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Showing posts with label Content Marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Content Marketing. Show all posts

15 Social Media Marketing Trends For Small Business

Social Media Marketing - Author Guest Post - SEO Information Technology
Social media marketing has evolved in the last few years as marketers are taking advantage of all the media platforms available to them. While these platforms offer marketing tools for small businesses, there are also some marketing solutions available to connect with consumers. 

However, small businesses should continuously re-evaluate their strategies and modify them based on the latest developments and trends in the marketing industry. These changes should consider possible trends in the industry. The trends expected social media marketing trends for 2017 are as follows:

15 Social Media Marketing Trends For Small Business - SEO Information Technology


1. Facebook and Other Platforms Will Still Contribute to Small Businesses Growth

Developments and innovations offered by different platforms make them more relevant to the growth of small businesses. Marketers are aware of this and continue to enhance their competencies to take full advantage of the features offered by these platforms.

Facebook and Other Platforms Will Still Contribute to Small Businesses Growth - Guest Blog Post - SEO Information Technology


2. Professional Marketers Focus More on these Platforms

Professional and experienced marketers understand that running campaigns take time. However, the time spent on these campaigns is well worth it since it typically results in considerable benefits for small businesses.


3. Sales Figures Increase after a Two-Year Campaign

The majority of marketers are using different platforms for at least two years. The time they spent focusing on these platforms have resulted in increased sales for small businesses.

4. Two-Year Campaigns Allow Small Businesses to Grow

Aside from increased sales, these marketers also noted the significant growth in the businesses after the two-year campaigns.

5. Videos are Important

Videos encourage deep personal relationships between small businesses and their customers. These businesses can easily convey their messages through videos since users spend a good amount of time watching videos. 


6. These Platforms Generate Leads and Reduce Marketing Costs

Six hours a week on these platforms is sufficient enough for marketers to generate leads for small businesses. Also, professional marketers spending eleven hours per week on these platforms know that marketing costs will go down.

7. Search Rankings and Fan Base Will Improve Using These Platforms for One Year

Using these platforms for at least one year will result in an improvement in search rankings.  It also results in significant fan base for the small business after twelve months of using the platform.



8.  Social Media Marketing Can Increase Exposure and Traffic for Small Businesses

Using these platforms can increase the exposure of small businesses. As more people are aware of the small business, it will result in an increase in traffic for the business.


9. Domination is the Key

While Facebook is the dominant platform in the industry, it is still important to consider the other platforms like Twitter, YouTube, Google Plus, and LinkedIn. Marketers should dominate the platform used by their customers to reach them.


10. Content is Still King 

Content that can capture the attention of customers will result in conversions. These platforms feed on quality content, which makes it important for small businesses to always have quality content on their blogs.

11. Business-To-Business Marketers Focus on LinkedIn

LinkedIn has become the number one choice of B2B marketers since it caters mainly to professionals and other businesses. On the other hand, Facebook is used mainly by B2C marketers.

12. Snapchat is on a Growth Path

Snapchat is gradually gaining ground as an option for marketers. There is a considerable increase in the number of marketers using the app.

13. LinkedIn and Facebook are Top Channels for Republishing Content

Many marketers have already started to republish content on both LinkedIn and Facebook, depending on the type of customers of small businesses.


14. Social Media Engagement is Critical

Likes and views have been replaced with comments and shares. If more customers comment on or share posts, it may result in possible conversions in the future.

15. Conversion is the Goal

Conversion is considered as the main goal of social media marketing. All efforts will be useless if they do not generate income for small businesses.

Author Bio:


Jessa Camacho is part of the Marketing team at ConvertBetter. She has a good grasp of all the essentials conditions in building and promoting a website. Her skills and knowledge in marketing makes her prominent in the company. With her expertise, she perceives what a business should require or want and furnish her marketing skills to create, as well as, establishing software and technology in building perceptive systems for a better user experience. Her focal point is incorporating the growth hacking principles of her company, ConvertBetter.



8 best points to consider when your content is weakening to generate leads

Content is King - Guest Blog Post - Content Marketing - SEO Information Technology

“Content is the king” is now adage that is known to all and believed by all. But how many of us truly understand the real importance of content and its effectiveness to generate leads. Moreover, good lead generation is an essential part to continually grow your business. So what is lead – basically it is a lead when a person shows interest in buying your products and services and in the online world these leads are generated in a greater amount based on the content. Having said this is easy but when it comes to actually generate leads it becomes a tiresome process and sometimes time-consuming.
Here, one mistake and you may lose it all, your business may fall. If you thinking that you are losing your leads with your already existing content marketing campaign? Then behind this content plays an important role in generating leads. We know you must be regularly tracking and keeping an update on how your content is working and does it accomplishing the set goals, and then you realize it’s not – Now what you need to do to get more number of leads is to work on enhanced content.
At times, we also think that on the methods we follow like – I have done researched keywords, I have written articles, I have published guest posts, and I have shared my content on social media as well. This will give a hike to my website traffic but doesn’t work great. Now, it becomes a little wacky because here you aren’t able to understand the problem entirely. So, now you begin to ask questions to yourself:
  • Is my copy well-written and high in quality?
  • Are the topics written by the team relevant enough for the target audience?
  • Is the content marketing strategy falling in place with no flaws?
  • If all the answers are Yes, then certainly there is a huge scope of work on content marketing that will generate leads for your business. Do remember for an initial couple of months it will be difficult to generate leads as a good content marketing strategy takes a bit of time online to generate good leads. But if certain methods fall in place then it might give great results. So what needs to be done is that you need to learn about the better use of content marketing for effective lead generation. What types of content will give great results, and which will not? More prominently, how will you use the specific types of content to capture leads for your business? Let’s see 7 key methods or tips that you must do when you are failing to generate quality leads for your business:
  • Just to start with an update or statistics that will support our below-given points on lead generation and content marketing: According to an industry forecast done by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the total revenue from the e-book sales are likely to hit nearly $8.7 billion in 2018, that is a boost of over 3,000% since 2008. What’s more, the United States is projected to reach 112 million e-book readers by 2020. This indicates how hard the companies need to work on the right and effective content marketing strategy. Keep reading:
  • Understanding the buyers or consumer’s behavior:
 Understanding the buyers or consumer’s behavior - SEO Information Technology
Usually, the first who read the content are the buyers and the readers who are likely to buy some product or service from our website. We might make a guess about the readers or visitors’ behavior not thinking of a proper strategy for lead generation. Now what happens here is that these readers can be your probable leads so you should know their interests. Based on their behavior and interest you shall cater them the similar content that will entice them. For this you need try different methods and types for your content plan that should be totally focused on the audience demand and behavior. Then you are through the sea!
  • Your landing page shall have a story
To gain potential leads you need to keep a well-optimized lead generation page or landing page. A perfect landing page should consist of the catchy tagline and appealing opening to entice the interest of readers and your consumers. Thus, create a high converting landing page that should be capable of collecting qualified leads by making it visually more appealing and in turn draft good quality content.
  • It is crucial writing first for people, then for the search engines:
It is said that a well-optimized SEO content ranks well on Google, yes it is, but it is critically crucial to first create a content marketing plan that includes all the process for search engine optimization. This includes executing keyword research and incorporating sound keyword phrases in the meta title, meta tags, headlines, article headline, and obviously, the body copy of the article. Thus, we do not ponder much emphasis on these but ideally, a good SEO is very important to get your content found on Google search engines. So, create good content that resonates well with your targeted audiences. Thus, ultimately writing for the targeted audience is important, simultaneously working on SEO.
  • Tactically market or sell your content on the Social media platforms
Marketing Land found, “20% of CMOs take help of at least one social media platform to grow network, or engage with their customers. Do not ignore this point your presence on social media is very important for the lead generation. Push a good content and use social media forums to let people know about your business.
  • Try to include some amazing offers and discounts that catch users or readers attention:
You know you are good and you write well for your website, but to make it more interesting and catchy you need to pull some extra efforts, so that you get more leads and business growth. Thus to give some offers to your audience you can exchange information about you and about your content by giving them offers like, free e-book, a webinar, a podcast, a video, a spreadsheet and more. Remember these offers should come from the reliable resources else why your customers will turn up to you.
  • Captivate your audience by strong call to action:
Always remember you have to leave your readers curious and captivated so that they turn up to you and look u at your business for their needs and requirements. Else how will they come back to you! For this, try updating your content by keeping the targeted opt-in forms in place. You can generate a lead magnet as well, where in every post there is prompt call to action to make for the reader. This makes your bait look attractive and reliable. Here, the bonus for the customers and readers is the fresh and upgraded content.
  • Email marketing – Do you know about it?
This is one of the most effective content marketing tactics that is frequently used by businesses all over the world for lead generation. Just drop something valuable every time in the inbox of your customers or readers.  If you will offer relevant and good quality content you will certainly gain more lead sand customers connected with you. Collect leads through emails, so that you get their email addresses, contact numbers, and later can encourage them to turn into your loyal customers. Remember to always offer segmented content in their inbox, which they shall find relevant and should be open for it.
  • Use of SSL Certificate
SSL Certificate on your website will help you to build up prominence for your content and in return will develop a level of trust in front of your customers. Google this year announced that it will flag the websites without HTTPS/SSL and these websites tend to lose visitors as browser will throw warning message. Owing to the guidelines from Google, it is a mandate to get a SSL certificate on your website, if you want to avoid "Not Secure" error in address bar. If one initially doesn't want to invest more money then they can go with deals & promo offers on SSL Certificates and avail good discount. Afterall SSL Certificate will help to boost the creditability and build trust of your visitors/customers.
To sum-up:
No wonder content is the king and there are lot of ways to use content for lead generation. But if you need serious results, do follow the above-mentioned tips or methods to opt good content marketing strategy for your next campaign. Best Luck!

 About the Author



Labdhi Shah is a freelance writer and blogger. She is focused and dedicated to her work. She also loves to dance and try various recipes on Sunday's. Apart from this in her free time, she loves to get engaged with people, social activities and travel to explore the world.

› › 8 best points to consider when your content is weakening to generate leads
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How Often Do You Create Content? - Developing a Content Strategy

How Often Do You Create Content? - Developing a Content Strategy - Guest Blog Post - SEO Information Technology
How Often Do You Create Content? - Developing a Content Strategy

This is the biggest question and challenge most organizations face today. Research continues to show 60% do not have enough time devoted to content creation as the main factor to marketing success. But we know content is important. Research by Hubspot points that 1-2 blogs a month generate 70% more leads than a company who does not do content marketing at all.

Many reports dictate how often you should create content for your blogs, marketing campaigns and social media. While is it good to take the advice from other sources, it is important to understand what is capable within your organization. Organizations need to consider key factors before determining how often to create content with positive results.

Resources and Responsibility

How much time is available for an organization to create and distribute content? It must be determined what percentage of a person’s time should be dedicated to content creation while still maintaining a plethora of other responsibilities. Also, it is often believed that only marketing should provide content but in reality marketing is the driver to develop content. Content should be created by all team members of the organization depending on the area of expertise needed to educate your audience.

Audience

How receptive will you audience be to the content you create. This depends on the personas you develop and at what level will content resonate with your audience based on the subject matter, content approach and simplicity of your solution. Your content topics should be based on your personas and what drives them to use your solution to help them solve their problem.

Content Type

What type of content is needed to connect with your audience. Are blogs sufficient enough or would videos work better to connect with your audience to grab their attention.   Content consist of email, blogs, videos, podcasts, marketing campaigns, social media, white papers, e-books and now live chats.

Quality of Content

Try to focus on quality driven content versus quantity. You can create 10 blogs a month but if no one wants to read them then what’s the point. Spend the time to create exciting content to connect with your audience. This will come from testing different types of writing approaches and headlines to see what type of results you get.

Competition

What is your competition doing in terms of content creation. This can help you gauge your approach and how to create content that differentiates you from them. Pick your main competitors and do your research.

Conclusion

In the end, your organization should always test to determine results based on the factors above to find what best works within your organization.

In closing, I always recommend a couple of suggestions when going through the content creation process.
  1. Create a content piece that can be used within different mediums such as blogging, video, podcasting, campaigns, social media, etc.   This allows you to connect with potentially different audiences using the same content. This also creates longevity within your content piece by creating a series or segments for a longer run time for your content and less time focused on different content topics
  2. After you publish or distribute content, make sure you re-distribute that same content over time to reinforce your content to existing users and share with potentially new users. This helps you reduce your content creation by repurposing existing content.
  3. You can also learn more about Creating video content as an effective marketing tool

Get more Marketing IDEAS at iLLUMULUS about Creating Value for your organization.

About the Author


Frank Anastacio Trevino Jr

Founder and CEO of iLLUMULUS, a Global Marketing & Customer Strategy firm.  I work with companies to connect with customers, Creating Value through the marketing digital experience.  I share my time between South Korea and Denver, Colorado.  You can find me on Linkedin or follow me on Twitter


› › How Often Do You Create Content? - Developing a Content Strategy


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How To Rank Your Content Even With Lesser Links Pointing To Your Site



A question related to inbound links were answered by Matt Cutts who is Google’s head of search spam. With his latest webmaster help video a user have written a question to ask.

In general, in a situation like this Matt says you would have to consider the way search engines worked before they started using links as a ranking signal.

In a case like this, content would be judged based on the text on the page. Matt gives a simplified situation of how that would work:

The first word that’s seen on a page would be counted more compared to the other words on the page.
The second time a word is seen it would be counted “a little more, but not a ton more.”
Additional instances of the word would lead Google to believe the page is about that topic.
However, with that being said, it doesn’t help to keep repeating a keyword over and over. After a while that would be viewed as keyword stuffing and could negatively impact the ranking of that page.

Another way Google would judge the quality of a page without an abundance of inbound links is whether or not that page is sitting on a reputable domain.

Without links pointing to a page, Matt says there is still a good chance of that page being returned in the search results if it satisfies a somewhat obscure query. If you have one of the only pieces of content on the web with a rare phrase someone is searching for, Google will return that page because it’s relevant to what the user is looking for.

How does Google determine quality content if there aren’t a lot of links to a post?

Matt Cutts replied the way search engines worked before they started using links as a ranking signal and this should be considered in this situation.

In such case, based on the text which is on the page, the content should be judged. Matt even gave a simple explanation how this worked.
  • The other words on the page if we compare, the first word on the page would be counted.
  • Less but not more is followed when the second time the word has been counted.
  • Google believes with the additional instances and confirmed the page is about that topic.

Repeating same keyword number of times does not help the content at all. Later it leads to keyword stuffing and affect the ranking of the page.

Page with reputable domain, is another manner of judging the content quality without inbound links.

Matt Cutts says, if a page satisfies an obscure query then the page returned back to search results. With a rare phrase of search someone is searching in a piece of content, then Google will surely return back that content page to the search result if the page in relevant to the users search.

How Your Content Ranks

Cutts explains that the process by which Google judges content without many pages linking to it, is similar to how search engines worked in the days before SEO and link building: “You’re pretty much judging based on the text on the page at that point.”
Google has algorithms in place to recognize which keywords are being used (and their frequency) on any given webpage and will adjust the ranking for that keyword accordingly. The first few mentions of a keyword will put your page in the running, so to speak, but at a certain point repeating the same keyword can actually work against your page ranking if Google believes the site maybe guilty of “keyword stuffing.”

If the phrase being searched is unique in nature, pages with less reputation may still make it to the front page of Google’s results, “…If there’s no other pages on the web that have that particular phrase, even if there’s not that many links, then that page can be returned because we think it might be relevant, it might be topical to what the user is looking for.”

Not Just Keywords

Keywords aren’t the only factors in play though. Cutts mentions that the reputation of the domain also plays a role, but that quality content is the key to getting your page noticed.

If you have keywords that are more common and competitive, we recommend executing a link building strategy. By doing this, it will help state your authority to Google and help increase the chances of ranking.

Are you currently considering a content marketing and link building strategy? Contact us today and our experts can get started immediately.

The bottom line is that unless your content is extremely unique, you need inbound links to get it ranked.
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