Category: SOCIAL MEDIA
5 SEO Title Tag Tips for Better Ranking and Traffic
Do you think title tags matter in 2019? Yes, they do. Studies show that people changing their title tags had witnessed a notable improvement in their website rankings. Then, site owners often ignore click-through rate or forget about it. They do not realize that that CTR helps in boosting site traffic. When it comes to traffic via increased clicks, it helps in increasing your website’s rankings in specific situations. As far as SEO title tag optimization is concerned, not all methods may work to your benefit, but many of them will help you improve rankings. It is all about using the best practices and experimenting with different SEO title tag tips.
According to an article published on https://www.forbes.com, every web page must include the relevant title tags. It helps Google and the other search engines to figure out what your website is about easily. Make sure the title tag copy has the keywords (KWs) and search terms that match user intent and align with what your target audience wants.
You create title tags to meet the needs of your website visitors. If you include KWs or phrases based on what users, you will be able to reach out to the right kind of users. Random and irrelevant KWs will mislead your visitors to unrelated content.
Read this article to learn more about these five SEO title tag tips and tricks for improved traffic and ranking or simply consult Clientsurge Washington DC SEO.
1. The use of dates
Consider these things like top TV actor nominations for a supporting role in 2018. You can use something more precise such as best fantasy-drama of 2018. It means using dates in your title tag KW research.
You can use Google AdWords, Keyword Explorer, or for that matter SEMrush to do the keyword research. Then, if you search for 2019, you may not get sufficient data. Therefore, you should look for actor nominations in 2018 or 2017.
Make the most out of WordPress (WP) or any other CMS. When you use Yoast plug-in, you will see your title tags update automatically every year or every month, thus leveraging the same. It may not work for all situations, but work wonders for specific KWs.
2. Numbers help you improve rankings
Yes, numbers in title tags work. The common examples are 5 signs to show that you are stressed or how can millennials save 10 percent on home insurance.
You need to be specific when writing title tags because it helps in improving CTRs sometimes. It works for you due to cognitive bias. The human brain is conditioned to discover things that are specific and stand out from the SEO Content Buyers.
A visitors’ brain is trying to determine things that it can grasp on easily. That is the reason why you should use numbers because they are specific and stick out. Therefore, you can expect to see higher CTRs and rankings because of these numbers.
3. The use of call-to-action
Though you may not always find call-to-action (CTA) in keyword research, these help in making users click your title tag. The CTAs are nothing but action verbs to motivate people to take some action after visiting your website. These words or phrases are, listen, download, buy, learn, subscribe, and things like that.
When using these action words, they add some excitement, thus motivating the visitors to do something or take some action. The users are not merely entering text in the search box.
When visitors see your title tag with a CTA, they realize, “Wow, I have an e-book to download.” It provides something additional to the users and boosts your CTR in that way.
4. Title tag length
Some title tags are too short or a few lengthy because people try to include all the KWs in the tag. It is nothing but stuffing your title tags with KWs. Google will truncate lengthy title tags and therefore, stuffing it with too many KWs will not help you at all.
Lengthy title tags will not let you improve your website traffic or ranking. A short tag, on the contrary, with a relevant keyword will help you boost site ranking significantly.
The best practice is using title tags that are not more than 50-60 characters. Try to use the KW within that character limit. Use the best KWs in the title that is short and to the point.
Do your KW research and find the search terms that your potential audience wants or uses. You can use title tags like Wine delivery Calgary or Flower delivery Canada. These title tags work and you would see a boost in your website’s ranking.
5. Ask a question
If you include a question together with your KW in the title tag, it helps in improving your website traffic and ranking. Let us explain this point with the help of an example. You can include questions like “Where to shop for perfumes in New York City?”
Your KW maybe shop for perfumes but by asking a simple question, you arouse the curiosity of the visitors and induce them to click on your website URL. This way, you build a curiosity gap.
When you ask a question, you benefit because you get a featured snippet. These are normal questions, which people ask and if you can include them in your title tag, users will find it in the tag, thus resulting in increased traffic and better rankings in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
These little things matter when it comes to your website SEO.
Conclusion
You can use some of these tips and ideas to optimize your title tags. Use them in situations that will help to boost your website’s traffic and rankings. If you like these tips, there is nothing like it. You can implement the best SEO practices to improve your title tags and drive quality traffic to your website.
There is no shortcut to the process. You need to spend some time and effort to write the best copy and integrate the keywords seamlessly to improve your site’s rankings.
4 Compelling Reasons Why You Need Social Media for Small Business
We’re well into 2019, and the world is going in a very digital direction. With almost 50% of the population using social media every single day or 3.2 billion of us, companies cannot ignore the staggering significance of using these platforms to reach their audience. Gaining a social advantage is becoming a challenge for more brands, since competition is fierce, and digital relevance is becoming more complex by the minute. Some companies simply steer clear of social precisely because they feel they could never compete with the veterans in their industry, while others fail to keep up with the times as new trends to need social media and to evolve and shape customer behaviors.
No matter how small your business may be, you need to have a sterling social presence in order to stay relevant, communicate your brand messages to your target audience, and to grow.
However, if that is not enough to get you started, here are more thorough explanations of the many perks to nudge you towards a more structured social media approach and the benefits that you can expect from your efforts.
A stronger emotional bond with your audience
Social networks were invented as a way for us to stay in touch with our loved ones, keep an eye on the news from all over the world, and share our interests.
However, their original purpose aside, they have greatly evolved to include business-friendly features that offer benefits to all parties involved.
When you’re able to “follow” your favorite shoe brand, you’re more likely to come across relevant discounts, buy online as well as offline, and even communicate directly with the brand.
This opportunity to increase brand-customer interaction has inspired many people to truly love their favorite brands. As you post content pieces and news from your company on your efforts to make a difference in your community, your followers can react, comment, and share those bits of wisdom, expanding your exposure and feeling closer to your business.
Direct messaging, customer-generated content, contests, and giveaways on social networks are all brilliant and simple ways to inspire a stronger emotional bond between your business and your audience.
Vital data for all of your other strategies
Social networks are treasure troves of information. You can get to know your ideal customer much better, learn about their preferences, measure the progress of each individual connection you make, and recognize patterns in their likes/comments to tweak your content strategy and all other marketing and branding efforts to ensure greater success.
To make use of all of that data, using platforms such as media portal is necessary in order to collect and analyze relevant information, and track the impact of each campaign you create.
Integrating all of your social network efforts into a single, seamless environment means that you’ll also be able to spot opportunities such as influencer relationships or potential risks to prevent reputation damage.
A unified portal is indeed a key piece of the social media puzzle for small companies that need to allocate their resources to their most essential processes, while you leave these segments of your marketing to reputable digital tools.
More website visits and higher conversions
Social networks have a myriad of free and very affordable solutions that will ultimately increase your website traffic, which in turn has the potential to grow your conversion rates.
These platforms are chock-full of leads that are as good as qualified, and upon making sure you’re really getting more visibility in front of your most qualified leads, you can offer a link directly to your website through social media.
Paid adds alongside engaging content can truly harness the full potential of your social media presence. You, of course, need to strike that fine balance between the two so that you can reap the rewards of both that are specific to your brand.
Some companies rely almost solely on organic content posting, while others invest heavily in paid ads to get more visibility. Just make sure that your posts aren’t too promotional in nature, even if you do regularly add website links to your posts because even leading them to an educational blog on your site can inspire them to make a purchase when they’re ready!
Increased visibility and word-of-mouth
We’ve already mentioned influencers and using digital tools to collect data that will help you find and connect with the influencers that matter in your niche.
No matter how small your business may be, rest assured that nurturing a relationship with an influencer takes time, but it can bring immeasurable benefits to your brand. From improving your reputation and recognition, all the way to expanding your reach to thousands of followers that can become your customers, social networks are indeed ideal for digital networking.
Finally, this growth in terms of visibility and reach will help you generate genuine word of mouth. If your influencers truly trust your brand and use your products, odds are that you’ll become interesting to many of their followers as well.
This turns into a chain reaction of recommendations and reviews that naturally lead back to your business and help you have a much more impactful marketing strategy.
Social media is certainly here to stay and small businesses need to step up their game in order to make the most of their digital presence. After all, digital brands that strive to reach their audience can benefit from these extremely versatile platforms, so it’s time to start investing more time and creativity in your social strategy!
What Is a Taylor Swift Life Hack That Everybody Should Know?
There are always these pesky little obstacles in life that make everything so difficult – pot always boiling over, zipper constantly unzipping itself or ice cream melting on your clothes. All these first world problems can easily ruin your day. Luckily, the internet is full of many of a handy Taylor Swift life hack that can help you!
This awesome list of life hacks will teach you how to make your beer cold quickly, hammer nails without hurting yourself, keep your greedy colleagues away from your lunch, cover up dings on wooden furniture, keep your take-out pizza warm and many more!
Put away your cell phone
A study at the University of California, Irvine, found that “the typical office worker is interrupted or switches tasks, on average, every three minutes and five seconds.”
3 minutes and 5 seconds. That’s 185 seconds in total between one interruption and the next.
What’s more, “it takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get back to the task.”
23 minutes! That’s over seven times as long as it takes for you to be interrupted again.
What does that tell us? The average worker never even gets close to the zone of deep work, where complex tasks are accomplished with good results.
As if that wasn’t enough – your phone is only one of many sources of distractions, after all – we keep our biggest nemesis right in front of us.
Not only will we look at it every time it vibrates or makes a noise when our phone is within arm’s reach, but we’ll also naturally pick it up every couple minutes, just because we can. You know “just in case.”
Don’t give me that look. I know you do it too. We’re all weak.
Taylor Swift life hack … grow roses from cuttings
Here’s a great tip for growing roses from cuttings. Before planting, push the bottom ends of the cuttings into small potatoes.
Moisture and nutrients in the potatoes will allow the cuttings to develop healthy roots. Learn more here.
Taylor Swift life hack … develop your point of view
Here’s where you put yourself under the microscope, figure out who you are and develop your story. Putting yourself through a POV exercise can be incredibly clarifying.
How do you define who you are and what you want to mean to the world?
How do you want people to see you?
How do you want to describe the problem you solve?
Write it down, perfect your story and hone it until it sounds like a tight, conversational, presentation — so that if you had two minutes to position yourself, you could go through your POV and anyone would “get” you.
Waterproof shoes
To turn your canvas shoes into waterproof ones, you need nothing but beeswax and a blow dryer. Spread beeswax all over your shoes.
Next, use the blow dryer to melt the beeswax until you can no longer see it. Voila! Your waterproof shoes are ready!
Taylor Swift life hack … say “Thank you” instead of “Sorry.”
Apologizing focuses on what you did wrong and makes you smaller. i.e., “Sorry I’m late.”
Instead, thank them. Ie. “Thank you for your patience.”
Everybody likes to be thanked, and you’re focusing your attention on them and how cool they are. Win-win.
Life hack … dry your clothes faster
If you don’t have a dryer and need to dry your clothes quickly, here’s what you can do.
Place your wet clothing on a dry towel. Roll the towel with the garment inside. Pick it up, and twist it as tightly as possible to squeeze out the excess water.
After you’ve drained the excess water, hang your garment on a hanger to fully dry.
Smelly shoes
If you have bad-smelling shoes, place a few dry tea bags inside each shoe to absorb the smell.
If your shoes are not just smelly but also wet, fill them with a mixture of rice and baking soda and leave for a few days.
Tight shoes
If your new shoes feel too tight, here’s a way to stretch them. Stuff each shoe with wet newspaper as tightly as you can.
Let the shoes dry, and then remove the newspaper.
Start a fire
Chips are not just a tasty snack. Fat, oil and the chemicals in potato (or other) chips make them a perfect fire-starting material.
Taylor Swift life hack … know how to blend in
If you want to get what you want, you’ll have to speak to the values and ideals of the group. Not your own.
Imagine being in a gang of thieves. They’re preparing to break the house of an old lady. It’s easy money they said, but the idea of robbing the old lady makes you feel a little queasy, so you speak up.
Life hack … find small lost items
Use your vacuum cleaner to find tiny items you’ve lost, such as earrings. Just cover the end of a vacuum cleaner with a stocking or pantyhose, and start your search.
Check from time to time to see if the object you are looking for is already there.
Taylor Swift life hack … see the best in others
Surround yourself with good people, and then see the best in them. Don’t talk badly about people behind their back. It usually gets back to them, and will only make you feel worse.
Rather, compliment people on what you truly like about them. Speak well of others when they aren’t there. Give genuine compliments, and it will make you and them feel better.
What you see in others generally has more to do with you than them. And how you talk about others, will reflect more on you, than it does on them.
Especially in a work setting. People will trust you when you trust them.
Time-marked water bottle
Here’s a great way to keep track of your daily water intake. Draw lines on your water bottle with a marker pen, and then write the time beside the marked level.
The marking will serve as a visual reminder for you to drink water, and it will help you achieve your daily water intake requirement.
Taylor Swift life hack … find a hobby you love
Keep engaged and find something you love. And then work to master it and get better. Gardening, cooking, photography, music, horse riding, hiking, Sudoku, writing on Quora, whatever it is- keep looking, keep growing, and keep at it.
Find what makes you happy and do more of it. Get in the zone. Notice what activities you can do without feeling tired.
Find people who enjoy what you enjoy and spend more time with them. Do things you enjoy with your spouse and friends.
Unclog drains easily
Run hot water down the drain for a minute, and then sprinkle 1 cup of baking soda down the drain. Slowly pour 1 cup of vinegar down the drain.
Flush one more time with hot or boiling water.
Surround yourself with good people
The people you spend the most time with have more of an impact on your life than almost anything else. Spend your precious time with people who make you feel better and do better.
Your life will be much better when you are surrounded by good people who have your best interests in mind. Many people underestimate the power of How the People Around You Affect Personal Success. Ditch the haters.
Let go of people who bring you down or don’t believe in you.
Marry someone who brings out the best in you. Work with a manager who brings out your best work.
Cultivate friendships that motivate you to have fun and try new things.
Appreciate what is
Appreciate what is, rather than complaining about what “should be.” Do the best you can. And then give yourself a break. Celebrate your good luck and fortune.
Before you go to bed, think about the good things in your life, and show gratitude when someone helps you. Focus on giving one genuine “thank you” a day, and notice how much better you feel.
Be gracious in success and defeat.
Dedicate yourself to continuous learning
I am a big believer in continuous learning. You should always seek to be flexible and keep several alternative paths in front of you. Always be on the lookout for ways to reinvent ways for self-improvement. Our most favored quote on continuous learning comes from Charles Darwin:
It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.
Grow kindness
All of these life lessons get better when you have a strong foundation in knowing how to be kind to others.
I have never found a better way to stay happy. Kindness costs you nothing, and you’d be surprised how much in it can do for your happiness.
Find something to make you laugh
Another important factor in your happiness is enjoying a good laugh as often as you can. Making fun of yourself and your own mistakes is a great place to start.
Here is another related read: 10 Lessons Learned in Life I Wish I Had Learned Earlier
What do you need to know?
Social media is fun, and social media is great, but you should always control the usage of social media in your life.
We use social media daily for both work and leisure, but do you know that we spend hours on them daily?
According to NY Times, Facebook uses 50 minutes of your time on average.
YouTube’s average video length may be quite constrained, but in aggregate, viewers are watching a billion hours
of
its clips per day, as reported by TechCrunch. That’s around 8.4 minutes per day per human, according to some very napkin calculations.
The bottom line
Use social media all you want, but make sure that you are 100% aware of your surroundings and tasks that needed to be completed.
Uncontrolled usage of social media can easily waste a lot of your time, and you will instantly become less productive.
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy continually improving your continuous learning?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
More reading on learning from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
9 Things to Know About Creative Visual Design Content
8 Presenter Mistakes That Are Rarely Made Twice
Know These Great Secrets of Collaboration and Co-Creation
How Good Is Your Learning from Failure?
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
Sensational KeyBank New Social Media Case Study
We love to focus on local small businesses in our area, as 60% or so of our business comes from this group. To accomplish this objective, every month or two we select one of our favorites to write about. We describe all the things we like about the business and select several things we might change if we were the owners. We hope the owners consider these new social media ideas on which to build their improvements. Today our selection is the KeyBank new social media marketing case study.
Is your business doing very well, but you are still wondering whether you should be making changes for continuous improvement?
Like improving the KeyBank social media marketing? We are good customers and advocates of the KeyBank chain.
And since this is a frequent question we receive from clients, we decided to use KeyBank as a case study on the new social media subject.
To improve is to change; to perfect is to change often.
– Winston Churchill
Check out our thoughts on creative marketing.
Related: Is Employee Engagement the Backbone of the Publix Culture?
First, a word about Key Bank, for those of you not in the Key Bank market area.
Key’s Corporate Bank includes business units that operate from offices within and outside of Key’s 15-state branch network. Its reach extends across the U.S. and to more than 30 countries.
Key Corporate Bank includes
KeyBank Real Estate Capital: Provides commercial real estate finance, interim finance, permanent mortgages, commercial real estate loan servicing and cash management services
Corporate Banking Services: Provides treasury management, interest rate, and commodity derivatives, and international and foreign exchange services
KeyBanc Capital Markets: Provides a complete suite of corporate and investment banking services, including mergers and acquisition advisory, equity and debt underwriting, syndicated finance products, research and trading
Key Equipment Finance: Provides tailored equipment lease and finance solutions for small-to-large commercial and government clients
Institutional Asset Services: Provides trust, custody and administrative services for individuals, companies, organized labor, government agencies and nonprofit organizations
KeyBank has been recognized by Points of Light, the world’s largest organization dedicated to volunteer service, as one of the most community-minded companies in the United States.
In addition to honoring KeyBank on the 2017 Civic 50 list, Points of Light also designated Key a 2017 Sector Leader in Financials. The Civic 50 provides a national standard for superior corporate citizenship and showcases how companies can use their time, skills and other resources to improve the quality of life in the communities where they do business.
The Civic 50 winners were announced on June 20, 2017, at the Points of Light Conference on Volunteering and Service in Seattle, where leaders in volunteerism and civic engagement gathered to discuss social innovation, cross-
Let me point out that Key Bank is not a client of ours. We are simply taking a look at their online social media marketing and using it to recommend ideas for continuous improvement.
It is such a pertinent topic for many businesses, isn’t it? I will do this task by simply studying their online presence, with no discussion with them.
If you examine their current state of social media marketing and compare it to their competitors, you will probably conclude like we did, that they are doing a good job.
But the point is about how to achieve continuous improvement, which is very critical in this type of ever-changing marketing.
So let’s examine some ideas for Key Bank to consider:
New social media … creative ideas
There are several ideas on the top of our creative ideas list. The first one we suggest is for Key Bank to go local with their social media marketing. Not every store mind you, but certainly several stores from a local area going together in the effort.
In this way, they can do a much better job of personalizing customer engagement.
The second idea for consideration is to pick an issue to stand for. For example, we have all read about the issue of business diversity and inclusion. Valuing diversity and fostering inclusion are part of their corporate fabric.
Their leadership and every Key employee contributions to our mission of authentically engaging our workforce, our workplace, and our marketplace.
Picking several employee examples for publicizing would be a good place to start. Certainly, but there is a chance they can create a local or maybe even a national movement.
Educating customers
Key Bank is doing a very good job in this area already. But they can do more with special topics such as online apps, security, and be pointing out future banking trends, just to name three examples.
Customer engagement
Customer engagement is an area where most businesses could always use fresh ideas. One suggestion we have used with other clients is to have employees doing other jobs give an hour or two a day to participate in social media.
Let customers know who they are and that way customers can engage with people they recognize from the store. Remember the recommendation to go local with their effort? Here is a great place for it to come in very handy.
New social media … lots of experimentation
Most businesses take the conservative route on experimenting with new ideas. Not a good idea if you are looking to get ahead with customers.
The best innovative companies know that to do new things well, they must be good at trying new ideas in many areas as experiments. These experiments, they realize, will not all work as planned, and a high percentage will fail.
They know and accept this without worry. But they know that they learn a great deal from failures and small successes. And this often leads to great successes down the line.
Continuous discrimination
A business can never be done by finding ways to discriminate themselves with their customers. This is an area that absolutely must be done well.
A great way to find discriminating ideas, both big and small, is to pay attention to what customers are telling you. And remember, not all customer insights come from verbal inputs.
Get all employees involved in closely observing what customers are doing. What can you learn about improving your operations from these observations?
Customer service and experience
One of the most rapidly growing areas of marketing these days is coming from customer service and strong customer experience. By going the extra mile in these two areas, customers take notice.
The more little things you can do, the stronger the customer advocacy becomes.
For example, when you save your customer time, deliver quality service, stand tall on customer issues, and always show your value, you build trust. And trust is the basis of great customer relationships and follow-on business.
A definite win-win. Lots of additional ways the KeyBank could improve their performance in this critical area.
New channels
KeyBank has a very well designed website and participates on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter social media platforms.
Well represented on these most important channels. Our recommendation is they add Youtube to their list of social media sites. This is a very fast growing social media channel that attracts shoppers looking for education on the many new Apps associated with online shopping and banking.
The bottom line
There can never be enough focus on continuous improvement in social media marketing, independent of how well the business is doing. If you are looking to take your success to a new level, this continuous improvement is required.
This is an excellent time to make a statement about social media marketing. Changing before you have to is always a good idea.
Would you like to participate in a free evaluation of your business marketing where our output is published on our blog like this KeyBank article? If you are interested, please send us an email to Mike@digitalsparkmarketing.com.
Need some help in capturing more customers from your marketing strategies? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with potential customers?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your marketing, branding, and advertising?
Do you have a lesson about making your marketing strategy better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
More reading on marketing strategy from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Case Studies to Evaluate New World Marketing Concepts
How to Frame Marketing Messages for Optimum Engagement
Some Great Story and Storytelling Examples to Study
Jaw Dropping Guerrilla Marketing Lessons and Examples
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of a small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.
3 Different Ways to Monetize Your Website
To monetize a website isn’t the game it once was. It used to be that if you were one of the relatively few people who understood how websites worked and how to make them, there was plenty of money to be made. These days, just about anyone can build a website.
In fact, if you build a good website, you may well be able to attract a reasonable volume of traffic. However, if you want to make money from your website, you have your work cut out. Before you can think about monetizing your site, you need to be able to reliably bring in the viewing numbers.
Some methods are easier than others and you might find that what works for other people won’t necessarily work for you. All of these methods assume that you already have a sizeable audience. if you don’t, check out this guide.
Affiliate Marketing
This is one of, if not the most popular method of monetizing a website or blog. The first step of affiliate marketing is identifying a suitable product, one that you can recommend to your audience and that you think they will be receptive to. The person or business selling the product will provide you with an affiliate link to place on your site. This link will take your readers to the seller’s page.
Every time someone arrives on the product page from your affiliate link and goes on to buy the product, you get a cut of the sale. This cut can be anywhere from 30% to 70%, so it can be a real earner if you pick the right products for your readership.
Pay Per Click Advertising
We’re all used to seeing adverts when we browse the internet. When you search on Google, you might have noticed that promoted websites appear at the top of search results pages. These adverts are served up by Google’s AdWords. Meanwhile, their AdSense service enables bloggers and website owners to take advantage of Google’s extensive advertising network so that web owners essentially sell space on their webpage.
Google then chooses which ads to show on those websites, so website owners can sit back and let the ad revenue roll in. Google will provide the code that needs to be placed on your website in order to enable AdSense. This code will identify what ads are suitable based on the content of your website. For example, if your website is about fitness, Google will advertise links to fitness products.
If your website is more varied, like a site that curates real user reviews, the ads placed on your site will also be more varied, potentially meaning more money.
Every time someone clicks on an ad on your site, you get paid some money. That’s all there is to it! There’s no requirement for them to go on and buy the product. The amount of money you receive for each click will vary from $0.50 up to $5 if you’re lucky.
Sell Ad Space Directly
Using the same principle as AdSense, you can sell advertising space on your website directly to businesses that need it. This allows you to negotiate your own pricing structure. You could charge them per pixel of space they use on your site, or you could use a special link to set up an affiliate marketing-style deal.
The good thing about selling space yourself, rather than relying on Google or another advertising platform, is that you get total control over the entire process. If your website is receiving a significant amount of traffic, then you can charge a much higher rate.
There are an endless number of ways to monetize your website. The above three methods are probably the most straightforward and profitable, but there’s a whole world of possibilities out there.
How to Improve Google Chrome for Digital Marketing
Digital marketers spend the majority of their working hours on a computer, searching the web, analyzing data, getting in touch with people, and creating powerful content. Since Google Chrome is one of the most widely used browsers, we can assume that you, like many other digital markets, use it to accomplish your daily goals and finish your assignments. And you can improve Google Chrome easily.
Luckily for you, Google Chrome allows you to up your digital marketing game and perform better by using one, or more, of its killer extensions and plugins. These add-ons can help you improve various aspects of your daily performance and become a better digital marketer.
If you’re curious to find out more about how to improve Google Chrome for digital marketing, keep reading through our list of best plugins and extension.
Grammarly
This powerful tool is designed to help you with your writing.
Grammarly is an extension created to improve your writing accuracy by checking the spelling and grammar of every single thing that you write:
- an email
- a blog post
- a private message
- social media posts
The extension analyzes everything that you type in, automatically finding errors and letting you there’s something wrong. It also suggests a way to correct it and explains what was initially the problem.
To put it simply, Grammarly makes sure your writing is highly professional and 100% accurate, with no sneaky mistakes to find their way to your customers and your audience.
In case you need a more elaborate look at your written content, check out Trust My Paper and what they have to offer.
Improve Google Chrome … HashTest
HashTest is an extremely useful and smartly designed Chrome extension you should definitely consider adding to your list of favorite plugins.
It’s designed to help you find the best possible hashtag for your next social media post.
Here’s how it works:
- you type in the hashtags you’re considering
- the app analyzes them in real time
- the app provides a score of each hashtag
- it provides a color for each hashtag, ranking them green for the best one and black for completely useless
Once you analyze all your hashtags using this app, you’ll be certain you’re using the best ones which will help your posts perform, better, attract more people and get shared more.
It’s super easy to use, yet so efficient and powerful.
Improve Google Chrome .. Awesome Screenshots
Every digital marketing knows how many times a day they need to print screen something or capture a part of a website they’re visiting.
This can be time-consuming and complicated, distracting you from the rest of your daily tasks.
Awesome Screenshots is an extension designed to help you do this the easy way. It offers the following operations:
- screencast
- recording screen as a video
- screen capture
- blurring sensitive information
- adding annotations and comments
- sharing
You don’t have to leave the webpage and work on editing the screenshot. All you have to do is add this extension and let the magic happens.
Improve Google Chrome … Power Thesaurus
Do you need help finding the right words? You have an idea but you’re having trouble expressing it?
This is the right extension for you.
Power Thesaurus is created to help you find the right words, in real time, without using an online dictionary or having to visit thesaurus.com.
Once you install it, it gets integrated into your Chrome toolbar and is ready to help you find the synonym or antonym in a couple of simple steps.
This way, you’re always on top of your writing game and certain you’ve chosen all the right words.
Wise Stamp
If you want to make a great first impression on everyone you send an email to, you need this email signature extension to help you do that.
Wise Stamp enables you to design the perfect email signature and improve your overall email quality and reach.
It allows you to:
- add a link to your social media
- promote your products
- add a link to your latest blog posts
- add company logo
- share interesting links
In other words, this extension lets you do whatever you imagine and helps you create the email signature exactly how you’ve imagined it.
Page Analytics (by Google)
As a digital marketer, you know how important it is to analyze your audience’s behavior, draw conclusions based on data, and track down how they’re responding to your content.
Page Analytics is an extension which allows you to see how customers interact with your website and what is it that they like and don’t like.
By learning what your audience is clicking, or not clicking, you can:
- improve your design
- improve your layout
- increase conversions
- expand your audience
It helps you learn from your mistakes and make your webpage better and more attractive to your visitors.
The bottom line
Google Chrome is a great browser in itself, and with a little help from some of the best extensions and plugins out there, it becomes a powerful digital marketing tool. All you have to do is choose the extensions you need, install them, and you’re good to go.
Make sure you check out the list we gave you above and try out some of the things which suit your needs. We have a feeling you won’t regret it.
Melanie Sovann, born in 1990 in the greater LA area, is a seasoned writer and blogger, passionate about a broad spectrum of topics, ranging from technology to sociology. She is an avid contributor at 3to5marketing.com, blog that has amassed a sizable following over the years.
More reading on marketing strategy from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Pinterest Marketing … Rich Pin Tips for Discovery Shopping
Improve Success with Small Business Tagline Designs
7 Off-Page Practices to Make Your Page More Discoverable
Every single webmaster wants to bring additional traffic to his website, content, and products. After all, digital marketing is often a number’s game that is defined by the implemented strategies. One good one is off-page practices.
If you work on the right strategies, ensuring that you’re keeping your progress in check, your SEO game will provide satisfying results. If your jump from strategy to strategy, the results will obviously look disappointing.
Making your website pages more discoverable for Google implies smart and hard work. First off, ensure that your ON-page SEO is effectively implemented. Do not neglect it, otherwise, your off-page tactics will bring fewer results because of different issues.
SEO is a fine game, just like life. Balance is key, so you need to pay attention to both on-site and off-site optimization, as both of them can equally improve or destroy your rankings.
Nevertheless, today’s post is about off-page SEO. We’ll cover 7 strategies that’ll help you attract Google’s attention, grow your pages’ reach, and improve your website’s traffic.Pay close attention, take our tactics into consideration, and add your own twists on the way!
Create the Best Content or Product
The first and most important advice for today – be the best out of the best. What I’m suggesting here is that whenever you create or execute SEO marketing strategies, you should always focus on quality instead of quantity.
For example, if you want your content page to reach Google’s #1 position, your article must be better than any other, and it should be promoted accordingly. The value you bring to the table is the first aspect, how much and how well you promote it is the second. It goes the same with any product.
Google’s very smart right now, and he can tell whether your page is relevant or not simply by the words you use. If you add useful backlinks, an effective on-page optimization, and frequent marketing, your page will immediately rank.
Rather than writing 10 posts per week and promote only one or two of them, write a good one and promote it well.
If you have trouble developing amazing content, there’s no point in forcing it. The quality won’t be amazing. As a solution, I’d highly advise you to outsource academic writers. Here are some good platforms where you can find them:
- Assignment Writers
- Assignment Masters
- Assignmentholic
- Nerdy writers
Off-page practices … leverage Small Social Media Influencers
Social media is strictly connected to search engines. It acts as a huge factor in the algorithm of Google, Bing, or any other search engine because it reflects the level of engagement and interest present on a page, topic, or brand.
A great off-page SEO strategy that’s still underrated implies small social media influencers (people who are followed by 1000 – 10.000 other people on social channels).
Basically, you’ll be contacting small influencers who are followed by an audience that is very similar to your ideal target audience and ask them to promote your content on their social pages as fresh posts and stories.
Generally, these small influencers will accept a very small price for the exposure they provide, thus giving you both links, direct traffic, and brand acknowledgment.
Off-page practices … Effective Forum Marketing
Forum marketing is not dead. This strategy implies frequenting niche forums and engaging with people who are looking for help.
The title of this subheading is “effective forum marketing”, and the keyword here is effective. I came to the conclusion that very few brands know how to effectively engage their target audience on forums.
First of all, nothing should be intrusive. You shouldn’t leave links to products/services/reviews unless somebody specifically asks for it.
You should not write comments that contain links only for the sake of creating 2 extra backlinks. They won’t count as much as you think, and they’ll damage your forum reputation. For more, here’s a great forum marketing guide that should get you introduced to the topic.
Leverage Q&A Marketing
Q&A marketing works exactly like forum marketing, only that you’ll be interacting with audiences on platforms like Quora and Yahoo Answers.
The power of these platforms is reflected by the urgency of their user’s intent. When people seek answers, they look for an urgent solution.
If you’re absolutely sure that you can help, get into the discussion and lead all the other people who will be looking for the same type of answers to your platform, content, and value proposition.
Besides, every time you
Guest Blog for Connections, Not Links
Guest blogging is a common link building strategy that many SEO experts consider the “essence of SEO”. Indeed, Google values websites that get a lot of backlinks because these backlinks act as proof of relevance.
By guest posting on other people’s platforms, you’re giving them free content while you gain one or more free links.
You shouldn’t guest blog for links!
Instead, you should try to establish connections with relevant niche brands that do not represent direct competition. Create a network rather than a list of backlinks, and your rankings will look much better in the long run.
Create an Expert Roundup Article
An expert roundup blog post is a piece of content that cannot fail to bring satisfying results.
You choose a topic, you contact many authoritative sources (could be 20, or could be 100), and ask them for their opinion on the matter.
For example: “50 Digital Marketers Suggest the Top 3 Causes of Startup Failure”. Roundup posts are generating a lot of social engagement and a lot of backlinks. Plus, they’re greatly encouraged by Google as they represent valuable and relevant sources of information.
Off-page practices … Turn Brand Mentions into Links
The last strategy is simple yet very effective. Keep it in mind, and don’t forget to use it.
Start by getting familiar with brand mention tracking tools. Simply put, find the tools that suit your marketing activity the best and start using them to identify the brand mentions that are left by random users on the web.
Whenever somebody mentions your brand name on their site, you should get in touch with them and ask them to link your name instead of leaving it unmarked. This will generate backlinks, direct traffic, and additional SEO improvements.
The bottom line
Remember: Google’s algorithm follows the cause-and-effect principle. Every link, every brand mention, every word you use in a page, and everything has an effect. Therefore, testing should be easy knowing that to change the outcome, you must try different actions.
Scott Matthews is a passionate marketer at Rush My Essay and Best Dissertation, entrepreneur, and content writer who currently lives a nomad life. He has started out as a ghostwriter for clients on Upwork. Nowadays, he’s consulting small local businesses and providing top-notch marketing services as he travels the world. His lifestyle is never monotonous, mainly because his activities are so diversified.
Neil Patel Design Examples That Are Easy Fixes For Your Social Media
In this blog, we will define important Neil Patel design examples we rely on to create effective advertisement messages and the best examples of each that we could find. These are social media design examples.
If you wanted to learn more about building the best advertisements, how would you go about it? For us, the answer is pretty simple.
We learn best by studying and analyzing awesome advertisement design examples.
The secret of all effective advertising is not the creation of new and tricky words and pictures, but one of putting familiar words and pictures into new relationships.
Related: What Makes These Extraordinary Commercials so Captivating?
It is a great way to learn and stimulate design ideas. Let’s get started:
Neil Patel design examples … generate fan togetherness
Biltwell makes motorcycle accessories, and they also make great engagement happen on their Facebook page with some fantastic helmet art.
Check out this example of the fan helmet art they routinely highlight, which encourages fan submissions and generates a feeling of togetherness around the brand. It seems to be an ongoing campaign of Biltwell’s.
Grab and hold the attention
Did you see Nike’s Re2pect … a Tribute to Yankee Shortstop Derek Jeter? As most of us know, future Baseball Hall of Famer Derek Jeter recently retired.
So, one of Jeter’s long-time sponsors, Nike, released a commercial paying tribute to him. The ad’s name “ RE2PECT” is a tip of the cap to Jeter’s jersey number – and a host of athletes and celebrities can be seen paying tribute to the Yankees captain.
Watch this cool commercial here.
Social media design examples … use extraordinary prizes
I think tickets to the World Cup are the single best prize that marketers could offer this year, how about you?
Hyundai teamed up with YouTube channel Copa90 for a contest with the World Cup of prizes. Check out their video.
Neil Patel design examples … emotional influence
The Zillow real estate company has built an entire marketing campaign on influencing home buyers with emotional influence.
Have you seen any of them? We like them so much that we have searched for them on YouTube frequently.
“Homecoming” is Zillow’s sixth TV spot, the latest in the company’s highly successful national advertising campaign. You cannot beat these ads.
There are no better means of influence or the power of persuasion than emotion. Hands down the best, in our opinion.
Experiences that trigger our emotions are saved and consolidated in lasting memory because the emotions generated by the experiences signal our brains that the experiences are important to remember.
The homecoming commercial ending message says it all:
You are not just looking for a house; you are looking for a place for your life to happen.
This commercial focuses on emotional appeal grandly. It is the secret of this commercial’s success. It creates strong persuasion in our opinion. A great example of a successful advertisement design.
Neil Patel design examples … photo contests
If you are going to compete in a photo contest, why not compete in a grand way? National Geography launched a contest on Facebook where fans can experience the thrill of having their photo on a National Geographic magazine cover. Wow, now that is a great incentive, yes?
Fans simply upload their photos through Facebook, caption it, and they are entered to win a travel package. Seems like a great image generator that fans will also want to share on their own Facebook pages.
Neil Patel design examples … Four Seasons’ company page
Neil Patel knows one in three professionals online is on LinkedIn. How many of those are making hotel reservations around the world and spending company money? Plenty.
That’s why it’s so smart for Four Seasons to build a helpful, engaging LinkedIn presence.
They feature great videos and readable content, and they also post job listings. It’s a great example of a LinkedIn company page done well (and they were also selected as one of LinkedIn’s top company pages of 2013).
Customer end state needs
Focus on customer needs end state and not the means. The end state is the only priority.
Here is another excellent example:
That is this Prudential’s billboard ad. This commercial considers the end state needs of its customers … the retirement needs of target customers are the commercial’s objective. A great interactive graphics drives home the objective.
Neil Patel design examples: simple messages
Neil Patel makes the message as clean and simple as possible. You cannot overachieve on the simplicity of the message. A message that the reader will quickly understand.
Now … keep in mind that pictures are far more valuable than words.
This Guinness “Empty Chair” commercial salutes the character of a community as they honor one of their own who is out of sight, but not out of mind. The choices we make reveal the true nature of our character. Guinness proudly raises a glass to those who are #MadeOfMore.
Neil Patel design examples … relevant to your target market
You might be wondering …
Misty Copeland is only the third African American female soloist ever to dance for the American Ballet Theatre. But her route to the top was anything but an easy one. She only danced ballet for the first time at the age of 13, a full eight years later than most ballet pros start training.
And when she started to grow into a woman, she developed muscle tone, large breasts, and big feet – not exactly the accepted shape for a ballerina.
However, her refusal to give up on her dream is celebrated in this awesome new campaign for sports brand Under Armour, called ‘I Will What I Want.’
Have you seen this commercial? If not, take the 60 seconds to review it. It will certainly create a topic of discussion for you and your friends. That is certainly Under Armour’s objective, isn’t it?
Visual elements
Neil Patel uses pictures/visuals to convey the message much better than words. “Seeing is believing” and “actions speak louder than words” are two common sayings that reflect a bias and preference for visual presentation.
Here is a four-minute Samsung ad with 15-20 new features shown for their iPhone. No talking. And so simple that you quickly grasp the features and don’t lose interest.
And the coordinated music has a way to keep you tied in emotionally. Creating customer interest doesn’t get any simpler than this, does it? A very simple, yet entertaining design, don’t you think?
Letting the visuals totally carry the messages.
Microsoft’s company page
Sometimes overlooked as one of the big social media channels, LinkedIn is the third most popular alongside Facebook and Twitter, according to recent research.
If you’re looking for ideas on how to kickstart your LinkedIn efforts for marketing, take a page out of Microsoft’s book.
They include behind the scenes looks at the company; question-and-answer posts; blogs and thought leadership; and more.
Social media design examples: storytelling
Here is the deal Neil Patel suggests:
Have you seen the remarkable branding video design from this South African business?
The Bell’s TV commercial features a father whose intrepid spirit demonstrates just what it takes to be a true man of character.
The video was created to market and build the brand. It is a very simple story. It advocates learning to read no matter your age or status in society.
To us, it creates pure magic with the story, the visuals, the music, and the emotion. It certainly finds emotional triggers
If you haven’t seen it, watch it now, it is only 2 minutes, and it will inspire you. It is certainly easier in our top 5 of all time.
https://digitalsparkmarketing.com/celebrity-marketing/
Authentic
What does Neil Patel feel is the single most significant factor in the design of an advertisement? Being the most authentic advertisement design is probably not the top factor, but it is certainly in the top 5, don’t you think?
It certainly influences the action taken considerably.
Neil likes to examine advertisements to learn what drives the best ones to be the best and the terrible ones to be that bad.
Today he will examine one of the best we have seen in a while. Perhaps one that is the most authentic we have ever seen.
Here is the commercial for you to judge for yourself:
Terry Bradshaw Talks Shingles
Integrated campaign
Your ads should be integrated components of an integrated marketing campaign.
Remember; stop interrupting what people interested in, and be what people are interested in.
It was in early 2009 when IBM began its Smarter Planet marketing campaign strategy. At the time, the strategy seemed very ambitious … maybe even a bit risky, even for IBM.
But their success was based on a strategy to build out a long-term campaign.
To do this, they defined a theme around their vision (Smarter Planet). They used the theme to craft a marketing strategy connecting and integrating many smaller marketing objectives and tactics as they could.
They also linked their core competencies to this theme, vision, and challenge.
This very successful campaign continues today, six years later.
Here is the bottom line
Building a positive social media community engagement is very similar to making friends. Keep it simple and be genuine.
Being social with a great positive engagement isn’t a new way of marketing; it’s a way of doing business. Follow these simple initiative examples, and you will be leading the way.
Remember, it is not what advertising does with the consumer; it is what the consumer does after reading the advertisement. After looking at these enablers and Allstate’s mayhem ads … how do you think they did?
What are some of your experiences with advertising as a component of an integrated marketing campaign?
Do you have an advertising design experience to share with this community?
Need some help in capturing more customers from your advertising? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with your customers?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy improving your advertising design?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed how reasonable we will be.
More related reading from Digital Spark Marketing’s blog library:
13 Extraordinary Marketing Lessons from Taylor Swift
Learning from 2 of the Best Marketing Strategy Case Studies
Visual Content … 13 Remarkable Marketing Examples to Study
7 Secrets to the Lego Blog Marketing Campaigns … Effective Marketing?
14 Jaw-Dropping Guerilla Marketing Lessons and Examples
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.
10 Remarkable Ideas Pepsi Employs on Facebook Features
Ah, Facebook. The holy grail of social networks. Whether you use it for personal use to catch up with friends or for professional use to engage with potential clients, it’s important to stay on top of the channel’s ever-changing features. Without being in the know, you could miss out on the latest ways Pepsi employs on Facebook features, trends, or the latest way to engage.
In the old days of advertising, Pepsi’s name of the game was reach and frequency. They preferred mass media vehicles like television and radio because they were the easiest means to reach large audiences and build brand awareness. But the world has drastically changed with the internet. Now the focus is all about how to target customers with Facebook ads to get to your specific audiences.
I spent the majority of my adult life managing organizations and I always felt enormous pressure to innovate, but whenever I went looking for guidance, what I found was a confused jumble. disruptive innovation, design thinking, open innovation, lean launchpads and on and on. Unlike marketing or finance, there wasn’t anyone clear framework.
Yet it is also more complex because there are so many problems and so few solutions. To solve a really tough problem, you have to look far and wide to find the right combination of ideas. That takes an enormous amount of dedication and skill. However, there’s no evidence that these talents are innate. You can learn the skills you need to up your innovation game.
Now …
Increased media fragmentation and new tools for reaching people, like targeting, have evened the playing field between businesses large and small.
Even the smallest mom-and-pop shop has opportunities to get in front of their target audience and drive awareness at a faster clip than some of the largest brands.
Segmentation is a key tenet of effective marketing. How can you achieve your goals if you aren’t reaching the right consumers?
Do you want to connect with local customers on Facebook?
If you’ve already created a website and your business is on Facebook, you’re well on your way to big-time exposure. Want to make sure you’re up to date on the world’s most popular social platform? We’ve got seven hot features you need to know about, including Facebook features.
It’s always the early adopters that benefit most from a new Facebook feature or hack.
That’s exactly why we’re doing this monthly roundup of the latest Facebook news – bringing you the latest news before anyone else know about them…
Pepsi Employs on Facebook Features … insert posts to the top of the timeline
Did you realize that pinning a post to the top of your Facebook timeline increases the post visibility? It is not rocket science, is it?
That’s a good thing, right?
So, why not do it? Click on the downward-facing arrow on the top right-hand corner of the post and hit ‘pin to the top.’ That’s all there is to it.
While most ideas lead to nothing, some create enormous value. Calculus, the theory of evolution and the telephone made our lives better no matter who came up with them first. That’s not because of the idea itself, but what was built on top of it. Ideas only create a better future when they mix with other ideas. Innovation, to a large degree, is a combination.
The stories of Alexander Fleming and Jim Allison are instructive. In Fleming’s case, it was scientists at another lab that picked up the initial idea and did the work to make it into a useful cure. Then they went to America to work with other labs and, eventually, pharmaceutical companies to do the work needed to go from milliliters in the lab to metric tons in the real world.
Pepsi Employs on Facebook Features … they monitor competition’s top posts
Were you aware that you can review posts from pages you watch within Facebook Insights?
This feature makes monitoring the content of your closest competitors extremely easy and very convenient.
While most ideas lead to nothing, some create enormous value. Calculus, the theory of evolution and the telephone made our lives better no matter who came up with them first. That’s not because of the idea itself, but what was built on top of it. Ideas only create a better future when they mix with other ideas. Innovation, to a large degree, is combination..
Awesome facebook features … save articles
With more live posts coming into your news feed every day, the Facebook Save feature a very useful tool to help curate relevant content to rehash and reuse in your Facebook page, as well as other social media.
But here is the kicker …
Pepsi Employs on Facebook Features … they find evangelists and fans
It is easy to track your friends and fans by these four steps:
Go to page settings
Click on people and other pages
Click on the drop-down menu next to ‘people who like this ‘
View people and Pages that like your page – plus people banned from your page
Post attribution settings
Use this feature to keep your identity straight. Tired of people posting on your page with a wrong identity? It is a simple fix.
Go to your page settings, click on ‘post attribution’ on the left sidebar, choose your preferred default identity, and you are done.
Pepsi keeps their inbox clear
Here is how to manage your notifications and emails;
Go to settings and click on notifications. You can click on which notifications you want to receive.
Pepsi Employs on Facebook Features … tag personal profiles
Tagging personal profiles will generate more Facebook engagements. Here are all the details on how:
Click on ‘edit post’ in the drop-down menu. In the editable textbook, type @ before the person’s name you want to tag in the post.
It is just like you would tag a person normally on Facebook.
Hit ‘done editing, ’ and a notification will be on its way.
Pepsi Employs on Facebook Features … they follow ad relevance
You want to ensure ads are delivered to the appropriate customer segments. If they are, then they will be sure to improve your marketing performance. All you need to do is check your relevance score. To accomplish this:
Go to ads manager
Click on all campaigns, all ad sets, or all ads
Click the column’s dropdown
Select the customize columns
Check the relevance score
Click apply
On the reports page, click the breakdown drop-down menu (next to the column’s dropdown)
Be sure you’ve selected “none” or relevance core will not display
