What is Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)?

Years after spending most of the time and money on SEO, finally, there is a buzz about a new term or a new and interesting optimization process in the digital marketing landscape called Answer Engine Optimization (AEO). There is a shift in the digital marketing space with the entry of AEO, and now businesses are not overly dependent on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) practices to make their product or service visible to users on search engines and other marketing platforms. Thanks to Generative AI tools like Chatgpt, Claude AI, etc., people now prefer direct and concise answers to their queries, which has given rise to this new process, AEO. 

Here, we will discuss the new buzzing process and how it is different from SEO. We will also learn by the end of this blog whether it is more effective than SEO or not. Considering the evaluation of its effectiveness, it is important to know how it is done and what future this process holds in the coming years. Thus, we will also discuss the future of AEO in 2025 and its benefits for businesses in terms of ranking, visibility, and reach.

What is Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)?

AI overview section at the top of search results

AEO is a new optimization technique that makes website content visible, findable, or understandable by voice-activated assistants and search engines. You must have seen the AI overview section at the top of your search results on Google’s search engine whenever you ask a question. The websites, brands, and products linked to that answer are a result of Answer Engine Optimization. The reason for its popularity in recent times is the concise and direct answer users get with this. Rather than opening multiple links and multiple websites to get your query cleared, you get a clear, concise, and direct answer, which is enough for most people to get their query resolved. 

AEO is used not only for AI-based results on search engines but also for all other options where direct and concise answers are provided to the user, such as voice assistants such as Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant, etc. All these voice search services have become more popular and easier for users to use than traditional methods. This makes the AEO a booming war of digital marketing that every company wants to conquer. It’s been an interesting addition to the digital marketing landscape, which will make the competition for higher ranking and to be visible at position zero a bit more difficult for the digital marketers as only 2-3 companies will be able to make it to the position zero where the AI-generated content is provided to the user as a result for their queries. 

AEO vs. SEO: Understanding the Differences

AEO vs SEO_ Understanding the Differences

Considering the long, illustrious, and highly impacting journey of SEO in digital marketing, no one thought that something like AEO would come and make a difference. But first, we need to understand what makes these two different from each other. 

Although AEO is considered a subpart of SEO as it is also related to content optimization for better ranking in search engines. But, AEO targets the direct and concise answers that Generative AI-based results, voice assistants, etc., provide these days as the user considers these results more useful and time-saving. In other words, we can say that traditional SEO targets broad keyword visibility across different search engines, while the AEO is more focused on direct and concise answers to user queries. 

At its core, SEO is about improving a website’s visibility and ranking on search engine result pages (SERPs). This process involves optimizing various aspects of a website — from content and keywords to technical elements like page speed and mobile-friendliness — to increase the chances of ranking higher in search engine results. AEO, on the other hand, is a more specific optimization technique that focuses on providing direct, concise answers to user queries.

AEO is particularly aligned with the growing trend of voice search, AI-driven assistants, and instant search results (e.g., featured snippets or “Position Zero” on Google). While SEO aims to capture broad keyword visibility across various search engines, AEO is targeted at providing precise, structured answers that can be easily understood by AI-powered systems and digital assistants like Google Assistant, Siri, and Alexa. For example, when a user asks their voice assistant, “What’s the weather like today?” the assistant needs a quick, direct response, not an entire webpage full of information. AEO ensures that businesses can have their content featured in these quick-answer formats, such as the Answer Box, Featured Snippets, and Knowledge Panels.

Importance of AEO for Business Owners

In a world where information is available at the tip of our fingers, the way users access and consume content is evolving rapidly. Today’s consumers are less likely to shift through long articles or web pages to find an answer to their questions. Instead, they prefer immediate, concise responses—whether through a voice search, a quick Google query, or a chatbot. 

For business owners, embracing AEO offers several compelling benefits, and some of them are discussed here;

  • Improved Visibility

AEO increases your chances of being featured in Position Zero on Google, the coveted spot where direct answers are displayed above traditional search results. For businesses, this increased visibility can result in more traffic, brand recognition, and trust.

  • Better User Experience

As the demand for instant answers grows, optimizing for AEO ensures that your customers get the quick, concise information they need. This enhances user experience, which is crucial for conversion rates and customer satisfaction.

  • Enhanced Voice Search Optimization

As the popularity of voice search continues to rise, businesses need to optimize their content for voice queries, which are typically more conversational and question-based. AEO helps businesses tailor their content for this shift.

  • Edge Over Competitors

Businesses that adapt to AEO can gain a competitive advantage over those relying solely on traditional SEO techniques. By delivering high-quality, concise answers, you position yourself as an authoritative voice in your industry.

  • Stay Ahead of AI Trends

As AI and machine learning technologies continue to advance, optimizing for AEO ensures that your content is ready to be consumed by these technologies, keeping you at the forefront of digital marketing innovations.

Future of Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) in 2025

As we look to 2025, the landscape of search and content discovery is set to undergo even more profound changes. While SEO remains integral to online marketing, AEO is expected to become increasingly important, especially with advancements in AI, voice technology, and the growing role of digital assistants in everyday life.

Here’s a list of what the future of AEO might look like:

  • Greater Integration with AI and NLP  

AI will become even more sophisticated at interpreting and responding to user queries. Content optimized for AEO will need to be tailored to how AI systems understand context, intent, and conversational language.

  • Voice Search Domination

By 2025, the use of voice search is expected to surpass traditional text-based searches. As voice assistants continue to improve, the need for content that is optimized for quick, spoken answers will become even more critical.

  • Increased Use of Structured Data:  

Structured data (such as schema markup) will become a fundamental part of AEO strategies. Search engines and AI systems rely on structured data to quickly pull relevant answers from websites, making it essential for businesses to integrate it into their content.

  • AI-Powered SERPs:  

Search engines will increasingly rely on AI to curate search results, meaning that businesses will need to optimize their content not just for keywords but for AI systems that prioritize relevance and precision.

  • Personalized Answer Engines:  

With the rise of predictive analytics and machine learning, users will expect more personalized answers. Content will need to be optimized not only for general queries but also for individual preferences and contexts.

Key Strategies for Implementing AEO

Implementing AEO in your digital marketing strategy involves optimizing your content to meet the demands of voice search, AI-driven responses, and direct answers. Here are some key strategies:

  • Understanding User Intent is a Must

Understand the questions your target audience is asking and create content that directly addresses those queries. Use long-tail keywords and natural language that mirrors the way people speak.

  • Content Optimization for Featured Snippets

Featured Snippets are prime real estate for AEO. To optimize for this, structure your content with clear, concise answers to common questions using lists, bullet points, or tables.

  • Direct and Concise Answers

Voice search queries tend to be more conversational and shorter. Provide clear, direct answers within the first 50-100 words of your content.

  • Optimize for Mobile

Since voice search is often conducted on mobile devices, ensure your website is mobile-friendly and loads quickly.

  • Leverage Conversational AI 

Incorporate Chatbots or voice assistants on your site to provide direct and real-time answers to user queries. This can improve engagement and provide additional data on what users are asking.

Benefits of AEO for Your Business

Benefits of Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)

There are multiple benefits that AEO can offer to the business in terms of its brand visibility, ranking, reach, and also conversion rates as well. Here, you will get a detail of each of these benefits that AEO offers to businesses:

  • Increased Organic Traffic

Optimizing for direct answers increases your chances of being featured in top search results, bringing in more organic traffic.

  • Improved Conversion Rates

When users receive concise, accurate information quickly, they’re more likely to make purchasing decisions or take other desired actions on your site.

  • Greater Brand Authority

Being the go-to source for specific, relevant answers can position your brand as an authority in your industry.

  • Cost-Effective

AEO focuses on optimizing content rather than paying for ads, making it a more cost-effective long-term strategy compared to PPC campaigns.

Ready to Explore AEO?

Considering the benefits AEO can offer to businesses, it is worth exploring more of its features, and Deftsoft is the best option for modern businesses to do so. One of the leading organizations in the field of Web development, SEO, and Digital Marketing for over 19 years, Deftsoft has all the resources, tools, technologies, and human resources to adapt to these changing requirements. At Deftsoft, you will get the best customer support, an easy-to-understand description of the whole process and also, and guaranteed results. Also, their expertise in SEO for over 19 years is a plus as it is easier for them to adapt to this changed requirement of digital marketing. All you need to do is to get a free consultation scheduled with the experts and get a detailed overview of how your business success journey will be started with the company. 

Conclusion

The rise of Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is a response to a shifting digital landscape driven by AI, voice search, and a growing demand for instant information. While traditional SEO remains important for driving general traffic and ranking for broad keywords, AEO offers a new way to ensure your content is at the forefront of this next phase of online search. By embracing AEO strategies, businesses can position themselves as leaders in providing concise, relevant answers to user queries—ultimately improving visibility, user experience, and conversion rates. As we move towards 2025, businesses that adopt AEO strategies early will have a distinct competitive advantage over others because of the better reach and conversions they will get as compared to the businesses that will only be depending upon traditional SEO practices to rank higher. 

Throughout this discussion over AEO vs SEO, it is evident that SEO will remain important for businesses and will be an important part of the digital marketing landscape. However, AEO will be a useful addition for businesses that are already doing well with SEO to get even more boost in their search engine ranking, visibility, reach, and conversion rates. So, it is evident that with the evolution of AEO, digital marketers will have a new strategic change to add to their marketing plans in order to offer better results to their respective brands. For businesses searching for reliable and trusted AEO services, Deftsoft can be a perfect option, considering their 19 years of industry experience and visionary leadership. The company offers all sorts of IT services, including AEO and SEO, where they have some of the best people in the industry to lift your business to new heights. 

Best Digital Marketing Agency in India

Ever feel like the internet is a giant party, and your brand is stuck at the door, trying to get in? That’s where digital marketing comes to the rescue! Imagine it as your all-access VIP pass, guiding you through the crowd and making sure everyone knows your name. Whether it’s eye-popping social media campaigns, getting your website to the top of Google searches, or sending out emails that people actually open, digital marketing is how businesses thrive in the online world. According to IIM Skills, “Digital marketing industry is the fastest growing sector in India, with a growth rate of 25% to 30% rate per year”. Whether you’re a startup or an established company, partnering with a reliable digital marketing agency in India can propel your business to new heights. 

In today’s fast-paced modern world, the significance of digital marketing services cannot be overstated. They are essential for businesses looking to thrive in a digital-first world, enabling them to connect with target audiences, drive growth, and achieve long-term success. As we approach 2025, now is the perfect time to step up your game and elevate your digital presence efficiently. Today, India has overtaken China to become the most populated country in the world, with a population of 1.45 billion. With the increase in population, India has also shown a significant jump in its active internet users. According to Statista (dated 18 September 2024), India is the second largest online market in the world, with 900 million internet users. 

This burgeoning online population presents a golden opportunity for businesses looking to harness the power of digital marketing services.

One more thing, 

“Investing in digital marketing services is not just an option – it’s a necessity for any business looking to thrive in technology’s vibrant and competitive online ecosystem.”

In this competitive landscape, Indian businesses need a digital marketing guru who not only understands the intricacies of online strategies but also knows how to make them sparkle! This is where Deftsoft enters the chat. With 19+ years of experience, Deftsoft is the best digital marketing agency in India. Deftsoft is like the seasoned caption of a ship, expertly steering businesses through the ever-evolving digital seas. From SEO magic to social media wizarding, Deftsoft has all the right tools and strategies to make sure your business stands out in the digital crowd. In this guide, let’s discuss about Deftsoft, a leading digital marketing agency in India, in detail. 

Deftsoft: The Best Digital Marketing Agency in India 

The era of traditional marketing techniques is over! Everything is digitalized, and so does marketing and promotional tactics. This is where the importance of digital marketing services is elevated. As the best digital marketing agency in India, Deftsoft stands at the forefront of transforming the customer engagement and promotional landscape. With 19+ years of experience, Deftsoft is counted among the leading digital marketing agencies in India, offering cutting-edge solutions that help businesses thrive in the competitive online landscape. We have a team of experienced professionals who are highly skilled in implementing valuable digital marketing strategies, including SEO, social media marketing, content creation, and pay-per-click advertising. Our expertise spans various industries (tech, fashion, real estate, shopping & etc.)

19+ Years of Excellence

Deftsoft laid its foundation in 2005 – a time when digital marketing was still a new concept for the Indian subcontinent. However, in no time, Deftsoft remodelled from a successful startup into a giant digital marketing agency in India. This year, we celebrate our 19+ years of excellence, and the whole company is so proud of how far they have come. In our nearly two decades of experience, we’ve successfully partnered with over 1200 clients all across the globe. This remarkable milestone is an honest proof of our commitment to our dedication, excellence, and skills. Back in the day, Deftsoft revolutionized the digital marketing landscape with the availability of advanced technologies and strategies. 

Now, as we approach 2025, we’re again at the forefront of fulfilling the unique requirements of India’s evolving digital landscape. 

Our Comprehensive Digital Marketing Services

As the best digital marketing agency in India, Deftsoft aims to elevate your brand’s online presence. Our comprehensive digital marketing services are designed to help businesses succeed in the fast-paced digital world. From SEO and social media marketing to pay-per-click advertising and content creation, we offer a full range of strategies to boost your visibility, engagement, and conversions. Take a look through our comprehensive digital marketing services. 

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Deftsoft, the best digital marketing agency in India, offers top-tier SEO services that boost your website’s visibility and ranking. Our expert team utilizes tools like SEMrush, Moz, and Google Analytics to conduct keyword research and optimize on-page elements, ensuring sustainable organic traffic and growth for your business.

2. Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

Maximize your ROI with Deftsoft’s PPC services. As a top digital marketing agency in India, we create targeted ads using Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising that drive instant traffic and conversions. Our continuous optimization strategies ensure measurable, cost-effective results for your campaigns.

3. Content Marketing

At Deftsoft, we craft engaging content that resonates with your audience. Our content marketing services include blogs, articles, and infographics, supported by tools like BuzzSumo and Sprout Social. We build brand authority and drive organic growth through meaningful content tailored to your target market.

4. Technical Search Engine Optimization

Deftsoft excels in technical SEO, ensuring your website is optimized for speed, mobile-friendliness, and crawlability. We use tools like Google Search Console and GTmetrix to discover site issues and performance, helping search engines easily index your pages and boost your ranking.

6. Online Reputation Management

Protect and enhance your brand image with Deftsoft’s Online Reputation Management services. We monitor and manage your online presence using tools like Reputation.com and Google Alerts, addressing negative feedback and promoting positive reviews to ensure your business maintains a trustworthy reputation.

7. Email Marketing Services

Deftsoft’s email marketing services boost engagement and drive conversions. We utilize platforms like Mailchimp and SendinBlue to create personalized campaigns and automated workflows, helping you connect with your audience and nurture leads for impactful results.

8. Conversion Rate Optimization

Boost your website’s performance with Deftsoft’s Conversion Rate Optimization services. Using tools like Hotjar and Optimizely, we analyze user behavior and implement data-driven strategies to enhance your site’s usability, driving more leads, sales, and overall conversions.

9. E-Commerce Marketing

At Deftsoft, we specialize in e-commerce marketing that drives sales and increases online visibility. We leverage tools like Shopify, WooCommerce, and Google Merchant Center to optimize product listings and create tailored strategies that ensure your online store reaches the right audience.

10. Amazon Marketing Services

Stand out on the world’s largest e-commerce platform with Deftsoft’s Amazon Marketing Services. We utilize Amazon Seller Central and Helium 10 to optimize your product listings, manage ads, and enhance visibility, driving more sales and improving your brand’s ranking on Amazon.

11. Social Media Marketing (SMM)

Amplify your brand’s presence with Deftsoft’s Social Media Marketing services. We create engaging content and manage campaigns using tools like Hootsuite and Buffer to foster meaningful connections with your audience across platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, ensuring increased engagement and growth.

12. Local SEO

Dominate local searches with Deftsoft’s Local SEO services. We use tools like Google My Business and BrightLocal to optimize your business for location-specific keywords, ensuring your brand ranks higher in local searches and drives more foot traffic to your physical store.

13. Facebook Ads

Deftsoft’s Facebook Ads services are designed to target the right audience and drive conversions. Utilizing Facebook Ads Manager and AdEspresso, we help you create tailored ad strategies that connect with your ideal customers, boost engagement, and maximize your return on ad spend.

14. Strategic and Analytics Consulting

Unlock your business’s potential with Deftsoft’s Strategic and Analytics Consulting. Our experts analyze your digital performance using tools like Google Analytics and Tableau, creating data-driven strategies that help you achieve measurable success and ensure your campaigns are optimized for growth and efficiency.

Wrapping Up

In conclusion, as we move toward 2025, the importance of digital marketing cannot be overstated. Partnering with Deftsoft, the best digital marketing agency in India, empowers your business to harness the immense potential of the online landscape. With over 19 years of experience, our dedicated team is equipped with the expertise and tools necessary to elevate your brand’s presence, drive growth, and achieve lasting success. From SEO and PPC to social media marketing and content creation, we offer comprehensive solutions tailored to your unique needs. Don’t let your brand stay at the door; let Deftsoft guide you to the centre of the digital party and ensure your voice is heard loud and clear!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. Which company is best for digital marketing in India?
Deftsoft stands out as a top digital marketing company in India, offering a blend of innovative strategies, skilled experts, and proven results to drive growth for businesses across sectors.

2. How much do digital marketing agencies charge in India?
Digital marketing costs in India vary based on services and campaign complexity. We offer customizable packages to suit every budget.

3. What services does a digital marketing agency in India offer?
Digital marketing agencies, like Deftsoft, offer SEO, social media marketing, PPC, E-mail marketing, content creation, conversion optimization, and more to help businesses grow their online presence.

4. What new technologies or tools will digital marketing agencies use in 2025?
By 2025, AI-driven analytics, voice search optimization, and advanced personalization tools will dominate digital marketing. We stay ahead by adopting these cutting-edge technologies.

5. How can a digital marketing agency help my business leverage voice search for SEO?
A digital marketing company optimizes content for voice queries, ensuring your business ranks in voice search results, captures voice-driven traffic, and stays relevant in the evolving SEO landscape.

6. How does a digital marketing agency measure the success of a campaign?
The agency tracks success through key performance indicators (KPIs) like traffic, conversions, and ROI, providing detailed reports to showcase the campaign’s impact on your business growth.

Content Marketing Strategy Checklist: B2B Customer Retention Guide

Whether you’re a B2B or B2C business organization, understanding the value of content marketing is non-negotiable. There are two main pillars of growing any business: 

A. Generating relevant leads that convert, and 
B. Retaining those leads

Many businesses just focus on point A and completely forget about customer retention. The real treasure lies in offering value to your existing customers for a high customer satisfaction rate and thus, enhancing your business’s revenue. 

According to a recent Harvard research, you can increase your profits by 25% to 95% by increasing your customer’s lifetime value and retention by 5%. This is the reason why it is important to invest in content marketing, especially for retaining your customers.

If you’re overwhelmed by confusion, this blog is the perfect guide to help you follow our well-researched guide on the best customer retention strategies.

What is Customer Retention? How to Measure It?

Customer retention is a quantitative metric to measure the total number of customers that are retained by a business in a specific time frame. In simple words, it refers to the number of people who repurchase a product or service from your business or brand. 

It is a reflection of the customer’s loyalty to a company. There is also a direct relationship between your company’s revenue and the customer retention rate.

Here’s how you can measure customer retention rate:

Customer Retention Rate (CRR) formula

Let’s make it easy with an example.

If you have 530 customers at the end of the month and 500 customers at the beginning of the month. Also, you gained 50 new customers. Therefore, your customer retention rate will be:

(530-50)/500 = 0.96 

This means that you have a 96% retention rate.

Note: You need to work on your customer retention rate if it is less than 60% for 2 months consecutively.

Why is Customer Retention Important?

You must maintain a healthy customer retention rate of at least >70% to drive in sophisticated amount of revenue to your business. There are plenty of reasons to actively work on customer retention strategies for enhanced business profitability.

  1. Consistent Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)

One major reason to invest in B2B customer retention strategies is to gain consistent Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR). MRR accounts for the number of customers driving specific revenue per month. Once you gain loyal customers, they can bring in consistent business. 

The higher the retention rate, the higher the revenue.

For example, Salesforce‘s customer retention rate of 77% ranks it fifth amongst its competitors, including Google, IBM, SAP, Workday, and Oracle, according to Comparably. 

  1. Reduced Churn Costs

Companies can incur heavy losses if they cannot retain a customer. It is worrisome to have a high churn rate. According to Invesp, it costs 5 times more to attract a new customer than to retain an existing one. Therefore, when you invest in retaining your customers, they can also bring in 2x more business through word-of-mouth and referrals.

  1. Enhanced Brand Loyalty

According to Yotpo, over 55% of consumers are loyal to a brand because they love the product. Then come other factors such deals and customer service.

Enhanced Brand Loyalty

Customers that retain also bring in bonus business by buying more products than their first purchase. The same goes for B2B businesses! Loyal customers also act as a pool of resources for a company. You can gain valuable feedback from these consumers and make the required changes to your business’s product or service.

Now that you’re familiar with customer retention, how can you increase your customer retention rate? 

The secret lies in implementing solid content marketing strategies right when you onboard a client, in the case of a B2B business, or when a potential customer visits your website. 

It’s time to learn about content marketing!

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is a strategy that revolves around planning, creating, and distributing content to generate relevant leads. It is an approach that does not follow the conventional methods of advertising but generates content on various social channels, including blog posts, social media posts, articles, images and videos.

The content created is heavily emphasized on being informational, insightful and solution-focused to the consumers. 

The apex goal of content marketing is to build trust, credibility and accountability for your company. Once you create a loyal user base, you open the door to an increased number of referrals and, ultimately, sales.

What are the Best Content Marketing Channels for B2B Customer Retention?

According to the HubSpot State of Marketing Report, 50% of marketers plan to increase their investment in content marketing in 2024. And according to a recent Forbes study, 45% of B2B content marketers expect an increase in their content marketing budget in 2024. 

If you’re one of them, it is important to strategically create content for various social channels for B2B businesses. 

According to Forbes, the most popular social media channels for B2B content marketing are as follows:

social media channels for B2B content marketing
  • In-person events (56%)
  • Webinars (51%)
  • Email (44%)
  • Organic social media platforms (44%)
  • Blogs (40%)
  • Email newsletters (39%)

Foolproof B2B Content Marketing Strategy Checklist for Customer Retention

Let’s address the elephant in the room: what are the best content marketing strategies for customer retention?

Before we move forward with the content marketing strategies for B2B businesses, it is pivotal to understand the customer buyer journey. Comprehending a customer journey map is as important for retaining customers as it is for generating new leads

The following are the crucial stages in a customer journey:

  • Awareness stage
  • Consideration stage
  • Conversion stage
  • Loyalty stage
  • Advocacy stage or Referral stage

We have curated content marketing strategies keeping these stages in mind, and you should, too when implementing the following strategies!

B2B Content Marketing Strategy Checklist

1. Content is the King

Creating content actively can help you enhance your brand’s visibility to both potential customers as well as to search engines. You can create various forms of content that offer value to the users. Being in the business, you can create the following types of content:

  • Blog posts
  • Emails
  • How-to guides
  • FAQs
  • Product demos
  • Case-studies
  • Whitepapers
  • Ebooks
  • Infographics
  • Checklists
  • Social media posts
  • Videos

Pro Tip: You can batch-create the content for the whole month in one go by brainstorming 10-20 topics. This practice will help you generate content consistently which will eventually help your customers to look out for your content!

2. Don’t Underestimate Customer Data

Customer data is a valuable resource for understanding consumers’ interests. It indicates how a customer interacts with your website. You can harness this data to gain useful insights and perform analysis to gather useful information across various touchpoints. We call it ‘customer intelligence’.

You can then build user personas, group them up and perform customer segmentation based on interests, demographics, consumer problems, etc.

3. Show Your Case Studies and Testimonials

When a prospect reaches your website, it is important to show them proof of work. This is when your business’s case studies and customer testimonials come in handy. Presenting one of the best content marketing strategies to enhance the chances of converting your leads into clients.

Testimonials and case studies hold the power to evoke emotions in the individuals who interact with such content. This practice allows the brands to create deeper connections with their prospects.

4. Shoot Appealing Onboarding Emails

It is pivotal to build smooth experiences with your customers right when they buy your product or service. Sending an onboarding email when your consumers make a purchase increases the chances of retaining them.

You can add interactive elements to the emails such as a catchy hook, animations, images, short videos or even an exclusive discount. For example, make the user feel worthy of reading the entire email by providing a discount on the next purchase.

Ensure that you perform customer segmentation based on your customers’ responses and behaviors to the onboarding emails and create a content marketing strategy accordingly.

5. Collect User Feedback through Chatbot

 Collecting customer feedback is the ultimate content marketing strategy for customer retention. You can create and deploy a chatbot on your website to directly gain the personal experiences of consumers. This will help you understand areas for improvement in your product or service.

Once you recognize various bottlenecks and work on them, you can work on these shortcomings and retain your consumers.

6. Personalize Wherever You Can

Human beings love to rebuy from brands where they feel seen and heard. If you’re an enterprise, you must create your profiles on social media platforms, especially LinkedIn and YouTube. 

Small businesses can still interact with their audience directly. However, enterprises mostly struggle with creating personal relationships with their consumers. However, some prominent enterprises have built an immaculate social media presence.

For example, Shopify creates a pool of content on YouTube, which has yielded them a solid personal community and thus directly impacted their customer retention rate.

shopify

Let Us Help You Formulate a Solid Content Marketing Strategy

Whether you’re an enterprise, business organization or small business, Deftsoft is a top-notch digital marketing agency that has a team of inbound and outbound content marketing, SEO and content writers. With more than 18 years in the industry, we come in with expertise in content marketing. From building custom B2B content marketing strategies to strategizing for marketing campaigns, we’ve got you. 

Reach out to us to get started on a killer content marketing strategy for your brand today.

FAQs:

What is meant by a digital content marketing strategy?

A digital content marketing strategy refers to planning, creating, and implementing a strategy for marketing content across various digital and social channels. The most popular method for formulating a content marketing strategy is to understand the customer’s buyer journey and develop a strategy around it.

What is the best type of content to create for building a customer retention strategy?

It is important to have an updated blog post page to keep your customers updated about your product or service. Next, you must focus on building a strong social media presence on various channels such as LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Another pro tip to retain your customers is to always act on negative feedback actively.

Mention some of the best content marketing strategies for retaining customers.

Some of the best content marketing strategies are to focus on creating content and emails that address customers’ interests and pain points, show your case studies and testimonials on your website, make a killer onboarding email to shoot to your customers and always collect user feedback to analyze it and create a content marketing strategy accordingly.

What is meant by customer retention?

Customer retention refers to the number of customers who rebuy your product or service after their first purchase from you. It is better to focus more on increasing your customer retention rate than upselling, as it costs 5x times more to capture a new customer than to retain him. 

11 Lead Generation Strategies: How to Generate Leads for SaaS Businesses

Did you know that you need to generate at least 50 quality leads to gain one customer? A lead is someone who fits your business’s ideal customer profile and discovers your company. In general, they’re keen to learn about your business.

On the other hand, a quality lead is when an individual visits your website and provides their contact information by filling out a form. For instance, if you run an HR management software that helps HR professionals manage their data, your website must reflect that information.

Here’s the big question: if you needed to generate thousands or even tens of thousands of quality leads, how would you do it? The answer is cracking the code for lead generation.

In this blog, we’ll plunge into sure-shot strategies for lead generation for B2B SaaS. It entails 11 foolproof strategies so that you never fall off track from collecting high-quality leads.

What is Meant by Lead Generation for B2B SaaS?

Now that you’re familiar with what a lead is, let’s learn about what is B2B lead generation for SaaS.

Lead generation for B2B SaaS is the process of identifying the right set of business organizations or enterprises that show interest in your software service. In other words, they have the potential to buy from you and can be your future customers. 

Lead generation for SaaS business is more of a spiral than a straight process. The first ignition to identify your potential clients is when they interact with your service. For instance, if someone visits your website and signs up for a newsletter, he’s a potential customer.

No one does it better than Salesforce. For instance, it has added a chatbot to register website visitors’ queries, which are a direct reflection of potential customers.

Salesforce

Lead generation for B2B SaaS is the first step in guiding users into the sales or marketing funnel. Most individuals think that advertising is the only way to attract leads. However, this is not true. Lead generation for SaaS includes the following strategies:

  • Content marketing
  • Email marketing
  • Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads
  • Organic marketing
  • Cold calling
  • Website optimization
  • Event Marketing

Why is Lead Generation for SaaS Important?

Fundamentally, B2B lead creation is important to the business, sales, and marketing departments. Without lead creation, there wouldn’t be any leads to move through the sales funnel, no conversions, no clients, and no further business.

Apart from functioning as an organization’s lifeblood, B2B lead generation also furnishes crucial data to marketing representatives, sales representatives, and sales development representatives (SDRs), who are the people in the background.

Note: When practicing lead generation for SaaS, sales-qualified leads should be considered a high priority as they’re more likely to convert than marketing leads.

It is important to implement SaaS lead-generation strategies for the following reasons:

  • To filter ideal customers
  • Boost brand awareness and online visibility
  • Enhance conversion rate
  • Generate high revenue
  • Optimize sales pipeline flow

What is the Process for B2B Lead Generation for SaaS?

Process for B2B Lead Generation for SaaS

Lead generation is a crucial part of inbound marketing and a pivotal process of the marketing funnel. Bringing awareness about your brand is how you can attract new leads. As discussed earlier, leads are nothing but a bunch of individuals interested in your service.

The following are the well-defined process of lead generation for your B2B SaaS business:

1. Creating a Buyer Persona

It is important to find the right product-market fit. Therefore, you must find what an ideal customer looks like for you. You must craft a clear picture of the following characteristics of your ideal customer (buyer persona):

  • What are the preferences of your buyer persona?
  • What are the pain points of your ideal customer?
  • What are the interests of your buyer persona?
  • What are the demographics of your buyer persona?

2. Leveraging Marketing Tactics

After figuring out the buyer persona, you must choose a solid strategy to target it. You can target the ideal businesses through social media posts, blog posts, landing pages, and squeeze pages (landing pages with newsletter sign-up prompts). 

3. Lock In the Prospect

The purpose of lead generation for B2B SaaS is to create a consistent influx of businesses that can convert into actual clients. In case these leads become inactive, you can retarget them through social channels, email retargeting, etc.

Top-Notch Strategies for Lead Generation for SaaS Companies

It’s time to address the elephant in the room: how to generate leads for SaaS businesses. This section discusses B2B SaaS lead generation strategies. These strategies are a great option to adopt when you don’t want to opt for cold-calling or perform offline sales. To make it easy for you, we’ve considered the example of Human Resource Management (HRM) software to understand the B2B dynamics of the business landscape.

Let’s begin!

Strategies for Lead Generation for SaaS Companies

1. Newsletters for the Win

Newsletters serve as a valuable tool for engaging with potential lead generation and practicing how to generate leads for SaaS on a regular basis. For example, an HRM software company could curate content for its newsletters that includes industry news, tips for improving HR processes, case studies showcasing successful implementations of its software, and upcoming events or webinars. 

It is a great starter strategy for lead generation for SaaS businesses, as they can collect email addresses from prospective clients and reach out to them personally later on. 

By providing a mix of educational and promotional content, the newsletter keeps the software top-of-mind and positions it as a trusted resource in the HR space.

2. Content Marketing and Blogging

Content marketing serves as the backbone of the entire inbound marketing strategy and is one of the best practices for SaaS lead generation. Content marketing, particularly through blogging, allows HRM software companies to demonstrate their expertise and provide solutions to common challenges faced by HR professionals. 

By publishing in-depth articles, how-to guides, and case studies on topics relevant to their target audience, such as talent acquisition strategies, employee engagement tactics, and compliance issues, the software can attract leads who are actively seeking solutions to their HR problems. 

Additionally, maintaining a regularly updated blog can improve the software’s search engine visibility and drive organic traffic to its website. Remember to refresh your content according to prospects’ latest needs to grab their attention.

Pro Tip:

Don’t know how to generate leads for SaaS? You can create content according to the marketing funnel that works for your enterprise or business organization.

3. Social Media Advertising

Social media advertising, particularly on platforms like LinkedIn, provides HRM software companies with the opportunity to target their ideal audience of HR professionals. You can also use other social media channels, such as Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Pinterest, Reddit, and Quora, to attract leads.

Note: Posting at the right time matters in the long run. For a time guide, refer to the following.

Right time to post on social media platforms, facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Pinterest and LinkedIn

Through targeted advertising campaigns, the software can reach users based on factors such as job title, industry, company size, and interests. For example, the software could create sponsored content or display ads that highlight specific features or use cases of the software, driving traffic to landing pages where leads can learn more and sign up for a free trial or demo.

Therefore, social media advertising is another result-oriented B2B SaaS lead generation strategy.

4. Webinars and Workshops

Hosting webinars and workshops allows HRM software companies to engage with potential leads in a more interactive and educational format to generate direct leads for B2B SaaS businesses. By addressing common pain points and challenges faced by HR professionals, such as performance management, employee training, or remote workforce management, the software can demonstrate its value proposition and provide practical solutions. 

For example, a webinar on effective onboarding strategies could showcase how the software simplifies the onboarding process and improves employee satisfaction and retention.

5. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is not just related to ranking long-form content; it also plays a pivotal role in raking landing pages, websites, and even My Google Business Profile. Therefore, SEO is another undermined SaaS lead generation strategy.

For example, SEO is crucial for ensuring that HRM software companies’ websites rank prominently in search engine results pages (SERPs) when potential leads are searching for relevant keywords or phrases. 

By optimizing website content, meta tags, and site structure for keywords related to HRM software and related topics, such as HR automation, payroll management, and talent acquisition, the software can attract organic traffic from users actively seeking solutions in the HR technology space.

6. Email Marketing Campaigns

Email Marketing Campaign

Email marketing campaigns allow HRM software companies to nurture leads through the sales funnel by delivering personalized content and offers directly to their inbox. 

By segmenting leads based on factors such as industry, company size, or stage in the buyer’s journey, the software can send targeted emails that address the specific needs and pain points of each segment. 

For example, a lead who has downloaded a whitepaper on employee engagement could receive follow-up emails with case studies showcasing how the software has helped other companies improve employee morale and productivity.

7. Partnerships and Co-marketing

You can explore other channels such as partnerships for outbound lead generation services for B2B SaaS businesses.

As in the case of an HRM firm, forming partnerships with complementary businesses or industry associations can help HRM software companies expand their reach and attract new leads. By collaborating on joint marketing initiatives, such as co-hosting webinars, creating co-branded content, or participating in industry events together, the software can leverage the partner’s existing network and credibility to reach a wider audience of potential leads. 

For example, partnering with a recruitment agency could lead to mutually beneficial opportunities for cross-promotion and lead generation.

8. Customer Referral Program

Don’t know how to generate leads for SaaS? Use a customer referral program. Implementing a customer referral program incentivizes satisfied customers to refer their colleagues or connections to the software, effectively turning them into brand advocates. By offering rewards such as discounts, credits, or exclusive access to new features for each successful referral, the software can encourage customers to actively promote the product to their networks. 

For example, a customer who has had success with the software in streamlining their recruitment process may be more inclined to refer other HR professionals in their network who are facing similar challenges.

9. Case Studies and Testimonials

Case studies and testimonials provide social proof of the software’s effectiveness and help build credibility with potential leads. By showcasing real-world examples of how the software has helped other companies solve their HR challenges and achieve tangible results, such as increased efficiency, cost savings, or employee satisfaction, the software can demonstrate its value proposition and differentiate itself from competitors. 
You can also add a star-feature rating to your business. According to a recent post by ExplodingTopics on Twitter,

Only 6% of consumers say star ratings don’t affect their choices. 

38% of shoppers won’t do business with a brand unless they have a 4-star rating.

21% need to see at least a 3.5 rating, and 12% are happy to settle for 3 stars.

Source: BrightLocal

When considering the example of HRM software, featuring testimonials from HR professionals who have successfully implemented the software and seen measurable improvements in their processes can reassure potential leads of its efficacy and reliability.

10. Networking Events and Conferences

Attending industry events and conferences provides HRM software companies with valuable opportunities to network with potential leads and showcase their product to a targeted audience. By sponsoring booths, hosting networking sessions, or participating in panel discussions and speaking engagements, the software can increase brand visibility and establish thought leadership in the HR technology space. 

For example, hosting a live demonstration of the software at a major HR conference allows attendees to interact with the product firsthand and learn more about its features and benefits.

11. Free Tools and Resources

Offering free tools and resources related to HR allows HRM software companies to attract leads who are seeking solutions to specific challenges. By providing value upfront and demonstrating expertise in the HR domain, the software can position itself as a trusted resource and build rapport with potential leads. 

For example, offering a free HR audit tool or template for creating employee performance evaluations not only helps HR professionals address immediate needs but also introduces them to the software’s capabilities and encourages further engagement.

Wrapping Up

It’s a wrap on how to generate leads for SaaS. Lead generation for SaaS businesses requires a keen eye for detail and intricacy. In addition to cold-calling and door-to-door sales, understanding the value of various social media and other rich resources is important. You can prepare a concoction of educational and promotional content on various channels to attract your prospective clients. At the end of the day, businesses seek pure value, and you must be able to fulfill their requirements.

FAQs:

What is meant by lead generation for SaaS?

Lead generation for SaaS business refers to the process of identifying the right set of business organizations or enterprises that show interest in your software service. In other words, they have the potential to buy from you and can be your future customers. 

What are the best practices for lead generation for SaaS companies?

The best practices for B2B SaaS lead generation include leveraging web blogging and content advertising, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), newsletters, creating free tools and resources for the prospects, running email marketing campaigns, and creating partnerships with other businesses to get an influx of prospects.

What are the best social channels for B2B lead generation for SaaS?

The best social channels for B2B SaaS lead generation include social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Reddit and TikTok. You can also use newsletters to attract prospective businesses.

How to create inbound leads in SaaS?

You can create a consistent influx of leads for your SaaS business by applying top-of-the-funnel, middle-of-the-funnel and bottom-of-the-funnel strategies. You can work on social media posts and blog posts to create inbound leads. You can also create content for all stages of the buyer’s journey and create whitepapers and ebooks.

Google’s New Core Web Vitals Metric: How To Improve INP

Now that your webpage is successfully visible on the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs), what is the next step to success? It is the page speed. The speed of the loading page directly impacts the success of your webpage’s search. 

If you want to measure the user experience for your webpage based on the loading performance, user-intuitiveness, interactivity, and stability, you must be aware of Google’s Core Web Vitals. To sum up, Core Web Vitals is a set of metrics that calculates the real-world user experience that is incurred based on the page performance.
According to Google’s recent updates, a new Core Web Vital metric will formally be in effect on 12th March 2024. This metric is called Interaction to Next Paint (INP). This guide is an in-depth introduction to the INP Core Web Vitals, how to optimize it, and test INP.

What is Meant by INP?

Interaction to Next Paint (INP) is a webpage performance metric that measures the responsiveness of a user interface. It means that this metric measures how fast a webpage responds when a user interacts with it through various actions, such as mouse clicks, keyboard presses, entering data inside a form, tapping on a touchscreen device like a smartphone, or when a page starts painting the next change on the screen.

How Do You Measure Interaction to Next Paint (INP)?

All the interactions made with a page constitute the Interaction to the Next Paint (INP) metric. When a page has an unusually high interaction or responsive rate, the rule of thumb is to ignore one highest interaction for every 50 interactions. To sum up, the interaction with the worst latency comprises the INP.

Measure Interaction to Next Paint

INP is calculated by finding the difference between the two timestamps of a specific interaction. For example, the time difference between painting the next frame of a webpage when a user presses a key on the keyboard.
In order to find these interactions, Google makes use of event handlers, which record various visual changes on the screen and detect the interactions.

Pro Tip: You can use PageSpeed Insights or the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) to check your site’s score on Interaction to Next Paint (INP). You can also use any Real User Monitoring (RUM) provider. Google Lighthouse is yet another open-source tool to check your webpage’s performance.

What is a Healthy INP Score?

It can be difficult to put a label of “good” or “poor” INP score based on the responsiveness of a webpage. Although the focus is to improve the development practices to ensure a “good” INP score, one must remember that it completely depends upon a user’s device capabilities to set realistic development expectations.
This is why Google has set a standard to measure the 75th percentile of the page loads that are recorded by the event handler across an array of devices, such as mobile phones and laptops.

Healthy INP Score_

You can find out the responsiveness of your webpage by looking at the following INP scores:

  • If your page has an INP of 200 milliseconds or below, it means that your page has good responsiveness.
  • If your page has an INP of 200 milliseconds and below or at 500 milliseconds, it means that you need to work on your page responsiveness. It needs improvement.
  • If your page has an INP above 500 milliseconds, then your page has poor responsiveness.

What are the Core Web Vitals?

Core Web Vitals

By convention, there are three main Core Web Vitals presented by Google. These are:

  • Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

This metric measures the landing performance of a webpage when a user interacts with it. You need to have your LCP occur within the first 2.5 seconds of clicking the page.

  • First Input Delay (FID)

It is another Core Web Vital that measures user interactivity. One must have an FID of fewer than 100 milliseconds.

Note: The Interaction to the Next Paint (INT) metric will replace FID on 12 March 2024.

  • Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

It is a metric that measures visual stability. One must have a CLS score of less than 0.1 for a good user experience.

What are the Benefits of INP in Search Engine Optimization?

Google’s Core Web Vitals play an indispensable role in enhancing the organic traffic on a website. If a webpage loads quickly and efficiently, it will fetch more users instinctively. However, if the webpage starts lagging, chances are that you need to cross-check your webpage’s Core Web Vitals.

benefits-of-the-INP-Core-Web-Vital-metric-1024x536

Therefore, these Core Web Vitals consolidate to affect the SEO strategy of a webpage or website in general. Some of the primary benefits of INP are mentioned as follows:

  • Universally Potent

The INP metric does not require the assistance of JavaScript or CSS code to measure the responsiveness of a page. It can do it alone for both smartphones and desktop sites. Therefore, this metric is universal in nature, unlike FID (First Input Delay).

  • Browser Uniformity

The INP metric does not discriminate among browsers. Does your website work well on Firefox but not on Google Chrome? INP can still measure page responsiveness without depending on the CSS or JavaScript code executed by the browsers. 

  • Zero External Dependency

As discussed, the INP Core Web Vitals do not depend on JavaScript or CSS code. Apart from this, INP also does not depend on other external factors, such as network latency or rendering. 

  • Measures Any Webpage

There are no limitations to what kind of page the Interaction to Next Paint (INP) could measure. From gauging the responsiveness of your homepage to any other page of your website, INP can calculate the responsiveness of every type of webpage. Especially if your website page has a lot of interactivity, it can still measure the response rate for the same.

How to Optimize Interaction to Next Paint?

If you want to learn how to improve the Interaction to Next Paint (INP) metric for your website, make sure that you read this section till the end. Although optimizing INP is a time-consuming task, it is definitely rewarding. 

Before optimization, it is crucial to figure out the root cause of the delay in the webpage’s responsiveness. You can perform the root-cause analysis by following the below-mentioned steps:

1. Label Your Website First

Before jumping to optimization, it is important to learn if your website has poor responsiveness or just needs improvement. Once you figure this out, you can begin running diagnostics on the slow interactions.

You can use a RUM provider which will equip you with the following information:

  • Your page’s INP value
  • The specific interaction responsible for the resultant INP 
  • The time frame of the interaction (if it occurred during or after the page load)
  • The type of interaction (tap, click, or a keypress)
  • Other valuable information

Pro Tip: We prefer RUM over CrUX as CrUX does not provide contextual data to help you analyze the issues for a high INP score.

2. Run Diagnostics Using Lab

Once you’re equipped with the field data, you can start with the manual testing in the lab. If you cannot find the field data, you can check out this resource. 

One of the best methods to manually perform an INP test for interaction latency is to use the Web Vitals Chrome Extension. Once installed, you need to go to the extension’s settings to enable the Console Logging checkbox and then click on Save.

You can then open the console in Chrome DevTools to start testing the suspected interactions on your website. You can also take the help of the useful diagnostic data that appears on the Console.

Run Diagnostics Using Lab

Pro Tip: If the Chrome extension gets blocked, you can copy and paste some JavaScript into the DevTools console.

3. Optimizing INP

Once you have recognized the slow interaction and run diagnostics in the lab, it is time to optimize Interaction to Next Paint. There are three main types of interactions that need to be optimized. These are:

  • The input delay
  • The processing time
  • The presentation delay

a. Reduce Input Delay/TBT

The first part of the interaction when a user interacts with a page is called the input delay.

TBT

You need to reduce and break up the background CPU activity in order to reduce input delay to the minimum. The input delays are caused due to the following reasons:

  • Activity happening in the main thread (script loading, compiling and parsing)
  • Timer functions
  • Fetch handling
  • Interaction overlapping

You can also look at the total blocking time (TBT) metric. It refers to the response rate of your website to the user input. In other words, it measures how much time the main thread is blocked during page load. Most of the time, long-running CPU tasks block the page’s main thread. Some reasons for blocked user interactions are:

  • JavaScript execution
  • Parsing HTML
  • Updating page layout

TBT makes up to 25% of the total performance score in Google Lighthouse.

Pro Tip: You can remove the unused JavaScript and CSS, which are not parsed or compiled when not required.

b. Optimize Event Callbacks

Next, you must ensure that the event callbacks that run in response to the user interaction must be completed as fast as possible. You must try to break up the work in event callbacks into separate tasks. You can use SetTimeout to break up the tasks.

Performing this separation prevents the main thread from getting blocked. This practice allows other interactions to take place.

c. Prevent Large, Complex Layouts and Layout Thrashing

Also called forced synchronous layout, layout thrashing is a rendering performance bottleneck where layout happens synchronously. This problem arises when you update styles in JavaScript and request the values in the same tasks. This forces the browser to do synchronous layout work.

layout thrashing

You can avoid the layout; however, if it is not possible to avoid the layout, then you can go to Chrome DevTools to check the time it is taking. You can see the overview of how your site performed by following the steps:

  • Open DevTools.
  • Go to the Timeline tab.
  • Hit the record button and interact with the pertaining site.
how to optimize interaction to next paint(inp)

d. Reduce DOM Size

A browser creates a Document Object Model (DOM) when a web page is loaded. Large DOM size affects the website’s user interactivity, as it increases memory usage, slows down layout rendering, and causes longer style calculations. Therefore, it is pivotal to reduce the DOM size. 

You can finish off rendering work easily by minimizing the size of the page’s DOM. You can follow the below-mentioned approaches to reduce DOM size:

  • Flattening the DOM

You can reduce the DOM size by reducing the DOM depth. You can check if your DOM is unnecessarily deep if your markup looks something like the following:

Flattening the DOM

You can open the Chrome DevTools and go to the Elements tab to check the DOM depth. 

Another way to reduce DOM depth is to use fragments in the framework that you use.

  • Add to the DOM during User Interaction 

Another approach to minimize your page’s DOM is to remove the invisible parts of your page when it gets rendered by a user for the first time. You can add them later. This will make the initial HTML load lighter; therefore, it will be rendered easily. You can also initially hide some parts of the page, which can also speed up other interactions.

Real-World Use Case of INP Core Web Vital

Now that you’ve learned in-depth about the INP metric, it is time to look at some of the real-life implementations of INP. Let’s go over a case study of a real website that made massive improvements to responsiveness for the users by harnessing the INP. We’re talking about the Economic Times. (source: Chrome for Developers YouTube channel)

The Economic Times began its work in the Lighthouse, which helped them cut down their total blocking time. It is correlated to INP as main thread slowdowns are the root cause of slow user interactions.

Next, they also lateloaded scripts that were not business-critical to free up the main thread in order to process the main content. They removed unused JavaScript and CSS, which were still parsed and combined even when they were not needed.

As a part of the process, they inlined necessary CSS, because over 90% of their common CSS was not getting used”, says Annie Sullivan, Software Engineerat Chrome Web Platform team. She then added, “This made a big improvement and they kept going. Once they had optimized the total blocking time, they looked for things that would specifically improve interactions.

The Economic Times then reduced the DOM size. This helped them reduce the time it took to render an interaction. They also avoided unnecessary rendering by upgrading to Next.js to take advantage of better React hooks to prevent rendering. They also used the request title callback to render below the full content when the main thread is freed up. Party Town was also used to move third-party code off the main thread.

After all these optimizations, the Economic Times saw INP on their Topics page reduced by 75%. They also saw a 50% decrease in bounce rate and a 43% uplift in page views.

Bottom Line

Interaction to Next Paint is one of the next Core Web Vitals that is all set to replace the First Input Delay (FID) metric. With the changing dynamics of the industry, it is time to get familiar with this metric to gain an edge over your competitors and for an enhanced user experience.

You can follow the highlighted techniques to optimize your webpage for the INP metric. Improving the responsiveness of your webpage is a primary factor in deciding the amount of traffic you’ll attract. This phenomenon directly impacts your brand’s revenue.

We recommend you invest judiciously in technical SEO, and if you struggle to do so, Deftsoft’s digital marketing experts are here to cater to you with bespoke Core Web Vitals solutions.

FAQs:

What does INP mean?

Interaction to Next Paint (INP) is a new Core Web Vitals metric that is replacing the old First Input Delay (FID) metric. It measures a web page’s responsiveness whenever a user interacts with the page. It observes the latency of all the interactions made by the user. A low INP score of below 200 milliseconds is a healthy INP score.

What is the difference between INP and FID?

FID is a load responsiveness metric, whereas INP is more than measuring the first impressions. FID considers only the first interaction with the page, but INP considers all the interactions. INP is a more reliable metric as it samples all the interactions and then presents the value, unlike the FID metric.

How do we measure INP?

One of the best ways to measure INP is through tools. You can use PageSpeed Insights or the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) to check your site’s score on Interaction to Next Paint (INP). You can also use any Real User Monitoring (RUM) provider.

What to do if no INP value is reported?

There could be several reasons why you were not presented with an INP value. These include that the user did not interact with the page through clicks, taps, or keypresses. He simply hovered or scrolled through the page. It could also be because a bot, such as a search crawler or headless browser, is interacting with the page.

Google Data Studio – How It Helps to Improve SEO?

Learning how to communicate compelling data stories can make or break, proving the worth of services or deliverables to clients or internal teams. SEOs and digital marketers depend on various data sources to track project progress. Still, critical insights and analytics can be easily overlooked with so much big data available through Google and third-party sources.

Tools like Google Data Studio make it simple to build SEO dashboards containing all the data and analytics you require in a single location. The best SEO dashboards offer a birds-eye perspective of SEO campaigns and projects.

About Google Data Studio

Data Studio is a data visualization application created by Google. When data is visualized, useful insights can be extracted for data-driven decision-making. You can use Google Data Studio to build a dashboard that shows you everything you need to know about your SEO. You can learn which terms generate the most clicks, which keywords generate the most impressions but few clicks, which posts/pages generate the most links, and so on.

Many people like Google Data Studio because it allows you to build and create your dashboards and make data comprehensible and aesthetically appealing. Furthermore, with Google Data Studio you can leverage your brand identity with the dashboards, ensuring that your reports accurately reflect your company.

How It Is Beneficial For Effective SEO?

Google Data Studio is a useful tool for generating SEO reports. It enables users to gain strategic information into their data and craft compelling stories specific to their target audience.

Google Data Studio’s SEO dashboard lets you see the big scenario of your marketing campaign or project and plan your next steps appropriately.

Working with Keywords Becomes Easier

Google Data Studio helps examine target keywords’ performance and determine new ones. An effective SEO dashboard in Google Data Studio will let you monitor important metrics like clicks and impressions from Google Search Console, allowing you to determine which keywords are worth your time and effort.

Seamless Traffic Management

Managing existing traffic and measuring new keywords’ traffic potential becomes much easier with Google Data Studio. To ensure consistent development of the website, you must monitor organic traffic, as well as surprise surges and falls in traffic, and check how much traffic the latest keywords can create and the number of leads or conversions you receive from that traffic.

Helps To Check The Right User Search Intent

Determining the user’s right search intent is crucial to serve better. Suppose you have an e-commerce website, for instance. In that case, you should target transactional user search intent because the keywords associated with this intent are utilized by people eager to purchase.

Enhanced SEO Reporting

You can enhance SEO reporting and data storytelling with Google Data Studio’s simple interface by extracting data from multiple sources, visualizing multiple combinations of data, and enabling associates without SEO knowledge to get strategic insights.

Google Data Studio – Boon To SEO

By using Google Data Studio to monitor their SEO efforts, businesses can identify areas for improvement, track progress, and ultimately drive more traffic to their website. So if you’re looking to take your SEO efforts to the next level, consider incorporating Google Data Studio into your strategy and start reaping the benefits.

How Do You Compare PPC With SEO? Choose an Integrated Approach in 2022!

The question of who is better between PPC and SEO is very old. The answer is yet to be found. That’s why you will find that even the official resources of Google answer the question of ‘So should I invest in SEO or PPC?’ saying, “Ultimately, it’s up to you which option is best for your business, but it’s worth considering that both SEO and PPC ads can help in different ways.”

We at Deftsoft agree with that and recommend our clients opt for an integrated approach for search engine marketing in 2022. But, if somehow you have to choose one or both, this post will give you a comparison of PPC with SEO based on factors like cost, quality of traffic, the time required to drive results, etc., that may help you make an informed decision.

Understand the Difference Between PPC and SEO        

First of all, it is important to revise the basics of PPC and SEO. PPC stands for pay-per-click advertising, and SEO stands for search engine optimization. PPC is paid, and SEO is free. The purpose of both PPC and SEO is to feature your website on the first page of the search results.

The first three or four paid results with the label of ‘ad’ you see at the top of the search results are the paid search results, which are a result of the PPC of the website. The rest of the results with no specific label you see in the list are organic search results which are the result of the SEO of the website.

There is an entire process of how to do PPC and how to do SEO. Both are in-depth marketing strategies that require extensive skills and knowledge to implement. There is a range of tools provided by Google such as Google Analytics, Google Adwords and Google Search Console to carefully craft PPC and SEO campaigns. Thus, it often gets complex. Most small and medium-sized businesses hire professional digital marketing agencies to run their marketing campaigns, while many prefer to hire an in-house team.  

Compare PPC with SEO

Compare PPC with SEO

Cost of the campaign

The first point of comparison is cost. If you try to run a campaign on your own, it is a simple judgement PPC is paid, and SEO is free. But if you are hiring experts, both will cost you. There is a general notion that PPC is expensive and SEO is cheap. But while making decisions, it is the ROI that matters.

For example, if you spend $2 on a PPC ad and you get a $200 sale. It’s a huge return. But as not all ads convert, you have to take into account the conversion rate also. Thus, PPC may not turn out to be expensive.

On the other hand, SEO is considered cheap with less cost per lead. But if you are trying to rank your website for competitive keywords, it may take an entire year to do so. Thus, SEO can turn out to be expensive. In that case, PPC is cheap. Thus, it depends on competitiveness, business needs, and various other factors which strategy will turn out to be inexpensive.      

Quality of traffic  

It is often said that SEO generates more quality traffic than PPC. There is no doubt in that considering the traffic statistics of the five top websites on the search engine result page. However, a highly targeted PPC campaign can bring more quality traffic than SEO.

 It is because SEO is a wider approach than PPC. Your website may rank for multiple keywords and bring traffic in high volumes, which may or may not convert. But in a PPC campaign, you run a campaign around highly targeted keywords that have higher chances of conversions. Thus, PPC can bring a higher quality of traffic than SEO, opposite to the general notion.       

Time to deliver results

It is no secret that SEO takes time and PPC brings immediate results. No doubt it is true, but the PPC aficionados never look at the downside of the fact the moment you stop paying Google for the ads, you disappear from the search engine. That’s where brands remember SEO. If they had done the SEO, their website would have been there even when they were not paying anyone to do it. Because once you feature in the organic search results, you stay there for a long time. SEO efforts keep bringing you traffic for a long time.

If you know the basics of SEO, you can even stop paying your SEO expert once you are stable at search engine rankings. However, experts do not recommend that, considering Google search engine result listings keep updating and other websites working on the same keywords to rank.

Integrated approach

The paradox of PPC and SEO has been becoming more and more complex day by day. That’s why experts often recommend an integrated approach. It involves using the benefits of both worlds. Whether or not it is right, it too depends on the business needs.

For example, if you are a niche-based e-commerce store that has to beat competitors like Amazon, eBay, and Best Buy, you need a combination of both strategies to beat them, and you can do that with a well-crafted strategy. On the other hand, if you are a small grocery store that wants to target a locality, there is no need to go for both strategies. Only SEO will be enough for you.

Similarly, if you are a well-known fashion store in the city and planning to increase foot traffic for season-based sales, you can run a PPC campaign to immediately target your audience.  

Thus, the choice of the SEO, PPC or integrated approach depends entirely on the business needs, budget, and resources.

It is best to let experts analyze your business, understand your business objectives and recommend you the right solution for search engine marketing in 2022.

Need help deciding a campaign for search engine marketing for your company? Get in touch with Deftsoft‘s search engine marketing experts to find a comprehensive solution for your business within the budget.   

How to Generate More Sales by Optimizing your Brand Search?

Have you recently googled yourself or your company? Where did you find yourself? We all wish our keywords or brand name to appear on the first page, but how often does it happen. Unless and until you have a branded search optimization strategy, you can’t achieve desired results.
Brand-driven search is much more important than those URLs containing your brand name that rank on Goggle SERP. Branded search is an ongoing process that yields higher conversions and creates predictable buying journeys.

Why Must Businesses Have a Brand-Driven Search Optimization Strategy?

We all know branding, whether offline or online, is important for increasing brand value. So, how does brand search optimization help brands? If you do not include the brand in your search engine optimization, you miss out on a big opportunity to make your product or services popular.

So, What is Branded Search?

A branded search query is one that contains your brand or product name. It includes search queries including personal, brand-driven words like your CEO or writer’s name. For all brands, the branded search must be the top marketing priority. Why? Because all great SEO starts with your brand, so branded SEO search must be the company’s top priority. Despite this fact, many brands completely ignore search queries, so don’t be among them!

Why is Branded Search Important?

Brand-driven search is of high intent. When customers type your brand name in the search box, they want to either go straight to your site or research the company before purchasing the product.

The issues your customers are facing while using your site or product are shown in the branded search query.

Helps in analyzing online sentiments around your brand.

Also, branded SERPS may influence buying decisions, including customers in your sales funnel.

But being said that, like your branded hashtag, your branded SERPs don’t belong to you. Brands can’t control what people see, but you can influence rankings by spending more time and effort optimizing your branded search.

Effective Ways to Optimize and Improve Brand Search Volume

 

 Include Brand Name in your Meta Tiles

When writing Meta titles, do you include the brand name? If not, you are doing it all wrong. Brand name strengthens your website’s relevance, and your website is unlikely to be mistaken for another entity. This way, every brand search query will lead users to the right domain. Including brand name in titles help in increasing brand awareness.

Keep a Check on the Branded Keywords

In branded queries, commercial intent is high; that’s the main reason they are so valuable to brands. Did you know some companies even bid on the competitor’s branded search terms via PPC? To identify relevant brand search terms, make use of keyword research tools. Use tools like Google Keyword Planner or Answer the Public for your keyword research. After you find the branded keywords that consumers use to find your products/services, use the information to address them.
Answer Questions or Clear Doubts of your Consumers

Through the branded-term keyword research, you will identify questions consumers have about your brand. Such customers are the ones who are interested in buying your product or have already purchased one. In both the situations, you must be able to answer all your questions before the competitor does.

Pro Tip: Answer each question with dedicated content pages on the website, or you can combine related questions

Publish Content on High Traffic Websites

The best way to build brand awareness and increase your company’s reach is by posting content on high-traffic websites. Contribute content that showcases your expertise. A well-written, inspiring article will drive readers to search for your brand name on search engines to know more about your products or services.

Make use of Tools Unique to Your Brand

Why are some applications like online classes, calculators, and calendars popular amongst customers? For the only reason that they make life easy and better. Useful online tools increase branded term searches, naturally improving how your website performs on the SERPs. People love tools with a company’s name instead of typing your name in the web address. Such tools can become consumers’ touchpoints that aid in generating leads and traffic.

Use Local Map Packs

To appear at the top of the map packs, optimize your business locally. By doing so, when people search using location-specific branded terms, your brand name will appear. The map pack is a box with your brand name, address, and phone number. Add your business and website address on Bing Places or Google My Business to further strengthen your brand’s online presence.

Group Branded Search Query by Intent and Further Action

Group branded keywords by a common modifier or close semantic meaning. By doing so, you only have to work with not more than 20 branded keywords. When grouping your keywords focus on:

-Search intent

-A further action that depends on where my site is currently ranked for each keyword

The possible action for each identified branded keyword group will be:

-Optimize existing page
-Create a new page
-Publish a blog post
-Add a separate page to your FAQ page
-Include it in your knowledge base

Branding provides a whole lot of benefits like higher conversion and revenue. But, comes with a challenge many brands are not aware of. To enjoy the stated benefits, develop a plan of action, and clearly define and implement it.

Embrace 10 New Digital Marketing Trends for Better Results in 2019

Every year with the advancement of technology, digital marketing trends change. The new marketing campaigns are as per according to the changes in technologies. Here’s how digital marketing is changing in 2019 and what you need to do is to thrive and succeed:

Extensive Use of Artificial Intelligence

As we are already familiar, the power of Artificial Intelligence is touching all the dimensions. This year AI power is going to influence customer segmentation, retargeting, push notifications, click tracking, with enhanced possibilities. The AI technologies are now going to affect the search power by utilizing data from social media platforms and blog posts. It will elaborate a business perspective to find targeted customers and required products and services.

In the year 2019, more than 42% of marketers are going to use AI for business recommendations, and nearly 50% of internet marketing campaigns are going to utilize AI. Another area of use is customer service by monitoring their interest. There are more than 41% of businesses which are going to use AI in their core marketing processes. Real-time personalized advertising insertions and optimization of message targeting are going to the new additions in the digital marketing field.

The future AI-powered image search shopping displaying high quality, dynamic display of product images will make use of online robots and machine learning techniques. Looking at the current scenario, we can say that the businesses adopting AI technologies in 2019 will accelerate their growth. They will be getting an edge over their competitors.

Get Smarter Chatbots:

Connecting to your customers using social media practices is not the only technique. Some of the customers don’t like to give the actual response. In this case, social media campaigns face challenges by not getting the expected results.

Chatbots are the robots using Ai techniques which communicate with the customers as per their terms. Many websites such as Amazon and Flip kart who are dealing with many customers have already implemented Chatbots. In the year 2019, the Chatbots will in frontline and directly affecting digital marketing results.

A Chatbot can provide more useful results which a customer care executive can never achieve. In digital marketing, Chatbots are used to keep track of the customer’s choice and to deliver organized personal services.

If you are planning to incorporate Chatbots in your business in 2019 either for sales or for customer’s help, you need to be aware that Chatbots are not meant to replace multiple human conversations. They can help, but they are still evolving and improving, and it will take some more time.

 Leverage Voice Search

By the end of 2020, most of the searches on Google are going to be voice searches. The adults are using the voice search to a more significant extent than the kids and youngsters. If you are targeting to implement voice search on your website in 2019, then ensure the site is SEO friendly, and its rating is high in Google ranking.

To implement voice search connectivity, it is compulsory that your website should load first before any competitors website opens. Make sure that your site is using HTTPS.

Another vital precaution in using voice search is to use precise answers to the customer’s queries. The use of voice should be done in perfect accord to keep the customer’s behavior in mind. Whether he is looking for an elaborated answer to his question or wants one sentence answer? The final purchase depends on your response. In a way, by applying the voice search module, you have to face the customer directly, you can wait and find answers in a manipulated way. It demands the entire business process to be transparent.

The initial benefits which attracted people to perform voice search are the fast response, easy access, more beneficial for mobile uses and so on. The evolution of high-quality speakers has made it even easier. This trend is going to stay in the coming year.

In digital marketing, voice search will optimize your website for local SEO rankings for which you must do the following:

-Optimization of content for long-tail keywords as the voice search is comparatively long.

-The site must be made content conventional as most of the searches are based on unknown customers. Both the parties ( caller and responder) don’t know each other.

-The voice search depends on the clarity of sentences hence for the excellent responses; the convictions should be clear and specific to the search. Factors like loading time and site organization are also becoming more critical in an age of quick, on-the-go mobile and voice search.

-Voice search will likely increase the sensitivity of search engines. It becomes mandatory that every image, video, and piece of content is tagged with meta descriptions and alt-text. Search engines use these bits of information to categories and serve up your content to users promptly. Without them, you can’t perform an active voice search.

Open Doors Through Conversion Optimization

The cost of online advertising is touching the sky high limit, and the trend will continue in 2019. Conversion optimization is going to be the only way to increase direct sales. The more you optimize your landing page for conversions the favorable will result. Make sure you’re using advanced tools to do A/B testing so that you can squeeze more conversions from the traffic you’re getting.

Another way is to merge email conversions to add in sales. It will help in increasing the ROI by increasing site traffic. IT is going to be a priority in 2019 to compete with business competitors. The main focus to drive more business should be on conversion in 2019.

Activate a Podcast based Application

The people using the podcasts are going to be better buyers as their average income is quite high. To have a big business in 2019 or to expand your dimensions, you need to create a podcast this year.

Podcasts help to deliver the content with a loud message when the person is on the go. In the busy and hectic schedules, the use of podcasts is likely to increase in 2019. When people are active in doing some other task, you voice over the podcasts can help you advertise your business.

Local Influencer Marketing

The latest digital marketing trends have more focus on local influencing marketing in 2019. The Life span of an influencing product in the global market is for a short duration. So, it is better to tie up with a local influencer to plan together long time campaigns and online promotions.

Make use of social media platforms. Follow your competitors and learn about them. Try to establish a communication link with the help of social media. This influencing marketing might lead to a joint venture which can be profitable with your business.

Get Live with Video

The video is still a fascination among internet users and the top channels. The trend of live videos is, however, capturing the attention of website owners and customers. The pattern is going to stay for a long.

To create customer’s choice videos, get into the shoe of the ordinary user and think of what kind of information they will be expecting in a video. Release product demos, Live Q/As and another promotional video for receiving instant responses from customers.

To make a compelling video, first, create a strong content strategy by scratching your brains to put relevant content. Keep in mind, that video is a starting point for marketing and promotion of your product. Step two is to pick the platform which can be useful for your product. Right now, most of the businesses are focusing on YouTube Live and Instagram as space is less crowded. Ensure that the videos contain fun, engaging and great experiences for the audiences.

Video content is the future of digital marketing. The enthusiasm to watch a live video is always more than merely reading the test or a still visual. So, to stay in your business, you need to create leveraging videos. The time has gone where anything would have worked.

 Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) and PWA

The mobile devices are driving a great business. The mobile wave has captured more than 60% sales which we can’t ignore.  The second selling channel is Google. In 2019, the priority is to increase Google ranking by reducing the load time of the website. The required speed is initiated by using AMP pages which load in less than0.5 seconds creating a good experience in comparison to mobile pages.

Progressive Web Apps (PWA) exists as a middle ground between your official responsive website and a native app. PWA is an excellent technique to bridge the gap between the mobile app and website pages. The use will continue to grow in 2019 balancing the mobile and web applications.

Some advantages of PWA to your website are:

-Faster loading time
-Better website experience
-Eliminates app development costs

AMP allows your site to render fast to improve website ranking on Google searches while PWA eliminates the high cost of building a mobile app and provides the same great experience to visitors on your mobile site.

Explore New Heights with Native Technologies

The users view ads on the website ever since the evolution of the internet. The website visitors get pop up ads that interfere with their user experience. For a long time, the increasing number of ads has started bothering users. The number of users blocking the ads has increased. The alternative to online ads is native advertising. The look of a native ad is like a web page, and they are not like usual advertisements. Social media and Amazon are promoting native apps. The amount spent on making the name Users can create a shortcut on the apps is going to get doubled this year. They will further expand as the use of social media will become more prevalent.

User-Generated Original Content

There is nothing more attractive than using the practical experience of a user consuming your product. Majorly, there are two advantages of using user-generated content over various marketing channels available to business:

i). Convincing Power: With user-generated content, your current customers are marketing your products for you. It’s like a word-of-mouth campaign. Your customers start feeling attached to your brand, and they connect to you in a better way.

ii). Freeware is the first choice: You don’t have to spend on this type of marketing. It has more power than your other marketing channels. People love to enjoy free things.

The whole idea is to make the customers aware of using the products. Once he is convinced, your work is done. After this, direct advertising has a little effect on online business. All of us must have felt this power which is influencing the digital market. In 2019, the focus will be on producing actual based original content.

Final Trends:

The year 2019 will be about better customer interactions with personalization, automation and AI-powered technology. To stay ahead in the digital marketing curve is to increase conversions in 2019. The focus will be on attracting more customers by using conversational content (Audio and Video) and to built applications for the targeted audience. Let’s gear up ourselves to have an exotic digital marketing boost in 2019!

International Women’s Day 2018 Celebrating the Elegance of Womanhood

Mothers, sisters, friends, fiancées, wives, daughters, aunts…… For once, just think your life without them? Not possible, right? When we can’t even imagine our lives without them, the mere thought of spending one day without their presence sends acold shiver down the spine. We owe everything to these lovely women in our lives; from a loving mother to teasing sister and supporting wife to darling daughter, they have kept on sacrificing their moments and happiness that ultimately paved the path of our success. And for their sacrifices, we can’t do anything to repay them! But, on the eve of International Women’s Day, the family of Live Deftsoft takes the opportunity to thank them from the core of our heart for all that they have done for us without any selfish thought.

On the eve of International Women’s Day that is celebrated worldwide on 8th of March every year, Deftsoft decided to celebrate this beautiful day in a unique way. There was a cooking competition among the lovely ladies of Deftsoft and boy, we were simply impressed with their culinary skills! When the dishes were presented, it felt as if we are watching an episode of Master Chef. Our ladies proved that no one can multitask better than them. They showed that if they can handle a project, they can also create culinary masterpieces. After the competition, the management gifted a beautiful red rose for every lady that she truly deserves one for being the ambitious, fierce and loving person.

In the end, all we want to say is a big Thank You for being there and being a part of our life!