3 Ways Influencer Marketing Can Boost Your SEO

Links have had an increasing influence in improving your search engine ranking. However, it seems as the importance of a strong, yet diverse, backlink profile has grown, the ability to easily build one has dramatically declined. That’s where influencer marketing has stepped in to save the day, so to speak. If you’re not already harnessing the power of influencer marketing in your strategy, let’s take a look at three ways it can boost your SEO, along with a quick primer on how to get started.

Boosts Engagement and Brand Visibility

There’s an incredible amount of noise out there on the web today, and if you want your business to be seen and heard over it, you can’t just scream louder… you’ve got to stand out. Engagement and traffic are necessary for your business to survive, but they’re also necessary for good ranking.

The more you engage your target audience, the more traffic you will drive to your site. Influencers are already engaged with their audiences – and if you’re working with them, you have the same audience. They can push for that traffic and engagement to help you get a head start and stand out a bit easier than you would if you were trying to do everything on your own. Nielsen reviews 92% of people trust recommendations from other people more than they do brand advertisements – so reaching out to the people your audience knows (the people they follow on social media) can also help increase brand trust. One study even showed users generally trust influencers as much as they trust their personal friends.

Strengthens Your Link Profile

Google looks at the quality of your link profile as a major part of how it determines where you rank. Your link profile is made up of the backlinks to your website, as well as the links you link to on your site. A study from Moz reveals the quality and authority of the sites that link to you are among the top ranking factors. As such, you’ll need to earn links from high-authority domains in your industry/niche, but this of course, isn’t an easy thing to do.

When you work with influencers, you increase your chances of building a better natural backlink profile for your website, which improves your ranking. If you work with bloggers and other influencers with their own website, they likely have a site they own, or access to several high-authority websites. When the influencers create content and link back to you, it generates high-quality backlinks to your site.
That said, many brands work with influencers for sales campaign purposes, to create “commercials” or advertisements for their brand. This means the links need to be disclosed as sponsored, which may affect their SEO value. Rather than encouraging influencers to break the rules and not disclose, you could instead create content-driven campaigns surrounding issues in your industry. When they create this content, they can cite your website as a resource – providing there’s quality content on your website. This bypasses the need for disclosure in most cases.

Keeps a Steady Stream of Fresh Content

Content marketing and SEO go hand-in-hand. We’ve known for a long time that Google pays attention to the freshness of your content when ranking your website. If you haven’t updated your blog in three years, you’ll lose rank in favor of your competition that’s updating regularly. Influencers are pros at creating shareable content that catches attention, so when they are working with you, you’ll get a steady stream fresh content. You may not be able to use all of that content on your website/blog, but you’ll definitely have lots of stuff to include in your social media to keep it running smoothly. And that too, is important to Google. Social shares, in terms of both quality and quantity is one of the top nine ranking factors.

Getting Started with Influencer Marketing

Depending on the budget you have available for working with influencers, you may need to start small and work with micro influencers. These are people with smaller audiences, but the audiences are highly engaged. In fact, follower count alone shouldn’t be what you base your decisions on. If you work with an influencer with 1 million followers who aren’t highly engaged, you could see better results with a micro influencer who only has 20,000 highly engaged followers. That can help you earn the inbound links, which can push your ranking higher and send more traffic and conversions your way, thus giving you more money to invest in future influencer marketing campaigns.
Many platforms exist to help you find influencers, such as Traackr, and Buzzsumo. If you’d rather not approach the influencers directly, you can use agencies that work as the intermediary between you and the influencer. This approach can cost more, and take more time. In either case, it’s best to establish relationships with influencers prior to asking them to work on a campaign with you.

Reference:https://www.business2community.com/seo/3-ways-influencer-marketing-can-boost-seo-01998864

Why Links Are Important for SEO

In the early days of SEO, web ranking was heavily based on keyword usage within the page’s content.
Without sophisticated search engine algorithms, keyword usage was the easiest way to rank pages.
The logic was simple: the more a keyword phrase was used on a webpage, the more likely that was what the page was really about.
Unfortunately, SEO practitioners of the time took advantage of this system and used keywords unnaturally by overusing the targeted keyword phrase in order to rank higher.
This method is known nowadays as keyword stuffing.
This causes sites to rank for keyword phrases even when the site doesn’t have much to offer on a topic.
A new way to look and evaluate sites on what ranks and what doesn’t was needed and should go beyond analyzing content alone.

Along Came Google: The Emergence of Google & PageRank

Google started in 1996 through a partnership between its founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
The search engine’s early ranking algorithm was based on the PageRank algorithm, developed by and named after Page while he was studying information retrieval at Stanford University.
The main idea was to use links between webpages as a ranking factor.
Google’s archived About page states that:

PageRank works by counting the number and quality of links to a page to determine a rough estimate of how important the website is. The underlying assumption is that more important websites are likely to receive more links from other websites.

Feel free to read all about the PageRank algorithm. This is all public information and the PageRank patent is viewable for free online.
It is a very technical document and readers may need more advanced programming and mathematical knowledge to comprehend it in its entirety.
Instead of reading through all of the details behind how Google analyzes and evaluates links, it may be more worthwhile to understand why this algorithm even looks at links in the first place.

Internal, Inbound, & Outbound Types of Links

A link or hyperlink is a clickable object on a webpage that leads from one page to another. Links may visibly appear as text, images, or buttons.
We can classify links based on the destination of the link, whether it leads users to another page on the same site or a different website.
Internal links are links between the pages within your own website.
Search engines determine this by looking at the domain name; if the links on a page link to other pages within the same domain, they are considered internal links.
If, for some reason, your website was built to have more than one domain, search engines will view this as an external link.

Inbound links are links that come from other websites or a different domain name.

Outbound links are those links on your website that link out to websites with a different domain name.

Inbound Link Focus: Natural Links from High-Quality Pages for Greater SEO Benefits

Out of the three types of links, inbound links are the ones with the greatest SEO benefit, but they are also the hardest to obtain.

High-Quality Pages Are like Friends You Go to for Advice: They’re Trustworthy, Credible, & Have Some Sort of Authority on the Topic.

Whenever any webpage links to another webpage, the creator of the content that used the link did it for a reason.
Often, they like the page they are linking to because it has information that supports or builds on the information on the first page.
On the other hand, some authors link to pages for the opposite reason; they may be linking to a page they want to criticize or don’t agree with.
However, both of these links are good for the page being linked to. Whether the content is loved or despised, it has provoked a strong reaction, which indicates quality content.
If the content of a page makes someone talk, it indicates authority, credibility and/or trustworthiness.
Thus, links on pages are like votes of trust, credibility, and authority.
The more links a page gets, the more votes they are getting, which can improve their ranking.
However, the quantity of links that a page gets is not all that matters.
Google also evaluates the quality of the links.

Nobody Likes Fake Friends

Sometimes you identify fake people right away. Other times, it isn’t so easy.
The same is true when Google looks at webpages. Links that seem like votes of trust can easily be faked using things like:

• Online forums.
• Blog comments.
• Guestbooks.
• Wikis.
• Social media profiles.
• Article directories.
• Q&A sites.
• Social bookmarking.

These are called artificial links.
Sometimes, Google identifies that the links are fake right away, but not always. It can take Google a while to identify artificial links.
These artificial links have negative consequences for the pages.
The rank of these pages with artificial links can be hurt by various ranking factors monitoring link quality, as well as algorithm updates, or even manual actions from Google.
In order to have good, natural links, a site needs quality content that is trustworthy, credible, and authoritative.
This allows the pages to gain quality, natural links from other websites, which will help their ranking.

Inbound Links Are Still Important Even After Google’s Penguin Update

In recent years, Google has implemented a series of important algorithm updates. One of these important updates was Penguin.
Google’s Penguin update has now become an essential part of the core algorithm.
The Penguin update allows Google to evaluate the quality of links more effectively.
After this update, some SEO professionals were under the impression that links no longer mattered; however, this is not the case.
Links are important in ranking and still indicate the same values as before.
Links serve as a reflection of the quality of a page’s content as long as they are natural links.
The Penguin update made it easier for Google to identify artificial links.
Links have always been important ranking factors; however, the methods of obtaining links has evolved, especially after the Penguin update arrived.

Everyone Doesn’t Think Like an SEO, Don’t Over Do Anchor Text

One of the important aspects of inbound links that search engines pay attention to is the anchor text of a link.
Anchor text is the clickable text of a link or the alternative text of an image in image links.
The anchor text helps give search engines an idea of the topic of the destination page.
Historically, this was abused and made link bombing possible, which is simply using the exact phrase you want to rank for in all the inbound links’ anchor text from thousands of webpages, regardless of the quality or relevancy of the page.
Many previous Google updates addressed this issue, including the Penguin update, where overdoing keyword-focused anchor text can appear unnatural and may negatively affect ranking.
Ever since the Penguin update, there has been a strong focus on having natural anchor text in your inbound links.
Here are a couple things to look out for that may jeopardize your link building efforts:

• Naturally, when people add a link on a page going to your website, often the anchor text will be your brand or company name. Thus, if your keyword-focused anchor text is more in quantity than your branded anchor text, this might cause problems. It is best to have more branded anchor text.
• Not everyone thinks the same and it is highly unlikely that a lot of people will use exactly the same anchor text. If you keep optimizing for the same anchor text when trying to gain links from other sites and it starts to become the majority anchor text and it is not your brand name, this is highly unnatural. It is important to see some diversity in anchor text, even including generic anchor text like click here, visit here, website, etc.

Internal Link Focus: Distribute PageRank Well Across Your Site

Inbound links are the most beneficial because PageRank gets passed on from other sites to your site.
The more inbound links you get, the more PageRank you receive.
As a chain of links hop from one page to another, the flow of PageRank gets weaker and weaker.
In almost any website, the page with the most inbound links is the homepage of the site. Therefore, if a page within your site is too far from the homepage, the PageRank will decrease significantly before reaching the page.
This causes pages that are linked really far from the home page to rank poorly. Since not all pages will get inbound links, your internal links should serve two purposes:

• Help users navigate to the different pages of your site.
• Help search engines crawl your entire site with fewer hops as possible from page to page.

Here are the common areas where you will find internal links:

• Normal Site Navigation: Links that are usually located in a top bar menu, sidebar menu, and in the footer that exist on all pages. This is usually built upon your site architecture, on how topics are categorized and subcategorized to build out topics and subtopics from general to specific pages.
• Related Pages: A section of a page that points out other pages that are related to the topic of the page. This is beneficial to users because it helps suggest pages that the user was probably looking for.
• User Sitemaps: A sitemap is a single page that links out to all other pages of the site. Based on usability studies, there are three types of people that navigate a site: those who use the normal site navigation, those who immediately use the search box, and those who go straight to the sitemap. For very large sites, sitemaps can be overwhelming and in cases like this, the sitemap may just contain the main category areas and not necessarily every page of the site.
• In-Content Links: Within the content of a page, links can be added to the words within a paragraph. This is under-utilized by many websites, but in other cases, it can also be over optimized, which can have negative effects on SEO. Just link naturally, and have the user in mind when building links like these.

Even if we’re emphasizing to use internal links in the distribution of PageRank, always make sure the users are the highest priority. Always design sites, and think of internal links for users first, then search engines second, and learn all best practices on internal site navigation.

Outbound Link Focus: Just Appear Natural

Over the years, SEO pros have evolved how they use outbound links.
Some believed that outbound links took away PageRank, decreasing its potential to rank.
For some number of years, this may have been correct.
This is where terms like “PageRank hoarding” and “PageRank channeling” came from.
Any outbound link was the equivalent of a leak. But if an outbound link was necessary for users, you could add the nofollow link attribute.
The nofollow was like telling search engines, “don’t follow this link and give my PageRank to that page.”
However many SEO practitioners abused this until Google came up with an update in 2009 on PageRank evaporation.
In a nutshell, PageRank hoarding just didn’t work like it used to. Multiple theories and best practices have sprung out of this, such as:

• Don’t have too many outbound links: In theory, the whole reasoning of PageRank leaking still holds up to today. However, every once in a while you may find sites with tons of outbound links and yet the page still ranks high. Thus the rule here is just doing what seems to make sense.
• Don’t always nofollow all outbound links: Adding a rel=nofollow attribute to links on the <a> tag tells search engines to not credit that link for ranking purposes. It makes sense to always add the nofollow to avoid PageRank leaking to other sites. However, overdoing or over-optimizing it just doesn’t appear natural and the intent appears to really be hoarding PageRank.
• Good quality sites tend to link to good quality sites: Giving links is just as important as getting links. Good quality sites are maintaining a level of quality that made them who they are, thus if these sites are going to link out to other sites, they’d choose a good quality destination, too. Since this is a common behavior on good quality sites, might as well replicate that behavior to help show signals to search engines that you are a good quality site too.

In all these three bullet points, the rules may appear conflicting.
No outbound links preserve PageRank, but no links at all look fishy.
Adding a nofollow should help preserve PageRank, however, if links are all nofollow, they look more unnatural.
Conventional wisdom taught us that outbound links leak out PageRank and that is still true today, but it is recommended to link to good quality sites.
The rules here don’t seem to be set in stone and is somewhat flexible, but the main rule that is valid and applies to all rules above is to appear natural.
Link out to other sites if it is the natural thing to do.

Summary

Links have been an important part of SEO. They still are. And it looks like it will still be important in the years to come.
However, like many other things in SEO, how optimization was done in the past is much different compared to how it is done today.
We classify links as inbound links, outbound links, and internal links.

• Inbound links provide the largest impact since they are like votes of trust, credibility, and authority that help out in ranking, but it is important that these inbound links are natural links and come from high quality, relevant sites.
• Internal links help distribute PageRank from the inbound links to other pages of the site to help improve ranking on many other pages. Furthermore, internal links aren’t only about search engines. Always serve the users first.
• Outbound links should just be used in a way that appears natural to the user. Linking out to high quality sites will help show these signs and also help associate your site with higher quality sites.

If there is one single theme across all these types of links, it will mainly be link naturally. If it looks bad to humans, most probably it looks bad to search engines.

Reference:https://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-101/why-links-important-seo/

Important Platforms for Driving Traffic with Off-Page SEO

Most people tend to concentrate only on on-page search engine optimization to get better search engine rankings and more organic traffic. While this method is indeed extremely important, smart marketers know that you can also get very impressive results by off-page SEO initiatives. These are activities on platforms other than the website itself that will result in an increase of traffic. Some popular platforms ideal for off-page SEO:
Social Media
Social media networks are among the most effective drivers of brand reputation and awareness. With the huge number of users that many of the leading social media networks have, brands love the opportunity to target focused communication in an informal way that is very effective in building brand loyalty. By providing links to your website on the social media, you can leverage the interest created in your brand for conversions. With Google factoring in social media links in its algorithm, the importance of having a vibrant social media presence has grown.
Social Bookmarking Sites
With social bookmarks, you can save website addresses so that you can return to them later. You can create bookmarks and tag pages with your keywords, easily classify them, share and discuss them with other users. Search engines are very quick to index the bookmarked page on a bookmarking site. If your site becomes well known in social bookmarking sites, the popularity will be reflected in the backlinks that people start using, which further helps your SEO; however, link exchanging is frowned upon by Google.To leverage your site to the maximum with social bookmarks, you can get in touch with an expert SEO agency like SandCrestSEO.com. Google interprets social-bookmarking links to be natural backlinks to your website and use them to give your site a better rank. This is further facilitated as the accompanying descriptive text usually contains vital keywords that are simultaneously indexed.
Blog and Forum Submissions
An interactive blog can be a major attraction for users to make repeat visits to your site; with this, it is possible to develop a healthy relationship of trust and credibility. However, the content quality must be very high and the blog written in such a way that it delivers value to the user. When you publish high-quality blog posts on sites that have very high authority, much of that authority also passes on to you and you get exposure to a wider audience who are likely to visit your website due to the backlinks embedded in your post. A blog post that is well written serves to inform readers about issues that are important to them and also acts as a platform for promoting your own products. Similarly, you can use forum submissions to engage with customers, build authority, and drive traffic to your website.
Conclusion
Rather than limiting your SEO initiatives to just on-page activities, you should maximize the gain with effective off-page SEO. In an environment where users are looking at various sources of information in addition to search engines, this strategy can be very useful in driving more website traffic.  

Reference:https://irishtechnews.ie/important-platforms-for-driving-traffic-with-off-page-seo/

The Essential List of Free PPC Tools

It’s imperative for SEM managers to have a broad toolset at their disposal at all times.
When it comes to free PPC tools, there are so many great free resources available.
After crowdsourcing a few dozen suggestions from my LinkedIn and Twitter networks, as well as my team, I came to an undeniable conclusion: everyone is trying to do the same thing in different ways.
The old Abraham Maslow adage of “If your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail,” comes to mind.
What follows is a comprehensive resource guide to free and freemium PPC tools, organized by task or goal, with tips and tricks to make the most of each tool.

Keyword Research Tools

Free

Google + Bing Keyword Planners

A lot of people don’t like the keyword tool because the data can be anywhere from inaccurate to outright wrong.
However, I love the keyword planners to death, even if the data can be a bit suspect.
You have to take them for what they are. They’re designed for expanded ideation.
When you put keywords in for ideas, the tools fire off matches the same way pure broad match might work.
Google and Bing’s keyword planners aren’t perfect, but can plant amazing seed ideas for campaigns and ad groups. The decent (but not perfect) volume estimates are a bonus.
A few tips:

• Use the volume estimates as directional data, not as absolutes. Set your base bids based on what you can afford, not what the tools say the average is.
• I’ve always used a 1,000 monthly searches estimate as a secondary threshold to segment ad groups. This still holds true as a good proxy when search intent + messaging are too close to call.
• In general, things with no volume estimates will get tagged with low search volume and likely won’t show. Its fine to include them in the account, but be careful of ad group sculpting (negating exact from broad or phrase). This may prevent the LSV queries from ever showing.
• Don’t get too precise with regions. Estimates lose their utility when you go beyond State or Province level.

Google Search Console + Google Analytics

You can get a decent amount of organic query data out of Google Search Console, which can help flesh out your campaigns and fill in gaps.
Google Analytics can give limited organic search data, but the real value comes from analyzing your on-site searches.
Be careful however, that your PPC doesn’t wind up stealing market share from organic.

Search Suggestion Tools

Keywordtool.io, UberSuggest.io and Soovle all do loosely the same thing – they scrape search suggestions from various engines, each with varying degrees of completeness.
Each has their own distinct advantages/disadvantages. It’s worth toying with each to ensure you have complete coverage.

• UberSuggest has the most comprehensive pull from Google, but nowhere else. Plus you can export the data.
• Keyword Tool has a few more options (including Bing/Amazon/eBay), but it doesn’t seem to generate quite as robust a list as Uber. Data is also exportable.
• Soovle allows you to pick from every engine under the sun, but limits the results it shows. Great for finding super long-tail terms to target search partner-heavy terms.

Answer The Public is a humanized version search suggest and the closest thing I’ve seen to replicating the Google Wonder Wheel (RIP). Enter your base word or phrase, and it’ll spring off into natural language queries.
It’s more valuable as a content/landing page/ad copy development too than a purebred keyword tool. Plus it’s got a handsome old man with a nice sweater on it.

Freemium

If anyone finds a paid/freemium keyword research tool that’s worth it, let me know.

Honorable Mentions

Keywords Everywhere is a Chrome extension that shows volume + competition in the search bar.
KW Finder is another suggest-based tool including a competitiveness metric.
Keyword Wrapper formats your builds to include BMM/phrase/exact match. I’m an Excel-first guy, but if you want a match type wrapper it’s here.
BigQuery to Sheets de-samples analytics data. I haven’t personally used it but it was recommended by a few.

PPC Competitive Analysis Tools

If you’re using a competitive analysis tool to find competitive spend, you’re doing it wrong.
The estimator tools all operate (roughly) by scraping the SERP and reporting back on what they can see.
They triangulate via estimates in Keyword Planners to get spend estimates.
If you must guess what others are spending, run yourself through the tools and use competitive estimates as a proportion.
You’ll be wrong, though.

Free

Auction Insights

Auction Insights from Bing + Google are the best competitive analysis tools you’ll find.
They’re free in the sense that there’s no monthly fee, but expensive as they’ll only show competitive data relative to your own.
Bear in mind auction insights pull data at the auction level.
If you pull data on broad match terms or shopping campaigns, you’ll have a far less accurate picture.
Sticking to exact match terms will give the clearest insights.

Remember to segment by time to see how their strategy evolves!

Freemium

SpyFu/iSpionage/KeywordSpy/SEMrush

Each of these SERP scraping tools give you a bit of insight for free, but with investment comes far better data.
I’m oversimplifying here, but the baseline use of each is similar.
You can see what ads appeared over time and for what keywords. The differentiation comes from the added “bells and whistles.”
SEMRush + SpyFu are the most robust (and thus, most expensive after free trial) but they feature the most complete dataset.

AdBeat

This tool accomplishes much of the same for display.
You can get some competitive data for free, but robust reporting will cost you.

Bidding + Campaign Management Tools

Free

AdWords Scripts

Don’t get scared of scripts because you don’t have a coding background.
There’s a myriad of free resources out there to help educate you.
Checking landing pages, adjusting for anomalies or pausing a campaign that goes haywire should be simply automated.
A few of my favorite script libraries include:

• Russell Savage’s Free AdWords Scripts,
• Frederick Vallaeys’ Optymzr blog,
• and this crazy comprehensive list of 100 AdWords Scripts from the fine folks at Koozai.

There’s also the good old-fashioned Google Developer’s Guide.
Buyer beware – AdWords scripts will time out after 30 minutes, and can only touch 250,000 entities per go.
Make sure you have controls in place lest your script only touch part of the account.

Automated Rules from Google + Bing

Automated Rules from Google + Bing are both fantastic for executing simple tasks like pausing ads at the end of a sale or boosting bids to first page recommendations.
If your account is more complex, you can use labels to help guide the rules.

Bidding Tools from Google + Bing

By the same token, Bidding Tools from both of the engines are effective.
I’ve heard a myriad of complaints and conspiracy theories around these – trusting the fox to guard the henhouse, if you will.
Remember, it’s in the engines best interests for your advertising to perform well!
Each of the engine bidding tools has their own strengths and weaknesses.
As a general rule, you can trust the engines to make smart decisions with correct data.
A significant lot of offline information or a complicated sales process can diminish UI-based bidding tools.
However, if all of the data you’d need is within the interfaces, give their bidding tools a try.
Make sure to set CPC caps where applicable, however, so the tools don’t get too excited.

Freemium/Affordable (But Worth It)

There are a million and one bidding platforms available.
I’m not going to get into a debate for which is best, and they are most definitely not free.
On a smaller scale, tools like Adalysis can make your PPC lives significantly easier by automating account checks and ad tests. Optymzer is another great option in the same vein.
Both feature a 14-day free trial to see if they’re a fit.

Reporting + Data Visualization

Free

Google Data Studio

Google Data Studio is glorious, plain and simple.
As long as all of the data you need lives in engines or DoubleClick, it’s easy to get things set up in a nice tidy live dashboard.
If you have any issues or any data sources you can’t embed, there’s a robust developer community or a number of connectors available from SuperMetrics

Chandoo and ExcelCharts

If you are an Excel person (as most of us are), you’ll need a deft hand to create more than stacked bars and bubble charts.
Chandoo.org + ExcelCharts.com are two of my favorites to better understand data visualization and to make your results sing.

Freemium/Affordable

SuperMetrics is a comprehensive tool to get your marketing data in a single place. It was initially developed for Google Sheets + Excel, but now can port data directly into Data Studio.
If you can’t get things done in Data Studio, there are many options available to help. Swydo, ReportGarden, and Reporting Ninja each have a variety of bonus features beyond dashboarding and basic budget management.
AdStage and NinjaCat are a bit more robust solutions if you need complex data integration. All have free trials, and monthly fees beyond that

Audiences Insights

Free

Google Display Planner

The Google Display Planner is good at a lot of things beyond setting up a display campaign.
Drop your website in to get a view of affinity topics + interests, as well as related demographic and device browsing behavior.
These can help prioritize search campaigns and set better bid modifiers

AdWords Audience Insights

AdWords Audience Insights can paint a clear picture of exactly who’s visiting your site, on your CRM list, or (better yet) converting.

Facebook Audience Insights

Facebook Audience Insights will do the same, but with far greater accuracy.
Both can give a ton of information into the composition of your actual audience.

Freemium

There are a few options available for robust audience insights and behavioral analysis.
SimilarWeb (no registration required) or Alexa (7-day trial) grant tons of user information and paint a picture of your site audience or that of your competitors. Both products are on the pricey side, but you can get a good deal of information for free.

Conversion Rate Optimization

Free

Post-click optimization is a crucial tool to have in your PPC toolbelt, and the tools don’t have to cost a ton!

Google Optimize

Google Optimize is a good place to start, allowing simple site tests without heavy coding.
You can launch A/B tests, basic multivariate tests, or re-directs to control what a user sees without having to clone your ads a million times.
The tool is on the basic side.

VWO and Optimizely

If your testing program expands you may want to invest a premium tool like VWO or Optimizely.

Freemium

Much of conversion rate optimization comes down to a basic understanding of how the human mind and eyes work, and what draws attention.
Heat mapping and mouse recording are both powerful methods to understand where users go first and to help assess before and after of your CRO tests.

HotJar

HotJar is a great heat mapping tool product that has a limited free-forever version, though more robust options start at $29/month.

Unbounce

If you don’t have a strong landing page, heat mapping isn’t the best place to start. Instead, start by developing a solid landing page for your campaign.
Unbounce is arguably the best known (and longest tenured) landing page tool and has a 30-day trial to get started, then it starts at $79/month after that.

Lander

Lander is more affordable (starting at $16/month after trial), but isn’t quite as robust.

Ontrapages

You can get free-forever landing pages from Ontrapages, albeit with a little branding until you upgrade.

Bonus Things I Love

Focus and Productivity

A lot of us work in open offices now which are proven to be counterproductive for pretty much anything besides meetings.
I recommend the Music For Office Workers playlist series from Drowned in Sound (note: need to sign up/sign in to Spotify to use). It helps drown out distractions, replacing them with beautiful ambient + classical music. Pair it with an Audioengine D1 and your favorite headphones for extra high-quality focus tunes.
For those who are more of the ambient noise camp, check out Noisli.
It’s important to remember the human brain isn’t exactly a finely-tuned focus machine – we only have a certain capacity before we lose effectiveness, especially the millennial brain.
I’m a huge proponent of the Pomodoro method (3-5 minute breaks every 25-30 minutes). Marinara is a simple extension tells you when it’s time to take a break and look at something else for a few minutes to clear your head. It’s good for your eyes, too!

Project Management

Project management is one thing I see people struggle with as they grow in their careers. Nothing is more challenging than putting together reports and forgetting what you did.
I love Trello to keep track of long-term projects across teams.
For a more robust solution, FreedCamp acts as a freemium version of Basecamp. It’s not as complete but will suffice in many scenarios.
That said, a well-developed Google Sheet can go a long way.

Reference:https://www.searchenginejournal.com/essential-free-ppc-tools/232971/

How Marketing and Advertising Are Bound to Change In 2018

Ad blockers, live video and AI present opportunities as well as challenges.


Digital marketing hasn’t seen any major shifts in a while. Sure, we had to optimize our websites for mobile user experience, tweak SEO a little as the algorithm gods required and make a few other minor changes. Social media has been booming, too -- but nothing very thought-provoking.
This new year is bound to be a different story, and we can’t sit around and wait. Look at what’s already happening: social media is changing, the law is changing, and there are murmurs about how net neutrality (or lack thereof) will affect digital advertising. It's easy to predict the industry will face significant changes in 2018. Here are four key aspects that will shape the new landscape.

1. Privacy.

One successfully could argue the internet is funded mostly through ads. Websites use cookies that allow companies to target their customers based on what those consumers view in their own browsers. But users constantly are changing devices, and that makes it difficult to keep track of all the consumer touch points. Even savvy marketers are working hard to determine the channels with the most impact and justify their methods to clients.
Still, it’s doable. Robust marketing tools can track and connect user data to target individuals. But certain privacy concerns make this a little harder for internet advertising.
Ad blockers are just one of the challenges. According to a PaigeFair report published in January, 11 percent of internet users employ some type of ad blocker -- a 30 percent increase from the previous year. Consumers want to protect their privacy, security and time from ad interruption. To curb this, some websites use walls that prevent browsers with ad blockers from viewing their content. These sites ask users to manually disable the blocker, but 74 percent of people in the PaigeFair report simply abandoned the site.

2. Live video.

Visual content has become more popular on the internet, and many companies are poised to make this their primary communication tool in 2018. That means rich media, creative videos, GIFs, memes and more are bound to be trendier this year. And there’s a good reason for it: Users interact better with visuals.
Of all the options, live video is the one to watch. A 2016 Buffer survey discovered more than 80 percent of marketers wanted to create more video. At the time, an impressive 42 percent wanted to target live video. In the same year, Facebook reported live videos were seeing as much as triple the watch time as traditional video. It also was garnering 10 times the comments. Live video is so effective because it’s authentic, human and littered with errors.
It's not just live video versus recorded video -- it's live video versus everything. According to Livestream, 82 percent of users would rather watch a brand’s live video than read the same company's social-media posts. A close 80 percent would rather tune in to a live video than read a blog post.

3. Artificial intelligence (AI).

Think it’s too early to talk about AI's impact on marketing and advertising? Think again. AI already is entrenched in our daily lives, and it’s quickly becoming a rib in marketing. Worldwide, 58 percent of chief marketing officers believe companies will have to compete within the AI space to succeed in the next five years.Enter AI marketing. This is how to bridge the gap between data science and marketing. Technology enables marketers to sift through a drastically multiplying data load to unearth insights that will help them provide value to target customers while gaining returns on their investments. Even better, this form of marketing doesn't have to to take up all their time -- they can automate much of the tasks to run in the background. With so many benefits, why would AI be incorporated into marketing strategies?

Over to you.

Whether 2018 turns out to be a good or bad year for the industry wholly depends upon the stakeholders in this marketing disruption. Professionals must begin to study the trends (if they haven't already) and adjust their current strategies. What they have right now might not get them past the first quarter of what's sure to be a highly competitive year.

Reference:https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/306162

4 Tips for Personalizing Your Next Email Campaign

When it comes to online marketing, setting up an effective email campaign frustrates many business owners. Most operate under the assumption that having an email opt-in plugin and signing up with an email marketing service is enough to get high conversions. What they have failed to grasp is the importance of email personalization.
One study has revealed that 70% of businesses neglect to personalize their emails. Making this mistake significantly undermines your campaign, considering that personalized emails boost revenue six times more than generic ones. Personalization yields a 41% higher click-through rate and recipients are also 29% more likely to take action to your message.

[Graphic via FormGet]

So how can you personalize your email marketing to boost your campaign? Here are four tips:

Tailor it to the Demographic

One of the best ways to boost response rates is to tailor your email's look and message to specific demographic elements, like age and gender. If you're selling care products, cosmetics would grab the interest of women while men would want to know more about shaving products. Making use of a distinct appeal to the preheader can also encourage open rates. For instance, referencing winter when selling snow boots and winter jackets to people in states experiencing cold weather will catch their attention.

Come Up with the Right Questions

“Ask and ye shall receive” is a good mantra to remember when designing your email marketing campaign. A lot of businesses simply assume they know what the customer wants only to have their messages ignored. Instead of assuming, ask your audience key questions, like their reason for becoming a user, subscribing to a newsletter or visiting their website. It's simple and can give you valuable data.
Wedding specialist Paper Style hit the goldmine when they asked visitors on their site whether they were preparing for their wedding or someone else's. Not only did the simple question quickly segmented probable clients, it also gave them insight on the type of correspondence to send to their prospects.

[Graphic via PaperStyle case study]

Time it Well

Timing is everything, especially in email marketing. Every customer has a distinct routine when it comes to emails. Some check once in the morning while others look at their inbox every half hour. Sending an email when your client is most likely to check their inbox and will help boost sales.

[Graphic via Fusion BPO]

However, finding the right time can be challenging. A number of email service providers are now offering tools that can study when subscribers check their inbox and make adjustments to the delivery time.

Personalize Your Brand

Don't limit personalization to emails or to how you use your customer's data. Your brand can use a personal touch as well. Personalizing your brand humanizes it, making it easier to connect with your customer. It could even boost your click-through rate.
This was clearly shown in an experiment conducted by HubSpot. The company sent two emails to test what else could be done to make them feel more personal and to enhance customer engagement. One email was from the company itself, while the other was from someone in HubSpot's marketing team.

[Graphic via HubSpot blog]

Interestingly, the results showed that more people clicked on the message sent by a person than the one sent by a business. This demonstrated that people were more amenable to a more personal touch in business. So if you want a more positive response, a personalized email is the way to go. Aside from using a real person, you can also try making it more informal. Using a conversational tone or the pronouns “I” and “we” can also improve your response rate.

Reference:https://www.webpronews.com/4-tips-personalizing-next-email-campaign/

SEO trends and Google changes to expect in 2018

Columnist Pratik Dholakiya explores current search trends and speculates on where the industry might be headed in 2018.

We’re already over a week into 2018, and the start of a new year is a great time to check in and see where we stand as an industry — and how things might change this year.

Prepare for fake news algorithm updates

Back in 2010, Google was getting beaten up in the media for the increasing amount of “content farm” clutter in the search results. That negative press was so overwhelming that Google felt it had no choice but to respond:

[We] hear the feedback from the web loud and clear: people are asking for even stronger action on content farms and sites that consist primarily of spammy or low-quality content.

Soon after that, in February 2011, the Google Panda update was released, which specifically targeted spammy and low-quality content.
Why do I bring this up today? Because the media has been hammering Google for promoting fake news for the past year and a half — a problem so extensive that search industry expert Danny Sullivan has referred to it as “Google’s biggest-ever search quality crisis.”
Needless to say, these accusations are hurting Google’s image in ways that cut far deeper than content farms. While the problem of rooting out false information is a difficult one, it is one that Google has a great deal of motivation to solve.
Google has already taken action to combat the issue in response to the negative press, including banning publishers who were promoting fake news ads, testing new ways for users to report offensive autocomplete suggestions, adjusting their algorithm to devalue “non-authoritative information” (such as Holocaust denial sites), and adding “fact check” tags to search results.
Of course, the issue of trustworthy search results has been on Google’s radar for years. In 2015, researchers from Google released a paper on Knowledge-Based Trust (KBT), a way of evaluating the quality of web pages based on their factual accuracy rather than the number of inbound links. If implemented, the Knowledge-Based Trust system would ultimately demote sites that repeatedly publish fake news (although there is a potential for it to go wrong if the incorrect facts become widely circulated).
Whether the Knowledge-Based Trust method is enough to combat fake news — or if some version of it has already been implemented without success — is difficult to say. But, it’s clear that Google is interested in making truthfulness a ranking factor, and they’ve never had a stronger motivation to do so than now.

Voice search and featured snippets will grow hand-in-hand

One in five mobile search queries currently comes from voice search — a number that is likely to rise as Google Assistant-enabled devices such as Google Home continue to grow in popularity. And as voice search grows, we can expect to see an increase in featured snippets, from which Google often sources its voice search results.
Indeed, there is already evidence that this growth is taking place. A study released by Stone Temple Consulting last year confirmed that featured snippets are on the rise, appearing for roughly 30 percent of the 1.4 million queries they tested.
If this trend continues, featured snippets may even begin to rival the top organic listing as the place to be if you want to get noticed. (For more on featured snippets and how to target them, check out Stephan Spencer’s excellent primer on the subject.)

Artificial intelligence (AI) will power many more aspects of search

It’s now been over two years since we were first introduced to RankBrain, Google’s machine-learning AI system which helps to process its search results. Since its introduction, it’s gone from handling 15 percent of search queries to all of them.
Google’s interest in AI extends much further than RankBrain, however. They have developed the Cloud Vision API, which is capable of recognizing an enormous number of objects. Indeed, Google has so much machine-learning capacity that they are now selling it as its own product.
But perhaps most interestingly, Google has now built an AI that is better at building AI than humans are. This was a project by Google Brain, a team that specializes specifically in building AI for Google.
Unfortunately, AI is not without its issues. AIs tend to get stuck in local minima, where they arrive at a “good enough” solution and are unable to climb out of it in order to discover a better solution. They also have a tendency to confuse correlation with causation; one might even call them “superstitious” in that they draw connections between unrelated things. And since the developers only program the machine-learning algorithm, they themselves don’t understand how the final algorithm works, and as a result, have even more difficulty predicting how it will behave than in the case of traditional programs.
As Google continues to embrace AI and incorporate more of it into their search algorithms, we can expect search results to start behaving in less predictable ways. This will not always be a good thing, but it is something we should be prepared for.
AI doesn’t change much in the way of long-term SEO strategies. Optimizing for AI is essentially optimizing for humans, since the goal of a machine-learning algorithm is to make predictions similar to those of humans.

Manipulative guest posting is likely to take a hit

In May, Google warned webmasters that using article marketing as a large-scale link-building tactic is against its guidelines and could result in a penalty. Since this is already well known in the SEO community, Google’s announcement likely signals that an algorithm update targeting manipulative guest posting is on the horizon.
What counts as manipulative guest posting? To me, the most vital piece of information from Google’s guidelines has always been the recommendation to ask yourself, “Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?”
Guest posts that don’t expand brand awareness or send referral traffic aren’t worth doing, except for the possibility that they will positively impact your search engine rankings. The irony of taking that approach is that it isn’t likely to work well for your search engine rankings either — at least not in the long term.
I’m not saying anything that isn’t common knowledge in the SEO community, but I have a feeling that a lot of people in this industry are fooling themselves. All too often, I see marketers pursuing unsustainable guest posting practices and telling themselves that what they are doing is legitimate. That is what a lot of people were telling themselves about article marketing on sites like EzineArticles back in the day, too.

‘Linkless’ mentions

Bing has confirmed that they track unlinked brand mentions and use them as a ranking signal — and a patent by Google (along with observations from many SEO experts) indicates that Google may be doing this as well.
As AI begins to play a bigger part in rankings, it’s not unreasonable to expect “linkless” mentions of this type to start playing a bigger role in search rankings.
The tactics used to earn brand mentions are, of course, not much different from the tactics used to earn links, but since the number of people who mention brands is much higher than the number of people who link to them, this could provide a good boost for smaller brands that fall below the threshold of earning press.
This highlights the importance of being involved in conversations on the web, and the importance of inciting those conversations yourself.

An interstitial crackdown may be on the way

The early 2017 mobile interstitial penalty update was a sign of Google’s continued battle against intrusive mobile ads. The hardest hit sites had aggressive advertising that blocked users from taking action, deceptive advertising placement and/or other issues that hindered use of the interface.
However, columnist and SEO expert Glenn Gabe noted that the impact of this penalty seemed… underwhelming. Big brands still seem to be getting away with interstitial ads, but Google may decide to crack down on these in the near future. The crucial factor seems to be the amount of trust big brands have accumulated in other ways. How all of this shakes out ultimately depends on how Google will reward branding vs. intrusive advertising.

Mobile-first indexing

It’s been nearly three years since Google announced that mobile searches had finally surpassed desktop searches on its search engine — and just last year, BrightEdge found that 57 percent of traffic among its clients came from mobile devices.
Google is responding to this shift in user behavior with mobile-first indexing, which means “Google will create and rank its search listings based on the mobile version of content, even for listings that are shown to desktop users.” Representatives from Google have stated that we can expect the mobile-first index to launch this year.
In other words, 2018 very well may be the year where signals that used to only impact searches from mobile devices become signals that impact all searches. Sites that fail to work on a mobile device may soon become obsolete.

Be prepared for this year

Google has come a long way since it first hit the scene in the late 1990s. The prevalence of AI, the political climate and efforts and warnings against manipulative guest posts and distracting advertisements, all signal that change is coming. Focus on long-term SEO strategies that will keep you competitive in the year ahead.

Reference:https://searchengineland.com/seo-trends-google-changes-expect-2018-289425

 

Google Will Now Prioritize Page Speed for Mobile Search

A few days ago, Google announced the introduction of an enhanced PageSpeed Insights tool to aid website owners in optimizing the loading speed of their pages. It now turns out that publishers may need to use the enhanced tool a lot more than expected. In a recent announcement, Google finally revealed an important factor that will be used to rank mobile pages and its all about loading speed.
Starting in July 2018, Google will make changes to the way it prioritizes mobile pages in search ranking results. Called the "Speed Update," the company will be giving more importance to the page speed in ranking search results.
Of course, page speed will not be the only factor used to determine the ranking of mobile pages. There will be times where even slower loading pages will still be ranked higher, as long as it still contains the most relevant content relative to the search query. In fact, Google said that the change will only affect a small percentage of total mobile queries.
“The ‘Speed Update,’ as we’re calling it, will only affect pages that deliver the slowest experience to users and will only affect a small percentage of queries,” Google’s Zhiheng Wang and Doantam Phan explained. “It applies the same standard to all pages, regardless of the technology used to build the page. The intent of the search query is still a very strong signal, so a slow page may still rank highly if it has great, relevant content.”
In February 2016, Google gave the indication that loading speed would matter in search query results ranking by highlighting pages using AMP (Accelerated Mobile Page) technology. By April of last year, Google News started giving priority to news articles published on AMP sites.
Of course, Google’s end goal is to give a better experience for mobile users of its search engine. At the moment, it’s not yet clear if the same algorithm change will be adapted to desktop users as well.

Reference:https://www.webpronews.com/google-will-now-prioritize-page-speed-mobile-search/

How to Achieve an SEO-Friendly Website Rebrand

Rebrands are one of those non-trivial business decisions that usually require not only content but also design, including structural web changes or migrations.
It is critical to take SEO into consideration during rebrands to avoid brand related rankings and traffic loss and any potential negative influence on “non-branded” queries rankings targeted by the impacted pages.
Besides following general web migration SEO best practices, during a rebrand, it’s specifically critical to:

• Keep the relevance towards the old brand (as well as products, services or business non-branded queries) while also becoming relevant to the new one.
• Avoid losing the link popularity of the well-established brand-related pages that won’t be part of the site anymore.

There are a few different ways to achieve this based on the type of rebranding if it is happening to the company name or a specific line of products.

1. Company Name Rebrand

Let’s start with the likely most common one: the generic company name rebrand.
Changing the name of a company is the most “drastic” rebranding scenario.
The site will likely need to migrate to a new domain. This change is usually accompanied by a new website design that reflects the new brand.
What steps can you follow to minimize the impact here?
In this case it will be fundamental to 301-redirect every URL of the old domain to their new domain destination, taking into consideration these pages’ former “natural” relevance toward the old brand that was included in the domain name that will be now something else.
Let’s say, if it was called “X” and the domain was x.com and will now to be called “Y”, it should then be moved toward y.com.
The home page usually ends up ranking for most of the queries related to the company brand name (as will the about us page, although it has less impact from a business perspective).
However, in a new domain, the home page will usually lose the relevance toward the old brand as it will now feature the new brand information.
It will be then necessary to:

• Create a new page in the new domain about the old brand (www.y.com/x), which will serve as a “bridge” page to target and rank for the old branded queries. This page will also help to explain the company’s rebranding details and will link to the home page by referring to the new brand, with a link using a relevant anchor text for it.
• The home page (and ideally all internal pages) should also add an explanatory text (at least for a while) explaining about the rebrand, and linking to the old brand page (with a relevant anchor text) that was created to explain further.

By doing this, as can be seen in the following graphic, although the home page won’t be able to “retain” the old brand rankings – as it won’t be relevant towards it anymore – it will help to refer the new page that will be created to target them, in a way that makes sense and also helps from a business perspective.

Additionally, it’s always a good idea to revise the Google Search Console Search Analytics report or external data sources by using tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs.
This needs to be done in order to verify which other pages besides the home page (or about us page) might be also ranking for other types of branded queries (e.g., more granular, with “old brand + product name”) for which the new page about the old brand might not be relevant enough, and if so, to also target them with additional new pages that should be integrated in a similar way and should also fulfill a business role.

2. Product Name Rebrand

Although products or product line rebrands are usually far less drastic than company names, they are not necessarily less important rebranding scenarios.
Despite not requiring, in most cases, a full domain migration and affecting a lower number of more granular pages, product name rebrands usually involve some of the most important pages on the site from a conversion and ultimately, ROI perspective, and therefore, needing important attention and support.
Product rebrands will also likely need different types of solutions in order to minimize a potential negative impact while trying to make the most out of the already well-established products pages, depending on how the new brand name will differ from the old one. These are a few of the most common ones:

2.1. Product Rebrand with No Name Overlay

When the new name is completely different and won’t include the old one (for example, changing a product called “Yellow” to “Red” in the “X” company), you can then “leverage” the old product page (x.com/yellow) to be kept and start serving as a “bridge” page that will explain about the rebrand, keeping the relevance and rankings for the old branded queries like: “Yellow”, “X Yellow”, etc. while linking to the new product page that should be created, as can be seen in the graphic below:

At the same time, a new product page for the new brand (x.com/red) should then be created. It is this one that will target the new branded queries for which it will be relevant.
This new product page should also be internally linked from the site navigation, instead of the old one, so links should be updated.
Additionally, an explanatory text should be also added in this page at the beginning, to inform about the brand change and link to the “bridge”, old product page for more information, with a relevant anchor text.

2.2. Product Rebrand with Low Name Overlay

When the new name overlays with the old one (for example, changing a product called “Yellow Blue” to “Yellow Red” in the “X” company), you can then also leverage the old product page to help directly establish the new one much more quickly.

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To do this, it will be necessary to:

• 301-redirect the old product page (www.x.com/yellow-blue) to the new one (www.x.com/yellow-red), using the old established page’s popularity to benefit the new one will also keep some of its brand relevance. Internal links should be also updated accordingly to go now to the new page. This new page should also include a text explaining about the rebrand at the start, from where it should link to the “bridge” page – with a relevant anchor text – that will be enabled to target the specific old brand queries.
• Since the new product page will keep only part of the old brand relevance, it is then also important to enable a “bridge” page (www.x.com/blue) that will specifically target only the old brand queries. This page should be linked from the new product page with an explanatory text using the old brand as anchor text, and link back following the same logic, referring also the users to the new product page so they can fulfill their goal and buy it.

2.3. Product Rebrand with High Name Overlay

When the new product name not only overlays but completely includes the old one (for example, changing a product called “Yellow” to “Yellow B” (adding only the B in the name) in the “X” company), you have more flexibility and choose between a couple of alternatives:
Keeping the Old Product URL
You can keep the old product page (www.x.com/yellow) to now target not only the old but also the new branded product names for which it will be relevant: “Yellow” and “Yellow B”.
The benefit of this option is that by not needing to be moved, it will directly keep the old product URL branded queries rankings, as well as the already existing popularity.
You only have to expand its content to also include the new brand name terms, so the page can also become relevant to them, as well as adding an explanatory text informing about the change.
Additionally, in this case, you won’t need to update any internal links as the new product brand URL will be the same.
The con is the that new product page URL won’t fully include the new product brand name, although when assessing the impact of this it could be minimized if the rest of the content areas and elements are now well targeted to the new brand too, considering that the benefit is to be able to keep all of the former page rankings and popularity.
In most cases, this will be the best option with minimum changes for well-established products pages, with a higher volume of external links, for which changing the URL to add an additional term wouldn’t compensate.
Moving the Old Product URL to a New One
In instances like this one, you would need to 301-redirect the old product page (www.x.com/yellow) to a new product URL (www.x.com/yellow-b) to also include the new brand term in the URL (which is the only con of the previous and most straightforward alternative), so the new URL will be as relevant as possible to both, old and new products brands.
In this case, you’ll also need to:

• Update internal links to go to the new brand page URL.
• Expand its content so it is also relevant to the new brand.
• Include the explanatory text to inform about the change.

These should be accomplished in order for the new product page URL to be seen. A structural change will be needed for the benefit of having the full new name of the brand in the URL.
This will be the best alternative, in most cases, for products pages that were not that well established in the past, with minimal links, for which adding the full name to the URL to become more relevant to the new product brand, will be more beneficial.
Here are the two alternatives:

Conclusion

By following the previous SEO best practices for some of the most common rebranding scenarios, a rebrand shouldn’t mean that you need to lose your organic search rankings and traffic loss, but an opportunity to start:

• Targeting new brand-related terms and queries that you might not have been ranked as well before.
• Securing your old brand rankings and establishing new ones.
• Growing your branded organic search performance.

You can also apply similar rebranding alternatives by keeping the same logic – to minimize the structural changes while trying to keep the relevance to the old as well as establishing it to the new brand.

Last but not least, if for some reason your SEO recommendations for the rebranding process are not followed and the site ends up losing its organic search traffic in the process despite your efforts, check out this post I wrote a while ago about recovering your organic search traffic from a migration gone wrong.

Reference:https://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-friendly-website-rebrand/231911/

How to Decide on the Right Social Channel for Your Brand

With the power that social media has in bringing attention to a brand and boosting sales, more and more businesses are crafting marketing campaigns via social channels.  In fact, a recent survey by Ascend2 shows that among 271 marketing influencers, using social media channels was considered their most important digital marketing tactic for 2018.

Consider this, more than 66% of marketers are able to improve lead generation just by spending a minimum of six hours on social media. This means that with a modest investment in time and resources, a well-thought-out and implemented social media strategy can do wonders for a company. Conversely, a company can't expect to develop a sound marketing plan involving social media if it doesn't know the right channels to use.

How to Choose the Right Social Channel for Your Brand

There are seemingly endless social media channels to choose from, but the top choices among them are Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, Linkedin, Instagram, and Google+. While each one can generate leads, it's crucial that you focus on the right channel for you. 

Here are ways that will help you select the best social media channel to use:

Identify Your Social Media Objectives

It's essential that you can connect your social media channel to the objectives of your marketing plan. After all, how can you succeed in your goals if the tools that you are using do not fit?
If your goal is to raise brand awareness, then choose well-established social media platforms with a huge following. But do not use platforms that are new or just caters to a specific niche. Facebook and Instagram are great tools for this objective, as these platforms are the most effective at introducing new brands and products to their users.
However, if your objective is to generate more leads in your niche, then LinkedIn might be a better choice.

Check Current Trends

You should also consider whether the social channel that you're interested in is following the latest trends in social media marketing. A sound knowledge of present marketing trends will help you make the intelligent decision regarding the right social medium to use. Remember that you will be investing time, resources, and effort into these social channels, so an eye on the trends can help when deciding which one will attract more clients and boost engagement.

Know Your Target Audience

You need to have a clear picture of your target audience in order to create high-quality content that would resonate with them. Try to discover which social media platforms your target market spends most of their time on and how to interact with them. Choosing a social media channel is easy if you know where your prospective clients are.
For instance, if you're targeting millennials who love a good story but only want to spend a few minutes on it, then use a platform like Snapchat. You can create a lot of videos with an engaging storyline and target millions of daily users. However, trying to promote an exclusively men's product via Pinterest could be a tough sell, considering that the website caters mostly to women, featuring items related to craft, food, home decor, and gardening. 

Check What Channels Your Competitors are Using

Aside from knowing your target audience and the social media platforms they're on, it's also important that you know what channels your competitors are managing. This will give you a foundation on which you can measure industry activity and determine what your next course of action will be.
Check what type of content your competitors are posting, how regularly they do it and even how many shares or likes it has garnered. Knowing how active your rivals are on social media and how engaged their audience is will give you important insights that you can then use to succeed in your own marketing strategy.

Think About Your Choice of Content

The kind of content that you want to develop and use is also critical. There are several content formats. Some will complement your brand identity and goals while others won’t. There is also particular content that is better suited to certain social media channels.
Companies that want to share white papers, company news or industry updates would have better success on platforms like SlideShare and LinkedIn. Meanwhile, if you're targeting a young audience, a short-form video content on Instagram or Snapchat is perfect. Longer videos with a universal theme would do better on Facebook and YouTube.
Identifying the content format you want to focus on in your social media strategy will help narrow down your choice of a social channel.

The Bottom Line

You probably won't be able to choose the right social media channel on the first try. There's a lot of trial and error involved as you search for the right channel to use. However, knowing what your objectives and target audience are can help narrow down your search.

Reference:https://www.webpronews.com/decide-right-social-channel-brand/

Google Updates Its PageSpeed Insights Tool, Now Shows Real User Speed for Website Pages

Google announced on Wednesday that it had updated the PageSpeed Insights tool enabling it to see just how fast a particular page performs in the real world. Sourced from the Chrome User Experience Report, the real-world data is now available via the enhanced PageSpeed tool. It offers developers better recommendations as they strive to optimize page performance.
The loading speed of a page is a very important factor in clinching a deal. These days, everyone wants the page they are trying to view to load almost instantaneously. If it doesn’t, the prospective customer is not likely to wait for it to complete loading. After all, there are thousands of competitors out there eyeing the same potential customer. Simply put, a slow-loading page does not bode well for your sales conversion rate.
As such, Google tweaked the PageSpeed tool to reveal what visitors to your site are actually experiencing. Via the tool, you will be able to see two metrics which is based on the Chrome User Experiencer Report. These are First Contentful Paint (FCP), which is the instance when visitors see a visual response from the page they are viewing, and DOM Content Loaded (DCL), which is the point when the viewed page has parsed and loaded.
Google then rates your page as fast, slow or average based on the following rules:
“Fast: The median value of the metric is in the fastest third of all page loads.
Slow: The median value of the metric is in the slowest third of all page loads.
Average: The median value of the metric is in the middle third of all page loads.”

The new PageSpeed tool also comes with the Optimization Suggestions feature. This basically contains a list of best practices that may be applied to the page to increase its optimization score. If a page is already rated fast, the Optimization Suggestions is hidden, which means that the page has been optimized.

Reference:https://www.webpronews.com/google-updates-pagespeed-insights-tool-now-shows-real-user-speed-website-pages/