What is Web Content Marketing? Traditional online marketing is losing its effectiveness. Ask yourself, when was the last time you clicked on a banner advertisement? You probably do not remember. Is there a better way to get your message across to your consumers? The answer lies in web content marketing. Internet content marketing is the process of writing as well as distributing valuable and relevant content. Its aim is to attract and engage a defined target audience. The final intention is to drive customer action such as a purchase, signing up for a newsletter or initiating contact with you via an email or call. You can also consider it to be communicating with prospects and customers without making it explicit that you are trying to sell to them your products or services. What Type of Content will Drive Visits to Your Website? There are different types of content that can attract customers. Here are some examples. Infographics: Infographics are common and very effective on social media platforms. They are an image of a chart or diagram that displays a certain topic, data or information in a fun way. To make the most of your graphic, mention the URL of your website in the graphic. Blogs: You can use blog posts to provide more information on a certain topic, to elicit feedback from visitors, to link to other articles, for product/service information and more. Digest Posts: You can write digest posts when you are not able to think of any new ideas immediately. Go through your old posts and pick up some good ones. Later, write short summaries about these posts. Comparisons and Reviews: Product or service comparisons and reviews are a great way to drive traffic. Your audience will also benefit because you are providing them with valuable information that may influence their next purchase. Interviews: An interview can really make your brand stand out. Interviews can be via text, audio, or video and can be on a variety of topics. It is another way of providing valuable content to your audience. Improve Your Search Engine Ranking with the Right Content Search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing are partial to new content. While SEO has changed over the years, search...
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What Is Social Media? What does ‘social media’ mean to you? Billions of people have accounts on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Google+. You may think all social media networks are the same, but each of them offers a unique feature that attracts millions of people to each of them. So how would you define social media? Social media can be defined as an interactive platform, a virtual community where people can create and share information. The content on social media sites is built by users, which is one of the reasons why these platforms are so popular. Social media can itself be divided into various categories. Here is a brief list. Social networking: Users interact by joining groups, adding friends, commenting on their profiles and taking part in discussions. Example: Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn and Orkut. Social video and photo sharing: Users interact by sharing videos, photos and writing comments on submissions by other users. Example: YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest and Flikr. Social bookmarking: Users tag websites and visit websites that other people have bookmarked. Example: Pinterest, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Digg, and Del.icio.us. Social News Websites: Users interact by voting on articles and writing comments. Example: Reddit, Digg and Fark. Wikis: Most people are still divided about whether Wiki sites are true social media sites. Here, users interact by writing articles and editing articles that already exist. Example: Wikipedia. In regular media like newspapers and television, the end consumers’ ability to give feedback and comments is severely restricted. Social media places nearly no restrictions on its users. Quick Social Media Guide: Here is a brief social media guide to help you understand the most popular social media networks better. Facebook: Started by Mark Zuckerberg and a few of his Harvard university friends, Facebook was initially open to Harvard university students only. It is the most popular social network with more than a billion users. Facebook users can “Like” and share each other’s status updates. facebook.com Google+: Google Plus is an identity and social networking service. It has more than 500 million users and has recently surpassed Twitter. When a Google+ user likes a post on Google+, they hit +1 button which is Google+’s version of Facebook’s “Like” button. plus.google.com Twitter:...
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Business Websites – Why Are They Important? When you run a business, one of the most vital forms of media you can utilize to increase your reach as well as increase the sales is a top-quality website. Whether you already have a website, which is currently live but not affecting sales, or you are planning your first venture into the world of online marketing, building a new website or improving an existing one, will increase traffic and sales. Having a visually attractive and functionally easy-to-use website will allow you to attract visitors and capture visitor information, and help utilize the potential of the internet effectively. Importance of website quality A business website with high-quality elements provides you with the tools needed to capture large amounts of traffic and related data that is available online. It also provides accessibility to your customers. It is a way for the people who visit the site to obtain information about the products or services, as well as get in touch with you, without the need for a phone conversation, especially during non-working hours. Every day, millions of people search the Internet for various products or services. This provides you with numerous opportunities to capture business from people looking for products or services that you offer. Just as opening a store gives your company physical presence, a good quality business website gives you the online presence you need, to be noticed. Not utilizing these opportunities could result in the loss of a number of potential sales every day, regardless of how good your product might be. Other benefits The key benefit of a good business website is the access it provides to your existing and potential customers, whom you otherwise may not be able to contact. Without a website, the reach of your business extends only to the traditional limits, and you will miss those potential customers who use the internet as their primary point for purchase research. Another benefit is the marketing you can do with a little help from a company that offers internet marketing services. You can develop a direct response site that will be highly effective in reaching the traffic on the internet. Another useful tool is a ‘subscribe’ option,...
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While every one’s visual tastes are different, there are several universal principles that successful websites embody. We’ve distilled these down for you into a simple list of critical success factors. As the web matures, visitors come to your site with higher expectations. Failing to satisfy those expectations can dramatically reduce the effectiveness of your website. 1. Quality Content People visit your site to view content, so providing worthwhile content is one of the most fundamental issues that website owners need to address. The quality of your content not only plays a vital role in converting visitors into results, but also directly impacts your search engine rankings. Good content is time consuming to produce, so ensure that you make adequate allowances for content production in your planning. 2. Usability Many sites on the web – even cool ones – fail because people either can’t figure out how to use the site or couldn’t be bothered trying to work out the innovative navigation that the web designer spent countless hours inventing. To ensure that visitors find your site easy to use, it is advisable to run some simple tests with a small number of people from your target demographic. Just ask them to perform some basic tasks on your web site (such as “purchase 2 widgets using this credit card”). You may be surprised at the results and the findings may vastly improve your website overall. 3. Accessibility People access the internet in many different ways using an increasing number of connections, browsers and devices. From fast corporate connections, high speed cable and DSL, to mobile broadband, Android Phones & iPhones, speech browsers, old browsers through to old fashioned dial-up the range is enormous. Your site needs to be usable on any of the platforms that people are likely to access it from. The key concept here is “graceful degradation”€ which simply means that whilst a simple device might not display your web page in all its glory, it should still display in a respectable manner. 4. A Good Strategy A good strategy is essential to gaining a good return on the money invested in developing your website. Ensure that you know why you have a site and what business outcomes...
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What Is More Important, Website Design or Website Content? You have recently launched an awesome new website with a great design and layout. But the content on your site is not up to par. How long do you think people will continue visiting your website? There might be a strong influx initially because your website is new, but the flow may soon trickle down when they see that your website is not offering them value. On the other hand, you may have great content, but the website design and layout is drab and uninteresting. There is no doubt, that a visually appealing website layout will increase your chances of attracting and retaining visitors. The big question is, what is more important, web design or web content? A Look at Website Design Web designers mostly design websites to fit a business objective and initially, there may be little thought put into the content side besides the usual generic pages like “About Us”, “Services”, “Products” and “Contact Us”. This is usually the standard approach that a business takes when they are starting out on the Internet and do not have someone to guide them. When a website is well designed, it indicates to the visitor that your company is professionally managed. But, on the other hand, if your website does not look good due to a bad design and layout or does not function correctly, it can make your company look very unprofessional. Many companies make the mistake of taking their website visitors’ expectations for granted. Note that if the visitors do not like what they see, they will quickly leave your website and head to your competitor’s site. For some small businesses, a company website is probably the only visible aspect of your business. Therefore your site visitors will judge your company by the way your website looks. The design gives directions to the visitor and is responsible for setting the mood. A Look at Website Content A well designed website is only the first piece of the puzzle. Content is responsible for giving information to your site visitors, getting you higher rankings on search engines, bringing value to your site and increasing your organic search visibility, which improves your...
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