Customer Satisfaction Survey Printed Version: Fill & Download for Free

Flipkart may well be the incumbent and the player to beat in the Indian market, but Amazon brings with it close to two decades of experience – experience of battling it out in conditions that are very similar to the Indian market in several respects.Monopolies may have the luxury of getting distracted. If you were a Microsoft in the 1990s, you could force computer manufacturers to pay you a MS-DOS royalty for every computer they sold, irrespective of whether the computer had a Microsoft operating system installed on it or not. You dared not go against Microsoft, because if you did, it could snuff you out – “cut off the oxygen supply”, to put it more evocatively. But if you are a monopoly, you do have to keep one eye on the regulator, which distracts you. If you are not a monopoly, you have to keep one eye on the competition (despite what Amazon may keep saying to the contrary, that they “just ignore the competition”).Few companies exist in a competitive vacuum. In Flipkart’s case, the competition is Amazon – make no mistake about it. Yes, there is SnapDeal, eBay India, and even HomeShop18; but the numbers speak for themselves. Flipkart has pulled ahead of the pack. As long as Amazon had not entered the Indian market, Flipkart’s rise was more or less certain, thanks to its sharp focus on expanding its offerings, honing its supply-chain and successfully raising enough capital to not have to worry about its bottom-line while it furiously expanded.Amazon India made a quiet entry on 5 June 2013, with two categories – books, movies and TV shows, but followed up with a very splashy blitz two months later in August (it offered 66 percent discounts on many books to mark India’s 66 years of Indian independence – I should know, I binge-bought about 20 books!). A little more than a year later, in September 2014, Amazon turned the screws even more when its iconic founder-CEO Jeff Bezos, visited India. In a very showy display that earned it a ton of free advertising, Bezos wore a sherwani and got himself photographedswinging from an Indian truck, met Narendra Modi and reiterated Amazon’s commitment and confidence in the Indian market - all this without ever taking Flipkart’s name. It didn’t help Flipkart that on 30 July 2014, Amazon India had announced an additional $2 billion investment in India. It didn’t hurt Amazon either that it timed the press release exactly one day after Flipkart closed $1 billion in funding - this was entirely Amazon’s way of jiu jitsu-ing its competitors (so much for “ignoring the competition”). Flipkart on its part ran into more needless problems with its much-touted “Big Billion” sale that was mercilessly ambushed by competitors, and resulted in its founders having to tender an apology for several glitches its customers faced during the sale. Then there were questions on just how much money it actually made from the event, which I analyzed.Flipkart seemed to be getting distracted.When facing a charged-up Michael Holding, you cannot afford to let your guard down, even if you are batting on 91. Ask the legendary Sunil Gavaskar. Amazon is the Michael Holding of competitors. Ask Marc Lore, the founder of Jet, which is "planning to launch a sort of online Costco later this spring with 10 million discounted products”. Marc who? He is the co-founder of Quidsi. Quidsi what? Quidsi is (was) the company behind the website Page on diapers.com, which was acquired by Amazon. Therein lies a tale.Page on diapers.com was the website of Quidsi, a New Jersey start-up founded in 2005 by Marc Lore and Vinit Bharara to solve a very real problem: children running through diapers at a crazy pace, and “dragging screaming children to the store is a well-known parental hassle.” What made selling diapers online unviable for retailers was the cost involved in “shipping big, bulky, low-margin products like jumbo packs of Huggies Snug and Dry to people’s front doors.” Page on diapers.com solved the problem by using “software to match every order with the smallest possible shipping box, minimizing excess weight and thus reducing the per-order shipping cost.” Within a few years, it grew from zero to over $300 million in annual sales. It was only when VC firms, including Accel Partners, pumped in $50 million that Amazon and Jeff Bezos started to pay attention. Sometime in 2009, Amazon started to drop prices on diapers and other baby products by upto 30 percent. Quidsi (the company behind Page on diapers.com) lowered prices – as an experiment – only to watch Amazon’s website change prices accordingly. Quidsi fared well under Amazon’s assault, “at least at first.” However, growth slowed. “Investors were reluctant to furnish Quidsi with additional capital and the company was not yet mature enough for an IPO.” Quidsi and WalMart vice chairman (and head of Page on walmart.com) Eduardo Castro-Wright spoke, but Quidsi’s asking price of $900 million was more than what WalMart was willing to pay. Even as Lore and Bharara travelled to Seattle to meet with Amazon for a possible deal, Amazon launched Amazon Mom – literally while the two were in the air and therefore unreachable by a frantic Quidsi staff! “Quidsi executives took what they knew about shipping rates, factored in Procter and Gamble’s wholesale prices and calculated that Amazon was on track to lose $100 million over three months in the diapers category alone.” Amazon offered $580 million. WalMart upped its offer to $600 million – this offer was revealed to Amazon, because of the conditions in the preliminary term sheet that required Quidsi “to turn over information about any subsequent offers.” When Amazon executives learned of this offer, “they ratcheted up the pressure even further, threatening the Quidsi founders that “sensei,” being such a furious competitor, would drive diaper prices to zero if they went with Walmart.” Quidsi folded, sold to Amazon and the deal was announced on November 8, 2010. Marc Lore continued with Amazon for two years after that – most likely the result of a typical retention and no-compete clause in such acquisitions.The tale of Quidsi is one cautionary tale for any company going head-to-head with Amazon. For more details on the fascinating history of Amazon, I would recommend Brad Stone’s book, The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon – from which I have adapted the example of Page on diapers.com above. You can read another report here. I suspect you may well find some copies of the book lying around in Flipkart’s Bengaluru offices!In their evolution and growth as an online retailer, Flipkart has adopted and emulated several of Amazon’s successful features. Arguably the most successful innovation from Amazon has been to reduce, or entirely eliminate in some cases, the friction of ordering goods from their website. The pace and extent of innovation is quite breathtaking. A brief overview will help illustrate the point.Amazon used to charge for every order placed in addition to a handling charge per item (typically 99 cents). In 2002, it launched “Free Super Saver Shipping on qualifying orders over $49” as a test. After seeing the results, it lowered this threshold to $25. For over 10 years that price held, till 2013, when it raised this minimum to $35. Not content with this, to lure in that segment of customers who wanted to order even a single item and have it delivered in two days or less, Amazon launched a new express shipping option – Amazon Prime – where “for a flat membership fee of $79 per year, members get unlimited, express two-day shipping for free, with no minimum purchase requirement.” This proved to be a blockbuster hit for Amazon and the company piled on goodies to this program – Amazon Instant Video, an “instant streaming of selected movies and TV shows” at no additional cost. That same year it launched “Library Lending for Kindle Books”, which allowed customers to “to borrow Kindle books from over 11,000 local libraries to read on Kindle and free Kindle reading apps”, with no due date and added that to the Prime program at no extra cost. In 2011 it launched “Subscribe & Save” – that let customers order certain items on a regular basis at a discounted price – basically you had to select the frequency and the item would be delivered every month/quarter without your having to re-order it. Amazon launched “Kindle Matchbook”, where, “For thousands of qualifying books, your past, present and future print-edition purchases now allow you to buy the Kindle edition for $2.99 or less.” Similarly, its “AutoRip” program allowed customers to receive free MP3 format versions of CDs they had purchased from Amazon (since 1998) and which was extended to Vinyl Records.If all this was not enough, in 2015, Amazon launched a physical button called Dash Button – on 1 April, no less – that would let customers order an item of their selection with one press of the button. It could be their favourite detergent, dog food, paper towels, diapers – an expanding selection. You could stick that button anywhere – your refrigerator, car dashboard, anywhere. It was indeed so outlandish that many thought it was a gimmick for April Fool’s Day.Amazon has been relentless in eliminating friction between the customer and the buying process on Amazon on the one hand and on squeezing out its competitors with a relentless, ruthless pressure on the other. It manages to do all this while topping customer satisfaction surveys, year after year.Flipkart has certainly not been caught flat-footed. It’s been busy introducing several similar programs. It began with free shipping, then raised the minimum to Rs 100, then Rs 200, and eventually Rs 500. Somewhere in between, it modified that to exclude books fulfilled by WS Retail (which was co-founded by Flipkart founders and which accounts for more than three-fourths of all products sold on Flipkart) from that minimum. In May 2014, it launched Flipkart First, an Amazon Prime-likemembership program that entitled customers to free “in-a-day” shipping for an annual fees of Rs 500. It also tied up with Mumbai’s famed 'dabbawalas' to solve the last-mile connectivity problem for deliveries.Flipkart’s foray into digital music however was less than successful. It shuttered its online music store Flyte, in June 2013, a little over a year after launching it. Some speculated it was unable to compete with free offerings like Saavn, Gaana etc and was unable to meet the annual minimum guarantees it had signed up with music labels for. Whether it really needed to pull the plug so soon is debatable – for all purposes it may have signalled weakness to the world. Competitors watch these developments very, very closely. Its e-book business has been around for a little over two years, but is not clear how much traction they have in the market. With the launch of Amazon Kindle in India, Flipkart will see it being squeezed even more. The history of the ebook market is not a happy tale – if you are not Amazon or the customer.The market for instant-gratification refuses to stand still. Amazon upped the ante by launching Amazon Prime Now in December 2014. Prime program customers were guaranteed one-hour delivery on tens of thousands of items for $7.99 (two-hour delivery was free). This program was launched in Manhattan and rapidly expanded to half a dozen cities in the US by April 2015. Closer to home, in India, it launched KiranaNow in March 2015, in Bengaluru, promising delivery of groceries and related items in four hours.More than anything else, the online retail world is a race to eliminate friction from the buying process, to accelerate and enable buying decisions – as frequently as possible and to provide instant gratification through instant delivery (in the case of e-books or streaming music or video) or one-hour deliveries. Flipkart may well be the incumbent and the player to beat in the Indian market, but Amazon brings with it close to two decades of experience – experience of battling it out in conditions that are very similar to the Indian market in several respects. More ominously, for Flipkart, Amazon has won many more battles than it has lost. Distraction can prove to be a fatal attraction and affliction.

30 days plan for increasing website traffic through SEO:Day 1 : Optimize your title and Description The first thing a user sees when they search for a keyword is the snippet on the Google Search results page. The snippet includes your the page title, URL, and meta description. The title should be short and concise. It impacts your ranking for keywords. Your meta description should accurately describe the content your page offers. While it doesn’t directly impact your search ranking, it will impact your click through rate! Hands-on tips for title optimization Keep the title short. Google truncates anything past 70 characters. Use keywords you want to rank for in the page title. Go back and add page titles to any of pages currently missing one!Hands-on tips for optimizing the description Limit your description to 175 characters. Otherwise, Google will cut off the rest! Try and integrate a call-to-action in your description that encourages users to click on your site page. What added value does the user get from visiting your website? Make it clear in the description. Use important keywords.Day 2 : Use ALT Attributes to Optimize Images Search engines aren’t able to fully interpret the content of images without textual support. That’s why using Alt text to describe your images is so important: it allows search engines to understand the image content. And, if for some reason an image can’t be loaded, the Alt attribute (alternative description) displays the specified alternative text. Alt text also allows visually impaired users who use text-to-speech software to access web content. You have to optimize for all audience members, after all! The Alt attribute is integrated within the image link in the HMTL source code:Hands-on tips for the use of Alt attributes Go to your website and check if you added all ALT attributes to images already live. Add an ALT attribute for every image on your website. Use important keywords for the ALT texts. Use the ALT text to describe what the corresponding images illustrates.Day 3 : Identify and Rectify Broken Links When a user visits a URL that can’t be found on a server, their browser shows them error code 404 (file not found). When this happens, it not only creates a negative user experience, but it also interrupts search engine crawling. If search engines find too many 404 errors on your website, they take it as a sign that your website is not properly maintained. But more often than not 404 errors occur because of broken links. In other words, you’ve inserted a link somewhere on your site that goes to a landing page no longer exists. This often occurs when the destination URLs have been changed or written incorrectly. Make sure to periodically check for any broken links on your website (especially after a relaunch or small URL changes).Hands-on tips: Fix 404 errors Check if your website displays any 404 errors. You may use Broken Link Checker plugin for WordPress. Redirect the faulty URLs to the correct URLs using 301 redirects. Request other webmasters fix any incorrect links that point to your website. Check links in the navigation menu.Day 4 : Review Your Redirects Server relocation can make it necessary to temporarily redirect certain URLs. These redirects (status code 302) ensure that Google retains the old URLs in the index, enabling users to access the older URLs even after server relocation. You should only use a 302 redirect for a limited time period. For permanently redirecting a URL, use the status code 301, which permanently redirects the old URL to the new URL. Part of the link juice is also passed on in the process.Hands-on tips Check all the redirects used on your website. Check if existing 302 redirects are really necessary or if you should replace them with 301 redirects.Day 5 : Standardize your Url Structures The URLs on your website are like signposts to the content your users want to access. The more uniform the website structure is, the faster users can get to their destination. Creating a positive user experience helps reduce bounce rates and increases dwell time. A uniform URL structure also helps search engines crawl your website faster. The faster bots are able to access all URLs, the more pages it can go through and index on its limited budget for crawling each website. A uniform directory structure also means using descriptive URLs. These help users orient themselves within your website. Descriptive URLs are also suited for marketing actions or sharing content on social networks since the URLs already provide clues on the contents of the landing page. Example of a descriptive URL: mywebsite.com -&nbspThis website is for sale! -&nbspmywebsite Resources and Information. Hands-on tips Check if you are using descriptive URLs. Check the click paths and reduce the URL structure to a maximum of 4 directory levels. Make sure that a directory logically points to all its parent folders e.g., mywebsite.com -&nbspThis website is for sale! -&nbspmywebsite Resources and Information. Use 301 redirects to redirect old URLs to the new URLs whenever you make changes.Day 6 : Shorten your URLs Google has no problem processing URLs that are up to 2,000 characters long. This means your URL length does not have a direct impact on your site page’s ranking. However, URL length does have an impact on user experience (which ultimately still affects your SEO). Shorter URLs are much easier to remember, easier to share on social media, and easier for advertising purposes. Another positive effect: A short URL with no more than 74 characters can also be displayed completely in the Google SERP snippets. Avoid redundant stop words (the, a, an, etc.) or conjunctions (and, or) in the URL. Keep your URLs as close as possible to the root domain.Day 7 : Link your pages internally Your homepage is the most important and likely your strongest webpage. The link power (AKA link juice) is distributed from the homepage to all other sub pages. Ideally, you should distribute the link juice evenly to all other subpages through internal links and easy navigation menus. The uniform internal linking also enables you to control the search engine bot. A logical link structure makes it possible for the bot to systematically crawl and index your website. Controlling link power also tells the bot which pages are most important. Some of the pages on your website might not be linked to any other page. These are referred to as “orphaned pages,” and if a bot finds such a page, it is forced to abort the crawl since bots can only move from link to link. Hands-on tips Remove links that point to faulty pages (status code 404) or pages that are no longer accessible (status code 500). Identify orphaned pages and link them to other thematically relevant subpages.Day 8 : Use anchor texts to increase relevance Anchor texts describe a link in detail and inform the user about what to expect from the link. Rather than having to click on an ugly URL, anchor texts allow people to click on keywords people understand and are redirected to the URL is hidden behind the anchor text. Ideally, the corresponding keyword of the landing page should always be used in the anchor text of internal links. The more web pages use the same keyword to point to a subpage, the more signals the search engine will receive indicating that this landing page must be very relevant for this keyword. This, in turn, means that the page will be ranked better for this and other similar keywords. Avoid using non-descriptive anchor texts (e.g., “here”, “more”, etc.) in your internal links and focus more on keywords. Hands-on tips Try to use the same anchor text when you link to a landing page. Make sure the anchor text matches the content of the landing page.Day 9 : Keep Click Paths SHORT Website users want to get to their desired page as fast as possible. That means you should keep your click paths as short as possible. The click path is the route a user takes to reach their desired page. Think of an online shopping experience. The user might start on the homepage and end at the shopping cart. Their click path is the ease and number of pages the user have to go through to reach their desired product and buy it. The length of the click path plays a key role in the navigation on your website. Search engines also benefit from short click paths when crawling. If the Google bot goes through your website and manages to access all sub-pages within just a few clicks, it can use its limited crawl budget to scan and index more pages. Optimizing the click path pays off for both usability and search engine crawling! As a rule of thumb, every sub-page should be accessible with no more than 3 clicks. Hands-on tips Add a breadcrumb navigation to enable your users to orient them within the click path. Limit the length of the click path to a maximum of 4 clicks. Use a smart filter and search function on your website to avoid long click paths.Day 10: Improve your site’s accessibility Troubleshooting technical errors and ensuring that your website is always accessible is one of the biggest hurdles to manage when thinking about good SEO practices over time. You can use a sitemap.Xml file to inform search engines about all URLs on your website. This sitemap can be read by search engines and contains a list of all important URLs and metadata on the website. The Google bot uses this list as a basis to go to the website and review the corresponding URLs. The sitemap.xml file always has the same structure: Both the XML version and coding are specified in the file. The URLs can be supplemented with additional metadata [e.g. the frequency with which the URL is changed () or the last modification ().] The sitemap.xml can be created using different content management systems There are also special sitemap generators available for the creation of the file. After creating the file, you should upload it to the Google Search Console. Google then checks the sitemap-XML for accuracy. However, there is no guarantee that all web pages given in the sitemap will be crawled and indexed. This is up to the search engine. Hands-on tips Regularly update your sitemap.xml. Always adjust your sitemap.xml whenever you change URLs or edit content. Check the status codes of the web pages using the sitemap and fix any accessibility errors.Day 11 : Tell search engines what to crawl The robots.txt is a text file that tells search engine crawlers which directories to crawl (allow) and which not to crawl (disallow). Every bot must first access the robots.txt file before crawling the website. Using the robots.txt file helps you ensure that search engines identify all the important content on your website. If an important web site or JavaScript elements are excluded from the crawling, search engines will not be able to correctly index your website. If all your posts are indexed then it will Increase SEO Traffic! Below is the simplest form of robots.txt: User-agent: * In this case, the instructions apply to all bots (*). There are no crawling restrictions. After creating the robots.txt file, you should save it in the root directory of your website. If you do not want a specific area of the website to be If you do not want a specific area of the website to be crawled, you should specify this using a “disallow” in the file. User-agent: * User-agent: * Disallow: /thisdirectory Hands-on tips Use a robots.txt file to give instructions to search engines. Make sure that important areas of your website are not excluded from crawling. Regularly check the robots.txt file and its accessibility. Orientation & performance of the website Your website should be thematically oriented to specific keywords for optimal rankings. The website should fulfill the needs of your users. At the same time, it is also important for your web content to load quickly in order to guarantee user satisfaction.Day 12 : Do Your Keyword Research Keyword research helps you identify keywords that appeal to a target audience and expand the reach of your content. When selecting keywords, you should also keep the purpose of your website in mind. Opt for transactional keywords if the main intention is sales, or informational keywords if your website aims to provide readers with important information. Below are some of the recommended tools to help you research appropriate keywords:Google Keyword Planner: The Keyword Planner is part of the AdWords advertising program. You need a valid AdWords account to use this free tool. You can start searching for keywords and suitable ideas as soon as you register. You can also enter websites and view suitable keywords based on their content. The tool also shows you information about the monthly search volume. To the Keyword Planner.Google Trends: This free tool shows you how often frequent search terms are used. The tool also shows you a preview of possible peak demands. Google Trends is well-suited for seasonal and event-related keywords.Google Search: When you go to google anything, Google provides suggestions as you type based on the most heavily search keywords that your current search is matching. This includes long-tailed keyword suggestions based on your short-tailed entry. On a tight time or money budget, take advantage of this easy solution!Übersuggest: Übersuggest is a classic keyword research tool. It goes through all the recommendations of Google Suggest and shows you the most appropriate search term.LongTailPro, SEMRush are the best keyword research premium tool. They have lots of features which will give you clear idea about your keywords. You may tryDay 13 : Ensure Neat Website Navigation A navigation menu helps users to easily navigate and find what they’re looking for on a website. A well-structured navigation menu is key for the user experience. The navigation structure is also important for search engines since it enables them to determine how important a URL is. The navigation on your website should be structured logically to ensure users don’t have problems on your website. Long dwell times from your users can help improve your search rankings, so the user experience is an important SEO consideration! Hands-on tips Use anchor texts in navigation elements. This help search engines understand the subject of the landing page better. Identify pages that have a high bounce rate and take measures to prevent this. Use a breadcrumb navigation for a better overview.Day 14 : Improve your site’s loading speed A webpage’s loading speed is very important for its ranking. Users don’t want to spend time waiting for a page to load; they want to see your content immediately. Web pages with high loading times have high bounce rates, and high bounce rates often result in poor rankings. There are many technical ways to optimize the loading time. You can use Google PageSpeed to check how fast your website loads. Check the page speed of your website with Website Speed and Performance Optimization Or Website Performance and Optimization Test Identify (very) slow pages and find out the cause. Avoid using giant image files and optimize the images for their minimum sizes. Optimize CSS and JavaScript files. You can save these in external files on the server for performance reasons.Day 15 : Optimize your website for mobile Mobile friendliness is an important ranking factor for search rankings. More and more users are using their mobile devices to surf the internet. In some areas, over 70% of users visit websites on mobile. What does this mean for you? Every site page should be optimized for mobile. Every. Single. One. Before you start with mobile optimization, you can use Google’s free test for mobile friendliness to check the mobile performance of your website. Learn more from google webmasters.Day 16 : Identify Duplicate Content Duplicate content can appear on a website for different reasons. Sometimes the same content is accessible and indexed under different URLs. This makes it difficult for search engines to determine the best search result among the different URLs. The result is “cannibalization” in the rankings. The website cannot appear in top rankings since Google is unable to choose the best version. You should, identify sources of duplicate content on your website and rectify the errors as fast as possible. Check if your website is accessible with or without www., HTTP, or https. If multiple versions are accessible, use 301 redirects to redirect them to the desired version. Check if the same content is indexed in different formats, e.g., in the print version or as PDF. Test if your website automatically creates lists or documents that generate duplicate content. Check if your website displays similar content with and without a “/” at the end of the URL.Day 17 : Eliminate duplicate content Online shops in particular often face the risk of generating duplicate content. For example, a product might be listed in several categories. If the URL is structured hierarchically, a product can be accessible under multiple URLs. One reliable way to solve this problem is by using a canonical tag. This shows Google which URL is the “original” one and which one is a copy. The Google bot then ignores the copies when crawling your website and only indexes the original URLs. Go to each page on your website and add a canonical tag. In the case of duplicate content, the canonical tag should point to the original web page. Also, add a canonical tag on the original web page that points to itself. When adding canonical tags, make sure you write the URLs correctly. Do not use relative URLs for canonical tags. If you hired a writer for your website content, then check your article before publishing it. I use Grammarly & Copyscape to check plagiarism.Day 18 : Use TF*IDF to Analyze Content Quality Whether or not a website gets to top ranking positions depends on how unique its content is and how much added value it provides users. TF*IDF allows you to check if text optimization on your website is necessary. It determines the frequency of terms associated with the specified main keyword based on the top 10 search results in the SERPs. You can then use this term frequency to see whether your text already contains the important keywords. Try to meaningfully integrate the most important terms from the analysis in your text. Compile thematically relevant content for your users. Regularly analyze your text using the TF*IDF tool in order to keep up with changes in the SERPs and the changing interest of users.Day 19 : Create unique headlines Headlines on your website usually have two functions. One is to give the content an organized structure, and the other is to encourage user to read on. Headlines are marked with h-tags in the HTML source code. Hands-on tips Only use one h1 headline per page. Use the main keyword of the respective page in the h1 headline.Arrange sub-headings in chronological order (h1, h2, h3, etc.) Do not use h-tags to format the font size. Instead, use CSS. When possible, use thematically complementary keywords in sub-headings (h2, h3, etc.). Keep headlines as short as possible and delete all unnecessary words. Use elements like numbers, bullets, and images to attract your user’s attention and make your content easily skimmable. Day 20 : Create your content Content curation is a common way to collect, restructure, and republish existing content. The collection of material often provides new perspectives for users on content ideas you’ve already covered. For content curation to be successful, you first look for appropriate sources and then use your own blog to purposefully publish the content. Personal social media channels also help spread content easily. Popular topics often provide a lot of traffic. Hands-on tips Publish illustrative infographics that make a complex subject much easier to understand. Publish surveys and statistics to topics that could interest your target group. Write e-books in which you comprehensively cover a subject in a way that is easy to understand. Organize case studies in which you share your experiences. This gives your users practical insights into your work and expertise. Publish guest posts on your blog. External experts can provide detailed insights on a specific subject that interest your users.Day 21: Recycle your content Content republishing offers webmasters and SEOs an opportunity to restructure and update content that already performs well for their audience. At HubSpot, we call this process historical optimization. When you republish content, you can’t just publish the same thing and make it look new. You need to update the content with fresh statistics, examples, up-to-date facts, or even fresh formats to make it more relevant for your audience. Search engines often reward you for updating old content. But remember, you only get a reward for actually making the content more relevant! Regularly check your website’s KPIs, e.g., dwell time, traffic, and scroll behavior. Look for your most high-ranking content and check to see if it’s up-to-date. Make sure you also modify your meta elements, e.g., title and description, when modifying your content. Examples of ways you can republish your content Creating video tutorials from existing content. Updating old blog posts or turn the into gated offers. Creating listicles based on information on a blog post. Rephrasing a press release on a blog post.Day 22: Keep your content code ratio high Thin content tells a search engine that your site page doesn’t have much to offer. As a result, those site pages are ranked poorly in the search results. Sparse content is mostly characterized by a poor content (text) to code ratio. The common rule of thumb dictates that the amount of text on a website should not be less than 25 percent. Use sufficient text on your website. Reduce the source code by eradicating unnecessary comments and formatting. Structure your text so that the content is clearly legible. When possible, use CSS instead of HTML for formatting.Day 23: Diversify new content There are many different ways of creating new content. In addition to text, web content also includes images, videos, graphics, and audio files. Play around with different content styles in a variety of formats — blog posts, site pages, webinars, videos, etc. Make the most of the diversity of options out there! Users appreciate the variety.Hands-on tips Use infographics to illustrate complex subjects. Present facts in brief and clear explanation videos. Publish case studies about your experiences and new methods. Shed light on the various aspects of your work from a totally new angle. Conduct interviews with experts, CEOs, and employees on subjects that are relevant to your target group. Publish listicles that have never existed before.Day 24: Internationalize your website Is your website available in different languages or country version? Awesome! Don’t forget to notify search engines of this. The search engines will then display the content of your website in the respective country and language versions for users. This improves usability since users are immediately redirected to the desired version in the SERPs. You should use the hreflang-tag to mark the different language and country versions of multilingual websites. Implement this tag in the website’s section and make sure you add a new tag for every language version. Structure: Hands-on tips Add a hreflang-tag on every page if it has a copy in a different language. Link each page on your website to all available language versions. Add the hreflang in your XML sitemap. Add a hreflang-tag in the section of HTML documents to also reference to other PDFs in other languages.Day 25: Optimize your website for local search A Google study showed that more than 80% of users search stores and local service providers online before visiting them. This fact makes it important to optimize your website for the local search. The online visit is a basis for more customers and more sales. Hands-on tips Make sure you optimize your website for mobile since users often search for local stores, restaurants, or service providers using smartphones. Always use the same business name, address, and telephone number (NAP) on your website. Use the same information for entries in business directories. Register your website on Google MyBusiness. Make sure you also add images of both you and your business besides the NAP data. Make sure your content relates to your locality. Use the city or region in H1 headlines, titles, and meta descriptions. Use your service or business field as the main keyword and sensibly combine it with your region or city. Set the keyword focus (ALT attributes or URL names) to the combination of city/region + your offer/service. Use markups to mark the NAP data in the source code. Add your business in business directories like Yelp. Encourage your users to review you online.Day 26: Leverage social networks Social networks are an important source of traffic. Good content significantly raises the probability of the posts being frequently shared organically on social networks which help you expand your reach. At the same time, you can also generate additional traffic through social channels. Social interactions are also registered by Google and can help the search engine review the relevance and quality of your content.Hands-on tips Use social networks to promote your content. Make sure you appropriately address the correct target group. Only post content that also interests your target group. Speak the language of your target audience in your posts. Post regularly and do not be afraid to experiment on posts that are most frequently shared. Use paid ads on extremely interesting posts to further expand your reach. Use a preview to check how your posts are displayed. Use images and videos to make your posts more attractive and compelling.Day 27: Force user interaction User-generated content can increase the relevance and freshness of a website. Users can interact with your website in many different forms. The most common ways include blog comments, question and answer boxes on products, and reviews! Encourage your blog readers to comment on posts. You can simply add a CTA request at the end of the text or pose open questions. Write posts about controversial topics to generate comments. Share your blog posts on social networks and encourage users to comment. Let users review and rate your products through open text fields. Let your users answer questions from other users about your products. Post frequently asked questions on your website and answered the questions there. Monitoring SEO is not about one-time actions. It is a continuous optimization process. One crucial basis for optimization is valid data about user behavior. Regular monitoring is one of the key tasks of search engine optimization that makes it possible to react quickly to traffic decline or other occurrences.Day 28: Sign up for Google Search Console The Google Search Console is an important basis for website monitoring. Not only is the sitemap.XML uploaded to the Search Console; you also obtain important data about the most common keywords used to find the website on Google. Also, the Search Console also informs you about hacked websites and warnings to unnatural links. You can also access data from the Search Console on other applications through linking other Google products, e.g., Google Analytics and Google AdWords. The API allows you to also integrate CTR and traffic statistics as well as links to other web analytics tools. Register a valid Google account and add your website in the Search Console. Regularly check HTML improvements in the Search Console and optimize your metadata. Check your markups using the Search Console. Analyze the clicks to your landing pages and use this data as a basis to optimize your content and metadata. Check the statistics about crawling errors. Directly send optimized websites to the Google index using the “Fetch as Google” function.Day 29: Sign up for Google analytics Google Analytics allows you to specifically analyze the user behavior on your website. The analysis options range from very simple to very complex functions. Using tools like Google Analytics is essential to evaluating the success of your SEO measures.Google Analytics tracks the users on your website. To activate the tracking, you must add the respective Google Analytics code snippet on every page. Check the most important performance indicators (such as page visits, bounce rate, and dwell time) on a daily basis. Activate email notifications in case of major changes in these KPIs. Regularly compare the data with previous periods. Revise your privacy policy if you are using Google Analytics.Day 30: Monitor your progress There are tons different tools on the market for assessing the success of your website. Make sure you also use the free options to monitor and analyze traffic on your website. The two free tools, Google Analytics and the Google Search Console, are standard website monitoring tools. Different commercial providers also offer other free tools that can significantly help with your SEO tasks. What a ride! Over the past 30 days, you have optimized your website step-by-step by applying various SEO tactics to your page. We covered technical, on-page, content, and performance optimization tips. We have laid the foundation for a well-optimized website. You are now on your way to becoming an SEO pro! But remember: SEO is a continuous process and not a onetime “fling.” Keep up the good work and continue maintaining and optimizing your page. You’ll see – the effort will pay off! Good Luck

I think all of the answers listed are great, but their mostly personal opinions.Yikes! Instead I’ll focus on a different aspect, How the job market defines content marketing, since it’s tasks like the ones listed below that you willBe asked to perform at Company X, orNeed to have to get a job at Company XLet’s get started.P.S > Since I am hoping you’re a go-getter, I’m going to share a sample resume of a high-level role. If you can put these sort of tasks on your resume, you’ll be golden for 12–18 months until the whole content system changes again.P.P.S > This ‘job description’ is pulled from a list of job openings at reputable fast-growing companies, and the oldest posting is from 34 days ago (so it’s relevant).|Compiled sample resume for Chief Content Officer|Responsibilities:Ensuring all content is on-brand, consistent in terms of style, quality and tone of voice, and optimized for search and user experience for all channels of content including online, social media, email, point of purchase, mobile, video, print and in-person.This is to be done for each buyer persona within the enterprise.Mapping out a content strategy that supports and extends marketing initiatives, both short- and long-term, determining which methods work for the brand and why. Continuous evolvement of strategy is a must.The development of a functional content calendar throughout the enterprise verticals, and defining the owners in each vertical to particular persona groups.Supervising writers, editors, content strategists; be an arbiter of best practices in grammar, messaging, writing, and style.Integration of content activities within traditional marketing campaigns.Conducting ongoing usability tests to gauge content effectiveness. Gathering data and handle analytics (or supervise those who do) and make recommendations based on those results. Working with owners of particular content to revise and measure particular content and marketing goals.Developing standards, systems and best practices (both human and technological) for content creation, distribution, maintenance, content retrieval and content repurposing, including the realtime implementation of content strategies.Leveraging market data to develop content themes/topics and execute a plan to develop the assets that support a point of view and educate customers that leads to critical behavioral metrics.Establishing work flow for requesting, creating, editing, publishing, and retiring content. Work with technical team to implement appropriate CMS.Conducting periodic competitive audits.Supervising the maintenance of content inventories and matrices.Ensuring conssistent global experience and implement appropriate localization/translation strategiesParticipation in the hiring and supervising of content/story leaders in all content verticals.Creation of a strategy for developing SMS/MMS outreach and advertising, apps, etc. as needed.Work closely with company's Chief Design Officer on all creative and branding initiatives to ensure a consistent message across channels.Success CriteriaThe CCO is measured on the continual improvement of customer nurturing and retention through storytelling, as well as the increase in new prospects into the enterprise through the consistent development and deployment of content to each persona group.Success criteria include:Positive brand recognition and consistency across chosen published channels.An increase in defined customer engagement metrics (measured by users taking the desired action…i.e. conversions, subscription, purchase, etc.).Website and social media traffic growth.Conversion metrics definition and growth.Social media positive sentiment metrics.Customer feedback and survey data.Increases in key search engine keyword rankings.A decrease in sales/buying cycles.Clearly defining content distribution during particular stages of the buying cycle (lead nurturing).Identifying up-sell and cross-sell opportunities through content analysis, and deploying content assets for higher conversion rates. Primary criteria for success are customer and employee affinity.Success is measured around lifetime customer value, customer satisfaction, and employee advocacy.Experience and Education RequiredBachelor's degree in English, Journalism, Public Relations or related communications field. MBA in marketing a plus.10-15 years of experience as a respected leader in multichannel content creation (publishing, journalism, etc.).Experience with creating compelling messages for different target demographics. Crisis communications experience a plus.Expertise in all major business software applications (Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office, etc.).HR-related experience including hiring, managing, performance reviews, compensation packages, etc. required.Multilingual abilities (specifically Spanish and Chinese) a major plus.Audience development and subscription strategies experience a plus.Skills RequiredThe CCO requires a combination marketing and publishing mindset, with the most important aspect being to think “customer first”. In essence, the CCO is the corporate storyteller that must be empathetic toward the pain points of the customer.Specific skills required include:Proven editorial skills. Outstanding command of the English (or primary customer) language.Training as a print or broadcast journalist and has a “nose” for the story. Training in how to tell a story using words, images, or audio, and an understanding of how to create content that draws an audience (it is critical that the CCO retain an “outsider’s perspective” much like that of a journalist.)The ability to lead and inspire large teams of creative personnel and content creators to achieve company's stated goals.Skill at both long-form content creation and real-time (immediate) content creation and distribution strategies and tactics.The ability to think like an educator, intuitively understanding what the audience needs to know and how they want to consume it.A passion for new technology tools (aka, using the tools you preach about) and usage of those tools within your own blogs and social media outreach. Social DNA a plus!Clear articulation of the business goal behind the creation of a piece (or series) of content.Leadership skills required to define and manage a set of goals involving diverse contributors and content typesProject management skills to manage editorial schedules and deadlines within corporate and ongoing campaigns. Ability to work in a 24 hour project cycle-utilizing teams or contractors in other countries.Familiarity with principles of marketing (and the ability to adapt or ignore them as dictated by data).Excellent negotiator and mediator.Incredible people skills.Basic technical understanding of HTML, XHTML, CSS, Java, web publishing, Flash, etc.Fluency in web analytics tools (Adobe Omniture, Google Analytics), social media marketing applications (HootSuite, Tweetdeck, etc.) and leading social media monitoring platforms (Radian6, etc.).A willingness to embrace change and to adapt strategies on the fly.Great powers of persuasion and presentation (Visio, PowerPoint)Experience creating a resource or library of content organized indicating SEO, translations and version control.Needs to be continually learning the latest platforms, technology tools and marketing solutions through partnerships.Able to screen out sales pitches and look for the relevant brand and customer story.Comfortable with acting as the company's spokesman and advocate via media appearances, interviews, sales calls, trade shows, etc.If you got any sort of value from this, please upvote to allow others the same opportunity to learn. Cheers, zpl