Posts

5 Effective Ways to Drive Website Traffic

/in /by

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Drive Website Traffic|5 Effective Ways to Drive Website TrafficThe COVID-19 pandemic has shifted the consumer landscape online more than ever before.
A digital strategy is a must for any business’s marketing efforts. The main goal is to drive users to your website, learn about your brand and make a purchase—ultimately helping your business grow.

In this blog, we’ll touch on the most important components you should add to your digital efforts!

Content

The very first thing you should do to expand your website’s presence is to create content! This could be building out more pages, such as About Us, service pages, and most importantly, blog articles.

Hone in on your unique value proposition when you’re writing. Think about the most common questions you get when potential customers are inquiring about your product or services. Write content directly addressing these concerns. You will be able to build trust by establishing yourself as a thought leader in your industry.

Your content should be educational and entertaining–all while offering value to your website visitors.

Try to position your brand offering as the solution to your consumers’ pain points.

Don’t forget to incorporate Call-To-Actions throughout your website and blogs–in moderation, of course! It could be a link to another helpful article on your site, download a handy eBook, or filling out a form to contact your sales team.

Note: While you create content for your website, combine it with SEO strategies for better results.

SEO

Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) is the continuous process of improving your website to rank well in search engines such as Google or Microsoft Bing. SEO will be the primary driver of organic traffic to your website.

It encompasses a lot of items, such as on-page and off-page SEO and technical SEO. We won’t get in the nitty-gritty as there are countless articles online you can find on each of them, but here are some SEO strategies you should be working on to rank higher in search engines:

  1. You should be optimizing for keywords. What are users typing into the search query, and how do you show up for them? Have a keyword strategy in place to enrich the relevancy of your content.
  2. A determining factor of your ranking on search engines is the relevancy of your content. If someone expects a specific topic or answer to their search query and you don’t deliver it to them? They’re going to leave, resulting in a higher bounce rate, and Google will ding you for that.
  3. Ensure your website is easy to navigate and has a fast loading time. People expect a seamless experience on your site, and there’s no doubt they will leave if it’s not up to par.
  4. Set up an XML sitemap. It is a file that shows a list of the most important pages of your website. It helps search engines understand your website structure and can crawl all of your pages (which makes them rankable on search engines).
  5. Work on getting backlinks: connect with trustworthy websites with higher domain authority and ask for a link back to your website. This will increase your domain rating as well, making you more likely to rank on search engines.

You can use tools for your SEO needs, such as SEMRush or Ahrefs. Both are robust, data-driven tools you can use to check the health of your website and how well its SEO performance is and pinpoint opportunities for improvement.

Paid Advertising

Digital advertising campaigns drive paid traffic to your website. If your website isn’t ranking on search engine results or is has weaker SEO, paid advertising enables you to show up for your desired keywords.

The traffic you drive will be high-quality. This is because you will be able to control your ads:

  • You’ll be able to design and customize the ad messaging
  • Decide which audiences you want to reach
  • What websites or channels your ad should be shown on
  • Where you want to direct the user to (Homepage? Specific product page? Dedicated landing page?)

By building a paid strategy with your business goals in mind, whether to increase brand awareness or drive conversions, you can effectively drive results that will grow your business.

What makes paid advertising effective but complex is, every business’s strategy varies. That’s why it’s crucial to pinpoint which channels your target audience is at and serve your ads to them at the right place and time.

Some digital channels include:

  • Paid Search (Google, Bing, Yahoo etc.)
  • Display (across the internet, on millions of websites)
  • Social Media
  • Video (Youtube etc.)
  • Over-The-Top (video streaming platforms such as Roku)
  • Digital Out-Of-Home (digital billboards at high foot-traffic areas)
  • Mobile advertising (app stores, in-app etc.) and so much more

It takes trial and error and constant monitoring and adjustments to ensure your ad dollars are used to their full potential.

We highly recommend you try out more than one type of paid channel to see effective results. A good combination to start with is paid search, social ads, and display ads. You will be able to capture people who are actively searching for you, retarget people who might have visited your website but didn’t convert, and stay top of mind!

Programmatic display advertising is a new form of advertising that businesses of all sizes are jumping on board with. Instead of going to each publisher and negotiating a deal to place your ad on their site, this process is automated through machine learning ad tech. It grants you access to countless ad publishers, widening your audience reach more than ever. Another perk is that it centralizes your advertising channels where all the data can sync together. Consider looking into a programmatic advertising platform or working with an advertising agency to help manage your paid advertising campaigns!

Social Media

Studies have shown that the COVID-19 pandemic has propelled more people online, social media included.

Some of the most popular social media channels include Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Snapchat, Reddit, Pinterest, etc. They are great channels to engage with your audience, especially to share the latest news via photos, videos, and captions.

They are also useful to promote your website and branded content. If you have a new blog article, announce it on social! You want to maximize exposure online.

Do note that you shouldn’t spread yourself too thin by trying to be on every channel. Let’s say you’re a law firm. Perhaps having a social presence on Instagram wouldn’t be isn’t as effective as LinkedIn. Think about where your target audiences are likely to be and work on creating content for those channels!

Online Directories Google My Business

Another way to help people find your website is to list your business on online directories.

You will be able to list your business’ contact information (name, address, phone number, etc.), office hours, services, and a link to your website. This enables more people to come across your business online, potentially driving more traffic.

One of the most prominent “directories” is Google My Business (GMB). When people are looking for a product or service, they are likely to turn to Google. By having a GMB listing, your business is more likely to pop up in the search results.

Google My Business also allows you to share updates such as seasonal offers or updates like blogs. Just like social media, you can cross-promote your content and entice people to click through to your website!

It is vital that you continuously deliver a great website experience for your users and amplify your efforts with these strategies, which are meant to interweave. By combining efforts to drive both paid and organic traffic, you’ll be consistently bringing in quality audiences.

We hope these tips give you a better insight into what areas to focus on in your digital marketing strategy!

Four Key Web Design Rules For 2022 And Beyond

/in /by

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Web Design Rules|Four Key Web Design Rules For 2022 And BeyondThese days even the smallest businesses are expected to have top-quality websites. This means that new entrepreneurs should be prepared to invest in them. You don’t have to build your website yourself. In fact, it’s usually best to delegate the building to a professional. It can, however, be useful to understand the key web design rules for 2022 and beyond.

SEO needs to be baked in

When the internet first started, web design and search engine optimization were separate disciplines with little to no crossover. Now, however, the design of your website can do a lot to help or hinder your SEO. Modern search engine algorithms now assess sites on safety and usability as well as content. This is why SEO has to be baked in from the start.

In some contexts, the effectiveness of your SEO will be seen as an indicator of your overall competence. This is particularly true of tech-related companies. For example, if you’re offering web design services in West Palm Beach then you’ll be expected to rank well for “website design west palm beach”.

Mobile-friendliness is a must

In the old days, people used to surf the net from a computer at their desk. Now, they can also surf it from mobile devices and they increasingly do. The experience of using a website from a computer is often very different from the experience of using a website from a mobile device. This means that websites have to be carefully designed to satisfy both groups of users.

At a superficial level, this means either having two separate websites for the two groups of users or having a single, responsive website. Effective, mobile-friendly web design must, however, go much further than this. It has to accommodate the very different ways and contexts in which the various devices are used.

For example, computers are generally used when you’re seated at a desk or table. Mobile devices can be used in all kinds of places and ways. Computers tend to have fairly large screens whereas mobile devices can have very small ones. Computers have keyboards, mobile devices don’t. In fact, mobile devices are often worked using one hand.

Voice search is now serious

Voice search has now matured to the point where it deserves to be taken very seriously. It’s particularly important for businesses targeting people who are actually on the move. Regardless of whether you’re driving or walking, you want (and often need) to keep your eyes focused on where you’re going. That’s why voice search is so useful.

Even if you’re not targeting people on the move, it’s often still useful to optimize your site for voice search. The growth of smart assistants, especially smart home assistants, is leading to growth in the use of voice search. Quite simply, it is or should be, a really convenient way of getting quick answers to straightforward queries.

Chatbots are go

Chatbots can be used for all kinds of purposes from collecting user feedback to answering basic queries. One of their most popular uses is as “first-responders”. In other words, they will try to help users themselves. If the query is beyond their capability, they’ll pass it on to a human agent. If it’s out of hours, they’ll take a message.

Don’t Miss These 5 Ingredients For A Successful Online Company

/in /by

StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article |Successful Online Company|Don't Miss These 5 Ingredients For A Successful Online CompanyAre you thinking about starting an online company? If so, then it’s important to understand the ingredients you’ll need to guarantee that your business is a success. There are various elements that you will have to get right here that should help separate your company from the rest of the crowd. Let’s look at some of the key possibilities.

A Great Website

First, you need to ensure that you do have a fantastic business website. The website will often be the first impression that customers receive of your brand. If you don’t hit the right marks here then they could be turned off enough that they will avoid buying from your business completely and that’s the last thing that you want.

When you are building your website, think about the structure. It’s important that they can find what they are searching for in minutes. You might also want to think about other elements of your website as well such as the content. In terms of marketing, content is still king. Any content on your site needs to be targeted, interesting and engaging to create the right impact.

Fantastic SEO Options

If you don’t have SEO then your new online business is going to be dead in the water. The reason for this is quite simple. The vast majority of online interactions still begin with the use of a search engine. So, if you don’t have SEO then customers won’t be able to find your business online at all. One of the ways that you can handle this is by making sure that you do explore the right SEO service. Affordable SEO services for small businesses are available and can be highly useful to you. You do, however, need to understand the signs that you have a high-quality service.

An example would be how businesses handle quotes for services that they offer. A high-quality company will want to get to know your brand and understand your current position on the market before they provide you with a direct quote. If they don’t do this, then there’s a chance that the company is providing a cookie-cutter solution. In cases like this, you are always going to struggle to stand out.

Ultra Levels Of Engagement

Next, you need to ensure that you are getting the right level of engagement with your business. One of the ways that you can do this is by making sure that you focus on your social media marketing campaign. There are various social media networks that could be beneficial to you. It’s worth using a marketing agency to research which ones your customers are most likely to frequent. For instance, if you are running a B2B business model, then LinkedIn and similar options could be very useful to you.

Fantastic Reviews

These days a business will live or die based on the reviews that it receives from customers. If you don’t get the right reviews in your company, then you are going to struggle to get customers to buy your product or service.

Indeed, polls suggest that 80% of customers will not commit to a purchase of a product or service until they have checked the reviews online. If you are struggling to get reviews for your business, it might be worth simply asking for them when customers buy your products. Even getting mixed reviews is better than having zero attached to your business brand.

Budgeting

Finally, you do need to make sure that you are not going overboard with your budget and your spending in your business. It’s important to make sure that you keep this under the right level of control. There’s no set rule on how much you should spend for a business like this. You just need to check that you are not sinking into debt. This can be avoided by using a cloud accounting service. A solution like that will mean that you can check your spending in real-time.

We hope this helps you understand some of the key steps that you can take to guarantee that your new online company is the tremendous success that you hoped for. If you make the right choices here, then you will be able to guarantee that you can effectively rise above the competition and ensure that your company gets the level of interest it deserves.

Be aware that there are countless small businesses started up online each year. The majority of these never reach a significant level of success. You need to make sure that your business doesn’t fall into this particular trap.

Great Tips to Improve Your Marketing Skills

/in /by

StrategyDriven Professional Development Article |Improve your Marketing Skills| Great Tips to Improve Your Marketing SkillsMarketing is one of the most vital elements of any business and can often make or break a company’s success, which is why it pays to boost your marketing skills.

Research Traditional & Contemporary Techniques

Understanding is easily one of the most important things you could ever have when looking to improve any ability, especially one such as marketing. There is a myriad of useful and interesting techniques available to you, both traditional and contemporary, and an understanding of these techniques is the best way to learn how to apply them practically to your business.

Contemporary Marketing Techniques. The majority of contemporary marketing techniques revolve around implementing web-based marketing, mainly through social media, to drive highly specialized web traffic towards your company. Skills such as SEO optimization, social media marketing, understanding how to write a press release, and producing high-quality content are all useful aspects of this kind of marketing and contribute greatly to the success of your marketing campaigns.

Traditional Marketing Techniques. Alternatively, more traditional marketing techniques refer to tried and true methods such as car sign advertising and storefront advertising. These traditional methods tend to cost significantly less than more contemporary marketing and have lower upkeep requirements. However, they also tend to drive less of a response and reach far fewer potential customers than contemporary techniques.

Attend Classes

On top of undertaking your own research, a brilliant way to improve your understanding of marketing skills is to engage with classes on the subject, either online or in person. Fortunately, there are many avenues to accrue an understanding of key marketing skills, any of which are work pursuing.

Relevance of Techniques to Specific Situations. Among the many important skills conferred by this kind of education, one of the most beneficial is assessing when it is most appropriate to apply specific marketing techniques. By understanding when you should be marketing and in which areas of your business, you can apply your efforts and budget far more specifically than you would otherwise. This can help your marketing budget to stretch further and can also help to ensure your marketing campaigns make the most impact possible.

Apply Your Knowledge

Finally, after accumulating relevant marketing knowledge, the best way to continue to improve your skills is to ensure that you are applying your marketing knowledge in the most effective ways possible. By applying your marketing knowledge, you can get a feel for how this knowledge translates to the field and also learn from the experience.

Generate Your Own Marketing Campaigns. The best way to apply the knowledge you have gained is to work at generating your own marketing campaigns, whether or not these are successful for your company.

Learn from Your Failures. One of the most important things to do when you are applying your knowledge in this way is to ensure that you learn from your mistakes. When something goes wrong, take note of why so that when you try again, you know how to avoid similar mistakes.

4 Search Engine Optimisation Mistakes You Must Avoid in 2021

/in /by

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Search Engine Optimisation|4 Search Engine Optimisation Mistakes You Must Avoid in 2021There’s no denying that search engine optimisation can be incredibly beneficial in establishing and elevating the presence of a business online, regardless of the company’s size or its chosen field. However, while the concept behind SEO might appear to be simple on paper, it presents a number of challenges when it comes to execution. And any errors or mishaps now won’t just lead to wasted effort, time, and resources, but it can also create setbacks that can be difficult to recover from. As the saying goes, the first step in avoiding pitfalls is knowing where they are, and we’ll be talking about some of the SEO mistakes that you must avoid at all costs in 2021.

1. Keyword stuffing

Despite being a poor practice for years, keyword stuffing continues to remain problematic amongst many businesses. While quantity over quality may have worked in the past, it no longer does now. And if you continue to use this strategy, you’ll risk suffering from potentially significant losses on your ranking. With the algorithms behind popular search engines like Bing and Google continuing to improve, continuing this technique will only end up causing problems. So, make sure that you find a happy and balanced medium whenever you choose to incorporate relevant keywords into the content or copy generated.

2. Building subpar and irrelevant links

Similar to the above-mentioned keyword stuffing, websites used an overwhelming number of backlinks from plenty of domains to enhance the domain authority and ranking of a website. However, these days, most algorithms consider this practice as a black hat technique and can drop sites that make use of it down in the rankings. As such, you must conduct extensive research before linking to any domains. Defer to the expertise of specialists like www.ocere.com for their link outreach packages if need be. It will save you from a lot of trouble.

3. Generating mediocre content

No successful SEO campaign can ever be without top-quality content. Unfortunately, many brands still choose to opt for quantity over quality. While having more content is never a bad thing, it can lead to lower rankings and user disengagement if concessions are made in the process that could compromise their quality. Before you post any new material, make sure that the content is high-quality and relevant to your business. In this way, you’re more likely to attract visitors than push them away.

4. Not conducting keyword research

Keyword research is a critical part of SEO because it allows you to target the terms and phrases that users tend to type in whenever they search for info, goods, or solutions that are relevant to your business. If you skimp on doing research, there’s a good chance that you’ll choose the incorrect keywords and end up wasting money in the process. Don’t let this happen and do your homework.

Mistakes in digital marketing can have a much more significant impact on the brand more than people care to believe. Apart from keeping the business from generating the desired exposure, it can also damage its reputation. By avoiding the mistakes laid out above, not only will you keep this from happening. But you’ll elevate your presence and visibility on the World Wide Web.