Tag: online marketing

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Social Media

Which Social Media Sites Should You Be Marketing On?

What social media sites should you be marketing on BL

Social media is great for marketing your business or building your network. But with so many options, it’s hard to know which site you should be utilizing for your marketing efforts. Different social sites speak to different audiences, in different ways, and what works for one social media site may not work for another.  

So, which social media sites should YOU be marketing on? We break them down for you below.

Facebook

Facebook was originally a friendship based networking site. When Facebook was launched over 10 years ago, it was service to connect college students. Now it’s open to anyone in the world and has over 1 billion users. While Facebook is still friendship based, it is increasingly business friendly. One big reason to be on Facebook is the sheer number of users. Most people you know or want to connect with are already on Facebook. While promoting your business on Facebook can sometimes be tricky (people can easily hide what they don’t want to see) the sheer number of people on the network make it a smart choice to do some marketing.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn was built for business, advancing in your career, and making business connections. Because of these reasons, it makes sense for you to market and build your network on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a fast growing social media network, but still has far fewer users than Facebook. Also users do not log in to LinkedIn or access their page as frequently as they visit Facebook. Use LinkedIn to build a strong network, but know your marketing may not be seen by as many people as content on Facebook will be.

Twitter

Twitter has nearly 300 million monthly users and the best part is that you don’t have to be friends with them or have an established connection for them to see your marketing content. Thanks to the 140 character limit and a fast moving feed, Twitter takes minimal time investment. Twitter is a great place to market your business and test strategies. One tip: Do research into the right hashtags to make sure your content is seen by the most people.

Instagram

If your business is photo-friendly, Instagram is a great choice. This increasingly popular network relies on hashtags just like Twitter in order for users to find content. Photo-friendly businesses like hair salons, doggie daycare, or travel services thrive on Instagram. If your company isn’t photo-friendly try to get creative in your use of Instagram. Motivational quotes over a fun background are often popular on Instagram and can relate to many business areas. Think of ways they can apply to you.

Google+

You may have heard that Google+ is dead, and that may be partially true. But thanks to the popularity and dominance of the Google search engine, it’s still important for your business to be on Google+. To market on Google+, make sure your page has all the important business information like address, hours, and even some photos. Direct your customers to leave reviews on Google+ as well. This way, when someone searches for your business or a business service like yours, your results will be favored by Google and appear higher up on the search results.

 

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Social Media

How to Use Twitter for Marketing

How To use twitter for marketing

 

Twitter can be a powerful tool for marketing. Although 140 characters can limit some of your ideas, it forces you to be more creative and more to the point. Twitter is a basic, no frills social network because of its character limit, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have much to offer. Read on to learn how to use Twitter for marketing  and how you can use some of their best features to your advantage for business.

Lists

Following people on Twitter allows you to see what they have to say as well as encourage a follow-back to improve your follower numbers. But if you follow too many people, it can be hard to see the information you want. You don’t have to stop following people, but you do have to start using Lists to curate information you want. Lists allow you to sort people you follow by interest, topics, customers, etc. After your add one or multiple accounts to a list, you can then click on that list to view only the tweets from people on that list. You also have the option of making lists private or public. Public lists allow others to subscribe to them and can be a good way to build your presence on Twitter. Consider adding accounts to an interest list like “marketers” and others may follow. Private lists are better for things you might not want to people to know, like if you’re adding accounts to a “Potential Customers” list.

Hashtags

While lists help you to sort users on Twitter, hashtags help you to sort content. Hashtags can also help to get your tweets seen by more users than just those who follow you. Consider hashtags to be like a keyword in a search. People can type #internetmarketing into Twitter search bar and see accounts and tweets that use that term. Similarly, you can use that or any hashtag in your own content to ensure you get seen when people do a search. Try out a few hashtags for their popularity before you use them. Search a hashtag on Twitter to see how frequently people use it. This will give you an idea of the conversation going on around that hashtag and the level of interest in it.

Video

Videos from YouTube now play in steam on Twitter. What this means is that people don’t have to leave Twitter to watch a YouTube video you share. They can simply click play and the video will play right on Twitter. This is great for you because if you post a video, it keeps them on your profile and encourages them to share your tweet. Consider adding your own tutorial and promotional videos to your tweets to use this feature.

Photos

Like Facebook, photos make a post more powerful. In the old days of Twitter, you could only link to an outside service to show a photo, now photos show right in steam. Always try to include a photo with your tweet when you can, it will drive interest and make your account seem more professional.

 

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Marketing

What You Need to Know About SEO

What You Need to Know About SEO

How many different websites do you visit each day? How many of those sites did you reach through a search engine? Chances are at least one of them if not more. Search engines are the gateway to much of the internet. People just like you go online in search of something, but not sure where to find it. Their search engine then directs them to a list of ranked websites. If you’re like most people, you will only check out the top ranked results, even though there may be multiple pages of results that match your search query. This means that it is extremely beneficial for your website to appear on that first page of results.

But how do these websites make it into the list? Search engine optimization. Simply put, search engine optimization is a process used by websites to give them a higher ranking and more visibility in search results.

It used to be that search engine optimization, or SEO, was as simple as having the right keywords placed all over your website and in the code that makes up your website. But that’s no longer true. While the big search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo have many number of factors that affect SEO with their service, they aren’t sharing what all these factors are. Think of what affects these SEO rankings as a recipe. We don’t know all the ingredients that make up this recipe, but thankfully top SEO experts have identified some.

Read on to learn how to include some of these ingredients in your website.

Your Domain

Before ICANN opened the gTLD world to more personalized domains, your domain didn’t matter much to your SEO. When most websites had similar domains like .com, .org, or .net, these didn’t add much to SEO other than credibility for the domain. Keywords have long been important in web addresses, but now they are important in domains as well. Websites that battled for top SEO ranking  with just their web address can now battle for it with their domain. Coffee.com now has to battle www.fresh.coffee. Think about the keywords that are important to your website and business and choose that domain.

Your Website

Keywords still play an important role in your website. Though they have been supplemented by some other important ingredients–which we will explain below–they still need to be a focus of your website. What are you selling? Why should people come to your website? If you’re selling, local, fair-trade coffee, find ways to include those keywords and that keyword phrase in many places on your website. Search engines give preferences to website who use a search term many times in their website. This shows these search engines that the website must be a good fit for the search term since it is used many times on the website. However, that doesn’t mean you should just type “local fair-trade coffee” on your website over and over. In fact, this is a bad idea. As search engines have gotten more complex they have been able to identify and even weed out websites that are trying to game the system and get all the clicks without providing good content

Your Content

Search engines like Google will often change what the engine looks for from websites to keep sites from manipulating it. One of the big changes Google has made recently has been a focus on quality content. Google is essentially a robot that crawls websites, so how does it know good content from bad? It doesn’t but it has some rules for what it think makes good content. A big rule is content that is enjoyed, shared and supported by others is considered more legitimate. That means you can create quality content all day, but if no one is reading it, Google won’t give it as much weight. So it is important to create quality content and get others to read it. How do you do this? Following the coffee example this may mean writing a blog on your website that talks not just about your coffee but about coffee in  general. What’s the best roast? How do you tell good coffee from bad? Write these blog posts and share them with friends, on social media and other blogs if possible. You are creating quality content that is keyword rich that you are now hopefully building an audience for.

These are just three ways to build your SEO and SEO is always changing. Services like Google give a little insight into what their search engine is looking for every few months. Keep an eye out for these updates, keep checking back here, and continue creating great content.

 

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Landing Pages Marketing

2015 Best Practices for Landing Pages that Convert

landing page best practices 2015

 

So, you got your target customer (we hope,) to click your offer or ad – now it’s time to make sure you close the deal and get their info. Whether you’re goal is to collect an email address, garner a subscription to your blog, or have your customer complete a download, etc. the second most important part of that process, after creating an effective ad or offer, is the effectiveness of your landing page.

There are many reasons a lead may click the ad and then fail to complete the landing page form, but listed below are some best practices you should follow in order to design landing pages that convert.

1. Consistent with the source

The “one size fits all” method that many people use for landing pages is simply not effective anymore. Your offer, writing style and design should be consistent with the channel it is being displayed on. For example, if your offer is a discounted price on an affiliate marketing membership being shown on Facebook, your landing page should reflect that. You would want to use more casual, peer style writing than you would if your offer were a whitepaper download coming at the end of a Forbes magazine article. Also, make sure to use some of the exact language you had in your ad from the original channel in your landing page. This reassures the lead that they have clicked into the right place and it’s the page they want to be on. 

2. Take audience into account

Each channel you use to advertise can potentially have different audiences viewing your content. The style of copy, design of the landing page, and content on the page should always be tailored to fit the type of person clicking your offer and the channel that they came from. Who did you target in your ad or offer? What kind of content resonates well with them? Your landing page should reflect the “mindset” of your lead based on your targeting and where they clicked over from.

3. Closes the deal

Use clear and concise sales language in your landing page. Your lead wants to know exactly what your offer is, why they should want it, and what they can expect after submitting the form. Bullet points and check marks come in handy here. Use strong, action language, like “download the guide,” or “get a call from one of our experts,” to ensure the lead understands what the exchange of information is for.

4. Shortest form possible

The process of landing page completion should be as painless as possible for your viewer. Extensively long forms are an enormous deterrent for leads, and increase the chances of abandonment. Only require the fields you absolutely need from this person in order to get in contact with them, nurture them, or get them what they need for the offer they clicked on. One other option if you absolutely have to have a long list of form requirements is to have multiple parts, or a form that builds. Once you receive one or two of the form fills, then they move on to the next part of the form. However, avoiding a long form is always the best option.

5. One clear CTA

There is nothing worse than a landing page that has so many calls to action that the lead doesn’t know which one to click first. Make this as easy a path as possible for your potential customer. They should know exactly where the CTA button is immediately upon opening the landing page; in addition to what they need to do (i.e. fill out the form) and what they are getting in return. The CTA should look clearly like a clickable button, should stand out against the rest of the page, and should use action language. Examples of good CTA’s include: “Download Now!” – “Get My FREE Quote!” – “Sign Me Up!” – etc.

6. Limit Distractions

Too many links, buttons, images, and the like, floating all over the landing page simply distract the lead from what you actually want them to accomplish while on the page, which is filling out your form. The more opportunities they have to click out of the landing page, the more you are increasing your chance of the form never being completed by a potential lead. Save the social links, blog posts, and homepage links for the Thank You page, once the lead has already submitted their info.

7. Urgency is a plus

If it makes sense to include verbiage such as “limited quantity,” or “limited time offer,” do it. It’s marketing 101 knowledge that urgency can increase the chance of your sale based on consumer psychology. It won’t make sense to include urgency on every offer or landing page, but is a great option if you are able to make it relevant.

8. Contrasting colors

Using contrasting and complimentary colors throughout your page is the best way to direct your visitor’s eyes on the particular path that you want them to follow. Contrast in colors makes the copy easier to read, makes the CTA really pop off the page, and is simply aesthetically pleasing to the eye. For example, an orange CTA button looks great when the entire page uses muted blues and whites. Your visitor’s eye is automatically drawn to the one color that stands out above the rest.

9. Limited Copy

Again, you want this process to be easy and painless for the lead – you don’t want them to feel overwhelmed by two large paragraphs they feel they have to read before filling out a form and giving you their information, and instead decide to abandon the page. A heading which reassures them they are one step away from redeeming the offer they clicked on, a sub heading, and a few bullets should be enough to explain again, after having already seen your ad and been interested in the offer, to the lead what will happen once they hit that submit button.

10. Responsive design

Always remember that your landing page needs to look just as clean and well designed on a mobile device as it does on a desktop computer. In fact, it would behoove most marketers to put more emphasis on mobile devices than desktop, as mobile is quickly becoming the primary viewing device for most people. Make sure your template and design stacks your content the best way possible, and that your form is always above the fold. Do not force your lead to scroll, or potentially click out because they don’t even know there is a form to fill out below the fold.

The best practices listed above will help you to ensure you are designing landing pages that convert leads into customers. However, the channels used, quality of your ad or offer, and a number of other factors go into the success of a campaign. Stay tuned for next week’s article regarding best practices for “Thank You” pages.

 

 

 

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Marketing

30 Ways to Increase Blog Traffic and Promote Your Blog Posts

Increase Blog Traffic and Promote Your Blog Posts

Many believe in the old adage, “build it and they will come.” Unfortunately for content, that simply isn’t true. You take the time to write a research a topic, write a relevant post that your audience will care about, include the perfect keywords, and for some reason the post just isn’t taking off! Whatever your reason for creating original content, namely blog posts, it’s important to actually promote and market that content so that it is read and shared by whoever you are targeting.

From free tactics like social media to paid avenues, like affiliate marketing, these 30 ways to increase blog traffic are sure to help your blog get off the ground:

1. Twitter

Post your article as soon as it’s been written with a “click-worthy” title (even if it’s different than the actual title) and an eye catching image set to 1024px x 512px to fit well in the stream.

2. Facebook

Post your link with an awesome, standout image (sized at 940px x 788px) and an interesting description that lets the reader know why they should click. It’s good to be conversation in your post.

3. LinkedIn

Post your articles as a regular stream update, as well as in the “publication” section of your profile. You can link your content with the title and description to your profile for visitors to be directed to.

4. Google+

It’s awesome to post to G+ not only for the SEO benefits with Google, but also for the engaged crowds. You should also join a number of “communities” that would be interested in your content and make sure to post your blogs there as well.

5. Pinterest

This may not work for every industry, but is extremely beneficial if it does. Create an easy to understand image that can be easily shared across the platform. In other words, create an image with the title of your post and link it back to your blog.

6. Instagram

Use the same strategy as above; create a social image that people will want to click, and have it link back to your blog post.

7. Use Hashtags

The use of hashtags are a MUST on almost every social platform when attempting to increase your traffic to that page. It helps to categorize what your content is about, allows it to appear in multiple places within Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc., and makes your content searchable to those looking for specific content.

8. Stumble Upon

Add the URL to your post on the “add a page” section of Stumble Upon for your post to be included in someone’s “stumble path”, based on what your content is about. There is also a “paid discovery” option.

9. Triberr

This is an awesome resource for consistent bloggers and “influencers.” The purpose of the platform is to share great content with other bloggers and marketers and cross promote each other’s posts.

10. Use Videos

Every so often, try to integrate a useful video into your editorial calendar for your blog. Upload your video to Youtube, Vimeo, etc. and remember to include the link back to your original post on your blog. Syndication services like TubeMogul can save you time by distributing your video to all of the video platforms.

11. Reddit

The Reddit community is one of the most engaged, but also the most honest and sometimes harsh, on the Internet. If users like your content, they will most likely share it, but if your content is merely “fluff,” don’t bother posting.

12. Blogionaire and Cool Site of the Day

These sites feature and send all of their traffic to a new website or blog each day. Submit your link or blog to their website in order to be considered for this influx of traffic.

13. Facebook Social Sharing Groups

Join and consistently share content in Facebook groups that are relevant to your industry and specifically your blog post. Members of groups tend to be more engaged than users simply scrolling their newsfeed, and will be more likely to see your post

14. Slide Share

Slideshows are a fast growing, interesting way to display your content. Use bite-sized facts and promote your slide share as your blog post. You can also include the slide share in a section of your LinkedIn profile.

15. Guest Posting

Create a stellar article to submit to another highly trafficked blog that is in a similar industry as you. You can gain new “followers,” and therefore, new readers with this tactic, as well as links back to your blog.

16. Blog Commenting

Include useful commentary on blog posts that could relate back to yours. Answer a question or provide real feedback to the original writer (to avoid being “spammy”) and include a link back to a relevant article of your own.

17. Quora

Also a great place to discover new blog post topics by seeing questions asked by other relating to your industry, Quora is a great place to include your link in a comment. Find questions that you have already answered in your blog posts and include it in your response to that person’s questions.

18. Content Aggregators and/or RSS Blog Directories

Submit each post to websites like Alltop for your posts to have the opportunity to be automatically listed for their readers to find. It tends to be difficult to be featured on them, so quality and “share-ability” of your posts will be key.

19. Email List

Make sure you have an easy to find “subscription” box for people to sign up for your email list on your blog. Subscribers will be automatically sent an email containing the link to your new post.

20. Email Top Bloggers

Find influential bloggers in your industry and interact with them via social media and comment on their posts. Then, email them asking to share your published articles for your continued support of theirs.

21. Email Signatures

Include a link back to your blog in your email signature to ensure everyone you email will see a link to your newest post.

22. Infographics

Turning a post, preferably one with a lot of data or information, into an infographic is a great way to increase the chances of your post becoming viral. People like to share visuals on their social networks, so include a link back to the original post.

23. Digg

Paste your URL into the “submit a link” feature on the Digg website to potentially have your published article featured.

24. Thank You Pages

It is best practice to include something of value for free on your thank you page, which is followed by your landing page. Include links to your most recent posts and encourage viewers to take a look.

25. Face to Face Networking

Bring up your blog, what kind of content you generally write about and how it can help the person you’re speaking with whenever possible. Make sure your blog name is easy to remember or included on your card so the person can easily find you.

26. Affiliate Marketing or Network Marketing

Depending on your product or service, it’s known that affiliate marketing is a fantastic way to increase sales. However, it’s also a great way to have your posts shared by a large group of people. Affiliates are all working towards the same goal and your content will help their end goal.

27. Facebook Advertising or Boosted Posts

Boost or create and ad out of your Facebook post that contains your article. This will ensure those who would potentially be interested in your content, but are not currently fans of your page, have the opportunity to come across your content.

28. Ebay or Craigslist

Listing your product, if applicable, on platforms like eBay, Craigslist, and Amazon can drastically increase traffic to your blog. Make sure whatever you list is relevant to your industry and post, and include a link back to your blog in your listing. It’s a free way to get a lot of eyes on your link.

29. Engaging with Your Blog Community

Interact and engage with readers who are already fans of your blog. Turn readers into evangelists who will help you promote your blog simply because they feel they helped “discover” it.

30. WRITE GREAT CONTENT

Making sure the content you are distributing is great, not good, is actually not a bonus; it’s the most important part of promoting your blog posts. If the actual content is not valuable, interesting, thought provoking, or evoking of some other emotion, it’s useless. Do not forget that the point of your blog posts is to generate leads, not just get someone to read your post.

The most important tactic in gaining traction with your blog that turns into a source for lead generation is effort. It will take time to build up a following, but continue to use these strategies above in order to increase traffic to your blog and promote your blog posts.

 

 

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Uncategorized

Why You Should Use Infographics in Your Content Marketing Strategy

What is an Infographic

Are you a business owner or marketer? Do you want to drive engaged traffic to your website and encourage people to share your branded, unique content? Then you should be integrating Infographics into your content marketing strategy.

For those of you that don’t know what an Infographic is, it’s exactly what it sounds like. It is an image, or graphic, that is filled with information in order to educate an audience on a specific subject. Infographics are an easy way to drive home a point using images, statistics, facts and figures and allows the reader to understand your point within the time it takes to scroll the image.

Why are Infographics so successful for businesses?

Brand Awareness – Infographics are an amazingly effective way to create brand awareness, since your logo and links back to your blog or website will be included in your infographic! As people, and sometimes other businesses, continue to share your content, the more people will see who created it and your brand name and logo.

Brand/Product Promotion – Promoting your infographic multiple times on various platforms is a great way to promote either your brand or a specific product or service (depending on how you create your infographic). You can center the information you put in the infographic around general facts that support the use of your product.

Easy to Educate – Some brands, products, or services take some education and explanation in order to close a sale with a potential customer. For example, Domain Cost Club’s affiliate marketing program is easy to understand, but requires some education as to how affiliate marketing works, how to get involved, and how the payouts are structured to affiliates. An infographic explaining the generally used practices of affiliate marketing would be a great way to explain the benefits to the target audience!

Potential to Become Viral – If your content is eye-catching, relevant, and easily understood, then you can be sure that people are going to share on their social media accounts! Visual content is always shared more than written content, so if you take enough time to make a valuable infographic, many people will promote it for you.

Cost Effective – Infographics are actually fairly easy to learn how to create on your own, if you don’t have a graphic designer on hand, or if you have an extremely limited budget. Websites like Piktochart make creating an infographic super easy for beginners!

What elements make a successful Infographic?Why you should use infographics

Eye-Catching – If someone is quickly scrolling through their social feed, will the top your infographic make them stop and click? Make sure it’s appealing visually, and that the color scheme and images all work together.

Easy to Understand – Don’t include a bunch of facts and figures that the average person won’t be able to digest or relate to. Break it down and make it easily “skimmable”.

Relevant – Make sure it’s a subject that people are curious about, don’t fully understand, and relates to and supports your business goals specifically.

Useful – Include facts that people may not know, and actually care about. Use facts that allow people to take action in some way.

Shareable – Display your content in a compelling an interesting way. Use headlines and images that get your point across in the most easily understood way possible, so that some people could be encouraged to share your infographic without even reading it in depth!

How can Infographics help me as a Domain Cost Club Affiliate?

If you are already a member of Domain Cost Club, and wondering how you can use infographics to help you increase your business, the answer is simple! There are tons of people looking to make legitimate money online, working from home just like you, but have no idea how to do it! Creating an infographic about the benefits of affiliate marketing, and/or Domain Cost Club specifically is a simple way to make people understand how to use the program and how effective it can be at creating an entirely new income stream, if done effectively. Think about our affiliate explanation video, made into an infographic! There are plenty of creative ways to get the point across!

 

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Content Marketing: What Is It and How Can It Help You Succeed?

Content Marketing

In the modern age, everyone has access to unlimited information. Anything you want to know can most likely be searched for and found online. There are many ways to distribute this subject-specific information, including infographics, videos, podcasts, and blog posts. However, the million-dollar question is: how you can use these different channels to spread information and succeed at the same time?

The Essence Of Content Marketing

Content marketing is the business process of creating and distributing relevant and useful content based on a specific subject in order to attract and engage your target audience. The subject matter of your content should always relate back to your brand, product, or service. For example, if your business builds swimming pools, you might write a blog post or create a video explaining to your potential customers how to best keep their pool clean, the differences between salt water or chlorine, or even how to build their own in ground swimming pool following your guidance!

The essence of content marketing is all about providing value. The more value you provide to a potential customer by informing them on topics related to your niche, the more trust you will build. In turn, the more trust you build; the more likely they are to buy from you.Content marketing targeting

How Can YOU Prosper With Content Marketing as a DCC Affiliate?

Although there are plenty of people who already know what domains they want to own, many people are not aware of the intricacies and value of choosing the right domain, or the hundreds of new top-level domain extensions that are becoming available. However, providing them detailed information in the form of a blog post or infographic can educate them on the importance, and urge them to make a purchase.

If you’re an affiliate for Domain Cost Club experiencing success with the program, you may want to create a podcast that shares your story and gives advice to those struggling aimed at individuals looking to earn a second form of income! Educating your audience on the potential of the program, how to overcome obstacles, and tangible statistics on your success could entice a prospect that is on the fence about joining.

Use content marketing to your advantage by educating your customer with valuable information, building trust by providing value, and closing the deal. For more information, check out Domain Cost Club and start on your path to success.

 

 

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