Improve Website Conversion Rate Through Better UX Design

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.

There Should Be Minimum Or No Broken Links Present On The Website

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.

Improve Website Conversion Rate Through Better UX Design

7 Reasons Why Your Business Needs A Responsive Website

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.

7 Reasons Why Your Business Needs A Responsive Website

Pay-Per-Click Marketing: PPC Strategy Guide

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?

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 CPC can 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?

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.

Pay-Per-Click Marketing: PPC Strategy Guide

The Key Marketing Tactic Video Production

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

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.

Reach out to Optimal Reach Media to get started today!

The Key Marketing Tactic Video Production

Outdoor Advertising: What Is Outdoor Advertising and Why Is It Important?

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 Outdoor Advertising works! It focuses more on the medium than the device.

Example Of Outdoor Ads

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.

Outdoor Advertising: What Is Outdoor Advertising and Why Is It Important?

Social Media Management: How To Expand Your Reach On Facebook & Instagram?

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 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

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!

Social Media Management: How To Expand Your Reach On Facebook & Instagram?

SEO in 2020: common sense, intent, and yes, backlinks are still important.

By Johnny McFadden

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

SEO Button

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.

SEO in 2020: common sense, intent, and yes, backlinks are still important.

SEO in 2019: No More Gaming Google’s Algorithms

By Johnny McFadden

Increasingly, the things you do in real life (meaning anything that doesn’t involve the backend of WordPress) have a huge effect on ranking. 

The most important word found in the acronym SEO may just be “optimization”. You can’t create a high ranking site with only technical SEO techniques – you can only optimize what you already have. If what you already have is a well respected company and brand, SEO techniques can be extremely effective. If your sales funnel has holes and your brand does not convey trust, you may not get the results you want. 

In 2019, Google and other search engines do a truly remarkable job of determining an entity or individual’s real life reputation. 

If you have satisfied customers, you’ll get positive reviews on Google My Business, Facebook, and more. If this is the case, all you have to do is continue doing a good job and maybe remind your customers to rate you.

All this is not to say that you’ll jump to the first page of a competitive keyword just because you’ve developed a good reputation. It’s cumulative and takes time. But, especially in competitive industries, it’s page 1 or bust. And for competitive keywords, page 1 is no small task.

When it’s time to build the obligatory base of content and wealth of backlinks, make sure the leads that come in won’t go to waste.

Think about organic search in relation to your overall marketing and business strategy. Think about SEO in relation to the profile of your potential customer and to your ultimate goals.

A sizable number of experts in the SEO community have speculated about the efficacy of the pursuit of backlinks in the present and certainly in the future. In a recent video, the YouTube channel Income School predicted that backlinks will be nonexistent or negligible in five years. 

Everyone understands that (right now) backlinks are absolutely necessary to rank high. It’s not that backlinks as a single ranking factor isn’t one of the most heavily weighted compared to bounce rate, page speed, and social signals – it is. The trouble comes in backlinks for the sake of backlinks; not all backlinks are created equal. Paying directly for backlinks is just as likely to hurt your rankings as they are to help. If they’re the kind of company that sells backlinks, their domains are unlikely to be deemed reputable by Google.

Good Content Changes Everything

What gets the backlinks you actually want is content. All roads lead to content. If the content is worth sharing, people will reference it on their blogs, throughout their website (resulting in backlinks), and on social media, on the internet and by word of mouth for that matter. 

And when you think about it, high quality content will directly or indirectly improve many aspects of SEO. What’s more likely to decrease bounce rate other than content that people actually want to keep reading or watching? If people are talking about and sharing your content online, that will improve your social signals.

It’s not just about the words on the page either. Whether for a post or a page on your website, think about the user experience – it’s almost as important that the actual content itself. If I click on an article and see and a huge, unformatted chunk of text, I’m probably going to click off which will hurt that website’s bounce rate and dwell time (the average amount of time people spend on a particular page or post). We live in the attention economy; respect people’s time by answering the titular question right up front, add headings so they can skim and jump around with ease, and add infographics for those we best interact with information visually.

Just like SEO and organic search, think about content in relation to your overall marketing strategy. Visualize your potential customer/client as age and other demographics give you insights into how to best reach your audience.

Email and newsletter marketing are likely in decline given that they’re not as popular with younger audiences. But if your audience is primarily in the 55 and up range, then it could be the perfect strategy for you. There are best practices, but there are no right answers for every endeavor.

 

https://blog.hubspot.com/news-trends/content-trends-preferences

 

Gary Vee created 33 unique pieces of content from one speech!

You may not be giving keynote speeches and you’re certainly not Gary Vee (maybe the most proficient content creator alive today), but all you need is the will and some time. The very popular content pyramid is the perfect way to make work that took one day last all month. It’s all about creating long form pillar content and using that to create micro content to be distributed through all platforms over the coming weeks.

Any long form content will work. The simplest way to do this is to Google frequently asked questions about (enter niche that you have some insight about here), turn on the camera, and spend a couple minutes answering the questions as best as you can. Google is the #1 most popular search engine in the world. The second most popular is actually YouTube. Everybody’s customer base is different, but these people generally prefer videos. 

Don’t have a professional camera or audio equipment? No problem! Take out the phone that’s undoubtedly in your pocket, prop it up on your desk, and hit record. Don’t have a set or lighting? Go outside and find something aesthetically pleasing to stand in front of (whether natural or man made). The sun just after sunrise and just before sunset will provide better lighting than any studio could. 

 

https://www.slideshare.net/vaynerchuk/the-garyvee-content-model-107343659

 

Think about social media as a powerful publishing tool; like your WordPress blog, but even better. I think everyone has found themselves five minutes into the automatically starting Facebook videos without even realizing what’s happening.

It all comes back to reputation…

Think about the ultimate goal of a company like Google. They want people to keep using their service so they can sell ads. People will keep using a search engine if they reliably and easily find the most accurate, credible, engaging, and entertaining information.

Aside from the technical ranking factors (page loading speed, a HTTPS website, etc), Google ranks search results largely based on reputation. Just like in real life, it takes time to build a reputation, and it’s not easy either. 

So where do you start? Make sure you treat your real life work with as much integrity as possible. Then, apply that same mindset to the information you put out. Make sure it’s credible, engaging, and (very importantly) original. Simply put, if you’ve put out no information on a subject, there’s no way you’ll be deemed an authority in that field.

It can be frustrating because it takes time to develop organic search as a profitable element at the top of your sales funnel. But if your goal is to build for sustainable success in the long run, figure out how far you need to go and start working towards page 1 today!

I and the rest of Optimal Reach media believe in having a goal and getting there as efficiently as possible. With enough time and resources, you can increase a website’s ranking on Google. And, a little bit of expertise allows you to meet the same goals with less time, money, and energy.

 

SEO in 2019: No More Gaming Google’s Algorithms

Telling a Powerful Brand Story

By: Russ Cersosimo

I’ve done thousands of pitches over the last 25 years. Whether I was selling a product or service, advocating for legislative change, or raising capital – I can confidently say that the single most powerful weapon in my arsenal was my ability to properly get my brand story across.

Take a look at great storytellers of our time. Walt Disney. Steve Jobs. Steven Spielberg. 

These storytellers were able to paint a wonderful picture and each had a keen ability to take the viewer or prospect on a ride.

A well-told story gets the viewers emotions evolved. Involved at such at a level in which they don’t want the story to end. A level in which it affects them psychologically and biologically at a chemical level. A level that gets the pleasure center of the brain going. 

Whether getting someone to invest in you or buy your product or idea, the goal is to get them to want to become part of the story.

Let’s think about some of the movies you have watched in your life. Some had you on the edge of your seat, wanting more when the credits rolled – hoping that a future sequel was coming. These kinds of movies are the ones that we talk about and would gladly pay to see again. We can relate to these experiences and revisit in our minds again and again as if we were in the movie. We can do this easily because there was a strong emotional attachment. 

Emotions help with memories. Good emotions = good memories = more success.

On the other hand, you have most likely watched movies or TV shows that were terrible. Because there was no emotion tied to it, you got disinterested quickly and probably didn’t think about it ever again. If you want to test this, try to think back on your earliest memory as a child. Chances are it was an emotional moment. 

The farthest I can remember back was my first haircut. I was crying like a baby (cause I was a baby). It was so emotional that I couldn’t stop crying and after so long told the Italian barber I hated him. With no patience left, and without skipping a beat, he calmly looked down at me and said in a heavy Italian accent responded, “Yeah, I hate-a-you-too kid”. 

The point is, it was my first memory because there was emotion tied to it. Try it at home if you don’t believe me. 

As a marketer, you have the ability to architect the brand story to create a certain emotion in the viewer. 

Ideally, you create a story that the viewer wants to take part in – a story they don’t want to end. A story that they remember. A story they tell to their friends. In a sense, you create a brand experience that tells the viewer just who you are and what you’re about. 

For example, Natierra, a food brand with the motto “Superfoods for the soul” is owned by BrandStorm Inc, a specialty food manufacturer that believes in conscious business practices and fostering sustainability. 

“Superfoods with Soul” is achieved in that for every bag or shaker of select superfoods and Premium Crunchy Fruit Snacks, a meal is provided to a child in need in Haiti. Natierra has cleverly branded it “Buy One Bag, Feed One Child”  

Goji Berry Storyline ExampleImage copyright https://www.natierra.com/

This “Feed a Soul Project” really helps to tell a great brand story. The back side of the packaging traces the process back to Goji fields in China and further creates an emotional attachment by explaining to the reader that purchasing this bag will help provide a meal for a child in need. 

In fact, they even word it in past tense so the reader gets a sensation of helping before even making a purchase. It makes it an almost intimate, 1 on 1 situation between the person holding the bag and a hungry child in Haiti. 

It’s good to think about your pitch (or marketing, or product design) like the back of this bag of goji berries. If you can pair the right backstory with an awesome future, you will beat your competitors. 

Stories work even when you our your marketing materials aren’t around. 

For example:

Did you hear about that shoe company that buys a pair of shoes for the poor every time a pair of new shoes is sold? I’ll bet you did. 

In 2006, 30 year-old Blake Mycoskie was vacationing in Argentina and met a woman who was working as a volunteer delivering shoes to children. Blake offered to help and got to see first hand the many shoeless children in Argentina. The lack of shoes was a major contributor to diseases in children. 

This problem gave him the idea for his eventual company.

Blake set out with the goal of providing a new pair of free shoes to youth of Argentina and other developing nations. For every pair he sold in North America, he would donate a pair to children in need in developing countries.

He commissioned shoe makers in Argentina to manufacture 250 pairs of shoes. After an article ran in the Los Angeles Times, the company secured online orders for nine times the available stock and over 10,000 pairs were sold in the first year. In their first year, the company distributed 10,000 free shoes to Argentinian children. 

Talk about a great brand story to get the company off the ground! 

To keep the story going, In 2007, Blake’s company launched the first annual “One Day Without Shoes” event, which encouraged participants to go shoeless for one day in order to raise awareness about the impact shoes can have on a child’s life. AOL, Flickr, and the Discovery Channel sponsored the event.

500 retailers were carrying the brand by 2011. Toms launched its eyewear line in the same year. By 2012 over two million pairs of new shoes had been given to children around the world. 

The Daniels Fund Ethics Initiative at the University of New Mexico has described the company as an example of social entrepreneurship. 

Now that’s one heck of a brand story – and all good stories end with the hero prevailing. On August 20, 2014 Bain Capital acquired 50% of Toms. Reuters reported that the transaction valued the company at $625 million. It was reported that Blake Mycoskie’s personal wealth following the deal was $300 million. 

Mycoskie retained 50% ownership of Toms, as well as his role as “Chief Shoe Giver”.

But wait…There’s more! The story doesn’t end there.

Blake Mycoskie said he would use half of the proceeds from the sale to start a new fund to support socially minded entrepreneurship. Bain agreed to match his investment and continue the company’s “one-for-one” policy. 

Knowing Blake’s brand story, I can honestly say that I would buy whatever he is selling because I can connect with him and his personal mission. That connection is the kind of connection you want to get with your customer. The most effective way to do so is through proper storytelling. 

Psychology is a science. The brain wants to see a hero prevail. Give the brain what it wants, a hero. 

You have 2 chances to create that hero. You can make them feel like a hero for making a purchase, or get them to buy into you as a hero

It’s all about how you tell the story. 

Telling a Powerful Brand Story

In Design Psychology We Trust: Psychology Behind Beautiful Design

In Design Psychology We Trust 

The Psychology Behind Beautiful Design

By: Russ Cersosimo

Psychology is a science, and just like math or physics, psychology works the same every time.

While math and physics can be easily translated via written text or drawing, psychology is invisible. It’s like believing in magic. 

In a way, it is magic. It’s just extremely difficult to see the effect on the human brain.  You can trust that when the trick is done correctly by a magician, it will produce the intended result with the subject. 

That’s where knowing how the brain works comes in handy. Once you know what it wants to see, you can give it what it wants with confidence. Just like a magician that has practiced the same trick over and over again – he gets the same result 100% of the time. You can see measurable results over time based on a few small changes. 

Keep this in mind when designing anything, and relate it to colors, images, icons and anything else that may invoke a feeling. When the brain comes to a decision point, you want to sway them in the right direction. The proper use of these simple but effective practices will ensure you are best utilizing all of the invisible psychology you possibly can. 

Let’s use a very simple example. 

A smile is a smile in any culture. What that means is that we are biologically built to react with a physical smile that turns up the outside corners of our mouth to let the world know that we are happy. No matter what language you speak, a smile gets the “happy” message across.

Nonverbal communication is 70% of the message.

That being said, your brain looks at the “whole picture” to make a judgement. When you know these things, reverse engineering the best website design is simple. You just have to stay within the right guidelines. 

Images of people smiling exude a certain positive feeling in the viewer. Colors invoke certain feelings. Everything all works together to create a feeling. You want that emotion to be tied to your brand. You want to control that feeling. 

The brain needs balance and contract. The brain wants to achieve homeostasis. Give it what it wants and you’ll be amazed at how predictable it is. 

Margins and Whitespace

Trust in whitespace. Enough said.  

Rule of Thirds

Take a look at the images below. Focal points (on the cross areas) make for great images. 

It’s everywhere you look (at least everywhere that you are looking at something professionally produced. Take a look at the best music videos on YouTube. Every 3 seconds or less, the imagery changes, yet the rules are never broken – everything that makes the final cut is perfectly “thirded-out” (as we like to say). 

The brain likes rule-of-thirds. Trust in it. When designing anything, make sure to incorporate this as a design “must”. Taking a picture, elements of a logo, product design, packaging design. 

Golden Ratio

This one is kind of mind blowing, but mathematically sound. When we design logos, we make sure to utilize this rule, sometimes referring to it as God’s Rule.

Think about this: 

People thought the world was flat, until 1492, when they realized it wasn’t. 

Psychology has only really been studied for around 150 years. 

Psychology as a self-conscious field of experimental study began in 1879. Wilhelm Wundt, often regarded as the father of psychology, opened the world’s first laboratory dedicated to the study of psychology. The Institute for Experimental Psychology in Germany opened in 1879 at the University of Leipzig. 

The beginning of modern psychology began in 1879. That means the study of psychology is less than 150 years old. 

We don’t know what we don’t know yet. But, we do know some things about psychology in design. 

Trust in these simple psychological design tips (over your gut if it’s breaking the rules). If you are ever in question, watch any professionally shot movie, music video, interview, magazine ad, or newscast. They are using it, so should you.

In Design Psychology We Trust: Psychology Behind Beautiful Design