March DIGITAL MARKETING INSIDER SECRETS

Top 12 Website Design Guidelines for SEO

Website Redesign Checkpoints 6 Steps for SuccessInstagram Product Tags Rolling Out to All US Users

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Top 12 Website Design Guidelines for SEO

 

Want to become an expert on how to use SEO when designing your website? Read on to discover top 12 guidelines for SEO-friendly website design.

 

  1. MAKE SURE YOUR SITE NAVIGATION IS SEARCH ENGINE FRIENDLY

Using Flash for navigation on your website can be bad news if you aren’t aware of how to make Flash objects accessible and web-crawler-friendly. Search engines have a really tough time crawling a website that uses Flash. CSS and unobtrusive JavaScript can provide almost any of the fancy effects you are looking for without sacrificing your search engine rankings.

 

  1. PLACE SCRIPTS OUTSIDE OF THE HTML DOCUMENT

When you are coding your website, make sure you externalize JavaScript and CSS. Search engines view a website through what’s contained in the HTML document. JavaScript and CSS, if not externalized, can add several additional lines of code in your HTML documents that, in most cases, will be ahead of the actual content and might make crawling them slower. Search engines like to get to the content of a website as quickly as possible.

 

  1. USE CONTENT THAT SEARCH ENGINE SPIDERS CAN READ

Content is the life force of a website, and it is what the search engines feed on. When designing a website, makes sure you take into account good structure for content (headings, paragraphs, and links). Sites with very little content tend to struggle in the search results and, in most cases, this can be avoided if there is proper planning in the design stages.

 

  1. DESIGN YOUR URLS FOR SEARCH FRIENDLINESS

Search friendly URLs are not URLs that are hard to crawl, such as query strings. The best URLs contain keywords that help describe the content of the page. For example, think about the following URLs for an HVAC website:

 

hvacompany.com/services/repairs/

hvacompany.com/services/residential-repairs/

hvacompany.com/services/commercial-repairs/

  1. BLOCK PAGES YOU DON’T WANT SEARCH ENGINES INDEX

There could be pages on your site that you don’t want search engines to index. These pages could be pages that add no value to your content, such as server-side scripts. These web pages could even be pages you are using to test your designs as you are building the new website. Don’t expose these web pages to web robots. You could run into duplicate content issues with search engines as well as dilute your real content’s density, and these things could have a negative effect on your website’s search positions.

 

  1. DON’T NEGLECT IMAGE ALT ATTRIBUTES

Make sure that all of your image alt attributes are descriptive. Search engines will read alt attributes and may take them into consideration when determining the relevancy of the page to the keywords a searcher queries.

 

  1. UPDATE PAGES WITH FRESH CONTENT

If your website has a blog, you may want to consider making room for some excerpts of the latest posts to be placed on all of your web pages. Search engines love to see content of web pages changing from time to time as it indicates that the site is still alive and well. With changing content, comes greater crawling frequency by search engines as well.

  1. USE UNIQUE META DATA

Page titles and descriptions should all be different. Many times, web designers will create a template for a website and forget to change out the meta data, and what ends up happening is that several pages will use the original placeholder information. The Best Web Design Companies know that every page should have its own set of meta data; it is just one of the things that helps search engines get a better grasp of how the structure of the website is constructed.

 

  1. USE HEADING TAGS PROPERLY

Make good use of heading tags in your web page content; they provide search engines with information on the structure of the HTML document, and they often place higher value on these tags relative to other text on the web page.

 

  1. INCREASE INTERNAL LINKING ON YOUR WEBSITE

Internal linking can boost the rankings of your website when used correctly. It helps Google understand your content better and also sets an informational hierarchy for your website. Websites with information are consistently correlated with each other. It is very helpful for people and search engine bots when relevant information leads them to further information on the subject.

 

  1. MAKE YOUR WEBSITE MOBILE-FRIENDLY

Whenever a query is entered in the search bar, Google will rank websites based on several different factors, but mobile-friendliness is be one of the primary factors. Thus, Google requires webmasters and businesses to create a mobile friendly website.

 

  1. IMPROVE YOUR PAGE SPEED

Nobody has the patience to tolerate a loading website nowadays. With so many options available at our fingertips, people swiftly switch from one site to another to look for the desired products or services. Thus, you’ll lose the potential rankings and leads if your site’s speed is low.

 

Need help with website design? Get in touch with our team for expert advice.

 

Analyze your site?

Website Redesign Checkpoints 6 Steps for Success

Website redesign is complicated. Here are some steps to take away before, during, and post-launch to avoid an SEO disaster when redesigning your site.

 

  1. Take inventory of your current site

Before changing anything, you need to take a snapshot of what your site and ranks look like currently. This will be a necessary reference point post-launch when evaluating if everything is indexing and ranking as it should.

 

Some areas to keep in mind while taking inventory of your site are:

 

  • Current SEO rank: Check the current rankings of each of your website and also make note of the pages that currently rank in Google.

 

  • Crawl your current site: This will let you see what your current site looks like and grab the structure, current URLs, meta description, and titles tags so you can match your new site up to the old.

 

  • Blocked content: Verify any blocked content with your Robots.txt and/or Google Search Console. It is good to check this list so that you can make sure that these blocked pages continue to be blocked after the redesign.

 

  1. Keep content as close to the same as possible

We all know the saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” but that doesn’t mean you can’t change a page.

 

You just need to make sure your development and copy teams know when and what tags need to stay the same. Yes, during a redesign, you may need to make some changes to copy/content, but make sure the changes are small and deliberate.

 

In order to maintain your current rank, you should aim to keep the title tag, meta description, URL, and the H1 – H6 the same.

 

These areas are the most commonly crawled and are most important for pages that already rank on Google.

 

  1. Preserve some of the overall site architecture

Yes, some of the ways you organize your navigation and files may change based on your new website strategy and goals, but if possible, try to keep as much of the structure the same as you can.

 

Search engines already know your current site architecture, so by maintaining it, you give yourself a better chance of not affecting your rank.

 

Keep your existing visitors in mind as well, you don’t want to change your structure and confuse your existing audience when they revisit your website.

  1. Create 301 redirects

You also want to make sure you don’t want to remove any pages that are doing well. If you must, make sure you inform the search engines about this change by setting up a 301 redirect. If you don’t implement these 301 redirects you can drastically kill your traffic

 

Keeping an organized list of old page URLs vs new page URLs is extremely important and will help you with re-organizing the website.

 

  1. Block your new site from search engines during staging

Once you have a game plan of what your new site architecture is going to look like, it’s time to design and get the new site built.

 

Make sure your development team sets up the new site on a staging environment or a platform meant for testing that resembles the live environment without launching the pages.

 

It is important to have a staging environment so that you aren’t messing around with your live site and prematurely set pages live and having search engines index duplicate content.

 

A very IMPORTANT thing to do once your staging environment is set up and put a “No Index, No Follow” on it.

 

You don’t want Google finding your staging environment and marking it as duplicate content. This will create a bigger mess to clean up once you take your new site live.

 

  1. Double check everything in staging

When everything is built, run tests on the staging environment to make sure you aren’t missing or have duplicate H1 & H2 tags, title tags, and meta descriptions.

 

Once everything looks good and you have not only run some SEO tests but also did internal QA (Quality Assurance) to make sure the site is responsive and works in various browsers, it is time to take the site live.

 

What about post launch?

Even everything looks great in staging, once you set a site live, there are several things you need to do to ensure you maintain your SEO.

 

Here is a quick hit list:

  • Remove “No Index, No Follow” – This is a very easy thing to forget to do it is the #1 item on our post-launch checklist when launching a site to make sure that is removed.
  • Import your 301 redirects
  • Check your 301 redirects to make sure if you did redo your highest-ranking pages that they are redirecting where they should go
  • Make schema.org tags are still implemented
  • Make sure tracking codes are all still up and running
  • Re-run broken link checker
  • Re-submit new submit to Google Search Console

 

You should be monitoring your new site regularly to spot any issues. Check Google Search Console to check on the number of pages indexed in Google to ensure no pages dropped, track impressions and clicks, and track your rankings.

 

It’s important to monitor these things so that if you did drop in SEO rank you can work on getting it back up quickly, rather than catching it too late.

 

Need help? Do get in touch with our professionals for assistance.

 

See How You Can Improve Your SEO! 

Instagram Product Tags Rolling Out to All US Users

Instagram will open product tagging to every user in the U.S. The ability to tag products is starting to roll out now and will become available to everyone within the next few months.

 

Product tagging debuted on the platform in 2016 as its initial foray into e-commerce. Until now, only businesses and creators could tag products in video posts, stories and reels.

 

Of its 2 billion monthly active users, Instagram has an estimated 159 million users in the U.S., according to Statistia.

 

Why we care.

Instagram said that 1.6 million people are already tagging at least one product per week. By making product tagging available to everyone in the U.S., this number will likely skyrocket as users learn of and use this feature. This is yet another way for brands and businesses to be discovered organically on Instagram. So if your brand isn’t set up for Instagram Shopping, there’s no better time than now to test it.

Instagram Why We Care

 

How to tag products?

After creating a post, users would tap the “Tag Products,” tap the product in the video or image, then search for the product from the shop to add a tag. Instagram users who see a product tag can tap it to buy the product within the app.

 

Control for brands and businesses

Whenever one of your products is tagged, Instagram will notify you on your profile. Want to turn off product tags? You can in your account settings. By default, it is set to “Allow all”.

Are you getting the best return out of your digital marketing?

Need an extra pair of eyes to review your online game plan? Let our experts take a look at your current state and do a comprehensive digital marketing analysis at no cost to you. Please call us at (800) 379-2829 or contact us today and we will get to work right away.

Aside from its employees, your business’s single largest asset isn’t the patents it holds, its office spaces, or even its distribution and supply channels. All of these assets, though important, pale in comparison to your company’s reputation. A single statement taken out of context can result in your business’s reputation crashing down to the ground, especially when it goes viral for the wrong reasons.

Your potential customers will likely look up your business online before they buy anything from you. If they find something negative about your brand, they will most likely take their business elsewhere. This is where online reputation management (ORM) comes in. 

Why Is Online Reputation Management Important?

More than half of digital marketers say ORM plays a significant role in their company’s success. However, we feel this figure does not reflect the full reality. All businesses should be conscious of their online reputation, regardless of their niche or business model. ORM is important for businesses that wish to maintain a positive brand identity and attract consumers. In other words, all businesses!

This is confirmed by a survey conducted in 2018. The study claims more than 60% of companies monitor their online reputation at least once a day, with 21% checking in on their reputation every hour. These businesses obsess over their online reputation because bad press results in a loss of customers. 

Whether you’re dealing with a local business or a larger one, you wouldn’t want to transact with a business that has a shady reputation, would you? ORM helps your brand transform its online presence into something that generates leads and attracts customers instead of turning them away. 

How Does ORM Impact Your Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing and online reputation management are closely intertwined. An excellent online reputation makes it easier for digital marketers to generate leads and convert them into customers, while a poor ORM performance complicates your digital marketing team’s job. 

Here are some ways online reputation management makes an impact on your digital marketing strategy:

Sales

People make a purchase from your business because they feel they can trust the quality of its products and its after-sales support. That trust is built mainly on the strength of reviews and feedback from your customers.

A quick Google search of companies that operate in your niche will bring up the businesses that have the highest star ratings. Because of changes to the Google algorithm, a single one-star review can have a massive impact on your business. On the other hand, a five-star review from a satisfied customer can convince potential customers to give your business a chance. This means review management has a real impact on your sales figures.

Review Management

Aside from boosting your Google search performance, you can also use reviews as social proof on your home page and product landing pages. Good reviews will show up in search results and improve your online profile. 

The first step in claiming a presence in Google is to create a new Gmail account specifically for your business and claim your Google My Business profile. From there, you can ask your loyal customers to leave their feedback.

Search Engine Optimization

Online reputation management helps your business improve its search engine ranking. Performing activities related to ORM, such as claiming business listings across online platforms such as LinkedIn or Google My Business, increase your brand’s online presence. Encouraging your customers to post their reviews and write testimonials will help push your brand to the first page of the search results.

SEO-related activities also help you boost your online reputation. If you write guest posts on high-authority websites, you gain important backlinks, build your credibility, and enhance your reputation. 

Online Referrals

Experts estimate that as of 2019, 65% of customers came to businesses via online referrals. If your reputation is strong, your clients and those in your network will recommend you. 

Customer feedback management is an important part of ORM in digital marketing. While it is impossible to get purely positive feedback all the time, responding to negative comments and using intelligent email scheduling for these responses will send a signal to potential customers that your business is working hard to provide a satisfactory user experience. 

Brand Visibility

While people claim that bad publicity is still publicity, that is not the case in industries where the competition is stiff. There’s always someone else offering a similar product or solution. 

Your brand’s online reputation might be the one factor that sets you apart from the competition, so you need to take ORM seriously if you want to increase visibility and improve customer awareness of your products. ORM in digital marketing includes publishing blogs, social media posts, and forum posts about your brand and products – content designed to enhance your brand’s standing as a leader in its niche. 

The only visibility your brand should be aiming for is positive visibility. Online reputation management helps you achieve that visibility and maintain it.

How To Identify the Status of Your Online Reputation

Before you can implement ORM in digital marketing, you need to know where your business currently stands. Here are four things you can do to assess your online reputation and draw up a plan for reputation management.

Search for your Business on Google

Your search results tell you a lot about your business. Run a Google search for your business, your product name, and the people who work for you, then look at the first five results (not counting paid ads). 

  • Is your brand in the first five results? If not, you will need to revisit your SEO strategy.
  • Are those results generally positive? While you won’t get positive reviews all the time, you need to ensure that Google shows a favorable first impression of your business.
  • Is there any additional evidence that your business is good at what it does, like thought leadership pieces or guest posts?
  • Are there any other pieces of content in your first five results that need to be addressed right away, like unfair allegations against your company?

You should also check that your business information, such as its address, business hours, website, and contact details are correct on Google My Business. If not, it’s time to update it.

Check your Brand’s Social Channels and Hashtags

Your social media channels are also an important component of your online branding and reputation management. People will use your pages to check out your business information, leave reviews and comments, and engage with your brand. Use this checklist to run an audit of your social channels:

  • How many followers does your brand have?
  • When did you last create a post?
  • Do you respond to comments? If so, how often?
  • Does your brand reply to messages? If so, how long does it take (not counting chatbots)?
  • Do you feel that your posts truly reflect what your brand is all about?

Besides your own branded social accounts, you need to check what people on social media say about your company. 

You can search your brand name and company hashtags and see how many people are talking about you. If they are talking about your business, is it positive? If not, do any of your followers defend your brand, or do other negative commenters chime in?

Browse Through Review Sites

Much of your online reputation comes from the comments your customers (and critics) leave on review sites. You need to take a close look at these sites to get a sense of overall customer sentiment towards your brand. Here are a few ways to do that:

  • Check your Google reviews. How many stars do you have? Do you respond to reviews, and do you have a strategy for these responses?
  • Look at your Facebook reviews. How many stars does your Facebook page have? What is the overall tone of the reviews your customers leave? How quickly does your social media team reply to these reviews?
  • Does your business have a presence on Yelp, Angie’s List, TrustPilot, and similar sites? If not, do you have any plans for creating one? What is your strategy for dealing with critical comments?
  • How does your business rank as an employer? Do your current and former employees have good things to say about how you manage your business, or is it a mixed bag? While Glassdoor is not a product review site per se, many customers will think twice about making a purchase from a business that treats its employees poorly. 

How Do Your Products Stack Up Against the Competition?

Aside from review sites, you could also look at websites that compare your products and services with the ones your competitors sell. How do your products stack up against the competition? This information will help you improve your products and determine how you’ll market them.

Set Up Reputation Monitors

Unless you have a huge team that operates around the clock, you can’t monitor everything manually. Therefore, you will need a tool to monitor your reputation in real-time. 

For example, Google Alerts will “scrub” the Internet for mentions of your business, key people in your company, and your products. Just set up your relevant keywords, and they’ll be delivered to your inbox. You might also use another reputation monitoring software like BrightLocal or Qualtrics for more advanced metrics and settings. 

These solutions will alert you to potential issues with your reputation and allow you to take action before they start inflicting significant damage to your business. 

Bottom Line

As long as your business is in operation, people will always have something to say about it, and not all opinions will be positive. Doing online reputation management will help attract customers and address criticism by emphasizing your business’s positive aspects and addressing its critics. 

ORM in digital marketing is not something you do once and then forget. Like all the other aspects of your marketing strategy, it needs constant monitoring and continuous improvement to ensure that your reputation stays positive. Regardless of your industry, you need to protect your reputation and convince potential customers that they’re dealing with a brand that knows what it’s doing.

Bio

Owen Baker is a content marketer for Voila Norbert, an online email verification tool. He has spent most of the last decade working online for a range of marketing companies. When he’s not busy writing, you can find him in the kitchen mastering new dishes.

instagramSince the creation of Instagram, the platform has grown to be the most popular channel for sharing photos or videos. Instagram has more than 800 million active users every month and more than 60 million photos shared every day. Moreover, 1.6 billion “likes” are given each day. So, it is certainly a great marketing channel that can help you engage with your audience.

 

But it can be hard when things start to change and you notice an engagement decline. There are a number of things that can cause your Instagram engagement to drop. While sometimes it may be something that you are doing wrong such as changing the style or quality of your posts, sometimes it can just be a matter of something done to you such as mass spam or reports or even a change to the Instagram algorithm.

 

So, what can you do about it? First, don’t panic, you are not going to lose all your followers and their precious likes. All you need to do is to use a few tactics to get them hooked on your account and regain your high engagement rates. Here are 4 tactics that can be very effective when you are experiencing an engagement drop on your Instagram page:

 

1.      Aim For Good Audience Quality

First things first, it all starts with your audience. Your audience is, or should be, your main concern in this situation. Why? Because you share your posts for people who you expect to support you with their likes, comments, and all other actions you encourage them to do. So, if you want to rise your Instagram engagement rates, your audience is the one you need to start with.

Surprising or not, the poor-quality audience can be the number one reason that might affect your engagement rates. Surely, it is extremely rewarding to see that you have hundreds, or even thousands, of followers on your account. But how is that helping you if your followers are mainly fake accounts or inactive users? Obviously, it doesn’t. Inactive or fake users simply don’t engage with Instagram posts like the ones you have.

So, you can’t raise your engagement rates if you have followers that don’t interact with your posts. Like it or not, you may want to improve your efforts of attracting new followers, real ones, that will actually engage with your Instagram posts.

 

2.      Engage Your Audience With Videos

Yes, images can speak 1000 words, but can you imagine how many words videos can say? Instagram itself is a platform designed for photo sharing. And, data shows that more than 100 million photos and videos are shared on this platform each day. The feature of posting videos on Instagram has been introduced in 2013, and it had such a huge splash that more than 5 million videos have been shared on the platform in the first 24 hours.

So, videos can be the way to go if you want real engagement from your audience, be it IGTV videos, stories, live or video posts. Video content simply is the most powerful content for your marketing strategy because it is some of the easiest to consume.

Videos are engaging, dynamic, and fun to watch which is why they make followers stop for a second long enough until they get your message. Improving your video marketing strategy on Instagram is one of the most effective tactics to stop your followers from scrolling and actually engage with your posts.

 

3.      Create Engaging Contests

Wouldn’t you like to just like and share a post and get free stuff in exchange for that? Most probably yes, and so would your followers. Instagram contests have become extremely popular these days and they are a great way to make followers feel appreciated for all the support they offer you. Moreover, it seems that accounts that hold contests to reward their followers can achieve 70% faster follower growth.

The trick with Instagram contests is the fact that they never fail to engage your followers to take further actions depending on what you ask them to do. Do you want them to comment on your post, tag their friends, or share your post in their Instagram story? They will most likely do it as long as you offer them a prize to get excited about.

instagramIt should be easy to see how holding contests will help you grow your follower lists. Imagine you are holding a contest for your followers in which you are offering one of the best products of the business you are promoting as a prize. It all starts with using the best writing services to create an engaging, fun, and comprehensive description of your contest. Next, ask your followers to leave comments to your post in which they must tag 2 or 3 of their friends to participate in your contest. Simply do the math and you will see that you have just managed to attract at least 1 new follower for every loyal follower that participates in your contest.

Moreover, apart from helping you raise brand awareness and attract new followers, holding Instagram contests is a great way to make your followers feel appreciates. Everybody likes free stuff, and your followers are more likely to become loyal and continue to take part in your contests because they are fun and make them feel important to you.

 

4.      Use Hashtags Wisely

Since their invention is 2007, hashtags have become perhaps the most popular trend on Instagram right now for posts. They make the post look more sophisticated and make it more scannable. If used correctly, hashtags can help you raise your engagement rates for your Instagram posts simply by attracting users by helping them find and interact with your posts.

However, abusing or using random popular hashtags at your posts won’t do you any good. The trick with the effective use of hashtags in your posts is to use the ones that are not only relevant for your posts but also for your audience. Think about what your audience might be searching for and this is how you determine which words will attract them.

 

Over To You

The accelerated growth of Instagram is a great opportunity for marketers to promote their products or services. Yet, make no mistake, this growth can also lead to saturation and more competition which can have a negative impact on your engagement rates. These 4 tactics will help you refresh your Instagram strategy and stop engagement rates from dropping.

 

Have Social Media Questions? Contact Us!

 

 

Are you getting the best return out of your digital marketing? Need an extra pair of eyes to review your online game plan? Let our experts take a look at your current state and do a comprehensive digital marketing analysis at no cost to you. Please call us at (800) 379-2829 or contact us today and we will get to work right away.

Taste of Chicago stats

More than a million people attended the Taste of Chicago, billed as the largest outdoor food festival in the world. The 5 day event held at Grant Park and ended last weekend.  Now it’s time to look at some interesting stats that we pulled from different sources on the web. Social Media played a big role in this year’s event. Not only were people sharing pictures on popular social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat etc. but there were a lot of people posting a lot of stories and LIVE videos while at the event. We are humbled that eBizUniverse had a small role to play in the success of this year’s Taste of Chicago event as we partnered with the city of Chicago to promote the event on major Social Media platforms.

Here are some stats that we put together for you:

  • Over 1 Million attendees
  • 300 menu items from 82 eateries, including 36 newcomers
  • Economic Impact to the city: $106 million
  • Chicagoans Most Popular Eats:
    • Chicken tamales at Yvolina’s Tamales
    • Vada Pav Indian fried potato dumplings from Hakka Bakka
    • Spicy fried pickles from Doom Street Eats
    • Szechuan cold noodle salad
    • Lao Sze Chuan
    • Gator bites at Chicago’s Dog House
    • Kimchi cheese fries at Yum Dum
    • Gelato donuts on a stick from Black Dog Gelato
    • Buffalo chicken egg rolls from Egg Rolls
  • Most Consumed food:
    • 10,000 cheeseburgers ((“Cheezborgers”!)) served by Billy Goat Tavern & Grill
    • 3,000 pounds of Frannie’s Italian Beef
    • 2,000 turkey legs
    • 1,000 ears of Corn on the Cob
    • 8,300lbs of Jerk Chicken & Goat Meat by Vee Vee’s African Restaurant
    • 15,000 pounds of rib tips
    • 35,000 slices of Eli’s Cheesecake
    • Phad Thai 3,300 servings by Arun’s Thai Restaurant
    • 3,000 pieces of Fried Wontons
    • 7,500 servings of Empanadas
    • Beef & Chicken Bowls 5,000 bowls
    • 14,500 Pizza slices
    • 12,300 servings of Italian Ice
    • and for the Vegans
  • For the music lovers
    • Five Free Concerts
      • Wednesday Concert, July 10: Sunflower Bean, Courtney Barnett
      • Thursday, July 11: Cultura Profética, Bomba Estéreo
      • Friday, July 12: Taylor Bennett, De La Soul
      • Saturday, July 13: Joywave, lovelytheband, The Strumbellas
      • Sunday, July 14: Bilal, Meshell Ndegeocello, India.Arie
    •  Street Art & Graffiti  by local artists
    • Dance Performances by local dance companies
    • and much more!
  • Enjoy pictures from the event below…

 

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Taste of Chicago performance
Taste of Chicago 2013
Porchlight Music Theatre
Sources for news and images:
  1. https://wbbm780.radio.com/taste-of-chicago-2019-numbers-statistics
  2. https://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/worth-the-trip/taste-of-chicago-photos-512735631.html
  3. https://www.choosechicago.com/events-and-shows/food-and-drinks/taste-of-chicago
  4. https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/dca/supp_info/taste_of_chicago20.html

Social media advertising is one of the most important digital marketing channels for most businesses. In order to boost your return on investment, here are 10 tips on how to create high-converting social media ads.

  1. Write Compelling Headlines

The purpose of a headline is to draw the readers’ attention. Of course, this also applies when it comes to social media (SM) advertising and there are different ways for how you can write compelling ad headlines. One is by offering value. Others are by trying to evoke emotions or asking a question.

You want to make clear that there’s a reward for every person that is willing to spend the time to read your ad copy and click through to your site.

Also with headlines in general, you should try to be as specific as you can about your offer and, if it makes sense, include one or more numbers, since they are great to catch the users’ eyes.

Here is a great example:

Social media ads

This is a rather bad one:

Free Social Media Audit for Your Business

  1. Address Your Target Audience

Within your ad copy, make sure to address your target audience directly, which requires you to know who you are writing to in advance (more on audience targeting see tip #6).

For example, if you want to get dog owners to visit your eCommerce store and buy some of your premium dog food, you could address them with:

  • “Dear Dog Lovers,”
  • “To all passionate dog owners,”
  • “Are you concerned about the health of your furry friend?”

Social media ads

  1. Focus On Benefits Instead Of Features

Truth is, people don’t care about your product and its features – at least not to the same extent as you do. What they do care about are the benefits that these features provide. How can your product or service improve the users’ lives? If you are not sure or don’t know how to express these benefits, now is the time to put them on paper.

Did you get stuck focusing on benefits instead of features within your ad copy? Check out this helpful list with “101 Examples of Features Versus Benefits” to gain some momentum.

  1. Include A Clear CTA

If there is one element that is most important for creating high-converting social media ads, then it’s CTAs (Call-to-Actions). Every single one of your ads has to include a clear CTA, which basically tells users what it is that you want them to do next.

I know that especially in the beginning it might feel strange to tell someone “click here now and order premium dog food at 50% off”, however, when advertising on SM, you have to provide clear instructions for your audience.

A CTA also requires you to know what the objective of your ad campaign is. Do you want users to sign-up for your email newsletter? Do you want them to download a free eBook? Or do you want to make more eCommerce sales?

Here are more CTA examples that you could use:

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  1. Try Emojis

On the one hand, emojis can increase conversion rates. On the other hand, they might also make your ads look unprofessional. It really depends on your industry or niche and who you are marketing to.

  1. Use Real Images With Real People

Images are likely the first element that a user sees when stumbling upon an ad. And everyone can tell the difference between a real photo showing a real person that works at your company or is one of your customers and a fake stock image.

Vwo.com, which provides a platform for businesses to perform A/B tests, has conducted a case study and found out that stock images “look fake and reduce trust on your website”. It only makes sense that the same applies in advertising.

  1. Become an Expert In Audience Targeting

People that don’t like to fish won’t spend money on fishing rods. Most men are not going to buy high heels. And young adults usually have no demand for rollators. That’s why you have to put enough effort into defining a target audience for each of your marketing campaigns.

Facebook and Instagram, for example, allow you to choose one or more target locations (cities, countries or regions), your desired age and gender, specific languages that your target audience speaks, and most importantly interests and behaviors. An example for the latter would be “longline fishing” or “kayak fishing” in case you want to sell fishing rods.

It’s also possible to exclude certain people to narrow down an audience. What’s more, you can set a connection type, which lets you target users that have already liked your fan Page or people who already use your mobile app etc.

As a rule of thumb, the more accurately you describe your target audience, the higher your conversion rate will be. The downside is that if you get too specific, your audience might get too small and click prices increase.

  1. Implement Retargeting With Custom Audiences

Another very powerful feature that Facebook and Instagram advertising provides are custom audiences. Custom audiences are an advanced tool that require you to set up a Facebook Pixel on your website.

After a user has clicked on one of your ads an lands on your site, every subsequent action will be tracked by the pixel.

eBizUniverse pixel

eBizUniverse Uses The Facebook Pixel – Screenshot taken from ebizuniverse.com

For example:

Let’s say that you run a promotion campaign for your eCommerce store. A users clicks on an ad and gets directed to one of your product pages. He then adds a product to the cart, but abandons the checkout process for whatever reason. With the help of Facebook’s pixel, you can add this users to a custom audience, which also includes every other user that has abandoned the checkout process in your store. Then you could create a specific ad (maybe include a coupon) for this audience only.

The advantage here is that you already know that every user that is part of the audience is highly interested in your products. As a result, conversion rates are often much higher than what you can achieve with “regular” ads.

  1. A/B Test 24/7 + Analyze Results

With SM advertising, you have to test everything that you do all the time. Test different ad images, different headlines and different ad copy. In addition to that, you should test a number of different CTAs and landing pages.

You can also test if your ads perform better on different days of the week vs. the weekend and at different times of the day. The possibilities are endless. The only thing that’s important is that you don’t lose track of what you are actually testing and not make false conclusions, which could cost you a lot of money.

What’s more, all major social media platforms provide you with insights reports with information about how well your ads perform. Use these reports to learn more about your ideal customer.

The screenshot below shows how one of our Facebook ads performed for different age groups (left column).

  1. Make Use Of Hashtags On Instagram

Instagram and to some extent Pinterest are the only networks where using hashtags is really important and makes sense.

Instagram relies heavily on hashtags and they are a great tool to connect with niche audiences. One of the reasons for this is that since the beginning of this year, Instagram allows users to follow specific hashtags. Stories and posts that use these hashtags will automatically be featured in the users’ new sfeed.

Above that, the easiest way for users to find content that interests them is by using Instagram’s search function, which again works with hashtags.

With Pinterest, hashtags can also be used by searches to find the type of content that they like. The platform recommends to use no more than 20 descriptive hashtags per Pin and suggests a mix of evergreen and time-sensitive ones.

Need our experts to take a look at your Online Marketing? Call us at (800) 379-2829 or contact us.

SnapChatIn a day and age when social media is known for how long information is archived, SnapChat is becoming more popular than ever, and now even businesses are growing into SnapChat. People do not share photos as often if they are worried about them being permanently available to anyone that comes across them.

With SnapChat, users send photos or videos that are erased in 1-10 seconds after they are viewed. This anonymity has quickly made SnapChat one of the fastest growing social media platforms.

Great spur of the moment advertising

Spontaneous advertising can be a great way to gain customers. For example, you might send a fun photo of what is going on at the office or that gives customers insight into how a product is produced. Sometimes great promotions do not need to take a lot of time or cost a lot to be great.

Flash sales

If there is one thing that will get a customer using SnapChat it is a great deal. For example, a business might occasionally send out an ad with a code for 10% of a purchase or give users an opportunity to purchase select merchandise first.

Incentive

SnapChatIn a competitive industry, it is essential to give people as much incentive as possible to utilize your business. Some firms have run marketing campaigns that encourage users to send a SnapChat photo of themselves using a product. In exchange, the customer gets sent a SnapChat photo that contains a discount. This can create two sales out of what would have been one.

Eliminates Frustration

When you have a discount code for a product or service, the code often is posted for much longer than it is good for. When a customer tries to use a code that is expired, they can become very frustrated because they do not understand it is old. With SnapChat your code is only available briefly and far less likely to be stored.

Send Videos with Ease

SnapChat is not just for sharing pictures. Short videos can be sent to customers and potential customers. Videos capture a lot of attention and can be educational as well as promotional. For example, a home improvement contractor may send out a daily short video with a tip for home maintenance. A self-help expert could send out a positive message once a week. Contact us today to get started with SnapChat.

Attention businesses: mobile users rule the Internet.

Most websites, search engines, and social media platforms are bending over backwards to engage and appease mobile users who visit their web browsers. Here are four ways that mobile users rule the World Wide Web:

Taking Over YouTube

YouTubeAccording to YouTube’s press page of statistics, the site has over one billion users (that’s with a ‘b‘). YouTube visitors watch hundreds of millions of hours of videos every day, and an unbelievable 300 hours of video are uploaded to the site every minute. Additionally, half of the total YouTube videos each day are on mobile devices. Smartphone users are taking advantage of the mobile application, which makes searching for, saving, and sharing videos simple. Plus, showing a video to another friend in person is a social activity in and of itself.

Driving New Google Updates

GoogleIn April 2015, Google used its blog to announce the arrival of a new, mobile-friendly update. This update helps mobile users find relevant results without winding up on pages that require zooming or tapping or include unplayable content. The update rewards mobile-friendly websites with a boost in search engine rankings, a key component in any business’s ability to generate and convert leads.

The update also penalizes websites who are not mobile friendly.

Encouraging Social Media Platforms

Facebook and Twitter are desktop-based platforms that have been mobile-friendly for ages. Today, it seems that all social media applications must develop mobile capabilities in order to survive. In addition, more and more new social media platforms are being designed specifically with mobile usage in mind.

Increasing Amounts of Mobile Applications

itunesThe Apple App Store has surpassed over 100 billion mobile app downloads since its release in 2008. Although games such as Angry Birds and Clash of Clans remain popular, mobile applications are used for everything from gaming to online shopping. Smartphone users can listen to music, keep a food journal, deposit checks through mobile banking, master countless yoga poses, and do nearly anything else imaginable. In fact, many new apps are designed to increase productivity by tracking a user’s mobile activity and letting him or her know where time might be wasted.

At this rate, it seems clear that the more we access the web on the go, the more accessible the sites we use will become!

Is your company routinely active on Twitter? If not, your business is missing out on countless leads and endless sales. You should take advantage of everything Twitter has to offer, from promoting products to reaching new customers and growing your brand. To find out how to take advantage of such a platform, please keep reading:

How to Use Twitter: Starting with the Basics

TweetThe popular social networking site Twitter boasts over 300 million active users, with 500 million users total. Unlike Facebook, where users can post paragraphs at a time, Twitter posts (called tweets) are limited to 140 characters each, except when replying to direct messages. The site is great for personal use, boasts countless celebrity users, and is an ideal way for businesses to connect and interact with potential customers. In fact, many users want to connect with companies as a way to voice their opinion, obtain behind-the-scenes information, and learn about promotions and discounts. A single tweet can reach thousands or millions of followers within an instant.

Utilizing Twitter to Promote a Product

Twitter promotionTwitter continues to develop new ways to help businesses advertise using the site. For example, according to Karissa Bell for Mashable, Twitter now allows businesses to share or promote tweets from their analytics dashboard.

Having this capability makes it easier for small businesses to promote their product and gain sales using a secondary channel. In addition to employing promotional tweets, ways to promote products on Twitter include:

  • Posting a series of tweets as part of a gradual unveiling
  • Sharing clues and having users guess the answers
  • Introducing the product, and then hosting a Q&A with users
  • Post links to product-related posters, articles, videos, and press releases
  • Retweet customer feedback about the product

Sharing an image, in particular, is an easy way to increase customer interest and engagement.

More Ways to Engage Users

Since tweets are limited to 140 characters, you may think it would be difficult to engage users. In actuality, having a short allotted space makes it easier to respond to consumer complaints, comments, or suggestions quickly and easily.

The more active your business is on Twitter, the more new followers you will gain.

Twitter hashtagFor single tweets, try posting witty one-liners or generating buzz with discount codes only found via Twitter. If it is relevant to your business, you can also utilize trending topics or hashtags to help increase visibility. You can encourage your followers to share tweets, or even run a promotion to help grow your audience.

To attract even more attention, embrace the ability to include a link within your post connecting people to a flier or video clip. Do not be afraid to share other relevant content or interesting information, as that is what will keep users coming back. Also, do not forget to review your analytics dashboard frequently. Studying data and demographics will help you determine and focus marketing on your target audience.

Building a Niche Follower Base

If you have a product that could be aimed at a particular niche, do not be afraid to follow people within the group.  For example, if you have a carpet that’s designed for children, you might want to build your following base towards teachers, libraries, and stay at home moms who would order such a product.

So you want to create some visually appealing content but not sure where to begin?  Our infographic below outlines the steps needed to be taken to create stunning content that people will want to read.  So, what are you waiting for?  Start reading!

Creating visually appealing content

When was the last time you used Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn?  Was it this morning?  An hour ago?  Maybe you’re on it now as you read this article.  Social media has essentially taken over our lives to keep up with family, friends, current news, and to meet new people.  But we have a feeling you aren’t taking full advantage of what social media has to offer.

To help you, we’ve put together an infographic (below) illustrating the top 8 benefits of using social media for marketing purposes.

8 Benefits Social Media Marketing