WordPress — one of the best platforms for web-publishing that is used for developing highly dynamic and attractive websites and even for creating blogs. The best aspect of WordPress is that it is completely free for everyone. You simply have to download WordPress and you can start using it immediately. It is an open-source platform, which has been used by millions of people since 2003. Anyone from developers to bloggers, businessmen, or a common person can make use of the WordPress platform to achieve their goals. WordPress provides a wide range of plugins and themes, which makes the development of a website or a blog extremely easy. But with increasing cyber threats, it is essential to have a website that is not just dynamic but also secure. The security of WordPress blogs and websites has become a concern for everyone, including small and large businesses. WordPress is always regulated by backend developers and ensures that it stays intact. But that does not mean it won’t be facing any intrusion or any cyber attacks or threats. Hence whether the website is for small businesses or large MNCs, it is essential to ensure that the WordPress websites are secure from malicious activities. The WordPress websites need to undergo precautionary measures, which will keep the websites protected from unethical attacks and malicious activities.
Why is it essential to keep your WordPress website protected from bad bots?
The protection of WordPress websites is important because bad bots can attack these websites; they attack by using different malicious practices and through different sections of the website.
Protection of the login and other credential pages from brute force attack:
Bad bots keep an eye on such pages and try to access the login-ids and passwords of these websites.
Protect your blog pages from spamming comments:
The hackers may use the comment spam strategy or bot to comment spam your blogs. It can even get into the comment section, where the comments are blocked.
WordPress themes and plugins protection:
It is essential to keep the theme pages protected from the bad bots that try to have access to the website.
It is essential to stop these bad bots because they would increase the load on the webserver and obstruct the incoming traffic. You might be knowing that each web server has limited memory, and if the bad bots get into the website’s server, it will lead to dangerous situations. You might not even know, and the bot will max out your server memory.
So is there a way to keep your website protected from the bad bots?
#1 You can install WordFence to protect the WordPress website:
When you install Wordfence, you would be able to get the list of all the bad bots that might have the potential to hit your website in real-time. In order to protect the WordPress website, there is no need to keep the plugin enabled, but use it to determine the type of bots hitting your site and whether they should be blocked.
#2 Do not make use of abandoned plugins:
Normally, while you are busy with your website, it becomes difficult to concentrate on every plugin. Some are still active, whereas some might have become abandoned. Such plugins are extremely dangerous, as they can be a vulnerable point for hackers to attack. So it is advised to regulate the WordPress plugins and ensure that you are not making use of any abandoned plugins.
#3 You must keep the WordPress themes and plugins updated:
It goes without saying that you need to keep all the WordPress themes and plugins updated by turning the setting to auto-update. With this, it would be convenient and easy for you to be sure of having the most up-to-date software. If you keep using outdated plugins, then it would make your website vulnerable to hacking.
Summary:
So, now you know why it is essential to keep your WordPress website protected and how to do it perfectly. Therefore, keep up with the upgrades and keep embracing the security parameters to make sure your WordPress site is protected.
Web designing includes several aspects, such as designing the layout of the webpage, content production, and graphic design. It is mainly related to “how” the web page should look. In web designing, the designers have to select a theme, color, transitions, buttons, the type of navigation, the CSS (cascading style sheet), images, text, and several other things. They use HTML (Hypertext Mark-up Language), CSS, and some web development tools too. Some of the web designing tools are Invasion Studios, Sketch, Adobe XD, Marvel, Figma, Affinity Designer, UXPin, Proto.io, Balsamiq, ProtoPie.
If you are a business person and you require building a website for your business, you would require a quality website designing and development service. Quality website designing includes the look and feel of the website, the visual hierarchy, the time it takes for loading, the content of each page, the user-friendliness, the mobile-friendliness, etc. Web Development includes the safety and security of the data passed to the website, the methods used, the database server used, social media integration, etc. Care should be taken to make sure that there are no bugs on the website.
A one-stop-shop for web designing should provide you with all the services mentioned above. It should give you an option for custom web designing. It should give you options about the platform used for building the website. Platforms for web designing include WordPress website design, React website design, Wix, Joomla, Yola, HubPages, Contentful, Jekyll, WordPress, Tumblr, Blogger, Medium, and many more.
A one-stop-shop for web designing is better than hiring different companies for different modules and tasks. When one company is responsible for the entire development of the website or the project, there are several benefits. Some of them are listed below.
They have a blueprint of the whole website from beginning to end. It becomes easier to implement.
They have an infrastructure ready before the development of the website. Customers can understand better using the infrastructure.
They have well-equipped teams for each kind of task. They are not amateurs. One team will focus on one module only.
They will have a project manager. The customer has to deal with the project manager only. It is better and feasible for the customers and the company as well.
Experts are given the tasks that they are good at. They have a project manager to manage and guide them.
In a one-stop-shop, development becomes easier and faster. Hence, the service provider can deploy the product on time.
There are fewer discrepancies between the clients and the service providers.
Maintenance is taken care of after the deployment of the project.
The customer doesn’t have to worry about the hosting of the website.
A customer has a lot of choices and options from which he can choose the best.
The multiple services provided by the one-stop-shop web designer company are real-time statistics, easy-to-use interface, multilingual and translatable websites, domain hosting setups, and responsive websites. They have creative people in their teams who can make your websites interactive and amazing, which would eventually attract a lot of customers. They are reliable and affordable in pricing.
A one-stop-shop has a good understanding and knowledge about modern web design elements. There are eight elements of modern web designing which include: unique and large topography of the website, responsive images on the web page, videos in the background, semi-flat design of the website, hamburger menus and proper navigation, giant images of the products, the famous card design, short videos or GIFs of the products included in the website.
In conclusion, we can say that a one-stop-shop for web designing is way better than distributing it to different companies. This is because when a single company works on the whole project, they can understand the client’s requirements better, and then distribute the work to their expert teams for the best results. They have an infrastructure and stick to it. They have a project manager to guide and manage them. The customer has to only deal with the project manager, who gives them timely and necessary updates resulting in fewer discrepancies between the customers and the providers. The work becomes easier, and thus the project gets deployed on time, which makes the customers happy and satisfied. And they are also affordable in their pricing. That is why you should choose a company that meets all these needs.
January 22, 2021
Optimal Reach Media: One-Stop-Shop for Quality Web Design
Website design is the first and foremost thing that a visitor observes on your website. The design layout, color scheme, images, and organization of the content is something that has the potential to grab the attention of the users.
Website design is something that keeps changing with time and as per the requirement of the audience. Sometimes, the website design changes are good, and the audience accepts it wholeheartedly. Whereas, some changes are not able to gain acceptance in people’s hearts. But one thing that is constant is change. Whether the changes are good or bad, whether the target audience is finding it perfect or not, the designs keep changing.
Whenever the client wishes to redesign the website, then the most important thing that should be taken into consideration is the client’s requirements. The designing features must be in sync with the personal taste of the clients along with the business requirements. While designing, you must be open to new ideas. It will help in formulating the layout and designs, which enhances the presentation of the brand.
The most essential thing that you must focus on while designing a website is your target audience. If you wish to know how the new website design techniques would work, then you must be able to answer these questions.
Will the new website design help to support the business brand?
Will the website design encourage the client to interact with the audience seamlessly?
Will the website design help in providing a better way to convey the message in a way that resonates with the audience?
Will the new website design will provide a better way to organize the content on the website?
Will the new website design be beneficial in improving the site’s user experience?
Will the new website design be helpful in making your website stand out from the crowd?
It goes without saying that the design of the website is the first impression your brand creates in the mind of your audience. The designing trend you wish to go with must be appreciated by the target audience too.
These are some of the most important design trends that you must take into consideration while designing a website.
Long Scrolling sites
Mobile-first approach (Responsive Design)
Large visual headers
Parallax
#1 Determine Whether The Target Audience Is Fond Of Long Scrolling Sites Or Not?
A website is basically a place where you can see the content in the form of information, videos, images, or news, etc. Generally, this content gets segregated into different webpages. But on a long scrolling website, all the information is present on one long page. With the help of navigation, you can allow the users to jump to different sections
Long scrolling websites can be used in situations where you wish to convey only the message. So if your business has a simple message that can easily work in this format, consider a long scrolling website. You can make use of visual cues to guide the audience to different sections.
#2 Working Out A Mobile-First Approach (Responsive Design)
You might be aware of what is meant bymobile-first design. The website that focuses on catering to the mobile audience first, and then the desktop audience is called mobile-first design. While designing, your first concern would be the audience coming from the mobile or any other smart devices, so you should plan your design around their needs first. If your business is getting high searches from mobile devices as compared to desktop, then you must design your website for mobile devices. Besides, you must embrace a responsive website design, which means it will render properly on desktop, tablet, and smartphones. To analyze where your maximum audience is coming from, you can take a look at google analytics and understand the information provided in it.
#3 Large Visual Headers
You can make use of large visual headers on your website when you do not wish to overwhelm your audience with too many choices. It would be a better way to keep things simple and rely more on design to drive conversion. The content that is provided above the fold must encourage the audience to perform some action on the website and keep them engaged for a longer period of time. You must keep things simple as it will drive your point and improve conversions.
#4 How About Parallax Website Design?
Parallax is considered a trending website design. But before employing a parallax design on your website, you must be quite careful. Sometimes the audience might find the effect of parallax a little overwhelming. Parallax design does not make use of Flash or video but imparts the appearance that the background is moving at a different rate than the foreground of a page.
Note: Using parallax would be a good idea if you want to guide the user through your content. It will look cool and attractive.
Summary: You Must always Remember To Design Your Website For Your Target Audience
While designing a website, your focus should be on serving the purpose and not just what an individual thinks about it. With the help of your design, your business should be able to convey — your message, your goals, and ultimately help your audience get what they need from you.
Competition in the online business market is at an all-time high, and to increase business sales, you need to attract the right target audience and ensure that they are getting engaged with your brand. How would it be possible? You should focus on having a website with better user experience design aspects. The number of users coming to your website and how many conversions you could achieve will make you understand whether your website is alive or dead. Having a website will surely give you an online presence, but what if no one comes to your website? What if no one is interested in getting engaged with your business services, products, and content? If such situations continue to prolong, you will see that your business is losing out.
Conversion rates also indicate the level of your business. If the conversion rates are high, then your business is functioning well. If not, you will have to struggle hard to keep up with the rising competition. One of the best ways to get more conversion rates for your website is to have a better UX (User Experience) design. How? Read further to know more.
#1 UX Website Design Must Support Better Placement OF CTA (Call-To-Action):
You might be surprised to see this point as the very first one. But it is quite essential to understand that CTA plays a vital role in increasing the conversion rates. Just imagine if you are a user on an e-commerce website, and you are unable to track down the “Add to cart” or “Buy now” button easily, you would definitely leave the website. You should not make it tedious or difficult for users to search for the right options and buttons. A site where the CTA has tricky visibility and is hard to read will lose customers. To resolve this issue, the goal of UX website designers should be to place the CTA so that it is convenient to reach and quick to complete the required actions.
You should see to it that most of the CTA must lie above the fold of the website.
The website should have minimum scrolling
Have a responsive website that is perfectly visible on all types of screens.
When the CTAs are placed perfectly, it will be easy for you to direct your customers to the sales pages or product pages where they can buy the product and check out smoothly. For instance, if you are placing CTAs below the fold of the website, the number of users directed to the sales pages would be lower.
#2 Your Focus Should Be On Streamlining The Wide Range Of Processes On The Website: On a website, there are numerous processes that a user may experience. For instance, browsing products, adding them to wish lists, sharing blog content on social media, buying products, providing reviews/feedback, checkout process, etc. All these processes should be smooth and fast-paced. And for that, you need to ensure that each and every process is streamlined. When the processes available on the website are perfectly streamlined, it would be easy and convenient for the users to stay engaged for a longer period of time. Moreover, it will be fruitful for making the user experience great. By having a simplified and smooth process, you can attract a large number of users to the website, and also increase conversion rates.
#3 There Should Be Minimum Or No Broken Links Present On The Website: This is one of the essential aspects of UX design — not to have broken links on the website. You won’t directly come to know that your website is having several broken links. So you need to make use of advanced tools that will help you in identifying the broken links, as well as in removing them from your website. If you are interested in improving the conversion numbers, you need to retain buyers, and so you should get rid of all the broken links or 404 errors as soon as possible.
Summary:
Having a beautiful website is not enough if you want your business to grow by increasing the number of sales. You should focus on improving the UX design and ensuring that the users are having a great experience on your website, and are engaging with your brand. You should follow the above-mentioned steps in order to improve the UX design of the website, which in turn will improve the conversion rates.
January 12, 2021
Improve Website Conversion Rate Through Better UX Design
In the business world, it has become inevitable to have an online presence through a dynamic website. But having a good website is not enough. It should be optimized in order to attract the attention of the visitors and keep them engaged with the brand for a longer period of time. Besides this, the website must be able to improve the business conversion rates. But how will you make it possible? A simple answer to this is having a responsive website. A responsive website is the one where the webpages look marvelous, the pages have a faster loading speed and easily fit the screens of all the smart devices. In today’s era, it has become a necessity to have a responsive website, or else you won’t be able to make your website stand out from the crowd. The main focus of the developers is to provide optimal website viewing, user experience, and perfect navigation. Along with this, the responsive website should be flexible in terms of resizing, and scrolling. Now you might be wondering, why is it is necessary or essential for a business to have a responsive website? Here are some of the most important reasons that you can check to understand this better.
#1 The Usage Of The Smart Devices Is On An All-Time High: Nowadays, you can see everyone sticking to their smart devices whether it is mobile phones, tablets, or laptops. And to cater to the right target audience, you must have a website that can be perfectly viewed on all devices. Not just the large business houses, but even mid-size and small businesses have understood the importance of a responsive website/mobile-friendly website and started embracing it. From the statistics, you could observe that almost 30 to 40% of the users use Google to search through their mobile devices, and this graph will continue to increase in the future. If you fail to have a responsive website then you will definitely lose out on the users who might be reaching your website through their mobile devices.
#2 Responsive Website Provides Higher User Engagement: It was concluded in a recent study that if the users while viewing the website through mobile devices, do not find the website convenient, or flexible then they may leave the website immediately. This will decrease user engagement and increase the bounce rate of the website, which is not at all good for your business website. So, if you wish your visitors/users to stay on the website, you must ensure that the website is responsive, and can be perfectly viewed on all devices.
#3 Having A Responsive Website Will Increase Your Page Rank In Search Engines: A responsive website is meant not only for attracting the target audience and increasing user engagement, but such a website is also helpful in terms of SEO management. All the search engines, especially Google, put more emphasis on responsive websites rather than regular websites. Google analyses that responsive websites have higher speeds and also eliminates the use of multiple URLs for different devices. So Google provides them a better page rank.
#4 If You Want To Improve The Reputation Of Your Business, Then Go For Responsive Website Design: If you have a non-responsive website, people would not find it convenient and won’t feel like engaging with the website content. This in turn will hamper the reputation of your website and business. In simple words, the users who would be accessing your website would make use of different devices and if your website is not able to maintain the standard website features, you will lose out on the users within a few seconds.
#5 Responsive Website Design Will Help You To Stand Out From The Increasing Competition: You will see that every business has a website for making an online presence. But not every business website is able to attract the right target audience. The fact behind this is the responsiveness of the website. According to a recent study, it was found that having a responsive website for your business will be helpful in providing you with an edge over the increasing competition in the market.
#6 With Responsive Website You Can Improve Website Conversions Or Business Sales: The websites that are responsive can easily increase your online visibility. Along with the responsive website, you can also focus on the right placement of the call-to-action features. These features would help ensure that your website gets a lot of traffic, and as a result, you get an increase in conversion sales.
#7 With Responsive Website, You Can Stay In Touch With Offline Customers: This is one of the best aspects of having a responsive website. You can engage prospective offline users, which is made possible through advanced developer techniques. The users can even subscribe to the newsletter, blog content, product images, and a wide range of other online services and at their ease.
Summary:
You can carefully go through all the essential points provided above and understand them. It will make it easy for you to know why having a responsive website is the need of the hour. All businesses must not only have a website for an online presence but also opt for a responsive website design. It is the prime focus of all the developers or business professionals to enable you to stand out from the tough competition.
January 5, 2021
7 Reasons Why Your Business Needs A Responsive Website
PPC or Pay-per-click is a digital advertising model that helps drive instant traffic to a particular website. In this model, the person running PPC pays the publisher such as Google, website owner, etc every time someone clicks on their ads.
What is the Purpose of PPC?
The sole purpose of implementing a PPC strategy is to either lead visitors to a landing page to gather leads or to increase the click-through-rate.
It is important to note that various factors help assess the cost-effectiveness and ROI of the paid ads or PPC. Cost per impression (CPM) and cost per order are just a few examples.
Talking about Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM), you will only be paying for every 1000 impressions your ad receives. However, pay-per-click is more effective than CPM has it helps to understand how effective the ad or the ad campaign was.
Why Is PPC Better Than Other Paid Ads Model?
Clicks help you to measure the interest and attention of the audience. If your sole purpose is to simply lead traffic to a landing page or to get more clicks on the ad, then PPC will be your best bet.
However, it is crucial that you maintain the quality of the ad copy and carefully decide the placement of the ad. As both these factors majorly affect the CTR (click-through-rates) and determine the total PPC cost.
Cost-per-click (CPC)
The CPCcan be easily calculated by dividing the total cost of the ad by the total number of clicks it generated.
Here’s the basic formula:
Cost-per-click ($) = Total advertising cost ($) / Number of clicks received (#)
Different PPC Models
Flat-rate PPC
In this PPC model, you as an advertiser will make a deal with the publisher such as Search Engine, to decide a fixed amount that you’ll pay per click.
In most cases, the publisher will already have a rate that lists the cost-per-click that you will incur. This rate is affected by different factors such as the competition of the keyword. This factor is based on how many websites are using a particular keyword to drive traffic.
Another important factor influencing the rate is the content on your web page. For example, if your content attracts more valuable customers then the cost for that click-through will be more.
However, in many cases, you as an advertiser can try negotiating the cost per click and get lower rates. You can do it by committing to a long-term and high-value contract.
Bid-based PPC
This model is a more cost-saving way of displaying your ads. And it is best suited for you if you’re still not sure which keywords you want to target or have a low budget for PPC.
In bid-based PPC, you compete with other advertisers who’re targeting the same keyword as you. Each advertiser bids the maximum amount of money he is willing to pay for a specific ad spot, based on a particular keyword.
The auction for ad spots is held privately and proceeds automatically as the users start clicking on the ads.
If there are multiple spots, then there can be multiple winners for them. And usually, the highest bidder gets the top spot. But this is also affected by different factors, such as the quality of the ad and the number of clicks.
How To Develop Your PPC Strategy?
Developing a successful PPC strategy starts from strategizing your goals. There are five most common PPC goals that advertisers usually use.
Brand awareness
Product and brand consideration
Leads
Sales
Repeat sales
Let’s learn about them and find out what you can do to accomplish each of them.
Brand Awareness
PPC is one of the most preferred methods to raise awareness about a new product or the whole brand. This is the starting phase where you’d want to maximize your new product’s or brand’s visibility to a highly relevant audience.
The clicks you receive will help your campaign to go into the consideration phase.
Display Ads
You can use PPC display ads effectively by targeting on-topic. Use keywords, topics, relevant placements of the ads, or a combination of them. It is a general targeting strategy but can help you wider your reach.
Search Campaigns
Similarly, you can leverage search campaigns to target generic keywords. This can be an effective strategy to increase your brand awareness.
For example, if your business sells gym equipment, then bidding on keywords such as “gym gears” can help you increase awareness about your brand and products.
However, the downside to this strategy is that you might see higher CPCs and in many instances, irrelevant click-throughs.
So, what’s the best approach to it? You can try using smart keyword match types such as an exact match or use negative keywords.
Social Media Advertising
Apart from Google Adwords, running ads on Social Media platforms (Social media PPC ads) is an effective option for spreading your brand awareness.
Product & Brand Consideration
People in this phase are generally potential customers who are considering and researching to make a purchase. This is a great time for you to reintroduce your brand or product with a more detailed targeting, incorporating a clearer, and stronger CTA (call-to-action) in the ad copy.
When users enter the consideration phase, their searches are typically more detailed and specific. Their search queries might include brand names, product names, or a combination of both. They might research, compare, and/or read reviews.
Their search queries might look like this ‘Samsung 43” TV’ or ‘LG 43” tv’. This will be a great time to remarket your brand or product using responsive display ads that have an alluring banner. This will help to lead the consumer back to the product they previously checked out.
Another great way to target your potential customers is by using the in-market list. This list is composed of the users which the algorithm sees as ready-to-buy customers. How? By analyzing their online behavior and actions.
Leads
In most instances, you might not be able to crack a deal and sell instantly online. It calls for a lead generation strategy. Because with leads, you can follow up with potential customers and engage them in a conversation, which might lead to a sale.
Calls-to-action might be:
Request a demo
Get a free consultation
Free trial
All these CTAs help to attract the users to fill the form, call, or book an online appointment. However, this can only help you to collect leads but how it is followed-up, differs from business to business.
With leads, you have relevant information which you can leverage for customer match PPC campaigns.
Sales
Prospective customers who are all set to purchase will tend to use very specific keywords in their search queries, which indicates higher intent of buying.
The search queries can include the following things:
Model numbers
Shipping information
Discounts
Coupons
Financing
The best way to use this opportunity is by running separate campaigns that highlight offers, guarantees, warranty information, or your return policy.
It will help to build trust among your potential customers towards your business. And the probability of sales is increased.
For this phase, leverage cart abandonment ads, remarketing ads, and take complete use of your ad copy and ad extensions.
Remarketing Campaigns
It is crucial that you carefully set up your remarketing campaigns. Otherwise, the ads will still be visible to customers who have already made a purchase.
To do this, create a purchasers list and exclude this list from the campaign. Keep this list handy because you’ll be needing it in the next phase – Repeat Sales.
Repeat Sales
PPC is a powerful tool to earn repeat sales in case your product or service requires maintenance, upgrades, or any other cross-selling or up-selling.
Before you sit down to develop your repeat sales approach, ask yourself a few questions:
What is the lifespan of the product? Or when will it need to be replaced?
Is there a better model or version of the product coming out soon?
Do customers buy multiples or singles?
Do you see any opportunities to cross-sell complementary products?
What will influence the customer to buy from you again? Is it brand loyalty? Fast delivery? The exceptional quality or features?
After developing an ad copy based on some questions as above, you can use PPC remarketing and customer match to re-engage and resale to your older customers.
Remember, by leveraging your USP or what would motivate your customers to buy from you again, you have higher chances of re-sale. Just like in the Sales phase, you can also use different coupons or discounts to motivate your customers even further.
Conclusion
While developing a solid PPC campaign, include different goals that are designed to lead the customers further down the sales funnel.
You can get organized by using a chart that contains goals, keywords, themes, key messaging, and landing pages. It will help you to manage everything and ensure that everything is covered.
Post-launch, it is helpful to review the results, decide how you can further optimize the ads, and allot budgets accordingly. Use the “Attribution” section of Google Analytics or PPC platform to check out campaign paths and assisted conversions. It will guide you to move forward with a successful campaign.
Video Production is producing video content, and it is equivalent to filmmaking. However, in today’s time, we use digitally captured images, which are unlike the old days of film reels that gave a galore of headaches.
But it might seem high tech and quite out of the league for small businesses. However, it can be done easily, in just three steps:
Pre-production,
Production, and
Post-production steps
The Process
Pre-Production Stage
The first stage of creating video content is pre-production. It involves all the planning that you would need during the second stage – video production.
During the pre-production process, you will be writing & finalizing the script. Apart from it, scheduling, logistics, and other administrative duties are also to be handled. Having a solid game plan is essential in any project and with a perfect pre-production stage, you can move confidently to the next stage.
Production Stage
The second stage is to film the principal photography, also known as the production phase of video production.
During this stage, you will be capturing the video content and will film the subject(s) of the video. In today’s time, most of the video content is filmed and stored using electronic media such as SD cards.
Different grades of cameras use different storage devices. For example, consumer-grade cameras use SD Card while professional-grade cameras use solid-state storage and flash storage.
Post-production Stage
The final stage of producing video content is to carefully select video clips and combine them into the final video(final product). This is a crucial step as it will help communicate your message through story-telling. Now, this finalized video can either be in the form of a live event or a post-incident event.
Types of Video Productions
Technology is ever-evolving and with that, different kinds of video productions have been born too.
Some of the most common include film and TV production, television & web commercials, product videos, corporate videos, marketing videos, customer testimonial videos, event videos, and wedding videos.
What Is Included In Video Production & What Is Not?
The “Video Production” term is used only for video content that has gone through all the above three mentioned phases while keeping a particular audience in mind.
However, if you’re recording a concert or your child’s band recital for capturing memories, then it will be labeled as a “home video.”
Even if you use your video camera, it can’t be labeled as video production. Why? Because your targeted audience is your own family, and you didn’t go through the three phases of producing a video.
Video production is no simple task, it’s an art that requires a dedicated team who understands it thoroughly, as the folks over at Optimal Reach Media.
Production Scale & Techniques
The size of the crew determines the production scale. It is not the location of the production or the type of content being captured that determines it.
In most cases, the production crew has a huge influence on the project’s quality. However, the crew does not become a limiting factor in deciding or planning which kind of content can be produced.
The production crew in most cases will determine a project’s quality but is not a limitation of what kind of content can be produced. A lot of exceptional films have been produced with both a 2-member crew as well as a 10-member crew.
However, the gear’s quality plays a major role in the production process. To create quality video production, your crew should have all the latest Tripods, Hand-Held Cameras, and 3-Axis Stabilized Gimbal, just to name a few.
But just having the best quality equipment is not going to create a great video production. But your crew and you should also use effective shooting styles such as non-leveled camera angles, and vertical motion shots. This will help add creativity to the production.
So Let’s Get Started!
Having an experienced team to produce a Corporate Video, TV Broadcast, Event Video, or even an Internet Video is a great idea. As they can help you create a masterpiece, essential to your project’s goal.
Today we will be talking about the basics of “Outdoor Advertising,” a crucial tactic in today’s business world. Any advertising that you see outside are all Outdoor Advertising.
There are different types of Outdoor Ads, but billboards are the most common examples. Other types, just to name a few, could be cars branded with advertiser logos and imagery, ads in a bus shelter, or park benches. Additionally, promotions in movie theaters before you watch your film are outdoor advertising.
Real-Life Example of Outdoor Advertising
Just yesterday, I was outside and saw a banner flying in the sky towed behind an airplane. That would be a slightly more extreme example of outdoor advertising!
Why Is Outdoor Advertising Better Than Digital Advertising?
In today’s time, you can see an ad at the bottom of any free app on your phone or the abundance of ads at the top of your google search. Not to mention how creepy it is when Facebook starts showing you ads, and you wonder how it knew you needed that item or service.
These types of ads start to go unnoticed, ignored, and even causes inconvenience to the customer to some extent. While advertisers battle to stick out on digital platforms, the outdoors has tremendous opportunities with a less crowded platform to convey their message.
Welcome to the wonderful world of Outdoor Advertising!
What Exactly Are Outdoor Ads?
If you are still not exactly sure what Outdoor Advertising is, just think of it as an ad that you see while you’re not at home. But you use your mobile even while you’re out of your house, right?
That’s how OutdoorAdvertising works! It focuses more on the medium than the device.
Example Of Outdoor Ads
Outdoor Ads use the environment around them to make their point and are often tailored to their environment to stand out. For example, a billboard that is in a high place might advertise a window washing company and might include what looks like window washers hanging off of the billboard.
When done correctly, outdoor ads are potentially the most creative type of ads, and the ones that perform excellently are well thought out and imaginative. Outdoor advertising is all about getting the customers’ attention by being unique, creative, and offering a new perspective to view the ad.
Categories of Outdoor Advertising
We could literally spend hours composing a list of all the forms of outdoor ads but, since just about anything could become an outdoor ad, the possibilities are endless!
According to the Outdoor Advertising Association of America, here are the top four categories:
1. Billboards: Including traditional bulletin billboards, digital billboards, mobile billboards, and more.
2. Transit: Bus, train, subway, cab, and other forms of vehicle-focused ads.
3. Street Furniture: Ads on bus shelters, kiosks, benches, parking garages, bathrooms, and more.
4. Cinema advertising: Commercials before films begin and other ads around the movie theater.
There are a few other categories that things might fit into, such as guerrilla campaigns such as OctoGoat, which get people’s attention with bold and unexpected content.
In today’s digital age, you may even see how someone creatively tied the two together. Some examples include offering QR codes for connections to websites, using Bluetooth devices to ping people, or having an interactive ad such as a kiosk with a touch screen.
Things like these are becoming more and more popular, and experts estimate that it will soon account for almost half of all outdoor ads.
Why Is Outdoor Advertising Crucial?
So now that we know a little about outdoor ads and what they are. Let’s now talk about why they are crucial and a vital part of your business advertising tactics.
When we talk about your daily lives, we can split it up into three parts. When you’re at work/school (outside), at home, and when you’re asleep.
The first part of your day is the most crucial, and studies show that you are more liable to accept information when you are out and about. For example, you might look around and read some of the billboards while you’re stuck at the stoplight or waiting for the next bus at the bus stop.
Another reason why it is so important is that it allows ads to target you while you’re not in your home. It’s easy to show you an ad on the TV while you’re sitting in front of it, but what about the times when you’re not?!
Also, they’re way less intrusive than showing up on your personal devices.
Final Thoughts
If you’re still unsure about the dominance of Outdoor Ads, consider these closing arguments.
Outdoor ads often have a much lower cost. In the advertising world, we call that CPM or cost per thousand viewers.
You can use outdoor advertising, such as having your entire fleet of work trucks painted the same color and the same logo on the side. This is a super-easy way for the public to notice your company or business.
When advertising outdoors, you are always targeting the masses in such ways that you can’t with other forms of ads.
My personal favorite thing about Outdoor Ads is that they’re fun and creative. If you want your ad to be remembered, make it enjoyable.
December 12, 2020
Outdoor Advertising: What Is Outdoor Advertising and Why Is It Important?
Social media has helped thousands of brands to be seen, heard, and grow. And not only brands, but many people use social media for various reasons.
Social media platforms are used differently everywhere. Such as – to stay connected with friends, for a business page, finding others with similar interests, organizing events, showing off a talent, or gaining popularity for your new brand.
However, most people face almost the same issue – expanding reach.
No matter how much page presence you have, the number of invites you send, or even how much time you spend reaching out to the community, your social media profile does not seem to get the community response you are looking for.
Do you face the same issue? Then mostly, the algorithm is to blame! Facebook and most social platforms use algorithms or artificial intelligence (AI) to determine what its users want to see.
So, what should you do? To reach your targeted audience, you need to increase your page reach by getting more engagements!
But how should you do it? We have discussed everything you need to learn to expand your brand’s reach on Facebook & Instagram. Here’s what we’ve discussed:
The Algorithm
Prime Time Posting
Engaging Content
The 80/20 Rule
The Four Pillars To Expand Your Reach On Facebook & Instagram
The Algorithm
The first thing you need to know about social media is, they DO NOT want to lead its users away from the social platform. It means the YouTube link, the URL you shared, or that really informative article you posted yesterday was shot-down by the (AI). Not because it was uninteresting to social platform users, but because the platform wants to avoid sending its users away from the platform.
So, what should you do? You should upload your videos and avoid sharing links to third-party hosted articles through your page or on your newsfeed.
If you do this, it will help you get your content to receive views that links never could. Instead of posting links to articles on your Facebook business page, recreate your own original articles with works cited to your own website. You can then put a CTA (Call- To- Action) which asks your audience to check the content on your website.
Following the above method will not only increase views on your content and satisfy the (AI) but, it will also increase the number of website views.
Prime Time Posting
When posting on your social media profile, it is crucial to put your most engaging content out in prime time for your demographic. This is a pretty simple concept. Make sure you post your content at a time when your viewers are going to see it.
Running a business that targets executives or other businesses, I wouldn’t want to publish a promotional post on a Sunday morning or on holidays. Because this is the period when my targeted users would be off-work. However, publishing it during working hours can have a bigger impact.
If you’re not careful with the time, your post will not be at the top of the news feed when your audience first uses social media for the day.
Engaging Content
Engagement, engagement, and engagement. I can’t stress this enough – engaging content is what drives viewers to your page. There are many ways to create engaging content one of the more popular forms of engaging content today is Memes.
You might already know that Memes are pictures with a caption that makes you laugh. But did you also know that memes can be leveraged to include a call to action? And apart from being used as a source of humor, it could be used in other ways such as informational, promotional, and other various ways.
Make sure to be creative and create original content that is going to grasp social media users’ attention. Pictures and using the backgrounds Facebook provides for you when posting as well as making 3D photos are great ways to make engaging content.
Create visuals for things you would like to get across such as a creative poster to sign up for your monthly newsletter or a poster that showcases the weekly special at your restaurant.
The 80/20 rule
When following the 80/20 rule, you should post 80% engaging content and 20% content that you want your audience to see.
This means you are spending 80% of your time on social media in engaging with your audience. You can do this by providing them with the content they are going to WANT to click on, like, share, and comment on.
Once a user engages with your page, he will almost immediately see your post at the top of their news feed every time, as long as you keep engaging them.
After you achieve this, the other 20% of your content marketing can be exactly what you want to share with your audience. This is the most crucial piece of information in this whole article.
If you do not engage your audience, you will find yourself spinning your wheels with an unsuccessful post. Nobody wants your band’s new album jammed down their throat all week. Give them the engagement, and when it’s time to talk about you, they will be more inclined to want to check out your album because they liked the content you posted before.
To Sum It Up
Social Media platforms, when used correctly, can be powerful tools. But did you know? Facebook and Instagram are businesses that make huge profits each year with advertising. Ultimately, they do want you to purchase post boost and profit off of you.
But if you follow these vital steps, it can help you to beat the AI that chooses who sees what. However, you don’t have to spend a dime on advertising!
It really is all about how you use and engage with your audience. Social Media is an influential tool which when mastered can be very powerful and work for you!
December 2, 2020
Social Media Management: How To Expand Your Reach On Facebook & Instagram?
So you want your website to be on Google page 1? Well, join the club. There are millions of people with that same goal. Where do you get started? I’m glad you ask. Here’s how you start thinking about building your digital presence in a time where more people are getting online than ever.
Common Sense
It seems safe to say that Google’s algorithms are going to continue to get more and more advanced, and they’re already pretty damn good now. The algorithm as it stands now is so complex, the software scientists that build it don’t even understand it fully. No hyperbole, it’s AI becoming more like a human. Or at least, it’s learning to detect real human interaction to reliably predict what people are interested in – and of course what’s a traffic light.
So if Google is thinking like a human, you need to think like a human too. Google doesn’t want to reward people for paying for a bunch of backlinks and hacking their way to the top. That’s not what is going to give their users the best experience.
Ok, how do you create the kind of digital presence that makes a person (and thus an algorithm) trust a brand? Especially now, when online scams and phishing are more prevalent than they’ve ever been.
With all of that being said, and if you really want to know what google is looking for, go read the SEO Bible, Google’s 200 Ranking Factors by Brian Dean and you’ll never have to guess. But if you’re too lazy to that, read the rest of this article and remember to think like a human.
Intent
In the honor of the soul group, O’Jays, you gotta give the people what they want.
Google wants to give the people what they want too. Really, that’s the whole purpose of any business. So when people search “why is the sky blue?”, they don’t want to see an ecommerce site selling them hammers. What pops up right now is a government site scientifically explaining why the sky is blue.
Now if I looked up “hammers for sale”, that would be a different story; I might be interested in looking at some hammers.
If I search with an informational intent, Google will give me information. If I search with shopping intent, I’ll be shown stuff to buy.
So how does intent apply to SEO?
First of all and as tough as it is to avoid, don’t write an article about how to hammer a roof and then only talk about how great the hammer you sell is. Of course, conversion is the ultimate goal, but you’re getting too antsy. Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face.
Do you go in for a kiss on the first date? Do you try to close a lead on the first call? Do you trust somebody the first time you meet them? No.
What is the journey of your potential lead from awareness to close? You should map on paper the exact actions and events a lead goes through en route to being a source of revenue for you. And do this for every possible way a lead could become aware of you: social media, PPC, they saw your billboard, or they searched and found you organically. Say they saw your billboard and were interested. What do they do next? Did they call you or go to the website? Did they check out different pages on the site or did they go straight to the contact form? I digress.
It all comes back to trying to get inside the head of the user. If that aforementioned user doesn’t like what he/she sees, he/she will bounce (meaning leave the site without visiting other pages or taking further action) and not spend much time on the page (decreasing average session duration). This data tells Google that people are not getting what they want and thus no page 1.
Oh yeah, and backlinks
I usually find backlinks kind of boring. They’re just not as fun as good content. But, they’re totally a ranking factor and important. I just believe that the best way to go about getting backlinks is writing good content. Content that people want to reference and thus link to.
Remember when I gave Brain Dean and Google’s 200 Ranking Factors a backlink up there. Look, I did it again. That sure is nice of me. But, I’m not just linking a million random URLs. I’m creating a do-follow link (links Google values as opposed to no-follow) because I read something and found it useful. And that’s what people want, to have their questions answered.
That’s why that page has 160k backlinks, 1.7k organic search traffic, and $2.6k in traffic value. The traffic creates the backlinks which creates more traffic and more backlinks.
You may be asking, should I not do active backlink building and only focus on content?
And that is a good question, some days I say yes and some days I say no. I would certainly say no to buying links directly. No good can come from this in the long term.
But if you write a guest article for someone and link yourself, that might be helpful. And you should definitely reach out to anyone citing your work and not linking you.
But, Google is punishing people who “trade” links and agree to link to each other just to boost their numbers.
From Google itself:
“The following are examples of link schemes which can negatively impact a site’s ranking in search results:
Buying or selling links that pass PageRank. This includes exchanging money for links, or posts that contain links; exchanging goods or services for links; or sending someone a “free” product in exchange for them writing about it and including a link
Excessive link exchanges (“Link to me and I’ll link to you”) or partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking
Large-scale article marketing or guest posting campaigns with keyword-rich anchor text links
Using automated programs or services to create links to your site
Requiring a link as part of a Terms of Service, contract, or similar arrangement without allowing a third-party content owner the choice of qualifying the outbound link, should they wish.”
You have to be really careful that your strategy doesn’t go from helpful to hurtful in one software update.
Conclusion
From the trends that I see from the data I have access to, digital traffic skyrocketed in April, June, and July. And even before a pandemic made people stay inside, more people were using the internet throughout the world.
If you want a piece of that action, then settle up at the table and play the game. But just know, you are in for the long term or at least you should be. If you want to see immediate ROI for your dollar, just don’t spend a dime on SEO. You’ll just be wasting your time and dollar. What are you going to do? Write two 500 word articles and call it a day. What traffic are you going to get from that? You may get to page 5 for a keyword with a 100 monthly search volume. But, how many people ever make it to Google’s page 5. How many people make it to page 2? The answer: not many.
Don’t try to cheat the process. If Google wants you to appear reliable, be reliable. If Google wants you to answer people’s questions, answer the question. Be value add and actually help people or at least be entertaining. Once they’ve got to your site, give them a reason to stay.
If you want ROI in the first month and you have a good website, just put your dollar into PPC (pay per click). Or hell, go sponsor a podcast or do literally any outbound marketing.
SEO is inbound marketing and requires a completely different state of mind.
September 1, 2020
SEO in 2020: common sense, intent, and yes, backlinks are still important.
