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Advertising and marketing are some of the pillars of effective business strategies. There are many ways to get your business out there and advertise your services. One of the oldest ways to market your business, be it a product or a service, is by word of mouth. This is the most credible, and cheapest way to help grow your business. Although the best things in life are free, this is not the case for marketing. If you want to grow your business, you will have to invest in good advertising.

Traditional vs Non-traditional Advertising

When we say traditional advertising, this mostly encompasses advertising through the most common forms of media such as billboards, newspapers, and radio or TV commercials. This is an older advertising method and has been around for centuries. Non-traditional advertising, otherwise, involves the use of technology to reach out to the target audience. There’s advertising on the internet through page banners, social media marketing, and mobile advertising. Non-traditional advertising reaches a wider audience with an estimated number of 3.2 billion internet users worldwide.

What is Online Presence?

Simply put, online presence is the establishment of a business that can be found via an online search. With the rise of social media, most consumers would find a business more credible if it has a strong online presence. Meaning this business manages either a social media site, a website, or both. Businesses that are able to establish an online presence are able to leverage the use of these platforms to help promote and grow the business.

 Benefits of a Strong Online Presence

Sure, it’s great to hear all this talk about establishing an online presence. But let us break down how this will actually benefit your business.

Free Advertising

Instead of spending money on advertising firms, you may want to invest this capital into a good construction contract and bidding software that can help you run your business and get ahead of the game. Nowadays, you can use social media platforms to create a page for your business, provide chat support services, and even create online order forms- all for free! It’s like getting something for nothing. In addition, there are also free web hosting websites that enable you to create a webpage for your business for added online presence.

Global Audience

Traditional print advertising only limits your ads to those who have access to this material. Most of the time they come in the form of a section in the newspaper or magazine, as well as outdoor billboards and TV ads. In this day and age, more and more people are opting to go digital and print ads may not be as effective in reaching your audience, most especially the millennials. Establishing an online presence means that you can reach far and wide all over the world. With a growing number of internet users, there is great potential in your business once you have established a strong online presence.

Online Presence = Credibility

The modern consumer will look up most likely anything and everything on the internet. To most users, if your company does not appear on an online search, this can set off a red flag. It is established that a credible company should be searchable online. If your company does not have an online presence, you can miss out on a valuable opportunity to market your business to the right audience.

Advertise 24/7

            The internet never sleeps. With a strong online presence, you can be sure that you’re advertising round-the-clock. People from all over the world can search and contact your business any time of the day once you’re established on the internet. You don’t have to wait for the day’s paper to arrive or for your spot to air on TV to be able to get the message across. With an online presence, advertising is just a click away.

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You sit on your desktop looking for the best online deals on fashion merchandise. What do you usually do? You merely Google the results and look for the ones that suit you. More often than not, you click on the ones at the top. Do you ever wonder what makes those sites appear at the top? Is it their popularity?

However, the main reason why they appear at the top is their optimization in accordance with the search engine. Search engine optimization has been a defining moment for the change in online advertising and digital marketing industry. Most websites prefer to optimize their content for it to appear at the top of the search results in Google. It has specific strategies which help your site grow in terms of stature.

A Brief on the Working of SEO

How does SEO make it possible for your website to appear at the top? Well, it’s not such a complicated process. Every site stands for its content, as it should. The content is the main structure which makes your website strong. In the working of SEO too, it’s the content which plays a significant role. For it to work, you would have to be well-versed with keywords and searches of your content.

What happens is, we target a few specific words from our content and use it as keywords. The experts set keywords according to the searches on Google. For example, if we see a few words which have a vast range in the search history, we can set them as our keywords. It sets up the content is such a way that Google tracks your content up whenever people use those words to search the internet.

It is mainly this strategy which works in Search Engine Optimization. Not only the text content but it also works with various other forms of content available in the web world. Going deep down the context would help us know more about how SEO event works. However, companies usually hire SEO experts such as SEO Company Los Angeles to help them out with the optimization of your content.

Working over Videos

Videos are by far the best means of boosting your web content. When you have well-framed video clippings which go well along with your website and its content, it is bound to boost your content for search engine optimization. You don’t need proof to believe how vital videos can be in capturing people’s attention. Once you go away with grabbing the attention, half of your work is over.

Statistically too, videos have seen a rise in their use over the years. Recent developments in the industry have placed videos way above other kinds of content in the market. As you scroll through videos, you get to see various types of content which unknowingly grabs your attention towards a specific product. It is this skill which you require if you wish to excel in this field.

Benefits of Incorporating SEO

Websites all over the world look to incorporate SEO into their systems. There have to be substantial reasons behind this. Optimizing your content is more important than you might think. Let’s see the benefits of SEO below:

1. Low Cost and Maintenance

SEO is unlike advertisement where you pay for your products’ advertising. It is something which comes with skill and information. You hire SEO experts to optimize your content, and you are good to go. You don’t need any extra payment over the online sources to boost your content. Some people go for illegal sources and spend money, but the effort ultimately goes in vain, as they fail to focus on their content.

One should know that spending extra money is not going to get them anywhere. It’s their effort and quality which can do so.

2. Increase in Traffic

Optimizing your content means a definite increase in web traffic. Statistically, most websites opting for SEO have witnessed a considerable increase in traffic. It’s obvious when your content appears on the top of the search results that you are bound to see an increase in web traffic. The growth would not be there overnight, but it would be steady enough to keep you guessing. You have to keep patience for the result.

3. Enhancement in Credibility and Stature

For a brand, its credibility stands on top of its priority list as it should. As a webmaster, it is obvious for you to look for a way out which helps you enhance your credibility. You can use social media platforms, your nearby sources, and other means to propagate your brand credibility, which are good ways of promoting your brand. However, SEO lets you have a look at the bigger picture.

Using SEO, when your content appears on the top of search results, your potential customers are bound to think about your brand as a high-end one. This impression of your brand on your potential customers demands a strategy. SEO helps you have that.

4. Return of Investment

Your expectations for your investments rise higher with the amount that you consider for investing in a project. With SEO, you land in an entirely appropriate place where you get more than your expectations. The effects on SEO on your web traffic are most of the times higher than what you usually expect for a certain amount of expenditure. So, the return of investment that you get in SEO is one of the best.

5. You are ahead of your competitors

If a concept becomes popular, its demand is bound to increase. With an increase in demand, the competition also increases. Considering a lot of people are already starting to look for SEO experts to expand their business online, you should not waste any time in getting started. It would make you stand with your competitors who are already in this field and give you an edge over those who aren’t.

Business is a race where you need to strive to get better every day. Don’t simply do it because everyone is busy doing it but, do it because it’s the way to go.

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Drop shipping is a prevalent model of business for novel entrepreneurs, especially millennials and Gen Xers, because of the skills of internet marketing that are outweighing financial capacities. Since you do not require handling or stocking the things on sale, there is a possibility of starting a drop shipping business with minimal funds.

An e-commerce site operating the drop shipping model buys and sells products from manufacturers and third-party suppliers, who then fulfill the order. This cuts your costs of operation and frees up the time needed to focus on the efforts of acquiring new customers.

If you want to start a drop shipping business that competes with giants in the retail sector, and you are doing it on a minimal budget, use the steps below. While it does not need a lot of funds to start this business, it requires a lot of hard work.

Choose a niche

The niche of choice needs to have less focus and something you are interested in genuinely; the product range that does not have a focus on the market. In case you are not passionate about your niche of choice; you will be apt on getting discouraged; since it takes so much work to scale your drop business successfully. Below are a few aspects to consider while choosing a niche;

Look for attractive profits

While running a model of the drop shipping business, the whole focus is on marketing and acquisition of customers; therefore the work needed to sell an item for twenty dollars is the same as selling a product worth one thousand five hundred dollars. Choose a niche with expensive products.

Low costs of shipping are vital. Although the manufacturer or supplier will handle shipping in case the price is very high, it will function like customer repellant. Look for something which is affordable to ship, and this will offer you the option of providing free shipping to clients and absorbing the cost as an expense of the business to attract additional sales.

You need to make sure that the product is appealing to impulse buyer with income that is disposable. When you put your focus on driving website traffic, you will want to experience high conversion rates because the majority of visitors will never come back. The things you are selling need to trigger impulse appeal and buys to individuals with the ability to purchase immediately.

You need to make sure that people are searching for the product actively. Employ the keyword planner and trends from Google to check common terms relating to your niche. If there is no one searching for what you want to sell, you are already dead before even beginning.

Create your brand

The drop shipping business you start will have a lot of value if it is possible to rebrand what you are selling and give it your look. Seek a line or product that can be white labeled and sell it as your brand with customized branding and packaging.

Sell something which is available locally

You need to pick something that clients cannot find on the streets. In this way, you become beautiful to potential customers.

Carry out competitive search

You need to remember that you are competing with competing with other operations and retail giants like Amazon and Walmart. This is where many potential shippers miss it since they look for products with no or little competition. It is a sign that there is no demand for that item.

There are a lot of reasons why products may not have so much competition, like manufacturing and supplier issues, high costs of shipping, or poor margins of profit. Seek for items with the tournament since it is a sign that the demand is high and model of the business is sustainable.

Secure the supplier

Partnering with wrong suppliers can ruin your enterprise; therefore it is crucial not to rush through this step. You need to conduct due diligence. Many drop shipping businesses are overseas, which make communication important in terms of the ability to understand one another and response speed. In case you are not one hundred percent confident in the skills of contact of the supplier, move on with your search.

Alibaba has a tremendous online resource for identifying and communicating with potential suppliers and manufacturers. You need to make sure that you ask many questions and learn their capacity to the product in the vent the business is growing. You need to make sure that they can scale with you.

Learn from other drop shipping business entrepreneurs who have gone through this path. There are a lot of sources of information, from tech and business blogs to subreddit about drop shipping. This topic is favorite since it helps in avoiding costly mistakes to the supplier.

Constructing an e-commerce site

The easiest and fastest method of launching a website which support the drop shipping model is by use of the simple platform of commerce like Shopify. You do not require a tech background to be up and running and has many apps to assist increase sales volumes.

Even when you have a small budget that can allow you to employ a web development and web design firm to curate a custom solution, it is wise to use plug and play options in the beginning. After becoming established and some revenue is streaming in, you can then explore added customizations of the site.

Create a plan of acquiring customers

Having a great site and great product is good; however, without the clients to purchase, you do not have a business. There are many ways of attracting potential clients, but the option that is effective is starting an ad campaign on Facebook.

Conclusion

You need to track all metrics and data that is available for the growth of your business. It includes Facebook conversion pixel data and Google analytics data; if that is your primary channel of customer acquisition. When you want to track each conversation to know the origin of the customer and the path they took on the website that led to sales; it helps you to scale what is functional and eliminate what does not. You will not have to put in place a set and forget the marketing or advertising solution. You have to fine-tune current campaigns and test new opportunities, which will allow for a shift in the battle to spend or know the date of optimizing your budget.

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For whatever reason you would opt to blog, may it for business or personal matters, the main aim is to reach a vast majority of people and ensure that you resonate with most of them. Well, most people will comfortably start a blog, pay various agencies to advertise, and then they think that’s it. No, rather, in order to successfully run a blog you need various tips that would ensure you achieve great success at blogging. Let’s dive into it.

1.    Find your passion

What drives you into blogging in the first place? Or if you already have a blog, what drove you into that specific niche? In order to achieve that top-tier status in blogging, you must love and enjoy the topic that you are handling. There is much ease and comfort writing content for content you love, rather than just trying to search on what you heard by hearsay of people that writing on a certain niche pays better. Let’s say you have passion for Yoga, or cooking for instance, it wouldn’t make sense trying too hard in a poetry blog or even a travel blog that are not in your interests.

2.    Invest in Good Gear

There are certain blogs that most of us just glance and they are off to another page. Well, why is it hard for people to stick to your blog? One major aspect is the quality of content that is offered. Some blogs are covered with gibberish and fluff while also have very poor photographs that it is a complete turn off.  Investing in the right gear has the powers of making a blog look very professional. What do we mean by gear? Well, one important aspect to consider is always a camera. Blogs that involve images, like traveling, food, product reviews, and such, it is imperative that you have a very clear DSLR camera that will deliver great content. Other than that, there is the software gear like WordPress software, email marketing software, the Adobe Suite and various plugins that you will need at the end of the day to ensure your blog looks really professional and neat.

3.    Content and consistency

In order to achieve success with your blog, you need to always have content to deliver. Content that is geared to capture the attention of your audience from the first to last bit of the blog. Then, your blogs should be consistent and within a specific time-frame. If you do on a daily, weekly, on a fortnight, or the least being a monthly basis, then you need to maintain the same consistency. This keeps your audience always eager and looking forward to the next blog.

4.    User-friendly interface

One of the appealing things a blog offers is an interface that welcomes its readers. An interface that resembles when the internet was conceived has very low chances of surviving or competing with numerous of the modern interfaces that are supported or hosted by a number of web hosting platforms. Try and look out for what suits your kind of blog, so that it would be appealing for readers to get that professional look whenever they are reading your content.

5.    Gear content to suit mobile

Lastly, as the world is busy changing, more and more people stick to their phones, and it is likely that most people that will read your content are doing it at the comfort of their phone. Well then, the content that you generate should be geared to suit mobile users. People will dash to their phones between breaks, while commuting, while cranking some miles in the treadmill, you name it, but these are still the people that will look at your blog at their best convenience.  The least is to make sure that your blog content is geared to mobile interfaces too.

Author Bio: Mashum is a Blogger, Entrepreneur & Online Marketing Expert. He is the co-founder and chief marketing officer at BloggerOutreach, the company that provides Blogger Outreach Services. Mashum is the founder of Viacon.

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Social media marketing success depends not only on the number of followers you have but also how fast the number keeps growing. When you are using Instagram, you must create strategies to ensure that the follower base keeps expanding and most importantly comprise of a high number of active Instagram followers. You just cannot afford to feel complacent even if you have a million followers because unless most of them are active on the platform and take interest to share your content, it does not add any value to the marketing campaign. The element of shareability linked to the high visibility of brands makes social media so much valuable to marketers. And sharing of content on Instagram is only possible when your followers take an active interest in your content to share it.

Building the numbers first

Nothing happens unless you can develop a sizeable number of followers on Instagram. To begin with, you must engage a full-time person experienced in Instagram to look after your account who can do all the hard work necessary to attract viewers and then convert them into your loyal followers. At this point, you must not fuss about the quality of followers too much because the numbers do matter in giving you confidence about the prospects of using the platform for your needs. When you see that many people are taking an interest in your brand, you can plan the next step to sensitize followers and use them for propagating your brand across the platform.

Build relationships

Once your brand becomes familiar to your followers, you must think about how to use them for growing the brand. Besides creating high-quality content, you must interact with followers closely to develop a more close relationship that goes beyond numbers. You must stay active on the platform and respond to what others are posting so that your online existence becomes quite convincing and authoritative that takes your marketing efforts to a new level. Your followers can discover the human face behind the brand that generates more trust and encourages them to come forward and share your content.

Activity outscores numbers

While the number of followers on Instagram might make you proud, do not forget that their activity level is perhaps more important. This brings us to the point where quality rules over quantity. After all, what sense does it make to build a crowd if only a few choose to spread the good word about your brand? Unless your followers turn into your brand ambassadors, the number of followers would only remain a vanity metric, doing little good for your marketing cause. Indeed, you must target the maximum following but also take steps to ensure that the followers stay active and help you gain an advantage in marketing.

The activity level of followers is an indicator of the extent of interest they take in your business and brand that really matters. Even if you have fewer followers who are highly active, it will translate into a better business which is the purpose of taking your business to Instagram.