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How to Develop a Digital Marketing Strategy for 2020

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article, How to Develop a Digital Marketing Strategy for 2020

Every business needs to have a digital marketing strategy in 2020. If your business has any kind of online presence at all, as every business should at this point, digital marketing is essential to your survival.

But just throwing money at your digital marketing isn’t going to get you very far. If you want your marketing to have an impact and achieve your goals, you need to have a solid strategy at the core. Developing a comprehensive strategy doesn’t have to be difficult; you just need to approach it in the right way. Here’s what you need to know to develop your digital marketing strategy in 2020.

Start by Defining Your Brand

Throughout all of your digital marketing campaigns, the essence of your brand should shine through. The first stage of planning for any new marketing campaign should be working out what you want to say and what you want to convey to your audience. Messaging is very important with regards to marketing, and all your marketing needs to convey something about the nature and ethos of your business.

Having a clear and detailed definition of your brand and what it stands for is essential if you want to put together a thoughtful marketing strategy.

Set Yourself SMART Goals

SMART goals are goals that are simple, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely. This means that they should be easy to understand and you should have a clear idea of how you will achieve them. There’s nothing wrong with setting yourself ambitious goals, but if you set yourself unrealistic goals, then you will be setting yourself up for failure and frustration.

Keep Things Scaled

You do need to make sure that you keep your digital marketing strategy scaled as much as possible. This means that you should be exploring your budget and keeping things under a tight level of control. Letting the costs balloon is one of the easiest ways for your company to end up in trouble. You can’t trade a fantastic marketing campaign for an unhealthy financial situation. Luckily, there are options for small businesses including solutions such as small business SEO packages. This will provide the marketing service you need without the heavy costs that larger companies endure.

Call in Professional Help If You Need It

Not every business is in a position to do their own digital marketing to the best of their ability. Some businesses will be better served by calling in an external digital marketing agency like Smartboost to handle their strategizing for them. There is no sense struggling to put together a comprehensive digital marketing strategy if you don’t have access to the resources and knowledge that you need. Hiring a marketing agency to do things for you might be a smarter move financially than trying to do it all yourself.

Always Track Your Results

It is only by tracking the results of past marketing campaigns that you can learn the lessons you need to improve future campaigns. The data and feedback that your campaigns produce is the most useful tool you have for refining your marketing strategy and improving your approach for the future. You can never know too much when it comes to your past campaigns and the impacts that they have. Knowing what has worked and what hasn’t enables you to take a more considered approach the next time.

A coherent strategy is an essential foundation for any successful marketing campaign. If you don’t have an overarching strategy, your marketing is inevitably going to be aimless and unfocused. Sticking to the advice above will enable you to develop the digital marketing strategy you need to make 2020 a success.

The Vitality of String to JSON in Web Development

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article, The Vitality of String to JSON in Web Development

The JSON which is an open-source and publicly available format for exchanging data and information across servers and to browsers and web applications, is the most common format for the web developers. Different techniques are deployed while saving data in this format. The method that involves is storing data in the form of arrays, objects, and even nested objects. It is considered as the most convenient way for the interchanging of data. You might know that servers only understand text-based formats; therefore, JSON is known as the most suitable way to correspond with servers. You can convert strings to JSON easily without even investing your time and money. There are many free strings to JSON online tools available on the web.

JSON – Exchanging Data with Servers

The string to JSON editor also assists you in improving the overall outlook of the files as well. You can easily rearrange the entire code, look for the outcomes, and alter the data according to your requirements. The tool comes with many programs, which makes it easy for you to modify the code easily as it displays the code in a tree format, which means it is aligned in a hierarchical way by containing values within values. People often argue in the web development sphere, which format is better XML or JSON. It is because people who are still using XML for coordination with the server, don’t prefer to switch to JSON.

You can erase all the unnecessary commas and spaces from the code with the aid of this tool. The available web tools don’t require any specific skill set to use them. In fact, they can be accessed from any browser but with a stable internet connection to get the best results out of it. Additionally, along with Windows, you can access them on other operating systems like Linux, iOS, Android, Mac, etc. and there’s no need for extra memory and the processing speed.

String to JSON – Expeditious Utility

String to JSON conversion wasn’t easy for the web developers at all before the inception of this tool. It has really made the task easier for them, and they’re now saving their time as well. The JSON, which is popular for its lightweight nature, doesn’t require you to add attributes and closing/ending tags. Along with it, the format is way more advanced than XML because it doesn’t require being extensive. But you can face trouble when dealing with hefty data and lengthy files. Still, in such cases, the editor and formatter utilities are also available for the users over the web.

You would be amazed to know that the internet is flooded with such tools, and you won’t have to invest your time in searching for any of the tools. The search engines will instantly fetch the results for you in a matter of instance. Now you don’t need to manually convert string to JSON as it is possible with the availability of web utilities.

Guide to Getting Started with a Blog for Your Business

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article, Guide to Getting Started with a Blog for Your Business

Having a blog as part of your business website is a brilliant way to help to connect with the customers that you have, and it also adds some strength to your business, and gives you some clout as a brand. However, even with these benefits, there are many businesses that haven’t yet latched on to the idea that having a blog is something that is going to be beneficial. Many businesses think that a blog can be something that is time-consuming. It can take some planning to come up with ideas for posts, and actually getting them written, but that shouldn’t be what stops you from launching one for your business. The time and planning really is worth the effort.

A blog for your business website is not a waste going to be a waste of time. In fact, it has been found that it can be one of the most cost-effective ways that you can market and promote your business, and can help to get more leads, and as a result, sales and customers. You can establish yourself as an authority in your industry, when you share relevant and correct information, and it can help you to get found more easily on the world wide web. Not only that, it is pretty straightforward to blog. You can always outsource it too, but with so many businesses doing it, and seeing the benefit, it needs to be something that you at least consider. With that in mind, here are some of the top tips on how to start a professional blog for your business.

Write for your customers

Writing for your business blog is something that is going to be different to writing for your own personal blog. Although some examples can come into play, they should be business related to demonstrate a point, rather than drawing on personal experience. The business blog is not all about you as an individual. You should always bear in mind that the people who are going to read the blog, are your customers or potential customers. So the content that is out there, needs to be written for them and their needs. Think about who your ideal customer is, and then write content according to that.

Great web hosting

If you already have a website, then the chances are that you are already happy with what you have. However, for a blog, you should have some great hosting, to really maximize the benefits of blogging, and making sure that the look and design of your site works well, and fits in with your brand. There are a variety of options, such as cloud hosting, or using a platform that is specific to blogging, like WordPress, for example. You could even consider something like Hostgator WordPress hosting which is hosting that is designed specifically to cater to any WordPress websites. When you combine cloud and WordPress hosting together, as in this case, it could help you to get a fast, secure, and reliable website and blog. You want the site to be quick to load and reliable, otherwise people will just get bored.

Content is king

In order for readers to stick to your blog, and keep coming back for more, the content that you create needs to be great! Not to mention that Google loves fresh content, so posting regularly helps to have new content for it to index, and helps your website to rank well in searches. Having great content is how you establish your business website as an authority in your industry. When you write about what you know, then it will make the writing easy. As a result, it will be more comfortable and engaging, and keep readers coming back for more.

If you have a business that sells garden furniture, for example, it can be something that can be a little dry, but there are lots of ways that you can go with it. If you are an expert on all things garden and furniture related, and what will work best in different settings or conditions, then that is the kind of content that you should run with. It is all having content that is relevant and interesting, even if on the surface you might not think that it is.

You should also look to answer questions that you think your readers might have. Going on to the garden furniture topic again, for example, you could talk about storage and weather conditions, such as looking after your furniture in winter. This is potentially a question that your customers could have. When they know that they can come to you for all things garden related and have their questions answered, it is more likely that they will come back again.

Little and often

Blog posts don’t need to be long essays. So it is a good idea to keep them short, sweet, and to the point, answering questions along the way. Unless someone is looking to thoroughly look into and research a particular topic, people will only be looking for quick information that they can skim read. As a guide, it is a good idea to aim your blog posts to be around 250 to 500 words. If it is going to involve more words to get your point across more clearly, then that is obviously something that is completely fine to do. There is also no set time to post, or how often you should post. Just think about being consistent. If once a week is all you can manage, then just make sure that it is once a week. Customers will want to come back to see new content each time.

One of the key points is to mix things up a little. Of course, a blog is there to help convert site visitors into sales. But don’t make it all about your products and recommending them. Mix up your posts with plenty of images, link to relevant articles, and even share videos. Engage with those that leave comments, and get the whole team involved; it will make a difference.

How to Boost Web Traffic to Your Company Site

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article, How to Boost Web Traffic to Your Company SiteWhen you’re trading online, you need customers to visit your website. When they do, they browse your pages, get to know your brand, understand your products, and begin doing business with you. It stands to reason, therefore, that when you have fewer individuals visiting your website, you end up with lower profits and fewer sales. In this article, you’ll learn how to boost traffic to your website. Using the tricks of the trade, you’ll bring in more consumers to your website, where you’ll be able to convert them into paying customers.

Digital Advertisements

One of the first solutions you’ll consider when you’re trying to drive traffic to your website is to simply create some marketing material for use online. This can feel like a simple solution, but it can actually take a lot of time to draw up an advert – whether a still image or a video – and make sure that your content is linking back to your site and giving off the right impression. It can also be costly to advertise online. As such, you should only use this option when you can be sure of the return you’ll get on your investment.

SEO Strategy

Meanwhile, you can also employ the strategy of improving your position in search through search engine optimization. This strategy is a long-term one and requires you to identify which search terms people might use to find your business. By identifying these terms and using them in your site copy, you’ll boost your visibility and climb up Google’s rankings on these specific search terms. If you feel you need a helping hand with this strategy, you should contact local business SEO experts at lbmsllc.com to build your strategy alongside you.

Social Media

As always, social media remains one of the greatest assets to small businesses everywhere. With its grassroots feel and free interface, social media is one of the most important assets that you can leverage in order to bring new individuals to your website. It’s absolutely imperative that you set up pages on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter – as well as new apps like TikTok – in order to find the right audiences to advertise your products and services to. It helps to hire a social media-savvy individual to help you guide your content to the right people over time.

Linking to Other Sites

Finally, if the above tips seem a little adventurous, and you’re looking for instant results without all that much effort, you may find that linking your website to other websites – and their reciprocating – can help share customer bases between allied businesses. This strategy works best when you know the business owners you’re going to cross-pollinate with – so for local businesses in a town, city, or district, this is a great option to share your customer base and your web traffic with companies that you would like to partner with.

There you have it: four important tips for anyone looking to boost their web traffic over the course of 2020, bringing more customers and profits to your business.

5 Ways to Increase Post Engagement on Your Facebook Business Page

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article, 5 Ways to Increase Post Engagement on Your Facebook Business Page

Are you using Facebook as a platform for your business? Do you notice your post engagement losing some steam?

Post engagement is one of the key metrics that say how effective your Facebook business page is. It measures your followers’ loyalty to your brand.

With 80% of businesses using Facebook in their marketing strategies, you need to increase your Facebook page post engagement. But how do you do it? What are the techniques that you need to start practicing?

Continue reading below as we look at five effective ways to increase your post engagement.

The Value of Post Engagement

What is post engagement on Facebook? As we mentioned earlier, it is a metric that measures the activities your Facebook posts generate.

But why is it important?

Facebook engagement helps increase your social media reach. Your brand will get more exposure. In turn, you will generate more leads faster.

Furthermore, post engagement also serves as a cost-effective way of marketing your products. Instead of paying for expensive TV ads and billboards, social media engagement will cost you very little.

5 Techniques to Boost Your Post Engagement

Part of learning how to grow a Facebook page is managing your posts. Here are five effective ways that will boost the number of interactions on your Facebook account:

1. Timing is Key

Don’t just post on Facebook anytime you want. Instead, schedule your posts accordingly. Post during times when most of your fans are online.

Use a Facebook scheduling tool to determine the best times to publish your posts.

2. Create More Videos

Do most of your posts involve plain text? Try upping the ante by posting more videos.

Users love watching videos. They find it more engaging than plain text. But you need to make your videos entertaining and informative at the same time.

Moreover, post the videos directly to your Facebook page. Avoid posting a link to your videos coming from your YouTube account.

Also, consider publishing interactive Facebook posts. Try doing a Facebook Live once a week. Users love it when they can directly interact with the brands they follow in real-time.

3. Boost and Recycle

Remember your top posts from a month ago? Consider boosting them to increase engagement. Boosting will only cost you a minimal fee.

Alternatively, you should consider recycling your top posts.

When recycling them, tweak the posts a little. You may add a question or incorporate a video or image.

4. Brevity and Quality

Another effective way of increasing engagement is to shorten your posts. Keep them brief as much as you can, as longer posts may bore users.

But make sure your posts do not fall short in quality. Try using witty statements or ask them quick questions.

5. CTA Matters

Last but not least, you need to include a call-to-action (CTA) to your posts. A CTA sends the message that you want to hear from them. Throwing a question at the end of your post is a good option.

You may also create polls to see how they feel about a certain topic. You can go here to learn how to create a poll on Facebook.

Take Your Facebook Business Page to the Next Level

By increasing your Facebook post engagement, you can build your brand faster and create new leads for conversion. But post engagement is only one area you must work on.

Learn more strategies by reading our different articles. We discuss other techniques that will help take your social media pages to the next level.