The master keyword

Any amount of valuable information you provide on the web is useless without targeting the keywords that fit well with the requirement. Search engines provide results based on the popularity of the keyword and the authenticity of the website, the latter being the direct effect of the former. Make a list of all the keywords you are going to use and employ them as per the content you are planning to fabricate.

Making right use of the keyword

Placing the keywords in appropriate places also plays an important role in determining the effect it will have on the rankings of the website. Make sure to use the main keyword in the headline, so that it makes easier for the web spiders to track your content. This makes the whole difference between a general article and an SEO article. You provide your potential visitors with the phrase that they are actually looking for.

Write something worth a read

If it’s anyone who knows your business very well, it’s you yourself. So put that knowledge to use, by means of innovation. People appreciate anything that sounds fresh and effective, both at the same time. Don’t just rewrite a number of articles taken from some expert’s websites; rather focus on uniqueness and quality over quantity. If people find your content not only worth a read, but also worth sharing, then the ball is in your court.

Beef up the content

Short 200-300 words articles will do you no good. Search engines look for brief content that serves well to the viewers. Many of the popular posts that you will come across on web will have at least 500 words to its name. The idea is to give a detailed explanation on any subject you are trying to grip. This not only helps the readers, but also your website rankings.

Avoid too many graphics

Plain and simple form of writing is the best way to present the content. Too many graphics or pictorial presentations might not go down well with most of the visitors. They might close the link even before it opens. People want quick results; no one will wait for that lengthy bar graph to load. At most, you can use a picture or two, for a better explanation, but avoid using any GIFs or other fancy materials, as that would belittle the importance of main content. The emphasis should be on making the reading part attractive, rather than the visual appearance.

Good content comes with practice and experience, and once you get grip of the same, make sure to maintain the same level of intensity as you would have done for writing the first ever article for your website.

Website

All legitimate companies have to have a website. If you don’t have one, you’re going to find it very difficult to achieve success. People are going to look you up as soon as they hear about you. And they’re going to want to see a great website when they do. So take the time to work on the layout, content and design. Make sure it’s informative and interesting. The idea is to captivate people and draw them to the company. Never underestimate how important it is to have a great website.

Trade Shows

Get online and find out about any upcoming conventions or trade shows. These can prove invaluable in helping companies promote themselves. If you can get a spot at a trade show, you definitely should. Set up a stand and make sure it’s eye-catching. Tweet regular updates and interface with people. Basically just try to make the company come across in the best possible way.

Endorsements

You know, you don’t always have to use digital forms of marketing. There are plenty of things you can get done in other avenues. In fact, it’s useful to have a mixture of marketing techniques. You should look for ways to get endorsements for your business. It might be a good idea to try to get celebrities involved with this. Of course, you can again use the internet for this. Maybe try using social media to communicate with a celebrity. Try to get them on board to help you.

Social Media

When it comes to marketing techniques if you’re not using social media it’s pointless. This is such an influential form of business advertising. You need to create profiles and make sure you’re active on sites like Twitter. Use the sites to promote and plug your company. Make your presence felt and ensure people are aware of you. Try to keep up with current events. This will make you more modern and relevant to your audience.

SEO

Many people don’t realise just how vital search engine optimisation is. This is how you can determine where you rank in search engines. It’s a great way to drive business to your company and help you grow. You have many opportunities to make use of cost effective SEO. This will help you get the best content for the company. Don’t hesitate to bring in the experts if you feel like it’s necessary.

You need to remember just how important it is to market and promote your business. It’s the fundamental principle of corporate success. But it’s sometimes difficult to know what the ideal methods are. Too many people limit themselves to purely digital marketing. But you need to use a combination of ideas to get maximum effect.

However, as happens in any thriving industry, the good will always outweigh the bad.

By far, the most rewarding stories for me are the ones where I’m able to take a tough cookie of a customer, who seems impossible to please, and make them loyal to my virtual staffing firm, 24/7 Virtual Assistant, forever:

“Ruthless” Carl and Jessamyn

I always refer to my client Carl as “Ruthless”. This man doesn’t have a passive bone in his body and Isn’t remotely afraid to share his feelings when things don’t go– his way. He had come to me six weeks earlier, looking for a “superstar” virtual assistant to help to significantly streamline his hectic days for him.

Carl is an extremely successful day trader who works from home and doesn’t have space for an office assistant. He also sits on a board of angel investors and fills his nights meeting with cash-strapped entrepreneurs who’re looking for startup funds.

After 3 unsuccessful attempts to find an assistant via job boards, classifieds and another online staffing service that brought him more duds than studs, this guy had developed a mostly pessimistic viewpoint as to the quality of staff that could be found on the Internet. He came to me on the advice of another client of mine who told him that I had a knack for bringing entrepreneurs and virtual workers together successfully.

Let’s just say that I didn’t disappoint, but it wasn’t a marriage made in heaven just yet…

Carl needed a special kind of someone, who was able to be available online for up to 12 hours every day. The type of work required was pretty comprehensive. He needed someone who could be trusted and given access to all his professional email accounts for sorting, be able to adapt and use any kind of office and stock market software quickly, respond to and organize all his phone and online communications with his professional contacts, along with arranging dinners and entertainment for meetings he held.

He also needed a smart little firecracker who could quickly take a list of stocks he was interested in, do research to obtain historical data, and plug them into his stock tracking system for monitoring. He made it clear that mistakes in this situation could mean thousands in losses to him.

Carl needed a superstar…

Thanks to me, he found her.

Her name is Jessamyn: a very intelligent, multi-lingual virtual assistant out of Brazil, who could do anything Carl needed her to – and so much more. Jessamyn had put the feelers out to me a few weeks prior, asking if I had any clients who could use her unique skill set. She had a college degree in Business Administration, had coincidentally grown up as the child of a trader on the Bovespa Stock Exchange in Sao Paulo, and had a mind for numbers and data.

It took all of 3 days for Carl to warm up to her…

Day 1: On day one of the two working together, Carl actually called to complain: “She’s completely screwed everything up!” he yelled when I answered the phone. “I don’t know where anything is anymore! This probably isn’t going to work out, we’ll talk tomorrow.”

Day 2: After talking to Jessamyn, I learned that Carl didn’t have the best organizational skills with his data and that he’d told her “To get things cleaned up, pronto!” She assured me, with a lot of confidence, that things would work out. She had set up a cloud account where the two of them could better collaborate. Carl could upload and work on all his data and documents in the cloud, and she would be able to gain access to whatever he needed done instantly, instead of sending everything back and forth via email.

It appears that Carl was just a little change-averse and needed some time to get used to the new system she’d set up…

Day 3: Carl called me at 9am sharp: “This girl’s a genius!” he yelled into the phone. “I can’t believe how incredible the flow of the last two days has been. She’s literally freed up at least half my day now. I haven’t all this extra time in years now. Finally, I can focus on stocks instead of being my own personal secretary!”

Inside 3 days, Carl went from being a demoralized and disheartened that he’d never find an assistant who could mesh in with his rhythm.

The two still work together and I’ve gained in excess of 20 extra clients from Carl, who never hesitates to throw Jessamyn, or my staffing firm a plug when the right situation presents itself.

Often seen as something as a transition from shared web hosting to dedicated, virtual servers are more or less exactly what they sound like: A private server where you can host files, websites and programs, all on a cloud platform which emulates a physical computer.

To put that in much simpler terms: Practically anything you can do on a computer, you can do on a VPS. But why bother? Since shared plans are by far the cheapest web hosting options, and since dedicated servers give you an entire physical server to yourself, why compromise?

Here’s just four reasons why it might be a good idea to invest in a Virtual Private Server.

You’ve outgrown your shared hosting plan

Even if your original shared hosting plan promised you unlimited storage and bandwidth, you’ve probably learned the hard-way that when they say ‘unlimited,’ they don’t exactly mean it literally. In most cases, they mean within a certain ‘fair use,’ and if your website has grown to the point that you’ve exceeded that, it’s probably time to upgrade.

The only other option is continue to push your allocations to the limits, meaning slower loading speeds, less room to add new content, and, most critically of all, unhappy customers.

You could go all the way and dive right into a dedicated server, but what if you hit a certain cap and end up paying for far more than you need? With a VPS, you’ll have a lot more storage and bandwidth to play with whilst negating the need to pay the expensive fees for an entire server.

Test-run for buying a dedicated server

Still, there may be times when a dedicated server does seem like the right move for your business, though let’s face it, at first glance, they seem pretty complicated to set up. Given that you have complete control over your server, there may be a lot more involved than simply uploading a bunch of files as you would with shared hosting.

Opt for VPS to begin with, and you give things a test-run, familiarizing yourself with some of the more technical functions and really getting comfortable in knowing what you’re doing before making that big leap.

Plans for expansion

It might well be that you’re not quite there yet. Things seem to be ticking over just nicely on your shared hosting plan, but since you’ve got grand designs in mind, it might well pay to prepare for the future. You already know you want to take your website to the next level, and that shared account may cope for a little while longer, though eventually, you’ll be back to the first point on this list and needing to upgrade.

Getting your VPS ready in advance gives you a lot more scope to grow without encountering any problems en route.

More than just websites

Depending on the size of the server you buy, you’ll likely have a sizeable amount of space that you’re not using. This can be used for everything from a cheaper alternative to cloud hosting to testing new applications or systems, or even setting up an in-house communications platform for your business. You name it, if you could do it on your computer’s hard drive, you can do it on your VPS.

Create Content That Sells Without Selling

Image via Flickr by jseliger2

As traditional sales-based content becomes less effective, it creates a need for content that sells without selling. This could be a page telling the story of your company’s inspiration and creation rather than an impersonal About Us page. It could be a blog regularly updated with posts offering tutorials, top 10 lists, and industry commentary.

The concept of content that sells without selling might seem counterintuitive, but it makes sense in the modern marketplace. As Forbes’ Mike Myatt explained, “Creating or expanding business relationships is not about selling – it’s about establishing trust, rapport, and value creation without selling.”

Ensure Your Site’s Social Media Friendly

Many businesses treat their websites and social media channels as isolated entities, but you’ll make a bigger impact if you help all platforms work together to promote your online identity. When your website is social media friendly, you’ll encourage visitors to share it and increase its reach. Social media contact information also encourages modern consumers to communicate with your firm. A third of consumers prefer to contact brands via social media rather than the telephone, and that statistic’s likely to be much higher for the youth market.

Social media buttons make it really easy for visitors to share your site’s content and increase your social subscribers. Simply getting people clicking and thinking about whether or not they want to share your site’s content can significantly boost engagement.

Answer Your Customers’ Questions

Social media may be a popular way to communicate with customers, but that doesn’t mean you can afford to forget about the people who reach out via your website. It’s shocking to note that more than half of top companies ignore website leads. Engaging with your customers in this way can encourage them to engage with you.

If the customer’s question is particularly interesting or pertinent to your wider customer base, you might like to respond in a blog post, a vlog, or a podcast. This practice can encourage more people who hope for a response to engage with your business. Remember to contact the person who posed the question, too to ensure they don’t miss your response.

Quote Your Customers

Your customers are your biggest advocates, so make use of their endorsements and quote them. Seven out of 10 consumers trust the testimonials of people they don’t know, so quotes from customers can be a great way to close sales. Research also suggests quoted customers are more engaged with businesses, more likely to visit their sites regularly, and more likely to share information about these firms.

Engaging your audience creates traffic and converts customers. With these tips in mind, your website can be transformed from a mere digital presence into a true engagement tool.

Many bloggers try everything except the most basic, first-principal thing. If you want your blog to be successful, you start by creating high-quality, original content featuring a topic about which you are passionate. This is not rocket science. If you want people to read your writing, first, write well. Here is why content is king, or should be:

Content Is the Reason People Have the Internet in the First Place

Believe it or not, no one signed up for the Internet to view an advertiser’s attempt to sell them on the latest widget. That is just not why people log onto the Web. The only exception would be those rare instances where a person might specifically look for a particular ad to present as content. Apple ads routinely cross the ad/content barrier. Every time Apple releases a new TV ad, the ad, itself, becomes the subject and content of blog posts all around the net.

Many places in the U.S. have limited access to high-speed Internet service. Those out in the rurals are stuck with dial up, or an equally unsatisfactory option. The West Coast is a perfect example of this, as there are many people who live well beyond the city limits. They have to get a bit more creative with their solutions.

They have to rely on service providers that specialize in bringing high-speed Internet to those in rural areas and small communities, such as the Frontier Internet options in California. Search your local options for this type of service. There is usually at least one. The point being, those people have the hardest time getting a good connection. They didn’t go through all that trouble just to spend the bandwidth on page take-over ads. For them, it is all about the content.

Good Content Drives Traffic

Content can be a lot of things. It could be long-form writing, how-to videos, or cat photos. Content is whatever the stuff is people came to see in the first place. It might be a low airfare, or the best recipe for chicken soup. Whatever your content happens to be, it is the stuff that drives traffic to your sight by definition, as it is why people came to visit your site in the first place.

A great piece of content can drive traffic to your site indefinitely, as there are always people who haven’t seen it yet. But residual benefit is most reliable when you are using new content to drive repeat visitors. Those visitors will become more familiar with your site the more they visit. Pretty soon, they are scanning the sidebars to see what they might have missed. Consistency is the key. For consistent traffic, you need consistently good content.

Content Drives Everything Else

I get that you want to make money with your website. Even the most casual blogger starts thinking about how to turn it into a revenue stream at some point. Just understand that every business model you can come up with for your blog starts with great content. Great content is the driver, not the passenger.

While consistency is key, quality is far more important than quantity. Users do not mind reasonable advertising if they feel like they are getting something in return. What they are getting is your best content efforts. Perhaps the best reason content is king, is that the people who visit your site are worth it.

The changing face of business is moving digital. Digital services, digital customers, and digital marketing.

Physical marketing is still effective. With more and more people being connected to the web, you can reach a wider market online. If you have a global presence to utilise or wish to build one, working digitally to achieve, this goal will help.

The first thing to know when working on your digital marketing is placement. With web development, you have to be very careful and precise about where you are putting the individual pieces.

It is advised that you put user comfort first, however. If you want to keep users on the site, you cannot get in the way of letting them find the information they want. Make it user-friendly, and do not bombard users with information that is not relevant to them.

Subtlety is paramount when it comes to your digital marketing.

In your face online ads that block content are the primary reason ad blockers exist. Ad blockers are browser extensions that will disable your advertising.

You cannot control who does and does not have an ad blocker. There are ways to stop video content being played if the site detects an ad blocker, however.

Digital marketing extends beyond just the website. Emailing clients and consumers on a mailing list will keep them up to date with your current products and services.

While email is something of a disposable form of digital marketing akin to leafleting, it costs less and has a wider reach. With no physical leaflets to have designed and printed, your overhead is reduced.

Likewise, you do not have to pay people to hand out the leaflets either.

Photo credit

Search engine optimisation, otherwise known as SEO, is also utilised to market your services or product.

The internet is a very big place. As a result, it is quite hard to make yourself visible. Using SEO you can boost your place in search engine results.

SEO requires a volume of content to be effective. Creating it in-house can be costly. Outsourcing this work to companies or individuals like Oliver Wood is a cheaper alternative.

Another outsourcing opportunity would be your social media presence. Maintaining a social media presence is vital to staying relevant and in the public eye.

Using sites such as Twitter, Facebook, or Tumblr, you are connected closer than ever to your consumers.

While primarily a way of showing new products or services or offers, social networking can also be used to manage customer services.

If a customer speaks out about not having a good experience with your business, social media accounts can reach out as a first point of contact.

This saves them going through the initial robotic process of traditional customer services via a complaint.

In terms of damage limitation too, reaching out early through social media can put a stop to something. Otherwise it may have spiralled into a larger issue. It is all about communication.

Sponsoring digital content is a newer method of digital marketing. The advent of bespoke online content has supplanted television. With this, the sponsorship of YouTube channels and individuals has grown.

If you are trying to reach a young audience, you cannot ignore this.

Similarly, video advertising on Youtube now works how it does on television. You do not pay for a specific slot, but instead the frequency your advert will appear on different videos.

This is an expensive method of digital marketing. The global reach of it is worth it, however. If you have a global product or service, video advertising on streaming sites is key if you can afford it.

A lot of the principles of regular marketing will apply to digital marketing. Maintaining and protecting the brand is one.

Ensure that any content going out via social networking is properly vetted. It has to be on-message and unlikely to draw complaint.

Marketing does reward boldness, however. Successful advertising campaigns have a hook to them. Engaging the audience but informing them about what you do avoids dry and forgettable advertising.

A more uncommon method of digital marketing has a social media operative pose as a consumer. It is uncommon mainly because of unproven success and the shaky ethical ground it stands on.

If you are a particularly small business or are struggling to get the word out about a product, this might be for you.

It is important your product or services live up to the claims of the social media operative. Failure to do so many cause damage to the brand.

Do not oversell the product or the service. Be honest as much as possible while remaining promotional in nature.

The brand itself is something you’ll have to look at with digital advertising. If your business is just starting to get an online presence, a rebranding or brand refresh may be in order.

Doing this in conjunction with a marketing campaign could bring a lot of eyes to your business. The general rule is to reach as many people as you can. Even if over half of them never do business with you, the ones who do will be able to sustain you.

Digital advertising is already quite a wide field in terms of options. Knowing which is best for your business is up to you. A lot of methods are product and service dependant.

As the internet and computer usage expands, the capacity to advertise will grow with it. New forms of digital marketing are yet to grow past their infancy.

Image credit

Technology will continue to expand, and digital marketing will go with it. With the advent of wearable technologies and contactless transference of data, digital marketing is set to change again and go beyond the internet.

Digital marketing is on the rise. Ensuring that your business gets to grips with it immediately is very important. It doesn’t come neatly packaged in one form or another. It does however, have the ability to break the boundaries set by conventional physical marketing.

1. Think About What Your Audience Want

Not enough websites consider their audience. The customers you’re targeting should be the ones you’re catering for. Far too many businesses take a generic, bland approach to their website designs – they might look good, but they’re not specific to the business’s audience.

If your business targets business people, you don’t want a laid back, relaxed kind of website. And by the same measure, you don’t want a jargon-heavy, business-like website if you’re trying to engage with young customers. Most of this stuff is common sense, but plenty of business owners still manage to get it wrong.

2. Creative Content

Creating interesting content provides people with an extra reason to visit your website. This means it’s a great way of broadening your business’s appeal and reaching out to people who might not have otherwise visited your website. There are many forms your content can take, but make sure the content appeals to your target customers.

The two main types of content that businesses use to pull in new visitors are blog articles and video content. There is a third option if you’re feeling more adventurous, and that’s infographic content. The big appeal of infographics is the fact that they can be shared and spread so easily.

3. A Unique Style

Being unique is something that a lot of business owners aren’t very good at. They approach their websites from a practical angle. And being practical and functional is important, but making sure your website has an identity of its own is important too. You don’t want it to look like more of the same, so we recommend checking out Gavick.com for the best themes and templates on the web.

The first thing to do is design a logo and house style of your own. Your logo should be simple yet still let people know the name of your business and give them an idea of what you do. Then, put your logo on all your material and at the forefront of your website. You should also incorporate a couple of key colors into the overall web design too. This adds a level of consistency.

4. Focus on SEO

Making your website stand out from the crowd isn’t all about how your website looks though. SEO is a vital part of getting your website seen by people. After all, people can’t visit your website if they don’t even know it exists, can they? This is where SEO plays a big role for your business.

SEO, or search engine optimization, is the name given to the process of making your website rank higher on search engine results pages. To do this, you make sure your posts and pages are all fully optimized by making sure you use specific and relevant keywords. You have to think about what people put into a search engine when they’re looking for businesses like yours.

Put these ideas into action and you’ll stand out more in no time!

Our friends at 24/7 Virtual Assistant share the qualities a VA should have:

1. Head Nodders vs. Question Askers

Persistent header nodders have perfected their ability to nod their head in perfect harmony with you while you’re giving them instructions. Or, when sending email instructions, they don’t reply or give one-word replies like “on it boss”. Such a personality type rarely makes for a good VA, because they don’t feel the need to provide or receive feedback. They either think they know everything, can understand instructions perfectly – or downright don’t care whether things get done right the first time.

2. They Need to be Self-Managers

Obviously some projects are going to require you to be intimately involved with every little piece of the puzzle. That’s what cloud-based project management solutions are for. In order to build a massively profitable online marketing or service presence, you need people who can take instructions then adhere to your deadlines and follow up schedule without needing to be reminded. You won’t build a successful business hiring workers who expect you to hold their hand every step of the way.

3. They’re Accountable

Online VA’s are no different from offline employees. Some of them are stuck in teenager-mode and simply cannot accept that they’re responsible for getting things done and they’re responsible when a project or task isn’t up to spec. You can’t build a profitable business with workers who always have an excuse at the ready, especially the “blamers” who’re never at fault and hopelessly blamed for things that were “someone elses fault.”

4. They Don’t Mind Being Watched

In order to be successful managing a team of Virtual Assistants, you need to be able to track progress in real time, using a productivity app like Asana or Trello. This can be a problem with freelancers, who most often prefer to communicate strictly via email, and refuse to cooperate or have their time and work tracked. If you’re using a service who finds your VA’s for you, they’ll likely have their own project management dashboard setup for you to use, with employees who understand its importance to busy entrepreneurs and who won’t have a problem being monitored.

5. They Match Well With Your Style

You don’t need to be like two best friends from college. In fact, professionalism is key and your VA shouldn’t be your friend at all. However, they have to match up with your personality style and way of doing things, in order to make for a killer cohesive team. If you prefer minimal interruptions to your day, you can’t be working with VA’s who need constant attention. If you like to keep in touch hourly via Skype and they do not, well obviously it won’t be a work marriage made in heaven!

Their strengths and weaknesses also have to mesh with yours and other team members. The ideal team of VA’s will fill in all the gaps in your business, to make your online business a force to be reckoned with!

Photo credit: Phil Dowsing Creative

Use content marketing

Google doesn’t automatically find your website. It is your duty to make sure that links to your store can be found in strategic places all over the web, embedded into meaningful and relevant content. This will make it easier for your website to get indexed, and there are a few things you can do to achieve this.

• Post good articles with links back to your page on relevant websites, forums, and on social media.
• Add social sharing buttons to your store. This will make it easy for your visitors to share the content on your page with other people.
• Write great descriptions of the products in your ecommerce store. The descriptions should be at least 300 words long and really stand out.
• Do proper keyword research to make sure that keywords and themes used while searching for products are featured on your website.

Use Email Marketing

Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective ways to get your customers to keep coming back. When used properly, it can also be a great tool for building referrals.

As your customer base is still growing, you can continue to send your email marketing campaigns from your present email. However, as soon as the list grows beyond 50 people, you need to move to more professional email solutions.

Offer discounts to customers with every email; this will keep them coming back. You can also offer discounts to customers in exchange for referrals.

Testimonials also make good content for your email marketing needs. Customers should be able to see how people are benefitting from using your service, or what other people think about your business. This is a sure way to build your customer base.

Use PPC

If you have the resources, consider using pay-per-click. Although it can be costly, it’s a great way to generate qualified traffic very fast.

If the products you sell can be found online easily, you can start with Google Adwords. If your product targets a specific group or demographic, Facebook ads may be the best place to start. Don’t go all in with PPC though. You have to start with a low budget while testing and tweaking your advertising techniques as much as possible. Here is more on tweaking and testing while using PPC.

Invest in Social Media

There are billions of people in the social media sphere today. This makes it a great place to look to when marketing your goods and services. There are many social media platforms, but Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn are where you should focus. But don’t try to kick off your campaign on them all at once. To get started, focus on two sites and build a strong presence on each of them before you move forward with the others.