6 Ways to Make Your Inbound-Marketing Strategy Successful

In order to achieve success, you have to learn the practices and strategies that work best in 2014. It doesn’t actually matter how busy you are, you just cannot ignore the importance of your brand marketing. Take a look at the 6 most important things every business owner should know about inbound marketing.

1. The traditional marketing project doesn’t work anymore. According to Brian Halligan, the author of the book “Inbound Marketing”, we have to attract customers, engage and delight them online. The way today’s consumers shop has changed considerably, so businesses should adapt to it to survive.

The Internet has enormously changed the way we live our lives, now consumers have more options than ever to skip marketing, which is annoying. Today you have to really earn consumer’s attention. Invest in ways to engage the customers meaningfully with an inbound experience.

2. Your content should stand out. Consider how many channels your television provides you, how many social media channels and websites you pass by every day. The same things happen to your customers. Today’s marketing says that just producing content is not enough to succeed. Your content must be educational, inspiring and entertaining. Your content should encourage discussion and dialogue.

3. Use an individual approach. Most businesses keep the broadcast marketing strategy, addressing a big group of people. However, your website would function better with people-working-for-people approach. Instead of writing texts to impress your competitors, produce content that an individual customer will appreciate.

4. Inbound includes content and code. Many business owners mistake massive volumes of content for an inbound strategy, forgetting that shipping code is extremely important as well. Particularly, free tools are powerful in converting website traffic into highly engaged leads.

For instance, InsightSquared created Sales Funnel, is a helpful tool that make it possible for Salesforce users to quickly diagnose their sales funnel. Leads that try Sales Funnel convert at a rate almost twenty times higher than leads that don’t.

5. Get visual. According to marketing researches, the average attention span is just 8 seconds. So if you have a really quality 10,000-word article about your new product launch, chances are very little that your targeted audience will even look through it.

Therefore, creating outstanding visual content is a key to earning your customer’s attention for more than 8 seconds. If design is not your strong point, use Visage or Canva to create simple and nice visuals.

6. Hire wisely. If you think about hiring an in-house marketer in order to help with your marketing efforts, you need a professional person who fully matches your desired strategy. Invest in those who are highly analytical, digitally savvy and have considerable experience creating outstanding content.

Today’s marketing world requires much more efforts than eveк before. Successful inbound marketing is a peculiar science that needs a specific expertise and much experience. Even if marketing is not your preferable area, make sure you understand even the basics. Be original and have a good luck!

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7 Things You Should Test to Increase Your Site Conversion Rate

It doesn't matter what goal your marketing campaign goes in, working on the increasing your website conversation rate must be in everyday priority. Here are 7 tests you should not miss.

1. Make you you've managed the unique selling propositions that convert the most. Let’s say the following: you know that your services or products are quality and you know which the strong points of your product, however your potential customer is not aware of it. So test all the selling offers in your ads and social media in order to find out which of these propositions influence best on your conversion rate.

2. Test the landing page design in 2 steps. Firstly, test several page designs to find out which is the more successful in appealing most to your potential customer. Secondly, apply changes to the top performing design to test how different versions of the same page affect the potential customer attraction. The majority of your time should be dedicated to the top section of the page.

3. One of the most important questions to consider for marketers is what do I want visitors to do on my page. Let us make the question easier: What is the action visitors can take on my website page that can boost profits? Calls to action should have a great impact on your bottom line.

4. Landing page text. Check out the effectiveness of your text management: where the testimonials are placed? Where your benefits and features analysis are made? Do your headlines increase website visitor interest? You may also use such metrics as average time and sales on site to evaluate the performance of your webpages.

5. Desktop vs. Mobile traffic return-on-investment. Usually desktop and mobile traffic’s rates significantly differ. Compare the marketing budget you are spending on each device with the return income and decrease the budget of the non-profitable.

6. Add a chat button to the home page. Most of website visitors prefer consulting with a professional before purchasing a service or a product. Addicting a chat button on your website gives you one more way to convert visitors into leads.

7. Conversion rate of returning users. Invest in customers who have visited your website, spent enough time on it but didn’t convert. They are interested in your product or service, however want to compare all available offers first. Create campaigns to target past site visitors and test different offers to incentivize sales.

 Testing is one of the best ways to improve the conversion rate of a website. Good luck!

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5 Must-Have SEO Skills

What skills do search engine optimizers need to blossom forth today? Should SEO experts stew in their own juice and miss out on developing other marketing skills? Or should the new version of ideal SEO specialist be a jack-of-all-trades?

The today’s SEO professional should be an integrated SEO digital marketer that comprises knowledge about on-page SEO and other modern integrated strategies. 

If you are thinking about working in the SEO field, or you are looking for a good SEO expert for your business, there are 5 must-have SEO skills.

Technical SEO

If you really think that SEO is all about keyword research and including them in a page content, then you are seriously wrong. Search Engine Optimization deals more with making sites more qualitative at the server and page level. This multiplies chances of being ranked well on search engines and increases website traffic.

Of course, knowing what's what in on-page optimization, including alt tags, title tags, copy optimization and H1, is really useful; however, it's more important to understand the technical SEO, such as code. You can easily make the IT running if you are deeply versed in technical SEO.

So go ahead and study everything about the technical side of the SEO industry, including server response codes, server-side settings, rewrites, sitemaps, etc. Deep understanding both server-level and page-level optimization is what makes a regular SEO professional.

SMM

The world of to-day can’t imagine aт hour without social media. Social media skills of a successful SEO expert should not be limited to running accounts on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Pinterest. Social networking is another powerful tool to attract website traffic. A well-managed SEO include developing fan acquisition strategies, optimizing videos on YouTube and working on attracting Twitter followers.

Social media strategies are important also for link building, however the present-day SEO requires traffic generation and customer attraction through social media. Moreover, successful SEO should include both internal and external link optimization.

Usability and Information Architecture

SEO experts must realize the importance of appropriate website usability. Website usability deals with the way your objects are situated on your webpage. If the info you offer on your website is easy-to-find and the whole site is easy-to-navigate for users, it has more chances to succeed. For a good SEO, knowing about information architecture is critical. Content organization also mattes a lot. So, think about your folder structure and the way your website elements are labeled.

Content Marketing

Content is the fundamental element that can engage website visitors and keep them on your site page. As a rule, content marketing is divided into 2 principal tasks: content creation and content distribution.

A SEO professional must have great skills in both areas, in particular content creation. You should remember, the quantity always significantly concedes to quality. Such basic skills as finding content gaps, keyword research and distributing your content can be helpful.

Summary

The SEO industry is constantly changing. Today a deep understanding of web analytics and metrics is also a must for a good SEO expert. 

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How to Increase Your Traffic Without Using Any Marketing Strategies

Marketing is definitely one of the determinative factors enhancing success of any online business.  Most business owners are fully focused on such traditional traffic generation strategies as link building, consequently losing many potential customers.

The following strategies can help you increase your website's traffic significantly without any marketing.

1. Add Long-Tail Keywords to Your Pages

Of course, most of people prefer focusing on short terms because they are easier to research and identify.  However, in fact, about 85% of the traffic you can receive from "long-tail" queries that include 3-6 words.

As a rule, long-tail keywords are easier to convert at a higher rate than short ones.  Here is the way how you can take advantage of long-tail variations and increase your traffic considerably: 

v  Identify Long-Tail Modifiers

For example, you are a Logitech C310 webcam seller and want to optimize our page to rank for searches. Google Keyword Tool can help you find all the long-tail variations. Then look at the bottom of the search results, where Google displays related searches. The related searches for the term "Logitech C310" look as follows:

v  Get these Modifiers into Your Page Copy

If the Logitech C310 page is optimized for "Logitech C310" in the least, you don’t have to insert each long-tail phrase word-for-word into the page. Alternatively, it would be better to use the unique variations of “Logitech C310” in order to expect being well-ranked for it.

Make sure the words highlighted below appeared on our page:

All of these modifiers included into the copy provide the potentially strong opportunity to rank for a larger range of queries. 

2. Stand Out with Quality Snippets

Quality snippets are search listings, which include brief product review, availability info and price.  Snippets provide more detailed information about the certain website or service or product from the search results page without visiting it.

Quality snippets are a very powerful tool to increase a website traffic by up to 25%.  

v  Video Thumbnails 

Video thumbnails appear alongside a page listing. Video thumbnails also increase the click through rate of the associated pages. 

3. Write Strong Titles and Powerful Descriptions

The meta title and meta description are really important because they determine the way your page appears in the search results. By writing attractive titles and entertaining descriptions, you can stand out to searches.

When writing meta titles and meta descriptions, use marketing approach to it like you are writing an advertisement. Develop unique selling offers and highlight why your customer can benefit working with you.

4. Work with Your Internal Links

We all know that getting links from other websites is an effective traditional technique. However, just some people realize the importance of your own website's structure and internal links. If you need to give a certain page a rankings increase, you should know that linking to it from existing high authority pages on your domain can pass authority and help the target page to rank better.

So,

v  Make a list of high-value target pages you want to rank better

v  Identify your website pages, which currently have high authority

v  Add a link from your authority pages to your target pages.

v  Incorporate the link organically on the authority page with the usage of anchor text related to the keyword you want the target page to rank for.

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5 Essential Elements Every Company Site Should Include

Today’s tech knowledgeable consumers understand that having a website is a must for each business company regardless of industry or size.

Without a site, businesses will not be taken seriously and prevent the company from attracting new customers. And vise-versa, a properly and stylishly designed site allows a small business to earn large customers that take the business to the whole new level.

Here are 5 fundamental elements business owners have to consider when developing a website:

1. Let people find out more about your business.

According to a survey made by BrightLocal, 85% of consumers use search engines to find online reviews for local businesses on the Web. Getting more comfortable and familiar with reviews, perspective customers become the determining factor of new business success or failure.

So, business owners should think about writing and publishing some articles on the review sites that emphasize positive aspects customers are saying about the business. It also would be great if you make possible for visitors to add product or service reviews directly on your website.

Make sure your website reviews are always updated. You can train employees who closely interact with customers to ask for reviews without being annoying.

2. Get social and connect.

Customers appreciate having options to connect with business consultant directly. Social-media channels can easily give them this desirable opportunity! Moreover, different social-media channels allow business owners to reach different consumer groups. You can also add “share” buttons to your website and blog posts so as the website visitors could share the website information, special offers, favorite services or products with their social-media networks. This is also a quality and low-cost method to spread the business organically.

3. Make your website visually pleasing.

Coming to a website, today’s consumers expect to see a stylishly designed site, which can offer some type of interactive experience. So, get your website informative, creative and engaging for visitors, include some impressive images, educational videos or how-to articles. Use photos that present the services or products vividly.

4. Make the purchase process as easy as possible.

For any business that sells products, an ecommerce website is a must. Giving customers an easy way to purchase if they cannot get to the store is really important for business development. The best way to make the purchase process easier is to add online ordering directly to the business site or develop a fully integrated ecommerce store. For more information about “The Top Five Errors Made by Money-Losing Ecommerce Websites” check out our yesterday’s article.

5. Always keep your website’s information fresh and relevant.

Keeping website content updated displays perspective customers that they have come to a lively business they can trust. Most of website pages don’t require constant updates, but there is a blog page or a company news page that should be updated regularly.

It’s also very important to include a business address that can be ideally placed on the bottom of each website page.

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How to Protect Your Content

Content is far more valuable than anything else. It requires considerable efforts and much time to produce high quality content and, more to the point, protect it from thieves! Regrettably, content theft is quite a common phenomenon nowadays, because it is extremely easy to copy it from one source and paste it wherever you need.

Nevertheless, you cannot let thieves use your original content, so read what you must do when you come across content theft. The following steps will help you protect your content.

Why Content Keeps Significant Value to Your Business

If you are a green hand in SEO, you must know that "Content Is King"! Original content is the core element for high ranking in search engines. This is why people sweat over each article, each image and each video, published on a website afterwards.

Use Copyright Watermarks and Notices

It is quite paradoxical that in most cases thieves do not even know they are stealing, because Internet is full of free articles, videos and images that can be use even commercially. So, in order to avoid misconception, make sure your content has a Copyright notice in your website footer.

Moreover, you can add watermarks for videos and images and disable text selection for articles. These easy steps will stop many thieves and make it harder to copy content directly.

Other ways to copy content require more efforts. However, if somebody really wants your content, disabled copying probably will not stop him.

Use Google Authorship

When it comes to building your online reputation and content protection, such useful tool as Google Authorship can greatly help you. Actually, it is simple. You should just enter your online profile and claim authorship about it. The only possible problem is that you have to use your real name. So if you write under a pseudonym that would be difficult.

Set Google Alerts to Watch for Copied Content

Besides protecting your content, you may want to catch some thieves. One of the easiest ways to catch them is using Google Alerts. Google Alerts is a useful tool from Google that allows you to copy some piece of your original content and make alerts to be notified when these pieces appear online. Create two or three alerts per article.

How to Handle the Theft

After getting an alert about your stolen content, you should:

• Prepare Your Evidence: make screenshots and prepare the original files. However, it won't be easy to prove you are the author. For videos and images this might be easier, if you have the source files.

• Contact the Thief: Firstly, send him a friendly e-mail letter asking to remove the copy. It is possible the blog owner would remove your content and the problem would be solved. If your e-mail doesn't work, contact his hosting provider and attach the evidence you've prepared.

• File a DMCA Complaint: Usually, the first two steps are not enough to deal with the thieves, so you have to use a Digital Millennium Copyright Act complaint. You submit a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) complaint with Google to tell them to deindex the stolen content.

Dealing with content theft isn't an easy matter. However, you must do it to protect your original content and your SEO rankings. So, be careful and good luck!

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The Top five Errors Made by Money-Losing Ecommerce Websites

Most of people say that setting up an ecommerce website is much easier than running it. Attracting organic website traffic and generating revenue is quite difficult, however businesses that avoid this common errors can make good profit.

1. Making things difficult for users. This may include almost everything you do to lose your customers, beginning with your website design and tedious navigation.

Today, in order to keep your customers interested in your website, you have to get your site optimized. Poor payment options, complicated purchase process, low quality images and poor product descriptions make a wonderful mix to pitch your customers out and prevent your ecommerce business from development.

2. Not targeting customers. Customer attraction is one of the most important items of any strong marketing strategy. Businesses without a firm system for searching for specific clients can spend a lot of money and efforts on getting the wrong audience. In order to target potential customers effectively, learn every detail about your ideal customer type; get as much information as possible. Therefore, you can market in a more personalized manner.

3. Low profit margins. Green ecommerce websites do business at a loss until they achieve economies of scale. If your financials are analyzed carefully, you can build a customer base, taking advantage of incentives. Customers are always glad to get a discount. So by offering various deals, giveaways and organizing contests, you may increase your brand awareness and attract more potential clients.

4. Marketing your business non-effectively. Successful marketing an ecommerce company includes quality social media marketing, savvy search engine marketing and good content that meets the latest SEO requirements.

However, such activities require some considerable funds for advertising. Mainly, a good ecommerce website marketing strategy should focus on the product catalogue, targeted audience and platforms to advertise on.

In order to optimize your website in a better way, make an on-site analysis and gain a deep insight into the on-site analytics as well as the data you're getting from search engines, social media and marketing channels.

5. Set your customers back on heels with hidden costs. The principal customer’s source of concern is hidden costs that appear at the payment time. Moreover, there are other things that could not encourage customers to cooperate, such as poor security level at the payment gateways, selling low-quality goods and compulsory registration to make an order.

So try to avoid these fundamental errors and focus on high quality and easy-to-use approach.

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