How To Start A Small Business Blog
Every business, large or small, regardless of its products or services, should have a strong online presence. Starting a blog for your business is an effective approach to increasing your online visibility. Posting blogs will allow you to promote your products and services, as well as help you attract visitors and improve traffic to your website. Additionally, it helps you create connections and trust with your current customers and so potential clients.
Identify The Purpose Of Your Blog
To begin a blog, you must first understand and identify the blog’s purpose, as well as what you wanted for your blog, why you are creating a blog, and how it will benefit your business.
You can easily determine what to write about and what to include in your blogs after you understand the objective of your blog.
Educate Users Or Customers
Consumers today are well-informed and heavily rely on information when making purchasing decisions. That is why it is critical to include material in your blog that will educate your clients and customers. Education reinforces your brand’s value proposition while also pushing potential customers through the sales funnel and along the customer journey.
The more information a consumer has, the better equipped they are to make an informed decision.
Add Helpful Information
A helpful blog demonstrates to your audience and consumers that you are a reliable source. Writing posts about things they’ll find fascinating and useful proves to them that you’re more than a company providing a service or a product; it demonstrates that you care about sharing important knowledge in your field and industry.
Build Your Brand
Your business blog should place a strong emphasis on establishing your brand. Branding allows you to form connections with your target audience, which can lead them into becoming devoted consumers. One efficient strategy to develop a brand through your blog is by researching your target audience and competition. Based on the findings of your research, create content that is engaging, insightful, and great to share.
Here are some terrific tips on how to use blogging to build your brand:
- Understand your audience.
- Create a niche for your brand and keywords.
- Create a blog theme that reflects your brand.
- Consistently write a lot of relevant content
- Turn to guest blogging for you to reach a wider audience.
- Your blog should reflect your company’s image.
- Don’t forget to examine your results for improvement purposes.
Make A Timeline
Designing a timeline for how often you will make blogs, how often you will post, and when you will publish the blog is a key aspect of a blog’s success. You’ll get more likes, shares, followers, and even comments if you post at the right time during the day. The most effective technique to increase visitors to your website is to use the appropriate timing.
- Here are some effective tips for making a timeline for posting blogs:
- Research your target audience and your competitors.
- Learn about your potential readers and when they are most likely to read blogs.
- Recognize when your industry’s peak and low activity periods are.
- Learn when the optimum moment is to engage with your blog’s comments.
Utilize Images
The average web reader will find your blog posts more appealing if you include high-quality images and visuals. It helps keep your readers’ attention by breaking up long blocks of content. Visitors to your site are more inclined to read your post if it is accompanied by a photograph, particularly natural photographs of work, teams, or services that complement the blogs.
Optimize Blogs To Benefit The Business
For businesses, search engine optimization, or SEO, is essential. When you optimize your web pages, including your blog posts, you make your website more apparent to individuals searching for your product or service on search engines like Google. Blog posts that utilize a range of on-page SEO techniques can help your site rank higher in search engines and attract more readers.
Blogging Help & More With SEO
Every new blog article you publish gives you another chance to include SEO keywords in your article and boost your online presence. The fastest and most effective strategy to improve your blog’s optimization is to invest in a reputable and award-winning digital marketing and SEO company.
Once you have your business blog ideas ready, we can help you optimize your blog to benefit your business. From HVAC SEO services to dental and insurance industries, and even yoga studio digital marketing, SEO Locale covers every business and industry with a one-of-a-kind digital marketing strategy.
Website Practices For An Authentic Online Presence
In the age of technology and the internet, your online presence means everything. Your reputation and appearance are what help you gain clicks and prospects. This is why you must present your business in a way that appeals to your audience, catching their attention and leaving them curious enough to look into your products or services.
Platforms are easy to build, thanks to the various tools and features available online. What many business owners need to focus on the most is their website content. The type of material, information, and user experience on your virtual platforms can determine how people will perceive your business.
Highlight Your Team, Services, & Customers
Images are often the first thing people see when they enter a website. They are eye-catching and easier to view than text, which is why it is a vital part of every online platform. When designing your website, recommend practices include photos of your business, including your team, services, and everything else. If you’re going for an authentic image, then all of the images need to look natural; after all, the pictures can set the entire tone for the website.
Clients tend to gravitate towards something they can relate to and rely on. Natural photos help build an approachable and friendly look for your team, which clients find appealing. Showing authentic pictures of your services is also important, as it sets realistic expectations for what you can offer, assuring that all customers who put their trust into your business will be given the quality they are looking for.
Work Samples & Natural Photos
As mentioned above, authenticity is important when it comes to reputation. This applies to the samples of your work. If you’re selling products, then it’s best to include images with a natural setup so customers will know what to expect from you. Using stock photos or images with a professional setup can cause misconceptions about how these products appear in reality.
Work samples are a reliable way to boost authenticity and enable clients to identify whether your products or services are right for them. We all have different preferences and interests; work samples help customers determine whether it’s their style or not ahead of time. This prevents any issues or misunderstandings from occurring later on.
Your work samples are also important for selling your skills. Showcase your best work and let customers know why you’re the best option for them!
Sincere Testimonials & Reviews
It’s one thing for a business to advertise its services, but having previous customers speak on their behalf creates a completely different effect. It’s a given that entrepreneurs will display the strengths and highlights of their business since it gets people interested and generates sales. However, testimonials and reviews are different because they are created by consumers themselves.
Customers have no reason to lie about their experience with certain brands, which is why many rely on these reviews to finalize their decision on whether they will take advantage of your services or not. You can add detailed reviews on the website to present all of your pros. If you are going for a minimal approach, pick one that is concise but complete.
High-Quality Customer Service
The way businesses treat their customers is extremely vital to their reputation. After all, no one would encourage other buyers to put their trust in a rude or unreliable seller, regardless of how good their products or services are. It’s common courtesy to treat everyone with respect, especially customers. Exert your best efforts into tending to their needs, answering their inquiries, and carefully guiding them through any issues.
Issues and mistakes are inevitable. However, if customers see that your team is always ready to help and is patient in handling their concerns, then it’s likely that they will be trusting your service again for their future needs.
Transparency of Services & Quotes
Transparency and authenticity go hand in hand. All transactions must be transparent to avoid complaints and misunderstandings. While it’s important to emphasize the strengths of the business, entrepreneurs should never lie about the quality of their services.
Market Your Business Effectively
As one of the top Doylestown Web Design providers, our team can help you strengthen your online presence. If you aren’t sure where to start, we can offer guidance to ensure your customers are satisfied. Our team offers web marketing in Philadelphia and beyond. No matter where you are, we will do our best to help your business flourish.
Optimizing Your Mobile Experience
As smartphones become an integrated part of today’s day-to-day life, there’s also an increased demand for websites to be optimized and mobile-friendly. To adapt, search engines and businesses are now pivoting towards a mobile-centric Internet. But should you guide your business into the handheld and mobile world?
If you’re running a small business and you’re eager to compete against the competition in your industry, a mobile-friendly website is a crucial component of your strategy.
The Rise Of Mobile Users
If you asked somebody in 2010 what their primary device was, chances are they’d say a desktop or a laptop computer. The Internet landscape has changed so much since then. Most of the world’s users now use a mobile device as their primary tool for communication and research.
This gave rise to the mobilegeddon, the infamous algorithm change by Google. This change prioritized mobile-friendly websites in their search results, which came at the expense of many web admins at the time.
However, this algorithm was necessary to accommodate the shift of consumer behavior that was increasingly mobile and smartphone-centered. Many businesses have made it a point to integrate mobile-friendliness while building their websites.
Appear Professional & Trustworthy
Most users like to browse websites using their mobile phones and conduct their product research on the go. It is common to use phones to locate services and fulfill needs throughout the day everywhere they go. This has led to an increased demand for faster loading times and increased page responsiveness. You need to ensure that the user experience is fast, easy to navigate. Not only does this make the entire experience more convenient for your customers, but this also makes your website look professional and credible to your target users.
Ranking In Search Engine Results
Google was responsible for the push of many websites to be mobile-friendly. If you are ready to make the switch you need to follow their guidelines if you want to rank high on their results page.
If you want to take full advantage of SEO, building your website with mobile in mind is crucial. With the increasingly competitive digital landscape, optimizing your website for SEO and mobile can make or break your online presence. This is especially true for small and medium-sized companies that want to scale their operations and compete with well-established Internet brands.
It’s not enough to make your website experience great on just a desktop. You also need a seamless transition between desktops and mobile devices. After all, Google SEO doesn’t just mean that you have to use the right keywords; it also means making sure that the user experience is top-notch and less stressful, no matter the platform.
Stay Relevant & Competitive
Many of your competitors today are integrating mobile optimization in their websites. A mobile-friendly website has now become an industry standard for most businesses. This has become the standard, so your users have come to expect a fast, reliable, and mobile-friendly website. If your website isn’t mobile-friendly, your business will look obsolete.
Invest In Your Digital Marketing
If you’re looking for the best eCommerce SEO company to increase your site leads, traffic, and conversion, then start with mobile optimization and review your competitors. If you aren’t sure where to start or how to take the next step with your online optimization, partner with our digital marketing agency in Philadelphia, PA. We are building websites with an emphasis on excellent user experience in mind.
We take optimization and SEO beyond user experience to ensure you can meet the needs of your audience. We believe that your website is key to your company’s growth, and we want to make this step in the process easier for you. Contact our team today to learn more!
The Patience Behind Keywords
As the rest of the world shifts to a digital space, businesses are forced to adapt to new marketing strategies to survive and thrive. One of the proven approaches is increasing online visibility through search engine optimization or SEO. If this process is done correctly, your website will become the top result on the search engine results page.
This is considered the prime real estate in digital marketing. Since your business is on the front page, users will most likely visit your website looking to fulfill their needs. This results in increased conversion rates, eventually leading to new sales. However, reaching the front page can be easier said than done. Every other business (that is aware of SEO) wants to be at the top of the page, resulting in complex competition. You need a comprehensive SEO strategy that will put you above the rest.
There are several factors to consider when building your SEO approach. Keywords, a website’s technical configuration, and user feedback are just some of the things to take into account. For now, let’s focus on one specific and vital topic: keywords. At SEO Locale, we’ve shared some tips and advice to help you create a good keyword strategy for your website.
Each Business Is Different — No Two Have The Same SEO Needs
When it comes to digital marketing, every online business will need SEO, but it won’t be the same for all. For example, the best SEO for lawyers is different from the best options for a dentist or contractor. In most cases, these differences boil down to keywords. If you’re a customer, you are going to Google what you need in your area.
Each industry has its area of keywords and within that, they become more specific based on location and services, and skills. These can and will change over time. If your website has the relevant keywords and phrases for the type of service you offer, you’ll get a higher chance of being in top results.
Businesses in the same industries will have differences in their SEO needs. Let’s look at two sporting goods stores — one selling premium products while the other has more budget-friendly goods. They might compete for the top spot in searches if they use something like “sporting goods store.” However, if they add words like “hockey gear” or “soccer cleats” to their content, they may be found for different specializations.
Different Industries Are More Competitive
Some lucky companies are so niche and specialized that they only need minimal SEO strategies to reach the top. For most other businesses, though, there’s a competitive field where sophisticated strategies will make the most difference. Only those with an adaptive and comprehensive SEO approach will end up on the front page.
By taking advantage of the most relevant keywords and other factors, you can reach your target audience. Each business is unique, and a customized plan to ensure each aspect is promoted and optimized.
Having the Right Keywords and Relevancy for a Website
How do you know what the right keyword strategies are? The organic addition of keywords and key phrases in your content is a great place to start. Whether it’s on blog posts, landing pages, or social media, you can add them to various areas of your website presence. Keyword research is also an important step before including anything in your content. This practice helps you determine what customers are typing when searching for a product or service that you offer.
It’s Not a One-and-Done Effort — It Is Continuous
Customers’ needs change. Trends evolve. The online market is constantly evolving. That’s why SEO is not a one-time thing that you can forget after the initial efforts.
If you want to adapt to the ever-changing online marketplace, you must understand that SEO is a continuous process. You can’t anticipate what trends will emerge in the next weeks, months, or years. Searches and target audience needs change day to day and week to week. You can use those trends to drive more traffic to your site.
Strong Keywords Take Patience
You may have the best keywords in your content, but you won’t reach the front page overnight. It takes a comprehensive and long-term approach to achieve this. Thankfully, SEO Locale is here to help you optimize your website, set the right goals, and use the right keywords for your business. If you are searching for the best SEO and digital marketing company near you, contact SEO Locale today!
How To Improve Your Medical Practice’s Online Presence
In the modern age, getting found online is critical for your medical practice. You have an enormous advantage over other local medical practices if you appear in prospective patients’ search results.
What’s the best way to get started? You probably don’t have a large marketing budget or a marketing staff at your practice, similar to many others. When it comes to things like SEO, SEM, and paid advertising don’t have time to be researched and mastered. There are overflowing listings for countless other practices. So how can you differentiate yourself from the competition?
1. Identify Your Region
A listing linked to Google Maps is crucial because patients typically search for doctors in their local area. Google Maps should show your practice’s name and location for people typing in the name of your city and your specialty. On Google Maps, patients can also search for nearby offices.
It is not only important to list on Google Maps if you want to be found. Nowadays, every individual relies on his or her GPS to get from point A to point B. If you are not listed, you might appear to be low-quality or out of date.
2. Make Your Website User-Friendly
An attractive website design, as well as a user-friendly website, are equally important. For a website to be successful, it should not only be attractive but also functional and accessible.
These elements contribute to enhancing the user experience. Included are:
- Online scheduling
- Easy-to-find contact information
- Useful and relevant information
- Your Locations
An easy-to-use website is much more likely to attract and keep visitors, resulting in a higher chance of creating loyal patients.
3. Doctor Reviews
Many patients or caretakers trust online reviews of doctors. Many rely on online ratings and review sites to influence their decision when selecting a medical professional.
Reviews can be a challenging aspect of your online presence. Medical providers are aware of how they treat their patients and can build that relationship within the office and out. Offering the opportunity for patients to give feedback can continue to build that relationship. In addition, you can add reviews to use on your website or have them open to the public to offer that reassurance potential patients are looking for.
4. SEO & Digital Marketing
Google Search is used by 77% of patients before making an appointment. For maximum exposure and visibility to potential patients, you need to appear at the top of your practice-related search.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is also very important for medical practices. Content marketing involves generating topical and targeted content (often using a blog), boosting your organic search rankings over time, and building an impression that your company is reputable and trusted.
You should also consider social media if you’re trying to improve your online presence. There are so many social media networks to be on that may contain many potential patients. Put all your practice information on a Facebook page – don’t forget to include your address, your website, and a few photos of your staff and office. Keeping it updated with practice news or interesting content monthly will keep patients interested.
With that being said, as a medical practitioner, you don’t have all the time in the world to optimize your digital marketing and SEO strategies to boost your online presence. Whether you are looking for the best chiropractic marketing services or some website development, we are here to help!
Conclusion
As a digital marketing agency, SEO Locale offers dermatology, physician, and dental SEO services to help improve your online presence and digital marketing efforts.
Contact us today to learn more about the company and its services.
How To Incorporate Keywords in Social Media
Social media trends vary on different platforms; some behave differently from others. What could be most searched on Facebook may be different from what’s most searched on Twitter, and so on. When using social media to promote your business or website, optimize your social media marketing strategies for better exposure on the internet.
If you have some knowledge of SEO, then you already have a grasp of keyword strategies. If not, SEO (or Search Engine Optimization) is the process of optimizing the contents of your brand to rank you higher in search engine page results (SERPs). When search engine users look for something on Google or any other search engine, they barely go to the second-page results and focus mostly on what is displayed first.
The goal of your website content is to answer the search engine user’s questions to attract more traffic to your website. But how can you do that?
Optimizing Your Social Media Content
Identify the Keywords
Let’s say you are promoting a pool cleaning services website. For a search engine to know that you are under that category, you must use “pool cleaning services” or “pool cleaning business” within the content. If you sell pool cleaning products, then you must use “pool cleaning products” or “pool cleaning materials.” Keywords must be straight to the point and clear.
Remember, the goal is to create content on what a search engine user might ask for. Expanding too much or having too many words in the keywords might make your website go further down on search engine page results. Your keyword phrases must be short and precise.
Once the keywords are determined, you then incorporate them into your content. To optimize the keywords, they must be mentioned more than once within the content. Here are a few places where you can incorporate keywords into your social media content.
Use Keywords on Your Title, Headings, and Subheadings
Search engines can quickly determine which search queries your content belongs to if your keywords are in the title itself. It is the first thing that comes up in search engine page results, and it is how a search engine user judges if it fits their needs. Now, some content topics may be too broad or difficult, so you must analyze the scope of content to come up with a variation of the keyword that maintains its purpose.
Use Keywords on your Meta Description
The meta description is where you can describe what your content is all about. By putting your important keywords within the summarized description, Google can filter your content better to the most related search queries. Your content must not be wordy and easy to navigate for it to be user-friendly. If your introduction is good, then a user would continue reading the content.
Incorporating Keywords on Different Social Media Platforms
Platforms each have trend behaviors, and you must be knowledgeable on such trends so that you can optimize your content on search queries. You can never know which one is best among the others, but you can use more than one. Here are a few social media platforms and their behaviors on keyword searches.
With Facebook having over two billion regular users worldwide, it is the most popular social media platform in the world. With that many users with sophisticated augmentation, you should take advantage of the interests of different audiences and specifically alter your keywords to fit those.
With an average of 6,000 tweets per second, Twitter trends change fast. Utilize Twitter hashtags for your keywords to optimize search results exposure. Updating your feed often will help you stay relevant on Twitter
Like Twitter, Instagram relies heavily on hashtags to promote products. Instagram also relies on its visual presentations, so putting your keywords in hashtags on your posts will help in product discovery.
Google My Business
GMB requires location-based strategies, since it is where a lot of brands go for local exposure. The best way to optimize keywords is to incorporate them with specific cities, states, or regions.
The best way to incorporate keywords into your social media content is to analyze social media trends and use them to your advantage. You can also find and monitor your competitors on social media, allowing you to make your content better than theirs. What are they doing right? What do they lack? Using social media as leverage for itself will help lead your business into a success.
Are you ready to learn more about building an SEO-friendly social media strategy or optimizing your website? Contact our digital marketing agency in Philadelphia today!
7 Reasons Why You Need A Digital Marketing Strategy
A digital marketing strategy is a must-have in today’s day and age. Nearly 50% of all businesses don’t use a digital strategy, which means crucial marketing channels are severely underutilized. A clear understanding of your marketing plans and how you can reach more people is vital to getting more sales.
Whether it’s auditing your efforts with project trackers or you want to push towards your business goals, you need the right plan. Here are 7 reasons why you need a digital marketing strategy and how you can pin down the right move for you.
- A Digital Strategy Gives Direction
Whether your business is big or small, you’re likely without direction in your digital strategy. You want to have a clear goal for your marketing plans. Everything starts with knowing what you want to happen with your business. This is where you ask yourself what matters for your business.
- Are you looking to gain more sales?
- Do you want higher traffic to your business website?
- Are you looking to get more value and save more costs?
Your goal changes depending on the type of growth that you want. A digital strategy will help you allocate the right resources to reach the goals that you want to reach.
The right strategy can define what marketing activities will lead towards the goal you set. With a strategy in place, you can also use marketing metrics to measure your efforts.
- You Want To Discover More About Your Market
In any business, the first step should always start with identifying the strategies that are right for your business. The discovery stage itself will help your marketing team understand what moves will result in growth and sales. It’s crucial that you reach a good understanding of how to improve your marketing process.
Market discovery also gives you time to reevaluate your process. If you already do some level of marketing, a strategy will optimize it even further. It will maximize what you have, giving you a general idea of the improvements that will result in more conversions.
Completing your business discovery stage will unravel what’s right and wrong with your tactics. It will show if you’re targeting the right audience, and give you a clearer view of what you should expect ahead.
- You Need To Convince Stakeholders
Building your digital marketing strategy is no different than traditional strategies that you know. The biggest challenge for teams is convincing stakeholders, whether it’s themselves or others, that they need the strategy. Many don’t believe their business would ever need it, stuck in offline and traditional efforts like print ads and other media.
It’s hard to convince people who have very little understanding of how the digital landscape works. If you’re the owner, it’s hard to manage business expenses and allocate for digital efforts when you’re used to simpler marketing techniques. If you’re a marketer, it’s hard to convince your C-level suits that the digital environment is indispensable.
A digital marketing strategy will give you the right data showing the techniques that work. Whether you’re on the fence about digital marketing or need to convince someone higher up, data is convincing. Numbers will never lie to you.
- Strategies Give You Unique Value Proposition
Digital marketing strategies help you separate yourself from the crowd. In an online world where you’re not the only one offering the same service, gaining a unique value proposition (UVP) is powerful. If you can make this UVP the center of your online marketing, it will set you apart from the noise and encourage conversions.
Whether you have new or existing customers, winning a click, a comment or some type of engagement is more difficult than ever. By building a campaign that differentiates your brand, you can improve your business website’s traffic and even build on your click-through rate.
If your primary goal is more into sales than leads, a unique value proposition can help customer retention. It will keep your customers interested and prevent them from jumping to your competition simply because of pricing.
- You Need To Understand Your Target Audience
Much like any business, it’s important for the organization to understand their target audience. When you know who your audience is, you unlock several possibilities that can improve your business growth. Knowing who wants your product is the hardest aspect of marketing but it’s also among the most useful.
Knowing the sentiment of your audience gives you the biggest chance for success. With the right digital marketing strategy, you can perform several types of campaigns that learn the pulse of your audience. More than analytics, the right strategy uses feedback tools to work on the weaker areas of your online marketing.
In most situations, you can address these weaknesses through the use of sales funnels, heat maps, and other tools for your website. Digital marketing strategies will cover your weak points and allow you to know what people want from your business.
- You Need To Do Audience Outreach
Knowing your audience is half the battle. The other half finding where they are and bringing your marketing efforts to them. As digital marketing strategies revolve around reaching out to your audience, you need to know which platform they are more active. You would also want to reach out to them specifically through the device they use.
Most people connect through their desktops, smartphones, tablets, and even other smart devices. For those who spend a lot of their time online, it’s best to bring your marketing to where they are. A cohesive marketing strategy that targets your specific demographic and retargets them back to your website can be effective.
Reach out deeper and don’t limit yourself to one or two channels. Social media, email, SEO, paid search, and the list goes on and on.
- You Learn More About Your ROI
One of the strongest reasons why you need a digital marketing strategy is knowing the return on investment (ROI) for your efforts. Digital marketing is among the best sources of marketing data. It helps you learn where you spend your money and what’s the potential ROI of every move you do.
The ability to project your ROI gives you a good idea of the type of marketing you need to do. It helps you understand more of your analytics and gives you more cost-effective measures to reach your marketing goals. A good digital marketing strategy can help forecast your results, which in turn can affect your profits.
Should you have a digital marketing strategy? In today’s marketing, having zero digital strategies is suicide. You’re going into a cutthroat market blind, with nothing to show for. On the flip side, a powerful combination of digital marketing strategies allows you to gather more data for more ROI and engage your audience even deeper. Start your digital strategy today.
Monthly To-Dos For Maintaining Your Website
Having a website is essential for a business. You can provide valuable information to your potential and existing customers while building a positive brand in the online community. Your website can also help your business stand out from the competition.
To maximize your website, you need to maintain it consistently. This is important to ensure that your website is operating properly and running at full capacity. How can you gain traction online if your website has poor security features? Do you think you can beat the competition if your website has outdated content?
These tips should be a part of your monthly website maintenance checklist:
Following Google Updates
Google rolls out various updates every year. If you want to maintain your website long-term, you need to adjust your algorithm based on Google’s updates.
For example, in May 2020, Google announced a new core update to its search algorithm that will take effect in 2021. This update has something to do with website performance, specifically how a page loads in the browser once a user navigates through a website.
This update should prompt you to change the algorithm in your website to improve its page load speed. You can achieve this goal by using a content distribution network or optimizing images.
When you regularly keep track of Google updates and implement changes to your website based on those updates, your website’s SEO ranking will improve. This can also help your website gain more organic search traffic and get better conversions online.
Sharing Fresh Content
One of the reasons people visit your website is that they want to learn more about your business and what you offer. They likely heard your business from an ad or a friend and would want to gather more information before they decide to buy from you.
As part of your website maintenance checklist, share fresh content regularly. This can help you attract loyal customers and improve your site ranking. When you regularly post fresh content on your website, you can also increase your authority in the industry. The more frequently you share high-quality content through your website, the stronger you become as an authority figure.
Depending on the nature of your business, you can post blogs, articles, and how-to guides on your website. For example, if you want to improve your chiropractic website SEO for your clinic, or just educating your patients, you can also post videos and video stories about your work on your website!
Making Sure Contact Forms and Information Work
Contact forms in websites are important for businesses. When you have a contact form, you can easily keep track of inquiries, get more leads from online visitors, and build your email marketing list. Receiving and sending quotations to interested customers will also become a breeze if you have contact forms.
However, you can only experience these perks when your contact forms ask the right questions and work properly. Online visitors will not submit any of their information if they find your contact form too distracting or asks too many similar questions.
To check if your contact forms are working, test out its validation, notification, and conditional integrations by filling up the form yourself. All of the information you’ve placed in the contact form should be automatically sent to your selected email address. If you didn’t receive an email or if you received one with missing details, fix your contact form right away.
Checking if your contact forms are working is important because it can help come up with solutions as soon as possible. Instead of getting information, a malfunctioning contact form will only annoy your online visitors and encourage them to turn to your competitors.
Reviewing Traffic and Highly Visited Pages
Your website consists of different pages. You’ll often have a separate webpage about your company, products, services, and contact details. The more information you want to share with your target audience online, the more web pages you’ll have.
As part of your website maintenance routine, take the time to review traffic and highly visited pages. Website traffic refers to the online visitors who access your website. Web traffic is measured in visits or sessions and is used to measure how effective your website is at attracting an audience and keeping users engaged online.
You can easily review your website traffic by using online tools, such as SEMRUSH and Google Search Console. To identify which among your web pages is regularly visited by users, use Google Analytics. This tool enables you to see your most and least popular web pages, along with the number of new users, session duration, bounce rate, and other metrics.
Adding Recent Reviews to Your Website
One of the reasons why people don’t buy from a business is because they don’t know whether the brand is trustworthy or not. Customers don’t want to spend money to buy products from a business that they don’t know anything about.
To gain the trust of new customers, add recent reviews to your website. Reviews can increase your sales, validate your business, and help you gain loyalty through customer engagement.
When first-time visitors see how hundreds of people vouch for your business and offerings, it’ll be very easy for them to trust you.
Customers value online reviews as they would on personal recommendations. This means that posting positive reviews on your website can impact their decision-making and encourage them to utilize your brand.
Moreover, recent reviews can also improve your SEO rankings as these serve as fresh content for the search engine to digest. If you want to offer the best dental website SEO to your customers, then regularly updating reviews on your website is the best way to go.
Invest in Professional Help
Some businesses don’t have the experience or resources to maintain their website on their own.
If you fall into this category, consider hiring our SEO and digital marketing company to improve your website’s visibility today!
Pandemic Assistance: How Digital Marketing Has Saved Small Businesses in 2021
The pandemic has caused many small businesses to shutter. Some, however, took it as a sign to assess the situation and pivot. Instead of closing shop to avoid further risking their resources, businesses that are still in operation found a window of opportunity to stand out with fewer competitors in a dwindling marketplace.
Small businesses that established themselves online and creatively leveraged digital marketing were better able to cater to the sudden changes in market demands, especially with a drop in competition.
Read on to discover how digital marketing has aided small businesses despite the pandemic’s catastrophic effects.
Digital Marketing Assists With Growth
As many people have sheltered in place at home without the ability to interact outdoors, the reliance on the internet for both necessities and recreation rose exponentially. Many users shifted from in-person communication and services to online interactions and transactions.
By creating a steady online presence, businesses that changed their focus from traditional methods to digital marketing were able to retain or increase their engagement with consumers — and, in turn, also increased their conversion rates.
Digital marketing can help small businesses expand and reach a wider audience, too. By keeping up-to-date and utilizing social media trends, many small businesses found that the pandemic created new niches and demands to cater to.
By paying more attention to digital marketing, small businesses can also discover a means of potentially competing with larger companies. This is because, when done correctly, digital marketing can be just as effective at reaching the masses as traditional marketing without needing an exorbitant budget. It can help save more money for investing in other areas of your business that need it.
Digital Marketing Provides a Workaround for Many Industries
The food industry suffered greatly because of the pandemic due to social distancing, quarantine, and lockdowns. These have effectively barred food businesses from performing at their peak — even causing an alarming number to shut down entirely.
As such, food businesses had to make changes concerning their marketing strategies. With a heightened demand for food delivery services, food establishments that typically rely on in-person foot traffic have started to develop digital marketing strategies using social media and online advertisements to keep businesses afloat.
This also applies to other industries that rely on brick-and-mortar shops. Retail stores selling clothing, home goods, and other sundries have found a semblance of stability by establishing online stores, shipping services, and stronger social media presences to resume cash flow.
Some services, like therapy and other medical consultations, have started offering online assessments and sessions to continue servicing their communities without the risk of COVID-19 infections in hospitals and clinics.
Digital Marketing Helps Keep Customers Informed and Engaged
Thanks to constant advancements in technology, it is getting easier and easier to communicate and transact with almost any type of audience. Social media, in particular, has helped businesses form stronger connections with their audience by providing a convenient means to engage with customers using different forms of media.
Many brands have utilized their social media accounts to share stories that make emotional impacts on their audience. Strong examples include marketing campaigns revolving around pandemic relief efforts and showing support for movements that aid marginalized communities.
Some brands even create online-only products and services that evoke a sense of exclusivity and prestige, subconsciously promoting brand loyalty.
Small businesses have also utilized online platforms to keep customers informed about changes in operations, especially when moving from a physical location to a digital domain. This way, existing local customers know how to continue supporting small businesses.
Lastly, by establishing a well-rounded online presence, small businesses can give their audience multiple avenues for customer feedback and support. By showing an open interest in customers’ opinions, businesses can also encourage brand loyalty and increase positive brand reputation by building trust.
Action Tip
To best utilize digital marketing, make sure that your website and contact information are always kept updated. You must also maintain a strong and constant online presence on major social media platforms to stay relevant.
The Key Takeaway
The pandemic has challenged our way of handling our businesses. However, we must not give up in these trying times. We must learn how to be resilient and be resourceful.
With the many types of pandemic restrictions in place, it is important to continue using digital marketing as other surviving businesses have. It has contributed a lot in helping businesses flourish and grow despite the absence of physical stores and in-person interactions.
Regardless of which platform you use, you will see success in your digital marketing efforts by using it wisely and creatively. Keep your website and social media profiles up-to-date, stay connected and continue engaging with your customers and always look for new ways to meet your market’s needs by paying attention to online trends. By doing so, you will have a higher chance to keep your business afloat throughout and after the pandemic.
Ready to start your digital marketing plan? Contact out digital marketing agency in Philadelphia, PA to learn more!
When Are the Best Times to Post on Social Media
Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram were created to be enjoyable and convenient ways to connect users to their friends and family. But, with advancements in technology, constantly changing market trends, and the big shift from in-person interactions to online connections, social networking platforms eventually found themselves heavily utilized for business and marketing.
These days, social media is used by both small businesses and big corporations as a major means of reaching and engaging with clients all across the globe in real-time.
For small-scale entrepreneurs and those who are looking to start their businesses, social media is an incredibly handy tool for establishing connections with potential customers.
One thing most businesses fail to realize, though, is that while posting good content is key, the timing of your posts plays a very important part in casting a wider net.
Read to learn more about social media platforms and the best times to share content.
The Top Social Media Platforms for Businesses
Many social media platforms are utilizing many different forms of media available to consumers right now but, for businesses, the most important ones are:
Facebook is the most popular social media platform in the world. As it has the most active users of every demographic, this is the one platform business owners can’t be without.
Its interface allows businesses to create and share content in a wide range of media formats, including text, photos, videos, and stories. It also allows users to schedule posts for future publishing, which is perfect when doing bulk content creation.
Facebook’s design also allows customers to easily engage with businesses through comment threads and post reactions. On top of that, Facebook allows people to easily share content to their timelines or through private messaging for instant word-of-mouth marketing.
Many celebrities, politicians, and other people of note utilize Twitter for sharing announcements, opinions, and recommendations. Because of this, Twitter has a user base of all genders belonging to a wide range of ages, social classes, and beliefs.
Twitter allows its users to publish (or ‘tweet’) images, videos, and short text posts with a 280-character limit in real-time. As Twitter’s design puts a heavy emphasis on conciseness, this requires users to create straight-to-the-point and witty content to attract the eye of other users.
Business owners can take advantage of Twitter’s interface that allows for the easy sharing (or retweeting) and quoting of user posts. Besides sharing, users can also like posts. These liked posts are archived in the user’s profile, which can serve as a bookmark for future reference.
Another feature that makes Twitter ideal for businesses is the ease of communicating with other users. Many corporations use this platform to engage with users, as well as for customer support purposes.
One of the most downloaded apps in the United States, Instagram focuses more on the photo and video content and less on text.
Setting an Instagram account properly is just as important as knowing when to post. Businesses need to take advantage of linking their website and writing a good bio for their accounts as these are some of the first things a user sees when visiting an Instagram profile.
As a platform that prioritizes visuals, the key to making a good Instagram account is posting very aesthetically appealing photos and videos. It is important to make your Instagram grid appear cohesive, so crafting a strong visual identity for your brand is a must.
Instagram also recently added an update that enables businesses to directly sell and transact with consumers by hosting their online shops within the platform.
To be able to reach many people when starting on the platform, utilize popular hashtags to make your brand visible.
The Best Time to Post On Social Media For Optimal Engagement
Besides creating good content, it is also important to study the demographic you are trying to reach to identify the best time to post. Important factors to consider, besides age and gender, include habits and interests.
If you already have an existing social media account, you can also look into your top posts to determine your peak time for posting. You can sort through your analytics by certain metrics, such as engagement and number of likes and shares.
Keep in mind that each platform has its algorithm that may affect your post’s visibility. For Instagram and Facebook, it was found that their algorithms prioritize “recency” for ranking, so it only makes sense to post when your target market is online. These algorithms are revised occasionally, though, so business owners must adjust to that, too.
If you would prefer to leave the social media optimization and analytics to someone else, you can reach out to a social media management company in Philadelphia for help.
Around 73% of Facebook’s nearly 3 billion users were found to log onto the platform every day, with 57% of users from the United States primarily using it for sharing content.
Through user data, Wednesday around 11:00 AM CST was discovered to be the peak time for general engagement, although 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM on all other weekdays are not far behind.
As for marketing your products, Facebook users are most receptive to posts about consumer goods on Wednesdays and Fridays, from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM, with a distinct drop in interest before 8:00 AM. Meanwhile, media consumption sees a spike at 5:00 PM mid-week.
In general, individual consumers tend to check Facebook most right before work hours, during lunch break, and during downtime after work. Sundays typically see the least amount of active users.
Unlike Facebook and Instagram algorithms, Twitter’s algorithm ranks tweets by potential user interest instead of in chronological order. With over 500 million tweets per day, businesses need to know when to post so as not to be buried under other tweets.
Twitter sees a jump in activity around 8:00 AM every day — weekends included — as users tend to use the platform as a news source, checking for updates right before starting their day.
As mentioned earlier, many corporations turn to Twitter for addressing customer support issues. Unlike Facebook, Twitter’s best day for business engagement is on Sundays from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM. General engagement, though, still does best on weekdays from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM.
While Instagram does somehow show posts based on recency, it is also notorious for being unpredictable and does not present content in chronological order. The best workaround is to know what your target demographic’s peak hours are.
Like Facebook, Wednesday around 11:00 AM tends to be the best for user engagement. General engagement also peaks on Fridays from 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM but is consistently good on all weekdays from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM.
For marketing goods of any kind, Wednesday at 3:00 PM has seen the most movement, followed by Tuesdays to Fridays from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM.
Moreover, Facebook acquired Instagram and has now established a cross-posting feature between the two platforms, which business owners should take advantage of.
Conclusion
For businesses venturing into the world of social media marketing, it is important to partner in creating good content with an effective posting schedule.
Different platforms see different activity trends from their users, and it is imperative to take note of your preferred platform’s peak hours, as well as studying your target audience’s online habits, to make the most of your social media experience.
