What is Ecommerce Social Media Marketing?

E-Commerce Social Media Marketing (SMM) is an effective way by which eCommerce stores that use social media platforms connect to existing and future customers to increase brand value, attract traffic, and increase sales.

Why is Social Media Marketing important for e-commerce?

According to Statista, India has an e-commerce penetration of 74% and this is only set to grow in the coming years. If you are an eCommerce store owner, this is the time you should start investing time in trying to reach a larger set of audience.

Where would you find a readily available and interested group of audience who will invest in your product or service if you reach them the right way? On social media platforms of course!

There are close to 376 million social media users in India in 2020 and the number will increase to 447 million in the next 3 years.

According to the Social Media Trends report of 2019 by Global Web Index, Indian social media users spend close to 2.4 hours every day on their social media platform. This is 2.4 hours available for eCommerce companies every day to reach out to their customers personally.

Companies that make the right use of this time garner more audience, get popular, and gradually increase their sales.

 

Social Media Marketing strategies for eCommerce

SMM strategies include a list of carefully planned steps tailor-made for the particular brand to improve its social media presence and target the right audience.

A lot of brands keep posting multiple times a day, every single day, and still see no improvement in their sales and customer base. Other brands post once a day or even less frequently but have thousands of organic reactions and engagements to every post of theirs. It all depends on your eCommerce Social Media Marketing strategies.

Here are the top strategies you can use to improve your sales and drive traffic to your website.

1. Be Consistent

Sound simple? Many brands miss out on this and pay the price. You could be having the best SMM managers and awesome content, but if you are not consistent though, you will not be making a mark.

Consistency does not mean spamming your audience with content every hour. It means following a pattern while posting. You can post just once a day, but be regular about it. Do this every day, 365 days a year.

Over time, your users will know when you post content and will start looking forward to the same. Consistency also means you create content that you know well and don’t post everything under the sun.

If you are a skincare brand, you can engage with dermatologists to create posts that talk meaningfully about skin damage and ways to overcome it. When you do this regularly, you will build an audience who come to check out your posts regularly and engage with you emotionally. Caution to exercise – refrain from talking about random topics on your page and dilute your content value.

2. Sharing, not selling

Now, this is such an important strategy that all brands, big and small, need to understand right. What is the goal behind creating painstaking Social Media Marketing strategies for eCommerce? It is selling your product or your service to the audience. However, you can’t convert your social media pages and posts into a 100% selling medium.

The audience gets disinterested and frustrated if you keep targeting them to buy something from you in every single post you create.

Social Media Marketing is about creating meaningful and worthy relationships first. You consistently share meaningful information with your users and make your posts something that they can make use of. Selling will happen on its own once you build a loyal audience base on social media.

3. Build Trust & Authority Through Your Blog

It is recommended that all eCommerce sites have their blog page where they are active and consistent. What do blogs do?

• They indirectly drive traffic to your website
• They are powerful tools to create meaningful relationships with customers
• They build trust and help you become an industry leader
• They give you a space to share relevant and useful information

Blog pages can talk about anything interesting that readers may want to know of. Relating the content with the products/services offered by the brand makes more sense as you can add links to your eCommerce store here.

If you want to know more about eCommerce in general, we would suggest you check good blogs that offer original and valuable information to their readers.

Do make sure you follow Netilly’s blog page. We update our blogs regularly and write about things that genuinely interest you as an eCommerce merchant.

4. Promotional Offers

Who does not like promotions and offers? In traditional physical stores, weekly offers and promotions are printed out and pasted around the stores to let people know about them. You obviously cannot do that for an online eCommerce store. That’s why you make use of social media for the same.

One of the most important jobs of an eCommerce Social Media Marketing strategy is to take to the audience the current offers and deals. Here are few top SMM promotion types you can try out.

• Instagram hash contest
• Referral promotions
• Contests and coupons
• Cross-promotions
• ‘Follow-us’ giveaways
• Limited-period promotions

All these are ways to help the brand gain more followers, get more interest in their pages, posts and influence people into buying what is offered.

 

5. Leverage the Power of Data

 

(Sample Facebook Ad Demographics)

Data is the biggest thing as of now. Billion-dollar companies work simply in collecting and distributing data and are hugely successful. Brands are running behind in gathering data that leverages their position in the industry. All social media platforms help you collect data about your visitors and customers. It is your work to analyze the data and understand how better you can target your marketing strategies.

Social analytical data also tells you what is trending, what people are interested in, and what kind of audience likes your brand. All these are critical data you should not miss.

If you are having trouble interpreting these freely available data, get in touch with a social media marketing expert who can help take over this process for you. Your brand is not making use of its full potential if it is not leveraging the power of data.

6. Tap into the power of instant messaging

One of the best things that can happen to improve your brand image and value is to have one-to-one communication with your past, present, and future clients and customers. Instant messaging apps help you achieve this.

Instant messaging apps help people and businesses communicate with one another instantly, over the internet. Google Talk, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, WeChat, Telegram, and Skype are few popular examples.

You can use instant messaging in the following ways –

• Send customized messages to your customers
• Answer queries and resolves grievances of customers
• Instantly reach out to people who need you
• Create groups and share the right content with different segments of the audience
• Target the right people personally and improve the conversion rate

7. Showcase Social Proof

Social Proof is a very interesting psychological concept that was first coined in the year 1984 by Robert Cialdini in his book called ‘Influence’. According to this concept, people, when they have very little information about something, assume that others around are better equipped with the information and follow their heed.

Celebrity endorsement is a very popular kind of social proof. Consider the brand ‘Too Yumm’ that sells packaged chips and crisps. This brand is a part of Guiltfree Industries Limited. Virat Kholi was signed to endorse the brand in 2018. While people have very little idea about what ingredients are added to the actual product, they pick the pack from supermarkets because they assume the cricketer will not endorse an unhealthy product!

You can also take the example of skincare and cosmetic brands endorsed by flawless-looking celebrities. The idea here is the same.

Here are few ways you can showcase social proof as a part of your eCommerce Social Media Marketing strategy.

• Get a stamp of approval from a recognized board
• Get a celebrity to endorse your brand
• Get social media influencers to endorse/talk about your brand
• Work on getting quality testimonials

Interested more about Social Proof? Check this article that talks about ‘Social proof in social media shopping’.

8. Building relationships with influencers

Influencers are people who have built a reputation for themselves on social media and are active and have thousands of followers. Influencers who talk positively about your brand can help build social proof that was discussed above.

All kinds of brands need online influencers to take them closer to the audience. Influencers need to be convinced and satisfied with your product/service to talk about them on their pages. Engaging with the right influencers naturally helps increase your sales.

9. Invest in Social Media Marketing

Now, all the above eight points are effective eCommerce social media marketing strategies. They are not the only strategies available though. SMM is a concept that keeps getting updated every day. Strategies that worked yesterday may not give the right results today.

The only way you can reap the benefits of SMM is by investing time, money, and effort in the same.

Conclusion

Not all business owners are SMM experts. That is why we are here to help. If you have been struggling to make a mark online, we can create the right eCommerce social media marketing plan for your business to help you take leverage of social media.

Even the smallest of brands can benefit by showcasing themselves right online. Get in touch with us to know how effectively you can improve your eCommerce business using SMM. We will schedule a free consultation for you with our experts and help you make the right first step. Contact us right away.

 

 

A logo is the first thing you notice about a brand. A logo is also the first thing that comes to your mind when you try to recollect the brand. It is hence not very surprising that some brands spend months together just to put together the right logo that carries their image.

A logo can be just one or a combination of the below elements.

• Text
• Image
• Shape

Logos are a part of the branding and are closely related to the brand’s image at every point in time. Most brands create their logos once and stick to them until the end. That is why a brand’s logo design process needs time, research, and effort to get it right.

What is the purpose of a logo?

Yes, a logo is usually displayed along with the brand name. Apart from that, what purpose does it serve? You will be surprised at how vital branding experts consider the logo of a brand.

Here are some ways a logo will help its brand.

• Create a first good impression with leads and potential customers
• Create a very strong brand identity
• Breed familiarity
• Help create a unique symbol/shape through which people can instantly identify you
• Inspire love and loyalty for the brand
• Help people understand what your brand does and stands for
• Act as a common binding bond between the stakeholders
• Make your brand memorable

For all this to happen, you don’t have to end up with a highly complicated or graphically advanced logo. That is not the goal at all! Most branding experts find the ‘the simpler the better’ rule applicable when it comes to logos. Consider the below logos. How simple yet how absolutely memorable and unique are they?

How does a logo help in branding?

Branding is the measure of how customers and other stakeholders view your brand and its values. Branding is an emotional aspect of the relationship you have with your customers. If you end up with positive branding, your company will keep growing organically.

A logo is a part of the branding strategy. How does a customer feel when looking at your logo? Do the colors, the shape, and the orientation of the logo invite them to check out the brand? What kind of emotions does it bring to the hearts of your customers?

You have to design your logo to match your branding strategy. Do you want to be perceived as a bold brand or a fun brand? Do you want to motivate your customers or make them laugh? The logo design process needs to be aligned accordingly.

Once you do that, every time someone looks at your logo, positive branding happens. You connect with that person the way you wanted to.

 

8 Steps to create a logo for your brand

1 Design Brief

The first step to creating a logo is to build the design brief. The design brief is a document that helps the designer understand all the vital elements needed to put together the logo. The design brief usually contains the below items.

• Preferred style
• Preferred theme including color combinations, shape, and size
• Deadlines
• Budget (if any)
• A brief about the brand’s ideologies

If you do not give your designer a brief of what is to be expected, then there will be a lot of time wasted in going back and forth with design creation and changes.

There is no set format for the brief. You can add any detail you feel may benefit the designer and take him/her closer to your expectations.

2 Research

Imagine spending weeks together creating the perfect logo for your brand only to find that there is another brand in the market with a closely similar logo. This is not what you want!

Researching the industry includes finding out what kind of logos your competitors and brands in the same industry have. Check what color themes have worked for these brands, what particular shape these logos are designed in, and their styles.

Once the research is complete, you can do two things.

• Create your logo based on the general theme followed by the rest of the brands in the industry
• Go in a completely different route and create a unique logo that stands out.

For instance, organic and natural brands usually opt for brown, beige, cream, and other earthly hues for their brand logos and other images. These colors are subtle to the eyes and relate to the words natural and organic. Check out the logos of these natural Indian brands. Few organic brands, however, go away from the usual route and pick up colorful logos like the below. There is nothing right or wrong about this. Both models work depending on what you prefer as a brand.

 

3 Brainstorming

Brainstorming is the process of sitting down as a team and putting together ideas. Such brainstorming happens in a free-thinking environment and can bring out some amazing ideas and thoughts.

Here are few things you can try brainstorming about.

• What adjectives suit your brand? Write them down
• How do you want people to feel when they look at your brand?
• What kind of stories should your logo talk about?
• Browse through popular logos of competitor brands and identify what you liked about them
• Sketch rough shapes of how you feel your logo should look

Bring the members of the brand and the designing team together and create a healthy brainstorming session.

4 Sketching

Sketching is the most vital part of the logo design process. Here, you try and bring all the ideas you have generated in the prior steps into visual glory. You could try and sketch the ideas you have on a piece of paper with a pencil. However, designing digitally is easier and you can control different aspects of the logo better.

Professional logo designers can create vectors in the software that can be tweaked multiple times to create the perfect sketch.

It is normal for designers to create multiple (even up to 50) sketches with minute variations and then let the brand choose what works for them.

5 Design Execution

Based on the multiple rough sketches that a designer creates, it is the work of the brand to work hand-in-hand with the designer to execute the final design. The brand has to look through all the sketches and provide feedback and suggestions to help the designer execute the final design.

The execution starts from the creativity phase and ends when the logo design is completed 100%.

6 Presentation

Presentation is the part where the experts will show you the final and completed logo design. If the designer has taken the liberty to add/change few details to the design during the logo design process, this is the time they will try to convince you about the necessity of these details.

These are the basic steps any designer will go through while presenting you the logo

1. Starts by mentioning what the clients wanted initially from the designer
2. Mentions the objective and theme of the logo that was discussed
3. Goes through a couple of sketches that were created for the brand and the feedback that was provided (This helps build excitement and curiosity)
4. Presents the final design
5. Explain why the designer had chosen that particular shape, size, color theme and how those relate to the brand’s image

7 Revisions

You may really like the final logo but do know that most designers are open to constructive feedback from the client. Good designers, in fact, prefer knowing how the client felt honestly about the design.

The revision stage may give rise to discussions again on what works and what does not. You can put down your point here and request changes if needed.

Some designers allow unlimited revisions to the final logo while others limit the revisions allowed. Know how your designer works and then plan the revisions accordingly.

8 Delivery

This is the final stage of the logo design process. Once the revisions are done, the logo will be delivered to the client. If your designer has just sent you the JPG version of the logo as an attachment, make sure you request the logo in the below formats too.

 

• .ai file (Adobe Illustrator)
• PDF file
• .PNG, .JPG, .JPEG files

Apart from these, you should also be getting the below versions of the logo.

• 100% vector file
• Source file
• Logo on a transparent background
• Logo in CMYK and RCB colors

Having all these versions will help you use the logo without distortions or loss in quality any time you need in different sizes and pixel ratios.

Conclusion

When you are creating your brand’s logo, you are not just creating any image. You are giving the brand a visual identity that is going to last for decades and even centuries together. Give the process enough time and take help from branding experts and professional logo designers to come up with a unique, mind-blowing, stunning and get the best logo design that reaches the hearts of people quickly.

If you are creating a new logo for your brand or want to upgrade the existing design that you have, get in touch with us. Our experts will be happy to schedule a free consultation to help you take the right next step. Our logo design process put together by experts in the field will exceed your expectations and create a logo that defines and embraces your brand ideologies.

What are Brand Guidelines?

Brand guidelines are simple rules or standards written down to help represent your brand correctly. Brand guidelines are also called brand books or style guidelines. These rules help your team and your stakeholders understand how to identify the brand.

These guidelines are usually represented in a document format and are shared with everyone associated with the brand. By checking the guidelines, people can understand how exactly the brand name, the logo, the tagline, and other aspects of the brand should be mentioned.

Why are they Important?

• Brand guidelines help put across a consistent message to the audience
• It makes it easier for the audience to relate to the identity of the brand
• It makes it easy for all your developers, designers, and marketing executives to create consistent and relatable brand content
• It provides pre-set tools for your team to work with
• Makes it easy for your customers to differentiate your brand from other similar ones

Who needs brand guidelines?

1. If you are a new brand waiting to start-up or has just started-up, you will have to spend sometime with experts in creating brand guidelines.
2. If you are an already existing brand but don’t have a consistent format for using the brand name, logo, and taglines, then you will need to get your guidelines documented right away. This is one of the important ways to add value to your brand.
3. If you are a company looking to rebrand, then you will need brand guidelines in place to ensure the newer brand identity is created and maintained right.

It takes the help of a branding agency and expert designers to create your brand identity or style book for you. This is a one-time task that is going to bring your brand consistency, reliability, and identity for as long as you exist.

Steps to design your brand guidelines

1. Choose a logo (and think carefully about composition)

One of the most basic and vital steps for creating brand guidelines is to decide on a logo. A logo is the face of your brand. You can recognize many top brands using just their logo without the need to check the brand name. A logo has to be that attractive, simple, and unique.

Logo composition involves the following:

• Format
• Color hues used
• The symmetry of the logo/ typographic brand name
• Size/proportion of the logo/ typographic brand name
• Special effects

Your logo should talk about your brand’s personality and the right logo will add positivity to your brand’s identity. Below are some of the simplest yet unique logos you should check out. These brands have managed to reach the minds of the customers with the right composition of their logos.

2. Pick a color palette

The color palette for your brand’s features like name, logo, and tagline determines what kind of a company you are. Your color palette should be documented with the exact hues and shades used.

Take Google’s color scheme for instance. The logo immediately says the brand is fun and exciting. Baskin Robbins is an ice cream brand with a cute pink, blue, and white color theme. The color and the font are attractive and make you feel at home. Coco-Cola has a bright red color palette. The color red is considered powerful, confident, and youthful.

Here is how different color hues are represented emotionally.

Orange – cheerful, young, friendly

Blue – strength, dependability

Green – health, growth

Yellow – optimism, positivity

Black and White – balanced, neutral

3. Decide on the typography

Typography is the art of putting together a group of letters so that they are attractive, legible, and stylish. Typography is not just about identifying the right font for your brand name. It is about details like the spacing between the letters, the color contrast, the font size, and the overall arrangement.

The typography of the brand name plays a role in how people perceive the product or service offered. Here are few things a good typographic service has to achieve.

• Set the mood
• Convey a message
• Create or change perceptions

Do not underestimate what typography can do to your brand name. Clever typography is one reason why you feel an instant connection to the below brands.

4. Select the perfect brand imagery

There are millions of media content on the internet updated every day. Images are posted on social media platforms, on mobile apps, and blogs by small and big brands. How do you make your content make a mark? Brand imagery includes all the visuals you showcase to your customers and users as a part of your brand image. It is a part of your brand’s aesthetics.

Visual communication is very strong. People can emote more by seeing a visual than by reading a long article. A logo is a part of your brand imagery. There is so much more to this too. Here are some of the items that are a part of brand imagery.

• Photos
• Banners
• GIFs
• Graphics
• Videos
• Animation
• Charts and graphs
• Icons

Your brand guidelines should include a list of what kinds of imagery work for you and your brand. Good brands make sure the photos and graphics they share are of high quality and high pixel ratio. Their UI is designed to match the brand’s theme too. Such imagery also becomes part of the stationery used by the brand including letterheads and business cards.

5. Include examples of correct and incorrect usage

Your guidelines should not contain only a list of what’s right. It should also tell people who use the guidelines what should not be done. In many cases, incorrect use of brand imagery, brand name, and other details is considered illegal.

Here are some common incorrect usages of brand details you should add to your guidelines.

• Reproducing the logo or brand name in different colors
• Changing the background color of brand names/images
• Squeezing or stretching the logo or brand name
• Adding special effects to the brand imagery
• Adding newer elements to the brand’s name or logo

6. Put your brand guidelines together in a brand manual

Once you have a list of all the necessary details of your company’s brand guidelines, it is time to put them together in a brand manual. Most companies have both a physical copy of the manual and a digital version. Share the manual with your stakeholders and make sure they follow the guidelines when they share the brand’s details anywhere.

Encourage your stakeholders to check the manual every time they have to mention the brand officially or unofficially.

One growing trend in creating brand guidelines is to create a one-page sheet that contains the most used guidelines and using that as a quick reference. This helps save time.

7. Update your brand guidelines regularly

Brands and their philosophies keep changing as they grow. People’s expectations about the brand keep changing too. Conduct market research and find out how your customers perceive your brand. Does that align with your goals? If not, you may want to consider updating/changing your brand guidelines.

Have regular discussions with your stakeholders about what works and what doesn’t. Based on that, be ready to make changes to your guidelines regularly.

Conclusion

Brand guidelines are the easiest ways to adhere to the theme/idea behind a brand and maintain consistency and quality in how the brand is perceived outside. Incorrect representations of your brand including different colors, misshapen logos, and wrongly pronounced brand names can all bring down your reputation and create mistrust amongst customers and clients.

Create a guideline manual and adhere to it every time you mention the brand somewhere. This will help build your brand image and help people recognize you easily.

If you have not thought much about brand guidelines, we are here to help. Get in touch with us and we will help you get a free consultation with our branding team. We will understand your business and help you create the best band manual that will help you stay consistent and professional.

How to create a brand is a question everyone should ask when they decide to start-up.Company and brand are two completely different terms. You can start a company in a few days. Building a brand takes years of time and effort.

Many business owners underestimate the importance of building a brand.Creating a brand does not just mean naming your company and creating a logo.

A brand is how people perceive your company, your values, and the products/services you sell. A brand is what is going to help people remember you for centuries together, across different generations.

What is a brand?

A brand, in simple terms, is how you identify, relate to, and experience a brand. A brand is created once and lives in the minds of people forever. Successful brands get so popular that even after the brands disappear, their name and presence stay on in the minds of people forever.

Did you know that the concept of branding started as early as 2,700 BCE? The Egyptians then were primarily cattle herders and used to burn a specific symbol on the skin of their animals to differentiate them from cattle of other herders.

How to create a Brand?

How to create a successful brand? If the answer to this was simple, then all brands would be successful. You need to have the right idea at the right time and implement the idea with the right people around to ensure your brand makes a mark in the market.

There are millions of brands active in India. Here are strategies to help you rise in your rank and build a brand that is successful, popular, and worthy.

1. Discover the purpose behind your brand

Why did you want to create a brand? All brands run with the hopes of making money but this is not the purpose of starting-up. The first step to building a successful brand is to understand the purpose behind it. Here are questions you should be asking yourself and your team.

• What is the idea behind the brand?
• What do you want to achieve beyond making money?
• What kind of positive impact will your brand have on society?
• Does your brand relate to your product/service?

The stronger the purpose behind your brand, the better is your chance of succeeding.

2.  Research competitor brands within your industry

Competitor analysis is another vital part of building your brand right. If you are entering an industry that is already filled with small and big competitors, you will have to take a lot of effort in making your presence felt and matching the already competitive prices. It will also be hard trying to pry away customers who are already loyal to other brands.

Here are the right steps for an effective competitive analysis strategy.

• Find your direct competitors (brands that offer similar/exact products and services to the same market)
• Identify your indirect competitors/ brand substitutes ( brands that offer different products/services but to the same market)
• Perform a Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis of the market you are entering
• Rate your competitors based on their market position, features offered, price, customer circle, and reputation
• Identify the Unique Selling Points (USPs) of these direct and indirect competitors and find out how you can beat their USPs.

3. Determine your target audience

 

No brand sells for all of the global population.  You might have a great marketing strategy and an awesome product line. However, if you are reaching the wrong set of audience, you will not be closing deals.

Identifying Look for common characteristics and interests in your current customers. What binds them together? Why do they like your brand? Identifying this may help you find out newer groups of audience. The target audience makes a huge difference in generating the right leads and making money.

By targeting the right audience, you reach out to people who are already interested in your product/service, and hence it does not take a lot of effort to convince them to invest in your brand. Here are smart strategies to identify your customer base.

Analyze your current customers –

Look at the customers your competitors have – A very easy way of finding your target audience group is to look for the customers your competitors have. This is a readily available and well-researched target audience for you. All you have to do is woo them towards your brand.

Customer Market Research –

Take the help of market research companies to identify your target audience, their demographics, age groups, interests, and buying power. All good brands invest in market research to help them get a clear idea of who to target and how.

Market mapping –

Market mapping is the process of identifying a gap in the market and using the gap to find out newer and easily available audience to market your brand.

4. Establish a brand mission statement

Mission statements are largely undermined in today’s world. A mission statement tells your investors, your employees, your customers, and your clients what to expect from your brand in the future. Your mission statement will include the purpose of your company and give an idea of what you plan to do over time.

Check out the mission statements of some of the top brands in the world.

Google – ‘Our mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.’

Tata International – ‘To be the most reliable global network for customers and suppliers, that delivers value through products and services. To be a responsible value creator for all our stakeholders.’

Starbucks – ‘Our mission: to inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup, and one neighbourhood at a time.’

Amazon – ‘Our mission is to continually raise the bar of the customer experience by using the internet and technology to help consumers find, discover, and buy anything, and empower businesses and content creators to maximize their success. We aim to be Earth’s most customer-centric company.’

5. Outline the key qualities & benefits your brand offers

Why should a customer buy your product/service? As a brand, you must let your customers know why they should choose you over other competitor brands.

Make a list of your Unique Selling Points (USPs) and mention it on your website, social media pages, and other marketing forums to make it easier for your customers to pick you.

6. Build a brand story and messaging

Brand story and messaging is a great idea for companies looking to tell the audience who they are and what they intend to do.

A brand story is an inspiring version of how you have grown and what you mean to society. A brand story simply does not give out facts. It creates emotions and makes the reader feel closer to the brand.

A brand message, on the other hand, helps you verbally communicate with your audience what your brand promises to do. Some brands keep updating/tweaking their brand message as they grow and give the audience something new to look for.

Brand agencies like us work exclusively on creating awe-inspiring and unique brand stories and messages that change the way people look at your company.

7. Create a brand logo & tagline

These are basic requirements in the list of pointers for how to create a brand. A logo is an identity to the brand.  How do you feel when you look at the logo for McDonald’s? You will start imagining mouth-watering burgers the minute you spot the sign. This is how attractive a logo has to be.

A tagline is one of the first things people notice about a brand. Your tagline can easily tell your audience what you sell and what makes you different. Your brand’s tagline is going to be your sales pitch. Hence, you have to take care to ensure your tag line is catchy and encompasses your brand and product.

Look at some of these popular and to-the-point taglines.

MasterCard – There are some things money can’t buy. For everything else, there’s MasterCard

Nike – Just Do It

BMW – The Ultimate Driving Machine

KFC – Finger Lickin’Good

8. Integrate language you can use to connect, advertise

While the basis of languages has remained the same for centuries together, slang, the kind of words used, and the way sentences are built have all changed drastically.

If you have asked ‘What’s up’ in the ‘70s or ‘80s, nobody would have known what to answer back! Right now though, this is a common slang.

Once you decide the group of audience you are going to focus on, tweak your language accordingly.

Imagine you run a resort and you are sending a feedback form on email to a guest who stayed with you recently.

If your guest was older and more formal, the email should go this way – ‘We hope you had a pleasant time at XYZ resorts. We are looking for your valuable feedback to improve our services’.

If you are emailing a young hippy couple, the email should be drafted differently. ‘We are sure you had an epic and fantabulous time at XYZ. Let us know what you think about our services here!’ – This makes more sense.

Integrating language also means making use of local language and getting closer to the audience. A perfect example by Google is below. The user had a complaint about Google Maps written in Hindi and Google managed to reply in Hindi too!

9. Use Social Media

Social media branding is a whole area altogether and is a powerful answer to your question of how to create a brand.                 About 3.8 billion people have accounts on social media platforms. Even if one-fourth of them are regularly active on places like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, it is worth making your presence felt here.

Social media experts can help design strategies that build your brand’s name, reputation, and popularity on social platforms. Such platforms are also great places for businesses to have one-on-one relationships with their customers.

All top brands make it a point to stay active and engaged on social media. Here are a couple of examples.

 

10. Monitor your brand to maintain its brand identity

After you go through all the above steps on how to create a brand, you cannot sit back and relax. You have to monitor the situation and make sure your brand upholds its identity. It is important to constantly look for places you can improve and ways to get closer to your audience. All top brands have separate budgets for brand maintenance. Here are key steps in maintaining your identity in a market where new competitor brands pop up every day.

• Develop a unique voice for yourself
• Consistently stay active on social media platforms
• Engage one-on-one with customers online and identify what they need
• Keep looking for options to improve your identity
• Do not hesitate to change your goals and offerings with changing times

Conclusion

Building a brand is a long-term work. You will have to invest time, energy, strategies, and money into creating a name that speaks for itself. Every step a company takes paves way for building a brand. Be patient, be consistent, and add true value to your stakeholders.

If you are looking for professional help and want to know how to create a brand and sustain it, get in touch with us. Our expert branding team will get in touch with you for a free consultation. You need a lot of hands to build a brand. Get us involved too!

 

According to the Indian Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF), the Indian ecommerce industry is scheduled to grow into the second-largest market in the world by 2034, surpassing the United States. There are millions of ecommerce websites active in the country and consumers are slowly getting used to shopping online for all their basic and luxury needs.

Ecommerce business owners have a lot of potential for growth in today’s scenario. However, you need to have the right approach for this. If you are in a place where you only get considerable website traffic when you opt for paid marketing, you have to seriously rethink your online business strategy.

What is Ecommerce SEO?

Ecommerce Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of increasing traffic to your website organically from search engines by improving the quality of your website and content.

Let’s say you want to buy indoor plants in Bangalore. You enter a search engine like Google or Bing and search using the keywords ‘indoor plants in Bangalore’. You see the below results.

The websites that are listed on the first page of the search engine are the top-ranked ones. They get better traffic and more clicks every day. This will be your aim – to list on the top of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) without having to pay for the same.

Ecommerce SEO helps you get high-quality traffic by listing you on the top of search engine results. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? The process is not as simple though!

SEO trends and strategies keep changing every day. Different search engines have their algorithms by which they decide the rankings of eCommerce websites. These algorithms keep changing too. You will have to invest time, effort, and money in creating a long-term SEO technique to outrun your competitors and reach the right audience.

Ecommerce experts are those who keep following the latest trends in the SEO industry and help businesses be found by the right customers.

Why Is SEO Important for Ecommerce?

It does not matter whether you own a website for a small home business or manage the websites of eCommerce giants like Amazon or Flipkart. SEO should be your priority while building your website and even after that.

• SEO helps the right customers find you at the right time
• SEO is the long-term strategy for eCommerce brands to survive and make money
• SEO strategies are smart investments to improve brand awareness
• SEO enhances the user experience
• SEO keeps driving newer low-cost traffic to your site

5 Ecommerce SEO Strategies

1.     Keyword Research

One of the most practical, beneficial, and challenging eCommerce SEO strategies of all time is keyword research. Keywords are those words people use to search for a particular product or a service on search engines like Google. Every page on your website needs to be optimized to include three kinds of keywords.

• Informational keywords – Keywords that people use to look for information or details online. Common words used are what, why, and how. (‘What is the best mattress for back pain’)
• Commercial keywords – These are keywords used when people are testing the waters and trying to decide whether or not to buy something online. Users use keywords like affordable, best, cheap, and so on here. (‘The best back pain mattresses under ₹10,000 or ‘The most affordable mattresses in Delhi’)
• Transactional keywords – These keywords are used when the user is ready to buy and has already made a decision. The common terms used here are – buy, discounts, deals, and so on. (‘Where to buy memory foam mattresses in Bangalore?’)

You can use different keyword research tools to identify the top keywords to use. SEO experts will integrate all three kinds of keywords into the eCommerce website to make sure the site attracts visitors, leads, and serious buyers.

It is beneficial to integrate some long-tail keywords into the website’s content too. Long-tail keywords are longer keyword phrases that are very specific. These keywords may not have a lot of search volume but those who search with these keyword phrases are serious buyers with a keen interest in your offering.

Here is an example for you to understand. Let’s say you have a used Ford EcoSport car to sell.

‘used Ford Ecosport’ or ‘second-hand EcoSport’ are regular keywords with high search volume.

‘Buy red-colored used EcoSport car in Bangalore’ is a long term keyword that may not have great search volumes but is very specific to what someone might want.

If a person searches for a red-colored used EcoSport car in Bangalore, your website link will pop-up right away on the search engine and this keyword has a higher chance of getting converted into a sale.

2.     Site Architecture

Site architecture is the simple way of how you design your website and how users navigate through the different pages. A good website architecture will have the most useful pages accessible first and users will not have to spend a lot of clicks in finding what they want.

Experts talk about having flatter site architecture. It means that you can reach from the top to the deepest pages on the website with lesser numbers of clicks. Design your website so that users can reach any page they want in 4 or lesser clicks.

Here are three factors to keep in mind when you plan your site architecture.

Crawlability factor – Search engines like Google and Bing use crawl bots called GoogleBot and BingBot to browse through your website and look for searchable content. Search engines rank websites that they can crawl through quicker higher on their search pages.

Responsiveness – Websites that are designed to be responsive to different environments and platforms are usually ranked higher

Duplication – When the same content or page of your website is listed in more than one place online, search engines consider this duplication. Your eCommerce SEO efforts will be affected by duplication because of the following reasons.

• Search engines don’t know which content to include and which to omit while listing your website
• Search engines rank websites with multiple duplicate contents lower and this affects your traffic
• Having duplicates dilutes the visibility of your original intended page(s)

3.     On-Page SEO

On-page SEO is the practice of optimizing individual pages in your website to make sure the important ones are visible on search engine results easily. Optimizing your pages is one of the most important strategies of eCommerce SEO and needs to be taken seriously. Here are some of the major factors to work on to optimize your web pages.

Content – Content is the king when it comes to SEO. Search engines will prefer your web page when it has the right content in the right format. Your content has to solve the problem or answer the question that a user has. Your content should also be linkable (content that is worthy of being backlinked/shared by other pages).

Title tags, headlines, descriptions, meta descriptions, and URLs – All these factors need to be optimized on all pages of your website. You have to make sure to include keywords in these areas and to format them right to make sure they are clickable. Have unique content in these areas to attract better traffic.

Outbound and inbound links – Outbound and inbound links help people navigate through your website easily and also give them additional information they may need while searching for something on your site. Website pages that have quality inbound and outbound links are preferred by search engines.

4.     Technical SEO

You may have optimized your internal pages well and may have great content to share with users. If the technical SEO aspects are not taken care of, your ranking will still suffer.

Technical eCommerce SEO includes the following aspects.

• Using a secure and encrypted website (SSL certification). Websites with SSL certification start with HTTPS:// instead of HTTP://
• Using a faster and better hosting service to ensure your website can handle high traffic
• Creating an XML site map to ensure better crawlability by search engines
• Making the website mobile friendly
• Ensuring the website is flexible enough to work on all platforms (iOS, Android, Windows, and so on)
• Making sure there are no dead links
• Ensuring the web page images, videos, and content are compressed to improve the loading speed

5.     Link Building

We have already touched base about inbound and outbound links. Link building happens when another website mentions or adds a link to one or more of your pages. Link building is the hardest part of eCommerce SEO but provides amazing results when it comes to search engine ranking.

Let’s say you own a cosmetic brand. Influencers and fashion bloggers write about your product and provide a link to your website on their pages. Search engines like Google find this an important factor to help rank a page. When a page has a lot of quality backlinks, the page is considered trustworthy and popular. Your search engine rankings automatically improve.

Here are few tips to start building quality links.

• Ask for backlinks from trusted websites
• Provide links to other websites so that they do the same for you
• Add your website details to web directories
• Leave behind worthy comments and posts on web forums and platforms
• Start a blog and link your important pages here
• Write guest posts on other websites

Conclusion

There are so many reasons you should concentrate on eCommerce SEO. A good looking website is easy to browse through and attractive. This will ensure you get repeat visitors. SEO helps get organic traffic regularly to the site. Increased traffic gets converted into better sales on the site.

SEO is not a one-time thing though. Search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing keep changing their ranking algorithm. The strategies that worked last week may not work today. It is hence important to keep updating your SEO techniques too.

Running a business will leave you with no time to spare for other activities. Leave SEO to the experts. Schedule a free consultation with our SEO team today and we will tell you how to improve your search engine ranking and get your website busy and running. Keep working on bettering your products/services and we will ensure your business reaches the right places.

You might have a professional-looking and very useful website. However, if the site is not SEO-friendly, you might not be able to get as much traffic and as many customers as you wanted.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the organic way of improving your website traffic in the form of search engine results. When your website is SEO friendly, people will be easily able to find you through the right keyword searches.

Let’s imagine you sell Christmas trees online. Your products are some of the best in the market and you also offer the cheapest prices. These two factors will not ensure you get customers though. If your website is not SEO friendly, people searching to buy Christmas trees online will not be able to see your website listed in the first few pages on search engines like Google or Bing and will end up buying elsewhere.

Offering good products and services and making your website SEO-friendly are both equally important for small and big businesses.

Benefits of an SEO-friendly website

• SEO ensures you get traffic without paying for it
• An SEO-friendly website improves user experience
• SEO improves your conversion rate (converting traffic into sales)
• SEO helps your brand stay ahead of the competition

7 Tips to create an SEO-friendly website

Here are awesome tips to create an SEO-friendly website.

1. Use a responsive design

One of the first things that put off both the search engine and the customers is a slow and unresponsive website. All search engines are designed to rank websites that are fast and responsive on top. By simply making your website and its design responsive and quick, you will be helping get more traffic and will be ranking on top of the search engines like Google.

Make sure your website is responsive to the environment it is in. Three factors your website has to be adaptable to are:

• The platform that it runs in (android, iOS, Windows)
• The screen size (is the website compatible with mobile phones, tablets, and computers?)

Orientation the site is viewed in (landscape/portrait modes)

2. Create website content to target valuable keywords

Many brands focus on just one keyword that exactly matches their business and rank it high on their website. You are not fully utilizing the power of keywords this way. After you conduct keyword research, choose a small group of highly-relevant keywords and use them in the right places on your website.

Most websites use keywords in the copy but forget other areas. You can incorporate keywords naturally in most places on the website including:

• Title
• Headings and subheadings
• Meta descriptions and meta tags
• Header and footer links
• URLs
• Internal links
• Images

Use keywords that are usually searched in places like Google. If you are an architect and have a website offering interior designing in Delhi, instead of having a generic keyword like ‘interior designing’, use something specific like ‘interior designing for new homes in Delhi’.

This will improve your chances of getting relevant traffic.

3. Optimize header tags to help search engines better understand your pages

Header tags are tags that differentiate between titles, headings, and sub-headings in a website. H1, H2, H3, and H4 are the most commonly used tags.

Search engines like Google scan through the header tags first and consider them a priority. Most times, your header will tell the search engine what the content is about and helps it list your content when a specific query is posted.

A study found that 79% of users only scan the contents of a website and don’t read fully the first time? This is why using the right headers and giving your website’s content a clear structure is important.

All your header tags must have the right keywords in them. Here are some other ways to optimize your header tags.

• Use headers to breakup content into easily-readable forms
• Use the same case and font size for your headers
• Make the headers interesting

4. Concentrate on internal linking

Internal linking is providing a link to one page of your website on another page. For instance, you can give the link to a particular product page in your blog. You can add a link to your services offered on the menu.

Google Bot is Google’s crawler program that reaches your home page first and moves through the rest of the website based on the links you have on the page. All search engines have such crawling software. These internal links provide a structure to your site and tell the search engine how pages are related to each other.

Make sure all your pages are internally linked wherever it makes sense. When a page is linked multiple times internally, the search engine assumes the page is more important and ranks it higher.

5. Optimize Meta Description

When you search for something on Google, you see relevant websites with a small summary of the page mentioned below. This summary is called the meta description.

Meta descriptions may not be used by search engines to rank your website. However, it helps users decide whether or not they should click on your site link. Providing a well-created and precise meta description that is to the point will increase your Click Through Rate (CTR).

• Make sure the description is clear and include keywords if possible
• Do not add double quotations in meta descriptions
• Have different meta descriptions for different pages on your website

6. Improve the Page load time

Page load time is the time taken between clicking a link and the page getting completely loaded. While page load time is an important factor for the users, it is also vital when it comes to search engine rankings.

Page load time is a factor that determines how search engines rank websites. Search engines like Google prioritize websites with faster page load time and show them on top of the search list. Visitors spend lesser time on websites that load slowly.

Google started using site speed as a factor in its search ranking algorithm in 2010. To date, it considers page load time a relevant factor that website owners have to keep in mind if they want to rank higher and get more organic traffic.

7. Make sure your website is mobile-friendly

In 2020, about half of the world’s internet traffic was channeled through mobile phones. About 50% of people looking for something on the internet, use their phones to search. It is hence absolutely important that your website is mobile-friendly. Here are a few smart tips to make your website mobile-friendly.

• Make the website responsive to different screen sizes
• Get rid of pop-up ads and banner ads
• Make use of the Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) framework to improve speed while browsing on mobile phones
• Make button sizes and Call-To-Action tags bolder and easily accessible on smaller mobile screens
• Make sure the font sizes are large enough to read on the small screen
• Test the mobile performance of the site here – https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly

In 2015, Google released a statement saying it would now include mobile-friendliness as a factor in ranking websites. If your website is not adaptable to mobile screens, you will not be able to get organic traffic.

Conclusion

To ensure your amazing product or service reaches the right people, SEO is important. Search Engine Optimization is a strategy that will provide you long-term benefits. It is not a one-time solution though. You will have to keep making changes, checking the response, and tweaking your algorithm regularly.

If you don’t have a lot of experience about the latest in the SEO field, outsource it to the experts. Our SEO team lives and breathes website optimization. Get in touch with us for a free consultation right away and we will help you increase your organic traffic, make the website user-friendly, and improve your conversion rate.

What is Local SEO?

Local SEO is a very interesting category of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). While SEO strategies are implemented to reach audiences all over the world, local SEO strategies are created to focus on the local area where the business is based.

For instance, if you are a fast-food business based out of Bandra, Mumbai, your local SEO advertisements and marketing efforts will only be targeted towards people living in Bandra.

Local SEO helps make your business visible to communities that are closer to your business location. While most brick and mortar stores (physical shops) benefit from local SEO, a lot of service businesses that offer services in restricted areas also do great by making use of local SEO strategies.

Why is local SEO important?

Local SEO helps build brand visibility and improves footfalls in local brick and mortar stores.  ‘Understanding Consumers’ Local Search Behavior’ is a detailed survey by Google with 4500 participants across 9 verticals. (https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-strategies/search/how-advertisers-can-extend-their-relevance-with-search/)

Here are some of the results of the survey.

• 4 out of 5 smartphone users want the ads shown to them to be customized, based on their zip code and locality.
• 60% of consumers make use of local SEO information they see online including the direction to a place or the phone number of a business.
• 50% of people who looked for information about a local store or service visit the place the same day.

Local SEO techniques deliver targeted traffic to your website and increase the chances of closing a sale. Gaining visibility locally helps get more reviews on search engines like Google and Bing and this, in turn, improves business reputation.

Here are 11 tips to improve your local Search Engine Optimization strategies and strengthen your presence among local communities.

1. Keyword Research

Imagine having a smartphone in hand and searching for the best Italian restaurant around your house. A majority of folks end up using the voice search button on their search engine. That is why the keywords you choose need to have questions when it comes to local SEO.

Sentences like ‘what is the best pub near me’ or ‘find a lawyer near me’ are all popular question-based keywords when you are implementing local SEO.

Use a good SEO tool to identify top keywords in your niche and tweak them as questions to improve your local SEO efforts.

2. Optimize for Google My Business

‘Google My Business’ (GMB) is a product from Google that helps product and service companies and businesses verify their basic details that are displayed when you do a Google search.

If you have a physical store or space, you are eligible for GMB verification.

There are a few simple steps you have to go through to verify your business. Details like name, phone number, location on the Google map, images of your store, and hours of operation are all to be filled up.

By doing this, you will be listed whenever a user searches for a specific product or service related to your business in the local area on Google’s search engine. You can also start getting local reviews to boost your presence.

3. Improve your internal linking structure

Internal linking is a way of helping users and search engines navigate from one page to another on your website. You can add links to your products/services in your blog posts. You can add links to other posts/pages on content in your homepage, menu, or the about us page.

When you have a good internal linking structure, it helps search engines like Google to know how your content is related and the important/ high ranked pages on your website. Google displays these pages when local users search for you.

4. Optimize your site structure and content

Your website is something your local users will want to check out when they are searching for you. Optimizing your website is important if you want to get business both online and offline.  If you want to list on the top of local searches online, you will have to use the right title tags, headlines, meta descriptions, and content.

Your website has to be free of technical errors and bugs and the site has to be easy to navigate through (crawlability factor).

5. Add location pages to your website

When you are concentrating on local SEO, the location of your business has to be clearly and boldly mentioned on the website. Give details of your business location and contact details in both the header and the footer of the site. This way, whichever page your user lands on, they can see the location and contact details easily.

6. Create local content

Create a lot of local content that users may be interested in. Such content doesn’t always have to be related to your product or service. Such content can be posted in your blogs and should include a lot of local neighborhood names, major locations, and attractions as keywords.

You will also fare great if you can post local news and happenings on your blog pages and provide internal links from these blogs to your website. Be sure you don’t promote yourself blatantly on these local content blogs. They have to only be about things people care about in the locality.

7. Ensure your website is mobile-friendly

A large-scale study says that 78% of local searches are made through smartphones. If your website is not mobile-friendly, your users will ignore you and move on to opt for products and services from your mobile-friendly competitor.

8. Ensure your name, address, and phone number are consistent online

This is yet another very important tip that all local businesses have to keep in mind. If you have changed your business location, make sure you update it on every single online platform your business is mentioned in. If you are called ‘ABC & sons’ legally, that should be your name on the Google My Business page, on your website, and in press releases and online mentions.

Consistency is key when it comes to local SEO practices.

9. Optimize online directories and citations

Citations are places your business is mentioned. This could be in local directories, on social media platforms, on your website, or in apps.

There are sites where you can pay to get your Name, Address, and Phone number (NAP) mentioned to reach local users. JustDial in India is one such paid citation page. Optimizing your presence in such places will make sure you are ranked higher on search engines.

10. Get inbound links with relevance and authority

Inbound links or backlinks are links from other sites to your business website or page. When you have several good quality inbound links, Google considers your website authoritative and genuine and lists you higher. Here are certain factors to keep in mind when you create backlinks for local SEO.

• Inbound links need to come from local relevant blogs and websites
• Sites that mention the local city name or neighborhood as a keyword along with providing your website linkare authentic and the best inbound links
• Inbound links from sites that Google trusts are preferred

Pick up relationships with complementary businesses and provide them backlinks on your blogs. This is an easy way to get yourself mentioned on other websites and blogs. You can also take the help of an SEO company to identify the backlink sources for your competitors and connect with these backlinks.

11. Engage on social media and add posts to Google My Business

Social media is one of the most active platforms to promote your business to the local audience. You can target local ads and promotions within your neighborhood on platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Engage with the local audience and answer their queries.

Join local neighborhood groups on these platforms and introduce your product/service there.

Google My Business has an option to create posts that will be visible to your existing and potential customers. These posts are visible on your business page and help communicate with your customers directly. You can share promotions, discount deals, images, and offers through these posts to the local audience.

Conclusion

Local SEO involves a lot of practices, strategies, and ideas that take you closer to your local audience. If you are a small business offering products and services to a restricted community, adapting to local SEO instead of regular SEO practices will work better for you.

If you are not sure how to rank locally as a business leader, get in touch with one of our local SEO experts. We will get back to you for a free consultation to help improve your local SEO reach.

WhatsApp has always taken pride in the fact that it gives utmost importance to security and encryption and has told customers time and again that user information and chats will remain private.

That’s why users and experts are worried about the impending new privacy policy up-gradation that WhatsApp is planning to bring in.

WhatsApp is a cross-messaging and Voice over IP (VoIP) free platform that has more than 2 billion active users. After WhatsApp was bought by Facebook in 2014, it has turned into one of the most used cross-messaging apps globally.

From January 4^th, 2021, WhatsApp users are shown updated privacy policy rules and are asked to accept the same. Users can opt to postpone agreeing to the same until February 8^th, 2021, but after that, they will have no choice. They will have to agree to the update or stop using the platform.

Will WhatsApp be reading your chats and listening to your calls?

WhatsApp has always promised that your chats and your calls will stay private. Chats are encrypted and your messages are stored on your device and not on WhatsApp’s servers. This promise will hold true even after the policy up-gradation. Your chats and your calls will remain encrypted and safe.

Why are people worried about the policy change then?

The problem with WhatsApp’s privacy policy update is how it would be using other personal information available on the messaging platform and how your information will be used when you interact with business accounts on the platform.

                                                                                              (Image source: whatsapp.com)

WhatsApp states that it is one of the Facebook Companies and hence will be sharing your information from WhatsApp to other Facebook companies and other third-party services that WhatsApp works with.

Here are some of the details that WhatsApp will be sharing with Facebook whether or not you agree to it from February 8^th, 2021.

• Your phone number
• If you use WhatsApp payments, your transaction history, and details
• Mobile IP address and other device-related information
• Browser information and what mobile network you use
• Hardware details including battery level, signal strength, and other kinds of device operation information

WhatsApp will also be sharing User information like these with Facebook –

• How you use WhatsApp and how long you use the app
• Your WhatsApp settings
• How long and how often you interact with other users
• Your profile photo, status, and location

These new privacy policy changes give users no control over their personal, financial, and purchase information.

This policy of WhatsApp will not be applicable in the European region, thanks to its stringent data sharing policy.

India’s updated Data Protection Bill could have helped WhatsApp from sharing your information, but the bill has not been passed yet, so Indian users face vulnerability.

Indian cyber law experts call this move of WhatsApp, a method to try making money out of people’s private data without giving them a choice to refuse.

Recently, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) met the Minister of Information and Technology, to demand the government to restrict WhatsApp from applying the new policy update in the country.

                                                                                               (Image source: Twitter.com)

Technology enthusiasts and business leaders from around the world are resorting to social media platforms to talk about this new policy update.

                                                                                                    (Image source: Twitter.com)

WhatsApp privacy policy and its use for business accounts

Business accounts are accounts created by businesses on WhatsApp to communicate with users and send them information about their products, services, and customer orders. Another worrying change in the privacy policy of WhatsApp is about how much of your information is going to reach these business accounts.

There are more than 50 million business accounts on WhatsApp. Once the new privacy policy is updated, business accounts will get more information about the users to target the right product/service/deal for the individual.

Remember that Facebook is offering to act as a host for business accounts and will manage their communications with customers. Facebook will also have most of your user information through the new WhatsApp policy.

This means that Facebook companies will be using such information to offer better services to their business customers.

What’s the alternative if you care about data privacy?

Thankfully, WhatsApp is not the only cross-messaging and voice-over app in the market. If you care about your data privacy and WhatsApp is not ready to make changes to its privacy policy, you can think of switching over smaller but equally good messaging apps like Signal and Telegram.

A comparative analysis between WhatsApp, Signal, and Telegram

WhatsApp – WhatsApp is the world’s most popular messaging app. Businesses use the app to get in touch with customers and users send texts, voice messages, images, documents, and videos over this platform.

Top features of WhatsApp

• Ability to post statuses
• Can form groups (maximum group size – 256)
• Group video calls (maximum of 8 members)
• Can share photos, videos, and documents (maximum size – 16 MB)
• Messages are backed-up through third-party cloud services
• No ads

Signal – Signal is a cross-platform non-profit messaging app that was founded in the year 2014. It is available for iOS, Android, and desktop.  Signal offers end-to-end encryption for all texts and voice messages.

Top features of Signal

• Self-destructing messages (messages can be created to last in the sender and receiver’s screen only for a specific period)
• Note-to-self feature to jot down things like in a notepad
• Screen security – Prevents other apps from taking screenshots of your Signal screen
• No ads
• Simple user interface

Telegram – Telegram is a non-profit freeware software that also helps with cross-platform messaging and with VoIP. This software was developed in 2013 and already has around 400 million monthly users.

Top features of Telegram

• Ability to form large groups (200,000 members)
• Unique features like creation of polls, quizzes, and bots
• File sharing size limit of 1.5 GB
• Does not share any information with third-party apps and companies or governments
• Telegram claims that it delivers messages the fastest
• Ability to send self-destructing messages

To give you an idea of how invasive WhatsApp and Facebook are when it comes to your ‘personal’ data, check this infographic out. This tells you what information is collected by all three of these messaging apps when you install and use them.

What does the future hold for WhatsApp?

In India, the choice of whether or not you let the Facebook group of companies use your information depends on individual users. It is going to take a little more time for the government to pass the data privacy bill.

One group of people argue that giants like Google already have most of the personal information of a user and this new privacy policy of WhatsApp is not going to affect them much. Such individuals are going to keep using WhatsApp after agreeing to the privacy policy.

Another larger group of people have already started exploring other safer and private forms of messaging services including Signal and Telegram. These apps are being downloaded in large numbers as you read.

As people start asking questions about WhatsApp and Facebook’s invasion of privacy, more such freeware cross-platform messaging apps are going to be created with stringent and iron-clad privacy policies.

The latest update: What does WhatsApp have to say?

WhatsApp looked like it was caught unaware by all the backlashing it has received in the last couple of weeks. About 25 million new users had signed up for Telegram in just 3 days. People are sharing all kinds of information about WhatsApp and its privacy policy on all social platforms.

The brand was quick to respond though.

WhatsApp recently created an FAQ section on its website with an explanation of what its privacy policy meant. Here are few points from the list.

1. WhatsApp cannot see your messages or hear your calls
2. It will not use your shared location or send it to Facebook
3. WhatsApp groups will be private
4. It will not share your contacts with Facebook

WhatsApp has now announced that it will delay implementing the updated privacy policy by a couple of months from February 8^th to May 15^th.

The Indian government has for its part sent a questionnaire to WhatsApp that includes questions like what permissions will the app need to function and what categories of data will the company collect and share. The government has also asked WhatsApp to withdraw its privacy policy update in India keeping in mind the data privacy and security aspects of the country.

Conclusion

 

The internet is already a difficult place to venture into if you want to hold your privacy close to you. With such policy changes, it is going to be even more difficult to keep your activities and interests to yourself.

No one can say Signal or Telegram is 100% effective. You, as a consumer, will have to look through their policies and terms and decide if they are safe for you to create your accounts with.

If you are planning to quit WhatsApp, it is not enough if you delete the app from your phone. You will have to delete your account from the app’s settings.

                                                        <WhatsApp Settings – Account – Delete my account>  

      

Even then, experts say that your past information and texts, images, docs, and videos shared are going to remain in the WhatsApp system.

We will have to wait and see how WhatsApp and Facebook respond to the extreme reactions and displeasure shown at this privacy policy update.

What do you feel about this new policy up-gradation by WhatsApp? Will you continue using the app or switch over to other more secure messaging platforms? Let us know in the comments below.

For more such useful information about digital media , stay tuned to our new blog posts

Is your WordPress blog/website SEO friendly? – A question every brand and every blogger should ask themselves.

WordPress is one of the most popular platforms to create your website or blog. It brings incredible themes and powerful features for everyone. Many themes and features are free, and hence the platform has gained millions of users.

If you want your WordPress website or blog to get organic traffic and be noticeable, the page has to be SEO friendly. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving your site’s visibility and bringing it unpaid, organic traffic. Every website benefit from organic traffic.

There are so many WordPress SEO plugins that you can install to help improve your site’s SEO ranking.

Here is a list of top plugins you should consider using.

1. SEMRush SEO Writing Assistant

SEMRush is a competitive research and SEO company that was established in the year 2008 in the United States. The company is headquartered in Massachusetts. The SEO Writing Assistant helps you analyze how SEO-compatible your content is. The plugin can also be used to analyze the readability aspect of the content.

Features

• Check the originality of the content using the plagiarism check feature
• Check the tone of the content with a click of a button
• Improve the ease of reading the content using the readability score
• Analyze the SEO quality of the content
• Find recommended keywords

Pricing

Basic plugin – free

Paid packages – Pro – $129/month, Guru – $429/month

Free trial – 7-days

2. Google Analytics Dashboard from ExactMetrics

Google Analytics uses machine learning capabilities and unique insights to give you data and suggestions that improve your SEO ranking. The Google Analytics Dashboard by ExactMetrics is an exclusive WordPress plugin that helps you install and use all the top features of Google Analytics on your WordPress page.

Features

• Provides SEO score tracking
• Universal website/blog page tracking across different campaigns and websites
• Helps segment the traffic based on individual keywords
• Recommends the best keywords to optimize the page
• Scroll tracking helps you know where the users lose interest while browsing the page

Pricing

Basic plugin – free

Paid Packages – Plus – $99.50/year, Pro – $199.50/year, Agency – $399.50/year

3. Squirrly SEO Audit

Squirrly SEO is a fully-featured software for SEO that also includes an awesome SEO audit plugin. This is also one of the most downloaded plugins on WordPress for SEO analysis. Even if you are not an SEO expert, it is easy to make use of this plugin to improve the positioning and the presence of your website/blog page.

Features

• Get your weekly SEO, social traffic, and blogging score
• Optimize content to improve page ranking
• The SEO audit is done keeping in mind up to 20 aspects of the page including empty descriptions, duplicate titles and description, page load time, index status of your URLs, and more
• Page ranked based on Alexa rank, domain age, site icon implementations, and page authority
• Choose the pages that need to be audited

Pricing

All basic SEO features in the plugin are free to use

Paid packages – Pro – $20.99/month, Business – $71.99/month, Agency – $75.99/month

4. Yoast SEO

Called the #1 SEO plugin tool for WordPress, Yoast SEO a large group of loyal customers who benefit immensely from the tool. This SEO plugin has been helping millions of websites improve their SEO ranking and get more organic traffic since 2008. The plugin tool is used by small bloggers and large multinationals alike.

Features

• Addition of meta tags and canonical URLs to automatically improve SEO ranking
• Gets more visitors from social media pages and search engines like Google and Bing
• Recommendation for high-quality and high-performing keywords
• Provides readability checks for websites and blogs
• Automatically suggests the addition of internal links
• Detailed Schema.org integration

Pricing

The Yoast SEO free package is free for all and includes all basic SEO features

Yoast SEO Premium is the paid package that cost $99 per year for one site.

5. WP Meta SEO

WP Meta SEO is a WordPress plugin from the Joom United brand. This time-saving tool comes with many useful features like image SEO optimization, sitemap XML integration, and a meta-information bulk editor. The Joom United brand specializes in various other kinds of WordPress tools too.

Features

• Ability to edit bulk website meta
• XML and HTML sitemap generation
• Console keyword suggestion
• Google Analytics tracking
• Duplicate metasearch
• Image HTML resizing options
• Search engine optimization of images
• 404 errors redirection

Pricing

The basic SEO plugin for WordPress is free

Paid packages – Pro – $49/year

6. W3 Total Cache Pro

W3 Total Cache (W3TC) is another good WordPress plugin that helps improve your SEO ranking and makes your page SEO friendly. Irrespective of whether you are a beginner or an advanced WordPress user, you can make a great difference to your page using this plugin.

Features

• Up to 10 times improvement in site performance
• Improvements in SEO ranking
• Reduction in page load time
• Pages load and perform better even during high traffic
• Repeat page views are instantly counted
• Improved server performance

Pricing

$99/year

7. All in One SEO for WordPress (AIOSEO)

Another of the very popular and most downloaded SEO plugin for WordPress is the All in One SEO for WordPress (AIOSEO). More than 2 million individuals and brands use AIOSEO to improve the SEO rankings of their websites and blog pages. AIOSEO includes the below modules/tools.

• Local SEO
• SEO for WooCommerce platform
• Smart Sitemaps
• Advanced and extensive SEO modules
• SEO optimizer tool
• Schema snippets

Features

• All basic tools needed to improve local SEO ranking
• Automatic generation of WordPress XML sitemap
• On page SEO analysis
• Easy integration of social media pages
• Woo Commerce SEO analysis

Pricing

14-days money back guarantee available

Paid packages – Basic – ₹260, Plus – ₹875, Pro – ₹500, Elite – ₹1,125 per month

8. Ahrefs SEO WordPress Plugin

Ahrefs is a small independent search engine optimization company that specializes in conducting SEO audits that improve your ranking and increase organic traffic. The Ahrefs SEO WordPress Plugin automatically identifies low-performing pages and offers recommendations to improve their performance. The SEO audit combines Google Analytics report, backlink numbers, and organic traffic to take the right actions.

Features

• Helps understand a page/website’s backlink profile. Their live backlink database is refreshed every 30 minutes
• The plugin pulls information from Google Analytics, processes and reads the data, and gives you solid actionable improvement tips
• The plugin is lightweight and offers minimal stress on your WordPress server

Pricing

Basic plugin package is available for free

Paid packages –  Lite – $129/month, Standard – $249/month, Advanced – $499/month, Agency $14990/month

9. Rank Math

Rank Math is one of the best SEO plugins for serious WordPress users. The brand makes it very easy for anyone to optimize their content and their webpage. The product comes with 15 pre-built modules that make it very easy to configure the plugin based on your requirements. You can prevent hours of repetitive and monotonous work using this plugin.

Features

• Helps measure and track keyword rankings
• Runs detailed SEO analysis to identify problems
• Easy user interface and installation process
• Built-in advanced SEO tool that keeps giving suggestions and recommendations
• Ability to integrate with Google Analytics
• Advanced schema generation

Pricing

The basic version is free

Paid packages: Pro – $49.99/month, Business – $20.99/month

Conclusion

There are thousands of plugins available for managing SEO activities on your WordPress page. At the end of the day, choosing the best SEO plugin depends on individual needs. Certain features of certain plugins may prove vital for some than for others. Before you choose a plugin, analyze your needs, and compare them with the plugin’s offerings.

If you are doubtful about what features would help your brand or your page, get in touch with us. Our SEO experts have years of experience handling WordPress apps, websites, and blogs and can guide you in picking and using the right plugin. Contact us for a free consultation right away.

Facebook has about 2.7 billion users every month, out of which about 1.5 billion are active on the social media platform every single day. It is not surprising that most businesses are trying to promote their products and services here.

Facebook is one of the top social media platforms and is built to help you reach a larger group of audience very quickly. On average, each user spends up to 60 minutes on Facebook. This is the time you can use to introduce your product or service and convert their interest into sales leads by using Facebook Marketing.

What is Facebook marketing?

Facebook Marketing is a simple way of using a Facebook page to reach existing and potential customers and clients and offer your products and services to them. Such Facebook pages also serve as places you can promote discount deals, offers, and other benefits that can tempt a visitor to buy what you sell. You could be a brand, a local business, a service provider, or a Non-Profit Organization. Everyone benefits from having a Facebook page and promoting it.

 

Benefits of Facebook Marketing

1. Facebook marketing is flexible – You could be a small local business or a multinational organization. Facebook offers paid marketing features for all kinds of budgets. You can decide how much you want to spend every day, which is a huge advantage.
2. Choose to run your ads in specific places – You can run your ads on Facebook feeds or promote them as personalized messages on the messenger platform. Some businesses want their ads to show up only on mobile phones. Placements are easy.
3. Customize your target audience – You can filter your target audience quite comprehensively on Facebook. Choose a particular gender, age group, locality, and interest that your audience needs to have, and then ads run accordingly. This helps your marketing strategies create a bigger and bolder impact on those who matter to your business.
4. Promote your website on Facebook– Looking for more traffic for your website? It is effortless to run a promotion that makes people click on your website link.
5. Find worthy customers and clients – Facebook is one place you can easily spot clients and customers who have a genuine interest in what you offer. These individuals turn into loyal customers over time.
6. Personal interaction with customers – Use your Facebook page to answer queries and messages and solve grievances. This improves your customer’s experience with your brand and puts you at an advantage.

Formats of Facebook Marketing

1) Video Ad – Video ads are the most popular right now. Videos are more eye-catching, and the chances of your audience stopping to look through the whole video are high. Video ads are exciting and self-explanatory. You can:

• Create stories for customers to watch
• Add advertising in existing videos that are most watched
• Upload native videos that are shown in feeds

2) Image Ads – These are probably one of the most comfortable ads to create on Facebook. Image ads generate interest in the audience and encourage them to take a desirable action (click on the website link, shop for a product, fill up an interest form, etc.) Image ads can increase traffic, improve brand awareness, and get more likes and reaches.

3) Carousel Ads – In a Facebook carousel ad, you can show up to 10 pictures or videos to your audience. Each image or video can have its details and links. You can show different views of the same product or show ten other products/services to the target audience.

4) Slideshow Ads – If you have great images with you and want to show them as a slideshow to the audience, this is the best option. Slideshow ads load quickly and play well without the need for high-speed internet. This is an alternative to video ads and works quickly and hassle-free. Slideshow ads are great to tell a story.

5) Lead Generation Ads – Lead generation ads are the most effective ads when it comes to converting mere interests into closed deals. If you are from the sales team, you will know that getting the right leads matter the most. These lead generation ads let you do the following:

• Collect information like name, contact details from customers
• Get the email-IDs of potential customers/interested audience
• Get the audience to answer vital questions you need for the business
• Get people to show interest/enroll in a service or program you offer
• Offer downloads to the target audience

Ways to use Facebook for marketing

1. Create the right kind of business page

The first way to use Facebook for marketing effectively is to create a page that draws Facebook users’ attention. Millions of Facebook business pages are on the platform, but many of them are boring and dormant.

Have attractive cover and display photos that keep changing regularly. Ensure your ‘about’ section is prominent and contains all details a potential customer might want to know about you.

Be active on the platform and make sure you answer queries, messages, and respond to reviews quickly. This tells Facebook you are a dynamic page and your ads reach more audiences, and you get better exposure.

2. Post information that’s useful to your target audience

You might be marketing your brand extensively with paid ads, but if your brand page is boring with ill-frequented posts, then it repels Facebook users who look for you. Here are a few things you can do to prevent this from happening.

• Post regularly
• Offer deals and discounts on the page
• Share information that your audiences are genuinely interested in
• Give the links of your blog page every time you post a new blog
• Post fun video ads that attract more likes and comments

3. Host Facebook contests

This is one of the best ways to help your page reach more audiences and also find people who are interested in your product/service. Here are simple steps to create Facebook contests.

• Create a contest prize
• Decide on the desirable goal (more shares and likes, filling in a form, or getting more followers)
• Decide on the contest entry method (asking people to like and share your page or tagging a friend)
• Post the contest and promote it on your page and in relevant groups and marketplaces
• Mention details of what can be won, how to win, who can participate, how winners are selected, and the date of winner announcement in the post.
• Announce the winner and create a thank you post
• Encourage the winner to share the information on his/her Facebook page

Make sure the Contest is genuine and the giveaway prize is worth the effort put in by the users.

4. Promote your page and promote your posts

Be regular with promotions. Try different kinds of promotions with different target audiences and compare the results you get. Apart from promoting your page, also promote important posts.

5. Try Sponsored Stories

Sponsored Stories is an exclusive marketing strategy offered by Facebook. Facebook creates stories when people like a page, visit a place or tag a brand. Let’s say ‘A’ visited a restaurant and tagged the place on Facebook. When the same restaurant opts for sponsored stories, people who are friends with ‘A’ will find sponsored ads saying their friend liked this place.

Such sponsored ads can be shown days and weeks after ‘A’ had initially posted it. Sponsored ads are great ways of building trust by using a friend’s relationship/interaction with the brand.

6. Make use of groups

 

There are millions of groups on Facebook. When you identify a group that exactly matches your target requirement, you have a rich pool of potential customers. All you need to do is introduce them to your product/service. You can post as the brand page here or get your digital marketing team to create individual profiles who can promote your brand on groups.

7. Make use of Marketplaces

 

Marketplaces are similar to groups but created with an intention to buy/sell products and services. It is easier to market your products on marketplaces rather than in groups that may have stringent rules about no direct advertising. Find relevant marketplaces and share your product pages regularly. This helps build more customers with time.

Conclusion

We have tried to share with you, a few useful ways to use Facebook for marketing. These tips have worked quite well for a lot of Facebook users and we believe it would be useful to you as well.

Make sure to use all these 7 ways to use Facebook for marketing, and see results for yourself. Do you know any other successful strategy you have tried out? Let us know in the comment section. Our other readers would also like to learn more.

If you want to implement successful strategies for using Facebook for marketing your brand or business, drop us an email or contact us here. We will get back to you with a free consultation session.

 

LinkedIn marketing is a way of using LinkedIn’s connections and strengths to generate leads and connect with potential business clients. B2B businesses find generating leads challenging, unlike B2C brands with multiple platforms to reach their customers.

LinkedIn has about 690 million monthly users and has active accounts of 30 million companies. LinkedIn is a perfect place to reach out to these businesses and connect with them one to one.

Why LinkedIn marketing?

Here are a few reasons why you should be considering LinkedIn marketing for your B2B business seriously.

• LinkedIn is popular –This is the second most popular social media platform after Facebook to be used successfully by B2B marketers.
• Position yourself as a leader –It is effortless to position yourself as a leader in your domain by staying active and engaging with other businesses on LinkedIn.
• Networking –You get a fantastic chance to network with other businesses and potential clients on LinkedIn without making it feel like a business proposition or a selling tactic. Personal connections with heads of other businesses are more manageable too.
• Generate organic traffic – Use LinkedIn to post interesting stuff and business-related content. Use the ‘Share’ button to send the content to different LinkedIn groups you are associated with. Add links to your business page to drive organic traffic.
• Gain insights – Know what your business clients want from you. You can post questions, look for answers, and understand the specific needs of your potential clients. These insights build your business and get converted into leads.

How to optimize the company page?

Before you understand and implement the top LinkedIn marketing strategies for B2B businesses, you should start by optimizing your page.

Consider your LinkedIn company page as an entrance to your website where sales happen. The entrance has to be enticing, useful, and interesting for people to enter. Here are ways you can optimize your company page effectively.

• Insert the right keywords and phrases that clients may use for searching for a product or a service.
• Refine the ‘About’ tab and give in short and precise details on who you are and how you can help.
• Add a link to your website on the company page, as this is very important to help clients reach out.
• Publish and share engaging content regularly; this helps you gain more followers and provide much-needed exposure.

Here are eight fascinating LinkedIn marketing strategies for B2B businesses that will help you make the best use of this social media platform.

Understand your Audience

Irrespective of whether you post organically or use paid ads, LinkedIn has useful targeting parameters that help you reach the right audience. Knowing your audience changes everything. What kind of businesses are you targeting (SMEs, multinationals, service companies)? Are you reaching the top management, or do you want to connect with mid-level consultants and business developers? You can hyper-target your content based on this.

Make it a habit to post regularly

Just having a company page on LinkedIn will not do the magic. You will have to be genuinely active there, as this is one of the most vital marketing strategies for B2B businesses that help them in the long term.

Start creating content useful for your business clients. Share valuable information and articles. Make your potential client visit your page for the info you give them. They will turn into value-adding clients with time.

Make sure you don’t keep pushing your products and services directly on these posts. Just add value to your readers, and sales will happen as a result.

Besides creating your content, you can also share insightful content from non-competitive pages and individual profiles; this is also a quick way to increase your followers on this social media page.

Promote your content

You might offer a great product or a service and maybe giving them at the lowest prices in the market. However, reaching a more comprehensive range of audience is essential if you want to start seeing revenues. Promotion helps kickstart your reach. LinkedIn offers different kinds of paid promotions on their page.

• Sponsored content – Paid promotions that appear on the feed of your audience
• Sponsored messaging – Individual messages reaching the right audience
• Text ads – Pay Per Click ads
• Dynamic ads – Ads customized to the chosen audience

Share your content in the relevant group

Groups are closed networks of people and businesses on LinkedIn who share the same ideas, requirements, and interests. Identifying the right group who may need your product or service is like finding a chest full of treasure waiting for you!

You can only be a member of 50 groups on LinkedIn. Hence choose carefully. Look for the below criteria and then join a group.

– Is the group active?

– Do people comment/likes content shared there?

– How big is the group?

– Does the group exactly match your target requirement?

Analyze your competitor pages

A brilliant move that will help you channelize LinkedIn as a B2B business platform is to be aware of what your competitors are doing.

Keep checking your competitors’ pages regularly to find out what kind of content they share, how their company page looks, and what groups they are a part of.

Promote your company page

You might be promoting your content through paid and organic modes on LinkedIn. The next step is to promote your page to make sure more people check it out and find interest in your posts and shares. If you send out emails, make sure your company’s LinkedIn page is included in your signature. Add the link of your LinkedIn page to other social media pages you are a part of.

Promote the page on newsletters, blog posts, and internal official emails. All these activities help over time to improve your positioning as a leader on LinkedIn. It will also bring you unforeseen business opportunities.

Your employees are your strength, and you can easily use them and their professional LinkedIn page to improve your leverage on the platform and reach a more relevant audience. Here are ways you can do so.

• Let your employees know your intention – Talk to your employees about using LinkedIn as a marketing tool and ask for their support. Being honest brings in the best from the employees.
• Create an active employee group on the platform – Create a new group on LinkedIn with the employees and encourage them to share stories, feedback, posts, and ideas. You now have original content you can share on the company’s feed.
• Get your employees to interact with the company page – Regularly send details of the most important posts and shares you have on your page to the employees – This will improve interaction on the platform.
• Consider “Work With Us Ads” – Work With Us Adsis a promotional feature of LinkedIn where your company’s logo shows up along with your employees’ display picture. Suppose someone outside the company interacts with them – this is one of the easiest ways to talk about your brand to people outside your loop.

Turn your company page into a lead generation page

One of the most useful yet challenging LinkedIn marketing strategies for B2B businesses is the ability to convert your business page into a lead generating space. The following strategies help.

– Have attractive images that create interest on the main page.

– Pitch subtly on your description page. Tell business what makes you different and irresistible.

– Create a Showcase Page. A showcase page is designed for a specific set of audience (B2B clients in this case) and can be tailor-made to show some of the best aspects of your page here. This page can be used for promotions and will be listed under your regular company page. You can use the Showcase page to share unique content with the audience of your choice.

– Be active on the page. Readily answer queries, comment, and connect with people.

Conclusion

Building a successful marketing platform on LinkedIn for business leads is a challenging yet advantageous strategy for B2B businesses. If you have not considered this before, it is time you looked into this social media platform that offers you millions of business opportunities.

Are you a B2B business interested in knowing more about LinkedIn marketing? Get in touch with us, and one of our marketing experts will get back to you for a free consultation.

 

The purpose of a website or a blog page is to drive traffic to the page in the hope that the traffic gets converted into business leads that give the brand a reason to exist.

A website might have thousands of visitors a day. How many of them end up buying the product or service offered is a very important question to ask.

For companies to be successful in the long run, they should be able to convert mere visitors into potential clients/customers.

What is Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)?

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is making potential customers who visit a website take a desirable action pre-decided by the brand. In other terms, it is tweaking the website, its design, and offerings to make sure a customer’s visit to your site turns into a potential lead.

The conversion of the interest of the customer into a potential lead is called Conversion Rate Optimization.

Businesses can make specific changes to their website and landing pages, create tailor-made experiences, and give visitors what they want to help convert them into customers/clients. CRO is an on-going process and it takes time for businesses to identify what works and doesn’t for their site.

There can be many types of conversions businesses want.

Major/macro conversions

• Buying a product
• Opting for a service
• Contacting the team for a quote

Minor/micro conversions

• Signing up on the website
• Adding products to a wish list
• Adding products to the cart
• Opting for email subscriptions

While many businesses spend a lot of money in driving traffic to their website through SEO strategies and paid ads, they do not take a similar effort in improving their CRO. High visitor traffic to a website is of no use when the CRO is very low.

How to calculate CRO?

The formula to calculate Conversion Rate Optimization is quite simple. There are two scenarios given below and the formula slightly changes according to the type of business.

Conversion rate based on traffic/number of sessions

Imagine owning a website that sells mobile phone accessories. Users visit the website, browse through the products, and check the prices. Few visitors leave halfway through while others complete a purchase. In such scenarios,

Conversion rate percentage = (New leads generated/website traffic) X 100

If you have had 500 visitors to your website and 10 people ended up buying the products,

Conversion Rate Optimization % = (10/500) X 100 = 2%

Conversion rate based on number of users

Imagine a different scenario. You offer a streaming TV subscription service. Your visitor subscribes to a yearly package from you. The visitor visits your website multiple times to check program lists and other details but does not purchase anything else for the whole year.

In this case, calculating the conversion rate based on website traffic does not make sense. You should be using the below formula.

Conversion rate percentage = (number of new orders/numbers of unique users) X 100

Let’s say you had 200 new users signing up on the website. You got 50 orders/subscriptions that month.

Conversion Rate Optimization % = (50/200) X 100 = 25%

The benefits of CRO for small and large businesses

Why is CRO important? How can you make use of the CRO information to improve your business positioning and get better and more solid leads? Check out these top benefits.

1. Get better insights about your key audience – What kind of customers actually convert from being mere visitors? Which page on the website triggers them? CRO will give you lots of chances to experiment with changes in the website to see if the conversion rate gets better. It also helps you identify user behavior specific to your website.
2. Give a better user experience to your customer – By practicing CRO and making changes to the over-all design and engagement value, you make your website or blog page better every time. This improves user-experience and that, in turn, helps you get more leads.
3. Get better revenues without spending more on driving traffic – Trying to increase your revenues by improving website traffic with paid ads and other expensive marketing strategies is not a smart move every time. You should instead try and convert existing traffic into leads. This is what Conversion Rate Optimization does for you.
4. Improve your SEO efforts –Your website is going to be ranked higher on search engines if the user experience is good and your users are spending quality time on your site. Google had mentioned that its search engine is smarter and picked up user behavior as a trait to rank websites.
5. Make long-term associations with your customers and clients – By tweaking your website and making specific changes that push customers into making a desirable action, you are making the visitors happy. The chances of your customers returning to the site are higher too.

Top CRO strategies to Try

1. Don’t let your visitor work too hard

Let’s say your desired goal from visitors is to help them sign up on the website. You have driven a good amount of traffic to the site and the sign-up page opens. Imagine having a long list of form fields to fill up to create an account. Chances are the visitor gets bored halfway through and closes the page!

Ask only relevant information and make your visitor do the minimal of tasks possible and this will optimize your conversion rate.

2. Have specific Call To Actions (CTA)

Instead of assuming your visitor knows what the desired action is, tell it to them. That’s easier and quicker. In case you want the visitor to make use of the limited-time coupon code you have on the site, have a bold CTA button on the home page that says ‘Click here to avail your 20% discount coupon’ helps.

Your visitors know what exactly the button does without any confusion. Transparency and clarity help in Conversion Rate Optimization.

3. Create a sense of urgency

This is a very smart Conversion Rate Optimization strategy that will help you get more leads. Making the visitor feel like he/she will miss on a deal is a great psychological trigger in improving the conversion rate. Some popular conversion tactics to create a sense of urgency are:

• Have an exit pop-up that offers a discount or a deal when the customer is trying to close the page.
• Offer a discount coupon once a product is added to the cart. There are more chances the visitor ends up using the discount and buying the product.
• Display the number of products available in stock. People can get tempted to buy products that are low in stock.
• Give a period within which an order has to be placed. Having just 15 minutes to complete purchasing something will push people into ordering quickly.

Run tests on landing pages and high-performing pages

Running tests regularly is a very important strategy to improve your Conversion Rate Optimization percentage.

• Start with the research phase. Take some time to analyze what visitors are doing on your site, how long they stay on each page, and what they are looking for. Pick up quantitative data to get relevant information. Changes that are not backed by the right research don’t usually work.
• Make a list of possible changes that can help improve performance.
• Try the A/B testing strategy. You split your traffic into two parts. You make changes to the website, its interface, CTA buttons, and other factors and implement it for one half of the traffic. You monitor the conversion rate. It is important to only change one thing at a time and test for improvements.
• Collect enough data with these changes.
• Implement the changes big-time if the testing proved it was successful. If you did not find improvements in the Conversion Rate Optimization percentage, identify loopholes in the idea and tweak the idea more.
• Keep repeating the process regularly to increase your lead generation.

Conclusion

Conversion Rate Optimization is one of the most important tools you need to sustain as a leader and stay ahead in the race. If you have not been taking CRO seriously, it is time you did so. Contact us and we will put you in touch with some of the best CRO experts in the field. Get a free consultation and understand how to convert traffic into actual business sales that will help you grow.