Monday 24 September 2018

Internet marketing with a Remarketing strategy

Internet marketing with a Remarketing strategy


remarketing strategy
Digital marketing or internet marketing  has evolved superfast in the last decade or so with the advent and popularity of new marketing strategies, principles, ideas and assisting softwares of various categories like web analytic or E-commerce. But with everybody plunging into the same pool, the competition has become fierce and advanced. Competition begins right from being visible on the search engine page or in other web pages. Visibility on the SERP is one of the initial stages of internet marketing; accomplished by paid or unpaid SEM or Search Engine Marketing. In this stage you want your visitors to click on your ad or organic links and visit your web page. In this context, remarketing is the next logical step for online advertisement. Remarketing means to post ads in several websites across several networks that your visitors visit. People often leave your website without doing business or other desired interactions. You pull in those visitors with Remarketing ads with an attempt to convert them into customers. Customers are also pulled in with retargeting ads for further sales. However, it is to be noted that Remarketing is ad posting; it will cost you. Thus it needs to be balanced and optimized so that you get a higher conversion rate and a better ROI. Following are some tips in this context that can help you generate an optimized Remarketing strategy:
  1. Ad budget should be proportionally reduced on early stage visitors. Selecting everyone for remarketing ads is not a wise idea. It is true larger the number of ad impressions larger is the conversion rate. But this is that area of sales funnel where you select and you select wisely. This will increase your ROI. Visitor who only visited your home page need not be given all those high budget remarketing ads. You can send them a soft CTA like a webinar or a newsletter about your newly launched product.
  2. Lead quality is more important than lead quantity for any middle phase online business. Business objectives change with growth. Your remarketing policies should change accordingly. Aggressive CRO increases lead quantity but reduces lead quality. Generating leads may not lead to a better ROI in certain aspects especially when you are spending on remarketing ads. A perfect balance needs to be achieved between lead quality and quantity. Large web traffic and revisits might not help to promote sales or promote sales that are very less meaningful and profitable to your business according to your current status. Try to categorize your visitors: those who may not make sales, those who will make sales, those who will make small sales and those who will make large sales. Send different types and different budget remarketing ads accordingly. Sometimes, the business might require generating some specific amount of leads or customers in a specified amount of time. You need to plan your remarketing strategies accordingly.
  • Remarketing today is being modified into something called Super Remarketing by combining factors like demographics, behavior and tempting contents. Do not forget to try the trends.

The translucent partition between web design and graphic design

The translucent partition between web design and graphic design


web design
We often think the professions of web designing and graphic designing to be synonymous. These two categories of professionals may share the same broad work space but they are two different niches. They may both deal in creating pages in the web but their working methods are distinctly different. Their working idea may sometimes overlap. Let us say that the partition between these two categories of occupation is translucent and not opaque.  In this article, the major differences between these two occupations are being discussed. Some points of comparison are being discussed below:
  1. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics recognizes web design and graphic design as two different subjects. Graphic design falls under the subject group or discipline of “Arts and Design” while Web design falls under the category of “Computer and Information Technology. Lucidly speaking the graphic designer is concerned with the artistic part of the web page while the web designer is more concerned with the technical aspect.
  2. The web designer creates his design by means of computer codes and uses several programs like HTML while the graphic designer sketches images both on his drawing sheets and also with the help of programs. Graphic designers use typography, images, font style and other elements to represent an idea. The products that they create can be used in brochures, posters, magazines, presentations and also in a web page. They are not concerned with program development which is the area where a web designer is required. The web designer is thus often referred to as a web developer while a graphic designer is the end user or application user.
  • The web designer has to design objects in such a manner that it should be quickly viewable and downloadable. Screen resolution matters in case of web page designing. Also, people or the target audience viewing the designed web page should be able to quickly comprehend the idea and the message of the content. It should be effective tool to fetch more business in a quick and sure shot way. Designs created by a graphic designer are not constrained by factors like speed and resolution. Of course, they have their target audience and they need to impress them or fetch business with their designs. But they do not need to match their design with various aspects or efficiency of the internet.
  1. Job openings for a graphic designer are mostly in the printing industry. Needless to say that a web designer has a job market in the internet or programming industry itself.
  2. A web designer usually has a higher salary package than a graphic designer. The average yearly income of a web designer in US is $62,000 approximately while a graphic designer earns approximately $44,000 per year.
They often say that the best web page can be created when a web designer collaborates with a graphic designer. There are professionals who have acquired degrees in both of these occupations. The art of web designing truly reaches a pinnacle with these professionals.

Does your business need the different social media marketing channels?

Does your business need the different social media marketing channels?

social media
Social media has been present ever since the people started using the web. As the social media evolved and encompassed a huge population under its attractive umbrella, advertisers, bloggers and businesses saw these as a unique way of connecting with people, finding and establishing leads, promoting products and business. Today, even the small sized business with a website has a page or a footprint in the social media sites. Social media presence has become one of the major pillars of digital marketing. But there are several channels that are relevant to social media marketing. However they can be grouped according to the functions they provide to their users. If you are looking out for social media marketing then you should know about these categories and how they can actually help your business or blog to popularize.  Following are the broad sub divisions:
  1. Social networks that build personal relationships: Two useful examples in this category include websites like Facebook and match making or dating websites. People signing for these websites are allowed to have their own web page. Most of the functions being organic caused the immense popularity of these sites within this short period of time. People share their personal data publicly across several users, known or unknown to him and they can keep all their uploaded or shared data under one single tab. You can use this network to connect to your leads and clients on a personal level through discussion threads, new posts and customer sections. Facebook or Twitter presence of business is recognized today as the most important strategy for internet marketing.
  2. Social network that shares media contents: Videos and images are considered to be more effective tools than text contents. Uploading contents on a YouTube platform has always proved to be an effective social media marketing approach. If you have a series of images then Instagram can be your platform.
  • Social network that posts online reviews: Yelp, TripAdvisor, UrbanSpoon are some of the most popular social network sites that posts reviews about various things. Your business needs to be present in these websites. Today people simply live and trust internet more than anything else. They consult these online review platforms where people like critics, existing customers post their experience about a particular brand or service or product or commodity. To be present on any of these websites that is relevant to your business niche means that you get to know about your clients’ reactions; you get to know about that dissatisfied client; you get to make the right sales pitch to bring him back on board; you get to improve; also you get the opportunity to make further direct sales to the satisfied customer by using the correct marketing strategy.
  1. Social networks like Discussion forums: Discussion forums are basically a base where people input their knowledge about a particular topic. This collective knowledge is extremely useful and relevant to many users. Your business needs to share relevant contents in an intelligent way such that users reach your websites for services and products. Participation in several topics of relevance creates a kind of trust among people.

Friday 21 September 2018

3 common SEM mistakes you should avoid

3 common SEM mistakes you should avoid

search engine marketing
Every blogger has an internet presence today in form of websites or web page in social media. Thus online competition is fierce. The competition primarily is to be visible when searched by the user in any non-paid search engine. Search engines like Google and Bing are some of the most trusted websites of today. If your website is being placed in a higher rank in SERP or Search Engine Result Page of Google, then your website is one of the best among those who have a website. SEM or Search Engine Marketing has thus evolved. It encompasses some important pillars of digital marketing. It is about how to be visible among millions of relevant websites during a search query and how to make it to the top. In this context the following five points are some common mistakes which we often do despite of our best intentions:
  1. Ignoring the home page: The home page or the landing page is basically the face of the entire website. Its importance lies in the fact of impressing and properly introducing the visitor to your website. In case of SEM, or impressing the search engine, a bad landing page can result in nullifying all your efforts. Proper and well-researched keywords should be well distributed throughout the content. Title, heading, URL should contain that perfect keyword. Usage of long tail keywords is mandatory if you want to pull in the right customer and be visible in the top of their SERP. Web design and good typography should never be ignored. Making a landing page bleached of proper contents will not help you win the search engine competition both in the advertiSEMent as well as in the unpaid links categories. Ineffective SEM means very less web traffic from search engines even if the other sections of your website stores some good quality contents. Even if a visitor lands on your website, he will be looking out for incentives like discounts or gripping contents. So ignoring the landing page will cost you.
  2. Your website does not have a Mobile application: Smart phones have become so common that people does most of their internet surfing via their phones. You can all your shopping and internet searching while on the move. It saves time and also it is easy to carry. Every business, games, television channels, shops and others have their own application. If your website does not have an Android compatible application, then you are missing out a large section of the customer population.
  • You do not analyze how your website is performing: A whole series of different kinds of web analytics software are available today. They measure several web related parameters that can give you a direct input of how the customer is reacting to your website and help you build the right SEM tactics and redesign your website. Some examples any of these standard software can provide you: reports on the number of visitors per day, how much time they spent on your website, which section they clicked, detect returning visitors, differentiate between bots and human visitor, traffic source according to country region, how the keywords you used are performing today, how your paid SEM ads are performing and many more.

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

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


internet marketing
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


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?


free 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
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


search engine marketing
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


free 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.

5 Common Mistakes to Avoid When Seeking Funding For Startup

Seeking financing for your startup is one of the most daunting tasks faced by budding entrepreneurs. The world is littered with examples...