Ways to Improve Average Time Spent by Visitors on Our Blog
The efforts you make for creating a piece of information can only reap benefits if the purpose of creating it gets fulfilled. One of the key purposes of framing content is to grab the attention of the target audience and make them read it to ensure that they get what they want and you get what you want. Yes, this is a two-way process, if your target audience does not get what they are looking for with your content, you are not going to get it either. Now the theory is simple, if you want people to read what you have for them, they need to spend some time on your blog post. You should also know that the time spent by the visitors on your site also tells a lot about the quality of your website. Thus, here as well there are double benefits, one you will tell the target audience about how you are helpful for them and two, the quality of your site will improve. What is the need to improve visitor’s average time spent on your site? We tend to spend much more time in a store while shopping where the products are great and are according to our choice. This means the store you have chosen to do shopping is of good quality. While on the other hand, if commodities we want to buy are not of good quality, we just decide to move to another shop without wasting any time. Similar is the case with visitors on your blog, if they do not find qualitative and informative content, they will just move to another site. If this is the scenario, it will lead to an increase in the ‘bounce rate’ of your website and that is not at all a good sign for the site’s SEO. Bounce Rate is defined as the percentage of visitors who enter your site and leave it directly without going to any other page. This is not considered good by search engine bots and will negatively affect the reputation of your site. That is why it is important to have a better average time spent by visitors on your webpage. In this post, we will talk about some important tips that’ll help you improve the time spent by visitors on your webpage. Tips to improve the average time spent by visitors on your blog Design Your website’s design is one of the prime factors that’ll help visitors stay longer. It is important for you to understand that the design of your website should be simple and easily navigable. Remember, people do not take more than few seconds to decide whether they want to leave or stay on your website. Thus, your site’s design should be appealing enough to tempt visitors to scroll and navigate around to what they are looking for. One of the key tactics is to ensure a clutter-free design with appropriate white space. Links to open in a new window When a visitor lands on your website in search of some information, he/she should get it in a trouble-free manner. You might have come across sites where the links present in-between content tends to open on the same page where you are reading it. Some links are important for the visitors and that is the reason they click on them to get more detailed information. So, you must set all the internal or external links present in your blog posts to open in a new tab. Doing this will make it easy for the visitors to get detailed information and ensure that he/she spend a good amount of time on your webpage. Readability is important The basic reason for a visitor to land on your webpage is to read the content to get the desired information. Thus, if the readability of the page is not good then it doesn’t matter how well-researched or informative your content is, people will just close the window and move to your competitor’s site. This is directly proportional to the bounce rate. So, make sure that whatever information is there on your blog, it is easily readable without any distractions. Because if people are not able to focus, they will not stay on your site and this will reduce the average time spent by them. Thus, keep it simple and easy to read and ensure better engagement. Include images Long paragraphs of written content are always boring and not many will consider reading them completely. But if you include some quality and relevant images in between your blog post, it will become interesting and more engaging. Doing this will ensure that visitors spend more time reading the post than just bouncing off. Images tend to grab the attention of people and that is what will improve the time spent by visitors. One thing to keep in mind while adding images to your post is uniqueness and originality. Even search engines like Google prioritizes and suggests to be unique and original with the images you add on webpages. For better results, try including some relevant infographics, and you’ll see not only better visitor’s average time but also better SERP ranking. Videos work well too As we have talked about the relevance of images in your blog posts, similarly, adding videos also works well. An interesting and relevant video in your blog has the power to engage visitors for more time than the one without it. Another reason why videos improve average spent time on your blog is their ability to explain things better. We must say that videos can give better meaning to your written piece of information and people will love it when they are able to understand it without any difficulty. For example, a chemistry topic is better understood through an animated video than just reading the written content and that’s why videos work better to engage visitors on your blog. Hold visitors with Exit Intent If you are able to change the idea of leaving your site of
How to Improve Email Open Rates
Emails can never grow old; they will always be an important mode of communication for businesses and will play a key role in digital marketing strategies. No business can think about online marketing without targeting their audience through emails. They are effective and they always will be. You can send your offer to the target segment of the audience via email to ensure high visibility and better engagement. But, one question is always there in mind that does all open your email after receiving or even they notice it? This same question we need to first ask ourselves. Do we open each and every mail we receive? Or just the ones that tempt us? We know the answer and we also know how we decide which mail to open and which to ignore. So, to improve email open rates of your business, it is important for you to consider some key factors. We will tell you some techniques by which you can make email open rates better than before. Tips to improve email open rates Focus on the subject line When anyone receives an email, the first thing that he/she sees is the subject line. That’s where most of the businesses lack the trick. If the subject line of your email is irrelevant, boring, misleading, or common, no one will open it. Always try to focus on creating an engaging subject line that tempts viewers to open it. A unique subject line has a high chance of getting a mail opened than a boring or common one. It is advised to try a few to decide which one delivers the best results. Address individually Personal emails have high open rates to the ones that are sent in bulk. So, if you send an email addressing the person with his/her first name, the chances are high that your email will get attention and it will be opened. Considering this will make the recipient more engaged and you will see a better response from him/her in the future as well. Update the list The most important thing to ensure high email open rates is that the list you’ve prepared of the recipient is fresh. Why we are saying this is, if your list is outdated there might be chances that some of the recipients have started to use new email ids. In this scenario, your mails will just be buried in the inbox with many others without any chances of being opened. While on the other hand, if you keep updating the recipient list this will not happen and all your emails will be sent to the inboxes that are being checked regularly. Thus, more people will encounter your mail more will be the chances of being opened. Ensure quality content What if someone just opened up your mail and with the double speed it went to the trash? Yes, this could happen if the information you have provided in the mail is too common for your target audience and it could be found elsewhere. Only opening the email will not get you anywhere, viewers must perform the action you are actually looking for. To achieve that, the quality of the content in your mail must be perfect and it should provide some unique information that is hard to get anywhere else. This is the way to gain people’s trust and that’s how you can ensure better conversion as well. Timing is important Suppose you’ve sent an email 2 at the night and by the time recipient wakes up, there will be a hundred more and your one will just be buried down by others. In this condition, there are least chances that your mail will even be noticed. Many recipients are there who just select unread messages and move them to the trash bin. So, it becomes very important that at what time you are sending the mail, because if it is not correct it will be a waste. Do proper research on when is the right time for sending emails to your recipient’s list and when there are high chances of getting them opened. Remember, it’s all about timing if it is good everything will go your way and if it is not, it’s you who will bear the loss. List segmentation is vital It doesn’t matter what you are doing, planning is always important. Now, when it comes to email marketing, it is important to create a group of recipients with similar interests because a single mail will not work for all, you are required to customize them according to your audience and for that, segmentation holds the key. With segmentation, you will be able to send the right mail to the right people and this will ensure better open rates. Use individual’s email id Not many emails sent by the company’s email id are opened as they are regarded as useless by many even if they hold important information. While on the other hand, if similar mail is sent from personal email id, the chances that the recipient will open it gets doubled. The reason behind that is the mail sent from an individual’s email id appears more personal than the one sent from the company’s id. Thus, it is seen that mails received from personal id have a high open rate than those from a company’s mail id. Same leads don’t work for all If you think that buying leads for your email marketing campaign will ensure high open rates then you might be wrong. It is not a guarantee that if leads that are good for one company will also deliver similar results to another one. It is always advised that organic leads are always better and they ensure better email open rates. so, instead of buying leads try to get them organically by running a campaign. Try requesting your existing customers or giving them something in return for an email address could do the job for you. You can also try conducting a webinar
The need for HTTP and HTTPS for secure sites?
HTTPS plays a very significant role in securing the traffic as Google warned webmaster that if non-HTTPS websites will be used one can risk losing traffic with appalling pop-up notification displayed by Chrome users get to your website. The encouragement of sites to go with HTTPS with Google in May 2010, and finally on the 6th of August 2014 Google announced that they will be forecasting the preference for HTTPS site search results. While considering the SEO professionals pacifying the situation with Google numen for many years nothing exclaimed them anymore, and despite all the variations and changes, it should proceed. The good part is that shifting from HTTP to HTTPS has been favourable for some SEO experts. Now the question that arises is what is the difference between HTTPS and HTTP? HTTP is an application layer protocol to receive information from the web and begin to secure so as to authorize transactions over the web. Explaining in a layman’s language, it displays information to the web searcher means that without secure connection any network that is between that source host and the destination host can change what the destination host gets. So, the additional layer of HTTPS uses a more secure way to transport the data known as SSL that is the Secure Socket Layer. Therefore, everyone is benefitted from that! Need to switch to HTTPS is important because while writing the copy, designing them, and building your website which simply indicates that you have to migrate to HTTPS. But hiring a good SEO marketer can be a profitable practice. And the fantastic thing is that HTTPS provides the security of your visitors on your visitors because accessing your personal information like your bank account or plugging credit card information on a checkout page, your sensitive information data is at risk. And if we check the increase of HTTPS on Firefox and Chrome with more than half of the websites using HTTPS, this has resulted in an impact on the performance of your site by migrating to HTTPS. The Benefits of switching to HTTPS: Revamping the search ranking: Although Google never confirmed the HTTPS as a ranking factor and admitted to showing preference to the sites using HTTPS. An analysis conducted by Search metrics of SSL and improves the ranking. Adding to this, a positive impact on visibility in the SERPs with HTTPS. Impressive User Experience: Using indicators in browsers like Firefox and Chrome to depict whether or not a website is secure that users are noticing. Where more than half the users would rather drop a purchase than follow through with it if they knew a site was not secure providing a safe and secure browsing experience will eventually fluctuate high the retention. Preserve Your Users’ Information: HTTPS is a preserver that helps you protect your users’ data and protects you from any time and any type of data breaches issue like Marriott or Facebook and there have been issues that wouldn’t have prevailed if HTTPS status with the SSL/TLS certificate maintained. A report discovering that an expired certificate on an SSL/TLS inspection system that had not been replaced for 10 months or something around that allows hackers to access data undetected. The Secure Lock Icon: More than half a percent of websites visitors are concerned regarding their data being intercepted or misused online. And begin to construct trust and credibility as well to secure the lock icon and helps you. Implementation of AMP provided HTTPS: Mobile optimization plays a very significant role in SEO a good amount of traffic where you have to have an encrypted site with SSL to pretty good use of AMP. An effective PPC Campaign: A good amount of revenue is earned by selling Google ads especially when the users visit your site and fail to convert so the advisers won’t keep paying for Google Ads. Therefore, using HTTPS helps reduce unaccepted advertising practices and increase conversions. And to warn advertisers to stop using HTTPS addresses for landing pages. Rectifying data in Google Analytics: An uptick in direct traffic when HTTPS sends a visit to HTTP, Google Analytics reports it as direct traffic with importance to note during a migration. Sites do not support HTTP sites: Sites need to require your site to be secure and require an SSL certificate well as the government requires an HTTPS site. Now the next question that crosses your mind is, how to switch from HTTP to HTTPS? Switching is a process and for the people who are mot very technically sound it can be quite tricky because there are few issues that can pop-up while performing that and here we are helping you with a quick snapshot and steps that will convert HTTP to HTTPS. Find an SSL certificate Install the SSL certificate Update the domain to point to HTTPS Redirect all HTTP pages to HTTPS Re-verify ownership in Google Search Console Update the sitemap Update the robots.txt Then, Update your settings in Google Analytics Test While using WordPress or any Search Engine Journal’s Web Developer turn down the migration from HTTP and HTTPS step-by-step. All set to switch! When it is all done and you’re all set to switch contact your hosting company where you can also use a tool like Let’s Encrypt for free or as for instance, Bluehost includes an SSL certificate of their WordPress users or can either opt for making the switch during the time when it is worth performing and investing time to protect your users.
Making Your Clients’ business more agile
In the following days where a pandemic has taken a toll over every activity and put a halt on the day to day lifestyle lubricating the business becomes a challenging task, but at the same time, there are impressive ways to motivate your clients’ to keep doing business with you in a more agile manner and land you towards more productivity and profits. The flexible market is a way out to make your clients’ business more agile. You must be wondering, what is a Flexible market? A flexible market is where you adjust to change in real-time becoming an essential part of any organization for its success especially conquering during the challenging times. Agile marketing is an adaptive method or strategy applying the strategies of your clients’ business without thinking of it in these terms by applying these simple principles you can help your clients become more resilient in the long-run. There are simple adaptive strategies for marketing for your clients’ business. Clients’ Online Presence optimization: At this time, you can edge your clients’ businesses online and it will be easy for everyone to access them during this time of work from home. You can do easy things like adding another customer support channel to their websites like live chat or a chatbot to their homepage or help centre. For faster work and live tracking, a streamlining fulfilment mechanism is mandatory which means, automating parts of the clients’ sale process, like creating an Al-based lead prioritization system. Then, it can be easier to improve customer communication and setting up triggered emails. These adjustments do not have to be drastic to make an impact and will help keep your clients afloat in the midst of change and uncertainty. With the experience of creating-first experiences, helping your clients be available in real-time, or building a more intuitive site structure. Reanalyse the Target Audience: Seismic changes in the way of the world do business, and it becomes easier for your clients to reanalyse whom they want to reach. For reaching the targeted audience and there is an entirely new group of prospective customers that are suddenly relevant to your clients’ business. The crisis at the moment impacting different segments of their targeted audience and can cater to the clients to each of them differently in the way that matches their needs and state of mind. The segments to understand a customer base means keeping up with their latest needs with the preferred tools to identify the keywords they’re searching for. Communication in groups on social media or other online forums, that can help your clients capitalize on that intent. Usage of Relevant Resources: Responding to a significant shift that does not mean they have to pause their lead generation and sustaining the growth during times of uncertainty and some resources your client currently offers even more useful to their customer. The client offers lead generation assets that are, case studies, infographics that can be updated with more relevant to this present moment. Assisting clients that help in their content resources and become an advantage to be the matter of packaging, and in the times of technological advancements, an ebook can help in keeping to speak the customers’ needs or pain points in light of the current situation or highlight the most relevant aspects of that assets, encouraging the clients to create new resources altogether and that will help customers have more time to create new resources altogether which will provide more time in hands and looking for answers as well as useful materials. Therefore, this is the time to invest in those blog posts and thought leadership pieces. Nourishing the Customers’ Client Relationship: During the times of isolation, everyone is looking for ways to get connected to one another, and here you can assist your client to create spaces where your customers can connect to each other. Working with your clients on a pitch idea along these lines and figure out what will be the most helpful in a place for customers to relate to each other about how they’re using your clients’ products or services differently in light of the current crisis or voice general thoughts and concerns will depend on the client and their customers. Adding to this you can promote webinars for your clients on Zoom, BlueJeans will bring large groups of people together and co-host from multiple locations and can also record those events easily to make them available to the customers anytime they wish to know or leverage them as lead generation assets. To make it more interesting you can consider creating a more exclusive community and your most fulfilling customers and willingly join and connect you in a more exclusive community, you can make it more reliable by adding a member’s area to their website where only certain customers can create profiles and access future that are not publicly available. Therefore, when you’re client creates spaces for customers to connect it and depicts that they are not solely focused on their bottom line, but care about connecting people. Advancing Clients’ SEO: Adaptive marketing plays a vital role in evolving your clients’ content strategy for SEO to consider implementing these tactics. Google Trends can be useful to identify shifts in search intent to see there’s new search intent in Google Search Console to help optimization. Adding to this, creating dynamic pages where you can quickly update SEO content and meta tags to focus on long-tail phrases and update existing ones to match what customers are searching for! In the situation that is visibly witnessed is fluid can be attested personally. In organic search trend and react quickly to keep your clients’ SEO content up-to-date and ranking as strong as possible. Clients’ Competitive Edge Strategizing: Global crisis like the one we are already facing is affecting everyone including the clients’ competitors, impacting the way strategically positioned against them to your clients’ surprise and may actually be the right moment to transform a threat into an opportunity. Research competitors
The better ways of branding in Google’s Knowledge graph without Wikipedia page.
Wikipedia page is no more a need to gain knowledge regarding the graph for promoting your brand and you can easily probe into the knowledge graph that triggers the knowledge panel on your brand SERP without Wikipedia which makes it an interesting journey. Ways to get in the knowledge graph: There are a few steps that knowledge graph and trigger a knowledge panel for your brand without the need for a Wikipedia article. You become the source information through your site: In your About Us page make sure that you elaborately explain about yourself and what you do. Adding Schema.org mark-up: To make it more authentic make it more detailed and cite sources that confirm. Significant Coverage: These are multiple independent, reliable, and secondary sources. The significant coverage is one point that appeals to most of the brands and that is the aim of the articles to assist you. In the following process corroboration on multiple trusted, authoritative, independent third-party sites. The easy way of confirmation that Wikipedia is allowing to create a Wikipedia article that is understandable since Wikipedia has traditionally given a quick easy route into the Google’s Knowledge graph. And in the case of corroboration, the knowledge graph has always required more than Wikipedia where over the years we have been tracking knowledge panels and the knowledge Graph API, there has never been a direct correlation between Wikipedia articles and knowledge graph presence. The Knowledge Graph has always contained some brands that have no Wikipedia pages and some brands that have Wikipedia pages are not in the Knowledge Graph. Solid corroboration determining knowledge as a keyword. A brand can get in with less, or it may take more, all depending on the consistency of the information and the trustworthiness of the sources. Everything has changed in 2020, where Wikipedia is no longer the Single Source with several points. Google has expanded the presence of knowledge panels for brands significantly with no cited source jumped by almost half. And Wikipedia is not a cited source, are moving forwards very fast in both the Knowledge Graph and in brand SERP knowledge panels. Google understands and shows a knowledge panel and it is important to bear in mind that citation it gives is most relevant to the brand as well as well the industry with the context of the searcher that means, geolocation plays an important role here, it seems, making it delightful for the marketers. The general rules to place information to corroboration that can be useful to start by optimizing the organization profiles on LinkedIn and Bloomberg. The URL structures for all pages cited by Google for the “big three”, they are all 100% company profile page that is information on Bloomberg, LinkedIn. In the next step, it is vital to confirm the information on multiple relevant trusted sources that are presumably information. Generalist news sites such as Reuters.com, inc.com, Globenewswire.com, PRnewswire.com, businesswire.com are good bets. Specialist news sites such as TechCrunch, Geekwire.com, or Marketwatch.com. Niche industry sites such as elearningindustry.com, biospace.com, allthingsdogs.com. Geo-specific sites such as irishtimes.com, oecm.ca, ft.com, marketindex.com.au… (see below for the international analysis). Concluding with the three steps to get in the knowledge graph without a Wikipedia Article. Step 1: Make sure information on your site sets out clearly who you are and what you do. Step 2: Add Schema.org markup – make it as detailed as possible. Step 3: Get corroboration on multiple trusted, authoritative, independent third-party sites. The approach to building a convincing case for notability for Google’s Knowledge graph or panel with the primary criteria has five components that must be evaluated separately and independently to determine it as in Significant coverage, multiple, independent, and reliable secondary sources.
What are the reasons to switch a job you love?
Switching a job always means coming out from your comfort zone and learning new things around new people and in a totally unknown environment. Meeting new people and trying to communicate in an atmosphere of unawareness that can help you grow not only professionally but socially. But when you are already working at a place you are comfortable with you to stop pushing your limits and coming with more inspiration because the work becomes monotonous. And you begin to search for something interesting and then comes the idea to switch just to discover some new prospects and broaden the horizon of your work-life and learning. Let us discuss the reasons to switch a job you love. Staying at the same place for a long time: When you stay at the same place for a long time it becomes monotonous with work and mundane to deal with the number of expectations you begin to create for yourself at the same place that simply makes the work environment lazy for you. So it is important to switch when it gets stable at times while staying at the same place for a long time. Being a remote worker: Overworking to prove the performance and for stability becomes more essential which gets you to manage more than your expectations includes more management and unequal distribution of assignment because of the amount of trust you build in a span of time that gets you into the act of working more in less time and working with interns sometimes and make them understand and explain the work simultaneously performing your tasks too. All these consists of responsibilities like: Explaining the amount of time that is taken to complete any tasks. Always ready to take any meeting that comes without any prior information. Important to remember that any employee deserves time for oneself. Insurance and medical facilities: The insurance or medical facilities your company provides is never enough because it does not cover the basic health facilities that you can utilize in the time of need. The unbelievable spending of the amounts on insurance, medical bills, and physical therapy. The idea that fuels the idea of switching the job you love is that deriving whatever you expect from yourself as well as fulfilling the needs of your family. Certain family reasons: In some scenarios, there exist certain family reasons that do not allow to stretch more with work-life and create hurdles for any employee because of the lack of mobility in the work-life and personal life. Lacking Performance: Resurrecting everything is not an easy task where you are devoting your time from years expects more of your time that automatically cannot divide the attention in a balanced way between the family and the profession. Therefore, the lack of performance occurs psychologically when you are unable to focus on both the terms that include family and profession and the performance depletes. Conclusion: Life is bizarre and it is important to take a few risks so as to succeed in life and leaving your comfort zone becomes the first step. So even when you love your job but it has been a while, take a chance to bring out the new in you for more learning and experience.
Starting from scratch? Here’s how to build a social media marketing strategy
We cannot even imagine the promotion & marketing of businesses without the help of social media. It has become an important pillar of digital marketing and there is a reason why it is called so. One of the goals of all businesses is to get the attention of the target audience and social media is one such platform where they can get that. Almost half of the world’s population is using social media and the approximate numbers are around 3.8 billion. So, you can imagine what exposure businesses will get with their presence on this platform. But we must say that it is not that easy as it looks and it is important to create an effective strategy to get the success you want. There is no doubt that social media is one of the best platforms for business promotion and it could do wonders if used in the right way. A structured plan is always the best to get success. If you are planning to start social media marketing then this strategy might effectively work for you. How to build a social media marketing strategy Set appropriate goals Before implementing anything for social media marketing, the first and foremost thing to consider is the goal. You must know what you want to achieve through social media marketing because that will define further steps in this strategy. Your goals must be crystal clear and that is necessary for any business to stay on track till the end. If your goals are not clear then your efforts and resources will go in vain and what you’ll get in the end is nothing. Depending upon your business’s niche, social media marketing goals could be to increase website traffic, increase brand awareness, generate leads, generate revenue, and increase community engagement. Focus is most important and that could only be done if your goals are clear. Select social media networks There are many social media platforms that we know but, it is also important to know that not all are appropriate for each business. So, while creating a social media marketing strategy, every business must define which social media platforms will be appropriate and best for them for promotion. Selecting the right network will depend upon the segment of the audience you want to target and their behavior on different social media platforms. The audience is what you want to get engaged with on social platforms thus, targeting the right one is a must. For that, you are required to consider what is mentioned in the next point. Audience research Yes, audience research is part of social media marketing strategy and it plays a vital role in defining the success of any business. With this, you cannot rely on your perceptions or assumptions as it could be really harmful to your entire marketing strategy. The audience is always important because all businesses rely on their actions for revenue and growth. Thus, you must properly analyze the segment of the audience under your radar and know their interest. This is the only way to please them with your marketing efforts and convince them to buy your product or service. The type of audience you want to approach will decide which social media platforms you should choose. For example, if your target is millennials, platforms like Instagram & Facebook could be the best choice for you, while on the other hand if your focus is solely on business owners and other companies then promoting your brand on LinkedIn will be the best. Provide your complete information If you want to gain the trust of your audience, then you must disclose all the key details about your business online. The details we are talking about include the name of your business, its establishment year, the correct address of your physical presence, and the products or services that you provide. If possible, disclosing your company’s registration number will play a vital role in earning the trust of your audience. Thus, it is not only about having a presence on social media but showing your true identity is also a must. To try your product or service, the audience must ensure that your brand is genuine and providing key details might be of great help. Define your important social media metrics For those who don’t know, it is necessary to know that there many metrics of social media that play a key role in digital marketing success and every business must keep a close eye on those metrics to get success. Considering these metrics will help businesses measure their success and optimize strategies to do better. Let us see the social media metrics that we are talking about. Post reach- As we know, the audience decides the success of any business and it will depend upon how much attention a business gets after posting content. Post reach is the key metric that will show the popularity of your post on social media. In simpler terms, it will tell the numbers of how many people have seen your post. Thus, you can analyze the quality of the content posted. Number of clicks- Another metric that should be considered is the number of clicks that you’ve got on your single post. More are the clicks; more is the exposure that you’ve got. The number of clicks will also give you an idea of visitors coming on to your website plus will tell you what kind of content is liked by your target audience. Number of likes- It is another factor that tells how much people are liking the content you’ve posted on social media. For likes, you must analyze how many you’ve got organically and how many with the help of paid strategy. One thing that you can see here is that if you are getting more likes organically when compared to a paid advertisement campaign, then you can redefine your budget and cut the cost of paid promotions. Hashtag- Hashtags have become so popular that they can make any
Digital marketing strategies every business owner should know
We can do almost anything sitting at home, what we require is only the internet connection and a device to use that. This is the power of the digital world and the speed at which it became popular is just amazing. No business and even individuals are incomplete without this digital platform. It has become an integral part of all businesses and you cannot think of success without having a presence on digital media. When we talk about marketing, the digital platform is the key along with the conventional marketing strategies. One of the strong reasons why the digital platform is very important is its popularity and the ease at which people can access it. Below are some important techniques of digital marketing that every business owner must be aware of. Digital marketing strategies you must kno Social media Social media is always on the top and hopefully, it always will be. The popularity of social media has increased a lot in the last decade and who would have thought that it will become one of the pillars of digital marketing strategy. The social platform is used by millions of people across the globe and showing your presence here will give you huge exposure. It will also be easy for you to interact with the target audience and generate leads. It won’t be wrong to say that this platform is actively used by millennials and targeting them will be great to achieve long-term goals. Social media is one such platform that is easily accessible and you can show your creative side here. Posting relevant, informative, engaging, and interesting content on social media will create a good image of your brand in front of the audience plus, search engine bots will consider it as a good practice and your website will rank high on the SERP. Social media is also one of the best platforms for the promotion of any of your products or service. SEO Search engine optimization (SEO) is important for all businesses if they want to achieve high SERP ranking. The reason why businesses look to see themselves high on Google search ranking is that only deserving businesses appear there and have high chances of getting genuine leads. SEO makes sure that your website is optimized according to the guidelines issued by Webmaster and it fulfills best practices that make a site relevant to the search queries made by people. SEO means optimization of every single aspect of your website from its design to the content that is posted. It covers the management of even the smallest factor of your website to make sure that search engine bots find it relevant enough to place it high on search engine ranking for specific queries. If you want to ensure high traffic on your business website then considering SEO seriously should be your priority. Content Marketing Content is one of the strongest pillars which holds the success of a business. Imagine a site without any content, how would you think that it will be indexed by Google? We must say that no content means no success. Content marketing is necessary for your business if you want to take it forward. It is the only way by which you can connect with the target audience in the most engaging and interesting manner. Content includes everything you post on your website whether it is a blog, article, image, video, infographic, or GIF. By creating an interesting and relevant piece of content, you can target a specific audience and build your business. If your content is beneficial for your audience and relevant to your business then you have hit the right spot. Content marketing is deep & vast; hence it is an important part of digital marketing and your business as well. Email marketing Email marketing is being practiced for very long and it has never become old. It is a practice of sending relevant and customized messages to the target audience for lead generation. Email marketing is also considered a good strategy to retain your existing customers by sending the greetings on their birthdays, your anniversaries with them, and even on your birthday. This makes them feel engaged and ensure how important they are for you. Email marketing not only focuses on customers whether new or existing but it also plays an important role in improving brand awareness. You can send newsletters through emails and request them for the subscription. The goal of email marketing is to engage with the customers in the best possible way you can and provide coupons or offers to retain your customers and even make new ones. Television advertisement No matter how much technology evolves, there are still certain conventional marketing practices that are highly efficient. One of those practices is television advertisements and by doing this you can easily reach a mass audience. But just like content marketing, here also the key lies in the content you use to target audience. Only relevant, informative, unique, and engaging content will grab the attention of the people you want to. Thus, do proper research while planning your TV advertisements. For advertisements, you just have to convey the message in the right way and to the right audience. Remember, highly creative your ad high will be the chances of getting attention and desired results you are looking for. Chatbots In this digital age, how can we forget about chatbots? We must not hesitate to say that chatbots will soon be able to clear any simple or complex queries of the clients. They are algorithm-based bots that are employed by businesses to make their presence felt 24/7 and 365 days for the visitors on the website. Chatbots are still evolving and soon we will see the better version of these bots. But, we can’t deny the fact that the bots we are using now are great as well. The reason why they are important is not only for acting as humans but also for the ease by which they
Managing a business with multiple locations? You must consider this
Running a business having a single brick & mortar location is easier when it is compared to those with multiple locations. There is no doubt that having a presence in two, three, or even more locations is good for any company to generate high revenue, build trust, improve brand recognition, and much more but to achieve that, one has to make a lot of efforts and strategize ways to manage every location effectively. One of the fears of such businesses is that if clients are not satisfied with your product or service even on one location, then it might affect your brand in all locations. But you need not worry as managing your business effectively will avoid any such problems and you will be able to create a reputable brand in all locations where you serve. If you have your business’s presence in more than one location then you must consider these factors seriously to make sure its success everywhere. Unleash the power of local directories One of the most important things that you must consider doing is to list your business in the local directories of each location. It will be of great help for your brand to get recognized and improve reputation. Listing your business’s name in local directories have certain benefits: Strengthens online presence It is seen that businesses that are present in these directories have higher chances of being found by people. This directly points towards high SERP ranking, which means that when someone will search for a service or product you provide, it is likely that your site will appear higher than those who have not listed their name in these directories. Boosts SEO Local directories are really helpful not only for people but also for the businesses having their name listed there. They tend to add additional links on their websites that help in improving the SEO. These links help people find the relevant business they are looking for in an easy manner. Having a link provided by a business directory is seen as a positive sign by search engine bots thus, it will result in better search engine ranking of your website. Importance of reviews The reputation of a business depends upon how its customers see it and what they think about it. Customers have the power to review businesses based on their experience and make or break them. Thus, if you do everything right and get positive reviews from clients on these directories, the reputation of your brand or business will automatically improve and you’ll be able to mark your strong presence on all business locations you are serving people. Brand awareness As directories increase the chances of appearing on search results and getting noticed by the audience, it also results in improved brand awareness. Every time when people will search for the products or services that you provide, your brand will appear in front of them and that is a positive sign of making people aware of your brand. Organization is the key Another important point other than local business directories is to organize the working procedure in all locations and manage it accordingly. First and the foremost thing that you can consider doing is the standardization of the working protocol. Creating a systematic and linear way of working on all locations will make things easier for you and you will be able to effectively monitor & manage all operations. The command should be in the right hands Doesn’t matter whether you are a sole owner or a partner in the business you are running, it is not feasible for you to manage all the business locations especially when they are more than two. In such a scenario, it is necessary to have location-based business heads or managers who will report you periodically. One thing must be considered while hiring or selecting a manager is to make sure that he/she is right for the position and is capable enough to handle all the given operations effectively. This could be done by analyzing experience and relevant qualifications. Keep an eye Being an owner, it is your responsibility to see how business should run and especially when you have a physical location, it becomes important to make sure that employees are interacting in a professional manner with the customers because they are the god for you. So, you must personally regularly visit all the business locations and check how the entire process is being carried out. Only you can understand well what flaws are there and where improvement is required. Gathering is necessary Gathering here doesn’t mean meetings, what we mean by saying this is organizing or hosting parties for your employees. They are the ones holding your business on all locations and ensuring its effectiveness. Thus, it is important for you to keep them happy and appreciate the efforts they are making. Doing this will encourage employees to work dedicatedly for your company and do as best as they can. This will show your good gesture towards your staff and the benefits of doing this could be seen in your goals. Communication is must Regular communication with managers & team leaders of all locations is necessary to keep check of work progress. This will also be helpful in maintaining a good relationship and streamlining the process of clearing any doubts as earliest as possible. During communication, you can ask about any difficulties faced and strategize ways to find their solution. Effective communication can do wonders for your business thus focus on staying in touch with your employees. Weekly reports are necessary Ask the team leads or managers of all locations to give weekly reports. This is necessary to stay on track and see how far you are from your goal. Weekly reports will show the progress of your business on each location and you can rectify any faults if found. These reports will also serve as a record of your brand and you can use them for strategizing your future goals
How to use COVID-19 pandemic positively for your business?
No morning walks, no weekend parties, and not even thinking to step out of houses, this is how the world is right now and all because of this COVID-19 pandemic we are facing. The situation is worse for everyone and along with everyone, business owners are also feeling the heat. The government is encouraging people to stay home and work from home as currently, this is the only way to fight this novel coronavirus. We know the time is hard and no one knows how much will be required to get back on the track. During this tough time, it is advised not to lose hope and try planning strategies that will make you different from the others. When no one is there to watch your advertising banners, hoardings, or pamphlets, still there is a ray of hope that can keep you connected with your clients and even the target audience. Yes, we are talking about the digital platform that is still open and people have not stopped using it. Instead of holding back during this pandemic, you can slowly but steadily build trust and improve the reputation of your brand. We know, it will take a lot of effort to fight in this situation but, one thing you must consider is that your efforts made now will reap you benefits when this pandemic will be gone and you will have a competitive advantage over others. Let us see how this unfavorable condition could become favorable for your business. Tips to consider for your business during this COVID-19 pandemic Promotion is the key When the whole world is fighting with this unexpected novel coronavirus, business owners are also advised to fight for their position in the market. No doubt that this is a bad time, but it will not stay forever and when it is gone, your efforts made now will become fruitful. Thus, we advise you not to stop your advertising campaign. The digital world is still open and people can feel your presence there. Seeing you fight hard during this period will bring forward a brave image of your business and people will trust you more. This is recession time and it has been seen earlier that businesses that stood strong during such period have gained success earlier. Reconsidering marketing strategy now will deliver long-term benefits. Social Media is not quarantined We all are at our home to stay safe and avoid any chances of being corona positive. And rightly so, this is the only way we have as of now to fight this pandemic. In this condition when we are looking for the cure of this novel virus, business owners have already got the vaccine that can help them out in this tough time. Don’t be confused, the vaccine we are talking about is social media, it is still everywhere and people are getting updates of the current scenario through social media only along with news channels and newspapers. Thus, when people are accessible via social media, why not promote your brand here? Now you must be thinking that during this harsh period who will purchase your product or service? Yes, you might be thinking right but, we are not telling you to promote your products or services, we are telling you to promote your brand’s name. We know the sensitiveness of this current scenario and being pushy might be harmful to your business. So, marketing strategy should be in such a way that people don’t feel that you are being selfish. Spread awareness Everyone knows what the world is going through these days and it is important to make people aware of what they should do and what not. Now, it doesn’t matter what is the niche of your business, posting updates on social media related to COVID-19 could be vital for your brand. This will show that you care about people and are well-aware of this current scenario. This will also please the audience that you are not only here to sell rather you care about their well-being. Creating & posting interesting and engaging social posts of how and what should people do to save themselves from coronavirus will be the best. You can also educate them about the myths and facts of this situation so that they stop believing what is not true. Doing this will pose you as a warrior in front of the audience who not only thinks about generating revenue rather is also concerned about the health and safety of its clients. Considering this, you will see better brand recognition and awareness when this pandemic will be gone. Humanize your brand It won’t be wrong to say that during this crisis due to COVID-19, people are using social media more than usual and the chances are higher that they will notice what you post. People are looking for the information related to this pandemic on social media and you’ve already considered that as we’ve mentioned in the above point. What else you can do is engage with your audience more than before. Listen up to their queries and try to answer them as quickly as possible. Plus, inform them about the services you are still providing and the ones you are not during this pandemic. Make them aware of the necessary precautions and steps your employees have adopted while providing the services, especially if it requires to visit physically to the customer’s place. Doing this will show the audience how valuable they are for you and this will have a great positive impact on your business in the future. It doesn’t matter how the time is what matters is how you will react to it. Your reaction in tough times is also the key that will take your business forward. Do not forget the SEO SEO is always important and it always will be. There is no doubt that we all are fighting these hard times but, forgetting the basics during this period could harm you later. People are advised