Tag: Digital Marketing

The Ideal Composition for a Successful Digital Marketing Team

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

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.

How to Implement a Successful Personalized Marketing Strategy

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

If you have purchased products from Amazon or Flipkart, you will be able to see the amazing effects of personalized experience.

You will be able to see a list of suggestions based on your search history. Also, most probably you will receive a follow up email which contains similar collection of books based on your recent purchase.

We will not be surprised to see if you return to purchase more; it is because they are based upon your likes and interests.

This is why most of the marketers believe that personalized marketing campaigns are crucial for the success for their business.

If you wish that your customers want to come back for more purchases, you need to provide them with personalized experience that matches their wants and needs.

This means that more visits equal to more leads and more leads equal to more happy customers. Let’s take a look at how to implement a personalized marketing strategy:

1. Review your strategy

Before you execute your marketing strategy, think about the following questions to perceive how your organization can handle the strategy implementation:

  • What brand value I would like to offer my customers?
  • What kind of customer trends should I enable for e.g., repeated customer visits, increased trust, lot of purchases etc.?
  • What are the marketing resources that we have/can create which may change one strategy over another?
  • How much time does the plan need – whether short term/long term requirement?
  • Do I actually have enough resources such as people, tools, time etc. to achieve success?

2. Research and Analyze your audience

When you are done with planning your strategy, it’s time to gather some information about your audience and you will be able to use that for your marketing program. These are the ways you can research about your audience:

  • Surveys
  • Questionnaires
  • Discussion groups
  • Feedback via website or email
  • Social media platforms

Try to collect maximum amount of information from your potential prospects or customers. One or two queries might be enough rather than a drawn-out survey.

3. Choose right marketing tactics

Choosing the right marketing tactics is very crucial in the process of personalizing marketing strategy. Here are some of the marketing strategies to choose from:

  • Send emails from humans, don’t sound like a brand

Email is one among the simplest ways to create a personalized experience for your prospects. Rather than having the sender name as company’s name, create it from the name of an actual agent working on your promoting or marketing team.

Also, think about adding that agent’s photograph and his/her’s email signature to the body of the email to indicate that actually that agent took their time and energy to craft the message and can get some responses.

Even if you employ email templates, guarantee that they don’t appear as if they have been designed by a promoting/marketing machine. It is because you want to sound credible in your emails.

  • Use recipient’s name for emails

Writing “Dear Customer,” “Hi Customer,” “To [First Name]” etc. are all not at all preferred for your email communication with your prospects.

A lead’s real name is one among the best items of lead intelligence to assemble. If a prospect has filled out a form at any point of time, you can easily get their first name and email address.

If not, most likely you should not be emailing them. Most of the email service providers give you the opportunity to customize the email messages with recipient’s forename; so what’s more to think? Take advantage of it!

  • Make use of marketing automation tools

Based on content interest, automation tools will be able to trigger lead nurturing campaigns. While you will address completely different business problems and topics inside your content, that does not mean that each one of the prospects have an interest in all told topics.

If a prospect downloads an e-book targeted on specific topic, for instance, program your automation tools to automatically enter them into a lead nurturing campaign which will deliver content relevant to the initial topic and personalizes email messages based on supported data of that original content which was downloaded.

  • Segment email database by marketing persona

There are number of ways to segment email database; but the most effective and easiest way is by marketing persona. For example, if you have classified three separate marketing personas that combine your ideal customers, segment your email list into three different blocks.

Then, personalize the messaging used in independent emails sent to each blocks using the language that individual persona always uses and responds to.

  • Focus on creating persona driven content

Persona driven content is a key factor to consider when you begin with the process of personalization. Produce new content or modify the existing one to handle the exact needs and problems of your varied marketing personas.

Contemplate the very fact that one persona might have issues that the other persona doesn’t have. When you prepare a non personalized campaign, your one-size-fits-all content policy won’t fit with the particular problem of persona, which will be a drawback.

However, with a personalized approach that is targeted at a selected group of prospects, you will be able to address that drawback and make more customized and valuable content for those potential prospects.

  • Respond personally to customers on social media

Nowadays customers depend upon social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google + to research about the products and to make buying decisions.

It may appear to be an easy task to assign a real person to respond to customer queries on social media; however, several companies choose to automate it.

You need to check your social media activity on a daily basis and respond to them in a personal manner which provides suitable and rightful content that can address each persona’s needs.

  • Generate targeted landing pages

If you lack the bandwith to create content targeted for each of your personas, you have an option to create targeted landing pages for your different offers.

Make sure to customize the messaging and language on your targeted landing pages to handle the precise needs of particular segment, and do that for every phase.

  • Build targeted company’s product page variations on LinkedIn

LinkedIn company pages provides amazing targeting tool that permits you to personalize the products or services that a visitor sees on your product page in LinkedIn.

You will be able to target based on demographic info such as trade, job function and geographic area.

  • Use Google + topic circles to target content

Google + topic circles is another way of using social media platforms to supply a lot of personalized content distribution. By using Google + Circles, you will be able to create many totally different topic circles depending upon the different interests of your targeted page followers.

The next step is to poll your followers, raise that Circles they would wish to be side to, and simply distribute only targeted content to those Circles. This offers an individuality and personalization.

  • Lead intelligence to help in personalizing sales follow up

Lead intelligence or knowledge you gather concerning your leads/prospects consists of demographic data, customer behaviour on your website etc. which can be very useful as you outline segments of your business’ client personas.

However, it may also function as a robust lever to assist your sales team to personalize their sales pitches and perceive the wants of a lead before they even pick up the phone to dial the prospect. A well prepared sales agent can close the deal in no time.

4. Regularly update and refine personalization process

Like all other methods, personalized marketing process needs constants review and improvement to make sure of 100% effectiveness. The best way is that let the campaigns run for some weeks and then evaluate the results.

By this way, your team will be able to get a correct impression of exact progress over time, instead of getting a quick picture of how your personalization process is advancing.

It is also crucial to re-check all of your technological integrations to make sure that you have got access to holistic image of information.

During the refinement phase, marketers may take a step back and judge certain strategies or aspects of their personalized marketing campaign.

Let’s see how incorporating personalized marketing campaigns can be beneficial for your business:

1.A large compilation of client data: Personalization methods track the habits and activities of potential prospects; which in turn provides marketers with valuable knowledge that may not be available with conventional marketing campaigns.

If you are passing your leads to sales team, they will get a better clarity of whom they are merchandising and how the products/services matches with the client’s needs.

2.Loyal brand followers: Once customers feel that their needs are fulfilled and a company actually takes care of them, it is doubtless that they will definitely come back to the company in future to shop additional services or products.

3.Valuable business insights: Data gained from trailing customers will assist you in confirming what works and what doesn’t work in regard to marketing tactics and messages.

Takeaway

It is evident that customers prefer to buy more from retailers who can personalize their shopping experience across various channels.

Don’t be too late if you haven’t started implementing personalization strategies listed above. Companies who can successfully implement personalized marketing experiences will be able to witness an increase in sales and customer loyalty.

Repercussions of End of Net Neutrality on Digital Marketing

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

Nixing the net neutrality regulations that were enacted in 2015 will definitely affect the way digital marketing works. It will also have an effect on brands, consumers and digital marketing agencies. Even though the repeal will take weeks to come into effect there will be potential changes in the way the internet works. Ending net neutrality may stifle innovation and lead to search engine bans. It will for sure have a change in the web traffic that comes through organic searches.

Changes in the Digital Market

There will be a considerable change in the way digital marketing works when the freedom to access content, run applications, attach devices or obtain service plan information is revoked. Smaller brands that have a smaller budget may find it difficult to put their foot down in the digital market. The internet began with the concept of decentralization, making way for the free flow of information. Start-ups will now have to spend a considerable amount to reach their consumers. Basically, it treats one piece of web traffic differently than another piece of traffic. Let us look through the changes net neutrality might bring about on digital marketing.

How it might affect Digital Marketing

Since 1950s Internet Service Providers (ISPs) were prohibited from engaging in prioritization or blocking of websites and slowing broadcasting speeds while browsing a particular site under the law. The recent repeal of net neutrality in the US will no longer require ISPs to provide unrestricted access to the internet. It means that large players who can afford to hit the competition can partnership with ISPs to eliminate competition from smaller, less funded competitors.

Net neutrality evoked competition between all sizes and forms of businesses. This created a demand for digital marketing services such as content marketing, SEO, pay-per-click (PPC), and social media marketing which inspire organic web traffic. Inherently the new law might increase advertising costs.

However, the end of net neutrality may open up a plethora of opportunities for advertisers, agencies, and digital marketers. This might go to an extent where brands may have to start paying up for better bandwidth and one ISP versus another. The new change might take the digital marketing platform from a consumer-centric marketing to a business-centric marketing.

Throttling is favouring one piece of web traffic more than another. It is assumed that throttling and paid prioritization will deliver unpaid websites more slowly than other paid traffic to the user. This opens up opportunities to create unlimited bandwidth or free bandwidth offers where there might be different rate plans to avail different websites.

There prevails a fear in internet discussions that non-neutrality might give service providers unfettered control over the information that can be accessed, and might threaten the freedom and future of the internet. ISPs can choose what users can browse based on what they pay in the absence of net neutrality.

What it means for Digital Marketing Agencies

Agencies used to score with creative content and innovation to help small businesses stand up to their larger counterparts. With non-net neutrality, the same marketing industry is supposed to go frenzied as small brands will have to pay up more from their marketing budget so that they can be visible in the bustling web traffic.

In the absence of an equal playing field, ISPs might be deciding what content gets delivered to users at what speed. It is also assumed that content marketing might be affected because if users can’t access a particular content why would they promote it. Creating and promoting content is likely to be more expensive. On the other hand pay per click will not be affected (of course it is paid for).

The fact is that giant websites can pay ISPs to include them in a higher tier, while your personal blog or your small venture’s business website will always be in the lower tier as you can’t afford to spend huge sums towards keeping up in the higher tier. This means that fewer businesses will be competing in the real scenario, fewer businesses means less competition and thus less demand for digital marketing services.

Anyhow, the outcomes of net neutrality will take some time to come into effect and we can only assume the consequences. Let us hope for a fair, free-flowing battle of wits in the digital marketing scenario.

How to Set Up Google AMP on Your WordPress Website

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

Imagine a situation like this. You need to access some information urgently but your data balance is too low.

The dilemma of the situation is that you do not have any means to recharge your data balance and all you can do now is to use the data that’s left wisely.

After a quick Google search, you clicked on a link which led you to an unknown page. Bad luck strikes again when the page displays a pop-up draining all your data.

That Sucks big time doesn’t it?

But no need to worry as new innovations are gaining their foothold in the world of omnipresent internet.

Lately, Google has officially declared that more than 52% search requests that they get are from mobile devices.  Added to that Kissmetrics (Behavioral analytics and engagement platform development company) analysis says that 40% of those users just bounce to other websites if the response time is more than 3 seconds. And moreover, SEO experts have confirmed that latest search updates of Google are giving prominence to mobile friendly websites.

These facts were enough to cement the desperate need for mobile friendly websites.

The arrival of AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) was at this crucial juncture of time and has proven to work wonders since then.

What is an AMP? How does it help?

amp-google-wordpress-image

AMP is an open source framework program by Google which helps publishers improve their website’s user experience.

AMP helps publishers develop a skimmed down version of their actual page so that the user will not have to wait for much longer for the access.

Advantage of an AMP powered page is that it there is a strong probability that the website might be showcased in Google Carousel thus increasing the traffic and a swift rise in the ranking.

Have a look at this official video of AMP to get a detailed idea,

How does AMP work?

AMP uses a subset of HTML pages for optimized page rendering. Another indispensable and astounding feature of AMP is that it has an exclusive Javascript.

There are three types of AMP,

  1. AMP HTML: A subset of HTML which has got custom tags and properties. However AMP HTML has got lot of restrictions to keep it minimalistic in terms of size. Those who are exposed to normal HTML language can easily adapt to AMP HTML.
  2. AMP JS: Third party Javascript is not allowed in AMP JS. AMP has their own Java frame work which manages resources as well as asynchronous handling.
  3. AMP CDN: This will help AMP pages get cached automatically in CDN through optimization.

How does AMP make a website accessible in lightning speed?

Focus on the website content: Mostly website takes time to load because of third party applications attached to the website. What AMP does is that it gives primary importance to the content of the website rather than anything else.

Next would be the JAVA part of the website. Instead of loading website’s JAVA elements, AMP loads its own version of it. By doing so obstruction by third party JS can be avoided and the page continues to load with or without the JS script.

 However, such limitations can be tackled by iframes which allow third party JS.

 Static Layout: AMP instantly loads the lay out first so that all the external images, apps or even iframes gets confined inside the layout of a website. By doing this AMP can pre-determine the exact size and shape of the website even before it’s loaded. In Short AMP does not require any other outside resources to load a website instead of that it requires only one HTML request to lay out the entire document.

 Inline, Size-bound CSS: Even though everything works fine and is in the correct order, CSS tend to block the entire rendering page load and has high chance of getting bloated. AMP pages only allow single style sheet and that too inline. As a result a lot of HTTP requests will be removed from the rendering path.

One of the most astounding features of inline CSS is the size itself. The entire script will be of 50KB. Thus, making it easy to load. However, the process also depends on the written CSS quality of the author of the website.

 Font Optimization: Font of websites tends to be super large hence optimization of fonts is necessary to decrease the load time. And mostly, AMP requires zero HTTP requests until the font starts downloading. This is only possible due to the synchronous nature of the java script and only inline style sheets are allowed.

 Style and Lay out recalculation minimization: The browser has to recalculate and lay out the page upon script change or even an update. Since Amp mediates all render operations it minimizes effort. In short, one or two layout is required before a page is fully loaded.

GPU Accelerated Animations: AMP transfers a lot of image loading work to the GPU of a device rather than CPU. This makes the website run faster on your device.

How to Install AMP in a WordPress Website?

1. Install WordPress AMP plugin: At present there are 2 plugins are commonly used by developers. The most famous one is developed by Automattic and the latter developed by CDN. After installation, you can see the optimized version of your website if you add AMP to the end of the permalink.

 For eg: www.ABCDEFG/blopost/amp/

Process

  1. Open the DashBoard
  2. Go to ‘Plugins’
  3. Click ‘Add New’
  4. Type ‘AMP-WP’ in the search box
  5. Chose the desired AMP plugin and click install
  6. After Installation click the ‘Activate Plugin‘ tab
  7. After installation go to ‘Settings’ and choose ‘Permalinks’
  8. Click the ‘Save Changes’ button

2. To Validate the AMP version

  1. Paste the AMP version of URL to the Omnibox, Add ‘#develeopment=1’ to the end of the url and press enter
  2. Press CNTRL+SHIFT+I
  3. Select ‘Console’

If everything works fine a message will appear which says that ‘AMP validation successful’

When a user does a search on a mobile device, Google at first searches for an end tag to find out which websites have the mobile version. So the priority always goes to that website which has AMP tag in their link.

<link rel=”amphtml” href=”http://ABCDEFG.com/2016/01/28/a-new-business-model-for-twitter/amp/” /></head>

3. Customize and configure Your AMP Page: After installing AMP to your WordPress website it will create a layout for your page. However, if you need any addition you can avail the help of plugins to edit the CSS as well as your AMP template of the website. For example, you can install analytics, SEO, Adsense etc. to AMP in accordance with your preference.

AMP since it’s open source also has the feature to edit so that any improvement from developers can be added to it.

4. Fixing the Errors: It is obvious and normal that error will pop up after the installation of AMP. If it happens do not panic as AMP is not at all a stand alone plugin which is meant to resolve any mobile optimization related issue of your website. What AMP does is it simplifies layout of your website in each and every scenario. So if there is any kind of error you need to fix it manually which can be easily traced in through WordPress.

AMP is made by Google and they give prominence to websites which have AMP support if there is a search. Fixing errors is a crucial process as it will ensure that your AMP page gets indexed on Google search and cached on AMP CDN (Content Delivery Network). CDN helps AMP websites when there is a search from third party website for eg. Twitter.

Errors of an AMP page can be found by navigating through,

Login to Google search console > Search Appearance > Accelerated Mobile Pages

Last but not least always check for errors after each and every update.

How does AMP influence on Digital Marketing?

Higher traffic: The purpose behind the birth of AMP was to make websites accessible for all users without any delay. Since AMP pages loads within seconds the bounce rate will be less and happy users are more likely to back again.

Higher Ranking: Google has denied that AMP is not at all a criterion for ranking. However, in Google Carousel results, only AMP pages are showcased. and those who are using AMP version of a website will beg to differ as they have seen ranking improvement considerably.

Increase in Paid Search Results: Users tend to hit back to their search after reading the content. Since, pages load within seconds users will have the tendency to access more pages thus increasing clicks on paid search results.

The flexibility of Open Source: The beauty of open source is that it can be improved in accordance with the need of a user. Analytics, as well as SEO extension can be added to the AMP pages so that insight about a website will be detailed and simple.

 

9 Digital Marketing Certifications You Can Get in 2017 [Infographic]

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

Digital Marketing has evolved into a powerful marketing technique of this new age.  The most impressive part about digital marketing is that it does not require much of an investment and the results are amazing. After realizing this immense potential, companies nowadays are hiring more and more experts.

If you are a person who is so much interested in digital marketing the first thing you should do is to get certified by Google, Bing or HubSpot. Most companies prefer digital marketing professionals with certifications as an additional qualification. There are plenty of free certification courses that are now available on the web.

This infographic lists out popular digital marketing certifications that you can acquire in 2017. Let’s see which are they,

9-Digital-Marketing-Certifications-infographic

 

 

How User Reviews Influence Your Digital Marketing Success

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

Is your business rated by users on Facebook, Google or App stores? Do you know how these ratings impact your conversions? Read on to understand the role of user review in digital marketing and some guidelines to handle regular as well as negative online reviews.

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One of the key differences between traditional marketing and digital marketing is the two way communication between users and marketers. Online platforms like Facebook, Yelp, Justdial and other review sites have given consumers a seat on the marketing table. Consumers are continuously shaping how you are perceived online by

  • choosing what to read and watch,
  • interacting with brands publicly, and
  • providing reviews to the world.

Negative user reviews have the power to take you down despite brilliant digital marketing efforts.

According to 2016 survey by Vendasta, online reviews impact 88% of purchase decisions. 92% of consumers now read online reviews vs. 88% in 2014 and star rating is the number one factor used by consumers to judge a business.

User review is just the online version of the good old ‘word of mouth’ channel of marketing. For past few years social factor is a major influence in buyer’s decision. Following are the ways in which user reviews influence your digital marketing:

1. Form a brand personality

Your online presence gives your brand a personality. Information like how active you are on social media platforms and your responsiveness form an instant image in the reader’s mind.

But these are not the only information shaping your image. Visitors give more importance to other user reviews on your product and service. 73% of consumers form an opinion by reading up to six reviews.

2. Impact your Sales and Conversions

88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. User reviews have a direct and strong impact on online sales. Think about the last time you brought a product online. Did you look for the star rating or scroll down to see product reviews?

According to a survey 94% consumers would use a business with a four star rating whereas only 14% would consider a business with a one or two star rating.

3. Better Ranking

Yes, review ratings can help you rank higher in search engines. Google rates local business on prominence which is indicated by user reviews and ratings. More reviews can give you better visibility not only in Google but on other social media platforms as well.

4. Generate Ideas for Digital Marketing

User reviews are ears of a marketer in this digital world. You can find out what your customers like, why they buy from you and why they don’t. Good marketing is all about listening and those who listen well to the user reviews can adapt their digital marketing strategy effectively.

User reviews can give you

How to Support Digital Marketing with great User Reviews

Presence of user reviews on your site can increase your conversions by 4.6% according to Reevo. Here is what you can do to make sure user reviews are supporting your digital marketing efforts:

  • Ask your customers to review you online. You can send them mails or notifications to do so. Higher number of reviews improve visitor conversion rate. Make the process of reviewing your business easy and quick.
  • Make sure you have recent reviews. 44% of survey participants said reviews must be less than a month old to be relevant.
  • Be responsive and reply to maximum comments in a relevant manner.
How to Handle Negative User Reviews

There may be instances of negative ratings and user reviews. If you are a large company some negative reviews are inevitable. Following are the best practices to follow while resolving them:

  • Never delete the review  –  Ignoring the review is the worst response. You can reply with an apology and a solution where possible. In fact, negative reviews are not necessarily a bad. 68% of consumers trust reviews more when they see both positive and negative ratings. Users suspect fake and censored reviews if there are no bad reviews at all.
  • Try your best to resolve  – Take feedback positively and resolve the issue at the earliest. This is an opportunity to fix your product and service before it costs you money in recall or damages. According to a study for every customer that complains there are 26 unhappy customers who remain silent (Lee resource). Be glad someone spoke up and resolve the issue.  Also, if a business resolves its issue quickly and efficiently, 95% of unhappy customers return back to your business.
  • Don’t get defensive  –  Never get defensive or attack the customer with logical arguments. Lay down the reason/ facts and apologies to close the issue. A full blown fight can quickly become viral on social media. This will harm your reputation even if you are right on your part.

Reviews are going to be a major part of digital marketing strategy in coming years. User reviews help build trust with your business and directly affect your conversions.

Report Says 87% Brands are Now Opting for Digital Marketing

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

Social Beat, digital marketing agency released digital marketing industry report 2016 in May and June 2016 with 376 Chief Marketing Officers and marketing heads of various companies.

According to the report, 87 per cent of brands are choosing digital marketing instead of television and print medium for customer engagement and brand promotion due to increased usage of internet.

“The report highlights the rise of digital marketing services, though brands continue to use television and print medium to have a 360 degree approach. About 87 per cent of brands surveyed, leverage digital marketing,” Social Beat Co-Founder, Vikas Chawla said.

“While brand awareness and lead generation seem to be the primary goals, digital marketing is increasingly being leveraged for customer engagement and customer service too,” he said.

Social Beat Co-Founder Suneil Chawla noted that about 10 per cent of brands surveyed spend more than Rs one crore annually on digital marketing and 50 percent of them spend over Rs six lakh annually.”

Overall 20 per cent brands plan to increase their digital marketing spends by 25 per cent in next financial year, he said.

Source(s)

What to Look for When Hiring Social Media Marketing Services

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

We can’t deny that social media is a great platform for all brands. Despite the turnover, businesses, whether it is small or large scale industry, strive to be a leader in Social Media Marketing.

According to a recent study, 41.5% of businesses are investing 1-5% of their marketing budgets on social media. These figures clearly show brands are conscious of increasing their identities and hunting for expertise from top Social Media Marketing Services.

Here are some useful tips for you if you are looking to hire a social media service.

  1. Cooperate and Work Together

If you consider the Social Media Marketing Services just as an outsourcing agency, of course, you are on the wrong path. Obviously they have the expertise to make your brand a success, but don’t forget you are the brand custodian, get involved.

Keep in mind, they know how to market via social media, but you know your brand better. They can guide you how to reach your audience, but you know the real customers. So there will be many situations where you and your marketing services have to work together. Your brand will be a success only if you and your agency work in tandem.

Be prepared to hand over your account details to a new agency if your social media was being managed by any other agency till now. Make sure that all your passwords and admin rights are deleted from the older agency. It will take a couple of weeks for the new agency to understand your social media strategies so far, so cooperate with them.

Read Also: 8 Social Media Marketing Benefits For Your Business

  1. Set Goals and Missions

You should get acquainted with team members of the new agency. Try to give them a clear picture about your brand. To be precise, you are supposed to make them understand about your brand’s philosophy, legacy and the real purpose of your brand not only on social media but in all spheres of its existence.

It is good if you can exactly define what your expectation of social media marketing is, by setting short term and long term goals for your brand.

It is important that the agency team should have an idea about your office culture. You can invite their team to your company. This will help them know about the back- end working, your manufacturing style, how your employees work etc. Sometimes they might find a story from your working ambience to include in their social media campaign for your brand.

  1. Reporting methods and accountability

Reporting methods and accountability is an important process because it helps the metrics to determine what is working and what is not. A mutual discussion between the agency and you help to make sure the reports, numbers, insights would be needed by your marketing team. You have to precisely define schedules and timelines for these reports. Ensuring the data needed on a daily, weekly and monthly basis is also important.

You might be using a social media tool earlier, if so, share your credentials with your new Social Media Marketing Service. They will use the tool and give you reports, helping your marketing team to schedule upcoming quarters. You should seek suggestions from your agency on how to make things better. Suppose there was a decrease in traffic, your agency will comment on it and suggest you measures to rectify it.

  1. Get updated by involving

Everyday social media evolves with new ideas. For example, if an idea works today will be out- of- date in the coming month. As trends change day- by- day, your agency must be updated with the latest trends in the market. You guys both need to work in tandem to know the changes in the market.

Try to conduct brainstorming sessions in a month to place your brand in more impressing ways. Invite employees from different departments of your company to suggest their ideas. Sometimes fresh ideas will come even from people with no marketing background.

You should make your employees understand what their company is doing on social media. Conduct social media awareness sessions with the agency teams and employees from your company. Get updated with the latest features brought in by Twitter or Facebook. Also, find if there is any feature suitable for adopting by your brand.

You May Also Like: How to Decide the Ideal Social Media for Your Business

  1. Trust your Social Media Marketing Service

When you hire a social media service, you should allow them free to work in their own style. You only need to give them guidelines and content. Allow them to communicate with whoever they want. It is good to keep an eye on the activities on social media but never command them how to operate it.

Sometimes there may be situations to do things spontaneously. So, you have to believe in your social media service’s capability. They know what to do for the betterment of your brand. If they get a sign from your side that you trust them, then they can work with much confidence. This will give you incredible results.

6 Ways Hiring SEO Services in India is Vital for Your Success

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plays a vital role in increasing organic traffic to your website which will lead to higher sales and brand building.

SEO services includes all the things essential to optimize websites for better search engine rankings. As more and more business owners are opening online stores to offer products and services, it is important for you to promote  your business website. SEO services help in fulfilling this task through various tools and techniques. Learn why you need to hire SEO services in India for your online business website:

1.Reduces Gestation Period

Search engine optimization can help you in reducing the gestation period to great extent. Effective internet marketing strategies will assist you in promoting not only your company but also your products. These days SEO Companies have also started offering Social Media Optimization Services where your products or brand can be promoted at mass level. Apart from this, you can be benefited from organic traffic which would be coming from various search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, Alta Vista etc.

Read Also: How to do SEO in 2016?

2.Website Visibility

Having a website is not sufficient, you need to make it visible on the web. Visibility of a website is enhanced when it starts appearing among the top search engine results. This is an important reason to hire SEO services so that your website follows the right track to achieve recognition. There are also activities such as forum submissions, social bookmarking, etc which can reach a different set of audience.

3.Traffic Diversion

If your website is not visited by the targeted audience, there is no use of having a website at all. In order to obtain more and more web traffic to your website, you must have your website listed among the top search results. This can be achieved faster and in a practical way by hiring SEO services in India and around the world.

4.Keyword Research and Utilization

Keywords are the building blocks of search engine optimization. However, you need to find the right keywords related to your niche and use them effectively to achieve search engine visibility. It may appear easy, but requires a lot of skills which only an SEO expert can offer.

You May Also Like: Role of SEO in Brand Awareness

5.Overcoming Competition

You are bound to face tough competition in your niche, as soon as you take your business online. Each of the rival website owners have the wish to appear among top search engine results. By hiring the expert search engine optimization services, you get the right platform to survive the competition.

6.Instant Results

The third reason for considering SEO Services is the availability of instant results. Once search engine optimization is done on your website, you will start seeing the results instantaneously. You can always search out for some professional SEO Service providers irrespective of the nature or type of your business.

Now a days, SEO services are essential for your online visibility. So you have to be careful while hiring an SEO Service provider. You must keep in mind that the service provider you choose must follow the guidelines provided by Google and other major search engines. Otherwise your website can get penalized for black hat tactics.

8 Social Media Marketing Benefits For Your Business

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

Social media is a powerful platform for marketers to reach out to prospects. They can be used for direct marketing as well as to maintain public relations. Facebook and LinkedIn are the two most leading social media platforms used for marketing. It is found that most of the users use social media for researching brand, products or services before making the decision to buy.

People were doubtful about social media marketing at first, but they were proven wrong as Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter among others became a hit among brands.

Read Also: How to Decide the Ideal Social Media for Your Business

The following are 8 ways business stand to benefit from implementing social media marketing:

Helps to cut the overall marketing costs

Social networks are one of the best cost-effective methods to popularize your brand among target customers. The overhead cost for tweeting a message, promoting through Facebook or pinning a photo of the product to Pinterest is minimal when compared to billboards, TV and newspaper ads.

If you have marketing budget, social media channels will offer advanced but affordable advertising which target the audience by using keywords, interest based and demographic campaigns. Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook offer more specific parameters for targeting.

One needs to create compelling and optimized content to make the domain seem high up on the search results page. By sharing this content through various social portals, they can capture the interest of readers who may visit, like or share content on the website and link to it from their own domains. Search engines such as Google and Bing consider these social signals to rank on the search results page.

Social media marketing is extremely useful and beneficial to discuss customer comments, concerns and questions. Customers can directly interact with owners through platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Owners can answer them in a public format so that other customers can realize the quality of company’s customer service. Quicker responses can be delivered by brands to customers through social media. This helps in building brand awareness.

Recommended Read: 100% Growth in Social Media Usage in Rural India

Provides an opportunity to associate with other businesses

Through social media, a company can not only interact with consumers, but also with entrepreneurs and owners of other businesses. They help to have a real conversation with important personalities who may not otherwise be accessible socially or globally in the real world.

By allowing customers to directly interact with company, they are able to get the best customer service. Each and every response of customers is seen by the public. Hence if one of the customers appreciates the service of the company, it will directly show in the good online reputation of the company.

Helps to gain competitive advantage

Social media marketing helps to cope with competition by connecting with current and prospective customers in an organic way across the web. It can help boost search rankings, connect with new business partners, offer better customer service, and thus create a better online personality.

So, if you haven’t started marketing on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin or Pinterest among others, you might be missing some real opportunities. So, start now! Better late than never.