Sagara Asia Blog

Author: Sagara Technology

SEO Tools You Might Want to Know for Auditing Your Web

SEO tools provide you to do keyword research and analysis. The best tools also provide reports about your competitor’s data, pretty interesting right?. It also allows you to measure search performance in countries, regions, or languages.

Many SEO practitioners with multiple websites still utilize the old fashion way which is they put a lot of data in spreadsheets and analyzing it manually. But that way becomes overwhelming and raises the risk of the reports being inaccurate. Fortunately, you can use SEO software to save hours of effort and generate accurate reports at a click. Here are. In this article, we’ll discuss “best tools for SEO” and here is the list:

SEO Tools #1 Ahrefs

Ahrefs is one of the most well-known toolsets for backlinks, SEO analysis, and competitor analysis. With this tool, you can able to audit your websites and competitor website to see how healthy is your website. Ahrefs can also give you suggestions on how you fix the technical issues. This tool also allows you to see your keyword ranking as well as your overall backlink profile.

SEO Tools #2 Screaming Frogs

Screaming Frog SEO Crawler is a small desktop tool you can use on your desktop. It crawls a websites’ links, images, CSS, etc from an SEO perspective. It basically tells you what a search spider would see when it crawls your website. This tool is very useful and also it’s free to use.

Google Search Console

Google Search Console gives you a perspective of what the most used search engine thinks of your website. You can use it to check and fix technical issues on your website. Google Search Console is a wealth of information for websites of all kinds, It can help you identify the search query that people are using to find your site as well as analyze important metrics like your rank in Google search results page, clicks, and impressions.

Google Page Speed Insight

Google page speed insight is a tool from Google to measure and increase your sites speed performance on mobile and desktop devices. It tells you exactly how fast it takes to load the site according to different metrics, and also suggests areas for improvement. Put in mind that page speed is matters because it affects SEO performance (one of the ranking factors) from two different perspectives: site speed and user experience. The page speed score report is based on the lab data analyzed by Google Lighthouse. Read more here

August 19, 2021
On-Page and Off-Page SEO: What Should We Focus on?
There are two different categories of SEO to optimize your site: on-page and off-page SEO. But what is the difference between them? And what should we focus on? Well, If you have a website or work in that related field, you might want to read to the end.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the digital marketing channels that could help you optimize your site. The goal of SEO is to make the site standing out in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). In other words, when users search for a particular query, a page with good SEO will appear on the front page. No matter how good the product, services, or content you offer, if no one clicks on your page, there is no conversion then.

On-Page SEO

On-page SEO is the practice of optimizing your page to make it appears in SERPs. It is also known as on-site SEO. The page is more likely to obtain top-ranking results if keywords in the search query appear on that page. So, how exactly to do on-page SEO?

Content

You most likely start with creating content that could answer what the search engine needs. One of many ways is by adding details. If your page sells various kinds of handbags, do not forget to add the price on each product.

Keyword

It is no doubt that keyword has a crucial role in SEO. The keyword should be mentioned frequently on the page and somewhere in the first 100 words or so.

URL structure

SEO-friendly URLs are URLs that include keywords, yet are not too long.

Title tags

Put keyword on the title tag since it gives search engines a solid overview of what your page is all about. It does not have to be at the very beginning of your title, but it is better to do so.

Meta description

A meta description is some words you see placed under the page title that appears on search results. So, do not forget to use keyword-rich meta descriptions if you expect good results from your SEO campaign.

Site speed

Who wants to buy a dress from a slow responsive site? Nevertheless, your site does not need to be the fastest. The main idea is to make your site is fast enough. For more information about the benefits of making website loading faster, click here.

Alt text

Two rules to remember when you are going to put images:
1. use alt-text for image,
2. use an original image if at all possible.
Internal link

An internal link is a link from one page on your site that leads to another page on your site. It is a powerful SEO tool because it is beneficial for visitors as well as search engines.

Mobile friendly

Google has moved to mobile-first indexing. Hence, it won’t be hurting your SEO to make every page mobile-friendly, will it?

Off-Page SEO

You need to work on the page to practice on-page SEO, yet off-page SEO works the other way around. Off-page SEO is an effort to optimize your site from the outside. You can do off-page SEO by gaining a lot of high-quality backlinks.

A backlink is a link from another site toward a page of your site. It is also known as inbound links, incoming links, or one-way links. It tells Google how credible your site is. Therefore, lots of high-quality backlinks lead to a higher rank on SERPs.

There are many ways to gain backlinks. For example, you can try guest blogging. Another way you might consider is social media posts, such as on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube. Those boost traffic on your site by generating a ton of clicks.

Which One is the Best SEO Strategy?

Now, you figure out the differences between on-page and off-page SEO. Thus, is one better than the other? I bet we agree on this: the answer is no.

You ought to use both of them to optimize your SEO and get higher rankings on SERPs. Those strategies are harmonious and complete each other. What we can suggest here is that you should deal with on-page SEO first before doing another. Good luck!
August 18, 2021
Tips to Protect Your Privacy on Apps
Once you go online, though, you don’t have the same choices. Clawing back personal data is impossible once it’s loose on the internet, and revealing more than you should is painfully easy. You may think that there’s no problem, that you have nothing to hide. But you risk abuse of your private data by advertisers, hackers, identity thieves, and others. Worried about your privacy when you’re using apps on your cell phone or tablet? Here’s what you can do to protect your privacy before and after you install apps on your device.

Your Privacy on Mobile Apps

It’s important to know about privacy settings on apps. When you download apps, they often ask for permission to access personal information like contacts, your location, or even your camera. They may need this information to make the app work, but they also may share this information with other companies.

Before You Install an App

Before you install an app, here’s what you can do to better protect your privacy:
- Use official app stores. To reduce the risk of installing potentially harmful apps, download apps only from official app stores, such as your device’s manufacturer or operating system app store. Also, research the developer before installing an app.
- Know what information the app will be able to access. Before you download an app, read the app’s privacy policy to see how your data will be used or if your data will be shared. Is the policy vague about how the app will share your data? If it is, or if you’re not comfortable with how your information could be shared, you might want to find another app.
- Check out the permissions. To gain access to information like your location or contacts or to get access to features like your camera and microphone, apps need your permission. You may be asked to give permission when you first download the app, or at the time the app first tries to access that information or feature. Pay close attention to the permissions the app requests. For example, does it really need to access your location or photos to do its job?
Your Privacy on Apps You Already Have

If an app is already on your phone or tablet, there are still some things you can do to protect your privacy:
- Review the app’s permissions. Go to your settings to review the permissions to make sure the app doesn’t have access to information or features it doesn’t need. Turn off unnecessary permissions. Consider deleting apps that need a lot of permissions – some apps request lots of permissions that aren’t needed for the app’s function. Pay special attention to apps that have access to your contact list, camera, storage, location, and microphone.
- Limit location permissions. Some apps have access to your device’s location services. If an app needs access to your location data to function, think about limiting the access to only when the app is in use.
- Don’t automatically sign in to apps with a social network account. Signing in to an app with your social network account information often lets the app collect information from your social network account and vice versa. If you aren’t OK with that, use your email address and a unique password to sign in.
- Keep apps updated. Apps with out-of-date software may be at risk of being hacked. Protect your device from malware by installing app updates as soon as they’re released.
- Delete apps you don’t need. To avoid unnecessary data collection, if you’re not using an app, delete it.
August 18, 2021
How Does Web Crawler Work? What is its Function?

Have you ever wondered, why a website can appear on a search engine page??, what makes that happen?, the answer is Web Crawler.

What is a Web Crawler?

A web crawler is a tool for indexing and downloading content from the internet, then it is stored in search engine databases.

So that when someone is looking for information, the search engine will immediately display relevant results from the database.

Web Crawler Functions

A web crawler is a tool that functions to perform crawling and indexing. Well, if IAR does not index your website, then your website will not appear in search results. If the website doesn’t even appear in the search results, it’s impossible to get the top position in the search results.

How does web crawlers work?

A website cannot be found by search engines. Search engines have to do crawling and indexing before finally displaying website content on their SERPs. This process is done with the help of tools called web crawlers, web robots, or web spiders.

Basically, it performs the task as the name implies, namely crawling. Web crawlers will find content on various websites to be indexed in search engines.

Then, how does it work?

First, the web crawler will visit a site and the various links contained in that page. However, if your site is relatively new and there are no other links in it, you can ask search engines to visit your site, as quoted from WebFX.

It’s easy. You just need to enter your site’s URL in Google Search Console. Then, the next task of web crawling tools is to log every link they find into their index.

However, you need to note that web crawlers will only collect information from pages that are public, yes. Web crawlers do not log private pages that cannot be accessed. After that, the web crawler will collect various information, such as posts and meta tags. This information will be stored in the search engine index so that it can appear when users search for content with similar keywords.

August 18, 2021
Digital Marketing: Organic Channel vs Paid Channel
In this tech era, digital marketing is one of the highest-demand skills needed in 2021. Digital marketing itself refers to advertising through digital channels such as social media, search engines, websites, email, and mobile apps. In each channel, there are 2 ways we can approach acquiring new customers, namely paid and organic. In this article, we will discuss the paid and organic channels and the strategy behind them.

1. Paid Channel in Digital Marketing

Paid channel definition is the purchase of ad placement on a channel or site to do advertising activities for your brand and reach your target audiences. There are many channels to do paid ads, for example, Social Media ads and Search Engine Marketing.

Paid media strategy is to increase traffic, sales, conversions, and ultimately increase revenue. Sponsored content through paid channels helps the brand to promote their product/service to their target audience specifically. Also paid channels can reach a new audience that is currently in interest in the same product/service you offer. There are several buying models for the paid channels you should know:

Cost per click ( CPC)

Cost per click (CPC) is a buying model for advertising that marketers use to pay based on the number of times visitors click on a display ad attached to their ads.

CPM

Cost per miles (CPM) is a buying model for advertising that marketers should pay every 1000 impressions on their displayed ads. If the channel platform charges Rp3.000 CPM, it means the advertiser must pay Rp3.000 every 1000 impressions of its ad.

2. Organic Channel in Digital Marketing

The organic channel is a “free” channel referred to as the act of getting your customer to come to you naturally over time but with a non-paid approach. Unlike paid channel, the organic channel is a long-term strategy and you cannot expect immediate results on this non-paid approach. You need to invest time and energy to develop this organic strategy for the long-term success of your business.

The goal of organic marketing is to generate traffic and awareness for “free”. But in fact, it isn’t free neither because you need to invest in some marketing tools to help you get insight into what you’ve doing to optimize your organic channel. There are several strategies for the organic channel you should consider to increase traffic and awareness for your business:
1. SEO
2. Blog Post
3. Guest Post
4. Email Marketing
5. Social Media Post
Why you should invest in Organic Channel

By implementing this strategy earlier, it means you’re working to build a loyal customer naturally over time. It will take a lot of time and work to develop and maintain your organic strategy, but if it works it will be worth it. Developing your organic channel can lead to longer-lasting customer engagement and also will reduce your cost to generate a new customer. Read More
August 18, 2021
How to Become a UX Designer in Mobile Apps
With agile, the design and development process is done “small” and iterative. This provides many benefits. To become a UX designer in an agile project, there are several things to consider, including:
1. Good communication on application development
2. Start designing before mobile application development begins
3. Keep doing user research while running agile in application development
4. Work with the mobile developer team and others on application development
5. Knowing some technical things as a UX designer to support development
Good Communication on Application Development

Maintain good communication with all team members, such as product owners, developers, clients, to end-users, so that everything needed and the details of the work are clear. This communication is also necessary so that there are no misunderstandings between team members.

Start Designing Before Mobile Application Development Begins

The design process can start 1-2 sprints before the mobile application development begins. This is so that all aspects have a clear shadow from the start. Better yet, do the Design Thinking or Discovery & Co-Creation stage before mobile application development or other development. With this process, the problems that need to be solved with the application will be clearer and well prepared, and effective. GITS Indonesia also opens Discovery Co-Creation services for pre-development.

Keep Doing User Research While Running Agile in Application Development

Even though the timeline of work when agile feels congested, user research is important. Ideally, once every two weeks. This is so that the application does not develop in a direction that is less appropriate for the user or can be difficult to use by the target user. However, these things can actually also be minimized by carrying out the Design Co-Creation stage in pre-development.

Working with the Mobile Developer Team and Others on Mobile Application Development

“Together” here means communicating design ideas with the team (product owner, developer, and others). UX designers need to do this because there may be different views or other ideas that can be applied.

Knowing some technical things as a UX designer to support development

For UI designers and UX designers, knowing the components that developers usually use in their code can help designers understand the boundaries and designs that can be realized.
August 18, 2021
Mobile Application Tools for iOS and Android

Mobile application development is not an easy thing to do for people who have not have basic in the development itself. It can be learned, though, and there are a lot of sources to be learned from, either you want to develop an application for iOS or Android.

Editor for iOS Mobile App Development

Many editor tools are actually can be used for coding in many languages and for many platforms, not specific just for one. Editor tool or IDE (Integrated Development Environment) is a tool that is used as a place to make code, build it, and debug it. Here are some that you can use to code language that is usually used to code applications for the iOS platform. The languages are Objective-C and Swift. While some editors that you can use are XCode, AppCode, Code Runner, Swifty.

Library for iOS Mobile App Development

Library gives big help on coding. It can provide many things and make the code more powerful. Some of the libraries for iOS mobile application development are SwiftToolbox, CocoaPods, and RxSwift.

Plugin for iOS Mobile App Development

The plugin can be installed like an add-on to the editor or IDE. It helps with things such as make coding a bit easier, debugging clearer, and else. Some plugins for iOS mobile application development are Alcatraz, CocoaPods, Dash, and XCodeBoost

Editor for Android Mobile App Development

Android applications can be built with some languages. Those that are popular are Java and Kotlin. Some of the editors or IDE for Android development are Android Studio, IntelliJIDEA, and DroidEdit.

Library for Android Mobile App Development

Libraries to help on code Android are many. Here are some of them; GSon, Retrofit, Picasso, EventBus, and ButterKnife.

Plugin for Android Mobile App Development

Android has many plugins to help with its development.

August 18, 2021
Mobile Application Development: Tips & Tricks
Sagara Technology – Mobile application development is the process of making software applications on a mobile device. The mobile development process involves creating installable software and implementing back-end services such as data access with an API, and testing the application on target devices.

In 2022, mobile apps are projected to generate $808.7 billion in revenues via paid downloads and in-app advertising. Many companies would try to take the advantage of this trend and making a mobile app for themselves. But not all companies got the ability to create a successful mobile app. Here is the following development process for you to be able to create a successful mobile app:

1. Strategy

First of all, you need to define the strategy for evolving the ideas into an app. There are 4 things you should consider in this phase :
1. Know Your Audience
2. Competitor Research
3. Set App Goals & Objective
4. Select a Mobile Platform for your App
On average, Mobile App Development will cost you around Rp. 5.000.000 – Rp. 200.000.000 but it depends on the complexity and the features you want on your application. Make sure you set your goal completely and adjust it to your budget.

2. Planning and Analysis

Planning and analysis begin with defining used cases and getting detailed information on functional requirements. You should have identified the requirement for your app and prepared for a product roadmap. This also includes prioritizing the mobile app requirements and grouping them into delivery milestones.

In this phase, you should identify the skills needed for your App development. For instance, if your goals are to build a mobile app for iOS and Android mobile platforms, then you should put iOS developers and Android developers in the team.

3. UI & UX

If you put UI and UX effectively in your app, it would be quite flawless and interactive with a simplified interface, which can earn your business a wider and loyal customer base. But keep in mind that the success of a mobile app is determined based on how well users are adopting and benefiting from all its features. If you want to learn more about The fundamentals of UX and UI you can read more here.

4. App Development

Planning remains an integral part of this phase in the mobile app development process. Before development/programming efforts start, you should have to:
- design the technical architecture
- choose the technology stack
- define the development milestones
The mobile app development project is made up of three integral parts: back-end, API(s), and mobile app front-end.

Back-end

The back-end includes database and server objects for supporting your mobile apps. If you are using an existing back-end platform, then modifications may be needed for supporting the desired mobile functionality.

API

API stands for Application Programming Interface, which is a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other. Also, API is a method of communication between the app and a back-end server/database.

Front-end

In a simple way, the front end of the mobile app is what the user experiences. You may be familiar with user experience or “UX” the front end is where the user experiences and interacts with these things. A front-end developer will be focused on what happens with the app. Read More Here
August 16, 2021
What are Digital Marketing Services?

Digital marketing has several benefits that you need to know. Among them is making the concept of appropriate and targeted promotional media, implementing the concept using digital campaigns, to making reports on audience responses from marketing that has been carried out. That way, the company will be able to find solutions and improve product quality so that customers can increase and sales will increase.

Digital Marketing Services

1. Website Development

The first service that is certainly offered is website creation services, it can be in the form of creating a new website or updating an existing website. All large companies must have a website as the main digital access because all digital products and information can be included on the website and accessed anywhere via the internet without time limits.

You have to know for sure what the website needs to be created. Is it for the company profile, business, or for others? Also check the features provided, maintenance costs, and so on.

2. SEO Marketing

SEO marketing services. The majority of internet users always use search sites such as Google, Bing, Amazon, and Yahoo to find the needs and information they want. So that your website can appear on the search site is to use SEO marketing.

3. Creating Company Email

Create a company email. In this company email address, there will be the company name and also your name or the name of the employee who works at the company. Let’s say the usual email address is koko@gmail.com, in the company email it will change to koko@(company name).com. Usually, this company email is given in packages or together with website creation. The number of email addresses that can be used depends on the capacity offered because the number can be adjusted to the package you purchased when creating the website.

4. Content Management

Content is very important in digital marketing because content can create trust in consumers and customers. Content is like a product on a website that will create a perception in people who see the website. The purpose of the content on the website is so that people know what is in it, make people interested in what is on the website, and of course cause curiosity and buy until they finally make contact or order.

5. Mobile Application Development

There are already many companies that have special applications to support and speed up the services provided and make it easier for consumers to buy or use these products. Just like making a website, when you are going to use this mobile application creation service, you also have to know what your needs and desires are.

6. Graphic Design

Graphic design is very necessary for marketing because an eye-catching display can attract many potential customers. Graphic design services are needed when making posters and banners, whether it’s to be printed, posted on the company website, or posted on social media accounts. Banners and posters are some of the classic marketing tools that are common and are still used today. The difference is that banners and posters are mostly displayed on websites and social media.

7. Creative Strategy and Branding

Creative strategies and branding for individuals and companies. In creative and branding strategies, there will be the creation of creative content, creative concepts, video marketing, to branding that can increase the value of a company or individual.

8. Ad Management

Google Ads, Youtube Ads, Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads, and other social media are one of the best places to advertise that can be used. Later, we will choose which media is the most preferred for placing advertisements because not all media are suitable for use. Ads that have been installed will also be managed properly so that they continue to appear at the right time.

August 16, 2021
What is Domain Authority and Why is it Important?
Sagara Technology – Domain Authority (DA) is a 100 point scale created by Moz that predicts how well a website will perform on search engines. There are various approaches to grading the performance of the website and one of them is Domain Authority. DA scores range from one to 100, with higher scores corresponding to a greater likelihood of ranking.

Moz calculates DA by combining all of our other link metrics like linking root domains and the total number of links, into a single DA score. This score can then be used for comparing websites or tracking the “ranking strength” of a website over time. But keep in mind that DA is not a Google ranking factor and does not affect the SERP.

4 Factors that Moz use to calculate Domain Authority

1. Linking Root Domain

Root domains are the number of unique backlinks your website has. For example, if you have 7.000 backlinks from a single website, it will count as a link from one root domain. If you have 1.000 links on 1.000 different websites, you’ll have 1.000 root domains. You’ll get a higher domain authority from earning links from different websites than earning a lot of backlinks from a single website.

2. Search Engine Friendly

Search Engine Friendly refers to how well structured is your website. If you have a bad structure on your website, it will make Google having a difficult time crawling into your website.

3. Moz Rank

This refers to the score of your backlink profile strength. It tends to be quality over quantity which means one excellent backlink is better than having a couple or more mediocre backlinks.

4. Moz Trust

This is the metric used to calculate the quality of your backlink but it goes deeper by analyzing how relevant your website is related to the backlink you have.

How to Increase my Domain Authority?

The best way to increase DA scores is to get more quality backlinks to your website. Also, the more quality backlinks you got will tell Google that you should be ranked higher on SERP because backlink is one of the rank factors. There are several ways to get more backlinks to your website to increase your DA. A few are listed below
1. Content Marketing
2. Blog Articles
3. Social Media
4. Press Release
5. Guest Post on High Quality Website
But you still have to pay attention to the relevancies of another website that backlinks into your websites. There are some best practices to generate a healthy backlink profile:
1. Choose a relevant domain
2. Optimize your web content and pay attention to title tags, image alt tags, content, and make sure you are using variations of your keywords
3. Develop a high quality content
4. Improve your internal linking structure
5. Disavow your unrelevant/bad backlinks to your website
6. Make sure your website is mobile friendly and fast load.
7. Last but not least is participate in Social Media Marketing. More Here
August 16, 2021