How to find the right internet marketing agency for your business?

How to find the right internet marketing agency for your business?

Internet marketing is no longer the job of amateurs. If you are serious about your business and you want to make the most from your online presence then you are going to need a host of professionals. This article consists of some useful tips that might help you to find the right internet marketing agency:

1. You should be clear about the functional area in which you need assistance for your website promotion. The problem is that the field of digital marketing has many streams and brooklets; each of which contributes in some way or the other to promote your contents. Your team may be able to do some of the aspects of digital marketing while you might need help with others. Following are some subjects or aspects of internet marketing :
2. Content writing
3. Multimedia production
4. Web designing and development
5. SEO or Search Engine Optimization
6. SEM or Search Engine Marketing
7. Web analytics
8. SMM or Social Media Marketing or Management of Social Media pages
9. Remarketing
10. Inbound Marketing

Based on your requirement you need to choose your internet marketing company. Some provide all of the above services while others do few of them. Know and discuss the functional areas of your digital marketing company before you choose one.

1. Research about the reputation and the SEO presence of the company. If it tops the list of your Google search result page then it should be one of the most recommendable companies in this field. Try to narrow down your search with long tail and specific keywords. A good SEO or SEM presence will signify that they are conversant with the methods of digital marketing. Thus you can expect a high end performance from them.

• You should know and research a bit about the methods your chosen company uses. If you have a team of professionals in this category, it is advisable that you fix up an appointment with the marketing head of the company prior to engaging them in the contract.

1. Budget is a very important controlling factor in this case. Negotiation for the final price quote is the most common practice. You can negotiate on price, length of the service and the type of the service and its methods. Your company might not need some high end internet marketing Thus you should be careful to identify your need because the world of digital marketing is evolving at a fast pace with all the robust technologies, state-of-the-art software and their analogs and others. However, it is to be borne in mind that paying the lowest in the market will not bring you the cream professionals to your team. It is advisable this to go for a median quote.

You are one who is in control of the business plan. The internet marketing agency should be helpful enough to support and sharpen that plan. If your appointed agency is unable to bring results never think twice to bring about a change.

The 3 essentials of a good web design

The 3 essentials of a good web design

There are many aspects of a good web design. But three essentials which a web designer has to keep in mind are the:

1. The Aesthetic sense of a design.
2. The Interface sense of a design.

• The Content sense of a design.

A perfect web design is a well-balanced script of these primary senses. A discussion is ensued about these three aspects which all good web designers are aware of:

1. The Aesthetic sense is about making your website look perfect in terms of color and typography. Every website conveys a particular message to its viewers. The aura of the website should be such that it should complement the message that the writer or the owner is trying to convey. Every color has its own message. The colors you use to paint the website should match the central idea or theme of the website. It is like wrapping up a gift. The perfect designer will take care about the gift wrap: its color and style. You do not send a silk shirt in a milk carton with picture of a cow on it. It simply spoils the first impression. People usually do not surf the web with a lot of patience. The best web designer will attract its viewers as he enters the landing page. Classifying and understanding the taste of target audience is also very necessary in this aspect. The difficult part of aesthetic sense of web design is that you cannot copy others. You can take an idea from another website and develop on it. Relying blindly on the happening trends may not assure success.
2. The Interface sense of your website deals with viewer’s interaction with the website. Components like forms, menus, tabs are some of the user interface part. The web designer has to be prudent in this section also. Asking the viewer to fill up long forms containing various details that are redundant for the first time visitor has been rejected by many professionals. You can ask for some vital contact information like name and email address so that he can be communicated with newsletters and discount coupons at a later date. Registration to the website should be a form with maximum of three lines. A prefect interface should be easy to use on the viewer’s part and effective on the seller or blogger’s part.

• The Content sense of a web design is also called Information design. In this section, the designer needs to display a huge amount of information in packets which are easy to understand and quick to download. Video storytelling has become an effective way of content design. Organizing the content nicely in a lucid language is very important. The language of communication should be completely comprehensive to the target audience. The message should be clear. If you are offering a discount, then you need to mention the date till it is valid. This will create a sense of urgency among the buyers resulting in some immediate sales. Also, it will save them from using it at a later date resulting in dissatisfaction.

Can we really control backlinking and generate web traffic?

Can we really control backlinking and generate web traffic?

If you have a website then you are familiar with terms like web traffic and search engine optimization techniques and tips. A search engine optimized web page or website will generate better web traffic since it will be placed at a higher page rank and at position of best visibility.

Link building is a very popular and common method of attracting the search engine for a better page rank. There are various types of links which are considered by search engines like inter-linking, reciprocate linking, back linking and others. Interlinking is basically linking websites belonging to the same owner. Thus it depends on the owner how well he can link his websites with appropriate keywords and makes a smart SEO move. Back linking, on the other hand, happens when another blogger places a link to your website in his web page. Back linking is often called external linking. This may seem that back linking cannot be controlled. But there are certain techniques by which you can actually establish some degree of control on it:

1. Place a linking code in the side bar of your webpage: This method will encourage people with similar websites to place backlinks and do publicity for your website. There are many bloggers who may not know how to place external links and refer your content. This HTML code with specific instructions and headers will help them do so.
2. Publish few articles in content farms: Content farms are websites which publish article on a variety of topics. Publish one or two articles in these content farms. This increases your chance of getting referred in other people’s articles. Number of back links thus automatically increases.

• Take advantage from discussion forums: Try to search for discussion forums related to your content category. Use Bing or Google or other unpaid search engines for this. Participate in these discussion forums and place links to your website. These links will act as back links when searched by the crawlers or bots of Google.

1. Take advantage from social media: Social media today have become the most popular way of getting known. It is important to have a social media account for your business or blog. It is very easy to acquire one. Post comments and initiate discussion threads regarding your content. Bloggers need to be completely active in these accounts. This is a unique and simple way to gain publicity these days.

Two points however needs to be referred in this context of back linking:

1. Organic search engines prefer back links within reputed and trustworthy websites. Back links provided by websites that are new on the block or those with poor content or link building websites or those websites that have content completely belonging to a different niche are considered to be of very less weight or no value.

It is all about quality and not quantity. Paid links are not counted by popular search engines when they consider web page ranking

The top 5 tips for social media marketing for beginners

The top 5 tips for social media marketing for beginners

Social media marketing is not at all overrated. It truly works. You just need to remember your goals while engaging in this form of marketing. Two quotes can help you comprehend about this topic:

1. ‘The goal of social media is to turn customers into a volunteer marketing army’ as said perfectly by Jay Baer from Convince and Convert
2. ‘Social media is one area of business where you don’t need to outspend your competitors in order to beat them’ saved from @Halstokes

The following discussion will outline 10 fundamental tips about how to do social media marketing. This article is targeted mainly towards the beginners in this zone of marketing:

1. Listen carefully: Listening in a social media often grades into eavesdropping! But social media is meant for sharing publicly. The social media gives you that opportunity to understand the psychology of your target audience or their reaction to your services and products. Of course, you do all these by web analytics or CRM softwares. Just choose them wisely and deploy.
2. Build quality web traffic: Quantity of web traffic is for show off. It does not matter if that large section of that quantity does not convert into customers. Build quality content that is useful and of relevance to your audience, nurture leads by various incentives, engage in relevant discussions, build trust and goodwill and deploy other strategies to jump-start your business.

• Be active: Post frequently because the social media never sleeps. So if you are dozing off after creating that fan page in Facebook, then you will be losing important leads. Remember, visibility is the key to success in digital marketing. More visible and more interactive you are with people, more will be your chance to be popular, and more will be your chances to sell.

1. Do not tire your contacts: Posting almost the same content is close to Article Spinning: the infamous form of SEO. You are on a social media and entertainment network or knowledge base network. Post content relevant to your niche but in an interesting manner with catchy and in-context heading. Make your content so delicious, that your leads wait for your next post and check you webpage and website frequently. People might end up sharing your post with their followers. This means you are being exposed to another subset of fresh web traffic. Your SEO on organic search engines will improve automatically. The list of useful followers might compound giving your more leads.
2. Do not neglect relationship with your visitors on a social media: your customer care should be able to respond to each and every query as soon as they are posted.

With social media marketing you need to be patient. It takes some time to build reputation across these platforms. It is not easy at all. You need to consult peers and websites like Wordstream, Hub spot to enrich your knowledge base. E-books on social media marketing strategies and management are available for free download in many of these popular and informative websites.

Paid SEM and PPC: 5 basics you should know before you buy

Paid SEM and PPC: 5 basics you should know before you buy

This is the penultimate era of Digital marketing. Search Engine Marketing or SEM is one of the strongest forms of Digital or internet marketing. The initial competition in case of internet marketing is merely being clicked and getting an opportunity to display your website to the visitors. SEM is basically designing your website such that it is visible in the top places of popular engines like Google. SEM can be paid or unpaid. In case of paid SEM, it can be in the form of advertisements directly to the search engine or to the social media. One such popular form of paid SEM is PPC or Pay per click. Following are five important points that you should know before you buy PPC:

1. PPC or paid SEM brings you instant visibility: These are basically advertisements which appear at the top of the page of any search engine like Google with the tag ‘Ad’ written next to them. The most relevant keywords are being sold by Google itself to the highest bidder. This ensures that the highest bidder will automatically be at the top echelon of a relevant search query.
2. It is Pay Per Click: This means that you pay Google a nominal charge only when your website is being clicked by the visitor. Google will charge you per click. Thus you do not have to pay Google for being visible in their SERP or Search Engine Result Page.

• PPC can help in tough competition: If your niche is extremely popular, then your website will be facing a tough competition. In this case, some degree of PPC at least in the initial stages can bring your website some recognition among the users. Reputation and sales will depend on your product, website features and how well you tackle sales and customers.

1. PPC may bring you loss too: Paid SEM does not guarantee sales. It helps you to bring in web traffic and displaying your website to large number of users. Whether those visitors will convert into customers or not will depend solely on your website display and sales tactics. Website design, customer incentives, relevant contents are some of the factors which you should develop perfectly before you begin a paid SEM Otherwise, you will end up paying the search engine without any actual sales. Your ROI will fall with a long time PPC incurring you losses.
2. Google charges less for PPC for a relevant content: If you want the mega search engine of our times to charge you less, then you need to prove your authority in your niche. This means that your content should be strongly liked and voted by users as references in other websites. Yes, Google has several web analytics to see and measure the performance of any website over time. It rewards websites that have followed good SEO guidelines like the usage of right keywords, a well built and authentic content, targeted audience and others.

3 useful tips to design your website the modern way

3 useful tips to design your website the modern way

Web designing is a dynamic art. It is being updated every moment with new ideas and creativity to make user experience even better. In this article, three important issues or tips related to modern day web designing is being discussed.

1. Typography: Web design cannot be accomplished with a typography which matches the style and the theme of the web page. Making typography unique has been in trend for some time now. The new concept is using large typography. Every major company uses a particular type of typography so that they are identifiable instantly. It is like that ‘half-eaten apple’ of Apple. There are several types of font available with new and upcoming software that can be used to make the statement for your website. Typography represents your identity or your theme of your website. For example, it can indicate that whether you are sharing information only via your website or you are a functional or business website. Many companies like New Yorkers use multiple kinds of typography to express different functional sections of their website. Another most important issue in this context is that the web designer should choose such a type which is universal or in other words can be displayed correctly in all the popular browsers. After all the hard work, you definitely would not want to display your web page in an unappealing way. The whole idea of designing would be lost.
2. Flat to semi-flat design: A Flat design is basically those where the fonts do not contain a three dimensional effects like shadows. Flat design or semi flat design is now being accepted to be a smart effective choice of using in a website. This is because they are easier to load and view. They are easier to understand also. Apple chose to re-initiate the era of Flat design bringing back this old trend.

Back ground videos: This is another popular technique which is used nowadays. In many websites, as you load you can see a video which starts running in a part of the web page all by itself. This relatively new concept helps to input a large amount of information to the user effectively since it is easier to comprehend or digest information when given in an audio-video format. It is also easier to load. A background video does not block the user’s view. He is not imposed to view the video. It just runs in the background. Having said that, the percentage of viewers completely ignoring the video is negligible. In fact, most of us prefer to see a movie instead of reading through columns of internet text. Our brain can process a movie quickly than a book. Since time is an important factor in the world of internet surfing, web pages that contain background videos have been very successful. Sometimes the main video can be cleverly attached with this opening video. Visitors who see the background video are often intrigued into clicking to the main video part.

The top 5 sure ways to increase web traffic

The top 5 sure ways to increase web traffic

Web traffic is the life line of any website; be it the website of a rising talent or an established corporate house. We are on the internet to reach millions globally. But we are heavily dependent on the search engines especially the organic ones. An effective search engine optimized method can boost your website to reach the first page and if possible the first few search ranks in the results page of the search engine. Now, there are several methods that have the potential to bring substantial traffic to your website. Following are the top five ways that you can adopt to increase web traffic:

1. Social media: It is important to have an active page in the social media like Reddit, Facebook, Twitter and others. This helps in promotion of your website. You can leave an open thread about the newly launched product and encourage discussions. People interested will definitely check your business website. Show up in these social media websites and never leave the search engine ranks. This is a kind of advertisement. Larger the number of websites you show up in the better will be your ranking among other pages and better is the possibility of being viewed.
2. Headlines are important: It is mandatory that the headline of your content be relevant to the rest of the text; a one line description of your text; contain appropriate keywords as consulted from web analytics software; catchy and comprehensible by the target audience.

• Keywords: Keywords the key to success. It should be well distributed in your content. Long tail keywords are known to increase the probability of your websites to be on the surface of a relevant search query. A long tail keyword actually is a very specific description of your content. Many of the surfers often write long phrases to narrow down their search in one attempt. Thus is wise and recommendable to use at least few of these keywords in your text.

1. Create internal as well as external links: One of the most important parameters by which a search engine arranges and sorts similar contents are links. Internal links are those which you put inside your text to pin point to a particular useful section within your website. Sometimes placing links for other trustworthy and rich websites builds a kind of reputation in the internet world. Your content is marked as good and informative. External links are those which other websites places in their content to link to your website. These links are recommendations and are seen as a measure of good quality content by popular search engines like Google. You can request friends or partners who have websites where placing a link to your website is relevant.
2. Guest blogging: Ask other bloggers to submit contents to your website. This is another sure shot way of sharing web traffic from the guests’ websites. However, make sure they do not submit spams to your site.

What type of social media marketing should I choose? Organic or paid

What type of social media marketing should I choose? Organic or paid

Hubspot, one of the most popular websites on Digital marketing has recently conducted a survey on social media marketing entrepreneurs and has published its results: 63 percent of the companies who are using social media have said that it has increased marketing effectiveness among other benefits. There is no doubt today, that using the social media definitely contributes to an improved digital marketing. But the leverage lies in doing it correctly. In this context, people are often confused between the two kinds of social media marketing: the paid form or the unpaid form. The latter is often called the organic form. First, it is important to understand each of these forms correctly.

The salient features of Organic social media marketing are:

1. You do not pay the social media network
2. You will have a web page for your company in that particular media network.

• Your social media presence is assured; but your social media popularity will depend on your content quality, interaction and relationship building capability and your capability to tackle multiple leads simultaneously.

1. It is content driven just like organic SEO
2. Engaging, informative, relevant, non-repetitive posts, visuals like image, video storytelling may help to build contents that bring in quality web traffics.

The salient features of paid social media marketing are:

1. It is form of paid advertisements that will appear on your selected social media network as sponsored ads.
2. It is just like paid SEM.

• Your visibility or ad impression is assured.

1. Your targets will be more focused.
2. To drive in a click, text ads as well as the display needs to look appealing. It should be able to seek attention of the social media
3. Strategies need to be built so that a large percentage of your Click rate actually converts into customers. This needs to be checked frequently; otherwise you might end up spending on some ads which does not yield benefits. Optimization techniques with continuous monitoring of the ad performance need to be done.

Now the question is how to choose between these two forms. Following are the controlling factors:

1. Your immediate purpose to be on the social media If it is to build better customer experience, the organic form will be a cost effective approach.
2. Do you need to achieve any immediate business targets through this social media platform? For example, your current target is to generate 15 leads in 30 days’ time. In that case, an immediate visibility is required. The paid form of social media marketing should be advisable in this aspect. Giving an ad does not mean that it will surely generate web traffic. You need work on your resources and ad appeal for that. But a paid ad, definitely improves the chance of being visited.

• Your budget is another controlling factor in this aspect.

1. The industry sector you are dealing with is also an important factor.

Some prefer to improve their visibility with paid marketing in the initial stages. Then they switch to the organic form.

Link building in SEO: the white hat way

Link building in SEO: the white hat way

You need to know SEO if you have a website. It is basically the technique to be searchable and visible within the first few ranks of a relevant search. It is very important to be ‘searchable’ because there is tough competition in the free limitless world of web. Just writing good quality content may not help you to be present in the higher ranks of a search query. You need to know how the search engine searches contents and follow the footsteps. Of course, you should do these in an honest way. Deceptions in this case are very tempting with so many companies on the internet trying to help you. But it is better not to follow those unwise methods. They are risky because they carry chances for your website to be penalized and completely barred from the search engine database. Honest methods approved by the search engines are called White Hat SEO.

Link building is a very common and popular method of SEO. A search engine regards links to a website present on another external website to be a parameter for good internet content. Links given a third party is like a reference. He must have read the content and is placing his recommendation as website link in his content. Following are some tips that can help to make link building a success in a White Hat way:

1. Who is placing the link? This means that if the search engine finds a link to your website in a questionable or a newly uploaded page or a page which does not have authentic content, then that link will be less preferred as compared to that link which it has found in the page of trusted, authentic, reputed, old but active website. Thus who is recommending you matters.
2. What is in the link? The words used in the link matters. Simply putting the website URL as a link will not gain you that higher order ranks. The link should contain keyword phrases that describes or is highly relevant to your website. For example, if you sell sports shoes, then the link the external page uses should be: trendy sports shoes or something more relevant and exact. Google will reward this type of keywords better. These keywords are called anchor text.

• Which page to link at? The external website should link to the exact page in your site. The usual custom is to create a link to the home page. The home page seldom contains the main useful content. In case you are selling sports shoes, it should be directly linked to the relevant page where there is a display of various kinds of fashionable sports shoes.

It is to be noted that building external links is important by making good quality text, asking friends to put up links for you in their website if relevant and other techniques. But building internal links is easier and a method you can control by using relevant keywords in the anchor text, linking to the exact page and of course creating a web page with enriched in contents and keywords.

3 SEM related blogs and software you should know about

3 SEM related blogs and software you should know about

SEM is the acronym for Search Engine Marketing. Businesses that expect to get online buyers through their website need to know about SEM.  It is the prior step of internet marketing. It is the art of being the chosen one who will make it to the top ranks on a search engine result page. Being on the top in a popular search engine page means your website is one of the most relevant for a particular string of search query or keywords. SEM has various techniques and categories. It can be divided broadly into two categories: the paid SEM and the unpaid ones. The unpaid SEM which is also called SEO is tougher than that of the paid SEM. It takes time to show results but it brings credibility the website. Paid SEM can help your website to gain initial visibility; but popularity and sales depend how well your website tackles web traffic and impress them. Paid SEM may lead to a poor ROI if you are not conscious with your basic internet marketing strategies. There are several blogs and discussions that can help you with the concepts and techniques of an effective SEM. Following are some top companies who help you to be visible in the internet in front of relevant users. You can forget being that needle in the haystack. Following are some blogs and their softwares:

1. Google AdWords: This blog requires no introduction. You are dealing with a website from the masters themselves. Since most of our searches are ensued in Google, it is vital to consult them. Both business websites as well as blogging websites are bestowed with its benefits. The websites using Google Adwords software are reaping of excellent profit being advised correctly by this blog. You can go for various forms of paid SEM through this software. PPC or Pay Per Click, banner ads, remarketing, display on YouTube and others. With Google Adwords you can really make a difference and be ahead of your competitors. The ROI of most of the business have improved by using this platform.
2. Wordstream: This website is a great assistance in the field of SEM and online marketing. They allow a PPC program to their users. Also they provide various free SEM tools in this aspect. They call it PPC campaign grader. They have a very helpful customer care even with their free content. You can place social ads with Wordstream also. They assist in Facebook advertisement. You can use this product to place a perfect ad with Facebook. It makes it extremely cost effective. You can organize and manage your PPC and social ads with the help of Wordstream Advisor software. This is definitely a wonderful tool for time management in the context of online advertisements.

HubSpot:  This is a very reputed and recommendable blog with a multiple of paid software assistance. Beginners as well as advanced users can be benefited by HubSpot. HubSpot Marketing has already made its place in the field of digital marketing and advertisement management.

The power of remarketing in the world of internet marketing

The power of remarketing in the world of internet marketing

Remarketing will definitely help you to reach your destination in case you choose it as one of your internet marketing strategies and plans. Few lines about remarketing before we begin:

1. It is posting ads of your website to certain visitors and leads at different websites without being actually called in a search.
2. This is an attempt to be visible to those whom you delineate to have a good potential for conversion.

People often refrain to put more ad budget into the remarketing procedure. Following are some good reasons why remarketing at least to some extent is advisable as a good internet marketing policy:

1. Market research has proved that larger the number of times a lead sees an ad impression more is his likelihood to convert into a customer. This is usually applicable for those leads that have already registered in your website and have shown quite a bit of interest in your content or product. Giving promotional offers to old customers in the form of remarketed ad has been one of the sure shot ways of further sales. It is to be noted that Click through rates decrease after a certain duration of time but those who clicks will surely become your customer. Thus some amount of remarketing to these leads or visitors should be accommodated.
2. As against the popular belief, people are less prone to get tired from remarketing ads than those form new non-remarketing ads. Market statistics have also proved this. The theory is simple if the surfer has visited your website, spent some time and clicked on some CTR then he should be fatigued by your remarketing ad. In most cases, these remarketing ads act as reminder tools in internet marketing. The greatest benefit of remarketing is that you can choose your visitors from the web traffic whom you want to send these ads. An optimized remarketing is always beneficial since the list of visitors and the type of ad you sent are cleverly construed based on visitor behavior and interaction on your website.

• Remarketing gives you the option for Display ads or ads with images like those we see on Facebook. This gives you the unique opportunity of brand building that is not possible on a Search Engine Results Page. A Display ad always brings more impression on the clients mind when compared to mere text ads. People remember a visual more than a catchy line considering so many web pages any surfer visits to satisfy his search query.

1. Remarketing ads help in trust building among your leads and users. Advertisements that are shown frequently always have a positive impact on human psychology. Being visible on various pages, that the user surfs through the day may help your company build that trust. In this context, it is to be noted that the average surfers know very little about internet marketing strategies and concepts. He might consider your website to be really popular when he sees your remarketing ads everywhere he visits online.