receive your Google Partner badge.

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Centum Technologies Simplifying Complexities with Prociency

T

he new-age mobile devices are changing the overall scenario of the web design and development industry in an era where social media is impacting the business world like never before.

The past decade has witnessed revolutionary changes across this industry where companies are outshining static websites and embracing the dynamic ones.

Websites that were built in HTML and meant for desktop viewing are now becoming responsive and customercentric. Various companies are coming up with intelligent and scalable web solutions for the betterment of its customers.

Founded in 2008, Centum Technologies Pvt. Ltd. is one such company striving to provide value-based web presence solutions to its customers. Headquartered in Bengaluru with a team of Google certified professionals, the company puts its best foot forward in assisting customers in all aspects of Google Apps journey. Since inception, the company is empowering organizations to break all the traditional shackles and reach beyond their potential in their digital transformation journey with utmost excellence.

Aligning with organizations and accelerating their transition into the digital space is a serious business at Centum. It consistently focuses on boosting organizations with productivity and helping them reach the epitome of success. Its association with one of the best cloud service providers – Google, adds an extra plus to its brand identity. The company’s expertise in deploying Google’s G Suite solution for SMEs is impeccable. Backed by one of the most preferred CMS 34

solutions – WordPress, it stands tall in rolling out stateof-the-art design and development solutions to its customers.

Meet the ‘Hands-on’ Professional Neelesh Shukla is the Founder and Director of Centum Technologies Pvt. Ltd. He has completed his Masters in Computer Applications. He has wide-ranging experience in cloud servers and ceaselessly hones his skills of understanding the intricacies of the hosting business.

Being at the helm of operations, Neelesh considers offering cost-effective web hosting solutions to the SMEs as his top-most priority. His decade-old journey has seen him driving Centum towards becoming a preferred partner for a 360o web presence for an organisation.

More About Centum By closely observing the potential opportunities that Digital Marketing provides in targeting the right audience, it offers services including Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Social Media Management (SMM), etc. to various organisations. It aims to leverage the power of Digital Space and scaling their business to the next level.

Centum is well-equipped with experts from diversified fields like graphic design, software development, user experience, customer relations and project management.

This helps in getting detailed insights to customer perspectives, thereby quenching their need to the core.

Besides, delivering customized solutions is the December 2019|

10 THE

Most Prominent

To Look At in 2019

We suit your “requirements into our technology to give you an edge over your competitors

“

Neelesh Shukla Founder & Director

company’s forte. It follows the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) design principles and standards. Its security audit team leaves no stone unturned in fixing issues related to a website within stipulated timelines.

Centum stands amongst the very few web design companies that follow a Quality Assurance process for website development.

The Company’s Take on the Digital Era The Google partner ecosystem proves powerful in reaching out to potential customers. It creates a win-win situation for all the concerned parties. The customer gets the best solutions and an experienced partner to assist them during the transition and throughout their Digital journey.

Startups generally have issues reaching a larger customer base, budgetary constraints and acquiring & retaining customers. This is where Digital Marketing steps in with its cost-effective solutions and fits well with any small business or startup.

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On the Toes As per a recent survey, data consumed on a handheld device has surpassed data consumption on laptops and desktops. With the advent of cloud solutions, mobility will play a key role in the solutions Centum provides to its clientele. The company is all set to surmount this challenge with its team of professionals working on the mobility solutions that will effectively complement its web presence solutions. It’s endeavouring to be a preferred cloud and mobility solutions partner across the market and help clients in climbing the success ladder.

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ADVERTISE YOUR BUSINESS ONLINE CREATIVELY D

igital is the new analog not because it’s simple but simply because it’s all-pervasive, in your face, and not in a condition to move away anytime soon. With practically every aspect of communication going the digital way, you are ‘online’ whether you like it or not and whether you want it or not.

Online you shall be. Advertising there though is entirely upon one’s needs and initiatives. Also, where you have made up your mind to advertise your business online, you ought to, among other things, do the following diligently and intelligently: 1.Find yourself a niche!

If you don’t have a niche, you could just be ambling in cyberspace without a clue as to what to do? It would then not be marketing but simply put, a waste of time! If you think you don’t have a niche or can’t have a niche, try picking up something that people want all the time such as graphic designing, writing, blogging. Anything where you could be of help to others. Read a lot and establish a measure of understanding of the field such that your would-be clients consider you a sort of authority and give you business without having doubts about your abilities. THIS TAKES TIME, BUT IT IS BETTER THAN WASTING TIME JUST AMBLING ON SOCIAL MEDIA SITES! 2.Write blogs & have that published/ linked to Quora One of the best ways to show one’s prowess in a subject is to write authoritative blogs and articles. The former 36

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Online Advertising

December 2019|

37

can go to one’s website and social media pages while the latter can go to LinkedIn and Quora. Both of which are known to publish serious articles which have the ability to garner good readership 3.Write SEO stuff with correct information and details Writing interesting blogs is one thing and writing it with the intent of attracting the search engine’s attention is quite another. But if one has done the exercise of getting the right keywords, the issue can be considered all but solved.

Organic readership takes time and there is nothing against keyword-related SEO searches. That being the case, it makes immense sense to select the right keywords and use them efficiently.

4.Use WhatsApp Business WhatsApp Business has additional features as compared to the standard WhatsApp like giving complete details of one’s business besides inviting prospective parties to contact you with easily-usable links. In any case, it’s for free and there are lots of those who use WhatsApp extensively. Make relevant tags and see your business grow!

5.Use the services of influencers If your product is good and serves people’s needs, there’s nothing better than the services of influencers who act as the perfect salesperson. They can sell ‘you’ without anyone noticing. They sell your identity in a very subtle manner.

Given their influence in their social-media circle where they may be considered someone with authority, a business going online can expect good publicity and connects. Good, known influencers are known to do wonders for a product’s reputation and standing. It’s like standing in the company of a known specialist in the field in whom people believe.

Your doors open WIDE! 6.Use you-tube judiciously Whether you need videos or not, you need videos. And that is so because there’s nothing like moving and conversing to influence an idea. It’s the essential difference between a book and a movie made from the book. In parts, the book may seem good, but in most others, the book is no comparison to the movie. In the same way, whatever you do to earn people’s attention, never neglect the influence of movies, videos and moving pictures.

7.Create your own WhatsApp and email group A dedicated WhatsApp group is an asset- unless they plan to leave! To keep their interest intact, keep sending 38

interesting articles so that they don’t get bored and depart subsequently. A WhatsApp group, in fact, can establish one’s credentials as a thought leader.

8.Check out specific groups on Facebook and LinkedIn, and engage them with meaningful content As with the WhatsApp group, the same strategy of communicating meaningful content ought to be done on specified forums online, be it on Facebook and LinkedIn. Select forums carefully and so too the content you intend to post. Do not cut & paste stuff, as the same may be deemed spam and instead of gaining traction, you just may get chucked out of the group itself. Be clear and be careful because one wrong post, will make all of your hard work could be gone for good.

9.Engage with people offline as well on the right forums On average, it takes a minimum of 6 months to convince people online of one’s credentials. During that time, it makes sense to interact with people offline as well. Going to the right forums, being seen with the right set of people, and engaging them constructively can be a great way to advertise and increase business online. Though not strictly in the realms of online business, it nevertheless helps as you may unexpectedly find a connect which may open your doors in the right places.

10.List on google local BUT post something every now and then Google local is a great way to advertise for free in the local area. But as is the case with anything that comes free, the entire world and its grandfather are already there doing the same things. With so much competition to advertise and sell, one has to work extra and work very hard, keep sending & posting interesting stuff every now and then.

11.Complete your contact details on Google search and on other search engines and if possible, include a QR code and testimonials In the heat of the moment or sometimes out of sheer forgetfulness we do not complete our profile on important websites and search engines like google. Despite being a free service, the correct information sometimes doesn’t get reflected at the right place and time simply because the same has not been completed. Take time, think and then put information in the correct places. Also remember, the same information goes to a lot of people both right and wrong.

You ought to be ready to deal with the latter typeseffectively!

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Mounika Devi

Digital Marketer

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Mounika Devi is an experienced Digital Marketer with a handful of experience in reaching the stars with her innovative tactics. She has a flair for presentation, a knack for social media and a way for digital marketing. Succeeded in online advertising campaigns that produced tremendous media buzz and built an influential online reputation for many substantial brands. Always up-to-date with the latest trends and best practices in online marketing. She crafts top-notch content that comes within her to solve the queries and assists the brands to scale up. Her blogging skills are just banged on to enthusiastic digital marketing learners. Rank Evolve is a tech-driven digital agency, one of the initial invaders of the digital marketing industry in Hyderabad, we’ve worked with the finest of brands.

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Social Media Know-how

TIPS ON

SOCIAL MEDIA VIDEOS

V

ideos are a great medium to increase your brand awareness. You can tell stories about it. In this way, you increase your involvement and you promote sharing the videos with others. The condition is that the video appeals to your target group in the right way. Otherwise, it is a waste of time and money. We are happy to give you proven tips.

Videos on social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn are usually much shorter than videos on YouTube. On average, videos on YouTube last less than a minute compared to five minutes or more on other social media. Shorter videos require a different approach, with different designs and content.

• Differences between video channels There are many more contrasts between recordings on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn compared with YouTube. The most significant distinction lies in the way video is seen. People more often than not intentionally look for explicit recordings on YouTube, while finding the recordings in their channel on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. The substance of those recordings is additionally founded more on a particular story or thought rather than clarification recordings or introductions. YouTube has installed connections to different recordings on YouTube that enable peoples to take a gander at different recordings, different channels don't offer that probability. The timeframe of the realistic usability of recordings on YouTube is any longer than on different channels, which are increasingly unpredictable.

video experience. For advertisers, this implies YouTube substance must be reformatted before it is transferred to Facebook.

• Small but important differences There are likewise some little yet significant differences between Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram recordings. While LinkedIn recordings have a base width of 256 pixels and Facebook 400 pixels, Instagram recordings require in any event 600 pixels to be shown in client channels. Instagram recordings can't be longer than 60 seconds and LinkedIn 10 minutes. Conversely, Facebook recordings can take as long as 240 minutes. Facebook limits the captions to the furthest reaches of 125 characters, while Instagram permits a limit of 2200 characters.

• Handy: optimize for multiple formats Despite the differences, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram has similar video formats and requirements.

So smart marketers can optimize for both formats at the same time.

• Lots of competition Whether it’s Facebook, LinkedIn or Instagram: quality is important. Every video must be well filmed, edited and captivating from the start. Facebook users watch more than 100 million hours of videos every day, so there is a lot of competition.

Ways to stand out effectively

• The video mainly via mobile devices More than 65% of video playback on social media is via mobile devices.

These are the most effective ways to make your video stand out on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram: • Grab attention quickly

While numerous people still watch YouTube on their PCs or televisions, the bigger screen upgrades the December 2019|

Don’t give your target group time to lose interest; 41

catch your video from the start. You can do this with visual elements that attract attention, or you can start your video with a question, fact or statement that appeals to your target audience.

available. So keep in mind that your video is usually viewed without sound. So let your message be conveyed with visuals, text, and subtitles.

• Keep your video short

• The first three seconds of the video are the most important.

Because telling stories for social media videos works differently than conversations you have with someone one-on-one. And if your video is not played for at least three seconds, the provider does not record “display” in your engagement statistics. These are important to make your video appear on the timeline of a larger number of people.

• An active story arc is the best choice Start with a striking visual, followed by subtle corporate identity elements that you add to the video.

Your target group can easily recognize this because the brain processes image 60,000 times faster than text.

Video involvement on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram usually decreases as the length of the video increases. In general: the shorter the video, the better it works.

• The optimum length: one minute The optimal length of the video to stimulate engagement shared content and brand awareness on Facebook and LinkedIn is one minute, according to HubSpot. It is about 30 seconds on Instagram and videos that generate the most responses are no longer than 26 seconds. Aim for a video that lasts no longer than two minutes. You can also try creating videos that only take a few seconds, especially for video ads.

• Choose the right call-to-action for more response

• Choose a striking preview image (thumbnail) The amount of video content on social media is huge.

But what makes people look or not? A special preview image helps you make the difference. This is the static image that you see when the video is not being played.

Sometimes the first frame of the video is already a good image. At other times you will notice that the last frames show what the video is about.

• Choose the preview image with care The most important thing here is to select this image with care and not just to use the random image that is automatically selected by the social media channel itself during the upload of the video.

• Make sure your videos work without sound

Utilize the implicit capacity in the video uploader to add a source of inspiration to every one of your videos, paying little mind to whether they are commercials or are a piece of your substance advertising. Take a stab at something more imaginative than clear articulations, for example, “Request now” or “More information”.

Great call-to-action buttons increment social inclusion and ensure more change.

• Upload your video directly instead of sharing a link Don’t just share your videos via YouTube, Vimeo or other video sites. Native videos are videos that are uploaded directly to Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram itself. These are played automatically when you scroll over them. In addition, native videos are easier to find and generate more involvement.

Videos on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram are automatically played without sound. 85% of the videos on Facebook are viewed without sound and most people do not switch on the sound, even if it is

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WHITELAKE TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS Leader in the Internet Space For More Than a Decade

s a Google solution provider, what clients expect from them is that their needs for digital marketing solutions should be taken care of completely.

Functions like auditing the existing website, ad campaigns if any and providing them with better solutions are part of a solution provider’s tasks. Google Partners is growing significantly. It has been observed that most marketers in India are spending more than two-thirds of their digital budgets on Google, which is proving to be a good sign.

A

WLTS was established in 2002, Nagercoil Tamil Nadu India. Later, it launched SubmitINme, a worldwide SEO provider with just four members consisting of the workforce. The growth of the company has been substantial since then. It also formed a subsidiary firm called Whitelake Organics, that emphasized on Research Interests like Diabetes (DiaTea), and Dermatology in 2008. WLTS became the google partner in 2014 and established a retail chain, establishing business operations at Chennai.

With new brands getting launched each day, it is tough for a start-up to compete with long-standing companies and millions of marketing campaigns. The desire of any startup is to be successful in its marketing and perform better than any existing marketing leader. Usually, the startups have a limited budget allocated for their marketing. It means they have to make the most of their available limited finances in reaching out to the customers. In this case, digital marketing can be done at a much lower rate than a traditional marketing method, which might cost only a few hundred dollars.

Intuitively Talented

The Enabler “We offer an initial consultation to understand their business goals and existing marketing strategies,” says the team of Whitelake Technology Solutions Pvt. Ltd. (WLTS) The firm analyzes the client’s pain points, strength, competition, market and then come up with a strategic plan that is within their budget. All the consultations with the clients are done by industry experts, technical persons over Google Hangouts, phone or face to face free of charge. “We then assign a panel of experts to work on their campaigns,” adds the WLTS team. The company tests the campaigns on several channels like Search, Display, Video, Call Only, Re-Marketing, etc. and identifies the best performing channel for maximum Return on Investment (ROI). The organization claims of having its cost per conversions to be the best in the industry and has a Client Retention Ratio (CRR) of 85%.

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Bringing the digital experience to the table, Gunaseelan Nadar - CEO of WLTS is disrupting the industry. He completed his engineering and has worked with NEPC and Baron Power for a while. Then, he has worked as a programmer in ASP, Dubai. In-between, Gunaseelan met the CEO of a MNC in 2001. The CEO requested Gunaseelan to perform some SEO for his website, in order to bring more visitors to his website. Along with that, he wanted to make them available the purchase option online for his products. On this request, Gunaseelan simply did his homework and initiated implementing everything he learned and what was best according to him. Due to his efforts, the sales of the CEO’s company tripled in a month!

This performance motivated Gunaseelan a lot. Ultimately, he went on to set up a firm in India and promote his website with more workforce. That’s how WLTS was born. Apart from his interests in digital marketing, he has planted and grown over 1000 trees. He mostly spends his time on agriculture, fishing and a little bit of shooting.

Dynamics of Digital World Being a Google premier partner WLTS is among the very few agencies in the world having access to Google’s latest tools and data. Google engineers provide the resources first before rolling out the operations. The company also enables the following attributes in its business: • Delivering optimum results via Learn, Plan, Execute, Measure & Maximize - a never-ending research process.

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10 THE

Most Prominent

To Look At in 2019

The most “ important among our value set is being ethical

“

Gunaseelan Nadar CEO • Smart and creative solutions to tackle any challenging situation.

• More than 15 years of experience in the global market since Digital Marketing Evolution.

• Google Certified Professionals and Analytically Engineered workforce.

• Providing services only to one client per location on the market vertical to ensure no conflicts of interest.

• Expertise as a Google Premium Partner, NASSCOM Member, ISO 9001:2008 Certified Company.

“Our rates are the best in the Industry that any premier Google partner agency can offer without any hidden charges and unpleasant surprises,” tells Gunaseelan.

Over the years of service, the company has managed thousands of industries across different verticals and has been continuing to do so. It has organized the data (big data) in a combination of keywords, location, demographics, clicks, conversions, and various other factors.

“We use the TensorFlow platform with logistic regression to predict patterns from our existing data and the emerging trends,” describes Gunaseelan. The firm has direct access to valuable industry data and insights from Google, as well as Google-hosted training seminars and other events, ensuring

December 2019|

that WLTS is always able to apply the latest tactics and innovations to the clients' campaigns. “We also conduct events from time to time along with Google, inviting clients for a better understanding of their business; providing them with tips and tangible actions,” states the WLTS team. The major solutions offered by WLTS are: • Pay Per Click Management (PPC) - Google Ads Management, FB Ads Management, Bing Ads Management, Amazon Sponsored Ads Service.

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) • Social Media Marketing Engine Marketing (SEM) • Search (SMM) • SMO, PR Marketing and Video creation services • Website Design & Development Services The company always learns and discovers the latest trends in the industry and work it out accordingly for the clients by grabbing the maximum share of conversions before any competitors could do so.

“We update ourselves to the latest trends. So, we’ve not been hit by any technological advancements yet,” claims Gunaseelan.

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Cyber Sense

HOW TO

STAY SAFE ONLINE ON BLACK FRIDAY

W

hen the Black Friday craze engulfs the planet, people often throw caution aside for a good deal, opening a door for all sorts of cybercriminals. But staying safe online is not difficult if you follow a few simple rules.

Six times more spam emails are sent than legitimate emails each day, and about 75% of these emails, land in people’s inboxes. Around one in 10 spam emails is malicious, so it’s easy to see just how dangerous the online landscape really is.

The Black Friday event adds even more problems as the number of spam increases, and people are more likely to open emails and links they shouldn’t. Suddenly, social networks and emails are flooded with amazing sales that seem to be too good to be true, which is usually the case.

Ideally, installing a Software protection solution on mobile devices and PCs is recommended, but not everybody has one. To reduce the risk of falling for a phishing attempt or getting your credit card stolen, see the following advice: Stick to known websites. The best deals sometimes come from shops you’ve never heard of, and that’s for a good reason. For example, the company behind the website might not exist, and all the details you provide are now in the hands of a third party who might try to access your online accounts.

Use only websites with HTTPS in their address. Shopping online usually involves sharing sensitive information with the websites, and data sent over HTTP is not encrypted. An attacker can steal your data if the online store is not secure.

Be very careful of links in emails and social networks.

Phishing is the most common way to obtain personal information from people, and criminals use websites that

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look a lot like the one you’re looking for.

Stay connected to secure networks. Unprotected Wi-Fi connections are a treasure trove for attackers who want to intercept traffic. Even if you’re shopping on a secure website, you’re still sending a lot of data through an unknown Wi-Fi network. If you really need to use such as connection, at least employ a VPN. Use two-factor authentication for accounts and financial transactions. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) and twofactor authentication (2FA) are great ways to secure an account. Even if someone has your credentials for a service, they would also need access to your phone or emails.

Protecting financial transactions with MFA is just as important.

Robust passwords are always a good idea. Even if you’re tired of this advice, you should consider complex passwords, especially for online stores. And please, don’t use the same password on multiple websites.

Set up alerts on your credit cards. If you don’t already have this service, consider getting it. Most banks offer this feature, sometimes for free. When a stolen credit card is used, people get immediate notifications, which makes it much easier to stop thieves in their tracks.

Keep an eye out for phishing. Companies and organizations never ask for personal details or financial data over the Internet. An online service that claims to need this type of information is most likely a phishing scam.

Black Friday should be an enjoyable experience, and you can keep it that way if you respect these simple rules. And remember, if a deal is too good to be true, it probably is.

December 2019|

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Zakir Hussain Rangwala Director

Zakir Hussain Rangwala is the Director of BD Software Distribution Pvt. Ltd. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from Jaipur National University. Zakir has extensive experience in IT, Channel Sales and Management since 1989. His total experience in all the verticals exceeds more than twenty years. His palette of skills and experiences include managing distributors, running schemes and incentive plans, business planning, and managing Distributor Sales Metrics. His other roles and responsibilities in the ďŹ rm included recruiting essential partners and retailers, appoint wholesalers and stockists under the distributors to enhance the product reach. Also, building an OEM and retail or Large Format Retailer (LFR) network with different product offerings was one of the activities undertaken by Zakir.

BD Software Distribution (BD Software) is one of the leading IT security distributor offering industry-leading and enterprise-level consumer solutions in the Indian market. The brand aims to focus on bridging the comprehensive protection from malware and Cyber Threats to government and educational facilities, businesses and consumers, altogether with its channel partners.

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Search and Our Dynamics with it!

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December 2019|

Searching Online

W

hen was the last time you tried to recall phone numbers?

When was the last time you googled to get details for your knowledge or specific projects?

Do you do any kind of research offline so as to complete projects or is it all online?

The answer to these questions shall show us just one thing. That we are heavily in love with technology to learn and are slowly losing our ability to store information within us.

Is that good or is that bad?

Science is vertically split on the issue with one side vehemently opposing it and the other mentioning that the same was always around! Let’s see for ourselves!

Those who hold that going online and depending upon technology is bad in the long run point to the fact that easy availability of information at our fingertips without much effort is making us a race that loves consumption and not research. With hardly any research taking place to understand even the basics we just may have a generation whose feet are always in the air. Not many of us favor rote learning but, not many understand that the same to an extent is needed to keep things in our long-term memory. Without mugging even basics, we would perennially be dependent upon aids and machines to make us remember things. What we have today is a situation which promotes ‘cursory reading, hurried and distracted thinking, and superficial learning,’ (as per Nicholas Carr, author of What the internet is doing to our brains) which comes in the way of imbibing wisdom and knowledge- essential to the growth of humankind the way we see it today.

Those who hold opposite views say that this ‘outsourcing of remembering’ has always been there from the time humans started to draw and write. Writing, painting, carving, and chiseling are ways by which information is transferred to an external medium and is almost the same as looking up the net every once in a while. Pure, authentic and original research and knowledge in any case was never the forte of the entire population. It was always done by a select few with the rest just using the same for their advantage. In fact, what digitization, googling and the internet have done, as per this group, is to free the mind for ‘higher’ abilities which, as per scientists, we are yet to discover. Rote learning and memory, in fact, are a small part of our brain’s ability though it seems to occupy an awful space when it comes to using our time and patience!

The jury is out on this one, and can safely be put down to one’s own individual preferences. What though needs to be done is to restrict gadget time so that addiction is kept at bay.

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