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People are an ever-evolving source of signals that needs to be mined. Sentiment analysis is also known as opinion mining of people. It is the computational study of the opinion of people, their attitudes, and emotions towards a particular entity.

Now, to make things clear, a web page is not ranked because of the sentiment analysis. Sentiment analysis helps in understanding a webpage so that it can be ranked. Google needs to understand a webpage to rank it. Here is where the importance of sentiment analysis comes in.

A lot of SEOs believe that sentiment can affect the ranks of a webpage on Google. If all the webpages in the Search Engine Results Page have a positive sentiment, a page with negative sentiment will not have a good rank.

At present, Google’s research is focused on sentiment analysis.

How useful is Sentiment Analysis to rank a webpage on Google?

Considering the usefulness of sentiment analysis in ranking a webpage, Bill Slawski, an expert in Google related patents states that Google would want some diversity if it wants to rank a webpage based on sentiment. There will not be all negative or all positive.

What he means is, sentiment doesn’t reflect the potential information gain from a content. The information gain is understood using neuro-linguistic programming to extract knowledge. Positive or negative sentiment is not the reflection of how much information/knowledge is present on a topic.

Bill Slawski thinks that Google is not going to favor one sentiment over another. That will be showing a bias towards a topic. This is why Google will look for some kind of diversity. Thus, if they want to rank a webpage based on sentiment, it will not show all positive or negative.

Is Google using sentiment analysis for a webpage ranking?

Google has been mostly silent on the use of sentiment analysis since 2018. On Twitter, someone asked, “…it seems like your search algorithm recognizes and takes into account sentiment. Is there a sentiment search operator?”

To that, Danny Sullivan, an American journalist replied, “It does not recognize the sentiment. So, there is no operator for that”. Earlier that year, there was an official Google announcement about the featured snippets, where sentiment was mentioned.

The context was, for some queries, there can be a diversity of opinions since Google might show two featured snippets, a positive and a negative. Google is exploring solutions for showing results of multiple responses.

For instance, people who search “are reptiles’ good pets” should receive the same featured snippet as “are reptiles bad pets”. Both of them are seeking the same information, which is how reptiles are pets.

The page that states reptiles are good pets is the best for people looking whether they are good and vice versa. This is what Google is trying to resolve. Since the year 2018, Google has stopped showing any featured snippets for vague queries. It is encouraging users for a specific question.

How does Google handle reviews and sentiment?

Terminology crossover is an important aspect of sentiment analysis. It doesn’t account for a sentiment that is expressed by a domain-specific word. The words that are positive in one domain could be negative on another domain.

To deal with this, Google has set a domain-specific-sentiment lexicon. It can be used on documents of a specific nature. Sentiment classification also assists web searchers in seeking information regarding an entity by summarizing the sentiment of an entity.

The entities include companies, products, and people. The sentiment can be positive, negative, or neutral. The documents expressing these sentiments include webpages, texts, newspapers, magazines, emails, newsgroup posts, and any other electronic messages.

Now, a system that classifies a review will need to understand the positive or negative opinion of a sentence or a phrase. This is called opinion mining. It is imperative to classify sentiment on different levels because different applications have different needs.

For instance, a summarization system for the product reviews will require polarity classification at the sentence or phrase level. On the other hand, a question answering system will need a sentiment of paragraphs. A system that determines the articles that create an online news source will need a document level analysis.

Much more than something positive or negative

A search engine cannot accurately answer a question without understanding the web pages that it wants to rank. It is not about using the data as a ranking factor. It is about using the data for understanding the pages so that they can be ranked using the ranking criteria.

There are multiple perspectives on sentiment analysis. One of them is, it is a way of obtaining candidate webpages for ranking. When a search engine can understand a webpage it can apply the ranking criteria on the pages that will answer the question.

This is important for search queries with multiple meanings. Google neither rank nor answer a question that Google cannot understand. Google has stated multiple times that they don’t show pages that reflect the searcher’s sentiment or intent.

In fact, Google says the opposite. It tries to show a wide array of options. There is no sentiment analysis bias at Google. It is not led by a sentiment expressed within a search query. Even though Google claims it, the search results show something different.

As we can see from the above search result that, Google is not promoting the negative sentiment, but it shows the searcher with the result-options that are inclined towards the negative intent of the searcher. The featured snippet shows results that remain balanced between “liking and not liking” a dog.

It is clear from the result that Google’s algorithm IS using sentiment analysis but it is important for Google to perceive the intent of the search. Thus, if Google receives a specific intent from the search query, it is capable of sharing the type of results a searcher is looking for.

Sentiment analysis is a very valuable medium that digital marketing companies can use to understand the intent of their target audience. If you are in search of the best digital marketing company in India, get in touch with Skyram Technologies for all sorts of assistance.

We were already aware of an existing social networking platform by Google, known as, Google+. The search engine giant quietly launched another social networking app, this time, with a focus on content. The app is known as Keen.

Keen is an application for machine learning. It actively promotes users to the relevant webpages of interest. Keen is ready to become the brand new source of referral traffic. This is a place where the users can collect content on a certain topic of their interest and share the collections with other people.

You can also find new content based on what you have saved. According to the developers, the users won’t have to waste endless time in the browsing history. Keen is going to be the “home” for their interests.

Why is Keen different from other applications?

Keen is an experimental web and android application which is a part of the Google’s Area 120 projects. Area 120 is a place of interest where small teams work together in a small startup to create innovative projects.

The idea of this project emerged when a husband and wife shared activities that were important for them. These were the activities that they wanted to share with each other. While they gathered links and resources related to their interests, the Googler realized they needed a tool to curate and share the ideas.

You can share the ideas with the public or if you want, you can keep them private. What makes Keen different from Pinterest is Keen makes use of Google Search and machine learning to surface content that is related to the interest.

With the increasing collection, Keen becomes better at curating the kind of content that the users are interested in. It uses a proactive content discovery method. You can save and add links, images, texts, and web searches. All that you add, will get you more to explore.

The “more to explore” section is where you receive more traffic.

What are the additional features of Keen?

Keen uses Google Search and machine learning that helps in revealing the contents along with the associated interests. The user will weed out the unnecessary contents and focus on interesting and useful publications.

Filling your collection with Keen becomes better since the user can add more interesting content. This new application is available as a web and Android application. It is not available in the iOS version yet.

Pinterest also invests in the process of machine learning for the recommendation algorithm and trends feature. Till now, Pinterest has been able to garner more than 50 million users to the platform every year.

This app recommends content that people will enjoy. This is more than a competitor of Pinterest. It opens up opportunities to increase traffic and popularity. It will be useful for web-publishers, search marketing, digital marketing, and web-stores. They can use Keen for their marketing strategy.

The similarity between Pinterest and Keen is, in Pinterest, you could put up pins and here, you can create a collection of curated content. Users can make a “keen” of any topic or interest that they wish. Starting from bird watching, baking to typography, you can create any curated collection.

How to save content using Keen?

You can register with the Keen app using an existing Gmail account. The best part is, this new app actively searches and suggests relevant content for the user. A search engine is passive and it waits for someone to ask something, but Keen does it on its own.

All you need to do is create a title and save your collections. The more you save to a keen and organize it, the better will be the recommendations. Even if you are not an expert, you can still start curating a keen and save topics of your interest.

These contents act like seeds and help the app in discovering more related content with time. You can control what you want to share and follow keens created by other users. Keen can save all forms of content, starting from articles to YouTube videos, blogs, and shopping links.

The website comprises of large animations and a scrolling ticker of topics that the users might be interested in. For every keen you curate, Google uses machine learning to look for contents that are related to your interest.

Are you already using Keen on a website or as a mobile application? Do you like it? Share your thoughts with Skyram Technologies here.

For more such interesting blogs, have a look at our blogs section right here.

Every business wants their sales process to run smoothly. To make sure that happens, it is imperative for every business to create an effective marketing funnel. The right marketing funnel will help in converting a visitor into a paying customer.

A lot of business owners are drifting away from the “marketing funnel”. It is a misconception to think that marketing funnel is way too mechanical. The funnel is a simple way to describe the lead nurturing sequence, to shift customers from awareness to purchase.

It is a useful way to describe a complicated process that offers startups and marketers with a good visual image. In this blog, we are going to breakdown the different steps to create an effective marketing funnel to boost your sales.

What is a marketing funnel?

A marketing funnel is a way to breakdown the customer journey all the way from the “awareness” stage to the “purchase” stage. The funnels can also include certain post-purchase steps that help in customer retention.

It is a compilation of all the steps that a buyer needs to go through before purchasing. There is no denying the fact that people buy all kinds of stuff at all times, whether they need it or not.

One of the primary reasons people buy stuff that they don’t need is because the top brands understand the consumer journey. Not only that, they know how to instigate demand among customers and guide them to buy something they don’t need.

What are the different types of marketing funnel models?

There are primarily four different types of marketing funnel models. They are as follows:

AIDA Funnel: This is also known as Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action funnel. It was developed in the late 19th century. It is the most popular and most preferred marketing funnel that comes in four stages including awareness, interest, desire, and action.

This marketing funnel identifies the varying cognitive stages of an individual while buying a product or a service. It is more of a communications model that enables companies to see opportunities on how and when to communicate during each stage since consumers use different platforms these days.

Inbound marketing flywheel: The inbound marketing funnel is focused on three specific stages, attract, engage, and delight. This method of marketing funnel focuses on developing relationships with the target audience. In this way, you increase credibility and trustworthiness. The inbound marketing flywheel is a great way to get your target audience to look more closely at the products and services.

Conversion funnel: The conversion funnel is a much more open-ended than the first three because it enhances the delight stage. Thus, it transforms the repeat customers to brand advocates and it brings referrals to the business.

Growth funnel: The growth funnel recently became one of the very popular marketing funnels that are used by startups. It is used by Airbnb, Uber, Dropbox, and other premium startups. It is also known as the pirate funnel because it comprises five stages including, acquisition, activation, retention, referrals, and revenue.

If you want to capture leads at every stage of the marketing funnel, it is imperative to assign action at every step. Here are the following steps to create an effective marketing funnel for startups.

Steps to create an effective marketing funnel for startups

1. Awareness: Getting the message out in the open

This is stage one of a marketing funnel for startups. It is important for your brand to get discovered by the right people. Here you have to make sure that you target the relevant audiences to bring traffic to your website who will buy your offer.

You can create awareness through SEO using high-ranking keywords and interesting content for your audience. You can reference the product or service in some way or subtly promote the requirement for something like them in content. Keep the sales talk to a minimum.

You can also build awareness with paid advertising. There are other low-intent keywords triggering Google Search. This is also a chance to increase awareness. It is a bit advanced PPC technique where you should have a paid search strategy and solid lead nurturing system in place.

Also, sometimes, low-intent traffic might not click n your ad. Thus, keep an eye on the metrics. Despite the risks, using a low-intent keyword in Google Ads is a good way. It will get your brand seen at the early stage of a consumer journey.

Also, using social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and more is a great way to build brand awareness.

2. Consideration: Establishing yourself as the most compelling option

This is the stage where you target people that show clear intent or desire to buy. It can be now or in the near future. The key to a successful remarketing strategy is to segment your campaign and target specific user interests.

Depending on the analytics setup, you can track specific user actions. Then create segmented remarketing lists with a specific message for every segment of audience. The actions indicate the extent of the user’s awareness and interest.

You can use this to create relevant campaigns for audiences. Use this similar tactic to target the leads at all stages of the marketing funnel. Also, capture email leads through email marketing for lead nurturing. Create email marketing campaigns to build an email list and get users to sign up.

3. Conversion: Turning leads into customers

The marketing goal is to convert leads, reduce conversion barriers, and turn consideration into action. Purchases are the most valuable types of conversions but there are others whom you can target with different campaigns. These include email signups, content downloads, free trials, account creations, demos, and more.

Creating organic and paid searches, SEO strategies, and Google Ad campaigns are the basics of conversion. Along with that, focus on optimizing the forms to maximize conversion. For every conversion, the user needs to complete a form. Thus, optimizing the form is important for conversions.

Next is, do the CRO in a smart way. There are 9 simple conversion rate optimization (CRO) fixes that influence conversion. These include lesser load times, single-column layouts, using ‘magic number’ technique, using ‘inverted pyramids’ for CTA’s, multi-step firms, remove the navigation from landing pages, testing the best CTA placement, testing secondary CTA’s, and exit-intent popups.

The attention should be on increasing incentives and removing barriers. Start with the most important aspect of the key pages and get them in order.

4. Loyalty: Turning customers into repeat buyers

The primary objective of a marketing funnel doesn’t end with a single purchase. That is just the beginning. You have to make your existing customers keep buying. Make sure that customer service is a top priority.

Regardless of how good your product/service is, customers will face problems of some kind. How you deal with your customers will become a major factor in customer retention. Create online guides, FAQ’s, Chatbots, contact management, and CRMs to help customers have the best experience.

This helps in filtering out cases. The most important aspect is to offer in-person support when needed. The support team should be ready to come in. it can be tricky if you have a large customer base but that is where a good CRM comes in.

Try to reward customers for their ongoing purchase. It works as an incentive, increases loyalty, and m0tivation to come back and buy more.

5. Advocacy: Availing new leads from existing customers

The final step is to turn happy customers into lead generators. How? Happy customers will continue to buy from you but they will also recommend you to others. 83% of the buyers state that recommendations from friends and family play a vital role in their purchasing decisions.

When you have a number of satisfied customers, create a profile of positive reviews. Also, get positive service stories or testimonials from your customers. Create referral campaigns by asking your customers to invite more of their friends and offering them incentives in doing so.

These are the steps that a startup needs to implement an effective marketing funnel. Are you looking to create an impeccable marketing funnel for your business? Get in touch with the certified professionals at Skyram Technologies here.

For more informative blogs, have a look at our blogs section here.