Universe Wealth

5 Questions With Dale W. Wood, Founder of Dale Ventures, Investing In Diverse Entrepreneurs

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Rodrigues) — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 11:08:00 +0000

Dale W. Wood, the Costa Rican founder of Dubai-based personal investment holding group—Dale Ventures—has made multiple investments in internet-based startups. Some of the Dale Ventures-backed startups are undergoing immense growth—thanks to the capital, experience, and value-added consulting provided at their critical junctures of growth. Dale W Wood is an alumnus of the Edwin L. Cox School of Business, Texas, where he earned an international business MBA.

Early in his career, he used to work for a manufacturing company in Texas—Texas Industries, where he launched its website in 1996. It was the world’s first construction company website when the world wide web was still in the nascent stage.

Dale, through his venture capital arm, Dale Ventures—has invested in some of the high- potential entrepreneurs around the globe, such as Instanda, Huma, Rayo Credit, and TechMet, which have driven some of his highest returns to date.

What is your assessment of the venture capital investing scene in the Asia-Pacific region and Latin America?

It isn’t easy to generalize about such extensive regions which span across ethnicities, religions, and languages. These regions have a lot of variety in terms of HDI metrics, economic systems, and governance forms. Asia is booming. Two decades before it, it amounted to about one-third of the global gross domestic product. Now we see that it is having 50% of the whole world’s consumption.

Similarly, in Latin America, there exist countries having deep security markets. Brazil is one such example where the economic growth rate is around 2%. Columbia is at 4%. Argentina is currently undergoing a recession.

Dale Ventures strives to focus on emerging markets and the latest technology. We closely monitor the situation across the globe and assess the right step in a post covid world.

Do you think that in such a covid crisis time, a startup is a good idea?

I very well understand where this question is coming from. I see there is uncertainty all around. Yet, it is a perfect time to start a business. Why do I say so? I have my reasons, and many entrepreneurs would disagree with me on this. It is an excellent time for partnering and attracting top-notch players. A crisis is a great time to remain committed to one thing free from the market dynamics. Venture capitalists can find real value as there is less noise regarding funding, valuation, etc. you can easily find talented people.

Can You Explain What Made Your Mind To Invest In Instanda?

Instanda’s story is similar to any other technological breakthrough. The founders were very disappointed as the insurance industry was suffering due to legacy systems. They felt that the technological apparatus in use should be put in the dust bins of history. Tim Hardcastle, the founder, and CEO was very much enthusiastic about transforming the insurance industry. We met through a common friend, and his enthusiasm and passion caught my attention.

When he pitched his idea, I was genuinely taken aback by the futuristic innovation Tim proposed. So, I invested $ 1,000,000 in a seed funding round through my Venture Capital arm Dale Ventures and further increased the stake by euros 5.8 million. I am happy to see that Instanda uses state-of-the-art artificial intelligence and fast becoming Europe’s leading insurance technology provider.

Have you put a limit on what maximum you can invest in a startup?

Wow, what a good question! Currently, there is no limit. Everything depends upon the vision of the startup, the founder’s passion, and the inherent value within the idea. I am lucky to have invested in groundbreaking and innovating concepts worldwide, the value of which I’m seeing getting increased day by day.

What is your message to the entrepreneurs? Some words of wisdom?

I fundamentally believe to the core of my heart that the startup idea having the capability to drive long-term growth creates value. And for this, you need transparent communications, exhaustively defined targets, building and nurturing of great teams. For producing long-term value, entrepreneurs must be persistent and patient.

The article was originally published here!

What Is Guest Blogging?

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Rodrigues) — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 11:08:00 +0000

Starting a blog is an important step when growing your business. To broaden your audience in new ways, you’ll want to try guest blogging. What is guest blogging? For bloggers, it is an opportunity to gain new readership. For businesses, it is a way to position yourself as an industry leader.

Don’t worry if you don’t know a lot about it. If you’re just starting to look into guest blogging, this article will help. Below, we’ll cover fundamental topics, including:

What is guest blogging?
Why is guest blogging important?
What value does it bring to SEO?
What are the risks?
What are guest blogging best practices?
How can you get started with guest blogging?

What is guest blogging?

Guest blogging or guest posting is when a writer or professional creates content for another brand’s blog, website, or social media channel. Typically, guest bloggers tackle similar topics in their main body of work.

For both the blogger and the host brand, the goal of guest blogging is to:

Boost brand credibility
Build brand awareness
Create important connections with new readers and fellow brands
Compel readers to visit your website

When bloggers and brands collaborate, they often extend the invitation in both directions. The blogger will write a guest blog post for their host brand, who will later provide a blog post for the guest blogger’s brand or website. In other words, guest bloggers and brands often enjoy a symbiotic relationship.

Why is guest blogging important?

Guest blogging unlocks a long list of benefits for businesses of all kinds. Some of the most exciting advantages include the following.

Establishing your brand as an authority

An important element of marketing is establishing your brand as an authority within your industry. This helps build a wider audience for your business while establishing trust and loyalty among your customers. When it comes to building a strong content marketing strategy, positioning yourself as an expert in your field will boost the value of your content over time.

Refreshing your blog

When you invite a guest to create content for your blog, you provide a refreshingly new point of view for your readers to enjoy. To generate buzz around a visiting blogger, include the news in your email campaign and social media posts. Invite guest bloggers in regularly to avoid letting your blog feed get stale.

Providing thought leadership

Many blogs use guest blogging as the cornerstone of their content structure. When you utilize guests as a primary source of content, you can elevate your blog as a collection of thought leaders in conversation about your industry.

To show off your impressive lineup of guest bloggers, use social media posting tools to get the word out.

What value does guest blogging bring to SEO?

The simple answer is that inviting guest bloggers can help you boost your search engine optimization over time.

To maximize your SEO benefits, focus on using relevant keywords and generating valuable content for your readership. More technically, the way guest blogging helps your SEO is through backlinks. For example: If someone links to your blog, Google interprets the links as a validation that your blog is compelling and useful to readers.

When your guest blogger links to your blog on their brand website — and vice versa — your SEO ranking will begin to climb. Along with using SEO tools, guest blogging is a great way to improve your online visibility.

As seen below, lifestyle blog Say Yes provides its guest blogger with an enthusiastic introduction. Within the intro, Say Yes links back to Victoria’s website. This essential step provides SEO benefits for both blogs. It also establishes credibility and creates an important connection between the two websites.

Say Yes prefaces Victoria’s guest blogging appearance with a warm and functional introduction.

What are the risks?

Earning credible inbound links might be a badge of honor, but — like many marketing tools — it has been abused by brands looking to take a shortcut to the top of online rankings. When used as a form of spam, poor-quality guest blogging can earn your brand a penalty from Google.

It is important to be aware of the risks of shady guest blogging. However, it shouldn’t deter your brand from generating collaborative content with properly vetted fellow professionals.

What are guest blogging best practices?

Creating great content is all about writing with your ideal customer in mind. Guest blogging is no different. The goal is always to provide a resource to your audience — whether the value is created through entertainment or education.

Save your advertising tactics for Google Ads. Instead, think of ways to provide actionable content and make a meaningful connection with your readers. Best practices include the following.

Using an internal link

Guest bloggers should include at least one internal link that is relevant to the topic at hand. Link back to the host company’s previous blog post to drive traffic and start establishing trust with visiting readers.

Including an author biography

Help readers connect with your guest blogger by including a well-written artist bio. A biography provides you with the opportunity to share your experience within the industry and continue establishing trust. Some guest blog posts use the bio as an opportunity to link back to the writer’s blog.

Generating shareable content

One of the goals of creating great brand content is to encourage interaction on social media. Guest bloggers should keep shareability in mind when crafting a post. Consider sharing tips, creating a brief guide, or including compelling visual content to inspire readers to share the blog post with others.

Both the guest blogger and brand should post about the crossover event on your respective social media channels. Include a call to action for your followers to share the blog and vice versa!

Food and lifestyle blog Our Food Stories uses a unique Q&A structure to welcome its guest blogging duo. This format is effective because it is easy to read, interesting, and personable. Beyond this, it allows Our Food Stories to link to both guest bloggers’ social media channels as well as share compelling content about their home life.

The Q&A format of this guest blog is refreshing and provides ample opportunity to share the bloggers’ unique voices.

Monitoring feedback

As with any blog post, you’ll want to use analytics tools to gain a deeper insight into the success of your guest content. Read comments and monitor social media engagement to learn more about what content resonates with your target audience.

How can you get started with guest blogging?

For brands looking to connect with guest bloggers, it is important to take the time to get familiar with potential guest bloggers’ work. Make sure they align with your brand values and are not a direct competitor to your business.

For bloggers looking to guest blog, reach out to brands to which you think you can offer tangible value. On either side of guest blogging, research and communication are key. Choosing a brand or blogger that doesn’t align well with your brand can break customer trust, drive away leads, and damage brand relationships.

To find a good match, both parties should consider:

Are you a part of the same or complementary industries?
Does the brand or blogger have a positive SEO ranking?
Does the brand or blogger have a visible and active following on social media?
Does the brand or blogger you’re researching have an established blog or body of work?
What benefit can both parties gain from guest blogging?

Takeaways

Whether you are a blogger or brand looking to make use of guest blogging, chances are that you’ve poured an immense amount of time crafting your brand website and blog.

To get the most out of guest blogging, you must take the time to find a partnership that will serve your carefully developed business. When you do, guest blogging can be a deeply rewarding experience for both blogger and host brand.

You’ve learned what guest blogging is, why it is important, and how to get started. To discover additional online marketing advice, read The Download — a free marketing guide for professionals from Constant Contact.

The article was originally published here!

Social Media Photography: Taking Photos That Perform

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Rodrigues) — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 11:08:00 +0000

Every day we see photos posted on social media that come really close to working well, but narrowly miss the mark. One of the most common reasons they don’t quite look right is down to the composition.

Here are 6 simple rules of composition that we use to to make my images as effective as possible on social media. Even though we call them rules, make sure you aren’t scared to break them. In the immortal words of Captain Barbossa:

“The code is more what you’d call ‘Guidelines’ than actual rules.”

1: Know The Ideal Size

Every platform has its own optimal size, and getting it right for each platform is crucial. You may have a photo with great composition, however you need to consider how it will look when posted to the platform. If you’re not sure before posting, check!

A great example of this is Instagram. While it allows you to post rectangular images, bear in mind the overall composition of the photo grid on your account. Images here will display as cropped squares when in grid view, so you may find that the great image that you posted doesn’t show quite how you thought it would on your page.

Above is a picture of our family dog, Ginny. If we were to add this as a post on Instagram, the top of her head would be chopped in grid view. As an Instagram story, however, the photo could work well.

2: Space To Move

Almost any photo of something that isn’t static, whether a person, car, animal, or otherwise needs to be given room to move into. If you look at the image below, the cyclist has room in the shot to continue with the apparent motion. Were the cyclist facing the other way, the composition would imply that he’s about to leave the frame which might not look as aesthetically pleasing.

This may seem intuitive and chances are you’re already doing it without thinking, but it’s not only a rule that can apply to physical motion. Portraits of people looking off into the distance or shots of someone singing can also work with this rule. Think about providing enough space for their gaze, or for their voice.

3: The Rule Of Thirds

A familiar one for many, the rule of thirds has long been a go-to guideline for composition. Quite often however, people choose to adapt this rule or break it all together. Whether you choose to use it religiously or not, it’s definitely worth being aware of.

The essence of this one is that people’s focus doesn’t often naturally fall into the middle of the image. Putting your focal points in the middle can make the image seem forced. Instead, place any key focal points in your image at intersections of thirds (marked in red in the image below). This is where your eye is more inclined to settle, and it makes for a comfortable image to look at. You can also line linear elements of your image up with the lines of thirds.

This rule can apply to almost anything. Try putting the horizon level with one of the thirds, or someones eyes in a portrait at an intersection. This will also help organise the elements of your photo, making them look composed and meaningful.

As an added bonus, following this rule of composition also makes it easier to follow rule number one.

4: Get The Whole Image

This is really simple, easy to put into practice, and can make a huge difference in your photos.

The rule? Just get everything in your frame that you want to! Don’t have someone’s ear missing from the photo because you didn’t make an effort to get the whole of their head in the picture. Taking a photo of a dog? Don’t chop off half of their tail please. In the shot below we followed this rule by making sure we included the guitar head when taking the picture.

If your photo isn’t the right size to post on a social media platform, try to resist the urge to crop it if it would break this rule.

Of course, other elements in your photo will likely get chopped in your background. Just remember that it’s the subject of your picture which matters most.

5: Leading Lines

Leading lines are like gold dust when you’re after better composition. They provide a path for your eye to follow through the image, and if you can find a way to include them in your picture then you’re onto a winner. A classic compositional technique is to use leading lines to take you to the subject of your photo.

Often you can create converging leading lines by using a wide angle lens. In the photo below of a road in Birmingham, even though the sides of the road are parallel in real life, they look as though they converge.

6: Keep It Straight

This is one of the most common mistakes we see on social media. An amazing picture of a beautiful sunset is easily ruined if the horizon is anything other than level. This rule is particularly important when it comes to buildings, interiors, and anything with lines that everyone knows should be perfectly straight or horizontal.

While it helps to get this right when you’re taking the shot, it’s an easy fix to make on your phone or computer. Often it won’t be possible at all to get things such as the buildings straight in camera (unless you have a tilt-shift lens, which isn’t cheap!), however Adobe Lightroom, or many mobile apps can make short work of straightening things out.

The image below was taken on an old iPhone, and edited with Snapseed. A few quick tweaks such as straightening out the horizon made it social media ready.

So there you have it, six simple tricks of the trade that will instantly elevate the quality of the photos you post to social media, and in turn the amount of engagement those posts get. The next time you’re on social media, have a look at pictures that stand out to you, and see how many of these principles you can see being applied – you might be surprised at just how many posts follow these rules!

The article was originally published here!

How to Direct Your Efforts So Your Boss Will Care About Them

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Rodrigues) — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 11:08:00 +0000

Your relationship with your boss is just like any other relationship: what you actually do doesn’t matter as much as how it’s perceived. But it’s hard to remember this when you’re taking instructions and trying to deliver on goals. Based on the power structure, you’re not calling the shots in the relationship, so shouldn’t you get the benefit of the doubt? If you’re doing the work, shouldn’t that be enough to keep your boss happy?

That line of thinking may be fairer than what turns out to be true. Most leaders want their subordinates to deliver, certainly, but they vary a lot in terms of their expectations for style, tone, and actions taken. How the relationship feels can end up carrying as much weight as the quality of results achieved. In fact, leaders’ perceptions of the relationship and personal style often color the way they evaluate the quality of the results you’ve attained.

Sometimes It’s About You

It’s not only your boss who might have quirks. It’s also possible that your team members wonder why you have so many requirements or peculiarities. In general, though, it’s usually easier to behave in a way that the boss finds satisfactory if you adhere to three basic principles:

A significant part of your job is to help your boss look good — and even feel as comfortable as possible
Understanding your boss — having empathy and compassion for them — will make it easier to tolerate even eccentric requirements without getting caught up in them
Demonstrating that you are committed to “playing on your boss’s team” will help your boss be calmer and more open when dealing with you

Of course, you still have to be smart and competent about how you approach your job responsibilities.

Not-So-Impossible Bosses

Here are some examples I’ve seen of leaders who are prickly and peculiar — and ways that dedicated, savvy employees responded to make a go of the relationship even when it wasn’t easy.

The boss who wants to see you sweat. This boss didn’t want to find out about problems after her subordinate had already addressed them and everything was in good shape. She trusted herself much more than anyone else. She feared that things would go awry if she wasn’t personally supervising — making sure that her every possible requirement would be met and that her subordinates were learning what she considered “hard lessons.” With this kind of boss, don’t express optimism, say you’ve got it under control, or reassure them that things will work out. Instead, acknowledge all the possible problems and ask for guidance.

The boss who wants you to be their audience. Some people actually want company while they’re working, or for you to observe their skillfulness and praise them so they can feel good about what they’re doing. Often these types are intelligent but insecure. If possible, bring some of your work with you when you meet with them, and suggest things like, “I’m just going to check these numbers while you’re drafting that email.” Then, when they read the email to you, mention all the things you think are smart and why they’re going to work out as planned.

The boss who doesn’t care about anything that doesn’t directly support their financial goals. Don’t even try to make a case to this boss without showing how it ties to his ability to meet or exceed his targets. If you absolutely must address an issue that doesn’t have direct, positive impact on their numbers, point out the lack of connection yourself, but ask for their trust in you — and show that you have a strong track record of supporting their goals in the past.

The boss who wants the team to operate in harmony. For some leaders, having the team get along is almost as important as it is to generate achievements. When there’s conflict, show how you’re trying to bring people together, and present your requests in terms of how they will benefit others as well as yourself.

The boss who is risk averse. Be open about the risks you’ve identified so that your boss doesn’t start “finding” risks you haven’t addressed. Explain in concrete terms how you’ve taken the risks into account and how you plan to mitigate them. Stress that you’ll be vigilant about them. Ask if they’ve had experience with any risks you haven’t seen yet.

Learn to Adapt

In all these examples, it’s most effective not to fight the boss’s tendencies, but to recognize them and act in support of them. If you can successfully show that you’re fully on the boss’s team, you may actually earn the chance to do your own thing because you’ll have built up so much trust.

The article was originally published here!

The Importance of Data Quality in Your Email Marketing

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Rodrigues) — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 11:08:00 +0000

Email’s popularity remains undisputed. Nearly everyone uses it – in fact, 92% of online adults use email, with 61% using it on an average day. (source) As a marketing channel, ROI tops the chart with a huge return on investment. For every $1 you spend on email marketing, you can expect an average return of $42 (DMA, 2019).

Take a look at some of these additional statistics on email performance:

Marketers who use segmented campaigns note as much as a 760% increase in revenue. (Campaign Monitor, 2019)
78% of marketers have seen an increase in email engagement over the last 12 months (Not Another State of Marketing, 2020)
31% of B2B marketers say email newsletters are the best way to nurture leads. (Content Marketing Institute, 2020)
80% of business professionals believe that email marketing increases customer retention. (Emarsys, 2018)
59% of respondents say marketing emails influence their purchase decisions. (SaleCycle, 2018)
59% of marketers say email is their biggest source of ROI. (Emma, 2018)
For every $1 spent, email marketing generates $32 in ROI. (Oberlo)
Conversion rates for emails are higher than social media, direct traffic, and search. (Smart Insights)
81% of businesses say that email drives customer acquisition, and 80% for retention. (Emarsys)
Email offers result in shoppers spending 138% on their purchases. (Disruptive Advertising)

While email has the potential to boost your business success, as with any marketing channel, email is only as successful as the data that drives it. Many marketers put the time and resources into optimizing copy, graphics and design, but something as basic as data quality may be overlooked.

Recent research by Validity examined the correlation between email and data quality. To begin, Validity looked at where organizations are storing their customer and email data.

Most respondents stored data in 1 or a combination of three systems:

CRM – 53%
Email platform – 50%
Customer Data Platform – 33%

The good news is that the majority of organizations (77%) are monitoring the quality of their data and many organizations placed importance on data quality.

In comparison to other aspects of email marketing, 9% said data quality is most important, 53% stated its highly important, and 33% stated data quality is moderately important.

Marketers also understand the importance of data quality is relation to how it affects aspects of sender reputation. However, according to Validity’s research, the two factors that experts generally agree are most important for reputation are the two lowest scored (spam traps and complaints) – highlighting the need for some further education on their role and importance.

Organizations have a variety of systems and policies in place to manage data quality with the most popular being compliance (43%).

The most popular metrics organizations use to measure data quality are engagement rates (40%) and sales/revenue (37%).

Email Data Collection

Where are brands sourcing their email lists? The most popular way is through their website (53%), followed by in-person or virtual events (34%), point-of-sale or e-receipts (33%), direct outreach from a sales team (31%), or social media platforms (28%).

The most popular method of verifying data is through database cleansing (39%), using double opt-in (38%), and challenge-response tests (37%).

Database Append

Brands should be engaging in a regular system of database cleansing to ensure email quality. Email programs are often crippled by both bad data or incomplete customer data, both components of data quality. While a record may have a postal addresses, a customer’s name or other information, they may be missing a recent, reachable email addresses. Email appends are a way to fix these problems.

Email appending is a process which uses data from a known customer record such as a person’s name and postal address. This is then matched to a vendor’s database to add missing emails (or other information) or correct bad emails.

Take a look at the example of an email append program V12 ran for a national retail chain:

Issue: Lacking emails on a portion of their 10 million record CRM database.

Goal: Append as many emails as possible and condition them for email marketing programs. Have the appended emails ready for the Holiday Season.

Solution: V12 performed the append and matched 26.7%. Strategized, developed and executed an email append “warming” program to introduce emails into the inbox and minimize opt outs. Measure ROI.

Results: After 5 email deployments, the opt out rate was under .5% allowing the majority of emails to be merged into the CRM database and used for the holiday mailings. The V12 appended records outperformed CRM emails by 2.1 times.

Customer Data Platforms to Integrate and Maintain Data Quality

As stated earlier in Validity’s research, more brand are using customer data platforms as a means to store and clean data.

Take a look at some of these statistics on data quality:

On average 20% of database records contain contact data with data quality issues. (Data Services, Inc.)
On average, 65% of contact data generated from online web forms is invalid. (Data Services, Inc.)
54% of businesses cite data quality and completeness as their largest marketing data management challenge. (Invespcro)
Approximately 47% of new data collected by businesses has one or more critical errors. (HBR)
Only 3% of business leaders think their department has an acceptable level of data quality. (HBR)
Companies with a Data Governance program in place increase data analysis time by 2% and register a 31% improvement in data quality confidence. (Observepoint)
Businesses with a designated Data Governance or Data Management leader show 42% greater confidence in data quality than those without. (Observepoint)

Customer data platforms can integrate and increase data quality through a series of built-in processes to ensure high quality data can be accessed at any given time.

Additionally, according to Validity, “the growing number of businesses with a customer data platform (CDP) in place (33%) to store customer data also emerges through the findings as a key indicator of organizations having a more developed approach. These organizations are more likely to have a preference center in place (25%) and use it to collect additional information on their customers (31%) – directly connecting to the pillar of completeness and ensuring brands have all the information they need.”

Learn more about Email Marketing Best Practices. Download V12’s Email Marketing Success Kit – full of blogs, articles, webinars and resources to help you learn the latest trends and best practices to boost your email marketing success.

The article was originally published here!

How to Remove a Google Penalty

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Rodrigues) — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 11:08:00 +0000

We look at what a Google penalty means for your website, the difference types you can get, why you might get one in the first place and how to remove a Google penalty.

Receiving a Google penalty is a nightmare scenario for website owners. In most cases, they cause a significant drop in traffic and getting penalties lifted can take a long time, depending on the nature and severity of your violations.

The best way to handle Google penalties is to avoid them altogether but, sometimes, website owners get hit without meaning to violate any guidelines. So, whatever, the reason may be, let’s look at how you can avoid receiving them and how to remove a Google penalty if you’re ever on the receiving end.

What is a Google penalty?

Google penalties are strikes against individual websites that demote certain ranking factors in Google’s search algorithm. For example, if you receive a search penalty due to low-quality links, the value your website/pages receive from these links will be demoted and the ranking benefits diminish.

Google penalties are also known as “manual action penalties,” meaning they’re applied manually to your website or pages by a human reviewer. This allows Google to target dodgy SEO practices that might game its algorithm without human input.

Google hasn’t confirmed how this process works but it’s a fair assumption that suspicious sites/pages are automatically flagged up and, then, reviewers can decide whether the website or pages in question deserve a penalty.

If you receive a manual penalty, you’ll get a notification in Search Console (example below) and you should also get an email sent to the address assigned to your account. The notification will explain why you’ve received the penalty, how your website or pages are being affected and how you can remove the Google penalty.

Source

There are various types of Google penalties, which we’ll explore in the next section, but the key point is that penalties are manually applied. Manual action penalties are not automated and they’re not related to algorithm updates in any way.

Algorithm updates are universal changes to Google’s search algorithm and, while these can affect your search ranking (sometimes worse than a manual penalty, even), algorithm updates apply to everyone, not only your website.

How do I get Google penalties?

There are roughly a dozen manual action penalties related to Google Search but some are less relevant than they used to be and some no longer exist at all, such as First Click Free violations (First Click Free was phased out in 2017). Here’s a quick summary of the manual action penalties that matter for Google Search in 2021.

Pure Spam penalties

This is the manual action penalty you never want to receive and very difficult to recover from. While it’s possible to receive some manual penalties accidentally, with no bad intentions, you’re only going to receive a penalty for spam if you’ve been up to some dodgy stuff: auto-generating content, scraping content from other sites, deceptive cloaking and deliberately deceiving Google and users into accessing content they’re not interested in.

How to fix: If you get hit with a Pure Spam penalty, you need to revamp your entire website/content to show Google things have changed drastically before you can recover. Follow Google’s Webmaster Guidelines to the letter, compare your site against the top-ranking rivals for your primary keywords and aim for the same level of standards, nothing less.

Unnatural link penalties

By far the most common manual penalty handed out by Google is related to unnatural links and there are two key triggers for this:

Unnatural inbound links: Links from third-party locations pointing to your website that show obvious signs of being spammy or harmful.
Unnatural outbound links: Links on your website pointing to external domains considered spammy or harmful.

The most common trigger for unnatural link penalties is paying for links through sponsored or paid content. SEMrush data shows that more than half (53%) of unnatural link penalties are attributed to sponsored or paid links, while guest posts and press releases (45%), and PBNs and link networks (27%) are the other two top causes. The same study shows that “in most cases, it is the combination of 2-3 or more types of manipulative behaviour that triggers penalties”.

How to fix: Invest resources into earning high-quality links from relevant, authoritative websites through quality content and legitimate networking. Run regular link audits to identify and disavow problematic links and never engage in paid link building (inbound or out).

Thin & duplicate content penalties

Thin content and duplicate content penalties used to be very common, too, but they’re pretty easy to avoid. The first thing to understand is that some pages justify having thin content, such as contact or login pages, and Google isn’t going to penalise you for these. These days, only low-quality pages with little or no content are going to get flagged up by Google. However, this could include auto-generated, spun or scraped content and doorway pages simply designed to direct users elsewhere.

There are some situations where you could get hit by a thin or duplicate content penalty without intending to do anything wrong, though – such as product pages with very little content or duplicate descriptions.

How to fix: Aim for a minimum of 300+ words of unique content on any page that’s designed to inform users or encourage them to take action. Identify pages with low word counts and find ways to add value to them instead of padding them out with fluff.

Keyword stuffing & hidden text penalties

Keyword stuffing was a popular spam technique in the old days and Google’s algorithm was easier to game by forcing keywords into content. This isn’t the case anymore because Google is less reliant on keywords and more capable of analysing the quality of entire pages. Hidden text is fine, as long as it’s relevant content being hidden in a way that enhances the user experience – eg: product description tabs to help users navigate information.

As soon as you start hiding content that’s not relevant to the query your page ranks for, you’re venturing into deceptive territory and you could get penalised for this.

How to fix: Open up Search Console, head to the URL Inspection tool (previously Fetch as Google) to view affected pages. Look for hidden text using CSS, positioning or JavaScript and decide whether to remove the content altogether (deceptive) or re-style the content in a way that communicates function more effectively to users.

Cloaking & deceptive redirects

Cloaking is where you show different content to users from the content Google’s bots index and rank. This is normally done by redirecting users from the indexed URL to another page and there are plenty of instances where this is perfectly acceptable – eg: A/B testing page variations, language selection, log-in redirects, etc. This is why manual penalties exist: so human reviewers can look at redirects to determine whether they’re beneficial to the experience or deceptive.

Cloaking redirects were a classic black hat SEO tactic in the old days, redirecting users to irrelevant pages or under-optimised, low-ranking pages, for example, and these are the kind of deceptive tactics that might result in a manual penalty.

How to fix: Open up Search Console, head to the URL Inspection tool to compare the content Google fetches vs the content on your page. Check your redirects and remove anything that could be interpreted as deceptive or unnecessarily disruptive to the user experience.

Hacked site penalties

This is something every website owner needs to take seriously. Google doesn’t want to send users to hacked sites and if it picks up on signs that your site has been compromised, it adds a “This site may be hacked” label to your search listings as a warning to potential visitors. This often results in a demotion in the organic SERPs, too.

How to fix: Contact your hosting provider and ask for assistance. Restore a clean backup of your website, head to Search Console and head to the Security Issues section to see details about your compromised pages, follow the steps in Google’s resources for hacked sites and request a review once you’ve fixed the issues.

You can find the full list of manual action penalties, including the 12 new violations Google introduced for Google News and Discover on this Search Console Help page.

How do I stop Google penalties?

As with most things in SEO, it’s better to take preventative measures to avoid receiving manual action penalties in the first place. Recovering from penalties can be difficult but the bigger picture is that you’ve got serious problems with your website if Google’s manual reviewers feel the need to hand out a penalty these days.

A penalty isn’t telling you that your website could do with an upgrade; it says that you’re intentionally trying to deceive Google’s search engine and/or users.

A lack of SEO knowledge can easily lead to Google penalties and the most common occurrence of this is link penalties where website owners either don’t know how link building works, have been misinformed by others or simply can’t be bothered to put the work in. If you don’t have the SEO knowledge to build natural link profiles or optimise your pages, get someone on board who does.

The most important thing to understand about search engine optimisation is that it’s a long-term strategy and shortcuts do not work. You have to put the early groundwork in and build an online platform that offers genuine value to users (and, by extension, search engines).

Do this properly and you’ll start to see traction within the first 3-6 months and growth will continue without any worries about Google penalties. On the other hand, if you try to cut corners, it’s only going to take longer to build any kind of traction and you’re in danger of violating the guidelines that can trigger manual reviews.

Remove Google penalties

To remove a Google penalty from your website, you have to fix the issues flagged up and then show Google that everything is resolved before your penalty will be lifted. So, the typical process for removing a manual action penalty involves three key steps:

Identify & fix all relevant issues
Send a reconsideration request to Google
Put preventative measures in place to avoid further penalties

Keep in mind that you may need to send multiple reconsideration requests to Google before your penalty is lifted. The time it takes to remove a penalty varies greatly, depending on the severity of your violations and your ability to identify and fix all of the offending issues.

At the very least, you’re looking at weeks or months to remove a Google penalty. In some cases, it can take longer and, in some rare cases, you may never be able to recover (eg: from multiple Pure Spam penalties).

Step #1: Identify & fix all relevant issues

When Google sends you notice of a manual action penalty, your notification should point you in the right direction of the guidelines you’ve violated. So, if you’ve received a penalty for unnatural inbound links, Google will send you a message along the lines of:

“Google has detected a pattern of links from other sites to your site that is either unnatural or irrelevant. This pattern attempts to artificially boost your site’s ranking in search results. Such unnatural ranking would cause search results to show preference for results not relevant to the user’s actual query… To fix this, remove most of the unnatural links and file a reconsideration request. After we determine that you have complied with our guidelines, we will remove this manual action.”

This message specifies that a significant number of links pointing to your website aren’t relevant to your content or the user search queries your content is ranking for. It also says that you need to remove most of the unnatural links to get the penalty removed and send a reconsideration request.

So, the first step is to identify all of the unnatural links pointing towards your website and the determining factor here is relevance. You can do this in Search Console by taking the following steps:

Open the Manual action report in Search Console.
Expand the manual action description and clarify that you understand the issues you need to fix.
Click the “Learn more” link for detailed information on the violations you’ve been penalised for.
Identify the issue on every relevant page – fixing the issue on some pages for a site-wide penalty will not earn a partial recovery.
Fix every issue you can identify.
Ensure that Google can access all affected pages to review your site.

Just like Google has manually evaluated the relevance of links pointing towards your website, you need to sit down and manually evaluate the relevance of every inbound link and decide whether each one adds value to the user experience.

Here are some examples of links you should remove:

Links you’ve paid for
Links from high-quality websites that aren’t relevant to your website
Links from sites/pages that aren’t relevant to the specific page they’re pointing to on your website
Links from low-quality websites

For example, if you’ve got a blog post showing potential customers how to use a product, you don’t want inbound links coming from a software comparison website that has no relevance whatsoever to the subject of your blog post.

In the notification we looked at earlier, Google specifically says that you need to “remove most of the unnatural links” to get your penalty lifted. This is because a certain percentage of irrelevant links is, in fact, completely natural. You can’t control which websites link to you so there’s a bit of leeway to work with here but you want to remove every unnatural link you can to speed up the reconsideration process and mitigate for any new, irrelevant links that naturally come your way.

Step #2: Send a reconsideration request to Google

Once you’ve identified and fixed all of the issues relevant to your manual action penalty, you need to send a reconsideration request to remove the Google penalty. You can do this by clicking Request Review in the top panel of the manual actions report in Search Console.

In your request, Google expects you to describe the issues you were penalised for, explain the steps you’ve taken to fix these issues and document the results of these steps.

It’s important that you only send a request when all of the issues raised in your manual action penalty have been fixed. If you send a request and Google determines that you haven’t fixed all of the relevant issues, your request will be denied and subsequent review processes may take longer. Reconsideration reviews are normally completed in anywhere between a few days and a couple of weeks so you don’t want to give Google any reason to extend this period any further.

Once you’ve submitted your reconsideration request, you’ll receive a confirmation email telling you that your request has been received. Later, you’ll receive a further email to inform you when your review is complete – don’t resubmit requests while you have one outstanding.

Step #3: Put preventative measures in place to avoid future penalties

Overcoming Google penalties is hard work and, in most cases, you’re facing a significant drop in traffic until you get the penalty removed. It also gets harder to lift penalties if you’re a repeat offender so you don’t want to get caught out again in the future. More importantly, if you’re getting hit by Google penalties, you’re not making the most of the traffic you get (even before you get hit) or achieving your marketing goals.

So, once you’ve identified and fixed your penalty issues, put preventative measures in place to avoid any future penalties. For example, if you’ve been hit with an unnatural inbound link penalty, establish a system for regularly reviewing your link profile and disavowing any links that look irrelevant or unnatural.

Take this further by devising a workable link building strategy that earns quality links from relevant sites. If possible, do this before your reconsideration request is complete and your penalty is lifted. This way, when you start getting the full value from links again, you’ll get a bigger boost and put yourself in a good position to recover quickly and start building your search presence the right way.

The article was originally published here!

Numbers and Facts You Need to Know About Audio Content in 2021

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Rodrigues) — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 11:08:00 +0000

The growth of audio content has been on a constant upward trajectory for the past few years, with the latest push coming from social audio. Slowly but surely, the medium has become an essential element of the media mix for publishers, advertisers, and listeners alike.

Audio is the evolution and future of content. Don’t believe me? Just take a peek or a listen below and you’ll see or hear what I’m talking about.

Stats about music are not included. Data refers mostly to listening habits in the United States but is very much indicative of trends taking place across the globe.

How much listening is there?

Besides creating a new habit they have incorporated into their daily routine, listeners are also maintaining it.

When it comes to online audio listening (including AM/FM online radio stations and streamed audio content only available online), there is continued growth in consumption:

An estimated 193 million or 68% of the US 12+ population listens on a monthly basis, which is 1 million more than in 2020.
Weekly online audio listening is estimated at 176 million or 62% of the US 12+ population. This is 7 million more or 60% of the population as opposed to 2020, an all-time high for this category.
The average time spent listening weekly is 16 hours and 14 minutes, a significant increase from 2020’s 15 hours and 12 minutes.

According to eMarketer estimates:

The time US adults spent with digital audio recorded an 8.3% growth for a total of 1 hour, 29 minutes per day.
Digital audio accounted for 11% of total media time per day for US adults in 2020 and will account for 11.7% in 2021 or 1 hour and 34 minutes per day.
In 2022, the average time spent listening should rise to 1 hour and 37 minutes per day.
Active digital audio listeners spent 2 hours and 5 minutes per day on audio in 2020 and will likely add another 5 minutes this year.
More than 70% of US adults listened to digital audio content at least once a month in 2020 and 91.7% of this occurred via mobile.

Who is doing all this listening?

Listening audiences are diverse. As expected, Gen Z is leading the charge but Millenials and Gen X aren’t far behind. Also, almost half of the older and senior adults are active monthly listeners. Here is the percentage of monthly listeners per age group:

Age 12 to 34: 86%
Age 35 to 54: 72%
Age 55+: 46%

Furthermore, 51% of those aged 12+ “frequently” or “sometimes” listen to audio with other people, with this percentage rising to 69% among those aged 12 to 34. A more detailed breakdown of the demographics can be found for the podcasts segment below.

Podcasts, audio’s blockbuster star

Podcasting is a familiar term to around 222 million or 78% of the population in the United States, continuing its significant and steady growth while its overall audience is more diverse than ever.

About 162 million or 57% of U.S. citizens over 12 listened to a podcast at least once.
An estimated 116 million or 41% of the U.S. population tunes in monthly.
The weekly podcast audience includes around 80 million people or 28% of the total U.S. population over 12.
On average, weekly podcast audiences listen to eight podcasts or 5.1 podcast shows.

Age of monthly podcast listeners:

Most are from the 12-34 age group, comprising 56% of the listenership in 2021, an increase from 49% in 2020.
39% of monthly listeners are those aged between 35 and 54 with a 39% listening share in 2021, down from 40% in 2020.
The smallest portion of listeners is coming from the group older than 55 who represent 26% of monthly listeners, up from 22% in 2020.

Gender of monthly podcast listeners:

48% of monthly podcast listeners are men; women 49%, while 3% are non-binary/other.
43% of male listenership are monthly listeners in 2021, up from 39% in 2020
39% of female listenerships are monthly listeners in 2021, up from 36% in 2020.

The ethnic composition of the podcast audience is increasingly diverse, with numbers significantly rising in favor of Hispanic, Asian, and other podcast consumers. That said, the largest portion of the podcast audience is still predominantly White:

White: 57%
African-American: 13%
Hispanic: 16%
Asian: 4%
Others: 10%

Audiobooks still going strong

As one of the oldest digital audio formats, audiobooks are a familiar sound to many eardrums across the globe.

An estimated 131 million people listened to an audiobook in 2021, which is about 46% of the total 12+ U.S. population and a 1% increase compared to 2020.
Even though the number of people commuting plummeted in 2020, audiobook revenue was up more than 17% compared to 2019.
The audiobook market size, measured by revenue, is $1.3 billion in 2021.
The market size is expected to increase by 5.5% in 2021.

Audio articles are surging

While audio articles may not offer dramatic storytelling and fancy sound effects like their podcast and audiobook counterparts, they do offer a convenient way for listeners to consume information.

These are people who are multitasking (driving, at the gym, doing house chores etc), simply prefer consuming via eardrums rather than eyeballs, have some form of vision impairment or blindness, or are illiterate to some degree.

Hence, it’s no surprise that spoken word audio (includes news, sports, talk/personalities, audiobooks) listening has increased by 30% over the last six years and 8% in 2020.

Three-quarters or 75% of all Americans listen to spoken word audio each month while 43% listen daily.
Those who listen to spoken word audio daily average two hours per day listening, nearly half or 48% of their daily listening time.
Spoken word listening accounts for 26% of all listening of the U.S. 13+ population, up from 24% in 2019.
Mobile technology is driving spoken word listening as 30% of all listening on a smartphone is to spoken word audio.
The Covid-19 pandemic has had an impact on listening as 40% of spoken word audio listeners age 13+ say they are listening more since the quarantine restrictions.

Trinity Audio’s research shows that:

The total listen-through rate or LTR for audio versions of news articles and blog posts is 59%, meaning more than half of the total listenership listened through the entire audio content.
Long-form content (five minutes and longer) has the highest LTR at 70%, while content up to three minutes long and content between three and five minutes long both have the same LTR at 55%.
CTR or people that clicked on a player on long-form content is three times higher than that on short-form, including editorial articles, short stories, and novels.
Morning hours between 7 and 10, as well as evening sessions between 17 and 20 registered the highest spikes in listening times.

Percentage of top ten spoken word audio topics:

News and Information 62%
Music 50%
Comedy and Humor 44%
Movies/TV 39%
Sports 38%
Health 37%
Food 35%
Wellness and Self-improvement 34%
History 34%
Mystery/Thriller 34%

Radio is still on the radar

The omnipresence of smartphones has played a big role in keeping the oldest audio format on-air, along with the pace at which technology and culture move these days. So, it might surprise you to learn that:

63% of those in the U.S. age 18+ are reached by radio every day.
41% of all daily audio time in the U.S. is spent with radio.
55% of all Gen Z listens to AM/FM radio each day.
Almost 50% of the time spent listening to audio in the car among 13 to 24 year-olds is to AM/FM radio, surpassing streaming audio, YouTube, and others.

With the further development of the ‘car as an entertainment platform’ concept, radio listening will likely sustain its high listening share in 2021 and beyond.

How listeners perceive audio

As a hands-free medium that can follow listeners throughout their day, audio is a powerful way to reach people. It also offers a unique way to cut through the visual clutter and increase personalization, convenience, and loyalty with targeted, meaningful content.

As evident by the data, people are willing to listen for a variety of reasons:

Audio is the most immersive media format that triggers memorability, trust, and connection, beating out the ad-based video on demand, digital video, linear TV, and social media.
Audio platforms are trusted more than other media sources, while local content and host trust are the most influential drivers for listening.
In addition to the convenience and multitasking benefits long recognized for spoken word listening, other strong motivators for increased listening are personal growth, better content, and spoken word’s ability to improve mental health.

The impact of audio advertising

The number of cases for how audio fits in with advertising campaigns is increasing, as digital audio showed great resilience in 2020. IAB’s annual ad revenue report shows that:

Digital audio advertising revenue grew by more than $350 million in 2020, increased by 13% to a total of $3.085 billion.
Eight of every ten dollars is attributed to mobile devices, with mobile audio revenue growing at a faster 15% rate in 2020 compared to desktop audio.

Arguably, this increase is driven largely by the positive sentiment listeners have towards audio ads. According to Adobe’s survey:

58% of people find smart speaker ads to be less intrusive than other major formats such as TV, print, online, and social.
52% find them more engaging.
57% find them more relevant to their needs and interests.
51% of consumers said they found it easier to recall the brand behind a smart speaker ad versus other major ad formats.
53% reported a smart speaker ad drove them to make a purchase at a later time.

Pandora’s study found that:

Nearly half of streaming audio listeners say audio ads are less disruptive than other forms of advertising
Thanks to streaming audio’s ability to be highly personalized and dynamic, 43% say the audio ads are more relevant to them.
42% stated that audio ads are more likely to capture their attention than ads seen or heard in other places.

Trinity Audio’s data shows that:

The total ad completion rate is 91%, which means that nearly everyone who listened to audio content also heard an advertisement in its entirety.
15-second ads had a 91.7% completion rate, while 30-second ads had a 90.5% completion rate.

When it comes to audio’s role in media plans:

81% of media agencies used streaming digital audio advertising in 2020 and 65% used podcast advertising.
69% of media agencies now have streaming digital audio advertising as a significant part of their activity or regularly consider it, while 36% of media agencies now regularly consider podcast advertising.
The predominant objective for all audio formats is to increase brand awareness, followed by increased engagement, direct response, and support for specific promotions.
While less frequently used, audio assets are on average more effective than some visual assets.

Final thoughts

With the audio revolution in full swing and not turning down the volume anytime soon, I hope you got the full picture of just how loud this revolution is. What’s more, digital audio has shown extreme resilience and adaptability in 2020 and 2021.

The COVID-19 didn’t negatively impact audio content consumption. On the contrary, listeners developed new habits and preferences while working and schooling from home.

Audio has a growing importance in delivering a great user experience as it can reach the listener at any time and place, and more importantly, in any right context. Its intimate and immersive nature that leverages storytelling is a huge advantage both for engagement and advertising purposes. So, it’s safe to say we’ll be hearing more about the audio revolution.

Image credits:

http://www.edisonresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/The-Infinite-Dial-2021.pdf
https://www.emarketer.com/content/impressive-resilience-of-digital-audio
https://www.nationalpublicmedia.com/uploads/2020/10/The_Spoken_Word_Audio_Report_2020_Download.pdf

The article was originally published here!

HubSpot’s CRM vs. Active Campaign: Which Is Best for Your Business?

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Rodrigues) — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 11:08:00 +0000

Choosing a customer relationship management (CRM) system is just like a fairytale, or at least that is how I am going to tell it. Also fairly warning now, there are Disney gifs ahead.

This story has been told a once upon a time—or a thousand times online—but whether you want to kiss a frog and hope for an intuitive CRM, or you are looking to sift through every eligible maiden in the kingdom to see if the automation fits, it comes down to your business, your needs, and your expectations.

How, Who, and What Is a CRM?

To begin our quest, we must valiantly distinguish what it means to be a CRM (just in case you don’t know). CRM systems manage and maintain your business interactions with customers. They come in all shapes and sizes, and do all sorts of different magic. They can be regal platforms, all promising horseback rides into the sunset or the perfect customer experience.

But take warning: You don’t know what you don’t know, and like Snow White, you could end up biting into an apple that doesn’t have the resell value of an iMac.

Incomplete solutions are not your “happily ever after” when it comes to CRMs. They will require you to hodge podge a tech stack of other solutions that don’t communicate with ease and leave your IT, marketing, and sales teams in an ogre-filled swamp of despair (and not the funny Shrek kind).

So, let’s look at the two complete solution CRM platforms that I would trust with my treasured data.

HubSpot’s CRM Platform vs. Active Campaign: Who Is the Fairest of Them All?

Both HubSpot and ActiveCampaign are CRM mermaids. They are beautiful and full of valor, though not quite as mythical. Their powers lie in their ability to unify your sales and customer experience via one central hub of greatness. To make a full evaluation of these solutions, read this article that covers all of their features, including marketing automation, chat functions, and more fancy fishtails.

But right now, we are sticking to the gold-crown topic of CRMs.

HubSpot: Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo

Seriously though, it’s like a fairy godmother just poofed into your sales office. HubSpot is easy to use, and your team can quickly get started. This platform was built from the ground up, and it functions as a single system with different “Hubs” that all connect to one database. This CRM offers wondrous control over contacts and their custom properties (which translate into segmentation tools for marketing and reporting purposes).

View the contact’s every touchpoint, from marketing emails, to one-to-one emails, to sales calls, to website activity—all of which can help your team understand your customers and where they are on their journeys. HubSpot was just ranked the number one CRM platform, but the team knows that there is always room to defeat another dragon. Innovation is never lacking on their end.

Budget is a real factor though, so don’t pull the sword out of the stone without checking out HubSpot’s pricing page.

ActiveCampaign: The Beauties and the Beasts

Just kidding—there is definitely more beauty than beast to this CRM. ActiveCampaign focuses on customer experience automation, specifically around email marketing. Their CRM platform compliments their email marketing focus by concentrating contact data on deals, which has given it the nickname of the “deals CRM.”

You can also segment contacts based on collected data, such as campaign interactions, social data, or website activity—these are the beauties. This CRM leads to sales and marketing automation, which can be customized and modified to your team’s preferences.

This deal segmentation is the biggest pro, but it can also be the biggest con when it comes to reporting. ActiveCampaign is limited in comparison to what I am used to seeing in Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, and even HubSpot.

However, pricing is not bad. Check out their pricing page and take it into consideration.

Does the Glass Slipper Fit?

This is not the fourteenth century. In fact, times are changing so fast that adaptability is something your team will indefinitely need, and is something that both of these platforms offer. Like any hero on their journey, these platforms have their strengths and their weaknesses. You just need to determine how to use them to your unique advantage. After all, that is truly what makes a “happily ever after.”

Though you may not get as many fairytale-riddled sentences from our sales team, know that I am here with plenty more where this came from. Until next time, keep moving (your sales and marketing efforts) forward.

The article was originally published here!

Booking.com Fined Following Vishing Attack

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Rodrigues) — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 11:08:00 +0000

Summary Message: Working out your Breach Notification during a Breach is a recipe for disaster.

Back in December of 2018, Booking.com experienced a breach, where the company was exploited through a Vishing attack. For those who don’t know, Vishing is the hacking method in which phone calls and voicemail messages pretend to be from reputable companies, convincing users to give out personal information such as banking information, credit card numbers, or other non-public personal information. This is similar to phishing and smishing but uses phone systems and voicemail instead of email or text messages. What makes this breach important is not the breach itself but the subsequent fines issued by the Dutch Data Protection Authority (DPA). Read on to find out why fines were assessed.

How Did It Happen?

According to the report, the attack was conducted against hotels in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), using social engineering tricks over the phone. The hackers called staff at 40 different hotels in the region and talked them into handing over login credentials for hotel accounts in the Booking.com system.

With these stolen credentials, the ‘Vishers’ retrieved data on 4109 customer bookings, including customer’s names, addresses, and phone numbers. Although, the criminals also got hold of credit card data from 283 of those bookings. Hackers even stole 97 CVV’s (3-digit code on the back of the card) which should never be saved in any electronic system!

Monique Verdier, deputy chair of the Dutch Data Protection Authority (DPA) pointed out in the Authority’s report of the breach:

By posing in emails or on the phone as hotel staff, they attempted to steal money from people. Such an approach can seem highly credible if the fraudster knows exactly when you made a booking and what room you booked, then asks you to pay for the nights in question. Large amounts of money can be stolen in this way.

Everything discussed to this point in this article explains how most breaches occur. Very few breached companies receive additional government fines, so what happened to cause that here?

The Breach Happened in 2018

Dutch DPA regulators fined Booking.com almost half a million Euros not because there was a breach, but because the company didn’t report the breach quickly enough:

The Dutch Data Protection Authority (DPA) has imposed a €475,000 fine on Booking.com because the company took too long to report a data breach to the DPA. When the breach occurred, criminals obtained the personal data of over 4,000 customers. They also got their hands on the credit card information of almost 300 people.

Timeline

December 2018: Data breach started
13 January 2019: Booking.com became aware of the leak.
04 February 2019: Booking.com informed affected customers.
07 February 2019: Booking.com informed the Data Protection Authority.

EU businesses have 72 hours to report a breach from the time they confirmed it occurred. While Booking.com knew a leak had occurred on Jan. 13th, they might not have known the extent of the breach which would require government notification. However, in Jan. at the moment in time that Booking.com confirmed the breach affected more than 500 records, they needed to notify the DPA within 72 hours. They failed to do so, which is why they were fined so heavily.

What Does This Mean For My SMB?

Breach Notifications

Regarding breach notification, it’s extremely important to notify the affected users and applicable agencies like the DPA in Holland quickly. Since 2002 there have been countless data privacy laws enacted all over the world. The US has a patchwork quilt of data privacy laws for each state, but no federal law in effect. In preparing your breach notification process, if you do business internationally, you will need to consider the following regulations:

European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
California Consumer Protection Act (2018)
Australia’s Privacy Amendment (Notifiable Data Breaches) Act of 2017
Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA)
Germany’s Data Privacy Law Compared to GDPR (BDSG)

Sources:

NakedSecurity – Sophos

Wikipedia – Breach Notification Laws

The article was originally published here!

How to Organize a Virtual Summit for Your Company from Scratch

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Rodrigues) — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 11:08:00 +0000

2020 brought an unparalleled increase in online versus offline events, with some platforms reporting 1000% growths. While the events industry initially took a blow, most organizers pivoted and moved their conferences, summits, or meet-ups online.

And the rewards appeared quite quickly. Virtual events typically have better ROI than in-person ones. The reason for this is quite simple: it’s much cheaper to organize an online event than an in-person one. You can cross travel, venue, and hospitality off your budget list and invest that money into advertising or simply pocket it.

Affordable planning doesn’t make a virtual summit successful, though. Only 53% of event professionals consider themselves savvy with virtual event technology.

Luckily, organizing a virtual summit from scratch is a skill that can be mastered. And you may even be able to score heavyweights like Rand Fishkin or Nathan Latka as your speaker. How? Read on!

Here are the seven pillars of successful online events:

: Alexandra_Koch / Pixabay

#1 Setting Goals for Your Virtual Summit

The first pillar of any successful endeavor is goal setting. If you don’t have clear, measurable goals, then how can you learn if the event was successful or not?

Start with the primary goal. Do you want your summit to:

Generate leads?
Establish you/your company as a thought leader in your field?
Help you build lasting partnerships?
Generate ticket sales?

All of these are excellent goals that are reasonably easy to meet. While you can focus on more than one, it’s important to avoid trying to check all the boxes — you may end up not meeting any of them.

So, focus on what or two major goals and build your summit around them.

To make it easier to evaluate your success after the summit, add some quantifiable/measurable KPIs:

Number of attendees (paid/free)
Number of speakers
Total leads generated
Total leads converted

#2 Should You Opt for a Live Summit or for a Pre-Recorded One?

This is one of the biggest dilemmas virtual summit organizers have. There is no one-size-fits-all and both options have their pros and cons. Let’s take a quick look at them.

Live summits come with one major benefit: the attendees get to attend something in real-time. This makes the summit feel more authentic. Plus, during a live conference, the attendees can also ask questions, the speakers can answer them. In turn, this increases engagement and makes the whole event more interesting for everyone.

On the other hand, live summits can be nerve-wracking. Even more, during a live event, technical glitches are harder to solve and they can dramatically impact user experience.

You need to have a cool head and be ready to battle with ANYTHING that comes your way. What can that be? Anything from people not being able to login to speakers not showing up for their session (yep, happened twice to me in 1 day).

If you opt for a pre-recorded summit, you can easily weed out technical issues and the viewing experience will be seamless. Furthermore, it’s easier to control speaking times and stick to the initial schedule. Lastly, for some attendees, it might be more comfortable to watch a pre-recorded summit because they can do it in their own time and at their own convenience. This is a very important point, especially if you’re targeting people in different time zones.

However, a pre-recorded virtual summit doesn’t allow the organizing party to connect with the speakers on a deeper level. All of these speakers may be your potential partners in the near future.

#3 Should Your Summit Be Free or Paid?

A paid summit comes with the obvious benefit of bringing in revenue. Another major selling point here is the fact that attendees have “buy-in” — they paid for the ticket, so they are invested and are more likely to attend it.

On the other hand, a paid virtual summit will naturally have fewer people to register and, thus, fewer leads. If generating leads is a primary goal for you, you may consider the free option.

Free virtual summits will have more people registering for them but not all will attend. However, you can still use the contact information of the people who registered and add them to your sales funnel.

More importantly, you don’t have to choose strictly between A and B. You can also go for the hybrid or the “freemium” option: the virtual summit is free to attend when it’s live, but people who want to watch the recording have to pay a fee.

#4 How to Find Speakers for Your Virtual Summit?

The “line-up” of your summit is the detail that can make or break the entire event. A lot of summit organizers start out with a list of people they would like to invite as speakers and only then focus on the topic(s) of the event.

This approach can lead to an unfocused event that will attract far fewer participants than it could have. A clear outline of the event and a focus topic will make targeting participants and converting them far easier. Even better, it will make finding the right speakers and getting them to say “yes” a walk in the park. With a clear topic “in hand”, it will be easier to research potential speakers and find out who has the expertise you need for your summit’s audience.

Once you have the topic and the outline of your event in mind, it’s time to start reaching out to potential speakers. I recommend doing this two to three months in advance to give everyone time to prepare.

Start out with a couple of “small” speakers. As soon as you have buy-in from them, it will be easier to approach the industry thought leaders, who typically want to see that an event already has other speakers before agreeing to participate in it.

Not sure how to reach thought leaders that would make great headliners? Leverage your network! Talk to some of the speakers who already agreed to participate and ask them if they can open some doors for you.

When you do get to pitch an industry influencer, make sure you have a value proposition for them. Explain how speaking at your summit will be beneficial to them in the short and long run. Don’t ask for a big commitment. Request to host just a Q&A session with them first which won’t require any preparation work.

You can mention:

The lead generation potential (which means that you will share your lead list with them)
Your advertising budget that will put their face in front of a lot of people
A speaking fee (some summit organizers pay the speakers, while others do the opposite: charge a fee for everyone who wants to get in front of the event’s audience)

So, here’s how I got Rand Fishkin to agree to speak at the summit for free. Are you ready? Here it goes…

I asked.

Yes, that’s it. One important tip: make it as easy as possible for them to agree. Ask for a low commitment, like a quick Q&A that won’t require prep time on their part and of course share what exposure you’ll be able to get them if it’s anything north of 1000+ attendees.

Got the final list of speakers? Excellent! It’s now time to agree on topics for each presentation and make sure that no two speakers choose the very same topic.

Equally important, it’s time to leverage your speakers’ audience. Get them to promote the summit — it will be beneficial for them, too, to have a bigger audience!

#5 How to Choose a Platform for Your Virtual Summit

The platform that will host your virtual summit is a decision that you don’t have to make right away. Not because it’s less important — quite the opposite. You need to know more about your summit (estimated number of attendees, speakers, schedule, live or pre-recorded, and so on) so you can make the best decision.

Some of the most popular virtual summit platforms are:

Zoom is ideal for pre-recorded summits. You can use the free version or upgrade to the paid one so you can record in HD format.
HeySummit is super-easy to use and it comes with a major benefit: integrated landing page builder. You can use it for both pre-recorded and live summits and it also comes with useful features like self-service speaker dashboards and detailed event analytics. Important point: if you want to hold a live summit, you have to integrate HeySummit with Zoom.
AirMeet is great for live summits. It has user-friendly features like “raise hand” (allows the attendees to ask questions), polls, public and private chats, emoji reactions, and many others.

You can always mix and match. For SaaS Growth Summit, I used both AirMeet and HeySummit, since AirMeet doesn’t have a landing page builder of its own.

#6 Meet, Greet, and Delight Your Attendees

The first thing you want to focus on after choosing the platform is the registration process. My key tip here is: keep it simple! Make the whole registration a breeze so you don’t have a lot of people dropping out halfway through the process.

Make it intuitive — start with a clear and visible CTA button that people can click on to get started. On the registration form, only add the fields that are absolutely necessary to process their request. Forget about physical address and, if it’s not very relevant to you, the company name and industry.

Don’t forget to set up a few automated email sequences: a thank you email, the participant’s schedule, and a few reminders about the start date (the last one should be on the very day of the summit).

Even if the summit is over, it doesn’t mean that your communication with the attendees should also be over. Send them a “thank you for joining email”, followed by any additional materials: slide decks, replay links, additional reading materials recommended by the speakers, and so on.

#7 How to Promote Your Virtual Summit

This is a somewhat sensitive topic because most people think you need a huge budget to promote a summit. In my experience, less is more when it comes to advertising.

Of course, you want to reach as many people as possible. But the one thing that helps with keeping your budget under control and with increasing your conversion rate is zeroing in on your audience.

Build a detailed ideal persona:

Who is your ideal attendee?
What is their job title?
What are their pain points that the summit can solve?
Where do they hang out online?
What media do they trust (communities, blogs, influencers)?

This is a great start to keep you from spending money on advertising methods that won’t work. For instance, if your audience hangs out on LinkedIn, why waste money on Facebook Ads? If they don’t respond to traditional PPC ads, why not invest in influencer campaigns or guest posts on the websites they love?

A great and cost-effective way to promote your summit is through the networks of the speakers. Talk to them openly and tell them how much it would help both of you if they emailed their list and tweeted about the event frequently.

Lastly, think about catchy ways to turn your attendees into brand ambassadors. A social share button after registration can work wonders. Especially if you phrase the CTA in a way that implies that attending is a badge of honor they should be proud of. Additionally, you can offer bulk discounts: refer us to a friend and you both get 20% off. Or register your entire team (a minimum of four people) and get a 30% discount.

Conclusion

Your first virtual summit can feel intimidating. This is why I recommend you build it block by block. Follow the framework above to create a solid foundation and then all the other pieces will fall into place.

The article was originally published here!

What Is Guest Blogging?

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Rodrigues) — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 11:08:00 +0000

Don’t worry if you don’t know a lot about it. If you’re just starting to look into guest blogging, this article will help. Below, we’ll cover fundamental topics, including:

What is guest blogging?
Why is guest blogging important?
What value does it bring to SEO?
What are the risks?
What are guest blogging best practices?
How can you get started with guest blogging?

What is guest blogging?

For both the blogger and the host brand, the goal of guest blogging is to:

Boost brand credibility
Build brand awareness
Create important connections with new readers and fellow brands
Compel readers to visit your website

Why is guest blogging important?

Guest blogging unlocks a long list of benefits for businesses of all kinds. Some of the most exciting advantages include the following.

Establishing your brand as an authority

Refreshing your blog

Providing thought leadership

To show off your impressive lineup of guest bloggers, use social media posting tools to get the word out.

What value does guest blogging bring to SEO?

The simple answer is that inviting guest bloggers can help you boost your search engine optimization over time.

Say Yes prefaces Victoria’s guest blogging appearance with a warm and functional introduction.

What are the risks?

It is important to be aware of the risks of shady guest blogging. However, it shouldn’t deter your brand from generating collaborative content with properly vetted fellow professionals.

What are guest blogging best practices?

Save your advertising tactics for Google Ads. Instead, think of ways to provide actionable content and make a meaningful connection with your readers. Best practices include the following.

Using an internal link

Including an author biography

Generating shareable content

Both the guest blogger and brand should post about the crossover event on your respective social media channels. Include a call to action for your followers to share the blog and vice versa!

The Q&A format of this guest blog is refreshing and provides ample opportunity to share the bloggers’ unique voices.

Monitoring feedback

How can you get started with guest blogging?

To find a good match, both parties should consider:

Are you a part of the same or complementary industries?
Does the brand or blogger have a positive SEO ranking?
Does the brand or blogger have a visible and active following on social media?
Does the brand or blogger you’re researching have an established blog or body of work?
What benefit can both parties gain from guest blogging?

Takeaways

Whether you are a blogger or brand looking to make use of guest blogging, chances are that you’ve poured an immense amount of time crafting your brand website and blog.

The article was originally published here!

How to Direct Your Efforts So Your Boss Will Care About Them

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Rodrigues) — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 11:08:00 +0000

Sometimes It’s About You

A significant part of your job is to help your boss look good — and even feel as comfortable as possible
Understanding your boss — having empathy and compassion for them — will make it easier to tolerate even eccentric requirements without getting caught up in them
Demonstrating that you are committed to “playing on your boss’s team” will help your boss be calmer and more open when dealing with you

Of course, you still have to be smart and competent about how you approach your job responsibilities.

Not-So-Impossible Bosses

Here are some examples I’ve seen of leaders who are prickly and peculiar — and ways that dedicated, savvy employees responded to make a go of the relationship even when it wasn’t easy.

Learn to Adapt

The article was originally published here!

5 Low-Budget Ways to Create More Backlinks

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Rodrigues) — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 11:08:00 +0000

Do you want to build backlinks without breaking the bank?

Boosting your domain authority by getting backlinks is an activity that you deliberately need to carry out.

It’s true that your primary focus should be on creating quality content to get picked up by search engines. But search engines use a number of factors to decide whether to rank a website or page for specific queries. One of these factors is domain authority.

Domain authority reflects how authoritative your website is for a specific topic. When a website is linked to by other websites, then it’s implied that the first site in this situation must be reliable and authoritative.

However, it’s not enough to just get backlinks from different sources. The quality of the backlinks matters too. For example, if you create a blog post that provides information about best gardening practices, getting backlinks from other websites in the same field is important. If a random website teaching people how to trade foreign exchange links to you, then that link will be of low value. Or worse, it may get you penalized by Google since it may think that you’re using unethical means to get more backlinks.

Building backlinks does not have to be an expensive activity. In this post, you’ll find affordable and effective ways to build your backlinks.

Join startup and entrepreneurial communities

There are many websites online that support entrepreneurs in different ways. Platforms like Entrepreneur and Young Entrepreneur Council help new business owners connect with each other. They provide access to resources and they also have the option for you to create informative guest posts.

You can submit posts between 500 and 1000 words and share your unique perspective and experience to help your peers.

: Joining YEC gives you and your brand exposure through top publications

These are websites with high domain ratings. You’ll get a link in your author biofield for your business website. And in this way, you’ll slowly but effectively build links from high domain authority websites to yours.

Remember that your goal should be to create helpful content for your business peers. And not to write promotional material around your own brand.

Add a useful tool to your website

This suggestion comes from a helpful post by renowned marketer Neil Patel. If you offer a unique and helpful tool on your website, then you have a surefire way to get other people to link to your website.

An example of a tool can be a calculator, a content analyzer, or anything that takes a complicated task and makes it easy and free for users to get the help they need.

There are many ways to build such a tool, but if you lack the technical skills to make one of your own you can buy one for a low price at a plugin marketplace.

To build a calculator, all you need is a form tool that has advanced features. Formidable Forms is just such a plugin that will help you build calculators for your WordPress website.

: Calculator templates you can use with Formidable Forms

Create an infographic

Infographics are images that represent complex data in an attractive manner. Well-made infographics are very interesting to people since they provide useful content. And they convert complex information into bite-sized facts and pictures.

An infographic is highly linkable. Adding one that’s useful to your audience won’t just lead to more traffic, it’ll also get you more backlinks.

The first step to creating an infographic is doing your research. Identify interesting topics and top questions in your field. Then start compiling information from various sources.

Work with a design tool to build your infographic. At this time, using colors that match your brand in your infographic will help make your brand more memorable.

You don’t have to just present factual data in an infographic, you can also create guides using the same format.

Add your infographic to your website and promote it actively. Make sure that you create a call to action asking people to share it. If it’s well made and helps people, you should see a number of backlinks to your post over time.

Create a statistics post

A statistics post is a blog post or an article that lists factual information around a topic. Building a statistics post is challenging but useful because you’ll give your audience critical information that’s backed by real research.

Once you’ve built a list of important statistical information, you have to then organize them for best effect. For example, here’s an image of a statistics post built around the use of forms on websites. It becomes clear that organizing and presenting statistics give people practical ideas on ways to improve their marketing efforts in different areas.

: A statistics post that’s highly linkable

Work with affordable tools

There are some amazing tools in the industry that provide you in-depth SEO insights that can radically boost your SEO.

However, just as they are great to work with, they are also extremely expensive for someone who’s starting small. But this doesn’t mean you either have to spend on expensive tools or never use SEO platforms at all.

There are several free and budget-friendly alternatives you can work with. Look for free SEO Tools online or use WordPress SEO Plugins that make the process of optimizing your website take place from within your dashboard itself.

Tools like AnswerThePublic, Google’s Ad Manager dashboard, SmallSEOTools, and more are excellent platforms you can use.

Some research and trials of SEO platforms for small businesses will help you get enough data to create relevant content and build traffic.

Over to you

The process of building backlinks is one that can take time and considerable effort. But seeing how improving your domain authority can grow your business, it’s an activity that merits attention.

In this post, I’ve shared a few ways small businesses and individuals can boost their backlinks in a completely ethical way.

Work on these different strategies and you’ll see a steady rise in backlinks. And make sure you use an SEO tool to help you track your business’s growth and progress.

The article was originally published here!

How to Remove a Google Penalty

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Rodrigues) — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 11:08:00 +0000

We look at what a Google penalty means for your website, the difference types you can get, why you might get one in the first place and how to remove a Google penalty.

What is a Google penalty?

Source

How do I get Google penalties?

Pure Spam penalties

Unnatural link penalties

By far the most common manual penalty handed out by Google is related to unnatural links and there are two key triggers for this:

Unnatural inbound links: Links from third-party locations pointing to your website that show obvious signs of being spammy or harmful.
Unnatural outbound links: Links on your website pointing to external domains considered spammy or harmful.

Thin & duplicate content penalties

Keyword stuffing & hidden text penalties

As soon as you start hiding content that’s not relevant to the query your page ranks for, you’re venturing into deceptive territory and you could get penalised for this.

Cloaking & deceptive redirects

Hacked site penalties

You can find the full list of manual action penalties, including the 12 new violations Google introduced for Google News and Discover on this Search Console Help page.

How do I stop Google penalties?

A penalty isn’t telling you that your website could do with an upgrade; it says that you’re intentionally trying to deceive Google’s search engine and/or users.

Remove Google penalties

Identify & fix all relevant issues
Send a reconsideration request to Google
Put preventative measures in place to avoid further penalties

Step #1: Identify & fix all relevant issues

Open the Manual action report in Search Console.
Expand the manual action description and clarify that you understand the issues you need to fix.
Click the “Learn more” link for detailed information on the violations you’ve been penalised for.
Identify the issue on every relevant page – fixing the issue on some pages for a site-wide penalty will not earn a partial recovery.
Fix every issue you can identify.
Ensure that Google can access all affected pages to review your site.

Here are some examples of links you should remove:

Links you’ve paid for
Links from high-quality websites that aren’t relevant to your website
Links from sites/pages that aren’t relevant to the specific page they’re pointing to on your website
Links from low-quality websites

Step #2: Send a reconsideration request to Google

In your request, Google expects you to describe the issues you were penalised for, explain the steps you’ve taken to fix these issues and document the results of these steps.

Step #3: Put preventative measures in place to avoid future penalties

The article was originally published here!

The Impact of AI on B2B Payments

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Rodrigues) — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 11:08:00 +0000

The revolutionary movement of the digital payments landscape is well underway, with new entrants and technologies in the B2C and peer-to-peer lending (P2P) sphere evolving continuously. However, there has been one sphere where the rate of innovation hasn’t yet been reflected by other industries, specifically the B2B payments domain.

According to CB Insights, the B2B payments sector is set to become a $20 trillion business by the end of this year. A multitude of payment providers, including PayPal and various other Fintech startups, have already sought to reduce the burden and repetitive processes associated with B2B payments. But the decisive question here is why has it taken so long for B2B payments to make its way to the digital age.

“Today’s $3 trillion worldwide SMB credit gap is narrowing because the criteria to secure loans are changing, and increasingly, embracing alternative data sources.” – Ken So, Founder and CEO at Flowcast

B2B transactions include analog procedures, and obsolete technologies and are a major pressure point for small and medium businesses (SMEs), which account for 80% of total labor and processing expenditure in the U.S.A, while SMBs expend almost $2.7 trillion on accounts payable alone. In the midst of all this, the digital payment movement buoyed by machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) systems has begun revolutionizing processes by abolishing repetitive administrative tasks altogether, making legacy systems obsolete, and reducing a host of other inefficiencies.

AI-powered virtual assistants such as chatbots popularized by consumer technologies have now become a mainstay in B2B purchasing, aiding customers along the procurement complexities journey and simplifying B2B payments subsequently. Vendors are of the opinion that more such AI-enabled bots will help improve procurement efficiency, further assisting users in expediting processing efficiency and diminishing errors. These tools are part of more overarching initiatives to utilize AI to automate and ease sophisticated B2B processes.

The Evolution of AI and B2B Payments

Until a few years ago, payments included manual procedures and legacy systems, which was a big pressure point for SMEs. These difficulties can be reduced or rendered obsolete by AI-enabled solutions.

Today, AI is deeply entrenched in the payment environment. Traditional banking, lending, and financial institutions have boosted their active investment in AI and integrated it into their technological infrastructure. In fact, the rate at which it’s going, the global investment in AI by the Fintech market will reach USD 22.60 billion by 2025 at a CAGR of 23.37%.

Image Source: Juniper Research

A majority of these technological disruptions help processes such as transactions and/or detection of fraudulent activities. Alongside this, there is also greater attention to the evolving requirements of the consumers. So much so that chatbots operated by AI are increasingly emerging and becoming native to customer-oriented approaches.

Chatbots are simplifying and automating the dynamic B2B acquisition process. They significantly minimize the time spent producing invoices, seek out substitutes for customers, guarantee timely and correct compensation, and provide buyers with the right details.

These technologies are increasingly transforming the digital and offline transaction process dramatically, eventually resulting in increased conversion rates and enhanced protection. AI is expected to have a major influence on the whole industry by strengthening the following areas: operational performance, growth & innovation, and risk mitigation.

In our diverse regulatory, technical, and socio-economic environment, enhancing operating effectiveness is indeed one of the first areas where AI has produced numerous benefits. It can simplify routine, rule-based, labor-intensive activities to increase output quality, and free up resources.

Image Source: Horses for Sources

Indeed, the value of robotic process automation (RPA) is expected to reach $4.3 billion by 2022. This can be utilized to drive accounting efficiencies by information management to boost consolidation, the company’s cash flow, and the reliability of financial management.

In fact, the automation of accounts receivable and payable is now a popular use-case. Furthermore, according to a Paystream Advisors report, the greatest benefit experienced by organizations that adopted AI tools for their accounts receivable & payable was a significant decrease in paper invoice volume.

AI has now become non-invasive to the point where minimum convergence with current systems infrastructure is needed. This, in essence, boosts efficiency by doing away with the human efforts needed to boost labor-intensive activities. Other systems apart from accounting and finance have also been implemented, for example, in payroll and insurance, application management, and sales-related jobs.

There are several other use cases of AI where it can improve operating performance, such as enhancing the efficiency of procurement processes. One instance is contract management, where AI bots can be deployed to collect data and illustrate contract content.

This will facilitate the restructuring and re-negotiation of a large number of contracts, minimize possible conflicts, and improve the output. In more general terms, AI can also be used to boost the process improvement.

How Do AI Tools Simplify B2B Payments

AI, though in its nascent stages, is having an indelible effect on B2B payments. In the coming future, it will inevitably transform the way institutions of all sizes handle financial management. Smart chatbots will also be used to ease workflows, digitally connect systems and accounts, and allow everything from automatic record-keeping to new types of digital payments.

As time evolves, companies will depend heavily on digitalized processes that will enable them to concentrate on what counts as the most important to them: building their brand. Here, we will take a look at how AI can simplify B2B payments in the years to come.

1) Automating accounts payable

Most SMBs pay almost $16 – $22 to process invoices manually. However, Goldman Sachs says that businesses can reduce this down significantly to almost $6-$7 straightaway by automating accounts payable.

Automation helps companies to remove several unnecessary elements, dramatically reducing the time and expenses involved with processing and handling payments. Standardizing financial transactions with automation software also helps to minimize the risk of operator error and to control payments.

2) Improving access to credit

Apart from standardizing accounts payable, automation technology eases the process of receiving financing by SMBs. This comes as a huge relief for 81% of SMB invoices whose invoices are due for at least a month. Moreover, the average SMB, which has only 27 days of cash on hand, can simplify its cashflow a lot through automation.

AI-enabled credit scoring can evaluate businesses for far less than it would have had they done it manually. In addition, AI tools can abolish any bias and use contemporary as well as historically available data to make credit decisions where conventional financial information may be lacking.

3) Detecting and preventing fraud

Did you know that 58-68% of respondents in a CFO Insights report claimed that transaction security was the attribute of utmost concern when it came to a payments solution? Couple this with the concern that at least 78% of B2B businesses experience payment fraud, and it’s easy to see how AI can intervene to help resolve such security risks.

AI and ML are now not only driving fraud detection but also fraud prevention. Many fraud prevention tools already use AI to encrypt or safeguard client and supplier information. More sophisticated tools are now incorporating ML to help identify and assess potential risk factors and to discover any suspicious behavior or vulnerabilities that might otherwise go unnoticed by humans.

Signing Off

In summation, AI has made it possible for important players in the Fintech and payments ecosystem to easily bypass the risks associated with both their front and back-end processes. It can eradicate repetitive processes that curtail business development and let SMB(s) free up resources and money to focus on more relevant issues. This will consequently lead to increased investor confidence in B2B Fintech entities as the B2B payment area continues to grow and evolve.

The article was originally published here!

HubSpot’s CRM vs. Active Campaign: Which Is Best for Your Business?

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Rodrigues) — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 11:08:00 +0000

Choosing a customer relationship management (CRM) system is just like a fairytale, or at least that is how I am going to tell it. Also fairly warning now, there are Disney gifs ahead.

How, Who, and What Is a CRM?

But take warning: You don’t know what you don’t know, and like Snow White, you could end up biting into an apple that doesn’t have the resell value of an iMac.

So, let’s look at the two complete solution CRM platforms that I would trust with my treasured data.

HubSpot’s CRM Platform vs. Active Campaign: Who Is the Fairest of Them All?

But right now, we are sticking to the gold-crown topic of CRMs.

HubSpot: Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo

Budget is a real factor though, so don’t pull the sword out of the stone without checking out HubSpot’s pricing page.

ActiveCampaign: The Beauties and the Beasts

However, pricing is not bad. Check out their pricing page and take it into consideration.

Does the Glass Slipper Fit?

The article was originally published here!

State of SEO in 2021 [Infographic]

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Rodrigues) — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 11:08:00 +0000

Google is the top traffic referrer on the web. When you compare the “organic” opportunity on search as a marketing channel, it overshadows social media by leaps and bounds — estimates say it’s over 1000%. Indeed, data from 2017 revealed that there are almost 20x traffic opportunities in SEO compared with Google’s own PPC.

But for a few years now, Google also has started competing with organic listings. It’s increasing the amount of visibility of its own properties (YouTube, Google Maps, and the like) in SERPs. Further, in lieu of providing direct answers to searcher’s questions in the form of featured snippets, it not only takes away the precious first-page real estate — but it also results in “no clicks.”

Can you abandon SEO?

Nope, you can’t. Most online experiences still begin with a search. Thousands of your prospects are going to get on Google every day and research brands.

Here’s what might work for you in 2021 to find success with search engine optimization:

1. Creating relevant content: Google relentlessly cares about its users, so you should too. If you can satisfy the intent behind the queries you target in an article as quickly and efficiently as possible, then you’re more than halfway there. Most content created today — even by established brands — fails to satisfy the searcher. Be in the minority, and reap the rewards.

2. Focusing on user experience: Last year, Google announced a page experience update that will use metrics (called core web vitals) to measure the experience you’re providing to your site visitors. As it rolls out starting May 2021, expect websites using intrusive interstitials and popups, or not caring about their users to suffer.

Access the Core Web Vitals report from your Google Search Console to assess where you stand, and fix the issues plaguing your site.

3. Building backlinks: A mention from another website for one of your pages counts a “vote” for you. Google’s algorithms have long relied on such links to rank websites, and they continue to play a huge role today.

If you feel confused about building links, consider conducting original research or writing opinionated articles on your industry’s important subjects. Typically these are clubbed under thought leadership content. When you distribute these well in niche communities, it could lead to a slew of mentions because people genuinely found your ideas insightful.

And now, here are the other key SEO stats you need to know for framing a solid SEO strategy in an infographic:

Designed By: Graphic Rhythm

Infographic Source: Elite Content Marketer

The article was originally published here!

How to Organize a Virtual Summit for Your Company from Scratch

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Rodrigues) — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 11:08:00 +0000

Affordable planning doesn’t make a virtual summit successful, though. Only 53% of event professionals consider themselves savvy with virtual event technology.

Luckily, organizing a virtual summit from scratch is a skill that can be mastered. And you may even be able to score heavyweights like Rand Fishkin or Nathan Latka as your speaker. How? Read on!

Here are the seven pillars of successful online events:

: Alexandra_Koch / Pixabay

#1 Setting Goals for Your Virtual Summit

The first pillar of any successful endeavor is goal setting. If you don’t have clear, measurable goals, then how can you learn if the event was successful or not?

Start with the primary goal. Do you want your summit to:

Generate leads?
Establish you/your company as a thought leader in your field?
Help you build lasting partnerships?
Generate ticket sales?

So, focus on what or two major goals and build your summit around them.

To make it easier to evaluate your success after the summit, add some quantifiable/measurable KPIs:

Number of attendees (paid/free)
Number of speakers
Total leads generated
Total leads converted

#2 Should You Opt for a Live Summit or for a Pre-Recorded One?

This is one of the biggest dilemmas virtual summit organizers have. There is no one-size-fits-all and both options have their pros and cons. Let’s take a quick look at them.

On the other hand, live summits can be nerve-wracking. Even more, during a live event, technical glitches are harder to solve and they can dramatically impact user experience.

However, a pre-recorded virtual summit doesn’t allow the organizing party to connect with the speakers on a deeper level. All of these speakers may be your potential partners in the near future.

#3 Should Your Summit Be Free or Paid?

On the other hand, a paid virtual summit will naturally have fewer people to register and, thus, fewer leads. If generating leads is a primary goal for you, you may consider the free option.

#4 How to Find Speakers for Your Virtual Summit?

You can mention:

The lead generation potential (which means that you will share your lead list with them)
Your advertising budget that will put their face in front of a lot of people
A speaking fee (some summit organizers pay the speakers, while others do the opposite: charge a fee for everyone who wants to get in front of the event’s audience)

So, here’s how I got Rand Fishkin to agree to speak at the summit for free. Are you ready? Here it goes…

I asked.

Got the final list of speakers? Excellent! It’s now time to agree on topics for each presentation and make sure that no two speakers choose the very same topic.

Equally important, it’s time to leverage your speakers’ audience. Get them to promote the summit — it will be beneficial for them, too, to have a bigger audience!

#5 How to Choose a Platform for Your Virtual Summit

Some of the most popular virtual summit platforms are:

Zoom is ideal for pre-recorded summits. You can use the free version or upgrade to the paid one so you can record in HD format.
HeySummit is super-easy to use and it comes with a major benefit: integrated landing page builder. You can use it for both pre-recorded and live summits and it also comes with useful features like self-service speaker dashboards and detailed event analytics. Important point: if you want to hold a live summit, you have to integrate HeySummit with Zoom.
AirMeet is great for live summits. It has user-friendly features like “raise hand” (allows the attendees to ask questions), polls, public and private chats, emoji reactions, and many others.

You can always mix and match. For SaaS Growth Summit, I used both AirMeet and HeySummit, since AirMeet doesn’t have a landing page builder of its own.

#6 Meet, Greet, and Delight Your Attendees

#7 How to Promote Your Virtual Summit

This is a somewhat sensitive topic because most people think you need a huge budget to promote a summit. In my experience, less is more when it comes to advertising.

Of course, you want to reach as many people as possible. But the one thing that helps with keeping your budget under control and with increasing your conversion rate is zeroing in on your audience.

Build a detailed ideal persona:

Who is your ideal attendee?
What is their job title?
What are their pain points that the summit can solve?
Where do they hang out online?
What media do they trust (communities, blogs, influencers)?

Conclusion

The article was originally published here!

Essential Security Guide For Your Email Marketing Campaign

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Rodrigues) — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 11:08:00 +0000

76% of the consumers today buy products and services online because of the email marketing campaign. This inexpensive tool is efficient enough to drive significant ROI as it increases the chances of customer retention and generates great leads and conversions.

80% of marketers today believe that emails are among the best internet services that offer the most value for money.

However, there is no doubt how great this channel is, but ensuring your brand and customers’ safety from cybercrimes should be your fundamental concern. If you fail to provide security to your customers, your campaign and product are all on the wane.

With the rise of cybercrimes, it has become essential for email marketers to have a good email security guide to combat possible scams and cyber-attacks.

Some Typical Threats In Email Marketing

These typical cyber-attacks are a significant danger your marketing efforts are prone to, as they drastically affect your ROI.

1. Scams

Email scams are one of the worst nightmares of marketers and email users, and the frequent rise of innovative and shrewder scamming schemes are not in the mood to slow anytime soon.

This attack results in hacked emails and recipients losing their trust and no longer believing the seller again. To fight this, make sure your marketing email has an original name and is as relevant as possible.

2. Malware

Malware includes different type of sources for software damages or system disturbances such as manipulations with clipboard, viruses, adware, spyware, Trojan horses, etc. It is the terrible news no marketer wish to listen to ever.

Malware may include an innocent link that can disrupt your entire email marketing campaign and fetch your customer data that won’t be easy to rectify.

So. Be vigilant and ready to take precautions against it.

3. Spoofing

Spoofs are the forgeries of emails that appear to have come from a company rather than a cybercriminal. Most of the time, these criminals create replicated emails of an existing brand but are not limited. They even go far by generating an identical copy of landing pages that the brand uses.

4. Phishing

Phishing attacks hit the companies and their customers hard. The recipients become victims of these social engineering attacks, and attackers easily steal customers’ personal and financial information. Once hijacked, they can significantly penetrate your business and make it vulnerable.

Essential Guide To Secure Your Marketing Emails

You are never too late to take your email security guide seriously. This list of some essential guidelines is something you need to implement right now to protect your company and clients from the cyber-attacks that derive from email.

a) Use Firewall And Other Quality Email Tools

Quality security tools help you manage data, protect your email from cyber threats, manage passwords and encrypt emails.

The use of email security gateways has drastically risen during the covid lockdown due to the increased cyber-attacks. Marketers are employing various free tools since the start of the pandemic. Such as firewall. Email firewall protects your inbox from cyber threats and enables you to filter out the emails that have attached malware and other knotty constituents in them.

These cybersecurity tools can be categorized into different types, some of them excluding firewall includes:

Network security monitoring tools
Penetration testing
Packet sniffers
Network defense wireless-tools
Web vulnerability scanning tools

b) Encrypt Marketing Email

Emails that are used for email marketing campaign include sensitive customer data that makes them vulnerable if accessed by the wrong hands. Therefore, you have to be extra cautious to secure these emails, so they’re illegible to anybody other than the intended recipients.

For this, it’s essential to have encryption on all the emails between you and your customers. Popular ISPs like Gmail, yahoo and outlook don’t offer end-to-end email encryption; therefore, make sure you use the proper method to encrypt your marketing emails so the private data is not vulnerable to anyone anymore.

c) Educate Consumers

Educating your customers about cyber-attacks not only serve them but benefits your email marketing campaign as well. You can tackle these scams because you know the risks present in online life, but what about your customers?

It has become essential to educate consumers about cybersecurity threats that they can come across anytime. Aware them of the cyber scams and security attacks and tell them the measures to prevent them. You can warn them about clicking innocent-looking links and other attachments from unfamiliar sources.

The best way is to educate them via emails, blog posts, adding disclaimers, FAQs etc.

d) Invest In Right Email Security Software

Maintaining your email marketing campaign’s security should be your foremost priority and needs to begin at the very initial levels. If you are using the ISP that is prone to hackings and other exposures, then it’s high time for you to invest in the right software; otherwise, you’ll risk your company and customers’ security.

Since having gatekeeping software is no longer an option in this remote working era but necessary, finding reliable email protection software isn’t easy. You should be very watchful while choosing the right one because many who claim to be best are alleged with security pitfalls and sell your data on the dark web.

Some of the trustworthy email protection software we know includes:

Perch security
Trustifi
Avanan cloud security platform
AVG internet security business edition

e) Never Access Emails From Public Wi-Fi

Public Wi-Fi networks are the most conventional place for hackers to haunt and target attacks. On the one hand, it seems convenient; on the other hand, it puts you at great risk.

Public Wi-Fi is the favorite playground for hackers to steal your personal information. If you plan not to become a victim, this is the most common threat you need to know to stay safe online and protect your and your customer’s information.

Man-in-the-middle attack:

This technical term refers to an attack when you use open end connections, and a third party interrupts. So, instead of being shared between the server and customer, the link gets broken in between and the hacker can peak into your company credit score, consumer data or present their own version of a site. It is one of the worst risks of public Wi-Fi.

So, whenever you’re out, try not to use the public Wi-Fi or at least don’t use it for your email marketing, online banking, etc.

Global Impact Of Email Fraud

76% of the companies have experienced some cyber-attacks. It upsurges the risks for unaware users to download questionable credentials.

According to reports, the average user gets 17-18 malicious emails a month, making it 204-216 junk emails annually with potential destruction. And nearly 85% of all emails are spam.

Email frauds are costing businesses billions of dollars in obstructed productivity, security fissures, reputational damage and other notable issues.

You can simply utilize apps to grow your business. There are numerous security apps that can help your business from frauds.

Business disruption is yet another significant impact of email frauds. No matter how petite or large they are, they directly result in reputational damage that means disrupted business.

It can paralyze your company by breaching away your private data and assets; customers may not return to the company. Staff might also not continue their work which means an increase in unemployment.

If the company can recover in the following hours, it will be good for them. If not, they might not be able to restore their operations in the coming days, which mean a massive loss of money and data.

The article was originally published here!

5 Low-Budget Ways to Create More Backlinks

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Rodrigues) — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 11:08:00 +0000

Do you want to build backlinks without breaking the bank?

Boosting your domain authority by getting backlinks is an activity that you deliberately need to carry out.

Building backlinks does not have to be an expensive activity. In this post, you’ll find affordable and effective ways to build your backlinks.

Join startup and entrepreneurial communities

You can submit posts between 500 and 1000 words and share your unique perspective and experience to help your peers.

: Joining YEC gives you and your brand exposure through top publications

Remember that your goal should be to create helpful content for your business peers. And not to write promotional material around your own brand.

Add a useful tool to your website

An example of a tool can be a calculator, a content analyzer, or anything that takes a complicated task and makes it easy and free for users to get the help they need.

There are many ways to build such a tool, but if you lack the technical skills to make one of your own you can buy one for a low price at a plugin marketplace.

To build a calculator, all you need is a form tool that has advanced features. Formidable Forms is just such a plugin that will help you build calculators for your WordPress website.

: Calculator templates you can use with Formidable Forms

Create an infographic

An infographic is highly linkable. Adding one that’s useful to your audience won’t just lead to more traffic, it’ll also get you more backlinks.

The first step to creating an infographic is doing your research. Identify interesting topics and top questions in your field. Then start compiling information from various sources.

Work with a design tool to build your infographic. At this time, using colors that match your brand in your infographic will help make your brand more memorable.

You don’t have to just present factual data in an infographic, you can also create guides using the same format.

Create a statistics post

: A statistics post that’s highly linkable

Work with affordable tools

There are some amazing tools in the industry that provide you in-depth SEO insights that can radically boost your SEO.

Tools like AnswerThePublic, Google’s Ad Manager dashboard, SmallSEOTools, and more are excellent platforms you can use.

Some research and trials of SEO platforms for small businesses will help you get enough data to create relevant content and build traffic.

Over to you

The process of building backlinks is one that can take time and considerable effort. But seeing how improving your domain authority can grow your business, it’s an activity that merits attention.

In this post, I’ve shared a few ways small businesses and individuals can boost their backlinks in a completely ethical way.

Work on these different strategies and you’ll see a steady rise in backlinks. And make sure you use an SEO tool to help you track your business’s growth and progress.

The article was originally published here!

Can Email Be the ‘Brain’ of Your Business?

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Rodrigues) — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 11:08:00 +0000

Over the past year, eCommerce has boomed. According to Shopify, the eCommerce industry grew the equivalent of 10 years in just 3 months. While that’s huge growth, the question is ‘Can it continue?’.

The answer is yes, but only if you use a ‘brain’.

For us, the brain of an eCommerce business is not about the IQ of the owner – its actually about email. Yes, Email. Over the past few years, email marketing has had a resurgence in popularity, with rising cost of paid advertising and the ever-changing landscape and ‘ethical issues’ over some of the major companies that provide platforms for us as businesses. During this time, companies like Klaviyo have pushed email beyond just being a way to deliver an automated message – email can now be treated like a ‘nucleus’ for all eCommerce brand marketing. Here’s how.

1. Start with email

While there are a number of Email Service Providers (ESP) available to eCommerce merchants, Klaviyo has grown significantly in this space over the past few years. Klaviyo are ESP that allows you to collect, use and segment data obtained from your email list sign-ups, but importantly from other apps you use on your Shopify store too. While we’ll look at this later, the key first step is to make sure you have your core email flows setup. Here’s a breakdown of what you’ll need to use the ‘Email Marketing Nucleus’ approach to marketing:

Welcome Flow

This flow has the objective to:

Welcome your new subscriber
Get subscribers to complete a quiz or lead generation activity
Get subscribers to purchase after completing the quiz or lead generation activity

This Flow is important when sent promptly after your subscriber signs up. Subscribing to a mailing list indicates high interest and sending at this peak time helps build a relationship with the Subscriber as well as creating the opportunity to guide them towards a purchase.

Post Purchase Followup (Thank you Flow)

This flow has the objectives to:

Build a relationship with the customer
Create user-generated content by gathering reviews
Guide them to a repeat purchase

This Flow is important because the Subscriber is now your customer, therefore the messaging used changes. This Flow can be segmented by how many orders have been placed so that you can focus on gaining a repeat purchase from your one time customer and reviews from your other customers.

Browse Abandonment

This flow has the objectives to:

Guide Subscribers to purchase at their peak interest point
Educate the subscriber of the benefits of your product
Create a personalised online shopping experience

This Flow is important as it helps create a personalised experience for the Subscriber. Just like a sales assistant would approach you if you were browsing in a store, the Browse Abandonment Flow gives you the opportunity to approach your potential customers at the decision-making point of their customer journey.

Cart Abandonment

This flow has the objectives to:

Recover an abandoned cart
Guide them to purchase at a peak interest point
Increase revenue

This Flow is important as it’s a main retargeting channel in Klaviyo. Recovering abandoned carts can have high conversion rates as Subscribers have already shown interest. Segmenting Flows but behaviour allows incentives and messaging to be changed for a personalised experience.

Customer Winback

This flow has the objectives to:

To re-engage subscribers
To segment subscribers based on their behaviour
To find out additional information

This Flow is important as it creates a final opportunity to re-engage subscribers. By using a highly targeted segment, subscribers are guided to either making a purchase or to select a marketing preference. Winback Flows also improve deliverability as you can reduce Unsubscribe and Spam Rate through manual suppressions.

Prospect Conversions

This Flow is designed to engage with new subscribers who haven’t purchased and any subscriber who hasn’t purchased, with the goal of building trust that will encourage them to shop with you.

Sunset Unengaged Subscribers

This Flow helps automated the list cleansing process and is triggered if the Customer Winback Flow isn’t effective.

Once you’ve got these baseline flows created, it’s now time to evaluate your tech stack.

2. Evaluate your tech stack

If you’re a Shopify merchant, it’s likely you’re using a number of apps from the Shopify app store on your site. If you head over to the ‘Apps’ section of your Shopify Admin, you’ll be able to check out each of the apps you’re using right now. With your list in front of you, evaluate each app using these questions:

What direct revenue has been attributed to this app in the past 6 months? Each app may show you the attribution or you may have to make a call on this.
How much time or money has that app saved you in the past 6 months?
Which of your apps integrate with Klaviyo? You should be able to find that out here.

In order to adopt the ‘Klaviyo Nucleus’ approach to marketing, you’ll need to ensure that

Each of your apps that result in communication with your customer integrates with Klaviyo
The net return of each app is positive to you.

At this point, you may have removed a number of apps – which is going to be great for your site speed – and bank balance. Most importantly, its now time to again assess you tech stack and see where the gaps might be in your stack.

3. Plug the gaps in the tech stack

Ultimately, the goal for any Shopify brand is to develop long-lasting relationships with customers to maximise long-term revenue. But how do we do that? By making sure that the ‘relationship’ your customer has with you is a smooth and enjoyable as possible. To be able to address this, its now time to map out your customer journey and see where things may not be as smooth as they could be. So, some of the common ‘issues’ you might find are:

When a customer subscribes to our email list, the style of email they get is designed and on-brand. When they purchase, they are not.
You have a loyalty program that customers sign-up for, but they can’t easily find how many points they have and are not using them.

The aim here is to find out as many ‘bumps’ and ‘issues’ you have and see how you can smooth these out with either new apps or integrations between Klaviyo and your existing apps. So for example, with the issues outlined above

Issue: When a customer subscribes to our email list, the style of email they get is designed and on-brand. When they purchase, they are not.

Fix: Use the Klaviyo integration with Shopify notifications to send them via Klaviyo so that all notifications like ‘Shipping confirmation’ are on-brand.

Issue: You have a loyalty program that customers sign-up for, but they can’t easily find how many points they have and are not using them.

Fix: Use the Klaviyo integration with LoyaltyLion so that each email sent via Klaviyo includes a pre-header bar that displays the current points balance e.g. ‘You currently have 1000 points to spend. Shop Now.’

Now that you’ve plugged the gaps with the right apps, its now time to setup the integrations

4. Setup your app integrations with Klaviyo

While the prospect of integrating you apps with Klaviyo might feel daunting, there is a lot of help out there from Klaviyo and the apps that integrate. The key thing here is to take each integration at a time and ensure that the integrations:

Smooth out the customer issue you were trying to resolve
Are keeping you on-brand with your communication.

How to start your road to having your email as your brain

While there’s a lot of information available about integrations, we’ve found that there isn’t necessarily one place with a structured guide for different types of brands. To help with this, we’ve put together a comprehensive guide on how best to integrate your tech stack with email. You’ll find a range of different ideas and ways to integrate.

The article was originally published here!

The Impact of AI on B2B Payments

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Rodrigues) — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 11:08:00 +0000

The Evolution of AI and B2B Payments

Until a few years ago, payments included manual procedures and legacy systems, which was a big pressure point for SMEs. These difficulties can be reduced or rendered obsolete by AI-enabled solutions.

Image Source: Juniper Research

Image Source: Horses for Sources

How Do AI Tools Simplify B2B Payments

1) Automating accounts payable

2) Improving access to credit

3) Detecting and preventing fraud

Signing Off

The article was originally published here!

How to Gain Real Followers on Instagram (Without Paying or Cheating)

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Rodrigues) — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 11:08:00 +0000

If you want to grow your brand, generate more leads, and attract more sales with Instagram, you need engaged followers. But scoring thousands of Instagram followers isn’t as easy as the Kardashians and Hadids make it look.

What’s more, buying followers or using bots to boost your likes and comments no longer flies. While your stats may spike short-term, you’re not going to get the ROI you need to make Instagram worthwhile.

You need followers – real, genuine followers – that care about your brand. Their values align with your values, and your solutions solve their problems.

Ready to make it happen? First, you need to understand the why.

Why do users follow an Instagram account?

It’s a loaded question, and there is no one right answer. Your why will depend on several factors: the niche you serve, the audience you’re targeting, and how you plan to provide value. Let’s take a closer look at each.

Know your niche

A local solicitor isn’t targeting the same people or curating the same content as a tech startup, beauty influencer, or fashion label.

The niche you serve will inform every facet of your Instagram strategy – from the people you follow and hashtags you use to the content you create and times of day you post.

Check out other successful businesses operating in the same niche as your own. These don’t have to be direct competitors – if you run a local painting business on the Central Coast, there’s value to be gained by examining the profiles of popular interior designers and home renovators around the world.

Know your audience

You cannot produce follow-worthy content and grow an engaged Instagram fanbase without first understanding who your target audience is. Consider these factors:

• Demographics – where do they live, who do they work for, and how old are they?

• Pain points – what problem do they need to be solved?

• Values – what motivates them to trust and purchase from a brand?

• Interests – what kinds of accounts are they already following?

• Behaviour – when, how, and why do they use Instagram?

Building a three-dimensional persona of your target audience will help you create and curate content that appeals to the right Instagram users. Plus, you’ll need a robust persona to action several tips in this guide.

Know your value proposition

Instagram users don’t want to be sold to. They want value.

Your value proposition will likely fall into one of three categories:

1. Inspiration

Instagram is a visual platform, and that makes it an ideal vehicle for inspirational content – think hair styling before and afters, motivational quotes, aesthetically appealing interiors, and once-in-a-lifetime travel destinations.

Perfect for: Brands with an aspirational product or service serving niches like tourism, beauty, fashion, and wellness.

2. Education

There’s more depth to Instagram than initially meets the eye. With the right approach, you can tap into your expertise and deliver educational content that makes your brand’s profile worthy of followers. How-tos, product tutorials, and fun facts are all reasons for your target audience to stick around.

Perfect for: Brands that deliver professional services or specialty products, such as cookware manufacturers, house cleaners, and accountants.

3. Entertainment

While inspirational and educational posts and videos should also entertain, content for enjoyment’s sake has its place on Instagram, too. Consider publishing memes, interviews, product teasers, and behind-the-scenes tours.

Perfect for: All brands on Instagram, but especially those that don’t have a visual or tangible product or service.

Bringing it all together and defining your why

Your niche, audience, and value proposition are moving parts of the same machine. Clearly defining these three factors will help you understand why your page deserves a fraction of Instagram users’ limited attention.

But, there’s one more question to consider:

Once you’ve grown a solid foundation of followers, what do you want them to do?

You (hopefully) aren’t kick-starting an Instagram profile just for the sake of it. Maybe you want to sell more gluten-free cookies, secure more recommendations for your Airbnb, or help your garden maintenance team stay front-of-mind the next time your customers and prospects need their lawn mowed.

The trick is to align your Instagram strategy with real, revenue-driving business outcomes. This North Star will guide you as you experiment with the best and fastest way to grow on Instagram.

17 of the best ways to gain Instagram followers

Here’s how to gain followers on Instagram.

1. Create a brand voice and aesthetic

You already know the importance of consistent branding. But Instagram isn’t the place for shiny corporate logos. It’s a platform for connection and authenticity, an opportunity to humanise your brand and form a genuine relationship with your audience.

Think about how you’d like to position your brand on Instagram, keeping your audience and niche in mind. What kind of voice are you wanting to project? What story are you hoping to tell?

This voice will underpin every piece of content you publish, creating a linking thread that weaves your posts, Stories, Reels, and IGTV videos together.

Beyond voice, you’ll also want to maintain aesthetic consistency across your content. That means using a similar colour scheme, editing your images in the same ways (or using pre-sets), and, if you use text in your posts, keeping fonts the same.

How does all this help you grow your Instagram following? The effect is two-fold:

1. Branding consistency looks professional. It builds trust and credibility, and it demonstrates the legitimacy of your business.

2. Your voice and aesthetic theme differentiate your brand in your followers’ feeds. Users are bombarded with content, but thematic consistency helps your brand become instantly recognisable.

2. Post regularly

If you want to know how to gain followers on Instagram, here’s the secret: post regularly. And we don’t mean post three times a day for one month and then never again; we mean commit to a posting schedule you can maintain long-term.

Persistence pays off. According to an analysis of over 100,000 Instagram posts, daily posting grows Instagram followers four times faster than posting once per week.

Here’s why:

• Your followers hit the follow button for a reason – they want to see content from your brand.

• When you publish high-quality, optimised content, your followers interact with it.

• High engagement sends signals to Instagram’s algorithm.

• The algorithm opens your posts up to even more users – some of which are not following your brand.

• More exposure results in new followers.

Simple, right?

3. Post at the right times

Instagram may not show posts in chronological order in your users’ feeds, but when you hit publish (or schedule) still matters. Timing is a key factor in Instagram’s algorithm.

No two audiences are alike, and when you should post depends on your followers’ activities.

There are several ways to go about this:

• See what the research says. Head over to our Best Instagram Marketing Tips article and jump to Tip #22 for ideal times to post by industry.

• Check your analytics (you’ll need a business or creator account to do this – find out how to switch to a business profile on Instagram). Open Insights, tap “See All” next to “Your Audience,” and scroll right to the bottom. You’ll see the “Most Active Times” graph (screenshot above). Keep in mind, this information is only relevant if you already have followers that fall into your target audience.

• Use your common sense and experiment. Again, think about your target persona. What does their weekday look like? What does their weekend look like? How can you use their demographics to inform your posting schedule? Be sure to track your results.

4. Optimise your profile for search

Most copy in your Instagram profile isn’t searchable, but some parts are; your name and username are searchable. It’s crucial these two pieces of information directly relate to your brand, and in some cases, even your business’s location.

Your name can be anything you want, and you’ve got 30 characters to play with. You don’t want to stuff your name with keywords, but including your number one target phrase may prove helpful by increasing search discoverability.

If you run a bakery in Byron Bay, for example, you might want to include keywords “bakery” and “Byron” in your name.

Your username is the same as your Instagram handle. Ideally, keep it consistent with the usernames you use on other social platforms like Facebook and Twitter. If possible, make your username your brand name, ensuring anyone looking for your brand specifically can find it fast.

5. Use hashtags

Your Instagram profile and post captions may not be searchable, but hashtags absolutely are, making them an essential element of any follower growth strategy.

Here’s what you need to know about using hashtags:

Use relevant hashtags

One of the easiest ways to gain Instagram followers for free is to bolster your posts’ organic reach with relevant hashtags.

Every single piece of content you publish should include hashtags that reflect the post’s subject matter, potentially include your business’s location, and mirror what your audience is likely searching for.

The concept of search intent has long been a mainstay in SEO best practices. Put simply, search intent refers to the motivation behind a search query. For example, if someone types “best mascara” into Google, they want a review and comparison of different mascaras to determine which is worth buying. They don’t want a night out make-up routine with the phrase “best mascara” shoved in wherever possible.

If you want to use hashtags to win followers, use this theory to inform your hashtag choices. For example, don’t post a photo of your café’s Sunday brunch special and use #yoga just because it’s popular. People searching #yoga on Instagram aren’t going to follow your café.

Use the right number of hashtags

You can use up to 30 hashtags per post, but we wouldn’t recommend it. The sweet spot is around 11, but you can use more or less depending on your goals, target audience, and content.

Avoid spammy hashtags

Gaining followers on Instagram may be your goal, but there’s no need to tell the world about it. Avoid #followback, #like4like, and #followme like your reputation depends on it – because it kind of does.

Anyone searching those sorts of hashtags is looking to build their own following. They aren’t going to engage with your posts, and they certainly aren’t going to purchase your bespoke graphic design service – no matter how many fire emojis they comment.

6. Write a compelling bio

According to Instagram, two in three business profile visits come from non-followers. That means two-thirds of users that land on your profile are ripe for conversion.

The most effective tool in your arsenal? Your profile.

In 150 characters or less, your profile should tell visitors what you sell, where you’re located (if you are a local business), and what makes you different to your competitors. Make it short, punchy, and easy to digest.

Be sure to include a link to your website and appropriate contact buttons (email, phone, directions, and text).

7. Publish exceptional content

Obvious? Yes. Essential when learning how to grow your Instagram following fast? Absolutely.

If you don’t publish really good content on Instagram, you don’t give users any reason to follow you. It’s that simple.

Every single post you push out into the Insta-verse must be visually striking, engaging, and topped with a sense of authenticity. Plus, it should lean into your value proposition.

Excellent content compels profile visitors to hit the follow button, but that’s not all. Remember what we said in Tip #2? High-quality content with high levels of engagement is strengthened by Instagram’s algorithm with greater organic reach. More reach equals more followers.

Whichever way you slice it, your content has got to be good. You can follow every other tip in the guide to a T, but you won’t see results if your posts get lost in the crowd.

8. Craft captions that trigger engagement

Yep. It’s true that Instagram is a visual-centric platform. But if you want to know how to grow followers on Instagram, you’ve got to learn to craft captions that trigger all-important engagement.

Here are a couple of best practices to follow:

• It’s writing 101, but always put the most critical part of your message up-front. If your caption is over 125 characters long, users must tap “more” to see the rest. Those first 125 characters have to be good enough to inspire action.

• Use emojis sparingly to stand out and catch scrollers’ attention.

• Prompt engagement by asking your followers a question. We’ve said it before: engagement is key to unlocking broader reach and scoring new followers.

• Experiment with the length of your captions. Captions can be quite long – up to 2,200 characters. Give long-form storytelling a go and see if that resonates. Or trial super-short one-liners, even one-worders.

9. Tag your brand’s location

Location is another searchable element of Instagram. By tagging your brand’s location, you can reach audiences living in, interested in, or visiting your area.

To tag your location in a post, tap “Add location” on the same screen where you write your caption. Either enable location services or manually search your location. That’s it!

10. Target the Explore feed

As Instagram puts it, Explore (accessed by tapping the magnifying glass at the bottom of the app) is where “you can find photos and videos that you might like from accounts you don’t yet follow.” Incredibly, half of all Instagram accounts browse Explore every month.

You want your posts, Stories, Reels, and IGTV videos to land in your target audience’s Explore feed – that much is clear. How to get there is a little muddier, and there are no guarantees.

Here are three tips to improve your likelihood of scoring a coveted position in the Explore feed:

1. Post when your followers are active because Instagram rewards timeliness. Recency wins you more engagement, which is the first prerequisite for earning a spot on the Explore feed.

2. Browse the Explore feed yourself and pinpoint the similarities between high-performing videos and images.

3. Look at Instagram Insights to determine what kind of content best resonates with your audience. Maybe it’s carousels or long-form IGTV videos. Maybe your inspirational quote posts are bottom of the rung and ready to retire. Continuously optimise your content strategy to build engagement levels.

11. Follow others

Following relevant accounts is one of the fastest ways to grow on Instagram. When you hit follow, the user is notified, prompting them to check out your profile and follow back if they like what they see.

You can find relevant users to follow in several ways:

• Use your competitors as a guide. See who they follow by tapping on their following count on their profile. Don’t just spam follow everyone – vet each user for relevancy before committing.

• Target users that follow your competitors. You can view your competitors’ followers by tapping on their follower count on their profile. These users are already following an account similar to yours, so they may be more likely to follow back.

• Browse Instagram’s suggestions by navigating to your profile, tapping the burger menu in the top-right corner, and selecting “Discover.”

Before you follow thousands of unsuspecting users, remember to maintain a balance between the number of accounts you follow and the number of accounts that follow you. This ratio is essential for maintaining trust and legitimacy.

Finally, don’t follow an account, wait for them to follow you back, and then unfollow them instantly. That’s a pretty bad look, and it likely won’t help you in the long run.

12. Encourage users to tag your brand

Another way to get more eyes on your brand is to encourage other users to tag your account in their posts. Their audience can then see your brand name, and if they want to learn more, they can tap through to your profile.

Add a line prompting users to tag you on Instagram in your bio.

Here’s a great example from @Australia.

13. Partner with other brands

The right approach to a collaborative partnership on Instagram could help all brands involved win more followers, so don’t be afraid to make the first move.

To get started, consider brands you work with already. Maybe you own a florist, and when your clients ask for wedding cake recommendations, you always pass on the contact details of a particular baker in your local area. Or perhaps your hair salon is next door to a café that supplies your staff with their much-needed morning coffees. How can you capitalise on this relationship on Instagram?

One of the most common strategies is to run a joint competition, with a prize pack containing products and services from several companies. Each company then promotes the competition to their audience.

14. Leverage Instagram Stories

Every day, half a billion Instagram accounts publish and watch Stories. That’s not all – according to Instagram, one-third of Stories lead to a direct message. If you want to reach a broader audience, your brand must embrace this popular feature.

Just like posts, use hashtags and location features to increase your Stories’ organic exposure. Post when your target audience is most active, too. Remember, Stories can appear in the Explore feed.

15. Use IGTV

IGTV videos can be up to 60 minutes long, allowing you to create more in-depth, immersive video content. You can give a product tutorial, share behind-the-scenes exclusives, or interview a team member – the possibilities are limitless.

You can also start an IGTV series. If a user stumbles upon one instalment of your series and enjoys it, they are likely to hit follow.

Finally, it’s worth mentioning IGTV’s (quite literally) huge presence on the Explore feed. IGTV videos appear four times larger than photos.

16. Share your Instagram handle on other channels

If you want people to follow your Instagram page, you’ve got to make it easy for them. And one of the best ways to do that is to promote your Instagram handle on other channels.

Here are a few ideas to get you started:

• If you’ve already built up an engaged following on another social platform like Facebook or Twitter, ask your fans to follow you on Instagram, too. Don’t forget to share a link to your profile or your handle.

• You are probably already doing this, but make sure you have links to your social profiles on your website, typically in the footer. Double-check they work – one pesky typo could be costing you followers.

• Promote Instagram-specific events via your blog, email newsletter, and other social channels. If you’re running a competition on Instagram or starting a Live in 30 minutes, shout it from the rooftops.

If your Instagram profile is brand-new, aim to publish around 12 posts before sharing your account via other platforms.

17. Embed your Instagram posts

Are you an avid blogger? Fantastic. You can embed relevant Instagram posts directly into your blog articles, enhancing your content and gently promoting your account to your readers.

Embedded Instagram posts are clickable, making it quick and easy for a reader to click-through and (hopefully) follow.

To embed an Instagram post:

1. Visit your profile on your web browser (your URL is instagram.com/USERNAME).

2. Click on the post you’d like to embed, and then click the three dots in the top-right corner.

3. Select “Embed” and click “Copy Embed Code”.

4. Paste the code into the backend of your website.

You can embed any publicly viewable Instagram post – not just your own.

Now, it’s your turn

There is no one best way to gain Instagram followers. It’s about implementing several proven strategies, monitoring your results, tweaking, optimising, and following your target personas’ evolving expectations.

Building an engaged network of fans is not rocket science, but it does take time. Be patient and focus on quality, and you’ll soon find yourself surrounded by followers all too happy to tap like, comment, and buy.

The article was originally published here!

State of SEO in 2021 [Infographic]

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Rodrigues) — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 11:08:00 +0000

Can you abandon SEO?

Nope, you can’t. Most online experiences still begin with a search. Thousands of your prospects are going to get on Google every day and research brands.

Here’s what might work for you in 2021 to find success with search engine optimization:

Access the Core Web Vitals report from your Google Search Console to assess where you stand, and fix the issues plaguing your site.

And now, here are the other key SEO stats you need to know for framing a solid SEO strategy in an infographic:

Designed By: Graphic Rhythm

Infographic Source: Elite Content Marketer

The article was originally published here!

5 Benefits of Influencer Marketing For Your Business

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Rodrigues) — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 11:08:00 +0000

Influencer marketing is developing rapidly. More and more brands are redirecting their ad budgets to this channel. According to HypeAuditor, the size of the Instagram influencer marketing market in 2020 was more than $ 5 billion.

If you don’t already use influencers to promote your brand, then perhaps these five compelling benefits will convince you to pay attention to this promotion channel.

1. People block ads but watch influencer content on social media

Ad blockers are very common. Now, about a third of all users have some kind of ad-blocking technology helping to prevent online advertisements being presented to them.

However, ad block does not mean brands are unable to reach their target audience online but instead, has simply changed the way advertising is curated and has created its own evolution; influencer marketing.

People are happy to consume and respond to content from influencers. Using influencers to promote your product assures you that content will not be blocked and will be seen by your target audience. Of course, provided that you choose the right influencer.

2. Influencers produce relatively inexpensive content

It’s expensive to produce branded content. You need a photographer, a model, a location, it all costs a lot of money. At the same time, an influencer with a small subscription base will be happy to work with you for a small fee or in exchange for your product/service.

The influencer will independently produce the content, make a promo on its subscriber base.

Creator’s content tends to look more natural and authentic than branded content and gets more likes and comments on social media.

3. Influencers increase the level of trust in your product

People trust people and buy from people. The right creator has an impact on his audience. If your product suits the creator, then his recommendation will look natural and increase the level of trust in your product.

You will be able to repurpose and use the content that the influencer will create on your website, your social networks, which will also increase the level of trust.

People love it when a person, not a brand, talks about a product.

4. Influencers increase your social media presence

Increasing your follower count may not be the goal of your campaign, but it will be a welcome addition.

Your subscribers become part of your owned media. They are connected with you and you don’t have to pay extra money to deliver your content to them.

Over time, your followers can become loyal followers of your brand. When an influencer mentions your account, a new audience goes to you, and if they like your brand and your content, they stay with you.

5. Influencer marketing becomes a performance channel and you can predict its results

The time has passed when posting with an influencer was a pig in a poke. Brands gain experience in placement, and with experience comes numbers and an accurate understanding of what works and what doesn’t. You can calculate in advance the effect of placing your ad on an influencer’s feed. Taking account indicators as a basis, you can predict the number of likes, comments, reach of an influencer’s post. This allows you to more accurately plan budgets and campaign results.

Influencer marketing is growing, and influencer marketing budgets are increasing. As always, the winners will be those companies that learn to use the full power of influencers before others.

If you are still thinking about whether this channel is right for you, then it may be worth giving it a try, especially since the test input is not so large and a few thousand dollars may be enough for you to evaluate its effectiveness.

The article was originally published here!