Google tips to Optimize a Website for Tablet and Smartphone users

Mobile devices such as Smartphones, and especially Tablets, are now fast becoming more and more popular, and although nowhere near replacing desktops, they do seem to be gaining up on browser statistics. Now, they have more than 10% of the share, with Tablets almost as much being used as smartphones. This makes optimizing websites for mobile devices all the more important. But tablet users now don't want you to return a mobile version of your website to them. They want the desktop experience. But although there are no official guidelines from Google on creating search engine and user friendly tablet-optimized site, there are a few tips you can apply to make your website work across multiple platforms.

Smartphones often have small screens (despite high resolutions). So it is okay to return a mobile version of your site to them. But what about tablets? Tablets have much larger screens, and their hardware has gotten quite advanced, so as to be at par with a computer. So for them, rich-desktop versions of websites is just as easily manageable as on the desktops themselves.

Creating websites for Tablets

One good way to optimize your website for different devices is to use responsive web design. Since there are so many tablets out there, and so many screen sizes, you can't just target your website at just one screen size. This is where responsive web design helps. We have discussed about it in more detail in another post. Responsive designs re-adjust themselves according to the user's screen size. So they will look great across multiple platforms. 

Another suggestion is to create multiple versions of your website, and then detect the user's platform beforehand. You can then redirect him to the appropriate version of your website. Smartphone users go to the mobile version, whereas tablet users go to the desktop one.

Detecting platform

In order to detect whether a user has a tablet or a smartphone, you need to look at the user-agent string returned by browsers. Mobile users have the keyword "Mobile" in them. Tablets don't. Here's an example of a string returned by Chrome on a smartphone.

Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 4.1.1; Galaxy Nexus Build/JRO03O) AppleWebKit/535.19 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/18.0.1025.166 Mobile Safari/535.19

Similarly, here's a string returned by Firefox on a smartphone.

Mozilla/5.0 (Android; Mobile; rv:16.0) Gecko/16.0 Firefox/16.0

As you can see, both have the keyword "Mobile" in them. In contrast, take a look at strings returned by an Android tablet (from Chrome)

Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 4.1.1; Nexus 7 Build/JRO03S) AppleWebKit/535.19 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/18.0.1025.166 Safari/535.19

And from Firefox;

Mozilla/5.0 (Android; Tablet; rv:16.0) Gecko/16.0 Firefox/16.0

As you can see, no "Mobile" keyword for Tablets. You can then use some programming to check for this keyword in the string, and then return the respective website accordingly.

This should hopefully give you an idea on how to deal with tablet users. Take advantage of this technique and harness the large potential your tablet audience contains. If in doubt, feel free to ask any questions. Good luck :)

Designing a Successful Facebook Offer for your Brand

Previously, we have talked about a new feature released by Facebook recently called Facebook Offers. This feature lets you promote your brand by offering people rewards for visiting your website or your brand's physical location. Simple creating an offer, however, is just a start. To make it work, you have to utilize the maximum potential of your audience by designing a successful offer, and keeping the basic Facebook marketing tips in mind. And since you're spending money on creating offers, you have to be extra careful, as a slight mistake might result in a loss for your business. Here, we'll discuss some tips for designing a successful Facebook Offer.

Offers can be a game-changer, but only if placed correctly. Every business has different type of customers. So it's always a good idea to experiment with what offers work best for your customers. If they do not understand your offer, or if they think it's a scam, they might unlike your page. So to keep things smooth, here are a few tips you should keep in mind.

Make it easy to understand

The most important part about an offer is its simplicity. If it's easy to understand, then a lot of people will do it, just for the sake of participating. But if the process is complicated, and makes users go through an unusual activity (such as signing up for something), then that will substantially reduce the number of people who participate. So make the process simple, and explain your Terms of Service in simple words as best as you can.

Discount offers

Make your discounts substantial. No one is gonna bother if you're giving 5 or 10% off on a t-shirt. Generally, discounts become notable and intriguing at 20%. You can also offer free items, as in 'Buy one, get one free'. But at the same time, make your discount believable. If I see an offer on my Facebook home saying 'Click here and get a free iPhone 5', I'll probably flag that story as scam. Make no mistake, business do hand out such lavish gifts. But you've gotta have some reputation before you make such a bold step. For example, everyone seemed to believe in it when Redmondpie decided to give away two free copies of the latest Windows 8.

Use a good image

Most of the time, products sell better if other people see a customer using it. So it'd be a good idea to use an image that shows your product in action, rather than just a logo image or an image with just your product on it.

Pay attention to your headline

Your headline is one of the most important things. Make it engaging, and yet keep it natural. Caption it as if you're talking in the real world, and as naturally as possible. Don't excessively capitalize, and don't use extravagant words. Keep it simple, and easily understandable, while at the same time making the purpose crystal clear.

Expiration date

Set up a reasonable expiration date. Don't make it end so soon that most people would miss it. And don't set it too far away, or it'll lose a sense of urgency. It depends from offer to offer, but around a week or two sounds realistic.

Promote!

Spread the word! Share your offer with the world. Re-share your offer as much as possible, and encourage others to do so too. Share on other social networks such as Pinterest as well, so maximum number of people might access it. Usually, word-of-mouth-marketing works like a charm in such situations.

Those were of the basic tips you should keep in mind while creating a Facebook offer. Such offers can mean a lot to your business, but only if done correctly. Hope you understand these points. See you soon in the next post. Peace :)

Anouncement: Reopening Our Blogger Resource Page

First of all HAPPY DIWALI to all of my friends and blogtipsntricks (BTNT) readers. Now We will come to the Announcement. The announcement is about the Reopening of the blogger resource page. Few Months ago We published a page Known as blogger resource page. It was a free collection of blogger resources published by BTNT. In that page I have published Two WP converted blogger templates which is designed by alex from kolakube. Few days ago I removed those two templates from BTNT Due to some copyright Issues. So the Blogger resource page was closed temporarily for the past few weeks.

Now I'm going to Reopen the Blogger resource page on coming Diwali. The new resource page does not contain the previous resources. But If you have any query Regarding to the Previous resources feel free to contact me.
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Should You Keep A Parked Domain Before Website Launch?

Are you thinking about launching a new website, or maybe a service or an online store? If yes, then chances are that you might want to take the initial phase of setting up a domain and website a bit more seriously than you'd ordinarily do. Ever opened a webpage, only to find that it is no where to be found on the internet? That's because there's nothing on that domain at present. Worse still is the parked domain page, advertising the hosting company, which makes you think you've finally landed onto an existing page, only to realize that it is no good either. So what sort impression do you want to give to people who know of your newly launched domain's existence, and would like to know more? Is parking the domain a sensible idea?

A lot of individuals and companies buy their domains, and park them for whenever they are ready to launch their website. This happens more often if the domain has been sold or transferred. And sometimes, it hints at the inconsistency of that domain. But more important is the question of how Google treats such domains? Here, take a look at the video below.

As discussed, users don't like pages where domains have been parked. Such pages often have some sort of advertisement with links to different sources saying click here, and click there etc. Such things often discourage a user, and as a result, a lot of them complain about a website. So Google now tries its best to exclude such pages from search results. It has special detectors for this purpose, that detect parked pages and empty website templates. And such pages are excluded from search results.

Does that mean Google places a penalty of some sort? No. But it does mean that when your website launches, it might take Google quite some time to realize that your domain is no longer parked. So even after launch, you will not be listed in search results immediately.

To make sure that your launch goes as smoothly as possible, it's best to leave out a simple page with a paragraph or two of text, that will make your website look human, and will differentiate it from a parked domain. You could create an attractive 'Website under construction' page along with some custom text. And put this page up at least a week or so before launch, if not earlier.

This will ensure that upon launch, your website is indexed much faster. Otherwise, it'll be like a u-turn for your domain - going from parked to a website instantly. And during the time Google takes to realize your website exists, your efforts might well be lost. And this could negatively impact your website (could).

So instead of keeping your domain parked, it's best to put up a dummy page with some info that says 'This site will be home to such and such, and we provide the best such and such'. Sky's the limit. Keep your hopes up, and we'll see you in the next post. Peace :)

Google PageRank Update November 2012

So, Google PageRank has been updated again this week, just as expected. And so far, the update does not seem to be a major one - but then again, give it some time. The last update took place in August 2012, and the one before that on May 2012. So it's pretty obvious that Google is now rolling out these updates quarterly, i.e. after every three months. So the next update is expected in the first 10 days of February 2013. We congratulate everyone whose PR didn't drop. And for those whose did, there's a few things you can do which we will mention. And again, keep in mind that Google PR should not a priority for you - read on to see why.

This time around, this blog (MBT) successfully retained a PageRank of 4 (Alhamdulillah), and same goes for our sister blog Smart Earning Methods which retained its PR of 2 as well. But between this update and the previous one, we have been a work on other aspects, so as mentioned earlier, Google PR wasn't a priority.

What does PageRank do?

As most of you might already know, PageRank is Google's way of assigning a grade to a website from 1 to 10. Google rates itself at PR 9, so that drops the ceiling somewhat. And for blogs with little or no investment (such as this one), the maximum PR achieved yet is 6. Blogs such as TechCrunch, Mashable, Search Engine Land etc are corporate websites, run by an organization. They have multiple authors, as well as marketers and managers who manage and promote the website at the back-end - all of which requires investment. So for a low-investment blog, the target should be 6.

As to the question of what PR actually does, well it's just a way of rating websites. Website with a high PR get crawled and indexed more frequently. For example, a PR 7 website might get crawled several times in a minute, whereas a PR 4 or 5 website might be crawled just once per minute.

PR is also one of the factors advertisers look for in a blog, but is by no means the ONLY factor. There are a lot of other factors they look at first.

What to do?

Has your PR dropped? Don't worry. You can pick it up still. Lots of people think hundreds of backlinks is the way to go. That couldn't be further from the truth. Instead of having hundreds of backlinks, it's better to just concentrate on having just a few very high quality backlinks (PR 4 or higher). So stop wasting your time commenting on low PR blogs for backlinks. Rather, write a good guest post on a high PR blog. Adopt this practice, and you'll see your PR increase in the next update.

Besides that, you should concentrate on the quality of your page, as well as some of the basic SEO, so that Google recognizes your efforts. Here is a list of some of our best SEO tips you should follow.

What should your priority be?

As mentioned earlier, PR is just ONE of the factors advertisers look for in a blog. But there are other more important factors as well. The first thing they look for is your readership, i.e. whether you have an active community of followers who participate on your blog. Then comes social media fan following, and even though such stats could be inflated (by buying likes), it is the activity about your blog that counts.

Next comes traffic stats, and Alexa ranking. Advertisers look for how many people visit a site daily, and Alexa is a good stats provider. And this is what we've been concentrating on, instead of PR. As a result, MBT has reached an Alexa of 7k worldwide (one of the few Google blogs to reach below 10k), and SEM has reached 23k Alhamdulillah. Google PR should come after all these factors.

Share your PR with us!

So, did your PR change? And how satisfied are you with it? Do let us know in the comments section below, and also feel free to ask any SEO related questions here. Good luck :)

Google Page Rank Update on 8 November 2012

Hi Friends, As we expected Google has rolled out the Page Rank update on 8 November 2012. After four months Google has made its page rank update. blogtipsntricks has seen a slight Increase in this page rank Update.
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How To Verify Your blogger blog on Pinterest

Now-a-days All the Webmasters are busy in creating the valuable backlinks to their blogs due to the upcoming Google page rank update. Last page rank update was held on 2nd August 2012 by this the next page rank update was expected in this month. so most of the blog owners are concentrating on creating useful backlinks. Most people create backlinks by linking their website in social networking sites. But most of the social networking sites are offering no-follow backlinks which doesn't pass any page rank juice. Pinterest is a well known social networking site. Recently It Introduces Website verification functionality to profile pages. By verifying your Blog on Pinterest you will get a do-follow backlink. To verify your blog in Pinterest will need a web Hosting But Now a Simple way to verify the website without having a web hosting is found. Let's see how to verify a blogger blog on pinterest without using web hosting.
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