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Digital Marketing

do and dont EM

Email Marketing Do’s and Don’ts

By | Digital Marketing, Email Marketing

Email marketing is the most effective digital marketing method we have. It helps you to interact with your audience while promoting your brand and maximising sales opportunities. Just like Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay Per Click (PPC), and Social Media Marketing (SMM), Email Marketing also has some do’s and don’ts. In this blog post, you are going to learn what are the things that improve your email marketing campaign and what are the things that harm your campaign. Here are the do’s and don’ts for an email marketing campaign.

DO:

1. Send a welcome email to your new subscribers

New subscribers usually do not know much about you. Sending a welcome email will not only make them feel cared but also it will introduce your business to them. Make sure you add what you do and what your business is all about. Avoid self-praising and focus more on how your emails are going to add value to them.

 

2. Be aware of your audience

Just like any other digital marketing methods, email marketing also needs audience awareness. The more you know about your audience, the more precise you become. And the more precise you are, the more sales you are going to make. In short, it doesn’t make any sense to send emails to the audience when you don’t know them.

Before you begin with an email marketing campaign, make sure you know who is your audience. Digital marketers usually suggest creating buyer’s persona. Once you know who your audience is, you can craft effective email templates which are more likely to convert your potential customers.

 

3. Emphasize quality

There is one similarity between Twitter users and new business owners. That is, they both try to increase the number of followers or subscribers. Just like link building, an email marketing campaign must also focus on quality rather than quantity. Just increasing your number of subscribers is of no use if they are not going to buy from you. Why would anyone open your email, if he or she is not interested in the first place? Therefore, it makes sense to build a quality list.

 

4. Experiment with different CTAs

CTA or Call To Action tells your customers what you want them to do? So, it can be said that it is the most essential ingredient of your email. However, we have noticed that not many people do experiments with CTA as they do while web designing.

The fact is that there is no ideal shape, colour, place and size for a CTA. It totally depends on what you are selling, to whom you are selling, niche, country, language and many other things. Therefore, email marketers keep experimenting to make out most.

 

5. Use compelling subject lines

In content marketing, headings and subheadings play a vital role. The audience tends to decide whether or not to read your article just by reading the titles. The same thing applies to email marketing. Here subject lines act as headings for the emails.

A great email with an uninteresting subject line is useless. That’s because your email is less likely to be opened.  Take help of content writer or do online research, but make sure your subject line makes the potential customers open your email.

 

DON’T:

1. Avoid spam filter

Have you ever wondered how Google is able to identify spam emails and send them to the spam folder? Here is the answer. Google scans the emails for typical words that are usually used in the spam emails. The examples of words usually used in the spam folder are free, sales, cash, download, upgrade, offer, etc.

Avoid using these words as much as possible. You don’t want your email to end up in spam, a place where no potential customer opens your mail. Try to write your email using natural words. Always keep in mind that any email that uses promotional language is more likely to end up in the spam folder.

 

2. Don’t buy email lists

Many business owners believe buying email lists is a quick and easy method to widen their reach. However, this is not the case, most of the paid email lists lack quality. In the end, you will end up wasting your time and money.

Further, buying lists negatively impact your online reputation and domain. Email marketing is effective only when you send the right message to the right people, which is not possible with the help of paid lists. Try to build your list. When you build your own list you will know who your audience is. And when you know who your audience is, you will be in a good position to create relevant content for them.

 

3. Don’t underestimate mobiles

Take any digital marketing methods, for instance, SEO, Web design, or Email marketing, digital marketers pay special attention to mobiles. This is because of the dominance that mobile has shown in this decade. Recently, search engines have started to get more traffic from the mobile than desktop.

Almost everyone owns a smartphone today. Your emails are more likely to be opened on mobile. So, if you are optimizing your email only for laptop, you are missing out a huge opportunity. The best way to go is a responsive design. In this way, you will cover not only mobile but also all the other screens such as tablets.

 

4. Don’t send same emails

Here is a hypothetical situation. You get an email where you are encouraged to buy shoes. Looking at the offer and quality both, you decide to go for it. How do you feel if you get the same email that you got initially to buy the shoes after buying the shoes?

To avoid such a situation, you should not send the same email to everyone on the list. Segment your audience into three parts.

  1. Potential buyers
  2. People who have shown interest
  3. People who have made a purchase.

Craft different emails for these three segments. Keep testing and keep evolving.

 

5. Don’t be lengthy

Your email is not your blog, where you have liberty over the length. Users are more likely to hit the back button when they see a lengthy email. Here is an important tip. Convey your message by using minimum words. Below are some other important best practices:

  • Use pictures
  • Use paragraphs
  • Use compelling CTA
  • Use bullet points

In the end, before sending your emails, test them.

 

Marketing Influence

7 Reasons To Work With An Influencer

By | Digital Marketing, Search Engine Optimizaion, Social Media Marketing

In the last couple of years, the role of influencer marketing has significantly grown in digital marketing. So, what exactly is influencer marketing? It is a type of marketing where the focus is on influential people rather than the target market on social media. Here the individuals who have influence over potential customers are identified, and the marketing activities are carried out. Since influencer marketing can positively impact your business, there are many reasons to work with an influencer. In the blog post, we are covering the top seven reasons. Let us begin.

1. Influencers create fresh content

One of the biggest advantages of working with an online influencer is that you get to have fresh high-quality content. And superior content is important for both ranking higher on search engine results page and attracting new customers.

An average online influencer is in this business for many years, he knows how to create a content that people like to consume and move towards sales. Very few people understand the importance of this fact. Many business owners fail to discover all the topics that someone from the outside world would be eager to read. And if at all, the business owners are successful in writing the need of potential customers, the content may not get the visibility and credibility it should.

2. Influencers can bring new followers

One of the main reasons to work with influencers is that they can attract new visitors. Here micro-influencers play a major role. A micro influencer is an influencer whose number of social media followers fall between 2000 to 50000. The number may look less, but the good part is that these micro-influencers have dedicated following. In other words, their followers are active. They believe the expertise of the online influencer.

Some brands try to reach their potential customers via having active social media presence or email marketing. Although these are the best practices in both search engine optimization (SEO) and social media marketing (SMM), an influencer can do the same thing on a wider scale and bring other benefits such as higher brand awareness and brand visibility. So, it makes sense to run social media marketing and email marketing campaign, along with taking help of online influencers.

3. Online influencers improve SEO

Business owners usually take the help of online influencers to gain certain business goals. Some of those are higher visibility, more reach, improved engagement, solid online reputation, and lead generation. However, a very small number of people know that online influencers do improve search engine ranking. As a result, only fewer people attempt to enhance SEO.

Whenever an online influencer creates content and links it to your website, it works like a magic. It simply takes your incoming traffic to another level. If done correctly with right quality and quantity, it elevates search engine ranking of your website. So, share the content created by the influencers on different social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc., and link it to your website.

4. Influencers are conversation starters

Influencers are good at creating content as well as conversations. With years of experience, they know how to speak to your audience. No matter what type of audience you have, they know how to engage and interact with them.

Moreover, you cannot be the only one to praise your products and services. Doing so can do no good. Self-praise never works in marketing. So, when the words from an influencer come out people tend to believe it. In the end, credibility matters the most. If you are able to reach thousands of people, but if no one is believing you, then it is waste of time, money and efforts.

So, if someone, who is not related to your business, is expressing a good opinion about you, then that is considered a credible signal. As a result, emotion and interest of the people shoot up. In the end, they prefer to choose you over your competitors.

5. Influencers generate sales

No matter what digital marketing strategy, method or type you opt, the ultimate goal is to generate sales. It is the sole purpose of your both marketing and business. In the past couple of years, influencer marketing has become one of the leading methods to generate sales. However, that does not mean you need to depend solely on this method. It makes sense to run SEO, SMM, and other digital marketing strategies parallelly.

So, it makes sense to go for influencer marketing. The main question you need to ask here is how many influencers are required. There is no simple answer to this question. The answer depends on various factors such as a size of business, type of business, business goals, type of audience, budget, and type of services and products you sell. Considering all these points, you can judge yourself. SEO experts usually do not recommend settling with one influencer.

6. Influencers establish customer relationships

It is an obvious fact that influencers have a strong relationship with their followers. Over the years, they have gained the trust of the people. Their followers trust their opinion and expertise. So, partnering with the influencers gives access to a solid relationship. It is a kind of shortcut. The good thing is that one influencer can open the door to a lot of connections. This positive wave can spread like a wildfire.

The other positive aspect of a good customer relationship is that it builds a strong online reputation. This is the reason why working with influencers is one of the most-used techniques to establish a solid online reputation within a short period of time.

7. Influencer marketing is a solution for ad blockers

The hard truth is that nobody likes Internet ads. Internet users are using tools to avoid online ads. Today, it is quite easy to install the ad blocker extension in all the popular browsers. In fact, It hardly takes one or two minutes. Many studies have revealed that one out of nine mobile Internet users uses an ad blocker. It simply means more than half a billion people across the world. Furthermore, the usage of ad blockers is growing at an annual rate of 30%. So this issue has become a big headache to digital marketers.

The advantage of working with online influencers is that you bypass ad blockers. In other words, you can reach the target audience without facing any obstacles.

youtube channel optimization

11 Ways To Optimize Your Business YouTube Channel

By | Digital Marketing, Google, Social Media Marketing, Website

Before we begin, let us have a look at some interesting facts about YouTube.

  • Did you know? YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world.
  • 60% of people prefer online video platforms to live television.
  • YouTube is the third most visited site in the world after Google and Facebook.
  • The average mobile viewing session in this platform is more than forty minutes.
  • On an average, YouTube gets more than one billion views per day.
  • You can navigate YouTube in more than 70 languages.
  • The above figures are enough to show the importance of YouTube in digital marketing. So, if you do not own a YouTube video channel for your business yet, you should set up one soon. However, just setting up a channel is not going to work. You have to optimize it just like you optimize your business website. So, in this blog post, you will learn how to optimize your YouTube channel to improve reach and show up in its search, and suggested videos.

1. Plant a keyword into your channel name

On-page metadata in youtube works the same as it does on your business website. The positive impact of keywords usually depends on the place it is used. Keywords that are placed near the front of a title will obviously work like a magic. However, have you ever thought of adding a keyword in your channel name? It is one of the rarest shortcuts in search engine optimization.

For example, instead of ‘Business name,’ try ‘Business name + keyword.’ Make sure the keyword which you use is related to your industry, service, product or any item that you are well recognized with. SEO experts usually suggest to do keyword research and find out the best possible keyword that your visitors use to find the content you share on the video platform.

2. Fill out About Us section

About Us, a page is the most overlooked aspect of a YouTube channel. Even today business owners, marketers, digital marketing partners do not have a clear idea of what should be written in the About us section. Some say company history or business mission should be written, while others say previous achievements.

Not many people know that the first 48 characters of the About Us show up in the YouTube search results. Hence, filling out this section is the must. Doing so will help your visitors understand who you are and what you do. Furthermore, the same content helps the YouTube to put up the best snippet for the content.

The rest of the content present in the About Us page is equally important. This content will help you to do two jobs simultaneously. On one side, you can fully describe what your channel is all about, the type of content you produce, and the goals you want to achieve. On the other side, you can optimize the About Us section with the keywords. Make sure that your keywords match the content and appear natural. Do not overdo it, Google doesn’t like keyword stuffing.

Just in case, if you are not sure about keywords, you can use these tools to find them.

  • YouTube Analytics
  • Google Search Console
  • Google Analytics
  • Moz
  • SEMrush
  • Market Muse

3. Create long videos

The most important ranking signal is “video watch time” or “audience retention.” Watch time can be defined as the average time your viewers spend watching your videos. YouTube is more likely to promote your channel via search and recommended videos if you have a boost in your watch time. That is how this video sharing platform rewards a channel that creates good content.

You can improve your watch time if you publish videos that have a longer duration. Well, that is fundamental. Just length of the video is not the only factor to consider. Focus on the quality of the video too. Only if your videos are lengthy and filled with quality, people like to watch you. That is exactly how watch time is improved. Since SEO experts say that the average length of the videos in page one of YouTube is 14 minutes and 50 seconds, it is better to make videos that are in and around this length.

4. Concentrate on the first 15 seconds

In the previous point, we have discussed the watch time and how it impacts the visibility of your channel. If the viewers are hitting the back button after a couple of seconds, your watch time is destined to go low. As a result, the visibility of your YouTube channel shrinks. However, there is this tip or the best practice you can follow to avoid this issue.

Did you ever think what makes a viewer decide whether to hit the back button or continue watching the video? The answer is simple. Viewers have short attention time on Youtube. They will see your first fifteen seconds of your video, based on that experience they decide whether to stay or not. Therefore, the first 15 seconds of the videos play a crucial part. Make sure you have something in the first 10 to 20 seconds of the videos that glues your viewers.

Here are the best practices to improve watch time:
Preview: At the beginning of the video itself state what is your video about and what are your viewers going to gain from it. After seeing the preview, your viewers will be more likely to stick on the video for a longer period of time. For instance, you can add a 20-seconds section called “What you are going to learn in this episode?” at the beginning of a video.
Proof: Explain how your pitch has worked and back it up with previous success stories. For example, “Our clients have tried this strategy many times, and it worked.”
Preview: The preview which we have earlier talked is different from this one. Keep this preview bit lengthy compared to the earlier one and also be more specific. Here you should show fresh information that viewers have not seen before this point. For instance: “Here are the 10 ways to optimize your YouTube channel.”

5. Optimize your channel trailer

What is a channel trailer? It is a small video created to help visitors learn about a YouTube channel. This is something similar to movie trailers. Make sure you enable the channel trailer. Doing so will display the trailer automatically at the top of your YouTube channel Page for new visitors.

This trailer is a visual About Us of a Youtube page. Since it is not displayed for the already subscribed viewer, it is a great medium to convert your new visitors into subscribers. Here are the best practices you need to follow while creating a channel trailer:

  • Keep your channel trailer in between 30 to 90 seconds.
  • Give a quick intro of you and your channel.
  • Explain the type of videos you are going to post.
  • Include frequency and timing of your posting.
  • Ask to subscribe.

6. Post compelling thumbnail

Thumbnails act like a door to your videos. A viewer judges a channel based on many things such as business name, length of a video, quality of a video, channel trailer, and thumbnails. Since we already talked about the rest, let us discuss thumbnails at this point.

Youtube advertises other videos through thumbnails in its sidebar. So you need to put efforts to make your thumbnails unique and attractive. The same thing happens when your video is listed after a search is conducted on Youtube.

Youtube usually ranks a video with great thumbnail better than the others, even if the quality is not that high. This is because good thumbnails improve click-through rate, which is also a ranking factor. Here are some tips for creating thumbnails.

  • Use large texts, so that viewers can read.
  • Make use of arrow and other symbols.
  • Mark or highlight important region.
  • Add unexpected, surprising or unusual pictures related to the video.
  • Make sure picture quality is high.

7. Make playlists

Playlists help you to organize your YouTube channel. So, with the help of playlists try to keep the videos in a categorical format. Making playlist will improve your Youtube channel optimization efforts in multiple ways. Here we are mentioning some.

  • Provides more visibility for not so popular videos.
  • Increases the rank of a video.
  • Motivates you to create videos with better content.
  • Improves watch time sessions.
  • Enhances user experience by providing related videos.
  • Here are the steps you need to follow to create a playlist on Youtube.
  • Go to the video you want to add in a playlist.
  • Click on “add to” under the video.
  • Next, click on create a new playlist, and enter the name of the playlist.
  • Go through the privacy carefully.
  • Click on the create button.

8. Promote your videos on social media

Just ask yourself one simple question. How your customers will come to know about your YouTube channel and videos? The answer to this is social media marketing. Promoting your videos on social media is a part of SMM strategy. It will help you to target a new audience. As a result, the traffic from social media will flow towards your channel.

A platform such as Facebook, Linkedin, Instagram, and Pinterest have millions and millions of users. If you do it in the right way, you can utilize these platforms to improve ranking and subscribers. Here are some ways to utilize social media platforms.

  • Inform your followers about the upcoming videos.
  • Discuss the content in the videos in the comment section.
  • Collect the feedback to improve the quality of videos.
  • Release the trailer on social media, so that people will know when the video will be available and what it is about. In short, you can promote as well as create suspense among followers.
  • Engage your audience by asking a fun question, and also answers their questions.
  • Share the videos that have fewer numbers of views.
  • Repost the videos that were successful in the past, so that your new followers do not miss them.

9. Say keywords in the video

One of the lesser-known facts about Youtube videos is that content spoken in the video can technically impact the search engine ranking. Yes, Google has made some changes in its algorithm. Now the algorithm can crawl videos, images, and transcriptions. So, anything you say in the video can either positively or negatively influence your ranking.

Therefore, along with putting the keyword in the title of your video, you must say keywords throughout the video to ensure a higher ranking. Note that you do not overdo it. Let your keywords appear natural and match the content of the video. Saying the keyword numerous times is considered as stuffing, Google punishes such activities by lowering the ranking. So, read the Youtube guidelines, and stay on the safer side.

10. Gain user interaction signals

Along with watch time, video length, title, description and click through rate, user interaction is also an important ranking signal. These signals help search engines to understand how active your audience is and how much authority you have on a particular subject.

As a business owner, your job does not finish after creating high-quality content. In fact, your work begins with creating the fresh superior content. So, once you post the video, you should focus on generating user interaction signals. Here are some ways to do so:

  • Share the videos on Facebook, Twitter, and other similar platforms.
  • Join the conversation taking place in the comment section.
  • Link your videos to other videos of your channel.
  • Encourage your viewers to comment on their views and opinions.
  • Be gentle to criticism and publicly accept the mistakes committed.

11. Compelling language and year

Last but not least, language and year are the important ingredients to increase reach and views. Here is how they play their part in your Youtube success story.

The language you use plays a role of attracting the visitors and improving click-through rates. Along with the video quality, a compelling language used in the title is equally important. Make sure you write video titles in such a way that all the videos appear as a part of one collection.

The other smart method to improve click-through rate is by adding a year. For instance, “Places to visit in England, 2019” looks a lot better and up to date than just “Places to visit in England.” Although the year is irrelevant in this case, it still tells the viewers about the freshness of the content. As a result, viewers usually tend to click the video that has a year in its description.

quality content

7 Ways To Create Quality Content

By | Content Creation, Digital Marketing, Search Engine Optimizaion, SEO & PPC

All the major types of digital marketing methods such as search engine optimization (SEO) pay per click (PPC), social media marketing (SMM) and email marketing largely depend upon quality content. In fact, you simply can’t run any of these digital marketing campaigns without content. Therefore, high-quality content is absolutely fundamental in digital marketing.

This gives rise to one important question – what is high-quality content? In simple words, quality content is an original content that adds value to the visitors, improves SEO, and converts visitors into customers. Defining quality content is an easier task than developing the same. However, if you focus more on visitors than on your search engine ranking, your job becomes easy. In this blog post, you will learn the top seven ways to create high-quality content.

1. Develop original content

You cannot rank your web page with the help of copied content. Google detects duplicate content within in seconds and penalizes your site. As a result, your search engine ranking may hit rock bottom. You may have to go for penalty recovery services.

Original content refers to a content that is a product of your thinking, and nothing else. Some people try to spin the article and cheat the search engine. Yes, there are many free article spinning tools available on the Internet. All you need to do is copy the content from a site, and paste it into an article spinner tool, and click on spin. Within a couple of seconds, you will get fresh content. However, the quality of such content is always very low. Since article spinners just rephrase a paragraph, most of the time the sentences do not even make sense.

So, if you want to develop quality content, then you have to forget these two things and focus on the uniqueness of the content. Google likes the content which is liked by the people. So, focus more on providing answers to the questions of the visitors.

2. Create compelling headlines

How do you decide to read a news article? By reading the headline, right? The same thing works here also. Your headlines act like a door for your content. They will decide whether the visitors are going to read your content or not. Here are the two statistics to back our claim:
80% of the people read headlines.
Only 20% of those people read the full content.
Make sure your headlines create curiosity in the minds of readers. Let us take an example. If you are creating content on types of business owners, then your headline should raise a question in the minds of them. ” Seven Types of Business Owners – Which Group Is You In?” creates more curiosity than “Seven Types of Business owners.”

Take time to write headlines. Prefer to write the content first and headline last. While writing you may get some good headline ideas, which you can note down. In the end, you can select the best one. This will save your time.

3. Create actionable content

What was the last article you wrote? Did it give advice on how your readers can apply the given information straight away? If no, you must focus on this aspect.

Content created by you should give the readers a sense of how to utilize the information. Users tend to like the content that guides them to apply the knowledge. For instance, “10 ways to create quality content” looks better than “10 aspects of good-quality content.” The former helps the users to create quality content, whereas the latter just describes the ingredients. So, write all your future blog posts keeping this thing in mind.

4. Try to add images and videos

Visual content enhances your overall content. There is a reason why kids like books which have more pictures. That is because they are engaging, and they also help them to understand quicker and better. The same things apply to blog and website content.

Paragraphs of texts are boring. Hardly anyone likes to read them. So, make sure you add high-quality pictures and videos. Also, make sure they are original. Do not add any images just for the sake of adding. If you put any image or video, make sure it has a role to play in your content. Adding unnecessary visual content can distract the readers and dilute the value of your content.

5. Keep to the point

Yes, Google likes lengthy content. That does not mean you should simply increase the length of the content. Doing so can reduce the quality of the content and spoil the readability.

Users usually want to know more in less time. So it makes sense to say things using fewer sentences. Who does not like to the point articles or blog posts? Increase the length of the content only if there is a scope. In most of the cases, lengthy text increases the bounce rate, as they are time-consuming and less interesting. As a result, your search engine optimization efforts will get spoiled. So, say no to fluff that dilutes your content.

6. Do proper research

This is one of the most important steps you need to take before writing the blog? Select a topic. Once you select the topic, do research and find out what is already written about it. Try to figure out what is missing in those blogs and make a note. Think what new you can add to the topic.

The other thing you should do is find what are the most shared contents in the topic selected by you. This will help you to opt the topics. There are several tools available on the Internet to do this job. You can try BuzzSumo. It helps you to find the most shared content for a particular topic under all social media platforms.

7. Aim to engage the audience

Audience engagement is one of the main goals you should try to achieve. That is because engaged audience hangs on to your every single word and grabs all of it. The only way to obtain engaged audience is to create engaging content. Here are the best practices to improve audience engagement:
End with the questions: Now this does not mean you have to write an incomplete post. We mean you should end the blog with a question that encourages them to utilize the information given by you.
Have a solid beginning: People will not read your full content and make a judgment. Rather they read a headline and first paragraph and decide whether to read or not. So it makes sense to tell why they should care to read and what will they learn from it, at the beginning, itself.
Tell a story: You might already know that people love stories. A story can help you to tell a point clearly. Furthermore, you can easily gain uninterrupted audience attention for a long period of time.
Try to gain user interaction: If you write a content that attracts a lot of user comments, the search engine will believe that you have good content and rank it higher. So, try to obtain people’s interaction.

google my business

Google My Business FAQs

By | Digital Marketing, Google, Online reputation, Website

Google My Business is a free tool for business owners to manage their online presence across Google Search and Google Maps. It helps your customers to find you when they search for a business like yours. Hence having a Google My Business page is an integral part of digital marketing. If you have not claimed your listing yet, do it now.

If you are a new business owner, or if you are new to Google My Business, you may have many questions. To answer all your queries, we are listing all the common Google My Business frequently asked questions, and answering them. Read this blog post, and get all the answers for your queries at one place. Here we go.

1. What is Google My Business Q&As?

Google wants to provide all the information at one place. A typical Google My Business page has information about opening and closing times, address, contact number, reviews, map, pictures, directions, link to the business website and business description. These are the most basic questions that potential customers try to find an answer before making a contact.

However, there can be some more questions that should be answered. For instance, whether the business has a parking space? Or is the business handicap friendly? So, Google has smartly come up with the GMB Q&As. Google My Business Questions and Answers are crowdsourced. In other words, anyone can question, and anyone can answer the question. The best part is that your customers will get to know your business more closely. In addition to that, you will know what are the consumer concerns and how to satisfy them.

2. How much does it cost?

Google My Business is absolutely free. Do not pay any kind of amount to any person. There are many scams that try to charge you for setting up your GMB page. Do not fall for these scams. Setting up Google My Business is as simple as creating a Facebook account. Adding the correct business name, phone number, address, description, pictures and videos, and other important details is all it takes to set up. The whole process is, simple, effortless, and less time-consuming. Even a person who is new to Google My Business can create his page within a couple of minutes.

3. Why do I need Google My Business If I already have my own website?

GMB is not a substitute for your website. Your website and Google My Business page, go hand in hand. So, having both a website and Google My business account can work in favor of you and improve your search engine optimization and other digital marketing efforts.

The main purpose of Google My Business is to give your local business a public identity and presence on Google, so that, when a customer searches for a business like yours reaches you. In simple words, the information you provide can appear on Google Search and Maps and help your website to get more exposure and customers. Since Google My Business costs nothing, there is no reason to ignore it.

4. Does Google My Business have a mobile app?

Yes, Google My Business has a mobile app, and it is free. And this is one of the reasons why people love GMB. The mobile app allows you to do everything you do in your web account. Here are the main features:
Edit or add new information directly through the Profile Editor.
Click photos and enhance them with a range of excellent filters, and post in your Profile.
Create posts for new events, offers, and launches.
Know who is interacting with your GMB profile, and continue the connection. You can do this by using Customer tab. A Customer tab allows you to respond to reviews, messages directly with customers.
So, it can be said that Google makes it easy to manage your Google My Business page by providing a free mobile application.

5. Do I need to create a business website?

No. It is not necessary to build a website to create a Google My Business page. However, it will be good if you own a website. Just like social media accounts or pages boost the visibility of your business website, Google My Business improves organic traffic.

The good news is that Google My Business offers you to generate a simple website for free. Google does this with the help of website builder, which uses the information present in Google My Business profile. Although this website will be a simple one, you can customize it to suit your business.

6. How do I manage multiple business locations?

This is one of the frequently asked Google My Business questions. Managing multiple business locations is easy with Google My Business. Based on the number of location, there are two methods. If there are few locations, you can set up every single location under one Google login. In case, if you have ten or more locations, you can use the bulk upload tool. A bulk upload tool is a tool which helps you to upload numerous business locations at once. If you want to upload or edit your locations, you can go to Google My Business Locations.

7. What should I do if my listing is claimed by someone else?

In rare cases, you can see a “someone else has already verified this listing” message when you try to verify your Google My Business listing. If this is the case, then you have nothing to worry. GMB gives you an option to reclaim your listing. All you need to do is a request for admin rights and submit a transfer of the ownership request. Google will try to contact the existing owner to verify the transfer. If the owner does not respond within the period of seven days, then the current owner is unverified, and a verification code is sent to confirm his or her identity.

8. I am an individual practitioner. Can I set up a Google My Business listing?

Yes, it is possible. In fact, Google My Business is more popular among local business and individual practitioners such as lawyers, tutors, doctors, dentists, real estate agents, carpenters, painters, electricians or plumbers. What if there are multiple practitioners who belong to a common organization at one location? Digital marketing experts usually advise creating a listing for all the practitioners separately, in such cases. Not doing so will affect the visibility of the individual practitioners of the same organization. As the result, having a listing will not serve the purpose of owning a listing.

9. Can I skip business address on Google as I work from home?

No, you cannot leave the address field blank. However, Google My Business provides an option that resolves this issue. That is you can hide your business address by listing your business as a service area. Google gives you an option to provide the areas and cities that you cover. You can also choose to remove a service area entirely. If you are not sure about the service area listed in the GMB listing, you can go now and update the location.

10. I am shifting to a new address. How to update?

In most cases, the new address might be occupied by a business before you. If this is the case, then you must find out who the business owner is and mark the listing as closed. Closing the old listing before updating your new address is important for two reasons. One, customers of old business will not mistake you for the old business in your new address. Two, your potential customers will contact you at the correct place. Once the address is changed, your other information can also change such as a phone number, and office hours. So update all the information.

What if your new address is not occupied by a former business? Well, this makes your work easy. The only thing you need to do is update your listing.

Online Reputation Management

10 Online Reputation Management Tips For Your Business 

By | Digital Marketing, Google, Online reputation, Social Media

Online reputation is one of the most important pillars of any business. A good reputation helps a business in retaining existing customers and as well as gaining new customers. On the other hand, a poor reputation and make you lose the market to your competitors. Hence, it is really important for a business to maintain a solid online reputation. Therefore, in this blog post, we are going to present the top online reputation management tips to establish a strong reputation.

Tip 1: Know your audience

Let us start with something very important and basic. To maintain an online reputation you have to do several things such as:

  • Fulfilling the expectations
  • Engaging the audience
  • Creating suitable content.

To do the above-mentioned things it is really important to understand the audience. Stepping into online reputation management without knowing your audience can harm your reputation. Therefore, know your audience very well. Make sure that you have a good understanding about their likes, dislikes, behavior, expectations, interests and many other things. This is vital because both your online reputation and business revolve around these things. You cannot run a business without a clear picture of your audience.

Tip 2: Avoid online argument

This is one of the major mistakes that most of the businessmen do. You might be right and have every reason to argue, but arguments show the unprofessional side of a business or a brand. The best way to handle such situations is by giving a standard reply and taking the matter offline. Keep calm and deal with the customer problems professionally. Solving an issue successfully will not only turn an unhappy customer happy but also attracts new customers.

Tip 3: Be a good listener

Today, there are various online reputation tools available to know what people are talking about your brand. Read what others are talking about you and how is your reputation is getting shaped. Popular tools such as Mention tool and Google Alerts can serve this purpose. Listening to what is being said about your brand is beneficial in multiple ways.

  • Helps you in understanding of current brand image
  • Improves the problem-solving ability
  • Introduces new customers
  • Connects with the probable customers

Tip 4: Apologize

Saying we are sorry or apologizing, even when the mistake is not on your side is a smart thing to do. It absorbs the anger of an unhappy customer and resolves the issue most of the time. Furthermore, it shows that you value your customer and establish you as a professional in the minds of other customers. The worst thing to do here is to be defensive. This will not solve the issue, but instead it makes it bigger. Your focus should be on resolving the issue. Therefore, it’s not a good idea to explain or defend yourself. Apologize, take the issue offline and resolve it. That’s the best thing to do.

Tip 5: Keep an eye on your employees

When it comes to fake reviews, angry employees are the common source. Although there is nothing much you can do, taking some precautionary measures can minimize the risk. Make sure that you check out their social media profiles before hiring them. Use online reputation management tools such as Mention tool for knowing and understanding the corporate image of your employees. This will help you to identify the problem early. As the result, you can resolve an issue before it turns big.

Tip 6: Be almost everywhere

Today, we have various online platforms to reach people across the globe. Your brand should have an online presence at these platforms. Well, at least on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. If you have a B2B business, then Linkedin can be more helpful. If your business has more visual content, then prefer Pinterest, Flickr and Instagram. If you can create videos, Youtube and Vimeo are the best. The point here is to be there where your customer is. Customers are more likely to share their experiences on social media. Having an online presence can give a better option to deal with negative reviews.

Tip 7: Get rid of negative reviews

To be honest, getting rid of negative reviews is quite difficult. However, it is possible is some cases where the review violates the policy. Therefore, check, whether a review is violating any guidelines. In case of any violation, contact concern officials and appeal to remove them. Another good method of removing negative removes is to contact the person and make a request politely. Customers usually tend to change the bad reviews into good owns when approached respectfully.

Tip 8: Blog

You might already know that blogging plays an important role in digital marketing by enhancing search engine optimization. In addition to that, blogging can improve your online reputation. Yes, you read it right. It can give you a solid “home court” ground where you can respond to any serious assertions made about your brand if required. It gives you an opportunity to tell your side of the story. Be honest and transparent. Over explaining or over defending yourself can do more harm than good.

Tip 9: Dilute negative reviews

If you can’t remove negative Google reviews, then dilute them. Encourage your satisfied customer to leave a review. A happy customer is more likely to give a positive review. Gaining better reviews will minimize the impact of negative reviews. In addition to that couple of negative reviews makes your brand look more genuine and credible. Having only positive reviews can make the customers question the credibility of the reviews. Therefore, fake positive reviews are definitely a bad idea.

Tip 10: Be transparent

Well a good reputation cannot be earned without being transparent. Therefore, be transparent with your employees, customers and probable customers. One of the common things that are responsible for negative Google reviews is a mismatch between the expectation created, and the result delivered. Hence, be honest about your products, services, company, staff, etc., and avoid overhype. So as you set out on the journey of building a good online reputation, keep these ten things in mind.

YouTube Channel Optimization

How to Optimize your YouTube Channel to Go Viral

By | Digital Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Uncategorized

No wonder that Video Marketing is one the hottest trend in Digital Marketing Era, according to Socialbakers nine out ten people check out a video review before purchasing a product online.

No one can beat the world’s second largest Search Engine Youtube out of a variety of video rolling features included social profiles like Facebook, Linkedin, Instagram, Twitter, SnapChat etc.

Essential Factors to Analyze while Optimizing your Youtube Channel

To capture a breakthrough along the Youtube Channel, you need to focus on two mandatory factors namely.

  • Youtube SEO
  • Engaging Content

A few days back Youtube made few guidelines for monetizing videos in the Youtube Channel that Within 12 months of creating a Youtube Channel you need to gain at least 1000 subscribers within 4000 hours once you upload the video to your channel. If you gain these followers then only you will be able to place ads.

So what are they expecting? Yeah, undoubtedly an engaging content. Now let’s check out the important characteristics you need to consider while optimizing your Youtube Channel.

Focus on your Niche

Niche indicates the area that you are going to focus; there are a number of categories and sub-categories available namely Music, Entertainment, Information etc.

You should know what type of people you are going to concentrate on and how to make them your loyal followers, this may be tedious, but the right approach will help you in finding the right niche.

Segmentation

There are many right viewers online, and you just need to find out them from a large group and provide the things they need to get popularized. When segmenting the audience, you need to know the age group of people whom you need, the targeted location, the language preference, the genre based on the targeted viewers taste.

The above four factors will help in choosing the right niche, by doing so you can create excellent videos as per the niche you have selected. If you have selected an entertainment niche, then make sure you are creating videos in a way that people love them and get entertained.

Trend Analyzing

Focus on the trend that will bring the audience to your Youtube channels. How can you know the trends in your niche? It can be done.

  • By following your competitor channels, means the channels that create videos in the similar niche you have chosen.
  • Making use of the Google Trend Tool from Google, which will let you know about the current Youtube Trends.
  • By following similar social media trends so that you can choose the one base don your niche.

There are two factors when optimizing your Youtube Channels, and the first one is for views and the second one for rankings.

Youtube Optimization for Views

  • Focus on the Title, make it exciting and meaningful so that your targeted audience will click.
  • Make use of impressive Thumbnails.
  • Ensure whether you are requesting people to like, share, subscribe and comment at the video end.

Youtube Optimization for Ranking

  • Make long videos as they can bring you better rankings when considered to the shorter ones.
  • HD quality videos are essential for top rankings.
  • Choosing the right keywords in the title, you can select the keywords you need to target from various keywords tools online.
  • Writing good quality, expressive and engaging descriptions, you need not require keywords to be added in the description because they are not going to help your Youtube channel in ranking.
  • Add your business social profile links or the external links in the description for the better leads.
  • Do not forget to add suitable tags as Youtube will list out videos from similar queries, pick them from competitors or choose them by your imagination.

The critical point is to add videos at regular intervals, at the initial stage you need to post videos at the right timings your targeted audience are active to increase your subscribers.

Making this as a habit will enhance the connection between you and your viewers, Many Youtube channels make this prospect for better conversion.

  • Be creative, make a new style and ask viewers to subscribe.
  • Make sure you have active social media pages to promote your Youtube Videos, this increases the interaction with your audiences.
  • Shoot out the questions on your social media pages regarding how to improve your Youtube Channels or ask for any suggestions from your viewers.
WordPress Themes To Choose

7 Things To Consider When Choosing A WordPress Theme

By | Digital Marketing, Google, Website, WordPress Website

Today, themes can influence search engine ranking and user experience. Selecting a theme solely based on appearance is not a good idea. There are several things that you need to keep in mind before picking a WordPress theme for your website. Therefore, in this blog post, we are going to present the top seven things that you need to consider before selecting a WordPress theme.

Simplicity

You might have come across many good but complicated themes. And you might have picked some already. That’s exactly where you are going wrong. Your goal should be of providing what an Internet user is looking for. A complicated theme might confuse the visitor. Therefore, always choose themes, which are simple.

Is The Theme Responsive?

This is one of the most important questions to ask before using a theme. You get traffic from desktop, mobile, tablet and many other devices. Therefore, you need to make sure that the theme is responsive across all screen sizes. To check whether a theme is responsive or not, copy the theme URL and paste it in Google’s mobile-friendly test.

Browser Compatibility

Today their several browsers available for free to browse through the Internet. Your potential customers or visitors might be using Google Chrome, Edge, Firefox or any other browser. Therefore, make sure the theme which you are going to use is compatible across all the popular browser.

SEO Friendliness

Search engine optimization is the most important aspect of your website. If you are looking for a better search engine ranking or want to retain the existing ranking, then you should not use themes that are not SEO friendly. Take some technical help to discover whether the theme is SEO friendly or not.

Reviews and Ratings

How do you know a film is good before watching it? By seeing its star rating and reviews. Similarly, themes are rated and reviewed by the WordPress community. You can see the rating and go through the reviews of a theme to judge it. A theme which is downloaded and loved by thousands of people is mostly the good one.

Social Media Integration

Social Media Marketing is an important part of digital marketing. That is the reason why your theme should be ready for social media. If you are selecting a theme, prefer the one which has fully integrated social media widgets.

Security

Security must be your top-most priority. But how to know whether a theme is secure are not? The easiest method is to read the reviews. Users tend to pick security issues quickly and post reviews. Furthermore, avoid themes that have no reviews or lesser reviews.

Experienced Digital Agencies

5 Factors To Consider When Choosing A Digital Marketing Partner

By | Digital Marketing, PPC, Search Engine Optimizaion, Social Media Marketing

Just having an online presence for your business is not enough. In order to reach more people, you need digital marketing services. A good digital marketing agency will help you to reach more potential customers and expands the customer base. But how to know whether a digital marketing agency is effective for your business or not? There are several factors to consider before choosing a digital marketing partner. In this blog post, we are listing top five factors.

Factor 1: Experience

Experience is one of the most important key factors. Experienced agencies usually reflect professionalism and deliver results quickly. Furthermore, they know how to handle difficulties, and fix both online and offline issues effectively. Therefore, before selecting a digital marketing agency, you need to make sure the agency has sufficient experience in your industry. Check when the agency was founded and calculate the number of years’ experience it has under its belt.

Factor 2: Quality Service

Most of the new business owners commit a common mistake by picking the least-expensive digital marketing company. Inexpensive digital marketing services are less likely to deliver the promised results. Therefore, give more importance to your business goals over the price offered. Get in contact with the ex-clients and current clients of the company and evaluate the services offered to judge the quality.

Factor 3: Core Strength

Every digital marketing firm has its own strength. Some are excellent at search engine optimization, and some are good at pay per click advertising. Always search for a company that has services you require as the core strength. For instance, if you need social media marketing services, then look for a digital marketing company, whose core strength is SMM.

Factor 4: Quality Content

Almost all the aspects of digital marketing such as SEO, SMM, PPC and Link building require quality content. Make sure the company which you are choosing as the digital marketing partner is qualified to create amazing content. Going through the case studies will reveal a lot about the content development capabilities of a firm. Here are the types of content a company should be able to create:
● Infographics
● Social media posts
● Articles
● Videos
● Pictures and many more

Factor 5: Credibility

Is the firm credible? This is one of the most important questions to ask before picking a digital marketing company. Digital marketing is a long journey, and that’s why you need to tie up with the one which is more credible. To find the credibility of a company, talk to the former clients and know their experiences. Reading online reviews is also an effective method to judge credibility.

Online marketing

How to Create SEO Friendly Content for Your Website

By | Content Creation, Content Marketing, CRO, Digital Marketing, Search Engine Optimizaion

Creating content for your website is not same as creating content for your PPT presentation. If you want to create content for your website, then you have to keep two things in mind. One, your content should add value to your visitors and convey the correct message. Two, your content should be SEO friendly. In this blog post, we are going to explain how to create SEO friendly content for your website.

 Begin With Research

No matter how expert you are in a particular field or a subject, you shouldn’t write a content without doing proper research. Research will help you to elaborate the data and widen your knowledge. Use various tools available online and find out important data such as:

  • What kind of keywords your audience use

  • Your audience’s search behaviour

  • In-depth data on the content

  • Facts supporting your content, etc.

 Focus On Introduction

While crawling your page, the search engine bots will try to understand the context of your webpage. It is best to add keywords in the introduction or at the beginning of your webpage. This makes indexing simple, clear and easy. If you read the introduction in this article, you will find that we have added, “create SEO friendly content” in it.

Use Images

Just adding images, is not going to work. Make sure you add images that are relevant to your content. Optimize the images for both readability and search engine optimization. If done right, images will make your content both enjoyable and search engine friendly. The other plus point of using images is that it makes the visitors to stick to your content for a longer time.

Make Your Content interesting

No doubt your content should add value to your visitors, but along with that you need to make it interesting. You can make the reading enjoyable in multiple ways, here are some things you need to focus on:

  • Usage of appropriate font size for heading, subheadings, body, etc.

  • Picking up the right font style

  • Highlighting important things using underline, bold, italics, etc. features

 Content Length

The ideal content length for a given content varies with respect to gener, readers, topic, type of post, etc. In case of blog posts; Google considers the lengthy ones (400 to 2000 words) as more informative, provided it should have other quality signals. It is better to stick to a word limit and keep adding content consistently.

Genuine and Distinctive Content

This is the most important aspect for your website content. Without genuine and distinctive content, you cannot succeed. The above mentioned best practices are applicable only if your content is original and unique. Google has the ability to identify the duplicated content almost instantly. Therefore, optimization of duplicated content can never make it search engine friendly

 

Do you want more traffic?

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