Everyone who has ever tried it knows that getting on the first page of Google search results is not easy. But, on the other hand, it’s far from impossible. As experts have shown times and times again, reaching the top results can be achieved very quickly if you know which road to take. Just thinking about the need to find the right (meaning unique but still highly competitive) keywords is enough to realize that patience is indeed a virtue when it comes to the search engines, but there are a lot of other tasks you can perform to boost your website and thus increase the speed of this process. The internet is full of highly doubtful tactics that can easily backfire – the only way to rank a website quickly is to do it naturally, with so-called white label SEO. In other words, it’s important to realize what exactly Google wants from you and what is the quickest way to provide that.

The beginning of a beautiful friendship

With all those algorithms changes Google has been announcing it may seem impossible to figure out what exactly you’re supposed to do. As soon as you start adjusting your website to certain requests the new ones seem to appear from nowhere. it almost seems if someone has been intentionally keeping you in the dark – well, it might be something like that. Think of Facebook – if you want to gain access to the information about someone’s page you need to send the friend request, or you are forced to monitor all his/hers posts closely and try to catch every bit of information you can.  Same goes for Google – if you want to rank faster you need to make your website become Google-friendly. Google doesn’t accept friend requests, but you can achieve the similar result through Google Search Console. This is a free service designed by Google to make your website’s research functionality more manageable through the collection of reports and tools that will enable you to find and correct errors and create a better strategy to optimize your rankings. Basically, with the beginning of this friendship, Google will be able to find your website more easily, and you can even request for a friendly favour of force crawl every time you make changes to your website.

Every person leads to a machine (and vice versa)

This may sound like a post-apocalyptic setting of some sci-fi movie, but today it’s simply a reality we live in. If you don’t have an account on social media networks it is almost as if you don’t exist. True, you can be a rebel and promote face-to-face conversation values, but when it comes to the visibility of your business you’ll need to make an exception. Google wants to see you on social media – the interaction with your customers through these platforms is a very important factor for your ranking speed. The more links you build, the faster you’ll land on that first page. And while high-quality link building takes a lot of time,  linking your content to social media can easily make it spread like fire. All you need to do is to identify social networks your target audience is on and to keep your posts public. That will produce shares and instant traffic which will automatically rank you higher and faster. The level of your engagement on social media is a decisive factor when it comes to the amount of useful linking you’ll get.

Now for the vice-versa part, which comes with few modifications. Maybe every machine leads back to a person, but when it comes to platforms this doesn’t hold water. Today people use various platforms for their searchings, the smaller the better, and being mobile-friendly has become mandatory already in 2015. That’s why having the responsive web design has become a major ranking element. It provides the same quality of user experience on any device and there is no variation in loading time. And you don’t have to ask Google in order to know that your rankings highly depend on whether your users enjoy spending time on your site – finding content and links easily and quickly – or abandon the ship with frustration after it failed to load in 3 seconds.

Word, words, words

And now, back to those keywords. If you ever wondered why Shakespeare’s ‛Hamlet’ has been staged for over 400 years you’ve probably noticed that it’s very opened to various readings even in this modern age. And all that variety comes from a single Hamlet’s line in the second act of the second scene – ‛Words, words, words’. It is not so much about what Hamlet is reading, but how he’s reading it – people interpret words in various ways, having their own associations, and this becomes very apparent in their online searches. Some of them type in very obscure phrases that have low competition levels, and others type combinations with already high search volume. Your goal should be to find keywords that are somewhere in the middle and a tool from Google called Keyword Planner can be your greatest ally in this ordeal. It will also help you with your grammar – yes, if you haven’t noticed, Google is also monitoring your language use and sentence structure. If they have a spammy and wonky ring they’ll certainly not speed up the ranking process, so don’t let bad English stand in your way. Being precise always leads to greater speed, so it would be wise to also include modifiers – even if you’re not tied to a certain state or area branching your pages is certainly a plus.

As the popular saying of a younger generation goes – ‛Father Google knows everything’. So don’t waste your time searching for dubious shortcuts. All you need to do is to ask for a friendly advice, but choose your words carefully.

 

Data is extremely important to drive decisions in the marketing field. Nothing can or should be done on a whim, so in order to find success, companies look to the cloud to help store and process marketing information. According to Mark Hurd, CEO of Oracle, “All enterprise data will be stored virtually in the cloud.” He adds that “more data is in the cloud now than in traditional storage systems.” Why are so many companies making this switch? Here are a few ways the cloud is helping to change the marketing field for the better.

Content Relevance

One of the most important factors in content marketing is that your content must be relevant to your product or client and to the community you’re targeting. If your content strategy isn’t relevant to your product or your target audience, you’re sure to see your efforts go to waste. According to Oracle, looking at data collected from both clients and audiences can help marketers make connections between them. Collecting information and honing in on specific issues can help clarify the central themes for your marketing campaigns. While this is already important in the marketing field, cloud technologies have revolutionized the way data is collected and analyzed. Now all your marketing information is in the cloud, and your applications can make inferences on their own.

Personalization

Personalization is also a critical element in modern marketing campaigns. Cloud-based data has greatly improved the degree of specificity to which marketing professionals can target their audience with demographic and psychographic details. The immense amount of data out there allows one to get a better picture of their target and deliver more tailored content via personalized ads. It was difficult to personalize anything for larger pools of consumers before the advent of cloud software. Now, this data can even help detect and predict behaviour patterns and anticipate an audience’s readiness something new. This can help marketers to assemble personalized content to win their audience over.

Less Human Participation

Collecting data, tracking feedback, and making inferences for strategic purposes can take a lot of time and energy. Thanks to the cloud, there is now less human interaction needed for marketing campaign production. However, this doesn’t mean the cloud is taking jobs away from marketing professionals. In fact, it frees up time for these professionals to work on more pressing matters. Professionals can use this time they’ve saved to discover insights and focus their efforts on creating better campaigns. In essence, the cloud isn’t replacing jobs, it’s making jobs more efficient.

Data is changing the way marketing works and the jobs the field may require in the future. A growing dependence on software and information calls for more tech-savvy talent. Marketing agencies are now hiring data scientists and tech professionals who better understand the systems in use and can help pull out the whos, whats, wheres, whens and whys the software produces. Marketing is ever-changing, but its end goal has always been making sales, and the cloud can help make that process even smoother.

Information Security or InfoSec. Does this term ring a bell? If not, at least you know the word hacking and what it can do to your personal and business data. Information security is all about ensuring the security, integrity and confidentiality of your data. You can be an individual or an enterprise, any digital data that you own must be secured. Information Security deals with the nitty-gritty of securing such data from falling prey to devious cybercrime professionals.

A Quick Brief About Information Security (InfoSec)

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), defines information security as “The protection of information and information systems from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification or destruction.”

Your information could be the files you store on a cloud server, your email conversations, the files you save offline, or even online transactions that you carry out over the Internet. Thanks to the widespread use of smartphone’s, tablets and personal computers, data is now created in Petabytes and Zettabytes. Protecting such humongous volume of data is not an easy task. And, not all of us can be considered to be cautious when it comes to securing our personal data.

Most users make compromises that make their data easily hackable. Also, hackers are becoming adept at social engineering techniques which makes it possible for them to reverse engineer login credentials and passwords from social media activity. In other words, it is a dangerous world out there.

The Business Benefits of InfoSec Implementation

While it might sound a bit sophisticated and over-the-head for an average user InfoSec is a highly beneficial investment that can bring several economic benefits to your business. Some such benefits are outlined below.

Universal Data Protection

InfoSec helps establish a data protection system for all forms of information. As a running business, your information could exist in diverse forms, ranging from paper records like invoices, vendor agreements, intellectual property documents and so on. The same information may also be digitized and stored on cloud servers from where they can be accessed or accessed from time to time.

The moment they are made into data and stored online, they become exposed to cyber threats. InfoSec helps create a perimeter defence system. It encompasses all the data including those stored on your hard copies.

Enhanced Cyber Attack Resilience

Cybercrime damage costs to hit $6 trillion annually by 2021, reports the 2017 Cybercrime Report by Cybersecurity ventures. In fact, 2017 itself was an eventful year in terms of cybersecurity considering the many outbreaks of ransomware, organized botnet attacks, IoT network breaches and much more.

Digital-age enterprises need to sharpen their cybersecurity resilience by building their cybersecurity defences. InfoSec provides just the concrete foundation and the infrastructure upon which a resilient IT infrastructure can be built. It identifies areas where businesses might want to integrate additional layers of security so that their organizational data remains intact.

A Central Data Management Framework

The challenge in setting up and running a security infrastructure is that data remains siloed across several business functions, systems, data warehouses and so on. Most often business owners have to invest in diverse security systems that are compatible with the diverse forms of data.

InfoSec helps overcome that challenge by creating a centralized data management framework where all systems can be converged and monitored from a single source. It saves time and ensures a uniform way of establishing data security. Further, it also eliminates the inconsistency in data protection measures when several frameworks are used.

A Security-Centric Organizational Culture

InfoSec requires organization-wide participation. It is not possible to draw the maximum benefit out of Information security management unless all stakeholders comprising of employees, users customers and vendors adhere to its protocols.

As a result, InfoSec breeds an organization-wide security-centric culture that ensures data security and confidentiality. In the long-run, it converts into better IT resilience against technology-induced threats and also better response systems in case something is to go wrong.

Improved Customer Confidence

A business that takes data security seriously is one that takes customers seriously. Take for instance Apple. The iPhone maker has always taken a strong stance when it comes to securing its user data from unauthorized access by apps and network carriers. That makes Apple the first choice for most users who put their data security and privacy above everything else.

The same goes for websites as well. Websites that install SSL certificate; and show the green HTTPS bar enjoy a higher level of trust from their visitors than their less secured counterparts. In other words, Information Security helps in boosting customer confidence about a brand. Reputed Certificate Authority like RapidSSL, offers a digital certificate that secures end to end communication point (browser to the server) through 256-bit encryption technology. Encryption secure customer data and build a strong business trust relationship, that indirectly improves sales. For more information about the features of RapidSSL – www.cheapsslshop.com/rapidssl is the best place to learn about the benefits of HTTPS and installation support. Information Security proves to the outside world that the business takes data confidentiality, integrity, and privacy as a serious matter and hence is professional in its dealings with customers.

Summing It Up

Information Security in 2018 is no longer an option. It has become a necessity that will keep cybersecurity threats at bay. As the volume of cybersecurity crimes keep skyrocketing with every passing day, business needs to take measures to protect and make their data immune to unauthorized access.

Information security provides just the right framework for that. It brings with a plethora of benefits like a centralized security management system, improved cybersecurity resilience, enhanced customer confidence and universal data protection. The benefit from an Information Security system may not accrue immediately. But, it gets better with time.

Every day up-and-coming business ventures are established. Thanks to globalization, the marketplace has expanded, and products have become more varied. But to an entrepreneur, the dilemma of how to stand out arises. In a competitive environment, you can’t afford to be a wallflower. Successful businesses manage to stand out through personal branding. In this post, you will learn what personal branding is, and why you need it.

Personal Branding Explained

“Brand” is a familiar term. Recall your favourite shop when you were growing up. Ask yourself: Why did you like that particular store? What made it distinct? Is it because of its logo, name, commercial jingle, reputation, employees? Whatever it is, it’s part of that store’s branding.

Today, branding has moved to a personal level. Brands are no longer just attached to companies and products, but also to the individuals behind them. In an article, Forbes opined that it is necessary for business founders to invest in their personal brand.

A personal brand is an identity you make for yourself. When we say personal branding, it pertains to a practice of establishing an impression and presenting yourself to others. In a way, it is a marketing strategy that influences people’s behaviour and reaction toward you. It encompasses your professional experience, skills, reputation, network, and online presence.

The significance of Personal Branding

– Emphasizes human relationships

Gone are the days when customers were only concerned with the products and services they paid for. Customers now crave human connection. They look for credible brands and determine this by scrutinizing the names behind the brand.

But it is not all about your name. You become the ambassador of your business. Your principles, beliefs, networks, skills, hobbies, and even your fashion statements convey something about your brand.

Through personal branding, you can attract like-minded individuals. Later on, these individuals will comprise your loyal supporters. They will help you expand by talking about you and patronizing your business.

– Celebrates your individuality

The real beauty of personal branding is that it encourages you to embrace your uniqueness. Authenticity is so scarce nowadays that it piques the interest of people. By being true to yourself, you will provide a refreshing character that many will find attractive. The quirks and weirdness you thought you are better off without will be the qualities that will charm your market.

Being distinct is a natural consequence of embracing your individuality. It will enable people to easily recall who you are. You will cease to be just another blogger, photographer, or entrepreneur. You are you.

– Builds trust

One thing that is more valuable than recall is trust. By being yourself, you are exposing some of your vulnerabilities. And people have a soft spot for these things. They become more receptive when you open up to them. Your story will be relatable, your dreams will resonate with them, and your goals will be relevant. You will become a person they trust.

– Entails continuous learning

When starting out, you are not expected to figure out the entirety of your personal brand. You are allowed to grow. In fact, it is in fine-tuning your brand where you will discover your authentic voice.

Personal branding is a continuous process of establishing your image, building confidence, and gaining others’ trust. Experiencing personal growth and sharing the experience with your market are also part of the journey.

– Facilitates success

Personal branding as a marketing strategy is effective. Numerous trainers and coaches believe that it is indispensable in the digital era. You can’t blame them for the number of success stories speaks for itself.

Personal Branding by Celebrities

Anyone can benefit from personal branding. But the easiest way to appreciate its impact is through the celebrities who have utilized it. Think about Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Ellen DeGeneres, and Taylor Swift. These individuals are all successful in their industries. And personal branding plays an important role in how they are perceived by people.

– Mark Zuckerberg

When he founded Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg showed the world his inventiveness. He cemented this by making a simple fashion statement. The hoodies and grey t-shirts he constantly wore eventually began to represent the start-up culture that Zuckerberg embraces.

His personal branding conveys simplicity and efficient resource management, which are also reflected in Facebook’s objectives.   

– Bill Gates

Bill Gates is renowned worldwide because of his wealth. However, on his LinkedIn profile, he introduces himself as co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and not as co-founder of Microsoft.

Gates also consistently donates money to charity. Another way he uses social media is by posting book recommendations. These actions establish in our mind that Gates cares more about philanthropy and knowledge than monetary wealth. This image makes him an ideal ambassador for his company.

– Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift’s success as a global superstar is a testament to how useful personal branding is. Early on, Swift connected with her fans and managed to build a loyal fan base. Her songs reflected themes that her supporters could relate to. She made sure to speak out about feminism, creativity, cancer, bullying, and other issues.

Her stand on such issues made her closer to her fans, which allowed her to easily transition from country to pop. Swift’s personal branding has also helped her survive celebrity feuds with her good reputation relatively unscathed.

– Ellen DeGeneres

Ellen DeGeneres is the epitome of effective personal branding. Her daytime show’s success and the subsequent launching of her own merchandise are indicative of what you can achieve as well.

DeGeneres’ personal brand capitalizes on her humanity. She is not afraid to show her awkwardness and weird humour, which her audiences gladly embrace. Her kindness, though, is what has endeared her to the world. Her personal branding has made her a credible brand that people trust.      

The Next Step

Now that you are aware of the significance of personal branding, it’s time to incorporate it into your own life. Let this guide help you. But always remember to stay true to your authentic self. After all, you will make your personal brand stand out.

Author Bio:

Daniel Ross is part of the marketing team at Roubler — a scheduling and payroll software platform founded in Australia. Their mission is to change the way the world manages its workforces.

Emerging technologies have played a pivotal role in how businesses market their product or services. Companies who haven’t adopted the latest technologies with the passage of time are on the verge of being closed.

For instance, people who have relied heavily on traditional marketing after the evolution of digital marketing are being waived off. If you are one of those, now it is time to revise your marketing strategy, adopt the approaches that lead to success and reach an audience on a bigger scale.

Presently, marketing is all about interacting with the customers directly. Let’s have a look at some of the statistics revealing the dominance and future prospects of chatbots.

• Chatbots have been dominant in the recent years and chatbot market revenue exceeded $250 million in 2017.
• Moreover, a report published by Global Market Insights, Inc. on the chatbot market suggests that customer service is the highest contributing segment with 42.52% share. The size of chatbot is set to exceed $1.34 billion by 2024 according to Global Market Insights.
• 35% of consumers want to see more companies using chatbots
• 57% of consumers are interested in chatbots for their instantaneity. (HubSpot, 2017)
• 28% of top performing companies use AI for marketing (Adobe, 2018)

From the above statistics, it can be seen how seriously companies should consider chatbot development solution to stay competitive.

No matter, whether you are operating an e-commerce store or offering some kind of services, chatbots will prove to be fruitful. Let’s have a look at how chatbots can help grow your brand and engage your customers far better than ever.

Seamless Customer Support and Services Around the Clock

As a customer, you are impatient and want a solution to your problem instantly. What would you expect from a small e-commerce store, where resources are limited and the company can’t afford to hire a full-time customer sales representative. Customers are looking forward to a timely response and quick solution to their concerns.

Chatbots can offer customer support service round the clock 24/7 and 365 days a year. Simply by integrating a chatbot on your website, you can help your potential and existing customers to find answers to questions like what are the shipping charges, payment modes, and delivery time. Without waiting for a second, chatbots can answer the queries and make the process seamless, smooth and hassle-free.

According to Gartner, “Chatbots will power 85% of all customer service interactions by 2020. The average person will have more conversation with bots than with the spouse”

Buying Decision and Engaging Customers Made Easier

AI Chatbots are not only limited to one to one chat and offering solutions to the problems. They are progressing at a rapid pace, and help in recommending products or services customers might be interested in.

For instance, a buyer purchased a DVD player from an e-store. He or she might be interested in buying DVDs or a new smart HD TV. AI chatbot will recommend the products based on buyer’s interest that would ultimately lead to more sales and revenue.

In addition, chatbots can also suggest products based on customers queries. For example, a person is looking for a headphone of a specific brand but could not find it anywhere while browsing through the store; chatbots can help find the products instantly. Without any waiting or hassle of searching, customers can save time and buy the product instantly. Thus leading to the great and satisfied customer experience at the end of shopping.

Data Collection, Monitoring, and Insights

Chatbots are not only helpful in guiding customers but also support in collecting and interpreting data. Chatbots only understand what they learned from the conversation guide fed by the chatbot developer.

Collecting data has always been critical for big and small enterprises. However, not anymore because AI chatbots are adept at collecting customers data without any hassle. As soon as the customer interacts or visits the website, chatbots collect the data based on interaction and queries. With the help of this data, marketers can evaluate the data, draw inferences and make decisions that would help in generating more sales. It can also help in analyzing the customers buying behaviour, and what interests them the most.

Conclusion

Chatbots without any doubt will take the marketing to a new level, resulting in higher engagement, higher return, and happy customers. If you want to stay alive and competitive in the tough market, technology should be on the top of your list and of course, chatbot is one of them.

Author Bio:

Ray Parker is an entrepreneur and internet marketer with over 15 years of experience in Search Engine Optimization, Creative Writing and Digital Marketing with IQVIS.

With the use of a shared count, it is possible to see how much your target audience are in tune with your content, but you can always do more.

Social media listening is simply about searching the internet and specifically the social media space to see what is being said about your business or brand, your competitors and other topics of interest, and with a little time and creativity, you can go beyond just monitoring your brand. You can employ the use of social listening to enhance content marketing, business development, product management, human resources and customer support.

If you are thinking of trying out social media listening, here are 5 ways in which this technique can be beneficial to your business:

Improved customer service

Today, more people are starting to use social media as the place to make public complaints, find solutions to their problems, and commend brands on good service.

Instead of relying on onsite calls or physically waiting for customers to show up in your workspace, social media as the go-to tool for responding and reacting to customers who encounter problems. Social media monitoring can improve the quality of your customer service through digital channels so that people no longer have to wait to receive a response.

Discover where your community is

Social listening enables you to find out where your potential and current community members carry on important conversations, for example, the hashtags on Twitter can lead you towards their areas of interests and what they often enjoy doing.

It is a good technique for identifying a target audience that would befit your brand, but more so for better niching your messages to befit their interests and reach out to their circles as well.

Track down the comments and shares on social media to lead you to the places they like to visit and the kind of content they would rather consume.

Build links with advocates and influencers

Influencer marketing is growing huge today and has continued to draw attention. The importance is that the influencer marketers ensure that people are talking about you and your brand, and when you are a conversation on social media, search engines and other users will definitely know who you are.

After a big product launch or update, track the link to or the title for press release you shared to see who else is sharing it. This information will help you identify influencers in your industry. Reach out to them to start building relationships.

Focus not only on the users with a big following, but also on the important fans of your brand that may not necessarily have a huge following, but are likely to convert to your advocates more than influencers can.

Interact with users

Largely, social media exists to foster relationship building, which is the one thing social media listening can help your brand with. For a business or brand, it can be overwhelming to track down comments and posts that might be relevant to you unless through social media listening.

Once you are keen on what your target audience is discussing and the trending issues in your industry, it is much easier to interact with your users then.

Be sure to keep your response times, intelligent, and humorous yet consistent with your brand image.

Actionable insights for brand improvement

Blindly running a business on social media can be detrimental to the productivity and success of your brand, which is the key reason you require to gather actionable insights for your brand management.

Since social media allows for open feedback, it is quite easy to receive negativity and criticism that might threaten the successful running of your brand, but with proper management, can scale your brand to greater heights.

Consider the feedback you receive as insights to help you in adjusting your business.

Social media is such a powerful tool, and with a little keenness in social listening, watch your business bloom this year!

With the right presentation, you can make any business successful. The way you keep your office says a lot about you and your business. The moment someone enters your office, they’re going to notice everything: the color of the walls, the furniture, the way you arrange your furniture, the whole ambiance of the place makes the first impression. Branding is not an easy task. You might need some professional advice sometimes. If you have decided to do this all on your own, here are some tips that you will require to get everything just right.

Tips For Branding Your Workspace

1. Get Opinions  

Branding your workspace is a big step. It can either make your company more prominent, or it will take it down. Never make this decision single-handedly.  One-person shows are not advisable when planning office layout; ask other people that you trust about their opinions and suggestions. Seek help from the people from various departments who might have a better vision than you since they know the workflow better than you . Remember that your target involves the public too. You are not going to impress every person that walks in these doors by just using your ideas. Check the ambiance of other offices also. Look for new furniture options. Choose unique designs of office chairs, tables, sofas, etc.  An outsider should remember it for a long time.

2. Focus On Advertisement

Advertising is the key. Sometimes even if your product is not good enough, you can still make it look worthy with the right representation. Focus on the whole look of your website. When people are searching it, they should be able to easily find what they want.. Your site should have a separate opportunity for every service that you provide.

3. Logo

No matter what your business=, always try to maintain your individuality. Logos do this work for you. Make your logo so unique and impressive that if a person looks at it, he should know what about your company. Take the example of the Apple iPhone where their company logo in such a way, that no matter where you are from, you will recognize the company at a glance.

The same goes for the mottos and signs. Your office should be an accurate depiction of what your company does, your goals, your work, current projects you are working on. Let’s suppose; you are a commercial builder. Your office should contain the detail of what kind of work you have already done, your achievements, etc. If you have been a part of a major project or have been awarded some distinction, get the certificates framed and hang them up on the wall.

4. Organization  

It is not essential to have extraordinary furniture; if you have a small budget, you can still make your place stand out from the rest. Place the ordinary things in an extraordinary way. The whole theme of the site usually depends on the type of work your company is doing. If you are doing creative works, you have a wide range of things that you can do with your place as you have more latitude than an accounting firm or bank..You have to maintain the decorum of the whole place.You should also keep the place well-lit and ventilated.

5. The Color Schemes

Again, if you are doing creative works, you can quickly get away with vibrant colors but if your office does more traditional professional look, you will have to go with light colors like grey or merely white will do. It is not recommended to go with vibrant colors as it might not correctly promote your brand.