Eight SEO Tips To Help Grow Your Online Presence In 2021

Happy New Year everyone. 2020 sure has been a rollercoaster year for us all. It also has been a year full of major events. This couldn’t be more true when it comes to the fast-growing landscape that is Digital Marketing.

There was one event towards the end of 2020 that helped set the stage for the future of Digital Marketing. That event was the December 2020 Google Core Update. These updates happen to encourage websites to write content that addresses users’ needs instead of just trying to please search engines. Google and other search engines strive to bring users relevant content and that is what brands need to do too.

A great way to help provide that is via a quality Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy. These eight SEO tips will help address the needs of users while helping grow your online presence in 2021. Let’s go over them, shall we?

Avoid Black Hat SEO Tactics

An important lesson to know about SEO is that it is a long-term online strategy. This means that we must never try to trick the search engines in hopes of getting high search rankings. That is what we call Black Hat SEO tactics. Here are some examples of those tactics that you should avoid doing.

Cloaking

This is the practice of showing the search engines a different set of content than what is actually on a site. The actual content turns out to be subpar and gives users a bad experience. That will get you in big trouble with the search engines.

Duplicate Content

This is taking content from others and passing it off as your own in hopes of getting higher search rankings. Search engines will not be kind to sites that duplicate content and will harm you in the end. On top of that, this is plagiarism as we learned in English class.

Irrelevant Links

This is the practice of seeking any link from sites that provide irrelevant content from what your site is about. This will make your site look like spam and that will not go well with the search engines.

Keyword Stuffing

This is where sites use the same phrases nonstop throughout their site in hopes of attracting web traffic. This is spam-like behavior that gives users an unpleasant experience. It will also harm you in the search engine results page (SERP).

Spam Blogging

This is the practice of commenting on other blogs or letting others comment on yours for link juice. Blogging on posts that have nothing to do with your cause makes you look like spam to users. In return, it will cause harm to your search rankings.

In other words, don’t do it. Black Hat SEO will do you no favors in earning trust from users. It can also harm you in the search engine results page and could even get you de-indexed. Always go for White Hat SEO tactics instead to help increase your presence towards the right people.

Seek Quality Links

It is crucial to not seek just any links. You want to focus on links that are most relevant to your brand’s cause. Focusing on getting the right links helps your brand stand out to the right audience in a positive way. It also benefits both you and your linking partner as you’d both benefit from high quality web traffic. When seeking links, always go for Quality over Quantity as you would in other Digital Marketing situations.

Make Use Of Long-Tail Keywords

If you’re looking to increase your conversion rate, then turn to long-tail keywords. Long-Tail Keywords are long, specific keyword phrases that visitors commonly use when closing in on a purchase. According to a study by Neil Patel, using long-tail keywords averages a 36% average conversion rate. This will help go a long way in helping outrank your competition while building up your long-term online presence.

Some great tools to help you uncover long tail keywords include SEM Rush, Answer The Public, and Google Keyword Planner. Tools like those will help you identify keywords that will best help you reach the right audience.

Match User Intent With The Most Relevant Type Of Content

You also want to keep in mind where they’re at in their customer journey. That is why you need to know the three types of user intent below. That way, you’ll know what type of content is most appropriate to develop for that specific audience.

Informational Intent

This is where people look for the ‘I Want To Know’ type of content like FAQs or How-Tos. The goal is to bring in the right kind of users who are not familiar with brands like yours.

Navigational Intent

This is where people search for “I Want To Go” content types such as store locations and customer service information. The end goal here is to provide a great shopping experience and provide top-notch information that best helps customers.

Transactional Intent

This is the type of content that you would encounter at the end of the customer journey. This is where “I Want To Do” content types like Videos and Product Stories appear. The end goal here is to seal the deal with the customer and get them to hit the Buy button.

Keeping the intents of your audience in mind will help you plan which types of content you should develop. By following this step, you’ll help provide your users with a great experience at every step in their customer journey.

Strive For High-Quality User Experience (UX)

A crucial tip in growing your online presence is to give your audience a high-quality UX while on your site. One thing to do is to work to keep your site up to speed. A great way to test your site speed is to use the GTmetrix tool. This will give you details on how you can help improve your site speed.

You also want to make sure that your website is easy for users to navigate. A great way to accomplish that is to make your content be accessible in the least amount of clicks/taps possible. This helps your users find what they’re looking for much quicker.

You also want to ensure that your website is responsive across all devices and that it works well on mobile. With mobile taking up a large percentage of today’s online searches, this is crucial to ensure success in attracting visitors.

Make Your Main Points Clear And To The Point

To attract readers’ interest, you always want to make your key points at the beginning. First, use headings and subheadings that best explain the topic without needing to read further. This will help guide readers into reading information that is essential to their research.

Also, use the Inverted Pyramid writing style for best SEO results. This means work to put your key points in the first paragraph and work to entice readers to read further. Readers will be encouraged to read on if they can find value by scanning the text.

To help make the flow of the text be clear, use transition words. Examples of them include “less than” to compare and “thus” to conclude. No question that they’re helpful in making your points while bringing clarity to your readers.

Utilize The E-A-T Method

A very important tip in helping grow your online presence in 2021 is making use of the E-A-T method. EAT stands for expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. To demonstrate expertise in YMWL (Your Money or Your Life) topics such as medical advice, formal expertise is basically a must. For Non-YMYL topics such as sharing your experience with a disease on a support page, it’s all about demonstrating everyday expertise. Expertise is vital in developing high-quality content.

You also need to demonstrate authoritativeness when developing content. Raters check up on authority via independent sources like reviews and expert recommendations like on WebMD. This sure is something to consider when thinking about what type of content you should create.

People also look to how trustworthy content creators are. They look to things like content accuracy and proper citation of sources. This will go a long way in building trust with the right audience and helps attract them in the end. The E-A-T method will help ensure that your content is high-quality and overcomes any core update that comes along.

Make Voice Search A Big Part Of Your Plans

A growing online trend that we should take note of is voice search. According to a DBS Interactive study, 27% of online users use voice search. Voice search queries tend to be longer so it is a great idea to make use of long-tail keywords. In addition, they tend to be questions so including FAQs for your pages would be a great plan to utilize. Voice search may be small now but it will be a big thing in the future. That is why you want to make it a big part of your online marketing strategy going forward.

A People-First SEO Strategy Grows Your Brand For The Better

There is no question that taking a people-first approach to SEO helps grow your brand’s online presence for the better. In addition, making it easier for your website visitors will make it more likely that they convert into paying customers. When you put the needs of the people first, the search engines will reward your brand greatly in the end. By giving your users a great experience at every step, your brand will be set up for long-term success.

What do you feel is key to growing your online presence in this new year? What other SEO tips do you feel are essential to helping your brand succeed? Questions? Comments? Please feel free to share this blog post and share your thoughts below.

Eight Ways On How To Use Conversion Rate Optimization To Bring Your Brand Success

You have succeeded in attracting your ideal customers via quality SEO strategies. The question now is, “Now What?” Now that you’ve attracted them to your website, the next thing you do is to seal the deal. To accomplish that, you need to give them what they’re looking for in a way that makes your brand unique.

There’s one method that will help turn your website visitors into paying customers and that is Conversion Rate Optimization. Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is the act of increasing the percentage of users who perform a desired action on your site. Desired acts can include anything from signing up for a newsletter to purchasing a product.

To succeed with CRO, you’ll need a clear strategy that offers clarity and differentiates your brand from your competitors. These 8 tips below will help bring your brand success via CRO. Let’s dive in, shall we?

Make Your Web Design Simple

People these days look for information that is clear and to the point. This could not be more true when it comes to your web design. You never want to have your visitors go through a maze when searching for information on your site. That is a good way to harm your bounce rate which we don’t want at all.

When making changes to your design, you want to keep it simple for your visitors. This means to make their search in as few clicks as possible. You also want to remove any unnecessary links or design elements from your navigation bars and copy. This will help make your page short, simple, and to the point for your visitors. This will help give your visitors a great user experience and increase the likelihood of them converting.

Add Testimonials & Reviews

Nothing helps build consumer confidence in your brand than what people like them have to say about you. That is why it is essential to include testimonials and reviews on your page. Adding them will help make big-time improvement in conversions – even up to 400% as in this case. You can also add logos of companies who do business with you and trust your brand. This will also help build consumer trust in a big way.

Don’t Have Too Many Form Fields

One thing you never want to do when trying to turn visitors into customers is having too many form fields. In many instances, this is a big turn off with many people asking for more fields than they’re willing to give. That’s why you need to limit your fields to only the essential ones needed to accomplish your end goal. Taking this step will help you improve that conversion rate while opening the door to future opportunities.

Have A Strong Call To Action

Do you know what else will help improve your conversion rate? Taking even a few minutes to work on your call to action (CTA) copy. Generic CTAs like “sign up” won’t give you the best results in terms of conversions. You need CTAs that paint offers in a positive light. CTAs that start with the word “Yes” such as “Yes, Give Me [Offer]” help accomplish that. In the end, you’ll make it more likely to improve on getting your visitors to convert.

A/B Test Your Headlines

Headlines make a big difference in whether people decide to read more or not. That is why you need a headline that is to the point and helps engage consumer interest. A great way to ensure that your headlines lead to success is to perform A/B Tests on each.

A/B Testing (or Split Testing) is the practice of showing two variants of the same web page to different visitors at once and then comparing which one converts more. It is advised that when deciding between headlines that you experiment with variants like tone, length, and use of statistics or numbers. This will help give you a better idea of which headline type resonates best with your audience.

Offer One Clear Path For Your Visitors

Another great way to put your brand on a path towards increased conversions is offering your users only one path. That means have a clear, predetermined roadmap for your website visitors that leads to only one action. Work to avoid any distractions and stick to only including what your visitors need to know.

Always great to use visual cues like arrows that point to the end goal you want your visitors to take. On top of that, resist any thoughts of adding more than one choice. These actions will help visitors see the path you want them to take as clear and to the point. This helps make it more likely that they’ll do business with you in the end.

Offer Guarantees To Help Build Trust With Your Audience

When it comes to conversions, trust is a major factor. Oftentimes, customers feel uneasy when they’re about to click the Buy button. That’s why you need to work to make your site one that is trustworthy for your online visitors. A great way to do that is adding trust seals like McAfee Secure to your website. 48% of users were more likely to trust a site they’ve never heard of if it had guarantee seals. Taking this step will help remove any doubt users may have and makes it more likely that they’ll click Buy.

Use Colors That Best Compliments Your Brand’s Message

One key detail that gets overlooked when it comes to CRO is color usage. Who doesn’t love colors? Colors contain messages, evoke emotions, and encourage action. For example, the purple color is seen as wise, creative, and imaginative as Yahoo is known to be.

Not only do colors work wonders in encouraging action from users, they also help complement your web design. This will help encourage visitors to stay longer on your site. The longer you keep their attention, the more likely that they’ll convert into paying customers. With that said, always make color usage a part of your CRO strategy.

Quality CRO Makes Your Brand Unique In Your Own Way

There is no doubt that CRO will help bring you success in such diverse ways. It helps your brand stand out amongst the crowd in your own unique way. On top of that, you’ll be turning those visitors into customers while growing your brand in a big way. With all that being said, always take time to invest in your CRO strategy. It will pay great dividends for your brand in the long run

What do you feel is essential in helping make your brand’s CRO strategy a success? How do you feel about CRO being a crucial part of your overall Digital Marketing strategy? Please feel free to share this blog post and share your thoughts below.

Three Keys To PPC Marketing Success

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When it comes to today’s online consumers, many of them are looking towards brands that address their needs and offer viable solutions to those needs. It has become increasingly important for brands to dig deep in researching the intents of their target audience. That way, they’ll have a better idea on how to plan out their Digital Marketing strategies that will help attract their ideal consumers. This is especially important when it comes to paid search efforts such as PPC Marketing.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) or Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is the process of obtaining traffic to your website via paid channels. Websites only get charged when a searcher clicks on the link to their site. They would also see their website traffic increase overnight as opposed to the SEO route where you must put in long-term commitment in seeing strategic results. PPC is most commonly used by businesses who seek high intent customers who are looking for immediate needs such as an emergency plumber. PPC is also used by brands who offer unique or specific types of goods that customers wouldn’t be able to obtain at regular stores.

When it comes to PPC Marketing, bidding a higher Cost-Per-Click (CPC) amount doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll get the top ad position in the paid search results. There are other factors that determine the ad position of PPC ads. Like with organic search results, it’s also important to research the exact intents of your target audience in order to properly plan out your PPC campaign as you would with an SEO campaign. With that being said, there are three keys to success to PPC Marketing that will help your brand stand out at the lowest cost.

Relevancy

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A great first step in ensuring success for your PPC Marketing campaign is to make sure that your ads are relevant towards your cause. One common mistake brands make is targeting their ads towards keywords that are not relevant towards their cause at all. This type of mistake will not attract the right audience and will end up wasting valuable advertising dollars that could be going to bigger and better things. In order to avoid these mistakes and work towards a successful PPC campaign, it is crucial to first research the intents of your target audience. That way, you’ll have a better understanding of how to plan your campaign in accordance to the exact needs of your target audience.

Relevance is a big part in the minds of the online consumer when it comes to making their decision of whether to buy from a brand or not. Definitely work towards PPC campaigns that target ideal consumers who are searching for relevant products or services that you offer. By making your PPC ads relevant, you’ll save some valuable advertising dollars and will be on your way towards success in your PPC campaign.

Consistency

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When it comes to brands, what online consumers want out of them is consistency. With PPC Marketing campaigns, this is indeed the case. Not only must your PPC ads be of relevance to your target audience but they also must be consistent throughout all phases of your campaign. This is especially important when it comes to your landing pages since that will be the first page that your audience visits upon clicking your ad. You definitely don’t want your PPC ad to say one thing and then have your landing page talk about something that’s not relevant to what your audience is looking for. That would be a great way to lose out on prospective customers. Not only must we work towards attracting your ideal audience via PPC ads but also improve the landing page experience for them once they’ve arrived on your page.

There are three steps that you can take in order to ensure that your landing page is consistent with your PPC ads:

Match your ad text to at least one of your keywords.
Match your ad to the appropriate landing page where customers can do what you promised.
Make sure your landing page is relevant to your ad text and to your keywords.

By following these three critical steps, you’ll have the framework in setting your potential customers up for a consistent and excellent user experience on your website making it more likely that they’ll convert into customers.

Quality

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Having talked about the importance of relevancy and consistency when it comes to PPC ads, no doubt that those two areas are important when it comes to attracting your ideal target audience. That being said, there is still one crucial piece of the puzzle left in ensuring success for your PPC ads. That most important piece is Quality. When I mean Quality, I mean give them a reason to convert with you. Online consumers are looking towards brands that offer solutions towards the issues that they face. In other words, offer them something that is of value to them that your competitors don’t.

A great way to accomplish that is to create a Unique Selling Proposition (USP) for your brand. A USP basically talks about what your business stands for and what makes your unique compared to other brands. By researching the issues that your ideal target audience faces, you’ll be able to gain a better insight on how to come up with a USP that will resonate with your audience. The best way to come up with a USP is to be known for something specific or be known for your expertise in serving a specific audience. For example, you could say something like “Best & Affordable PPC Marketing Services For Small Businesses” to appeal to small businesses who may not have the same marketing budget as larger companies do. USPs are a huge part of how brands like Starbucks, Wal-Mart, Zappos, Amazon and many other big name brands are where they’re at today.

Once you’ve come up with a USP, now comes time to actually incorporate it into your PPC ads along with your landing pages. A great place to do just that is in your ad extensions. By making your USP visible towards your audience via your ad extensions and then following that promise up on your landing page, you’ll be well on your way towards turning those online users into your customers.

Excellent PPC Marketing For The Win

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There’s no doubt PPC Marketing is a great way for brands to stand out to their ideal consumer in a unique way. It all comes down to planning your PPC campaign in accordance to what you learned about your target audience and offering a USP towards them. When you stay true to your audience via the Three K’s to PPC Marketing, you’ll have no problem appealing to your ideal audience. In today’s competitive online world, staying true to relevancy, consistency and quality is what online consumers value the most. By valuing your online consumers, you’ll be on your way towards becoming the next big brand while saving yourself valuable advertising dollars.

What do you feel is key in using PPC Marketing in helping your brand stand out in today’s competitive online world? How do you feel about using USPs in your PPC campaigns in order to appeal to specific audiences? Questions? Comments? Feel free to share this article & don’t be afraid to share your thoughts below.

Three Essentials To Keyword Research Success

When it comes to today’s online consumers, they’re always looking for brands that relate to them the best and will help them solve the problems that they face. There are so many brands both big and small that they can choose fun which means that competition is on the rise to win over those potential customers. Many businesses, especially small businesses, always ask themselves questions on how to reach their ideal target audience. Well, it all starts with doing what is called Keyword Research.

Keyword Research is the process of targeting keywords that will help you reach out to your ideal target audience in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) on Google, Bing, Yahoo and other major search engines. With competition at an all-time high, it’s crucial to research the intents of your target audience and come up with keywords to reach them and help grow your business in the long run.

With that being said, here are three essentials to a successful keyword research strategy that will help lay the foundation to your long-term SEO strategy.

Know What Your Target Audience Is Looking For

Before you can actually start researching keywords and adjusting your content to reach your ideal consumers, you must first know what their search intents are when it comes to their exact needs. This all depends on where they are in their customer journey whether they just want information or if they’re ready to make a purchase. When it comes to the search intent of your target audience, there are five major categories of intent they could fall under as listed below:

Informational: This is where searchers need specific information such as the name of the highest point in Texas.
Navigational: In this scenario, searchers want to go to a page of well-known brands such as Microsoft or to the Denver Broncos homepage.
Transactional: Here, searchers want to do a specific action like downloading music or buying a ticket to a sports event.
Commercial Investigation: In this case, searchers compare products and services to find the best one that fits their exact needs. This is common in the E-commerce industry.
Local Queries: Here, searchers want to find a business that’s close to home or in their vicinity such as a nearby restaurant, movie theaters, etc. This is the category that we recommend small businesses strive to rank in as they’re most commonly concentrated in one local location.
Language: This is where searchers may speak different languages and want information displayed in that language. One example of this is when Spanish-speaking customers are searching for Popsicle sticks, ice cream, and other frozen treats via search terms like “Paleteria Y Neveria De Aaron.”

Definitely, valuable information we just went over in defining the intents of your target audience and how to categorize them based on their exact kinds of needs. Knowing which categories your audience falls under will better prepare you as you seek out those keywords while adjusting your content to reach those consumers. Now that you know how to categorize the intents of your target audience, let’s dive into how frequently are they searching via specific search terms.

Know How Frequently Your Audience Uses Specific Search Terms

Always important to note that many are also seeking the same keywords that you are. With that said, look for ways to distinguish yourself from your competitors. What may work for them may not work for you. This is especially true if you’re a small business competing for a great position in the SERP so it’s crucial to come up with the right keywords that best describes what you have to offer to your ideal customers.

There are two keyword types commonly used to reach consumers in the SERP.

Short-Tail Keywords: These are the keywords that consist of phrases of three words or less and tend to be broad. Keyword examples are “Women’s Soccer Gear”, “Men’s Shoes” and “Spatula”.
Long-Tail Keywords: These are the keywords that consist of phrases of more than three words and tend to be specific. Keyword examples are “Short Sleeve Denver Broncos Shirt” and “Hydrodynamic Spatula With Port And Starboard Attachments”.

They definitely have key differences in terms of search traffic potential and conversion rate potential. Short-Tail Keywords tend to be highly competitive keywords which makes it harder and more costly for your website to be found in the SERP. Only well-established and authoritative companies like Amazon and Google would be found easily via these types of keywords. It’s probably better for newer companies and SMBs to be found via a different route.

Long-Tail Keywords tend to be less competitive and have less search volume but here’s the catch. It costs less and those who search via this route have high intentions of making a purchase which means that the chances of conversion are pretty high.

This is definitely a gold mine for new businesses and SMBs to take advantage of and lay the foundation towards not only getting found by your ideal customers but also getting them to become your customers. That is assuming that you have quality content that answers the exact needs of the customer. Focus your keyword research on long-tail keywords. It will definitely pay huge dividends as you work to build your brand via an excellent SEO strategy.

There are great keyword research tools that can help assist you with finding keywords that work best for your business as you work to build up your long-term online presence. Great tools include the following listed below.

Moz Keyword Explorer
Google Keyword Planner
Google Trends
Answer The Public
Bing Keyword Research
SEMRush’s Keyword Magic Tool
Neil Patel’s Ubersuggest

These are all valuable tools that can help you gain valuable insights about ranking potential, competition and suggestions on giving you the best insight on which keywords would work best for you when it comes to standing out in the SERP on both Google and Bing.

Know Where To Insert Your Keywords Into Your Content

Now that we covered the keyword search intent categories of what your target audience is a part of and how to research the frequency of those keywords, now we must figure out which areas of your content would we place them into.

One big thing to remember is that you don’t want to get into keyword stuffing just for the sake of trying to trick the search engines into ranking you higher. That will be a huge turnoff towards your target audience and will hurt your chances of converting. Also, it would hurt you in the rankings and you’ll lose the trust of your target audience.

Always important to optimize your site for the user first before anything else. After all, the users are your potential customers so always strive to provide them an excellent user experience.

When it comes to the areas of where in your website you would strategically insert your keywords into. There are four types of areas we would place them into as listed below:

In Your URL

Definitely important to include keywords in your URL that are relevant to your cause and would help the users understand exactly what type of content they can expect on your site. A great example of a user and SEO-friendly URL would be something like this:

https://shop.denverbroncos.com/denver-broncos-men-jerseys

Definitely a quality URL as opposed to something not SEO-friendly and unclear to users like this:

https://www.dontdothisone.com/Folder/Y3485939/345

People and search engines alike both prefer URLs that have descriptive keywords relevant to the site owner’s cause as opposed to boring old numbers that say nothing about you. Definitely keep this in mind when deciding on your URL.

In Your Heading And Meta Tags

These are one of the first places the search engine will be scanning so definitely incorporate your keywords here. The Title Tag will be of biggest importance as this will be what your audience will see as the link on the SERP. Definitely use keywords that are relevant to your cause and will help identify yourself to both the users and the search engines.

You also want to incorporate your keywords into both the META description tag and the META keywords tag. This is the area where only the search engine bots will be crawling your page. When it comes to the META description, you definitely want to include your keywords towards the very front of your description as search engines only scan through the first 150 characters.

When it comes to the META keywords, you definitely want to only include keywords that are relevant to the page on your site as well as the website as a whole. The key to be recognized and identified correctly by the search engines via the META tags is to aim for relevancy and accurate descriptions of what your cause is about. That will help rank you for exactly what you’re wanting to rank for.

Definitely work to use keywords that will help both your target audience as well as the search engines identify exactly what your cause is about so definitely refer to this when coming up with what to write as your heading along with the META tags. Also, do the same thing for your headers and sub-headers within your content as well.

In Your Alt Tags

This is important when it comes to increasing visibility towards the search engine, those who search for images only and those who are visually impaired. The key to success in increasing your visibility towards your target audience via keywords in your Alt Tags is to use keywords that are relevant to the image. Also, avoid using image numbers as your alt text. Numbers won’t tell the users and the search engines anything about what the image is about.

Here’s a great example of a good Alt Tag as listed below:

“football.jpg”

Here’s what not to use as an Alt Tag as listed below:

“img.30014”

See how much better the first Alt Tag is. It contains a relevant keyword that actually tells you what the image is about. This will come in handy in the event your image fails to load. Keep this in mind as you’re prepping your content.

In Your Body Text

This is perhaps the most important aspect of SEO on a website. You know the saying about Content is King. Well, this definitely rings true here. When it comes to incorporating your target keywords into the body text of your content, you must work hard to balance out in satisfying both the search engines and your target audience.

Mentioning too little of your target keywords won’t allow your site to get found by either search engines or your target audience while overdoing it would result in keyword stuffing as we discussed at the beginning of this section. This is definitely a tall task for SEO Specialists to handle. At the same time, it can most certainly be done with some great strategic thinking. Strive for a keyword density of between 0.5% and 3%. This will help you strike the right balance of keyword usage.

In addition, these three tips in writing quality content that is SEO-friendly will help keep your target audience engaged.

Keep it relevant to what that section of your particular content is about.
Write as you normally would while explaining to them in everyday language they would understand. In other words, relate to the user.
Center your content around what your audience wants to do and use specific language such as long-tail keywords as we discussed in the previous section. This will best relate to the exact needs of the customer and they would be more likely to look into you more.

These three tips will go a long way in balancing out in ensuring that your target audience is engaged while at the same time increasing your visibility with the search engines. Absolutely crucial to keep these things in mind when incorporating your keywords around the content that you write on your site. I promise that it will pay off in the end by following these tips.

Key Lessons Learned About Keyword Research

When it comes to finding keywords that will help attract your ideal target audience, there’s no doubt that research is key. On top of that, knowing exactly where to incorporate those target keywords within your content is even more important. Proper keyword research followed by proper keyword usage will not only help attract your ideal consumer but also will help keep them engaged while making it more likely that they’ll do business with you.

Quality keyword research is the first big step in building up your long-term presence via a quality SEO strategy. By making keyword research alongside developing quality content as your starting point for your SEO strategy, you will no doubt be on your way towards building trust with your target audience and lay the foundation towards long-lasting relationships.

What do you feel is essential when it comes to using keyword research as a way to build your online presence? Questions? Comments? Feel free to share this article & don’t be afraid to share your thoughts below

The Importance Of Influencer Marketing Today

There is no question that the nature of today’s online world is shifting towards more consumer-centered ideals. What that means is that online consumers want to hear less from brands about what they’re selling and more from brands about how they relate to them and their needs. In other words, authenticity is the name of the game when it comes to building relationships with online consumers. This is a big reason why Influencer Marketing is on the rise and is a great way to get ahead in today’s online world. In this article, we’ll go over the top reasons why Influencer Marketing is important and how one can use it to get ahead in today’s competitive online world.

It Has Become The New Norm

There’s no doubt that Influencer Marketing has basically become the new norm. In fact, 92 percent of consumers around the world have stated that they trust earned media like recommendations from friends and family over traditional corporate advertising according to a study done by Nielson. People these days can’t stand brands that attempt to shove sales jargon down their throats. What they want to hear from brands is how they can help them solve the problems that they face. In other words, online consumers are into brands that resonate with them and are caring about the ordinary people. This is a big reason why Influencer Marketing has become ever so popular today and isn’t going anywhere too soon.

Finding The Right Influencer

When it comes to trying to use Influencer Marketing to get ahead in the game, we must first know what we’re looking for in an influencer to potentially work with. We must do some research and ask these three questions:

Will they fit in with a brand and the vision that it has?
What role will they play in helping a brand accomplish their objective? Will they fit in with a brand and the vision that it has?
Will this potential influencer resonate with the brand’s target audience?

By answering these three questions, you’ll have a better picture on how to plan out your online marketing strategies. When it comes to influencers, there are three types of influencers listed below and what they’re best described as:

Mega-Influencers- Typically have at least 1 million followers and tend to be celebrities like Beyoncé, Chicharito and Alex Morgan for example.
Macro-Influencers-Typically have somewhere in between 10K to 1 million followers and tend to be journalists, bloggers and other people who share their passions with the world.
Micro-Influencers-Typically have less than 10K followers and tend to be ordinary people like you and me.

Now when it comes to selecting the appropriate influencer to reach out to, it all depends on who you are, what type and size of business you are and what you’re looking to accomplish. Corporations with room to “splash-the-cash” like Gatorade for example tend to go for those Mega-Influencers like they to Kevin Durant and Dwayne Wade for example.

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For small businesses, especially those who are more limited on advertising cash, you might be better off investing in either Macro or Micro-Influencers. They’re less costly and are much more likely to resonate with your brand as they’re viewed by online consumers as a more trustworthy source. One thing that every type of influencer has in common is that they’re more likely to respond to you if you show interest in what they do and offer something of value to them. Always important to keep in mind to always reach out to them in a professional manner and ensure that it’s a win-win situation for both sides in order to lay the foundation towards long-lasting relationships with potential business partners.

Putting Your Influencer Marketing Strategies To Work

Now when it comes to actually putting your influencer strategy to work, we must work to connect with online consumers in an authentic manner. The way we go by doing that is to obviously know who your target audience is first. Once you’ve figured that out, find out what the passions and interests of your target audience are and work to tap into their passions. A great example of that is when Nike partnered up with Megan Rapinoe and the USWNT to run a commercial inspiring women to strive for their aspirations and to shatter glass ceilings in order to advance women’s rights in this country.

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Nike without a doubt built inspiration among women and all those who are passionate in wanting to see women succeed everywhere including myself. Another important note to remember is to consider the feelings of how your target audience would react. It’s always recommended that you don’t try to relate your Influencer Marketing campaigns to controversial topics. If you must, proceed with caution and analyze your target audience to ensure that your current and potential consumers don’t get offended. Strongly recommended that you always focus more on the passions of your target audience.

Another great way to up your game in Influencer Marketing is to feature your influencers in consumer testimonials. A great example of that is when Dove featured an actual consumer in Molly Burke on how their products gave her a positive new experience as she faced blindness.

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This is definitely a great way of using Micro-Influencers like Molly to showcase how their products can give them that totally new feeling that one never experienced before. As mentioned earlier, when an ordinary consumer like Molly has this kind of positive experience, they’re more likely to be trusted by potential consumers more than traditional advertising would. Without a doubt, Influencer Marketing campaigns like these two can go a long way in advancing your brand or cause in a positive way.

Influencer Marketing For The Win

With the increase of Influencer Marketing in today’s online world, there’s no question that businesses from small to big need to get onboard as the future of advertising will depend on Influencer Marketing. Always important to remember the kind of target audience you plan to reach out to, figure out which types of influencers would resonate with your target audience and work to capture their attention by tapping into their passions, interests and emotions. With this type of formula in planning out your Influencer Marketing strategies, you’ll no doubt have great successes in making your brand stand out in an authentic way and lay the foundation towards long-lasting relationships with your current and potential consumers.

What do you feel is key in using Influencer Marketing in advancing your brand and/or cause? How has Influencer Marketing influenced your decision to consider a brand? Questions? Comments? Feel free to share this article & don’t be afraid to share your thoughts below.

The Importance Of Video Marketing Today

There’s no doubt that Digital Marketing is evolving rapidly and a big part of why that’s the case is due to Video Marketing. In today’s online world, video is more than a channel where one can watch past clips of their favorite shows like Family Guy or Game Of Thrones. It’s also a valuable method of marketing where companies can inform and showcase to their potential consumers of their products and services.It can even be useful to promote upcoming events that are happening in your area. Videos can go a long way in helping drive up engagement, and if planned out correctly, it will eventually drive up conversions. In this article, we will explore why Video Marketing is important and the proper ways you can use Video Marketing to stand out in today’s online world.

Why Video Marketing?

Video Marketing is no doubt important in 2019 as consumer demand of videos is at an all-time high. In fact, a recent study by HubSpot reported that 54% of potential consumers preferred to see video from brands more than any other type of content. On top of that, 85% of all internet users in the United States watched online video content on a monthly basis on all devices according to Statista. No doubt that video content is vital in helping online marketers and brands stand out in a positive way towards online-oriented consumers. Potential consumers are more than likely to retain the information by watching videos than they would via other marketing methods. Video is a great way to help build up your brand awareness about what you have to offer to potential consumers. With that being said, the key to success when it comes to video marketing is authenticity. In this next section, I will discuss in detail the creative ways one can use Video Marketing in helping build brand awareness and connecting with customers in an authentic way.

The DOs & DON’Ts To Video Marketing

When it comes to Video Marketing, there are many creative ways to stand out when it comes to using video. There are, however, things that we must avoid when it comes to Video Marketing so I will start by covering the DON’Ts first.

The DON’Ts

Don’t Act Salesy

Nothing turns off customers than using sales jargon in an attempt to win them over. Today’s consumers are not impressed with those tricks and will quickly tune you out in the first few seconds of a video.

2. Don’t Post Videos That Are Too Long

Reason being is that longer videos cause the speed of a website to slow down and in Digital Marketing, every second counts when it comes to consumers decided to stay or leave the page.

3. Don’t Make It All About You

Another big mistake is talking about how great you are instead of trying to connect with your audience in a unique way. Self-promotion is a big turnoff towards potential consumers and offers nothing of value towards them.

4. Don’t Use The “One Size Fits All” Approach When Posting Videos To Different Social Media Platforms

Don’t assume that the same kinds of videos that you use on Instagram will also work on LinkedIn. The target audiences are different on each social media platform so please tailor your videos to fit the needs of the target audience on each platform.

Now that we’ve covered the DON’Ts when it comes to Video Marketing. Now we move on to the DOs in how one can be creative when it comes to standing out in a positive way via Video Marketing.

The DOs

Plan Before You Film

Always plan what content you’re going to include in your video and the exact sequence it would appear on the actual video. A great way to do that would be to use storyboards which is where you would sketch out each scene like a comic strip and sketch out the story accordingly. That way you’ll be better prepared for when it comes time to actually film your video content.

2. Strive For Authenticity

As Larry Weber once said, “People don’t want to be sold. What people do want is news and information about the things they care about.” In other words, use video to talk about the needs and problems facing your target audience and how what you can do to help them. Put yourself in the shoes of your target audience and tailor your video campaign to fit their needs in order to give them an outstanding personalized experience they won’t forget.

3. Keep Videos On Websites Short But Sweet

The attention span of your target audience shortens the longer your video is especially if you’re new to video marketing. Putting shorter videos on your website would also help your site speed. After all, speed is everything when it comes to your audience deciding whether to stay or leave your site. That being said, if you’re a well-established brand or a well-known influencer like Neil Patel, you have the brand authority to have more lengthy videos. Should you decide on producing longer video content, make sure to include a shorter version of that video on your site and then refer your audience to a video platform like YouTube or IGTV to view the full video.

4. Strive For Creativity When Producing Videos

A great way to get the attention of your target audience is with infographic videos. Videos that contain texts and images relevant to your brand or cause you’re trying to promote with a call-to-action at the end will go a long way in increasing your brand awareness. It will also help those viewers retain the information that they see. This would especially be useful if someone is hearing impaired. Here’s a good example of that here.

In the video above, Biteable uses appropriate text to inform viewers about the workplace safety stats as well as relevant stats and a call-to-action at the end to advocate for more conversation about how to prevent workplace accidents. In the video above,

5. Keep In Mind About The Target Audience On Each Social Media Platform

Referring back to the 4th point about the DON’Ts to Video Marketing, each social media platform has different types of audiences looking for different types of content. For more formal and professional-looking content, LinkedIn would be the place for that. For informal content, places like Snapchat and Instagram would be a great fit for that type of information.

6. Strive To Use Videos To Tell A Story About Your Brand

In today’s online world, people crave success stories. Using video marketing to tell your success story about your brand while relating to the needs of your target audience would be a great way to get their attention. To really go the extra mile, include testimonials from consumers who had a great experience with your products. A great example of that is when Dove included an actual consumer in their testimonial video.

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Including an ordinary consumer like Molly in a testimonial video would be an excellent way to get your target audience engaged and they’ll eventually become interested in what you have to offer.

Recapping The Importance Of Video Marketing

“More than 150 million people view videos online every year, most of them ripe to hear your business’s pitch if you produce and market your video effectively.” – *Vern Marker*

There’s no doubt about the importance of Video Marketing in today’s fast-evolving online world. Now that you have a basic idea on how to and how to not run a video marketing campaign, always remember that the key to success is to know your target audience. Knowing every detail about them is key to success in any marketing campaign and even more important when it comes to Video Marketing. Never be afraid to ask them for feedback. Doing just that will help know which areas in your Video Marketing campaign needs work and you can use that feedback to get better with each Video Marketing campaign. Always keep them in mind and be authentic when reaching out to them via Video Marketing campaigns. If you do these things, you will no doubt increase your brand awareness and have many successes in today’s competitive online world.

What do you feel is key to success in Video Marketing? Questions? Comments? Feel free to share this article & don’t be afraid to post your thoughts below.