Things To Consider When Building An E-Commerce Website

From relying on mega online e-commerce websites like Amazon and E-Bay many companies are now focusing on building their own e-commerce sites to directly try and tap their customers. In the last couple of years, we’ve seen a significant rise in the number of websites that are selling products online and with good reason. If you have some products you’d like to sell, it’s better to focus on developing an e-commerce website from scratch. You’ll have more control over the products you sell, the customers you are targeting and you have greater control over the pricing of the products. But if you’ve decided to build a website or are thinking about getting a professional e-commerce website development team, here is a checklist that you should be aware of.

Guidelines for E-Commerce Website Development

1. Understand the customer and product
Don’t build a website simply because you want to have an online presence without the customer base of the product that will sell online. There are plenty of products that have a higher propensity to sell offline than through online sales to ensure that you’ve made the right choice in going ahead for an e-commerce website development. If you need additional advice you can always get in touch with the best website development company in your area.

2. Choosing the right platform
Once you’ve decided to come online the next question becomes which platform to use and there is plenty of e-commerce website platform to choose from. You can either go with Hybris, Magento, WooCommerce, Shopify or even consider building your website from scratch using HTML, Java, and CSS. What you need to keep in mind, especially if you have a sizeable user base is to make sure you have
– A functioning customer relationship management tool to handle all their requirements
– A payment gateway integration to make paying for your products simpler
– Strong backend which can support your frontend activities
– Mobile responsiveness for all pages

3. Website Hosting Provider
Once you’ve decided which platform you want to choose the next choice to be made is the hosting provider you will go with. Now you may think that all host provide the same services, but in our multiple years of experience in website development and web design, we’ve seen that some services, although priced identically, have vastly different service levels. If you need more details on hosting providers for your website please feel free to get in touch with us.

Here are some things to keep in mind while selecting your hosting provider
– Speed is of the essence. Google rewards sites that provide data to the customers faster with a better ranking
– Choose a hosting provider that will make sure your site is available to the customer at all times. There should be zero or very marginal downtimes
– Since you will be dealing a lot with sensitive customer data, privacy and security or a concern. Make sure you choose a hosting provider that keeps your site protected at all times
– In case there is any issue you want to make sure that your hosting provider is there to support you at all times. Choose a host that has good service staff to support you.
– You might be starting off small but you should be able to build your website as you go so scalability in terms of server size, space, and reliability are always important

4. Choosing what you want your customer to see
Another important aspect of an e-commerce website development project is to make sure you know exactly what pages you’ll be showing to your customers. How easy the website is to navigate? Are the images too cluttered? These may not seem like important factors when building an e-commerce website but they are all very relevant not only to your customer but to Google as well.

Conclusion
If you use e-commerce platforms like WooCommerce and Shopify you might be able to develop an e-commerce website yourself, but without the help of professional reliable web development and design company, your website won’t have the much-needed fascination to the public. If you want someone to professionally build your e-commerce website, get in touch with us today.

Why Image Optimization Is Relevant For Google Search Rankings

Most websites nowadays have tens of thousands of images. Some as a means to impress their prospective customers and some as means to display what their products and services could look like. While having a lot of images can be used to attract customers they can also slow down your website. On the other hand, images can also be optimized to improve the SEO for your website. We’ll be taking a look at what image optimization is and why it matters for your website SEO and Google Search Rankings.

What Is Image Optimization?
Image optimization is the process by which an image with the right message you’re hoping to deliver is published on your website in the right dimensions (height and width) as well as the right size (file size). It is important to note than larges images will require more space on the server as long as taking more time to be delivered to the customer. The better the optimization the better the customer experience will be. Another step in image optimization is to insert the right image alt tags on all the images. We’ll look into why that’s relevant a little later.

Why Image Optimization Is Important For Your SEO?

1. Using Relevant Imagery
Using the right images in the right place is very important for your website SEO. Let’s get this out of the way very quickly so that we can focus on how to optimize images for your website. Image search is really important. More than 6 out of 10 customers do an image search at least once a day. On your website if you’re using an image of a monkey but describing a cat it does not make a lot of sense, does it? This may seem like common sense but when you’re talking about obscure concepts like hard work and imagination what kind of imagery you use is totally up to you.

2. Alt Tags
The most important bit about image optimization is probably using the right alt-tags in the images. Just like website pages have SEO titles and headlines to make it easier to search, images have alt-tags to be able to find them more easily. Now you have think it’ll be easy to fool Google and try and use your business keyword on your images, which is fair but don’t overdo it or you will be penalized.

3. Using The Right Linking
Images on your website can also be used to link to pages and other images. Use the linking feature on images to take your customer on a journey throughout your website. As you probably know the more time a customer spends on your website the higher Google ranks your website in search. If you have the correct images linking to the right pages to take your customer to exactly where he wants to go then you will kill two birds with one stone, by improving your ranking and improving your sales.

4. Use Proper File Names
Ensuring that you use proper file names on your images is just a way to ensure that you maintain good hygiene on your website. Using file names like DSC00192.jpg is not at all helpful either too Google or your customer. If the image is taking time to load he can see the filename and at least understand if it’s relevant to them. If not, they can move to a different image. Having a proper file name also helps a search engine saving it in a relevant repository.

Conclusion
Do you need help in optimizing the images on your site for better SEO scores? Get in touch via email or leave a comment below and we’ll get in touch with you immediately. We’ve helped a number of our clients improve their SEO rankings simply by optimizing the images best suited for their website. Get in touch today!

Importance Of Web Designing In SEO

There are a lot of naysayers that don’t understand the link between a Web Designing and SEO process. While these two may seem complimentary to each other they need to work hand in hand if your business is to succeed. It is no longer about “if you build it they will come”, it is actually more on the lines of “if you build it well, they will come”. Here our take why website design is very important for your websites to search engine optimization.

5 Reasons Web Design is important for your business

1. Better Web Design More Visitors
Your website design will depend on the customers you would like to attract to it. For the younger generation a simple website without a lot of bells and whistles won’t be suitable while if you add too many “new age” features in your website and your customers are from an older generation they might not enjoy it as much. Now if you wonder what does SEO have to do with this remember that a lot of your SEO ranking has to do with the customers you can attract to your website and how long they stay on your website before moving on.

2. Site Speed
Another important aspect of SEO is how fast you‘re able to provide the required information to your customer. The quicker they receive the information they more they’re willing to stay on your website. Not only does the speed on your website matter for technical SEO, the speed at which the user can locate all the relevant information while on your website is another important aspect of how loyal of a consumer he becomes. Site speed itself is an important parameter that Google judges in ranking your website in its search.

3. Navigational Ease
Another important factor that could decide your website SEO is the ease with which users can find the information they’re looking for. I touched on it briefly in the last point and while they may seem contradictory to one another, how fast your potential customer can find the information he’s looking for can go a long way in ensuring that he keeps coming back to your website anytime he has any trouble with your particular skill set and needs answers. You’ll be steadily increasing your brand loyalist and reducing your dependency on paid ads to grow your fan base.

4. Professionalism
Another reasons companies rely on trusty web design companies in Pune for their requirements is because a well-designed website gives an air of professionalism to their brand. According to research, a customer is more likely to choose a business based on the quality of their website. A higher quality website gives an assurance to the customer that the business is to be trusted and they can do business with them.

5. Changes With Time
As with most things your customer preferences will change over time. As your audience matures so will their choices. If you are planning to grow with the company, it then becomes imperative to be able to change as per their needs. While the keywords you target will most likely not change you can always aesthetically revamp your website to continue to make it more attractive to your prospective customers.

Conclusion
Don’t let people tell you that web design and SEO are not linked because as we’ve discussed it above they very clearly are. If you are looking to build a new website for your organization or overhaul your existing website to match the needs of your current customers, you’ll need the services of a professional web design company in Pune that knows their way around both SEO and Web Design. If you‘d like to know more about how we can help you change your website to get more customers, get in touch with us today.

Improving Your Brand Presence Using SEO and PPC Combined

SEO and PPC, when used together, are far more powerful than when you use either in isolation. Many digital marketing agencies sell them as different services when in reality they provide the best results when applied simultaneously. Today we will look at 7 ways in which you can improve your brand presence using SEO and PPC together.

How To Improve Your Brand Presence By Combining SEO and SEM

SEO and SEM both rely heavily on good keyword research based on your customer requirements. They are often complementary and are the sum of a whole – SEARCH. Here are a few strategies to use them together for a better brand visibility.

1. Sharing Keyword Research
As previously mentioned, the common denominator for SEO and SEM, search. Search relies heavily on your keyword research. To optimise your effort and reduce duplication your best bet would be to use the same keyword research in both SEO and PPC. In whatever campaigns you run find out what SEM keywords give you the highest clicks and optimise your content for the same keywords.

2. Using Site Search Data
Another fascinating source that most websites overlook is their own search bar. Many websites have enabled search on their website but rarely use the data. The search data your prospective customers are using on your website are the products and services their most interested in. Use those keywords in your SEM campaign and see a drastic boost to your clicks and leads generated.

3. Improved Visibility
The higher you are on the search rankings the more likely it is you will get a majority of the clicks. Imagine being so dominant in SEO and PPC that your website is top of both lists. Not only will you receive a majority of the clicks but the customers will also admire the tenacity with which you are dominating your field. They will definitely see you as a leader in your industry.

4. Shape Your Content Strategy
It’s no secret that search engine marketing can get expensive. When you have enough data from your pay-per-click campaigns you have a clear idea about what your most promising keywords are. The keywords that get the clicks. You should base your content strategy on the keywords that give you the most clicks in SEM. Use the keywords to create Page SEO Titles, SEO Descriptions, and Headlines. You can also use variations of their keywords in your long-form content for higher visibility in search.

5. Test Keywords Immediately
You can tweak the above concept to find out if a keyword will give you results or not. Instead of wasting your time forming a content strategy on a keyword you’re not sure will work, use it in a PPC ad first. See how the public responds to the keywords and its alternatives. You have almost immediate feedback on your choice of keywords and can decide whether to go ahead with it or not.

6. Use These Tools To Re-market
Sometimes it so happens that your page is ranking well for certain keywords and also getting clicks. But the leads do not convert to customers. Sometimes prospective buyers need a little push in the right direction which is why targeting them with an ad with a small discount on the particular product they were looking for can lead to better sales. Monitor their movement on your site and see what products they were interested in. Re-market and Voila, you have just converted better than you ever did using only one technique by itself.

7. Improve Your Brands Image
Chances are from time to time your brand might be embroiled in some negative news. You might rank for some negative keywords which will harm your business. Instead, run an ad that links to a blog post that shows people how you’re actively working towards making the situation better. Instead of receiving bad publicity you can use the keywords to put your brand in a positive light.

Conclusion
Next time you‘re meeting with a digital marketing agency ask them how they plan to combine PPC and SEO strategies to give your impressive and efficient results. While they sell SEM and SEO as separate services they are most effective when used together. If you‘re looking for a digital marketing company practiced in using these strategies and more to give you the best results, please get it touch today!

Facebook Is Reintroducing Facebook Search Ads.

Facebook has always been one of the most popular social media channels, however, in recent years its popularity has been on the wane especially with the younger audience. As a result, Facebook has been losing out on revenue. Although it has more than a billion dollar valuation Facebook still needs to try different methods to monetize the nearly 400 million daily visitors.

So what’s New for Facebook?
To be honest, Facebook is trying a new strategy that’s actually been tried by them once before. Facebook is reintroducing search ads to its platform. They first tried the concept of sponsored advertising in 2012. However, back then the experiment did not go down well with the users and was quickly called off.

Facebook Search Ad 2.0
In order to bump up its revenue, Facebook is reintroducing sponsored ads in its search. What this means is that every time you perform a search in Facebook you’ll see a list of paid ads before the organic search results. Similar to what you would see on Google.
For the time being the search ads concept is being run only in the US and Canada and is only visible for a certain set of advertisers and industries. Google wants to make sure that they implement the search ads correctly this time to avoid the mistakes they made during the last experiment.

IN the current state advertisers don’t have the ability to run ‘only’ search ads. The search ads have to run in conjunction with the regular news feed ads that are now the staple on Facebook. Although slightly limiting the aim is to be able to derive as much information for the benefit of advertisers and users as possible.
Also in its current form, these new search ads will only be visible on mobile and for select customers before hopefully being rolled out successfully.

Why Is Facebook Using Search Ads?
The main motive behind the search ads is undoubtedly to make another revenue stream for the company. While Instagram and other Facebook acquisitions have been showing tremendous growth in terms of revenue Facebook’s revenue itself is actually declining.
Another possible reason for re-introducing search ads is to provide advertisers with more options to reach out to the customers. Especially those further along in their customer journey. As per recent social media trends, consumers are no longer shying away from looking for products on social media as opposed to only using Google search.

Will Facebook Search Ads Compete With Google?
Everyone knows how Google is absolutely crushing the competition when it comes to Search Ads. In fact, Amazon is also making quite a few strides when it comes to search ad revenue. Facebook is not shying away from the competition and is actively looking towards gaining a foothold in the lucrative search ad industry.

Advertising revenue for the year 2018 was in excess of $33 billion. This is a large pie with several spaces for several companies to grab a share. Facebook believes that it is in a perfect position to take advantage of that fact. However, Facebook would want to do what’s best for both its advertisers as well as its consumers.

The Problems Facing Facebook Search Ads
Ever since the Cambridge Analytica scandal users have been very hesitant to share their information with Facebook. Facebook already uses a lot of the information we provide it to provide us with a better experience while using their app.
Some consumer’s worry that Facebook will use their information more prevalently to help make their search ads more targeted. While Google already does this to some extent they’ve managed to limit their intrusion, or make it seem that way. Facebook does have an image problem that they need to deal with so ensuring they launch their search ads globally properly is a priority.

Conclusion
It’s pretty much a given that Facebook Search Ads will soon be a reality for all advertisers globally. Keeping that in mind advertisers all over the world should be prepared to use them effectively. What are your opinions and thoughts on Facebook Search Ads? Would you be willing to use them as an advertiser and would you like to see them as a consumer?

Top Ranking Signals to Pay Attention In 2019

With Google changing its search algorithm so regularly we seem to have new ranking signal champions to root for every year. In 2014, it was site security (https), 2015 had your websites mobile responsive status, and 2016 shifted to more content driven ranking signals with Rank Brain. But what about 2019? What ranking signals should you focus on if you want to win at SEO and get your website to the top of Google search?

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Top 7 Social Media Trends For 2019

From being a means of staying in touch for friends Social Media has turned into a communication powerhouse for brands. However, with a low attention span, a multitude of options to choose from and other online distractions there is plenty to keep your target audience hooked. So how do you make sure that your communication signals are getting through to them? We’ve scoured the internet for data, spoken to plenty of digital marketing industry experts and witnessed the blooming of some of these strategies by digital behemoths to bring to you a collection of the top social media trends of 2019. Here’s everything you need to know about the best social media trends of 2019.

Key Social Media Trends Of 2019

1. Trust Building
With the backlash that followed the scam after scam that affected Facebook, the U.S. elections, and Cambridge Analytica it seemed like Facebook was almost over. As it is Facebook has lost some of its early prominences with users now spending more time on Instagram. Even though Facebook has more than 2 billion- active users on a monthly basis the whole picture isn’t as perfect.

Due to the users feeling their privacy being violated by social media and the slew of inaccurate information available online consumers are in a pickle as to what they should and should not believe. Especially when companies try and use marketing strategies that seem disingenuous. This puts their reputation on even shakier ground as customers are no longer willing to put up with fakery from brands.

There have been several instances of brands and big companies being called out on social media due to their false promises and lies. One of the biggest social media trends to look out for in 2019 and put into practice immediately is to try and build trust with your customers. To make them believe not just in your products and services but in your organization as a whole.

2. Using User Stories
Word of mouth was a very important part of the marketing gamut of a company. The practice is still in place but the methodology is vastly different than it was decades ago. While it is still important for people to talk about your product in a positive light, where they do the talking is as relevant as what they say.

Unlike previous generations, it does not take several days or weeks for user stories to reach thousands of ears. With the evolution of social media, live videos, Instagram stories, hashtags, and the like consumers now have access to word of mouth publicity in a matter of seconds.

Therefore, it has become extremely important for businesses to put out their own stories with the help of some loyal fans of the products. There are several ways in which companies are trying to get users to share their product stories. Some examples of these are running contests, using special hashtags, “share your memories with us” kind of experiences. These are all methods by which companies are trying to get good word of mouth publicity going out to willing buyers.

3. Augmented Reality Will Play A Bigger Role
Many companies including Facebook and Google are trying ways to incorporate augmented reality into their applications. Facebook has already bought a company focused on augmented reality and Google is working on its own projects to include augmented reality in its apps. Take Google Maps, for instance, one of their senior product managers admitted that it was hard to really know the direction we were supposed to turn while walking. To fix this problem they have decided to use a guide who will help us make all the right turns.

Pokemon Go is another example of seeing augmented reality really take off in the gaming world. Not only is it vastly popular, it is also highly addictive and people tend to spend hours playing the game. Brands, businesses need to figure out ways to make an entry into the augmented reality space.

You can already see the subtle entry of augmented reality in the form of those cute filters used on Instagram. What can brands do to make raise their awareness levels on these popular social media apps? Gamifying seems like the obvious choice but it isn’t always the right solution for every brand? Have you considered how you could use augmented reality to your brand’s benefit?

4. Quality vs Quantity
The age-old debate over quality vs quantity will never end. Depending on the niche you are in you will have to figure out what it is your consumers crave for. For most businesses quality of the content rather than pushing out mindless media is paying a lot of dividends. Even though you may not always the largest share of voice with your consumers with quality content you can be assured that you will always be at the top of their minds when it comes to your products or services.

Showing a creative spark while giving your consumers a good cause to back is one of the best things you can do moving into 2019 on social media. It is sure to be one of the hottest social media trends of 2019.

5. Growing Power Of Influencers
Social Media Influencers have taken their game up a notch in 2018 and we can only see this trend growing in popularity in 2019. Influencers are becoming very aware of their popularity and will do almost anything to stay relevant on social media. But they have also understood the price they need to pay. No longer can social media influencers be frivolous with their endorsements. They cannot afford to alienate their fan base.

Brands using social media influencers have gone one step ahead of the rest by adding a human persona to their brand. Even if there are multiple personalities endorsing a brand the image maintained by all of them will be surprisingly similar and one that works in conjunction with the brands own image. This is closely related to the next point of making the brand more human.

6. Humanizing The Brand
Podcasts, Webinars, Reddit AMA’s are a very popular way of making sure your brand has a human touch associated with it. Think about Tesla and how much Elon Musk is always at the forefront of their branding effort. So much so, in fact, that you can’t think about one without mentioning the other.

Look how personally involved Elon Musk is in the building of his own brand. It makes the consumers believe that the owner or a high-level executive is highly invested in the product or service which is why they are more likely to buy them. Of course, you have to make sure your product is worth it to begin with but that’s a completely different story.

7. Video Streaming
Another excellent social media trend to keep an eye on in 2019 is the growth of live videos. Its another aspect of humanizing the brand. Live videos give instant access to millions of people to your content. Since it’s live there is no scope for hiding the truth and even lesser scope to mess up.

Also unlike photos videos make you feel more like you were part of the process or event. Since most of the human experience comes through sight, live video streaming is a great way to get your prospective customers to love your products. Get them to engage more with your brand and also helps build more trust both ways.

Conclusion
Riding the social media wave is going to be really important in 2019 if you and your brands want to stay relevant. Before you can do all that you’ll need to study your audience and get familiar with the nitty gritties of the various social media channels. Or you could get a professional digital marketing company in Pune, like CodePlateau Technology Solutions to assist you with your digital marketing needs. If you need someone to get bigger than ever on social media, get in touch with us today.

5 Top Brand Building Strategies On Instagram

Here’s an astounding statistic, more than 500 million people log onto Instagram DAILY! You have short video content, visual content, and Instagram stories that people just can’t seem to get enough of. If you’re looking for a social media platform to build your brand and truly engage with your prospective customers, Instagram is probably your best choice. But there is a lot of competition out there so how do you get yourself noticed and build a brand on Instagram? By using the scientifically derived tips mentioned in this blog. Here are 9 amazing tips to help you build a brand on Instagram.

5 Pro Tips To Build Brand Awareness On Instagram

1. Separate Your Personal And Business Account
Unless you are a celebrity or social influencer you have no business being on your brands Instagram page. You have to set up a separate business account for your brand. Your business Instagram account should focus on your audience which will be vastly different than the audience for your personal photos.

You are after all trying to sell your product, aren’t you? So the focus of your business account on Instagram should be solely on your products or services.

Here are some tips on How To Set Up The Best Instagram Business Account
 i. Goal Setting
What do you hope to achieve from your Instagram account will best decide how you should set it up. Your account should always contain a link to your website to help drive traffic to it. If you are looking for engagement from your audience find out what they’re looking for and post relevant pictures or videos.

  ii. Include A Bio
A bio is an important bit of information for your consumers. Within a few words, your prospective customers should get a snapshot of what your brand is about, what your page is about and who you are as a brand. Customers often follow brands simply based on their bio so make sure its epic.

iii. Target Audience
It’s also essential to know who you’re building your account for. Finding the right target audience can be tricky but if you’ve been in business long enough you do have a rough idea of who buys your products and what they’re looking for from a marketing standpoint. Always remember the content you are posting is for them.

 iv. Competitor Analysis
Very often it’s your very own competitors that will give you the best ideas. It’s not always that they’re doing something better than you, in fact, you could even profit from their mistakes. See what they’re doing right and improve on it. See what they’ve gotten terribly wrong and avoid those pitfalls.

 v. Plan
Don’t have a haphazard posting schedule. Be consistent. Not only with what you post, but when you post. The best way to keep your audience hooked to your content is to get them addicted to it. Having a regular posting schedule is the best way to make this happen. If for some reason you’re not going to be able to post as per your schedule let your audience know. They’ll feel as though they’re a part of the process.

vi. Be Consistent
Not only do you have to be consistent in your posting schedule, but you also have to stay consistent when it comes to your design, style, and theme elements. Your persona on all social media platforms should remain consistent so as to be more welcoming to the customer.

 

2. Post-Pretty Pictures
Duh! But to get into a little bit more detail about this point think about your product. Not all products have the photographic appeal. You have to be extremely creative when it comes to selling your products. Fashion products are easy, but what about something like a UPS or a power generator? By being innovative in your product visuals you may be able to attract the attention of those customers not even actively looking to buy your product.

One thing you should definitely not do on your branded Instagram account is to try and hard sell to your customers. Remember that 90% of information processed is visual. If your customers just see you peddling your products without really giving them anything extra they’re not going to be following your page for long.

Focus on first providing something interesting for your prospective customers to look at and then focus on your product sales. If you’re creative enough you’ll find exciting ways to merge the two together so it seems like a seamless process.

Also, note that Instagram uses square frames for its photos. They’re usually in the 612×612 pixel range. To make your photos look professional and to make it seem like a lot of effort has gone into every little detail of every picture you post on Instagram you have to pay attention to the small details.

 

3. Be Discovered More Often
The major problem with Instagram is the competition you have to face not just from local brands, but your competitors all over the world. Here are some strategies to get more people to notice your brand, posts, and pictures:

 i. #Hashtags
Instagram feeds are not chronological. They use their own algorithm to show users pictures they feel are most relevant. What helps keep you relevant is to use the right hashtags in your posts. At least use 1 hashtags in all your post but not more than 5. You wouldn’t want your post to feel too salesy.

Another strategy is to use branded hashtags. This isn’t as easy as you might think. Companies have been marketing for decades to build brands but lately new start-ups have found it easier to brand their products by just using the right hashtags.

Do proper keyword research, be bold and fun, and keep it short.

ii. Use Influencers
While this shifts into the territory of affiliate marketing using Instagram influencers or ambassadors does go a long way in making your product more visible to a larger audience. You have to pick influencers who are connected to your industry. Don’t pick random people just because they have a high follower count. There needs to be a symbiotic relationship between the two.

iii. Share Customer Photos
People love their 15 minutes of fame. When you share a photo from one of your prospective customer (assuming they’re talking about your brand and in a good light) they’ll be bound to talk about it more. This will convince other people to start sharing photos with your brands and using your hashtags. If it works well this causes an avalanche effect with your brand almost blowing overnight.

It’s the best form of word of mouth marketing you can get online.

 

4. Spice Up Your Engagement
Compared to other social media platforms Instagram users tend to be a lot more vocal. The engagement rate is higher than that of Twitter as well as Facebook. Use these tips to Improve engagement on Instagram.

i. Write Stellar Captions
Everyone loves to give their opinion. Inviting people to share theirs is a sure fire way of getting some engagement on your brand account. Witty captions with puns, questions, sarcasm, also seem to get a lot of traction online. If you can write a caption that makes the user double take on the image there is nothing like it. “Spot The Error” is a caption that usually gets people’s attention.

ii. Use Contests
Nothing gets crowds excited like the chance of winning a contest. If you’re not seeing the right kind of followers then maybe get started with a contest and make sure to keep them coming. It keeps users hooked on the page and actively participating. However, if you don’t have enough followers then maybe a contest isn’t such a good idea. However, if you do, this is how to set up a perfect contest to build your brand on Instagram.

Make sure to have the terms and conditions clear while setting up the contest so as to not anger your fans.

Have an attractive prize which you know people would have to win. Post pictures of the prizes with your products. Double win for you.

Before picking the winner to try and build anticipation in your customers. Announce the winners publicly and make it grand.

iii. Respond To Comments
There is nothing better than a good comeback. If you’re able to get the crowd on your side through humor and fun with your witty retorts they’re sure to go viral and add value to your brand visibility.

 

5. Measure Success, Improvise and Innovate
The Instagram brand account provides you with a lot of data to analyze. Use the data wisely to find the right fans for your products. You also have the best times to post which garners the maximum number of views and engagement. If you feel like posting is eating into too much of your time get smart about it and use third party tools to help you schedule your posts.

See if you’ve met the goals you had set for your Instagram account. If you have, then figure out ways on how to improve on the statistics. If you’ve been unable to meet your goals find methods of improving your posts, captions, or strategies.

Top 5 Tips To Generate More Business via LinkedIn

LinkedIn can be hit or miss for most businesses because most businesses don’t utilize the full spectrum of tools available to them. If used smartly LinkedIn can actually be the jewel in the crown of your social media strategy. In this blog, we’ll detail the top 5 strategies you can use to generate more business via LinkedIn.

Top 5 Tips on ‘How to Generate More Business via LinkedIn’

As you go through the list you’ll begin to wonder if you haven’t already set all of them up. If you have and you’re still not getting the kind of numbers you expect, think about what you’re doing wrong or get in touch with us. With that in mind let’s look at the best LinkedIn strategies to get more sales from LinkedIn

1.Optimize Your Profile for Search and Visibility

If you’re under the impression that keyword research is only relevant while writing content for your blogs and website copy, then you’re surely mistaken. If you’re a relatively unknown brand in the marketing providing a special set of products or services, the only way customer can find you on LinkedIn is via the search tool.

You need to figure out the keywords your customers are likely to use and optimize the content on your LinkedIn profile using those keywords and variations of the keywords.

Let’s say for instance you are a digital marketing expert that own a company of your own, would you rather pitch yourself as Founder of Company or Digital Marketing Expert? What do you think customers are going to be searching for? These are the factors you must take into consideration while creating a LinkedIn Page for your company.

2. Make Your Company Page as Compelling as Possible

Most company pages on LinkedIn have only the most basic information. You learn almost nothing exciting about the company or the brand. Why would you want to partner with them for your business?

When prospective customers are looking at service providers, they want to be able to read blogs about company successes, words from the senior management of the company talking about the vision of the organization. Anything that would make your potential clients get in touch with your company rather than the competition.

3.Set Your Targets and Goals

Another stellar tip to be successful on LinkedIn is to make sure you set your targets. Most businesses on LinkedIn will either try to generate leads for their businesses or create additional brand awareness for your company. Or maybe both.

Depending on the goals that have been set for the organization the measuring standards will also differ. When it comes to brand awareness the number of likes and shares your posts get. Lead generation is more straightforward as long as you’re measuring the data correctly.

4.Create a Customer Persona and make sure you target correctly

One of the biggest problems most businesses face on LinkedIn is they cast their net too wide. Only by creating a customer persona and sticking to your targeting goals will you be able to attain your business goals.

For this, you might have to join special groups, limit your network to only a certain kind of individuals. The more you work on your customer persona the clearer your idea will be about how to go about meeting your business goals. You’ll be in a better position to answer the question about what kind of content to share, what kind of posts to publish and more.

5.Make proper use of analytics

The most essential tool you have at your disposal when using LinkedIn to grow your business is their analytics tools. Businesses that are new to LinkedIn marketing regularly skip this step because they believe they know their customers.

More experienced hands, however, will know that there will always be more to learn when dealing with your customers.

We’ve had the first-hand experience where clients were pushing one strategy because they saw what they believe was growth. Turns out their page was growing because of a post shared months ago following a completely different strategy.

Always, and I cannot stress this enough, make sure to run through your analytics numbers before you make any major decision in your LinkedIn marketing strategy.

Conclusion

We hope these hot tips to help improve your business with LinkedIn work for you. If there are certain parts of the strategy that seems alien to you and you need additional help, we recommend you get in touch with us. We’d be glad to help you figure out your LinkedIn marketing strategy.

4 Important Social Media Marketing Tips

Social Media has massively grown in the last few decades as compared to any other platform of engaging people around the globe. In terms of the spread and usages, has also reached to new heights which cannot be matched to anything else.As we are aware about the widespread of the platform, so not utilizing it for marketing for your business would lead to a huge mistake. For the marketing purpose there are several options currently available in the market which would help to use the social media for marketing purpose. But in all the process, number of basic things are being miss out which leads to unfruitful results to the business.Let’s discuss few points which are needed to keep them in the checklist before starting the Social Media Marketing.Decide Your Goal Many of the marketers or businesses start their marketing campaigns without any specific objective or the goal. The objective is very essential as depending upon it you need to plan the process and pattern of the social media marketing. There are different types of goals such as launching new product or service, awareness about the brand, getting sales through that source and many more of them. The proper social media plan is designed upon the requirement of business. There are numerous strategies which vary from business to business or the marketer to marketer. The marketing plan will not have the desired result if they are unplanned.Competitor Analysis Yes, the competitor analysis, unlike any other industry or business, competitor analysis is a mandatory thing to be done in social media marketing. There are several benefits of doing the analysis like getting to know their strategies, designs, ranking keywords, working flow the etc. Shortlist your best of the competitors and the through a number of tools available in free as well as paid form. By the competitor analysis you get to know the potential of competitors as well as your own.Engaging Content It’s a revealed truth about Google that content is the king and engaging content of the social media. So, creating a unique content is not only the criteria for ranking, its now the engaging one. There are multiple options you can opt for to keep your audience engaged on to your profile like creating stories, limiting your daily post, ask for polls or opinions of audience, set a specific time of the posting etc.Track & Modify Keep a record of the social media marketing plan, so you can analyses the data and change it according to the requirements. There might be some strategies which work for specific products or service the and same might not work for another. Analyzing each and every strategy is very important. There are certain tools available which help to track the revenue gained from the social media marketing plans.Here are few of the tips which you should not be left out to add to your checklist of social media marketing to gain desirable results. Also, for any professional services regarding any social media marketing, CodePlateau offers the bestplans among the industry