Category: Digital Branding

4 Web hosting types – Things you should know before going with a plan

Steven on April 11, 2020

For an online business, having a good secure managed WordPress hosting service should be at the top of any priority list they have. With so many types of hosting to choose from and “players” to go with, it might get a bit confusing sometimes.

Add in the fact that they all use the same terminology like bandwidth, SSD, storage, things can get even more unclear, especially for someone who is not that tech-savvy to begin with.

I want to discuss the main web hosting types in this text. As businesses grow, they may need extra resources which encourage better website speed, more storage space for media and servers that can handle larger amounts of public traffic.

Hopefully, after reading this, you’ll get a clearer idea for what each type is best for in what circumstances and what to go with for your own business.

Shared web hosting

Shared web hosting is best for those businesses who are still in their start up phase, meaning they do not need much extra resources to operate online.

If you need stable shared hosting under $1 with 99.98% uptime guarantee click here →

Why is it shared you may ask?

It’s quite simple. With these types of hosting plans you “share” webspace with others, sometimes, hundreds of websites hosted on the same server instead of having your own set of resources.

This leads to the biggest advantage that a shared web hosting plan can offer – it’s cheap price. The costs usually range from around 3 to 10 dollars per month and is quite obviously, the best choice for businesses who are still small and cannot afford to spend too much money on web hosting.

On the other hand, there are its limitations.

As you can assume, sharing resources with tens, sometimes hundreds of websites on the same server is not a good idea if you are trying to handle a larger amount of visitors,some may just slow you down.

These things do happen, and if a website gets an increased amount of visitors, not only will it slow down by itself, it will also affect neighboring sites, since everyone’s in the same boat.

In summary: Shared hosting is the least capable type of hosting plan with limited resources, nevertheless, a very good option for those seeking a cheap way to host their website when just starting out.

Reseller web hosting

Reseller hosting is similar to a shared hosting plan in some ways, though, not as quite the same. You see, the idea here is that you buy a hosting plan (similar to the resource capabilities of a shared hosting plan) and resell it to others for a monetary gain.

Basically, you are paying for a hosting plan that has extra administration tools and can be resold for other parties. This way, the parent hosting company gains an extra client and you are making business as being the middleman.

Typically, the prices here range from 15 to around 50 dollars a month, depending what resources are given with the plan that’s resold.

Apart from a regular hosting plan with a certain amount of bandwidth, disk space and capabilities of handling website visitors, you also gain a set of administrative tools which will let you take care of the people that you sold hosting plans to.

In summary: this type of web hosting is best for those who want to have their own web hosting business, or are looking to gain more hosting perks for themselves, by reselling the services of the parent company.

Cloud web hosting

Cloud web hosting is one of the latest innovations in the world of web hosting for businesses. Here, companies sell you a plan with the idea that you will need to expand in the future and gain more resources for your usage.

The biggest advantage of cloud web hosting is arguably its capabilities. You see, such servers are made up of smaller individual servers, joining up in one system capable of hundreds of websites with much bigger ease than that of a standard shared hosting plan.

In fact, after going with a shared plan at the start, it is best practice to move on to a cloud web hosting service as the next step. Most hosting companies in this case, offer prices based on the amount of resources you use up, so it’s more difficult to tell the exact price range for such.

In summary: if you want to go to the next level of your business growth after your initial plan, you can do that by choosing a very flexible cloud based hosting plan.

If you have not decided what to choose, give it a shot with web hosting trial offer from Hostens →

Virtual Private Server hosting

Yet another step forward after shared hosting could be by choosing a VPS or Virtual Private Server. It is what the name says – your own virtual private space. The main advantage here is that you also get additional resources when compared to a shared hosting plan.

It’s pretty-much another middle ground between sharing your resources with others, to having your own dedicated server. Even though the resources here are also shared among others, the difference from a shared hosting server is much more prominent in terms of what resources you have.

Here, you are also safe from neighbors, which may slow or even take you down with them as they receive more traffic, while also being a much cheaper option than a standard dedicated server.

Prices here range from 50 to about 100 dollars a month for your hosting plan.

In summary: a VPS is a very capable option, designed for those who want to maintain their independence from others.

The article was prepared by prepared by Hostens.com team

Digital Branding Legal Branding SaaS Branding

Global E-Commerce Usability Errors

Steven on April 9, 2020

If we talk about global errors, it is only one – the unwillingness to understand that there is a usability online store. Among businessmen, it is considered that this is a set of standards to follow. And rare owners know the truth: usability – an individual complex, which is determined only through regular testing.

Let’s analyze the most common mistakes that arise from a lack of understanding of usability and lack of testing.

No information about the product in the shopping cart.

There’s a problem. The customer puts the goods in the basket. And when he wants to re-examine the features, he finds neither an enlarged image nor a link to a detailed description. The only thing available to him is the price of the goods. To reread the specifications and check whether the product is selected, he will have to go back to the catalog. And then the buyer leaves.

The solution. Give the customer access to complete information about the product from the shopping cart. Some customers prefer to put all the products they are interested in in the cart, and only then get acquainted with the characteristics of the product and select it. This behavior is often found in spontaneous purchases and sales.

No information on product availability

There’s a problem. The customer puts the product in the basket. He fills out a special form and at the end of the procedure he finds out that the product is over. This can make him angry, which will significantly reduce his loyalty.

It’s a solution. Inform about the presence/absence of the product in time – in the product card or shopping cart. This way the customer will be able to replace one type of product with another or will not fill out the form at all, which will save his time and save your reputation.

There is no option of auto storage of selected products in the shopping cart.

There’s a problem. The client formed a shopping list in the shopping cart and accidentally closed the page. After re-entering the site, he finds out that the selected lots from the shopping cart have disappeared. This is one of the typical usability mistakes on the site that scares away most customers.

The solution. Use the option to automatically save a list of selected items. The connection between the site and the customer can be interrupted for completely different reasons. These are both technical problems during payment and bad internet connection. If you do not take care of auto-preservation, the customer either refuses to buy or significantly shortens the list by reviewing its appropriateness.

No indication of changes in the order amount

There’s a problem. The customer chooses a product, goes through registration and finds out that the original order amount has increased for a reason he does not understand. The shop does not report that the chosen method of payment or delivery adds a certain percentage to the final amount.

Solution. If the increase concerns payment, it should be indicated at the stage of choosing the payment method. If delivery is made for a fee, it should be indicated when choosing a delivery method. The buyer can get information about additional payments with advanced product options extension.

Conclusion

These are the rudest and common usability mistakes. As you can see, they are quite simple and obvious. However, their presence can significantly reduce sales and spoil the reputation of the online store.

Solving such errors does not require huge investments and special technologies. You need to conduct internal testing, to understand the problems and start fixing them!

Digital Branding

How to Use Digital Marketing in 2020

Steven on April 2, 2020

Digital marketing is an industry where everything happens with lightning speed.

Every year new trends appear while others pass into history. There is hardly a company that does not invest in marketing activities today. Software development agencies, eCommerce and even your favorite coffee-house at the corner, all use different means to promote their businesses.

Today, it is important to build a whole digital marketing strategy to maximize performance and minimize expenses. Let’s jump right into juicy details and learn what it takes to build successful marketing activities in 2020.

What is Digital Marketing and Why Use It?

Digital marketing encompasses all marketing activities performed on the Internet. Today, it consists of a wide range of marketing efforts and includes content marketing, email marketing, social media marketing, paid to advertisements, etc.

Consumers spend a lot of time on the Internet surfing social media, looking up information and entertaining. In most cases, if you need to reach the target audience, the online world is the best place for that.

Digital marketing forms the basis of all marketing activities for a company. Embracing it, you will be able to stay competitive. Moreover, customers expect companies to invest in marketing so that they have the ability to interact with their favorite brands online.

Main Types of Digital Marketing

As was already mentioned, digital marketing consists of different activities that companies engage in to attract new clients and retain existing ones. Let’s take a look at the main types of digital marketing that can be applied in 2020.

Search Engine Optimization

You’ve probably heard a thing or two about SEO. During the process, you need to optimize the website and its content to make it rank higher in search engine results.

Search engine optimization includes both on-page (you perform directly on your website) and off-page activities (one that you perform outside your website but in relation to it). The first type of SEO usually includes working with keywords, meta tags, etc., while the second encompasses link building, guest posting, etc.

Content Marketing

Content marketing directly correlates with SEO. The main purpose of this marketing activity is to improve brand awareness with the help of content, including blog posts, ebooks, whitepapers, infographics, etc. For example, if your company provides software development services, you can write an article “How much does it cost to develop an app?” explaining to the readers of your blog how your company approaches app development.

Social Media Marketing

The promotion of brand and content through social media channels is a common practice both among big and small companies. Based on the type of business you are running, you might need to engage Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, etc. Content that your share on social media should be fun, interesting, and created with less formality. Often, companies show the behind-the-scenes life of their companies and people that back-up all their operations.

PPC

Pay-per-click ads are thriving and bringing great results for companies that utilize them wisely. Aside from the most famous Google Ads, almost every social media offers such services. You can set up paid campaigns on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and even on Quora.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is the type of marketing activity when you pay other people or companies for promoting your services and bringing new customers. It is based on providing your affiliate partners with links that direct users to your website. You either pay some percentage from the sales generate from a brought customer or operate on the per-customer-based basis.

Email Marketing

Even though some say that email marketing will be dead soon, today it brings no less significant results than it brought a few years ago. Companies use email marketing as a way to communicate with their audience, promote content, offer discounts, tell about holiday sales, invite to events, and much more.

Influencer Marketing

In 2020, the number of social media users worldwide has surpassed 3.8 billion. For some companies, including eCommerce, fashion, and lifestyle, there is no better way to reach a target audience.

While the creation of your own dedicated group of followers on Facebook or YouTube can take a lot of time, you can speed up the process of building brand awareness with influencer marketing.

Influencer marketing entails cooperation with influencers, people or organizations that are widely known for having an expert level of knowledge and social influence in some specific field. When choosing such influencers, it is important to pay attention to their target audience and whether it relates to your target audience and niche.

Digital Marketing in 2020: Final Thoughts

With thousands of companies offering the same services and products, the need to invest in marketing activities has never been so pressing. There is a saying that if a business is not online, no one will know about it.

Digital marketing is a complex approach to business promotion that requires the participation of a whole group of specialists. Still, for small and medium businesses, it is possible to select up to three types of activities and concentrate all the efforts on them and later move to others.

Author’s Bio

Ana Lastovetska is a technology writer at MLSDev, a custom software development company in Ukraine. She has been researching the field of technologies to create educative content of distinct topics including app development, UX/UI design, tech & business consulting, etc. The opportunity to deliver information for people who want to understand more about IT and app development processes is something that inspires Ana. You can get in touch with her on LinkedIn or reach her at ana.lastovetska@mlsdev.com.

Digital Branding

5 Do’s and Don’ts of Conversion Rate Optimization You Need to Understand

Steven on April 1, 2020

Conversion Rate Optimization is crucial for successful e-commerce. It is important that you convert visitors into customers otherwise e-commerce will not be able to earn a profit no matter how many visitors it gets. Whenever a visitor decides to come to your store, there is an opportunity to improve the conversion rate.

To enhance CRO e-commerce needs to observe customer behavior and offer a shopping experience that will help in earning their trust and loyalty. Learn from the actions of the customers and position your website in a way that customers are encouraged to make purchases.

Successful conversion rate optimization requires proper planning and strategizing. Here are a few important dos and don’ts regarding CRO.

Do’s

Technology has made its way into every aspect of our life. It is hard to imagine getting through the day without using your smartphone or laptop. To compete with other e-commerce businesses you must be aware of the latest technologies that you can use to improve conversion rate and improve sales. Digital marketing is continuously evolving and keeping up-to-date with all the emerging technologies. It is important to integrate the latest technology and you will be able to bring up the conversion rate.
To improve the conversion rate you need to be observant and vigilant. You also need to take a scientists’ approach and test strategies of the e-commerce site. By testing strategies, you will know if you are dedicating your resources and effort to the right strategy or not. You should also keep an eye on the competitors.
Measuring results is vital for CRO success. If you are not measuring results then you will not know if you are achieving your goals or not. Measuring results let you know about the effectiveness of the strategies you are using. You need to collect data and analyze it to get better results.
You must not let any sales opportunity pass by. There are going to be visitors that are ready to make a purchase and are on your e-commerce just to explore. You need to figure out a way to encourage customers to come back to your e-store and make a purchase. Make sure that you allow signing up for an email alert or newsletter so that you can keep them updated about what you have to offer. Easy signups are effective in bringing customers back to the online store and make some purchases.
Using exit-intent technology is a smart move as it offers a second chance to convert visitors just as they are about to leave the website. You need to offer a well-timed incentive that makes visitors curious and they are compelled to try out whatever you are offering.

Don’ts

Never make the mistake of thinking that you can never be wrong. To achieve success you need to focus on numbers as they are instead of as you want them to be.
It is not easy to find visitors for an e-commerce site because there is a lot of competition. If you are having trouble finding visitors then you should not just sit around and wait for visitors to come. Consider using paid advertisements as it will give you the boost you need.
Mistakes are a part of life and to run a successful e-commerce business you will need to take some risks. You need to realize that not all of your strategies are going to work. You should always plan for the best but prepare for the worst. Do not get discouraged if you make any mistakes because they offer a great learning experience. Mistakes let you know what strategies you need to avoid in the future.
Making drastic changes is not good for the conversion rate. It is the aim of every online store to quickly increase conversions but it is not something that is going to happen overnight. Conversion optimization takes planning and time as it is the science of making incremental changes and keep track of everything. Drastic changes do not pay off so it is better to add up changes and achieve the result you want.
Never forget the importance of business metrics. Metrics help in tracking the progress of a business and find ways to increase the conversion rate.

About the author

Usman Raza is the co-founder of a Church Marketing Company and marketing strategist working with various brands online. Usman is the content marketing manager at an Email Marketing Agency, WordPress Customization Service, and Nano Hearing Aids. He is devoted to helping small businesses bridge success gaps by providing in-depth, actionable advice on digital marketing, SEO, and small business growth. Follow him on Twitter @usmanintrotech.

Digital Branding

8 Essential SEO Tools for WordPress Bloggers

Steven on March 29, 2020

WordPress is one of the major, and without a doubt, one of the best content management systems in the world. The statistics on the official WordPress site says that people produce about 70 million new posts and 77 million new comments each month.

With numbers, this huge, standing out with content is quite difficult. However, by optimizing your blog posts for SEO (like adding WordPress testimonial plugin and similar optimizations – meta titles, description etc.), you can make Google notice your content and boost your search engine ranking. WordPress is just a tool and it won’t help you to get your brand awareness. But, WordPress makes it as simple as possible to optimize your website for SEO, even if you are a complete newbie.

“The best place to hide a dead body is page two of Google.” – WPcookhouse

In this guide, I have collected the best SEO tools for WordPress users that will crush famous SEO by Yoast! After reading this article, you will become an SEO expert in the most popular CMS in the modern world.

1. SEOpress

SEO by Yoast is a popular solution for on-page SEO when it comes to blog posts. However, there are tons of unnecessary features you never use. For example, do you need Yoast’s Readability analysis which tells you if your sentences are too long or too short? Or, do you need Text Link Counter when you can use Google Search Console and see what content is indexed in Google.

There are numerous alternatives to Yoast which helps you to control titles, meta descriptions, URLs, and snippets, such as SEOpress. It is a fast and straightforward tool that can also handle a Twitter card, redirections in a blog post, remove stop words and more. SEOpress also lets you set-up SEO-friendly permalinks which helps both Google and your readers identify the topic of your content.

2. WP Smush It

Images are usually an overlooked part of SEO strategy. By taking care of image titles and Alt tags, you can get extra traffic because people often use Image search engines to find something they are looking for.

Try to rename all your images depending on your blog post topic and keywords. For instance, if someone is looking for skin retouching tutorials, it’s evident that image with name skin-retouching-tutorial.jpg will get way more traffic than the image named IMG123.jpg.

Also, your page loading speed is important regarding SEO. As a rule, images have considerable size, and they slow down the loading speed. You need to reduce image size before uploading to WordPress, which can be quickly done with online tools like WP Smush It. The plugin optimizes and compresses images for free.

3. Google Analytics for WordPress

This powerful tool from Google allows you to track almost everything about your website traffic. And, it also shows you more in-depth information, such as top pages, keywords used to find your website, people’s behavior, and demographics, referral sources, social media performance, and much more.

You can use your Gmail account to sign in to Google Analytics. Go to “Acquisition” – “Search Console” – “Landing Pages”, this way you will see the pages of your site which get the most of clicks and impressions from Google. With over, 2M installs this plugin is really worth your attention.

4. All in One SEO Pack

All in One SEO Pack is similar to Yoast and SEOpress plugins. It automatically optimizes your title, generates meta tags, notifies search engines about any changes on your site. Besides, it has XTM sitemaps and Google Analytics support.

All in One SEO Pack is a perfect solution for beginners since it works out-of-the-box. All you have to do is just install and activate the plugin.

5. W3 Total Cache

Caching is a great thing that can help you increase your page speed and improve your SEO. The plugin claims at least 10 times improvement in whole website performance and many reviews prove that statement.

W3 Total Cache provides a lot of features, such as Page Cache, Minify, Database Cache, Object Cache, Browser Cache, CDN, Varnish, and Monitoring. You can turn on or off the major features of the plugin on the General settings page.

6. SECockpit

SECockpit is an advanced tool that will help you to find long-tail keywords with low competition. These types of keywords are the best for getting on the top of Google search results. It enables you to find more keyword ideas that are better than ones of your competitors.

You will get keyword suggestions like with any other similar tool, but it will also show you the best keywords for ‘buying’, keywords for AdSense, and low-traffic keywords. This service is premium, but you can give it a test drive for 30 days for free.

7. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is one of the best link analyzing tools out there. It has a vast index which means you can analyze almost any link on the web using the tool.

With a bunch of tools Ahrefs provides, such as Site Explorer, Keywords Explorer, Content Explorer, Rank Tracker and Alerts which allows you to track the most popular content, find gaps in content for other blogs, find keywords, set alerts for brand mentions, track position of different links, and find out the best content of your competitors.

8. Google Mobile-Friendly Test

Do you know that the number of smartphone users is going to grow up to 5 billion people in 2019? It means your website should be mobile-friendly in this smartphone-addicted world. Google Mobile-Friendly Test helps you to know if your website is mobile-friendly.

It’s dramatically important since a lot of people browse the web using their smartphones. Yes, I know, this list has a lot of tools from Google, but believe me, it’s not sponsored! (It’s a joke) But, no kidding, Google is a major, most popular search engine in the world these days.

Over to You

We hope this list of plugins will come in handy for you. Beside Yoast and any other plugin, super-useful content will eventually perform better because:

1) people share it on social media, for example, Instagram posts;

2) you optimized your snippets and titles;

3) you use the long-tail keyword with low competition.

And these WordPress plugins will help you with your WordPress SEO routine. What SEO tool for WordPress have I missed out? Share with us in the comment field below.

About the author

Nancy Young is a passionate writer with over 8 years of experience. She writes inspirational articles on web design and photography. Nancy Young love reading books, travel, and learn SEO. Nancy runs a blog for graphic designers OneDesBlog.

Digital Branding

The Best Website Development Methodologies for 2020

Steven on March 27, 2020

At this point, there are more than a billion websites available on the internet, and each one of them has a reason to exist. Some of them offer products/services, some cater to crucial problems, while some are there for fun and entertainment. In a situation like this, it is straightforward to say that every concept, effect, and design on the internet has been used up at someplace or the other.

That is why developers find it tricky to cook up something new to develop a website, and this development sometimes doesn’t come that easy- innovation is crucial. The fact that website development yearns for something new has to make web development companies here think about some new website development hacks of 2020.

Every year brings a plethora of changes in the world of codes and lines of data, and the best way to keep up with the change is to brew with it. Keeping that in mind, we are going to ponder over the best website development strategies and methodologies that surely will be up a developer’s sleeve this year. After all, a proper website isn’t the one that has every effect in the rulebook, but one that is built with good bits of creativity and newness.

Newest Trends for Website Development in 2020

Progressive Web Applications (PWA)

Progressive Web Applications, aka PWA, are websites that work in a very nifty way. They are websites that work like mobile applications, and they take the user experience to another level. With HTML5 at their leverage, PWA gets businesses the compatibility of a site along with a background as good as that of an application. Mobile apps are known for their flexibility, but not everyone is a fan of downloading them.

Progressive Web Apps save them from the hassle of downloading anything altogether. Some of the plus points that PWA technologies have are an application shell structure that reduces the loading time, transport layer security that has privacy and data integrity, and app manifest files that has a home screen access.

Robots, AI and Their Kind

These have been the buzzwords of 2020 among the digital world, and although artificial intelligence, machine learning, and robots are being massively used, they will continue to be an online venture’s obsession.

AI and machine learning are now being used for every business operation, then why not web development? It has been predicted that most business operations and interactions will be without human beings in 2020, and it will probably stay the same.

Now that AI can replicate man’s work and probably do it more efficiently; they have the concoctions to offer greater customer satisfaction. Not only that, but it saves time, money, and all the other things along with it. With reduced human errors and an increased customer base, a website development company won’t see a reason not to switch to a newer strategy of web development.

The Web Assembly Breakthrough

The biggest problem with massive lines of codes that goes with programs is that it compromises performance. Users always want even heaviest of apps and games on a website URL, but it wasn’t possible until now. There was a performance indicator that dragged applications and games to the native app profile. But as of now, that problem is solved with Web Assembly.

As web developers might be aware, Web Assembly is a nifty hack to compile the programming language code into byte-code, which can quickly run in the browser. Web Assembly is highly aspirational and harnesses hardware capabilities so that they are portable and efficient.

Also, the modular binaries are built in such a manner that it utilizes imports and exports in a particular way. Web Assembly is a great thing to use if web applications need a boost.

Reduce Load-time with Single Page Apps

What’s the simplest way to reduce the reloading requirements for web pages? Web apps that run on a single page. The websites are getting loaded, and there’s no extra waiting time needed to render web pages in the browser. Want to think of some of the best examples of single-page apps? Google is an avid user of this technology.

Conclusion

It is crucial to stay in trend in terms of the latest innovations, technology, and hacks concerning website development. You have a starting point to look at the latest trends in web development, now’s the time to pep up your website and give the world something new to witness. After all, real innovation lies in creativity that comes straight from the developer’s heart, soul, and code.

Digital Branding Personal Branding

Where Is Content Marketing Going in 2020?

Steven on March 26, 2020

In the field of internet, promoting your content is a race, and ‘content marketing’ is leading this race.

Yes, SEO has made gains in this race over the years, but content marketing is still at the forefront. In fact, other areas of marketing exist only because of content.

Everyone is fisting off content. Isn’t it? Think about it. What would you have optimized if there was no content for search engines to index?

Similarly, if there was no content, what would you post on social media? Nothing. If there was no content, then how would you communicate a message that resonates with an audience?

In content marketing, ‘you never know everything.’ New tactics and strategies emerge every day, and there are thousands of them. You ‘can’t use them all.’ You have to decide on useful trends and include them in their strategies.

In this blog, we will focus on the ‘most popular trends’ of content marketing and what direction it might be headed in 2020 and beyond.

1. Tell your story through visuals

Visual content has been trendy for a long time, and it will remain that way, because, honestly, we’d rather see images than reading. Internet users, especially the millennial generation and Generation Z, are always short on time. You must appeal to their imagination through your interactive content.

According to Pew Research, social platforms that feature visual content, like YouTube, Snapchat, and Instagram, reign supreme among adults. In fact, YouTube continues to be the most popular and widely used platform among U.S. adults. The video-sharing platform is used by 73 percent of adults, topping even Facebook.

Source

Additionally, a HubSpot survey revealed that 56 percent of users aged 25-34 years prefer video content from the businesses they support. The numbers are telling you that visual content is trendy, and more marketers will use it in 2020.

But wait, if everyone is using visual content, then how can you stand out in the flock? Simple answer: engage the readers with catchy visuals. Be ingenious and tell your story.

2. Purposeful content

When we look for something on the internet, we only want the content that gives us ‘the exact answer we need.’ In 2020, marketers will increasingly target queries to provide a purposeful answer for users.

They will come up with content tailored to the interests and desires of people. You have to find a balance between the information and the promotional message of the brand.

As the competition in the digital landscape gets fiercer, brands will find it harder to rank for popular keywords. If everyone is creating quality content, marketers will need to adopt ways to set their content apart from the lot.

To stand apart, your content must carry certain qualities. According to Growth Proton.com, effective content must adhere to three core values:

Efficiency
Accuracy
Excellence

Keep your content unique. Add some numbers in it. Keep the tone conversational. You do that, and you will have satisfied customers with answers to all their queries.

3. Memes

Add memes. We all like to chuckle. Don’t we? Memes have emerged as engaging marketing content. It can hit all the right spots in people’s minds. It has a personalized effect that is reflective of your brand’s personality.

Memes are so effective that they are can make you presidents of the U.S. According to Bloomberg, presidential candidates have a meme strategy to reach out to millennials and Generation Z.

Now you know how vital memes are?

The viral tendency of memes makes it a useful tool to increase your reach and widen the customer base. If I like a meme, I will share it. Right? There is your chance of free promotion.

4. Podcasts

Podcasts have been growing exponentially over the past few years. According to the UK’s Office of Communication, 1 in 8 people now listen to podcasts each week. This indicates an increase of 24 percent over 2018, and it will only grow from here.

Statista also reported that the number of podcast listeners in the U.S. has almost tripled within a decade. Podcast publishers now achieve millions of streams and downloads per month.

Increasing demand for audio content means that it is now essential for marketers to initiate a podcast and help their brand establish some credibility within their field of expertise.

5. Optimize content for voice search

The use of voice search is rising thanks to voice assistants like Siri, Google Assistant, and Alexa. If I can search with voice, why would I write?

According to Voicebot.ai, 33 percent of users searched through voice every month in 2019. In September 2018, the same number was 25 percent. Stats are telling you that people are talking more than they are writing.

Since Google voice search and AI-powered assistants work differently, content marketers need to optimize their content for voice search. Engage with the audience conversationally and create content based on those conversations. Such content will incorporate long-tail keywords and address voice queries of the audience.

6. Double down on your SEO efforts

Your content can be great, but you still have to tell it to people. It will only happen when you rise to the top of SERPs. Now, the focus is on SEO strategies and to deliver an excellent user experience.

This decade will also see more investments in tools that can automate and make SEO easier. Businesses will compete to show up in the featured snippets (also known as Position 0) to stand out from their competitors.

The sky is the limit here. You can achieve ‘top ranking in the search’ through an effective content marketing strategy that addresses the audiences’ needs.

Final words

The above content marketing trends will likely be on every marketer’s mind this year and the years to come. However, businesses don’t need to abandon the strategies that have worked for them in the past.

Utilize these trends and bring simple changes to improve their understanding of your audience and their needs. As they say, “Sometimes, the simple changes bring great success.”

Digital Branding

8 of the Best WordPress Automation Plugins for Advertising That You Need to Know

Steven on March 23, 2020

Gone are the days when you need to do everything manually in order for your business to run. Nowadays, you can simply install automation plugins on your WordPress website, and then let it do its magic.

Doing so allows you to free up some time that you can use for things that matter to make your business grow. Migrating from Shopify to WooCommerce has become a great automation process which can be easily done almost by everyone.

8 Best WordPress Automation Plugins

That said, we have listed down eight best WordPress automation Plugins that you need to know:

SEO on WordPress

1. Yoast SEO

Search engine optimization takes time before you can see the results. However, you can make it less cumbersome with the help of the Yoast SEO plugin.

What this WordPress plugin does is that it automatically runs your content to check for any SEO-related issues. This includes knowing whether you generously used your primary and secondary keywords.

It also runs a readability test on your content to ensure that you can provide top-quality content to your site visitors.

But more than anything else, Yoast SEO is known for making it easy for you to optimize every content on your website.

For one, it allows you to easily add keyword-rich title tags and meta descriptions. Second, this plugin comes with a snippet preview, which lets you show how your title tags and meta descriptions will look on search engine results.

2. Social Warfare

Although Google would not admit it, it appears that there is a positive correlation between social signals and search engine ranking. Hence, you will need a social sharing plugin such as Social Warfare to help you generate all the social signals that you can get.

Here’s the thing: If you want to drive tons of traffic to your website, you will need to employ social media marketing. And this is where Social Warfare could come in handy.

It features customizable and mobile-responsive social sharing buttons that are both beautiful and fast. It allows you to connect most of the popular social networks on your website, and then you can choose where you would like the social buttons to appear.

But what makes this WordPress plugin popular with the best Facebook advertising agency is the fact that it does not slow down your website.

3. AdSanity

This is a beginner-friendly ad management plugin that lets you insert ads anywhere on your website. You can do this using AdSanity’s widgets and ad inserter button.

In addition, this plugin allows you to keep tabs on your ads’ views and click-throughs. That way, you would know how to optimize your campaigns.

The basic plan costs $49 per year that comes with a license each for a public domain and local domain.

As long as your website runs on WordPress 3.9 or later, MySQL 5, and PHP 5.6, you can make AdSanity run on your site.

Wordpress plugins

4. Ad Inserter

If you are looking for a solid and well-developed advertising plugin for WordPress, you might want to know what Ad Inserter can do for you.

It allows you to add an ad or a line of programming code on your WordPress website. This means you can use this plugin for different kinds of ads, from AdSense to Affiliate ads.

But what’s great about Ad Inserter is that it lets you insert ads at any point on your post without writing a single line of code. You can also exclude a page in case you do not want it to have any ads.

5. Advanced Ads

Meanwhile, if you are looking for something lightweight, you might want to give Advanced Ads a spin.

This plugin does not only let you manage your ads, but it also allows you to optimize it. That way, you can get the most out of your campaign and get as much ROI as you can.

Advanced Ads come with ad rotation, ad injection, and ad widgets support, plus the following features:

Manage and display unlimited ads
Duplicate and schedule ads
Set expiry times on ads
Inject ads from any ad network
Get Google AMP support
Inject ads anywhere on your content

6. Ads Pro Plugin

Available in Codecanyon as a premium plugin, Ads Pro Plugin lets you manage, sell, and display advertising space on your WordPress website. It is like BuySellAds, but without the third-party.

This WordPress plugin also comes with a template and grid system. That way, you can see matched and user-friendly ads on your site. You can also run targeted display ads based on location, schedule your ads, and you can choose on which device your ads will appear.

The best part? It is 100% free from Adblocker!

Meaning, you have more than 20 ways to display your banners ‒ including Google AdSense.

Wordpress user in action

7. Quick Adsense

Quick Adsense is a well-known free WordPress plugin you can use for ad management. And it is not just limited to Google Ad Network. You can use the plugin to display hosted ads and third-party ads as well.

The cool thing about this ad management plugin is that it is easy to set up, and its settings page allows you to manage ad codes and choose how and where you want to display your ads. Mind you, you can display your ads on the sidebar using the custom ad widgets.

Here’s a caveat, though: Quick Adsense does not come with advanced features. And you can only save 10 ad codes at most.

8. DoubleClick by Google

Powered by Google, as the name implies, DoubleClick is a web-based ad selling and serving platform. It gives publishers an edge when it comes to reliability and cost-effectiveness.

But what makes DoubleClick great is that you can run a competition for the same ad spots, be it on Adsense or on third-party ad networks. And then the ad management platform will automatically select which is the best-paying ad for the spot.

It also comes with a reporting tool, which allows you to measure how your ads are performing. That way, you have an insight into the effectiveness of your campaigns. The only issue with DoubleClick is that it can get a bit complicated to setup.

Do you know other WordPress plugins that can help a website owner to run display ads effectively? We’d like to know it in the comments!

Digital Branding

SEO for Recruitment

Steven on March 18, 2020

So recently I came across a post on Reddit and that’s what led me to write this blog.

But first, what is Recruitment SEO?

Those to know what it is, please skip this part.

SEO is a concept which generally talks about optimizing your website so that your website can be found by the right type of audience. In your case, it might be people who are looking for jobs, but to be specific you would likely want to target people who are looking for a specific type of job, the one you are willing to advertise. Or the one which is vacant and you don’t feel like spending money on. That’s SEO in a nutshell.

Moving on, now what you know what Recruitment SEO, you should also know what SEO is, a lot of people relate SEO to Google, which is not. SEO is Search Engine Optimisation. SEO is generally performed on search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo and etc. You need to choose in which Search Engine you’re interested in. For this blog, we are going to proceed with Google.

For this article, I assume you already have a website, if not, you can proceed to read these two articles:

How to create a Recruitment Website?
How to host a jobs page on my Website?

Moving on, SEO is full of myths, you have to try and literally experiment each and everything because how SEO really works in only known to those Google Engineers who are working on Google Search Engine, others are simply guessing.

1. Fix Performance Issues

The very first thing you should do is to check how good your website is performing:

Just to GTMetrix & enter your website name there and press go. You’ll get a report, which is something like this:

If it’s not A, don’t worry. You can read a few basic things over here:

Simply reading these will help you figure out what needs to be done. Google loves fast websites, and this will ensure you’ve got a snappy website.

2. Fix your title and description

Next is working on your meta titles and meta descriptions, you need to need to have these for your website, this is what Google reads and your website visitors as well. You can edit this part by looking into your website code. Make sure to keep Meta title under 60 characters and meta description under 160 characters. The best idea to create appealing meta title and meta description is to use keywords in the description and also in the meta title. Keywords are those words that your audience might find useful. For example: If you have vacancies for an iOS Developer, you can add “iOS Developer” in your meta title and meta description.

3. Verify your website on Google Search Console

This will help you understand your website visitors. GSC helps you to collect valuable keyword data which can be used to understand what people are using to reach your website. Click on this link and then click on add property to add your website https://search.google.com. It’s simple as compared to its benefits.

4. Make sure you have these files are on your website

Robots.txt and Sitemap.

You need to have these two files in your website directory. To wrap it up in short, robots file will get Google to know whether to scan your website or not and a sitemap will let Google know how to read your website.

5. Get Backlinks

The secret ingredient is backlinks. A backlink is a link coming from other websites to your website. You can’t simply create a good looking website and hope for candidates to flow in. Get backlinks, but how?

Create content and exchange your content among other blogs. Ask your friends to link your website when you give them a piece of content. The more, the better. Do the above and you’ll notice a significant change in your candidate flow.

About the Author

Sagar works at Recruit CRM (Recruitment Agency Software) as a Product Marketing Manager. He looks after its Digital Marketing Activities all day long.

Digital Branding

5 Best Twitter Marketing Tips for Your Startup

Steven on March 10, 2020

Twitter does not just claim one of the top spots as a Social Media Platform, it is also one of the best platforms used by the business for promotions.

While it is being already used by most businesses for promotions, there is no doubt that new and growing businesses can make use of it for more business and increased reach among the masses.

Twitter can play a crucial role in scoring new clients and business for many start-ups that keep popping up almost every day. Several innovative startups begin with great motives and ideas that could really make a difference; however, because of the lack of proper marketing, many of them fail to gain recognition.

Here in this piece, we take a look at the top Twitter Marketing Tips for Startups that can help you make your business flourish, starting right from scratch.

1. Use Right Hashtags: In order to make tweets, you need to find out the hashtags around which you will be creating content. The top priorities should be tweeting with trending hashtags that belong to your industry. This needs constant monitoring of trending hashtags and being creative in order to find a connection between the hashtags and your business. You can also go to the extent of using hashtags that do not belong to your field yet is a hot trending topic.

One more thing that you need to take care of is to make sure not to use more than 2 hashtags in a single tweet. Tweets with 2 or fewer hashtags get more than 20% engagement than the tweets with 3 or more hashtags. You can always make new tweets with fresh content with the other hashtags that you wished to use.

2. Create Engaging Content: We all know Content is the King, and the same applies to Twitter as well. A successful Twitter Marketing Strategy always prioritizes short, crisp, informative, and engaging content. Try to create content that revolves around your brand and the products/services you offer.

The maximum text limit of a tweet is 140 characters; however, it is always recommended to accommodate your content within 100-110 characters. Tweets falling in this category get higher engagement.

Also, try to include photos, videos, and links in your tweets for more engagement. You can even build a tweet around an image or video. You can use multimedia to provide more information to the audience than a tweet allows.

3. Build a Great Profile: Your startup’s profile plays an important role in getting new followers and building trust around your brand.

A great profile has an attractive profile picture, a cover picture with additional information about your startup, a crisp and straight forward bio, your website, and other useful information. You can even add your startup’s location on your profile.

You can also use your profile to pin an important tweet to the top which you would wish the visitors see.

A great profile always helps to build rapport among visitors and pushes them to follow your profile.

4. Engage with Audience and Influencers: Twitter is an engagement-driven community. The more you engage with people, the more you will be noticed. You can mention users in your tweets, reply to their tweets, and even retweet their content for engagement. With more engagement, you will be visible to more Twitter users from different user communities.

Along with your followers and other users, it is also important for you to engage with influencers in your field. These influencers may have many followers interested in your startup and you can gain new followings by regularly being visible with great content.

5. Use Twitter Analytics: Twitter Analytics is a very important tool that can help a startup with more followers and building your business. Analytics will provide engagement information for every tweet made by you. By using Twitter Analytics you will get information regarding which sort of tweet gets more engagement. This way, you can plan and create a Twitter Marketing Strategy with the kind of tweets that will get you more engagement.

Startups can really make use of Twitter to grow their business multiple folds. You can even go for paid promotions on Twitter to get more engagement. I hope these Twitter Marketing tips for startups were helpful. Feel free to contact us in case of any doubt.