Checklist for Mobile website Improvement to drive more search traffic & better user experience

Rapid increase in mobile browsing & search has led to better design of mobile sites & faster loading times. Mobile websites should be built properly to drive more traffic from search & provide better customer experience. Some of the check list from Google webmaster central to improve mobile websites are

1) Optimize mobile persona workflows for your site.
2) Build for mobile behaviour & also provide for social sharing.
3) Remove cumbersome extra windows from all mobile user-agents & remove features that require plugins or videos which may not be found in the users device.
4) High traffic & poor user experience mobile pages should be designed properly.
5) Tablet users be served with the desktop version or if available, the tablet version.
6) Optimize crawling, Indexing & search experience. Unblock resources that are robots.txt disallowed. Implement search engine best practices.
7) Have a seperate mobile site & include CSS @media query.
8) Search integration with mobile apps.

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Mozilla, BBC & now Sprint hit by Google’s UGC Spam Penalty

First it was Mozilla, then BBC & Now sprint has been hit by Google’s user generated content spam penalty. Mozilla was the first to get message from Google with user-generated spam on the site. This kind of spam is found on guestbook pages, forum pages, user profiles. This resulted in Google applying a manual spam action to the site. The entire site was not hit by spam penalty. Comment spam is one such spam area where Google is looking for UGC spam.

Then BBC was sent a notice of detected unnatural links. With such a big site like BBC & so many pages, it would be difficult to find out the spammy pages & remove. Sprint, the US telecom company has also been hit by UGC spam penalty now. Google usually applies Granular penalty to the pages

Google has said that publishers should talk to volunteers in the forums on how to avoid the penalty & also to overcome the problem. Google has 2 types of penalties. Manual & Algorithmic  Both the penalties affect the ranking in the Google & also might affect traffic. Many sites have communities, forums & groups to discuss about the products, services & others. Google Groups is the best place to discuss issues related to UGC & overcoming the penalty.

Yahoo Acquires Tumblr

Yahoo! has announced that it has decided to acquire Tumblr. The official press release about the acquisition has been released by Yahoo. Approximately for $1.1 billion, substantially all of which will be paid in cash. In the release, Yahoo promises not to screw up & will be operated independently as a separate business. David Karp will remain as the CEO of Tumblr.

Yahoo’s corporate blog has been moved to Tumblr & this is a great sign of Yahoo showing its trust in tumblr. Marissa Mayer has also announced the same on her Tumblr blog. Facebook last year purchased Instagram & now Yahoo going ahead with Tumblr. There are more than 100 million blogs on the site & more than 100 million users across the world. There are many challenges for yahoo as well like monetizing revenues from Tumblr, making the mobile tumblr more popular & others.

Related articles

• Yahoo acquires Tumblr in $1.1 billion cash deal, ‘promises not to screw it up’ (theverge.com)
• Yahoo Buys Tumblr and Promises “Not to Screw it Up” (allthingsd.com)

Yahoo Acquires Tumblr

Yahoo! has announced that it has decided to acquire Tumblr. The official press release about the acquisition has been released by Yahoo. Approximately for $1.1 billion, substantially all of which will be paid in cash. In the release, Yahoo promises not to screw up & will be operated independently as a separate business. David Karp will remain as the CEO of Tumblr.

Yahoo’s corporate blog has been moved to Tumblr & this is a great sign of Yahoo showing its trust in tumblr. Marissa Mayer has also announced the same on her Tumblr blog. Facebook last year purchased Instagram & now Yahoo going ahead with Tumblr. There are more than 100 million blogs on the site & more than 100 million users across the world. There are many challenges for yahoo as well like monetizing revenues from Tumblr, making the mobile tumblr more popular & others.

Related articles

• Yahoo acquires Tumblr in $1.1 billion cash deal, ‘promises not to screw it up’ (theverge.com)
• Yahoo Buys Tumblr and Promises “Not to Screw it Up” (allthingsd.com)

How Banks are using Social Media in India

With the globalization setting its foot in India in the 90’s, banking sector has witnessed a lot of changes. Competition among the banks led to the marketing activities by the banks in promoting their loans, credit cards, personal loans & others. Several foreign banks also set up their branches in India. Internet banking & ATM heralded a new wave of technology for the banks.

Banks have been using social media to connect with the customers, announce new offers & other activities. For ex: HDFC bank twitter account lists all the social media profiles of the bank. This is a very great move by the bank as it helps customers easily access all the profiles. HDFC facebook page has also lakhs of likes & frequent updates. Another bank, Axis bank has also listed all their social media profiles on their home page & also on their twitter page with thousands of followers. With lakhs of likes on their facebook pages. They also have a youtube profile

It is always a good practice to have profiles across all the social media sites & links to other profiles displayed in all the profiles. This helps customers connect easily. Also they can be used to address customer concerns, problems & others. The data found in the profiles can also be used to improvement of the operations. Facebook, twitter, youtube & linkedin are the top social media sites across the banking industry to connect with the customers. Pinterest, flickr, instagram, Google+ & others are also used to connect with the customers.

Top Facebook Brand Pages in India – Tata Docomo, MTV India, Samsung Mobile India & others

Socialbakers, which measures brands on social media, has released the India Q1 Facebook Report. India has 61 million Facebook members. This helps drive digital marketing activities. Tata Docomo has the highest number of Local fans followed by Vodafone Zoozoos & Nokia India. MTV India is the top facebook Media page by local fans followed by India & Bindass. Samsung Mobile India is the top socially Devoted brand followed by Airtel India . Tata Docomo has 13 millions fans with around 11 million local fans. Nokia India, Fastrack, Samsung Mobile India & kingfisher. Secret Engagement with engagement rate of 4.3% stands top by engagement rate followed by Amity University. Among the newspapers Times of India has the highest number of fans.

Many companies in India have succesfully adopted Social media into their Marketing campaigns. Most of the ads have a microsite with facebook, twitter, youtube profile. With the increase of mobile internet, more people are accessing social networks on their smartphones fueeling the social media growth. More info about the Indian facebook brands can be had at Socialbakers website.

Google Play Books & Movies now in India

Google has launched books & movies on Google play in India. Movies are available for rental & purchase in India. This service is currently available in 13 countries now. With the booming of Indian mobile market, it makes a perfect move for Google to make available movies on Google play. Books have also been added to the Google play which ranges from Indian titles to classics. Many international best sellers are also available in the store. Books can be read across mobile, tablets & computer. Google recently started selling Nexus 7 mobile devices online in India as well. This is the first time Google is selling a device in India to a customer through its Google Play Store. Also available on Google Play is apps with a wide range of categories in both free & paid versions. Google play was earlier knows as the Android market.

Smartphone Wars – Samsung Galaxy S4, Sony Xperia Z, Apple iphone 5, HTC One, Nokia Lumia 920 & Blackberry Z10

With the unveiling of Samsung Galaxy S4 in NY, the war for the smartphone market leader has become interesting. Smartphone market is rapidly growing & several companies are racing to become the leader. The top smartphones now are Samsung Galaxy S4, Sony Xperia Z, Apple iphone 5, HTC One, Nokia Lumia 920 & Blackberry Z10. Samsung Galaxy S IV has a 5 inch display with Android 4.2.2 Jelly bean OS. A 13 MP camera with 2 MP secondary camera. Nokia Lumia has Windows phone 8 OS while Blackberry Z10 has the latest Blackberry 10 OS. Apple iphone 5 has Apple A6 processor. 8 MP pureview camera with auto focus for Nokia Lumia 920. HTC one has ultra focus camera. Sony Xperia Z has Android 4.1.2. Jelly Bean OS.

Mobile users will have a wide variety of smartphones to choose from & this set of latest smartphones have the great combination of design, technology & camera along with apps. App stores provide a wide range of apps for social media & networking.

eBay India Brand Campaign – Want it get it

With the booming of online shopping in India, eBay India has launched integrated brand campaign aimed at giving a push up to the Ebay India brand in the Indian online shopping space. Several new comers in the field like Flipkart, Jabong, Snapdeal & others have been runnings TVC for quite some time. TVC’s show people wanting to purchase a product & is being told by another about the great deals on Ebay India. Want it, Get it is the theme of the promotion. Ebay is one of the oldest entrants in Indian online shopping space.

Indian online shopping market has been growing rapidly & they are making great strides in tier-2 & tier-3 cities. Online shopping offers the convenience of variety, price & easy shopping. With different kinds of financing options, online shopping is becoming a big industry.

RIM rebrands itself as BlackBerry

At the BlackBerry 10 event, RIM has been re branded as BlackBerry. It is also changing its stock symbols to BBRY in NASDAQ & BB on TSX. With fierce competition in the smart phone market from Apple, Samsung & others, the going had been a rough ride for RIM. The event also saw the launch of long awaited BlackBerry 10 launch & Z10 & Q10 handsets. Re branding would help Blackberry reinvent its brand image & presents a single image to the market. RIM had a great market share before Apple, Android & others came on stage & resulted in the fall of market share.