Category: Digital Branding

Visual Marketing: The Most Compelling Conversion Tool

Steven on February 18, 2020

Content marketing is an unusually compelling marketing tool for modern trades. However, a piece of written content that lacks visual appeal can be highly disengaging for your readers. So, what do you need to include in your content marketing strategy?

Evidently, you should include visuals to your content for increased audience engagement.

However, there are varying opinions on the type of visuals that one can pair with the written pieces of, often bland, content.

In this piece, you shall come across some of the most effective visual strategies, including which can enhance the overall returns on your investment.

But, before we get to the types of visuals that you can use, it is vital to learn a bit more about visual marketing.

Why Visual Marketing?

“Visual memories are the strongest memories!”

Various statistical data shed light on why visual content is more effective in improving the conversion rate. Some of them include:

The human brain can process ‘visuals’ 60,000 times faster than text-based content. This is because visuals can make the user feel like they are communicating with the author face to face.
Out of the total information that human brain processes throughout a day, 90% of them are visuals.
Although only humans can communicate verbally, still most of the communications are bland in the absence of tone. Visuals, on the other hand, are amazingly efficient in communicating a piece of information without using tone.

These facts might not make sense to you. But, if you consider the conventional marketing tactics, you can acknowledge the effectiveness of visuals in converting sales.

For instance, TV commercials are still the most effective tool when it comes to earning loyalty for brands. Simply because these short visuals can appeal to the viewers emotionally, as explained by https://c-istudios.com/video-film-production-services/, professional filmmakers. There’s no surprise to it that visual content is spreading across other platforms including Facebook, TikTok, and Youtube that have promising returns on investment, especially in the modern marketing mix.

By now, you might have decided to include visuals into your content marketing. But, knowing what type of visuals you can include can simplify the efforts for you. Thus, bringing in better returns for your investment.

The 6 Types Of Visuals That You Can Tap Into

Choosing the right type of visual can affect the overall effectiveness of your content on your audience. It all depends upon your target audience, their interests, and their expertise with the language. However, you should create your content that can easily tap into, at least, 80% of your audience.

Here are the types you are looking for.

1. Images are the easiest visuals

Some marketers opine that content with images receives 94% more views as compared to the one that lacks visual appeal. The key here is to break your content into short parts and fill the gaps with high-quality images.

More importantly, you’ll need to keep the images as relevant to the part as possible. Since a majority of online user taps into information using small screens (the mobile devices), the time a user pays heed to content is shorter than ever. Therefore, putting up long blocks of content can buzz off your actual reader that can potentially be converted into sales.

So, if your target audience is precisely mobile users, including images into your content can be highly fulfilling. Since these are the easiest form of visuals that you can tap into, you may not even require any expert mediation.

2. Videos can promote face-to-face interaction

If you intend to offer your audience with solutions to any problems that relate to your products, videos can come handy. For instance, you can search Youtube for common issues associated with your motorbike. And surprisingly, the solutions offered in these videos really work.

Usually, such videos are put up by individual bloggers and influencers. Imagine if you can tap into such schemes and offer your patrons with solutions to some common troubleshooting and that too under your brand name. Your brand is sure to earn the trust of your customers.

Moreover, such tactics can also help penetrate new markets. Since online users prefer content that can connect with them emotionally, and offer solutions to their problems, tapping into video content can improve returns for your marketing efforts, exponentially.

3. Infographics can help with minimalistic content

Although several marketers suggest creating highly informative content, and that too over 1000 words, often it can be difficult to curate such a lengthy piece of content. Mainly because of the shortage of information available in the relevant context.

In case, you are also struggling with the same problems, you can tap into infographics. These are incredibly effective in communicating maximum information without using many words. But, there’s a catch. It requires a lot of expertise and creativity to develop such images that can convey the information precisely, in the shortest forms.

However, once you are habitual to the basics of infographics, and the practices involved, you may steer through, effortlessly. As the name suggests, these visuals easily provide information through graphic illustrations. Thus, it is most suitable for the type of audience where time is of the essence. Short and precise information delivered in a minimalistic form.

4. Memes are great for entertaining your audience

Particularly, if you are leveraging your audience over social media channels such as Facebook and Instagram, the entertainment aspect of your content is of prime importance. Since most of the social media users tap into the channels for getting rid of routine monotony, if your content is traditionally promotional, you can expect your audience to ignore your content.

This is where creating memes can be highly beneficial. Several leading bloggers and web marketers suggest that memes receive more impressions on social media as compared to any other form of content.

Therefore, if your audience is preferably engaging with entertaining content, you should include memes into your marketing plan.

5. Presentations for communicating Intricate Info

It is needless to say, statistical charts are highly effective in giving elaborate information in a short and easy-to-understand manner. However, such intricate information is usually sought by users that belong to a highly skilled and expert niche.

For instance, if your business is a supplier to retailers, then you should cater to your audience with highly accurate data. Especially, the kind of data that provides them insight into the modern trends of your trade.

This is where presentations can come handy. Ideally, your presentations should include bar charts, pie charts, and graphs with statistics related to your trade.

6. Screenshots to simplify the process

In case, you are planning to provide your audience with a step-by-step guide, you may need to explain the process in as much detail as possible. But, no matter how much detailed content you put up, it may still fail to provide the users with a clear idea of the process.

Including screenshots can simplify your content. The key is to break your content in simple steps and provide with as many screenshots as you possibly can retrieve. This would not just help your user understand the content, but also simplify the follow-up for them.

For instance, if you are creating a blog post to help your audience troubleshoot a software, you should include the steps, explaining where to click and after what steps, in chronological order.

In the end, it all boils down to the audience that you are trying to target. No matter, how detailed verbal content you put up before your audience, unless it intrigues their interest, they are very likely to bounce back from your content. So inevitably, including visual content to your marketing strategies is only beneficial for the effectiveness of your plan.

Digital Branding Legal Branding Local Branding

Self-Driving Cars – The Future of Transportation?

Steven on February 17, 2020

Self-driving car technology has been a dominant point of discussion with regard to the future of transportation in the world. The imagination of a driver-less automobile in the streets, and buses available for efficient transport devoid of human error becomes inevitable. The most highlighted points touch on both the safety, and the intelligence of the new technology, but rarely on accessibility.

In truth, to the old and the disabled, transportation can be a real challenge as it offers near zero independence, and generally lowers the quality of life. The inability to drive or the fear of the same is limiting, as access to food and medication becomes a nightmare. That results in social isolation, and eventually, mental health effects. With the US government buying cars for citizens, and with the self-driving technology highly mooted, we could see changes in the near future.

But if indeed the dream of self-driving cars becomes a reality, what could be the immediate benefits to the general population?

Greater sense of independence and ultimate freedom

The most exciting aspect of this technology is that it is bound to bring a greater sense of freedom and independence to the masses. Where the old and the disabled have had to rely on family members and caregivers to access some basic facilities, the autonomous car technology will solve that once and for all.

The ability of the self-operating automobiles to accelerate, brake, turn, and perform basically all other functions without human direction makes them ideal for individuals who are not able to operate a car.

However, the main challenge, and probably the only foreseeable one, lies in accessibility, where accessibility in this scenario means a number of things, including;

Providing self-driving services to the elderly and disabled persons who may be operating on limited budgets.
Providing for passengers who are confined to using mobility aids to get around, or persons who travel with medical devices.
Taking the autonomous technology to persons in rural locales that may be poorly served in terms of infrastructural development.

The plight of the disabled and the elderly needs redress

The population of the disabled and the aging is growing rapidly, with the numbers expected to grow significantly in the next few years. With lifestyle-related diseases also on the rise, more people will be in dire need of the above-mentioned services. For the growing population to find any benefits from the autonomous vehicle technology, issues that directly affect them ought to be considered.

The potential in the emerging technology cannot be disputed, but there is a need for proper planning. Research and the input of stakeholders in the industry is paramount in the efforts to make the dreams of millions of people a reality.

Conclusion

The self-driving vehicle technology is a universally acceptable move, and the concerns over the challenges it is likely to face going forward should be utilized as the basis for new developments in the technology that is currently in its infant stages. These issues raised will form a strong basis for research, and there is some widespread optimism that a solution will be found, eventually.

Digital Branding

The New GeoIP Extension Taking Over The Expanding Businesses

Steven on February 15, 2020

Introduction

Ecommerce businesses have been on a successful trend over the past few years. People have started considering them as the ideal option for their shopping purposes. This has been very helpful for the businesses as a whole. While there are amazing benefits to business with increased customer interaction, there are some increased responsibilities too. To be able to cater their customers, businesses often have to expand their courses of operations to different countries. This can be a tricky experience.

Why is expansion difficult for businesses?

Although some people might disagree but expanding to other countries is seen as one of the most critical steps in the business survival. Yes, it is a definite requirement when the customers demand, but it has its downsides too. There are a lot of things that a business has to consider while they are at it.

They need to keep track of the language the clients are willing to communicate in. Furthermore, the time difference also plays a huge role in maintain contact with the customers. The currency factor also comes in to play as the business will need to keep a track of the latest rates at which the currencies are exchanged. So how can the business tackle such scenarios arising?

The new Magento extension

The increasing problems in no way mean that the business should stop considering the idea of expansion. Instead, the business must look for solutions to these issues. The new Magento 2 GeoIP extension helps the admin to assure that they keep their customers satisfied at all times. This new tool will help in redirecting customers in accordance to their preference. It will maintain the switching of currency, language as well as the time as per the customer’s requirements. This will ensure that the business can expand the business with ease.

Functions of the GeoIP extension

The best part about this new GeoIP extension is that it will automatically detect the customer’s location. This way the business does not need to worry about these small issues. Instead they can focus on other matters of strategic importance. The clients will be redirected to the preferred IPs in order to ensure that they receive the best customer experience.

The tool also helps in mentioning the prices in the currency that the client uses. Before going ahead with any given function, the new extension will give a pop up window for the client to consider. The language change will also be done automatically making sure that the customers do not have to go through the hassle of translating. The tool also helps in restricting the noisy customers away from the website. This automatically makes sure that there are no free riders.

Advantage of GeoIP extension

As we have discussed the function of the extension above, it is a real asset for the business if they use it efficiently. This can help them in having the ideal customer service that will increase their customer loyalty overall. The customers will also feel that they are being respected and given attention. The ignorance of social barriers is a real plus for the business and it will help them in making their mark in the market.

Digital Branding

SEO & Branding: How To Increase Branded Traffic

Steven on February 14, 2020

Shoes. Cosmetics. Beverages. The chances are a few brands came to your mind instantaneously as you read the categories. Whether it be Nike, Chanel, or Pepsi, there are certain brands that have managed to become synonymous with their categories. That is the power of branding.

According to research conducted by Marketing Profs in 2015, over 77 percent of marketers believe that creating a strong brand is essential for the growth of a company. Furthermore, according to Forbes, consistent branding efforts help raise the revenue of a business by a whopping 23 percent!

One thing is for sure- branding is a must for the success of your business. While generally, marketers tend to focus on the benefits of brand awareness and recognition in revenue generation, there is another critical benefit branding provides. It helps in boosting your online presence!

What is SEO, and why it matters?

Before we delve into how branding can help SEO and vice versa, it is vital to understand why SEO matters to begin with.

Well, it is because in today’s online world, getting your target audience to visit your website is not easy. A few statistics will help you in gaining a perspective.

• According to Internet Live Stats, over 75000 searches are done on Google per second

• Advanced Web Ranking found out that over 67 percent of clicks go to the first five organic search results

• Ahref’s study discovered that over 91 percent of content online does not get the organic reach it needs

SEO helps in gaining a high organic search engine ranking. It uses various techniques and methods to boost your ranking and thereby increase the chances of people visiting your website. Remember, only when people visit your site then only you can actually leave an impact on them and convert them into customers.

How does branding help?

Considering Google is quite vague about its ranking algorithm, it is hard to achieve success in SEO if you focus on short term goals like achieving a high rank.

SEO without a purpose won’t help you in gaining a high ranking. This is only so much you can gain by creating backlinks and including high ranking keywords in your content. You must also take steps to build an authentic and trustworthy online brand.

According to different studies and SEO service experts, Google, along with other search engines, tends to encourage websites that feature a strong brand presence. Such sites can get a better ranking despite having fewer backlinks!

This is why branding and SEO must go hand in hand. Creating an SEO branding strategy can help you genuinely leverage the online world.

How to increase branded traffic

Here is how you can combine SEO tactics with branding efforts to reap optimum conversion rates and brand awareness.

1. Identify and use branded keywords

Apart from high ranking generic keywords pertaining to your category, you must also find and include branded keywords in your online presence.

What is a branded keyword?

A branded search is a query that includes the name of your brand. By adding these keywords into your content, you target users who are already aware of your brand, thanks to your branding efforts. These users have a higher chance of purchasing from your business than other people.

The more branded searches are done regarding your business, the higher you will rank organically. Now, there are different variations of the branded keyword that you must cater to. Some users might be looking for reviews about your brand, while others would be comparing your business with other similar options.

Make sure your content is optimized for all such branded searches. This ensures that users get information about your brand from you.

2. Use local SEO

Did you know that over 46 percent of search queries on Google use local keywords? Any user with a high commercial intent will then go to Google to find whether your brand is near them or not. If you are a local brand, it is essential to leverage this consumer behavior by implementing local SEO.

Focus on geo-targeting. Optimize all local business listings present on Google to ensure that you can drive traffic to your site from Google directories and Maps. Conduct link building with a special focus on getting links from other websites that are present within your local area.

Each of these tactics will allow you to optimize your website for local SEO. If you are a known brand locally, you will automatically be able to reach users that are already convinced of your branding efforts.

3. Build your authority

A great way to increase branded traffic to your business is by focusing on building an online brand. A lot of times, marketers tend to focus on abstract branding methods. This includes creating a logo, a tagline, and positioning. While these methods are critical to the success of a brand, branding merely begins with such techniques.

The next step is to build a robust and credible image online. As you do so, your ranking will automatically improve. You can use optimized content to build your brand and its authority.

It is essential to publish content that would matter to your target audience and the industry. This helps in reinstating your position in the sector as being an expert and trustworthy brand. It also helps in boosting your brand awareness and reaching a wider audience than before.

So, when it comes to publishing content, look beyond your website. Contribute to the online world by demonstrating your expertise via Guest posts on authority websites. The better the sites are, the more credible you will seem.

Not to mention that this is an excellent way to leverage the credibility and following of other established websites to boost your brand’s ranking!

Verdict

The objective of increasing branded traffic is simple- ensuring that your online and offline branding efforts don’t go in vain. By appearing in a top position for the right branded keywords and by establishing your image as a credible source of information, you can help increase the right traffic to your website.

Now that you are aware of the connection between SEO and branding, you are more than ready to outstrip your competition and emerge as the best brand within your category, both online and offline!

Do you think there are other ways you can boost branded traffic to your site? Let us know.

Author Bio:

About Ashley Rosa: Ashley Rosa is a freelance writer and blogger. As writing is her passion that why she loves to write articles related to the latest trends in technology and sometimes on health-tech as well. She is crazy about chocolates. You can find her at twitter: @ashrosa2.

Digital Branding

SEO Trends You Should Watch Out For in 2020

Steven on February 12, 2020

With the end of the decade, Google had introduced a completely new algorithm, which started certain trends for the coming year. Keeping an eye on these trends will help any and every website owner to improve the ranking and stay ahead of their competition, without observing any drop in ranking. 2019 saw important changes like mobile-first optimization because most of the internet users started using mobile devices along with Google Assistant, Siri, and Alexa. Few trends will remain important this year while some others might not be as significant. Let us consider the ones that are listed below.

Voice search

With the rise of virtual assistants, voice search has also started rising. This is going to be one of the biggest trends of 2020 and this is also going to affect search engine optimization greatly. You might be asking how, and here are the answers.

Voice search is different from the text and they are extremely conversational. Apart from that, search queries are longer, which means that the websites are targeting long-tail keywords.
When voice searches are being targeted, keywords have to be replaced with phrases, which make the work easier for Google. Users will also be able to find whatever they want easily.

Local search

According to https://www.inc.com, if you are not using due diligence for local SEO, you will start losing out in front of competitors. According to several studies, 9 out of every 10 searches are normally for products and services that are present nearby. 50% of the searches are going to result in actions to visit physical locations or place an order. This is not going to die in 2020. Rather, it is going to become even more popular.

The success of a local search is possible because of using mobile devices, which will help you to easily locate a coffee shop that is present near you.
Local search is also drawn by reviews, which are associated with products and places. You will be able to view recommendations from the reviewers before you are going to any business.

To get more information on this, call the professionals of New York SEO organizations.

Search intent and keyword content

Google released an important algorithm in the previous decade, which provided more priority to search intent. This is going to become one of the biggest trends this year because SEO experts are constantly discovering new ways of optimizing keyword context and search intent.

For several websites, it is visible that searchers are searching for at least three kinds of results.
When content is being created, the three categories are going to determine the structuring of the content and how they are going to be used. Search intent is going to carve out important trends in the manner in which the keywords will be used.

Structured data

This is going to be one of the most popular SEO trends of 2020.

It is no more a secret that Google loves structured data and any website owner would like to gain that position. Structured data include snippets and frequently asked questions.

Conclusion

It is important to understand all the SEO trends of 2020. This is going to help businesses to outrank their competitors and gain success without struggles.

Digital Branding

SEO For Beginners: An Eye Opener How-To Guide

Steven on February 6, 2020

This is the most straightforward SEO guide that you shall come across on the internet. With tons of jargon being published every day on the internet, it can be a bit misleading to follow them. Well, this step-by-step SEO guidebook for beginners is simple and gives you all the necessary tips to improve your site’s ranking on Google.

So, without any further ado, let’s list down the steps right away.

Step1. Make Sure Your Website Is Google Accessible

For users to be able to see your website, you need Google to see your website first. Google uses crawlers, or as they are commonly known as ‘bots’ for finding new content on the internet. Once, the crawlers access any piece of content, it is indexed in Google’s database.

If Google has trouble viewing your content, then it is pretty obvious that your content will lag in the rankings on SERPs. So, you need to make sure that your website is free from crawling errors. You can simply search your website domain using “site:example.com” as a search term in the Google search box. This would result in all the pages that are indexed with Google. So, if there’s any page missing in Google’s database, you can manually submit it for indexing, using Google Search Console.

Step2. Opt For Keyword Optimization Of On-Page Content

Further to improve the visibility of your site, you need to rank for more keywords. Not just the ones that have high traffic volume but also the easy ones. You can use Google’s suggestions for optimizing your content for LSI keywords that users are searching for.

To begin with, you can type the most relevant keyword that you can think of but do not press “enter” or the “search” button. Look for the suggestions that Google puts forth. For example, type the term “marketing tools” and look for what Google suggests. These search terms are surely being searched by the users, as they are being suggested by Google. Since keyword stuffing is no longer beneficial, you’ll need to include different versions of the same keyword. And in addition to it, you can include contextual words that are commonly used with your primary target keyword. This is where Google’s suggestions come in handy.

Step3. Make Sure Your Website Is Mobile-Friendly

A couple of years ago, Google updated its core algorithm with “mobile-first indexing.” Since the majority of Google’s users are using mobile devices, if your website isn’t optimized for mobile use, it might not rank as well in search results.

Fortunately, you can easily find out if your website is mobile optimized using Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool. All you need to do is feed the page you wish to check mobile-friendliness for, and you can easily get an answer in yes or no. If yes, then you are in luck, or else you may need to put in some efforts with your website designing team to get it fixed.

Step4. Optimize Your Site For Quick Loading Response

Online users don’t like to wait anymore. This is mainly because of the improved data speeds and user experience that websites and internet service providers tend to focus on. Usually, users bounce back from a page that takes more than 2-3 seconds to load.

An increased bounce rate can affect the overall ranking of your website in SERPs. Sarah Kirksey from WPFarm.com says that one way to decrease site loading time is to optimize any images on your website. Alternatively, you can also switch to a dedicated hosting/server package or Virtual Private Server that gives you more freedom, along with securing your data. Shared hosting can put your data at risk and also increases the loading time, mainly because of the high traffic on the server. Implementing a dedicated server can significantly improve your website’s performance.

Step5. Cross Check Any Crawl Errors & Broken Links

Since search engines, including Google, uses crawlers to access your website. The bots keep on crawling through content and links to update new content, from time to time. Likewise, you also need to keep a check if your website is experiencing any crawl errors.

In addition to checking for any crawl errors, you also need to look for any broken links that your website may have. Google and other leading search engines make note of the backlinks that a site has to rank it in results for relevant search terms. A broken or a bad link can do more harm than a good link can bring in benefits for your site. For this reason, you should continuously keep a check on the link health of your website.

Step6. Seek Collaborative Opportunities With Bloggers

Apart from checking for broken links, your site also needs new links. Since these backlinks are a measure of the authority that your website holds on the internet, new and relevant links become all the more important for SEO.

For this purpose, you can seek collaborations from influential bloggers. These bloggers can help secure contextual links for your website, along with spreading the awareness for your brand. Soon you can realize a jump in your website rankings. All you need to make sure of is to maintain niche relevancy and publish content that your audience finds useful.

Step7. Give Your Site Some Final Touch Ups

Once you are done with all the basic setup that your website needs, you can give some final touch-ups. You can optimize the URL of your landing pages to suit the title. Essentially, you need to keep them short and include keywords as well.

Furthermore, you can optimize your snippets and schema markups with the keywords that you haven’t used in your content but are relevant to the content on the page. You can also, try shifting to HTTPS to offer improved data security to your users. And Google surely loves secure websites. There are many technical elements that you can optimize. Once you start receiving traffic for your relevant keywords, you can put your efforts in that direction. But, let’s leave it for some other time.

For now, all you need to focus on is improving your website’s visibility. It is only after you start gaining sustainable traffic on your website, that you should, move further. But, keep in mind, SEO is not an overnight magic trick. It requires a lot of effort, and that too consistently.

Digital Branding

Watch Out! Signs You May Need to Change Your Managed Service Provider

Steven on February 6, 2020

Businesses that work with Managed Service Providers (MSPs) do experience a large number of benefits ranging from increased flexibility to decreased costs to higher security to predictable scalability. Outsourcing IT systems management to MSPs allows companies to focus on their primary projects and not worry about downtimes or other technological issues.

However, all MSPs aren’t great. If you have some concerns about your IT partner or not sure about where your business is going concerning technological changes, it may be time for a new service provider. Similarly, you may already be working with an IT firm unlike other managed service providers that aren’t perfect, and these signs will ensure that you’re on the right track!

The following are the signs that will tell you whether or not you should transition to another IT partner.

No Dedicated POC

If you’re the person that has to report every technical issue to your managed service provider, you’re in business with an unreliable company. Furthermore, if you don’t have a dedicated point-of-contact and are shuffled around from person-to-person, it may be time to start looking for another IT partner. To help you with this situation, we recommend that you find an MSP that offers a 24*7 help desk as well as a dedicated account manager to handle all your issues and queries. Moreover, if ever there is a technical issue, you should be informed about it via the MSP and not vice versa.

Growing Number of Tech Requests

An increase in the number of pending service requests can be a cause of alarm! If your managed service provider isn’t responding to your tech requests promptly, you may need to find another IT partner. A good MSP will respond to service tickets, promptly, and ensure that the number of requests decreases with time. The provider will try to eliminate recurring problems as a first step.

No Fixed Budget

The best part about hiring an MSP is the upfront cost of the services. Unlike building an in-house team and spending money on technological resources, a service provider offers a plan with features that best suit your business. To put this in perspective, an IT firm unlike other managed service providers will ensure that you always have predictable costs, so you can feel confident about your budget along with your IT systems. If you have been facing unanticipated bills from your provider and are exceeding your budget every month, you may need to start looking at another MSP.

Unsatisfactory Security Measures

Most MSPs ensure that your systems aren’t at risk of threats. However, if your current MSP hasn’t conducted a vulnerability assessment in a while, you may need to start looking for alternate options. MSPs should be able to recognize gaps, design a strategy, and best defend your systems from a cyber-attack. To keep your data secure, you need to hire an MSP that conducts regular assessments to identify prospective attacks or outages. It’s a great idea to look for a provider that has a comprehensive plan covering cybersecurity and risk management.

No IT Strategy for Business Growth

If your MSP doesn’t invest in cutting-edge technology to provide you with enhanced services, you may need to start looking out. Your IT provider should provide you with the support and bandwidth that matches your current business while anticipating growth. Unless the approach of the service provider is proactive, they may be doing more harm to you than good. A good MSP will stay up-to-date with technological advancements and provide you with tech-savvy solutions to solve your business problems.

Unable to Scale

To continue growing your business, you need an MSP that can help you scale up. If your managed service provider doesn’t have the capabilities to support your IT infrastructure as it begins to expand, the best thing to do is find someone else. You need a provider that can keep pace with your growing technological needs and deliver the best resources to help with your scalability efforts.

Conclusion

To continue growing your business, you need to match the pace of the market. This requires paying attention to the technology that backs your business. An MSP allows you to outsource your IT infrastructure to expert handlers at half the cost you would pay if setting up a team from scratch. However, you need to watch out for signs that your service provider isn’t working out. To succeed in this ever-competitive market, you need a managed service provider that can support your business and help scale your efforts.

Digital Branding Personal Branding

Something For Nothing: Why Free Resources Are Great For Branding

Steven on February 5, 2020

The importance of branding for a business in the 21st-century has been drilled into each of us. Ever since Apple became one of the biggest companies in the world developing an identity around a lifestyle brand rather than their products, the way new and existing businesses have to conduct and present themselves online has changed dramatically.

Creating a brand that your target audience can relate to is essential, but expensive. At least, you would assume. The advent of free online resources has made it easier than ever for a business to produce the essentials of a great brand. So how can your business make something out of nothing, and why are free resources the key to great branding?

Professionalism

Whatever your business does, professionalism should be at the forefront of your mind. Even if you have a casual, anti-establishment and purposely care-free brand, it needs to be well-made and look as if you put care and attention into your public perception.

Before, professional came at a premium. Now, you can create a sense of it around your business from your early days, without investing a significant portion of your budget. Your public-facing content can be given a professional edge by using free resources.

First impressions to your audience are essential. Each contact point after that is about building an image of professionalism they can trust. How you correspond with your audience is an essential part of this.

Free resources can be used to help get across the professionalism of your business. How you communicate needs to be professional, from your email conversations to the invoices you send to both clients and customers. There are plenty of templates available to help you craft professional-looking invoices complete with your company branding and a layout that presents your business as an industry leader, or one with the potential to be. This is a great way to tell customers and business partners what your brand is all about.

Free video chat tools such as Google Hangouts and Skype are also great assets for adding professionalism to your communication. They’ll allow you to communicate with business partners and investors in a more professional manner, without having to splash out on travel or dinner.

Good branding can be a lot of things, but one thing is should always be is professionally developed. Free resources are one of the best ways to do this quickly and make sure your company doesn’t seem, ironically enough, cheap.

Creativity

A lot of creativity goes into establishing a brand identity. The most recognizable visual elements of top businesses weren’t created on the first try, they developed over time. Having the space to be creative and experiment with ideas is an essential part of the brand-building process, and free tools give you the chance to do just that.

Logos, for example, are a key part of a successful brand identity. They need to catch the eye and encapsulate the brand, whether it’s showing what you do, creating a sense of the lifestyle around it or giving a community something to rally around.

Paying a designer is expensive, so getting creative with free tools is almost a must. Tools such as Hatchful allow you to develop professional-looking logos and experiment with different styles. Even if this ends up being a temporary logo, it’s given you an identity to build around as you get off the ground. Some of the biggest companies in the world have had to change their logo and branding over time.

Your brand will have numerous visual elements that need to be developed early on, from a color scheme to a font. Even if these are only temporary solutions until you can afford a more permanent paid option such as using a designer or investing in photoshop, these feel tools give you the chance to get creative and develop a visual identity.

Awareness

Building your brand’s business is worthless if no one can find it. Not only do you need tools to create all the elements of your brand identity, but free tools help you spread awareness of your brand.

Social media is one of the best tools available for a new brand to spread awareness about themselves. While advertising on social media can be a quite costly endeavor, there are a number of free tools that can make your management of social media more streamlined ad profitable, teaching you more about the platform and your audiences on there.

Some of the most popular social media management tools available like Hootsuite and Buffer, used by professionals across numerous industries, have robust free options. You can also make use of tools such as Google Analytics to get more insight into the inner works of your website and how traffic is traveling to it from the places you’re trying to spread awareness on.

Content

A key part of your branding process is the content you develop to advertise and spread awareness of it. Creating quality content is difficult to do on a budget, despite how much phone cameras have developed and editing software has been streamlined. However, the promotion and presentation of this content is easier than to do than ever with free tools.

YouTube is an obvious choice, giving you a free platform to upload your branding content and open it up to a huge audience. Video has become the dominant online content force, with audiences clamoring for more.

Tools such as Headliner allow you to create great quality social and website content free of charge, although you are limited to a certain amount per month if not paying. You can also use tools to create great explainer content for free, giving you a great method of introducing your brand and website to new visitors.

Content is vital for growing a brand, and being able to create, upload and format this content for the most popular platforms for free is a huge budget saver. These tools will help you to do that.

Some of the best things in life are free, and that includes brand-building tools. There’s no need for a business to spend heavily in the early days on trying out loads of different tools they may not want to use in a couple of months’ time. Even using free subscription samples is better. Don’t get locked into paying for months and squeeze every bit of brand building juice you can out of these tools.

Digital Branding

What is UX/UI design

Steven on January 29, 2020

The term UX originated in 1993 in the depths of Apple Corporation, the decryption sounds like User eXperience. With the growing popularity of mobile devices, this concept came into fashion and began to be used everywhere. But even now, not everyone can answer with certainty what UX design is, how it differs from UI design and why these things are often mentioned in the bundle. We can help you figure it out.

What is UX design

Simply put, UX design is the design of the user experience. It is one of the first steps in product creation and serves to make the application logical, convenient and useful. UX-design of mobile applications and websites determines what impressions a person will get from their use, how exactly he will use these products.

Where is the best place to place login to your personal cabinet? How many steps does it take for a user to subscribe to the mailing list or place an order? How will he understand that the operation was successful? These are the questions that the UX-designer solves.

UX design includes different components:

information architecture;
interactive design;
usability (an indicator of simplicity, convenience, and efficiency in the eyes of users).

UX-designer understands the psychology and emotions of users, analyzes their expectations from the product and sets a goal to be achieved. Then he selects the right tools and comes up with an application or website structure that meets all the necessary parameters.

UX-designer does not have monotonous tasks, so different projects often require people with skills from different areas. There are entire laboratories with powerful technical equipment, in which a team of several people is working on research. These laboratories tend to focus on the impact design has on conversion rates. They have devices that record the psycho physical reactions of users (e.g., eye movements and heartbeat), they conduct surveys, observe users using the on and off method, and much more.

What is UI design

User interface design or UI design is a visual representation of UX design. Its task is to make an application, website or other product intuitive, attractive and easy to use with the help of certain graphics solutions.

The UI designer is responsible for what each individual screen or page will look like. His area of responsibility is graphic controls such as buttons and checkboxes, fonts, mockups (check this postcard mockup), color schemes, and various visual images.

What should a button look like to make it easy to press? What font size should I choose to make the text readable? How do I make a bug report so that it attracts attention but is not annoying? Answers to these questions help you find the UI design.

Working on what an app will look like on a gadget screen, the UI designer is focused on mobile platforms’ headlines – Apple and Google’s recommendation sets that make third-party apps look uniform and seamlessly integrated into the overall concept.

If to draw quite a simple analogy from life, UX-design is a layout of the apartment and communications, and UI – a choice of wallpaper and flooring. However, in practice UX and UI design are closely interconnected, the second logically follows the first, and often the same person or UI/UX design agency like ramotion is engaged in both. Therefore, the line between the two concepts is blurred, and they are indicated together.

Digital Branding

What are the Core SEO Trends and Strategies to Focus in 2020

Steven on January 24, 2020

The old SEO strategies and techniques that we used in the past still work but don’t seem to be as effective as expected. As Google is continuously updating its algorithm to deliver users the most relevant results, SEO experts all across the globe are becoming aware of the new SEO trends and strategies that are considered to be the future of SEO.

What are the Core SEO Trends and Strategies to Focus in 2020?

In order to beat the competition in the online market, we need to re-think and update our content and SEO strategy as per the ever changing updates of Google search engine. Keeping this in mind, we need to update our website and adopt the recent SEO strategy so as to ensure that more prospects and customers find us on search engines. So now, the question is “What are the Core SEO Trends and Strategies to Focus in 2020?”. Below is a comprehensive list of new SEO trends and strategies to follow in the coming year 2020:

Optimize your Website for Featured Snippet
Invest your Time on Influencer Marketing
Implement Voice Search SEO
Focus on Mobile UX Factor
Generate Video Content on Website
Enhance Dwell Time on Website
Content Length and Quality Importance
Artificial Intelligence in SEO
Work on Semantic Search and Intent Optimization
Understand the Need of Structured Data
Positive Impacts of Brand Mention
Optimize Content as Per Google BERT Update
Install Amazon Polly to Increase Dwell Time

Optimize your Website for Featured Snippet

A featured snippet is the search result that appears at the top in a box before the #1 position on SERP. The featured snippet has a very good click-through rate, so it is recommended to take advantage of this feature. To avail of this feature, we need to generate clear and simple answers to commonly asked questions on our website which may be featured on top of SERP based on their quality.

Invest your Time on Influencer Marketing

The current trend is showing that users are more likely to engage with a trustful, respected and well-known person than with ads. So, we should invest more in influencer marketing to enhance SEO efforts. Influencers can also help create valuable backlinks, an important factor in determining Google rankings. Before engaging with an influencer, make sure what type of content you want them to create, how it links back to your website and if they are relevant to your industry.

Implement Voice Search SEO

Voice searches have become a popular trend due to the advancement in mobile devices. So, we should optimize our website for voice searches and understand how to implement conversational searches into our SEO strategy. For voice search, you should focus on content with keywords having conversational queries, long queries, local targeting, and an FAQ page is a must for voice search SEO. For voice search optimization, make the title tags and first headers sound like a question similar to what a user is going to ask. For example: If your blog’s title is “Minimize Software Development Cost for Startups”, then try to make it “How to minimize Software Development Cost for Startup Businesses?”. Additionally, you can also optimize the old content with this strategy.

Focus on Mobile UX Factor

Mobile UX is an important factor in determining a website’s ranking, so a mobile version of a web-page is a must. Mobile first indexing is one of the core indexing and ranking factors. If your page doesn’t look good on mobile devices, you may lose ranking. It is essential to have a mobile version for a website to drive more users towards your website. Getting higher in the Google mobile page index will make your web-page highly authoritative.

Generate Video Content on Website

Videos are the new source of information for the users browsing online. As per studies from Google and other reputed organizations, 6 out of 10 users prefer to watch videos online than TV because online videos are a much better source of academic and entertainment information. As a result, this has greatly affected modern SEO, and marketers are now optimizing the videos for search users so as to reach out to the maximum audience. The video optimization starts with adding relevant keywords to the video headline and in the description.

Dwell Time to be the Major Ranking Factor

Time spent on a web-page before bouncing back would be one of the major ranking factors in the coming days. The dwell time metrics are very important as they tell, how interested users are in your content and if they are getting the desired information about what they are looking for. Having a better dwell time means users are more interested in your content, so we should focus more on generating quality and valuable information for the users to get ahead of the competition.

Content Length and Quality Importance

As we know, content quality is one of the core ranking factors for any website, but now the search engines are also considering the length of content as a core ranking factor. Currently, users are now looking to get complete information from a single authentic source that is why they prefer to read lengthy content from reliable sources. Recent studies revealed that more no. of users are reading articles having a content length of 2000 words than fewer words. So, we should focus on generating lengthy content embedded with comprehensive and quality information that answers almost all the related queries for what a user is looking for.

Artificial Intelligence in SEO (Rank Brain)

Artificial intelligence is the new trend in SEO which many companies are following. As Google uses AI to deliver highly relevant results, to identify keyword stuffing, bad backlinks, irrelevant content for users, it’s necessary to use AI in your SEO strategy so as to meet the search engine requirements. AI also determines metrics such as bounce rate, time on site, etc. Using artificial intelligence in SEO and content strategy can be very useful to gather important data and customer insights which can lead to overall SEO success.

Semantic Search and Intent Optimization

Now, Google doesn’t use the exact match words that are being typed by users in the search box. Google actually looks at the user’s query context/intent and analyzes the highly relevant search intent to reflect the results. Google has a very good understanding of searchers’ intent that is why the traditional content creation with a single keyword doesn’t work now. So, it is necessary to use Text Optimizer and make a collection of the desired search queries into related concepts and entities. This semantic research will help create content having sentences based on some common co-occurrence analysis of the term you select.

Understand the Need of Structured Data

Structured data refers to displaying data in an organized way. It can be used in many different ways to display a website’s information as enhanced results in SERPs in the form of rich snippets, rich cards, carousels, knowledge boxes, etc. Google is interested in fetching more data from your web-page and giving more exposure to your website. So, it is recommended to implement structured data on your website to boost visibility and ranking. Marketing experts working in various emerging software development companies in India are now focusing hard with the developers to implement structured data for all websites on which they are working to enhance the SEO efforts.

Positive Impacts of Brand Mention

Google included brand mention as a part of its algorithm update and is tracking how many times your brand is mentioned online. So, it is the time to work around brand mentioning as Google is not only looking for links but also for people talking about your brand on social media and other online platforms.

Optimize Content as Per Google BERT Update

Bert is basically termed as Bidirectional Encoder Representations From Transformers. BERT is powered by AI and ML to provide a new way to efficiently understand the language for Google searches. It has an immediate effect on how websites are ranked on SERP. As per the BERT update, your focus should be on the context of the search term not on the keyword (with an inclination towards conversational queries). It will consider the overall context of the keyword by analyzing the other terms associated with the keyword in order to understand the actual intent behind a user’s search queries.

BERT will analyze the long-tail keywords to understand the overall context of the phrases in your search query. It is assumed that long-tailed phrases will help in improving results. BERT also implies that content is always the king which requires a primary focus above all SEO parameters, so it is required to focus on using long-tailed key phrases in your On-page SEO and content strategy. The use of keywords in the content doesn’t need to be exact, you can instead use different words of the keywords after keeping in mind the user intent behind the search query related to that keyword.

Just for an example: The exact keyword used within content like “software development India” will be given less value as compared to the phrases like “list of Indian companies delivering quality software development projects”.

Install Amazon Polly to Increase Dwell Time

Amazon Polly, a speech recognition tool will help you increase the dwell time of users on your website as it will read aloud any content piece for your site visitors. This tool is available as a WordPress plugin and can easily be integrated into blog posts. Having both the reading and listening options on your webpage will make users engaged for a longer period of time, and therefore enhance the dwell time which is a major ranking factor.

Bottom Line

All the aforementioned SEO strategies could be a game-changer for any website you own and will help you get a better search engine ranking and ensure a continuous inflow of highly relevant traffic as compared to your competition. We would be glad to hear your views or suggestions regarding the content. You can contact us directly through our comments section.

About the Author

Manoj Rawat, a Growth Hacker, Ideator, Innovator, techy and an experienced SEO, SMM and Marketing Consultant with over 8 years of IT experience. He loves to share technology trends, marketing tips & strategies among online communities. He is an avid sports person, traveller, & nature lover.