creative marketing solutions

4 Questions to Ask Yourself When Looking for Creative Marketing Solutions

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Imagine yourself coming home after a long day of work only to find your kitchen completely flooded. You run to the sink and quickly realize that you have no idea what the problem is. Time to call the plumber! Now, imagine that plumber shows up and the only thing in his tool bag is a screwdriver. You’d probably be pretty upset, right? That’s because you know that a screwdriver isn’t the right tool for a leaky pipe. Digital marketing is no different; without the right tool for the job you will not be able to accomplish your goals.

Choosing the right tool is essential for a company’s approach to creative marketing solutions. Without the right tools, you may overlook valuable information, miss out on new customers, or fail to recognize a new opportunity in your industry or business. So how do we choose the right tool for the job? Here are four things to consider when you ask yourself that question. 

1. What are my goals?

Goal creation is often the first step in any business decision. Why should choosing your tools be any different? Lets take a look at the plumber again. If his goal was to fix a pipe then he should have known that a screwdriver is not the best tool to achieve this goal. We know that a wrench is much more useful for this kind of problem. Obviously, we are not saying that screwdrivers are a useless tool. Our point is that different tools should be used for different tasks. If instead the goal were to install a door into a doorframe then a screwdriver would be the perfect tool to use. By laying out your goals, you are better able to decide which tool fits best.

2. Will these tools accomplish those goals?

Lets say the problem with the plumber wasn’t that he had one tool, but far too many! You watch him fix the sink, but feel frustrated as he wastes time digging into his bag, leaves tools all over your floor, and goes back and forth from your kitchen to his truck outside as he tries to find what he’s looking for. You feel upset because, though job gets done, the amount of time it took was much longer than what you were anticipating. The problem of having too many tools for a task is problematic in two ways.

First, having too many tools can make even simple tasks complicated. By having multiple software applications that have overlapping features, your employees may become overwhelmed with how much they are expected to understand. Software should be easy for your employees to learn, whether they’ve been with you for 20 years or 20 days. This will minimize the number of hours it takes to learn how to use the tools and maximize the number of hours they spend actually using them.

Second, any money that is used to buy tools for your company is money that could be used in areas that have a proven ROI. If you buy tools that are unneeded or overprice, you are essentially wasting money for your business. By buying tools only when you need them, you are ensuring that your company uses its resources efficiently.

By making sure you have the right number of tools you minimize your company’s spending and maximize its growth!

[Read About 8 Great Case Study Questions To Ask Yourself When Attracting Prospects]

3. How much is too much?

Do you know someone who has to have everything brand new? They buy the newest smartphone and the fastest computer only to play Angry Birds and browse the internet. If you’re anything like me, you probably get frustrated with this person. You might think to yourself, “why are you spending so much money when you don’t need to?” Some businesses are the same way. They spend too much money on the best software when they really don’t need to. We see the same two problems here as we did in the example above – unneeded upfront costs and wasted hours of employee training. Make sure the tools you’re considering will accomplish your goals, but won’t do more than you need them to. 

4. Do my tools work together?

One of the most frustrating things in business can be working on a team project. Maybe there is someone who works remotely and everything has to be accomplished online. For others, it may be that their available hours don’t mesh well with your schedule. Every company has a vested interest in minimizing the number of obstacles their employees encounter on a daily basis. By using software that integrates between users, a company is better able to track of the progress of their employees and employees are better able to focus on their work. GoogleDocs is a great example of integrated technology.

For many years, even just changing a text document could be very frustrating. One of the main ways people would update documents was through email. A frustrating experience when working with multiple people who make multiple revisions. Who’s changes do you go with? Did they change the most recent version of the document or do you need to backtrack to an earlier copy? Who’s revisions does your team ultimately to go with?

This was one of the main problems Google aimed to address with their release of GoogleDocs. By using GoogleDocs, we are now able to collaborate and make changes to the document in real time. Coworkers can track who made revisions to the document, at what time, and leave comments to one another. And the best part? No endless chain of emails filling your inbox! Finding the best software for your company may take time, but truly integrated technologies can make a significant difference to your everyday workload.

Creative marketing solutions can be complex, but they don’t have to be difficult. By optimizing the tools you and your company uses, you will find that working together will become much easier. Remember, you can’t fix a sink with a screwdriver. Go out and find the tools you need! If you’d like some advice on where to start, please follow the link below for more information

Search Engine Optimization Techniques

Inbound Marketing Benefits

Inbound Marketing Works. Politics Proves It.

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We can all agree that politics in America right now is messy. To be honest it’s beyond messy. That’s no secret. So I won’t be writing about how divided we are today, rather, I’m going to be discussing how inbound marketing benefits organizations that operate in the political realm.

So what does inbound marketing have to do with politics?

Absolutely everything.

Think about where most people get their news from today. Is it the “failing” New York Times? What about CNN? Fox News? No, the answer is social media: Facebook, Twitter, etc. For traditional news organizations, this is devastating. But for inbound marketing news websites? It’s a cash cow.

What’s inbound marketing news? We’ll get to that. First I want to talk about how social media works. I’ll keep it brief because I’m sure you already know. Social media tracks your interests through likes, shares, and retweets. Based on your interests, the social media service you’re using is more likely to put content in front of you that you will react to. It’s human nature to want to see the things you like.

Considering The Source

Okay, back to news. News isn’t supposed to be all good or all bad. News is, or rather should be, a collection of facts that are communicated to its audience regardless of their feelings and personal opinions. Good things happen, and bad things happen. Your favorite politician may betray you with certain legislation, or maybe someone you detest says something you agree with. These are hard realities to grapple with for anyone. But social media doesn’t want to give you difficult feelings to grapple with; it wants to make you happy. Always happy.

[Read About Creating A Brand To Become President]

So is Facebook going to let you see a CNN article about how the president isn’t living up to his promises to you? Of course not. But what if a website were to take the same information and deliver it in a way that makes you happy? That’s what inbound marketing news is. These websites make their fortunes by taking anything that happens in the world and delivering it in a nice, easy to digest fluff piece that puts its audience’s mind at ease.

Now, I’m not making a political statement with this article. I’m pointing out how inbound marketing works and I want to use the best example. For that reason I am going to focus on conservative media. Head on over to the “Being Conservative” Facebook page.

The Echo Chamber

First of all, this is one of the most followed political pages on Facebook right now with almost 3 million followers at the time this article is being written. Take a look at all the posts on this page. They are ALL from The DailyWire.com. Almost 3 million followers seeing multiple posts every single day from a single news source translates into an astounding amount of views for that website. This fact isn’t lost on advertisers who pay to have their products and companies advertised on the website. This alone generates an impressive amount of income for the website. The fact that The DailyWire also charges to remove ads creates another revenue stream for the company.

Once visitors click on a headline and are brought to the website they are shown other articles that may interest them based on the tags and keywords in the original article. While exploring The DailyWire, visitors increase the website’s SEO ranking and credibility with Google, meaning DailyWire articles are more likely to appear in search results. Now that The DailyWire has millions of daily visitors they can generate money by publishing books, scheduling speaking events, and a number of other things, all of which helps their SEO and Facebook following grow.

This level of online engagement should be the envy of every business owner hoping to grow their company. Think about this; in a time where print media and local newspapers are struggling to survive, The DailyWire has been growing steadily since its founding in 2015. Without inbound marketing benefits continuing to improve the company’s marketing efforts the website would probably find itself struggling to stay online. But with new and relevant content, active engagement on social media, and the support of millions of viewers, The DailyWire will most likely continue to defy the odds and succeed in today’s digital economy.

Inbound marketing will help you grow your business by attracting website visitors, converting them into leads and closing leads into customers

website optimization techniques

Essential Website Optimization Techniques To Increase Visitors

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Does it seem like the number of page views on your company website just won’t increase? A simple and efficient solution to this problem is to optimize the blogs on your website. Essentially, optimization means making your resources as efficient and accessible as possible. Even the best quality content that is posted regularly will not be read by internet users if you don’t use website optimization techniques. Stop wasting time waiting for users to come to you and cater to their needs instead. Website optimization is a part of attraction marketing.

Keywords are key

The strategic sharing of the blogs on your website is just as important as the content they contain. Optimization requires that you include keywords and long-tail keywords, or phrases, in your blog. Keywords are topics and phrases of significance that users type into the search engine when seeking solutions to their problems. For example, I might type the key words “best Chicago summer wines” into Google to find answers on the Internet.

Popularity contest

Another aspect of keywords is that they are widely searched, yet specific at the same time. For instance, the words “wine” or “best wines” would not be optimal keywords since they are too general. By contrast, “best Chicago summer wines” are much better long-tail keyword because they specific, including details like region and season.

In order to determine the popularity of certain keywords, check your website’s keyword analytics. If the visits are too high, you should write about something more specific. If the visits are too low, you may not decide not use that keyword. However, if you’re feeling determined, you can write content containing that keyword with hopes of boosting the page views associated with it. Another technique you can use to find popular keywords if by typing certain words into search engines such as Google or Yahoo and seeing how many results come up. Be sure to base your keyword searches off of your buyer personas and they language they might use.

[Read here to learn about essential website optimization techniques to increase visitors]

The more the merrier

As much as the presence of the keywords is important, so is the strategic placement of keywords in your content. If you insert too many uses of the keywords, you are likely to be flagged as spam. On the other hand, if you don’t insert enough keywords, users may have a harder time discovering your content through given search engines.

The two most crucial places to insert your keywords are in the page and post title. An example of a title for the keywords “best Chicago summer wines” could be “Top 5 Summer Wines to Buy in Chicago This Summer.” Other important places to put your keywords are the blog’s URL, image alt-text, headers, and external links in the article. I also encourage you to include 1-2 uses of long-tail keywords in the body of the blog post, but making sure they don’t seem forced. The key to the insertion of key words is to make them seem natural, because bombarding a reader with them will seem like a marketing ploy.

17 SEO MYTHS YOU SHOULD LEAVE BEHIND

case study questions

8 Great Case Study Questions To Ask Yourself When Attracting Prospects

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Case studies and customer testimonials are incredibly effective ways to convert leads into customers. They give leads a taste of how your company successfully worked with other clients. There are several important case study questions to ask yourself as you prepare to publish a compelling case study for potential clients.

Below are 8 case study questions you can ask yourself as well as those who worked on the project.

1. What compelled the client to seek out your services?

This is a great way to find out how the services of your company are resonating with potential clients. It allows you to gauge the effectiveness of your marketing message and how attractive it is to customers.

2. What initial challenges did you experience while working with the client, and how did you solve them?

Working with each client is a unique process. Reflecting on the challenges your company has faced with this client can provide unique insights and areas to improve upon when working with future clients. If your company is able to portray a good working relationship with its clients, the potential customer will know they can trust you to accommodate their future needs.

3. What process did you follow to develop and implement these services?

It’s vital to consider how your company implemented and catered your services specifically to the client’s needs. This insight can help you provide valuable details to potential clients when presenting the case study.

4. How did the client respond to your suggestions during the process?

Potential clients seek information about how the process is conducted and how your company will help them achieve their goals. You can use this opportunity to reflect upon your client’s responses to your feedback during the process and to adjust your working relationship with your potential customers accordingly.

5. How did your ability to provide these solutions improve during the process?

How was your company was able to grow the client’s business and improve it as a result of a particular project? Answering this question is a great way for your case study to communicate a message of continuous growth in your ability to provide services.

6. What were the results of the process?

Find out if your customer was able to achieve his/her goals as a result of the process. You can then present these end results in your case study.

7. How has the relationship with the client been since completion of the project?

Maintaining a strong business relationship with the customer even after provision of the service shows that your company takes customer satisfaction seriously and cares for the needs of its clients.

8. Did anything that you did not expect happen during the process?

This question seeks to uncover any unique interactions that your company had with the client. There may be experiences your staff gained that can be crucial when presenting your case study in a compelling manner to potential clients. Reflecting on unforeseen events can also improve the level of services your company provides.

Download Our White Paper Guide To Learn How To Perfect Buyer Personas For Your Business
social media strategies

Attract, Convert, and Close Prospects Using Social Media Strategies and Website Conversion Techniques

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LOMBARD, ILL., July 12, 2017– This September, Stevens & Tate Marketing will be emphatically represented at the one of the most respected associations of providers serving Illinois older adults, LeadingAge Illinois. Internet Marketing Director Nicole Wagner will be sharing her extensive online marketing expertise. LeadingAge 2017 is being held from September 26th to the 27th at The Hilton Lisle/Naperville in Lisle, Illinois.

At the show, Nicole will carry out a 90-minute presentation on how to attract, convert, and close prospects using social media strategies and website conversion techniques. According to the agency, the Internet has become a cornerstone of our marketing efforts, and although it is now easier to reach our audience, it may be harder to stand out from the crowd. How do we get the most out of our online marketing efforts? How do we make sure our social media platforms are as effective as possible? The session will help attendees determine their top marketing strategies in order to hit their top 2017 business goals.

Wagner will present essential strategies that will teach how to use social media to communicate with an audience on a more personal level, as well as optimizing a website in order to make it easier to find. Her educational sessions continue to be well received by all types of organizations because she emphasizes providing relevant and actionable takeaways that are targeted to each audience.

From Wagner’s presentation, attendees should be able to determine what their key marketing tactics are to achieve overall business goals, be able to create buyer personas of future residents and prospects, and understand the stages of the buyer’s journey and how to communicate to prospects through each stage. In addition, attendees will walk away with defined steps to improve their website and social media platform to meet their objectives. Nicole’s presentation is a great opportunity for LeadingAge members to learn proven techniques to improve their marketing performance.

LeadingAge Illinois is one of the largest and most respected associations of providers serving Illinois older adults, and the state chapter of the significant national organization. LeadingAge Illinois serves more than 500 providers including home and community based services (HCBS), senior housing, continuing care retirement communities (CCRC), assisted living, supportive living and skilled nursing/rehabilitation centers.

Stevens & Tate Marketing is a full service advertising agency specializing in meeting the ever-changing demands of today’s consumer. As experts in all areas of Internet Marketing, we know how to navigate through evolving trends and technologies in the online space today – and have decades of experience delivering results for businesses nationwide. Through our unique combination of strategic thinking, creative execution and targeted communications, we Make Things Happen.™

Nicole Wagner, Internet Marketing Director at Stevens & Tate Marketing (stevens-tate.com), leads an enthusiastic team in strategic planning, web development, social media and search engine marketing as well as Internet and mobile marketing. She can be reached directly by calling (630) 627-5200 or via email at [email protected].

Learn more about Stevens & Tate’s speaking experience.

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SUMMARY: Stevens & Tate Marketing Internet Marketing Director Nicole Wagner has been selected as a featured speaker for the LeadingAge Illinois 2017 Conference in Lisle, Illinois. As a repeat speaker for this prominent national event, Nicole will provide key insight into proven strategies on how to attract, convert, and close prospects using social media strategies and website conversion techniques.

 

social media marketing goals

How To Use ROI To Reach Your Social Media Marketing Goals

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Is the time and money you’re putting into your company’s social media marketing paying off? You might think you can only really guess as to the success of your social media accounts, but there are ways to measure how “worth it” your social media efforts really are. To accurately calculate your ROI, which stands for Return On Investment, you must take into account all resources. Measure efforts and interactions that go into your company’s attempts to reach their social media marketing goals. Return On Investment also helps when it comes to attraction marketing.

Resources

Resources include such factors as time, cost, and effort. In order to calculate how the total resources your company is funneling into your social media accounts, ask yourself the following questions: Approximately how many hours does your company spend working on social media per week? How much effort do your employees put into your social media accounts each week? How much money are you putting into each of your social media campaigns? Estimate the answers to these questions and put them in their own separate resource categories.

[Read our article about 8 tips on social media best practices for your business]

Values

Reach:

Now it’s time to calculate the value of your efforts in order to see how well your resources are paying off. The first factor you should take into account is reach, which is used to measure the size of your potential audience. Who are the people directly (and indirectly) in your social network? How many page views and click-throughs are you getting on your social media posts each week?

Engagement:

Next, to find your value, you need to consider is the engagement of your social media, or the number of interactions with your brand. For example, how many retweets are your company’s posts getting on Twitter each week? How many likes are your Instagram posts receiving? How many people are sharing your Facebook posts?

Audience Growth:

Finally, you must measure is your audience growth, or the number of new audience members that your social media accounts usually attract. Who follows you or is friends with you on your accounts, and by how much does this number increase each week? How many new visitors are visiting your website in a given week? How many visitors are subscribing to your email list? What is your lead-to-customer conversion rate?

Now you can calculate your Return on Investment by using this formula: ROI= (Value- Resources) / Resources.Is your ROI within the desired range, or does it fall short of the social media marketing goals you have for your company? Perhaps you should see which social media accounts are giving you the best results, and put concentrate your efforts towards these accounts. Maybe you need apply different strategies in order to ensure that your social media content is garnering enough attention. In conclusion, calculating our ROI will put you on the right track for improving your company’s social media presence.

social media marketing

Progressive Profiling

Using Progressive Profiling To Improve Your Lead Intel

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Did you know that the more information you request from a lead in one given form, the lower your chances of converting that lead to a sale? Simply put, asking for too much information at one time turns off prospective customers. That is one reason why progressive profiling needs to be in your marketing strategy.

How Do You Profile Progressively?

When you capture pertinent information from a prospect, that person turns into a lead. It can be as simple as getting their name and email address before you let them download a report from a landing page. But leads are not converted to paying customers just by getting a name and an email address. You need more information before your sales team can get to work. This is where progressive profiling comes in.

[Learn To Generate Leads Through Content Marketing]

Each time the lead wants to download information, you get a bit more data. It starts with the name and email address. Next, it might be demographic data about their company, like its location and number of employees. You can also grab the lead’s role in the company.

On the third download, you know this lead is evaluating your products or services as part of a decision-making process. This is when you ask for a phone number or the time frame to purchase. This continued quest for more details from a lead is progressive profiling.

What Makes This Type of Profiling So Powerful?

  • It increases conversion rates. People do not like filling out long forms just to download a simple whitepaper or report. On the other hand, they don’t mind giving a name and email address for that type of download.
  • It prevents repetition. You already have some information about a prospect. There is no need to ask for the same information again.
  • It offers you the ability to capture more valuable information over time. You can ask progressively more detailed questions as the lead comes closer to the sales decision time.

How Do You Automate This Process?

Now, you might be thinking that you would need to build multiple web forms based on complex logic to capture all this information. And you would be correct, if you are not using a marketing automation platform like Hubspot.

The beauty of Hubspot is that you can leverage dynamic web forms and already captured data to get the information you need, without building multiple web forms. When the lead returns for another download, Hubspot can detect what information is already provided, then create a dynamic web form asking for the next level of detail. That information is stored in Hubspot, ready for the next download or for the sales team.

Another benefit of Hubspot is the ability to customize the data captured based on the buyer persona for each lead. This allows you to capture pertinent information based on the lead’s interest in a particular product or service. This allows progressively more detailed market segmentation and sales follow-up.

Are you ready to leverage progressive profiling in your company?

17 SEO MYTHS YOU SHOULD LEAVE BEHIND

media mix

Beacon Marketing: Bringing Personalized Marketing To Retail Outlets

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One of your customers is browsing your store and gets an alert on her phone. She glances at the screen and her face lights up. She looks up at the nearest employee with a huge smile on her face. The customer just received a customized alert on her phone offering a 20% discount, if she makes a purchase in your store today.

Was that a big coincidence? Nope. It was beacon marketing.

What is Beacon Marketing?

More and more consumers rely on their mobile devices to search for products and to do price comparisons. They often download their favorite brands’ apps to get special offers and other incentives. This kind of marketing takes personalized marketing to another level.

The beacons are small, battery-powered devices, that can be installed throughout any physical location. The beacons emit a special Bluetooth signal known as a BLE. Within a certain range, mobile devices can pick up the BLE signal and receive push notifications. Those notifications allow you to interact with your customers in new and different ways.

Some beacon setups currently require consumers to have the brand/store app installed to receive these notifications. However, Twitter has paired with beacon start-up, Swirl. They are developing ways of bypassing the app requirement and using Twitter instead. Instead of requiring a consumer to install an app, all that person needs to do is follow the brand on Twitter.

Does It Really Work?

Yes.

More than 50% of the top 100 brands already use beacons within their physical stores, with great success. Macy’s implemented these signaling devices throughout their chain after conducting a hugely successful trial run over a Christmas season.

The beauty of these devices is that they can be used in businesses of various sizes and in different industries. For example, casinos can engage their guests from the moment they walk through the door. If a VIP walks through the door, the casino can send a welcome and have a staff member waiting in the VIP room with the customer’s favorite drink in hand. Someone in the slots area can receive a special offer to come visit the roulette tables. Other guests can receive discount offers for dining and entertainment.

Now, the success a business has with beacon marketing depends on what value you offer to the customer. This form of marketing enhances the way your business can interact and engage with your customers. Offering tips, perks, and discounts are all effective ways to provide value to consumers.

What Does This Mean for Your Business?

Brick-and-mortar stores continue to fight the pressure of online competitors. Competing on price is difficult with the overhead costs of running a physical location. To remain competitive, stores have to find new ways to differentiate themselves from the online competition.

Using beacons to interact with customers opens up new opportunities to engage consumers and entice them to make in-store purchases. That makes beacon marketing a promising channel for the long-term success of brick-and-mortar stores.

Download Our White Paper Guide To Learn How To Perfect Buyer Personas For Your Business

facebook advertising strategy

8 Tips on Social Media Best Practices For Your Business

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Why are social media best practices important? Social media has become a staple in our lives and popularity rules in this environment. It has become such an addiction that teens spend over 9 hours a day going through their social media pages. Social media is a tool that both individuals and businesses can manipulate to get the audience for their causes. Social media is a great tool for attraction marketing. Most business owners nowadays practice strategies aimed at optimization of social media platforms. Content displayed on social media platforms measures the response you get from your target audience just by the likes or dislikes you get.

We want you to get the most out of your social media platforms by enforcing these social media best practices. You will learn the secrets behind engaging and maintaining a media presence with loyal followers.

Social Media Best Practices

1. Keep an active presence

We all know that if you are inactive in social media in this digital world, you are irrelevant. Be active! Engage your audience, tell them about your brand story and show them snippets of what the brand represents. Remember however, not to disclose irrelevant information about your brand. There have been cases where too much information has overwhelmed audiences. It is important to explore all the possible avenues to let the world know why your brand is cool.

2. Keep interest

Now that you have gained a loyal following, show interest in your fans! When they reach out to you, follow back and always give personal feedback. This creation of goodwill will serve only to increase your brand’s following, earn you some popularity ratings, and maybe add revenue to your purse. Remember to thank your fans for keeping up with your venture. A brand based on humility and an understanding nature is always appreciated.

3. Concise please

We all love a good post, but if it is too long we get bored in the middle. According to a statistical review conducted on the strategies of effective tweeting, shorter tweets received 17% more following than long tweets. Although other sites do not limit your word count, you should keep in mind to pass your message in the intent you aimed it for.

4. Maintain your tone

What is your preferred tone, are you more of the serious, focused kind or the more casual faithful one. What message are you trying to pass along? Who is your demographic and what tone do you need to engage in to make them pay attention? You need to make them feel like they are part of your brand and your journey. Think about it.

To learn more about messaging read Share Your Message With A New Brand Strategy.

5. Know when to evoke silence

Sometimes media related war comes your way. It is crucial to identify which battles to fight and which ones to fold. You do not have to engage in all conversations involving your brand. If it’s a controversial topic that may not reflect the brand values, do not engage. Reviews have taken down businesses. Always try acting like “the gentleman” when it comes to social media.

6. Transparency helps

Honesty is the policy and the truth shall set you free. When it comes to social media, lies are a great faux pas. Remember that inclusion is important. Share live streams, create audios and videos that will help your followers stay in touch with brand your activities and updates.

7. Overshare faux pas

Please avoid being pushy or attending to the public’s frivolous whims. Remember that you cannot please everyone. Social media best practices call for precise, goal oriented messages. Posting too often mat look desperate and distracting.

8. Correct timing

Every social media platform has unspoken rules on when and how often to post. For Facebook, there is the famous, post twice a day rule depending on the number of followers. In Twitter, for maximum brand optimization, 1-5 tweets a day are efficient. If you are just looking for opinions, you can tweet till you fall. What usually matters in Instagram, is sticking to the consistency of the amounts you post. You cannot change from 10 posts a day to one in every two days and not see a drop in numbers.

All said and done, do have an interesting social media life and enjoy it to bits!

social media marketing

https google

Why HTTPS Google?

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The world is settling in the digital age, privacy and security are the growing concern to most of us. Businesses and individuals are questioning the web on the security of the websites we use to send sensitive information like bank details and credit card information. We have been using different methods of informing the users that the connection that they are using, is secure. One of the methods used was an icon that looks like a lock next to the website address. This is all about to change.

Google launched that HTTPS that would be used as a factor in ranking websites. HTTPS symbolizes HyperText Transfer Protocol. This communication protocol is a safer upgrade from the HTTP that we have been using over the last 30 years. This upgrade enables your websites to transfer information safely and faster. The HTTPS protocol was efficient but was limited in its security functions. It was vulnerable to hackers and interference from third party sites.

How it works

HTTPS Google is an upgraded version of the HTTP that we have gotten used to. Blanketed in protective layers of SSL. The SSL, standing for Secure Sockets Layer that encrypts information sent over the Internet. The function of the SSL serves the purpose of confirming that you are speaking with the right person. It also encrypts and decrypts information being carried out in between two points.

The most intriguing part of this Protocol is that anyone who is trying to intercept your messages will be unable to get the actual information that you send over. So whenever your website is protected, your information is as safe as can be.

What are the benefits for you?

You are not the only one unsure about registering your websites. Most of us are unaware of the benefits that are in store for our websites. Let us look at some of them:

  • It offers you end-to-end encryption to secure private information.
  • It increases trust and confidence in web related transactions
  • It eliminates the need of browser warnings on insecure websites.
  • It keeps your sensitive information from leaking to the wrong hands.
  • HTTPS Google secures rankings for websites that register SSL certificates.
  • It eliminates costs you incur by registering multiple sites under one SSL certificate
  • It increases conversion rates for your website giving you better rankings.

Google HTTPS identification

Google is pushing for you to get your SSL certificates. The websites still under the HTTP protocol will be labeled as not secure. As opposed to remaining neutral or showing a lock, Google has adapted that strategy to be executed in stages. Eventually, Google will change the “circle i” to a red triangle for broken web links to notify the user of the danger. That is effective as of January 31st.

What does this mean for SEO?

A lot of websites are shy from switching to HTTPS because it will affect the SEO rankings attached to your business. This is not true. HTTPS Google is transparently assuring you of its safety.  As a website owner you should take steps to ensure that your website traffic is not affected.

Learn more on how you can increase your wesite traffic through SEO.

You need to communicate with the Google team that you are moving from HTTP to HTTPS. They will direct you on the steps you need to take. HTTPS Google has offered this tips to ensure you are covered.

  • Get certificates according to your needs. Single, wild card or multi- domain certificate
  • Use the same URLs contained in secure domains
  • The bit key certificates you use should be around 2048 bits
  • Use protocol related URLs in al domains
  • Avoid blocking your HTTPS website from crawling through robots.txt.
  • Ensure to avoid non-index Meta tags being issued.
  • Use the https Google tips on Google Webmaster to figure your way around and track your migration to the last detail.

Migrating from HTTP to HTTPS will secure your website a place in this world that is constantly under pressure to develop and advance.

25 Website Must Haves For Driving Traffic, Leads & Sales