Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?

Hi, this is Md. Yousuf Ali and I are the founders of Rank Trends and Khan. I am pleased to introduce myself as an Entrepreneur, SEO expert, web design, and developer. I started my business more than 3 years ago to provide various services in digital marketing and offer quality grocery items.

The flagship services that are offered through Rank Trends include SEO (Search Engine Optimization), Web Design & Development, Video Production, Various Training Program & Graphics Design services.

As well as flagship products that are supplied through Khan include fresh vegetables, health care items, Baby items, fruits, foods, dairy products, snacks items, breakfast items, and other various grocery items.

We are the perfect choice for those people or organizations who want to optimize their websites to get more targeted traffic, leads, and sales.

Also, Rank Trends is the ideal choice for those people who want to build a professional and dynamic website. We build SEO friendly, well navigation and well-looking websites by applying modern technology for boosting online business.

What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?

About 10 years ago, I just finished my education life and joined a private company as a fresher. At that time, I heard that we can earn money by working online. I didn't believe it at first, but I had a bit of curiosity in my mind, and since then I've been researching how to make money working online.

I discovered oDesk (present name Upwork). I had been searching for a unique idea and got it from ​​oDesk about digital marketing. Then, I have been studying digital marketing and researching this subject for about 4-5 years. In 2017 I started my new digital marketing agency called Rank Trends but it went live online in 2018 and got a very good response.

I was at a good place with my digital marketing businesses. Moreover, it permitted us to work from anyplace — one that allowed us to venture to the far corners of the planet and invest more energy with our families. Also, I wrote lots of articles about digital marketing including SEO, Social Media Marketing, Video Marketing, Domain Hosting, Backlinks, etc. We just try to share our knowledge with our website readers to make a bridge with them. I think this idea of digital marketing is a really helpful creation for people and me.

Take us through the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing your first product:

A prototype is a draft model of an item or service that helps to investigate our thoughts and show the aim behind a component or the general plan idea to clients before putting time and cash into development. For this reason, before starting our business we had made a list of few important questions such as “What is our product”, “Who are our targeted clients”, “How to generate targeted traffic to our website”, “Why they will take our service”, “Who is our competitor”, “How our website visitors keep engaged with us”, etc.

Then we start working accordingly. Our first module was to select the domain name. We spent about a week researching the domain selection, finally choosing Rank Trends. There are two reasons to choose Rank Trends, one of these is “Rank” which is relevant to SEO (Search Engines Optimization), and another one is “Trends” which defines a word that is the most popular at present. Now the time is web design and development. Since I am also a web designer and developer myself, so we don't have to worry about creating a professional website, we can create our website in a very short time.

After that, we optimize our website according to Google search engine algorithms. At the same time, we produce lots of informative content, infographic content, and tutorial content such that we can keep engaged our website visitors. As well as, we have provided various packages keeping in mind the needs of all types of clients. As a result, we get lots of work from clients within a short time. Our first work was outstanding, we are successfully able to rank our client's website to the Google search engines on the first page. Actually, it inspires us to move forward strongly.

Describe the process of launching the business:

Rank Trends officially launched in 2018 and it is the place where peoples can get the finest quality digital marketing services. Honestly, I had no plans for this project before. Since I was working in a private company, I used to do various courses on digital marketing to make use of my free time so that I could work in the freelancing marketplace. But I have a very bad experience with marketplaces, so I decided in my mind that I will not go to anyone else to ask for work, who will need to come to me. Now it has come true.

I had a specific strategy and that was to establish Rank Trends as a brand, nothing else. For this reason, first I did some market research, to see if there was any opportunity of turning my idea into a successful project. After researching the market, I saw that there is a huge demand for digital marketing. Then I choose my project name, implement it into a website. After that, I wrote lots of informative and infographic content. As well as, optimize all of this according to the Google search engine algorithms.

At the initial stage, we did not do a massive investment to start our project. Just developed a simple website by myself, wrote content, and optimized it. After that, I got a huge response from the people. Not only that, I got a virtual award from CB Magazine as “Best SEO Service Provider in Bangladesh 2019”.

Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?

An ordinary question we are posed is "what is the most ideal approach to produce more traffic and sales?” The beginning of a business is obviously the most challenging because a great deal of difficult work is needed without sureness that you will accomplish the ideal outcomes. However, some portion of our essential marketing plan should be to focus on the most proficient method to connect people to our business.

The quality of our service is the primary thing that has worked to attract and retain our customers. When it comes to marketing strategy, SEO is one of the best parts that have worked to generate customers. I followed this strategy and got huge benefits from it.

Article marketing is another way that I follow to get new customers and improve sales. It works as one kind of advertising that I create and publish at various article submission sites, social networking sites, and various forum sites. Also, consistent pillar posts help me to generate new customers and keep in touch with our existing clients.

How are you doing today and what does the future look like?

Besides Rank Trends, we have another retail business located in our local area. But it was only for physical stores, not online businesses. Because of this, when the coronavirus pandemic came, we faced big problems and our retail business was almost shut down. So, for the last 5-6 months, I have been giving full time and effort to develop & redesign our retail business. I am investing a huge amount of money as well. Now we are going to transfer it to an online business and have created a website ourselves named Khan as well as are trying to create a mobile app.

For this reason, we have held the activities of Rank Trends for the past few months. Hopefully, in a few days, I will be able to resume the activities of Rank Trends. And then, we will redesign our Rank Trends website and make it more professional. However, Rank trends were going very well until the onset of the epidemic, still getting good feedback from our website visitors and customers.

Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?

Launching a business can be more challenging and stressful. In the beginning, I felt there are so many things that have to work all simultaneously. It makes me under too much pressure and gives me pain. So, before starting any kind of business it is important to make a plan, what to do first and how to start it. Otherwise, there is a possibility of stumbling at the beginning of the business.

For my prosperity as a new businessman, I have discovered that dealing with my time appropriately is essential. At the point when I previously began running after my objectives, I thought that it was tedious, confounding, and disorderly. From there, I realized how I could make a timetable for myself that was challenging and permitted me to achieve my objectives. After that, I make a schedule for my assignments, make a daily agenda for the next day that I composed prior to going to sleep.

What platform/tools do you use for your business?

Tools are the most important part of online business. There is no other way to succeed in online marketing without tools. Since I'm a digital marketer, I have to use various types of tools as follows:

• Google Search Console (For Technical Support)
• Web Page Test (For Page Speed Test)
• SEMScoops (For Keyword Research)
• VidIQ ( For Youtube Search Ranking Analysis)
• Namecheap (For Web Hosting)
• Website Audit (For Web Audit)
• CloudFlare (For CDN)
• Yoast (For SEO Optimize)
• CopyScape (For copy or duplicate content analysis)
• MozBar Chrome Extension (For DA Analysis)
• SEOQuake Chrome Extension (For Web Parameter Analysis)
• Spyfu (for Similar Web Analysis)
• Google Analytics

What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?

Honestly, I don't listen to any specific podcasts, but I always try to read educational, informative, and case study content. Besides this, I read all types of content and blogs which are published by Google Blog, Neil Patel, Search Engines Journal, etc.

As well as I have some other resources, backlinko.com founder by Brian Dean and statista.com publish various statistics reports.

Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting?

Many оf uѕ wаnt tо bесоmе an еntrерrеnеurѕ. Beginning уоur оwn buѕіnеѕѕ іѕ one of the greatest drеаmѕ of our tіmеѕ. But hоw dо уоu get tо be a еntrерrеnеur? you should fосuѕеѕ on the practicalities: writing a buѕіnеѕѕ рlаn, rаіѕіng cash, fіndіng staff, mаrkеtіng and PR.

I want to say to the entrepreneur or who are thinking about maybe one day becoming an entrepreneur, first you have to learn, you have to improve your skill, you have to know your audience, you have to know the latest trends, you have to gather knowledge about offline and online marketing. You need to know how to lead your team, which means you need to be a good team leader. Otherwise, success will be so far away from your goal.

You have a lot of money, just because if you want to be an entrepreneur, I would say you can't be a successful entrepreneur. You can't be an entrepreneur just by having money. To be an entrepreneur, you must have an idea about your product, you have to do proper planning in the beginning, you have to know the upper audience, you have to do marketing adequately.

Where can we go to learn more?

• Rank Trends
• Khan
• Facebook

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