Sunday 26 February 2017

19 Amazing Web Design Tips You Just Can’t Miss

If it is about the success of online business, web design has a major part to play. It can make or break the fate of your business! For instance, if your website takes too long to load, it will destroy your business. Also, if the visitor fails to understand the purpose of your website, there's no point in continuing with it. As an entrepreneur, you would want to make your visitors stay on the website longer. This is important to persuade them to invest in your services and products.



The valuable tips given below will improve your web design and help your business rank higher on search engines. Most importantly, your target audience will love you:

1. Emphasise on Logo Design


Good design demands special skills. When you design a logo in a simple yet smart fashion, it makes your brand stand out and more recognizable. Focus on making it unique and eye catching. This makes any logo a sure shot success. Experts believe in checking out a variety of logos others have employed since the company was founded. A design having a unique tinge of artistry is a good choice. Also use high resolution images for a logo. You should feature it at the upper left corner of the page for better viewing. A logo should be efficiently linked to the Homepage so that visitors find it easier to navigate.

2. Well Organized Layout


Focus on creating a visually attractive web design. The layout should be very clean, and free of clutter. Designers usually focus more on making a web design attractive. So they insert images with pictures, graphs, and many other things. Streamlining pages and boosting its informative factor is more important, brief and to the point. Also content should be restricted to only 6 lines. The idea is to allow visitors know what the website is all about, at a single glance! Excess information will only clutter vision.

3. Insert Intuitive Navigation


The navigation is confusing for most website visitors. Most confusing of all are the primary and secondary navigation options. Remember that visitors are impatient. They won’t waste time trying to figure out what is on the website. They will simply leave anything that confuses them. Hence, avoid placing links to less important pages. The best idea is to opt for intuitive navigation. Detract links from the home / landing page. Also place less important links and information pieces at the bottom end of the page. Keep these in the footer section. This will make it easier for the visitor. Also the layout will look more organized.

4. The White Space


Also referred to as the breathing room for the visitors, many designers are seen ignoring the importance of white space. You need to create space between paragraphs and images. This will allow visitors, some space to breathe and absorb all that website has to offer. This also improves user experience and even increase the return from the website.

5. Strategic Use of Fonts and Color


Strategic use of fonts and colors is important for a website. The colour code should cater to the taste of the targeted audience. So customize the color of the background and fonts in a way to attract targeted clients. A white colored background using light pastel shades is very effective in displaying elegance and sophistication. On the other hand, use vivid colors for targeting kids. The fonts used should be easily read across all devices and browsers.

6. Responsive Web Design


Smartphones are on the rise. So it is time you enhance user experience. Create a responsive web design and increase your fan following.

7. Professional Photography


Visitors are smart enough to make out an edited picture taken from the web. This will not leave a good impact on your brand image. So it is better to invest in professional photography. You will get eye-catching pictures that instantly catch attention in developing an emotional connection between the audience and content.

8. NO Flash


It is time you bid adieu to Flash. Go for options that are web and user friendly as compared Flash. “HTML5” has recently gained a lot of preference on the web with search engine friendly text. It also functions on all popular mobile operating devices without any plugin. Flash does not support any such thing. Hence, it is time you drop Flash and search for other better options.

9. Don't Ignore Buttons


Visitors will immediately reject unsightly and unimpressive buttons for 'submit' or 'send'. So make sure the form submission buttons are very appealing enough and inspire visitors to “click”. The designer needs to be very creative. So allow submit button change color, gradient, font treatment, etc. The button should be very attractive.

10. Eliminate Sidebars


Studies have revealed that sidebars when eliminated from the company blog, resulted in increase of the  number of clicks to over 35 per cent. The process encourages readers being more attentive to the article. Also the call for action from the visitors’ end increases. So get rid of the sidebars NOW!

11. NO Slideshow


Slideshow was an early introduction on the website. This was used to provide information at the first page of the website. But this didn't click well as visitors are impatient and do not want to waste time staying on the first page for a long time. So the idea is to keep messages brief, attractive and simple. You can create an image along with a message.

12. Faster Coding


CodeKit is the best option for browser reloading. This helps you to see any browser changes instantly. There's no need for refreshing. It works like a steroid for web developers. Once integrated with design, it lifts a lot of pressure off the web designer. Use of a good coding technique will let designs come out beautifully. Also, its website appeal increases manifold.

13. Layout Planning


Most part of web design success depends on planning. So make sure the website layout is planned strategically. Since no two businesses / brands are the same, it's crucial to create a design that's unique and distinctive. It should be visibly different from all others, even if the niche industry and target audience is the same. The idea is to keep the essence of design same with a distinctive outlook.

14. FitVids Plugins


These days, incorporating a video to websites is a trend. This makes a web page look and feel very innovative. It also enhances its informative value. You can use lightweight, user friendly jQuery plugin, that helps videos get some fluidity. This boosts its responsive capacity. The FitVids plugin supports various video vendors such as Vimeo, YouTube, Blip.tv among many others.

15. Photoshop Creates Magic


If you wish to have a wonderful web design, be descriptive when naming Photoshop layers. According to expert Rhys Little, one should be as descriptive as possible when naming layers of Photoshop. It does not take much time naming layers in a way others can understand. This is very useful for saving time and efforts for designer later. He also recommends adding some extra layers in Photoshop designs. This helps with reducing confusion. Photoshop modifies images and comes packed with some amazing tools for developing attractive graphical layouts from scratch. If you do this well, the results are outstanding.

16. Pinterest is a Good Idea


Once a website is designed for business, it is natural for the owner to keep integrating it with new ideas and valuable information. It is important to collect information and store it safely for future reference. Pinterest is a great platform used to create mood boards for layout, colors, images, and other material the designers find useful for future reference. Since other designers also create and share mood boards, these can be further used as a valuable support source.

17. Do Not Highlight Social Media Icons


Integrating your website with good design will attract your target audience towards it. However, wrong placement of social media icons will force them to leave. So strictly avoid placing social media icons anywhere near the header. Bury these in the footer. No website sends people to the website. It is always the other way round. Social media sends people to the website.

18. Content is Above the Fold


Studies have revealed that the majority of the people spends time focusing above the fold on web pages. This means they are more interested in what shows up on screen without scrolling down. Unfortunately, most designers tend to put everything in the header section and this makes things look clumsy. You can improve this via the modifying height of the header as per the requirement. Also keep sign-up button at a higher level on the page. This is important for grabbing visitor’s attention. Remember that “call-to-action” is one of the priorities of any website.

18. Keep Limited Number of Pages


If you are serious about making your website interesting, trim down its page count. It will also help with a simpler and easier navigation. Including too many menu items will make things confusing. Visitors will make visitors overwhelmed by choices. When you restrict the number of pages, it makes the website more attractive and friendlier to visitors.

19. Necessary Elements


This is a common tips web designers are asked to follow. However, there are times when the focus of the website is unclear. Most unnecessary elements tend to clutter and confuse. So it is important that you use the 80-20 rule which work towards trimming down the various elements of the website to the essentials. This strategy has helped a lot of business giants help increase sales on their website.

Remember that design should focus more on performance than how things look or feel like. It makes your web design an online success.

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6 Instagram Marketing Predictions for 2017 – Straight From the Pros

You love Instagram! This social media platform has won millions of hearts across the globe since its release in 2010. And it has never failed to mesmerise its audience with new exciting features. The rapid introduction of the latest features in the year 2016 suggests marketers can look forward to more changes in 2017. So if you have been wondering what changes in marketing scenario on Instagram in 2017,  here are some powerful marketing predictions by experts:



1. Improved Analytics Data and User Experience


At present, more than 48 percent of brands have already made their way on Instagram. It is also estimated that this number will get a significant increase to 70 per cent in 2017. This is certainly the must-have app for businesses. Instagram is vigorously focused on improving its ads and analytics. As the prediction goes, in 2017 mobile ad revenues of Instagram will reach $2.81 billion! Now the question is how will they do it? Users will be offered improved analytics tools and focus will be shifted to creating a user friendly experience for all business owners (irrespective of analytics experience).

At present, business owners possess access to analytics that assess the following:

- Impressions
- Reach
- Engagement
- Audience

2. Overtakes Market Share for Snapchat


Well, this is the trend most pros have noticed over the past several months. And this continues through 2017. Instagram will definitely take over more market share from Snapchat. Snapchat Stories allowed the audience to get inside look at your life and business. Now Instagram has come out with InstaStories. One can perform multiple things on a single platform.

There's a huge difference between the two platforms. Apart from the ability to do multiple things on a single platform, the connection features make all the difference! With Snapchat, it is not easy to connect with others. On the other hand, Instagram lets you connect with Facebook friends and followers easily.

Using Instagram will pay if you start using InstaStories to share behind-the-scenes stuff. The audience will love it as the process adds value to their day. Also, you can give them what they wish to know. A great way to establish meaningful connections with your followers!

3. Better Business


Mark Zuckerberg definitely wants to crush Snapchat. All video options and Story flow on Instagram will experience a makeover. The focus will also be on developing better business tools to help sellers make a flourishing marketplace on the platform.

4. Sales Prospects with Shoppable Product Tags


Instagram will become a shopping haven for end users. It will make for an amazing source of cash flow for marketers. Lately, the social media platform has been tested shoppable product tags that ensure immediate information on a specific product to viewers sans leaving the platform. In case, the viewer decides to buy, he or she will click a 'Shop Now' button to directly visit the landing page to place an order.

The 'shoppable product tags' will facilitate the entire process for Instagram users to buy products. These tags will help users to purchase products in a hassle free fashion. Earlier marketers could use just one link in the bio. The new shopping option will certainly emerge as a game-changer!

5. Brilliant Opportunities Marketers


The platform grows up and the algorithm will continue to be more important. The paid advertising will also continue to increase and put a great impact on businesses. Live video in Stories will be a huge hit and push Instagram towards building a billion users in the near future. Instagram will embrace marketers and best marketing strategies in 2017. Business profiles will benefit from easier access and features. Newer and better ways will allow shopping from within the app. Businesses should get smarter and more strategic in order to benefit from these newer features.

6. Attention From Marketers


Did you know Instagram has moved on? Yes, your favourite social media platform is now much more than simply sharing your most happening snap to a full-fledged visual storytelling platform. The whole thing has got a lot more gripping and challenging! So share your live videos and amazing Instagram Stories instantly. These are more authentic and appeal to the audience better. The spontaneity of these videos makes them more interesting. Nothing can help you establish a more intimate and engaging conversation as this.

Marketers will gain a lot by playing this amazing Instagram game. Plan visual stories that can come in the form of repeating Boomerangs (loop). Don't leave any chance for posting short videos on Instagram. One of the best ways is to use a number of fun tools such candy cane writing tool. These look really great and catch attention as they pop up. Marketers can share a lot of compelling and interesting Instagram stories throughout the day. Many successful Instagrammers have also been highlighting launches and special sessions of Q&As with Instagram Live disappearing videos.

Predictions at a Glance:

- Live video of Instagram will be savable for 24 hours.
- Instagram Stories will be integrated with more attractive filter options. Users can expect a wider rollout for clickable links and integration with Boomerang and Hyperlapse.
- Saving drafts will have more options including the ability to store drafts in organized subfolders. This is certainly a bonus for business owners.
- The best one is 'Reply' feature that gets a makeover and gets tucked under the original comment.
- Likes for comments.
- Shoppable tags will roll out to a wid range of users.

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Friday 24 February 2017

Top 26 SEO Interview Questions You Should Be Prepared For in 2017




1. Define SEO and its types?


Ans: SEO is an acronym to Search engine optimization which is a process of changing web page or website position frequently in search engine results. This is one via using keywords or phrases.

The two main types of SEO are:

- On Page Optimization
- Off Page Optimization

2. What SEO tools do you prefer using?


Ans: I presently use Google analytic, Alexa, keyword search, open site explorer, and Google Webmaster.

3. What is Backlink?


Ans: Backlink is the incoming links to your website or webpage.

4. What are outbound links?


Ans: These are website links to another webpage or website.

5. What is Googlebot?


Ans: Googlebot is software used by Google to index a webpage. The software collects details from that specific webpage and the following:

- Caching
- Crawling
- Indexing

6. Explain Cross linking and its function?


Ans: Cross linking refers to the process of linking one site to another while ensuring a way to allow access to it. It has several functions such as providing users with reference sites comprising of content relevant to the search, methods built on the Internet, display page on the search engines using SEO techniques, etc. Ranking of a website is calculated on the basis of the website relevance before reflecting on the search engine. SEO tools offering reciprocal links and inbound links are used.

7. Why keyword is used in SEO?


Ans: Keyword is actually a single word. A combination of these makes phrases. Both keywords and phrases are used by search engines to populate various subjects on the internet. The search engine stores keywords in the database. Once a search is conducted, these will emerge with the best possible match.

8. Explain body content relevance function?


Ans: A text without images on a web page is referred to as body content relevance. It is also known as non-image text. Content relevance ensures efficient optimization of websites and boosts search engine ranking.

9. What are Spiders, Robots and Crawlers? Explain their functions?


Ans: There is no difference between spiders, robot and crawler. They are all same and referred by different names. These are software program that follows, or “Crawls” varied links across the internet. Thereafter, it grabs content from other sites and adds to the search engine indexes.

10. How will you check the impact of your SEO campaign? How will you come to know if it is working?


Ans: When offering SEO services for small business or any industry giant, I will check the website statistics that give information about the origin of traffic. Another way is to conduct a search based on the relevant keywords and key phrases and assess the search result. The search result number will let me know if the SEO campaign is working or not.

11. What do you know about competitive analysis?


Ans: The process compares the website that is being optimized with the website ranked highly in search results.

12. What if your SEO technique does not work?


Ans: I will first assess the root cause / problem and resolve them one by one:

- If the project is new, I will re-check the key words.
- I will search for relevant key-words.
- If all webpages of the website are indexed appropriately and the site does not appear on the first 10 pages - of search engine result page, I will make some changes in titles, page text, and description.
- In case, the website is not indexed well or has been dropped from the index, it has some serious issues which I will focus on and re-work.

13. Define PPC?


Ans: PPC is an acronym for Pay Per Click. It is actually an advertisement campaign hosted by Google. The campaign is categorised into two different modules:

CPC ( Cost per click) – Flat rate
CPM ( Cost per thousand impressions) – Bidding

CPC advertiser is charged only if the user clicks on the advert.

14. What do you know about 301 redirect?


Ans: 301 redirect is a technique that redirects user to new to old page url. This causes a permanent redirect which is also beneficial in directing the link juice to new url from old url.

15. What are Webmaster tools?


Ans: It is a service by Google, which offers crawl errors, information on the backlink, the indexing data, search queries, CTR etc.

16. Define keyword density. What is the formula for determining keyword density?


Ans: Keyword density helps stand out, your content from other websites. Yes, there is a formula that determines the keyword density:

The total number of keyword/total number of words in your article multiplied by 100.

17. What is robots.txt? 


Ans: Robots.txt is a text file that gives instruction to search engine crawlers about indexing and caching of a specific webpage, domain, or website file.

18. Assume that the company website you are working for decides to shift all contents to a new domain. How will you handle this situation?


Ans: First, you need to update the previous site with a permanent redirect to new page for all pages. The second step will be to remove previous content from search engine to avoid issues related to duplicate content.

19. Is it possible to optimize a website with over millions of pages?


Ans: Integration of extra special SEO stuffs for a dynamic website will serve this purpose. These include Good Internal link structure, Dynamic XML sitemap generation and Generation of dynamic title and description.

20. Bring up the latest update in SEO?


Ans: Panda and Penguin are the latest update in SEO.

21. What is meaning of “pizza box” in term of Google?


Ans: “Pizza Box” is when the google server comes in a standard case.

22. What is the difference between soft 404 and 404 error?


Ans: An error that shows without http//error form is known as soft 404 error. On the other hand, a normal 404 error that shows as http//error is 404 errors.

23. What are the key aspects of Panda update?


Ans: Panda improves Google search. The latest version of Panda focuses on high quality content, excellent design, speed, appropriate use of images and many more.

24. Explain key aspects of Penguin update?


Ans: Penguin is actually the code name for Google algorithm. The main target is to decrease website ranking that violates guidelines of Google Webmaster. Guidelines get violated by using black hat techniques such as keyword stuffing, cloaking etc.

25. What is the limit to robot.txt file?


Ans: At present, google enforces 500 kilobytes (KB) size limit.

26. What is the best way to neutralize a toxic link to a website?


Ans: Using a 'Backlink Quality Checker' will let you know who links to your website. Now, go to ‘Toxic link’ report. This is the place where you can find links harmful to your websites. Any link in ‘Toxic link report’ matching with the link on your website can be removed with the help of ‘Google Disavov tool’.
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Thursday 23 February 2017

8 Dynamic Strategies for Promoting Your YouTube Videos

So you have a YouTube channel and videos that display your products and services in the best light. Now what? It is now time to promote these videos as well. Here are 8 best strategies that help you make videos viral online:



1. Get Listed


You must get your videos and YouTube Channel page listed with the major search engines. So be prepared to list them on Google, Yahoo! and Bing. Later on, integrate SEO strategies to ensure better listing placements.

2. Start Promotion Activity


Start off with promoting your videos to your friends, relatives, colleagues and neighbours. Also promote these to your existing happy clients. You should ask them to watch your video (s) and share them with their online / offline friends.

3. Use SEO to Promote YouTube Videos


Don't you wish your videos and channel pop up first when target audience search for content? Most people have the best video content, but doesn’t really show up in the first few results on Google / YouTube search. This is not good because the video will not get any views from search engines.

If you have a video that displays your products and services and want it to be the first in the list, make it visible and relevant to search engines. You can do this by placing appropriate keywords in the right places.

4. Cross-promote Teasers and Videos


Whether you have just created your YouTube account, thinking of uploading videos, or just started adding initial content to your channel, make sure you get into action early on building the excitement. Your target audience should get the news about your new venture in an exciting way.

5. Video Thumbnails


Make sure the YouTube thumbnails are less than 2 MB in size. Also take care that the resolution is 1280 x 720. Although smaller in size, video thumbnails are arguably one of the biggest things to focus on especially to promote videos successfully across different social media platforms.

Try imagining that the YouTube thumbnail is your business card for the page. It will show up on the homepage, to target audience when they search for a specific video, and once a video is shared.

It is possible to create custom and actionable YouTube thumbnail via using Canva to drive more traffic to a website. You need to upload specific dimensions. The rest of the design will be taken care of by Canva. All you need to do is click on homepage tab - “use custom dimensions” tab.

Use very simple, crystal clear text describing a video when creating a thumbnail. Also integrate logo in one of the bottom corners. Brighter colours are the best choice for thumbnails. For a positive impact, follow consistency with your brand. It is better to stick with the same font type, color scheme, and/or general layout. This will make videos noticeable as your brand.

6. Analytics are Important


For a new YouTube channel or one that hasn’t been active since long, the analytics may go inaccurate. So keep tabs on Google Analytics, Facebook Analytics, or kind of social platform that you are active on.

You should know what day(s) of the week and time are your fans most active. Also know the type of content that get the most traction. For successful promotion of the YouTube channel, it is important that you know your analytics well.

7. Keywords and Phrases for Videos


It is crucial to know that Google and YouTube have complex algorithms. So when it comes to selecting search results, they can be tough. Don't worry. You don’t need to get deep into the algorithm concept. Simply knowing that appropriately placed keywords and increased views boost relevance of videos in searches is enough.

So start making efforts towards boosting your placement on Google searches. Prepare a list of phrases and keywords to use. Know what phrases your target audience will use to find you. Some of the most common searches include, “How to _____” and “What is a _____?” So including these into your video phrases and keywords will really help.
For instance, a beauty vlogger can use keywords for a skin whitening tutorial such as “How to get fair skin,” “skin whitening,” “clear skin,” and, “brighten skin.” Make sure you fit these words and phrases naturally into your title. Also include in the description of your video. Keep keyword density on the lower side. It should look natural.

Allow primary keyword or phrase to appear in your title. Also write a long description that gives you ample opportunity to naturally fit primary and secondary keywords and phrases into the text. Make use of the video tag box to add relevant keywords.

8. Hire a Professional


If budget allows, hire a reputed YouTube video marketing company. The team of experts will allow you to plan and implement a highly effective  online promotional campaign for your YouTube videos.
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Tuesday 21 February 2017

10 Amazing Ways to Use Tumblr for Business

Presently, Tumblr is one of the most widely used social platforms across the globe. Although there are several success stories related to this network, Tumblr could never reach to the top of the radar of several brands existing in the industry.



A lot of people are not aware of the artistic side of Tumblr is artistic. It is a little different from conventional blogging platforms such as WordPress as it comprises of a very strong social component. In fact, most experts celebrate Tumblr for its blogging platform.

Now the question is how to use Tumblr for business. Here are some amazing ways you can use this platform to ensure business success:

Allows People Search for your Business

Tumblr is different from other social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. One of the best things about Tumblr is that it employs Search Engine Optimization. Well, that literally means that Google indexes the platform. It offers some amazing plug-ins to share content on other social media websites. It saves you time and efforts to do the work twice. So in case, you have a website, Tumblr will be of great help in driving extra traffic to your primary website landing page.

1. Creates Amazing Blogs


When it comes to ensuring a human face to your organization, the Tumblr helps you to create some amazing blogs. Here, most part of the blogs are crafted by people for people. So it is a good idea to showcase your brand on Tumblr. You can follow other Tumblr blogs and business blogs. Re-blogging relevant posts will help you show your efforts to keep yourself updated on the latest industry news. This is extremely important.

2. Engage Readers and Bloggers


Always comment on posts made by people about your products. You should also respond to comments on your page. You should engage the community in a friendly and positive way. This helps earn trust of your trust of your readers.

3. Varied Media on Tumblr


You can make your blog way more interesting by adding images, website links, videos, texts and other ways to engage individuals on the platform. These make for amazing tools to make your blog highly enjoyable. Another idea is to add sharing buttons for Facebook and Twitter. This allows people repost freely across several platforms.

4. Relevant Content


Although a number of media tools are available these days, simply generating traffic without an aim won't give any benefits. You should focus on adding more targeted traffic by using relative content that enhances readers’ focus. Post high quality images of your product. This will prompt people to repost and share with friends. Over 80 per cent of all Tumblr posts are pictures, GIFs, or images of other formats. Hence, it is crucial to make sure you use these to boost reblogging.

5. 100% Free


Interestingly, Tumblr will not make you pay to show your blog to people. Facebook does that! So Tumblr comes as a 100% free platform where you don't require spending a penny. Businesses need to pay for additional features and increased publicity. Why not use Tumblr which is free? Towards the end everything depends on the way your blog looks and how appealing it is for readers.

6. Google Analytics Helps Track Progress


It is easier to connect your blog to Google Analytics. The process helps you to track the popularity of your account and profile including other statistics. This facilitates you to boost your marketing efforts. In short, you know better what works best you and what goes waste.

7. Interactions Develops Interest


Tumblr is all about interaction. So the more discussions you decide on having, the better it gets. Your business will get benefitted a lot from it. The social networking platform allows organizations interact smoothly. You don't have to follow any rules or regulations for business correspondence. All you need to do is link your Tumblr page to the main website for business communications and get going.

8. Tags for Online Marketing


Tumblr has an amazing tagging system. It is a one-of-a-kind that allows users to start typing the name of a company to get relevant tags instantly. It may be quite tricky to use tags with other social media sites. Also not many users will approve of it or understand the whole purpose. Tumblr tags are used extensively to discover content.

9. Increase Traffic Flow with Do-Follow Links


Tumblr will help you get unlimited links to attract traffic to your business website. The backlinks allows to boost traffic to landing pages. It also helps you to boost sales. Your website will rank higher in Google search. Use of relevant keywords and phrases in Tumblr content is important. Do-Follow blog posts and help readers develop an interest in visiting specific pages for discounts and other benefits.

10. Boost Branding Efforts


Tumblr comes equipped with the best of tools to serve as an excellent platform for promoting your brand. The platform is taking off really well. So if you do not join the trend, you will waste the opportunity it offers. Do not wait any more and extend your reach with Tumblr. There are over hundreds of millions of unique users joining the platform regularly. Focus on posting very high-quality content. This will let you gain a strong online presence.

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Monday 20 February 2017

14 Powerful Ways to Improve Your Facebook Ads

It may be a challenge to increase conversion rates of Facebook ad sans  increasing ad spend especially if you do not hold specialization in the process. However, there several tweaks that will get you good results when you dedicate time and energy into testing different versions.



Listed below are some interesting ways to improve Facebook Ads:

1. Target Similar Brand Followers


There's nothing better than narrowing your target audience for getting higher quality ad results on social media. It is easier to target followers of specific brands on Facebook. This helps when selling products and services to the same customer base and other well-known businesses. It is also a good option when you wish to target customer base of other non-competing brands in niche segments. Use of this makes for a simple solution, especially when other details of the target audience, such as age, job titles, likes, etc, are not available. You can make separate campaigns for each brand you wish to target. This helps you create a more personal creating an engaging message.

2. Attractive Images


Here, it is not important to use pictures of your business, services / products. You can use something relevant if possible, that catches attention of target audience and make them read your ad. Since the image should not contain more than 20 per cent words, its serves as a source for grabbing attention. Once you are successful in doing this, you have already covered half of the path towards the final destination.

3. Use Cover Photo


It is important to engage your fans and boost likes and reach. This is possible by starting contests relevant to cover page. For instance a lot of companies have been seen asking their fans send in pictures enjoying their products. They also announce 'fan of the week' for their cover. Fans find it exciting and engage more with their brand. They will also keep in touch with the page to check if they had won the weekly contest. Cover page definitely makes for free marketing space. It helps engaging fans and promote new products simultaneously.

4. Integrate video


Did you know video promises one of the highest engagement metrics on Facebook? Yes, it holds the highest out of all media options including photos or text used for advertising. It always helps the transitioning advertising process to video from static image or text with a link. It boosts engagement metrics as the audience is likely to spend more time engaging with a brand through gripping videos.

5. Custom Audience Helps


Try uploading a "custom audience". It is a CSV file of your customer list or database. Once you display ads to a customized list of audience instead 'everyone', you actually target people who know you. Also,  these are people who have an affinity for your brand. This process is known to increase the rate of conversion among those who are on your list. Customizing your audience will also help you retain existing customers. As a rule, it costs up to seven times as much to win a new customer than retaining the existing ones. So it is always better to use Facebook ad campaigns to retain customers you have. Try using 'Custom Audience' feature for the same.

6. Collaborate


Advertising collaboration piece with others in complimentary industries help. The combined efforts will help you keep from making clients feel you're pushing something. The idea is to make the process feel organic. Integrate high quality video rigs. Let each entity show they are an invaluable part of the project.

7. Shareable Content


Advertising product or service directly can be avoided if you run ads and promote interactive content your users would like to share. The whole idea is to identify content your target audience engages with. Also make use of paid campaigns for promoting content and ensure optimal performance.

8. Retarget Visitors


You may consider using services such as 'AdRoll'. This will help you to build Remarketing lists and run website activity based ad. When it comes to expense and performance, this process is extremely effective, especially when launching a new product or offering an existing one holding relevance to a specific visitor. For instance, one of your clients launches a new graphic. Then he uses Facebook Remarketing for reaching previous web visitors and generate new sales online. This way, you can target or exclude customers who purchased and offer appropriate incentive to purchase. The process will become a part of all of your product launches and new sale.

9. Test Images


Things may get tough if you go not post several images both in vertical and horizontal layouts. You need to get very creative with imagery. Also, there is no need to make perfect sense with the imagery. You may try out Flickr or Freeimages.com. These places will offer you free photos that you can use. So you can focus on downloading 10 of them first and then make 10 ad variations. The results will amaze you.

10. Test Versions


It is crucial that you test as many versions of your ad as possible with varied pictures, headlines, and text. Most marketers prefer setting a small budget aside to make out which ad performs best. Thereafter, the rest of the budget is spent on that specific ad.

11. Refine your Target


It is crucial that you target ad for a group of people as specific as possible. This is how you are going to make things effective. Casting huge network doesn't make sense. Getting specific with ad content will ensure success for your campaigns.

12. Relate


I can't tell you how many business Facebook pages I've come across that is simply promotion after promotion of their business (some done more cleverer than others). You must first relate to your users. Show them that you care are about what they care about. Challenge yourself to do nothing but communicate and relate for 30 days without plugging your businesses even once. It may seem counterproductive, but spend your advertising dollars on these posts that are relationship focused rather than on posts that are sales focused and I guarantee, if you're genuine, you'll see much better engagement and feel great about your new relationships as a bonus!

13. Make Segments and Optimize Using Multivariate Testing


A lot of people may not know about this, but the ad buying interface of Facebook is quite powerful. It facilitates sophisticated targeting. Most importantly, it allows for experimentation and deep segmentation. Experts suggest the use of experimental design for developing ad experiments that can also be optimized in real time. Different variables need to be tested against multiple pre-defined customer segments. Try using different campaigns and ad-sets each time you test variation. This allows isolation of variance normalized across all. When you do experimentation across multiple segments you get to know what drives performance across the audience and what actually works for subsets.

14. Message and Destination – Match the Two


It works to create several advertising campaigns and landing pages together. Test messaging that attracts attention of your target audience and then converts them on the landing page. Focus on developing multiple landing pages using 'Optimizely'. Thereafter, come up with multiple ad campaigns on Facebook. It is important that you mix and match ads and variations of landing page variations with winning lower CPA (cost per acquisition). It is possible that an ad gets a decent click through, but people don't buy. This is not a good thing. So you should refrain from relying solely on good CPC for actionable and affordable business results.

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Friday 17 February 2017

Best Marketing Tips for Using Google Plus For Business - Take Your Business to the Top

Google Plus marketing is one of the best options for business options these days. Unfortunately, most people are not really aware of this. Yes, according to studies, Google+ enjoys over 150 million active users on a monthly basis. Interestingly, 50 per cent of its users sign on almost every day! That's incredible!



Marketing on Google+ is an amazing idea. There are a number of benefits  G+ promises over other social networks. For instance, its influence on SEO is one of the major advantages. You can also go for some of the incredible tools that cannot be found in other places such as Google Plus Ripples, Google Hangouts etc.

Use of Google Plus for online business makes for one of the most powerful ways to reach out new audience. You can easily boost your SEO and sales. Here are some of the best marketing tips to take you to the top:

Personalize for Business


First and foremost, you need to personalize Google Plus for your brand. As soon as your page gets personalized, you will be all set for marketing your product. Personalizing profile is crucial! The 'About Us' page should stand out, reflect personality of business in the best possible way, and direct page viewers to relevant pages.

This is possible if you describe your business clearly. Include references or write description to show what your business is all about. Thereafter, you can hyperlink text as a call to action for visitors to click through to your website.

Next, you need to claim a Google Plus Page Custom URL. This option is added by Google to supply your Google Plus page with a custom, personalized URL. The process helps with branding your page via making URL company related as compared to a random string of numbers.

Relevant Community on Google


It is very important to build a community around page to ensure effective. Apart from having a community, you should also focus on having a community relevant to your niche. There are some amazing great ways to build up the Google Plus Community.

First, you need to search through Google+ and see if anyone is mentioning your business. The process is easier for establishing page as people have tagged you in the post. For others Google Plus search bar is the best place to start. You can find people individuals who have mentioned your company name without having tagged you in the post.

You can use 'Google Ripples' and know who shares your content. Content sharing does not necessarily mean credit to the content, your services or products. In fact, the content may be getting shared abruptly and for no reason at all. Thankfully, with Ripples by Google Plus, it is easier to locate and trace these shares. It also helps in finding all kinds of people who have actually shared your content. It also works as a competitor research tool. Simply have a look at who shares posts of your competitor and who you would like to connect with.

Regular posts to Build Audience and Promote Your Page


While building up community, you can post consistently to your page. In case, people add you to their circles, you need to provide them with quality content. Automation tools such HootSuite will help with consistent flow of content. Make sure you interact with those who shares your content. You may either leave a comment or give it a +1 to show your appreciation. Using hash tags is one of the best ways to increase interaction with your posts. Hashtags categorize your posts and allow anyone to discover what you write while searching for that hashtag. Google automatically gives one or two hashtags to posts. However, you should focus on adding as many as you wish to on your own.

Another good way is to make use of custom formatting options. Google Plus facilitates you to customize appearance of text which means you can easily bold, italicize, or strike through text in your posts. This way, you can get your message across clearer or even draw attention to certain parts of your post.

Google Hangouts


These are a free video chat that provides you with the ability to host a chat with around 10 participants. It also opens up limitless possibilities. This means you can easily host webinars, add question answer sessions, provide customer support, live stream chats to YouTube and much more.

Local Google Plus for Local Businesses


Google Plus has come up with a powerful amazing feature for local businesses. It promises to help them in various ways. The feature is quite similar to having a local business page on Facebook which allows for setting location, business type, and a lot more. Clients can easily leave ratings and reviews seen by other people visiting your page. The reviews act as social proof. Here, the reviews are displayed to people with reviewers in their circles. In short, they can have a close look at reviews written by people they know.

Make sure you inspire fans to review your business. One good way is to incentivize the whole thing for them. Offer something exciting in exchange for a review.

Boost your business in the search results within Google Plus and Google itself. Users can easily search on Google Local by location for desired business. Simply ensure that your location is placed in correctly, including the following to boost business in local results:

- Contact info
- Keywords

Google reviews can be seen in the regular search result. Thereafter, you can have a look at business information taken from its G+ page inside the box on the side. The box provides relevant info, directions, and also includes some call to actions, such as asking for a review and follow on Google+.

Another good  way to boost business is via setting up a Google Local page correctly and optimizing it with keywords.

Final Words


Google+ is surely one of the best things with a lot to offer your business through its unique features enabling you to establish a strong connect with the audience and through its significance for Search Engine Optimization.

Following the above listed tips will help you to get the best of the benefits of Google Plus for business success!

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Tuesday 14 February 2017

Be Aware and Beware: Your Competitors Can Hurt Your Rankings

Most people believe that finding a great SEO campaign that does its job well is not all that you need. In fact, it is only a small part of your ranking battle. Once your website gets hosted and established, its time to think about competitors seriously. They can simply swoop in and disturb all of the hard work you had put in. Although unfair and unethical, it does happen. Each website owner should be aware of these things and know how to stop it too!



Various types of competitors can hurt your rankings. Some may be ethical and other unethical. However, the key to online business success is to know how to handle this well. Here's what you need to do in this respect:

Out Rank


If a competitor has a better marketing campaign and rankings than you do, they will certainly out rank you. It is a two-way competition. Just as you pushed others down to climb up the ranking ladder, your competitors will do the same to push their business forward. You need to continue with good marketing and ethical SEO tactics. This will help you outrank your competitors.

Understand that not everyone can hold the number one position. It is better to aim for top five. This increases your odds to get to the top and marketing gets simpler. Also, there are dim chances of being pushed out by a competitor while staying aggressive and updated with your marketing campaign.

Link Building is Important


Link ONLY to reputable sites while undergoing a link building campaign. It is also important to check back on the websites to ensure these are worthy of your link. In case, a website loses authority via using bad SEO tactics (linking to poor quality sites / creating spam to increase traffic), everyone linked pays the price and suffer from lower rankings.

Competitors tend to follow the strategy to lower the ranking system and bring down competitors. They may have your link backs placed on non-desirable sites. So keep constant tabs on your link backs. Also use disavow tool from Google to remove links. Always be vigilant while monitoring your website. Contact website owner and ask to have the link removed.

Review Sites


These are the best options to build your brand. These help in driving traffic to your website and establish authority on a specific industry. However, these may even destroy your reputation. Your competitors may be writing these reviews.

In case, an actual consumer writes a negative review, comment on the review and visually display your plan to rectify the situation. For competitor review, speak to the review site directly, and ask them to take down the reviews. Also try to respond to each review personally. Review all the top review sites regularly.

Find Bad Links


Trust the backlink monitoring tool for locating bad links.  It will display all of your backlinks. These can be sorted by backlinks passing PageRank - ones having no SEO value (nofollow) absolutely and those that get completely ignored by Google.  Pay attention to those Google acknowledges and ones that link back to you.

You can check backlinks profile manually. Also sort these by anchor texts and check the ones that look suspicious. Make sure you sort links by social shares. This helps with locating bad links. Remember that 95 per cent of bad links have 0 social shares.

Common Bad Links


Here are some of the common bad links to spot:

- Auto approved comments from un-moderated sites
- Links from pages with less or no content
- Link directories
- Social bookmarking websites
- Websites offering duplicated content
- Links from irrelevant websites

Check Anchor Text


Since many of the backlinks come from images or hidden from users, these may really tough to spot. You can find these by checking the anchor text used on that specific link. The location of the link will be highlighted once the anchor text is copied and pasted into your browser. To find hard to locate links, simply view the page source.

Tag bad links you see and eliminate after checking them.

Get Rid of Bad Links


It is easy. You simply need to get in touch with the webmaster and ask them to remove the bad links. In most cases, webmasters do not have any problems (especially if you are polite). They will remove it without bothering you much. However, if they do not do so, there are other ways you can get rid of these.

There are webmasters who will simply ignore your request. So instead of wasting time returning your request. Remember that the longer bad links are associated with your website, the longer rankings suffer. Also, if a webmaster wants to respond to your request, he/she will do it within 48 hours. In case, you don't get any response within this period, proceed to the next step and get the links removed.

Contact the hosting company and place a request to remove your link. Let them know that a specific site they host has been spamming your website.

Disavow


Using the Google disavow tool can be helpful. It is an effective and easy to use that comes absolutely free of cost. You can go through the tutorials on 'how to use the tool' offered by Google. Although it may take longer, the tool is quite effective. When no one is ready to adhere to your instructions / rules and you simply cannot remove links removed using normal communications, the tool is just the right and best way to get what you want (without any foreign assistance).

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Saturday 11 February 2017

Easy Yet Brilliant Steps to Improve Your B2B Leads Through PPC

There are a number of ways to produce leads for B2B company. PPC is certainly at the top of the list,  especially when you expect instant results. However, PPC is not easy to manage. In fact, the project can get very expensive if you don’t know what you are doing.



According to experts, PPC management is a skill set. It takes time for a person to learn and develop a strategy that produces results without getting expensive. So are you ready to follow the process? You can read and watch all the tutorials, but there will be one definite, you will experience trial and error going through this. Yet, this will surely be worth your while because not only will you learn a lot, you will learn strategies that will work well for you and your business.

Mastering the skill of PPC management will let you produce revenue at higher volume as compared to other techniques. Also other techniques tend to eat up your resources. Enhancing B2B leads through PPC will help increase your ROI while reducing wastage of resources dramatically. While using this technique, you don’t require spreading resources out.

Here are some important steps you can take to boost your B2B leads using PPC:

Know Your Clients


It is important that a business knows their audience (B2C or B2B). There are several ways in which you can improve B2B leads. Several features can help you with your PPC campaigns. However, first, you must know your target customers. Here, it is crucial to develop buyer personas and proper messaging.

A Buyer Persona will allow you to paint a portrait of your ideal customer. The info gathered can be used to target audience, making sure that you are not wasting resources. It also makes sure that the right people see your ads. So no more wasting time and effort on showing ads to people who are not interested.

The next step is to determine the keywords used by your target audience to search for your product or service. You will get insights on websites they frequently visit. It helps with Display campaigns and AdWord Search campaigns.

Articulate Your Offer


This is crucial for B2B sales. When it comes to providing solutions for clients, most B2B organizations have absolutely no problems. Spreading awareness is really important as most customers aren about the benefits of your products or services. They might now know how they will use those in their own't actually aware of benefits of products / services sold by businesses. Under such situations, the customers may not be able to engage immediately as they don’t know what to do about your services and products. For instance, if you offer weight loss and health guidance, you should help the market understand the benefits of engaging with products or services. Invest ample time organizing webinars, various videos, customer testimonials, and even blog posts. While busy with PPC ads, don’t ignore content marketing campaigns that help educate your niche audience.

Create Customized Landing Pages - The moment a visitor gets to one of your landing pages, you have already paid for the click. So it indicates that so called strategies for reducing the number of poor quality leads such as addition form fields, validating email address for business are actually misguided. Your main focus should be on maximizing conversion rates of landing pages. This can be done via optimizing the following elements:

Tailor Landing Pages to Ad Groups - Tailor your landing pages as per the needs and challenges of your ad groups.

Result Driving Offers – It is crucial to test multiple offers to see the one that gets you the most traction.
Test – A/B test your landing pages. This helps determine variants that driving maximum conversions, consumers, opportunities, and ROI. Make sure you always do A/B test for a single element at a time to isolate the overall impact of that specific element on performance. Additionally, focus on testing just two page variants of the page at a time. The most crucial elements to run tests on are above the fold. These include:

Headline – You can test varied versions of the main selling point, offer / benefit.
Call-to-Action (CTA) – The key is to try out a variety of CTA copy, colors, sizes and placements.
Background / Hero Shot - Test a variety of images or videos for hero shot or background.
Form - Test varied lengths and placements for lead generation form. You can also display your form as a pop up, or bottom of your page.

Adjustments to Mobile Performance


Once you have implemented device tracking, you can easily determine the devices that drive opportunities. In case, you feel mobile leads aren't getting converted into opportunities, simply stop running your campaigns on mobile devices. You can also reduce bids. This helps devices receive the bulk of your traffic.

Develop Ad Schedule


In case, you are running ads 24/7, simply set up an ad schedule for your campaigns. It is possible to add days of the week or break down your schedule. All you need to do is add hourly segments for each day of the week. Thereafter, you can track performance for each hour and day that you define.

After combining opportunity data and ad schedule, it is possible to determine days or hours that produce maximum opportunities. This will help you adjust bids for each segment. It also stops running your campaign for the specific segments.

Make sure you have a close look at the data from time to time. In case, you fail to generate opportunities on weekends / weeknights, stop running campaigns during those times. Thereafter, you can move your budget for regular business hours.
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Thursday 9 February 2017

9 Best Ways to Optimize Your Images For an SEO Boost

Do you run an online store? If yes, then image optimization is an art that you want to master. Right from attracting target audience to perusing Google images for minimizing website load time, image optimization makes for a crucial part of developing a successful eCommerce website.



Many times, you must have noticed that your product pictures never show up while doing a Google image search. Have you been wondering if adding "Alt Tags" to images will do good for your website?
JPEG, GIF and PNG - What difference does it make?

Here, you will get to know about the 9 best ways to optimize your images to boost SEO:

1. Name Your Images


Make sure you do it descriptively. Also use simple plain English while doing so. Do not get into the habit of keeping the default file name given by your camera. Use of acceptable keywords will help your webpage rank well on search engines. Effective image optimization demands highly descriptive, keyword-rich file names. Search engines will crawl the text on your webpage. They will also search for keywords within image file names.

2. Optimize Alt Tags Wisely


Alt tags are a great text alternative to images, especially when a browser is unable to render them. In cases, where image is rendered, hovering over it with mouse pointer will let you see the alt tag text developed for that image. This depends on your browser settings. The alt attribute adds SEO value to the website. Better rankings for a website can be achieved by adding appropriate alt tags to the images and associating keywords with images. Use of alt tags is the best way for eCommerce products show up in Google image and web search. For image optimization, fill out each alt tag for each product image on your website.

Make sure you follow simple rules for alt tags:

- Describe images in plain English.
- Selling products with model number or serial numbers? Use these in your alt tag too.
- Strictly avoid keyword stuffing in your alt tags.
- Do not use alt tags for decorative images. You may be penalized by search engines for over-optimization.

Carry out a sanity check on your website on a regular basis. You must take a close look at the source of your web pages. Assess properly to see if your alt tags are filled out.

3. Create a Strategy for Image Dimensions and Product Angles


Displaying multiple angles of a product is a trend that has caught up really well these days. The best way you can capitalize on these pictures is to fill out alt tags. Simply create unique alt tags for each product shot. Add descriptions to base alt tag. This will help potential searchers land on your website. Google will reward you with searchers.

Avoid placing the largest image on your webpage as it lengthens the page load time owing to the larger file size related to the large image. The idea is to shrink the dimensions using source code. Give an option to view larger image in a pop-up or let it displayed on a separate webpage.

4. Reduce the Image File Size


Making your target audience wait for 3 seconds for a website load is ok. 5 seconds is too much! It is a sin! As per a research report published by Amazon, the company lost around $1.6 billion in a year if their pages slow down by 1 second. It is important to understand that Google uses page load time as a crucial factor in their ranking algorithm. So if your images take a lot of time to load, you are actually bidding adieu to your customers.

The best thing to do here is to decrease the image file size on your webpage. "Save for Web" command in Adobe Photoshop is a good way to do that. Ecommerce images should be kept under 70kb. Adjust the image to the lowest file size acceptable when using the command.

Use some of the other online tools if you do not have Photoshop. image editing. Some of the best image editing tools include PicMonkey, Pixlr, and FotoFlexer.

5. The Best Image File Type to Use


Three most common file types used to post images include:

- JPEG
- GIF
- PNG

JPEG (or .jpg) images are the old file type. These have turned into standard image of the World Wide Web. These images can be compressed significantly, resulting in high quality images with small file sizes.

GIFs (.gif) are lower quality images. These are used for more simple images. For instance, webmasters use these as icons and decorative images. The format supports animation and using these for plain and simple images on a webpage is a great option. However, for complex images and pictures, GIFs do not make for an attractive option.

PNG images are gaining popularity faster as an alternative to GIFs. The format supports a wide range of colors as compared to GIFs. The best part is that these do not degrade over time with re-saves. The file sizes may be larger as compared to JPEG images.

Be cautious while using PNG-24 image which is over three times larger in file size than the PNG-8 version.

Here are some tips to follow when choosing file formats:

- JPEGs make for the best option for most ecommerce sites. These are high on quality and the smaller file size.
- Strictly avoid using GIFs for large product images. The size is very large and cannot be reduced. Use of GIFs for thumbnails and decorative images is good.
- PNGs are a good alternative for both JPEGs and GIFS. PNG-8 is better than PNG-24 when using pictures for a product. PNGs are great as simple decorative images owing to their extremely small file size.

Use of an image editing software will let you save images to any of the file types discussed above.

6. Learn To Handle Thumbnails


Most ecommerce sites use thumbnail images. These provide an excellent way to scan category pages fast sans taking up too much space. Although thumbnails are great, you need to be careful. These can affect page loading times negatively. You may lose customers when they hold up category pages from loading. So you need to reduce the size of thumbnail file sizes as far as possible. Also vary the alt tag text. Duplicate text use bigger versions of the same image. Create the different alt text. Lastly, Allow thumbnail to be indexed instead of the large image.

7. Decorative Images – Beware!!


Most websites have an assortment of decorative images. These may include buttons, background images, and borders. An image that's irrelevant or unrelated to product / service is tagged as 'decorative'.

Decorative images tend to add aesthetic appeal to a webpage. However, these usually lead to huge combined file size. Also it slows down the load times. Hence, you need to take a closer look at decorative images to stop them from impairing your website's capacity  to convert visitors into customers.

The first thing to do is assess the file sizes of decorative images on web pages. Thereafter, you must make use of a template that reduces file sizes for website pages. Some of the best ways you can reduce file sizes of decorative images include:

- Convert borders or simple patterns into PNG-8 or GIFs.
- Use CSS for creating colored areas instead of using images.
- Large wallpaper-style background image should be reduced in size as far as possible sans ruining the quality of the image. Try cutting out the middle of the background image. Try converting it to a flat color or transparent. This is one of the best ways to reduce file size to a significant amount.

8. Be Cautious While Using Content Delivery Networks


Content delivery networks (CDNs) are now categorised as the most profitable place to host images and other media files. These help increase load times for your page and help fix bandwidth issues. The only drawback is backlinks. Backlinks are critical for SEO. The more you have, the better your website performs in the search engines.

Placing images on content delivery network will remove the images from your domain and placing it on a content delivery network domain. This means when someone links to your images, they link to the content delivery network website. In short, you must keep yourself from the temptation to follow anything just because it is "trendy". Assessors if it is the best move for your business before joining the bandwagon.

A CDN makes for a great choice if your website does a lot of business each month as it fixes bandwidth issues. For a website that gets "thousands" of visitors a day, simply continue with present hosting situation as it will easily handle the load.

Getting professional help will strategize your move in a way that's best for your business.

9. Test Images


The ultimate aim of image optimization is to help boost your bottom line. Once you have focussed on reducing size of files and getting search engines index these, it is time for testing images and see what precisely converts into more business.

You should test number of product images per page. Many non-hosted ecommerce sites face problems with loading time, the main thing to focus on is to reduce the number of images on a single page. This helps boost click-through rates and sales. However, in some cases, supplying a lot of images per page may actually boost user experience and result in more sales. The best way to find out what works is to test.

You can test angles preferred by your target audience. Providing views your clients wish to see will ultimately increase overall loyalty. Try surveying customers about their preferences while viewing product shots.

Also test the number of product listings you need to have on category pages. This will help you see what works best for your target audience and their shopping experience.

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Wednesday 8 February 2017

Value of Money – A Facet of Service Web Design Freelancers Should Focus On

So you are a freelancer and satisfied with your work? This situation seems like as if you have a perfect professional life. Unfortunately, this is far from the truth. A lot of freelance web designer feels that they have reached a plateau. There are times when they like to take up more challenging tasks. Another important thing is to work with clients who will pay more and appreciate the efforts made. Every hardworking freelance wants to work with clients who realize and respect the concept of value for money.



This is precisely where you start off with your journey from a freelancer to entrepreneur. The transition takes time, but you need to keep making efforts. It involves taking on more work, additional projects and learning simple yet effective ways to market yourself. These small steps will lead you to establishing your own business.

Being a theme pre-built websites user will help. It helps you know the overall cost of your work. You also know that using the right tools in the appropriate manner will help you save time and deliver excellent results.

Passion is Power


Passion is what can take you to the path of success. It should be topped smartly with business thinking.
Since the concept - 'value for money' is powerful, a freelancer must understand it well prior to applying it. Start off by having a close look at your work process. Make sure you realize the value against time, energy, and creativity (know the amount of time spent for each). Start by showing clients why your work and efforts were worth more than what they pay.

Value of Tools


Know the overall value of tools. Start by having a look at a WordPress theme of your choice. Try assessing if it is functioning the way it should. Is it really helping you provide value for money for clients. Are you travelling that extra mile and spending extra time installing themes? Have you thought of setting up new options? Customizing layouts are another thing you should focus on.

Assess the Theme


Prior to using a theme or a prebuilt website, assess it on all aspects of functions. It should be customizable, easy to use, and should not demand any complex coding. You should be well aware of the features that help you most in your work. Do you think the tool provides an effective way for spending resources?

Pick Wisely


Pick a pre-built theme wisely. Look for one that offers professional-level designs, matches your client’s niche, and customizable. Know the amount of time you will save. The best thing to do is show your clients editable layouts. It saves time.

Three Basic Elements


For delivering superior services, you need the following the three basic elements:

- Skill
- Experience
- Communication Skill

If you aren't getting enough requests for additional work from previous clients or they aren't referring you to others, there are areas you need to look for improvement.

Work Smarter


This is important whether you are a freelancer or not. Working harder may get you results, but working smart will attract success. Keep your eyes and ears open. The moment you see an area that requires improvement, start working on it. Also, research areas that demand help. You need to learn and explore more about the latest design trends, standards, rules, and much more. Listen to your clients well and adhere to their instructions keeping in mind the value for money concept.

Develop Yourself


Once you are capable of producing more value for yourself, you actually work towards offering benefits to all. Invest your time and money wisely. So start assessing your investments individually,  especially in terms of value for money. Towards the end of the month, you will get an idea of things that work well and the spots you require working on to improve. It is all about paying attention. When you pay attention, you facilitate the process of transition from freelancer to entrepreneur. This way, you become your own marketing resource.

Enjoy Your Job


Avoid doing a job just because you have to do it. Taking up a project and accomplishing it successfully is important. However, you should pay attention to small yet consistent improvements on a personal level. Remember, you have multiple skills and talents. Each of these can work for a resource that helps you supply value for money. All you need to do is understand these resources better and the best way to put these into use.

Take-away Ideas


It is crucial that you use value for money as criteria for a test to see the way your work impacts others. This will help you assess relationship with clients in a different light. Also the tools you use should be analyzed well to know if they are providing ample value for money. One of the best examples of such tools is 'Be Theme'. It offers over 220+ pre-built websites to users. When used wisely in conjunction with your niche skills and talents, you can make a huge success out of each project. Studies have revealed that over 50,000 designers love it.

In a Nutshell



It is important that you set a goal towards being a dynamic human resource that clients would look forward to for 'real' value. The mission is definitely achievable with dedicated efforts and using tools.

Good Luck!

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Tuesday 7 February 2017

Costliest Mistakes Businesses Make On Social Media

Social media have been labelled and proven as a powerful tool. However, the power comes with a huge baggage of responsibility. Most of the time businesses simply fail to understand the damage social media mistakes can do. Also the long-term damage and issues can disturb growth.



Thankfully, these costly mistakes businesses are preventable! Try doing good things as positive exposure is helpful to your brand.

Here are some ways you can avoid making costly mistakes:

Irrelevant Posts


Stories about companies making social media faux pas and then deleting posts or tweets is common. They even end up making an apology to make things look fine later. Strictly avoid posting anything that will label you or the post as insensitive, irrelevant, or inappropriate. Try establishing a detailed posting policy. Here, you need to make sure the tweet or post is reviewed smartly before it can be published.

The Attack Mode


Social media (talk of Twitter) are loaded with trolls. The mere basis of their existence is to bring people down. It is upsetting to watch the trolls disturbing your social media campaigns. Trolling is actually a rare problem. The best way to handle it is to ignore it. It goes away once you ignore it. Trolls simply want your attention. Rage is what energizes them. Strictly avoid responding. Show you aren't reading and bothered!

Not Recognizing your Target Audience


Most business owners believe that creating profiles, developing content and following a some account is all they need to do. However, your job doesn't stop here. If you are serious about enjoying immense success with social media, simply narrow your focus. Make double sure you’re reaching out to the right audience.

A successful social media strategy will start with a detailed understanding of your target audience. This should follow with gaining information on where audience shops, what they do in spare time, their political beliefs, their aspiration and other details. In short, knowing who your audience is will help you engage the audience in meaningful ways.

Paid Likes and Followers


Most people have a tough time getting a social media presence off the ground. Gathering a few hundred followers may take a few months. Most of the time, you will feel as if the progress is moving at a snail’s pace. And this is where a big mistake of paying for followers is made. A lot of business owners consider it as a good deal. They believe that simply spending a few dollars will work.

However, experts in this field strictly warn against taking any such step. This is because likes and follows you purchase aren't real people! These are neither potential leads nor customers. Do not expect them to share or link your content. These social media accounts are robots doing the same thing for everyone around!

One of the biggest dangers of buying likes and followers is that you will spend precious time speaking to the fake or irrelevant audience. None of your advertising or marketing efforts will work here. So it is always better to employ dedicated efforts and exercise patience creating and employing business strategies with social media.

Social Media


It is important to understand that social media can either be an asset or a hindrance. Unfortunately, a lot of businesses tend to launch social strategies without gaining an insight of what precisely successful social media marketing looks like. This often results in costly errors which may damage the reputation of the brand in the long run.

Avoiding the above listed mistakes, you won't fall for traps. Also for a healthy, effective long-term social strategy, it is important that you become familiar with the intricacies of each platform used. Also, never cease learning.
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Monday 6 February 2017

8 Powerful Ways to Increase Your Reputation Online

Online ratings and reviews possess ample potential to influence decision of your present and future clients. Boosting, protecting, and promoting the online reputation of a company needs to be an integral part of its day to day operations.



Negative reviews for your products, services or website tends to deter buyers. So if you have even one negative review, do something about it. This may affect your potential sales. Listed below are some powerful actions to improve your online reputation:

1. Encourage Happy Customers


Encourage your happy and satisfied clients to post their positive experience. Your customers advocating your services are a plus point. It will influence others to buy from you. In case, your customers don't feel motivated to post their experience about your business, offer an incentive. Remember that a discount or coupon may prove very helpful for your business. These may be awarded to you customers for posting genuine positive reviews.

2. Remove Obstacles


Remove all obstacles that interrupt the process of writing a review. You need to make it really easy for your happy customer to write reviews. Here, you must focus on implementing a proactive, automated process by using online reputation management software. It helps making process of reviewing business easy.

3. Use of Appropriate Tools


Apart from the encouragement of positive posts, you need to make other dedicated efforts to improve your online reputation. One of the effective ways to go about this is the use of professional tools such as Profile Defenders. It is a reputed online reputation management company that removes or deletes defamatory content fully. It also removes bad web pages online. The best part is that they even use themselves as an example of a client they have helped. Use of online tools is quite helpful in improving reputation of your company online as they reach to the route cause of the problem.

4. Associations


Getting positive reviews is easy if your customers like you. So make sure each time you get a positive comment, respond with a "thank you." Take the name of your customer too, if mentioned. Keeping a close track of your customers throughout the sales process is crucial. Continue with these efforts even after they turn into your clients.

5. Handling Negative Reviews


It is important that you properly address a negative review. This should be done in a way that promotes trust amongst consumers. Speak to the customer and try to solve the issue as soon as possible. Also give an answer to the review online apologising for the experience and promising to resolve the issue.

6. Do Not Delay


Timing plays a crucial role in tackling online comments or complaints. So if you see someone has written something about your business, service, product, or employees, respond immediately. Failing to respond will give a 'you don’t care' impression. So if you come across a compliment, acknowledge it by saying thank you and make it as personalized as possible. For a complaint or negative review, apologize. Also offer a solution and if necessary, offer to take the matter seriously by having a conversation offline. You must take care of things before they go out of hand.

7. Stay Positive


The way you respond to a complaint or negative review on your site makes a lot of difference. It can even break how your business is perceived. Most consumers would stop doing business with a brand after a negative interaction. Studies have also revealed that customers increase their spending and regular visits following a positive experience. So make sure you focus on customer satisfaction and keep responses of your customers as positive as possible.

8. Keep a Track of Posts


You should be aware of the posts being made about your organization. This is important as it will let you intercept and even exterminate them way before they emerge as a big issue. Most of the time posts going viral are a result of the initial poster gaining followers from other viewers sharing similar views. The entire thing will lead to a snowball effect. You must focus on getting to the route of the source. This helps with sharing your thoughts in a good way and disperse the issue.
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Friday 3 February 2017

17 Effective Ways to Use Pinterest for Photography Business

Pinterest is definitely one good way to market your photography business online effectively. It allows simplified client interactions, ensure greater value to clients, and even keep your inspirations and masterpieces organized.



Professional photographers usually share their work on various social media websites such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Google+. However, many underestimate the importance of using Pinterest. Photographers using this dynamic image-based platform to market photography and build a brand are benefitted.

Pinning photos, infographics, and videos to digital boards helps photographers gain greater exposure. They are also benefited by attracting more website traffic, blog traffic, and potential new clients.

New to Pinterest? Listed below are some tips to market your photography business the best using Pinterest:

1. Create a Business Account


A Pinterest business account will allow you to track your most popular boards and pins. This is important to make your business move ahead and inspire you to take apt steps towards the same.

2. Add Pinterest Browser Button to Your Browser


It is important to add Pinterest browser button to make it easier for you to pin photos to a variety of Pinterest boards. You can add it to your Pinterest browser button to your favorite browser or download the Pinterest app for mobile devices.

3. Create Pinterest Board


Once a business account is created and browser button is added on Pinterest, it is time to create a board that displays your masterpieces. Make sure you sift through your portfolio thoroughly and choose your best images. After selection, simply pin them to the board. It is important to link directly from an individual page or blog post. Avoid doing it from your general website or blog.

4. Additional Boards


If you deal with diverse types of photograph, it is beneficial to create several Pinterest boards. This will you to showcase your work. For example, you can create separate boards for an infant photoshoot, toddler photo shoot, maternity shoot and couple shoot.

5. Give Description


Optimize pins via using the following as per requirement:

- Keywords
- Links
- Categories
- Hashtags
You should also mention your name, location, and type(s) of photography you specialize in. Copyright symbol, date and year of shoot, etc. may also be mentioned.

6. Watermark


You should watermark photographs to ensure apt protection. It also makes it easier for pinner to search your business using the Pinterest search bar in case, your link doesn't work.

7. Storyboard


Pinning a single photograph at a time on Pinterest may not be a good idea. Place, a collection of images which makes for a storyboard. Upload it to your website or blog and pin it to one of Pinterest boards. It helps potential clients have a quick glance at multiple photos and get a nice feel for your work style.

8. Testimonial Board


If you have client testimonials on business websites, share them on Pinterest? This increases your credibility among followers.

9. Board for Present Clients


It is important that you have a separate board for your current clients. They may need your help while looking for something new and unique to wear for their new photo session. So you can create a new “What to Wear”, “The Accessories” and “Make up Guide” boards. Try creating inspiration boards if you deal with different categories of the shoot. For instance, you can create boards for your current clients under engagement shoot ideas, reception decorations, wedding venues, etc.

10. Follow Other Users


Following other Pinterest users will help you build up a substantial following. The best way is to start by following friends on Facebook. You simply need to use the “Find Friends” tab on the left side of Pinterest. You may even invite your Facebook friends to become Pinterest followers or users.

11. Encourage Pinning


Install Pinterest buttons on your website or blog. Also try adding a “Pin It” mouseover button to blog.

12. Appreciate


Take some time and thank those who have pinned your images or followed you on Pinterest. Offering exclusive incentives or promotions for clients who follow you on Pinterest is also a great idea.

13. Join Group Boards


It helps joining different groups or community boards with multiple contributors. You can increase your exposure on Pinterest. Try asking fellow photographers about the group boards they are a part of. Request invitations to those community boards.

14. Get More Exposure


Pinterest makes online photography business marketing quick and absolutely hassle free. Simply download a “Pin It” widget and it fits into all of your social media websites, websites and blogs. It will help display your work on pin boards. Users with a massive following will be highly benefited as they can see the work going viral in minutes!

15. Pin Description


It is crucial to be very selective while choosing pin descriptions. Pleasing Google can be difficult. So make sure the keywords are chosen wisely! Always use a link to your website in description. This will help drive your referral links up which ultimately driving your SEO up. Strictly avoid flooding your description with repeated keywords.

16. Contests and Promotions


Oganize a Pinterest contest where you would put out a call to action to your fans. You may ask them to create a Pinboard and pin your images, ideas, etc. for photo shoot. Let them post a link to their Pinboard on your Facebook wall. You may even develop a promotion plan for special discount or freebie by using a pin on your Pinboard.

17. Maintain Interest Among your Clients


Keep asking your customers and fans to pin your images. Updating Pinterest boards and linking to them on your blog or Facebook page will retain interest of your clients and fans. They will be active on your site.

So using Pinterest to promote photography business is a no brainer. Yes, it is hassle free, free of cost, and super fun! All you need to do is allow your creative mind to come up with some unique, exciting ideas to market using Pinterest! Happy Pinning!

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