Top 10 Ecommerce Platforms of 2017 Compared

More than 45% of all online purchases are initiated with a Search Engine Query. Thus making Search Engine Optimization, one of the most important factors for Ecommerce Businesses. You need to ensure that your products are found easily on Search Engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Today, we will be comparing the Top 10 Ecommerce Platforms 2016, not only because of their SEO friendliness but also due to a lot of other factors that we shall discuss each one of them.

Where most online marketers fail to make the right decision is by sticking with the first Ecommerce Solution that comes to their mind, only to realize that the platform they have chosen does not have all the features that they require to sell their products online. There are some Ecommerce software that offers a full array of SEO features, while there are some that offer them at a cost, and there is also a breed of software that does not offer any SEO friendliness at all.

So, without further ado, let’s dive into our Top 10 Rankings for Ecommerce SEO Software in 2017, taking into consideration the Alexa Rankings (which show popularity) as well.

First up on the line is definitely the Magento Platform…

Magento

Magento is an eCommerce platform based on open source technology, which provides online merchants a scalable and flexible online store with full control over the content, look, and functionality of the shopping cart system as well as it offers search engine optimization, robust marketing, and catalog-management tools.

Pros:

Flexibility – The architecture of Magento allows you to customize templates and to develop functionality according to your needs as this is an open-source platform.
Feature-rich – Magento’s community version allows you to manage multiple storefronts, multi-location, multi-currency, multi-language with a user-friendly UI and easy navigation.
Pricing – The community version is free for small to medium-sized businesses. Magento Enterprise costs $18,000 per year for enterprise business solutions.
Community – Magento has large community users, who have developed many plugins and extensions, which will help you in real-time. Apart from that, it has a simple back-end and organized store that can be easily manageable.

Cons:

Hosting – Magento needs a dedicated server that is specialized in Magento. Normal hosting platforms cannot handle it due to its bulkiness and that results in a slow and irritating user experience.
Pricing – The enterprise version will cost you around $18,000 a year, and it’s more for a customized premium enterprise.
Developers – Magento developers are very hard to find because of extremely large database, and if you find one, their charges are exceptionally high.
Time – Even on having a flexible architecture, customization are hard to make because of its loading speed on different platforms.

Shopify

Shopify is an all in one eCommerce solution, which allows you to set up an online store to sell your goods, and provides customers with a great user experience. It features customizable templates, an organized storefront, ‘Buy Button’ functionality, which allows you to use Shopify as a Point of Sale (POS) option and let customers buy your goods anywhere online.

Pros:

Speed and security – Shopify is integrated with payment providers, and its built-in speed checkout allows customers to pay with minimal load time.
Marketing – Shopify allows custom Title tags, meta descriptions on every category page for SEO purpose and also allows you to build customized landing pages for marketing purposes.
Design – Shopify offers multiples free themes and numerous custom-built premium themes along with the option to customize and add features for Developers.
App Store – Shopify App store has all the features that you need to run an online business. It provides various free and paid Apps and adds flexibility for the brands having an online presence all around the web.

Cons:

Pricing – Shopify’s basic plan starts from $29 a month; the average plan is for $79 a month, and advanced Shopify is for $299 a month.
Customization Hacking – Shopify uses a different setup to customize their themes rather than using PHP for their templates. It might be a problem for first timers on Shopify.
Content Marketing – Shopify’s blogging platform is not as great as WordPress as it provides a basic layout for blogging.
Lock-In feature – Lock-in features to delete your online store permanently. Shifting from Shopify to another online store may not be a very smooth journey.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce is a One-stop solution to build an online store. It provides you customizable storefronts with control of the database.

Pros:

Integrated Knowledge – BigCommerce provides you tons of learning materials (In-depth videos, how to – guides, automatic email series, setup wizard,) that helps you to learn and implement.
Good Speed & Security – BigCommerce allows you to divest the technical issues (without spending $ on developers) and easy POS gives your customers a hassle-free shopping experience.
Distinctive Built-in Features – BigCommerce is integrated with Alibaba, the world’s largest marketplace for wholesalers, which is the intuitive feature of BigCommerce. Apart from that, it has a transparent technical insight, which is a plus for any business.
In-built Marketing Feature – It is integrated with Google Shopping, eBay Store, SEO set up and AdWords ad generator.
Cooperative Customer Service – BigCommerce has support via Facebook, active forums, learning modules and much more that helps you understand the platform.

Cons:

Pricing – For new and Emerging businesses, it costs around $29.95/mo. (Standard) and $79.95/mo. (plus). For fast growing and established brands, it’s around $199.95/mo. (Pro) & for Enterprise, Charges are higher for customization packages.
Lock-in – If you are switching hosting platforms, then chances are high to lose all your content while shifting due to Lock-in feature of it or you would be facing pretty high switching charges.
List Management – List is accessible throughout the screen instead of having it’s a dedicated area.
Functional Customization – It is not an open source platform. So, if you want to do few tweaks to your functionality, it’d be difficult for you.

WooCommerce

NOTE: WooCommerce is not actually a platform, it is a Plugin for WordPress, which is again an open source Content Management System. It is free of cost.

You might not have heard about Magento or Shopify, but you have surely come across WooCommerce. It is one of the leading e-commerce platforms worldwide. WooCommerce Plugin turns your website into a robust Online Store in a matter of minutes.

Pros:

Pricing – It’s free! This is one of the biggest advantages of WooCommerce. All you have to do is to download the plugin in WordPress and build an online store with this toolkit without spending a single penny.
Familiarity – WooCommerce is familiar to those who have been working on WordPress or have a website on the platform as it is just a plugin to be installed to get started.
Customizable Toolkit – WooCommerce provides you various customizable standard templates for free.
Security – WooCommerce is a very secured platform with its updated POS.

Cons:

Frequent Updates – WordPress keeps updating its software frequently to avoid bugs, but the plugins aren’t too quick to adapt to changes. So, the plugins won’t be compatible with the changes and might leave you slow and frustrated User Experience.
Expensive Customizable theme – WooCommerce is an open-source platform that lets the developers play with the themes, and as each theme is programmed differently, it might cost you a lot to hire a developer to get done what you want.

OsCommerce

OsCommerce is a popular eCommerce platform having thousands of community members including developers and support forums. It has an open source technology and is free of cost.

Pros:

Large community – The osCommerce community has over 1.5 million individual posts with hundreds of thousands of members. So, if you stuck at anything, you can always find a way out with the help of this forum.
Easy Modification – osCommerce comes with an easy modification panel even if you are doing it by yourself without any knowledge of codes.
Plugins & Add-ons – osCommerce provides a wide range of plugins and add-ons to enhance the features of your site.

Cons:

Error Prone – osCommerce can be prone to malware and bugs as most of the times, website breakdown while checking out.
Manual Involvement – Instead of having built-in features, it requires manual interference to manage the site. This makes osCommerce more time consuming than other platforms.
Not so scalable – This platform is only good for small to mid-size businesses. Not a great option for Enterprise Businesses.

Squarespace

Squarespace is a drag and drop web development site that delivers riche-imagery and a great user experience to users. All in all, if you want your website to look visually engaging, professional, and classy at the same time, Squarespace is surely a platform to consider. It is not free.

Pros:

Mobile Responsive – All Squarespace templates are mobile responsive across all the devices, which is a huge advantage as mobile usability has increased a lot today.
Professional Templates – Squarespace provides you with clean, elegant, and rich template designs with a sophisticated feel to make your website stand out.
Customizable Features – It provides you extensive styling options to choose from. You can easily do tweaks to your site without even knowledge of heavy coding.

Cons:

Different Design on Mobile – Although Squarespace templates are mobile responsive When you hit the publish button, the design differentiates from the website.
Wide-ranging styling options – Due to the extensive styling tools, provided by Squarespace, choosing a fixed design can be a tough task if you don’t have the creative eye. Basically, you have to go for trial and error method to find out suitable design for you.
Single Integration – Squarespace’s eCommerce platform only integrates with one payment processor (Stripe). Even though stripe is a secure platform, but we would love to see more Payment gateway integrations in the platform in the future.

Volusion

Volusion is also a popular name in the Ecommerce Software arsenal. When you use Volusion, it is more like leasing an online store. As a business owner, you can take care of all the merchandising, marketing, sales and growth, and leave all the dirty work like security, updates, and maintenance to the owner.

Pros:

Built in On-boarding Materials and Training – Paying a little extra for the Volusion Platform totally justifies the cost because not only do they have a library of troubleshooting guides, but every store comes with a Volusion Account Specialist, who will take special interest into setting up the store exactly the way you want.
Speed and Security – When you are hosting your own Ecommerce Website with WordPress and WooCommerce for example, two of the most common challenges you will face is optimizing the Speed and Security. With Volusion, that will never be a problem because their trained staffs will take care of all those factors.
Search Engine Optimization – Through Volusion does have some SEO hurdles to avoid like duplicate pages and wrong HTTPS redirects, other than that it does have a robust array of SEO functionalities inbuilt into the platform.

Cons:

The Pricing Is Ultra Complex – The pricing of Volusion is a pain to figure out as they have multiple point of charges. First, there is the recurring monthly fee that you have to pay for the Selected Package, then there are the platform transaction fees, credit card transaction fees, and your add-ons and extra features fees.
Separate Mobile Site Setup – Volusion Stores mobile version is not the responsive version of your website. Customers are redirected to the m.yoursite.com version of your store, which will not be able to offer the exact same or even close experience as your web store.
Not Many Add-ons Available – Unlike BigCommerce, Shopify and WordPress, Volusion fails to impress in the functionality end. Most eCommerce store owners would prefer to have modern features in their website, but Volusion does not have a massive list of add-ons, unlike its other competitors.

Prestashop

Prestashop surely makes it to our Top 10 List of Ecommerce Software in 2016. We believe that this platform has great potential. With its roots in France, Prestashop is considered the European answer to “Magento.” The platform is open-source, and it also gives businesses the resilience and ease to build an inexpensive but modern and updated eCommerce Store.

Pros:

Official Market Place – Prestashop has an official marketplace with over 3500 themes and customizations to choose from.
Intuitive and User-friendly Interface – Not only does this platform pack a punch of innovation, but it gives users the ability to customize each and every nut and gear on the platform.
Free of Cost – Being an open source platform means it is free of cost, which provides a low entry barrier for online merchants who want to get the feel of starting an Ecommerce Website.
Multiple Currencies and Languages – It supports multiple currencies and over 41 Languages and counting.

Cons:

Expensive Add-ons and Modules – Though the platform is itself open source, you need to pay a hefty sum for getting additional modules and plugins from the marketplace.
Not Scalable – The platform is suitable for Small to Mid-sized businesses as it doesn’t have a multi-store feature, which is the biggest requirement of large projects.
No Options for Cross-selling – There is no option to up-sell or cross-sell, which is a common feature in most other Ecommerce Platforms.

Open Cart

Open Cart is an online software dedicated to eCommerce businesses to make life easier for wholesalers and buyers by providing them open source environment. Its user interface is intuitive and the experience of working in Open Cart is great.

Pros:

Advanced Features – Open Cart offers a good set of features, including organized manner for order processing and robust catalog functionality.
Pricing – It is free to use unless you want to download and install multiple paid extensions, which is easily manageable by small to mid-size businesses.
Documentation – Open Cart comes with its own documentation modules with ‘How to’ guides and step by step tutorials including videos and screenshots.
User-Friendly Interface – Open cart’s interface makes it more user-friendly even for beginners with its easy and simple dashboard.

Cons:

Not Proving Cache – Open cart doesn’t provide you Cache, and in order to improve your website performance, you will need to install extensions.
Complex Customization – Store customization is a complex process in the Open Cart, which might be a big constraint for some businesses.

Zen Cart

Zen Cart is an online eCommerce platform designed solely for online merchants. It is based on PHP, MySQL and is an open source technology built by developers, designers, and shop holders for creating a simple solution for eCommerce businesses.

Pros:

Multiple Add-ons & languages – Zen Cart comes with multiple additional features, which are downloadable from the website itself. The Add-ons range from adding various languages to adding extra administrative tools.
Secure Platform – Zen Cart has a great product management system, and its automated features lessen the manual struggle. And, when it comes to security, the Zen cart won’t let you down.
Scalable Software – Zen Cart offers a wide range of professional templates that allow you to customize your website to make it stand out for your customers.
Community support – Zen Cart has a robust forum and community, which supports you in real time with quick response and step by step tutorials.

Cons:

Average Templates – You must be thinking after bragging about its free and paid templates, why am I listing down this as a con. Well, the reason is their templates are not so appealing and do not stand in a competition where Magento and Shopify provide a classy look to your website.
Complex Upgradation – Once you settle down with your website modification you can forget about getting any upgrades shortly. In case you want to do so, you have to start from scratch, thanks to the complex Add-on Integration of Zen cart.
No Formal Support – There is no formal support for Zencart. But users in the forum are pretty active and they will help you out in most cases. Even their newsletter and autoresponders are unreliable.
Basic Reporting – The reporting of Zen cart is pretty basic, which means that apart from the number of products purchased, you won’t have much statistics at the end of the month.

Concluding Remarks

If you are choosing an eCommerce platform for your online business, then you should always tread carefully. While you might think that going with a top class solution like Magento or Prestashop might do the trick, but it might not be a feasible option for your business scalability in the long run.

Take, for example, if you make a hurried decision today and select a platform that is not able to convince and convert your visitors, just because of the limited functionality on the platform, you will be at a point of no return.

WooCommerce is my most favorite Ecommerce Platform because of a variety of factors. It is open-source, most plugins are really cheap, and themes too. So all in all this is the best bet for anyone looking to host a self-hosted store online.

If you need any help with Setting up your Ecommerce Store, you can always get in touch with me through the comment section of this blog, or you can also put up a request on our Official Facebook Page.

21 OctResearch

Freelancer Vs Entrepreneur Vs Businessman. Which type are you?

“I have an idea and going to get into a startup.” “I don’t have to go somewhere else for work; I can take over my dad’s business.” “I am interested in working on my own.”

These are a few conversations we happen to come across in our daily lives. We see youngsters dreaming about the way of making money, and we wait to see some succeeding and another failing in one way or another.

Why do a few succeed while others’ dreams vanish into a “poof”?

I think it is because of what and how we define every future vision or the ways to make ourselves wealthy.

There are lots of definitions which are going or are waiting to, describe who we are in this life journey and every part of our life.

Talking about every particle of life in a blog is impossible. Therefore, I am going to take you on tour around the part of life where we turn to make money to determine our lives and the lives of the individuals who are us.

The top way to earn money, these days, is to get into a business. But there are different roles in this business world, and this blog focuses on the top three options: freelancer, entrepreneur, and business-minded person.

Let’s look at what their lifestyle is like, and you can, in the end, choose who you want to be.

Freelancer for the beginning

According to the definitions provided widely, a freelancer is a self-employed individual who works on several assignments as he or she prefers. But, being self-employed doesn’t mean that you are a freelancer because it is a life with several attributes and attitudes of yours.

So what does it look like to be a freelancer?

Firstly, If you are a freelancer, you are an independent worker. You are not going to work under someone, or going to take orders from anyone but you. Freelancing is going to be your world, and you are going to rule yourself. Therefore, you can choose your clients and your work location. Your clients are going to be short-term ones and your working locations can constantly be changing. You can work from your room, coffee table, a cafe or from your vacation spot. Your workplace is not going to be restricted to a 5 feet cabin. Also, you determine how much you are going to get paid for a task to be done. Every extra work you do for your client doesn’t have to be free, and you can be demanding a few $$$ for that.

Most of the freelancers are work-oriented, and as I have already mentioned, their life revolves around freelancing. There will be a thirst for money induced through the multi-tasks that fill your bank accounts. This attitude of yours will be driving you away from your family, friend circle, and society. It also means that you are going to be alone on this journey. Plus, your work sticks to the deadlines of your several commitments for several different clients. Unless you are good at finishing your projects before the deadline, you are going to suffocate without fun and travel.

The Final thing about being a freelancer is, it wouldn’t give you recognition in your society. It is mainly because of job insecurity. You will have projects today at your hand, but your future projects are never sure. You might or might not have projects in your hand. You might be rich through freelancing, but people would still question the lasting of your money.

And making money isn’t everything, is it?

That is the general lifestyle of a freelancer. But, the lifestyle of a business person is going to be entirely different. If you are a freelancer who thinks that you are a business person, let me guide you into the lifestyle of a business person.

How does the life of a business person look like?

Like the freelancer, the business person is going to be independent too. Again, you are the boss of the company, and you are the decision-makers. You can decide your clients and colleagues. Since most of your time will be shared with your business and your company, it provides all the possibilities for you to learn, and enhance your business. Plus, all the rewards of the company will come unto you, which will eventually give you recognition in your community.

But, the lives of a business person is not easy as it seems. Most the business minded individuals enter the industrial world with existing ideas. Either they take up an existing company, or an idea. Working on an existing idea means, you have to compete with the existing champions and keep up the hard work to stay on the top.

Most business individuals would want to do this for the sake of profit and scared of losing what they have invested. It is mostly about money. Avoiding taking risks or trying new chances, you would only want to focus on what you could do instead of the risks.

And, your business mind will enforce you to think of the possibilities where you can invest your money, rather than risking taking with that money.

Your mindset is going to see competition seriously and will make you want to win the race. You would want to think of all the possibilities to beat your competitors.

This would also mean that you are going to get everything you could from your employee’s skills. The relationship between you and your employee will be a more boss-employee relationship, than a friendly one.

You can be a better Business person now, but life is not all about business, is it? Still, you can try to be a mixture of a business-minded entrepreneur. But wouldn’t you want to know what it looks like to be an entrepreneur?

What is it like to be an entrepreneur?

If I ask you to name a few entrepreneurs, you would start from Mark Zuckerberg, our Facebook Boy, and go on to Walt Disney.

What makes them so special and recognizable in the world?

From the biographies, autobiographies, and interviews I happen to come across these game-changers, they live a unique life.

Let’s have a look at Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook guy; he came up with the idea that has shaken the social media world and almost the digital world. If you look into his story, he and his team came up with the idea that involved their skills. This idea and skills put together eventually turned into a startup that is now a big company providing a job for thousands of co-workers.

It is how most entrepreneurs start their journey. They turn into one who wants to change the world in some way, and they use their ideas and skills to work on it.

Although the foundation of such startups will be laid by one man, or a few individuals who worked on the idea, the company, its tasks, and its future are mostly automated and the workload is shared among the staffs.

Most of the entrepreneurs are “start then, and there” type and they are risk-takers. Most of the famous entrepreneurs’ risk taking actions began in dropping out of school or colleges. Since they are instant decision-makers, they know that it is better to give a try and either succeed or learn a lesson, than to regret it later in life.

An entrepreneur is a very much good at managing his/her time for his/her office life and his/her personal life. It is because they have their tasks automated and shared among their staffs so that the entrepreneur is not struggling alone like a freelancer.

Naturally, entrepreneurs are leaders. They believe in working, collaborating, and bringing the best out of their colleagues. The boss-employee relationship is taboo, and it is mostly”all colleagues are equal” type of relationship. Entrepreneurs are good at taking care of their co-workers as a parent caring for his or her children, which would make the staffs feel comfortable in the workplace and out of the workplace. Also, an entrepreneur is always willing to share his or her knowledge with colleagues and be more transparent.

In a few words, an entrepreneur is an entrepreneur, manager, risk-taker, a parent to his colleagues, and inspiration in the office.

Summing-up

No job is easy. Let it be a freelancer, an entrepreneur, or a business person you have to face quite a lot of struggles. If you are a freelancer, you can be self-employed and rich. Still, you would have to worry about being not recognized among your circles and not spending enough time to spend with your family and environment. Being a business person, you will have your company and professional network. Still, you’re going to miss your personal life. Although an entrepreneur at the beginning has to struggle, gradually you will learn to manage your official and personal life. Since you are teaching everyone around you to walk beside you rather than follow you, you would have a positive environment around you.

In this Freelancer Vs Entrepreneur Vs business person race, you are to decide who you are. So decide what you want to be: a freelancer, an entrepreneur, or a business person.

Also, I have only given an overall view of the lifestyles of the freelancers, entrepreneurs, and business guys. You might be one of them I have spoken of, or you might have happened to work with them, hence let your thoughts and experiences flow in our comment box.

20 OctResearch

Secrets For The Internet Penetration in Sri Lanka 2016 Revealed.

We are well past the 3rd Quarter of 2016, so it might be the ideal time to see how we Sri Lankan’s have used the Internet and Social Media so far. The internet penetration in Sri Lanka 2016 a remarkable growth of mobile broadband connections and an exceptional growth of fixed the internet connection demand, the country is making a digital hub with the growth of e-commerce industry in Sri Lanka. Sri Lankan’s general lifestyle has changed with the internet penetration growth within last few years.

One of the major aspects that have enriched and enhanced in Sri Lankans’ lifestyle is the easy accessibility to the internet via smartphones and other technological devices. It plays an integral part in our day to day life by facilitating us with mobile banking, bill payments, and online shopping.

However, Sri Lanka’s average internet usage is increasing gradually with regards to the previous decade. According to the Colombo Digital Marketer, the number of active internet users in Sri Lanka is more than 5 Million. The reasons behind the growth of the internet penetration Sri Lanka are smartphone usage, the popularity of social media channels, the growth of e-commerce, the growth of academic systems, the growth of digital marketing efforts, gaming, online jobs, and the industrial and commercial factors.

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Internet Penetration Statistics 2016

According to Internetlivestats.com, currently Sri Lanka has 6,087,164 internet users, and it is 29.3% of the total population. It’s a share of 0.2% out of 3,424,971,237 internet users worldwide. We can see a huge growth if we compare the stats with the year 2011. The current number of Facebook users is more than 3.5 million and according to Colombo Digital Marketer, more than 60K Sri Lankan’s using Instagram. But we can see a considerable growth of users and the presence of marketers on Instagram within this year.

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The Internet has changed Sri Lankans’ Lifestyle

The internet has changed Sri Lankans’ life with communicational advancement through the apps like Viber, What’s app and Facebook Messenger. Localizing these apps with local languages and the apps like Viber have standardized and adapted among Sri Lankans’ by offering the chat stickers with local languages. According to dailyft, Sri Lanka has over 5.3 million Viber users and Sri Lanka has became a one of top 5 markets for Viber sticker usage. Androidian.lk says Viber is the most famous messaging app among Sri lankans’ even though Whatsapp is the most popular app globally. The stickers with local languages and offering seasonal stickers might be the reason behind the growth of Viber usage in Sri Lanka.

People tend to log on to the internet for their entertaining purposes rather than watching television or listening to radio. Many local Facebook pages and websites that entertain people with funny videos, images, news alerts and articles on social media platforms as well as on the websites.

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Hackathons and workshops happened within last twelve months

We saw a huge amount of hackathons and workshops happening in Sri Lanka within last two years including Startup Weekend Jaffna, Colombo, Disrupt Asia, AngeHack Colombo and much more. The online news media like Readme and Roar have published news articles regarding the hackathons, and they got a considerable engagement for those articles. And also lots of people have shown their interest in these events via social media. It seems people have the curiosity, interest and the knowledge regarding hackathons happening around them and the organizations have sponsored for these events since they have realized the importance of supporting those events

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Telecommunication & technology development

According to ITU statistical market overview, Sri Lanka has a relatively high mobile-cellular penetration, which has more than doubled from around 27% in 2006 to over 87% by the end of 2011 and at the beginning of the year 2012 it was higher than the regional average. Major mobile operators have introduced 4g LTE to the Sri Lankan market in contrast to 3g technology it is almost four times faster. SLT has introduced fibre to home technology which is almost faster than ADSL, and the major telecommunication providers have updated their backbone network from microwave to fibre.

This telecommunication development has a huge impact the growth of the Internet usage in Sri Lanka, and we can see that the mobile broadband usage has shown a huge growth within last two years.

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Recent Digital Marketing efforts

The marketers have successfully utilized the social media channels to attract their audience mostly in the Western province. The brands like Kelly Felder, G Flock, Glimmer, Zig Zag have successfully captured their target audience through social media channels. Facebook giveaways are also quite popular among Sri Lanka’s Facebook communities. Earlier people used to log on to Facebook for finding friends and use chat option. But at this moment it has become more like a search engine for some people, a news blog a market place and also a communication channel. Recently some brands have done commercials with social media celebrities like Nawran and Podda, and we noticed that they had got a considerable engagement for those commercials on social media. The companies like WSO2, Virtusa, MAS Holdings , Brandix are utilizing their LinkedIn profiles to attract new people and to distribute corporate news and messages.

According to Alexa.com, Ikman.lk, gossiplankanews.com, hirunews.lk, adaderana.lk and baiscopelk.com are the most popular local websites among Sri Lankans. And most of the GDn ads are make their placements on these top websites to get more online visibility of their brands. E commerce industry is growing like mushrooms, and recently we saw a growth of courier companies like hire 1 and the companies like WebXpay and <https://www.linkedin.com/company/payhere/?originalSubdomain=lk” target=”_blank” rel=”nofollow noopener”>Payhere which are offering websites, payment gateways for low budget online businesses. It seems the growth of E-commerce industry has given opportunities to new businesses and people are adapting to the digital world, and we will be able to see a huge Internet penetration growth within next few years.

The growth of the internet penetration in Sri Lanka has caused to the commercial and industrial development and also caused to social issues as well. Cyber security has to be controlled, and the people should be educated about using the internet in an ethical way. With the growing telecommunication infrastructure facilities, we can predict more than 35% internet penetration within next few years .

We have seen so many changes in lifestyles, as well as the changes in the corporate sector, and we can expect more in the future as well. More people will get the internet access, and they will spend more time on the internet. The traditional communication media going to be outdated and the social media and other online platforms going to be a single marketplace. What do you say about it? Do you too, like me want to grab the opportunity? If you are going to, then let me know your thoughts in the comment box below. Let’s predict future of it together.

20 OctSEO

Here’s Why Good SEO Doesn’t Need To Be Expensive!

If you have been shopping around for SEO Services in the market for some time, you are probably aware of the fact that companies are selling SEO Services at 50 bucks a month and there are companies selling as Expensive Enterprise SEO services at $5000 a month.

This major rift in the price is an aggravating factor for most new businesses entering the SEO game.

But we stand by the saying that “Good SEO is never cheap, and cheap SEO is never good!”

Most of our past clients will tell you that SEO is by far the best ROI they have ever experienced. We have customers spending $ on Television Advertisements, Radio, Newspapers, Magazines, Celebrity Branding, and whatnot, but SEO is the most compact and measurable form of investment.

If you are reading this blog right now, then chances are you were looking for an SEO Provider, but are facing one of the following problems if I am not mistaken:

You LACK THE KNOWLEDGE to implement SEO for your company
You don’t have access to EXPERT INFORMATION you can blindly trust
You have been BURNT IN THE PAST by an SEO company
You are confused about where to ALLOCATE MARKETING BUDGET
Your BUSINESS IS STAGNANT, and you are out of ideas

Needless to say, you have one of the following goals as well, but you are far from them:

You want MORE CUSTOMERS and LEADS
You want to PROFIT MAXIMIZE your current customers
You want to AUTOMATE your marketing and earn while you sleep
You want to free yourself from everyday business OPERATIONS and focus on other things

Whatever be your case, you should continue reading to understand the true cost of SEO for your business!

Who is Enterprise SEO for?

Business Owners and Marketers who want to grow their profits exponentially by selling software (SaaS), Platforms (PaaS), Infrastructure (IaaS), Information Products, E-commerce Products, or Online Services.
Entrepreneurs who are constantly on the lookout to tap new ideas and get their voice heard by people who matter.
Marketers who want to stay ahead of the competition by investing in the form of marketing that continuously adds value to their business.
Ambitious individuals who understand that being successful is a matter of Time and Effort. Luck is no excuse.

Who Enterprise SEO is NOT For?

People, looking for getting rich money schemes or people who want overnight results from their investment. (This mindset sucks)
Affiliate Marketers and Bloggers Looking for more traffic
Brick and Mortar store owners who sell low-ticket products or just don’t have an investable profit margin. (We love you guys, but you are better off with a combination of Local SEO, Online Reputation Management, and Link Acquisition Services)
and Again, anyone who wants instant results just because they paid for the services.

Good SEO Doesn’t Necessarily Have to be Expensive, the Actual Cost of SEO is Relative!

Why I say relative, is because the term “expensive” is relative from client to client. For some customers, an SEO campaign for $10,000 might be intolerable, while others may call it a bargain for the value they are receiving.

There are 4.82 Billion Websites on the web. Source, and out of that 91 % of the websites are not optimized for SEO. Every site, niche, and the client has unique requirements, and a custom solution is of supreme importance in this case.

Though $10000 or even $5000 is not necessarily going to rate for our Enterprise SEO services, there are some cases where we have changed over those figures in the Web Hosting Industry (for example), which is entirely relative to the benefits they received for the price.

Good SEO Take Time and Research

While some uninformed SEO providers may tell you that SEO is all about using automated software and mindlessly building backlinks to your website, with the Penguin 4.0 rolling out in real-time, there is bad news for them, and their clients, and even for you if you happen to associate with them.

Note: If you have purchased SEO Services from such providers in the past, it would be good to get your link profile checked and quarantined immediately to avoid the Penguin Hammer!

There is a lot of research and strategizing that goes into a full-throttle SEO campaign. Terms like on-page SEO, Email Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Conversion Optimization, and Inbound Marketing all come into play. After a fully run SEO Campaign, you might start to see some results right off the bat, but technically they are just the icing on the cake, as compared to the long-term results that you might aim for.

Just Like a Lawyer charges for the time spent on researching your case, the same is the case with a Search Engine Optimizer or Consultant. There are quite a few metrics and baseline reports that need evaluation before even starting industry research to evaluate the present standing of a client, by which a custom Enterprise SEO Strategy is developed.

Crawling deeper into the tunnel, SEO Research takes into consideration learning about the Industry and the Area where the client wants to compete in. Learning more about the direct and indirect competitors in the market. Finding the Achilles Heel of your competitors and capitalizing on their mistakes. When doing SEO, you not only have to deploy as many strategies as your competitors are using but also more if you want to beat them shortly. Such influential factors are the primary reason for the relatively high-end price of SEO.

Good SEO Takes Strategy and Expertise

Every professional SEO firm will have some trade secrets of their own, which they have picked up from their years of research or Top Dogs in the professional SEO Network. Either way, these strategies are their ace of spade, and they use it along with Proprietary Tools and Tricks to get results for their clients. Though every client might require a custom strategy, the base of all SEOs will remain the same.

SEO is an art. Thus an SEO Firm is an artist. We believe the measure of SEO should not be in the price, but what it gets you in return for the price. In the last few years, especially after the launch of Penguin 3.0 in 2014, a vast majority of SEO businesses shut down. You know the reason why.

When you pay top dollar for the service you receive, you can expect a reliable SEO company (one that will not shut down after another Google Algorithm Update) always to use ethical and white-hat SEO strategies that will get you long term gains, not penalties.

How Do We Price Our Service?

Now, I can’t speak for other SEO agencies, but if you are wondering why Prime One Global’s Enterprise SEO Services cost as much as they do, then I can explain. Prime One Global has a unique way of operating SEO Campaigns. When you come to us, we treat you like our own. We treat your business like our own. We understand that actual business growth can only happen when our clients grow with our business. This is why we make it a point to learn about each and every aspect of your business to better manage your SEO campaigns.

All our services come with the following:

Around The Clock Dedicated Account Manager – We hold ourselves responsible for your business. This means that you will have access to a dedicated account manager who understands SEO, 24×7. You can contact your manager via Email, Skype, or Phone whenever you need.

Most of our clients understand that Prime One Global Account Manager is one of the key USPs of our service. They take guidance from the account manager on not only the proceedings of the campaign but also on other things like how to manage their online reputation, keep their blog active, respond to negative reviews or run advertising campaigns on Facebook or Google.

Full Suite Dedicated Support Team – Not only will you have access to the Account Manager, but you will also be connected to the various members of staff who are responsible for different parts of your campaign in our Enterprise Client Dashboard. In general, we have around 9-11 Members running a Digital Campaign and each member has a separate role to play, which you will be well aware of.

From task execution through task completion, you will be kept in the loop by the team members, and you can always ask questions about anything you do not understand. From Digital Marketing Strategists to SEO Consultants and Analysts, Website Auditors, Developers and Designers, Copywriters, and Social Media Managers, you will have them all in a single dashboard. Imagine if you had to hire them all individually and train them in-house. We take the hassle away and become an extension of your business.

Detailed Monthly and On-demand Reports – And no, our reports are not filled with technical Jargons that you cannot understand head or tail from. Our reports are neatly crafted to make you understand the value you are getting for your money at the end of each month.

Most companies provide SEO reports with a bunch of fancy numbers showing the amount of traffic your website is getting at the end of the month. But we understand that this traffic is no good to you if it doesn’t help your bottom line. You will get actionable advice for the next months with the reports that connect your data to a number of leads that you acquire and how you can use the data to expand your business shortly.

So, as we said earlier, the cost of good SEO is relative and always reasonable to the number of benefits you receive for your money.

The Undeniable Truth Most SEO Firms Will Never Tell You!

As the adage goes – “You Get What You Pay For,” the same is the case with SEO. Have you ever been offered low-key SEO services by a company saying they can do it all for like 50 bucks a month, better yet 500, if you are willing to take an entire year’s plan? Well, guess what, when something appears too good to be true, it surely is.

One of the most important things that are required for Website Ranking is content. Web pages rank individually and not websites. So, a considerable amount of time, money, and research go into creating those materials. Proper care has to be taken into crafting the page titles, optimizing the meta tags, checking keyword density, outbound links, interconnecting links, call to action, and images to say the very least.

Thus, a considerable amount of time has to be spent on creating the content for your website, which no cheap firm is ever going to provide to you. One of the incentives of working with Prime One Global is that you get One or Two dedicated copywriters for your account. A perk, which most SEO companies do not want to give you.

Back in 2013, one of our clients left us, because they found an “Affordable” Solution to their SEO. The fact that the company was offering them the moon for pennies did not apparently strike them as obnoxious. They left us saying that we were charging too high for what they were getting only to come back to us in 2014 with Penguin 3.0 rolled out.

Their website traffic looked something like this.

Similar was the case with their website. They started losing leads and lost a significant amount of business in consecutive months. Thankfully, this time, when they came back, we knew that we had earned a client for life. Immediately we got on with the link profile audit and link removal outreach plan. After a few months, we submitted their website for Google Reconsideration, and phew… they started to get back their old tracking in a year.

THIS IS THE ACTUAL COST OF CHEAP SEO. THE PRICE THEY HAD TO PAY WITH THEIR OWN BUSINESS.

They learned the hard way that using an unreliable and inexpensive SEO company is not a good idea for long-term rankings. So, should you learn from their mistakes?

Now tell me something.

Good SEO Doesn’t Need to Be Expensive, Right? The Price is Relative. I would love to hear what you have to say about this in the comments section below.

Apart from this, there is also another breed of BAD DOGS (read SEO)

Some SEO Companies that don’t charge you a feasible monthly fee (by feasible I mean the cost to at least support the infrastructure and staff for running a White-hat SEO Campaign), actually want to keep charging you for keeping your website Ranked. They want to lock you into a contract and as soon as you leave the company your rankings drop.

These companies only rent out links and create a very spammy link profile, which again is not an ethical way to do SEO. There are some businesses that do not give you ownership of your website and content, and when you decide to leave them, they tell you to part ways with your site and content. So, it is always a good idea to ask as many questions to your SEO Provider before hiring them.

The Verdict

SEO is termed relatively inexpensive if you look at it from the marketing point of view. Take it as an investment that you do for your business. When you compare the costs of marketing in other traditional media channels like Newspapers, Magazines, Billboards, Televisions, etc., the cost of marketing through Search Engines is comparatively lower. If you are already spending some budget on traditional marketing campaigns. You should compare that same spend to the value you would get if you were to invest in doing SEO for your business.

Now does the cost of SEO look too expensive to you? Take a look at some of our preset SEO Packages that serve as a base for most of our campaigns. If you are looking for a custom-tailored SEO Campaign for your business, then we would be happy to create one for you too.

Remember, SEO is not a one-night stand. SEO is trying to establish a long-term relationship with the search engines, where you keep the visitors happy, and the Search Engines keep you happy by sending in more and more visitors. If you still think that SEO is too expensive, then you are just not getting the right results from your investments. Contact Prime One Global today for a no-obligation, free consultation on how we can drive more leads to your business, and get more money in your bank. Good Day!

14 OctResearch

10 Digital Skills We Must Teach Our Children

Kids today spend more time on screen than ever before. The widespread use of gadgets has embedded in the lives of the youngest members of our society. Digital Intelligence is everywhere.

Gone are the good old days when growing up was memory revolving around bike rides, sports, and many other outdoor games. Gone are the days, when dining used to be fun with the interaction between family and kids.

But, today’s children are trickled down by Digital Media. They are so engrossed in the soft glow of their gadgets that they lack the real essence of life.

It is no longer a surprise that technology has replaced most outdoor games. Even pre-school kids know how to use gadgets moderately before they can even tie their shoes!

Experts are concerned about this rapid increase of technology on a toddlers’ developing brain.

According to Pew Research Center, approx. 70 percent of 11-12 years old use smartphones and this increases to almost 90 percent by the age of 14-15.

This considerable time on screen can affect children’s literacy and language in both positive and negative ways. Technology is changing the way of living of the emerging sprouts of our society. Addiction to games and gadgets is spoiling the moral values of kids as well as their thinking capacity.

So, how does Digital Intelligence impact our social and economic life?

The social and economic implication of technology is extensive and hastening. As the volume of information is increasing in a rapid manner, Experts are forecasting that 90% of the global population will be linked to the web within 10-15 years of time. These changes proclaim exciting possibilities. But, there is also uncertainty since our toddlers will be the epicenter of this dynamic change.

The Impact of Technology on the Growing Child

A 2016 study done at Kaiser Foundation talked about, “the involvement of technology in a child’s growth. How technology impacts the immersion of a child from a few months to a few years of age. Even though there is no concrete evidence on the impact of Media Exposure on children, it is an issue that demands immediate attention from health professionals, researchers, educators, and parents alike…”

The electronic media is a vast expanse of knowledge and entertainment. But, in this fast-paced world, our children are on the edge of many risks like cyber-bullying, scams, obscene and violent content, unethical practices, and the addiction to technology. Children are directly exposed to these problems ever after the existence of child protection and Internet governance. Take a look at this piece of news from 2014, about a child who attacked and allegedly killed his grandmother because she interrupted his online game. (Source)

Of course, there is a difference in the internet usage pattern among children and adults, and children are more prone to face hitches due to this gap. Being an adult, it is our responsibility to make our child aware of right or wrong of the digital world, so that our kids won’t lose their path in this era.

So, how can we prepare our kids for the Digital Age?

Digital Intelligence is the key!

Digital Intelligence is the sum of communal, emotional, and intellectual abilities crucial for digital life. It mainly has the essential skills, knowledge, and ability to get accustomed to one’s emotions and behavior to deal with the confronts and demands of the digital age.

These abilities must be engrained in human values of veracity, empathy, respect, and prudence. These values empower the responsible, and wise use of technology – a trait, which will empower the leaders of tomorrow.

Here are the key elements of Digital Intelligence, which should be imparted to our children to make them better prepared for the time to come.

1. Digital identity: This is the ability to understand, create and manage an individual’s online presence and reputation, which includes the knowledge and skills to build and maintain a healthy consistent online and offline identity with self-efficiency.

2. Digital literacy: This is the ability to evaluate information, contacts, and valuable content on the web as well as capability in computational thinking. It also includes the understandability of the damaging effect of false information and the kind of perils associated with strangers online.

3. Digital rights: This is the ability to understand and sustain personal information shared online and to make individuals aware of legal rights, having the rights to privacy, academic property, protection from abhorrence speech and freedom of speech.

4. Digital emotional intelligence: This is the ability to be compassionate and establish good relationships with others online. It includes the willingness to offer one’s voice to someone who needs help, honest communication with parents, teachers, and friends about one’s online presence, and not being judgmental in the online space.

5. Digital communication: This is the ability to communicate and collaborate with others using digital technology and media and make aware of the determined nature of digital footprints (traces that people leave online) and their real consequences.

6. Digital use: This is the ability to use digital media and mastering devices in order to make individuals aware of Digital Media.

7. Digital safety: This is the ability to manage online risks like cyber-bullying, radicalization, grooming, violence, and obscenity. It includes the discipline to use digital media safely, detect the problem areas and handle them maturely.

8. Digital security: This is the ability to spot cyber threats such as hacking, malware, and scams and handle them wisely, and also to seek elders’ help if the situation goes out of hand.

9. Digital time management: Restricting time for digital use is crucial to maintain a balanced life. Therefore, Digital Time Management is the ability to balance between virtual and physical realities, which further prevent the disease of Digital addiction.

10. Digital privacy: This is the ability to secure online information such as passwords for social profiles and protecting them from cyber hackers.

Above all, these skills and values should be deep-rooted in our future generation, which will build our future leaders.

Certainly, it is high time for us to come together as parents and teachers to prepare our kids for the future since Every child is a Digital Leader!

Our children are the first generation to face this hyper-connected world. It is essential for us to make them aware of their digital rights and cultivate digital intelligence in them to prepare our next generation leaders.

So, what do you think?

How much time should the average teenager spend on social networking sites?

If you are a parent then, Share your parenting tips on how do you develop your child’s Digital Skills. We’d love to hear them in the comment section.

And, If I have missed anything important to include above, feel free to comment down below!

11 OctSocial Media

Will Workplace by Facebook Takedown Slack?

If you are annoyed by sending emails to your staffs to converse, collaborate and get tasks done, Workplace by Facebook is your solution at hand.

Workplace by Facebook is a software that was launched yesterday (10.10.2016) with 1K clients already on board. We are already familiar to collaborating software like Slack and Britrix24 which we use at work to keep in touch with our other colleagues. Now with Workplace by Facebook, we will be stepping into another dimension which will be similar to the Facebook we use for our personal use.

Enterprises normally don’t prefer its staffs using Facebook during the working hours. With Workplace, I think, it is going to be different. Here your senior officers are going to get you use Facebook’s Workplace since it is going to be a tool to be used for your office.

Although the mission of the Workplace is similar to Facebook – Connecting people – here it will be connecting you with your colleagues. While Facebook connects people with personal life, this software will be connecting different audience like your colleagues who you might not have even met, but are connected to the company network. So this is going to be a similar platform with different purpose like collaborating and connecting with your colleagues.

[blockquote photo=”” author=”” ] People do their best work when they have more knowledge of what’s going on at their company, and people work together better when they understand their colleagues. – Mark Zuckerberg [/blockquote]

According to Julien Codorniou, the director of the project, since Facebook is not a new platform, enterprises doesn’t need to get its staffs trained to use it.

The Workplace is going to be a competitor to Slack because of its primary feature – getting the colleagues collaborate in one platform. But, Workplace seems to overtake its competitor through its additional features like making the distant colleagues get accustomed to the company culture and make them feel that they are at the office virtually.

Since there are companies with branches around the world, like the automatic translation we see on Facebook, we can get an auto translation on this Workplace Platform too. So far they have covered like 100 languages, and they are working on the other languages.

Pricing. Since enterprises are the target of this product, this software doesn’t come for free. Not free, but cost-effective, I would say.

Slack has both free and a standard package. Still, the free pack doesn’t allow a permanent storage of conversations and shared files, while the standard package which costs $6.67 per user per month allows you with unlimited conversation storage.

But you can begin Workplace with 3 Month Free-Trail-Period, but from then on it charges $3 per user for companies with 1,000 monthly active users or low, $2 per user for companies with 1,001 – 10,000 monthly active users and $1 per user for companies with 10,000+ monthly active users.

Comparing to the features Workplace provides us, it is quite cost-effective. In this expense, you can have unlimited file storage, live streaming, monitoring tools and most importantly secured connections.

Expense and the features of Workplace

Conclusion

While Slack and other collaborative software should be worrying about bringing similar or advanced features of Facebook’s Workplace, it is going to be an email-killer. You wouldn’t be hereafter worried about file storage or in need to send documents over email fearing that your storage would be deleted over time.

But what Facebook wants is to bring a better change in the company style, its company culture and how every colleague works with each other.

Prime One Global has registered to get this Workplace, and once we start collaborating through the software, let me get back to you with the feedback. Meanwhile, if you are already using the software, feel free to let your thoughts on how it would bring down Slack and be an email-killer.

07 OctBloggingCompany

What is so special about our company culture?

Everyone says that it is not easy to bring a Silicon Valley-like culture in a small country like Sri Lanka. It is quite true too. In a multicultural country like Sri Lanka, bringing a total Western setup of startups and companies is quite hard.

The barriers in bringing Westernized tech startups are:

Existing Culture. Sri Lanka is a diverse country where certain cultures are strict about the ways of being in an office and running a company. And some cultures think that bringing up some setups like in GOOGLE might be a threat to the existing culture. Also, it is quite expensive, and no business will like to have expenses at “unnecessary” setups.
Safety If you have seen the office at the Silicon, they allow you to work anytime from the office. It has more freedom to be spent. But this is quite difficult to implement because of the environment over here. In other words, this depends on the society we live among.
Knowledge Comparing to the world, our knowledge of businesses and the tech world are average for we are still learning things, while the world has grown up constantly changing. IF we are to bring such culture, we need human resources that are willing to learn and are fast at it.

Although bringing the whole Silicon Valley culture is impossible, we could try to give similar culture with Sri Lankan Taste. What I mean by Silicon Valley culture with Sri Lankan taste is making the workspace more comfortable to the staffs.

Prime One Global Internet Solution is one of the digital marketing company in Sri Lanka. Unlike the other marketing companies, this small enterprise works from an unusual location, Vavuniya.

While all the IT based startups work from the commercial city, Colombo, choosing a city in the North, especially during the ethnic conflict. The very most reason would be the safety for them to not choose a place from North, and then there is economical instability. Even after the war, there aren’t many startups raising from North.

Once the conflict is over, Prime One Global started to pay more attention on the staffs and their well-being as well. But it had some instability.We needed some lessons and feedbacks to bring such scenario. Constant complaints and feedbacks from the environment helped us. Yes. To be honest, we were not perfect at the beginning. But we learned and started to evolve according to the need to keep the company environment more Colleague-friendly. And that was the “kind-of-Silicon-Valley” Penetration into the Prime One Global Office Culture.

Our Current Head Quarters

Located in Vavuniya, our HQ is a house turned into an office. Although it is not situated in the heart of Vavuniya, it is just a kilometer away from the local transport providers.

This house holds a family that is our team behind the hard work of Prime One Global. The office is fully furnished and is capable of holding all the staffs. There is no such “cabin-for-all” setup here. The workspace is designed in a way to allow the colleagues to collaborate and work together as a team.

Awards and Achievements

In the eight-year journey of Prime One Global, we have seen ups and downs. There have even been instances where we thought we are almost done, but we never gave up. Our dictionary has never come across the word “Giving up.” This attitude of our has paid us with a few recognition and awards. Prime One Global has been one of the enterprises to be awarded Readers Choice Awards on 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015. In 2013, we were chosen to win the APEA entrepreneurship awards for the year.

Inspiration is in the office

Luckily, we don’t have to look out of the company for inspirations. The founder of the company, Mr. Sharanyan Sharma, himself is an inspiration to the staffs at the office. His Success story is very well known among the staffs and the entrepreneurs in the country. And, he would acknowledge his colleagues as the pillars of the success he and the company have attained. He thinks it is his duty to take care of his every staff and their well-being.

Staffs

The company that started with five staffs, and now has around 40+ in-house staffs, and a few virtual staffs. And these in-house colleagues are mainly recruited from the institutions like NAITA, Vocational Training Academy, and the technical college. Although we look into certain qualifications like the public examination results and passes in English, what matters more is your willingness to learn during your work period with us.

Does this remind you of something? Well, this attitude reminds me of the movie, “The Internship,” when Chetty, the head of Interns, speaks of the willingness to learn, and the googliness that is important for every colleague to shine out in a company like Google.

And this is what Prime One Global looks into its staffs too.

By the beginning of the internship, interns will be paired with the senior staffs to be trained. So, at first, all you have to do is look, ask and learn. Once the trainer is happy with your learning in the trained sector, you will be starting to work with the team. By the end of the internship, if you might be chosen to work with us permanently only if you are giving better performance and willing to learn more according to the trend in the Digital World.

While that is our expectation with our interns, we expect our permanent staffs too, to maintain a passion for the job they have chosen for, and willingness to learn as they progress with us in the journey. According to us, every staff – Let it be the intern or a management colleague – is important for they are the knights of this unique family of ours. And we care about every individual at the office and try as far as we could to keep them happy and comfortable.

Salary

Salary is normally paid during the middle of a month. This happens due to the delay in getting the Customer Fee. Since Paypal is not still available in Sri Lanka, we have to ask our clients to send the fee to Paypal, which will get through 2Checkout and when it reaches Sri Lanka and 2Checkout realizes the Pay around 12th of a month which would allow us to pay our colleagues around 15th of a Month.

Looking into the salary range, it varies from 10K to 90K. The basic salary for an intern is 10K. The salary pack for the interns with basic skills in the Digital Marketing varies from 15K to 45K, and the management staffs’ earning between from 60K to 90K.

Insurance Cover and No- Interest Loan

Although our staffs look us as their second family, they have a family of their own. It is common in North to have a young breadwinner. Our colleagues’ and their family matters to us. Therefore, we got all our permanent staffs insured with Life Insurance that is worth 500K.

Depending on our permanent staffs’ requirement, we provide them with no-interest loans that ensure that the needs of the staffs are met. Although it is unusual for a private enterprise to offer such allowances, we care about our colleagues and their lifestyle.

Routine

Our office is time is similar to the every other office on the island. We start at half past eight, and yes, punctuality is very much important. As a colleague, you would have to follow some rules, no matter how much freedom you can have while working with us.

The routine is simple and work-oriented most of the time. Still, work is not only what done at the office. Here we also want the staffs to improve their personal skills like public speaking, doing presentations and storytelling. The way finishing a task is important, sharing knowledge, and developing one’s ability is important at Prime One Global. These sessions happen once in every week for half an hour.

Although the staffs sometimes complain about handling tasks and developing personal skills are hard, it depends on their time-management in handling both.

Our company doesn’t provide much environment for relaxing, I mean like the nap pods or game sector in Google. We still lack enough place to provide such facilities to our staffs, yet we have recreational spots to play carrom, chess, and badminton in our workspace. Also, the conference hall on the balcony has a pleasant view that could allow you to spend some time alone with nature.

Breakfast. You can have breakfast with our colleagues, and it is provided by the company with limited choices. Of course, you can’t expect westernized food. And, no we don’t provide the traditional Tamil foods. Being concerned about the health of our staffs, the food offered mostly steamed Bengal gram, green gram, and black grams. And, then there is bread and noodles available if you’re hungry in between your tasks.

Working hours are usually 8 hours during the week, and 5 hours on Saturdays. You can sometimes choose to work from home, only if you are ill or unable to be at the office due to some valid reasons. Other activities like reading books are restricted to an extent unless it is work oriented. Well, as I have said earlier, you cannot expect a total freedom like in Google. And the job here doesn’t allow you much to pay attention to spending time in such ways.

There is a necessity for our staffs to collaborate with our clients during the night time since most of the clients are from abroad and the timezone differs. To make it easy for our staffs, we provide them with laptops and Smartphones. Also, based on the staffs’ job role and his/her living, we provide them means of transport to help them reach the office on time.

Outings

Twice a year, we get to travel around with our colleagues (at the company’s expense.) Spending some quality of time with partners would help them develop a bond of friendship is what we believe in. As I have written above, Prime One Global is like a family. Sometimes, workload doesn’t allow the staffs to collaborate well. So, by the end of massive projects, we would take our colleagues somewhere out of place, to enjoy traveling, get them out of the work stress, and develop bonds. Not to mention, to help them reboot their mind and creativity. After all, that is the major thing traveling does to a human being.

“You are taking me back to that awesome day, Yathu,” started Dilan, our Head of Operations, when I first approached him to share his feelings regarding the One-Day Trip Prime One Global went on 26th of December, 2015. “It is an evergreen memory. We decided to go on a one-day trip since all the staffs couldn’t come for 3-4 day trip. We visited the Hill country during that trip, and the bus we hired for the staffs was full of fun and excitement. It was more like school trips we went during schooling. We visited Nuwara Eliya, Hatton, and Kandy in a day (since all the places fall on the way)” he described what he stored in his memory.

“During the visit to Nuwara Eliya Lake, we were asked to take risks, like boating. It sounded risky for me because that was the first time for me to go on a speedboat ride. So, I asked my colleague, Thuva, to join me. We were pretty scared when began the ride, but after awhile we got the courage to ride it recklessly and end up getting chidings from the guy who rented us the boat,” he laughs as he recalls it. “ Actually, it is this trip which stimulated me to be a risk taker and be adventurous in life,” he concluded.

New Offices

While we have our HQ located in Vavuniya, we have extended a branch at Colombo. Our new office at Colombo was started with our 8th Anniversary. This office is located in the East Tower at the World Trade Center, Colombo. Also, we are looking forward to extending one of our branches to Kolkata, as well.

Our hopes for the future

Prime One Global is nowhere near Google to provide its staffs with every single provisions and space to be comfortable, but it, as ever, wants to ensure the colleagues are happy, healthy and comfortable within and outside the office. A happy colleague provides better results to the clients than the stressed one, is what we believe. We are still pretty behind in providing all our staffs with the total comfortable zone, yet we are hoping to give them a better one in the near future.

Our goals for our new branch are high since it is located in the commercial city of Sri Lanka. There is a need to look into every aspect of our colleagues there to keep them happy and comfortable.

That is all I could say about our company culture, for now. To be honest, certain feelings and experiences you get cannot be expressed by words. They are meant to be experienced and felt. Just like the feel it gives you while traveling, this journey with Prime One Global is supposed to be felt.

06 OctResearch

The Success Stories Behind 4 Brands Transformation

Increased competition demands remaining up to date with what the customer wants. And that not only makes it difficult for new start-ups to reach a level of stable existence, but also insecurities for the brands which had been successful for a long time. Novelty in terms of customer services, and reaching out to them, are the keys to survive in this sphere where there is no assured guarantee regarding retention of the consumer base.

Here we take a look at four brands that used digital marketing effectively to rebrand themselves and ensure a continuing or increasing demand base.

Coca Cola

It is a hard time for all soft-drink brands, since sales have been declining since the last decade. According to Beverage Digest, in 2014, the sales volume of the U. S. carbonated soft-drink industry fell by 0.9%, the 10% annual decline. Only energy-drink maker Monster beverage Corp. showed some slight improvements. And added to that is the competition from the ever-increasing number of small brands that are launching their drinks.

So it was crucial for the oldest brand of soft drink to do something to give itself a makeover. Its new content strategy, ‘Content 2020’, has received rave reviews from the Content Marketing Institute for its originality.

According to Jonathan Mildenhall, VP Global Advertising Strategy and Creative Excellence, the 24*7 connectivity demands a large amount of content at every given moment in order to keep up with the competition and the demand for novelty. In order to be successful, an advertiser needs to have ideas of substance as the base.

And this has indeed paid off for the company which is still battling industry revenue issues, as it has proved to have a stronger ground than other brands like PepsiCo. Sales have increased substantially this year.

Business 2 Community author Hephzy Asaolu says that this growth is in accordance with the common trend shown by data that there is a direct link between revenue and initiatives taken in the field of content marketing.

Not only that, the company has also focused on Video Marketing campaigns to make its various social initiatives reach the public. In India, it has the Support My School initiative to improve the facilities at local schools. In Egypt, the company has constructed 650 potable water installations in the village of Beni Suef, and also sponsors meals during the holy month of Ramadan for children in the Middle East.

Flipkart

What is today one of the world’s top 10 most visited E-commerce websites started with a puny budget of Rs 4 lakhs after Sachin and Binny Bansal left their high profile jobs at Amazon, the world’s biggest E-commerce website.

In addition to strategies adopted to make it viable through television commercials and mobile marketing, successful brand campaigns like ‘Shop Anytime, Anywhere’, ‘Big Billion Day’, platforms have been developed on social media like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Flipkart has around 3.3 million likes on Facebook, where the page is devoted to deals and offers, in addition to books, fashion, gaming, contests and other such interactive methods to improve customer engagement. The page also offers updates on new products and queries from the customers, and pays special attention to seasons, festivals, birthdays- events both general and personal. The post response is 40- 50 per post on an average.

Flipkart has over 160000 followers on Twitter, which also functions in a way similar to Facebook. It has multiple channels for different purposes like Flipkart Support for solution to queries, 24*7 Customer Service Channel and Flipkart Offers Speacial channel. Tech@Flipkart is a special channel solely for updates on technology. There are many product or services based contents like AcerA1 and Flipkart Frist.

The portal also devotes a lot of resources to content marketing.

Apart from having its own official blog which keeps everyone updated about the company, the latest technologies it adopts and similar things, the portal also has its very own tech-focused blog as well.

The Public Relations team too has its own pages where it releases information about the company, special events being planned and held to reach the customer base, and updates about exclusive products launched.

These strategies have helped the Flipkart achieve phenomenal success, achieving a Google Page Rank of 6/10 with 10.1 million page views every single day. The company sells 30 products per minute on average, and generates 1.5 cr as revenue per day.

Though Flipkart does not have its own YouTube channel, it has been on the forefront in able to utilize the platform by executing many YouTube Campaigns- Display and Video advertisements, Search Page, and the like.

LinkedIn faced huge problems with the increasing popularity of Facebook in the first stages. However, it is respectably popular as a content sharing platform, especially for Business 2 Business companies. And this turnabout is mainly because of its use of content marketing strategies.

In order to improve its performance, it focused on three main channels as identified by Eliot Schmukler in 2008- SEO results which led to the home page, invitations by email, and homepage views. Schmukler had helped the site grow from 13 million to over 175 million users by identifying and working on these strengths.

It was soon understood that the intentional visitors to the site had 30 PV/session on an average, while those brought to the site through invites had a mere 10 PV/session. Also, the CTR for ‘who looked at your profile’ emails was 5% for the users who were inactive, while for those who were active, it was 20%.

So, attention was paid to those who visited the site organically in order to raise the PV number as it was realized that it was easy to work with those who actually wanted to be worked with, instead of enticing in the uninterested parties.

According to Eliot, the formula was simple- the active user remains no matter what as long as the satisfaction levels are met, whereas inactive users have different reasons to stay inactive.

And this led to the active users being asked to send more invites, as the number of invites sent= % of new users that invite x average # of invites sent/inviter

It has also used tools like TeamLink and Sales Navigator, and the efforts have paid off very well. According to Ralf VonSosen, head of Marketing, Sales Solution for LinkedIn, there has been a 50% increase in the leads to meet the conversion rates.

An advantage LinkedIn has over Facebook and other such advertisement driven platforms is that it depends on these three streams which generate mostly equal revenue- Advertising, premium subscriptions, and software as a service.

Today, LinkedIn has 50 million members. It is telling, since it took sixteen months for the network to gather its first million members, and 12 days for the 50^th million. While the number may seem insignificant in the face of Facebook’s 300 million, it looks different when one considers that there are about 360 million white collar professionals in today. This puts more than 10% of those professionals on LinkedIn, including Alan Sugar and Richard Branson.

My SQL

While today MySQL is one of the best known open source relational database management systems, and had been acquired by Oracle for around 1 billion from Sun Microsystems, the journey has not been so smooth, as open source depends a lot on low Average Selling Prices (ASP).

Though there was a large number of visitors to the website, and a lot of downloads, it was extremely difficult to identify potential buyers from free users. The Lead to Opportunity conversion rate was 1 opportunity to 571 leads.

There was also a big gap between sales and marketing. The company lacked the metrics, alignment with marketing, sales tools and sales processes needed in order to improve pipeline development, lead conversion and measurement of marketing ROI. There was no clear path to move a free user to be a paid user.

In order to counter these, a closed-loop marketing and sales process called ‘Demand-to-Close (D2C)’ was created which describes and tracks visitors and return visitors, in addition to activity from outbound campaign. To all downloads, there has also been call-to-action marketing programs in order to get hold of potential buyers. The lead too was improved by implementing lead scoring to understand which campaign measures people responded to.

In order to get a better understanding of the demographics, there has also been improvement in the inquiry regarding inbound routing and segmentation.

And the results have been such as to lead to the spectacular position as mentioned at the beginning. The sales response times to the assigned leads coming from marketing decreased. Lead to Opportunity conversion rates increased from 6:1 to 3:1. There is an average deal size increase of 18%.

What You Can Learn

Studies have shown that there is a direct link between the effectiveness of content development and marketing, and the generation of revenues. While the easy accessibility of the net makes it easier for the businesses to reach the consumer, it also makes it more competitive, as the consumer struggles with content fatigue. So the mechanisms also depend on effective strategies.

These stories are fascinating, entertaining, enlightening with a motivational touch. They clearly show that no matter what happens to you and your brand, you always have a chance to fix it up. Don’t let your business get stagnant. Making changes and finding new ways is hard but crucial for your business growth.

But what you can learn from these stories is,

The distinction is the base of your business.
Many businesses face a massive decline due to lack of differentiation with other companies.
If something bothers you, change it.
If you think something isn’t working for your business, immediately change it. As sticking with unnecessary things won’t help you in big time. Change is the key for your growth.
Try to think out of the box.
Try something different rather than reinventing the wheel. Don’t be afraid to experiment. You might come up with an idea that might add new dimension to your business.

Entrepreneurial journey is like a roller coaster ride – full of blunders, hardships, and challenges but these stories proved that “giving up” was not in their dictionary.

Keep working hard, look for opportunities and the most important thing, never give up!

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Concluding Remarks

Freelancer for the beginning

How does the life of a business person look like?

What is it like to be an entrepreneur?

Summing-up

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Internet Penetration Statistics 2016

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The Internet has changed Sri Lankans’ Lifestyle

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Hackathons and workshops happened within last twelve months

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Telecommunication & technology development

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Recent Digital Marketing efforts

Who is Enterprise SEO for?

Who Enterprise SEO is NOT For?

Good SEO Doesn’t Necessarily Have to be Expensive, the Actual Cost of SEO is Relative!

Good SEO Take Time and Research

Good SEO Takes Strategy and Expertise

How Do We Price Our Service?

The Undeniable Truth Most SEO Firms Will Never Tell You!

THIS IS THE ACTUAL COST OF CHEAP SEO. THE PRICE THEY HAD TO PAY WITH THEIR OWN BUSINESS.

Good SEO Doesn’t Need to Be Expensive, Right? The Price is Relative. I would love to hear what you have to say about this in the comments section below.

Apart from this, there is also another breed of BAD DOGS (read SEO)

The Verdict

So, how does Digital Intelligence impact our social and economic life?

The Impact of Technology on the Growing Child

So, how can we prepare our kids for the Digital Age?

Digital Intelligence is the key!

Our Current Head Quarters

Awards and Achievements

Inspiration is in the office

Staffs

Salary

Insurance Cover and No- Interest Loan

Routine

Outings

New Offices

Our hopes for the future

Coca Cola

Flipkart

LinkedIn

My SQL

What You Can Learn

The distinction is the base of your business.

If something bothers you, change it.

Try to think out of the box.

Start Your Journey to Better Business