Email marketing is the oldest form of online marketing. It is the most direct and effective way of connecting with your leads, nurturing them and turning them into customers. Most digital marketers use email marketing to advertise special deals, highlight content or promote an event.Email marketing is one of the most popular and effective tools to help you boost sales online. In this article, we’ll share how email marketing can help your business grow and few tips to get you started.
What is email marketing?
Email marketing is a powerful digital marketing strategy used to promote products or services to prospects and customers. Effective email marketing can convert prospects into customers, and turn one-time buyers into loyal, raving fans. Using emails can also help your customers to become aware of your latest items or offers. Email marketing can play pivotal roles in lead generation, building relationships and also driving traffic to your blog, and social media.
How email started
Engineer Ray Tomlinson, the father of emails, in 1971 launched the world’s first email while in a windowless room in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The message was nothing special, a series of numbers and letters that looked more like a password than a message, but its significance was profound.The email was sent from one computer to another, travelling through a network of machines not unlike the internet we know today. Tomlinson also introduced the “@” symbol in email addresses to the world.In 1978, Gary Thuerk, a marketing manager for the now-defunct computer company Digital Equipment Corporation, sent out the first commercial and unsolicited mass e-mail promoting his firm’s computer products. Sent to hundreds of computers over ARPANET (a precursor to the Internet; see DARPA), Thuerk’s message immediately gave birth to email marketing. There were only a few hundred people on the list, but that was enough for Thuerk to claim the mantle, “Father of Spam.”Today, we’re inundated with email marketing campaigns, and spams, but there’s no denying the impact a well-crafted message can have on your customers.
Why is email marketing important?
You now know what email marketing is. Let’s talk about why email marketing is relevant for your business.Despite the rise of social media, and a hundred other forms of messaging, the traditional email format feels relatively old. However, it still remains one of the most powerful and effective way to nurture leads and boost customer loyalty. That’s why almost every social media platform requires you to have an email. The email list can yield dramatic rewards for business owners. According to Direct Marketing Association, email marketing on average sees a 4300 percent return on investment (ROI) for businesses in the US.
Importance of email marketing
1. Email is the #1 communication channel. You can go for a few days or weeks without checking social media like Facebook or Twitter, but most people use email every day, if not multiple times a day, so it’s safe to say that email marketing is good for business. At least 99% of consumers check their email daily. That can’t be said of any other communication channel.2. You own your list. On any social media platform, your account (along with all your fans and posts) could be suspended or deleted at any time, for any reason, without notice. However, you own your email list. No one can take those leads away from you.3. Email converts better. People who buy products marketed through email spend 138% more than those who do not receive email offers. In 2015, a study by the U.K.-based Direct Marketing Association (DMA) found that for every $1 spent, email has an average return on investment (ROI) of $38. That’s huge! The average order value of an email is at least three times higher than that of social media.4. Email marketing allows you to run A/B tests. With email marketing, you can run A/B tests of a subject line or call to action to identify the best performing message using email marketing software that can also be configured to easily send out emails.
How to get started with email marketing?
Email marketing is made up of several moving pieces, but that doesn’t mean it has to be complicated. Here’s how it breaks down:
Step 1: Establish your goals
But signing up to an email marketing tool and jumping to send your first email, it’s worth taking a minute to think about your goals and what you really want to achieve with email, as that will dictate the type of campaigns you send, who you target, the content you include, and how you measure success.
Step 2: Build your email list
Now that you have identified your goals and what you want to achieve from email marketing, it’s time to build your email list so you can start sending campaigns that those goals. There are a couple of different ways you can build your email list, but the right method depends on the goals you establish in Step 1.
First, create a branded opt-in pop-up form for your website
Pop-up forms provide visitors with a quick, convenient way to share contact information and subscribe to your list while they’re browsing your site, making them a powerful tool for audience growth.
Create marketing campaigns to find your people with Facebook ads
Facebook ads can help you reach new audiences and find new customers by targeting people who’re similar to your existing contacts. But Facebook ads aren’t just used for selling stuff, but also to generate leads by collecting emails through ads that link to your landing pages with opt-in forms. In just a few steps, you can create an ad that drives people to your site so they can quickly and easily sign up for your email list.
Step 3: Select the type of campaigns you want to send
There are several different types of email campaigns you can send to subscribers, and the type you choose really depends on the goals you established in Step 1. The campaigns could be newsletters (about one main topic of interest), Marketing Offer (offering discounts and special promotions), announcement (announcing a new product, feature, or service), and event invitation.
Step 4: Create your first campaign
Now that you’ve decided on your goals, built a bit of an audience and selected the type of campaign you’re going to send, it’s time to start building your email. Find tips to making the most of your email marketing campaigns in the next heading.
Step 5: Measuring your success
After publishing your email campaign, it is now time to keep track of your progress and learn exactly how many new people join your email list. You can track the success of your email marketing campaigns: using tools like Google Analytics.
Email Marketing Strategies
Effective email marketing takes effort. Here are a few strategies for making the most of your email marketing campaigns:
Send relevant emails
Once someone has trusted you with their email address, don’t abuse that trust. Inundating your audience’s inbox with emails will cause them to lose interest or unsubscribe entirely. Focus on sending them relevant, engaging messages about the stuff they like, and they’ll be loyal for a long time to come.
Attract your subscribers
Grow your email list, you need to attract people with a compelling offer. You need a lead magnet, something awesome that you give away for free in exchange for an email address. It doesn’t have to cost you anything to create. Some popular lead magnet examples are: eBooks, resources or consultation.
Seek permission
Probably the most obvious problem is when your email gets sent to a subscriber’s spam folder. Before you can email anyone, you need their permission.
No purchased emails
While buying email lists may sound like a great shortcut, it isn’t. And we do not recommend it. We also do not recommend adding emails from people’s business cards that you collected at seminars or workshops unless you have their permission. People who don’t opt-in specifically for your email list are not interested in your services. Emailing them, therefore, is a complete waste of your resources.
Consistency
it’s important to email your subscribers consistently, so your list doesn’t go stale. So to keep your list fresh and filled with engaged subscribers, it’s a good idea to periodically remove inactive subscribers. An inactive subscriber could be anyone who has not engaged with any email in the past 6 months or more.
Timing
Timing can have a huge effect on subscribers opening your emails, so think carefully about what time and day you send your emails.
Make subject lines stand out
When it comes to email open and click rates, your subject lines are everything. Your job is to make your subject lines stand out. The subject line should entice curiosity, include numbers, be friendly and speak in a language and style that your subscribers use themselves.
Be friendly
When you draft your subject line and message content, write as though you are speaking to a person, with a personal subject line and a personalized message.
Mobile friendly
Mobile email accounts for 67% of all email opens, depending on your target audience, product, and email type. Make sure your email is responsive and includes easily loadable media. Also consider the fact that mobile screens are smaller, so long subject lines may get cut off on mobile devices.
Content must be engaging
If a subscriber is happy with your content, they are more likely to open your emails in the future. Conversely, if a subscriber is displeased with what they get, they probably aren’t going to open your emails again, and they may even unsubscribe. Simply make your content engaging and appealing t your subscribers.
Conclusion
Email marketing is a powerful driver of sales & revenue for your business, and has a greater reach and return on investment than any other channel available to marketers today.Follow the steps outlined in this guide for a quick start to email marketing and campaign success.Get started with email marketing today with SEO Digital!
Social media marketing first started with publishing where businesses were sharing their content on social media to generate traffic to their websites and, hopefully, increase sales. But social media has matured far beyond being just a place to share content. These days, businesses use social media in a myriad of different ways. Some ways in which businesses use social media are, monitoring social media conversations and analyzing their reach, views, likes, follows, engagement, and sales.
Social media marketing is simply digital marketing that involves connecting with your audience to market your brand and boost sales for your business or company. Social media marketing activities involve publishing radically different social actions such as sharing short messages/texts, videos, media links, joining events/groups. It also involves the use of paid social media advertising to drive audience engagement, build brand awareness and increase sales.
We’ve created this guide to help you understand the relevance of social media marketing and how to develop a compelling social media marketing plan for your business this year.
The major social media platforms in 2021 are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, TikTok, and Snapchat
Why is social media marketing relevant in 2021?
While it may seem overwhelming, the importance of social media cannot be overstated. It’s so important that 97% of marketers and 78% of salespeople are using social media for their business. Plus, its benefits extend far beyond increasing sales. However, not all businesses are aware of the benefits of social media marketing. 50% of small businesses aren’t using social media to promote their business. That’s an alarming number. Even more concerning is that an additional 25% don’t plan to use social media in the future either.
How Will Social Media Boost Your Business Online
1. Makes it easy to promote your business
2. Help you increase your clients reach
3. Promotes brand recognition and awareness
4. Increase traffic to your website
5. Build your conversions
6. Enhance communication and engagement with target audiences
7. It is mostly FREE!
Do you now see the relevance of using social media marketing to boost your brand online and drive sales? Are you ready to get started with marketing on social media? Here are a few things to consider before you kick-start your social media marketing
1. Start With a Strategic Goal
Social media strategy planning starts with identifying your brand’s goal. Maybe, you want to use social media to increase your brand awareness, generate engagement around your brand, or even drive website traffic and sales this year. Either way, your goals will define your content strategy and how much time and energy you’ll need to dedicate to your campaigns. Additionally, the goals you set for your business must be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound). Starting a social media marketing campaign without a strategy goal in mind is like going to visiting a new city without a map—you might have fun, but probably get lost.
Second, research to know which social media platforms your competitors are and where they have their largest reach/following. Your competitors can provide valuable data for keyword research and other social media marketing insight. Start by creating accounts on the same platforms to beat the competition, but always do it better! You can also figure out which social media platforms you want to focus on.
Aside from the major social media platforms, there are also social messaging platforms like Messenger, WhatsApp, and WeChat you can explore. Always start with a few platforms that you think your target audience is rather than to be on all platforms.
Here are quick questions to ask yourself when defining your social media marketing goals:
Why do I want my brand on social media?
What am I hoping to achieve with my brand through social media campaigns?
Who is my realistic target audience?
Where does my target audience hang out and how would they use social media?
What message do I want to send to your audience using social media marketing?
Your business type should inform and drive your social media marketing strategy.
Last, think about what type of content you want to share to attract your target audience best? Will they be images, videos, or links? Is it going to be informational, educational, or entertaining? With time, you can always change your strategy according to how your social media posts perform by tracking the data using analytical tools.
2. Plan and Create (curate) compelling content
By now, you have managed to figure out your strategy goal through research and planning. But how about your content strategy? The next thing to consider after setting out your goal is to develop your content strategy with great, compelling, and innovative ideas.
Publishing content to social media is as simple as sharing a blog post, an image, or a video on your personal Facebook or Instagram profile. But in this case, you will want to plan your content ahead of time instead of creating and publishing content spontaneously. Also, your content must be informative, educational, or entertaining depending on the goal you set for yourself in the beginning. Examples of content you can consider are stories, images, short-lived videos, and showing your audience the human behind the posts they see. To ensure you are maximizing your reach, always publish content at the right time and frequency.
There are a variety of social media scheduling tools that can help you publish your content automatically at your preferred time. This saves you time and allows you to reach your audience when they are most likely to engage with your content.
3. Listen and Interact With Your Audience
As your business and social media following begins to grow, conversations about your brand will also increase if you strategise well. One key to being successful in social media is to listen and interact with your audience. People will comment on your social media posts, tag you in their social media posts, or message you directly. Always find time to respond and address their concerns. This will show you are reliable and they can trust you for a quick response to your products.
So what is social listening? Social listening involves tracking conversations around your brand and in your industry and using the information to review your marketing strategies. Social listening and interacting will help you understand your audience better, where they like to hang out, and what they like to talk about. It is simply finding out what people are saying about you. If you’re not using social listening, you’re leaving a lot of great insights on the table.
Social listening and social monitoring are however two different things. Social listening involves what your audience does and social monitoring is about why they do what they do.
People might even talk about your brand on social media without letting you know. So you will want to monitor social media conversations about your brand. If it’s a positive comment, you get a chance to surprise them. Otherwise, you can offer support and correct a situation before it gets worse. There are several social media listening tools out there that you can use, explore and find the one that best suits you and your budget.
4. Track your analytics
Along the way, you will want to know how your social media campaign is performing. Are you reaching more people on social media compared to months back? How much positive feedbacks do you get? How many people used your brand’s hashtag on their social media posts? The social media platforms themselves provide a basic level of such information.
To get more in-depth analytics information or to easily compare across social media platforms, you can use a wide range of social media analytics tools. For example, Google Analytics can be used to measure your social media marketing techniques, as well as determine which strategies are better off abandoned.
Metrics you can measure with analytical tools
1. Reach
The number of unique accounts that have seen any of your posts.
2. Clicks
Refers to the number of clicks on your post or account. Tracking clicks per campaign are essential to understand what drives curiosity or encourage people to buy.
3. Impressions
The total number of times all of your posts have been seen.
4. Engagement
This refers to the total number of social interactions divided by the number of impressions and sheds light on how well your audience perceives you and their willingness to interact. It can also be measured by the number of times your post was liked, saved or commented on.
5. Hashtag performance
What were your most-used hashtags? Which hashtags were most associated with your brand?
6. Saved
This refers to the number of unique users that saved your post.
7. Profile visits
Times your profile was viewed.
8. Following
The number of accounts that started following you.
Having these answers can help shape the focus of your content going forward.
5. Advertising
When you have more funds to grow your social media marketing, an area that you can consider is social media advertising. Social media ads allow you to reach a wider audience than those who are following you. These platforms are so powerful nowadays that you can specify exactly who to display your ads to. You can create target audiences based on their demographics, interests, behaviours, and more.
When you are running many social media advertising campaigns at once, you can consider using a social media advertising tool to make bulk changes, automate processes, and optimize your ads.
CONTACT SEO DIGITAL NOW TO HELP YOU DEVELOP A COMPELLING SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING STRATEGY
At SEO Digital Ghana, we use social media marketing to build your brand and boost your sales. Get all the benefits of social media with SEO Digital Ghana Now!
Digital marketing, also known as online marketing or internet advertising is a big deal these days. Internet usage has doubled over the past decade. This shift has massively affected how people purchase products, services and interact with businesses.
So, what is digital marketing? It is simply the use of the internet, emails, mobile devices, social media, search engines, and other channels to reach the right consumers. All these forms of marketing help introduce people to your company and convince them to buy your products. One key element of digital marketing is that, it requires the use of innovative approaches to attract and understand your potential customers as compared to traditional marketing.
Digital Marketing Assets and Strategies That Can Boost Your Brand
Digital assets and strategies are vital in today’s market and if you don’t keep up, you will be left behind. Let’s take a look at what your business needs to maximise its marketing plan and start reaping profits.
Digital Marketing Assets
Assets are values owned by a group or company. Marketing items used to project your business and get potential clients attracted to buy your products are termed Digital Assets. Are you using the available digital assets you have at your disposal to boost your marketing? If you’re unsure, don’t worry, here are few examples:
Strategies for digital marketing is also constantly evolving. Some strategies businesses use are:
1. Pay-Per-Click Advertising
PPC advertising is any type of digital marketing where you pay for every user who clicks on an ad like Google AdWords and Facebook Ads.
2. Paid Search Advertising
Google, Bing and Yahoo allow you to run text ads on their Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) to target potential clients who are actively searching for a product or service like yours.
3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
With SEO, you can rank pages or blog posts on your site organically and not have to pay directly for every click, but this usually takes quite a bit of time and effort.
4. Paid Social Media Advertising
Social media platforms like Twitter allow you to run ads on their site to increase your business’s visibility with audiences.
5. Social Media Marketing
This is free and organic however, organically marketing your business on social media takes a lot more time and effort but in the long run, can deliver much cheaper results.
6. Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
CRO is the art and science of improving your online user experience. Most of the time, businesses use CRO to get more conversions (leads, chats, calls, sales, etc.) out of their existing website traffic.
7. Content Marketing
This is another fairly broad digital marketing term. Content marketing covers any digital marketing effort that uses content assets (blog posts, infographics, eBooks, videos, etc.) to build brand visibility, drive clicks or sales.
8. Native Advertising
Ever get to the bottom of an article and see a list of suggested articles? That’s native advertising and mostly fall under content marketing because it uses content to attract clicks.
9. Email Marketing
This form of online marketing is the oldest and it’s still going strong. Most digital marketers use email marketing to advertise special deals, highlight content (often as part of content marketing) or promote an event.
10. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is essentially paying someone else (a person or a business) to promote your products and services on their website.
How Powerful is Digital Marketing Now?
With technology continually evolving, so do the behaviours of consumers. As a result, we have seen how traditional forms of advertising has continued to decline. We have also watched how digital advertising have grown from strength to strength. Some reasons for this include, an increase in the way we access information, news and an increased activity on digital devices. In addition, digital marketing is affordable, which allows any sized business with any size budget to target specific markets effectively. Today, just having a website is no longer enough to engage your audience and convert them to new customers. It is now important to consider implementing a complete digital plan that works across multiple channels.
With this in mind, here are 7 reasons why you need digital marketing for your business:
1. Increase reach
With the growth of the internet, more people are spending their time online. Over 7.7 billion people use the internet across the globe. It has become an integral part of everyday life to conduct searches, check social media, and purchase products online. Your customers are online, which highlights the importance of digital marketing. They’re browsing the web looking for your products or services. If they can’t find your services/products because you’re not online, you risk losing those leads to your competitors.
To drive the best results for your business, you need to build your online presence. This will help you reach more audience that want your products or services.
2. More Advanced Analytics
With digital marketing you know the following about your ads and audience:
Whether they actually saw it. With traditional marketing like TV and radio ads, you don’t even know that much.
What they interacted with
If they liked it
If they lingered on it
What they viewed
If they shared it with a friend
Did it prompt another action
If it led to a sale
You also learn much more about the people interacting with your ad:
Who’s most interested in your ads
What are they like
What makes them more likely to take an action
Who is easiest to convert
Who spends more
What do they do online
Gives you their demographics
What terms do they use to find you online
Which websites do they visit that lead them to yours
All of this easy to with free analytics software like Google Analytics. You can gain even more insight with paid tools. In addition, you can use what you learn to cut costs where you aren’t seeing an ROI and increase efforts where you get the best results.
3. Keep up with your competitors
Online marketing is highly competitive and your competitors have already taken advantage of it. They’ve created social profiles, adapted their website for SEO, and run paid advertisements to reach new leads. This reason in itself is one of the reasons why you should use digital marketing. If you want your business to compete with others, you have to do what your competitors are doing and even more. By neglecting digital marketing, you’re already falling behind your competition.
Your competitors are gaining traffic that could be yours if you’re also investing in digital marketing. Customers online won’t know that your business is an option and will automatically choose a competitor. You must invest in digital marketing to get leads to consider your business as an option.
4. Target the right audience
The ability to target the right audience is one of the most obvious reasons why digital marketing is important. Imagine being able to market directly to people who have an interest in your products or services. You have the capability to directly reach leads interested in your business.
With digital marketing, you can target your audience more precisely than traditional methods. You can input important information about your audience and use that information to shape your marketing campaigns. It makes it easy for you to reach the right people. When you better target your audience, you drive better results with your campaign and reach more leads.
5. You can monitor and optimise your campaigns for better results
The importance of digital marketing is that you can easily track and monitor your campaigns. When you invest time and money into your campaigns, you want to know that they are working. Internet marketing makes it easy for you to track your campaigns, which allows you to adapt and drive better results.
It can be challenging using traditional methods to know the results of your campaign. If you run a TV ad, you may have to ask every person that comes into the store about what brought them to your business. It would be a very time-consuming effort that could annoy people who visit your business. You don’t need to worry about bothering your audience with online ads. Every campaign you run is easily trackable to see if it is driving valuable results for your business. In addition, metrics such as impressions, clicks, views, comments, conversions, and more can be analysed.
When you track your campaign’s performance, it’s easier to fix it and adapt to changes. With traditional advertising campaign, you typically can’t make changes until the campaign is over. It only benefits the next campaign you run, which can feel like you wasted money on the previous campaign. Whereas with online ads, you can see if they are successful or need improvement. If they need improvement, you can make immediate changes and implement them at any point during your campaign. In addition, online marketing helps you spend your budget more wisely to get more out of your campaigns.
6. Best return on your investment (ROI)
If you want to know the importance of digital media, look at the results it drives for businesses. Marketing strategies online have awesome return on investment (ROI). When you invest in these methods, you’ll get more out of them. For example, email marketing has the highest ROI of any marketing method. Every $1 spent, you have the potential to earn a whopping 4400% in return. This is a great opportunity for you to grow and earn a profit from your marketing efforts.
Internet marketing is also cost-effective and hence, leaves room for a great ROI. It doesn’t cost much to run a social media ad campaign, compared to certain traditional methods, and this gives businesses an opportunity to grow.
7. Easy to Scale & Adapt
For small businesses, it becomes very clear when you see how easy it is to scale and adapt as your business grows. Example, with social media campaigns, you can choose a daily budget and know how much it will cost without having to renegotiate an ad spot on TV. As you continue to convert that traffic, you just increase your daily spend and revenues with it. If you got a massive order from a customer and need to scale back to avoid getting backlogged, it’s just as easy. The power of digital marketing lies in the fact that, you can get instant results and analyze data fast to reduce wasted ad spend.
Digital Marketing Strategy
At SEO Digital, we recommend a professional online plan to raise awareness of your business and engage with prospective customers. Hence, strong digital marketing strategy should consist of the following elements:
1. Website
Build a functional, professional and easy to navigate website. Include a blog on your site to update and inform your customers of any news in your industry. Also, consider inbuilt functionality to streamline office processes and make the customer experience better.
2. Search Engine Optimisation – (SEO)
Your website needs to include high quality, relevant content about your business and services. A number of SEO techniques such as high quality content, and keyword research can all help with your online presence. Keep this up to date and integrate it with a website measurement tool such as Google Analytics to improve your chances of being found online. Additionally, using strong quality content and relevant keywords on your website can improve your organic search results and make you visible to people.
4. Mobile responsiveness
If your website is difficult to read, the chances are prospective customers won’t make an enquiry. Make sure your website is optimised for mobile devices and creates a pleasant user experience.
5. Social media
The development of social media platforms will grow your online audience, and assist with online marketing. Social Media allows you to speak directly with your customer base to provide valuable information and build trust digitally to to increase your audience.
6. Online Advertising
Consider using various online advertising streams to increase your brand awareness. Common online advertising strategies such as Google AdWords allow you to target specific demographics and set your budget to suit your business. Online advertising is a highly effective way to add impact to your business and brand.
7. Nurturing your leads
Your digital strategies need to engage your customers to get them to take the next step and make a purchase. You need to have clear ‘call to action’ strategies built in to your digital platforms and make it easy for the customer to take that next step.
CONTACT US NOW FOR A DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGY
Digital marketing is becoming more complex, as we develop new ways of effectively reaching clients and driving revenues online. Your digital marketing strategy and assets are essential in driving business success. Contact SEO Digital today on info@seoghana.com or +233 50 664 3847 if you would like to review your business’ online marketing to increase your client base and profits.
8 SIMPLE AND FREE TO USE SEO SOFTWARE TO INSTANTLY ENHANCE YOUR BUSINESS IN 2021
SEO is a vital skill to enhance your business online in 2021. You may not grow or get any product sales without the SEO software and the technical know-how. Using SEO software is therefore highly imperative while creating your business websites. A good SEO software has the power to transform a weak online presence into a revenue-accumulating one. The most significant importance of SEO software apps are that, it gives you a competitive online presence. In addition, a good SEO software can also help you draw attention from potential clients. In today’s competitive app and tech-centered world, you need such software to succeed.
New software solutions are designed everyday to get websites among the top search engine results. However, such software and hiring SEO managers can be expensive. This can be a problem for marketers on a tight budget so, we put together a list of 8 simple and free SEO tools that are tried, tested and actually work.
What is SEO Software?
SEO tool/software is used to investigate the potential of web pages for high placement on search engine ranking. Such software provide information on backlinks, keywords, content, domain, traffic and as well as insights into SEO competition on the internet.
Why does your business need SEO software?
No matter how resourceful a website is, if there are not enough viewers, all that work is in vain. SEO software are definitely useful for your business. Here are some brilliant reasons why using SEO software is critical.
Doing Competitor Research
In SEO, spying competitors without crossing any ethical lines is allowed. Software like SEMrush or Raven Tools allow you to dig into competitor’s SEO strategy. Additionally, you can use them to see competitors traffic numbers, backlinks and find new strategies to attract consumers.
Automating
The first fact about SEO software is how much it can speed up the process involved in SEO. Automating processes through some handy SEO tools help in eliminating unproductive time and effort. Imagine the number of hours that one will be able to save when checking backlinks because SEO software can do this within a few minutes.
Drawing Analysis
With the help of effective tools, a lot of time and energy are saved. This time can be used in analyzing and comparing data. Apparatus that help in research are not shades of malice; they are useful companions to give you sources of information and spare-time.
Backlink Profile
One of the sneakiest ways to spy on competitors is to use SEO software to see backlink profile. Here, you can see what websites their backlinks are coming from, the authority of these sites, the anchor text, and much more. By so doing, you can lay out a game plan for reaching out to those same sites to generate links to your own website.
Keyword Opportunities
Listing out keywords and phrases that you believe represent your brand can be tedious and time-consuming. Thankfully, SEO software allows to see what terms people are searching for that are associated with your own keyword. Again, SEO software also show the volume of monthly searches that are being performed, as well as the competition level.
Using these 8 Simple and Free SEO Software will make your Business Succeed in 2021
Here are 8 simple to use and free SEO software to draw in clients and enhance the growth of your business in 2021.
1. Google Analytics
Possibly the most powerful free analytics tool available, Google Analytics can track traffic (organic), traffic sources, bounce rate, time on site and page speed. Secondly, the app can also help measure advertising ROI. While it’s not a strict SEO software, it can be kept as an effective toolbox. Thirdly, the great thing about Google Analytics is that, unlike other non-google analytics software, its data comes directly from Google, so it is reliable.
2. Google My Business
With a Google My Business free account, you get to easily connect with customers across Google Search and Maps. It enables you to post photos and offers to your profile to show your business uniqueness, and give customers reasons to choose you. Additionally, the app users are given the chance to interact with you by calling, messaging, or leaving reviews.
3. Google Ads Keyword Planner
The Google Ads Keyword Planner is another effective software to make your business competitive online. Choosing the right keywords and phrases can get your promotions in front of the right clients. The app helps you to discover new keyword ideas for your search campaigns. Again, the app can guide you to sort keywords relevant to your business and even suggest terms you might not have considered.
4. Google PageSpeed Insights
The Google PageSpeed Insights software grades your site’s speed and performance on mobile and desktop. Secondly, it gives you how fast it takes to load your site and suggests areas for improvements. Thirdly, it also provides you with a score for your website from 0-100. Lastly, it integrates with other PageSpeed tools such as PageSpeed Service and PageSpeed Chrome DevTools to improve your performance.
5. Google Search Console
Google Search Console can be used to check the performance of SEO and find additional resources that can boost your success with Google SEO. In addition, the app also gives SEO data like clicks, impressions and average ranking position, submit sitemaps and more.
6. Google trends
Google Trends shows you trending topics, stories and places over time. In addition, it shows you how people around the world react to major events and it is one of the world’s largest real time datasets. Again, by examining what people search for, you get a unique perspective on what people are currently interested in and curious about. This is useful for uncovering seasonal variations in search popularity amongst other things.
7. Google Data Studio
Google Data Studio is another free and convenient solution from the search engine giant. Basically, it helps digital marketers generate reports using data. Specifically, it merges data from 17 products by the Google corporation. Again, it can turn data into informative, easy to read, easy to share, and fully customizable dashboards and reports.
8. Google Alerts
Just enter the name of your brand, competitors’ names, names of influencers or keywords and Google Alerts will send you an email if it finds any webpage mentioning them. Basically, this app is great to know whenever your company’s name is mentioned and by what site. Specifically, the app sends you information about your competitor’s activities and new developments. Again, the app can also help your business to be proactive in supporting customers and avoiding surprises.
SEO is a vital tool for digital marketing but what exactly is it? Is SEO useful for businesses? SEO simply means Search Engine Optimization. It consists of multiple strategies, which have the end goal of improving your website’s position in search engines. This is why it’s called “search engine optimization.”
On-page consists of anything you can control on your own website to improve your rankings. Site speed, keyword presence, header text and content are examples of on-page SEO. For example, keywords must be well-researched, carefully chosen and used in your content in order to be effective. Keywords are words and phrases that prospects use to find content online. Brands use keywords to connect with prospects who are looking for their products and services.
When researching keywords, it is advisable to use those with high search rates and low competition. Short-tailed (such as food), long-tailed (such as foods that are delicacies), and local keywords (such as food delicacies in Ghana) are good for your content. Your content must also be educational, compelling, relevant and shareable to attract prospects. Content can include videos, infographics, social media posts, and local listings.
Off-page
Off-page consists of anything that happens away from your site. Generally, this only refers to links. The current best practices include guest blogging, creating compelling infographics and mentioning influencers. By appropriately implementing the components of on-and off-page factors, you’ll rank high in search engines.
Is SEO important for businesses and digital marketing?
Are you in an industry where there’s little to no competition? Are you already ranking #1, and wondering if there are options to keep you visible always? No matter the business you own, if it has a website, then SEO is crucial for its success online. Even if you are the only one in your industry, SEO is still important.
Importance of SEO to businesses
Investing in your business’s SEO, is making direct investment in its visibility and profitability. Regardless of the future, you can count on that visibility to help your business prosper.
Search engine is valuable tool for brand awareness and positioning yourself as a trustworthy expert in your field.
It also helps to know that once customers visits your website, then they have an interest in your services. Hence, saves you time in convincing them to patronize your product.
Search Engine Optimization rewards your business for its efforts at a higher rate compared to all the other forms of online marketing.
It is relatively cheap in the grand scheme of things.
A strong search engine can also leave lasting impacts many years ahead.
Finding the right SEO firm for your business
The SEO industry is constantly evolving. You need to stay on top of trends in order to maintain your rankings. You need a reputable and reliable partner that fully understands your business. A partner that will work with you to reach more people and make sales online. When selecting SEO firm to work with, examine their pricing, area of expertise and clients published testimonials.
Choose SEO Digital Ghana as Your Trusted Partner
Are you looking for a trusted and reliable SEO company to get you on top of search engine rankings? Kindly call/WhatsApp us on +233 050 66 43 847 NOW! Our experts are always available to speak with you and answer all your questions,
The eCommerce industry is a big game in Ghana now. There are different phases that depict the success of an eCommerce Business. Each of these phases has a distinct role to play in the making of a website to outstand competitive grounds. Ghana has experienced large setups venturing into the web eCommerce and Courier business but the problem is, are they doing it right?
Research has shown that more than 50% of the total world’s population is now going online shopping with over 30% increase every year. E-commerce will develop at a twice faster rate in the coming years. It has already been found that more than 40% of the purchased done by the millennial is through eCommerce and predicted to rise to more than 60 % by the year 2021.
Investing in e-commerce platforms is fairly simple but not easy. Allocating money can be fun but you will have to do your due diligence and choose to select the right few to generate the most gains over your investing horizon. Investing in these companies will have lower downsides and will take much less time.
The first thing that comes to the mind of eCommerce entrepreneurs, is BUDGET! But it is never a good practice to start an eCommerce web development project based on budget. Though a prime factor, your budget should not limit your progression and analysis of potentials, only the choice that you make after exploring all the possibilities. Also, talk to SEOGHANA to explore the options you have to set your eCommerce business as a brand because a brand always comes with a better competitive advantage.
User Experience
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The best user experience that you can provide in an eCommerce Website is speed, sleek graphics and agility to various devices and information. Along with that, you can also string along a simplistic way to apply discounts and promo codes without needing the customer to have to search and find it.
Information is really pivotal for the outreach of eCommerce business especially in Ghana, so give ample and easily available information about returns, policies, packaging options, delivery options and all. The less the customer has to look for these things, the faster they turn up to make a purchase.
UX designing is something that you ought to give more time and scrutiny, You know why? ‘cos that will determine not just how your website looks and feels, but also how it functions for you customers and the entire diversity of them. So let’s jot down the top priorities of a successful UX design:
● A simplistic navigation structure so that users don’t have to use the “back button” to go back or any other page (Have you considered iPhone users?). You should have the navigation bar close at hand with a simple format so that any page can be visited with a single click.
● A streamlined catalogue so that your products are easily searched. Get down with elaborate keyword research and do your best in finding your customers the exact thing that they are looking for, even with a misspelt search. AI-powered search is the top tool to invest in if your catalogue is really large and diversified. This technology is capable of suggesting customers the ideal products based on their search history. And you can just get too lucky if your product appears in front of someone who just wanted to have it, without having that person literally lookup that product on your site. It works, in uniting the buyers and sellers without much ado. Ask us how?
● A levitating checkout process (This is very important!) – Here the customer is about to make a decision. the smoothness of the checkout process determines the rounding off of your customer lifecycle. Make it easier with Shopping Cart preference settings and provide a minimalist content layout so that customers don’t have to go through fine prints to pick up the essential information.
Progressive Web Application
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This is called PWA, and it has been recognised as the next best thing for eCommerce stores right now. What it does? It simply helps in building the most satisfactory UX. This has been on the digital radar since around 2015, and since then have revolutionised the eCommerce industry. Technically, Progressive Web Applications are built on HTML, JavaScript and CSS platforms, that are web-based applications having the feel of a Native mobile application. The best way to access this is by logging in through a browser but you can also install a PWA into your device home screen. Either way, PWAs require less time and energy than it takes to create a website and a mobile app separately. The best benefits that PWAs provided is the omnipresent access across mobile home screens, and that customers can access the site even with poor network.
Customer Support
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You may add live chat support or a direct WhatsApp interface. The more close at hand and friendly your customer service is, the more your customers are going to trust your store, and even refer it to others. Nowadays, most websites give an enquiry form in their chat pages, wherein customers would have to register at the site to be able to chat. You can change this idea, by offering free advice at all times, without needing the customer to have to go through a long process of registration, just to get a simple answer to a whimsical query. But if you are offering them free advice, then somewhere down the line, you are getting a shot at speaking directly to a lead, and can potentially turn it into a conversion without being too clingy or pushy.
Final Word Of Advice
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Remember, the first thing that you should bring to the establishment of a new website is the Product. And based on how big your product catalogue is, and how diverse it is going to be in about 3-5 years, choose the platform. But it is very hard to provide proper guidance about the best options for choosing a web development platform because it really depends on the stature and objectives of your eCommerce business notwithstanding its huge SEO integration, so it is always radical to consult with a specialist before making a move. Or at least read plenty of case studies and white papers to steer clear of any preconceived notion about it. Contact us today and let’s build that web winning platform for you!
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a digital marketing strategy that is organic and uses tactics to place the brand among the top results of a search engine. For SEO, brands don’t pay and it is done using the below techniques:
On-page SEO – targets a specified keyword of the pages on a website and appeal to the search engines. Strategies include content creation and keyword optimization.
Technical SEO – uses the non-content elements of your site and improves the backend of your brand. Strategies include data, security, and crawlability.
Off-page SEO – links to other high-quality sites to build your brand’s reputation. The main strategy here is link building which in turn builds the site’s credibility.
What is SEM?
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is often referred to as paid marketing and it involves strategies to optimize the ad and pay to place your brand’s ad. This is also commonly referred to as PPC (Pay per click) marketing. The SEM process goes like –
Perform a keyword research
Create campaigns
Place ads at the top after a search
Pay as per the number of clicks
Are SEO and SEM similar?
Both of these are search marketing strategies to offer more visibility to your brand. Here are a few similarities:
Place your brand at a prominent position
Drive traffic to your site resulting in more conversions
Analyse the most popular keywords to target them
Continuous testing and optimization is a must
Then why choose between SEO or SEM?
Irrespective of the similarities, there are a number of differences which will force your brand to choose what suits you best:
SEM is a paid tactic and appears as an “Ad”. SEO results appear as a search option
SEM results include ad extensions, while SEO results appear as featured snippets
SEO is absolutely free, SEM is paid of course
SEM is target audience-specific, SEO is keyword specific (indirectly the target audience’s thought process)
SEM results are immediate, SEO takes time to grow visibility organically – slow and steady
So how do I choose?
Once you have understood the difference between the two search marketing strategies, it is important for you to analyze which is better for your brand.
SEM is better for brand’s with higher competition
SEO is better for those who know the target audience and want long term benefits
SEM is better for short-term, higher budget strategies, while SEO is preferable for higher valued industries that would like to establish their brand on the internet well
For newbies, SEM will help put you on the map immediately at least for a short while, while SEO helps establishes your brand
Plan and choose your strategies or as you dive deeper, you may understand that a combination of both works for you! It is a must to have SEO strategy for any small to huge organizations in the world of Google (or any other search engine like Bing) – its race and the brands that occupy the first page always are seen with a stronger value. SEM is required for the same brands, say when they introduce a new product or when they need to generate leads sooner for some reason or other, there is no way to depend on inbound leads that are organic and may or may not come at the time you wish for it.
Spotlighting your business online is not an easy task as you are required to know the factors that makes things work.
Many people think achieving pnline presence is onlyabout building a primary aesthetically-enhanced company or personal website.
Website design in Ghana plays a crucial role in making sure a business is ready to accomplish its goals. but achieving such goals is only made possible through online marketing efforts, getting SEO in place, and constant updates using the right content.
The success of your company or business in on the internet depends on how well it is presented to its target audience. Just like the way people mo visits shops and showrooms that are hygienic and well-arranged with items they need, your website design is equally valued for making or breaking your online business.
Putting your company on the World Wide Web is expedient to the growth and success of your business.
Hitherto, website development doesn’t bring you instant outcomes even if it has SEO in place but in the long term, it will surely affect the progression and the success of your business.
Questions you would need to ask yourself as a developer or as a client seeing a developers is on
The kind of platform your website is built otherwise known as Content Management System (CMS)
The layout, content, navigation, loading time, color scheme, and call-to-actions
Search engine optimisation
Responsiveness
Brand Representation.
What is the more important? If your website design is lacking SEO and appropriate amount of content and also not compatible on mobile devices, you should ponder some upgrades.
Elements of a Good Website Design
With the advancement in IT and inventive tools being launched every day, websites are supposed to be designed to best performance and user-engagement. A good website design is essential to keep you above the competition. A professionally developed site should have descriptive landing pages to influence the visitors to stay a little longer on your site. A good website should always be ready for upgrade on codes, that means themes,plugins,and strings should be constantly updated and checked for bugs.
A good website should mean a lot to the online destination of your brand or business. It should represents the owner/business effectively and gives the audience a sense of satisfaction when they visit on it.
To make sure these visitors get easy insights into your products and services, it should also be developed purposefully.
A proper design offer seamless navigation, clear readability, visualization, and call-to-actions.
Video marketing is a kind of video created and posted online to advertise your business. When we talk about video marketing, some people think only about YouTube. But, videos can be shared anywhere on social media like Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram.
Taking a giant leap from traditional marketing to digital marketing can be a little bit daunting, especially if you don not know what you are doing. Research has proved that businesses who push their presence online are becoming strong and attracting new customers everyday.
How this is achieved has been through the formulation of a video marketing technique. Video marketing has proven to be an engagement recipe that keep customers on their toes.
Just last year, about 97% of our clients who were using videos to market their products reported an increased on user retension and understanding of their products/services. 78% said they saw a result increase on their ROI. 76% say that these videos technique enhanced their traffic and sales.
However, the most challenging part is how to create these great videos for marketing. Having a good strategy will make everything easier and more classic. These are some video marketing tips that will help increase your traffic and conversation.
Keep Your Story Compelling
If you’re a starter, you should ensure that your video is interesting. People want something new and wonderful. Sharing the same video in all your websites will not add up well which means you’ll not receive your desired results. Basically, brand videos offer freedom of showing off your value to your target customers. Therefore, creating inspiring and compelling videos is key. It illustrates humanity at its best.
Utilize The First 10 Seconds Well
The sure way to attract customers is going straight to the point within the first 10 seconds. Basically, most internet users use a short time watching videos. The first seconds will determine if they’ll continue watching or not. Ensure in the first 10 seconds you’ve given the reason why they should watch as the first impression is always the most important to capture their attention and proceed further.
Add A Call To Action
All the marketing content requires a call to action and therefore, video is no different. Many marketers place their call to action at the end. You can keep the viewers engaged by including another call to action somewhere in the middle of the video.
Optimization
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is very critical in video marketing. Before you upload the video to any site, you should host it on your domain. How you describe your video speaks a lot when it comes to SEO. A good video description will make it accessible even to the deaf or those that rely on the screen. It also makes Google’s search engine understand the content in it.
Share your video
Of course, sharing is a must to get more viewers. However, ensure that you share the video in areas where your target audiences are to get the best possible results.
The above tips should basically help you in marketing your content. Just create awesome content and use the right strategy. The whole idea for this strategy is focusing on sharing informative knowledge rather than just selling all the time. This is also great in building long term relationship with the prospects.
As typical for Google, they have recently released news on new changes to the world of seo on their search engine. This time they announced it will affect the nofollow attribute within links, that means seo enthusiasts and professionals should take note. And obviously when news has come out regarding seo release, this gets everyone talking about what it means for their campaigns and previous work.
What’s mainly alarmed seo ghana professionals the most, is the introduction of rel=”sponsored” and rel=”ugc”. Reason being is it changes the nofollow attribute which has remained the same since its 15 year old introduction. So, instead of nofollow being a hint to bots to ignore it, it’s now going to be recognised as a ‘hint’ for ranking. This applies to the two new link attributes as already mentioned.
Google are bringing these changes to fruition to help link attributes evolve, which is why sponsored and user generated content are being introduced. So, to help provide more context for how it’ll apply to seo professionals, the following outlines how each will function.
With rel=”nofollow”, this will apply when an seo expert wants to link to page but doesn’t want any link credit passing through or be recognised for any endorsement. On the other hand, with rel=”sponsored” this helps to identify to Google when a link is used as part of advertisement and other similar agreements. And finally, with rel=”ugc” this should be used within forums and on comments from user generated content.
When the new link attribute changes come into force next March, Google will aim to use them for crawling and indexing purposes. As already said, the search engine will use them as a ‘hint’ to help their bots index the links appropriately. This makes a change from previous seo , as they used to just ignore nofollow links.
Google have revealed their reasons for implementing these changes, which are for the purpose to collect more accurate data. They have said each link contains valuable information which can help improve the overall search engine. The data links contain include anchor text and outlines of link schemes. Moreover, this will also help identify unnatural link patterns.
These changes won’t bring significant changes to the results of search engines, so seo professionals don’t necessarily have to worry. However, in the future, Google will start to make use of the data collected to see how links and their attributes can be treated within search results. So, for now, seo enthusiasts and professionals don’t need to make any changes to nofollow links. Although if you’re aware of any sponsored content containing links, the new rel=”sponsored” attribute will need including when possible.
What’s more, seo experts can use more than one of the attributes within link tags. An example tag could look like rel=”ugc sponsored”, so this would tell bots it’s user generated content as well as sponsored content. It’s important to note that these changes shouldn’t bring comment spam, as most websites have their own deterrents for link spamming, like human moderators.
Thankfully, these nofollow changes Google are bringing to fruition, can be helpful for most agencies, so be sure to use them wisely!