How Does Instagram Works?

Instagram was just an ordinary social media platform like others when it was launched back in 2010, but does is it really now the same; ofcourse not, it’s now a huge giant and also one of the top contenders in social media. Its been used by people all around the world and grown drastically nearly 10 times within the short span of 5 years. According to the statistics there are more than 500 million of daily active users engaged and they tend to hit the “like” button averagely 4.2 billion of times in a single day.Continue reading

Social Media Marketing Tips For Small Businesses

We’ve realized the importance of social media marketing. It’s a great platform to share your ideas, be heard, and even market your products. But for business owners who need to focus on other aspects of your business front keeping in touch with the latest social media marketing tips can be quite challenging. CodePlateau brings you the best tips for social media marketing that can help propel your business to the next level.

Best Social Media Marketing Tips For Small Businesses

These tips will tell you how to use social media marketing to help grow your business from a starter to a leader.

1. Start With A Social Media Marketing Plan

Due to time constraints, focus on business aspects, small businesses usually lack the time for marketing which is one of the most important aspects. Small businesses, however, don’t have the resources to afford a premium social media agency that will do the work for them. So in order to succeed they need to start with a social media marketing plan. Spare just a few days or a few hours each day to decide what you will do for the coming month. It’s easy to pick out special holidays and events that are coming up and decide your social media calendar based on those. We usually like to plan out our social media marketing calendar a month in advance. You might not have to post every day, but frequent posting leads to better success in social media. We live in a world of low attention spans, when you’re out of sight, you’re out of mind.

2. Choose Social Media Platform Best For Your Business

This is in fact much harder than it appears. Normally when working as a Social Media Marketing Agency in Pune for our clients we like to start with all the popular social media marketing platforms. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. If you have existing channels your social media audit will give you a better idea which platforms you need to focus on. Otherwise, you can try them all and see what sticks to the wall. It’s best to trickle down your accounts to just one or two. Make them your priority and be very active on those platforms while also periodically posting on others as well.

3. Familiarize Yourself With Your Audience

For businesses, and especially small businesses it’s really important that you get to know your audience. Your bottom line depends on them. Your audience segmentation will also give you a better perspective of the social platforms you need to target. The audience you want and the audience you get might be completely different. Ideally, a pub would prefer a much younger audience, ideally, between the ages of 21-26. However, if they’re getting a much older crowd ranging from 28-35 is it so bad? It comes down to the business decision at the end of the day.

4. Share Rich Media Content

Audiences especially the younger audience, don’t like looking at bland media copy. They want something to make them feel more connected to the post. Share images, gifs, and videos whenever you can. This will help keep the interaction between the communities quite strong. Remember that visual content always leads to higher engagement across the audience groups.

5. Quality vs Quantity Debate

If you have to post every day on your social media platforms (and you should) post something that worthwhile or not at all. Answer these questions for yourself and ask yourself if they post should be up online.i. Is the post entertaining? ii. Is it informative? iii. Is it likely to be shared?

Conclusion

Use these social media tips to move your growing business in the right direction. If you’re still finding it tough to get a fixed routine and need professional help setting up your social media marketing angle get in touch with CodePlateau. Not only does CodePlateau do quality work, but we’re an affordable social media marketing agency in Pune. Get in touch today.

SEO in 2019? The Importance of SEO next year

We’ve heard it a hundred times already, SEO is dead. Maybe in its conventional form, it died a long time ago, but if for a second you forget about the importance of SEO, you’re not only doing a disservice to yourself but your business as well. As the time goes by, we’ve seen the role of SEO shift prominently, but not how relevant it is to the online marketing game. Here are some of our thoughts on the importance of SEO in 2019.

Importance of SEO in 2019

Here are some reasons we think SEO will continue to rule the roost in digital marketing not just in 2019 but for the years to come.

1. Quality Is Still Important To Google

Of the many ways in which SEO has evolved since it’s inception is the concept of quality vs quantity. When SEO first began it was all about keyword density and getting the right message to the search engines. But times, they are a changing, and Google now prioritises the quality of content. It makes sense too, better content would mean more site visitors which would proper your ranking.

2. Focus On Long Form Content

While the focus of businesses was on writing long-form content for introductory guides, it has now been altered to cover every aspect of your SEO. Your content has to be as detailed and descriptive as it is helpful to the client. On an average, the content on each of your page should be more than 600 words minimum. The longer and more descriptive you can make the content, especially when it comes to blogs, the better it is for Google to rank your page. As long as you maintain the quality that is.

3. Focus has shifted to experiential browsing

Moving forward from 2018 into 2019 and beyond the focus will be on a more experience-centric web. New technologies are being released and adopted by the early adopters to provide their users with a better experience. A good example of that is the AMP browsing. Making the access to quality information faster and more reliable. Creating an experience the users can connect with is going to matter on a deeper level than just earning the revenue from the client.

4. Change in Indexation Patterns

While sitemaps we’re relevant to Google in the past (and they still might be), Google isn’t relying on them entirely to create an index for your website. Why are they doing this? For their customers – not you, but your site visitors who demand the best from Google at all times. If you take a look at your sitemap you will see a whole lot of fluctuation from the number of pages that get indexed from week to week. This is normal for now and might be in the future as well. Although we believe that going forward Google is going to adopt a more proactive approach towards which site pages to leave out from the indexation process so if you have any low-quality web pages you better get to work on fixing them quickly.

Conclusion – The Importance Of SEO

From what we’ve mentioned above it should be quite clear that SEO is going to be relevant for a long time to come. Methods of doing SEO might shift as they have in the years gone by. It can be tough for people without the relevant knowledge to keep in touch with the latest SEO trends.

If you would like your website traffic to increase and convert those site visitors into customers it’s best to hire a professional SEO agency in Pune who will be able to handle such requests. CodePlateau is one of the best SEO agencies in Pune with a host of experience working with both Indian and international clients. Their task oriented and eye for detail have helped them achieve great success for their client’s worldwide. If you’d like help with your website SEO, get in touch with us today.

 

Keyword Research Mistakes You Might Be Making

Keyword Research is a very underappreciated tool in the SEO’s arsenal. Most people assume that they would know right from the start what keywords they should target. I had the same impression too early on in my career. I hardly did any keyword research because I always assumed the keywords to be obvious. It’s only when I started taking keyword research seriously did I see my folly. Here are keyword research mistakes you too might be making.

Keyword Research Mistakes You’re Probably Making

1. Being Unrealistic

When you have your client breathing down your neck to show the results it becomes difficult to focus on the right objectives. You set the bar too high too soon and your client leaves feeling disappointed not reaching the targets you set for them. I’ve learnt this the hard way.

Now I’d rather focus on a few long tail keywords rather than try and capture the really difficult keywords that I’m not sure I can rank for. With more realistic targets I can focus on the quality of my content rather than trying to squeeze every last drop out of one really competitive keyword.

2. Look At Search Volumes For Exact Match Keywords

When performing research for your keywords you’re probably looking at the search volumes for the broad match keyword. While this may work for a while you won’t really know the effectiveness of the keywords you’re targetting unless you do a search volume for exact match keywords.

While eventually, the keyword you target will be worth targetting no doubt, however knowing the exact match volumes will help you set more realistic targets.

3. Ignoring Your Conversion Ratios

Let’s be honest, we’re not in business for our health. We want to make money. Targetting keyword for the sake of ranking isn’t enough. You need to be able to convert. Conversion is by far one of the most important factors you should consider when doing your keyword research.

For instance, e-commerce websites should focus on an action-oriented keyword for better positioning as well as better conversion rates. Looking at search volumes for enquiry related keywords to action-oriented keywords could dissuade you but remember that conversions are also a factor.

4. Using Out Of Context Keywords In Your Research

While performing your research, you might know exactly what you mean. How Google’s AI is going to interpret that is another matter altogether. Due to the nature of language, a word could have multiple meanings and multiple interpretations.

For one, storage could mean a shelf, cupboard, or a locker. What were you thinking about when you typed storage into the keyword research tool? Being specific when doing your research will help you narrow down your keywords and you can focus your energy on them.

5. Timely Keyword Audit

Another common error I see a lot of SEO’s doing is, they don’t do a keyword audit. A keyword that was once popular needn’t be so in a few months time. Keep a tab on your keyword because like everything else they rise and fall.

An audit can also help you find additional content ideas for blogs and your social media pages. Even better is being able to update your old content with new keywords and increase the number of keywords in the blog so as to rank it better.

Conclusion

Avoiding these basic keyword research mistakes will take you a long way towards ranking better on the popular search engines. Keyword research takes a lot of work and effort and it isn’t as easy as some people believe. If you would like your website to grow, use the right techniques to improve. If you’re struggling you can always get in touch with CodePlateau Technologies Pvt Ltd and use their excellent digital marketing team for your problems.

Expert UI Design Tips for a Great Mobile App

Creating easy-to-use mobile apps require a lot of planning and thought. UI design is at the heart of any mobile app’s success. How do you create an appealing mobile app while ensuring pro-utility features and efficient functionality? As a professional mobile app development company, we would like to share some UI design tips for creating a great mobile app:

Enhance Core App Objective

Find your app’s the prime objective. Pick out the most-used features. Constantly improve the features set around the prime mobile app objective. The mobile app designer’s efforts must focus on spontaneous user experience.

The “App as Diversion” Premise

The average mobile user is usually involved in another activity before they divert their attention to an app. It’s safe to assume that the mobile app user wants the app to respond at a great speed. Create your mobile app design around this “App as Diversion” premise.

Mix the New & the Familiar

Opting for too many new things can mar the mobile app UI design. Place buttons at familiar locations. Use colors to communicate the button usage. For example, using red color for the DELETE button is a simple but effective idea.

Make Navigation Purposeful

There is no point in making a great app feature if the user just can’t find it. Don’t make the user apply effort to find an app feature. The user should exactly know which section of the app are they in, and how do they return to the main page or exit the app. Don’t use complex navigation elements, where a simple solution is a better choice.

Minimalism & Other Elements

Minimalism doesn’t mean stripping your app of attractive design and functionality. To create a dull-looking app in the name of minimalism is a not so uncommon web designer practice. Minimalism in mobile app design is about removing what is unnecessary. Retain elements that make your users browse your app in less time.

Choosing the right text size & graphics size is a crucial and overlooked factor too in a mobile app. Another important element is making your app finger-friendly and thumb-friendly. The average app user must be able to use the app’s buttons with any of his fingers easily. A smartphone is usually handled with one hand. Consider gestures that are already used by any smartphone user.

These are some of the things you can think of before designing the UI for mobile apps. Please share your views on the article as comments below.

Web Design Trends We Absolutely Love in 2018

As we approach the middle of the year, here is a list of web design trends that we have absolutely loved working with, in 2018.

Bold and Bright Colors   

Experimental color themes are finding more takers this year in web design. A combination of bright colors can convey happiness and set a positive mood. Another feisty way of using bright colors is the monotone technique. If used as a background for content, monotone enhances readability.

We also love using duotone (two colors make up an image).  It allows us to distinctly express the emotions that particular colors convey. Text attains prominence over duotone. Overlaying is another effect that can be easily created but needs to be used sparingly.

Cinemagraphs

Since it’s invention in 2011, cinemagraphs have been used to attractive and alluring effect in web design. How are cinemagraphs created? Usually, Photoshop is usually used to edit an HD video to create a still frame and retain a moving frame within the same shot for effect.

Cinemagraphs are very effectively used in various marketing campaigns. Imagine wine spiraling in a wine glass in the otherwise still image of an outdoor family lunch table. The glitter and sparkle on the diamond ring on a jewelry website homepage are among the many good uses of cinemagraphs.

Sticky Navigation   

We refer here to chat boxes and other navigation elements too. Sticky navigation works best for action-oriented websites. It is also ideal for long pages, where this design element has replaced ‘back to top’. Mobile users are already aware of sticky navigation while browsing websites. They are bound to love any web design element that adds ease of use to website browsing.

The psychological connect of sticky navigation is the browsing confidence it gives its users across demographics. The user has the feeling that they are constantly interacting with the website and are never lost.

Split Screen Design

More websites are opting for a single screen divided into two vertical screens conveying two different messages. A distinct illustration, text or image conveys the characteristic of each side. This design element is great when you contrast two messages or want the user to be attracted to a particular communication.

Striking singular colors and impactful typography builds user interest in split screen design. Drawing user attention to an action button is easier in split screen design, especially when the button on the left side of the screen. Since most users now have large screens on their mobile devices, split screen design is a favorable web design element for now.

The Top Logo Design Trends 2018

The logo is the brand’s face and character. Customers remember an image or a design longer than a name. As a professional web design company, we have worked with a varied set of customers. Logo design is always a tricky business. Here is our list of logo design trends for 2018.

The Return of Hand Drawn Logos

A lot of our clients prefer hand-drawn logos for its limitless creativity and the natural, non-digital touch. Many pioneering companies use hand-drawn logos to emphasize a fresh, out of the box appeal. Designing logos by hand is a quicker, spontaneous practice. The iteration cycles also take less time compared to digital technology. Also, hand-drawn logos provide the brand with a rich, genuine vibe.

Geometrical Familiarity

Minimalism or to convey more in less is finding many takers this year. For instant customer connection, familiar geometrical shapes are becoming an integral part of logos. Curved circles, sharp triangles, rectangular and square shapes are easy on the eye. A combination of geometric shapes conveys the brand’s value, culture, and vision.

The Unforgettable Monogram Touch

The strong symbolism that monogram logos convey is the stuff of legend. If used with the right letters, color gradients, sharpness, and finish, monogram logos attain an iconic appeal. Monogram logos are making a comeback, helping brands convey trust and confidence among customers. For further inspiration, browse through the Volkswagen, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Chanel and General Electric logos.

Optimised for Social Media

As more and more brands are making their presence felt on social media, businesses are rethinking their logo design. Some brands are tweaking the logo colors, or making them sharper and compact to register easily in the potential customer’s mind. Simple colors and textures are in use to make the brand more attractive and inviting to the target audience.

Negative Space Artworks

The popular use of negative space has endured and with good reason. A well-made negative space logo is a work of art, drawing attention upon itself. They convey clarity, creativity and professional capability. The subtle variations leave well-designed negative space logos open to interpretation. Depth is another attribute, inciting the customer to be fascinated by the design aspects and brand connection.

Grooving with the Grid

The grid stands for balance and is at the core of any good logo design. Mobile app design has adapted grids for maximum impact. The potential for experimentation is endless in a grid-centric logo. It provides a strong aesthetic sense, at the same time conveying excitement and new beginnings. The grid should be around forever, by the likes of it.

We have recollected here the logo design trends we have witnessed in 2018 so far. What do you think are the other logo design trends that will be popular this year? Please share your comments.

Five Things You Need to Change on your Website

Creating an engaging website is imperative for any business.  As many readers must have discovered, maintaining a great website is no easy task. Here is a list of things that reveal why your website is not popular with your users. We also share some tips to optimize your website:

Loading Time

Loading…Loading…Loading…

Your website can’t take too much time to load! Millions of other websites are competing for user attention. Don’t make your users wait. Unless the users want to visit your website nobody is going to wait that long.

You lose 20% of your conversions to every extra second your mobile website takes to load. About 50% users expect your website to load in 2 seconds. The same user percentage will leave the website in the third second. (Google Statistics)

So start working on speeding up that loading time now!

Home Page Clutter

A cluttered homepage will turn off users. Our suggestion? Start again with a fresh perspective. Segregate the core elements you want on the website.

Consider why your target audience should visit your website. Restructure the content, website design, UI, and UX. Use image sliders to showcase your prime content. Attractive and creative image sliders can encourage users to further explore the website.

Zero Interaction

If there is no interactivity, why have a website? Encourage your visitors to explore the website with clear calls to action. Have more groovy elements to entice your users. Short videos, animation, online polls, exclusive comments section, contests and other interactive elements. You get the drift.

Grammar Errors & Typos

Typos and poor grammar are bound to put off your website visitors. Get your website content checked and corrected by content and language experts. Don’t rely on online grammar checking software to check your website content. Most software is not reliable. Each software uses a varied set of grammar rules to auto correct. The results are usually inconsistent.

Using Images Effectively

If your website images are too dull and unappealing, traffic is bound to suffer. Captivating images attract a larger percentage of users. Apart from blogging, images are the most important form of business content. Statistics don’t lie.

Visual elements dominate 74% of social media marketing, way ahead of videos and blogs. An audience provided with text content along with an image retains 65% of the information.

Conclusion

What do you make of the five things listed above to improve your website traffic? How can we ensure constant user engagement? How do we generate business leads through the website? Please do share your comments.

Web Development Trends For 2018

Trends in web development move forward extremely quickly. So much so that change is truly the only constant. CodePlateau an award-winning web development company in India ventures a guess to what could be the web development trends for 2018. We try to include in this list what we believe to be the upcoming development trends based on market behavior and what we have observed. Without further ado, here they are

Web Development Trends of 2018:

Functional Programming with Javascript improvements

Javascript has been a popular programming language for a while now. Only recently has it received quite stiff competition from React by Facebook. With the advent of functional programming improvements in Javascript, there seems to be more support for Javascript. Even if we look at the Trends for the past year we can see that Javascript is still a more popular term as compared to react. Functional Programming (FP) is the process of building software based on fundamental principles by composing pure functions. It is relatively easier than object-oriented coding as per most programmers. In 2018, Functional Programming especially benefits from the recent Javascript improvements such as ES6 and ES7.

New Players in Town

While VueJS is technically not a new player, it has been gaining prominence only in 2018. Created in 2014 by Evan You, Vue is a fast and lightweight script. Angular JS is backed by Google while React JS is backed by Facebook. Vue though is an independent open source project. Its creator was working on this as a side project and has recently been focusing on marketing and maintaining the open source project. What makes Vue a growing trend in 2018 is that it is now being used by a lot of major companies in China such as AliBaba, Expedia, Nintendo and more. It has also grown tremendously since it first began as it now boasts 20 people on its team.

Progressive Web Apps

Progressive web apps are web apps with the functionality and design of mobile apps. The idea is to create an app-like experience on web pages or websites. Although mobile apps are very relevant for businesses it might not be for all businesses due to cost considerations. Progressive web apps are worthy alternatives to choose. Since 2016 we have seen the popularity of progressive web app increasing rapidly. We figure 2018 will finally be the year for progressive web apps to burst into the mainstream.

Blockchain Technology

Ever since bitcoin blew up to unprecedented prices everyone seems to have become an expert in blockchain technology. It might be a little bit too late to say that blockchain is going to be a trend in 2018 as it has already accumulated a large following. A large number of companies are looking forward to incorporating blockchain technology in their industry. The blockchain is a method of collective data storage. Transactions in blockchains work without intermediaries. Since the transactions are verified using complex algorithms using a large number of computers it is seemed to be relatively safer.

Internet Of Things

Imagine a global network of appliances connected to each other using resources in the most efficient manner possible. That is what internet of things is trying to achieve. Although there are smaller home appliances using IoT, large multinationals are thinking of ways to utilize the development trend to improve efficiency.

 

CodePlateau is one of the best web development agencies in India. We are constantly on the lookout for the best web development trends that could become huge in the future as we like to stay on top of things. We believe in providing our customers with websites and web application development solutions in India that stay relevant for long periods of time. If you are interested in any of our services, let us know. Drop a message and we’ll get back to you soon.

Tips To Choose The Best Web Hosting Provider

You’ve got a fantastic business idea for which you’re thinking about building a website. You get in touch with the best web design and development agency in India – CodePlateau and the first thing they ask you is what kind of web hosting services will you be opting for? You’re not quite sure how to respond because you hadn’t really given it any thought. CodePlateau has witnessed this event on several occasions and to help you all out, has published a list of tips to help you select a web hosting service that meets your requirement.

What Is Web Hosting?

All sites on the internet are hosted on a server. Large corporations have their own servers on which they host their websites, because they can afford to and because they would like to keep control of their website at all times. Businesses that cannot buy and keep up a line of servers for their own websites normally purchase web hosting space from a website hosting provider. Your web hosting service is an important part of your website development.

Tips To Pick The Best Web Hosting Service:

Understand Your Needs

Website hosting is crucial because it controls the upkeep of your website. Your web host provider should be decided on the amount of traffic you expect on your website. For small websites, a shared server is usually enough to keep the website running. Websites whose pages run into the hundred thousand should consider getting an own server or slightly more server space if you want it to keep from crashing.

Find Out How Much Space Your Website Will Require

Your web development agency will be able to give you a rough idea about the web hosting space you will require handling the website properly. A heavier site with multiple requests will require a larger server space as compared to a smaller site. Ideally, the website should have all the functionality built into a small design. If you over pack the website and pick a smaller server your site will have a lot of downtimes which would impact the way your customers see your business. So choose wisely, have a word with your website development team if necessary.

Don’t Always Go For The Cheap Or Free Option

Although it can be very tempting to opt for the free hosting services, it is not always the best idea. Although you may shave some costs initially it will end up costing you in the long run. Find out what kind of services you actually need. How the website hosting providers price their products and then make the decision about which provider to go with. Picking a free website hosting provider might end up giving you a bad reputation with your customers because of the downtime your website faces.

Pick A Host With An Upgradable Option

How do you visualize your business growing? Have you made provisions for your websites growth as well? When picking a hosting service you have to choose someone with whom you can grow as well. You may not require all the services they offer at present but what about in a years’ time? Switching hosts can be extremely troublesome so right from day one pick a provider that has scalable options. Better servers, more space, more speed.

 

If you have any questions regarding web hosting services your website design and development company in India should be able to assist you. CodePlateau has a proud tradition of always helping out all their clients with whatever queries they might have. We believe in a collaborative work effort for success. If you would like to inquire about our services, give us a call or leave your details and we’ll get back to you shortly.