17 Mar

Posted at 12:35h in Digital Advertising, Marketing Consulting, Search Engine Optimization

The Power of Video on SEO

Online videos, from an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) standpoint, are becoming one of the centerpieces of the puzzle of Google Search Results. Videos have the power to add that extra SEO “oomph” your website needs in order to come alive. Google is beginning to put a much greater emphasis on online videos—specifically YouTube. It could even be the difference in your page showing up before or after your competitors’!

Video and SEO

You simply need to know a few tricks!

It’s Not Just About Cameras and Actors.
Google has integrated new technology which possesses the ability to “read” your online videos. Therefore, make sure they are in tip-top shape before posting anything. Read on to know the specifics they’ll be checking for.

Write A Good Script
Scripting the online video you choose is extremely important as well. This is the description which Google will be reading in order to understand what the online video is about. The online video’s transcript is just as important as the online video itself. The transcript must accurately describe the video with relevant keyword rich text in order to rank appropriately. This will give you the SEO boost your looking for.

Read Your Lips
Although Google is experimenting with lip reading, its abilities are not as dependable—YET. However, saying that your online video is talking about one topic when it is actually talking about another topic is something that will affect your search ranking and make you an unreliable source with Google and your fans.

Don’t Film in Your Grandmother’s Basement
Online Audio and Online Video Quality also makes a difference concerning online videos, and it’s not just for the consumers. Although your online video appears more reliable to the consumers taking part in the viewing process when it appears to be professionally done, it also ranks better and appears higher in Google search results. Therefore, if you aren’t a professional, don’t have a high quality camera, or have no experience, it might be best to leave the job to someone who is.

The Most Important Online Videos
How-To and Informative online videos between 2 or 3 minutes long are the types of online videos which are best to have on your site. These online videos not only display your knowledge in your own business, but they are also the most searched. Having knowledgeable online videos on your site establishes credibility with your audience. Your audience can trust that what you have to say is tried and true and will work for the consumer, the consumer’s business, or the consumer’s product.

Want to learn more on SEO, Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing contact the professionals at Webociti

14 Mar

Posted at 10:11h in Digital Advertising, Marketing Consulting, Search Engine Optimization

If you’re a business owner or run a small business and you’re not an Internet Marketing Professional with search engine optimization SEO training, then it has become extremely difficult to stay on top of all the changes and requirements to show up on a major search engine. At this point, many business owners may begin to feel overwhelmed. This information is not readily available and to make it worse SEO is difficult to understand because it is updated and changed so often (last year over 600 times). Basically, unless SEO and Internet Marketing is what you do for a living, understanding the unique processes and changes can become a full-time job which makes running your own business even more difficult. Our On-line Certified Marketing Professionals (OMCP) at Webociti have been trained by the top authority figures in the industry and stay on top of the weekly and daily changes in the on-line marketing world.

Internet Marketing has Become so Complex

Because Internet Marketing has become so complex and intricate, you could be doing things that are actually hurting you instead of helping you. Since Internet Marketing tactics change so often, many times the formulas you used to use may no longer work as well as they have in the past, or they could actually be hurting your business’s online presence and visibility. For example, it used to be great to have a lot of links back to your site, but now you get penalized for a high quantity of low quality links. It’s likely that there are at least several aspects of your website that you need to undo and/or re-do in regards to SEO best practices. Simply put, Google and Bing are looking for you to follow their webmaster guidelines and SEO best practices, which have become increasingly detailed and advanced. Think of it this way; Google is your professor in college. Your website is your thesis paper. You have to write your paper the way your professor wants it written. However, he hasn’t told everyone how he wants written. This is where we come in to help you understand what the teacher wants.

More importantly, after you’re done with all of that, you’re still not finished because your marketing and advertising efforts affect your Internet Marketing, as well. For this reason, you must entice your customer by creating an interest in your company through marketing. After you have gathered your customer base, you must keep them as customers by constantly engaging with them through e-mail marketing, social media, your company blog, and other mediums.

Internet Marketing

Seek Out an Internet Marketing Expert

The most crucial part of your marketing process is that, now more than ever, you need to seek out a internet marketing expert for needs such as: SEO, website design, website development, content marketing, social media marketing, banner ad campaigns, re-targeting campaigns, reputation management, e-mail marketing, local and national promotions, etc. These marketing initiatives complement your website and other online efforts. In order to give your business the edge it needs to thrive you must interact with your customers in the ways they want to interact. This means keeping up with new, relevant strategies and tactics in the fast paced digital arena.

Webociti works on both the back-end and front-end of your website to ensure that all of the coding, keywords, architecture, etc. are correctly implemented. We also make sure that your website lives up to your customers’ expectations by keeping it attractive, fresh, and engaging. This front-end and back-end focus is very important for several obvious and not-so-obvious reasons that must be understood. If you have a pretty website, but no traffic, then you may be lacking the back-end optimization. If you have lots of traffic, but few conversions, then your front-end may need to be optimized. We can handle both of these important SEO and Internet Marketing efforts seamlessly.

Because the truth is, even though you’re reading all of the latest and greatest infographics, blogs and articles, they do not give away their key secrets for free. The key trait that Webociti brings to the table as a company is the fact that we are entrepreneurs and business people who understand your business and how to market it. Better yet, our people have the technical background which brings everything together. Contact us today for a free evaluation of your website and internet marketing efforts.  For more information click here

08 Mar

Posted at 20:36h in Marketing Consulting

Marketing 101: Know Your Demographic

Know Your Demographic and the Rankings will Follow!

Google likes to help businesses who are actually filling a need.

When you first begin to market digitally, it can be easy to get lost in the less important things like finding your “tactics” and worrying about who’s “winning first place” in Google. However, marketing digitally is less about making your company apply to everyone, and more about making sure your company applies to your company’s demographic.
As a brick and mortar store owner, you make sure that your customers will be attracted to your store by making sure that you are selling the most up to date products, are open at convenient times to your demographic, and are located in a convenient location to your demographic.
However, as an online store owner with all of the above already achieved, it’s time to consider more about how to market to your selected demographic so that they will come to your online store and buy your products.
We’ll consider an example to thoroughly understand this concept.
In high school there are many different “demographics.” There are the jocks, the cheerleaders, the smart kids, and the partiers. Each one wears different clothes, speaks a different lingo, and thinks different things are “cool.”
Marketing is no different. When it comes to your store, you’re going to need to figure out what your demographic thinks is “cool,” what they’re wearing, who they’re hanging out with, and what lingo they’re speaking. Therefore, using a blanket digital marketing tactic and just abiding by the same rules will not work for every online store. Digital marketing is all about personalizing your marketing tactics to your demographic. Therefore, you have to know them inside and out!

Marketing Demographic

Webociti has the ability to discover who you’re marketing clientele is. We can then determine how to market effectively to your audience. In this way, we won’t be using the same techniques and following the same rules because these don’t work for everyone! We will only be using the tactics which will work for your specific demographic and their specific interests.
By making sure that your digital marketing efforts reflect your demographic’s interests, you will then begin attracting consumers and making money from your website. After you begin attracting consumers and making money from your website (no matter if you are following all of the “rules” and tactics of SEO) Google will rank you higher. Google is now ranking businesses not on whether or not they are following all of the necessary “rules,” but which businesses are attracting the most consumers and are experiencing the best turnover–basically who knows the needs and wants of their demographic the best!
For more information and help with your digital marketing efforts call Webociti and speak to one of our digital marketing consultants.

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06 Mar

Posted at 16:03h in Social Media Marketing

Millions of small businesses want Social Media, but do their expectations of what Social Media can do for them exceed the realm of possibility? Do they even know the importance of what Social Media can accomplish? Are you even doing it right?

With so many books, tutorials, YouTube “Celebrities,” and consultants, it can be hard to determine exactly what can be done and for what price. However, you should implement surveys that determine consumer input from each of the following areas:

1. Financial.
As usual, with any new advertising tactic, small business owners expect their business to “take off” with Social Media, but this can be hard to do if you’re just starting out. We recommend allowing your Facebook insights to keep up with how many people you should expect to see in your store. As with any law of averages, the more people who see and like your pages, posts, and photos, the more people who will come in your store and are likely to buy. Therefore, you can tell if your Social Media is working for you financially if you have ten percent of your fans come into your store, and say that Facebook brought them in. For this reason, you’ll need to find out where your customers are coming from, and what brought them in specifically to make sure that this part of your Social Media Marketing is working.

2. Digital Assets
Next, you’ll need to know if your digital assets have improved. A digital asset is any item of text or media that has been formatted into a source from your company, which includes your right to freely distribute the photos, blogs, or other information regarding your company’s knowledge. You’ll know if these have improved because you’ll have more files. Others may be e-mailing you to use photos or asking you your opinion, referencing your blog, or more. Another important part of Social Media Marketing is to be the best that you can be in your field. If people start asking you questions or advice about your field, you’ll know that you have marketed yourself successfully.

3. Brand
Sure, you may think you know all about your brand and what it stands for. We’re sure you probably even have great reviews on your sites, but what do you do about the bad ones? How you react to your bad reviews is just as important as getting them. It can be hard to remember, sometimes, that the customer is always right, even in a digital arena. But it is true nonetheless. Just because you can ignore or delete a comment doesn’t mean you should. Consistently check your Facebook recommendations, @mentions, review sites, and more to ensure that your customers are constantly and consistently seeing your good side. Social Media is a great place to only put your best foot forward. Do not fail to listen to your customer, even in a public setting. Just like you have to calm customers in the store in front of other customers, you also cannot forget to do this online. You’ll know if your Social Media Marketing is working when problems and issues are getting resolved, and are acknowledged that they are resolved by your customer in a public setting. After you have solved a problem, ask that customer to please comment or leave a review that you helped them. Most sites allow editing of reviews, and if you have helped the customer, most likely they will be happy to edit their review of your company thus improving your brand name.

4. Finally,
if someone in all of these areas is continuing to offer a digital type of customer service, you should begin to see a ten percent improvement (relative to the number of people helped, seen, etc in Social Media specific atmospheres). Don’t expect it over night, but it will be working as long as you see this, and it will become one of the most free and easiest forms of customer service.

Visit us at Webociti to learn more on Social Media Marketing and how it can help you.

28 Feb

Posted at 16:04h in Digital Advertising, Search Engine Optimization

Bringing new customers to a business from the internet requires more than just a well-developed website. The number of websites online continues to increase exponentially, with the milestone of 1 billion websites crossed in the fall of 2014. Businesses face very steep online competition.

Gaining attention requires a concentrated effort to build a brand name and reputation across the internet. This can only be done with a concrete web strategy that involves developing an integrated digital campaign.

What is an integrated digital campaign?

When a company builds an integrated digital marketing campaign, they carefully coordinate their strategy across various types of digital media. A successful campaign will create a common brand voice that will introduce customers to the value of the brand no matter where they might come across the company.

Like all digital marketing efforts, the campaign will have to be customer centric. Customers today take initiative to research and read reviews. They are turning to sales representatives much later in the sales funnel. The integrated digital marketing campaign will take into account these consumer needs and strive to use the different tools of online marketing to be resources for customers whenever they might need them.

Building the integrated digital marketing campaign

When companies begin to draft ideas for creating an integrated digital marketing campaign, they will have to develop strategies for a few different areas. This includes:

  • Mobile marketing
  • Social engagement and social media
  • Content development
  • Targeted PPC marketing
  • Metrics and measurement

 

Mobile marketing

Mobile retail commerce continues to rise and is expected to reach 22 billion in 2015 and 27 billion in 2016. Companies who want to see success online need to have websites and a general web presence that is mobile friendly. This means responsive websites, investing in mobile advertising, and having information that mobile users would be interested in such as phone numbers readily available.

Social engagement and social media

An estimated 1 in 4 people worldwide use social media. That means companies have a tremendous obligation to include these platforms in their digital marketing platform. The company should have established social profiles where they regularly publish valuable content and take the time to engage with their page visitors.

Content development

Potential customers doing their research online seek companies who can answer their questions and provide them with the valuable information. The cornerstone of any successful digital marketing strategy must be high quality content. Content can be in the form of blog posts, white papers, articles, and case studies.

Targeted PPC marketing

Companies using PPC marketing can craft advertisements that will target potential customers when they visit certain sites or use particular keywords. Campaigns can even be developed that will target customers who have visited the company website in the past to encourage them to return. Use PPC ads to complement certain content that has been developed and bring customers to view particular content that matches what they were searching for online.

Metrics and measurement

No marketing campaign will mean much if there is no way to monitor how well the different areas perform. The ideas of ‘brand reach’ and ‘presence’ can be difficult to quantify, but their outcomes are not. Companies should be looking for changes in customer engagement, such as the number of people sharing and responding to content. Monitor the number of customers who convert from social media pages, the pages people arrive on, and the content they spend the most time reading. Conversions from regular website visitors are vital as well.

When companies can bring these various elements together with a common voice and message, their integrated digital campaign will help position them for success. The internet provides businesses of all sizes with the tools they need for success. An integrated digital marketing campaign helps companies bring them all together.

For more information visit Webociti website to lean more 678-892-7157

27 Feb

Posted at 15:30h in Search Engine Optimization

Your Content Needs Images

Do you think getting your content is hard? I do. In fact, a recent source says there are two million posts published every day! Your blog is only one and competing with 1,999.999 others. One way you can stand out, is using images, infographics, and video to attract more visitors. The supporting this are unbelievable

  • Articles and post with images have 94 percent more views than those without
  • Article and posts that include video with images get 567 percent more links than those without these features
  • Increase conversions by 86 percent by using a video on your landing page.
  • Studies show that while 20 percent of people will read text, 80 percent prefer to watch a video with the same content.
  • Placing a video on your blog increases readership by 60 percent.

For small and medium sized businesses you can blow away the competition without blowing away your budget.

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Videos

It is imperative that your video relates to your content for it to make a difference in sales. You can make your own video, for example, talk about how your business meets consumer needs. A video camera with a microphone can be bought for less than $25. There is a free website, appear.in where you can record your video. Of course, it is not as slick as a professional video. But, free is always good! Sources for free videos include YouTube, and Wikimedia Commons. But, carefully read the licensing requirements and follow them carefully so you don’t get into copyright trouble. But, video is worth the trouble; Business2Community.com in a post called “Video is the New Black for Content Marketing,” says that video content is projected to account for more than 80% of all web traffic in a few years.

Topics to Consider for Video

Discussing on a video how your business meets your customer needs is just one topic for a video, others include;

  • Credentials – in a short video tell viewers who you are and what you do, you can even include employee testimonials within the video.
  • Testimonials – they can be from current and former customers or clients. Every time you update, you have a chance to use social media to publicize your site.
  • Information – These are short video that you can make it batches. Topics can include new trends, how tos, and such. Just sit in front of a webcam and microphone and using punch words make short videos in one sitting. When appropriate, you can swap them out for others in your library.

Images

Using images alone is ok, using them with video is outstanding! Again, relevance counts, as does licensing, but there are tons of resources for finding complete free images. They include;

  • Wikimedia Commons
  • Flickr
  • Pinterest

Infographics

Visual content is processed and remembered much better than plain text. Here is an example of an infographic;

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See how quickly this infographic gets your attention! You can make your own free.

Recently I read that the brain processes visual information more rapidly than prose Think about how visual data on your blog or article speeds up information to readers. There is no reason for failing to include images, infographics, and video in your blogs and articles. Failing to do so puts you at a competitive disadvantage. Remember your content needs images.

24 Feb

Posted at 16:30h in Digital Marketing, Social Media Marketing

Has your business been staggering in bringing in new customers and maintaining a good relationship with existing customers due to little or no social marketing? If your company has not dedicated time and effort into building a social media marketing program marketing, you are missing out on a host of benefits that come from a strategic, data-minded social media program for your business.

Now more than ever before there is consistent and concrete evidence that ramping up social media marketing efforts is in your business’s best interest. Here are 5 reasons why you should invest in a social media program for your business without any further ado.

There is Something for Everyone

The first step to constructing and executing a successful social media strategy is to assess which platforms are most suited to reach the users and deliver the goals your business is setting out to achieve. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Instagram alone all have undeniable footholds and massive audiences of active daily users. These users are inherent web consumers that spend significant amounts of time on social networks to socialize, network, and engage in discussion with friends, family, and perfect strangers.

New Opportunities with Every Post

Regardless of the platform, each piece of real-time content that your business posts presents a new opportunity to find to new customers, stay connected with current customers, and/or reconnect with past customers. As your following grows, your customers and fans will become part of your network to bolster traceable word of mouth online in a way that no traditional marketing tactics can achieve.

Create Your Own Authority

Internet users view well-established social media accounts and followings as a sign of a successful business and thus, high quality products and services. A recent study from Convince& Convert reported that 53% of Americans who follow brands on social media are, in fact, more loyal to those brands. Beyond being a tested method of bringing in new customers, a strategic and engaging social media program can be highly influential in turning one-time customers into long-time customers.

Social Media Marketing Is Thriving

Social media marketing efforts are cost effective tools for marketers that can be customized to meet the goals of any business on any budget. Rates for promoted posts on various platforms typically are established through a combination of placement, performance, and demand.

Social Media Marketing

For a minimal cost, businesses can reach audiences above and beyond the reach of offline channels. Regardless of how the economy behaves in the near future, this great flexibility will continue to allow businesses of all sizes to execute lean social media marketing programs to boost sales and brand visibility.

Marketers Agree: Social is Critical

According to Hubspot, 92% of marketers reported that social media marketing was important to the success of their business last year. No matter the audience, sufficient information and strategy is available to craft a social media strategy that guarantees return on investment (ROI) in way that makes sense for your business.

As you can see, social media marketing has matured to the point that it can be relied on as an effective way to increase brand awareness, lead generation, and revenue growth. If you haven’t taken the time to assess your marketing needs and how they may be better achieved through online advertising and social media marketing, the time is now. The longer you wait to create your social media presence online, the more ground you stand to lose.

For more information visit us at Webociti to learn more.

18 Feb

Posted at 19:09h in Digital Advertising

Pay Per Click: What You Need to Know

The acronym PPC stands for “Pay Per Click” and refers to one of the most important types of advertising models in use on the Internet today. At its core, Pay Per Click is a model through which an advertiser pays a particular publisher for each time that an ad is clicked by the users of a site. If a banner ad placed strategically on a site is clicked 10,000 times, you would pay for each of those 10,000 clicks as a result. From a different perspective, these types of campaigns are also commonly referred to as “cost per click” and break down simply into the total amount of money that you’re spending to get one click for the advertisement in question.

PPC Advertising

Types of PPC Content

There are a few different types of PPC ads that you can choose from depending on your needs and where the ads themselves will eventually run. One is a text-based ad, which is common on search engines like Bing, Google, Yahoo and more. These ads are most commonly seen on either side of the search results page, allowing for premium content placement.

Another is a display or banner ad, which is a way to embrace a more visual aspect of the ad as opposed to a traditional text-based ad. Display ads can use a combination of text, graphics and even interactive elements.

Rate Models

The two major rate models to concern yourself with are “Pay Per Impression” and “Pay Per Click.” Pay Per Impression equates to the price that you pay per every 1,000 impressions that your ad gets. Pay Per Click is a more traditional pay model where you’re finding the total amount of money that you’re spending to get one person to click on your ad one time.

Pay Per Click can also be broken down into a few different categories, like a flat-rate PPC model. This means that you pay one flat rate for every click on an ad – regardless of how many clicks actually occur. The advertiser and the publisher will agree on this rate far in advance of the actual launch of the campaign. The second major category for Pay Per Click campaigns is called bid based, which is when the advertiser submits a bid against other advertisers in an attempt to eventually host the ads of a particular publisher.

Cost Breakdown and Calculation

Calculating the rates for a campaign that is already in motion is as simple as completing a basic math problem. Pay Per Click equals the total advertising cost that you’re currently spending on ads divided by the total number of times that the ad was actually clicked.

If your organization spent $10,000 on advertising through Pay Per Click campaigns and saw 10,000 clicks as a result, for example, the Pay Per Click cost for that particular campaign would equate to around $1 per click or impression. Understanding exactly how much money you’re spending on a campaign is the main way to judge its overall level of effectiveness and return on investment. After the campaign has performed for a few weeks, you can re-calculate your PPC rate to see exactly what type of results you’re getting. Your business can then make the determination to move the ad somewhere else in an attempt to achieve a much lower rate, or stay where you are if the ad is already performing above and beyond your expectations. PPC rate is changing all the time.

18 Feb

Posted at 17:05h in Mobile Marketing

Best Practices for Mobile Marketers in 2015 and Beyond

Many people incorrectly assume that just by virtue of having a mobile marketing campaign, they’re already doing everything that they need to succeed in a digital environment. This may have been accurate five years ago, but in 2015 and beyond it couldn’t be farther from the truth. If you want to achieve the highest level of success on the Internet, you’ll need to make sure that you’re always keeping a few key things in mind.

E-mail Formatting

This is called responsive design and refers to the idea that you need to make your emails responsive to the device that they’re being read on, similar to the steps that you would take with your website. This makes sure that they’re always capable of being read properly on a mobile device, regardless of what device that actually is. As a result, you

need to make sure you’re following certain formatting rules like the use of short headers, large text, larger buttons and a single column layout. Short headers will help make sure that ideas really stand out on a mobile device. Large text is easily read on a device with a small screen size, while large buttons are significantly easier to tap with your finger. A single column layout will help make sure that no formatting is lost due to mobile e-mail applications.

List Your Business in the Right Places

Another way to achieve success in mobile marketing has to do not just with listing your business online, but listing it in the right places. Search engines like Google and Bing  naturally give precedent to their own services. A business listed on Google Places will always return higher in the search results than a business with just a mobile landing page, even if that landing page is literally the best that’s ever been designed. This is just the way the world works in 2015.

As a result, you need to list your business with certain mobile-friendly sites and services to help make sure you’re seeing the penetration levels you’re after. Don’t neglect sites like Google Places, Bing Places, Yelp, Yahoo! Local and more for the best possible results.

Utilize All Available Communication Channels

One of the great things about mobile devices is that they have a large number of different communications channels built right in. This allows users to receive messages directly from your business on their own terms. The thing that you need to keep in mind, however, is that you should utilizing all of these channels equally – don’t neglect one in favor of another or you risk alienating a huge portion of your audience that may prefer that method.

Don’t just utilize e-mail marketing, for example. Also focus on social networking, SMS text messaging and even “Push” notifications to help connect with your target audience in the most organic way possible.