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How to Create a Social Media Branding Strategy

Social media is a powerful tool for any marketer. It is a definite way of enhancing engagement with customers and sharing SEO optimized content.
One of the reasons marketers are using social media platforms is to build brand awareness. Social media branding can be very useful is strategies are developed and applied effectively.

One of the biggest reasons customers buy a product or service from a brand is their ability to trust them. This trust comes from the brand’s credibility among the community. If you are able to gain this trust from your customers, then it is definite that they see a certain value in what you have to offer.

Nowadays, we have a fair amount of useful social media platforms. Therefore, regardless of business or personal branding on social media, it is way more than just Facebook branding strategy now.

In this post, I am going to discuss how brands can develop a credibility using social media platforms. The concepts discussed in the following post can be helpful for both new and established brands.

Creating a Social Media Persona

If your brand is fairly new, start from building your profile with one single platform. Although Facebook is a popular starting source, you may want to consider another platform like Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest depending on what type of business your brand offers.

Consistency Across all Channels

Some of the brands are spread across more than one social media channel. If I am searching a certain brand and discover that the description is varying on different channels, I will definitely feel uncomfortable. It creates a sense of hesitancy that will prevent from moving forward with the brand discovery.

Therefore, it is important to remain consistent with the main description you provide across all the channels you are utilizing. The profile image you use matters a lot as well. If you are trying personal branding on social media, then ensure you use the same professional headshot with each of the social media accounts. For personal branding, the recognition of your face is significant.
For general social media branding, you may want to clearly represent your logo across all channels. However, the profile picture is just the start. I agree with many branding experts that suggest being consistent with the brand’s voice, imagery, colors and the overall look as well.

According to Stephanie Schwab, founder and CEO of Crackerjack Marketing, there are 4 basic aspects of your social media brand voice. These include the character or persona, tone, language, and purpose. Once you figure out what your specific approach will be with these aspects, you need to keep the consistency across all accounts.

Authenticity and Humanizing the Brand

Social media is a great source for connecting with the customers; both existing and potential. Most marketers using the automating and batching approach. This approach is about sharing third party content and letting the engagements flow. Later, the marketers will incorporate product updates in order to generate leads and sales.

However, social media branding is not just about pushing out content. It looks too mechanical and there needs to be a human side to your social media presence. This humanizing of your profile creates an authenticity that visitors look for when searching brands.

It is similar to the concept of how marketing has changed. It is no more about shoving a sales pitch in a person’s face if you want to gain their trust. The more you appeal their natural and human side, the better chance there is for their positive response.

You may want to entertain your followers from time to time as well. For example, sharing some routine activities that take place regarding your brand behind the scenes.

Creating a Content Calendar

Social media branding or even personal branding on social media does not work if you are not actually present there. You need to stay active in order to build your brand. It is not an overnight process. It can take lots of efforts and time to build your credibility with the followers. In fact, it is impossible to create engagements if there is no initiation from your side.

To ensure that you don’t leave any of your social media accounts inactive for long periods, I suggest you create a content calendar. This calendar will indicate how frequently you update a certain account per day. The frequency of content sharing also depends on your target audience and the type of industry the brand belongs to. You don’t want to end up overwhelming the followers with excessive content so you may need to find your optimal posting frequency.

The Tactical Aspects

Until now, I have only discussed some of the high-level strategic planning. On the other hand, there are some specific or tactical aspects that need to be taken care of as well for social media branding.

The first aspect is your target audience. It is possible that you are targeting different sections through different social media accounts. This means you have to build different personas. Therefore, your Facebook branding strategy can be different from your Twitter content.

Secondly, you can’t effectively handle the social media with one resource. You may want to develop a social media marketing team and assign tasks and tools to them.

Lastly, you need to prepare for criticism. Social media criticism has been experienced by all. I have full understanding that it can demotivating and derail you. Therefore, you need to plan for this possibility if you don’t want your efforts to go to waste.

Social media can become your main source of brand building if you know how to use the platforms to your advantage. Different social media platforms have their own specific strong points. You need to ensure that your strategy incorporates ideas to benefit from them.

I want to end this post with reminding you that social media is a part of the internet that is very powerful. Anybody with a Facebook branding strategy should know that if right moves can promote your credibility, your wrong moves will spread like wildfire as well. Therefore, strategize carefully.

How to do Local SEO – a guide that should be followed by small businesses!

Before getting into the details of how to do local SEO, you need to know what SEO is. Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a technique through which the traffic is drawn towards a website. It is mainly used to increase the visibility and awareness of your brand. When it comes to the discussion of local SEO, I suggest that you should have enough information of the points that are included in it. A local SEO is far more different from the other forms of SEO and the regular SEO. The points of considerations and techniques are changing rapidly. Local SEO or sometimes also known as mobile SEO is done by including a location in the keyword. Moreover, the device can be synced with any application that is related to the location. In my opinion, the use of local SEO will help in getting a higher rank on the search engines as well. The answer to the question how to do local SEO is explained in the following steps:

Verify with the google my business:

Google my business is an application with the help of which you can your business can be connected to the customers. It is considered as one of the best local SEO tools. If your business is still not verified on this application, make sure you do it as soon as possible. By verifying with this application, you also need to make sure that NAP (name, address, and phone) is correctly mentioned as the customers will get to you through that information.

Verify the consistency of the information:

The google local SEO experts says that you will be able to perform an effective local SEO only when the information that is related to the contact, address and phone number of your business is consistent on each and every page. This consistency is also required so that your customers do not get confused with the difference in the information.

Google Local SEO Address

Embed google maps:

The use of google maps in your website will benefit the SEO of your website in every possible way. The presence of the google maps will help your clients in the identification of the location. The map can be used on the contact page or the footer section. I think you should include google maps that will indicate all the location rather than just focusing on the location of your business. Moreover, the map should point out to the locations of your business.

Google Local SEO embed map

Use geo tagging:

As explained by Google local SEO experts, Geo tagging is used to show search engines your location and presence. This option will work best if the location of your business is specific. In my opinion, there can be a lot of ways that can be used to do geo tagging for your business. You can do it online by using different tools. These tolls will help you in performing this task in an effective way. With the inclusion of the location with the help of geo tagging, the search engines will get to know about your location hence improving the ranking. It is also a best way to get connected with the mobile SEO.

Optimization of Meta tags and description tag:

Another useful thing that is related to the local SEO is the inclusion of the information related to your business into the Meta title. Include the name of the city in which you are working in the title tag. This will increase the click through rate of your website. I suggest that you should also include the location of your website into the content of the pages. This will help the viewers to get to know the location of business. Moreover, the logo of your website can also be optimized with the local keywords you are using. The text that is written below the images that are inserted in the website can also include the information about your location and that can be used for mobile SEO.

Create web pages for every location:

If you have a business that has a different location, I suggest that it is best to create different web pages for every location. In this way, you are allowing the search engines to have a knowledge about each and every page. Moreover, it will help in the increase of the rank. The separate pages for every location will allow you to have a strong content as well. Local SEO plugin can be used to promote the web pages that are created. Moreover. You can also use yoast local SEO and moz local SEO that are the plugins for WordPress that can also be used in the web pages. In my opinion, the content that is to be included in these web pages should be unique. Otherwise, it will not be considered as the high quality content.

Ask for reviews from customers:

The web pages that are created for the google local search should also include the point or the place where the customers can provide the review. The request for the review can be made in the content that is added to the web pages of your website. I think the review should be added with a slow speed. If they are added frequently or with high speed, there is a chance that the search engines may find this activity as a suspicious one. As a result, they will not increase the ranking of your website.

Mention your location on the social media platforms:

You must have accounts on different social media platforms, these accounts will help you in a way that if you include your location on these platforms, that will promote your business as explained by Google local SEO experts. For success, all you need is visibility and it will be provided to you with social media. I suggest that you should include the contact information on every major heading and page.

These were the steps you need to know while searching for how to do local SEO. There are a lot of best SEO tools that can be used for the local SEO of your business. I suggest you should also use plugins for better results. All you need is to increase the brand visibility and it will be done in an effective way with SEO.

5 Facebook Retargeting Strategies

It is no more a secret why Facebook rules the social media world. For marketers and advertisers, it provides with the perfect opportunity to target audience. You can not only target your customers but with the right strategy, you can retarget audience using their Facebook engagement.

Facebook Ads assist in reaching out both local and extended audiences. Facebook advertising is essential for businesses to exist and engage with new and current customers. Using Facebook retargeting (Facebook remarketing) strategies boost your presence, build trust and enhance profit too.

With Facebook retargeting, your ads can be served to Facebook audience who have visited your site already. I think that in order to survive today businesses need Facebook remarketing campaigns. You can market to visitors, current customers and app users who are already present somewhere in your audience.

The most important segment of the audience businesses have are those which directly interact with brands on Facebook. A new custom audience category was added to Facebook last year called Engagement on Facebook. Reason being that the people who had already interacted with your content on Facebook could be captured again.

First,

Creating Custom Audience:

First of all you need to make custom audience for your page engagement. In order to get started,

In Power Editor or Ads Manager, navigate to the Audiences section
Choose Engagement on Facebook in the Create Custom Audience dialogue box.
Select Page at the bottom after other audience and App Activity options.
Using the Include menu, choose one from the six users categories you could target with page engagement custom audience. These six categories will be:
Anyone who visited your page, everyone who engaged with your page, people who clicked CTA button, people who engaged with an ad or post. People who saved your page or its post and people who message your page.
Now enter the lookback section in In the Past filed. Notice the 365-day lookback of engagement retargeting.
Name your audience and hit “Create Audience”.

You have successfully created an audience chock-full of Facebook users who already like what you offer and want more of it!

Though Facebook retargeting can be done using some ad types, but I am putting forward 5 of the Facebook remarketing strategies for you which I have used myself and they benefited me immensely. Read on below to know more about how to use Facebook retargeting:

Let’s start:

PR Trouble:

Businesses can face PR crisis when an employee gets wrong attention, a marketing campaign backfires, product fails etc. No matter what these all account in major disaster and result in people bombarding your page with messages, posts and comments.

Analyze and focus what caused all this and who is engaging with you. If your product or service failed, you might getting approached by upset customers and surely you want to retain them. Now set up an audience of those who engaged with your page after the crisis began so you could smartly use Facebook retargeting with a message so their trust can be retained.

If trouble was caused due to an employee and you see that its non-customers showing their shock , add them to the same audience as exclusion to existing to ensure that you are not wasting your ad spend on those who have no intention of becoming customers. Also, you need to be careful while you are setting the lookback in the process. For example, if the issue started say 10 days ago, you do not have to go back 365 or 180 days even.

Customer Services:

Customer services are of vital importance. With passage of time, a trend is being noticed by the brands on Facebook that they are making an effort and are aggressively getting on board with messaging and direct interaction.

People that engage through Facebook messaging are:

Customers who are very interested in buying from you.
Highly engaged users of Facebook.

The page engagement custom audiences that are targeted at those messaging your page lets you custom message them who already have a relationship with your brand and services. I think that, this is Facebook remarketing strategy has the potential of making loyalty programs quite a successful possibility.

CTA Clickers:

Similar to private messages, when someone clicks on a CTA (call-to-action) button, it clearly shows that someone is active and engaged with your page. They click on the CTA on the main page or the one that you include with your posts. What I would like to draw your attention is to the skill of breaking out the targeting by those who click on all the different types of buttons you have like shop now, learn more, sign up etc. This way the users at Facebook show their behavior signals and this could help you immensely in Facebook remarketing.

Re-engagement of Community:

Every brand runs lots of contests and campaigns and it is a great way of customer engagement. If your brand is into campaigns and pulls huge engagement from people you would not want to go that effort go waste right? I have been there and campaigns are very important to engage your customers. Not to mention it keeps their interest boosted up too.

When your campaign gets thousands or better, tens of thousands of people who are commenting, sharing, clicking and reactions, you could go right back at them with this option so that they know you maintain top-of mind attention levels.

Using Lookalikes:

So all of the things that I have mentioned above, these were stated by keeping in mind and focusing around the custom audiences for Facebook retargeting and Facebook remarketing to those who are engaged with your page.

When you are dealing with custom audiences, you simply cannot ignore the power and ability of using lookalikes. How you say? Let me explain, page engagement is quite a strong signal to build around and come to think of it, what better method there is to have new people into your Facebook page than retargeting people who like your most engaged customers. Here is what you can do, use all of your Facebook built-in targeting options and use filtered lookalike audiences in order to get hold of top-of funnel marketing.

Did these Facebook Retargeting strategies work for you? Leave a comment and let me know!

Steps to follow for the creation of a SEO marketing plan

Are you planning to create a SEO plan for your website? Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process through which the traffic is drawn towards a website. With the advancement of technology, each brand or business have their own website. There is a need to attract customers and viewers so that they visit the website of that brand. To increase that brand visibility, different SEO marketing plan is created. This will help in getting a top ranking in the search engines like Google.

The SEO is done by adding up new and quality content into the website. This content can be added in different forms like blogs, articles, videos and images. What you need to make sure is the quality and the relevance of this content. The more the quality of the content is, the more will the SEO. For developing an SEO strategy plan, you need to go through the following steps:

Step 1: Identification of the keywords:

The first step for the creation of the SEO marketing plan includes the selection and identification of the related keywords. Keyword identification is necessary for the proper development of the website. Keywords are considered as the king for SEO. With the use of effective and highly related keywords, the chances of getting a higher rank in the search engines increases. There is some consideration you should keep in mind while selecting the appropriate keywords. The first one is that it should be simple and easy to understand. The second point to consider is that the keywords should be inserted in a natural way into the content.

The process of identification of the keywords also involves creating a list. This can be done by the use of different software that will help you in generating a list of keywords that is related to the subject matter of your website. This list of keywords needs to be updated frequently. Keep searching for the new and effective keywords. This was the first step of SEO plan for website.

Step 2: Creation of keywords related pages:

The website of any brand involves a lot of pages that will contain information. This information will help the viewers and it will also be used to get the higher rank in the search engines. The best way to get this thing done is to create the pages that are related to a specific keyword. Inserting a lot of keywords in the content of a single page will be a difficult task so it is best to create new content that is focused on something specific.
You can get the help of the keywords list you have already created. After the consideration of the idea, use it to complete a SEO plan for websites.

Step 3: Setting up a blog:

Blogging is considered to be an effective way to improve the SEO of your website. Moreover, the blogs will also help you in engaging the viewers to the content provided on your website. Every blog will be considered as a new page of the content. The constant increase in the pages of the website will help in following a successful SEO marketing plan. Make sure the subject matter of these blogs is related to the type of information that is provided in your website or it is related to the type of business you have.

Step 4: Focus on the link building plan:

The above three steps were focused on the on-page SEO concepts, however, you also have to focus on the off-page SEO. This off-page SEO will consist on the creation of the link building plan. Although the increase of the content at your website is important but you have to create a link to other related websites as well. There can be a lot of ways in which this can be done. For example, you can exchange your information with the other person and in return, you can get the link to their website. Hire or invite guest bloggers. Consult the related websites who are working with the same goal and related to your niche. In this way, you will be able to develop your own monthly SEO plan.

Step 5: Be up to date:

New techniques are being introduced on daily basis in the market. The success of your SEO marketing plan will depend on the techniques you are using. If the strategies are up to date, you will be able to get the attention of viewers. The trends are changing on a daily basis that also increases the competition in the market. There can be a lot of resources you can use to get the information about the current trends. With the application of the new concepts, you will be able to know what works best for the proper SEO of your website.

Step 6: Constant evaluation:

The SEO marketing plan is incomplete without a proper evaluation. The evaluation of the SEO success will be done in two different ways. The first one is the periodic evaluation in which you will evaluate the success of the plan frequently. The next type of evaluation is the overall evaluation in which you will be able to identify the extent to which you have made success and the future points that still need your attention. The evaluation must be done on the daily, weekly and monthly basis. You can also create a monthly dashboard that will ease the process of evaluation. Moreover, it will also help in the monitoring of the traffic that is visiting your website.

These are the steps that should be followed for the effective SEO marketing plan. Just keep in mind that you have to constantly learn about the new trends of the SEO. Moreover, keep an eye on the strategies that are used by the competitor’s website. All these above steps, when followed effectively, will help you in creating the SEO marketing plan for your website.

Top 12 Techniques for Advanced Facebook Advertising

Facebook is the big daddy of Social Media and the probably the oldest social media platform. Apart from keeping in touch and interacting Facebook advertising is one of the important uses of Facebook. There are number of things you could do to correctly answer how to advertise on Facebook like optimize Facebook ads, Facebook ads manager etc.

Here are my top 12 tips to help you effectively in Facebook marketing.

Let’s begin:

1.) Use Instagram to Post Images:

I came across this idea and found it really great. I began posting images to Facebook via Instagram. This is because according to study, images that are posted via Insta get 23% more engagement. And admit it there are tons of people using Instagram so there is lot of engagement there.
You can gain more customer engagement following this technique. Engagement level of brands on Instagram is 10 times higher than Facebook and 84 times higher than Twitter.

2.) Pages to Watch:

Facebook boasts an incredible feature called Pages to Watch. I haven’t used it directly for marketing purpose but it does give you some helpful perception to assist you with your marketing endeavors. All you need to do is compile a list of pages you are interested in with their analytics.
Add pages from those brands that are relevant to your niche along with a strong Facebook presence. This way you can see which posts is least and most engaging. This helps you in knowing what to post.

3.) Enough with the Hashtags:

It is not that hashtags are bad, but they are good in certain situations only. They work beneficially on Instagram and Twitter but Facebook? Not so much.
Facebook posts with hashtags received less engagement according to studies. Think of it as a quick-tip for facebook advertising. It will save you time too.

4.) Core Strategy – Video:

Video began growing in 2016 and is expected to grow huge this year as well. Video accounts for 3% of all Facebook content that is quite low. But at the same time, I got to know that it also offers you with a great chance. You grab on to lot of attention and customer engagement by posting lots of HD video content.

5.) Embed Videos Directly:

Another effective solution to your question how to advertise on Facebook is to embed videos directly on Facebook. YouTube is the biggest platform for videos and for marketing, you first instinct might be embedding YouTube videos. That is not the right move for advertising on Facebook. Videos which are directly embedded in Facebook gain more customer engagement than YouTube embedded videos. Try this and you shall see a massive rise in the engagement level.

6.) Time of Posting:

Another worthy tip for advertising on Facebook is timing of posting on social media. Even if you post an amazing blog, content, image or video it will have less impact if none of the audience actually sees it. Let me share my own experience, the best time to post is between 10 pm to midnight. Or else your post is going to do down the bottom of the news feed.
The reason for following time is that there are less people posting at that time which means less competition plus people usually use social media at night after done from job, school etc. You will see amazing results guaranteed!

7.) 150 Characters Length:

I have always believed in the statement that less is more. This holds true for Facebook marketing as well.
In terms of Facebook character count, keep it like twitter and use no more than 150 characters. Shorter posts get more engagement level than long posts. As more characters are added number of interaction decrease. Posts with 50 or less receive the most attention.

8.) CTA Buttons:

Did you know that average Facebook advertising click through rate is 0.9%? You can optimize Facebook ads by adding CTA buttons which will boost your click-through rate by 2.85 times. Think about the long term benefit your campaign can earn off of it. A small button can bring big results.

9.) Pin Posts:

Here is another great tip for advertising on Facebook. Facebook has an awesome feature of pin post on your timeline. Once Facebook users land on your page, they can see your best content/ post. It’s quite like putting your best foot forward. Find your highest quality post and see the engagement rise by pinning it to the top.

10.) Crowdsourcing:

You know about crowdfunding right? Where you raise capital by contributions of lot of people? You can do the same for efficient advertising on Facebook by crowdsourcing your key decisions like Ask the audience which colors they want to see in new collection, what should the new background or logo be? etc.
This works really well because audience feel their opinion is valued and people feel involved thus,
increased engagement. Best method of crowdsourcing? Create polls so audience can vote.

11.) 1k to 3k Word Article:

According to research, the articles or blogs that you post for promoting or advertising, long-form content works really well on Facebook. It does.
Especially if you are posts are between 1000-3000 words, these are considered ideal and get the most engagement.

12.) Question Posts:

Social media advertising and especially on Facebook are all the rage today and upon studying the posts that received the most interactions were question posts.
You need to involve your audience therefore you should post plenty of question posts and ask questions. People love to talk and voice their opinions. Using this technique is quite beneficial for your campaign as well.

Last Word:

As I said earlier that Facebook is the big daddy of social media and with so many social media platforms popping up, Facebook may get overlooked sometime. For enhanced earning, you need to optimize Facebook ads in the best manner.
Be rest assured that Facebook is not going anywhere anytime soon. In the next couple of years it shall be reaching to 2 billion users!! That is incredible if you think about it.
So go beyond the basic old-schools stuff and find the real potential of advertising through Facebook and Follow these tips and let me know did they work out for you or not?

How to make a great keyword research!

Like the opening line of your speech gives the listeners an idea what you are going to talk about, a visit to your website or the first line to your blog or content does the same. It is the cause of every blogger’s, content writer’s and business owner’s dilemma.

The first impression of your website determines whether the user is going to explore the site or leave it. Keywords are an extremely important component of content marketing. Until and unless you take careful measures to create a content that deeply resonates with the needs of your target audience, your seo efforts will not be successful.

Keyword researches are an essential element of your content planning, preparation and production. You need to come up with the content that the readers find interesting. You need to study in detail the behaviors and needs of your niche segment. Keep both your ears and eyes open in order to know what is happening around, what people are most interested in and what they would like to know or read about.

Formal surveys are helpful as well as studies but this could be time taking. You could use a very reliable research tool: search engines. Whatever people like to know they simply type it into search bar. Tools like Google Trends, Google Keyword Planner, AnswerThePublic, Hypersuggest and KeywordTool.io are amongst the tools. With the help of these it will become easier for you to identify patterns, terms and know what consumers want, what their interests are, what issues they are facing and which desires they wish to fulfill.

You can communicate better with keywords, engage customers deeply and prioritize your SEO content using less effort, expense and time. It helps you in highlight what your customers want from you, why and when. By using keywords, businesses are able to determine how your product or services can be deemed helpful to them.

A great keyword research helps you in in strategically planning your content for the business. Listed below are some of the main steps involved for ideal research:

With a great Keyword Research to a better Customer Understanding:

With the right seo ¸you can answer to all of your customer’s questions when they arrive at your website. With keyword research and analysis, a better understanding of your prospective customers is developed. The knowledge about the terms your customers use to find the services or product you offer, allows you to gain an appropriate view of their desires and needs.
By close analysis of search results you can accurately determine where the searcher stands on the decision making continuum. This results in sale. If you are gaining visitor traffic regarding generic terms, you may want to optimize your content that customers can resonate better to and moves them towards buying from you.

Your content and content marketing should grab your target audience’s interest and attention right away and retain it as long as the need is met.

Effective Communication:

A notable advantage of a keyword research is the way your content and communication becomes specific, target oriented and effective. When you craft your content according to what your prospective customer (reader) needs or wants to know, readers feel that you are interacting directly with them speaking their mind.
With the content strategy, you develop a deep connection that allows you to engage with them with empathy. Your communicated content can convince, inform, and guide your target audience meaningfully.

A great keyword research allows you to craft such content that targets your message and appeal to your visitors at the same time when they use specific terms to find you. It becomes easy to get prospects when you message targets to particular interest niche or group of audience.

Easy Content Planning:

With strong keyword research, you can efficiently prioritize your content. This allows you to know which content is most in demand and is likely to impact your business. Focusing on the right keywords allows you to plan correctly so that content reaches the right audience at the right time.

Creative Approach:

Creating relevant is suggested by number of SEO and content experts for keyword researches. But it is not enough you want to be remembered. With sophistication of search engine algorithms, it is likely that your relevant content will be devoured by the ocean of other relevant pieces.

You need to craft something unique and amazing which drives audience to your website. Your content should go beyond what competitors are offering if you wish to succeed at SEO. It should answer any and all queries of visitor based on keyword research. Opting for creatively excellent content strategy will make people remember you and that is great for branding. This boosts your seo driving more traffic to your site.

Ideal Combination of Data & Creativity:

You can use your keyword research efficiently using data creatively. You might waste time without data and it gets you no closer to your business target. Without the right database, you are simply someone with an opinion who may be risking his and client’s time and money. You can secure your business when your content is based on a solid keyword list and knowledge.

Implementing Keyword Research:

The right terms on your website has an immense impact and the way how you realize it can greatly boost your sales, ROI and profit. You cannot put the SEO aspect of keyword research on hold or you will be holding your business back from some great revenue!

You can know more about your customers and communicate effectively with them with the right keyword research and smart strategy for content. Knowing your readers could help you mirror the knowledge in your content. This increases the engagement level and people end up loving your content. They share it on social media and come back for more that improves conversion and results in more sales and profits.

Both SEO and keywords are critical to success of content, you have to get it right!

How to Optimize your Facebook Page

Social media has proved to be a very powerful tool for marketers all over the world. With so many people using social media platforms every day, it has become a genuine source for businesses to expand their target market and reach more customers.

Moreover, it has also helped businesses improve themselves. Social media can be brutally honest and customers feel comfortable enough to point out drawbacks or aspects of a product they did not appreciate. This allows brands to take feedback and build better products and services upon them.

For a long time, Facebook has been quite dominant in the social media industry. However, with time, more and more platforms were introduced to us. Marketers have expanded their social media marketing efforts to these platforms as well. But Facebook still remains the strong as far as marketing is concerned. Over the years, Facebook has also introduced some interesting features that have only worked for the benefit for marketers as well.

In order to get the best out of your Facebook business or brand image, it is important to optimize Facebook page. In this post, I have outlined a few tips that can be helpful for optimization or you may hire a Facebook marketing expert.

How to Optimize Facebook Business Page

Here are a few tips to optimize Facebook page:

Customizing the URL

When a Facebook profile or page is created, an automatic URL is a generated. However, Facebook provides the option of changing the URL according to your wishes. If you have a Facebook business page, don’t settle with that generic URL. Change the address and integrate it with your brand name. If possible, keep it simple in order for your customers to remember it easily. This will give them a direct access to your Facebook business page without searching the entire website. A personalized URL will not only improve your Facebook page but help your search engine rankings as well.

Completing Your Profile

To improve your authenticity and credibility, it important to provide as much information as you can. When creating a profile for your business, Facebook provides various spaces to fill out. The more information you fill in, the easier it is for the customers to feel comfortable. It gives them better insight to what you stand for and the types of products or services you offer. Many potential customers will discover you through Facebook, having no prior knowledge of your existence. Therefore, you need to put in information like you are completely presenting yourself for the first time.

A complete profile is also a sign of professionalism. It will show that you are serious about interacting with the customers and expect them to engage.

Visuals

One of the strongest points of social media is its combination of visuals with textual interaction. I personally get quite turned off at the sight of images that don’t have good quality. This also includes the profile picture and cover image. Talking about the cover image, it has specific dimensions (851 x 315). Many people don’t follow the dimensions, which ruins the quality of the image.

Visuals can greatly add to the aesthetic of your Facebook business page. Moreover, high-quality visuals are easier to understand and obtain information from. Therefore, make sure that you use quality images when creating the Facebook page.

The About Us Section

A Facebook page can act as your support to the official website. Some small businesses don’t even have personal websites and heavily rely on their Facebook business page. It is not surprising because Facebook allows you to build quite elaborate platforms for business purposes. For example, it provides you with the About Us section.

You can add a short description of about 155 characters similar to a Meta description. This will appear as a search engine snippet when people search for your brand. It is feasible for both mobiles and desktop.

This section is a good place to present your values and benefits your products or services can provide to the customers. It is also significant to choose the right category. For example, identify clearly if you are a local business, company, organization or institution. You can choose brand or product category to be specific. On the other hand, categories like artist, band, public figure, entertainment, cause or community are also available.

The SEO Optimization

Your social media content can also be SEO optimized. Choose the keywords that apply to your business or brand and ensure they are added to the content you share. Keywords can also be added more strategically. You can add them to the page title, URL and in the information that appears on the About Us page.
I suggest not to overuse the keywords in the content. Overuse can create the risk of spam and disturb the natural flow of the content as well.

Contact Information

I highly prefer Facebook business page owner to mention their contact information. This can include the address of your location, contact number, email address, website address, and working hours as well. It allows customers to directly engage with the brand and leave queries as well.

Optimizing Facebook Posts

Many brand owners leave visual content without a description. This may not affect your existing followers but discovering a relevant post will become difficult for potential clients. The description you add will appear as a Meta description in search engine results. Therefore, always add an appropriate description to videos and images.

Utilizing the New Features

Facebook is well-established social media platform but they keep introducing new and better features. Many features are effective for promoting your business. I advise keeping up to date with the features being introduced and how you can use them to benefit the image of your brand.

It is fairly easy to optimize Facebook page. However, you can hire a Facebook marketing expert in order to achieve better results i.e. sales and loyal customers. Once you own a Facebook page, post content frequently and don’t stay out of touch for long periods of time.

For more effective optimization, I highly suggest hiring the help of a Facebook marketing expert.

How to create an internet marketing strategy

Creating an internet marketing strategy can be a tough task but with proper planning, it can yield positive results. In my opinion, every business needs to plan its marketing strategy with great care because there development will depend on this. The marketing as a whole involves a lot of different aspects and the important one is the internet marketing. For creating an effective internet marketing strategy, I believe you need to have the information of some basic concepts like search engine optimization (SEO), email lists, blogs, articles and much more. Now, you must be having the question in mind that how to start internet marketing, to get the answer, you need to have a strategy that can be created with the help of following steps:

Get to know your competitors:

In my opinion, the first think you need to do is to have a knowledge about your competitors. The strategies they are following and the techniques they are using. Having this knowledge will help you in endless ways because you will know that what point should be considered to make your strategy more effective. There can be a lot of different internet marketing techniques but you need to focus on those that will work best for your business.

Do the market research:

For me, the market research is the second most important thing you need to do while developing a strategy. Although there can be a lot of advantages of internet marketing but you will not be able to utilize them until and unless you don’t have any idea about the current trends. Knowing what the most advanced technique of performing a task is will help you in every possible way. With the consideration of all the important points, you will be able to develop an effective strategy.

Create your goals:

Goals are the only thing on which your success will depend. Having the information about the market and the strategies you competitor will help you in creating the goals of your internet marketing strategy. Make sure you are developing your goals in a way that they become achievable for you. For me, it is always best to breakdown your long term goals into smaller one. These small goals will help you in getting closer to your long term goals. One thing you need to keep in mind is that the goals need to be highly realistic and achievable. Otherwise, they can demotivate you that will directly affect your overall progress.

Create a brand image:

The next step, in my opinion, is the creation of the name and image of your brand. Now that you have the idea of the latest trends and you know the ways in which you will develop a relationship with your customers. Develop the idea in a way that will become a hit, an idea that can change the perspective of the people and an idea that will target directly on their needs. Creating the image in this sense will be beneficial for you in different ways. The name of your brand should also reflect the message that needs to be conveyed. Different advantages of internet marketing provides you with the facility to create a new image in different ways. For me, the best way is to utilize the social media platform for that purpose. As a lot of people are using it on daily basis, there is a chance that most of the people will get to know about your brand. Another way that I will suggest includes the use of videos in which some people are using your brand’s product or services. You can also get the SEO services to increase your brand visibility. There are a lot of internet marketing techniques that can be used for this purpose.

Get to know your audience:

I think no strategy can work well until and unless you don’t have any idea about your audiences. Everyone person in this world has some specific needs and everyone belongs to a different group. This individuality is the major reason due to which all of the people needs to be tackled with great care. No customer can get satisfied until and unless they get what they need. To increase the sale of your product and service, you need to create a need or a problem first. After that, you will offer the solution to that problem. The best internet marketing services are the ones that are provided with full knowledge of the customers or the audiences.

Know where you can find them:

The knowledge of the customers is essential but you also need to focus on the places where you can find them. You need to know the platforms and the channels through which the communication can be developed. The internet is the fastest platform that can be used to communicate and have an idea about the people. With the internet marketing techniques, b2b internet marketing techniques can also be utilized.

Make an offer that cannot be resisted:

After the identification of the people and the ways through which you can reach them, now you have to develop an offer related to your brand and business that cannot be resisted and this will be done with the help of various advantages of internet marketing. The offer needs to be conveyed in an interesting way. The content or the wording must be chosen with great care as it will be the first thing that will have an impact on the decision of the people. I think the offer should also guide the people about the ways through which those offers can be availed.

Constant evaluation:

I think the last step for the internet marketing strategy should be the evaluation. You need to keep an eye on the results. With the help of these result, you will be able to know the effectiveness of your strategies and further steps that need to be taken.

In my opinion, these were the steps that should be followed while developing an effective internet marketing strategy for your business.

How to Optimize Google My Business

Nowadays, it is difficult to maintain a business given the saturated markets and tough competition. However, technology has also provided us with impressive tools that can help businesses stay ahead of competition even during tough times.

Google is well-known for its search engine facilities but it provides a plethora of other tools as well. These tools are both for the convenience of personal and corporate use. One such very useful tool is specifically designed for business purposes, namely Google My Business.

What is Google My Business?

Google My Business is a free tool for businesses, brands, organizations and artists that want to manage their online presence across the Google platform. It is quite easy to use and comes with lots of benefits. It has various features that allow a business or artist to verify and edit their information. The goal is to drive traffic towards your online platform and create more customers. Google My Business makes it easy to share the story behind your business.

Uses of Google My Business

Here a couple of main uses of Google My Business:

It allows you to manage the business information across various Google platforms including Search and Maps
It allows you to reach new and existing customers to share information.

Google My Business Optimization

If you have a local business, then you can use Google My Business for lots of advantages. This is an impressive Google local business platform if you know how to optimize it effectively. For using Google for business, you must learn certain tips and tricks to get the best from these tools.
In this write-up, we have prepared a Google My Business optimization checklist. The checklist will help use this Google local business tool effectively and produce better results.

Local Business Address

Since you can incorporate Google Maps into your Google My Business website, it is important to provide an authentic address. This makes it easier for clients seeking services similar to yours to find you. This may seem obvious but the important part is the consistency of the address. By consistency, we mean that all your Google Map listings should use the standard format of the address. For example, if you use the term “Street” instead of “St.”, then use it for all listings.

Business Hours

Make sure that your business hours that are listed on Google My Business are accurate. Many businesses change their working hours twice a year. If you don’t log in much into Google My Business, then just log in to ensure that provided information is up to date.

Business Category

Google My Business offers the feature of adding your business to a certain category. Now, this may be fairly easy to decide for some but others may find this step complicated. If you are having difficulty choosing which category suits your services best, then read the expert opinion of local SEO specialist Phil Rozek.

Images of Local Business

Visuals can have a positive impact on clients seeking services or products that you offer. They can often help eliminate the hesitancy when customers are deciding. The Google My Business platform allows you to add photographs related to your local business. You may add photographs of your main staff, yourself, reception desk, customers buying at your store and other similar images.

Virtual Tour

Google for business tools are highly intelligent and profitable in the long run. This tool allows you use the street view of Google Maps. This means you can add a 360 photograph view of your local business facility for the customers. This is an attractive feature, one enjoyed by potential customers. This is even more beneficial if the location of your business plays a significant role in reaching the target audience, for example, a restaurant or café.

Introduction

One of the first things viewed on your Google My Business website will be the introduction you added. You can optimize this introduction using SEO keywords. This helps customers to find your business when they are seeking similar services and searching with related keywords.
The next part is the format of your introduction. Try to keep it concise and interesting. Add short paragraphs with bullet points and appropriate headings.

Payment Methods

The advantage from Google My Business can be enhanced if you are thorough with the information you provide. The main purpose of this Google local business tool is to provide quality information about your business to the clients. One of the important business information you can add is the payment methods you accept. This helps customers understand what they can expect when they visit you. This way they can also come prepared beforehand. It eliminates the hassle for both the business and customers.

Reviews

In comparison to Yelp, where you can’t ask customers for reviews, Google My Business allows you ask for customer reviews. These reviews will play an important role in your bsuineess success. People connect with people. Therefore, if other have left positive reviews, potential clients will be more comfortable doing business with you.

Respond to Reviews

The downside of asking reviews is that there is a risk of people leaving negative reviews.
However, part of Google My Business optimization includes that you respond to these reviews. If a customer has mentioned a problem or drawback, try addressing their concerns. In the long run, this will also help you eliminate the weaknesses in your business strategy.

Google My Business can be really useful in the long run. The trick is to pay attention to optimization and maintain it frequently. The more consistent and thorough your information is on the platform, the better chance you have of enjoying the benefits of this tool.

This platform is an effective tool in these times of tough competition. Using smart features of the platform, you can strongly establish your presence in the online world. Many customers are making decisions on the fly now so a strong online presence is essential for success.

All Posts by Tim