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You can Improve Your PPC Campaign by Using Keyword Analysis Tactics

When it comes to implementing your PPC marketing strategy, keyword analysis is one of the most vital methods you can apply. Here you can conduct your keyword analysis throughout the lifespan of your campaign, not just at the starting level. For gaining an edge over your competitors, you need to earn your spot among the top ranks for the right targeted keywords. To earn that spot, you need strong keyword analysis skills and it will bring in traffic and let you anticipate the newest changes in market conditions.

By doing a good keyword research, you can find target keywords for your campaign as well as learn about your business objectives. Even as the industry changes, the need to perform keyword research has remained same, how you actually do it has changed a bit and will continue to do so. Since, these changes have made keyword research somewhat difficult and complex. Below are some tips that will help you in performing good keyword analysis and thus implement a better keyword strategy for your company’s ad campaigns.

Think from Your Customer’s Perspective

When you begin your keyword research, you will need to think from a customer’s or an internet user’s perspective. You need to think about what a customer would search for to find your business or its services/products. If you always stay in that mindset, you will be able to figure out what it will take to give the customer what they want. Knowing a customer’s search intent makes a big difference in your keyword research analysis. You can view your business through a customer’s eyes. It can also help you find the weak spots in your strategy that you should rectify as soon as possible. Once this is done, you can consider nearly half of your work done.

Checking on Your Competitor’s keywords

To find the right keywords for your paid search campaign, you should look into some of the keywords of your main competitors. You need to find out which keywords they are bidding on. This is one of the most important steps in analyzing, as you need to know both their strengths and weaknesses. You might be wondering how your going to achieve all this, so here are some tools that will help you:

• Google Adwords Keyword Planner Tool – If you have done keyword research for your SEO campaigns, then you already know about the Google Keyword Planner tool. This tool can also be used to do research competitors’ keywords by putting the competitor’s URL in the landing page field, select the product category, choose a target location, and click on the “get idea button”. 

• SEMrush – SEMrush is another great tool for keyword analysis and here you can enter a URL and see the top keywords for the website. It will also show you the keyword positions, the traffic ratio, and various pieces of information.

• Open Site Explorer – Open Site Explorer allows you to see into your competitor’s site SEO strategy. Go to the “Anchor Text” tab by entering your closest competitor’s URL and then you can effectively analyze the terms they are using most. If they are using them in search optimization, they are probably bidding on them in paid search campaigns too.

Researching on Related Terms

You need to look at the related terms for your keyword research campaign and for this, you will have to look through the Google Adwords Keyword Planner or any other reliable keyword research tool. You need to consider 3 important things when you look on keyword by keyword.

• Search Volume – In the Google Keyword Planner tool, search volume refers to the average number of searches that people made in the past twelve months for that exact keyword. This data is compiled based on the location and the product category. It is suggested that one should focus on keywords that have at least a thousand searches. 

• Relevancy – The most serious mistakes search marketers do with keyword research is targeting irrelevant keywords. Always, keep in mind that you are looking for niche keywords and key phrases that relate to your business. For example, if you are targeting the keyword “budget smartphone”, then relevant keywords such as “budget smartphone 2015” and “budget smartphone with best camera” would probably be related to your niche. 

• Competition – Google AdWords analyzes the competition based on the quantity of advertisers who are bidding on each targeted search query. In the Keyword Planner tool, the competition can be categorized as “Low”, “Medium”, and “High”. In general, it is best to focus on keywords that have medium competition, especially if your site is new. If your site is already ranking well with keywords having medium competition, then you can go for high level ones.

Overall, keyword analysis is one of the primary steps you will need for developing a strong PPC campaign for your website. Keyword research, analysis helps you make certain that you are driving the best quality traffic from paid search.

Four Ways by Which You Can Improve Your Website Content Development

You can make a business website successful in several important ways and they include SEO design, conversion optimization, link building, usability, and many more. In this post, we will focus on another important aspect that is one of the basic blocks of online marketing – content. Content campaigns are now playing a key role in inbound marketing and businesses, irrespective of size have started investing more on content. Content strategies such as posting images, videos and animations can give the intended message to your target audience. Keep in mind that the content that visitors discover on your site can bring positive or negative reputation for your business. You need to careful when developing content for your website promotion campaigns. Here are the four areas where you should give more focus when it comes to developing content for your site.

Make Your Message Clear and More Useful

When an internet user lands on the home page or any other web page of your site, you should provide answers to the user’s three main queries – where am I, what can I do on this site, and why should I do it? You can answer these questions via your website content and you can do it by writing an attention-grabbing headlines and supporting text on your homepage that uses a powerful value approach so the user know away why they should rely on your business website. When you write this content makes it clear and do not make it as sales or promotional-oriented. Also, today’s internet audience is cautious and they are wary of any marketing message full of sales/promotional content. Just get straight to the point and be clear about your services/products can do for your target customers. Even though most visitors won’t make the purchase decision rapidly, but you can make them stick around by providing content that is informative and offers more value to them.

Self-serving Content Does Not Get You Anywhere

Your content should be beneficial to your target customers by making it educational, interesting, instructive, or takeaways. You can do this in the form of case studies, eBooks, Whitepapers, marketing plans, and more. When your content is educational, it nurtures prospects via sales and marketing funnel until they are ready to do business with you. As your content is educational, it makes your potential buyers feel like they are getting valuable information free-of-cost and not just a constant sales jargon to buy from you. When writing these content pieces, you need to make sure to speak directly to your target customers by using words like “you” and “we”.  You have to make your content transparent and must have a human voice tone in it. Also, you need to address their issues while speaking to their requirements and it is likely they won’t forget you. You need to act as a problem solver for your target buyers and not as product seller. Do not promote heavily about yourself by making statements such as “we are the number one…” instead define your products/services that will specifically help your customer in fulfilling their requirements.

Creating High-Quality Content

When it comes to developing content, quality always trumps quantity every time. Not only your customers know that even the search engine algorithms know which content is of good quality or not. With the regular roll out of updates, these search algorithms are getting smarter and they instantly detect the quality of your content. You need to write and provide your target audience unique and relevant content and it must speak to humans, not only to search engines. For the target audience to solve their issues, you need to provide valuable and educational content, also keep content fresh on your site by rewriting it every year, especially the primary content on the homepage. An effective way is to start a business blog and publish on your site at least twice a week. This way your target audience and the search engines will definitely notice your presence.

Social Media Sharing of Your Site Content

Over the last decade, social media has grown tremendously and it continues to grow in popularity every day. With billions of users who are active on various social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, you can embed social media buttons on your site content such as blogs, images, and videos, you can get more likes, shares and tweets to your content if it is relevant, fresh and informative to the audience.

These are some of the ways in which you can gain more traffic for your site content and thereby more traffic and sales conversions. You need to take more effort on producing good quality content and there are various tools and techniques available on the web that can help you in achieving your goals.

Power of Social Media Marketing Can be Explained with 3 Real Time Examples

These days, social media are playing an important role in recent current events happening across the globe. From the Arab spring uprisings to the Gangnam Style video phenomenon, social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube has changed the way of human communication. According to a 2013 eMarketer report, nearly one in four people worldwide use social media sites in 2013. The number of social media users around the world has grown from 1.47 billion in 2012 to 1.76 billion in 2013, an 18 percent increase. Due huge number of active users in social networks, businesses, irrespective of size have started investing in social media marketing in hopes of reaping benefits such as high ROI, brand visibility, high user engagement, and high sales. When you use social correctly, its influence and reach is extremely powerful. Below are few real time examples that prove the power of social media.

Oreo’s Superbowl Stint

The famous cookie brand Oreo targeted their audience at the right place at the right time. Their social marketing team has proven to the marketing world that they are not only skilled and talented, but witty and quick-thinking. One of their hard-hitting visuals was created during the infamous Superbowl XLVII blackout, which lead to more than fifteen-thousand re-tweets and over twenty-thousand likes of Facebook, whilst the total marketing campaign had more than 250 million media impressions. Here the most impressive outcome was that the cookie brand earned more publicity than those brands which paid for an ad during the big game event. Their message was short but it created high visibility even the Oreo marketing team may not have expected.

Intel Kept their Readers Interested

Well known IC chip manufacturer Intel engaged with their target audience by providing informational and interesting content via its social media pages. For example, Intel often shared updates about events they are hosting or attending, but even more so, facts and general knowledge that would interest their readers. Not only does this create useful content, their readers will find it entertaining and useful, but also help associate the microchip manufacturer with intelligence and knowledge. By looking beyond the purpose to promote their brand alone, they have strengthened their position as an authoritative voice in the industry of silicon technology.

Destinology

The luxury travel service provider Destinology has an impressive following of more than 1.3 million people on Google+ and the company’s focus is to tell a story via their social media pages by using stunning visuals that will show readers the true holiday experience. Understanding the behavior of people online important for the success of the luxury travel service provider. According to the company representative, people love to ‘like’, comment and share images that are striking and inspiring. Further developing their user experience, Destinology also rolled out virtual tours of the hotels they offer. By tying with Google Maps, their virtual tour allows potential customers to virtually explore hotels before booking, that will ensure the rooms and facilities fulfill set requirements.

What We Learned From these Examples

First, timing is important and it is not always possible to share with social media without planning and approval, but sometimes it can produce excellent results if done effectively and efficiently. When you are targeting your potential customers in social media you cannot ignore images as they play a major role in attracting some high quality traffic to your brand. You need to be knowledgeable about the current developments happening in the social media marketing industry. Even though it is difficult to achieve, positioning your brand as an influential and knowledgeable entity is hugely beneficial for you.

Nowadays, everyone has a voice online and brands are no longer expected to broadcast and promote how amazing they are, but to curate experiences instead. The brand’s reputation and brilliance will come naturally through word-of-mouth and customer loyalty.

Another important point to note that all the above mentioned brands didn’t use paid social campaigns such as Facebook Ads and Twitter Ads to achieve those feasts instead they relied on posting and sharing something that is relevant and useful to their audience.

Few Blogging Ideas that will Help You in Avoid Hitting a Brick Wall

A personal blog is something that anyone can write and convey their ideas/message online and it does not need any particular goals. But when it comes to a business blog, it has certain goals to realize within the specified time frame. Also, all business blogs do not share the same objectives as some are more focused on building brand reputation, others in building a loyal customer base, others demonstrating expertise and some are targeted on building quality, natural links. Whatever the goals, sooner or later you might run into a brick wall. If you are missing your deadline and still have no idea what to write, then given below are a few ideas that might help you to restart your blogging campaign.

• Make Your Content More Customer-Centric – To know more about your target market, you need to interview your customers who are very fond of your brand. In this way, you can know about how your products or services influence them and solve their problems. For instance, if you sell products/services to grocery store owners, then interview a store owner, ask many questions that other grocery store owners curious about, and include a couple of questions that touch on how they use your product or service. 

• Write on Topics Relevant to Customers’ Needs – If your target market is restaurants and specializes in designing menus, then that doesn’t mean you have to write on topics only about menu design. Your target customers might also be interested in restaurant signage, changing eating habits, in payment methods and a lot of other topics. 

• Write About Your Employees – To make your brand more personal with your target customers, then you need to write blogs about your company staff. There are people in your target audience who are interested in knowing about their professional and personal lives, how they contribute to the society, what kind of talents they possess, and what their families like. You can also put photos and videos (with your staff’s permission) in your blogs thereby you can build a highly positive reputation for brand on the web. 

• Write About Your Products – When you write blogs about your products or services you need to do it from a new angle, and not the usual, boring sales jargon that you see on the web. You need to develop your blogging strategy from new angles like a visit to the factory or some time that is now remained unexplored. Another great way to write blogs about what you sell is requesting customers to send photos of your products in use which can give enough content ideas. 

• Approaching Your Customer Service – There are many blogging ideas hiding in your customer service department. You can ask your customer service staff what issues or questions customers come to your office with. You might be surprised at how many great content pieces you can write just by answering the queries that come back to you via the marketplace. 

• Ideas Hiding in Blog Comments – Refer on your competitors’ blogs too, and see their comments posted below these blogs. You can extract a new idea from those comments a start a blog based on that idea. Anything somebody writes in the comment box on competitor’s blog or any other blog in your site is fodder for a new post. Do not mention about the competitor’s blog, nor the comment, just write a blog around what you would say in response to the blog comment. 

• Preparing Tutorials – You can provide step-by-step instructions to accomplish something that always be seen as useful by your target audience. This may or may not include using your product or service. Sometimes you link best with your target market by not selling in every post, while you can score bonus points if you are creating a need for your product/service.

These are just a few blogging ideas in finding new topics for developing your content. There are dozens of other ways to come with ideas relevant to your business or target market, but the above mentioned ones are enough for you to start your blogging campaign.

Facebook Announced Three Big Algorithm Changes to its Users’ Newsfeed

Facebook has recently announced about the roll out of three algorithm changes to its users’ news feed. According to many industry observers, this comes on the heels of Google’s roll out of mobile-friendliness algorithm update on April 21^st 2015. According to Facebook Media, the new algorithm change will balance more content from its users’ friends and from Pages. The social networking site wants to let people know about a change that may affect referral traffic for publishers. Also, the social media site asked its users to rate their Newsfeeds and requested information on how they could make a Feed better for them. Based on the feedback and how users interact with their Newsfeed, Facebook found that these three updates would improve user experience.

More than One News Feed post from the Same Source

Facebook announced that its users will now see more than one News Feed post from the same source in a row. Before that, the social media site’s algorithm update prevented multiple posts on the same update. Facebook has now removed this restriction so that users with little content will have more posts in their Newsfeeds. The social media site says that if a user runs out of content, but want to spend more time in Newsfeed, then they will see more in their feed.

Prioritizing Content Posted by Users’ Friends

Another algorithm change that Facebook users can expect from the social media site is that it will now prioritize content posted by users’ friends and it will be ranked higher in the news feed so that users will not miss anything. For those users who do not want to miss their Friend’s updates, Facebook will place these updates (such as photos, videos, status updates and links) higher in the Newsfeeds so that users will not miss a thing. You will still able to see content from prominent news websites in the Newsfeed, but content from your Facebook friends will be given the highest priority.

Hiding Posts that are Liked or Commented on by Friends

The third algorithm change that Facebook will introduce is the facility of hiding posts that are liked and commented on by your Friends. Many Facebook users have told the social media site that they do not like to see stories their Friends had liked or their comments on a post. According to Facebook Media, this update will make these posts appear below in the Newsfeeds or not at all.

The real objective of Facebook introducing algorithm changes is that it will show only content that matters to its users. This needs a combination of updates from Friends, publishers, Public Figures, local organizations and businesses that users are connected to and the balance differs from user to user based on what people are interested in learning about daily. Also, the social media site has to keep improving Newsfeed as more people and pages are sharing more content, and thereby maintaining the right balance.

What this Means for Businesses

It was in 2014, when Facebook delivered a big blow to businesses when they restricted the visibility of their posts that are too promotional. And now, it seems that Facebook is imposing more ‘restrictions’ on content posted by marketers. Your loyal fans that interact with your content will continue to be served posts, unfortunately, that group is very small for most brands, and this change may decrease their odds of growing it at all. After all, second-hand referrals via comments or likes will be marginalized, and besides paid posts and advertising, this was pretty much only way users who didn’t already ‘like’ your brand page could organically discover the content posted by a band.

Facebook’s move pretty much formalizes what we have seen coming for a while now, that the social media site is primarily an advertising medium for businesses, and they need to think of it as thus. The good news is that Facebook can be a highly effective advertising medium when used properly, especially when you consider the Facebook’s recent announcement that they are beginning to track conversions that generate from ads. If you are focusing your marketing campaigns on Facebook then it time to think about choosing paid features provided by the social media site.

Making Your Video the Next ‘Viral’ Phenomenon Using 5 Ways

Among content campaigns, video is the perfect medium that can attract audiences of all age groups, and most marketers around the world use it in their online marketing or brand promotional campaigns. Video marketing generates more customer interest and awareness about your products or services. Due to the huge popularity of social networking sites, online video campaigns enjoy increasing demand. But there are some videos that are not a great success and this usually happens when the video is not well-integrated or not driven by a wise marketing campaign and that is a huge issue. Today, you will learn the basics on how to use your marketing video for what it is really made for.

Creating the Best Message Conveying Video

You can make eye-catching videos with the software tools available on the web but you need to make sure that the quality of video is not compromised. If your animated video does not stand out among the competition, then it is badly animated or it has boring content/message and you won’t get the desired results in your audience reception. Keep in mind that a poor-quality marketing video can do great damage to your brand image. Also, make sure that your video does not just promote your product/service and it also stands for your company. Here is a video that shows how a brand sticks out from its competitors. It is always useful to have a great team of professionals to build a nicely-animated video.

Your Video Must Fulfill Your Marketing Goals

Not all marketing videos are made equal, and there are some marketing video styles for certain marketing objectives and some are better for other objectives. So, you need to find out which video style is better to use to satisfy your goals. For example, whiteboard videos are highly informative and useful, and they can explain the most complex things in an entertaining way. So they are great to use to disclose new web services. On the other hand, cartoon animated videos can be awesome for a social media marketing campaign because they are short, fun and engaging. Here is a fun animated video that shows the most popular animated explainer video styles for brands of any size.

Placing Your Video on the Right Spot

Animated marketing videos have the ability to call for attention quickly, but if your video is embedded below the fold in your homepage or hidden under a lonesome landing page, no one will watch it. As your video is for marketing purposes, it needs to be placed above the fold and be the first thing people notice when they visit your website. Instead of written disclosures, visitors have become accustomed to short animated explanations, so they expect to watch an animated video before reading about your product/service. If they cannot find a video that makes things easier for them, they will leave the website right away. That makes you miss the chance to explain your business idea and eventually damages your SEO reputation.

YouTube-based Video Marketing Campaign

When it comes to posting videos, YouTube is the perfect place to start as it is the second largest search engine and third most popular social network in the world. So, having a neat place there is a great source for site visitors and potential customers. If you want to make your own explainer video and rank good on YouTube then visit this page. Check the piece in order to get essential tips and advice on video marketing campaigns.

Socialize Your Videos

When it comes to social media, video is one of the most shared pieces of content on it. Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter have provided many features to share videos posted by social media users. In order to seize this opportunity, it is vital for you to place a call-to-action buttons next to your video in your site. Those buttons will encourage viewers to share the video and/or the whole content piece via their social media channels. Do not forget to post your video as Tweets, Facebook posts and Pins and remember to keep your brand’s social media profiles updated and running. Be informed and ready to answer potential customers right away.

Whether your business is an eCommerce venture or a service provider, videos can convey messages to the right audience and its impact is more likely compared other content strategies such as blogging and infographics.

Ten Places Where You can Maximize the Visibility of Your Blog Posts

When it comes to blogging, simply and publishing them is not enough as there are so much noise in the digital media out there today. There are so many content materials that are posted every minute worldwide and the chance of getting more visibility for your blog posts is slim. Also, you may think that your work is finished after publishing your blog post, but in reality you need to promote your work so that it will get more readership value. For most content marketers, the usual step is to share their content on Twitter and Facebook, but there are other high traffic generating platforms that you can make use of. If you are focusing only on Facebook and Twitter then you are losing thousands of potential views that could come from sharing on other digital channels.

• SlideShare – Using PowerPoint or other software, you can turn your blog post into a slideshow presentation, and share the resulting document on SlideShare. That content which is high in quality will stand out and compared to other websites, there is less competition on SlideShare. 

• LinkedIn Groups – LinkedIn Groups are another place where you can share your content and it provides you targeted visibility beyond your usual list of connections. Make sure that your group embraces your content and make sure the post is relevant to the group topic. If your content is flagged as the spammy on these websites then it won’t do any favors for your brand.

• Instagram – Visual sharing site Instagram is a great place to build quality traffic for your blog. You can achieve this by posting an attractive, relevant picture with a link to your post, your shareable image can help bring readers to you.

• Pinterest – Pinterest is another visual sharing web site similar to Instagram and it uses the same strategy you would use to get your content noticed there and on twitter on this website. Pinterest has a strong reach, especially among young audiences, thereby making it a very attractive blog sharing option for brands.

• ly – Other than helping brands to create infographics and other types of visual content, Visual.ly also provides a community for sharing these files. By converting your blog post into infographics or other visual content material and sharing them on this website, you will dramatically increase the visibility of your blog. 

• Triberr – If you want to gain more traffic for your blog within short time interval, then Triberr is the place you are looking for. This is a social networking channel where joining focused “tribes” can help you build relationships with other bloggers and earn traffic by sharing others’ content. 

• StumbledUpon – It’s a social networking site that allows users to browse random webpages by clicking the “Stumble” button. You can insert your content to the website, and if users like it, then it will become more likely to appear in the random search rotation. It is an easy way to drive credibility and increase readership. 

• Google+ Communities – Google’s social networking platform can be used to expand the reach of your blog. By posting into targeted Google+ communities, you will get your content pieces in front of interested readers in order to boost traffic. But be careful about the content you post does not become too much ‘promotional’. You need to post unique blog content to Google+ and make sure that any shares you post provide value to your followers. 

• it – This site is one of the places where internet users had to when they are looking for new, interesting content, making it a suitable platform to publish your blog posts. You can start using the program as a free version, but these free accounts are limited to a single topic. You can upgrade to five topics by choosing a $11/month account, or you can choose a $67/month account for 15 topics. 

• Blog Engage – It’s a website that lets you post blogs on a wide range of topics for others to read. Everything from finance to anime to cosmetics is covered, so no matter what your focus is, you can find an audience of potential new readers on this blog sharing site.

The above mentioned websites have less competition when it comes to content marketing, so that your blogs will get more visibility than on Facebook and Twitter, and within a short time.