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Simple Tips to Optimize Your Website

[This blog post is updated from March 8, 2016]

Optimizing your website properly is crucial to improving your site’s rank in search engines, as well as driving more potential customers to it.

Are you satisfied with your website’s performance? If not, then we urge to you to try these tips for optimizing your website.

Title tags matter

Title tags play an important role in optimizing your site. A title tag tells both the visitors and search engines what the page is all about.

A title that is highly relevant to the page it refers to will provide better usability and optimization for your search engine ranking. People won’t stay on your site if there’s no relevance and you’ll lose ranking in the end. The title tag should also be unique.

Select common-sense keywords

A search engine’s job is to refer users to websites and contents that are relevant to what they are looking for. If you run a chocolate chip cookie business and you want your website on the first page of Google, then you need to write blogs that are related to this topic. Use keywords like chocolate chips, chocolate, sweets, baked goods and desserts. When incorporating keywords into your content, make sure they sound natural to the reader.

Write great content

Dedicate some time to write content that are useful and engaging for humans. As Google’s algorithm become increasingly complex and intelligent, it is no longer sufficient to create content, stuff it with keywords and publish them to your site. If you want to your content to rank in search engines, you need to provide visitors with relevant and well-written content. Remember, content still reigns as the king in the world of search engine optimization.

Continuous testing and measuring

The process of optimization is not a one-time process. It requires tuning, maintenance, as well as constant testing and measuring. Something as simple as testing the layout of your landing page, the wording of your call-to-action or the images you’re using can do wonders for your click-through rates.

 

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Rules of Engagement for Facebook Group Administrators

RulesofFacebookforAdmins

Many of you have probably forgotten about Facebook groups, but it’s actually one of the best tools for engaging with your audience. It is also a great way to invite people with the same interest with you and get them to converse about the same topic.

How do you get the people in your group to become more engaged? Here are 4 ways to increase social engagement in your Facebook group.

Be active

As the administrator of the group, it is your responsibility to get the conversation cracking. Ask question that will encourage members to chime in and join in the discussion. If you’re not active in the group, then they won’t either. Also, make sure you post the type of content your members want to see.

Welcome new members

Much like a tourist visiting a new city, people would spend some time on your group, exploring what it has to offer. Unless they know they felt at home, they won’t want to stick around or engage with you and other members.

Create a welcome message for every 10 or more members who have joined your group. Include details like why the group exists and who the group is for. Let them know that they are welcome to post and share within the group.

Make it fun

If you want to keep people active in your community, then you need to give them a reason to keep coming back. You can ask members to share something that they like. Invite them to tap into a part of their lives that excites them and lightens them up. Another way is to host an exclusive giveaway to reward loyal customers.

Do not advertise your business on the group

Use your group as a platform to engage with your target audience and get to know them well. People don’t want to hear about your products. Rather, they want to participate in discussions that are related to a topic they are interested in. You want them to see your group as a place where they can learn, share and collaborate.

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Online Advertising Strategies for Small Business Owners with Limited Budget

Online MarketingWith the huge amount of information online and online companies popping out of the woodwork, capturing the attention of your target audience can be a challenging task. This can be daunting, especially for small business owners. But the truth is that you don’t have to spend a huge sum of money in order to get the word out about your business.

Having a small marketing budget doesn’t mean you can’t generate results. Here are a few online advertising strategies that you can use, even on a shoestring budget.

Know your target audience

Figure out your target market first before you spend a dime on marketing. You are likely to waste your time and money if you start marketing before you have a clear customer profile. Ask yourself, who will be most interested in your products or services? Male or female? What is their age group? Once you have a thorough profile of your target audience, that’s the only time you can start with your marketing campaign.

Email marketing

Email marketing can help you earn more traffic and conversions as long as you’re willing to put in the time. However, people don’t just give their email address to anyone. So you’ll have to think of some strategies in order to get people to subscribe to your newsletters.

Social media marketing

It wouldn’t cost you anything to establish your brand on most social media platforms, but don’t be fooled into thinking that social media marketing is easy.

A solid content marketing is essential if you want your business to succeed. The most successful companies are the ones who post and share things that are interesting to their audience. You may not have a lot to offer in terms of discounts and giveaways to lure in new customers, but you have great contents to share.

Blog

Helping people before they need your help is an excellent marketing strategy. Not only will it help you get the attention of your target audience, it can help you build a relationship with them. Make sure that you provide them with useful tips, industry news and good content that is relevant to them.

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Tips to Find Your Target Audience on Social Media

Content is king, they say. But even if you create high quality content, it won’t have an impact unless it is pitched to an appropriate audience. With millions of people on social media, it’s not always easy to find and reach your target audience. How can you break through the walls, cut through the noise and use your content to establish a connection with your audience?

Content is king, they say. But even if you create high quality content, it won’t have an impact unless it is pitched to an appropriate audience. With millions of people on social media, it’s not always easy to find and reach your target audience. How can you break through the walls, cut through the noise and use your content to establish a connection with your audience?

In order to achieve success with your social media marketing campaigns, you need to know who your target audience is and where they are.

Start with the demographics

Demographics are the best place to start when identifying your target audience. Are your typical customers young or old? Are they male or female? What type of job does your target market have? Is your product sold in certain areas of the country?

Answer these questions and use these information to give you a deep and clear understanding of who makes up your target market.

Know where your customers spend their time

With the increasing number of social channels, it would be waste of time and effort to build a presence on each one of them. The best thing you can do is to determine where your audience spends most of their time and focus on that social channel. Use the information you have gathered above to help you select the right networks to reach them.

Linkedin is popular among college graduates. Users of this site are between the ages of 30 to 64. Instagram and Pinterest remain popular among female uses, particularly between the ages 18 to 29. Facebook continues to be the biggest social media site. In fact, 58% of the entire adult population are Facebook users. When in doubt, use Facebook.

Identify industry influencers

According to studies, 92% percent of people trust the recommendations of the people they know – family, friend and influencers. No matter how many times you share your content, people won’t pay attention. Well, that’s until someone they trust asks them to actually read it.

Industry influencers have good online reputation and are often considered as experts. People listen to them and even ask them for advice.  Seek out influencers and engage with them. Once you’ve build a relationship with them, you’ll be able to gain more followers.
Tips to find your target market on social media: Content is king, they say. But even if you create high quality content, it won’t have an impact unless it is pitched to an appropriate audience. With millions of people on social media, it’s not always easy to find and reach your target audience. How can you break through the walls, cut through the noise and use your content to establish a connection with your audience? In order to achieve success with your social media marketing campaigns, you need to know who your target audience is and where they are.

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Secrets to Writing Viral Blog Posts

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A viral blog post is a type of post that takes off because everyone wants to share and is talking about it. It goes around the internet like a fast-moving fire.

With the explosion of social media, almost everyone is looking for ways to grab the attention of millions and millions of people. Because let’s face it, it feels great to know that a lot of people appreciate what you have created.

In today’s competitive online world, bloggers from all over the world all seem to be asking the same question – What is the secret to writing a viral blog post? While there is no secret formula in creating a viral blog post, there are some things you can do to help you reach that goal. Here are a few.

Create attention-grabbing headline

While quality content is important, you also need to take time in crafting a catchy headline. Remember, this will be the first thing people are going to see so it should be treated with much more consideration. You need to pique the public’s interest or they won’t be interested in reading the article.

Contents that evoke emotions become viral

Readers are drawn to blog posts that make them feel something. Try to capture the emotion of the reader. If it doesn’t excite or thrill you, then it probably won’t excite your readers too.

Useful content gets shared

A lot of people go online to gather information and learn more about a certain topic. If you want your post to go viral, make sure it has tons of useful information. Read a lot, gather lots of resources and know your topic well. Don’t skimp on research.

Make sure it’s visually interesting

There is more to a blog post than just heading and content. If you want to get the numbers rolling, then you need to incorporate photos in your blog post.

Make your blog post visually stunning and beautiful. You might not be able to write the most informative, most interesting blog post, but if you add colourful pictures, you may be able to capture the attention of the crowd.

 

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Tips for Creating an SEO-Friendly Article

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One of the best ways to make sure that your blog posts keep getting traffic is to make them search engine friendly. Writing for SEO is no longer as easy as it used to be. Before, people could just throw a bunch of words together, incorporate the keywords into the article and expect an increase in web traffic. It doesn’t matter if the article makes sense or not. But that’s not how it works anymore.

How do you create content that ranks well in search engines? Here are a few tips for writing effective SEO-friendly content.

Write for your audience

Since your goal is to boost traffic, you first have to please your audience. There is no point in writing a keyword-rich article if it doesn’t make sense to your readers. The article should offer value to the readers. Make it interesting for them to want to read the entire article. Remember, you are creating content for people, not the search engine algorithm that finds them.

Use keywords

One of the best ways to improve your ranking is to include popular keywords into your content. You need to use them in the title, first and last sentence, and within the body of the article.

It’s not enough to just use the keywords. It is important that you incorporate them as seamlessly as possible into the article, making sure that the sentences still make sense. Also, be sure not to overuse the keywords. If you do, Google may think that you’re overstuffing, which can result in search engine penalties. On average, the article should have a keyword density of 1-4%.

Optimize your image

People are attracted to visuals. That said, we recommend adding pictures, infographics and slide shows to spice up your content.

A lot of people make the mistake of uploading images with file names such as image01.jpg. You have to remember that Google can’t read images. It is through text that Google recognizes them. To get your page to show up in search images, be sure to name the image properly.

 

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Tips for Getting Great Photos for Your Blog Posts

bimsImages are important. Adding images to your blog posts can help make it stand out and effectively convey your message. It also helps craft a visually-memorable experience. That’s why all top bloggers make sure they incorporate visuals and try to make them as vibrant as possible.

Here are some tips for getting great photos for your blog.

Use images legally

Before using any image on your blog post, make sure that it’s copyright-free. Legally, you’re not allowed to use any images that you got from the internet. If you do, the owner of the image may file a complaint against you and your post can be removed.

Don’t just go and take any image you like. Check the copyright restrictions of photos and obtain permission before using it on your blog.

Create your own images

There are a lot of sources of ready to use images on the web, but it would be a lot better if you can add original images on your blog. You don’t have to be a professional photographer to capture great photos. Just bring your camera with you wherever you go and capture images you can use for your future content.

Not only does it add a touch of personality and uniqueness to your site, it also increases the likelihood of someone sharing your post. According to studies, people are more likely to share images they haven’t seen before.

Flickr

Flickr is an amazing resource for photo lovers and photographers alike. Here, you can find billions of different photos that you can use for your site. But you have to understand that not all photos from this site can be used.

Only photos with Creative Commons license can be used. Copyrighted images cannot be used. If you really wish to use a copyrighted image, you may try your luck and ask permission from the photographer directly.

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