DIGITAL MARKETING

Social media is more than just a place for us to spread the word about our products and services; it’s the place we can put our fingers to get a read on our pulse in the form of feedback. People speak their minds on social media, and if they’re saying good things about you, then you’re definitely going in the right direction. If they’re  not  saying good things, though, don’t ignore them. Cus tomer complaints on social media ar e no less valid than those made through tra ditional sourc es, so  make sure you go through the proper steps. Step One: Abso rb The Feedback Acknowledge that someone has left a complaint. That means you need to read it, and see what the complaint is in regards to. Don’t just scroll past, or worse, delete the comment from your social media account and move on. Step Two: Analyze The Feedback It’s not enough to just acknowledge that someone left customer complaints on social media, and to move on. You have to understand why those complaint...

Creating a homepage for your business’s website sounds simple enough in theory, but in reality, there’s a lot that goes into making it look perfect. In particular, it must be Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO, friendly. By doing so, your page will rank higher on Google, and will easily be found by others. There are numerous ways to make your homepage SEO friendly, but here are some do and don’t tips to start you off. Don’t overuse your keywords and stuff them everywhere:  The main aspect of SEO is being able to use certain keywords in your content that people will likely search to find your website. While you should make an effort to include your keywords in a way that will rank you higher on Google, you should avoid what’s known as keyword stuffing and put them in every bit of your content. According to an article on  OnCrawl , this strategy actually harms your search rankings rather than improve them. Don’t include a filler of any kind:  ...

Just as customers are becoming ever more sophisticated, along with all the technology tools and online marketing strategies, so are the requirements for a  successful Pay Per Click (PPC campaign) . It isn’t enough anymore for organizations to simply throw all their marketing dollars into Google Adwords or Facebook ads and hope for the best. Listed below is an outline of some key strategies to creating not just a PPC marketing campaign, but one that can jump-start real growth and results for your business. A Dedicated Landing Page When you do receive interest from one of your advertisements, make sure your landing page experience lives up to, and preferably exceeds the visitor’s expectations. If your analytics are telling you they are coming to your landing page, but no further, then split testing your page is definitely the next step. Some A/B testing can also help determine whether implemented landing page changes are generating conversions or if further work is necessar...

Search algorithms are always changing. Much of hat worked five years ago is almost obsolete today. For example, keyword stuffing used to be an effective SEO strategy. Now it just looks silly. Today SEO has become far more complicated. Many SEO strategies are not intuitive, so it’s important to keep up to date on new strategies.                    Here are three essential and actionable strategies you can use to improve your SEO: Links There’s no way around it. To rank highly in a Google search you need links. Internal links to your own pages are useful, but you should also use external links. Some feel hesitant to use external links because they lead visitors away from your site. While this is possible, providing your readers with easy access to relevant resources is important. Finding information online is easy, but finding relevant, high-quality information can take time. When you provide your readers with links, you o...

Q:  What is the difference between sales and marketing? A:  Sales is where you call the prospect. Marketing is where the prospect calls you. The difference is significant and it parallels the changes we have seen in advertising and marketing over the last decade or so. Advertising, that outbound, interruptive tactic that we all once relied on to generate sales, has become less effective as consumers gained control of their media consumption. Time-shifting, downloading, fast-forwarding and blocking have all become obstacles to advertising success. There’s also the general resentment at being advertised to in an untargeted and intrusive manner. It’s a bit like sales. I mean, really, who enjoys receiving calls from salespeople? Or unsolicited walk-ins? Who opens the junk mail or the spammy emails? And who enjoys doing it? Sales is hard. Inbound marketing is the exact opposite. It delivers the customer to you, pre-qualified and ready to deal. Inbound marketi...

To some people, social media is the place they go to interact with friends and to catch up on the latest trends. For businesses, though, social media is a big pond full of fish. The goal is to put out some bait and to tempt as many of those fish over to your part of the pond as possible. If you want to make sure you get as many fish following you as possible, here are four tips for maximizing your  social media  effectiveness. Tip #1: Pictures Really Are Worth (More Than) A Thousand Words The importance of the visual components of any social media post cannot be overstated. When a user is on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram or even LinkedIn, they’re scrolling through their feed. Your post has to catch their attention and hold it long enough to make them stop. Words alone cannot do that. The right image, though, or a video, can make a scroller stop in their tracks to see just what it is they’re looking at. This is why, whenever possible, your posts should be ...

Search engine optimization (SEO), keyword research and great content form the foundation for attracting your website’s target audience. But an often overlooked aspect of search engine optimization involves your website’s images. The Potential for Using Google Image Search to Drive More Traffic Because Google does not release image search data, finding the latest data brings challenges. Here’s what we do know. According to Internet Live Stats, Google processes about 40,000 search queries per second. That’s approximately 3.5-billion search queries per day. For each of those 3.5-billion daily searches there is an image tab. In 2010, the most recent official statistics release for Google images, Benjamin Ling, Director of Search Products at Google, claimed daily page views of Google images is over 1-billion. That’s in 2010. You don’t need to be an SEO genius to assume that number has increased drastically since then. In 2010, Google indexed over 10-billion image...

Content decisions are difficult to make. Your content is responsible for driving your digital marketing campaign, but your output is limited by your time and resources. At ASCII SERVICES , we recommend planning your blog content around SEO ke yword research, specifically long-tail keyword research. Keyword research is predictive  Businesses often look at their performance when planning new content. But according to this  Practical Ecommerce article , performance merely illustrates the results of your current campaign, while keyword research gives insight into potential demand: “Keyword data shows the potential demand that each keyword concept holds based on how many searches are conducted for that concept in an average month. Demand is an important consideration. It is separate from performance. Demand identifies how strongly you could be driving traffic and revenue to your site for specific keyword concepts. Performance identifies how well ...

With social media being a powerful weapon for marketers and businesses, it’s all too easy to post something to Facebook, Twitter, and other networks and think that your job is done. However, while social media gets the word out quickly, it’s not magical. A lot of the time, the content you post may not get the traffic you desire, whether it’s due to your target audience not being online at the right time or something else entirely. But don’t worry, all hope is not lost. You just need to put in, even more, effort to make your content seen by others. Here’s how to be sure that your content is seen…. Utilize the power of email If your company works with email a lot and you have customers on an email list, try sending new content through there in addition to social media. Unlike Facebook or Twitter posts which have a tendency to get lost in the shuffle, sending content to an email address almost certainly guarantees people will receive and read it. Email isn’t a lo...

If you think the winning business is all about personal relationships, consider this….  What would you do if an organization was trying to work with you or perhaps sell you a product or service?  Most likely, one of the first things you would do is review their website, research their social media presence and in general, see what others are saying about them. Your prospective clients are no different. In fact, 4 out of 5 service buyers review websites before considering a particular firm and a whopping one-third of these buyers reject firms with an unimpressive web presence. Therefore, it is fairly obvious that your website can make or break a deal for you, so focusing some attention on your site to make sure it is client-friendly is a must. It is all part of any  successful inbound marketing strategy. Here are 4 steps to consider when reviewing your website and revamping it to improve the impression it gives to consulting leads. Convey Your Knowled...

Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing, I AdWords, Bing, Display, is costly and people with little experience can diminish their marketing budgets and have only a few sales to show for it. To get the best return on investment (ROI), businesses need to attract high-quality traffic to their landing page and not overspend on cost-per-click (CPC). Because Google manages 67.78% of the search engine market, it might seem natural for a PPC marketer to use their platform. However, Google is highly competitive and saturated, and this can raise your CPC. The category of insurance has a top CPC of $54.91, and it has the highest percentage (24%) of the most expensive 10,000 keywords. The categories of loans and mortgages follow. Lowering maximum bids will help lower your CPC; however, lowering them too far, will cause the positioning of your website to suffer. To improve your click-through rate (CTR) lower the bid on your top performing keywords. Keep a close eye on the new CTR. If the keywor...

There are few things more frustrating for a marketer than spending a bunch of time and money on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) only to have it not convert. Why does this happen? What can you do about it? It seems simple: Nail your  SEO strategy , find all the best, most searched-for keywords and your business will grow. But it doesn’t. And what’s really confusing is that you are getting all this traffic. Why is it not converting? You know you have an amazing product or service, and the traffic is pouring into your site. What’s Really Going On? If this is what you’re experiencing, it’s time to change your approach. Getting traffic is great. You want traffic to come to your site, you want to get eyes on what you have to offer, but you need them to be the right eyes, and this is where things are going away. You Don’t Just Want Any Leads, You Want Qualified Leads So, you found what you thought was the perfect high traffic, low competition keywords related ...

Do you think advanced tricks like data mining and predictive analytics are out of reach for a small or medium-sized business? This is not entirely true. Mining your marketing data and using that data to make smarter decisions just takes some planning, some basic analytical tools, and some knowledge of statistical analysis. You need the right tools, obviously. Most database applications will work, but you need far more than the analysis and visualization capabilities offered by Excel to build a real predictive analytics capability. Once you have the basic tools and expertise, you need to work on three things: Collect plenty of different types of data Web analytics is only a starting point for proper data collection efforts. Collect data on how long people stay on each page, which internal links get the most clicks, how often people scroll all the way down a page, how many products of each type go to what kind of buyer, and so on. Go for granularity Related to the...

Many people search online for a small, but relevant pieces of information like a phone number for a local business or perhaps their store hours.  However, many others perform searches because they have specific questions about a particular subject and are looking for full-bodied answers.  In addition to the products and/or services your company offers, you and your employees must have a wealth of knowledge and expertise available to offer the public arena.  Discovering ways to make this knowledge and expertise available to current and potential customers is the key to increasing traffic to your website. Here are 3 tips to help you effectively communicate to your audience and attract visitors online: Highlight Your FAQs If you have a physical store as well as an online presence, you know that often customers come into your store with the same questions.  Customers often look for similar answers online, which gives you the perfect opportunity to meet that...

The world of marketing has changed for almost every organization, no matter how traditional or cutting-edge their particular industry might be. The financial services industry is no exception either. Most people now gather their information from online sources, so any financial services business that wants continued growth and success needs to go where they can find their current and potential customers.  In this post, we will discuss 7 key marketing practices for today’s financial services organizations. 1. Online Social Media & PR Being published in a hard-copy newspaper or magazine is not necessarily a bad thing, but most people now consume their information online, so make sure your online presence is active and engaging. The good news is that you can also save some money by supporting your own social media presence rather than hiring an outside PR firm. 2. Implement Targeted Ads Most social media outlets offer the opportunity for paid advertising for busi...