Results for: content marketing

Digital Branding

Get the Bigger Deal by Opting for Search Engine Optimization

https://pixabay.com/photos/seo-sem-marketing-optimization-web-758264/

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.

  1. 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.

  1. 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.

 

  1. 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.

  1. 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.

Digital Branding

Best Way to Setup a Dropshipping Business Quickly

https://pixabay.com/illustrations/dropshipping-oberlo-shopify-3264486/

 

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.

Digital Branding

5 Blogging Tips That Will Make Your Blog Successful

https://pixabay.com/en/workplace-office-desk-blogging-2303851/

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.

Local Branding

8 Personality Traits of a Successful Salesperson

In sales, nothing is perfect. However, there are some ways that you can be a successful salesperson, and one of them is possessing and cultivating certain traits that make you stand out from the others. Here are eight personality traits successful salespeople possess.

 

1. Resilience

One thing’s certain when you’re making sales – you’ll get rejected a lot along the way. Rejection is inevitable in this line of business, but the successful salespeople learn how to get back up. This personality trait is called resilience to rise above failure.

Above all traits, it’s crucial that, as a salesperson, you must have the resilience to survive the world of sales. For example, when selling cars, you most likely won’t be able to sell to the first ones that you meet. So, you need some resilience to be able to get past your failures and move forward.

 

2. Conscientiousness

The most successful salespeople don’t only care about selling for the sake of selling. What makes them great is their high level of conscientiousness. This means that they have a very strong sense of responsibility and reliability. They put their work to heart and make it their goal to provide the best service. By having a conscientious personality, you can build strong professional relationships and loyalty with your clients.

 

3. Adaptability

Many things happening around the world affect your business and your sales. When selling, you have to know the different market forces, economic conditions, and political issues while being able to have a feel of the client’s quirks and motivation to make a purchase. This almost happens simultaneously, and a successful salesperson would know how to adapt quickly and navigate through this.

 

4. Drive

Top performers and successful salespeople have a common trait, and that is being driven either by achievement or other meaningful things. Salespeople who have a goal in mind and do everything to achieve it are bound for success. By having a goal-oriented and driven mindset, they are able to strategize their ways of selling to be able to close the deal. Whether you have experience in sales or not, having a driven personality will make all the difference. Because of this trait, you’re also able to be the best version of yourself.

 

5. Confidence

Confidence is key to closing sales deals. Every successful salesperson believes in the product they’re selling. You have to exude confidence when marketing your product or service so that your client will believe you and buy from you. If you don’t believe in your abilities or you’re unsure of your product, it will definitely show in your dealings and presentations, and your performance will suffer.

6. Good Listener

Another personality trait of successful salespeople is their ability to listen attentively. An example of a lousy salesperson is one who keeps on talking, monopolizes the conversation, and forgets to listen to the client. Salespeople who listen to clients are able to provide solutions to the problems of the customer and satisfy their needs and preferences through their product or service. So, make it a point to listen to your clients before you aggressively push your offerings.

 

7. Approachability

People skills or soft skills are vital for someone in the sales force. In your day as a salesperson, you’ll encounter a lot of people and will need to talk to them. You need to be accommodating to the people you meet for the first time and understand their specific needs immediately. By being approachable, customers won’t be intimidated to talk to you and be more trusting.

8. Hardwork

Successful salespeople understand that closing the deal isn’t the end of a sale. Along the way, the client may have another problem, and a good salesperson is always ready to help him out. Following this stride, you must be hardworking to be able to accommodate all of the concerns of your customers.

You must provide an end-to-end service for your clients so that they’ll be satisfied and come back to you for future sales. As a bonus, if your client is pleased with your service, they can recommend you to their family, friends, and coworkers. This is how most successful salespeople made it big in the industry – through word of mouth and recommendations. Think of these as some kind of brand marketing program for you.

Conclusion

The personality traits listed above are what separates a successful salesperson from an average one. Acquire and enhance these traits in order to make a name for yourself in the competitive world of sales.

Local Branding

What Is The Significance Of Promotional Products in Today’s Market?

https://www.pexels.com/photo/white-and-black-barcode-1243362/

 

All big cities have thousands of brands competing with each other for gaining the attention of potential customers. Traditional marketing and digital marketing are no longer enough to secure the market. People need to see more than glittery signboards and flashy TV commercials. They need a taste of the “real deal.”

In the world of digital marketing, every company faces one significant disadvantage – the lack of tangibility. Customers may enjoy the advantage of shopping from the comforts of their home or taking a quick shopping break during their office lunch hours, but they miss the good old practice of judging the quality of products through touch and feel. Many brands are now thinking about giving away promotional products to increase their market presence and boost their tangibility.

Answer this question honestly – are you using a branded promotional pen in office? If not, do you have branded coasters, journals and promotional t-shirts at home? Every 21st-century shopper has a myriad of branded promotional products in their wardrobes and cabinets. Promotional products boost the visibility of a brand. According to a Forbes study, the brand recollection rate for promotional products in New York City is almost 85%. It is incredibly higher than the recollection rate of banner ads and print ads. Print ads are everywhere in NYC, and that contributes to the significantly low brand recall.  Promotional products in NYC help in planting the seeds of curiosity and interest that prompt the recipient to search the brand later. When a person wears or uses a promotional product, the average passersby and the co-workers take notice. It prompts the other people to search the brand as well.

What are the advantages of promotional products?

In a world of online stores and service websites, personal touch has become crucial for almost every customer. Promotional products can help you reach out to your consumer groups better than any online campaign and paid advertisement campaigns your competitors have launched –

  • Improved market reach – Most importantly, these promotional products empower a brand by creating the perception of high value among the recipients. When a business buys promotional products in bulk, they invest a nominal amount. However, the recipients are not aware of this small investment.
  • Building dedicated groups of customers – When the consumers receive a complementary product with a touch of personalization, they are likely to believe that the products are expensive.
  • Improved brand reputation – Research shows that giving away promotional products of standard quality and a touch of personalization boosts the reputation of a brand.
  • Increases the credibility – Customers are likely to view the brand and its products with improved reliability. The small touch of tangibility can go a long way to establish a mark of quality for any new brand operating online or launching a new storefront in New York.

Why is working with experienced marketing professionals imperative for promotional marketing campaigns?

If you step into any doctor’s office in NYC or visit the average middle-class home, you will notice tens of different branded promotional products. The chances are that you have been using a promotional product like that for weeks without even realizing it. It can be a coffee mug, coaster, pen, notepad or mouse pad. Why is it that some promotional products blend right in with the rest, but only a few stand out amidst the clutter? The answer is customization. The key to drawing the right kind of attention to your promotional products is by customizing them adequately. Anyone can stand on the corner of the road and give out pens and coasters, but the brand that can leverage the products to establish their identity have chances of reaching their target demographic.

The right colors, logos and identifiers play significant roles in reaching the target market. If you are thinking about launching your promotional campaign, you need to visit the best promotional product design company in NYC for guidance. Consumer psychology plays an integral role in the selection of product types, colors and logo typefaces. Thus, always ensure that you have a strong marketing team by your side while beginning the initial phases of planning.

Promotional products boost the “aided” recall value of a brand. This principle of marketing leverages a simple trait of customer psychology. When a consumer receives a free product, he or she will use it for a few days. For example – you receive a complimentary pen or umbrella from your go-to stationary brand or outdoor accessories brand. You are likely to use these articles till they last and if you enjoy the product quality, you are highly likely to seek out the same brands when you are in the store the next time. By using promotional products, any brand can increase their impact on their target consumer groups. They can improve their aided and subsequent unaided recall, as well as improve their market presence over time.

Digital Branding

Numbers Are Important But No Less Important Is The Activity Level Of Instagram Followers

https://www.pexels.com/photo/blur-display-electronics-hand-174938/

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.

Local Branding

Top 5 Tips to Be a Successful Contractor Entrepreneur

https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-holding-white-teacup-in-front-of-gray-laptop-842567/

If you are a general contractor or you are a small contractor business owner and want to be a successful entrepreneur on your business line, here are some tips you can follow to help you achieve the success you want for your business.

Like what you do

Like any other job, it is better to do something you like, if you love fixing things, building things, remodeling, if you enjoy working with your hands and you can look with pride at the result of your work, you will not dread going to work every day.

Enjoying what you do comes across to your clients, they will notice how happy you are doing your job, which will give them confidence in you, if you follow this and the rest of the tips on this list, you will probably have a client for life, and that client will generate more clients for you, as the client will recommend you to friends and family, even co-workers. Of course, you should not only rely on referrals for getting more clients, investing in publicity, marketing in your area, social media ads, is always good. Have cards printed with your name, your business name, phone number, email and business hours, so the client can know when you are available and when and where they can reach you

Have good customer service

Having excellent customer service can mean a lot for your business, it will mean you will have a happy customer, if you have given your client your card, they will know when and how to reach you, but what happens when you are unreachable? Always have an extra person that can answer your clients questions, or if they cannot answer their questions they can reply to their email or call and let them know their email has been received and you will be getting back to them soon with an answer, or you will be getting the message that they called with questions and you will call them back as quickly as possible to solve any issues or questions they could have and your staff if not ready to answer.

As long as your client feels they are being taken care of, that they matter to you, and they are not left in limbo if they have a question, request or just need to reach you, your client should be happy and that should always be your aim, having satisfied customers, that will hire you again for any work they might need in the future.

Use good materials

When you want to do an excellent job like an artist you will not get a cheap paintbrush, bad quality paint, a lousy canvas, if you’re going to do a good job, one you can be proud of and that will make your clients happy, you need to invest in getting good materials. What is the point in fixing a pipe if you know in 2 days it will be leaking again? Do the best job you can do and with the best materials available to you, if the pipe has a leak that requires you to replace a length of pipe do so, do not just patch up a whole and hope for the best, replace that piece of faulty pipe with a good quality pipe, use the best adhesive for the job, fix the hole you made on the wall to get to that pipe so that the fix is unnoticeable. Be a perfectionist with what you do and with the materials you use. That will guarantee your job will hold and last, and your client will notice you are professional and responsible and that your work stands the test of time.

Have insurance

Even if you have years of experience in this branch but have just decided to start to your own business, or if this is a new venture in which you are not that experienced, no one is free of unexpected situations, so to save your company from potential bankruptcy from an accident caused to the client or another third party, a mistake while doing your job, a lawsuit resulting from a dissatisfied customer, or what they may feel was misleading advertisement. You may think you only need contractor’s general liability insurance, but you may benefit from having a commercial auto insurance policy as well, as your auto policy will not cover you if you use your car to go to work sites, or transport materials or tools, or has any sort of logo for your business on it. You could also benefit from inland marine insurance coverage that covers your tools and equipment, and it is always a wise investment to have workers compensation insurance coverage for your most valuable assets, your workers.

Keep your Schedule and Budget

Another way to be a successful contractor entrepreneur is to give your clients strict schedules of when the work will be completed and a Budget as an accurate as possible as well. Contractor has the unfortunate name of always being behind on their Schedule and delivery dates, if you want to set your business apart and then make yourself known for being on time with your Schedule, we all know there are unforeseen delays that may happen, but when you are planning for a project make sure to have the materials you are going to need to be ordered as ahead as possible, make sure you will have enough or a little extra in case some mistakes are made you won´t need to reorder the product. If your specialist in drywall calls in sick unexpectedly make sure you have someone that can do the job as well, and the right way, as it will take you longer to have it taken down and redone. Always make sure you have the right tools on site, all the materials needed, a place to store them safely and reliable workers. Being on time and the schedule will earn you a good name and reputation with your clients and good reviews from them.

Digital Branding

Reinvent Your Cloud Potential with these Top AWS Tips and Tricks

With over 100 on-demand cloud computing services under its belt, Amazon Web Services is a force that propels the Internet forward. In fact, it occupies a sizeable 34% of the whole cloud (IaaS and PaaS) space easily over competitors like IBM, Google, and Microsoft.

 

The wide service offerings of AWS include some heavy-weight cloud-computing services like elastically provisioned servers (EC2), object storage (S3), payment processing (DevPay), monitoring (CloudWatch), content delivery networks (CDN), among many others.

 

The USP of AWS lies in its on-demand availability, quick scalability and also affordability. In fact, a service like AWS is considered to be the backbone that strengthens the IT operations of modern-day organizations.

Source: Pexels

AWS helps all kinds of enterprises meet their computing needs, from startups to giant corporations. But, given the complicated spectrum of services and also the pace at which they are constantly updated, a lion’s share of AWS’s true potential is under-utilized.

 

Here are some ways how you can tap into that untapped potential that will not only improve your organizational performance but might also save you some costs.

 

Leverage the Free Elastic IP Feature

Unknown to many, and even if known, not used properly is the Free Elastic IP feature in AWS. By default, AWS provides one free Elastic IP for every running instance. This free Elastic IP in AWS assigns a static IPv4 address which helps in dynamic cloud computing services. This elastic IP address helps in covering up any software downtime or instance failure by remapping the affected instance to another instance.

 

Save Costs with Amazon Load Balancers

AWS Application Load Balances can help cut down your ELB costs by at least 90%. AWS has priced its ALBs at $0.0225 per Application Load Balancer-hour (or partial hour). AWS ALB also supports host-based routing and path based routing. Most importantly, a single ALB can replace upto 75 ELBs. The only catch is that AWS ALBs do not support TCP protocol, however, support is available for HTTP and HTTPS.

 

Configure Multiple Cloudwatch Alarms

Normally, Cloudwatch alarms are raised when instances breach a set threshold. The alarm is notified to a team which is responsible for troubleshooting and fixing the issue. However, if the same alarm is to repeat, it is not possible to alert a different team, possibly a higher authority who could fix the issue.

 

Configuring multiple Cloudwatch alarms will help notify such breach instances and take timely action. The good news is that AWS Cloudwatch has such an option to configure multiple alarms for various breach instances to alert different teams.

 

Source: Pexels

 

Use Compression at the Edge Feature in Cloudfront

AWS allows you to compress certain file types and also serve the compressed files directly to users. The compressed files sometimes are just one-fourth of the original size. Since the cost of Cloudfront data transfer is based on the total volume of data delivered to users, Compression at the Edge feature would save tons of money. Also, compressed JavaScript and CSS files will help accelerate your page loading speed thus delivering superior user experience.

 

Save Small-Sized Chunks in Glaciers

Amazon Glacier storage offers a safe and scalable way to archive data for the long-term. But, retrieving data from glaciers is a time-consuming affair. Also, it can prove to be expensive too depending on the volume of data that is being retrieved.

 

You can save time and effort in such a data retrieval process by uploading data in small-sized chunks. Organizing files into small-sized chunks will make it easy to spot the right dataset that needs to be retrieved easily and quickly. The small-sized retrieval also ensures that your data retrieval costs are contained to a bare minimum.

 

Use Versioned Object Names in Cloudfront

It takes approximately 10 to 15 minutes to complete a single invalidation request in Cloudfront. If the size of the CloudFront cache purge request is big, then the time taken would also be proportionally longer. Now imagine getting 1000 requests or so every month. It can hamper a web administrator’s productivity significantly. But, not purging CloudFront cache can lead to invalidations too. Using versioned object names is a better and faster way of handling invalidation requests.

 

In-Built Usage Monitor

As a scalable cloud-computing service, AWS is billed based on your actual usage. So, it is wise to keep a constant check on your usage, just to keep track of any spikes that you may not be aware of. Also, you can also set soft limits for specific regions to keep your AWS billing within limits. Rest assured, cost-savings could be well-planned and achieved with AWS.

Final Thoughts

AWS has achieved a cult status in the cloud computing space. Its competitors are nowhere close to matching the giant’s offerings. The fact that it was spun off from Amazon’s very own enterprise IT operations makes it flexible and scalable for all kinds of businesses.

 

These tips will help you make the most of AWS without having to break the bank. They will help you keep your cloud computing costs within limits and also take your cloud infrastructure efficiency to new heights.

 

 

Author Bio:

Pratiksha Prasad

Digital Marketer with over 7 years of experience. Passionate about the latest trends in Digital Marketing, Technology, Cloud Computing, and App Development.

Digital Branding

How to Increase a Customer Base with Effective Brand Representation

Everything we do is goal-oriented, and the goal is to bring as many customers as we can, whilst keeping them happy. If your brand doesn’t speak for itself, don’t expect many new customers and prepare to say goodbye to your current ones. Branding (and rebranding) requires balancing many elements which all together represent your company in a simple and appealing way. It’s all about customers, and yet the way to get customers is to establish a recognizable, eye-catching, unique brand. Here are some ideas on how you can get more customers by properly communicating your brand.

Engagement marketing

Experiential (engagement) marketing is a marketing strategy that allows consumers to actually see and feel what your product can do. This is a great way to help your clients realize the benefits of your product, and generally, what they will get by sticking to your company. Representing your brand through such strategy is a great idea because you’re both “selling” the product and representing your ideology.

Break the chains

Let your creativity kick in. Traditional ways are called “traditional” for a good reason, as they used to work and they represent something common and already seen. That’s why today we have something called “modern”. Mixing your creativity with some modern techniques/advice you’ve seen or heard will allow you to fight the invisible constraints and express yourself in a new and memorable way.

Online and offline stores should look the same

Developing and designing a website takes a lot of time and effort. Building a store and designing the interior and exterior also take a lot of time. Since you’re already going to invest so much in these two, why not take a step further and make them as if they were two parts of the same whole? A visitor that checks out your website, finds something he likes and decides to come to the store itself and check out the product in person, will surely be amazed when he sees that the store’s layout is almost the same as the website’s layout.

Real-world view

It’s very satisfying and educational at the same time, watching a person use some product, in real-time. Thanks to the modern era we’re living in and to all the technology and trends, we’re able to watch stuff like that, which is an amazing way of showcasing your business. Many websites provide live streaming, and of course we’re all witnesses of great ideas that Instagram and other social media have come up with. According to this master in advertising, today companies need marketing solutions that can flow like a liquid into whatever the new inventions have brought to us.

Stay fresh

Whether you’re willing to admit it or not, these days everything has to be stylish. Not only that it has become sort of a trend that more and more people tend to follow and worship, but even the statistics prove that fashionable design and advertisements tend to catch more eyes than regular “boring” ones. If you’re having a photo shoot to promote certain product that a user can interact with, make sure that the user looks like he’s getting ready for a gala evening. Also, if the product has anything to do with technology, make sure to point out the devices to create a “natural-looking” environment. Don’t forget about colors – everything should be harmonized!

Let your store speak for itself!

From the moment a client walks into your store or takes a look at your brand, they should immediately know what they are looking at and they should feel that vibe instantly. If you have to walk someone through your story than you’ve failed showing that story throughout your brand and store.

From what you’ve read so far, you should already have an idea of what are the things you can do in order to keep your current customers happy and to attract new buyers. As soon as they see your brand, visit your website or walk in one of your stores, they should form a positive opinion about your products and decide on purchasing them.

 

 

Author bio: Jennifer Hahn Masterson is a senior business strategist, holding an MA degree in business communication. She is always doing her best to help her clients find their place in the ever so competitive business arena. You can check her out on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Digital Branding

4 essential components that need to be part of your startup business website

90 percent of start-ups fail. Don’t get us wrong. We haven’t mentioned these horrific statistics to discourage you from your entrepreneurship venture, rather we want you to learn from other people’s mistakes and not reinvent the wheel. If you want to stand out from the crowd, then you need to do things differently. Your product or service might be exceptional, but your marketing strategy will differentiate you from your competitors. While you may not have the budget to spend as much as the giant multinationals, but simple things done correctly will help you set a ground for your success. A website is one of the most basic yet crucial tools for a start-up. A website provides your potential customers with all the information about your product or service, it adds to the credibility, and it is a great marketing tool. To take advantage of your website, make sure that you include these essentials:

1. A professional design

Your website should capture your audience in the first few seconds. According to research conducted by Putnam, titled Trust and Mistrust of Online Health site design elements play a greater role than content in generating mistrust. The study showed that 94 percent of the people regarded design elements as the reason for mistrust while only 6 percent cited content. Another study shows that 38 percent of the people will stop interacting with the website if they find the layout and design unattractive. A good website design conveys the story of your brand to your customers. A consistent theme including the colors adds to the credibility of your company. Moreover, a professional design improves the usability as well as helps you stand apart from your customers. Good website design also entails that a website is responsive, as we’ve seen with Cheap Computer Server, which means that its design can change according to the medium it is being viewed on. With the increase in mobile proliferation, it is a necessity that a website is mobile responsive. An increasing number of researches has compelled Google to make changes to its ranking algorithm. In 2014, Google updated its algorithm to give more points to websites that are mobile friendly.

2. Blog

To get more business, you need to rank higher on Google, and a blog is the best way to achieve that goal. There are around 72,000 searches per second on Google, and if you need to stand apart, then you need to play by Google rules. According to Google’s Andrey Lipases, Google uses high-quality content and link building as one of the most important factors in ranking a website. Hence, good quality content is one of the most important factors in driving traffic to your website. Other than that, good content increases the trust of your potential customers in your brand. The more helpful your content is to your customers, the higher they will regard you as an authority in the industry. Blogging also gives you a great opportunity to promote yourself on social media. You can share your blog posts on Facebook or Instagram and drive traffic to your website. Research shows that companies that posted more than 16 blog posts per month got 3.5 times more traffic than companies that did not.

3. Visual content

Well, your job does not end at driving traffic to your website; your objective is to hook your customers and make them come again. People will only visit you again if they remember about you and a boring, dull website is not going to achieve that. Research shows that people remember only 10 percent of the information they read after three days. However, if that information is paired with an appropriate image, people can retain about 65 percent of the information after three days. Visual content is especially important if you have e-commerce, real estate or tourism website. You need to add compelling videos and pictures to lure in customers. It is hard for people to trust products online. Hence, high-quality pictures of your products will help them make their decision. For example, this leather skin shop website has done a great job in showcasing its products, which make them visually appealing. Videos can play a crucial role in educating customers about your service or product, especially if it is new to the industry. Statistics show that 64 percent of the users are more likely to buy a product after watching a video. Infographics are also a great tool to make your website more attractive. Infographics basically combine text and pictures in such a way, which makes them easier to remember and understand. Moreover, they are also three times more likely to be shared on social media than any other type of content.

4. Subscription Popups

Source Subscription popups allow you to capture email addresses of your potential customers so that you can conduct email marketing. Email marketing is an inexpensive and effective tool to convey any information or promotions to your customers. Unlike other mediums, email marketing is cost effective because it allows you to tailor and personalize your messages according to your audience. Also, you can segment your audience based on their likes and dislikes and then target them accordingly. Research shows that people who make a purchase through email spend 138 percent more than people who don’t receive any offers. Being a start-up, you need to make the most of the available resources and your website is an important one. If done right, a good quality website can alone do wonders for your marketing strategy. Make sure that you don’t just put a website just for the sake of it; leverage this asset as much as you can because it is the most effective marketing tool. If you are an e-commerce website, then you need to pay special attention to the website aesthetics and its usability. It would be better if you get your website made by an e-commerce website design company that knows how to make customers move towards purchase.