Listen up you entreprenerds! It’s time for a knowledge dump on your mind mattress. Let’s do a quick thought experiment for a second, let’s pretend that you’ve actually got a business, and you haven’t just been attending seminars for the free coffee and attractive trainers. Let’s call this business ‘TRUNK JUNK’ which is a product that helps you organise your trunk space using clever containers and shelves; Brilliant. In this experiment I would like to you imagine how you’re going to sell your JUNK to people, where are you going to sell it? Continue reading →

The digital marketing landscape changes at such a rapid rate that businesses need to change strategies and tactics ever so often to keep up. Online marketers need to keep learning and changing tactics in order to keep up with marketing trends and gain an edge over competitors. New marketing trends will undoubtedly emerge in 2020 based on consumer demands, but we’ll look at the top 5 trends businesses should not ignore. If you are looking to expand your marketing strategies and learn how to generate impressive results, here are trends you should seriously consider.

Voice Search

If your business survived 2019 without using voice search in your marketing strategy, you might need to make it a priority. Some brands have already jumped at the opportunity, and it’s a trend that may be impossible to avoid in the near future. Voice search is becoming the new norm, and an expected 50 percent of searches may be voice generated. How do you capitalize on this trend? Your website needs to be optimized for this feature by switching from short keywords to long-tail keywords. Invest in an excellent SEO strategy that will help you find the most relevant keywords and gain more traffic.

Original and Interactive Content

Consumers will be more engaged with your business if the content you provide is not only original but interactive as well. New, refreshing, and interactive content make customers feel valued. It gives them a unique browsing experience that captures their attention long enough to convert. Additionally, interactive content equals shareable content, and the more customers share, the more potential customers you harness. Brand awareness will hike, and so will your reputation. People like doing business with people they trust, and if you provide interactive and original content, you’ll come off as an authority in your field, and more customers will trust you.

Social Media Stories

Social media stories are gaining momentum and for all the right reasons. These stories are a digital marketing trend that you cannot afford to ignore come 2020. They’ll not only increase engagement but promote brand awareness too. Customers will share stories, and you’ll get product or service reviews, which will help you improve your business.

Video and Audio Formats

A large percentage of digital audiences include Generation Z and Millennials. You need to find the best marketing strategies that reach out to this specific market, which is audio-visual content. More and more marketers are incorporating live videos and podcasts in their marketing strategy, something you should start doing as well.

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence is expected to change the way people market their businesses. The same goes for chatbots. Despite being available for a while now, artificial intelligence has been out of reach for most marketers. However, with a wider range of AI technology available, you can utilize lead generation and marketing automation.

There You Have It!

These hot marketing strategies could help you stay ahead of the game come 2020. You’ll not only empower your brand but increase audience engagement and meaningful conversations that will help your business grow.

If you want to capture qualified leads and build your brand, you need to embrace online marketing techniques. Here are a few online marketing techniques for business owners - Embrace Facebook advertising Facebook advertising has capabilities to improves leads and sales of a business. All you need to do is to understand it and focus on your objectives. Here are a few tips to consider -

• Add multiple images to your ads.
• Customise ad headline to make it more attractive.
• Use advanced targeting options for better targeting.
• Post consistently.

Move your website to HTTPS HTTPS is one of the best ways to make a website secure, authentic and reliable. Here are a few tips to consider -

• Get an SSL certificate.
• Redirect each web page.
• Redirect all internal links.
• Study Google Search Console as well as traffic fluctuations.

Use Yelp If you want to promote your business in a local area, use the power of Yelp.  Here are a few tips to consider -

• Set up your business account.
• Add business location.
• Follow content guidelines.
• Edit inaccurate business listing.
• Make sure you select the relevant categories for your Business.

Create better content Online marketing is all about producing the right content for the right audience. Hence, you need to pay special attention to website content. Here are a few tips to consider -

• Avoid placing duplicate or thin content on the website.
• Use tools like SiteLiner, Dustball, PaperRater and CopyScape to check for duplicate content.
• Maintain a blog on your website to publish fresh content regularly.
• Avoid using hidden content for the sake of rankings.

Recognise the importance of SEO (search engine optimisation) SEO is ideal for small and medium sized businesses. It has the power to boost organic rankings, attract leads and improve sales. Here are a few tips to consider -

• Use plugins like Yoast to optimise a website in a better way.
• Create a structured data markup on your site.
• Create an XML Sitemap for your site.
• Study total and direct visits, page views and time on site.
• Use ScreamingFrog to check for broken links.
• Submit your website’s XML Sitemap on Google as well as Bing Webmasters tools.
• Never ignore to create a robots.txt file.
• Add a local contact number on your site.

If you want to establish a vibrant presence in a competitive atmosphere, use the above mentioned online marketing techniques.

Understanding digital marketing and its nuances is essential for marketers and business owners alike. Here, we will explore certain digital marketing techniques and their ways of implementation. Create evergreen content to gain competitive edge In this age of digital marketing, it is more than important to create engaging and evergreen content. There are many ways to create evergreen content, such as -

• Create How-to guides and beginners’ guides.
• Create educational resources.
• Develop case studies and white papers.
• Use "buzzsumo" to obtain trending topics.
• Create in-depth and informative articles.

Take advantage of SERP snippets According to a report, Google is providing descriptive and useful snippets to help people better understand how pages are relevant to their searches. Here are a few tips -

• Create relevant descriptions according to the page and query.
• Audit a site’s content and rewrite all descriptions.
• Use specific keywords for high click-through rate.

Leverage Email marketing According to Wikipedia, email marketing is the act of sending a commercial message, typically to a group of people, using email. You should use it to promote your business and improve your customer database. Here are a few techniques to consider -

• Make use of Mailchimp.
• Never promote your products and services.
• Optimise email marketing campaigns.
• Try to retain high-value subscribers by creating valuable content.
• Measure and improve your campaign's effectiveness at regular intervals.
• Use proven email marketing practices.

Rely on Link-building tactics Link-building is a proven SEO technique; however, you need to smartly build it to rank above your competitors. Here are a few techniques to use -

• Create and share videos.
• Target local business directories.
• Create classified ads.
• Focus on event sponsorships.

Automate SEO Carefully plan and execute your SEO strategies, and automate SEO to streamline your marketing entire task. Here are a few tools to use -

• SEMrush
• Cyfe
• Screaming Frog
• Ahrefs

Use the power of YouTube "Users watch more than 500 million hours of video on YouTube every day." YouTube alone can help businesses to gain competitive advantage; however, for that, you need to take strategic moves, such as -

• Encourage viewers to subscribe.
• Regularly share videos on social media platforms.
• Create emotional stories.
• Use trusted video editing platforms.

Build your brand on Quora Quora is a nice platform to answer questions and help users. This platform has more than 1.5 million monthly visitors, which makes it ideal for businesses. Here are a few tips to use -

• Answer questions regularly.
• Create and optimise your Quora profile.
• Join relevant conversations.
• Use it to show your expertise on any specific subject.
• Try to educate users.

To be successful in a competitive industry, invest in digital marketing.

It is a well-documented fact that social media marketing is the best and holistic way to connect with target audience (local or global). Businesses can use a wide range of social media platforms to improve their brands’ reach as well as sales. When utilised correctly, it can help in nurturing leads and dominate online communities as well as significantly expand your business. Since every business is trying to leverage social media platforms to improve their visibility, it has become more difficult and complex to set a business apart. Facts -

• 98% of digital consumers are using Social Media.
• 71% of small businesses use Social Media.

Here are a few ways to gain competitive advantage - 

• Strategy – Many brands have more than one social media profiles, which make it difficult for them to manage. In fact, it becomes quite difficult to align them to achieve a common goal. That is why; it makes sense to develop a strong and focused strategy. For better yields, you must set SMART goals that are clearly defined and measurable, too.

• Competitor research – Social media is an ocean with no defined ends; that is why, it becomes difficult to follow a specific approach. One of the most effective ways is to conduct extensive research and analysis to know what exactly is going on in the market. You can use well-calibrated tools to track competitors, their number of followers, activities, content performance, engagement, growth rate, etc.

• Audience’s response – After analysing your competitors, it is time to know what your audience want and like. You can analyse this by studying the comments and reactions of audiences on your current social media activities. Fortunately, you can do this by using specialised social media tools. These tools will help you to identify engagement rates, content performance, specific types of likes, etc.

• Scheduling – Posting content regularly on all social media platforms is time-consuming; today, you can use the right tools (scheduling software programs) to streamline your entire posting and scheduling process.

• Analytics – Creation and regular posting is not enough, you also need to study analytics (real-time and actionable data) to see the performance of your efforts and optimise the current efforts.

Things to remember -

• Always post content at the right time. (peak time)
• Consistently measure the performance of posts.
• Use a social media scheduling tool like CoSchedule.
• Always share industry-related content.
• Use bit.ly to shorten links.
• Keep an eye on your competitors.

In a nutshell, social media is an essential, effective and efficient tool for promoting any business, improving leads and increasing sales. Are you ready to generate strategic outcomes through social media?

If you are not using online marketing strategies then it is high time for you to use it.  Here are a few credible online marketing strategies for small businesses that do not require a significant investment -

• Use free keyword research tools – Any online marketing expert will tell you that keywords are the building blocks of any SEO campaign. Hence, you should start by choosing the most relevant keywords for your small business.

Here are a few free keyword research tools to use - ◦   Answer the Public ◦   Google Correlate ◦   Keywords Everywhere ◦   Google Trends ◦   Wordtracker Scout ◦   Google Search Console

• Use Ahrefs – Many marketers do not use SEO tools because they are too technical to understand. However, there are many tools such as Ahrefs that are easy to use and understand as well. You can use it to explore content opportunities, competitor’s backlinks, link opportunities as well as low competitive keywords.

• Set up a blog and increase its traffic – Today, setting up a blog is just a piece of the pie; however, attracting relevant traffic to it is like climbing a mountain without gears. That is why, you should try to increase blog traffic by implementing certain tactics, such as -

◦   Create content that has long shelf-life. ◦   Create and distribute content with organic search traffic potential. ◦   Create posts on relevant topics only. ◦   Optimise content on regular intervals.

• Embrace SEO Audit – Despite being technically complex and tedious, it has its own benefits (in terms of rankings and traffic). Today, you can use a wide range of smart and robust SEO audit tools to simplify the entire task, such as -

◦   Google Analytics ◦   Ahrefs ◦   Screaming Frog ◦   Google Search Console ◦   Google PageSpeed Insights ◦   Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool

• Use Disavow Links Tool – For many it’s an alien term, but for digital marketers it is their best buddy. Basically, it is designed to protect your website from link-related penalties. In a nutshell, you should use this tool to get rid of toxic links (paid links, PBNs, low-quality directories, etc.) that can harm your website in future. It will eventually help your website to improve its credibility and search engine rankings.

Final thoughts - While off-line promotion is important, businesses must embrace "online marketing" mentality and offer a friendly, well-maintained and optimised website to its customers.

Are you wondering how online marketing can transform your business and impact its growth? Find out how marketing experts use online marketing strategies and stay ahead. Add value and improve the overall experience of users "Google identifies user experience as a major ranking factor." So, if you want to improve your business and establish long-term relations with your customers, you need to focus on adding value by creating high-quality content and improving the browsing experience of your users. To improve the browsing experience of users, you should concentrate on fixing broken links, simplifying navigation as well as improving the speed of your website. Tips-

• Create appealing and useful content.
• Simplify page’s design and layout.
• Use AMP.
• Keep your website up-to-date.
• Optimise content (textual and visual) and use the most relevant keywords.

Use the best Google Chrome extensions Google Chrome has become the most productive browser. As an online marketer you should use a few smart Google Chrome extensions, such as:

• Tag Assistant
• Page Load Time
• Page Analytics
• Keywords Everywhere

Use Facebook Ads Whether you want to improve your business revenues or customers’ loyalty, you should always use Facebook Ads. Tips:

• Know more about Facebook’s audience insights.
• Create separate ads for specific audiences.
• Focus on streamlining landing pages.
• Use quality images.

Create SEO-friendly content What makes your business different from your competitors? Yes, it’s your well-defined content strategy.  Here are a few simple ways to create SEO-friendly content.

• Understand your audiences.
• Always edit and proofread before publishing.
• Add alt text.

Perform Social Media Audit Social media audit is one of the best ways to improve all your social media channels and gain prominence. All you need to do is to use relevant social media analytics tools. Tips -

• Create a social media audit template to simplify the task.
• Don’t ignore engagement, publishing metrics as well as audience demographics.
• Find and update all your social media profiles.
• Identify your top performing content and create similar content.

According to Smart Insights, 47% of businesses do not have a set plan or strategy for their digital marketing efforts and this may affect their long term goals. Remember, the key to success is to make sure the marketing strategies are relevant and sustainable. So, use the above mentioned online marketing strategies to increase your chances of success.

Today, people use search engines to find products and companies. That is why; it is wise to embrace Search engine optimisation. It is an economical way to promote any business. Here are a few ways to use SEO for business - Understand the importance of keyword research Keyword research is a broad concept and needs proper understanding. In fact, it is all about knowing what exactly your customers want.  Keyword research provides an opportunity to choose the most relevant keywords to promote your business. Today, many keyword tools are available; however, you should use the one that provides proper insights into keywords, such as search volume, combinations, etc. You can use both paid and unpaid tools as per your objectives and preferences. Understand your competition Whether you want to dominate your niche or improve your brand image, you should invest your time and energy in understanding your competitor’s website or blog. You need to study and analyse the entire website of the competitors including design, content, navigation, menus, sitemaps, look and feel, theme as well as intent of the website, since these factors affect conversions and user-friendliness. Plan and optimise your website After understanding the competitor’s website and its overall approach, it’s time to plan and optimise your website. You also need to take care of certain things like -

• The architecture of your website
• Mobile responsiveness
•  Titles of pages
• Categorisation of keywords on the basis of  priority

Besides that you can also use long-tail keywords across the website to attract more traffic and rankings. Resolve common technical SEO issues Of course, website may have a wide range of technical issues that often may be left unnoticed. That is why, it is important to resolve such issues to make your website flawless. For that, you also need to focus on certain vital elements -

• Sitemaps, duplicate pages, and dead pages
• Internal links, external links, orphan pages
• Pages that add no value to your website.

Remember, technical SEO issues could cost you traffic and customers. Tools Today, there are many tools such as QuickSprout Website Analyzer, XML Sitemaps, Searchmetrics Website Analyzer, Find Broken Links, Ahrefs’ Site Explorer and Backlink Checker, etc. that are helpful to identify flaws/issues of a website. You can use these tools to identify and fix technical SEO problems. Are you ready to maximise the value of your website?

If you think that SEO is the thing of past, think again; today, it has become even more accurate, dynamic, and refined. It is always advisable to use SEO along with other marketing techniques. Here are a few elements to consider - Think out of the box when it comes to content marketing strategy – People often ignore the basic points when it comes to content marketing; however, at the end of the day, it is content that keeps a brand ahead. Here are a few benefits of using a focused content marketing strategy -

• Captures leads and sales
• Establishes brand’s identity
• Improves your site’s search engine rankings

How to create a functional content marketing strategy?

• Identify your objectives
• Analyse your niche
• Identify your target audiences
• Create a content calendar
• Use SEO
• Plan distribution and promotion

Stay away from technical SEO mistakes – Perfect websites don’t exist. Every website has a room for improvement.  Therefore, do technical SEO audit on a regular basis to identify technical issues and errors site might be having. Here are a few technical elements that should be considered -

• Sitemaps
• Broken internal links
• Robots.txt
• URL structure
• Content
• Page speed

Use the most productive Google Analytics reporting features - Google Analytics has many powerful features that make it one of the most effective tools. Here are a few ways to use it wisely -

• Study pivot tables
• Analyse metrics on specific pages, devices, campaigns, etc.
• Analyse Term Clouds

Optimise the Google crawl budget – Google defines crawl budget as “the number of URLs Googlebot can and wants to crawl. Hence, you need to optimise the crawl budget if you want to improve the performance of your website. Here are a few ways to consider -

• Enhance the speed of your website.
• Reduce unnecessary JS and CSS.
• Make sure you have proper AMP pages on your website.
• Frequently monitor the crawl error report.

Regulate social media – Use social media to step up and dominate the niche in an organic manner. There are many ways to handle social media marketing such as -

• Set your Social Media objectives.
• Schedule posts to target end users.
• Analyse the top performing posts.
• Create creative posts to attract users.
• Frequently measure your ROI.

Get ready to seize the opportunity and secure your site’s future with the help of the above mentioned strategies.

A website without ranking and traffic is not an option for businesses. Today, there are numerous ways for small businesses to attract customers and improve website rankings. Here are a few feasible options for small business owners -

• Coupons – Who doesn’t want to save money? Yes, coupons offer the best opportunity to small businesses to gain local traffic. If you are a small business owner, you must use coupons to get your website noticed.  Coupons are ideal to promote small businesses in local region.

• Online videos – Optimised online videos make a website 50 times more likely to be listed on the first page of Google search results.  However, make sure that you create an interactive and engaging video that can promote your brand/website or products in an organic way. Also, you need to create strategic promotional plans.

• Local online directories – Many people believe that directory submission no longer produces results; however, the reality is if you use high quality and credible local online directories such as Yahoo! Local, Google Maps, SuperPages, and Yelp you will get the desired result.

• Incentives – One of the best ways to attract and retain customers is to give them incentives through surveys or contests. It will not only help you to promote your brand, but also attract local customers. This technique is quite beneficial for e-commerce businesses.

• Social media – Social media has become a behemoth; it is no longer a communication platform. You must use it to gain visibility as well as traffic.  All you need to do is to carry out an extensive research before using it. Make sure you follow the guidelines.

• Email marketing – Email marketing offers incredible advantages to local businesses. It is a cost-effective way to keep customers informed. It also helps businesses to retain old customers and attract new customers.

In order to attract local traffic, you need to increase the level of expertise.  You also need to brush up your knowledge amid fast changing technology.  In a nutshell develop and execute online marketing strategies according to your roadmap to achieve your goals.