How Animated Videos Can Help To Promote Your Business

Why Animation Videos Are So Popular?

Animation is not all about just children’s pictures and something that you fool around with at some point in your lifetime. It has been found that animation, if used properly, can bring about great success for a business.  The use of animation in digital marketing sphere has shown promising results in recent years.

Another reason why the current popular trend of animated videos is set to grow is only due to high-speed Internet and its market penetration.

An animated video presents information on the screen using colourful graphics and engaging motion. Industry gurus opine that with animated videos the marketing possibilities are endless.

Many companies of different sizes and types are all getting on the bandwagon of using animated videos as part of their online marketing strategies.

Animated videos are used extensively by the more established companies to explain how their products or services work. So much so, even start-ups with limited budgets are foraying into the world of animated graphics to promote their business and are viewing it as an integral part of their business strategy. Read on to find out why you can use animated videos to promote your business.

1. People are visual learners

It is a known fact that of 65% of people can learn more by viewing pictures, that is, they are visual learners. Over 90% of information that reaches the brain is visual in nature. Visual information that reaches the brain is processed faster than any other type and can  understand easily.

For all of these reasons, there has come about a noticeable increase in the video content that is streamed through social media and the Internet.

The fact that Facebook streams an average of over 4 billion videos in a day bears evidence to this fact. In short, pictures and videos are more remembered in people’s minds than just text.

2. Animated videos can be produced quickly

Many companies, even today, think that only large corporations with big budgets sell their products through the online video channel. It is true that live action video, in addition to a substantial budget, has all the ingredients depending on outside influences: shooting the video, actors, wardrobes of the actors, and location to shoot the scene.

It needs more equipment to create. The end video can, therefore, make or break the message that you intend to spread to your prospective clients.

However, it should be understood that live action video is not the only way in which you can make your customers understand about your product or service. Animated videos can be created quickly in a definite and controlled environment.

The tools are available within your organization and there is a total control of the final product. It works out cheaper and it is possible to deliver the message that you want your audience to see and understand in a powerful manner using an animated video.

3. Animated videos can help to improve your Google ranking

One of the metrics that Google uses to rank websites is the amount of time that a user spends on the site. The average website user is known to spend only 10 or a maximum of 20 seconds if no other reason compels him/her to stay further. If the visitor leaves the website within a few seconds, your Google ranking can be affected.

An animated video can do help to improve the rankings. Animated videos are entertaining, educative and fun to watch. The chances are very high that a visitor to the website will watch an animated video that is playing on the landing page of your website before leaving the site.

It is estimated that for a site having animated videos, the website average time for a visitor is found to increase from 8 seconds to about 2 minutes.

4. Animated Videos can help to increase conversion rates

According to surveys that have been conducted, over 85% of respondents admitted that they have ended up buying a product after seeing an animated video that explained the use of the product.

More than keeping the visitors at the website for longer periods, they help to convert prospective clients into customers. In this light, it is important to note that the videos should be created in the most exciting and innovative manner for conversions to increase.

5. Animated videos can go viral

Most animated videos are made with characters that represent prospective clients. They are made in such a way that they are informative as well as entertaining.

If the video is something that they can relate to, the level of engagement is high. It is possible that they will share it with like-minded friends.

The video can then go viral and this directly translates to a huge exposure and an increase in the number of new prospective clients. The increase in the amount of interest brings along more business growth and sales.

The best stories are when the customers-to-be form the stars. Always project the company as a supporting character in the video.

6. Animated videos serve to draw the viewer’s attention

Animations with the right mix of movements and colours can draw the viewer’s attention and keep them hooked on to the movie. The story-telling techniques that are employed also play an important part.

Visual aids are proven to be more persuasive (43% more) than verbal attempts to persuade. Animated videos have both the audio and visual communication that significantly enhances perception.

7. Animated videos are easy to understand

The characters and elements in an animated video are combined in such a way that the most complex data and concepts in a simple and easy-to-understand manner. The best part is that the simple format is easy for the viewer to remember.

The characters in an animated movie can be made to act in any manner for you. They can fly, speak, sing or dance to convey your message to the audience.

Animated Videos can be used to highlight the key points of your product or service in an effective manner. They put across important matter across to the audience in a matter of few minutes which otherwise would have taken hours to read and understand. The recommended length for an animated movie to advertise your product is 90 to 120 seconds.

8. Animated videos are economical

Animated video is one of the cheapest ways that you can use to promote a product or a service that your business offers. All it needs is the creativeness of a team that will put together an idea using animation skills.

Animated videos are not very expensive to create and are seen to provide optimal ROI and lead conversion rates for just about any business (an increase of about 80%).

Animated videos need not be updated as frequently as live-action videos as they remain fresh for longer periods unlike the latter.

9. Animated videos help you to stay ahead of the pack

A good-quality animated video is what can make you beat the competition. A high-quality video places you in the market as an innovative and futuristic company and sets you apart from the rest of the pack.

10. Animated videos are a great way of engaging with customers

People all over the world watch videos every day. It is estimated that over one-third of the time that an individual spends online is for watching videos. Therefore, making use of animated videos is seen as one of the best ways to catch the attention of a prospective customer.

It can be considered as the very first step in making a sale. Therefore, making use of content that engages the audience is crucial to make your product or service a success.

11. Animated videos help to improve SEO

Google loves animated videos as much as your prospective clients. As Google rankings improve when you place videos on your website, it is also a good way to improve your SEO and  your website to rank higher in Google’s search listings. This is one major reason why animated videos are being used more.

If you host your animated video on YouTube and embed these on your website, you can do a smart job of including keywords in the video andaccording to statistics, the chances of your video making it to the first page of Google search listings increases by over 50 times.

#12: Animated videos appeal to everyone

Animated videos appeal to a much larger group than just children. Many animated videos boast of millions of subscribers (e.g., Kurzgesagt in YouTube).  Animated videos do not promote any specific race, age, religion or nationality.

This is important for your business because the whole world is the market for your online business. Therefore it needs to appeal to everyone and reach different demographic groups, cultures and races.

13. Animated videos are helpful tools that aid in building your brand

Animated videos give your business fantastic opportunity to build a brand. The creative team that builds the video can incorporate brand images, logos and colours of your business into the video every time. They can even build a series of videos that will help to place the brand successfully in the market.

In the light of the above discussions, the reasons why an online business owner would want to make animated videos on board the marketing campaign are as follows:

  • They pave way for increased sales
  • They serve to increase conversions
  • They improve search engine rankings
  • They put forth easy-to-remember marketing messages
  • They keep up the customer engagement
  • They reduce the consultations because of a better understanding of how the product/service works
The Bottom Line

If you are a business owner and you have not added animated videos as part of your marketing strategy, it is time to get started now. There are cloud-based programs that help to create animated videos quickly and easily with simple tools that can be used to drag and drop figures.

More than 64% of prospective clients are likely to buy a product online after watching videos and that over 50% of viewers are looking for more information about a product or a service after watching a video should be reasons enough to get started.

6 Important Tags For SEO in 2018

Building links inside the content is still a relevant idea, but you cannot ignore SEO in the times of customized search. The relevance of your content, its structure and the general experience of the user also determine the way your website attracts search engine results.

Debates have been going on across the cyber world regarding the use of tags in SEO customization. SEO tags had an evident say in the ranking of websites, but they have gone controversial as on page SEO.

In this scenario, it becomes increasingly important to understand the role of various tags and analyze their impact on SEO performance.

With search engines coming up with smarter ways for reading the interpretation of online data, manipulative use of tags in an old manner is virtually out of the game.

However, more efficiently combined tags coupled with some other SEO customization can do wonders for your website.

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1. Meta description tags

Meta description tag usually refer to some unique stats mentioned differently as compared with other texts and contain a title and relevant URL.

They are used to more eager users to dig deep into a particular subject. It has a significant impact on the user experience and imparts more prosperous expertise and positivity in the mind of users.

However, a mindless addition of Meta description tags may have quite the opposite impact on the user as you might expect. Meta descriptions affect the number of clicks user gives on your page and decreases the look away rates.

There are specific ways too for placing Meta description tags in the content. They should be inviting and related to the topic. The preferred material should also be quality work and should  not give a feeling of betrayal.

It should be realistic and customized in the way a user would perceive.You should provide a unique and unique Meta description tag for your page, which reflects the subjects your page carries. Most significant keywords should be included. However, overuse should be avoided.

2. Title tags

It refers to the particular part of the page which reflects the title of the page. It looks like a clickable headline and also a part of the heading which appears on social media platforms and in browsers.

It gives users a general overview of what the page is meant to explain. Though it is no longer a solution to every problem, it still exists as a relevant thing a searcher would find.

It is the tag, which mostly tempts the user to decide whether the page will contain the content or not that he tends to search.You should provide an accurate and precise title for your page which gives a sense of assurance that he would get the content of his desire.

Make sure that your heading does not exceed 50-60 words. Use keywords naturally and place important ones ahead of others.

3. Italian and bold tags

For adding particular emphasis to certain words and imparting individual highlights for some parts, bold and Italian tags are used.

Though they do not comprise of essential metatags to utilize, they do add readability and improve the user experience. Use these tags only for those parts which are necessary. Avoid overuse of these tags.

4. Image alt keywords

These tags are used for highlighting the contents of an image. They do own significance for on-page optimization since they provide attributes to the pictures and materials.

As search engines cannot see the photos, they only are responsible for attracting search engine results and abstract visibility for the page.

5. Heading tags

This point to the labels, which are used to separate headings and subheadings from the other content. H1 to H6 comprises of the hierarchy for heading tags. UnlikeMetatags, they are visible to users and the most significant metatag, giving a glimpse of what the page acknowledges.

Their usage though has been a subject of debates in recent times, but proper utilization of H1 heading tags has been emphasized in many studies. Awkward usage of heading tags can keep a majority of traffic away and decrease the search engine ranking.

Search engines prefer to look for organized and well-structured content rather than crawling through the unorganized content.Headings help users navigate through the material and digest it.

These small details add up to significant SEO optimization and enhance the visibility of the page. Use H2-H6 is necessary. Add H1 tags with keywords and use secondary keywords within the paragraph.

6. Schema markup

It is a shared markup, which has been identified by search engines to organize data logically. It refers to meaningful tags where the shift seems to take from backlinks and keywords only to the relation between concepts and contents of the page.

Adding schema tags to the page enhances user experience and imparts significance to the SERP.

Bounce rates and user experience factors like CTR add up to the results search engines gives for your page. For proper utilization of schema tags, study the available tags and create a map plan how to use them during the content. Use structured data markup and make sure that they are not misleading and ineffective.

Takeaway

If you desire to boost your SEO for your website, make sure you don’t ignore the little tags available for your page. Not all tags are equally important. Some have more significance than others while some are must ones.

However, using tags at proper places and according to the content can significantly change the search engine results for your page in a positive way. Use the tags wisely and see the magic.

The Ideal Composition for a Successful Digital Marketing Team

Digital promotion is a crucial aspect of marketing strategies in every modern firm. If you are a business owner, you have two choices – either to hire a digital marketing agency or to build one in-house. Either way, you have to work closely with the team, and for that you need to understand the anatomy of a digital marketing team.

A Digital marketing team is a unique combination of individuals with varied skills. There are designers, creative heads, strategists, optimizers and marketers, although one person can wear many hats.

Let’s take a look at each role closely and understand why each of them is paramount for team functioning.

Website

A website is the first step to having a digital presence. So let’s start from the skilled resources required for building and maintaining a website.

The Web Designer (UI/UX):

Role: An expert who head starts the process of website creation by carving out the blue print of the landing pages. The skeletal framework of the website also known as the wireframe marks the genesis of website development. The designer then creates a design mockup to illustrate the alignment of text and images.

The whole idea as projected by the designer is presented to the client or the stakeholders for approval.

The UI/UX designer could also be an expert in HTML, CSS and java script and capable of rapidly generating website prototypes.

The designer should fabricate the website bearing in mind the target audience and website objective.

Traits required: Confidence, Creativity, Colour Sense, User Psychology, Curiosity, Proactivity, attention to detail, good communication skills.

 Technical Skills Required: UI/UX Knowledge, HTML, CSS, Javascript and jQuery

Marketing skills: Knowledge of Google Analytics, Customer behavior

Web Developer

A web developer creates the websites from a blue print to a viable virtual function.

Developing website involves transcribing the UI/UX wireframes created by the designer to visual elements.

A developer is a pro in coding languages and would know how to work with one or more development frameworks.

In addition, he manages the hosting environment and makes changes in the functional websites as requested by . He also implements software testing and observes the ongoing progress of the website.

Furthermore an adequate knowledge of security principles and their application in E-commerce applications enhances the scope.

The web developer studies the back-end data and employs the information to improve and refine the specifications of the website.

He is expected to be flexible towards the demands of the clients and open to suggestions of the designer and the strategist.

Traits required: creativity, love for learning, analytical mindset, curiosity, pragmatism, proactivity, attention to detail, good communication skills.

 Technical Skills Required: Photoshop, Coding, HTML, CSS, jQuery, PHP, web user Interface design, object oriented design, software testing, SEO.

Research

Ideally, research should happen as the first step. But most startups end up doing it at the later stages.

Market researcher/strategist

Technically these are two different roles, but as specified earlier in small firms, one person can wear many hats.

The analyst performs audits of various campaigning and promotional activities across platforms. The resultant audit figures are transcribed into attractive images to help the team assimilate how effectively their efforts are reciprocating.

On grounds of the conclusions drawn from the audit he provides suggestions for feasible utilization of resources and helps the team to tweak their efforts and avoid waste of time on ineffective strategies.

One of the significant activities carried out by the analyst is to scheme a calendar pre meditating the approximate time taken by each task at each stage. He follows up with the team to get the work done within the pre-decided time frame.

The strategist game plans the whole idea of the content, keeping in mind the aim of the website and target personas.

He provides writers with insights of what exactly the content should communicate to the audience.

He devises promotional strategies and decides the social platforms and channels to be used for content promotion. As a part of commercial marketing strategy new product launches, hike in market share and acquisitions are a few ideas schemed by the strategist.

He is responsible for creation, advertisement and administration of content that justifies company’s goals and values.

In case of small start ups, there is a need to boost the credibility and validate presence in the market. Guest posting, like popular websites helps to leverage their popularity to grow market and audience.

Traits required: Fluent English, writing skills, presentation skills.

Technical Skills Required: Proficiency with content management systems, SEO/SEM, Google Analytics, Google Adwords and social platforms, web design, html, URL architecting, email marketing.

Marketing skills: Content marketing, crisis management, guest posting, link building, digital campaign optimization, Influencer marketing.

 Content Creation

Content creators

The creative section of the team manifests the idea of the brand into words and images.

These include content writers, Graphic designers and animators.

The perception and central theme of the desired content is interpreted to the writers and graphics team by the strategist.

The writers then compose content relevant to the website or the brand.

Writers can be of different types.

Article writers research and write on various topics depending on the projects they receive and the website they work for.

Copywriters work for brands and e-commerce websites and write product descriptions, taglines while maintaining the credibility.

Similarly different kinds of content require different styles.

News writing demands AP style which has journalistic standards of spelling, grammar and punctuation.

Blogging is catchy, friendly and assertive.

Traits required: Adaptability, researching, Fluent English, presentation skill, Time management

Technical Skills Required: SEO, impeccable Editing, Microsoft word, Google docs,

Marketing skills: Online marketing, lead generation

Graphic designers and animators

The content written by the writer is loaded with images and videos by the graphics designers and the animators. It makes the content look vivacious.

The basic function of the designer is to create compelling images, charts and infographics.

Infographic designers create a visually attractive representation of the data. They design captivating flow charts for blogs and articles big time.

An Ad creator convincingly picturizes the value of articles, taglines and designs convertible images. They are involved in organic promotion which includes the social media jazz, as well as inorganic campaigns or paid promotion where in the brand or content is pushed or advertised on another website.

It is always a plus point to have a designer with the knowledge of headline writing and copywriting.

Traits required: creativity flair, versatility, visual ability, originality

 Technical Skills Required: Photoshop, CoralDRAW, illustrator, InDesign, 3D Aftereffects

Editor

The editor proofreads the content created by the creative team. Though the content is written by different writers the editor sees to it that the content quality and style is uniform throughout.

It is important that the content resonates with audience.

The web editor is also responsible for creating the editorial schedule depending on deadlines. Furthermore, he co-ordinates with content providers to close the activities as and when planned. Again due to the overlapping functions between various roles, this task can be carried out by the strategist.

Evaluation of content based on site objectives and building team focus on consistently providing valuable content are the major goals of the editor.

Editing is an intricate affair which requires good researching skill and strong attention to detail.

Traits required: Organizational skills, collaborative spirit, time management, detail oriented, critical thinking and problem solving skills.

Technical Skills Required: HTML, MS office, CMS, Analytical skills, calculation of ROI, Social media, SEO

Marketing Skills: Conversant with calculation of ROI and written collateral

SEO

Bang the keys but the right ones! That is what SEOs do.

Once the content is finalized by the editor, it moves to the publishing team which consists of the SEOs.

The SEOs strive to modify the content created by the creators and elevate the quality in a manner that it comes under the lens of the search engine every time a search is carried out.

Predominantly involved in keyword research, understanding meta tags and page description, SEO specialist analyses the webpage structure and elements to recommend improvement in the design.

SEO works in close proximity with the content strategist to expand the traffic and deliver quality content to the audience.

Once the content has all the essential ingredients, SEO specialist hits the publish button.

Content writers essentially need to have the knowledge of SEO tools such as keyword analysis, as it would help them write a search engine friendly content. This would also cut down the efforts of the SEO specialist and help him dedicate more time to execute content expansion strategies.

Moreover it is important for the SEO to stay updated with latest analytics and keyword tools. The SEO should maintain strong media relations with mainstream and print publications and online media.

Traits required:   creative, proactive, information management, interpersonal skills, Enthusiastic.

Technical Skills Required:  HTML, CMS, site auditing, content migration.

Marketing Skills: Social media campaigns, content marketing and optimization.

Distribution

Once published, we need maximum people to see what our website or brand has to offer. So it is important to promote it over various social media and email platforms.

The distributor pans the content across various media and channels to attract more visitors to the website.

It is important that the person understands the basic practices over channels and ensures proper distribution of content across respective channels.

The content posted on various platforms should have attractive and entertaining captions to easily catch the eye of your target audience.

The distributor integrates the research of the analyst and strategist to come up with effective marketing approaches.

Latest distribution techniques such as PPC (Pay per click) and other paid promotional techniques are used in addition to organic means to attract traffic.

He regularly monitors the promotion to enhance the reach of the content.

Major platforms for promotion include social media websites such as Facebook, twitter, Instagram and email marketing.

It is important that the distributor channelizes his efforts to maximize marketing and promotion effectively and fosters highly effective relationships with stakeholders.

Attracting visitors through email marketing is a tedious business as most audience does not view promotional emails. If the write up does not captivate the audience within first five seconds of reading, you have already dropped the ball there. The writers and distributors can slave over this together for a better output.

Traits required:  Well developed business operational, organizational, and administrative skills, Multi tasking

Technical Skills Required:   CMS, Analytical skills, Knowledge of tech and digital lifestyle, SEM, SEO.

Marketing Skills:  Mobile marketing, Deal making ability, project management, executing marketing strategies, aligning company’s goals with web content strategy.

QA

The story does not end here. The website is ready, content is published and advertisement is being carried out. But how will we know if the content is being seen by the people? Or if the brand is attracting audience and making the desired profits?

This is where the analyst comes into play again.

He consistently monitors the traffic over the website in real time and over other time periods through analytics tools. Apps like Google analytics help you track the performance of your website and fine tune efforts of your team in the right direction.

Analysts are required to have this insatiable instinct to explore the figures perceive actionable areas.

The analyst should have expertise in building inbound organic search traffic and improving SERPs.

He should be familiar with the best tools of the times and knowledge of current, past and projected trends in the SEO industry.

Furthermore, comprehending which channel has led to most sales and acknowledging that channel as per its role in the sales cycle, is also the responsibility of the analyst.

Traits required: Creativity, curiosity, strategic perspective, statistical and technical expertise.

Technical Skills Required:  Advanced excel, Google Analytics, Keyword tool, SEO, Site catalyst, Google Adwords, Coremetrics etc.

Marketing Skills: PPC, mobile marketing, organic promotion, ROI analysis, interpreting trends, multi-channel attribution, analyzing online user behavior.

Check out this video to know more about content marketing methodology.

Tying It All Together

This is how the content is typically relayed in digital marketing business.

It starts with the client approaching the web designer with a proposal to build a website which is thematically relevant to his brand or business.

The designer and developers together fabricate the space over which content writers and graphic designers convey to the audience the features and credibility of the client’s services. Before publishing the content is scrutinized by the editor and enhanced by the SEO.

The analyst and strategist together find means to channelize the labour in the right direction. The promotion of the website over various channels ensures expansion of business domain.

Even though the website is ready, it doesn’t mean the task has ended there. In fact it has just begun. The website needs constant modification and maintenance based on insights provided by the strategist and the analyst with frequent updates in the appearance and themes.

The trick is to keep digging your creativity kit and employ new tools of innovation.

Your suggestions and insights are always welcome in comments. Please feel free to share.

A Guide to Successful Content Marketing Career

What is Content Marketing

What is Content Marketing

The technique of creating or curating and distributing valuable content that is relevant to a specific type of customer audience so as to attract them is called content marketing. The basic premise of content marketing is to make some profit out of the prospective customer’s action.

The most important work of content marketing is to provide value to the target audience. It has been observed that content marketing costs almost 62 per cent less than traditional marketing but generates over three times the number of leads.

The act of content marketing is essentially the act of sharing information, entertainment, knowledge or advice in forms such as: emails, blogs, webinars, podcasts, infographics, videos, articles, quizzes, cartoons, social media content, etc.

Whereas inbound marketing focuses on specific buyers, content marketing is always directed towards a broad spectrum target audience.

Given below are a few details about the different types of content that are marketed with a view to turning the customer sentiment to a positive action. It is estimated that the worldwide content marketing revenue will be about $313.42 billion by the year 2019.

Content marketing is done for the reason that businesses hope to get the reader’s contact details whether they are reading your blog, filling out forms, or subscribing to your monthly newsletters.

They are awarding you the permission to contact them in the future if they provide you with their email address.

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Different Types of Content

In today’s digital marketing world, there are many using content to promote the product/service of your company. In fact, content marketing is seen more as a necessity today.

To make customers discern your product/service as the better one among millions of others’, it is important to provide value-driven and engaging content to the target audience.

1. Blogs

The first type of content that was marketed was the blogs. Now they have become very common. Publishing blogs are the act of disseminating valuable information over the Internet to the discerning audience for free.

Moreover, when you share content free of charge, there is an element of trust that builds up between you and the prospective buyer.

If you consistently share blogs on a single topic, you are acknowledged as an expert in that niche. This act keeps prospective customers returning to your blog pages and sooner or later some of them are likely to turn into buyers of your product/service.

In the meanwhile, it is also important to provide links to different parts of your content and the customer-to-be can bounce around for some time before making a buying decision. This happens quickly if the blogs are consistent and are of high quality.

It is also possible to lose readers if you fail to update information or do not post new blogs in a consistent manner.

2. Longform Content

This type of content is just what its name means – lengthy and free. It may range from 5000 to 15000 words. The content is made of a more than one chapter, each on a separate URL page.

This is observed as an ideal way to build readership and increase loyalty.  They are typically guides for a single topic. The readers do not have to go anywhere else as all the required information is available there itself.

The information is split into separate chapters. The best part is that the online marketer can promote each section of the long form content heavily.

If the content makes interesting reading, all you need to say is, “You can just subscribe so that we can keep you informed when our next chapter is published”.

3. eBooks

Whereas blogs are shorter to read, ebooks are more detailed and longer. They share more information to bring in more prospective customers. EBooks are lengthy and share a substantial amount of information on a single topic.

The thought of writing an eBook is overwhelming. However, once published, a good quality eBook is a great lead magnet. It is a good idea to get an eBook written by a good freelance writer.

Ebooks are usually 5 to 30 pages long. However, if an eBook does not offer the required solutions to a problem that has been highlighted, there is a good chance that readers are not likely to become convinced and subsequently will not get converted into customers.

4. Infographics

Infographics is a graphic representation of a lot of related information stacked vertically as one image. It is created in a way so as to make the information easily digestible.

Usually, a lot of information is packed into one infographic. It is more visually appealing than when the same information is represented using a bullet list or as charts.

Backlinks are usually embedded within the infographic image. Therefore any infographics image that gets shared and goes viral is a definite lead magnet.

The best infographics always have a simple design with plenty of white space. The title should in all respects describe what the infographic is all about.

5. White Papers

Content with all the information that it can gather about a specific topic including problems and their solutions is called a white paper. Publishing white papers is the best option when you want to become an industry expert in a specific niche.

White papers are typically lengthy, have a formal introduction and are organised into neat sections. If the length is more than a few pages, they should have a ‘Table of Contents’ to guide the reader into specific topics.

6. Videos

Videos are shorter and are made to latch with specific buyer personas. They are more engaging, fun and can be made in such a way that they share a great deal of information with the watcher. Viral videos sometimes get all the attention that a business needs.

Videos can be distributed as part of content marketing or social media campaigns. Videos can be uploaded to YouTube and embed or coordinate them with the posts that you publish.

Videos should be made so as to offer value to the customer and should clearly include a ‘call to action’ for effective conversion.  The video can also attempt to send the viewer to website or a landing page.

7. Emails

Emails subscribers for a brand form the recipient group with who you share brand information, more content, both of these being important for nurturing leads. Eventually, some of these subscribers turn into your customers.

Instead of just sticking to blogs or infographics, adopting a diverse content marketing strategy is always the best and brings significant results in the longer term. Using different types of contents helps to increase traffic, generate more leads and drive up sales.

The Scope of Content Marketing

The Scope of Content Marketing

All the industry gurus have predicted that digital market is indeed going to be content driven. It is therefore likely that there is going to be a rise in the importance of marketing quality content. Publishing this kind of content will allow online businesses to reap greater ROI and stay ahead of the competition.

In short, content marketing is favoured by online businesses because it helps to segment the target audience and helps to turn valuable prospects into loyal customers by using customized content to act as lead magnets. Read on to find out the actual scope of content marketing and how it serves to enhance the profitability of online businesses.

1: Increased Revenues and More Sales

Content marketing reaps greater ROI than any other strategy. For small businesses sales volume is very important and content marketing seems to be the most effective ways to manage that.  However, it has to be used appropriately to render it productive.

Every business ultimately wants to improve its sales. Search engines are working on algorithms that strive to understand what a person wants when they type the search words.

If you are actively blogging and publishing quality content in your social media for all your services, it is possible to get unexpected visitors to become your loyal customers.

That content marketing has a far reach is an established fact. Content marketing meets the very purpose of marketing: acquaint your business to brand new individuals every single time.

Content marketing is seen as the most powerful medium to effectively attract these new individuals to become your customers.

2: Strong Relationships

Content marketing helps to gain trust from prospective customers when you provide solutions through your blogs, videos or white papers. This ultimately builds a fan base that is loyal to you and helps to build up your sales consistently.

3: Cheap and Effective

Content marketing is much cheaper compared to other forms of marketing (costs only 62 per cent approx.) and brings you higher returns. However, it requires that you remain patient for some time before the profits start rolling in.

Notwithstanding this, publishing high-quality content through different media helps to rope in prospects and later automatically convert them into customers. All of this at no extra cost.

4: Improve Brand Image

Any type of business can improve its brand image by sharing related quality content. According to statistics, for every dollar spent, content marketing creates three times the leads that can be otherwise obtained through paid online searches. Therefore, content marketing is worth every dollar that is spent.

5: Establish Personal Connection

Content marketing helps the business owner/organization to establish a personal connection with the prospects-to-be. Publishing high-quality content in a regular fashion can get the clients to place trust in you and this serves to increase the brand’s credibility. It is important to bear in mind that low-quality content, can, in the same manner, tear down your image in your prospect’s eyes.

6: Customer Engagement

Content marketing through the different media is a great way to keep your customers engaged. Talking one-on-one with every customer and giving a solution to their problems can greatly boost the image of your brand.  It also helps to retain the interest of the prospects as you lead them through the buying process.

Content marketing enables the band owners to see the mood of the buyers via the comments in the social media pages as well as the landing page activity.

This gives the marketer the much-required personalized view of the customers’ feelings and feedback. Good-quality content is always a marker for a superior quality company and helps youbeat the competitors.

7: Versatile

Content marketing is non-industry specific, meaning it works for products belonging to any industry. All it does is to help propel the brand in a forward direction. Content marketing helps to attract those customers that are genuinely interested in the product or service that is on offer.

Content marketing is effectively used even by non-profit organizations. This is because all that customers need is to address the issues that they have about the product/service. All that content marketing needs to succeed is a well-planned and neatly executed strategy.

8: Long-term Audience

If the content is of consistently high quality, there is something always beyond the problems and solutions that you can talk to your customers. The more of this kind of an interaction harbours long-term relationships with your customers turning them into a mighty big loyal fan base for years to come.

This type of interaction also helps you to get more insight into the customer’s wants, behaviours and their buying patterns.

Interaction with the audience also helps to clear confusion and brings in fewer complaints. Once the content appeals to your clients, they will not hesitate to share the content with their like-minded contacts and this increases the audience multifold. This, by far, is one of the most significant advantages of content marketing.

9: Preparedness and Success

Unlike as in traditional marketing, where many a time the marketing is done without any preparation, content marketing is best done on the basis of a well-thought-out strategy. Follow-up strategies such as nurturing with emails or marketing through social media can bring about rich rewards.

The gains in audiences by using such methods are steady and strong. Content marketing is a level playing field for all businesses. The ones that do this diligently emerge as the winners.

10: Improved Virality and Email Response Rates

Content marketing has the ability to increase email responses and also create viral forwards and shares of high-quality content. This ability can be taken advantage of by channelizing customized campaigns according to the needs of a specific audience. Interesting, entertaining and valuable content can go viral in no time and only content marketing can provide this.

11: Encourages Self-dependency

Content marketing has the singular ability to allow online businesses to become self-dependent and dependence on external factors get reduced over time. Lead generation is the most important function of any marketing activity.

With content marketing, the need to obtain leads from outside sources decreases as content marketing by itself generates all the leads that you would need.

12: Influence Decision Making

Content marketing can do enough and more to influence the purchase decisions of your prospective customers in favour of your product/service.

If you are able to convince your prospective buyers through your content who buying your product would be the best choice, you could get them to do what you exactly want them to do.

Statistics prove that over 91 per cent of online B2B marketers would prefer to use content marketing as a tool to influence buyers’ decisions.

A majority of the prospects prefer content to adverts and other forms of aggressive selling. Content marketing has a way of telling the audience that they care about them.

13: Reusable

The most powerful premise about content marketing is that it is reusable. Many elements of a content marketing campaign can be reused creatively with ease.

Videos, infographics, long-form content, etc., are extremely reusable in many other ways for different campaigns. That video content can be created by reusing written stuff in graphic form is an apt example.

Content marketing campaigns are restyled when the psyche of the customers change with the changing times, or with different sets of audiences.

This content marketing is powerful to drive traffic across different audience groups and different points in time. It is best to create content that is creative and integrating psychology into content marketing campaigns.

As a final note, it can be concluded that content marketing is flexible enough to align naturally with customer psychology so as to influence them to make buying decisions and consequently boost sales and revenue.

Skills that Are Required to Become a Successful Content Marketer

Skills Required to Become Content Marketer

‘Content marketers who are trained professionals and bearing good quality are hard to find’ – is a common woe of online business owners/organizations. Today, at least 32 per cent of marketers say this.

This number shows a three-fold increase than those who said it posed a challenge in the year 2014. The challenge is thus a growing one and is causing concern. Moreover, the organizations that want to hire seem to be at a loss and are not able to define the role clearly.

It has been observed that the content marketers that get noticed are the ones that have fine-tuned skill sets. In this context, listed below are some of the most important skills that you need to hone to become a successful content marketer.

1: Extensive Research

A good amount of research is required for every bit of content that you create.

  • It is a good idea to brainstorm, read from the Internet about specific topics, and use books.
  • Researching the target audience is an equally important task.
  • The content marketer should know their wants and distress points.
  • It is equally important to know the channels that the audience seek out; this helps in effective distribution.
  • Knowledge of the terminology and the key search phrases used by the audience help to find out what the audience is looking for and provide solutions to problems if any.
  • The content marketer should have an idea about the most trending content for a specific topic.
  • Audience concerns can be tackled by carefully reading the comments section and discussion threads extensively.
  • Finding out which type of content and what type of format make for the farthest audience reach and greatest engagement.

Content marketers who are successful will have done an immense amount of data prior to embarking on a content marketing campaign. The more the research, the more the data collected, the more the chances of success.

2: Leverage of Current Trends

Current trends give an idea of what is foremost on the minds of the audience in the present. Both industry trends as well as what is on the minds of the people have to be keenly observed and followed. This helps to keep the content marketer stay ahead of the pack in the market.

If you are the first content marketer to jump at new industry trends and incorporate them into your content, you have an advantage like no other in front of your target audience.

However, it is also important to observe other hashtags that appear in social channel posts to get to know the current pulse of your audience.

With your creativity, you can correlate your content with the trends that appear and place this in front of your audience.  This also helps you to reach out to millions of new customers.

3: Promotion and More Promotion

It may not be enough for the content marketer to promote new content in the social media and then depend on organic traffic for the rest of it to happen. To maximize the reach, it is essential that you promote new content through every available channel. Some of the activities to boost promotion of new content could be:

  • Upload videos on YouTube
  • Distribute podcasts (audio and video) on iTunes
  • Post content to more than one website, say 2 websites
  • Promote content on social media such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn
  • Send email notifications to your clients and ask your connections to share the content

Diligent promotion of new content definitely brings out better results.

4: Dig the Data

As a keen content marketer, you should not be satisfied with just creating good quality content. You should know how to read and analyse the data to make sure that goals are being met. It is not an easy task to dig into the data and analyse and assimilate it.

However, it may be easier to identify the metrics that are just required for your business and get on with analysing and understanding these. Determination of too many metrics can leave you overwhelmed and confused.

With a clear understanding of how to read the data and accompanying metrics of a content marketing campaign, you can ultimately figure as to what topics you can keep and rehash into new content and what subjects you can throw away.

5:  Superior Strategy

According to statistics, it has been observed that only about a third of content marketers are organized enough have a well-documented marketing strategy that they wish to implement. According to industry figures, it is seen that those organizations with such strategies have 36% more chance of success than others. It pays to have a clear-cut, written-out strategy that helps to deploy your content effectively (using an editorial calendar).

6: Good Quality Writing

To win over a good audience, it is important to write well. However, it is not as easy as it sounds. A majority of content marketers always seem to prefer quantity over quality. Good quality writing not only means having no errors or typos but long-form content that is complete in all respects and full of value.

7: Good Design

Good design is as important as good content. It pays to know some basic designing knowledge as it can help you to quickly turn over compelling content by just editing a few images and adding good text. It is a good idea to learn to use Pixlr or Canva to create professional images.

8: Good Story

More than half of the existing content marketers say that their main priority is to tell compelling stories to their audience. However, it is seen that over two-thirds of them have still not been able to produce engaging content for their audience.

The best content marketers are those that are able to get their audience to have an emotional connect with their content. This further helps to cement the audience with the brand.

9: Versatility Speaks up for Itself

Organizing diverse content is the key to successful content marketing. Most successful content marketers rely on more than one form of content: whereas some of them would want to listen to podcasts, others would want to watch videos and some other would want to curl up and read.

Producing different content such as case studies, white papers and infographics in addition to all of the others would ultimately place you in front of the large audience that you have always wanted.

10: Collaboration is Necessary

The content marketers who succeed are those that ask for help. Seeking assistance from others is seen as a much-needed skill in this area. Partnering with an influencer from your industry is a part of the recipe for success. If you have not partnered yet, just sound your new ideas to the influencers in your industry.

The set of points mentioned above is not exhaustive. Nevertheless, if you pay some attention to these points there is a good chance that you will stand apart from your competitors and well on your way to success with your online business.

Job Opportunities in Content Marketing

Job Opportunities in Content Marketing

Many industry gurus are unanimous in their thinking: they believe in Seth Godin’s words that content marketing is the only kind of marketing that is left.

Shift From Traditional to Content Marketing

Content marketing is less aggressive and more subtle in its approach than traditional marketing. This has resulted in the fact that the consumer now pays less attention to traditional advertising methods and marketing.

Moreover, content marketing is aimed at providing immense value to the prospective customer with no expectation of anything in return. All this has spurred an interest in content marketing.

Another interesting statistic is that over 88 per cent of companies are now involved in content marketing. Consequently, they are keeping aside bigger budgets to invest in staffing, strategy and technology. Another research figure indicates that over three-quarters of respondents are increasing their content marketing investments this year.

Though more than 70 per cent of the companies are gearing to produce more content in this coming year, the entire exercise is thought of to be a tough one because traditional marketers are simply not good at writing, editing, or proofreading good content. Therefore companies are finding it hard to create top class content.

This is where the requirement for good content and marketing such content arises. This has resulted in a surge in the hiring of content marketers. Statistics have it that more than 43 per cent of organizations now employ people to specifically produce content.

Content Marketers – Skills Set

The basic skills that a content marketing job requires are good grammar and average writing skills. Other skills include being able to tell stories, research skills that are required for analysis, and also the capability to work in high-pressure situations.

Other than writing skills, content marketers have to be masters of search engine optimization and they should be able to edit content efficiently and quickly. A certain amount of ‘tech-savviness’ is preferred.

Basic design skills are a plus so that they can create images in a flash. This is what a major portion of content is made up of. Technical skills are required and they should be able to work with content management systems such as WordPress. Candidates with all of these and who can produce animation and video would be more favoured.

Career Advancement In the Content Marketing Field

These days, there are thrice as many jobs for content marketers as there are for traditional product marketing jobs. This in itself is evidence that there is a lot of opportunity for a career in content marketing.

In a majority of digital marketing companies, there are entry-level positions that are open. However, they are also on the lookout for higher-level officers to create and manage a content marketing strategy.

Over half of the digital marketing companies (about 51 per cent) have a higher-level executive to manage their content marketing department. Last year, this figure was less at 42 per cent. There were over 19000 job openings in content marketing in the fall of 2016.

As the content marketing department reaches maturity there is more demand for senior-level executives such as Chief Content Officer, VP (Content Marketing) and Director of Content.

For those on the lookout for senior positions, it is better to look at smaller companies (less than $10 million turnover) and very large corporations (more than $1 billion turnover).

The industries that have content marketing openings are commonly Marketing & Advertising, Computer Software, Information Technology, Internet and Non-Profit Organizations.

The basic jobs that require less effort in the field of content marketing include social media posting and curating content, short blogs, etc. Infographics, slideshares, etc., require a reasonable amount of effort.

These content marketing activities that require a large amount of effort are presentations and long-form blogs, eBooks, thought leadership articles, white papers, etc.

Content Marketing Team and Its Participants – Jobs that you can look for

Content strategists are required to work out the pre-production details such as editorial strategy, style guidelines, etc. You can either get a consultant to train you or hire a strategist for the purpose.

Writers form the creative force in the team and are good at English grammar and storytelling skills. Skilled writers have to be paid more. You can hire writers for the purpose or even tap into an employee’s writing skill.

Whereas some of them will be tech-savvy enough to change content into HTML and do the SEO, others will just be good with their words.

Editors are hired to edit the writers’ works. Developmental editors who create end-to-end content and make it happen and copy editors to check grammar errors and typos. Some editors are talented enough to do both the jobs.

Coordinators keep track of every detail and are organized and creative. They are equally concerned about relationships and the quality of work. They can even look after the freelance workers starting from vetting them to making sure they do their work.

Salaries for jobsadvertised in the content marketing departments were in the range of $40K (30% of job openings) to $120K(5% of job openings).

AI and Content Marketing

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the buzzword of today. The world has made a number of strides in AI with automatic driverless cars and speaking assistants at home. Traditionally, computers function according to algorithms that are coded as programs and these tell the machine what to do.

AI and Content Marketing

However, AI differs in that the computer creates and executes its own algorithms. This includes determination of new paths and taking suitable decisions while traversing along these paths.

Just like in other sectors, AI can help marketers in making sense out of enormous amounts of data with a view to delivering the best customer experiences. AI is likely to change the landscape of the content marketing sector as well. Read on to find out the role of AI in the changing content marketing scenario.

1: Streamlining

AI is already being used to streamline processes when there an overload of content.

2: Content Generation

With AI it is possible to generate content automatically. At first, it is likely to be simpler stories such as stock updates and reports on sports. It is interesting to note that companies such as AP, FOX, and Yahoo have been using AI generated written content for quite some time now.

3: Auto Chatbots for User Interaction

Chatbots carry on chat conversations with human users. These use AI as the basis and carry on conversations, answer user queries, etc., in real time. Some chatbots carry on conversations with users even when the app is not open yet (UBER). On the whole, chatbots do away with the need for users filling up forms. The queries are answered right away in real time.

4: Automated Newsfeed Algorithms

Applications such as Twitter and Facebook customize the users’ newsfeeds in such a manner that they get to see only what they are interested in. This intelligence is displayed on the basis of algorithms analysis of hundreds of different variables.

They also manage social media ads in such a way that a user gets to see only what he/she likes to see or may be interested in.

AI helps the apps to get to know as to what the users find interesting. The marketers can then create content along these lines that will keep their customers engaged. Similarly, marketers can create Facebook ads that their prospective clients would favour.

5: Predictive Intelligence

This means personalized content according to one’s individual tastes to appeal to individual users. Another area where this helps is in lead scoring: this is a points-based system to determine the location of prospective buyers’ position in their buying journey.

This helps to quickly convert those who ready to buy depending on their past behaviours. This technique is predicted to prove useful for low-lead as well as high-lead volumes.

As far as content marketing is concerned, it will help to serve a specific piece of content to a specific client depending on their behaviour and search history.

6: Content Creation

Content creation via curation as done by humans now can be effectively done by AI in the coming years. Curation refers to the process of consistently finding high-quality content, reprocessing it and serving it in the most valuable fashion to the seeker.

The task is not an easy one because of the time involved in sifting through relevant material to be curated from.

Curated content helps a client to become aware of certain products and services so that they end up buying the same. AI helps in creating relevant content for this purpose at every single stage of the buying cycle.

7: Enhanced Customer Experience

This could mean that users will get interactive help instead of having to fill out forms. The AI systems will be able to help them with their query immediately and even direct them to resources that they would require in the future.

An apt example is of a concierge robot used in the Hilton Hotels Connie that works with customers answering their queries. AI ultimately works to provide the highest degree of personalization.

At the end of it all, AI enables marketers to take care of customers’ needs in real time. This is done by analysing data generated when algorithms work. Consequently, users feel at ease and make a quick buying decision.

In the content marketing sector, AI will change how the marketing channels work and what new skill sets are required for survival in the future.

AI may be able to write basic content and perform more cognitive tasks that were originally performed by humans.In the light of this knowledge, content marketers have to adapt suitably.

Final Thoughts

Final Thoughts

Growth in the content marketing sector has been phenomenal in the last few years and the number of job openings in the sector is increasing by the day. It looks like it is not taking a backseat anytime now.

 

If SEO & PPC Work Together What Will Happen!

Any internet marketing professional might know that Pay- per – click (PPC) campaigns and Search Engine Optimization is two different techniques used for successful lead generation.

But, both these techniques are placed pretty far away from one another in the advertising spectrum. SEO generates organic traffic whereas PPC involves paying for the ads to be placed on different search engines.

Generally, these two techniques are used separately. However, it should be realized that all the while when an organization focuses on only one of these strategies, potential traffic that could have come in through the other strategy is being lost.

This article discusses how the many ways of integrating these two very different techniques which will serve to improve the competitiveness of any website over the longer term.

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1. More Conversions with SEO & PPC

The basic SEO + PPC will increase chances of your website dominating search results. Basically, improving the website by applying the SEO technique will better the chances of it making it appear at the top of search engine results for at least one or even more keywords.

Additionally, if you decide to buy PPC ads for that same keyword, then this ad will appear at the top of the page every time someone else searches for the keyword. This is done to make sure that your website/brand dominates search engine listings. This will, in the long run, create more traffic and subsequent conversions.

2. SEO & PPC Helps Lower Ranking Websites To Perform Better

You may be thinking that if your website is already at the top of the search engine listings (organic ranking) for a specific keyword, then it is not necessary to purchase PPC ads for the same keyword..

However, certain studies have pointed to the fact that when the search ads for a specific keyword were paused, almost 90 per cent of the traffic that was generated by such ads was not replaced by the SEO-based rankings.

This actually meant that if you stopped PPC ads in between, there was a good chance that the traffic had a negative impact even with high-ranking sites.

Therefore, PPC helps to retain the clicks and interest from prospects that may have been missed if they were not there. This is of more significance to those websites that are not ranking #1.

In such cases, PPC will help to draw the interest of those who are looking for your specific product/services for the small amount of money that you pay for these ads instead of losing them.

3. SEO + PPC Help to Check Volume of AdWords

Some Internet data experts have observed that PPC is effective when it is used to target those keywords that do not have a high organic ranking through SEO.

Thus, it is possible to collect data on many keywords and provide it to the SEO campaign. This exercise will bring out more keywords that actually drive the revenue through organic searches.

On the other hand, organic impressions and click data can both be used to check the monthly volume figures of AdWords. This will result in more clarity as far as keyword priorities are concerned.

4. Helps the Business To Stay Ahead in the Race

It is a well-known fact that recently, long-tailed keywords have been given a lot of attention in SEO campaigns. Internet analysts believe that about 40 per cent of all the searches come from the many long-tailed keywords that have even less than 50 searches in a single month. Thus it is clear that most people search the Internet for information using only long-tailed keywords.

Contrarily, PPC campaigns typically use 1 or 2 or 3 keywords that are supposed to bring in heavy traffic. Combining both PPC and SEO strategies thus ensures that those keywords ignored in the PPC campaigns can be used to stay ahead of the competition.

At the same time, the long-tailed keywords are already bringing in a sufficient amount of quality organic traffic through the SEO campaign. Both these together can work to your advantage.

5. Businesses Can Get the Bang for Their Buck

In many industries, it is not worthwhile to have a PPC running for expensive keywords. In case such keywords are picked out and handed over to the SEO team, they can set work priorities to make your website rank high for these keywords. The budget that has been set aside for PPC campaigns can be used more cost-effectively.

6. SEO & PPC Work to Improve Keyword Clarity

SEO takes up more time, research and money. When you want to target a specific keyword and want to use it for SEO purposes, you may not be sure whether it will worth the time and money. The best way to test such a keyword’s viability is through PPC.

Running a PPC campaign is the best way to determine what works on the test pages and what does not. This is because the results are instantaneous.

If the performance is good, it means that the website should be optimized for the keyword. If it is the other way around, it is a good idea to avoid SEO efforts for that specific keyword.

All these subsequently lead to the information as to which ad copy results in the maximum number of conversions. This helps to provide information on the different page attributes and their mix that forms the winning combination: title tags, meta descriptions, content in the page, etc., that will help the website to rank high in organic searches.

PPC is not expensive and is the best way in which you can test the waters by spending the least amount of time and money.

7. Content-Driven SEO & PPC Work TO Enhance Conversions

It is necessary to publish top-of-the-line quality content to be visible amongst the millions of pieces of content that is being put out on the Internet every day.

This is a challenging task as well as an overwhelming one. If the content is ineffective it leads to the fact that there would be no traffic and hence no conversions.

A small budget that is directed for AdWords helps in promotion of your content. Now with the right type of content, which helps the audience to increase their knowledge about a specific topic, it is guaranteed that conversion rate can be upped resulting in higher sales.

8. SEO & PPC Provides Effective Retargeting

SEO is important in the context that it produces organic traffic some of which converts. According to statistics, conversions among those who used e-commerce sites dipped slightly in the recent past.

However, if you draw a retargeting campaign, it is possible to draw the organic traffic back the second time to the website in order for the sales to increase.

Visitors may take a while to make up their minds to purchase from your site. Retargeting campaigns helps to spot last-time/past visitors to the website and show them ads at a later point of time in such a way to remind them to come back to your website and buy.

9. SEO & PPC Data Collection Can Be Put to Good Use

Both SEO and PPC are sources for a large amount of data. The data from PPC and SEO are obtained separately. This amount of data that is collected becomes helpful when decision-making situations arise.

Some of the metrics that you can get hold of and analyse both from SEO and PPC campaigns are click-through rate, bounce rates, exit rates, time spent by the prospect on the website, and conversion rate.

These figures give an idea as to which keyword leads to the most number of conversions and which keywords lead to the least. This can help you to redirect your marketing efforts in the right direction. It will also guide you to make the correct changes to your website in the future.

10. SEO & PPC Serve Selectively To Increase Traffic

SEO and PPC campaigns collect data on the audience and then serve what they want. The difference between the two campaigns is only about what is served. A social media PPC campaign can give all demographic insights about your audience.

The Audience Insights tool of Facebook provides details such as the location, income levels, interests, browsing history, etc., to the PPC campaign.

All this data becomes useful to tweak the content marketing strategies and serve content specific to the demographic. This increases the chances that they will share the content with like-minded friends.

When the content circulates more across the Internet, there will be more people that would visit your website. Naturally, your SEO potential starts to improve.

11. SEO & PPC Gets More To View Content

The diversity of PPC campaigns is very interesting. PPC campaigns can target a broad base of customers over social media, SERPs, etc. PPC campaigns need not be restricted to landing pages alone but can be directed to infographics, written content, etc.

This eventually helps to boost your SEO because more people are getting to view your content. Social media backlinks lead the viewers to your web pages. Analysis has shown that PPC campaigns used for content promotion give very high ROI.

The Bottom Line

The above points have shown how PPC works and it is true that it shares many similarities with SEO: both rely on keywords, SERP visibility and demographics to bring in more conversions.

Combining PPC and SEO campaigns can be turned into one entity to save money and time. Building your brand using digital marketing means is a very important aspect for the future of your online endeavour.

Best Off-page SEO Techniques to Try In 2018

The vast world of SEO has two major divisions- on-page and off-page SEO. While on-page SEO includes the direct optimization steps revolving around publishing content, off-page SEO focuses on techniques that gather backlinks and popularity from external resources.

No matter how strong your on-page SEO is, it is impossible to gain authority and win top rankings without consistent and well-directed off-page SEO strategies.

Every year, new trends take place of the old ones in the SEO world. There are a few techniques of off-page optimization that have been performing better than others. This article will show you all those off-page SEO techniques, which you can try to boost ranking in 2018.

Blog commenting

Blog commenting is not a new concept in the world of SEO. However, this year has shown a growth in this trend. The fact that this technique brings highly targeted traffic to a site has made this process highly popular among the practitioners.

You manually search for blogs that are relevant to your business and site. Searching SERPs with a few core keywords related to your business or niche can help you find the right blogs to start commenting.

Experts suggest reading the selected blogs to make your comments valuable. The idea is to give additional information to the readers. It should also seem useful to the blog owner, so they allow your comments in their comment section.

Think long-term when using this tactic. Start by just adding information without any links that refer to your site. This will help in building a relationship with the blog owner.

Eventually, you can lead to adding URLs or headlines of relevant articles on your site. This will bring more interested traffic directly to your site. Plus, you will attain chances of winning backlinks in future.

Article marketing or submission

If you have enough time to invest in article marketing, it can bring hundreds of backlinks and upgrade your domain authority. There are different approaches that SEO experts suggest when creating articles and submitting them to different online platforms.

One approach is to create a parent article and produce various baby articles associated with the same topic. These baby articles don’t have a low word count.

In fact, they contain different versions of the parent article that you create. After developing different versions of the same article, you can start submitting them to various blog networks and article directories.

Another approach incorporates posting articles on forums that invite unique content. Such forums allow you to obtain credible backlinks that bring traffic to your site and helps in improving rankings as well.

However, this approach requires high-quality articles. Hence, you need expert writers who understand your business. Or, you can write on your own if your marketing scale is low.

Directory submission

This technique is very popular among site owners to win backlinks. However, you have to constantly keep an eye on the new directories that appear in the picture.

You look for general directories, reciprocal directories, paid directories and others. Among all of them, niche directories are considered most effective, as they help you win relevant backlinks.

The art of winning links from directories revolves around your ability to create appealing description and relevant anchor text. Always include your main keyword in the title, which becomes the anchor text for the link.

Write descriptions with the aim to influence people to visit your website. Keep it short and crisp, but don’t give a vague idea. Choose simple words that clearly explain your web pages.

There are tools out there to help you count the number of backlinks you attain. Such tools are effective in planning your ongoing directory submission approach.

Forum posting

Answering questions on forums is also a great way to drive traffic. You can link your relevant web page with an appropriate answer.

First of all, you have to find the right forums that are suitable for your niche or business. Then, understand the rules and regulations that are followed in a forum. After that, you can begin answering posts along with your profile or signature link.

Most forums provide a list of unanswered questions. Also, you can promote your new content on such forums and develop traffic, backlinks, and rankings.

You can start by posting answers and posts in 5 to 10 forums. Make sure that these forums come under your niche. Eventually, you will gain backlinks and get more forum options to market your website.

Guest blogging

Guest blogging requires an analytical approach to success. You can’t pick any random blog and approach for guest blogging. There are several factors that make a blog suitable for guest posting.

First of all, you should find out the readership level of a blog. Many sites offer guest blogging opportunities in their initial stages. Your job is to find well-established blogs that are relevant to your niche.

The writing part is simple. You have to focus on the core writing values to create an information piece of content. However, the linking process changes a little bit. You need to make sure that the topic presents opportunities to link guest posts with your web pages.

To find guest posting opportunities in your market, you can follow this example:

Core keyword + guest posting

Replace the “core keyword” section with the keyword your niche belongs to.

Few tips when preparing content for guest posting:

  • Make sure that your content can offer value to the prospect website.
  • Follow a disciplined optimization guideline to help the site owner.
  • Use meaningful images along with alt tags and descriptive filenames.

These tips will enhance your chances of getting posts approved. However, the job doesn’t end there. You need to follow all the questions that people ask on that forum. Answering the comments will grow your authority and help to improve the brand power in the digital market.

Using Q&A platforms

There are forums such as Quora and Yahoo where people simply add their questions. These platforms are perfect to build quality backlinks and win traffic. You can promote your content on your own by attaching a reference link to your web pages along with your answers.

It is important to give value to the answer seekers. Don’t just try to lead them to your site. Find relevant questions and genuinely help with your expertise.

Most platforms have regulations regarding link attachments. Being too aggressive can lead to getting banned from posting answers. Hence, it would be better to use two separate accounts and don’t overdo the backlink process.

Answer more and link to a few answers only. Eventually, you will build a strong reputation of your profile and win traffic for your site.

Social bookmarking

Social bookmarking is one of the fastest ways to build backlinks. This simple off-page SEO technique requires very little effort. But you have to give time to attain visibility on the bookmarking site you join.

Starting this approach requires only joining. Then, you can just add a link of your web page and let other people vote for your content. Social bookmarking sites are working in all kinds of niches. You can use your core keyword along with “bookmarking” to find relevant sites.

This technique is really valuable to win quick backlinks. Plus, you start getting traffic as people start taking interest in your content. It is important to include proper tags if a site asks. Such tags will make your links visible to readers who are interested in your niche.

YouTube Marketing

YouTube has become a great platform to win a wide audience and market your site or business. Depending on the purpose of marketing, you can use YouTube for different off-page SEO goals.

For instance, you can create videos related to sales. An appealing headline and clear call-to-action are the basics for any video.

Plus, you have to provide informative content in the video, so that, people see, like and share your video content. Such videos also become a promotional element on forums, bookmarking sites and other platforms. You can use paid marketing approach to get more visibility for sales videos.

Many site owners create informative content in video medium and promote it via YouTube. Thanks to modern video creation tools, you just need to spend a few minutes to make a video on your site-related topic. You can provide a strong description and link your official web page along with it.

Social media networking

This might be the most effective and most difficult off-page SEO technique. Almost every site uses social media profiles for online reputation and branding.

Platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and others have become a valuable space where business can tap into community interactions.

A successful social media reputation requires time and a well-directed approach. Every platform is unique, so you have to change your marketing approach.

The first step is obviously to create SEO optimized profiles on each platform that are most relevant to your niche. Include links to your site while creating social media profiles and complete all the information required.

Consistently post content that engages audiences. You can use relevant keywords and attach site and web page links whenever relevant in a post.

The idea is to provide information and create curiosity to achieve link clicks at the same time. With time, you gain followers who help in promoting your content all over the social network.

Data-driven Infographics

The boost in the popularity of data has given rise to infographic marketing approach. Infographics are generally a visual demonstration of data. This data can include valuable numbers, research, surveys or even informational text.

Graphical representation of information makes it interesting and more engaging. This is why it attracts influencers who share and link back to your infographics.

There are many platforms nowadays providing free as well as paid versions of infographic creation tools. You can get your subscription and create promotional content for an enhanced exposure.

Many SEO professionals provide exclusive infographic content pieces. So, you can hire professionals if your marketing scale is high enough.

Data-driven infographics immediately get attention. You can use such content pieces on your web pages, social media platforms, forum posting and even when answering questions on a Q&A site.

This will bring traffic from all directions to your site. Plus, search engines give importance to web pages with infographics while ranking.

Press release

Press releases also help in gaining valuable backlinks. This approach allows you to win links and promote your site at the same time. Also, the linked pages get an immediate traffic boom. You can diverse that traffic to other pages on your site via internal linking.

You can search for platforms that offer press release opportunities for free. One Google search will lead you straight to a perfect press release site. But this is the easy part.

Creating valuable press release is much harder than people realize. You have to follow a correct format of such content and focus on benefits instead of the features of your content idea.

The format of a high-quality press release:

  • Headline
  • Release date and location
  • Introduction (answer what, why, when, who and where)
  • Content body
  • Boilerplate
  • Contact information

If you have a business, it would be better to hire professional copywriters to write press releases for your business.

Web 2.0

Every online business and site owner is leveraging this off-page SEO technique.

Platforms such as Blogger and WordPress have high reputation and domain authority in the digital world. You can use such platforms to build links and attain higher rankings. The best part is that you attain complete control over the backlinks that you create.

The process requires creating a well-optimized blog for content and creates links to your official site.

Tying It All Together

Hopefully, you have understood these actionable techniques that are working in 2018. However, it is important to remember that the success of any off-page SEO technique depends on your ability to implement. Make sure you follow the tips and guidelines that make every tactic successful.

Consult an SEO professional to know more about how to win backlinks and improve domain authority.

SEO Content Writer Vs Normal Content Writer

Over the years, content writing has emerged as one of the most lucrative and promising careers in the field of digital media. One of the most important aspects which make content writing such a lucrative option for the people is the fact that the payout is pretty good and the career growth can be very promising as well.

Content writing is one of the most crucial aspects of any form of business. Any venture requires content for marketing and letting people know about it. Content writing is thus a profession which is quite stable and a good career option for people who are creative.

Diversity in content writing makes it yet another extremely lucrative option. The two most prominent types of content writers rooted in the industry are SEO content writers and normal content writers.

There are a few factors which differentiate a conventional content writer from that of an SEO content writer. It is time to take a look at such factors.

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1. An insight into the differences

Regular content writing is entirely different from that of SEO content writing. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization which is mainly associated with the promotion of web pages on the Google Search Index. The content which is orchestrated by SEO has a set of factors which tend to differentiate it from that of average content.

Among all the factors, keywords are the most crucial ones. The keywords are extremely important because they play a dominant role in optimizing the content for search engines rankings. Keyword density is yet another factor that SEO contents must oblige.

The leading search engines have their own set of protocols which tend to differentiate from one another. It is the reason as to why contents need to be optimized carefully while following each set of guidelines independently.

Ordinary content writers, on the other hand, do not need to take heed of such factors. Standard content, in general, can be of many types. They can be categorized into blogs, informative articles, web articles, web content, infographics, creative content, press releases and much more.

While conventional content writing ensures diversity, unlike its counterpart it does not involve a complex structure which is meant for search engine optimization.

To summarize the differences, the following points can help

  • Conventional content writing is more diverse than that of SEO content writing
  • SEO content writing can have a complex structure associated with it. At the same time, it can also involve a series of complicated instructions and rules that need to be followed for optimum results.
  • Conventional content writing does not require keyword optimization in every case, but SEO content writing needs for keyword optimization for better search engine visibility.
  • SEO content writing isn’t mainly categorized into subparts, but conventional content writing can be categorized into blog writing, article writing, creative writing and much more.

Thus one can say that conventional content writers have greater diversity at their disposal when compared to SEO content writers. However, it would fair to envision the fact that it takes more effort to incubate SEO content owing to its set of guidelines and complexity in general. Thus the quotient of difficulty can be a tinge more for SEO content writers.

2. The importance of SEO content writing

SEO content writing is among the core fundamentals of “Search Engine Optimization.” It is associated with ensuring a better ranking. As SEO content is the fundamental form of information available to the public, it works as the forerunner of the entire business promotional campaign.

SEO content writing helps to promote the service associated with the designated keyword. These keywords can be derived from the niche of the business or its typology. Either way, the SEO content enhances search engine visibility to a considerable extent.

The Google (the largest search engine in the world) algorithm is always on the lookout for keyword phrases across dedicated sections of the content. With proper formatting, the SEO content can help grab the attention of Google algorithms and bring forth the desired results.

The content is also an essential part of marketing any venture. It needs to be of the highest quality and thoroughly optimized for the search engine algorithms.

SEO content in general needs to be of the first order since engaging SEO content ought to yield the best of results. However, if the content is not appealing, then all probable SEO benefits are lost, and the entire effort might go into vain.

As a part of an effective content marketing strategy, SEO content has a pivotal role to play. It promotes search engine rankings, provides for efficient and prudent backlinks, enhances audience engagement and helps to support social media campaigning.

This type of content ensures social validation which is among the most critical credentials sought after by the Google algorithm.

3. Job opportunities for SEO content writer

Search Engine Optimization has transcended into an absolute must for any aspiring or upcoming business venture. Be it a simple blogger, or any MNC entrepreneur, everybody wants to make their online presence known to the world. It makes SEO as the right tool to make this happen.

It has brought forth the digital media industry onto the threshold of a revolution. The SEO industry has independently shown exponential growth in the previous decade and has been following the same pattern ever since.

The revenue collected overall is in millions of dollars, and the number of associates has been steadily on the rise.

There are enormous prospects for SEO content writers as both freelancers and full-time workers in this industry. The median salary can stretch from anywhere between 25,000$ annually to as much as 225,000$ for the professional full-time content specialists.

The freelancing wing of this industry, in general, is extremely lucrative. There are millions of freelancers across the world with some of them making as much as ten times of what they made during the hours of their regular day jobs.

A Final Thought

With the current trend on board, it is highly possible that this industry will flourish even more in the coming years. The exponential growth pattern isn’t bound to show any signs of slowing down within the coming years.

It brings forth the inception of brighter prospects for SEO content writers who aspire to a steady career with long-term growth and dependability.

Content Marketing Checklist to Follow in 2018

Content marketing strategy is the foundation of success in digital marketing. It aligns all your content campaigns and content pieces in one direction. It ties in all your efforts for maximum effect.

It is different from content plan which only details the content topics, timelines and actions to be taken. Content marketing strategy on the other hand, answers broader questions of how you will achieve your marketing goals through content marketing.

An effective content marketing strategy must answer fundamental questions before directing and content creation actions. Without answering these clearly, your content marketing strategy will fall flat and simply fail.

But once you have done this groundwork, you can easily come up with content that is valued by your audience and brings in leads and customers regularly.

So here is the checklist of questions to make sure you are on the right track for your content marketing strategy.

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1. Do I have a Clear Objective?

Answering the ‘why’ before setting out to do content marketing (or anything really) is important. ‘What’ and ‘how’ you build your content depends on your purpose of content marketing. Your reason could be to get leads, attract traffic or simply build a brand authority online. Whatever the goal, it must be SMART.

  • S – Specific – clearly defined and narrow enough
  • M- Measurable – quantified if possible
  • A- Achievable- has to be realistic
  • R – Relevant – relevant to your business and overall marketing strategy
  • T – Timely – have a timeline

An example could be “Getting 50,000 unique visitors to our site by this quarter end.”

Once you have a clear objective many other decisions such as content topic, target audience, content format, etc., become clear.

2. Do I Know my Audience?

 You cannot come up with a content strategy without knowing who your audience is. Everything you do has to appeal to your target audience, so if you don’t know them you are pretty much shooting in the dark.

You must know your visitors/ readers/ customers like the back of your hand. Ask yourself if you can answer these about them:

  • What are their pain points?
  • What are they searching for?
  • Where are they searching for it?
  • What is the buyer’s journey?
  • What are their hopes and fears?

Yes. These are intimate questions and you should know your audience intimately.  Without knowing this you risk building content that nobody even wants to read.

3. Does my Plan have Visual Content?

Every content strategy is not the same and in fact should be different depending on your business. However, visual content is form of content that must be a part of every strategy today. It’s too profitable to leave out or ignore. After all, video content will make up 80% of all traffic by 2019.

This means that your content plan must have infographics, videos and images in it. Visual infographics not only explain your point easily they are also more fun and are shared 3x times more than any other form of content.

Video platforms like YouTube are also turning out to be a good source of website traffic. It is a great way to attract new visitors and get them curious about your offering. So invest in video channels early on and pay attention to video search optimization.

4. Is My Content Optimized for Mobile?

 Mobile traffic is another trend that is here to stay for good. More than 60% of traffic not comes from mobile and so your content must be optimized for mobile audiences.

With Google Hummingbird update it has become even more important that content creators serve the mobile traffic first.

This means content built for small screens, shorter attention span and competing with continuous notifications from other apps.

To make the most of your time your headlines must be grabbing and content length just right to hold attention. Content should also be scannable with bold headings and big fonts.

5. Does my Strategy have Feedback built into it?

 Content marketing is an ongoing strategy and does not end at publishing content. There is the whole process of moving visitors along the funnel and growing your loyal following online. All of this requires continuous monitoring and feedback from audience.

Your strategy must be flexible enough to make changes too. This does not mean changing your purpose and objectives that we mentioned earlier, but the ways to achieve them can change.

For example, you make see that influencer marketing is not working as well with your audience and decided to concentrate on email marketing only.

Of you may decide to concentrate on lead conversion rather than on lead collection.

All of this is only possible if you are listening keenly to your audience. Data on visitors, email subscribers and conversions will also give you insights into what you need to improve upon.
  

6. Do I have the Resources?

 One of the major factors impacting your success in content marketing is the long-term commitment you have for it. Content takes time to show returns and cannot be done with a short-sighted vision.

If you do not have the right resources for it, you will run out of fuel and patience to succeed at it.

You must ask yourself what resources you need to implement your content marketing strategy. Usually this includes staff time, skill training, budget, effort and management support.

For medium and large sized companies, management support becomes very important. This is because great content requires inputs from all departments and a decent budget.

If the seriousness is not driven from top-bottom then nobody in the company is going to support you with information, time and feedback.

The Bottom Line

Content marketing strategy is the glue that holds all the content making activities and gives your plan a direction. You must set your purpose clear before you set out to make any content.

Researching your audience is essential as it answers questions on what content to create, how to create and where to promote it.

Visual format, mobile optimization and feedback loop as some of the other things to complete the checklist on content marketing strategy.