NextJSjointviews, Author at NextJSjointviews

10 Competent Strategies for Enterprise SEO Success

Posted on December 21, 2017 by NextJSjointviews

Enterprise SEO, in particular, focuses on implementing the best SEO strategies on every page of your website. This is not easy since you have several stakeholders as well as the constraints of budget, time, technology etc. to deal with. If you wish to be successful at enterprise SEO, you need to be prepared to handle internal hierarchies, inter-departmental chaos and the tendency of professionals to disagree with what they have not done before.

Here are 10 Enterprise SEO strategies compiled by experts from major SEO companies that are recommended for success:

Educate

The tech people, marketing and sales people, the management and the product people may not understand SEO well. Take every opportunity to educate them about the practice. Conduct in-house workshops, include topics in internal newsletters and share links that can be used for the further study on enterprise SEO. Also, share case studies of how SEO efforts have helped other companies gain leads and earn more revenue.

Influence

Read about the SEO practices of other companies and keep case studies ready with you. Discuss these whenever you get an opportunity with the right examples and right output at the right time. You could attend internal meetings of departments you think should contribute to your approach and let them know how SEO can benefit in accomplishing their goals. Also, have informal conversations with key stakeholders during lunch or tea breaks.

Be data-relevant

Spend time collecting data and analysis that is relevant to your domain. Prepare dashboards that you can instantly access when questions arise. Be alert so that you are on top of everything whenever an SEO issue emerges in your organization.

Focus on the KPIs

While having case studies and data is important, you must establish clear ways of evaluation to understand how success will be measured. These KPIs are not just for your own benefit but also include the targets that need to be achieved by other stakeholders. Discuss the KPIs with your senior management and get into an agreement on how these will be achieved in the future.

Develop relationships

This is one of the most important strategies. SEO professionals tend to be too technical and do not generally interact or be social with other colleagues. The fact is that in order to get more approvals on your ideas and proposals, you need to be liked. Make sure you leave your monitor every now and then and talk to people about how SEO can change the dynamics of the organization’s business objectives.

Have technical knowledge

SEO people often need to communicate with developers and if you want to become the indispensable SEO expert in your company, you need to be technical yourself. Only when you understand the challenges of your developer will they empathize with the changes you want them to implement. They will be more open to your recommendations if you are able to speak to them in the technical language they understand.

Communicate

It’s obvious that only the SEO people recognize the need of this marketing strategy. However, if you go on selling your ideas telling people how it can be beneficial for the enterprise, you would get ignored. You must be equally willing to listen to the individuals of the other departments, understand their goals and thereby suggest the actions that need to be taken. You must craft your recommendations in a manner that they are a win-win for both you and others.

Dynamic content

A website can have several pages. The content you develop for these pages must be such that it is leveraged to your benefit. Every domain understands that they need to have relevant, in-depth content about their service. However, you also receive a lot of region-specific searches. This means that you must have unique content for different geographic locations so that there are appropriate answers for every searcher.

Content Consolidation

It is generally observed that large-scale websites are split into sub-domains or completely separate websites. However, if enterprises want to maintain their market position, they must adopt content consolidation as an effective strategy. Different pages and domains can be used to support each other giving a more consolidated image of the enterprise.

SEO Site Health Monitoring

Minor alterations and technical glitches on the website could drastically reduce the traffic you would have otherwise received on your website. Therefore, it is important to constantly monitor and evaluate the health of your website from an SEO perspective and any issues identified must be addressed immediately.

When you utilize the above-mentioned enterprise SEO strategies, chances that you succeed at your efforts and drive more organic traffic to your website are higher.

10 Successful Affiliate Marketing Strategies for Social Media

Posted on December 19, 2017 by NextJSjointviews

Affiliate marketing is one of the first methods marketers and bloggers use to make money online. It is, in fact, one of the oldest ways of making money online. Affiliate marketing is a multi-billion dollar industry and is rapidly growing.

Affiliate marketing is a process wherein you promote another company’s products or services and when sales increase, you earn a commission. Depending on the efficiency of your marketing skills, you can achieve great sales targets and ultimately make more money. Revenue is generated in affiliate marketing only after a specific action is performed. This action needs to be completed by a sale and only then will you get your payment.

Here are the top 10 social media affiliate marketing strategies that will help you gain success:

Create Affiliate Redirect Links

A raw affiliate URL does not look friendly and therefore, people are afraid to click on it. They are unsure of where it will deter them. A re-direct, on the other hand, looks much cleaner and attracts more clicks. It is ideal to use in affiliate marketing, email marketing or on any other social media platform.

Create Excellent Content

Creating excellent content that is better than other affiliate marketers and proving to be the best in the value chain is a challenge these days. Affiliate marketers have the ability to create content of high standards while others don’t have the ability to compete them. This helps them in winning their customers and increasing sales towards their product.

Know Your Audience

Affiliate marketers are always smarter and know what their audience wants. The most successful way to use affiliate programs is to try and promote the products and services that match the needs of your audience. In short, try and educate your audience about the relevant products and the services that they are interested in and give them the right content for their product. This will help in generating more sales.

Keep Your Relationships Clear

Feel free to disclose your affiliations with your clients. They will appreciate this quality and work with you for longer, increasing your earnings. If they are not satisfied, they may just bypass you and go directly to the vendor.

Honesty is very important to build a healthy relationship with your client. Transparency between both of you also helps you in offering some kind of bonus or incentive from time to time to your reader. Trust building can definitely be a powerful tactic that can increase the number of affiliate sales you generate.

Write Timeless Content

Try and write content that can be updated from time to time simply by adding links to your recent articles. Even if your article gets shifted from the front page, your readers should be impressed going through it. Most platforms allow you to show ‘most recent’ or ‘most popular’ on every page, so even if your article is not new, it will always show access to your new pages. Old content shared by you can still give you good revenue.

Be Patient

Affiliate marketing strategies need time to build and revenue from these also builds with time. Some of these affiliate programs give lifetime revenues. It forms a chain. So, if you refer a visitor, you continue to make money from that visitor even if he doesn’t come back to your site.

If your focus is on promoting a particular type of product, you can keep getting your commission every month on the same product, thus increasing your revenue. Affiliate programs are not a get rich fast plan but can give you an opportunity to make slow and steady income from your blog.

Select Affiliate Products Carefully

Try and go through all the different options for products or services available through different marketing programs. Study them well and figure out which ones are best for the end users. Next, try and put attractive logos or change the ad patterns and use different graphics and texts to see which are the most expensive. Working on all this might take some time but you can figure out the best way.

Trying and changing ads regularly will definitely attract more viewers. You should strongly promote digital information products. These products are very active because customers can get instant access when they purchase them and these provide higher commission rates than buying physical products.

Promote High-Quality Offers

Affiliate marketing tends to do exceptionally well on social media when you promote a high-quality offer. In such a situation, everyone wins. The customer wins since they obtain an awesome deal; the affiliate marketer wins since they earn a heavy commission on driving traffic to the website, earning sales and the product manufacturer wins by generating revenue for what they have created.

Content Comes First

Content marketing strategy should be your first priority. Content is the base foundation for any product or service. It behaves like a life-saving drug for any product. There will be no traffic on your page if your content is not interesting or effective. If you compromise with your content and only think about making money online, you will lose viewers on your page.

Your strategy for the site should be to find products that add value to the site’s readers and also products that have the potential to increase the site’s revenue.

Use email auto-responders

Email auto-responders help to convert new subscribers into trusted readers. These readers will click on the links you recommend and get influenced by the products you propose. Set weekly responders to remind the customers and readers about your products every alternate day.

Affiliate Marketing helps to increase sales and when effectively combined with the right social media strategies, the results are highly commendable.

Top Global Search Trends in Google 2017 [Infographic]

Posted on December 18, 2017 by NextJSjointviews

Google has revealed its lists of top global search trends in 2017. The lists are based on search terms that had a high spike in traffic in 2017 as compared to 2016. iPhone X and celebrities like Gal Gadot and Melania Trump were the search terms for many people in 2017.

Google has listed top global searches of 2017 into 15 categories. The categories are Searches, People ,Global News, Actors, Consumer Tech, Elections, Global Sporting Events, How to…, Losses, Memes, Movies, Musicians and Brands, Songs/Lyrics, TV Shows and Recipes.

Each category lists top 5 searches of the year. We are going to illustrate the search trends of the year in the form of an infographic. We hope that this infographic will give you a clear picture of Global search trends in 2017.

So, let’s see what was trending globally in 2017!

Top Google Search Trends in India 2017 [Infographic]

Posted on December 15, 2017 by NextJSjointviews

Google has released its country specific lists of the top trends in online search data for 2017. As usual, showbiz and cricket dominated the Google search trends in India. Google has listed top searches of the year into 9 categories. The categories are Overall, Near me, How To…, Entertainers, Movies, Songs, Sporting Events, What is…, and News.

So, let’s see what was trending in India throughout this year!

How Influencer Marketing Powers Content Marketing

Posted on December 14, 2017 by NextJSjointviews

Distribution of content is an important part of content marketing. Reaching the right audience online is more complicated than it was in 2010. People filter out messages from brands and as many as 64% of ad blockers say that ads are annoying and intrusive. To top it all, even social media platforms such as Facebook are restricting page posts unless they are paid for.

Marketers need a trustworthy and organic way to reach their target. Influence Marketing provides exactly that.

What is Influencer Marketing?

Influencers are users who are popular online and have good number of followers and user engagement with them. They are looked up to by many people and have the ability to influence opinions. They could be popular YouTubers, Instagram celebrities with following of more than 10,000 of Facebook users with active user engagement.

Influencers have attained the status of celebrity in recent years. They are known world-wide and have a cult following. The most popular YouTuber, PewDiePie, earns an estimated $12 million from ad revenue and product endorsements annually.

Influence Marketing uses this fame of influencers to spread their brand message and content. Influencer marketing is word-of-mouth amplified by social media.

According to Rhythm One’s Influencer Marketing Benchmarks Report marketers get a return of $9.6 for every dollar they spend on Influencer Marketing. This is why leading brands such as Nike and Sprite are taking leverage of influence marketing in their content marketing program.

How Influencer Marketing Powers Content Marketing

Market Research

Influencers are more than just a channel to reach your audience. Influencers are often sought after for product launch, content creation, event management, SEO and market research.

Usually brands spend thousands of dollars on market research, focus groups, surveys and developing buyer personas. Collaborating with an influencer can give added insights into your market along with the data of millions of followers. Since influencers are in touch with their followers on a day to day basis, they are in a better position to evaluate what content will work.

Include Influencers early on in the content marketing strategy and take the benefit of their experience.

Fresh Perspective

Unlike traditional marketing, marketers have to let go of control over the messaging in influencer marketing. Influencers don’t like to spam their followers with salesy posts and they usually use the product in the context of their audience to maintain integrity.

Content by internal teams often tends to follow the same angle and messaging. Influencers can lend a fresh perspective to your products. For example, each influencer can use the same dress in different ways for different occasions.

Targeted Reach

Social media influencers have millions of followers all over the world. However the most attractive fact for marketers is that they have a following of targeted followers. A beauty and cosmetics brand can easily find fashion bloggers of targeted ethnicity to partner with. This gives them instant reach to a highly targeted following which would have taken them years to develop on their own.

Influencer marketing is especially useful for companies that want to target a niche market.

Trust

People are averse to advertising and block out messages from sources they do not identify with. According to a January 2015 Ipsos study, 96% of people feel that the advertising industry lacks integrity.

On the other hand, influencers are trusted source of information and entertainment for their followers. They share a relation of authenticity and friendship with their followers. This is why influencer marketing is so powerful compared to any other content delivery channel.

Branding

Partnering with the right influencer is a win-win for both the brand and the influencer. Brands that are a natural fit with the influencer are easily accepted in the minds of followers. With repeated messaging, followers who already identify with the influencers also begin to identify with the brand sub-consciously.

On the other hand a strong brand also leads to stronger branding and authority for the influencer.

Some Helpful Tips

68% of marketers consider finding relevant influencers their largest influencer marketing challenge. Following points would help when you want to evaluate an influencer.

1) Find influencers in your niche area and who share your brand values. Partnering with wrong candidates will only confuse your online branding

2) There are many tools available to evaluate and find your perfect match. Some of them are Traackr, Little Bird, BuzzSumo, Keyhole

3) There are plenty of options to choose from today. Keep looking till you find an influencer who is passionate about your brands and wants to work with you in the long term

4) Larger following is not always better. User engagement and activity are also important metrics to be considered. Sometimes, influencers lose the personal touch with growing number. A following of 10K to 100,000 is ideal for most brands.

5) Always give your influencer the freedom of content. Pushing your product will only spoil your brand and your partner’s as well. The best influencer marketing campaigns are very organic and do not look like advertising.

15 Best SEO Blogs of 2017

Posted on December 13, 2017 by NextJSjointviews

SEO has always been baffling for people as the subject is vast, tricky and needs a lot of understanding to operate. Owing to these reasons there are a lot of misconceptions and invalidated SEO practices that’s being put to use now.

However, there are certain organizations and their websites who are keen on doing research in SEO and has always led people in the right path through their blogs and videos. Websites like Search Engine Land, Moz, SEMrush etc. are prime examples.

Let’s have a look at their most popular SEO based blogs this year and why were they propagated by people so much.

Search Engine Land:

Search Engine Land is one of the leading publications that cover all aspects of the search marketing industry. Their blogs, news and articles cover latest updates for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It is a collective of various authors like SEO specialists, marketers, content developers, etc. They strive to give various tips, strategies and opportunities regarding the subject.

Here is one of the most popular blogs by them. It talks about the 5 SEO mistakes that a blog makes and why a blog gets low rank even though the content is great. They are listed as unoptimized keyword structure, inconsistent internal links, poor page copy, unoptimized images and videos, and poor content promotion.

Source : 5 Easy to Miss SEO Mistakes Blogs Make

Moz:

Started in 2004 at Seattle, Moz is an SEO consulting company that focuses on giving the community of readers various insights on search engine optimization and search engine marketing. It is a hub for education, various tools, and paid services

The blogs of Moz are written by industry professionals and others experts on search marketing. The following blog is written by Rand Fishkin. It talks about the 10 factors that do not affect Google ranking. It is an informative blog which removes the common misconceptions about Google ranking.

Source: 10 Things that Do Not (Directly) Affect Your Google Rankings

Hubspot

Having numerous blogs and tools, Hubspot aims to give products with a personal touch. Some of its main focus areas are CRM, marketing and inbound sales. It has more than 34k customers.

The following blog lists information about how to search engine optimize blogs and its contents. The author talks about how you make your website more visible to your customers who search for keywords associated with your business on search engines.

Source : Blog SEO: How to Search Engine Optimize Your Blog Content

Search Engine Land

Jessica Thompson’s write up about the crucial search engine ranking factors in 2017 is a well-ranked blog in Google. She lists the various factors based on the study conducted by SemRush. Not only does it say about it but how to put them into action. We suggest it as a must read if you are looking forward to increasing your website or blog ranking.

Source: SEO Ranking Factors in 2017: What’s Important and What’s Not

5. Snap Agency

Being a group of analytics nerds, creative extroverts, dedicated developers and charismatic business guys, Snap agency is a digital agency that’s keen on driving traffic to your websites with their well researched findings.

Snap agency has an active blog that lists many topics that helps you with digital marketing. The following blog is about how to forecast your Return on Investment (ROI) from SEO. These 4 methods are: estimate web traffic from SEO, estimate revenue from SEO, estimate profit from SEO, forecast the timeline for results from SEO.

Source: 4 Ways to Forecast Your ROI from SEO

The Next Web

Found by Boris and Patrick ‘The next web’ is a start up that bloomed in a tech event hosted by them. Later it became a blog that dedicated itself to help search marketing and search engine optimization.

One of the most sought after blogs in this list is from the Next web. They have written about 5 proven SEO benefits of long-form content for marketers. As said in the blog the purpose of online content is to bring more potential customers to reach you so they can buy products or services from you.

Source: 5 Proven SEO Benefits of Long-form Content for Marketers

7. The Search Agency

Nowadays, blockchain is the latest buzzword in the technology space. Many industry experts say that it will disrupt the functioning of various sectors that include finance, real estate, Internet of Things (IoT), Entertainment industry, healthcare, and many more.

Here’s an interesting blog (by The Search Agency) on how blockchain technology will change online search, will Google and other search engines implement it in their search algorithms.

Source:- Blockchain Tech for SEO: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Will Change Search

SEMrush

SEMrush started in 2008 as a small group of SEO and IT specialists to make online competition fair and transparent, with equal opportunities for everyone.

Written by Andrea Lehr, this blog lists four ways in which keyword mapping can be done to improve the SEO and content strategies. It focuses on one of the essential ingredient in marketing campaigns – keywords. This is a must read for content writers as it shows how to get more traffic by the mere use of keywords.

Source: A Four-Step Guide on Keyword Mapping to Improve Your SEO and Content Strategy

Mike Marko

He was born in Canada and is a marketing enthusiast. If you’re a beginner and interested in learning SEO just visit the website and check out the blog. I’m sure you’ll find something interesting

The blog is perfect for beginners as it covers almost all the aspects of beginning stage of SEO. However, the content is in the website as a video. Where the creator of the website Mike Marko explains what he has learned over the course of time.

Source: Search Engine Optimization Training – Introduction to SEO

Hubspot

The blog ‘how to search engine optimize your blog content’ is written by Lindsay Kolowich. As the name suggest it gives you tips on how to write content that is optimized for search engine to find it. This is an interesting page sought after by many and has been shared a lot in Facebook. To summarize, it helps you master Google’s tricky algorithm updates.

Source: Blog SEO: How to Search Engine Optimize Your Blog Content

Tom Johnston

Unlike the previous entries the following is a video by Tom Johnston. The video is about the biggest mistake franchises make in regards to SEO. Tom suggests that one should optimize and unite all the franchises so that no matter who is doing it everyone is mutually benefited. This is done by uniting the internet marketing campaigns. Tom is specializing in franchise SEO for national companies that have different franchises.

Source: Franchise SEO: The Biggest Mistake Franchises Make in Regards to SEO (Video)

12. Search Engine Journal

This site has a lot of blogs related to search marketing. The one which I mention here is the factors that affect the rank in organic search. It is based on the study made by SEMrush. The blog mentions various factors like direct website visits, bounce rate, HTTPS, anchor texts, keywords, videos, etc that affect the rank in search results.

Launched in 2003, it is a community that strives to give information and tips to improve search market content.

Source: Top 17 Organic Search Ranking Factors [STUDY]

Maria Johnsen

In this blog Maria writes about how she recovered a hacked website and optimized if for search engines. The hacker had hacked her prospect’s website and used the space to sell his own products. This is an interesting read for people who have experienced hacking.

Maria’s professional background and education are diverse. She has great interest in management of complex Information Systems.

Source: How I Recovered A Hacked Website And Optimized It for Search Engines

Neil Patel

Neil Patel is the co-founder of Crazy Egg and Hello Bar and is working with companies like Amazon, NBC, GM, HP and Viacom. He is one of the top influencers on the web.

This write up in Quick sprout features Neil Patel’s article about blogging. He aims to teach how to write a successful blog that reaches many people. If you are someone who is interested in writing blogs you are at the right place. Check out the write up to learn what is the right strategy to reach out through your blog.

Source: Neil Patel’s Guide to Blogging

Lift Demand

Lift Demand mainly focus on training, marketing services and mentoring for US based companies. The company mostly deals with local marketing services and their strategies is said to have deep impact and reach.

This article by John Larsen talks about why on page optimization is important for search engine ranking. It aims to give a better understanding of the importance of on page optimization. He says that SEO is only one part of a complete set of best practices that is done to drive more traffic to your website.

Source: Why is Onpage Optimization Important to Search Engine Ranking

If you think your favorite blog is left out from our list you can it in the comments section below. We will update this list from time to time.

How Anchor Content Defines Content Marketing Success

Posted on December 8, 2017 by NextJSjointviews

Every marketer is jumping into content marketing to succeed in digital marketing. But why is that out of millions of blogs published every day only few become popular. It is rare that a blog becomes popular on social media and attracts tons of traffic.

Yet, there are some sites that do it day after day. What is it that sets their content apart? The answer is anchor content or anchor text. In this blog we will look at anchor content and why it is the foundation of content marketing success. We will also share tips to create anchor content for your business.

What is Anchor Content?

Anchor content is a piece of content that drives huge amount of traffic because of its uniqueness. It is often a comprehensive guide on a problem that your target audience is looking for. It is well researched and offers an in-depth perspective that no one on the internet is offering.

It attracts lots of visitors because it solves real questions that readers have. It is a piece of quality content that can drive more traffic than hundreds of sub-par blog posts. In this essence it is the cornerstone of successful content marketing.

Why Anchor Content is Important?

Ranking high on Google is difficult enough. This is especially true if you are targeting a competitive keyword. Going head to head with bigger companies that have been posting for ten years is only going to waste your resources. You will need thousands of links to your content before you show even close to top results. Anchor content is the way that can ensure you a place over your competitors.

Getting shares and external links for your content is another task that most marketers fail at.

Moz and Buzzsumo conducted a study of 1 million articles and found that 75% of articles had 0 shares and insignificant number of external links. It is indeed hard to grab attention on the internet where millions of blog posts are published every day.

Your content marketing requires the momentum of anchor content for it to stand out. Anchor content differentiates you among the overload of information that search engines throw up. It earns backlinks as a useful resource and establishes your authority online.

Here are some examples and ideas for anchor content that work for businesses.

Tips to Develop Anchor Content

Type of Content

Certain type of posts gets more attention than others. Step by step how-to posts are great for large number of audience looking for solutions.

People want to quote experts in their industry. Hence, industry experts’ round up interview are other type that gets lots of backlinks.

Statistics and research results are another type that qualifies as anchor content. If you can conduct studies in your industry and publish results, you will have unique content that everyone wants to link to. If that is not possible currently you can always bring all important industry statistics in one post that will be extremely valuable.

For example, we often link to Hubspot’s Marketing Statistics as it is a valuable resource in content marketing industry.

You can also play around with visual media such as videos, infographics and listographics to give a unique twist to your content.

Word Limit

A 2016 study by Backlinko found that the average word count of Google first page result was 1,890 words.

This is especially true for anchor content as it is in-depth information that touches every part of the topic. In general, long form posts do better.

Remember; do not worry about the word count as long as the topic is being covered in best possible way. The value of content is most important.

Fresh Perspective

It is essential to differentiate your anchor content by giving it your own voice. Find a fresh perspective and new angle to the same information that everyone is talking about. Look for an angle to the topic that is not showing up in top results and then write a data backed, long , in-depth post on it.

This is especially true for anchor content as it is in-depth information that touches every part of the topic. In general, long form posts do better.

Remember; do not worry about the word count as long as the topic is being covered in best possible way. The value of content is most important.

Do not be afraid to go against the popular opinions. Opinionated content builds authoritative reputation and are more likely to be shared.

Collaboration

Anchor content cannot be written in two days. It usually requires years of industry expertise and a thorough research of articles currently out there.

In case you do not have an industry expert with required experience (or they are just be too busy to put in the hours) , you can always collaborate with guest bloggers or industry specific content writers. This will also give you the support of their followers and earn links to others blogs.

Similarly, you can contribute to others blogs with your expert content, linking it back to your anchor content.

Conclusion

You can start off with analyzing your current posts to find opportunities for anchor content. What are the posts that get maximum traffic? Which is your most shared blog post?

After putting in so much effort on anchor content, do invest some time in sharing it on social media and running back-linking campaigns for it. Once the post starts getting momentum you will see your domain authority rise and even other content on your site getting more traffic.

7 Online Tools to Create Impressive Visuals for Social Media

Posted on December 5, 2017 by NextJSjointviews

Visual media has become an essential part of content marketing strategy. Visual content is 40 times more likely to be shared than any other form of content on social media.

Marketers have noted the rise in interest for video and image content. 71% of online marketers use visual assets in social media marketing.

Involving a professional graphic designer for every piece of content can overshoot your budget. Spending days on an infographic takes up precious time too. Luckily there are online tools that let you make visual content quickly and without a fuss.

Here are 7 online tools to create impressive visuals for your social media success.

Canva

Graphic Design Software

Price: Free for limited features, $12.95 / month

Canva is online graphic design wesite that is great for creating everything from social media visuals to company brochures. It has a very easy to use drag and drop user interface with thousands of free templates to choose from.

Canva makes it easy to choose dimensions by giving ready design for various social media platforms and documents. It also allows teams to collaborate on work on projects.

Most of the templates and elements are free and you only need to upgrade in case you need more storage and customization.

Piktochart

Infographic Maker

Price: Free for basic plan, $15 for lite plan and $29 for Pro plan

Piktochart allows you to make appealing infographics for your blog or social media. It is extremely useful tool considering that infographics are 3 times more likely to be shared than any other type of content in social media.

You choose from ready templates, upload your own pictures and choose from thousands of icons. You can do pretty much do everything with the free version of this intuitive app. Upgrade to a paid version only if you want Piktochart watermark removed and want to manage team projects on the website.

Pablo

Visual Post Creator

Price: Free

Pablo is specially focused on creating visual posts for social media. Simply type your text in a box and choose a background image to go with it and you are good to go.

Since Pablo is tool offered by Buffer, a social media management app, you can schedule your posts directly form Pablo. The app fits the image automatically to custom dimensions of Facebook or Twitter.

Pixlr

Image Editor

Price: Free

Pixlr is an image editing software that is easy to use even if you are not a professional photo editor. It is great for visual social media platformssuch as Instagram and Pinterest.

Pixlr allows you to play with image filters, contrasts, frames and overlay and even lets you add text and logos to images. It is an online only tool available both on browser and as a mobile app.

Giphy

GIF creator and Database

Price: Free

With Giphy you can create funny GIF or Graphics Interchange Format. GIFs are entertaining and a great way to show your humorous side

Creating GIF with Giphy is easy and quick. Just upload your video or insert url link of video, specify length of GIF and type in text.

via GIPHY

Vennage

Infographic Maker

Price: Free for basic plan, $19/ month for premium and $49 for business plan

Vennage is another online tool that allows you to depict statistics in easy to understand graphs, charts and infographics. It is easy to use Vennage without getting lost in millions of templates. Simple and clean interface sets Vennage apart from other tools. It makes choosing templates easy by filtering them under:

Reports
Infographics
Charts
Listographics
Social
Marketing Material

You will have to upgrade to paid version for PDF format downloads and image uploads beyond free limit.

Biteable

VideoMaker

Price: Free for basic plan, and $8.25/month for premium plan

The list is incomplete without a video making tool on it. According to Hubspot, 43% of people want to see more video content from marketers. YouTube is now the second most popular search engine next only to Google.

Biteable allows you to create videos like a pro with just a laptop and internet connection. It’s easy tool in which you can create your own high-quality videos from available video templates or from custom template of your own.

Top 12 E-commerce SEO Strategies to Grow Your Business

Posted on December 4, 2017 by NextJSjointviews

The E-commerce industry has significantly grown in the last one decade. In fact, both small and medium-sized businesses are looking for E-commerce SEO strategies that help them boost the brand and improve the bottom line.

According to Statista, e-commerce sales were estimated at USD 1.92 trillion in 2016 and are expected to reach a USD 2.35 trillion by the end of 2018.

But just having an E-commerce business and believing in these stats is not going to give you success. What else do you need? Read on to get insights into 12 E-commerce SEO strategies that you need to follow if you want guaranteed growth through E-commerce:

1. Simple Categories

A lot of E-commerce portals forget to label and categorize their products carefully. This confuses the consumer as he/she is not able to find the product they need. Remember to keep categories that are easy-to-understand with logical labels, and filters. Your conversion rates will automatically be promoted.

2. Unique Product Description

This is one of the SEO tricks that will help to break through the competition. It will improve your SEO rankings and drive more traffic to your website. Product descriptions must be unique, not more than 250 words with relevant keywords in the product title and synonyms in the description. Identify high-search traffic keywords in your category before you give your product a title.

3. Attractive Images

Since E-commerce stores take away the touch-and-feel aspect, images play a major role in influencing purchase decisions. You may have a high-quality product but if your image is blurred, consumers will not be attracted to it. Product photos can communicate what copy cannot. Good photos can improve SEO, market your brand and establish an image and also be shared on Social Media for increased sales.

4. Clear URLs

Website addresses should not be complicated. For instance, a www.mystore.com/girls-dresses is more convenient to navigate than www.mystore.com/shop/cat-1245. Have relevant keywords in the URL with every category separated by hyphens.

5. Social Media & Blogging

Sharing quality content on your social media platforms helps to keep the target audience engaged. Inform them about your activities – sales, offers, new product launches, season collections and other details via social media. Maintain two-way communication with your customers, even if it is in the form of a negative feedback.

6. Offer Incentives

This is one of the most important E-commerce SEO strategies. Your customers must feel incentivized from time to time. Such an approach not only increases conversions but also generates loyalty customers. Bonus items, discount codes, and free delivery options over a particular price increases order size.

7. Reminder Cart Emails

A lot of customers search for products, add them to the cart and then abandon the purchase. Sending reminder emails to inform them of their incomplete order is extremely helpful in getting the customer back on your website. Adding a creative copy or discount update in such emails comes in handy too.

8. Focused Re-marketing

This has emerged as one of the most popular strategies to give the customer a hammer effect. Remarketing through Facebook, or Google Search advertising helps to engage all those consumers who abandoned their shopping carts without completing the checkout process. However, do remember that time here is of immense importance. Customers have several E-commerce players to choose from and if you don’t act fast, they would make the purchase elsewhere.

9. Customer Reviews

A lot of customers like a product but are iffy to buy it. Majority of such users scroll down to find the reviews given by previous customers and you must by all means flash all the positive reviews that you have received. Positive customer reviews boost confidence and make a significant impact on your conversion rate. Moreover, reviews help to improve SEO rankings with your product title and some original content posted by other users.

10. Direct Call-to-Action

Calls-to-action actually drive the sales. This must be clear with a single message that does not confuse the consumer. A button that says a little more than ‘buy now’ adds a little bit of urgency to the product greatly convincing the customer to make the purchase.

11. Instant Checkout Process

Most customers hate signing up and leaving in their details leading to cart abandonment. Keep your checkout process optimized with simple instructions to ensure sales success. However, this does not mean that you sacrifice on the security. Assure your customers that their confidential information is safe and secure.

12. Suggested and Recommended Products

It is an art to increase the order size with relevant suggestions at the checkout page. Make sure what you offer as a recommendation is actually suitable and attractive, and does serve the purpose of upgrades.

That’s it! Practice these interesting E-commerce SEO strategies and watch how effectively and efficiently your sales will grow. See how more and more customers start to engage with your brand.

How Augmented Reality is Changing Content Marketing Experience

Posted on December 1, 2017 by NextJSjointviews

Marketers must always look at innovation in delivering their messages. Banner ads are replaced by entertaining and informative video on the internet today. Intrusive traditional marketing has given way to content marketing over the period of time. However, people have become averse to even email marketing, social media and search engine advertising. Users do not want to see ads, they want content that is fresh and interesting.

In this blog we will look at how Augmented Reality or AR is transforming content marketing experiences. The application of augmented reality to deliver content is all set to change how we see marketing messages and interact with them.

What is Augmented Reality?

Augmented reality (AR) is superimposition of video, images, virtual objects onto the real world. AR came into the mainstream last year with the success of PokemonGo. The game unlocked the potential of AR for anyone with a smartphone in their hands.

Currently, all the tech giants and many startups are working on the potential to realize AR. There are more than 336 startups listed under the category on Anglelist. Research suggests that around 2.5 billion AR apps will be downloaded by end of this year. By 2021, mobile AR market alone is set to cross $83 billion in revenues (Source: Digi-capital).

Always the first to try out innovation, marketers are experimenting with the technology to bring novelty into the field. Customers love these experiences as they are new, cutting edge and entertaining. They give audience a memorable and meaningful experience they love to share with their friends. According to Content Marketing Institute, 71% of consumers think that a brand using VR and AR is forward thinking.

How are brands using Augmented Reality?

Brands are using AR for publicity campaigns or to display their products in a personalized and visual context. Check out the interactive AR campaign carried out by Visa in Poland.

Brands are also using AR to allow users to try on their products virtually. This gives users an immersive experience that is exciting as well as functional. IKEA takes the guesswork out of furniture shopping using its AR app. Users can check how a piece of furniture looks in their room before buying it thanks to IKEA Place app.

How is AR changing Content Marketing?

As you can imagine these experiences catch the attention of users worldwide and quickly become viral.

In Pepsi’s London AR campaign, a bus stop was modified to give the commuters unique experiences such as alien abduction and monster attacks. The campaign video went viral and got more than 50 million views across web! The campaign also reportedly led to a 30% increase in sales of single serving Pepsi bottles.

AR campaigns get huge publicity and which is great for content marketing. AR is not limited to just publicity campaigns and product apps, it is also changing how users are consuming content itself.

Many magazines and print ads are using AR interactive print to bring their content to life. Users can scan the ad to see a 3D model or video on their smartphones.

AR is already revolutionizing how content is consumed by in-store retail shoppers. Clothing retailer, American Apparel, has an AR app that allows shoppers to scan products and view its variants, reviews, inventory etc.

Future of Augmented Reality

AR will allow users to choose the format and context of content they want to see. AR is more promising than Virtual Reality (VR) for many companies. Unlike VR which takes users in an artificial world, AR allows brands to tell stories that adapt to the user’s reality while keeping him or her in context.

In future, we can also expect to see AR lens that do not even require a smartphone screen for AR. Scientists are working on eye lens that would project AR objects in our everyday reality. This can only be expected in a distant future though as we are far behind in terms of technology required for this.

Research team lead by Babak Parviz has already tested the lens on rabbits. “I mean, I don’t quite know what the timeline is going to be, but I give it a very, very high likelihood that they’re (AR lens) coming” says Babak Parviz, researcher on display lenses and former Google X director.

The early phase of AR will be used by content marketers to create exciting content as well as deliver usual content in new immersive ways. As the industry matures, expect to see AR as common medium of communication while more products such as AR arenas, apps, lens, etc., are launched to support AR experience.