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7 Essential Elements of an Exceptional Blog Post

As a business owner, one of your main marketing goals is to create engaging and valuable content that will want your target audience coming back to your website for more. Blogging is among the important tool for every small business. Your blog should be eye-catching and provide all the key information your target audience is looking for. To be effective, you will need to know all the key elements of writing an exceptional blog post.

Catchy Topic

Your topic creates an impression and compels your target audience to click on your post. Be sure to carefully choose topics that will spark interest in your readers. Luckily, there are many tools available on the Internet, such as Google Trends, HubSpot Blog Topic Generator, and Buzz Sumo, that can help you generate unique blog topics that are relevant to your niche. Another way to create catchy and compelling topics is by taking feedback from your audience and gathering enough relevant information.

Powerful Headline

Writing a meaningful headline can catch the attention of your target audience to your blog. A blog post with a boring headline can easily get lost in the vast ocean of competitors online. 

Interesting Introduction

While writing a powerful headline can compel people to click on your website, having an interesting induction is key to converting site visitors into readers. Your blog introduction should give your readers an idea of what to expect from your content. You do not have to provide them with that whole picture of your topic, but just enough information to arouse inquisitiveness and curiosity.

Compelling Sub-Heading

In addition to headings, subheadings can effectively emphasize the main elements of the topic, guiding readers and making your blog post easier to read. Your subheading should contain relevant keywords to enable search engines to identify the content of your post and quickly convey key points to your readers. However, avoid inserting the keyword forcibly into the subheading. Make sure that the keywords sound natural in subheadings. 

Format the subheading using the title tag hierarchy. This means that you have to increasingly use a smaller heading format. While most blog posts use H2, you can isolate H2 if it has lengthy content and uses H3 instead. Be sure to use header tags properly.

Interesting Supporting Points

The body is the “meat” of your content that backs up your main topic. When writing a blog, make sure that your story or idea has interesting supporting points that will give your readers something they can sink their teeth into. Carefully lay out your ideas and how you will support them. Make a list of bullet points to organize your ideas. You can start writing the body using these as your main sections. 

Photo by ANTONI SHKRABA

Appealing Visuals

Humans are visual creatures who tend to react and process images much better than reading text. The human brain has a unique way to process complex information, making visualization extremely crucial. Using charts and graphs to explain complex information is much easier than explaining it through words. Do not forget to optimize your images for search and engage your target audience by making them more appealing. 

Compelling Call-to-Action

Once you have captured the attention of your audience with a compelling title, engaged them with an interesting introduction, and led them through the content body with interesting points, then it is time to wrap it up with an engaging call-to-action. 

Call-to-actions should be clear and actionable, giving your audience something to reflect on or respond to. Your call-to-action should effectively entice and encourage your audience to leave a review or comment, answer your question, or share your post on their social media profiles.

Tips to Make Online Reviews Work for Your Business

Many people rely on online reviews for everything from choosing a pizza parlour to hiring a plumber to install and repair the pipes in your home. In today’s digital marketing world, it is impossible to understate the impact of online reviews on your business. Recent surveys reported that 86% of virtual shoppers read online reviews before making a purchase.

When it comes to online reviews, the key phrase is “social proof.” This shows that people liked the product or service you are offering or competing with. By providing prospects with a number of social proof, customer reviews can help increase conversion and build the credibility of your company.

While customer reviews can help boost your sales, the way you utilize them can leverage your conversion-boosting potential. Here are some helpful tips on how you can empower your business using online reviews.

  • Claim Your Google My Business (GMB) Listing

While you can find customer reviews everywhere online, Google is the most popular review site. About 64% of consumers check the reviews posted on Google before visiting a business. Creating a GMB page enables you to keep track of and respond to your reviews. These reviews will be displayed in Google and Google Maps search results, which helps establish the credibility and quality of your business.

  • Encourage Customers to Leave a Review

Getting reviews from your customers helps attract new prospects. That is why you will need to create a strategy that will continuously encourage customers to leave reviews. However, recency matters to most potential customers are looking for in a review.

According to surveys, nearly 34% search for reviews that are posted between a week to a month. Consistency in getting reviews can be a powerful tool to earn the trust and confidence of your target customers.

Sending a link to your review page on GMB, Yelp, or website can make it easy for prospects to leave a review for your business. It also helps you to respond to their reviews. Customers tend to leave a review, especially if they feel appreciated.

The customer will receive a notification when you respond to their review. According to BrightLocal’s data, 20% of customers expect business owners to respond to their reviews within one day.

  • Resist Deleting Negative Reviews

The last thing you want from your customers is negative reviews. However, deleting reviews on Google is never a good idea. You might be surprised to learn that 46% of consumers do not trust businesses with a perfect five-star rating. Customers often get suspicious of businesses with too-good-to-be-true reviews. Even your most loyal customers will still want to know your potential drawbacks. Additionally, receiving a negative review helps you see how you can improve your products or services.

  • Respond Well to Negative Reviews

Many business owners may feel tempted to censor negative reviews. This dishonesty can have an unpleasant impact on your business. Never let unpleasant reviews sit there. Use it as an opportunity to respond to your customers in a polite, helpful, and constructive way. Replying to customers helps improve their satisfaction and loyalty, and even encourages them to recommend your business to other potential customers.

  • Proactively Feature and Broadcast Reviews

You can strategically display customer reviews on your website or add a headshot if possible, especially if it is written by an industry expert, a celebrity, or an influencer, so people can easily spot them.

Another way to highlight top reviews is by converting them into social ads as it draws more attention, especially on Facebook. Make sure to add the average rating badges on the footer of your website and cite reviews in your nurture emails.

Allow your website visitors to search reviews using keywords or star ratings to filter reviews. Various surveys reported that potential customers who use the search feature on a product or service page are more likely to convert at 202.9%, including people searching for 1-star reviews.

What Are the Best Ways to Repurpose Your Content?

There is an exciting way to make your existing content new and great again. We are sure that you have an archive loaded with once helpful, popular content, and it is a shame to keep them hidden in the dark!

Repurposing is a content marketing technique that allows you to breathe in new life to old posts and continue to gain value. Repurposing is about recycling old posts and promoting them in a new form to widen their reach and lifespan.

You do not need to create new content every day. Drawing existing blog posts, videos, and other assets can cut down the time to produce new content. Additionally, it improves your bottom line and the visibility of your content, which can help you reach a wider audience.

How to Repurpose Your Old

Content If you want to repurpose your outdated content for various channels, start by assessing your metrics. Identify high-performing content and think of ways how you can continue to provide value to your target audience with the same content in various formats.

  • Create a YouTube Video

Your existing how-to blog posts can be transformed into tutorial YouTube videos, especially if they are graphics-heavy pieces. For example, you are a business coach offering tutorial services to salespeople who want to master sales calls. You can use some of your blog posts to create a script and convert it into a YouTube video.

  • Create an Infographic

If you have an old blog post packed with statistics or data, the best way to repurpose it is by creating an infographic. Most consumers love visuals, so creating an infographic post of statistics is an effective way to engage your target audience and give new value to your content. While you can include infographics in your blog, you can also post them on social media.

  • Create a Podcast

You can cite quotes from industry leaders or thought leadership posts and create podcasts. Convert the blog into a script and invite industry leaders back for a more comprehensive analysis of the insight they have given for the post.

  • Create an eBook

You can turn long-form content into an ebook to provide educational value to your reader. Discuss specific essential elements of your subject in your blog and offer the ebook to your target audience for a more in-depth analysis.

  • Create a Slideshow

Creating a slideshow is perhaps the easiest way to recycle your old content since it only involves converting the blog into a presentation form. Choose high-performing content and repurpose it into a SlideShare. It allows you to easily share it and introduce your repurposed content in a new format. You can also add graphic elements to make your slideshow more engaging.

  • Social Media Post

You can turn your blog posts into microblogs on various social media platforms, such as Facebook, Tumblr, and Instagram. However, avoid promoting your blog posts directly. Instead, repurpose your brand message. Be sure to create a summary of the crucial points of your original blog. It allows you to maximize your ideas and share them on your social media.

  • Turn Old Webinars Into Video Tutorials

If you have hosted great webinars that attracted many attendees, do let them go to waste! You can reuse them again and transform them into video tutorials. Not only does your content live forever, but it can also be an additional asset to your website and attract more target audiences to your website via YouTube!

  • Turn Video Transcripts Into Blog Posts

Did you know that you can convert video transcripts into blog posts?

A scripted video with a logical structure does not require heavy editing to turn it into an engaging blog post. Take, for instance, the Whiteboard Friday, a weekly video produced by Moz. Although each of their videos has unique content, they also employ a transcription tool that helps convert videos into blog posts.

The Basics of Digital Marketing

Exploring the technical aspects of digital marketing may seem like a daunting task for budding entrepreneurs. However, learning the ABCs of online content development, SEO techniques, and campaign ads might be easier than you think.

User-friendly and instinctive, these digital tools, when used correctly could significantly increase your market reach, industry influence, and customer engagement. It’s important to remember that even though the medium of marketing has moved online, the basic principles of advertising and consumer interaction stay the same.

With every upgrade you make, high-quality customer service still reigns supreme. Whether it’s big or small business internet marketing, prioritizing consumer needs is vital. And, in today’s competitive market, the only way you can do that is by adapting to digital changes that offer faster transactions and easier communication with your clients.

Digital Marketing and Importance

Compared to traditional advertising, digital marketing allows you to reach a wider audience, compete with bigger businesses, generate more leads, and increase ROI. It helps you achieve all these with the help of search engine algorithms that exposes your brand and web pages to more traffic.

To do that, you also have to prove that your content is credible and deserves a high search ranking. You can do so with SEO upgrades and digital marketing tools. If you’re unfamiliar with how to go about this, you can always ask for expert help from digital advertising agencies.

10 Basic Tools of Digital Marketing

The best thing about digital advertising is the ease that it provides to users, whether amateurs or experts. With all the available tools provided by search engine algorithms, you can easily manage your digital campaigns.

Here is a quick run-through of the useful online marketing tools that you can use:

1. SEO

Photo Credit: Oleksandr Pidvalnyi | Pexels

Considered the foundation of digital marketing, search engine optimization or SEO is an inexpensive and fundamental method that allows you to make your website and content meet the standards of search engine algorithms.

As Google wants to provide high-quality results for every online query, they tend to sift through the thousands of data published daily and rank these websites based on relevance, authority, and credibility.

They do that by assessing the overall performance of your website, from the use of keywords, backlink building, on-page elements, and more. For your company’s website to gain traction in its first few days of upload, you have to ensure that it’s equipped with every possible upgrade that will fit with the required website qualities that algorithms demand.

Making a mistake could significantly decrease your search ranking and authority. So, if you’re unsure about how to go about it, you can always hire experts from SEO companies.

2. Online Advertising

Also coined as paid media, this aspect of digital advertising is the process of collaborating with search engine algorithms to boost your online presence. Usually, only the websites that are in the coveted first SERP are the ones most visited by netizens.

By using these paid ads on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Google, you’ll get to achieve more exposure for a limited time.

Online advertising also allows you to track the performance of your campaigns through analytics. You can maximize your online advertising performance by asking for help from experts.

3. Content Marketing

Creating premier content for your websites and campaigns is a must in digital advertising. Doing so will increase customer engagement and online traffic organically. The more comprehensive and relatable your content is, the higher its reach will be.

This content development is not limited to articles only as you can explore other mediums, such as videos, infographics, audiobooks, and more. As long as it resonates with your target audience, you’re on the right track. For a more efficient way how to perform this, you may consult with internet marketing services near you.

4. Email Marketing

Comparable to traditional marketing cold calls, this outreach allows you to connect with your target customers in a more personalized manner. It’s also a more efficient method of marketing as you can reuse email templates over and over again and send them to multiple accounts.

This method also makes it easier for you to generate leads and update your potential customers regarding company events, discounts, sales, and more.

5. Social Media Marketing

Social media platforms are the perfect channels for customer-company engagement. They serve as virtual communities where certain customer demographics can gather and share their opinions regarding a product. You can take advantage of this organic exchange by creating a solid and approachable online presence.

6. PPC Ads

Also, a part of paid media, this form of digital advertising allows you to increase content exposure with more affordable pricing. As long as you keep paying, your ads will reach a wider market. However, this is a short-term solution and is best used seasonally.

7. Mobile Marketing

Mobile phones are now an integral and inseparable component of daily life. Portable and small, these devices allow individuals to better interact with the digital world. Statistics also show that majority of online searches are done on mobile. So, it’s best to make your website design mobile-friendly making it accessible to all your potential customers.

8. Influencer Marketing

Photo Credit: Plann | Pexels

Influencers are today’s relatable version of Hollywood stars. Easier to connect with and reach out to, these individuals tend to be more grounded with their fans. With that said, you can utilize their close relationship with the customer demographic to your advantage by sponsoring them.

This technique is commonly used in digital marketing for dentists as they offer free trial services to influencers and advertise the results to their fans.

9. Video Marketing

Customer content engagement is crucial in digital advertising. However, traditional forms of online content such as articles and infographics may bore your audience. To make your content more memorable use a multimedia format that stimulates more senses. Video content also tends to go viral and gain more exposure.

10. Audio Marketing

Radio is not the only channel for audio marketing. With the rise of podcasts and eBooks, you can now reach an untapped door in the market, where hundreds of customers are waiting. Audio ads on Spotify, Google, and Alexa can dramatically increase your market reach. So, make your campaigns more versatile by developing content variety.

More than half of the world’s population can be found active online. From simple chatting, daily posts, and ordering merchandise, any customer can do anything in the comforts of their own home as long as they’re connected to the web.

This unprecedented level of social connectivity and bonding only reinforces the business opportunities that digital marketing provides.

Technology + Trends Changing Digital Marketing in 2020

Keeping abreast with rising technology and trends is essential for businesses to stay relevant and competitive in the online realm. In 2020, the focus of emerging advancements will be on consumers.

Businesses need to take advantage of these changes in reaching out to their customers. There’s also an urgent call for business owners to revolutionize buying experience to surpass consumer expectations and demands.

To be successful in this endeavour, brands need to understand certain strategies that will put them ahead of the competition and provide an effective way to establish relationships with their customers.

In this post, we give you a glimpse of the trends that will shape the digital marketing landscape in 2020. Read more

Digital Marketing Trends To Watch Out For In 2020 (7)

Digital Marketing Trends To Watch Out For In 2020

Information sharing has become more accessible than ever. Technology has been effective in bridging people from different nations and cultures. Together with the accessibility of information comes the ease of raising awareness about products and services. Every business that wants to maintain a strong online presence must invest in digital marketing. Read more

10 Digital Marketing Strategies for 2019

Technology is constantly evolving and you need to keep up with the latest trends in order to be successful in digital marketing. Innovation opens up new opportunities. Your plan should evolve and grow with technology in order to stay a step ahead of your competition.

New digital marketing strategy are constantly evolving in this current era of technology and internet. Businesses need to adopt these techniques for them to flourish. What might have worked last year is not necessarily going to work this year.

Read below are the top 10 digital marketing strategies for 2019:

1. Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the impersonation of human intelligence by machines, especially computers. AI is slowly taking over the world. AI has become helpful by simplifying data-based experiences and improving user experience.

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines is one good example of a company utilizing AI. They have been able to optimize their services by using the messenger app. They have created a plug-in with the app that has bookings, check-in and flight status updates. Customers can access travel data from anywhere. The airline provides them with the information they need without complications.

Incorporating AI can save your business money and speed up growth.

2. Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR)

Businesses are taking advantage of mobile cameras to enhance the experience of their clientele. VR and AR enable you to enhance brand consultation and influence purchase decisions by bringing your products to life. By engaging customers in immersive adventure, they are more likely to find what they want and also enjoy themselves while doing so.

10 Digital Marketing Strategies for 2019

For example, Amazon set up VR booths around their annual Prime Day, enabling their customers to experience different products as they would in real life. This allowed buyers to picture themselves owning their desired products and greatly refined the customer experience.

If getting your clients to a given location is not possible, Augmented Reality has provided to be an amazing alternative by offering reach through integration with mobile apps.

3. Vertical Video.

Every man, woman and child has a mobile device these days. They are more than personal computers and TVs. This explains why mobile video ads are so popular. Shrewd digital marketing strategy are utilizing videos to engage their customers, especially on social media. The recent introduction of Instagram’s IGTV has validated the shift to more vertical videos. The success of IGTV indicates the transition to vertical videos online.

4. Social Messaging Apps.

Social messaging apps are increasingly being used for business purposes and not just for sending emoji’s. You may find this hard to believe but look at these statistics:

10 Digital Marketing Strategies for 2019
  • Facebook Messenger has 1.3 billion monthly users
  • Billions of messages are sent between people on Facebook Messenger
  • Whats-App has 1.3 billion monthly users
  • 55 billion messages are sent on Whats-App every day

Since most people are using these social messaging apps, it makes a lot of sense to market your company where the so many people are spending their time.

5. Visual Search

This is where a user uploads an image in order to conduct a specific search for it. Pinterest is one good example. They have a platform whereby their clients are able to take a photo of an item they want, find where to buy them online and also search for related items. Savvy marketers have integrated their businesses with platforms such as Pinterest to reach more customers.

6. Influence Marketing

This is a type of word-of-mouth marketing. They utilize influential people on social media, with large followings, to market their brand. These influencers are paid to drive your brand message to their large following. This is very effective because people trust consumer opinions. Businesses that hire influencers to market their products with are great reach and reward.

7. Video Marketing

10 Digital Marketing Strategies for 2019

Using videos in your digital marketing strategy is very important. Videos are not only eye catching, but also engaging.

  • Videos improve conversion rate by roughly 70%
  • It gives customers more confidence in online purchase decisions.
  • Consumers also share these brand videos

8. Voice Search

Use of voice search has become increasingly popular and smart companies are incorporating it in their digital marketing strategy. Marketers should come up with content that takes advantage of conversational platforms like Alexa and Siri.

9. Micro-Moments.

People spend hours on their smartphones every day. There is almost too much information to absorb online. Micro-moments involve delivering your marketing message to your consumers within a very small span of time before losing them. Companies can improve their chances of a conversion by coming up with short and interesting ads for their brands.

10. Personalization.

Personalized marketing mean you personalize content, products, emails etc. Thanks to technology we can understand so much about a customer, like purchase history, consumer behavior and links clicked. Coca cola did something simple with personalization. They created packaging that was personalized with the common names for people in a given region/country. It was a simple way to encourage purchasing.

This year stay ahead of the competition by improving your customer’s experience by incorporating the strategies outlined above to improve your conversion rate.

How Internet Marketing Helps your Business To Get More Sales Online

Most business owners today are aware of the fact that internet marketing is the best and most valuable resource they possess. All it takes is one computer and internet connection to put the word out about your business. For others, this information will tell why switching to internet marketing is less expensive and more profitable than conventional marketing.

An Automated System To Increase Revenue

Author David Bach in one of his New York Times best sellers notes that in order to achieve financial freedom, one needs to automate financial planning in life. Similarly, to achieve success in business, your marketing efforts need to be put into a system so you don’t have to tend to it around the clock. Automating through internet marketing will create a consistent experience for your current and potential customers. It will help you build a reputation while giving your customers a firm feeling that your business is authentic.

One way to automate marketing on the internet is to delegate this task to outsourcing companies who will then list, update and maintain aspects related to this task. Select companies that shares your vision and loves what they do to your business. Meanwhile, you as a business owner can do a lot more of what you love to do in all that spare time.

How Internet Marketing Helps your Business To Get More Sales Online

Less Expense, More Savings

Your product or service will not do anyone any good if it has been sitting in the shelf waiting for the right opportunity and time to emerge out in the open. And if you are relying purely on your marketing department to get the word out, through advertisements, flyers or other means, you will have to spend thousands of dollars hiring salespeople and holding ad campaigns. With internet marketing, you can achieve a lot more than these sales people would have achieved in their lifetime. Taking this approach, as well as considering it as a backup when other marketing efforts fail, will help you overcome many challenges that are outside your level of control, such as employee turnover and raising advertisement cost.

Maximum Exposure, More Sales

Let’s say that you were able to convince a customer who happened to visit your store to buy a product. How easy was it to convince the customer after describing the features and benefits of the product? How long did it take to convert that customer from a mere window-shopper to a purchaser? Internet marketing, on the other hand, is a media where you can put your product on display for not just a handful of customers to see but millions across the world.

Additionally, you don’t have to do the explaining or use convincing tactics to pressure them into buying. The features are easy to find. And if it is accompanied with a system to place an order and accept payments, you are all set to do business online.

Saved Time And Resources

As a business owner, conventionally marketing your business means developing and evaluating marketing systems that will work toward prosperity. This also means dedicating a certain amount of time to think, plan and put the system into action. The process can take a lot of your time, maybe weeks or months if you are doing it in-house. Assigning online marketing task to an outsourced firm can save you a lot of ‘thinking time’ or ‘planning time’.

Besides, you will save other resources spent on inefficient ways of marketing as well. You will also be removing yourself from the drudgery of doing everything inside the business. The firm you hire can easily create the same or better results because they’re experts.

Are there businesses that have done extremely well with online marketing and generated sales more than their expectations? Of course. But the ones who succeeded in this field did not rely solely on the fate of their advertisements online. They made sure to follow through and update, research and collect data about everything from traffic, impressions and sale conversion.

Your goal with online marketing should be to increase your sales number to one that is greater than your in-house marketing efforts. To do that, you need to learn things, develop skills, delegate tasks, monitor progress and hope for the best.

 

Why Content Marketing Services in Canada Are Vital

Content marketing services in Canada will help you in both of these areas. A professional company will show you what needs to be done within your content.

What you put on your website and blog is content. Better content helps you to rank better in the search engines. It also helps you to improve your conversion rates so you obtain more customers.

Learn About the Algorithms

The search engine algorithms are constantly evolving. It’s important to work with content marketing services in Canada to learn more about it all. Otherwise, you run the risk of having too high of a keyword density, not enough of the right keywords, or insufficient backlinks.

When you follow the algorithms, it allows you to rank higher. The search engine spiders will find the right information on your site and show you in a more impressive spot on a search engine results page.

Convert More Customers

You want customers to enter a sales funnel when they arrive on your website. The more information you provide, the easier it will be to convert website visitors into customers. This means knowing more about what they want and what they need. If you talk to them and give them the right information within all of the content, you push them further into the sales funnel until they make a purchase.

With the help of content marketing services in Canada, you can ensure that your content is achieving your goals.

Get a Better Return on Investment

Often, you write your own content. Then you rewrite your content because the initial content isn’t getting the job done. You could be wasting months trying to get it right. When you use content marketing services, you tap into the expertise of marketing professionals. You get the help you need to churn out quality content so that it converts your customers. Once consumers visit your website and don’t like what they see, you might never get them back. It’s why you have to focus on quality content from the very beginning.

How to Revive an Ailing Social Media Campaign

Running a social media campaign should be a snap, right? After all, you’re tapping into a form of engagement used by billions of people around the world and it’s pretty much free.

While this sounds great, the fact is that social media campaigns require careful planning and tracking to target the right audience among those billions of potential consumers. So, if you’re not seeing the expected results with one of your campaigns, here’s what you can do.

Make Sure You’re Targeting the Right Searchers

Whether you’re using organic or paid efforts, a successful social media campaign is one that’s directed at the right audience. Go back and consider who you are targeting and whether or not your campaign is likely to appeal to those particular searchers. Part of the problem may be that your intended audience is too broad and not defined enough.

Change Platforms

Just because “everybody” is using Facebook and Twitter doesn’t mean either of these platforms is right for your campaign. For instance, social media campaigns that are more visual in nature will likely perform better on visual platforms like Pinterest and Instagram. A B2B campaign would likely get more attention if LinkedIn is one of your platforms.

Run a Multi-Platform Campaign

You don’t have to put all of your eggs into one basket. If you’re not seeing results from a campaign limited to one platform consider a cross-platform campaign that includes the same message delivered in ways that are appropriate for each platform. Include links to your other social sites to allow multiple ways for visitors to stay engaged.

Experiment with Different Mediums and Tactics

The problem with your campaign may be the types of content you’re using. Mix things up and add relevant images and videos if it makes sense to do so. Video alone can increase engagement more than 50 percent over content with mostly text. Also consider making a contest part of your campaign or posting fun questions. People love excuses in order to participate via social media.

Before you start tinkering with a social media campaigns, make sure it’s really in need of resuscitation. It can take several weeks to get a strong following and direct the right kind of attention to your social media efforts. However, if you’re still not seeing results after waiting patiently, then dig a little deeper into your stats to see what’s going on and consider some of the tips mentioned here.