Widen Your Company Horizons with Social Media Presence

Social media is today the biggest platform for any business venture. Whether you are a start-up or an established brand you need to be present on all social media platforms to leverage potential and keep your business growing. The Internet as a source of information and market opportunities is a humongous platform and as companies get into the game they establish a footprint in the market. From Facebook to Twitter, LinkedIn to Fastpitch, Instagram to Pinterest to Tumblr, the list keeps growing and this necessitates that businesses stay tuned to make the best of the plethora of opportunities that the world of social media has thrown forth.

Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook had once said, “Nothing influences people more than a recommendation from a trusted friend. A trusted referral influences people more than the best broadcast message.” This becomes true when it comes to social media. All these channels are nothing but your biggest friends in electronic media that enhance the popularity of your products through online presence. Marketing executives that companies hire may or may not have impact on strangers and whatever impact is created will be limited geographically but social media has no such limitations. It is available 24×7 as your business partner transmitting your business and keeping it alive in the minds of the public.

Concurring with the views of Zuckerberg, Annie Winter, and an Australia based blogger and social media enthusiast said, “Social media has changed the way businesses used to operate two decades ago. Online channels such as Facebook and Twitter give companies a free hand to place advertisements and connect with the entire world with the press of a button. Social media is the key to open up a world of business opportunities and procure clients, understand their requirements and give for them what they are looking for. In the way, you build a rapport that can be long-lasting.”

Read: Facebook Marketing Strategy

Perhaps the biggest thing that social media does is that it creates brand awareness even when you start from zero. Your potential customers by clicking on your page will gather knowledge on the products that you display. It builds a perception about your company. Carefully constructed audio-visuals and messaging on your viral marketing sites will pay rich dividends. It is important that the messages need to be consistent with the kind of brand image that you want to promote. It is also important to focus on following like-minded companies to help create synergies between your products and services. Furthermore, always take a feedback from your customer on your products. You could initiate a conversation with them. Engaging your company with customers online will further increase chances of garnering business opportunities and build your brand among the public.

Generally, people would retain or share information which is of use for them in their daily life and getting the pulse of your customer and bring forth such brands will obviously create rooms for accommodating your business within their mindsets. Additionally, it is important that besides keeping your customer engaged the officials of your company act professionally and operate within boundaries that they are supposed to do. You shouldn’t indulge in abusive language when a customer doesn’t buy your product or gives a negative comment about it in the company’s social media page.

Whenever a customer chooses to buy a product from a company the first thing that he or she would do is to read the business’ social media page. Reviews play an important role in this. Many customers will try out your product because their close friend or relative or colleagues have liked your product, used them and posted positive feedback on it. So having a large social media following is very critical to keep your business running. Positive reviews matter a lot.

Perhaps you could do this by posting an interview of one of your customers that have used your product because it will be they who will be speaking rather than you mouthing about your company. In this way, you could avoid beating your own drum. However, as in every business, social media also has its pitfalls.

There are cases when a customer or anyone from the public may post some seriously negative comments creating an adverse impact on your business. The best way to get back into the rating is by getting your customers happy with your services to post positive feedback which can overshadow the negative effects.

Whatever be the case it is true that today social media plays a prominent role in shaping business and the onus is on companies on how to make best use of the opportunities brought forth by these channels and establish their presence across the globe successfully.

Top 3 Ways to Market Your Business Online in 2017

We are witnessing the fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0) unfolding before us. Just as you have information about your product on your fingertips, customers also have information on their hands.

They are connected through a net and they can access data and information anytime and anywhere they want. The digital world is the first place where you get in touch with your potential customer for marketing your products. Knowledge on this alone won’t suffice. We are in 2017 and it is the age of cut-throat competition. Your products may perhaps be the best but to be the first is a daunting task and for this, it is essential to get the basics correct first.

Website

The foundation is laid with your website. Customers first visit websites to check out what you have to offer, to see the descriptions, check if any offers or discounts are there and the shipping rates if they happen to be placed in a far flung region, and so on. For this, the homepage needs to be simple yet attractive. Information must be visible without having too much to scroll. This is important since many customers wouldn’t be patient to see what is down below.

Establishing communication is another factor in having a successful business outcome. Can your customer, if you are a service related business, see a click to call icon above the fold, i.e. without scrolling, and can he by clicking that call you up directly instead of having a service provider do the job.

These are certain tips to be kept in mind while constructing a website in the year 2017. Also, it is the age of smart phones and everything is made available instantly through phones carried in pockets. Search Engine Google had last year stated that it is giving importance to mobiles first and then only desktops and laptops.

Since around 60 per cent of the searches are now carried out on phones it is imperative that you have a mobile friendly website. You need to keep this factor in control else fix it as soon as possible to stay competitive in 2017.

Ad Words and SEO to improve Search Engine Rankings

Google is by default the place where anyone would search for information. This huge search engine has created the most measurable forms of marketing and advertising in history. Google Ad words enable you to reach out to millions in one shot.

You can sell your goods or services to the entire world. Splitting your campaigns and Ad words will be a good idea. The campaign usually must be a base word. For example, you can keep your campaign as “manufacturing” and the ad groups within that key terms can have variations such as “electronics manufacturing”, “plastic manufacturing”, and so on.

Your work will become more organized, creative and you will end up viewing the performance of different terms and create extremely specific ads for your target customers.

Also Read: Strategies To Drive More Traffic To Your Website

Ad words and search engine optimization (SEO) are closely related than ever before in 2017. Google’s Quality Score is a witness to that. Google looks at the content on your website which is the same content contributing to your organic ranking.

It looks at that and the Ad words and how much they are related. If yes then your rankings improve. A good Quality Score can place your company above your nearest competitor.

Quality Scores and SEO are directly interrelated along with the organic ranking and the more time you spend in enriching your content in those directions the better your ranking will become with Google gradually placing it above your peers.

Facebook Lead Ads

Are you on Facebook? It is an often asked term. Facebook has more than 800 million active users and 200 million logs on to the medium on a daily basis. Your Facebook page is the extension of your website and it needs to surpass your website in terms of your interaction with the customers.

You can spend some time daily on browsing through web pages that have used Facebook to the optimum and reproduce their formula on yours as well. Facebook will help you create fan pages and for this, you need to frequently post new content such as videos, short messages, audio visuals, replying promptly to comments from viewers, get them to press the like button, and in the process develop a one-to-one relationship with your client.

Develop an interactive page and get a lively community of people to discuss your business among them. Cash on to the opportunity brought forth by the digital world and achieve extraordinary results.

The Ultimate Checklist For Your Shopping Cart Website

Before you go in for an eCommerce website, you need you need to make sure that you make a shopping cart checklist which incorporates all your present and requirements. That way, you can be sure that nothing is left out, and your shopping cart website design is perfect.

REGISTER YOUR BUSINESS

To start off with your eCommerce website, you need to register yourself in one of the below business structures

Sole Trader
Partnership or
Company

The next step is to choose a business name, following which you need to register with Inland Revenue for tax purposes. For more details click here.

Looking for Affordable Shopping Cart Design in Melbourne, Canberra and Sydney Click Here

GET A WEBSITE / DOMAIN NAME

Once your business name is registered, you may choose a domain name to go with it. Suppose your business is registered as ‘Glen Tailoring’, and glentailoring.com is not available, then you may opt for TailorGlen.com. The idea is to have a domain similar to your business name. However, do not use Glen-tailoring.com, as your audience may omit the ‘hyphen’ while typing and perhaps get re-directed to some other site or get an error along the lines of “the page doesn’t exist”.

LOOK AND FEEL

The look and feel of your eCommerce website design is most important to retain a first time visitor. If your website is difficult to navigate, then your visitors will click away. Apart from the navigation part, there are also other important factors which do matter:

A great looking logo
Multi-browser compatibility
Promotional graphics and hyperlinks to your products
Call to action (CTA) to your important website pages
Search box to help customers search for required information or product on the website
News Updates
Promo banners, to attract audience clicks.
Links to popular products, recent purchases, and suggested products.

All the above points are the essential for making your website look pleasing and easy to navigate.

MANAGING THE OVERALL E-COMMERCE SITE:

PRODUCT PAGES

Your product page is like the heart of your shopping cart website. Your products are the reason why you have a website in the first place. So it must be kept in order. Below are a few suggestions.

Each of the products should have a proper description.
Their specs and sizes must be made available.
The product page must contain photographs of the specific item taken from different angles.
If it is available in different colours, then, customers must be given the option to display product pictures of the chosen colour only.
Social media sharing buttons must be made available so that people may share their favourite product with friends who may be interested too!
There must be an option to comment as well as view others’ comments about the product.
The page must have “Add to cart” option so that the customers go ahead and buy what they want, without much delay.
A “Wishlist” option may be provided, in order to help them plan future purchases on your site.
The availability of your products, as well as the quantity currently available, must also be visible on the product page.
Keywords must be used on individual product pages to increase the search engine visibility of each product.

BLOGS TO ADD VALUE

Your company needs to stand out from competitors. A blog page is therefore very essential to help your website get organic traffic. Your blog articles can help you get a better SEO rank, because of the valuable information you provide to your website visitors. Your blog postings may include the following.

Field specific articles
Company updates or events.
Latest industry developments.

CHECKOUT, SHOPPING CART AND WISHLIST

A Shopping Cart is the most important part of an eCommerce website and the one which ensures bread on the dinner table. So make sure that the process seems like a piece of cake to your online shoppers. Ensure clear display of the price or discounted rate (if the customer adds more items to the shopping cart). Make provision for the promo code, which may be used if applicable.

Once the items are chosen, and the shopping cart is ready, the calculations must incorporate the taxes and shipping charges according to the chosen destination.

The payment section must accept all payment methods and cards. Make sure that the security seal is visible, during the payment process.

If you are dealing with online downloads, then specify the downloading instructions on the product page, as well as your follow up email with the actual download link.

FOLLOWING UP WITH CUSTOMERS

Once a customer purchases a product from your eCommerce store, you may follow the below checklist:

Send a ‘thank you’ email with a picture of the product and receipt.

Ask them if they are satisfied with the product; follow it up with a request for a review of your product.

You may email them your offers for their abandoned shopping carts.

There are many finer points which go into making a successful eCommerce website. Have we missed any? Do let us know your suggestions in the comments below.

How Do You Promote Your Business With Mobile Internet Marketing?

Mobile internet marketing, which also includes App marketing, can help you drive engagement to your brand, grow your customer database and get more sales. established fact that more than 50% of web visitors browse through mobile devices. In fact, Amazon.com has recently released stats that showed that 60% of the users did their purchasing in the recent holiday season over the mobile. That amounted to around $1 Billion in sales for Target.com.

A strong mobile marketing strategy is a must. According to target.com, it was reported that more than 60% of its traffic from November to December 2015 came through mobile devices.

In order to benefit as a business owner from your mobile internet marketing strategy, here are a few tips for having a mobile friendly website:

1.Have the right set of keywords

Keep the keywords phrases to a minimum of 3 words, don’t go beyond that. Also, make sure that you make use of local terms along with the keywords. That way, you will be more visible in local searches.

2.Provide contact information

If your business has a physical office, then provide the exact address and location details. Make sure that you include a map. This will enable your customer to find you locate you more easily. If you need to register on Google maps, go ahead and do so.

3.Incorporate the offers on-site

Once you have a campaign running, you also need to have offers incorporated onto your mobile site. Along with the offers, also, place an opt-in form for users to register and receive future promotional offers.

4.Be device friendly

Make sure that your mobile website is compatible with all devices. Update your code, in case, a new device comes along, so that users of this new device don’t miss out on any of your offers.

5.Location-based mobile internet marketing strategy

According to stats, shopping takes place within a 15 km radius of a consumer’s residence. Hyper-localized or location-based mobile advertising, uses data analytic tools and IP geo-location technology to influence social data insights and location data. Make sure that you use this new technology to target people based on their ‘current’ geographical location.

SMS Mobile Marketing

There is a myth that SMS mobile marketing is full of rules and regulations and there are a lot of cases pending in the courts where people have these businesses ‘cornered’. The fact is that SMS marketing is like any other channel like social media and email, where certain rules and regulations (classified under “common sense” category) do apply!

A few SMS tips:

Your SMS campaign has two parts (a) keyword and (b) short code
It also includes a call to action
Add incentives as part of your message ($20 off or 50% OFF)
Make sure you have an opt-in message first so that only willing customers will be part of your list.
As your campaign goes along, analyse how it is going. Also, have a consistency about your campaign and don’t stop all of a sudden.
You may thus, send them relevant offers if they are presently very close to your location using hyper-localized SMS mobile marketing.

Using Whats App and We-chat

You may also use popular chat applications as part of your marketing campaign

If you are targeting Chinese, then get your advertisement on WeChat
If you are targeting India or Singapore, you need to know that WhatsApp is a very popular means of keeping in touch
You may use such popular Apps as marketing platforms and run some popular contests to encourage people to share these contest pictures across their contacts in their network.

Thus you can have the vast expanse of the mobile world at your disposal, and make the best of it using a proper mobile strategy, and incorporating the above-mentioned tips.

When and where do we reach these mobile users with our ads or online campaigns?

According to stats over 90% of these users have the mobiles with them 24×7. That means they can be reached anytime with our ads and online marketing campaigns.

Customer Service

Most of the online products involve shipping, handling, and door delivery; thus, the consumers need you to be there when they have clarifications or complaints. There is no space for a mobile “dead air”. The services must be managed efficiently and appropriate communication channels must be kept open, all the time!

There are so many innovative ways to do mobile marketing and so much literature written about it, that most people really don’t know where to begin. Here are a few more ideas:

Discovering new ‘mobile habits’

For e.g., taking a “Selfie” is a popular hobby, it can be exploited to serve your business ends. Photo contests can be held, where people click selfies with your products and stand to win goodies.

Selfie Campaign called #KissForPeace

Axe Deodorant capitalised on this selfie craze on Valentine’s day in 2014. Going with their tagline, “Make love, not war”, they asked couples to take selfies of them kissing each other, in order to support their cause for peace. This generated 10,000 tweets on Twitter and 8,000 on Instagram. The company also cross-promoted this contest on other media like TV and even the Billboards in Times Square.

The IKEA way

Ikea has recently come up with a mobile Application (App) , where you can take pictures of your home, and then place the desired furniture (from the 3D IKEA catalogue) in that space and see how it looks. Now this can automatically attract lots of signups and downloads, product awareness as well as sales.

Mobile App marketing – develop an innovative App

You may plan your mobile app marketing strategy along those lines. For E.g., if you modify cars, then you can have a similar application which can do the below tasks.

Users will be able to select their car model from the 3D – library display in the app.
They can choose to colour the car according to their choice
They can add a spoiler, bumper, halogen lights, and other accessories, carpets, seat covers etc, and see how their car looks like thanks to the App’s realistic 3D simulation capability.

Having an ‘app marketing strategy’ results in the below advantages:

You will be visible to your prospective customers all the time.
It is a direct marketing channel, where your services and products can be got at the touch of a button.
You can also be sending updates and offers directly to customers.
More the app gets downloaded, more is your customer database – it is as simple as that!

If all these ideas are confusing and still you don’t know where to start, then look around to find a success story and take-off from that point. Success in the world of internet mobile marketing is just a matter of spotting the opportunity when it comes along and making the most of it before your competitors do.

how to increase website traffic, Drive more Traffic to your Website

Strategies to Drive more Traffic to your Website

In the era of social media and online marketing, many people are getting enlightened about websites and the benefits of having an online presence. However, getting your website done for your business is just for starters. Once your business is online, you need to know how to drive more traffic to your website. Run Promotions with Key Influencers Check out the influencers in your particular field and bring them in. Start a contest, where the prize will, of course, be sponsored by you. Let the influencer be the ‘star attraction’ and gather all the attention you will need for the contest. It is mutually beneficial for both of you, as you stand together in success. Advertise Blog Content on Facebook Yes, indeed! You may advertise your blog posts on Facebook. But some might say, “I want to know how to increase website traffic ‘without’ placing ads, losing money and filing for bankruptcy”. You may be correct. However, the good news is that there are ways to advertise in the right way, and not lose money. You may consider placing and place gated content on your blogs, to invite email registrations to build up your subscriber list and work on those with a solid email strategy. That’s because, advertising value-added posts yields a better response than selling things at the outset. Advertise to Custom Audience Advertise your lead generating content after creating a custom audience on Facebook and reap the rich rewards. Facebook helps create an audience similar to your current subscribers and thereby targets the right audience for your advertisements. Once you target the right audience with your ads, promotions and offers, there is a chance of improving your click through rate. Create Great content Your content must reach out to your audience in innovative ways, and help them achieve their objectives. It can be a “DIY (do it yourself) or How-to” post enabling people to achieve their goals, in a practical way. People will be therefore be glad to read your content and to apply your suggestions in their daily life. You may thus follow the below steps:

Provide valuable content
Promote it in the right way
Use the right influencers
Use proper promotion channels
Promote to the right audience

We are providing Cheap Web Design, Hosting and SEO Services around Australia. In this video SEO Expert Brian Dean, speaks about a 3-step process you can use to get more traffic from Google…without higher rankings. He also talks about a “2-minute tweak” for insanely-competitive keyword rankings and the 8 words you NEED to have on every page in your site if you’re serious about SEO in 2016. And more… Answer Questions on Quora Question and Answer sites like Quora are not just there to provide information. They can get you quality audience and leads as well. All you need to do is to answer questions in your field of specialisation. Once you are proficient and consistent with your answers, you will definitely gain the reputation as an expert in your particular field. Gaining reputation is something which cannot be accomplished overnight. You need a lot of patience and persist answering questions; do it rightly for a period of time. Once you are perceived as an expert in your field, then people will flock to your blog or website as a source of valuable information. There are much more ways to increase website traffic. We may therefore choose them according to our preferences. So, which is your favourite way of doing achieving website traffic? Do let us know in the comments below.