Since there are so many channels out there that offer amazing tips and advice on how to grow a brand using proven SEO strategies, we’ll be reviewing a couple of channels which caught our eye.
As the co-founder of two reputable companies, Crazy Egg and Neil Patel Digital, Neil Patel happens to be one of the most brilliant minds in the digital marketing scene.
With years of experience under his belt, Neil Patel has built a brand that claims to be the #1 source for all things marketing. On his website, you’ll be able to get plenty of content that offers practical solutions to common hurdles in the digital marketing scene.
Always eager to please, Neil Patel has subdivided the content on the page into two categories: beginners and expert. To ease comprehension levels, he’s further grouped them into playlists for you to choose depending on the level you’re seeking inspiration from.
On many occasions, he’s stated that he usually looks at both the qualitative and quantitative aspect of any business venture. Since the quantitative is all about numbers, he likes to review things like drop off rates in a funnel, time spent on a site and the bounce rate. On the flip side, qualitative deals with feedback from users via methods like surveying.
His unique approach to digital marketing has seen him make a name for himself whilst making bank.
Having initially began as a SaaS provider in 2004, Moz has rapidly expanded to become an authority when it comes to SEO. Despite the fact that many people still perceive the platform to be a software company, Moz does an incredible job as a specialist search marketing content hub. The editorial team at Moz now highlights various phenomena like CRO, technical SEO, blogging, and PPC. With a ready client base, Moz regularly shares information about the latest trends in the search marketing world.
Their video content is structured in such a way that it appeals to their multi-faceted demographic. By diversifying their content, they are able to keep the conversation going among their crowd-sourced international community. Their inbound marketing ideas are currently a big hit among their subscriber base.
Gary Vaynerchuk is a renown digital marketing entrepreneur. With his roles as the CEO of VaynerMedia and chairman of VaynerX, he’s positioned himself well to partner up with some top brands like Green Street and VaynerSports. So lucrative has his venture been that he’s stashed some of his investments in other brands like Uber, Twitter, Facebook, and a couple more.
On his platform, there’s plenty to learn about how to expand a brand in the online space. Be sure to check out a couple of useful playlists like the “DailyVee”, “#AskGaryVeeShow”, and “Business Meetings with GaryVee.”
Excitingly, he likes engaging with his viewers using various formats like Q&As, keynotes and discussing the noise in the digital marketing world.
As a New York Times and Wall Street Journal Best-Selling author, he likes sharing various analogies when breaking down some complex marketing concepts with his audience. By doing so, he’s able to get the message across and encourage continued engagement.
It’s not a stretch to say that HubSpot is a leader in all things digital marketing. Their YouTube channel is structured in pretty much the same manner. It acts as a fantastic resource for people to learn about luring high-quality leads via mediums like social media, blogs, and search. The insights shared are so detailed because they don’t just end with attracting leads, you’ll be able to get fantastic advice on how to nurture them further.
It’s not uncommon to spot some famous names dishing out Keynote addresses on the platform. Some mentionable names include Martha Stewart, Arianna Huffington, and Seth Godin. They successfully managed to establish a fantastic online resource for the sharing of inbound marketing knowledge.
Derek’s YouTube channel takes on a more qualitative approach when it comes to marketing. He dissects the essence of how things like psychology and human behavior affect marketing efforts. During his talks, he gets to share various pointers on business growth, marketing, and persuasion.
His delivery is quite entertaining, witty, and easy to digest. Other than sharing SEO tips, he also delves into various topics like credibility, copywriting, and colour theory.
Having analysed a couple of YouTube channels that offer great digital marketing training, we’re hoping you’ll make a point of checking them out. Whether you’re interested in Google ads or SEO, you can subscribe to a couple or all of them and get inspired as you make your next digital marketing move.
Reading content online is designed to be easy. That is why some of the most engaging articles have plenty of paragraphs, brief entertaining sentences, multiple sub-headings, and added GIFS to lighten the mood.
But one of the most compelling ways in which content becomes captivating to readers is the presence of images. Images not only look attractive but also create a visual imprint on the eyes of the reader.
However, for this to be executed successfully, one has to know their way around optimising images.
This simple guide will help you get started with the subtleties around image optimisation today; including how to select the best images, and how to optimise them for your content.
The first thing about image selection is that an image should always reflect the subject matter of the text. This is mainly for the reader’s visual engagement, and it helps maintain synchronicity with what they are reading.
Secondly, these images need to be of great quality, placed in the ideal aspect ratio and come in a great resolution so that they are big enough to be viewed across all devices.
A common faux pas observable in most websites is the use of stock photos. Stock photos are one of the worst deterrents of organic traffic because they simply make your website look like one big marketing gimmick.
When selecting an image, you should always proceed with caution. You might be selecting one which you initially thought was copyright free, only to discover that the image’s rights are still under the owner’s name via Shutterstock or Getty. There’s no point of being slapped with a hefty invoice of £500down the line.
As a new rule of thumb, avoid purchasing stock photos. Conversely, you should hire the services of a photographer and have him or her take authentic photos for use.
It would also be wise to create your personal visual designs, charts, and graphs for content as well.
Nevertheless, if you’re strapped for time and money to undertake such a task, you can opt for free-image resources easily accessible online.
When your searching for images online, you can narrow down your search result to free images by simply clicking on search tools, navigating to Usage Rights, and picking ‘Labeled for Reuse as your main filter option.
You might not find the best photos here, but rest assured that there are great images available that other people might have not used before.
Flickr is one of the best sources to find thousands of free images for use. These images usually come highlighted with a Creative Commons license.
It is a great alternative to copyright because what it simply means is that you can use the images as freely as you want, but you will have to give full credit to the owner of the photos as well as linking back to their personal Flickr accounts.
That being said, you should always double check the status of the photo you’re selecting on Flickr because there are some photographers who only permit their images to be used for non-commercial content
Other notable websites to look at when searching for images include Unsplash, Piktochart (mainly for creatives looking to find infographic images) and Gif Grabber.
After downloading a relevant photo, you will definitely want to resize it so that it doesn’t occupy a lot of space inside your text.
For example, most photos captured with an iPhone tend to be more than 3000 pixels wide, which is way larger than the recommended size limit.
One of the biggest folly with huge images is that they can greatly reduce page load speeds, negatively affecting your search rankings. Hence, ensure to resize them before including them in your text.
Ideally, Photoshop is the best tool to optimize your images for uploading, but there are multiple options out there including Picresize.
If you’re on a tight budget, however, simply open the Paint program on your computer and resize the image.
Before you choose for your image to go live along with the text, it is important that you assign the right file name to your image.
While this might not play any significant role when it comes to SEO, it will definitely make things easier when you need to quickly navigate to the image and change something about it.
Fortunately for block programs such as WordPress, the photo is automatically assigned the title of the file name.
This is usually done in the Alt section of content (commonly known as the Alt text).
This is what Google uses to read your image and present it when someone searches for images related to the one that you have posted.
Your alt-text should be brief, descriptive, and go straight to the point in describing what the image is all about.
In WordPress, the caption field is one of the most highlighted fields when dealing with images. Though it might not add a lot of value in terms of SEO, the caption is where content is inserted to give your image a little more life and colour.
A great caption can also keep the reader hooked, and increase the mental clarity of the image in relation to the text that is being read.
Lastly, if you photograph your own images, you might find that some people have snakingly used them on their own website without giving you proper credit as the owner.
You can reclaim your images by using an automated reverse tool such as Image Raider
All you have to do is simply add the images to the tool, and it will ping you any time someone infringes on your content and uses your images without your permission.
Once you have optimised all the images on your site is highly advise to start some link building to your website. We wrote up a really good guide explaining exactly why link building is important and should not be skipped.
Before we get all immersed in the wealth of hosting options available for your personal blog, it’s important to first separate the wheat from the chaff. You need to first look for these qualities when selecting a hosting company:
Ever since they started out, SeekaHost has improved its services massively. The hosting company is appealing even to newbies who are just starting out.
SeekAHost offers cheap web hosting packages which are convenient for those running small blog sites. With an economic plan running at $9 annually, SeekaHost is one of the very best hosting companies out there.
Having revealed this, it’s only logical for you to assume that their services aren’t that great. In truth, they offer excellent services. Users have access to unlimited bandwidth which is great if you want to manage traffic to your site. Other alternatives in the market tend to offer throttled speeds as a way of saving costs.
With SeekaHost, you have access to the real thing. Their partnership with WordPress allows you to perform auto-installation of WordPress. This is usually a great time saver and comes to the aid of those seeking to enhance their security salts and FTP protocols. In addition to all this, upgrades to WordPress software are also easy peasy.
With SeekaHost, you can rest easy knowing that your website is up and running at all times.
With a monthly payment plan of £2.00 monthly, BlueHost is a viable option if you’re looking to get maximum bang for your buck. The only time where their fees are a bit steep is when you’re transferring a website. In such situations, you have to fork out £120. This may contrast a bit with other websites who may offer such services for free.
Once on board, you’ll have access to free domain name registration an unlimited bandwidth. Once you factor in the 24/7 customer support and the fact that you’ll be able to control all your tabs from a single control panel, then BlueHost definitely looks like a bargain.
Many people running personal blogs on platforms like Joomla, WordPress, and Drupal usually prefer hosting on SiteGround. They have alluring offers like free site transfers and 24/7 customer support. Their instantaneous feedback works great especially if you happen to have an issue that’s troubling you.
The great thing about SeekaHost is that you don’t have to look far to access its wonderful features. You’ll be able to access great data about how your website is faring right from the dashboard.
Some of the leading CMS platforms like Drupal, Joomla, and WordPress actually recommend SiteGround
Users also have access to a free SSL certificate irrespective of the plan they choose to go with. If you’re looking to perform site transfer, you can freely do so using SeekaHost. Once all is set, you also have the guarantee of 99.9% uptime without taking into account the pricing plan you’ve chosen.
The one remarkable thing about their platform is that they use their in-house developed SuperCacher to increase site speed. Other than this, they have also developed innovated technology and other great features to support developers running personal blogs.
If you decide to go the SiteGround route, you also have the freedom to choose from a number of different servers around the world. The options include the UK, Singapore, Asia, and the USA.
At £2.75 monthly, you have access to a storage space of 30GB, daily auto back-ups, 99.9% uptime and issuance of a free SSL certificate.
Having shared something about reliability, it’s only right that mention Media Temple in our analysis. They are a great company that offers their clients a variety of hosting plans depending on the nature of your business, be it a website, blog, app, or platform.
The options also include things like VPS hosting, shared hosting, and a couple of more choices. By giving you the freedom to choose, they’re able to help you plan on how you want your needs to be met.
A quick look online at the company will give you a clear representation of how people enjoy their services. They have numerous rave reviews from a satisfied client base which goes to show that their services are excellent.
As a web host provider, GoDaddy has one of the most intuitive systems in place. Their services are also expansive which means that bloggers looking to something extra from a web host are certainly going to enjoy.
Their plans are also affordable because you have access to plenty of storage at low rates. To further entice users, they offer a 45-day money-back guarantee and unlimited bandwidth.
As one of the most secure hosting companies out there, GoDaddy offers 24/7 security monitoring and DDoS protection for both Windows and Linux platforms.
As the world has slowly started to go green, so have a number of hosting companies. GreenGeeks is your best bet if you’re looking to kill two birds with one stone, positively contribute to the environment and access A1 hosting services.
On their platform, they proudly state that they use 300% renewable energy to power their web hosting functions. Admittedly, it’s easy to think that there’s a downside to this i.e. lower processing quality, but, in truth, this is not the case. Not only do they guarantee a 99.9% uptime, but they also offer other perks like free SSL certificate and domain registration at a measly £3.00 monthly.
If you’re thinking about starting your very first blog, then you definitely need to consider HostGator as the way to go. As a platform loved by people just starting out, they offer excellent 24/7 support and assurance of 99.9% uptime.
To access their services, you have to part with £3.25 monthly. Given that they offer a 45-day money back guarantee, they’re a bankable option.
In our review, we’ve highlighted the top hosting companies for bloggers in the market. Having read through all of them, we trust that you’ve discovered at least one option that appeals to you.
We carefully evaluated all of them to ensure that we only post hosting companies with a fantastic reputation among bloggers. Since you want to have a dependable platform, this is one attribute that you really need to be on the lookout for. While there may be cheaper alternatives out there, it’s best to take the tried and tested route. Dividends are sure to pay out in the long term.
Objectively speaking, businesses are always looking to do much more than just break even. Most businesses are able to do this by creating value in the markets they operate in and then leveraging the buying power of their clientele.
While this traditional approach has worked well over the years, the dawn of the internet age has forced many enterprises to rethink their strategies.
Sure, value addition remains a central premise for business operation. However, much more is needed if you want to stand out. We’ll be looking to highlight some of the major areas you need to cover ground if you’re looking to register impressive sales numbers going forward.
Traditionally, word of mouth marketing typically spread from one person to the next. The modernised version is somewhat different in that it describes both targeted efforts and naturally occurring happenings where individuals share their satisfaction with a brand.
Data from Nielsen has shown that about 92% of people trust recommendations from friends and family over any other kind of advertising. As it’s already apparent, trust plays an important role in word of mouth marketing. In light of this, you need to foster the right conditions for word of mouth marketing to thrive. With that done, you’ll have broken down trust barriers that may exist and allowed influential customers to openly share their experiences with your company to the masses.
Given the fact that 74% of consumers have reported word of mouth being the key inspiration behind their buying decision, it’s crucial that you tap into this kind of marketing strategy.
If you look closely at the numbers, you’re bound to discover that there’s some long-term value when you invest in word of mouth marketing. This is because referred customers usually stick to a company over extended periods when compared to people who find your company using other means.
A contented customer base is likely going to direct more of their family, friends, and close associates to your direction. Going by this exponential growth curve alone, it’s logical to see just how valuable the first referral is.
As you look to venture into word of mouth marketing, it’s essential for you to understand that it happens in 2 ways, either organically or through marketing and ad campaigns. Since the two have inherent overlaps, it’s necessary for us to distinguish the two.
Video is one of the most powerful mediums out there. Research has shown that adding videos to your landing page can increase your conversion rate by as much as 80%.
When customers watch things like explainer videos, they’re able to visually identify the reasons why they need your product. This means that they’re likely to go further down the sales funnel and complete a sale.
It’s not surprising that this is the case because vision is our most dominant sense. Plenty of the information we are able to transmit to our brains is visual in nature. If the adage, a picture is worth a thousand words is actually true, then, there’s plenty to be said about moving pictures.
You can massively boost your return on investment by using video to tell your story. Luckily, you don’t need to be tech-savvy to come up with great videos. The internet is awash with video production and editing tools that you can quickly acquaint yourself with.
Importantly, you don’t need to come up with perfect videos in order to resonate with audiences. Content is the most important thing you need to be mindful of when producing your videos.
Organic traffic continues to shine when it comes to bringing in new prospects. Since most people discover brands online, it’s essential that you factor this is in your sales and marketing strategy, even if you’re a local business.
More specifically, you need to strive to have your brand get to the very first page of search engine results relevant to your client base.
Two decades before the online world became what it is today, many people weren’t acquainted about the best practices of the web. Today, the game has changed. Our phones are smarter and so are we.
Since most of the precious information is usually situated at the very top of search results, i.e. page one, it’s nigh impossible for visitors to check out websites found on successive pages after page one. We wrote a guide covering some great tips you can implement yourself to increase your local business rankings.
Brands like Facebook and Google use user engagement as a currency in measuring how websites are faring. They analyse even the most mundane of user actions like reactions, number of shares, the comments, and the click-to-conversion ratio. All this is done in a bid to bolster the efficiency of their algorithms.
The more engagements you’re able to register, the more likely it is for your ad to be shown frequently to audiences. As such, you need to aim to stay on page one of search results.
Having shared this, it’s worth documenting that website design also plays a key role in determining the success you have with prospects. The presence of broken links and error messages is not something that many willing buyers will be able to stomach. As alluded earlier, trust is of the essence in the sales game. You need to make sure that clients can trust in your business for them to truly become loyalists.
On-page SEO is of the essence because it plays a major role in how search engines like Google comprehend the content on your webpage.
In light of this, it’s is your job to ensure that all the content on your webpage is optimised from a subset of chosen keywords. Once this is enforced, you will find it easy to rank higher in SERP.
When you don’t have good onpage SEO, it becomes harder for you to stand out in your industry. This is especially true when you consider that there’s every possibility that your competitors have already optimised their pages to rank higher in search results.
While you may have a compelling backlink profile and awesome content, you may find yourself overshadowed by others simply because your webpage falls short in onpage SEO.
The most vital part of onpage SEO are the actual keywords you decide to target. If the keywords you select are too competitive, you’ll be inhibiting your chances to rank, irrespective of how well you optimise your page. To get a better understanding of what keywords are good to target for your London based business, we recommend to hire an SEO consultant as they will have extensive knowledge and know exactly what keywords are too competitive.
If you don’t then it’s important to conduct proper keyword research. When you do this, you’ll be able to find the best phrases with the highest search volume that you can target.
Having identified which keywords you’ll go with, your onpage SEO strategy needs to be focused on optimising your webpage for those particular keywords and their semantic options.
It’s also worth documenting that you need to sort out your title tag, the header tag, image alts and optimisation in the content itself. ClickSlice can help with that if need.
Here’s a breakdown of the top Onpage SEO tools in the market.
As divulged earlier, keywords are critically important in SEO campaigns. Not only do they provide you with a target to aim for, but they also guide your optimisation efforts.
While all this sounds quite easy on paper, keyword research can be quite tasking, especially if all you have is the Google AdWords tool.
With Ahrefs’ Keyword Explorer, you can ease the workload by a significant fraction. This SEO tool is quite handy in that it allows you to discover new keywords to target whilst showing you all the backlink data. The fact that it enables you to conduct comparison tests on different keywords makes this tool a gem.
A number of businesses use SEOCrawler as their key onpage SEO tool. The Site Auditor feature is probably their most impressive asset. With it, you can analyse a page in a swift manner and get updates on page speed, duplicate content, broken links, and keyword optimisation. Impressively, all this is provided in an instant.
With such automation features at your disposal, you can save plenty of time and divert your attention towards more lucrative ventures out there.
The Site Auditor feature also provides users with suggestions on how they can enhance their webpage for more effectiveness. With the changes made, you can monitor just how impactful the changes were on the Rank Tracker.
This neat tool is particularly useful if you’re outsourcing the services of a copywriter for your brand. Since Google favours original content, it’s imperative that the content that’s delivered to you is in no way duplicated from other platforms.
To get started with the tool, all you need to do is paste content into their editor and it will scan its records before letting you know just how unique the copy is.
Cognizant of the fact that an increasing number of people conduct internet searches on their phones, Google has upped the ante by introducing page speed as part of their ranking factors.
In today’s world, websites have to ensure that their pages load fast. When they do, they’re likely to win over a significant section of the mobile community. If you’re looking to rank favourably with mobile users, it’s up to you to ensure that your pages load swiftly after launch.
You can make use of the Google PageSpeed Insight tool to analyse just how fast your page is. The tool does a great job of suggesting a couple of improvement areas that can take your page to the next level and rank higher in SERP’s.
This tool does a great job of analysing your webpage and notifying you just how it compares to their specially curated checklist of SEO factors. After analysis, the tool gives you a result that indicates the overall grade of your website with suggestions on how to make enhancements.
The real beauty of Moz On-Page Grader is that it has an intuitive design which makes it the perfect tool for novices. If you’re looking for a tool that will guide you through the ropes of onpage SEO, this is the best way to get acquainted.
Social media marketing is the canon that will fire your enterprise to success. That is right. Your current clients, the target audience, influencers and everyone else is on social media. 75% of male internet users and 83% of female internet users are on Facebook. 81% of the millennials check their Twitter accounts daily while 6 in 10 online adults are on Instagram.
What these figures mean is that all that your business needs to grow is leverage or appropriate social media marketing strategy. Reach the target audience, understand what clients want, and professionally answer their issues.
Well, you might say that your business is already on social media because you run an account there. But this is not all. You need to understand the social media dynamics, use all the available tools, and learn about the competitors in order to outdo them in their game. Digital marketers agree that social media is only opening up. Therefore, be part of this great train that is helping enterprises to grow rapidly. When social media marketing is implemented appropriately, here are the main benefits to anticipate.
Notably, social media is one of the most cost-effective online marketing tactics. When a good social media strategy is implemented, your brand gets greater recognition because it will get engaged in a broad range of audience of clients.
To get started on social media and start interacting with clients, you need to set up brand profiles. Then, ask the employees, sponsors, clients, and business partners to visit, like the page and start sharing it. By getting more people to interact with the business content, you will raise brand awareness and embark on a journey to grow its reputation.
To get more from social media marketing, you should consider investing ample time to study and know what the target clients want. Here, you also need to create content that can help visitors relate to the business more. Let us take an example of a business in the fitness industry. You need to create content that helps answer questions such as the best strategies to lose weight, great fitness strategies for the elderly, special recipes, and related content. The bottom-line is to understand the target audience and bridging the information gap.
If your enterprise is not using social media marketing, the inbound traffic will only come from usual clients. Those who are already cognizant of your brand are already searching for related keywords that your enterprise is ranked for. This means that it will ultimately become more difficult to reach new clients outside the common customer base.
Social media profiles add to the brand marketing mix that acts as the gateway to the website, blog and email marketing. Therefore, social media will act as a melting point to net different clients to your brand. By forming groups, following competitors, and guiding discussion about your industry or brand, social media offers the opportunity to showcase what the brand has and funnel traffic to the main site. To draw more traffic, use social media to shout about the latest offers, new info, coupons, and membership specials.
One of the main reasons for posting content to social media profile is driving traffic. It is also a unique way to raise ranking on social media. Though social media does not have a direct influence on search engine ranking, more than 58% of digital marketers indicate that posting great content on social media is directly correlated to better ranking on search engines. But how does it happen?
Today, everyone uses Google to search for information. In many cases, people searching on Google only open what is on the first page. If a business is featured on subsequent pages, people will rarely open it. But Google search algorithm has advanced so much and is interested in getting what delivers better UX to the front page of search pages. The algorithm follows carefully even what takes place on social media.
To get better ranking, make sure to craft high-quality content and integrate the keywords with specific targeted keywords. Content like case studies, blogs, articles, reviews, business info, employee reports, business location, and others will grow the brand community. In addition, it will often get featured by influencers. The search engine algorithm will not take long to figure out that the important content belongs to you and place it on top of SERPs.
Now that the social media marketing strategy has won the brand’s extra visibility, the business has more opportunities for conversion. For every post, video, image, or comment, all followers will become part of the traffic that could ultimately convert to sales.
As a marketer, the content and interaction should only be a first step in the long journey to driving sales. The next thing should be developing partnership and demonstrating why they should buy from you. Most social media marketers indicate that developing a relationship with clients on social media have a positive impact on direct sales.
Social media is the ideal tool and a force that your enterprise requires to grow traffic, enhance engagement, and drive conversions. It will further help to increase customer satisfaction, improved brand loyalty, enhance enterprise loyalty, and lower cost of marketing.
Are you using digital marketing in your enterprise? If the answer is no or unsure, know that you are lagging behind. The marketing niche is adrift. Traditional brick-and-mortar models no longer bring results. They are expensive, lengthy and unreliable.
Starting from 2017, marketing professionals are referring to the session as post-digital marketing period. In their study, Smart Insights found that most businesses already have some form of digital marketing.
About 34% have already integrated digital marketing into their marketing strategies while 17% do not have a digital strategy though they use several channels for online marketing.
Brands no longer broadcast their ads on television and sit back waiting for clients to come. Rather, they use digital marketing campaigns that help build communities around their enterprises to strengthen their image, sustain high sales and grow over time. In this post, we take a comprehensive look at digital marketing to demonstrate why now is the best time to start investing in digital marketing.
Digital marketing is an umbrella term used to refer to online marketing efforts through channels such as emails, social media, search engines, and websites to reach and connect with the target audience. Good digital marketing strategies involve understanding
where your target clients are and reaching them using the best strategies. Some great digital marketing strategies include;
Other digital marketing strategies include social media marketing, Google Ads, Search Engine Optimisation, email marketing, and marketing automation.
Even as digital marketing takes root and its benefits become evident, many businesses still opt to go the traditional way. However, it comes as a rude shock when the target clients find alternatives that are more reliable, direct and satisfying. Here are some great reasons why you need to put more investment to digital marketing.
To succeed in the current highly competitive marketing environment, investing in digital marketing is not an option. It is the best way to fire an enterprise and keep the fire for faster growth burning. When implemented appropriately, digital marketing guarantees the highest return on investment.
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