Category: Digital Branding

Digital Branding

How to Choose an Agency for Explainer Videos

Designing an explainer video is wonderful but it’s important to find the right agency too. There are several details to ponder over while choosing between options and that’s where research comes into play. As you sift through the various options, it becomes important to find someone that is legitimate and worthwhile. Here are some of the details to think about as you pour through the different choices.

1) Go Through The Agency’s Portfolio

Kasra Design suggests that the best starting point is to sit down with an agency and go through their portfolio. This should include examples of explainer videos they’ve put together in the past. Most agencies are upfront about their work and will list everything on their main website. Go through this and take the time to speak with one of their representatives to learn more about what they have to offer for your industry. This is going to allow you to gain a stronger understanding of their work processes and what makes them unique. By doing this, you’ll be well on your way to finding someone that is good at creating explainer videos and knows how to customize everything.

You have to think about several details while watching their example videos. You want to think about transitions, voiceovers, sound effects, and scripting to see what works and what doesn’t. This is where the best agencies stand out most.

2) Assess The Agency’s Reputation

It’s okay to be impressed by the agency’s portfolio but that’s just a starting point. You have to focus on their reputation as a business. This is where research becomes essential as you go through the different options. Take the time to read through potential reviews to see what clients have to say about the agency. In this day and age, you can also take the opportunity to look at their LinkedIn page for more on how they work and who they’re connected to in the industry. This is a wonderful way to ask for opinions from others that are in touch with the agency.

3) Look at Your Budgetary Needs

Some video agencies are world-class but they may be out of your budgetary range. The price is going to matter and you want to make sure it’s a legitimate expense that’s okay for your expenses. If you are close enough, it’s okay to negotiate and try to bring the price down a bit. The right video agency will be more than happy to grab a new client at a cheaper rate. The best way to determine this is to mention price as soon as you are impressed to gauge what they are willing to do for you. Always come to the table with a budget while asking these questions.

4) Check Their Processes

The best video agency is going to have a clear-cut process when it comes to producing explainer videos. They will treat it as art and make sure everything is customized based on what’s required including animations, voiceovers, storyboarding, and soundtracks. Each agency is unique with how it does this but they need to have some type of process in place while speaking to you. This showcases they are the real deal and are going to plan everything in detail for your case. You never want to go into a process where the agency wings it. They should have a detailed process in place to make sure you are a happy client with a good explainer video.

5) Focus on Their Narrative

Explainer videos are all about the underlying narrative. You have to focus on what the explainer video is saying just as much. While the soundtracks, transitions, graphics, and voiceovers are nice, it’s essential to have a proper narrative in place. This is what a great agency can bring to the table. They are going to build a proper story and make sure the explainer video seals the deal in leaving a good first impression. This is how you start to create value.

A good example of this would be Hubspot and its explainer video. They make sure to list the main issue and touch various points a customer will relate to before introducing their product. This illustrates they understand what’s required and their product is the solution.

6) Emphasize Friendliness

A lot of clients ignore this detail even though it’s essential. You want someone that is easy to work with and is friendly. Dealing with hostile video agencies is bad for business and isn’t worth it. You should like speaking to them and picking up your phone to call them.  If they aren’t easy to deal with then you shouldn’t go with the agency. There are too many options and you should be able to go with someone that is the real deal. They should match with your approach to business as that is when the explainer video will work out.

7) Look at their Willingness to Communicate

If an agency doesn’t pick up the phone right away, they may not be a good fit. You want someone willing to take calls as a partner. It shouldn’t feel like a hassle to reach out to them. It should be as easy as calling your family. This is when you know the agency is on your side and will deliver results.

Digital Branding

Clean Up the Website, Maintain Stable Development Environment

Whether you are a web developer or the owner, the website represents your working environment. Situations when you have to work fast or solve some problem, soonest possible, are often and frustrating. Sometimes your income depends on it, or you are at risk to lose clients or customers because the website loads slower than usual. Problems are many.

A website can be a target of a hackers’ attack or some other unfortunate issues can compromise the quality of it. Especially in the world of web development, main tasks such as testing, debugging, and coding depends on the website’s smooth run.

Developers can hardly achieve quality and reliable results in an unstable environment while the website owners run business with a lot of difficulties. One solution, when you get in trouble with the website, is to engage outside’s developers to support, but this is also the most expensive one. However, this is not necessary and there is a simpler solution at disposal you can use on your own, anytime you need. WP Reset plugin is built to enable complete restore of original website settings while you are keeping control over the process. The plugin is fast and accurate, empowered with several fail-safe mechanisms.

Maintain the Website by Checking and Updating It Regularly

Websites change over time, become more complicated, overwhelmed with all kind of content, and most importantly, they constantly grow. If they remain unchanged, the competition will beat them. You have to be aware that working hard on your website is not enough for success.

The quality of it has to remain uninterrupted, and you can ensure that only with the proper maintenance. That means, check your website regularly, keep it updated and engaged to retain visitors. Remember that every visitor is a potential customer, and routine maintenance can be of crucial importance. If you tend to provide continuous traffic and strengthen Google rankings, your site should run smoothly all the time.

While building your website, think on the theme and plugins you will need to operate your blog or business, but do not waste your time on multiple installations of those without a clear purpose. Unnecessary tools, along with the various content you no longer need might lead to some issues which will seriously affect the work of your website and consequently your business. Keeping the website clean and simple means that you should occasionally clear out everything you no longer need.

How to Solve Website Issues?

WordPress offers a long list of user-friendly plugins which are supposed to help users by solving almost every issue. However, useful tools for image optimization or those intended to delete old posts revisions sometimes are not enough to unburden the website.

A careful checkup will show you which issue you should fix immediately, what can you do to improve the website performance, but remember that you will need days to do it manually. And why should you if there is a better solution? Sometimes, the best is to get back to default settings and start from scratch. WP Reset Plugin is equipped with standard and special features you can use at will and according to your needs while you keep the track of every change.

In that way, it is almost impossible to make a mistake and delete something you did not want to. If you are a web developer, you will prefer the command-line tool, while the other users’ choice is single-click reset. In both cases, the best is to get introduced to WP Reset plugin in-depth. It features many different options providing you multiple choices on how to clean up the website.

Complete or Partial Reset

Complete reset is not always necessary when the website slows down or shows some other failures. As the owner or developer, you know best which part of the website should you intervene in. Selective reset tool is customizable to your personal preferences enabling you to get rid of specified content, individual tables, pages, or even comments.

You can use it instead of complete reset and retain what you need. With the less than a minimum of manual work, you can refresh the website and make it more pleasant users experience. Post-reset setup is completely adaptable to your personal preferences, which means – you can keep themes and plugins, for example. It is very convenient for those who had got used to the chosen website environment. Advanced features of the WP Reset plugin are more favored by developers. In a way, this plugin has brought relief because the original WordPress installation is available as many times as needed. It shortens hours of work when it comes to testing and debugging. These processes usually need to be done fast and soonest possible which is hard if the development environment is not supportive. Having the opportunity to conduct detailed check of an active website, preserving data, and still have the opportunity to develop in a default installation is what the users of the WP Reset appreciate most. Safety is one of its best characteristics since the files remain unchanged.

Website maintenance is a serious job to be done in different forms on a weekly, monthly, and yearly basis. If there is a while since you have the website, you probably have the check-list considering loading time of pages, security, backups, broken links, etc. Despite your effort to do everything by the book, you will need some improvements over time, and you will need the help of plugin to avoid wasting time and the risk of losing data. Using WP Reset plugin is safe. Multiple fail-safe mechanisms guarantee that while in-house support is in charge to provide help or answer the questions considering this open-source software. WP Reset is a fast, reliable and safe contributor to the well-done business.

Proper website maintenance depends on a plan. Make it according to your needs and follow the dynamic of your website. Sooner or later you will have to clean it up, and every help will be welcomed. With such a serious approach, your website will consistently run smoothly and without any difficulties. Users experience is crucial for its success. You have already invested time and energy to build it, but remember to invest in website maintenance as well.

Digital BrandingLegal BrandingLocal Branding

Transportation in IoT Era – 6 Ways Tech Can Improve Your Business

Before getting into advantages of IoT technology, let’s first define the term “Internet of Things”. It is a system of smart devices which use sensors, processors, or communication hardware to acquire and send all relevant data from the environment. They will collect data from living patterns in real-time to optimize and improve all aspects of living experience. For the transportation business, it means a lot! You’ll be able to track all your vehicles whenever you want. But, let’s go slowly. In this article, we will show you six ways of how IoT tech can improve your transportation business.

Track vehicle’s health

In the future, it will be essential to track a vehicle’s health in order to create maximum efficiency. On top of that, many cars will be driverless, so in that situation, you won’t have to worry about anything else other than a vehicle. This part of an IoT ecosystem will be getting regular real-time inspections through GPS vehicle tracking systems. The goal is to operate cars, boats, or buses to their full potential. If any problem occurs, sensors will notify drivers about the issue, as well as other vehicles on the road. Also, companies will be able to monitor fuel usage, speed, or vehicle’s age 24 hours per day. Because of that, manufacturers will be able to improve the quality and produce better vehicles continually.

Driver’s and pedestrians’ safety

Safety has always been the primary thing in the traffic, and it will be in the IoT ecosystem, of course. The idea in the future is that vehicles communicate with each other in real-time using data. Even though it seems weird, it will massively improve the safety of drivers (if the vehicle requires a driver), as well as pedestrians and passengers. Smart sensors on cars and buses will have the ability to alert other vehicles and traffic participants about potential road hazards, traffic delays, etc. According to the United States Department of Transportation, new IoT technology will reduce crashes on the road by 80%!

Logistics and geo-fencing

Geo-fencing is an IoT tool designed to improve logistics and make it a lot easier. Also, it doesn’t matter if you manage a small or large fleet of trucks, it is suitable for every business. How does it work? Can’t be more simple – logistics managers will always know if a large shipment or package is not on the right path anymore. Also, the supplier will be able to manage all massive supply chains from only one device! It will require only a few people to track and monitor a large number of shipments. Finally, geo-fencing can also prevent overcrowding. For instance, if it’s necessary, it can redirect vehicles to other directions in order to avoid school zones and quiet areas.

Infographic created by Track Your Truck, a GPS vehicle tracking devices provider

Finding the fastest route to the destination

IoT transportation technology will help us get faster to any destination. It is also pretty simple – real-time data on the traffic will be provided continuously. Therefore, we will be able to choose the best and fastest route quickly. The most important thing here is efficiency. Businesses will save both time and money, as well as fuel since you won’t choose the wrong route. According to INRIX, American commuters spend between 42 and 80 hours sitting in the traffic, which is a disaster. This number will massively drop with the implementation of IoT tech solutions.

Customer service

Customer service is an essential part of the business and it always will be. Logically, tech transportation improvements will also affect this area of business. You will continuously get precise information about all orders, and therefore, you will be able to inform customers about the exact time the delivery is going to arrive. Also, if something unexpected occurs, you’d be able to update your customers. Such super responsible behavior will create trust among your customers. They will be constantly informed and updated which will make them satisfied even if an unexpected delay happens.

Better organization of public transit

Even though technology is continually improving, in many cities, we still don’t have consistent arrivals of buses and trains, which is often very frustrating. However, in an IoT ecosystem, with the help of real-time tracking tools, passengers will have exact information where their bus is at the moment. They will be able to travel with ease, without any uncertainty. How exactly is this going to work? Passengers will receive personalized travel information about potential delays or unexpected events. Based on that, they will have more options – either to wait a few minutes more or to go for another bus or train. The point is that passengers won’t have to guess the time of arrival anymore; every information will be super precise.

IoT will change every single aspect of our life. Transportation is one huge area where both businesses and customers will benefit massively because of new technology solutions.

Digital Branding

Podcasts and Their Influential Role in SEO

The primary pillars of a successful SEO strategy are links, high-quality, and engaging content. However, the world of SEO has evolved, and if you examine traditional strategies that include images, articles, blog posts and at times videos, you will find that in the past they were highly resorted to invoking organic inbound traffic for the website of a business. These techniques are very popular when it comes to generating targeted traffic to the site. 

Podcasts – How do they boost SEO?

For many years’ businesses have under-estimated the value of podcasts when it comes to increasing targeted inbound traffic to their site. Experts in SEO state that podcasts, if embraced correctly, play an instrumental role in enhancing targeted traffic to your site. Besides more inbound traffic, podcasts help to establish your brand, and it supports all your efforts targeted at link-building for your site.

In order to start, you must note that podcasts should leverage your SEO campaigns. You should be aware of how to rank them for better brand visibility and inbound traffic. The following are some expert tips on how you can optimize your podcasts and bring in more traffic to your site-

 

  • Guest speakers for the podcast- Podcasts are ideal for optimizing your site as they attract links. For getting more links, you need to create podcasts that are both engaging and interesting. They should be useful and drive the visitor to click on your business URL. A good podcast has the ability to attract targeted audience well in today’s competitive market. A simple way of attracting more and more visitors to your site is to hire a guest speaker to promote your podcast. For instance, if a person gives you the time to be interviewed, it is obvious that they would like others to know about it as well. They will share the links of that podcast episode, and you can host it on your business website page along with other social media and podcast channels. With these efforts, you give your targeted audience the chance to connect with your business website in a natural way. 
  • Choosing the guest speaker- When it comes to choosing the right guest speaker for your podcast, look for someone who will have a business benefit for appearing on your podcast. The guest speaker might be from a company who is about to launch a new service or product in the market or an author ready with a new book. SEO experts say that authors are generally good guest speakers for podcasts. 
  • Talk to your podcast guests before going live- To get the best out of your podcast guests, speak to them directly before you go live. You should ask them to link back to your business and an excellent time to ask them for that social media link is the time just before the interview. You need a verbal commitment from them. You can increase your chances of getting a link when you send an email out to them and inform them that the specific episode has been posted and you would appreciate some social mentions and a link.
  • Podcast title- The title of the podcast is crucial to find its way to Google Play Music and iTunes. Experts from credible SEO services across the nation say the title of your podcast should be interesting and compelling. It should be well-defined and explain what the podcast is about. If you keep a vague and obscure title, your efforts to generate inbound traffic fail drastically. It is prudent to use keywords, but at the same time, do not stuff the author tag of your podcast with them. In short, the podcast should be created in such a way that you are proud of it. In short, experts suggest the title of the podcast should be defined and clean. You can use some keywords in the sub-titles of the podcast as well.
  • Optimize the RSS Feed- Now; the average user does not use RSS Feed as much as they used to do in the past. However, the RSS Feed helps people to subscribe to your podcast on iTunes. Google Play Music and other popular platforms. Your Feed also gives information about your podcast to the above platforms as it generally takes about 24 hours for the fields to update on directories like iTunes. The RSS Feed that you get from WordPress is free, and you can use that for your podcast as well.
  • Leverage the website- The podcast is audio content that helps you to attract trusted links to the business site. SEO experts face this challenge of getting genuine and trusted links to business sites, and a podcast makes it simple for them. For instance, if a writer sees your podcast and wishes to link the podcast, showing him links authoritative sites that feature your business content proves that your content is high in quality and trustworthy.

The podcast at this point of time becomes worth linking to. When it comes to the creation of a podcast, ensure that every episode is different and it should be worth linking to. Take subjects that interest and will provide information to your targeted audience. This information will generate inbound links that, in turn, will boost the SEO page rankings for your business with success.

Therefore, when it comes to the creation of podcasts for your business, you will find they play a highly influential role in the search engine optimization of your site. They should feature guest speakers who will benefit from your business. The title of the podcast should be relevant to your business niche. It should contain content that is compelling to invoke a call-to-action by the visitor. 

In this way, the SEO of your business site can be boosted, and it can be added to your search engine optimization strategy along with blog posts, articles, images, videos, and more. For getting maximum results out of your podcasts, always hire skilled and experienced professionals from credible SEO companies to help you generate organic targeted traffic and better lead conversions!

Digital Branding

How To Make Sure You Are Choosing The Right Digital Marketing Agency For Your Boston Based Business

If you market your business online, you may want to consider hiring an agency that specializes in this area. However, keep in mind that choosing the right digital marketing agency can be complicated. It’s something you definitely want to get right but this isn’t easy to do. Besides the fact that there are thousands of these agencies, they are all the best! Or, at least, that’s what their marketing says.

In addition, there are a lot of different aspects of digital marketing, such as search engine optimization, email marketing, social media marketing and on and on. How can any digital marketing agency be experts in all of them? So with that in mind, how are you going to make sure you pick one of the best Boston SEO companies for your business?

Here are five key things you can do when searching for a digital marketing agency that will help you narrow down the search and pick the agency that is right for you.

1. Discuss It With Those You Know and Trust

When you are making a huge decision, like choosing a digital marketing agency to help grow your business, one of the best things you can do is talk to those you know, respect and trust. Talk to other business owners you know who work with an agency. Someone you trust isn’t going to send you to an agency that they don’t believe in or want to work with themselves.

When it comes to such big decisions, most business owners make their decisions based on referrals. In fact, 84% of these types of business to business decisions are based off of referrals from other business owners.

After all, a decision like this could make or break a business. It’s not something you want to leave to chance. If you want to know the truth about how good or bad an agency is the best way to do it is to talk to business owners who have worked with that agency.

Keep in mind, as mentioned above, there are many aspects of digital marketing. When you ask other business owners be sure you discuss what specifically you are looking for in an agency. If you have decided you want to focus on social media to generate leads, you don’t want to hire a digital marketing agency that focuses on search engine optimization.

2. Who Are Their Clients?

Who else works with this agency? While talking to other business owners is a great way to narrow things down, it’s also important to find out about other clients of the agency. You don’t want to hand over a big check and find out the agency is a one person shop run by the niece of the person who gave you the referral and that business owner is the only client. At least, until you that is.

Check out the agency’s web site. It’s a digital marketing agency, they most certainly should have a web site of their own.

If they don’t have a web site, or if the web site has no information from other clients, such as case studies, or testimonials, it’s quite possible this agency is not going to be able to handle what it is you want them to do for you.

If the referral was from someone you really respect and trust and you still want to meet with the agency, be sure and ask them for other clients with whom you could speak to about the work they had done for them.

While many clients make agencies sign a non-disclosure agreement,an agency should be able to give you at least a few clients or case studies. If they can’t, you may want to move on to the next agency on your list.

3. The Agency Needs To Earn Your Trust

So you’ve checked out their web site and they have some big clients, or some clients in your industry that all seem very happy with what the agency has done for them. But sometimes you need to dig a little deeper. Of course the agency is going to put their best foot forward on their web site.

If the agency touts some great case study results, ask if you can speak with the agency’s contact at the company. This way, you can verify the marketing results on your own instead of just trusting the agency on their word.

If they are willing to tout case study results, they should be willing to give you a contact so you can verify those results.

4. Ask The Questions That Matter For Your Business

When you interview an agency, be sure and go into it prepared. Have a list of questions that are relevant to your business, the type of digital marketing you want to do, and the results you are looking to achieve. It’s important to also have an idea as to the answer you are looking for so you can focus on what matters.

After all, all good salespeople can give you an answer that sounds great without ever actually answering the question.

If this is the first time you’re hiring an agency, you may not even know where to begin with questions. Go back to your friend that referred you and talk to them. They should have a pretty good idea of what questions are important for you to ask.

5. Listen To The Questions That You Are Being Asked

A good agency likes to work with certain types of clients, just as you want to hire the right agency. That means they are interviewing you as well.

They are looking for signs that you might be more trouble than you are worth. They won’t work with you if they feel there are red flags that indicate it would not be a good working relationship.

This means a good agency will be asking you questions as well. They will want to know about your digital marketing plans, what your goals are going forward, who you consider your competition, etc. They need to know all the details to be able to determine if they can even help you grow your business.

Put these five tips into action when choosing a digital marketing agency and you’ll greatly increase the chances of hiring an agency that can help you reach your business marketing goals.

Digital Branding

4 Strategies to Build Brand Awareness for Your Ecommerce Business

In the digital world, when someone says “Apple,” you’re more likely to think of the brand that gave us the Mac, iPad, and Siri, instead of the fruit. 

That’s how effectively a brand name can leave a mark in our minds.

Now imagine having that kind of brand power for your ecommerce business.  

Although the journey to establishing a successful brand can be unique to each business, there are techniques you can use to get your brand to your target market successfully. 

In this post, let me share with you four strategies to build brand awareness for your ecommerce business. 

Let’s dive right in.

1. Share Your Brand Story

The concept behind why storytelling can be an excellent marketing technique is simple: people love hearing a success story. 

Your brand’s story gives your brand more depth and something your audience can connect with, which makes it an excellent element to add to your marketing efforts. 

For instance, technology company GoPro wrote on their website how the company founder Nick Woodman “started with a 35mm camera and a wrist strap made from old wetsuits and plastic scraps.” 

Now, the company has grown internationally and “has sold over 26 million GoPro cameras in more than 100 countries.”

Weaving this kind of narrative into your marketing strategy lets your audience “feel” the experience in your story, which helps build a connection and establish trust with them. 

When people trust your brand, they are more likely to come back, buy again, and tell other people about you. 

Your brand’s story can be anything. 

It can be a narrative of your product development journey, founder, or how the idea for your product was born as a solution to a problem.

People like hearing stories, and you can use that to your advantage with a narrative that gets your message and brand across to your target audiences.

2. Develop Your Brand Identity

Your product can leave a lasting impression on your customers even after they make the purchase and your brand identity shapes that impression.  

For instance, when someone mentions M&M’s, you’ll immediately think of those red and yellow button-shaped characters frequently shown in their commercials.

Through their iconic characters and marketing campaigns, M&M’s brand personality presents their product as fun, creative, and witty, plus, it’s something that people can easily relate with. 

There are plenty of ways to put a “face” to your brand, but one of the best ways to establish your identity is through your logo

If you’re on a tight budget, you can use online logo generators to help design your logo, or you can hire professional designers to do it for you.

Here’s a tip: If you want to tap into the creativity of the people on the internet, you can get your logo through design services such as LogoMyWay Designers.    

Through the service, you can run a logo design contest and select the best design of your choice. 

Your logo is also crucial for your other marketing efforts – such as using it for your ecommerce website and ads – since customers associate it with your brand and products. 

When designed appropriately, your logo can help you leave a good impression on your target audience, build trust with your potential customers, and ultimately lead them to buy. 

3. Create Interactive Content

In today’s digital age, there are many things to consider, such as building an effective business website, your customers’ needs, and the latest trends. 

More and more people prefer using visual mediums to communicate and interact. 

Thus, you need to shift your brand awareness strategies to cater to this kind of customer preference and improve how your customers interact with your brand.    

An excellent strategy to engage your target audience is through interactive content like videos.

With videos, you can create interactive and fun product demos that show your target audiences how to use your products and the benefits they can get.

For example, makeup brand FentyBeauty posts “Tutorial Tuesdays with Rihanna” on their YouTube channel, which shows viewers makeup looks that you can do with their products.

This is a great way to engage your target audience, offer them value that your products can give, and raise your brand awareness by giving them a unique experience with your brand.

Also, through videos, you can convey your message creatively and interactively that help make your target audiences feel like you’re talking to them personally, which helps you build a relationship with them.    

4. Run Social Media Contests

With social media, running a contest to boost your brand visibility can be easier now more than ever. 

Picture this.

You’re scrolling through Instagram to see what your favorite celebrities are up to and suddenly you find a post that asks viewers to “tag a friend” to win a contest. 

That got your attention, right?

From scrolling through your newsfeed, you’re suddenly interested in the brand, what the contest is all about, and what you can win.  

Now imagine applying that same strategy to your target audiences. 

With a social media contest, you can draw your target audience’s attention to your brand without being too promotional.  

It’s also a good marketing tactic because it offers the chance of getting value with the least amount of effort. 

After all, who wouldn’t want to win a contest just by sharing a post and tagging a friend, right?

You can use hashtags like #tagafriend for your social media contests, have the social media influencers your work with share the post, and run your it across your multiple social accounts.

That being said, social media contests can spread like wildfire, which makes them effective marketing tactics for your brand visibility throughout your social media accounts. 

If you want to target specific audiences or know the kind of content that they are looking for, you can use social media monitoring tools to improve your social marketing efforts.

Social media contests are also highly effective at creating user-generated content (UGC) from customers, which holds a lot of marketing power. In one study, consumers say they trust other people’s recommendations more than they believe in curated content by marketers.

That is why UGC is essential for any business’s marketing campaigns. Whenever you promote a new product or seasonal brand custom packaging, generate a buzz around it by organizing a social media contest where customers create content featuring the product.

What’s Next? 

Building your brand awareness for your ecommerce business requires more than just the strategies in this post. 

However, by employing these techniques, you are on the right track to raising your brand visibility, building trust with your target audience, and establishing relationships with your potential customers.

Digital Branding

How to Reset WordPress Website with WP Reset Plugin?

We all know how difficult it is to reset a WordPress database completely. If you are looking for options to instantly reset your WordPress website and are a non-developer who is trying their best to manage their WordPress development, the WP Reset Plugin is your ideal companion. We know that tasks like Debugging, testing and developing often raise the requirement of hiring an experienced developer which might be not feasible or possible at all times. This is where the WP Reset plugin is going to help you out.

The WP Reset plugin is specially designed by developers for the non-developers to help them debug, test, and develop the features of their website. In short, the plugin is pretty helpful for the plugin and theme developers.

The Functions of the WP Reset plugin

The WP Reset plugin is a fast, secure, and premium WordPress development tool. This plugin serves to help you instantly reset your WordPress installation. Once installed, the plugin quickly resets the site’s database to the default installation values. It speeds up testing and debugging by providing a quick way to reset settings and re-test code.

As opposed to the common action where a reset often causes the loss of data which was not intended, the WP Reset plugin has its multiple fail-safe mechanisms in place to protect from this accidental loss of data. Here is a detailed breakdown of what the WP Reset plugin resets and what elements it skips.

  • The reset deletes all customizations and content but does not modify any files. 
  • The Reset will delete all posts, pages, custom post types, comments, media entries, users
  • The Reset deletes all default WP database tables
  • The Reset deletes all custom database tables that have the same prefix table prefix as the one defined in wp-config.php and used by default tables
  • The Reset does not delete any media files. These media files remain in the wp-uploads folder untouched but will no longer be listed under Media in admin
  • The Reset does not fiddle with any files, plugins, themes, uploads 
  • The site title, WordPress address, site address, site language, and search engine visibility settings remain
  • All the currently logged in users are restored with the current username and password after the reset

Setting up the WP Reset Plugin

Setting up the WP Reset plugin is a very easy process. Here are the directives: 

  • Open WordPress admin > Plugins > Click ‘Add New’
  • Enter “wp reset” in search and locate the plugin. 
  • Click “Install Now”
  • Now activate this plugin
  • Access WP Reset admin page via the “Tools” menu

You can also upload the WP Reset plugin manually:

  • Download the plugin version from downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/wp-reset.latest-stable.zip
  • Now you must unzip this and upload to /wp-content/plugins/
  • Go to WordPress admin > Plugins > “WP Reset”
  • Click “Activate” 
  • Open plugin’s admin page located under the Tools menu

Once you are in the zone to reset your WordPress website in an instant, you can click the ‘Reset’ button after setting up this plugin. Once you click on the ‘Reset’ button, the plugin will ask you to confirm the action. You will find the two options; ‘NO’ and ‘UNDO’ button. However, once you click on the ‘Reset’ button, the actual Reset will take place.

Features of the WP Reset Plugin

The WP Reset plugin comes with some great features to help you work with full-fledged features. Let’s check them out.

1. One-Click Site Reset: The plugin makes website resetting such an easy task with its one-click site reset experience. All you need to do is click on the reset button to reset your WordPress website instantly.

2. Post-Reset Setup: The WP Reset plugin remains an absolute favorite for its users because after resetting the database, it reactivates all your themes and plugins.

3. WP-CLI Compatible: If you are someone who is looking to speed up their process, then the WP-CLI support is of great use to you. You can access the WP-CLI commands of the plugin via wp help reset.

4. Database Snapshots: You can employ the database snapshot feature of this WP Reset plugin to save some demo data or custom tables before resetting your site if you would like. You can use snapshots to find out what changes a plugin made to your database. This feature also helps you restore the development environment after testing database related changes.

5. Database Diff Viewer: Using this feature, you can find with one click if any plugin or theme has changed anything with the database. You can find complete information through the visual representation of the data.

6. Selective Reset Tools: The plugin lets you partially reset certain elements such as choosing to reset only transients, plugins, themes, custom DB tables, wp-uploads folder, .htaccess file or your site’s media. You can also delete .htaccess file. If you are looking to edit .htaccess without FTP, you can use the free WP Htaccess Editor plugin.

7. Webhooks Integration: WP Reset is fully integrated with WP Webhooks plugin. The Webhooks plugin lets you connect your WP to any 3rd party systems and enables you to initiate actions both from WPs end.

8. Plugins & Themes Collections: Once you are done with the reset, you can collectively install your favorite plugins & themes using this plugin. Just make sure that you already have a collection of these themes and plugins.

9. Multisite (WP-MU) Support: If you are going to be using this plugin for resetting your multisite, you can carefully do that with the sub-sites.

10. In-house Support: The support facility for this plugin is top-notch. Hence, if you ever get stuck, you will be able to ask your questions and have them resolved.

11. WP Version: The WP Reset plugin also lets you downgrade or upgrade WordPress to the older or a new version with just one click. In this manner, you will be able to test your themes or plugins on various WP versions.

The plugin is also testing a ‘Nuclear Reset’ feature. The onset of this feature will help you delete all files, all custom database entries, and tables. This feature is still under development.

You can download the WP Reset plugin, here.

Digital Branding

What to Look for When Hiring an SEO Company?

Every business looking for a top SEO company to improve their rankings should know that just as a good company can make your business thrive, a bad one can make your traffic crash and burn. With so many SEO companies offering their services, choosing the right one can sometimes turn into a real minefield. Fortunately, we’ve compiled a list of tips that will help you navigate it and ensure you always pick the right SEO company for your business.

What to Look for

Many high-quality SEO companies will have similar features that make them stand out from the crowd. These can help you identify when an SEO company is a good match for your business.

They Have Specific Ideas

A good SEO agency will treat the work they do for your business as a partnership. This usually means that they will suggest improvements you can take to increase your ranking, but you will have to be open to suggestions and actually implement these changes.

These suggestions will hopefully come in the form of concrete, fleshed-out ideas. An SEO company will often ask you to add or improve a part of your business website. And if you’ve chosen the right company, following these suggestions will see your organic traffic and ranking increase.

There are a number of things a good SEO company may recommend:

  • Opening social media accounts and integrating them into your website
  • Adding a blog section
  • Adding or altering content on your homepage
  • Creating a network of internal linkbacks
  • Optimizing the SEO performance of your content
  • Improving site speed and performance
  • Doing a link audit and removing spam links

They Use Transparent and Proven Methods

The first and most important thing you can ask a prospective SEO company is exactly how they will improve your rankings. Even though you’re basically asking them to describe their whole job, the answer should still clear and concise.

A good SEO company will answer in a way that describes all the things they will do, how and why they will do them, how long it will take, and what results you can realistically expect.

They Deliver Concrete Results for Known Clients

As mentioned above, a good SEO company will be able to show you the results of their work. Even though that work won’t always be amazing (remember, even the best can’t really offer any guarantees), their work should show a clear impact on their clients’ rankings.

Here are some of the things you can expect to see from a good, well-prepared company:

  • A list of sites that can add backlinks to your webpage
  • An audit of your website with actionable suggestions for improvement
  • Recommendations for new content
  • Regular reports with clear results of their work

In addition to this, be sure to ask an SEO agency for a list of their previous clients. Although you shouldn’t expect to get their entire contact book, they should be able to name a couple of high-profile clients on the spot.

What to Avoid

Of course, all SEO companies weren’t created equal. Sometimes you’ll run into a company that simply isn’t the right fit for your business. Any of the following points could be a huge red flag and you should avoid a company if you spot them.

They Offer Bought Linkbacks

Touching on what we mentioned earlier, if an SEO company offers a pitch containing a ‘secret method’ they use, you should look for someone else. By now, SEO is mostly a level playing field, where the best practices are widely known and are based on Google’s search algorithm.

Mentioning a secret method is usually just an evasive way of saying the company uses ‘black hat’ methods. These are the methods that go against the Google algorithm’s rules and include things like buying a large number of backlinks. Sure, you may see a temporary increase in traffic, but eventually, Google will catch up to you and your site will get penalized.

Also, Google is under no obligation to regularly report on any changes they make to their search algorithm. This is simply a time-saving measure since they can make as many as two changes per day. Therefore, the SEO company’s ‘secret method’ could very well become obsolete tomorrow.

They Don’t Ask for Your Website Info

Every good SEO company will do their prep work and ask for access to some of the vital information about your website. This info will let them identify strong and weak points and let them for an SEO strategy to increase your rankings.

They will usually ask for things such as the credentials to view or edit your Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools, CMS or social media accounts. An SEO company might also ask for a list of target keywords or reports and audits done in the past.

If an SEO company asks you for access to this type of info, it usually means that they’re taking the work they do for you seriously. On the other hand, if a company asks for complete admin access to all your data, logins and reports, beware. They might be trying to trap you by holding your data and credentials hostage in order to keep the contract going in the long term.

They Guarantee Top Results

No SEO company worth their business can guarantee you the top spot on the Google search results page. The ones that do are either flat out lying to you, or are simply exaggerating the fact they can get you on the first page of a Google search.

The Google algorithm is an ever-changing math equation devised by a machine learning AI that analyzes our searching habits. This very fact makes it so no one can guarantee to get you to the top spot of the results page. And if they do, you should give them a wide berth.

Conclusion

Hopefully, the tips above have helped you on your journey to finding that perfect SEO company that will unlock your website’s full potential. If you know any useful tips and tricks we may have missed, please post them in the comments below.

Digital Branding

3 Benefits of Shoppable Instagram Posts for Your E-Commerce Business

There are numerous features of Instagram coming up over the last few years. One of which is the shoppable posts of the photo-sharing platform, among others. The feature will take your e-commerce business to another level and boost your sales. The shoppable post option helps brands in tagging their products on sale within an Instagram post. It will make the life of online shoppers easy because they can shift from your Instagram post to your e-commerce website’s ‘Add to cart’ section with a few simple clicks. 

According to an article published on https://www.inc.com, big brands like Vogue, GS as well as Elle USA will test the tagging products option in their posts, which can be purchased via Instagram. Read on to learn about the three benefits of shoppable posts for your online store. 

1. Beneficial for small e-commerce businesses

The photo-sharing site will benefit small e-commerce brands if they use one-off and bespoke content. Make sure you post simple but appealing pictures and videos relevant to your business. Your shoppers will love viewing such posts. Apart from photos or videos, interesting or funny captions interacting with your prospects will help you grow your e-commerce business. The use of apt and related hashtags that your customers use will boost engagement level for your e-commerce business. Use not more than 4-5 hashtags! It will help in growing your community and once you realize your business objectives, including a couple of shoppable posts into your feed. It will result in a better fan following and leads. Besides, you can gain накрутитьлайки в инстаграм. What more do you want? 

2. Improves your storytelling abilities 

Shoppable posts will boost your sales, especially if you are into the beauty, food, furniture, art, crafts, and décor business. Spend some time creating attractive Instagram posts related to a context that will enhance your natural storytelling cachet. Moreover, the story will make sense to your targeted audience. You need to build a narrative with your Instagram shoppable posts. All you need to do is collect products you want to sell, brainstorm ideas, and create a narrative theme for your shoppable posts. 

Weaving a good story will drive user engagement, thus piquing consumer interest to shop for your products. 

3. Positive impact on your audience 

Instagram’s new shoppable posts feature will help you outshine your competitors in the e-commerce landscape provided you know the rules of the game. Then, determine what your potential customers want from your e-commerce website. Reap the benefits out of Instagram Stories in a creative way to produce a positive impact on your current and potential customers. Consult with micro-influencers, test with video content, including a couple of vertical video content. 

Try testing every Instagram feature to help you to expand your e-commerce business and improve the bottom line. The top brands are doing it and so can you. It will take some of your time and effort to see positive results. 

Conclusion 

Shoppable Instagram posts are the best that can happen to any e-commerce business, small or big. Make the most of this new feature to generate leads and turn them into your loyal customers. 

Author Bio

Ariya Stark is the owner of a fashion brand, and she has admitted to using her social media profiles for gaining website traffic. She also visits накрутитьлайки в инстаграм for getting more likes on her posts.

Digital Branding

10 Autoresponder Benefits For Business Marketing Strategies

These days, you should use an autoresponder for your local marketing strategies. This marketing tool will send your messages out automatically to individuals who have an interest in your business. It is also the best way to stay in contact with your customers and prospects. The key is inviting them to become subscribers for your messages about your services, products, and business. It is automatic, easy, and one of the best returns on your marketing investment that your company will ever achieve.

1. Turn anonymous visitors to your website into subscribers.

When people show up at your website for the very first time, one of the best ways to start a conversation with those visitors is to offer something valuable to them in exchange for them providing you with their email address and name. The best marketing automation software services usually recommend that this is a trial offer, a no-obligation consultation, a free report, or anything else that is of high quality and has a high perceived value. After a visitor subscribes to your autoresponder series you can keep sending them email messages for as long as you want, or until they unsubscribe.

2. Easily build long term relationships with your subscribers.

Since you are able to write automated messages ahead of time and have your messages scheduled to be sent automatically to your subscriber list on whatever date and at whatever time of day you specify, you can send a message to all of your subscribers very easily any time you want to Your autoresponder can do all of your work automatically for you on a 24/7 basis. Whenever subscribers hear from you regularly it builds that expectation that they will continue hearing from later in the future as well.

3. Allow you to do continuous marketing without needing to hire additional people.

Since your autoresponder can send out marketing messages to your customers and prospects regularly, it won’t be necessary for you to hire additional staff to do the marketing. That can save on marketing dollars and your marketing department investments will enjoy a much higher return.

4. Follow-up error-free without missing any customers.

It can be hard to follow-up with everyone you meet. However, when you use an autoresponder to send marketing messages about your products, services, and business, it won’t ever miss a single customer or prospect who has subscribed to your mailing list. They will always receive the messages that you send out to them.

5. Constant communication generates repeat sales

It is very likely that people who like doing business with you will continue doing business with your company regularly. Especially if you have services or products that they basis often. When you use an automatic messaging system to send out messages about your services and products, it will remind your customers to purchase what they need from your company automatically and regularly. An automated selling tool is the best thing that a business can have!

6. More subscribers will be led to your website or blog.

When you sent out messages to your subscribers, one of the things that you can do is direct them to your website, your blog, your video channel, or articles. These are all different channels that provide useful information on your business. If your business has things that people want, they will want to know how they can obtain your company’s offerings. They can be directed by an autoresponder message to the precise location that they need to learn more about what they know to know to make their purchasing decision.

7. Receive measurable results.

There are measuring devices built into autoresponders that will tell you the locations of your subscribers. You also will be provided with information that shows you which of your messages have been ready by the most people so you can format messages in the future in ways that get more subscribers to open them. You can determine the best time of day for sending out your message so that your subscribers read them right away. Your autoresponder will track how many new subscribers you get each day. These results can be used to determine what future messages and information you want to send out to your subscribers.

8. Ensures improved e-mail delivery.

Autoresponders have been specially designed to deliver emails on time to your entire subscriber list. Specialized autoresponder systems work a lot better compared to other types of e-mail delivery systems. That allows you to be confident that your subscribers are getting your messages delivered to them.

9. Use your e-mails to help brand yourself.

You can brand your company and yourself in the e-mails that you send out to your subscribers by adding your contact information, your tagline, your logo, or anything else you would like to emphasize about your business.

10. Allows you to duplicate your efforts very easily.

All of the above tasks can be duplicated after you have done them once for your list. You can have separate lists for different product lines, groups of subscribers, other services, or whatever other reason you might have for wanting to have separate lists for sending out messages.