Author Archives: Vishal Shah

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Digital Marketing for Small Businesses in Only One Hour a Day

 

Even a small business requires a lot of work. Could it be that simple, to ensure its digital marketing needs in just one hour a day? Experts and entrepreneurs alike say it’s possible, as long as you have an understanding of the tactics and you know what you are doing. The one-hour method is also a great exercise for effective time management.

 

The beginning

 

This is the hardest part and it’s all about learning to juggle with your tasks and finding that one hour that you can dedicate to digital marketing. It’s discipline you need to acquire first. Also, be prepared for a trial-and-error approach.

 

 

What to expect

 

As a small business, you will not have the budget of big companies, which can afford to invest thousands in their digital marketing strategy. The results are matching their investment. What you can expect at your level is to do some branding and to get your brand seen online. It’s these first steps that establish your business. If they’re done right, with consistency, customers eventually begin to show.

 

What to do

 

As a small business owner, you can cater to the basics of digital marketing. These are rather easy to do and it makes no sense to hire professionals when you can do it yourself. Keep the money for the bigger tasks which require an expert touch.

 

  • SEO

Optimize all your main pages; select the most relevant keywords to focus on and have them on every page. Thus, optimize the meta title, header tags, meta descriptions, URL as well as the body. Next focus on the blog and post frequently. If you already have posts, optimize these too.

 

  • Conversion Rate Optimization 

There is so much you can do here. Read one new tip every day. Design changes are part of this, too. Experiment with different colors and designs and see what changes in your traffic flow or conversion rate.

 

  • Social Media 

Your goal is to connect with prospects. Create accounts on all relevant social sites your customers may be and which you can manage (and, of course, are appropriate for your content). Make new posts daily, but also reply to messages/comments and expand your network.

 

  • Reviewing 

You need reviews – many and positive. Select some big review sites where you can post yours. You can email previous customers to ask them about the experience they had with your business. They might be willing to post a positive review.

 

  • Pay per click 

Install AdWords and learn about it. Sort the phrases you want to use (target). Always cycle ads and replace old, poor performing ones with new ads. Cycle the keywords too and stick to the most successful ones.

 

Email Marketing

 

 

We are mentioning this separately because you should never do it too often. Two times per week is about enough if you don’t want to annoy your subscribers. You may give this as much as 30 minutes. Focus on good content to send to your followers and pick an attractive template.

 

While you may not become an online marketing expert doing this, you’ll soon earn some skill and learn how to make changes for the better, to push your business forward bit by bit.

5 Fresh Tips for Marketing Businesses on Social Media

 

The way you use social media to market your business can have a huge impact on visibility and sales. In 2016, it was estimated that more than 2.3 billion users were active on social media, with about half of these accessing it on their mobile phones. The trend here is obvious. Social media needs to become an important integrative part in 2017 online marketing strategies. Here’s what professionals are saying about how to use – read below 5 fresh tips to remember:

 

1.) Live video streaming

 

 

This connects to people’s focus and even obsession with the “now”. As you can see, social media has enabled live video streaming, which is being employed by soaring numbers of users to show what they are doing right in this moment or what is happening right now. People are watching this sort of content, they’re compelled to click the video because it’s in the now and it fulfills their desire to participate and to be updated on the spot instead of finding out later (the fear of missing out). Use live streaming to attract your audience and make them part of something bigger. Showcase your newest offer, your services or brand related activity to convey a dynamic image and get people involved.

 

2.) Likes and followers no longer that important

 

Until recently, businesses had to struggle to build a large following on social sites and to gather as many likes as possible. Nowadays it’s no longer so relevant. Algorithms have changed, in the way that posts only become more visible when published as paid ads. It has thus become more difficult to get organic traffic from social media profiles.

 

 

3.) More personalization

 

Sites like Facebook gather user data to personalize ads shown to each of them. Use this to power up your campaigns and understand your audience better. Create content that appeals to your targeted potential customers. Craft your ads based on their preferences or interests.

 

4.) More power to private messaging

 

Applications allowing users to send private messages have been way more popular than standard social media. How does this trend apply to advertizing? Online marketers found ways to advertize directly using private messages – for example users who click on a given ad are taken straight to a live chat feature, where they can get in contact with a brand representative.

 

5.) Allowing people to connect with each other

 

Social media heavily relies on this feature – the ability to build communities and groups of people based on a common cause or interest. Successful brands tend to do the same. They gather people around a concept, an idea etc. and let them connect and socialize. It’s often better than simply advertizing your brand. As you let individuals find like-minded people (whether using a forum/message board, live chat or anything that enables grouping and interaction), the expansion of the community will get you new leads.

 

 

We are stepping into a new era of virtual interaction and this means new possibilities to market your brand to interested users. Increase your business growth rate by staying on top of social media trends.

What Drives SEO in 2017: Good Audience Insight and More

 

Search engines are forced to change, due to the way online human behavior evolves. People tend to change their approach constantly in how they deal with online searches and the results they find, as well as in how they shop on the web.

 

Content quality is still the biggest expectations search engines have, in order to rank a website high. What makes good content though, apart from what we already know?

 

 

How to use SEO to rank high in 2017

 

Before making any modifications or additions to your website content, you need to have a strategy. Search engine optimization management is a relevant service in this case. Furthermore, companies need to have an audit performed, to gather vital data about their website and active campaigns. The data will also help direct their future strategy, in the way described below.

 

Understanding your audience

 

Audience insights represent the key to successful SEO. More than ever, you are required to identify the kind of people you are targeting, but not just based on demographics. You also need to identify their online behavior, habits and expectations. Armed with such information, you will know what kind of content will appeal to them.

 

Using several channels for advertizing

 

It’s essential to meet your prospective clients wherever they may be. Apart from the old-fashioned desktop computer, individuals can also be searching on their mobile devices, they may employ conventional search engines or look up on social media. This is why it’s important to market your ads on various channels, which boosts your chances to meet customers and to attract them.

 

 

Optimizing for humans, not just for search engines

 

Take your time to understand this concept. So far, we’ve been used to making all the necessary  tweaks to optimize content for search engines, often at a great expense. The content would thus be either unnatural or downright disappointing. All copy needs to be optimized for humans too. After all, they’re the ones reading and putting their hopes in it. They’re expecting information, solutions, entertainment, depending on the case. When reading it, they want to feel understood.

 

An integrated approach

 

A successful SEO strategy in 2017 merges the various means and tactics to strengthen a website, build a brand and communicate value:

  • Conversion rate optimization
  • Influencer marketing
  • Content marketing
  • Social media etc.

You need to take care of the several aspects involved, like on-page and off-page optimization, the social aspect, the advertizing needs etc. At the same time, it’s imperative to make your website easy to browse on any browser and device.

 

 

Is link building still relevant today?

 

Link building used to be a standalone tactic and has remained relevant to this day. External links are still being measured by search engines. It’s their way to determine which content is relevant and important to the given topic or niche. Good links improve your reputation online.

 

Don’t waste any more time, start with a SEO audit to assess your current level and then implement a strategy focused on all areas of opportunity.

These Are the New Essential Rules to Marketing Your Business Online Successfully

 

When it comes to the rules for successful digital marketing, the requirements change so quickly that not everyone can keep up. The main goal here is to interact with visitors and customers and make them come back to your website. The best method is to do this using several different means and channels instead of relying on one strategy only. Read below more on the rules you can truly count on to make your strategy pay out:

 

 

1.) Diversify

 

It shouldn’t come as a surprise. Even if you’re not feeling comfortable with all the marketing channels, you need to make an effort and adopt more tactics instead of investing more and more in old ones. Sometimes, certain tactics may not yield the needed results. For example, you may be using a lot of money to advertize on social media, but if your targeted crowd just doesn’t hang out on social media, then you’re wasting money and time. Every now and then, schedule an audit to find out how each of your online advertizing strategies are faring.

 

2.) Define your audience on other criteria than age

 

Nowadays it’s risky to say that certain interests or hobbies are only representative to certain well defined age segments. For example, computer games are not only for kids and teenagers. Men at almost any age play these. Loads of people in their 40s are passionate about computer games and indulge in playing. Keep only the relevant criteria in mind – age may not always be one of them. If your marketing strategy is focused only on a specific age group, you risk repelling customers who aren’t in the same category. Think about a perfume. If your ads are girly and show only teenagers, mature women will not be interested, even though the scent may happen to be suitable to them.

 

 

3.) More focus on the local crowd

 

A growing number of brands choose to focus on local campaigns. This is because it’s easier to have conversions when you meet local people who are searching for your products and services. Most search queries pertaining to items or services to purchase are concerned with local companies, because that’s the more convenient way to buy. Besides, if you’re looking for customers in your community, why invest in reaching a global audience?

 

4.) Provide quick overviews

 

Whatever you have to sell, select what’s relevant about it or what your customers might be interested in and market this in a concise, attractive and effective form. It could be a dynamic photo display or a video. Thus, viewers can grasp essential information within a short time, without needing to look for it in several places.

 

 

Let these four essential rules guide you in your future online marketing efforts. These ensure that your new strategy has all the prerequisites, like diversity of channels to draw traffic, a broader audience, a less divisive and more inclusive approach, plus concision, information and  good targeting.

Essential Guest Posting Rules that Must Not Be Ignored

 

Guest posts are powerful tools that can improve a website’s authority, enhance brand visibility and bring more traffic to a business website or web store. In order to enjoy the benefits of a well written guest post, it is imperative for writers to know the rules that should never be ignored.

 

Enjoy the process and detach

 

This is about setting the right mood, so your writing comes naturally. Unless you can detach yourself from all fears and possible outcomes, you won’t be able to function fully and be your best creative self. Bloggers who allow themselves to feel good and who stay detached have the best results in the end. Fearful, tense writers fail to impress their audience.

 

 

Focus on high authority blogs

 

This approach is still the best you can have when it comes to quality guest posting. You need to read big blogs regularly and to make friends with their owners/writers. If you’re good enough, you might even get invites without needing to push for it. It’s better to stay focused on these big, high authority blogs instead of investing your time in loads of small ones.

 

Give it a great title

 

The title is crucial to a blog post. The writer needs to aim to surprise and engage the reader right away. It must not be misleading though. Deliver what you promise. The title is the way you ‘pack’ your post – make it create interest in readers.

 

Adding value

 

Good writing has certain traits that cannot be alienated – it usually adds something to a known topic, it provides a new perspective, it challenges views and so on. To make your guest post valuable, you must figure out what you can bring. Is there a novelty, a different perspective, a supplementary piece of information on the given topic? Posts that don’t add value are overlooked. You can also pick a topic that isn’t covered by the chosen blog, as long as it’s connected and therefore relevant.

 

 

Read your host blog thoroughly

 

Don’t just pick a blog to write on; spend time reading it, getting to know its style, its preferred topics etc. This will also help you see what’s missing on it, so you can step in and have your say (and get attention). Read as much as you can on your chosen host blog before you attempt guest posting on it.

 

Skip the branding

 

Once you find such an opportunity, you’ll feel compelled to give your best and start an enthusiastic branding effort, but this will backfire. Branding should be kept out of guest posts. Keep these informative, educational, interesting or intriguing and refrain from speaking about your own offer. Don’t brad about your expertize, make proof of it. This is how you are going to convince people to click on your link. Avoid telling them how good you are or how terrific your brand is.

 

If your post gets rejected, it only means one thing: that you haven’t yet honed your tactic and writing skills. Or, the writing could be flawless, but you are missing on another important aspect.

The Road to Better Content Writing: A Content Audit

 

 

Content marketing strategists insist on the quality and novelty of content – which isn’t a bad thing at all; after all, this is what search engines prefer. It’s an uphill journey if you are new on the market, but if you have been around for some time, then you need to look bad at what you’ve done so far in terms of content.

 

Content audit: why and how

 

This is where a content audit comes into the picture. It’s good to know where you are standing before making any changes to your strategy. Did your existing content bring enough traffic? Did it convert well enough? A professional audit will consider all factors involved and reveal to you how your content has been performing up to the given point. The best practice is to schedule a content audit each year if you want your strategies to be successful. However, this is largely influenced by how much content you’re adding to your website and how frequently. It may therefore be a more or less laborious task. What is even more important is to schedule one right before anything else – it is an assessment of all your posted content. Do this before content writers begin to work on more material.

 

The effects of an audit

 

A content audit can get you to reconsider old content and refresh or repurpose it. Moreover, you will preserve good tactics and change what hasn’t worked. Audit results are used to identify any gaps there may be. It can certainly lead to a better understanding of the available solutions. Your writers will know what to focus on and how to create content that works. In addition, you will see which pages are indexed by Google, what is in place and what is missing in terms of SEO elements, what your URL authority is. An audit can get you to stop spending money on tactics that don’t work and also save more as you reuse existing content. A content audit can ease your maintenance efforts, improve the SEO and enhance the user’s experience.

 

All in all it will render a marketing strategy more efficient and allow you to make tweaks to the budget.

 

 

How to use it to your advantage

 

A professional will conduct a content audit based on a series of strict rules and tools. You may then consider certain aspects and parameters, to be used in shaping better strategies.

 

  • Identify the URLs that drive more traffic,
  • Find out what is being shared the most and provide more of that,
  • See what content type and word count yields better results and use it more,
  • Find the pages that generate more user engagement,
  • Begin to revise content, now that you’re armed with relevant data.

 

Make sure to get recommendations so you can adjust your strategy, including audit frequency. A content audit is different from a SEO audit but encompasses more, including SEO related elements of high relevancy. Use the data you acquire to create content that is better in terms of word count, approach, tone, information contained, shape, linking, optimization and so on.

Top 7 Reasons to Take Content Marketing Seriously in 2017

 

New year, new you. How about a new approach to online sales, too? In 2017, it’s all about the targeted efforts to promote your business and gain customers.

 

You need to develop a content marketing strategy that works. This is why all big or competitive companies now have content creation managers and directors. This aspect is vital and it requires the converging powers of various professionals. Here are the top 7 reasons why you must invest in this as soon as possible if you’re promoting your business online:

 

1.) Content marketing is cost effective

 

Although it may seem expensive at first, content marketing is an umbrella concept that covers many crucial aspects. It boosts organic traffic but also engagement, so it gets you more committed visitors and customers. In the long run, it can increase your revenue exponentially.

 

2.) Customer loyalty is increased

 

Your site visitors want consistency and quality through and through. Once they see it, they return to your website. Through a sound marketing strategy, it is made to suit their queries and provide them with the information or solutions they’ve been seeking for.

 

3.) Content becomes shareable

 

When your brand has content that inspires people to share it, your business can become viral. It gets a visibility boost, which in turn gets you more customers. Shareable content is extremely effective and its benefits can spiral outward for spectacular results.

 

 

4.) Amplified ROI

 

Because content marketing touches and improves so many areas, any of these becomes powerful enough to boost the return. Thus, the money you’re spending on such strategy can come back as a much amplified return of investment.

 

5.) Reaching key demographics

 

A good strategy does not mean only increasing traffic. It’s about targeting the right demographics, based on criteria like age, gender, professional status, industry or geographic region. When your website shows high up in search results, it shows to the people who matter – the ones with the highest chance to become your customers.

 

6.) It’s better than ads

 

Traditional advertizing no longer earns people’s trust. A percentage as high as 90% of people looking for products and services are rather convinced by recommendations or by good content. This is why it’s essential to market your content (which must be helpful, informative and relevant) instead of investing in ad creation and other such types of customer persuasion.

 

7.) Satisfying the need for information

 

We are all looking for information on a constant basis. This is especially valid when searching for products or services. We want to see how these are able to help us. Through content marketing, businesses meet people’s desire for information. Firstly, your goal should be to inform individuals, then to educate or inspire. Selling comes later.

 

Your brand’s position benefits greatly from professional content marketing. Your website becomes useful and authentic to its niche. It’s the way to keep up with online audiences and their ever changing behaviors. Act now and you might actually be saving money on your marketing strategies.

How to Use Social Media to Drive Small Business Loyalty

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Customer loyalty is one of the most important aspects of any business, regardless of whether it is large or small. An industry statistic that is regularly referred to in the world of SEO and online marketing, is that it is up to five times more profitable for any business to cash out money on keeping their best customers happy, then it is to acquire new ones. Small businesses understand this equation most of all. They need to understand how their customers quickly shift their social actions and conversations into the online world.

 

Soaring adoption of social media is creating an important dynamic within the online marketplace, by changing the power given to a customer. A loyal customer doesn’t have to be represented by occasional referrals or repeat purchases – customers can now express how they feel about a service or product to thousands of people at the same time. So how can you use this to your advantage?

 

1. Listen to your Market

 

Social media buttons

 

No business can truly figure out what is going to work best at engaging their customers, especially their best customers, unless they know what it is those customers care about. Blogs, review sites, and other social channels are a valuable resource when it comes to obtaining this priceless information. Customers now have a great platform to inform businesses of exactly what they need to do to succeed, but first the business has to be ready to listen. Remember to consider:

 

  • Comments
  • Relevant posts
  • Competitor posts

 

Effectively monitoring the discussion going on in your industry means that you will need to search the online landscape for important dialogue – and this can be a time-consuming matter. However, there are products online which can help, if you know where to start looking.

 

2. Be Social

 

social-media-encompasses-large

 

Once you have gotten comfortable with the idea of observing your customers and understanding what they’re saying online, you’ll need to start dipping your toes into the realm of social media yourself. Whether you like it or not, the truth is that small businesses will benefit most from getting involved with the same social media sites that their customers frequently use. Fortunately, going social doesn’t have to be as scary as it sounds. In fact, by opening a twitter page, Facebook account, or LinkedIn presence, you could find that you actually have a lot of fun.

 

3. Engage Your Customers

 

Social Media

 

Finally, it’s essential to make sure that you are active in communicating with your customers. This means that you need to take the time to respond to bad reviews when they happen, or thank customers for good testimonials. This should be a great opportunity for you to engage the best customers you have by getting them to do more online.

 

You could come up with schemes, such as rewarding people for a certain number of referrals, or sending out pieces of information that they could broadcast about upcoming discounts, sales, and new items.

 

Of course, communicating with customers can sometimes be difficult in regards to the limited resources and time a small business has. Many of these businesses will find that properly dealing with their audience may require some trial and error.

5 Essential Tips for Getting Started with WordPress

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WordPress can be a fantastic tool for individuals who are getting into the concept of online marketing, or making a presence for themselves on the internet. As a content management system, it is typically hailed as the easiest one to use, with the best features and the most potential for a great user experience. However if you want to see the best possible results out of your WordPress creation, then you’re going to have to put some effort into your online strategy.

 

Fortunately, even complete beginners can get set on the road to success with the right effective and helpful techniques.

 

1. Don’t Clutter your Sidebar

 

wordpress-history

 

One of the biggest problems that seems to be running rampant through WordPress lately, involves people using their sidebar to store all of their clutter. Your sidebar shouldn’t be stuffed with social media icons, advertisements, and links to your most recent tweets. As buried beneath all of the pointless information, you might end up hiding a link that you really want your visitor to click on. The best thing to do is shave down your sidebar to include only the absolute essentials.

 

2. Make Everything Easy to Find

 

The information that’s located throughout WordPress shouldn’t be arranged so that your visitors feel as though they have to go through a labyrinth to get to where they actually want to be. Even if you have the best content in the world, your readers are going to end up getting sick of dealing with your website if they find that traversing from one page to the next is more hassle than it’s worth.

 

3. Clean up Your Links

 

The chances are that you’ve worked hard to create engaging content for your website – so you’re going to want Yahoo, Bing and Google to be able to find it. Make that search as easy as possible by pointing towards your information with permalinks. To do this, you should probably take some time to learn the basics of SEO writing.

 

4. Improve descriptions and Targeted Titles

 

wordpress

 

When you choose to share pages and posts on Google+, LinkedIn, Facebook and other services, they will pick up a title and description to go alongside the link that you’re sharing. When your page arrives in the results of a search engine query, the description that people get will convince them whether or not they should bother clicking your links. As a result, your description and title could turn out to be some of the most important pieces of text you write.

 

5. Make Your Images Work for You

 

Images are useful in a variety of ways, they:

 

  • Break up large blocks of content
  • Draw in your readers’ attention
  • Add beauty to your pages
  • Improve your SEO

 

Every time you upload a new image to your website, you will be given the opportunity to add keywords to your image title. The more chances you take to put extra keywords into your website or content pages, the more opportunity you will have to rank high on search engines, therefore drawing in more traffic.

Tips for Online Marketing with a Paid Search Campaign

pay-per-click-advertising

 

If you’ve heard of pay per click advertising in the past, you will know that the concept involves carefully selecting a number of keywords and ensuring an ad will appear whenever someone searches for that word or phrase in major engines like Google. You should also be aware that pay per click advertising requires you to come up with a cost that you are willing to pay for each click. The benefits of these campaigns can be numerous, driving new sales, generating leads and developing awareness for your brand. However, if you’re going to be paying cash, then the least you can do is make sure that you’re getting the most out of your campaign. Here are some tips that will help you to turbo-charge your paid search efforts.

 

Make Appearances at the Right Times

 

online-marketing_0

 

If you can, try to adjust your campaign so that it is aware of your target market’s peak usage times. If your ideal audience usually looks for your products somewhere between 7am and 7pm on weekdays, then you should only be showing your advertisements during these times. Usually, within the edit campaign settings option in Google, you will be able to choose your ad schedule, which allows campaigns to be turned off and on at specific times.

 

Be Cautious with your Keywords

 

google-keyword-tool

 

Although keywords are not used in the same manner that they once where to improve SEO, they are still incredibly important. Various tools are available online that will help you to track down specific phrases or semantic queries that are being used by your audiences. You might pay to use some tools, or simply use Google’s Keyword Tool for free. All you have to do to access this is type your term into the search bar, and you will instantly be gifted with variations that other people have searched for.

 

Create Long-tail keyword terms

 

Internet-Marketing

 

Another helpful part about using the Google AdWords keyword tool is that you can track down the long-tail terms that you need. These are the ones that appeal to users who are searching for specific or niche items. If your budget is particularly limited, it’s usually a good idea to avoid paying for the high-cost generic terms, and instead try to gain your traffic from people who are making very specific searches.

 

Be Seasonal

 

Sometimes, a particular product or service is going to be more popular during certain times of the year, because of holidays, changes in the weather, or large events in your local area. If your business sells something that is susceptible to these changes, you might want to enhance your budget during these high-demand times, so that you can reap more benefits.

 

Remember the AD Copy

 

 

Google-Adwords

 

Once you’ve selected your high-quality keywords and figured out the starting point for certain campaigns, you should find that your pay per click ad starts to appear higher in the search engines. Remember, Ad copy is essential, it is an important way for you to differentiate yourself against your competitor. Make sure you use terms that are:

  • Distinct
  • Clear
  • Descriptive
  • Unique
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