Common Onsite SEO Mistakes

CMS providers like WordPress are well optimized for SEO out of the box, but it is not perfect. In fact there are many onsite SEO mistakes that users make especially in WordPress.

The bottom line is that you are responsible for a well-optimized website. if you’re not following SEO fundamentals any plugins and widgets you installed are basically worthless. With this in mind we have a list of common onsite WordPress SEO mistakes you need to check out to see if you’re guilty of any of these.

Not Optimizing Permalink

The permalink is important because:

• It gives visitors an indication of what a page is about.
• Indicates relevancy to search engines.

This is why you should ensure that your permalink is defined correctly. Go to settings>permalink

 

As you can see permalinks are given the post or page name. This format is recommended but you can also add a date especially if content is date relevant (like news articles). However, blogs can forgo the date for their permalink.

Once you get the permalink structure correctly make sure that they are well optimized for keywords that you’re targeting.

Poor Image Optimization

One of the most common WordPress SEO mistakes is poor image optimization. Search engines do not see text in images so they need a guiding hand when it comes to this medium. This is where the title tags come in handy as seen in this example:

 

Fill in both the alt and title tags. When it comes to tags focus on both SEO and usability.

Not Providing XML Sitemap

An XML sitemap is not necessary. However, not providing one for search engines is the equivalent of telling them how to get to your house verbally rather than telling them your address. An XML sitemap tells search engines what should be indexed. This way search engines like Google and Bing which of your indexed pages are important.

Providing an XML sitemap is easy to do. If you have the Yoast SEO plugin installed just go to SEO > General > Features and toggle On the XML sitemap functionality:

 

Poorly Structured Headers

HTML headers (e.g. the <h1> tag) give Google an insight to the relevancy of your website. Words placed on the header weigh more significantly compared to what’s written in the content of your site. This is why it is important to include specific keywords within the headers as much as possible. It is also important that your header tags are structured correctly.  Check if you’re following the best practice:

• On your home page, the <h1> tag should be the name of your site
• On all other pages, the <h1> tag should be the headline (i.e. of the post/page)

This way your homepage has the best chance of ranking for your site’s name and the other pages will have the best ranking for whatever they are covering.

Not Optimizing For Speed

Loading speed for your website is very important. People hate sites that are slow to load and so does Google and other search engines. This means that the loading speed of your website impacts your rankings.

Luckily there are many guides on how you can speed up WordPress and there are also caching plugins that you can use to help.

Not Optimizing For Social Media

Your WordPress site should be optimized for social media whether you like it or not. Make sure that your profiles are correctly set up using Open Graph and Twitter Cards. Yoast SEO has a social setting built into their plugin:

 

Correctly linking your website to your social media profile will make your posts more “sharable”.

Errors like those mentioned above can have serious ramifications on your website. if you find that your site is a victim of these mistakes, rectifying them will can have a dramatic difference on how search engines view your site.

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The Power of Millennials & Their Impact On E-Commerce

Did you know that millennials can influence your website’s revenue? Generally speaking, millennials are people aged between 18-38 years old and social media has a big influence on this group. According to a study conducted by eMarketer, 39.8% of them rank social sources (social media, family and friends) as their top three sources for picking up ideas for products to buy. This is not surprising since this group grew up watching unboxing videos on YouTube and grew up with Amazon at their beck and call.

This means that peer recommendations and social media carry a lot of weight when it comes to shopping.

Here are some ways small businesses can capitalize from these millennial characteristics to help generate sales.

Millenials Are Mobile

 

 

An eMarketer research also found out that 46% of young millennials (ages 18-23) and 67% of older millennials (ages 24-38) say they prefer to shop on a smartphone or tablet, compared to an average of 42% across all age groups.

However there are still many small businesses that do not optimize their online stores for mobile use. Since millennials prefer to do their shopping online and via their gadgets, providing them a mobile optimized shop can help you see significant conversions.

Millenials Love To Share

 

Millennials count their family and friends as the biggest influence when it comes to finding inspiration for product recommendations. Their recommendations are so significant that their interest in a brand could cause a spike in awareness. So make sure that your website has sharing buttons for popular social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for easy sharing of your product or brand.

Millenials Like Venmo

 

 

Venmo is similar to PayPal but it also allows users to share their purchase in their social feed. It is essentially a digital wallet that lets you share payment with friends. Since millennials like to share, this payment option is popular among their group.

Venmo is popular among millennials because they can post their purchases on their feed and begin discussions with their friends. In a way they can also become brand ambassadors for your product and help you generate buzz.

There are many purchases that are social. Chipping in for a gift for a friend or buying tickets for an event. Venmo has cultivated a forum where it is natural for friends and family to talk about where they got that vintage record or their latest OOTD. Behind every purchase in Venmo is a network of friends and family who view, like or comment which can potentially provide brand exposure for you.

Venmo and PayPal and other payment options are easy to set up in WordPress. Depending on your extension it is easy to display options such as PayPal, Venmo, PayPal Credit or other local payment options in a single stack, so customers choose how to pay without needing to leave your website.

Millennials are a big group of people who love to stay connected and shop online. If you find that your website is not millennial friendly you could be missing out on a big opportunity.

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Web Directories That Are Still Valuable In 2019

During the early days of SEO, web directories were the bomb. In the early days Google algorithm was easy to play so if your site was listed on a ton of web directories, your chances of ranking high was guaranteed.

The number of directory links you had influenced how well your site ranked on Google. However, online marketers caught on and littered Google with links to their own site.

Today, Google’s algorithm is more sophisticated. While links are still one of the best signals, Google does not view all links equally. Links from directory listings are now less valuable compared to contextual links coming from a high-authority site in your niche.

But this does not mean to say that web directories are worthless. According to MOZ research, web directories and local citations still have a small ranking factor especially for businesses. In fact, Google’s John Mueller has said that directory links “generally” don’t help with SEO.

Therefore, marketers should move beyond seeing directories as a source of links. They should instead view directories as a source of traffic and trust.

If you’re a business looking to boost sales and traffic don’t just put your listings on the first web directory you see. Consider these listings before signing up:

• Is this site reputable? Ask yourself if a customer sees your business on this site, will they view my business as legitimate?
• Is my target audience likely to come to this website? If the answer is no, it’s probably not worth listing your business.

Here are some web directories that are still relevant in 2019.

To remain relevant many online directories transitioned into review sites. This is a list of web directories with real traffic that can translate to real value for your website.

Best of the Web

Best of the Web (or BOTW for short) has been around since 1994 and is still a trusted online directory for 16 million businesses. A lifetime listing (with a followed link) costs $299.

AboutUs

 

AboutUs was originally a business domain directory but transitioned to allowing all kinds of websites to be submitted.

Spoke.com

If you want to find or discuss business people, companies, news and other business related stuff, you can do that in Spoke.com. The site allows you to add a web listing for a business or a person.

For Blogs Only

Blogarama

Blogarama is one of the web’s oldest blog directories. It features over 143,000 blog listings that are being actively updated by admins. The site has over 230,000 visitors monthly and offers premium and business packages.

For Local Business

Google My Business

You can say that Google My Business is the grandfather of web directories. Many SEO professionals are familiar with the benefits of submitting your site to this directory. Google My Business continues to be relevant in terms of local SEO and it’s also worth mentioning that Google is the world’s largest search engine. Therefore listing your business on this directory is not just a good idea but also good marketing sense.

Bing Places

 

Bing Places is Google My Business Equivalent in the world’s second most popular search engine. Even though only 4% of the world uses Bing for searches, it is important to note that this is the default search engine for Internet Explorer and Edge and Microsoft still dominates the world’s desktop market.

Yahoo

Yep, Yahoo is still relevant and is the 3^rd most popular search engine. Adding your business to Yahoo Local (and 6 other daughter directories) cost $8.25 a month.

Yelp

Yelp is still the place to go for online reviews for local businesses. If you want your customers to find you, you have to be on Yelp and get positive reviews.

Foursquare

Foursquare is not as popular as Yelp but it provides listings for all types of businesses.

Yellow Pages

 

The company that used to print huge yellow books has gone online. Claiming your business is free although you will be pestered into signing up for their advertising options.

YP is still relevant because it provides listing to all types of industries, offers coupons and regularly posts blog content to drive internal link equity back to their directory pages. The site also converts. When people go to Yellow Pages, they’re looking for contact information. 60 million people go to YP.com every month and 91% make contact within 24 hours.

Chamber of Commerce

ChamberOfCommerce.com is the online version of your local Chamber of Commerce. It boasts a robust listing of small business online and also serves as a small business owner resource center.

Merchant Circle

Merchant Circle’s mission is simple: “find the best local merchants.”

You can find all kinds of businesses, merchants, industries, contractors and professionals on Merchant Circle. It has a listing of around 2 million and gets approximately 340,000 monthly visits.

Better Business Bureau

The BBB remains a major trust signal to consumers. If your business has a BBB accreditation, customers can visit the site to verify you’re a business they can trust.

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Unusual LinkedIn Marketing Hacks

Do you know that according to experts, 80% of B2B leads come from LinkedIn and 79% of B2B marketers say that the site has been an effective avenue for lead generation?

That’s right. Over the years LinkedIn has become a platform to generate leads for businesses. Whether your business goals are to improve visibility, boost product sales, improve customer service or generate brand awareness there is so much to be gained in using the platform to promote your business.

These goals are attainable using a solid LinkedIn marketing plan. In this connection we have gathered some unusual marketing hacks used by LinkedIn experts to amp up your marketing game.

Don’t Share An Article

According to Michaela Alexis, President of Grade A Digital once you’ve publishes an article grab the URL and create an update about it. This will allow you to give it more context and if it’s a great article it will double your chances of viral activity.

Don’t Be Afraid To Go Broad

 

Brian Dean, Founder Backlinko shares that the secret to getting tons of engagement on LinkedIn is to write content that appeal to a large group of people. In other words, write content that your mom and dad can comment on.

Posts that appeal to a mass audience do best. For instance you can write about haters and trolls on the internet, pop-up ads or flying business class vs. coach. With LinkedIn you can write about anything you want. If you’re unsure ask yourself if it’s something your mom would comment on.

Use LinkedIn to Repost

One of the best ways to reach more people is to repost content that has done well in other social media platforms like Facebook. Dennis Yu, Founder of Blitzmetrics uses LinkedIn to repost anything that has driven high engagement on Facebook and vice versa.

Use Top Trending Stories of The Day

LinkedIn usually shows the top 10 trending stories of the day and many don’t realize they can do searches based on that content.

Brian Wallace, Founder of Nowsourcing shares that using the hashtags behind the top trending stories can let you create intelligent content based on it and gain the attention of people not seeing your content.

Pose A Question

According to Allen Gannett, CEO of TrackMaven; every post should have a question. As a social media platform, LinkedIn is great for discussions.

So don’t just post a link and move on. Make sure that your content is set up like the start of a conversation and not as a sign post to a blog that you posted somewhere else.

Drive CTA Through Summary Section

The summary section of LinkedIn can be used to drive CTA. Include a proper email, scheduler link or link to the “learn more” or “buy now” page on your brand website.

This will make sure that people on LinkedIn can be directed through one easy action.

Make Employees Brand Ambassadors

 

Investing all your time and effort on the company page can be a waste of time. Make your employees your brand ambassadors instead.

Why? Because people engage 10 times more with employee profiles compared to company pages.

You can do this by picking 5-10 most engaged and representative employees and get them a branding strategist and content writer. They will then polish the profile of your employees and make them fit for the digital age and develop high quality content which employees will post in their profiles.

Retarget Contacts on Facebook and Instagram

CEO & Co-Founder of BAMF Media Josh Fechter’s strategy is a bit unusual. It involves downloading your contacts from LinkedIn, then uploading them into Facebook Business Manager as a custom audience to retarget them on Facebook and Instagram.

This strategy builds a trust and like factor with your audience.

Share Perspective On Issues

Manu Goswami, CEO & Founder of SuperFan Inc. goes to Medium and other popular blogs and looks for what’s trending for the day. He then goes back to LinkedIn to share his perspective on the issue.

According to him, it’s a good way to create viral content because the formula for viral content is a mix of context and relevance.

Do you think any of these unusual marketing hacks are worth trying? Do you have a hack that you would want to share? Tell us by leaving your comments below.

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Instagram Selling Tips You Need To Use Now

Instagram has over 500 million users logging in every day and 1 billion log in once a month. But did you know that most of these users don’t just visit IG just to look at beautiful mountains and sceneries. According to BusinessInsider.com, 72% of users bought a product they discovered through the platform. This means that there is enormous opportunity for selling through Instagram.

With this sort of statistic, it is clear that selling on the social media platform can be profitable. Using the right strategies can help you boost sales. Here are tips you should be using right now.

Use Shoppable Features

The Shoppable features were a new development to Instagram so you might not know about it yet. Instagram has announced that they are expanding shopping capabilities including adding shopping sections, an explore tab and allowing shoppers to save shoppable posts.

This means that users can now shop your posts and stories. They will see a small shopping bag on your posts which are tagged with products and linked to the product pages in your website. When they tap the post they will see a product tag which contains information like the name and price. Once they tap on the tag they will be taken to an in-app page with more information, including potential sizes, descriptions and product variations. Users will now have the option to “view on website” where they can purchase it directly.

Setting up this new feature can take time but it can be worth it. According to a case study from Instagram, websites experienced a 25% increase in site traffic and an 8% increase in revenue attributed to this new feature.

Leverage UGC To Its Fullest Potential

User generated content (UGC) is so well-trusted; it’s become a powerful selling tool. Not only does UGC help people trust you, it also acts like a social proof that shows your followers that people like them like your stuff.

When sharing UGC on Instagram, be sure to be clear on the description as to what it is. It can be easy to confuse a professional photo from the brand. If you’re selling something make sure to #regram and to tag the original poster and thank for sharing.

Intent-Oriented Hashtags

The right hashtags can go a long way because it can help you connect with the target audience. Hashtags can be tricky as a selling tip, so the key is to use a combination of hashtags that will put you in front of your audience and hashtag that are intended for high-intent searches.

Using the example above, it can be used to target somebody who is looking for a #housewarminggift. Similarly, the post can also be found for those who are looking for #highmaintenance since they will be able to reach people with #highmaintenanceproblems.

Show Products In Use

Showing people how to use your product whether it’s a demonstration or a tutorial is an easy way to get people excited about your product. If they can picture themselves using it, they can picture themselves buying it.

According to data gathered by Yopto.com, 72% of customers believe that seeing Instagram images of a product actually increases the likelihood that they’ll buy. But this is only true if they see the product in use.  It’s one thing to see a blender on the website but it’s a whole other level if they see you using it or making smoothies with it.

Answer Questions In the Comments

One of the best things you can do to help drive sales on Instagram is to engage with your audience. If people are interested about a product they will need more information so they will usually leave questions in the comments section. People who are interested ask questions otherwise they wouldn’t waste their time.

However, one missed question can mean one missed sale so you need to be on top of your social media game. Using social media management tools can help you avoid unanswered questions and make sure you never miss a single comment. Remember you want to strike while the iron is hot.

There is clearly a huge opportunity for sellers on Instagram. For best success combine these strategies to ensure that your content is optimized for best results.

Have you tried any of these tips? What is your experience selling on Instagram? Tell us by leaving your comments below.

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Best Ways To Use Social Analytics To Maximize Your Growth

Social media analytics are the best friend of people who are passionate about tracking their social media performance.

If you’re not into social analytics, this post will tell you the best ways to use it to help maximize your growth.

Follower Growth

One of the best reasons to use social analytics is to measure your follower growth. It also helps you know whether your content is attracting the right audience. When it comes to social media analytics, follower growth (or lack thereof) is a good indicator whether or not your strategy is working. A steady influx of followers usually means that they are having an easy time finding your account and liking what they see. This is clearly a positive sign.

Getting a mention from a big brand can also cause a spike in followers. In this instance it is best to capitalize on this opportunity.

Reach & Impression

The Reach & impression metric can tell you how far your content is really going. Reach refers to the unique number of people who saw your content on social media. Impression on the other hand refers to the number of times the content was displayed (one person or account can see your post more than once).

It is important to know these metrics because it lets you know how far your content is reaching and help you calculate active engagement rate (how many people saw your post and took action). Higher reach and impression numbers mean that your content is going places and can help you direct future strategic directions.

Using social media analytics trackers for every social platform you’re active on can help you take a look  at time periods where there are peaks to help you figure out which content is giving you the most engagement and reach. This metric can also help you come up with new content ideas based on what works for you.

Engagement and Mentions

Engagement and mentions shows peaks in interaction. Engagement includes likes, comments, clicks, shares and messages. Keeping track of these will help your brand or business in so many different aspects, such as:

• Customer service – answer questions and customer concerns.
• Influx of likes, shares, or comments – spikes can mean you’ve hit content gold or other websites are mentioning you or driving traffic to your social channel.
• Messages or DMs – if somebody is taking time to write a direct message, this means they’re very interested in you.

Various social media trackers can help you engagement rates so that you can get relevant data and keep engagement level high.

Clicks and Traffic

You will know if your content is converting by looking at your clicks and traffic. If followers are willing to click on links found on your social media post, it means that they’re really into your product. Track clicks to your landing page and clicks on your page buttons where possible.

You can also use Google Analytics for this. You can use it to keep tabs on which social media networks are driving the most traffic to your site. Google Analytics is also a good place to start if you’re looking to streamline your efforts and find out which social network to cut.

What about you? Do you use social media analytics to maximize your growth? What metrics do you find the most useful? Tell us by leaving your comments below.

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Land Page Design Tips To Improve UX & Conversion

We know that creating high-performing landing pages is hard. Landing pages need to look good and communicate your message at the same time. It’s hard to get people to visit your website but it’s even harder to keep their attention.

Here are some tips on how you can get their attention and keep them engaged until they click the CTA.

Keep Layout Clean

Nothing will drive people away faster from your website like a cluttered layout. Take a step back and look at your design objectively. Do you see harmonious symmetry or a barrage of chaotic images with dense blocks of text?

When thinking about a design for your website, text and images should come together logically to reinforce each other’s message. Cut out everything that’s unnecessary to the purpose of your page so that your message does not get lost in the layout.

Grab Attention & Keep It

The content you place above the fold of your landing page can keep or break your visitor’s attention. This is because content creates an important first impression. Big hero images, attention grabbing headlines, dynamic background videos and engaging animation can hold their attention and keep them scrolling for more.

However, graphics can only keep attention for so long before guests will wonder what else is there to see. This is why you need informative, engaging and logically organized content. You want guests to keep on reading instead of just looking at cool animation and videos.

Always keep in mind that your page has a goal: to get visitors to click the CTA.

If you have too many CTAs, confusing navigation and other distracting elements people will lose focus and cause them to forget that one key action you wanted them to make.

It’s okay to have many links and images so long as they don’t distract people towards that action you want them to take.

For instance some landing pages have a “learn more” link next to the main CTA. This is usually makes people further down the page to get more info about the product or service. Just make sure that this part contains relevant information that makes them take action.

Gamify Your Landing Page

Gamify-ing something means adding elements of game-play in a context or format where they aren’t normally used.

In the case of landing pages, gamify-ing means communicating your message in an entertaining way. Always remember that you want guests to get educated and entertained because you’re not just selling a product.

Take a look at Google Doodle. While it’s true that Google is a search engine and not a landing page, the team behind this idea adds the element of fun and learning to searching. Users have the chance to play Moog synthesizer, decode a message using a Turning machine and chomp up ghosts in Pac-man.

Teach, Don’t Sell

If your page sounds like a person selling vacuum cleaners door to door, you’re going to send people to your competitors.

Always remember that people come to your website because they have a problem that you might be able to solve. Your page should be able to tell them how your product or service can benefit them.

Your page should also be able to tell them how your product works or show them the process of how to use it. Whatever method you use, it should be short and easy to understand.

Teaching people about your product in a simple way is one of the easiest ways to earn customer’s trust. People will want to buy your product if you can demonstrate how to use it and the benefits of using it without using fluffy marketing language.

Share Your Hope For Sharing

Now that we know you’re product is awesome, you’re probably wondering how you can share this awesomeness to other people.

Don’t be afraid to include social media buttons in your landing page. This will encourage others to share your website on social media networks.

Only include social media buttons that you’re active in. For example, if you have a huge following on Facebook, it’s perfectly alright to include this button only in your site.

If you’re a bit shy to ask people to share, incentivize sharing to give people a reason to share. For example, if you have a waiting list for your product let people know that a share will bump them up the list. Perhaps you can include a link limited version of something if they share on social media.

Harness the Power of Statistics

We all know that stats on the web mean nothing. Who are the 3 out of 4 dentists that recommend this toothpaste? Why is there a 7% increase in median home prices? How did they know that humans only use 90% of their brain power?

It’s easy to put up numbers on a page but meaningful statistics sourced from customer survey can provide proof of satisfaction.

Statistics provided by your actual customers can give you an honest and effective way of showing value to what you’re offering.

How many feel that you product has made them more efficient in their jobs? What percentage agrees that your product has improved co-worker communication? How many people agree that your product works as advertised?

Design & Write For Your Audience

Who is your target market? Are they moms, coders, model train enthusiasts?

Do your research. Learn your target market’s idioms and jargon. Your page will look and sound more authentic if you sound like them. For instance a pair of sneakers might be described as “dope” but not a model train.

Write in a language and tone they can relate to. You can pull off this kind of info from Google Analytics and use it to shape the content that can connect you most easily to your target market.

Keep Up The Convo

Truman Capote said “a conversation is a dialogue, not a monologue”.

People who make landing pages can easily get lost in content, graphics, typography and other design matters they sometimes forget about what happens after people act.

Depending on the nature of your page, you can keep the conversation going by sending them an email or request for social sharing or maybe a secondary product pitch.

 

The bottom line is that your landing page should make it easy for people to act. CTAs that win are CTAs that are easy to act on. Always remember that nobody wants to scroll all the way down your wonderfully long landing page just to sign up.

Make your CTA “sticky” so that it remains in place as people scroll through. This minimizes the time and effort required to get on board. The cardinal rule of UX is: the less effort it takes to get people on board, the happier they are to do it. So make sure your CTAs are frictionless so that your conversion rates soar.

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12 Digital Marketing Mistakes You Need To Avoid

Digital Marketing is a lot more complicated today than it was before. Years ago, marketers relied heavily on simple email marketing techniques, owning a simple company website, social media accounts and a simple blog site. However, nowadays, there are tons of new trends you can use to promote your brand and make revenue online.

With more business owners realizing the perks that come with digital marketing, it’s essential to note that there are things to consider before you can taste sweet success. And the best way to make the most out of your digital marketing this 2019 is to learn from past mistakes. After all, wisdom lies in the lessons learned from the past.

Here are the 12 Digital Marketing Mistakes You Need To Steer Clear Of This 2019.

Having no smart marketing goals

An essential part of every marketing plan is goal setting. Goals and objectives help you focus on the task at hand, strive harder to succeed and measure success. However, digital marketers should not settle on generic goals. Ensure that your goals are specific enough to track, measurable and time-bound enough for you determine when you’re able to accomplish it and that it’s challenging but still attainable and realistic. It would be best to write down your smart goals and place your note where you can see it every day.

Thinking digital marketing produces a fast and instant result

Digital Marketing takes time, effort and a lot of patience. This only means it is not an overnight road to success. This is why entrepreneurs should steer clear of SEO companies who offer instant results. It suffices to say that it is a long-term commitment – he very reasons why you should not do it all alone.

Not taking advantage of content marketing

One of the most trending and effective digital marketing strategies nowadays is content marketing. It works great in helping introduce your brand, build trust, cultivate customer loyalty, generate leads, etc. By creating compelling, engaging, unique and useful contents and optimizing it afterward, you get to understand your customer’s needs better and know what to improve to make more convertibles.

Focusing only on one content

Contents can come different forms, and one of the most popular ones these days are videos. By using video contents, you’re increasing your chances of showing up on online searches. Just make sure that the video you create is relevant, informative, useful and uses the tone of your company. Also, make sure to optimize it afterward to increase its effectivity.

Catering to the wrong audience

All of your marketing efforts will only come to waste if you cater to the wrong audience. Before you start creating contents, make sure to create a specific client profile. To whom should you offer your products? What are their age, location, financial status, gender? Also, make sure to check where you can find them like for example what social media sites do they use.

Good Read: 72 Percent of Marketers Can’t Find Their Target Audience Online — Can You?

Over-promoting and social media misuse

Some companies have multiple social media profiles which are a big no-no. Business should only use one profile per social media site to avoid confusion among client. Also, another common mistake is over promotion. Yes, you can use social sites to let your clients know the latest offers, news, developments, and achievements. However, there’s a fine line between overflooding their newsfeed and having a meaningful interaction with your customers.

Poor online customer-support etiquette

You may have an online chat and ticket system that you encourage customers to use for inquiries, feedbacks, and reviews. However, if you don’t reply promptly, fails to address customer concerns and make use of negative language, then you’re risking your business f losing customers. Same goes for the comments, feedbacks, and mails you receive in social media. Make sure to encourage interaction, reply on time, appreciate good feedbacks and address concerns in private.

Having a generic website

We get it – sites are an essential part of your digital marketing plan. However, one should make sure to keep if fast, informative, professional-looking, updated and mobile-optimized. It has to be user-friendly and easy to navigate. Having a website is not enough. One needs to make sure your visitors will be enticed enough to stay longer and check out what you have to offer. Make sure to optimize it not only for organic Search Engine Optimization but also for mobiles as billions of people are using this to search for products and services, according to Statista.

Not tracking and understanding your analytics

Data are vital since this is what you can review to check your performance and whether or not you’ve reached your goal. This is why every digital marketing expert recommends you to check your analytics. It’s not just about website analytics – there’s social media, audience, advertising, and big data analytics as well as competitive analytics. Make sure to explore these areas for a more productive and successful campaign. Thankfully there are lots of SEO tools you can use to track analytics and many others that can improve your digital marketing results.

Focusing on new customers only

Many fail to realize that while customer acquisition may mean your marketing efforts are working, it’s best not to forget about your previous and existing clients. Experts claim that you only get about 20% maximum new clients while the probability of you making conversions by catering to old and existing clients are up to 70%. This is why excellent customer relations is essential.

Failure to personalize campaign efforts

Personalization is the key to a successful marketing campaign. Take email marketing for example. Would you click on a generic and spammy email that is obviously made by a novice? No, right? Make sure to make your emails look as if you’re directly trying to communicate with each kind of client you have. Base the emails you send to clients on their needs, wants and by their recent navigation history.

Depending on one digital marketing campaign

Diversification is essential for every business marketing plan. Take your marketing efforts like how you handle investments. Would you rely on a single basket to produce results? You can’t enjoy conversions to the fullest if you only rely on Social Media Marketing alone. You’ll also need to put emails, contents, SEO, etc. into the mix.

 

Author’s bio:

Joana Marie is an SEO content producer and web content writer of Creative Working Playground. She loves reading enjoys writing and spending quality time with her family. She is a proud mom of a bubbly rugrat, a Registered Nurse, a strawberry shortcake lover, and dreams of traveling the world someday.

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Best Tools To Boost E-Commerce Sales

Thanks to the internet, buying preference of many people has changed. According to reports, more and more people are doing their shopping online. This is mainly because online shopping helps you to avoid traffic, standing in line at the register and it’s more convenient since you can do it at the comfort of your home.

While this may sound like good news to online stores, competition is actually quite stiff in the e-commerce world. This is because the internet has also made it easier for many people to sell their products online. E-commerce site owners know how hard it can be to acquire new customers. With this in mind we have made a list of some of the best tools to help boost your e-commerce sales.

AdRoll

Adroll is a great tool for retargeting. According to the experts only 2% of visitors who go to your website actually purchase a product. To boost sales without increasing your advertising dollars, you need a way to make the other 98% come back to your site. Retargeting can help you reach customers who were previously interested in your products is 76% more effective in making them return to your site.

AdRoll is a great tool for targeting the right customers for your ads and retargeting customers that have revisited before. AdRoll uses AI to make personalized ads for each customer based on data. It also integrates with other tools you also use such as Hubspot and Shopify to streamline your e-commerce business.

Prisync

The right pricing can make or break your product. But who has time to check the pricing of your competitors?

Prisync helps you stay competitive by tracking your competitors’ pricing and monitors their activity so that you’re always one step ahead of them. You simply enter the links of your competitor’s products to your dashboard and you get refreshed data four times a day so that you always know what’s going on. This tool will help you adjust prices quickly so that you can stay competitive with other e-commerce sites. Customers compare prices in seconds and Pricsync can help you stay as their top option.

Adimo

Adimo helps to streamline the buying process by allowing customers to add products to their cart and then going straight to checkout straight from an ad or retargeted ad. This is a great tool because it takes away all the other steps between customers seeing something they like and checkout. Adimo also helps you to add the “Buy Now” button to your site so that customers can instantly checkout anytime. It also helps you to convert on social media platforms so that you can add the checkout button on your videos, social media and blog posts.

OptinMonk

According to data 95% of first time visitors to your website won’t make a purchase and won’t find their way back. Because customer acquisition can be expensive, you need to find a way to get them back or keep the line of communication open. OptinMonk helps you to capture first-time potential customers about to leave and offer them something special to boost the chance of conversion.

When visitors come to your site, OptinMonk tracks them as they browse through your site and predicts when they will make an exit. It will then display an offer for them based on their behavior before they actually leave. For example they can get an offer of a discounted product in exchange for their email. It also gathers data where people spend most time on your site and what makes them exit to help improve website experience.

Unbxd

Unbxd helps you create a personalized shopping experience while they’re browsing your site. It takes care of everything like predictive search of your products so that customers can narrow down their choices to personalized recommendations as they explore products. This tool helps take away the guessing game out of displaying which products they want to see. It is also a great way to improve user experience to your website.

These tools will definitely help you get customer’s attention. It will help make selling and driving checkouts seamless and easy. Hopefully these tools will help you automate and drive revenue growth.

What do you think of our recommendations? Do you have any experience with them? Tell us by leaving your comments below.

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Best Blogging Plugins For 2019

Do you know that there are more than 152 million blogs on the internet today? This means that in 2019, it will be harder to get people’s attention mainly due to the fierce competition. Readers have high expectations when they visit your blog. They want something that is visually appealing with engaging content and well organized. If they don’t get this type of experience, they won’t stay or come back.

Another must for bloggers is to have their content optimized to drive traffic to their site and make social sharing easier. Luckily for bloggers, improving on these areas are easier thanks to plugins.

Here are some of the best plugins for blogs in 2019:

YoastSEO

Blogging is not only creative; it is also technical because you need to drive relevant traffic. YoastSEO makes sure that your content is SEO optimized and structured in a way that benefits your website. It helps to identify relevant keywords, make sure you have the right density and ensure readability.

AddThis

Getting your content out there for the right eyes is very important when you’re running a blog. Your blog should also be easy to find for interested readers. AddThis ads social share buttons to your blog to make it easier for readers who love your content to share on social media. It also has an option to add a “Follow Me” button to posts so that you can promote your other pages as a blogger.

Title Experiments

Did you know that the best websites like BuzzFeed test at least 50 titles for their headlines to see which one drives the most traffic and engagement?

While 50 titles is a bit of overkill for most blogs, you can also experiment with titles using Title Experiments. This plugin sits within your post-editing interface so you can add A/B test multiple headlines per post. You can then check the data to see which ones perform best to determine your best titles.

SumoMe

SumoMe is actually a collection of marketing and content tools in 1 plugin so you can pick which ones to install. In the SumoMe dashboard you have options like list builder which collects emails from readers, a “welcome mat” for first timers that opens up to offer them something in exchange for their email, image sharing button to promote posts and a text highlighter that allows readers to highlight and share that part of your content. All these tools can help you drive traffic and improve engagement for your blog.

Click To Tweet

Click To Tweet is by Coshedule and is a tool that helps you get interested readers to quote you and share your link on Twitter with just one click. It puts a box in your post with a quote and CTA for readers to share on the social networking site. This is an easy way to inspire social sharing through readers and drive traffic through your post.

upPrev

Instead of suggesting related posts on the sidebar or at the bottom of the page, upPrev creates a strategically timed pop-up with CTA at the bottom and side of the post with a recommendation on what to read next. The suggestions are personalized so readers are more likely to click on the suggestions. upPrev eliminates distracting sidebar and footer recommendations so your post page looks cleaner.

Envira Gallery

Adding images and other media to your post will make them more engaging and get you more views. Elvira Gallery helps you to break up text with images and allows you to add responsive image and video galleries to your posts and pages. Best of all, it is lightweight so it won’t kill your loading speed.

Lazy Load

Thanks to stiffer competition, loading time is crucial for many blogs. According to studies, majority of traffic will bounce if a page does not load fast enough. Lazy Load helps you avoid this by putting off loading images so that your page loads faster. This helps to make content come up quicker and images come up when they need to helping you save a few precious seconds. It’s an easy way to help speed up loading time without other heavy plugins.

Adding a few elements to your blog will help it standout against the competition. It can also make your website more visually appealing and engaging to help improve traffic and keep readers coming back for more. Try these plugins now to help improve your blog.

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E-Commerce Predictions For 2019

The ushering of the New Year is usually accompanied by predictions. However, unlike the spiels you usually hear from fortune tellers at your local flea market, these predictions are more reliable since they are backed by some of the most important names in the internet and tech world.

As we all know, WordPress is powering approximately half of the world’s website. It is being used not only for blogging and networking; it is also the top choice for E-Commerce websites. With so many users around the globe there might be people who are wondering what’s 2019 going to look like for WordPress and E-Commerce?

Let’s ask the experts who were present in Nashville for the WordCamp US in early December of last year. WordCamp is the national conference for WordPress.

Zach Barrientos – PayPal

 

Zach Barrientos of PayPal merchant services is predicting a boom in the marijuana industry. He explains that as the US federal government regulates the industry, demand for the product will increase and so will the number of sites catering to this type of business.

Matt Cromwell – GiveWP

 

Matt Cromwell is a partner and head of support for GiveWP.com. His prediction centers around donations and non-profits. His prediction is in line with the increase of donations given in the US during Giving Tuesday. According to him, people in the US gave $70 million in 1 day and he sees this number increasing phenomenally. Donations are part of e-commerce so many people are paying attention to this space.

Patrick Garman – Mindsize

 

Mindsize Partner Patrick Garman predicts more people moving out of the WooCommerce space and moving to WordPress. WooCommerce will remain as a heavy player in the e-commerce space because everyone can use this and WordPress to start their shop. As stores grow and expand there will be many users who will have a love-hate relationship with these builders. This is why he predicts that WordPress will develop a more hybrid approach with other platforms like Big Commerce and Shopify to help provide solutions.

He hopes that solutions generated by these players will be agnostic so that it will become easier to integrate between WordPress and whatever platform they are using.

Justin Nealy – GoDaddy

GoDaddy hosting supervisor Justin Nealy helps people set up their websites every day and predicts that e-commerce ecosystems like WordPress will make it easier for newbies to create an online store. While WordPress is easy to set up, it can be overwhelming to somebody completely new to creating a website or selling online. With help from plugins like Gutenburg, he states that anybody can create a WordPress site with whatever plugin they want.

Brian Richards – WPSessions

 

Brian Richards runs WPSessions and by extension WordSesh conferences. His prediction for 2019 is a more headless style e-commerce approach just like what BigCommerce is bringing to WordPress.

He is interested in seeing more boutique shops with people creating more independent Etsy shops because barrier of entry for these types of e-commerce shops is reduced.

Chris Badgett – LifterLMS

 

Chris Badgett of LifterLMS on the other hand predicts a shift from off hosted eCommerce to WordPress eCommerce due to GDPR and privacy issues in Europe. He predicts that users from this area will want to move from the SAS kind to self-hosted WordPress so they have the data located in their country, which is one of the requirements for European GDPR.

He also predicts more complex tax issues in e-commerce and hopes to continue to see more innovation in this space. He predicts that more players will emerge in the tax solutions so that the average user can easily figure out and manage tax especially on a global scale.

What are your e-commerce and WordPress predictions for this year? What do you think about the predictions above? Tell us by leaving your comments below.

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