5 Important eCommerce SEO Tactics for 2017

Increase your organic traffic this new year with these future-proof SEO tactics

Search engine optimisation is a constantly changing field, one that requires effective planning and actionable tactics to succeed.

This post is aimed at those who have a fast website, perfect on-page SEO and a good site structure, yet are looking for ways to take your website to the next level.

In this post, we’ll reveal our top 5 eCommerce SEO tactics that you need to implement in 2017. Allowing you to remain ahead of the competition and drive targeted traffic to your website.

1. Competitor Backlink Analysis

A competitor backlink analysis is one of the most simple, yet effective eCommerce tactics you can undertake. In short, you look at your competitors’ backlinks and see how you can also gain similar links.

If done properly, this can allow you to uncover patterns, problems and opportunities, simply from analysing the links your competitors have already built!

One of the best ways to do this is to enter your competitor’s domain into tools such as Majestic or Moz's Open Site Explorer. This will provide you with all the backlinks that your competitors have built to their website.

In short, the aim is to take a deeper look at your competition’s links and ask yourself:

• What has worked for our competition?
• Are there any patterns?
• Is this something we can do, but better?

For example, your competitor appears to regularly feature authoritative guest authors on their blog. The author has a popular presence in your industry and are experts in a certain niche. If these posts are gaining many diverse and high-quality links from other blogs, you could look to do the same.

Similarly, if you sell kilts and your competitor is linked to from a variety of websites that list kilt suppliers, you can look to approach these sites and ask for a link.

Overall, carrying out a competitor backlink analysis gives you an idea of how competitors are building links in your industry. This can help you create a link building strategy, and it can also save you a lot of time by the “stealing” the links they’ve worked hard to build.

2. Featured Snippets

Featured snippets have become extremely important for SEO. By focusing on featured snippets, you can greatly improve the search appearance of your website.

So, what exactly is a featured snippet?

A featured snippet shows the summary of an answer to a user's search query. It’s displayed at the top of the search results page and it’s been referred to as position #0.

This can enhance your brand's search visibility, as not only will you appear in the top spot, it provides the opportunity to occupy two positions on the first page of the search results.

An example can be found below:

This is an effective, yet simple way to compete with other brands in your industry and is a tactic you should employ immediately.

How do I get a featured snippet?

Optimising your site for featured snippets is fairly simple. You need to identify a question searched by your target audience, provide a clear, concise answer to this question and set this up so search engines can find it easily. Most commonly featured snippets are displayed as lists, graphs or tables.

Rob Bucci recently spoke about the importance of featured snippets at Brighton SEO. He highlights how to earn more featured snippets. He stresses the importance of keyword research when considering featured snippets, and the need to research the most popular formats for feature snippets related to your target search query - whether this be tables, lists or other.

Rob Bucci also highlights that Google use featured snippets for a reason, they’re important as they enhance user experience. And as voice search advances and becomes more popular, featured snippets will play a more important role.

If you’re a Moz Pro customer, here is a handy step-by-step guide on how to use their Keyword Explorer to find featured snippets relevant to your industry.

How will featured snippets help me?

Hubspot carried out a great study on how they received more clicks through to content that appeared in the featured snippet compared to content that didn’t.

So, there you go, featured snippets will help increase traffic to your site – what more could you want?

In the fast-paced, ever-changing world of SEO, it’s vital to keep up with changes to the SERPs. Therefore, featured snippets should most definitely be a tactic you utilise!

3. Create Linkable Assets

Put simply, a linkable asset is something you create that is of interest to your target audience and is therefore worthy of linking to.

I’m sure it’s no surprise that creating linkable assets gets a mention in this post. Building links forms the basis of SEO and therefore, creating linkable assets will remain a vital eCommerce SEO tactic for the foreseeable future!

Linkable assets can take various forms. But, for this post, we’ll focus on content. Creating valuable content that’s relevant to your brand/industry, and is shareworthy, can effectively build a number of high-quality links to your website and improve your ranking positions.

This content needs to have a hook that makes it link worthy. The most successful content often provokes an emotional response in the user. Additionally, content that has a geographical angle can help to attract a broad audience and spark conversation.

Depending on your industry, budget, time and resources, this content can range from a helpful eBook to an interactive map using data. Whatever the content, it needs to be unique, newsworthy and credible, as the overall aim is to gain a high number of shares and/or links, driving targeted traffic to your website!

It’s important that you closely base the content piece on the products your website sells. This will ensure that the websites that link to you are relevant and from within your industry, therefore, targeting your customers.

4. Community Engagement

Community engagement is an effective eCommerce SEO tactic that will allow you to understand more about your customers, their queries and their interests.

This is a broad tactic that can be approached in a number of ways. The main aim is to raise awareness of your brand whilst distinguishing yourself as an expert within your industry. You can do this through being present on platforms where your target audience hang out.

For example, search on forums and Q&A sites, such as Reddit or Quora, for problems and queries relating to your products. The aim is to help users to solve these queries through speaking to them and offering your expertise.

As always, don’t be salesy when answering questions. Offer great advice and if there is a chance to link to your product, or a blog post you have written that adds value, then include it.

Another form of community engagement is blog commenting.

Now, you’re probably saying “isn’t that a spam tactic used many years ago?”.

You’re right!

But, if done correctly, it can be a great way to help prospective customers whilst also increasing brand awareness.

Rand Fishkin recently presented a Whiteboard Friday on the subject of community participation. You can check that out here.

Furthermore, you can use the customer’s problems to create engaging content ideas for your own blog. This will help to further distinguish you as experts within your field and, potentially, gain extra search traffic.

5. Guest Posting

Guest posting can be a controversial term when it comes to link building. However, speaking directly to your audience by posting on another website’s blog is still a valuable SEO tactic. So long as you avoid using this tactic in a spammy way to build low-quality links.

Research relevant, popular and high-authority websites within your industry and approach these for guest posting opportunities. As mentioned above, guest posting on sites such as this will help to build awareness of your brand, allow you to speak directly to your target audience and create engaging content whilst building relationships.

If done properly, this will help to distinguish you as an expert within your field, whilst increasing referral traffic to your website.

There are many tactics you can implement to improve your SEO. Following the 5 eCommerce SEO tactics above will help to build links, build brand awareness and drive targeted traffic to your website!

 

Thanks to Bachir Smahi for sharing their advice and opinions in this post. Bachir Smahi is a Director of the London based Magento ecommerce and digital marketing agency, Best Response Media. You can connect with him on LinkedIn.

source http://www.smartinsights.com/ecommerce/ecommerce-strategy/5-important-ecommerce-seo-tactics-2017/

7 tips to create a mobile-friendly website for your small business

How to set up a good mobile friendly website

Having a mobile-friendly website extends beyond good practice, it’s a requirement if you want your business to succeed. Mobile now exceeds desktop Internet usage and this means mobile users expect businesses to provide an excellent experience optimized for their device. In fact, nearly half of consumers won’t return to a website if a website doesn’t load properly.

If you aren’t sure if your site is mobile-friendly, you need to make sure it is as soon as possible. It’s crucial to find ways to convert leads into sales and not turn people away because your website fails to load correctly. Customers on the go have their mobile devices in hand and want to be able to look up your business no matter where they are located – and possibly even contact you. There is a lot of competition in the small business arena, so remember that the ability to access your website via mobile is crucial.

Take a look at these 7 tips to make your site more mobile-friendly.

Pay attention to font size and button size.

The font size and button sizes are important to consider for mobile devices. Font size needs to be 14 px or bigger. While that may seem large, it’s better to err on the side of caution so your users don’t have to zoom in to read the content you share. The buttons should be as big as possible to reduce the chances that the user will miss the button or inadvertently push the wrong one.

Do not make a second website for mobile.

It used to be common to design websites for the “mobile web” and remove content to make it fit on a mobile device. Google does not like duplicate content, though, so if you build two separate websites that feature identical content without using canonical URLs you won’t rank well in a Google search.

Make sure your content is available on all mobile devices and platforms.

It’s essential not to exclude a group – if you do, then you’ve unintentionally created alienated customers who will look somewhere else to buy their products or services. Mobile users expect a harmonious experience across all devices. Make sure you deliver and that your content is viewable on all devices and platforms – this is one way to have an effective mobile content marketing strategy.

Use responsive design.

Responsive design gives website developers the ability to build a website that is viewable on devices of various sizes and slashes the amount of work website developers need to do when they create a site. When small business websites use responsive design, the web page has the ability to identify the consumer’s screen orientation and size and adjust the layout as needed.

Always keep in mind that your customers are on their phone around the clock, so ensure your content is accessible 24/7. Responsive design boosts your traffic because it makes it easier for your customer to share your content. Users appreciate convenience; so take the necessary steps to make their experience with your business seamless at every touch point.

Use high-resolution images.

High-resolution images are a really important part of your responsive website to make sure your visitor’s experience is excellent. The newest models of iOS devices have high-def screens that need an image that is double the resolution of a desktop computer. Images that are very high resolution will prevent you from having blurry or pixilated images when viewed on a high-definition screen. An unclear, poorly cropped, or distorted image makes your website, and therefore your business, come off as unprofessional.

Utilize YouTube videos.

The use of video is one of many ways to boost your business – consumers love video and is has become a core part of social engagement. Viewers like content that keeps it real and video can envelop your audience with experiences unlike other forms of communication. If you choose to put a large number of videos on your website, it alters the way the video is viewed via mobile. Turn to YouTube videos as a solution to prevent any potential issues when viewing videos on a mobile device – the YouTube embed code is already responsive. Through using YouTube videos, you save multiple steps because you eliminate the process of making sure each of your videos is mobile-friendly.

Ensure your site is well-developed.

Users admit that they would not recommend a service or product that has a weak website. If your call-to-action button on your mobile device is so small it cannot be activated, it does no good and will not result in a high rate of conversions. Check to make sure actions like swiping can occur without a hassle. Your customers will enjoy their experience on your website if it’s well developed and therefore, visit it more often.

Your mobile strategy needs to focus on ways to increase traffic and ensure that devices respond quickly. If your site isn’t mobile-friendly yet and doesn’t strive to give customers a compelling experience, it’s time to make some changes and get on board to set your business up for mobile success.

What changes have you made to your website to ensure it’s mobile-friendly?

 

Thanks to Sohail Abbas for sharing their advice and opinions in this post. Sohail is a freelance writer and digital marketer. Sohail is the founder and ceo of AllTopIdeas. He currently writes for several big Magazines. In the past, he has also worked for various publishing houses and literary agencies, both reading, marketing and editing. You can follow him on Twitter or connect on LinkedIn

source http://www.smartinsights.com/mobile-marketing/mobile-design/7-tips-create-mobile-friendly-website-small-business/

The Digital Duopoly Cements Itself

Chart of the Day: Google and Facebook online ad revenue surges whilst revenue of all other providers shrink.

Healthy markets are defined by competition. Consumers have many providers to choose from, and those providers must constantly innovate to improve their service or make efficiency savings to be able to reduce their price - or else the consumers will move to a competitor which is doing so. Monopolies are terrible for consumers because they are defined by a lack of competition - hence why in most countries regulators explicitly ban companies from establishing monopolies in most sectors. But what about Duopolies? This is when a market is dominated by two large players - they still compete, but often the competition is less fierce because of the lack of other providers.

As new stats from IAB, Facebook and Google show, the digital ad market is entering duopoly territory. Google and Facebook saw very healthy rises in ad spend, but other digital ad providers saw sales shrink.

As you can see from the chart below, Google and Facebook now make up 2/3rds of the online ad market, leaving everyone else making up only 1/3rd of online ad sales.

This may be because Facebook and Google offer superior service and better value, but it is important that the market retains other providers to keep it dynamic.

• Source: IAB Ad Spend Stats
• Data Sample: US online Ad revenue

source http://www.smartinsights.com/internet-marketing-statistics/digital-duopoly-cements/

How to build a quality keywords list and choose the right match type

A detailed tutorial on how to research your AdWords target keyword list to improve your ROI from PPC

Keywords trigger your ads. Building and maintaining the right list of keywords is vital to getting the best return on your paid search spend.

Keywords are organised into ad groups. You assign ad creatives (ad text) to these ad groups, which appear when triggered by these keywords. Therefore, knowing which keywords will perform best is important.

Keyword research is the process of building keyword lists, based on the frequency at which consumers search for these words and phrases.

Why Is Keyword Research Important?

Keywords are the nuts and bolts of your AdWords campaigns. They let you control your visibility in search results, as well as affecting the amount you spend.

If you’re setting up an account for the first time, it’s essential to build a robust keyword list as soon as you can. The quality of this list will determine the frequency at which your ads appear, and the relevancy of your ads to users’ search queries.

Even if you’ve been running AdWords campaigns for some time – or you’ve recently inherited an account – it’s still important to regularly review your keyword lists to discover missed opportunities.

Keyword Research Tools and Techniques

While there are many third-party, non-Google Keyword research tools,  your starting point should be the tools made available by Google.

• Google Keyword Planner: The Keyword Planner, Google’s own keyword research tool is invaluable, as it provides solid data on the popularity of keywords from Google itself. The tool also provides keyword suggestions, lets you organise keywords into ad groups, and forecast visibility based on varying bids. Google Trends is an alternative with a higher-level view of the data.
• On-site search: Search data from your own website such as the Google Analytics Search queries report can provide plenty of insights to help you start your keyword research process. The terms your browsers use to find products and services using your on-site search box will very likely be reflected in the terms they use to search on Google.
• Search terms reports: The Search terms report from AdWords provides a list of search queries that triggered your ads within a specified time frame. This is useful if you’re looking to optimise your existing keyword lists further, or discover new keyword opportunities.

For example, search terms data may bring to light a new synonym for your products you hadn’t previously considered. Using this synonym as a starting point, you could use Keyword Planner to discover further keywords, and create a new Ad Group to categorise them.

Best-Practice Tips

• Think ‘quality over quantity’. Creating a ‘quality’ keyword list doesn’t necessary mean creating a lengthy list. Strong, relevant keywords should take precedence over generic keywords with high search volumes.

• Think about budget. Consider search volume and CPCs when finalising your keywords, so you can be sure you can afford to bid on all the keywords you’ve chosen.

• Keep an eye on competitors. You can use competitor review tools to analyse how rival businesses are bidding on keywords – and uncover new keyword opportunities.

• Think like a consumer. Don’t assume the terminology you use reflects the way your customers search for your products.

Deciding on Match Types

Match types (or keyword matching options) let you choose who sees your ads, based on the similarity of users’ search queries to your chosen keywords. They are the most widely used targeting options for search ads in AdWords.

AdWords lets you choose from five main match types:

Exact match

Set your keywords to exact match, and their ads will show only when a user’s search query matches the keyword exactly.

The only exception to this rule is when a user searches for a very close variant to your exact match keywords. In these cases, your ad may appear.

Phrase match

Like exact match, phrase match triggers ads when a user’s search query matches the keyword exactly (or is a very close variant).

However, it will also trigger ads when the search query includes additional words before or after the keyword.

Broad match

Broad match keywords will show ads for a wide range of queries that may be closely or broadly related to the keywords themselves.

Users can see ads with broad match keywords if:

• They search for synonyms
• They search for words in a different order
• They search using long-tail queries that broadly relate to the subject matter
• They use incorrect spellings

Broad match modifier

Broad match modifier is a cross between broad and phrase match. It offers a greater level of targeting control than broad match, because it won’t display ads when users search for synonyms or related searches. And unlike phrase match, it will show ads when users search for words in a different order.

Negative match

Negative match lets you define queries that will stop ads triggering. The obvious candidates are potentially offensive keywords, but there may be other obvious negatives that are specific to your industry or brand.

At a later stage, you should build this list out at campaign level – but only when you have a better understanding of which keywords convert, and which don’t.

Optimising your Match Types

Make sure you audit and optimise your match types regularly. Without control of your keyword targeting, you won’t have control of your budget. If you have clicks from irrelevant, non-targeted search queries they are less likely to convert and cost you money.

Each different match type affords a greater degree of control over targeting (and therefore budget). Exact match offers the most control, followed by phrase match, modified broad match and broad match.

Broad match should be avoided most of the time, as broad match ads are likely to appear for low-value and irrelevant queries.

In an ideal world, your account would have all keywords set to exact match, with all possible keyword variations covered. This would allow the maximum level of control over targeting and budget.

But we don’t live in an ideal world. So we have to use phrase match and modified broad match to help us reach our customers without spending too much time optimising our campaigns.

Brand Keywords – Dos and Don’ts

It is also important to look at branded keywords. This is important to ensure brand protection.

Until 2008, Google didn’t allow advertisers to bid on competitor brand names. Then the floodgates opened.

So now you can bid on competitors’ branded terms, but you may not be able to include them in your ad text if they are trademarked. Nonetheless, this means that no search query is safe – even customers searching specifically for your businesses website could end up being enticed by a rival company’s ad.

For this reason, you should take reasonable steps to protect your brand in search.

Does this mean bidding on your brand name as a keyword? For some businesses, yes – but for others, it’s just not worth it.

A small business in an uncompetitive market, for example, may find that no competitors are bidding on its brand name.

For this business, bidding on its brand name simply to secure a top position in Google search may be a waste of money, as it will likely already appear as the #1 organic result, with no paid search competition.

However, a big retailer in an aggressively competitive marketplace will likely have to bid on its own brand name, or risk competitors pushing their search results below the fold.

This retailer will also have to ensure that its bids are set high enough to ensure customers go straight to its site. Whenever possible, you should aim to appear in position #1 for your own brand terms – you can’t rely on organic results to bring in clicks!

Best-Practice Tips

• Consider match types. Depending on your brand name, broad match may or may not be a viable choice. Certain brands, like AstraZeneca or Microsoft, could get away with setting brand-name keywords to broad match, as their brand names are either unique, or inexorably tied to the products and services they provide.

However, brands like Apple should avoid broad match at all costs, as brand names based on common words are most likely to bring in unwanted traffic. Apple, for example, may appear on searches for ‘apple baskets’, ‘apple pie’ and countless other irrelevant terms.

• Consider targets. Brand keywords are often more profitable than generic keywords, for a simple reason – people who search for your brand have likely already made up their mind about the retailer they want to purchase from. For this reason, you may wish to set different targets for brand versus non-brand keywords.

• Consider reputation. Reputation management is an important consideration in PPC, especially when it comes to brand keywords. As well as thinking about the keywords you want to bid on, you should consider the queries that you don’t want associated with your brand. For example, keyword constructions like [brand + ‘scam’] or [brand + ‘sucks’] are unlikely to bring in traffic that converts. As part of your audit, you should identify terms like this and add them to your negatives list.

Building an effective keyword list takes time, and maintaining it is an ongoing process. However, if you want your ad campaigns to succeed then getting the building blocks right at the beginning will give you a sturdy base on which to build.

For more on how to use keywords and match types to maximise on your campaigns read ClickThrough’s latest e-Book – The Best-Practice Guide to AdWords Audits: Part One. Download your copy now to find out more about keeping up and moving with the industry.

Thanks to Phil Robinson for sharing their advice and opinions in this post. Phil Robinson is the Founder of ClickThrough Marketing, a leading UK digital and search marketing agency specialising in helping companies increase leads and ecommerce sales. You can follow ClickThrough on Twitter or connect with Phil on LinkedIn.

 

source http://www.smartinsights.com/paid-search-marketing-ppc/paid-search-strategy/how-to-build-a-quality-keywords-list-and-choose-the-right-match/

Persuasion Marketing: How to Create Personas to Better Engage Your Audience

Improve audience understanding for more persuasive marketing campaigns in four steps

Gone are the days of randomly placing keywords and ranking for any term we liked. Today’s savvy marketer recognises that in order to succeed in the Google search results, and more widely online, we need to forget old school techniques of trying to appeal to the search giants and focus instead on our end user.

Customer personas are a powerful marketing tool which enable us to better articulate our audience’s needs and complexities in a usable manner. Here, I’ll explain how to create useful marketing personas to guide your marketing strategy.

Back to basics: audience demographics

The first step to better understanding your audience is to extract basic demographical information. There are various ways to do this.

Ask your client/team

The first place to look for audience information is your client (if you work in an agency) or your team (if you work in house).

Gather your marketing team, your sales team, your customer service team and ask them:

• Who are our customers?
• Where are they based?
• What jobs do they do?
• What do they need?
• Why do they buy from us?

We did this exercise with one of our clients, Donington Park (an events venue here in the Midlands), as a workshop. We had big pieces of paper and fat pens and we discussed our ideas as a group. Using the workshop method meant that everyone in the team felt they could contribute and we extracted insights that they hadn’t shared with one another before, as well as all of those ‘obvious’ aspects of their audience which they spoke about every day.

Review your sales data

Sales data is really useful in helping you to learn more about your audience.

If you use a CRM, you should be able to extract information about existing customers as well as new leads. You’re looking for as much information as possible about things like job titles, locations, gender, age, financial status and so on.

Gather sales insight

Your sales team will likely have their own way of segmenting new leads. Ask them how they qualify new leads into the business; are there any desirable attributes which they look out for as signals of the lead’s propensity to buy? Are there any undesirable attributes which they would exclude based on their knowledge that those leads don’t convert?

At this point, you’ll have some good insights into the basic demographical information surrounding your audience base. For many marketers, this is where the road to audience understanding ends. They create segments based on this basic information, often driven by age or location or job title, and believe that’s enough.

But I believe it doesn’t stop there. To truly understand our audience, we need to delve deeper.

What motivates your audience?

The next level of understanding comes from asking what motivates your audience. You want to find out:

• What needs do they have?
• What challenges do they face?
• What are they looking for when reviewing your product or service?

Again, there are numerous ways to extract this information.

Customer surveys

Customer surveys can be extremely powerful. They not only give you the opportunity to gather valuable information, studies have shown that asking customer feedback can increase conversions and improve retention rates too.

Surveys can be done face to face, via email or over the phone. You might run a poll on your social media channels or even host a pop up on your site. The end goal is to better understand the answers to the questions I posed above.

We ran a survey for another client, Company Check, in late 2015 where we asked 1,000 business users of the site to provide their feedback on a series of questions around business matters. The results provided a valuable insight into their experience, including information on the challenges they expect to face in 2016.

We also asked participants to tell us what industry they operated in and what size their business was, which gave us loads more information about our user base. We are now creating content which appeals to those needs. You can see the survey itself here.

As an aside, this survey was also featured on Forbes, International Business Times, Yahoo News and many more, showing that surveys can also be a valuable digital PR tool.

Keyword research

If you work in SEO, you’re likely to be very familiar with the practice of keyword research to better understand the phrases your target audience uses when searching for your services.

But have you considered what keyword research can reveal about your audience’s motivations?

I like to use the related searches on Google to gain this insight. Simply search for a phrase that’s important to your client, something top level like ‘SEO services’, for example. The scroll to the bottom of the results and Google will make suggestions of other related searches.

In this example, the related searches include ‘seo service pricing’, ‘how much do seo services cost’ and ‘seo service price’. This indicates that price is a factor for this audience. We also see ‘seo reading’, ‘seo kent’, ‘seo nottingham’ and so on, suggesting location is also a factor.

There are lots of other tools you can use for this, some of which I’ve listed for you here.

What interests does your audience have?

The next step is to consider what interests your audience has. You want to find out:

• What do they enjoy?
• What are they thinking about?
• What’s topical in their industry?

Here are some techniques to help you here:

Conference Topics

One technique I find really helpful is to follow the conferences that are targeted to my audience. I want to see what topics they are covering, as this can give me an insight into the trends in that industry.

It’s also worth looking out for any hashtags being used by the conference on Twitter. You can track this to see what attendees are talking about, giving you access to real time insight. I like to use Hootsuite for this, and have written a guide to using Hootsuite, but there are other social monitoring tools available.

Targeted publications

Do you follow the publications and websites which target your audience? This could include blogs, forums, online/offline magazines and competitor sites.

It’s highly likely they’re going through the same processes as you to understand their audience so by reviewing the content they share, you can get inspiration for your own.

YouGov Profiler

This tool is great for adding those more personal traits that will make your personas into ‘people’.

Free to use, the YouGov Profiler gives you information on your audience’s hobbies, interests, brand affiliations and much more, based on records from over 400,000 survey respondents.

Building your personas

Once you’ve gathered this information, you’ll be ready to build them into personas. Remember, personas are meant to be tools for your use, so consider how to make them easy to use for everyone in your business.

The most common way to do this is to create a one-page visualisation. This includes a photo, name, summary and other key information from your research. Here’s an example of one I created for my client Company Address:

I recently spoke at Brighton SEO, the UK’s leading digital marketing conference, on the topic of personas and how to use them to guide your strategy. You can view the slides and video of my talk here:

• How to Develop Useful Audience Personas to Guide Your Digital Strategy

I also wrote about how to use personas in your content marketing strategy on Smart Insights here:

• 3 tools for creating an effective content marketing strategy

Laura Hampton is the digital marketing manager at Nottingham SEO agency Impression. She specialises in SEO, digital PR and content marketing. You can follow Laura on Twitter @lauralhampton or @impressiontalk.

source http://www.smartinsights.com/persuasion-marketing/marketing-personas/persuasion-marketing-create-personas-better-engage-audience/

Building a Knowledge Centre for Your Brand

Pinterest add ad groups to their ad platform for better organisation

Chart of the Day: 42% of marketers are planning on increasing the amount of time they dedicate to Pinterest

This week, Pinterest have announced the addition of ad groups to their ad platform for marketers to better organise their sponsored pins. For anyone familiar with Google Adwords or Facebook Advertising it always felt strange that Pinterest didn't have the ability to arrange their campaign into ad groups. This development shows how Pinterest is trying to capitalise on the interest in the network from marketers by having familiar features. A lower bar to entry for a marketer to get up and running quickly will ensure that they at least give the platform a fair chance to prove its worth.

This announcement is interesting when you consider the charts below from the Social media marketing report from Social Media Examiner. The report showed that there is an eagerness from marketers for the platform with 45% wanting to learn more about the platform. Also by launching updates to the Ad platform for marketers rather than new features for the everyday user they are showing a commitment to increase their revenue by capitalising on the 42% of respondents who plan on increasing their marketing activities on the network. With 150 million users a month, the potential is there for brands to achieve a good level of ROI from any activity.

Social Media Platforms Marketers Want To Learn About

 

How will marketers change their future Pinterest activities?

• Source: Social Media Marketing Report
• Respondents: 5,086 Marketers
• Recommended toolkit: Social Media Marketing toolkit

source http://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-platforms/pinterest-add-ad-groups-ad-platform-better-organisation/

11 quick digital marketing fixes every small business or startup needs to know in 2017

How to avoid the costly mistakes that plague small businesses

So... you’ve started your new business or start up and 2017 is going to be your year! But not wishing to dampen your enthusiasm there are several small business marketing mistakes that can lead to your untimely downfall. To help you prevent this We’ve put together a special guide for small business andstart-upss highlighting the common mistakes not to make this year.

Digital marketing excellence isn't just for big business. In our guide to small business digital marketing mistakes we've noted the top 11 digital marketing mistakes that are commonly made by small business.

The guide contains not only highlights the mistakes, but also gives actionable recommendations to help you fix the issues. Our top 10 covers all stages of the RACE digital marketing planning framework so you can easily add them to your digital marketing plans in 2017. Here's an exclusive peep into what's inside...

Mistake #1: You don’t have a written digital marketing plan

A staggering statistic - according to our latest research 50% of business don’t have a written digital plan. Admittedly most small business owners are too focused on running the business but it doesn't have to be that way. #2. You are not doing market or competitor researchUnderstanding your market and the competition is a crucial business activity for any small business, startup or entrepreneur. Are you doing it? #3 You want to be No1 in search engine results A common mistake that often results in palm face with digital marketers. Many small businesses have unrealistic expectations about the time and return on investment from marketing particularly SEO. Times have changed a lot, get with it by avoiding outdated SEO tactics that can land you in hot water. There are many ways to improve your visibility through an integrated digital marketing strategy.

Mistake #2. You are not doing market or competitor research

Understanding your market and the competition is a crucial business activity for any small business, startup or entrepreneur. Are you doing it? #3 You want to be No1 in search engine results A common mistake that often results in palm face with digital marketers. Many small businesses have unrealistic expectations about the time and return on investment from marketing particularly SEO. Times have changed a lot, get with it by avoiding outdated SEO tactics that can land you in hot water. There are many ways to improve your visibility through an integrated digital marketing strategy.

Mistake #3 You want to be No1 in search engine results

A common mistake that often results in palm face with digital marketers. Many small businesses have unrealistic expectations about the time and return on investment from marketing particularly SEO. Times have changed a lot, get with it by avoiding outdated SEO tactics that can land you in hot water. There are many ways to improve your visibility through an integrated digital marketing strategy.

Mistake #4 You don’t have a Business listing on Google Maps, Apple Maps Connect or Bing Places

A Google My Business profile is an essential for local businesses and SEO. It’s free and will enable you to appear in local search results for searches specific to your products or services. Go the extra mile with Apple and Bing listings. We’ll show you how. #5 You spend more time on Social Media than your website.

Mistake #5 You spend more time on Social Media than your website.

Yup it's the classic social media marketing faux pas - trying to be active on too many social media platforms or the latest shiny new one. Another common mistake is focusing on the wrong platforms. Use our guide to manage your social media activity effectively and with business goals in mind.

Mistake 6# Your website sucks or you don’t have one.

Many small businesses start out with websites built by their big brother in the spare bedroom. Don’t do it, just don't, full stop. Your website is the content hub for all your online goals.

Mistake #7 Not making the most of email marketing

So you think email is dead and your last disastrous email campaign open rate confirmed it. With 92 percent of online adults using email, and nearly two-thirds (61 percent) using it every single day, email marketing is still the main component of any effective marketing campaign. Get the basics right. #

Mistake #8 You’re Not Optimised for Mobile

How often do you search the web or buy products on your phone? According to researchers mobile digital media time in the US is now significantly higher at 51% compared to desktop (42%). The statistics are crystal clear, the world is moving towards semantic, mobile and voice search and so don’t be left behind.

Mistake #9 Doing nothing to build links to your website

Unfortunately, many small business owners build a website then completely ignore the ongoing SEO and inbound link building process. While link building can be time-consuming and confusing to some small business owners there is little doubt that if your goal is to improve your online visibility, you needinbound links and quality ones at that.

Mistake #10 Spending too much time on brand or website perfection instead of clear positioning, messaging and a compelling story

Too many startups obsess over their product development, brand name, website too early aiming for perfection. We’ve got news for you - sorry, nobody is that bothered. Investing in perfection too early in terms of your brand assets will lead down the yellow brick road to a waste of budget. BONUS #11 You don’t have Google Analytics set up.Sadly, very common for small businesses. If you don’t track results, you really don’t know what's working for you - fact. At the very least have a basic analytics dashboard setup. Stop whistling in the wind. Download our guide to learn more.

Mistake #11 You don’t have Google Analytics set up.

Sadly, very common for small businesses. If you don’t track results, you really don’t know what's working for you - fact. At the very least have a basic analytics dashboard setup. Stop whistling in the wind. Download our guide to create data and performance driven analytics dashboards and KPIs for your small business.
Do these mistakes ring any bells? How many on this checklist make you want to say ‘guilty m’lord’ Want some quick fixes that make it a super 2017 for marketing your SaaS, retail business or start up in the New Year? You’ll find solutions to your marketing aches and pains from Smart Insights expert membership. If you are looking to skyrocket your business in 2017 get actionable digital marketing advice on what really matters.

Thanks to Yvette Bordley for sharing her advice and opinions in this post. Yvette (aka Webyogi) is a highly experienced digital marketing consultant who believes in integrating online marketing into a strategic digital marketing plan through the RACE framework. She mentors budding entrepreneurs, through the Entrepreneurs Academy, creates digital strategies for small business and startups worldwide and also provides digital marketing training. Yvette loves mindfulness, yoga, vegan banoffee pie & people who smile quite a lot. You can follow Webyogi on Twitter or connect on LinkedIn.

 

source http://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-strategy/11-quick-digital-marketing-fixes-every-small-business-startup-needs-know-2017/

SEO in 2017 – Learning to play by 7 new rules

Major 2017 SEO trends to get to grips with this year

Competition – it motivates all of us to become better at what we do. Marketers are no different, especially when they have to stay on top of the SEO game. They research the latest SEO trends; they use the best SEO tools out there. The problem is, unlike a sports competition, the goal posts for SEO are always changing. This, of course, makes the game more interesting, but also pretty frustrating for those trying to “keep up.” Looking ahead to 2017, these are some SEO trends that marketers might want to keep an eye on.

1. Dense Content Will Rise

Initially, content was provided in short little chunks – rather fluffy chunks, actually – and the same fluff was just repeated everywhere. When this ultimately proved ineffective for SEO purposes, marketers began to create volumes of lengthy content – the longer the better. Topics were more complex and were covered with so much detail that readers had to be given heading, sub-headings, bullet points, etc., so that they could pick and choose which parts of the “epics” they wanted to read.

While comprehensive coverage of a topic is still important, the focus for content in 2017 is likely to be providing lots of information in as small a space as possible. This will be a challenge and require some creativity and even greater use of visuals.

2. Personal Branding vs. Company Brand

Not long ago a Forbes article called personal branding the new SEO secret weapon. When people within companies tell their stories and post on a personal level, they build trust and relationships with users. This will bring more inbound traffic, will mean that users will stay longer, and, in the case of content marketers, may mean more opportunities to guest post.

It is important to note that Facebook continues to refine its algorithms in favor of personal rather than brand posting. This will require some strategy, to be sure, but it will be well worth the effort. Some smart brands have already been ahead of the game. Flo from Progressive Insurance has her own Facebook page, separate from the company’s page.

3. Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP Project)

The AMP Project protocol has the capacity for webmasters to create content that is mobile optimized and that will load almost instantly, with just few structural changes. Who would not want their site to load up to 4X faster, use less data? Already, Google is using an icon to indicate sites that have switched over to AMPs. 2017 will probably bring more deference for AMPs in search results, and more companies will definitely be choosing the option. Take advantage of something that is pretty simple to achieve.

4. Personal Assistants

As Smartphones have become more and more attached to people’s hips and are now the most common method of accessing the Internet, the use of personal assistant apps (Cortana, Siri, Google Now) has skyrocketed. Users now manage a lot of their information and perform searches through their personal assistants, and this has some major implications for SEO. Marketers must now think not just of PC, laptop, or tablet SEO – they must think about smartphone SEO – those terms that personal assistants will “key” in on when a user asks for information or conduct a search. Developing tactics to ensure that a business will still be found through such a search is still in early stages, but next year will bring much more information that marketers must stay on top of.

5. Algorithms and Machine Learning

Google launched RankBrain in late 2015. And Hummingbird has extended functions to “learn” how users are phrasing their search terminology and automatically altering its algorithm. While there has been nothing new recently, marketers should expect more updates and changes in this area in 2017.

6. UX and SEO Will Mesh Further

This is not a new concept. SEO rankings have been impacted by traffic, speed of load time, mobile compatibility, and the length of time visitors remain on a site for a while now. AMPs are just one example of what is probably in store for designers, developers, and marketers through 2017 and beyond. In general, Google is going to be far more favorable to sites and content that it detects have better experiences for users.

7. Move Over – Apps Will Gain More Favor

If only because users are now able to stream apps rather than download them, and because there is a lot of linking to content via apps, there is certainly reason to believe that Google will begin to show more favor to apps, as opposed to traditional websites. If, for example, a user has downloaded or streamed the app for a resume building site, Google will begin to evaluate the user experience on that app, using current algorithms and others it will develop as apps become a more favored platform.

Final Thought

SEO is like a game of chess in some ways. Marketers have to try and guess what the next move will be and plan for it. Unlike chess, however, there is not a set of standard “moves” to which search engines are confined. Nor is technology like a fixed chess board – as it evolves, so will algorithms. Marketers who stay on top will be those who learn the new rules as they come along and adjust their content and their strategies accordingly.

Thanks to Steven Mehler for sharing their advice and opinions in this post. Steven Mehler is an experienced writer, SEO specialist and social psychologist that works as an editor and a cover letter expert. He has a long-term experience in writing articles based on blogging, SEO and social psychology.

source http://www.smartinsights.com/search-engine-optimisation-seo/seo-strategy/seo-2017-learning-play-7-new-rules/

Examples of 4 Automated Email Campaigns Every Online Retailer Should Send in 2017

See from this case study how these automated campaigns can generate new streams of revenue for your business

Behavioural emails can generate millions in online sales yet most retailers struggle to get it right.

Time and time again, digital marketers grapple with the existential question: How important is email marketing, really?

Email tends to have an astronomically high ROI of 3800%; for every $1 spent on email marketing, retailers make an average of $38 and it's one of the best sales online retail sales channels.

Itís no surprise that there are hundreds of email marketing software solutions that offer numerous styling, scheduling, and automation options.

As the e-commerce space continues to grow more and more crowded each year, all the software options in the world canít and wonít guarantee new streams of revenue for your business, however, knowing which email campaigns convert the highest and then sending those campaigns to your shoppers will.

Why Is It So Difficult to Get Email Marketing Right?

The thing about email marketing for eCommerce is that in order to maximize performance, you need a data-driven strategy.

With eCommerce marketing managersí attention pulled in too many directions to implement on-site marketing tools and deploy ad campaigns and traffic drivers, advanced email marketing strategies often get overlooked or checked off the list too soon.

Getting the right tools in place to implement automated campaigns that are strategic in nature and leverage actual browser behaviour data can be complicated, difficult, or costly.

As a result, most companies resolve to sending automated campaigns like newsletters and promotional emails, despite the fact that behaviorally-triggered emails tend to generate over 3 times as much revenue than non-segmented campaigns.

There are many resources that talk about how you can setup behaviourally-triggered messages, but how can you know which automated campaigns will yield a significant increase in conversions and average order value on your site?

The Secret to Achieving Higher Conversions and AOV  Through Automated Behavioural Emails

Itís all about creating relevant content to the right user segments on your site. When you figure out which user segments have the highest conversion potential, you can create relevant email content that converts.

With time, merchants are finding that when they tap into segments of shoppers who may have dropped off early on in the sales funnel, they can generate an entirely new stream of revenue. Browse and Cart Abandonment Email Campaigns can bring those shoppers back and, as a result, increase conversions and average order value.

Identifying More Engagement Opportunities to Generate a New Stream of Revenue

By now, most online retailers know about cart abandonment and many have begun to talk about 'site abandonment' too. But there are other, more specific touch points along the shopping funnel that can be used to re-engage potentially lost customers and bring them back to purchase.

From the homepage all the way through to the thank you page, the shopping journey is filled with various stops along the way, and the point at which a shopper drops out is an important piece of data that can be leveraged to a merchantís advantage.

While shoppers who abandon carts exhibit a very high purchase intent, (after all, they made it all the way through your site and clicked 'add to cart', they make up a small percentage of all site traffic. Only about 5%.

What about the shoppers who may not have added products to their carts but still expressed some sort of intent to purchase by viewing various pages on your site?

About 94% of your site traffic exhibits different levels and types of purchase intent, and you can use browse abandonment email campaigns to bring that traffic back.

What is a Browse Abandonment Email Campaign?

Browse Abandonment Emails are behavioural emails that are automated to use personalised content related to the point at which each individual shopper drops out. More specifically, they address each of the following types of shoppers on a one-to-one basis:

• Shoppers that viewed your homepage and then bounced
• Shoppers that browsed a category, department, or specific brand on your site but never went on to view an individual product
• Shoppers that make it all the way to your product pages yet left before adding any products to their carts (this pool of shoppers makes up 20% of your site traffic and exhibits a high level of purchase intent)

Personalised messages automated to be sent to these types of shoppers not only help the retailer recoup potentially lost traffic and sell more products, they are the preferred marketing channel by shoppers themselves.

In fact, when shoppers were asked how they prefer to receive promotional content, 72% chose email over social media.

Why Am I Not Already Doing This? Can I Even Send Emails Like These?

If youíre reading this and asking yourself, ìWhy am I not already sending browse abandonment emails to my shoppers?î youíre not alone.

The majority of marketers place their email marketing focus on generic messaging like newsletters, welcome campaigns, and promotional content, so donít feel bad.

If you want to expand your email reach with personalised browse and cart abandonment email campaigns, you can start by asking the following questions:

• Are the emails I currently send to shoppers personalised for each individual shopper?

• Does my email marketing software provider include automation filters that allow for separate campaigns addressing different abandoning shoppers at each point in the funnel?

• Do my emails include personalised product recommendations that are data-driven and appealing for each individual shopper?

• Does my email marketing software offer varied personalisation algorithms to fuel my email messages?

If you answered no to any of the above questions but still arenít sure how much emphasis your email marketing strategy should place on these personalised campaigns, let's take a look at the Google Analytics reports from some eCommerce sites that already send browse and cart abandonment campaigns.

Did you know that personalised browse and cart abandonment campaigns tend to outperform generic messaging 6 to 1?

Take a look at this site's analytics:

This site's abandonment email campaigns outperformed their newsletter by over 700%:

And for the online retailer below, browse abandonment emails doubled their abandonment campaign email revenue altogether:

Now that you understand the potential these automated email campaigns have to generate new streams of revenue that most retailers are missing out on, Iím going to show you examples of 4 automated behavioural email campaigns that transformed one retailer's business and how you can send similar messages to your shoppers this year.

Your Guide to Browse and Cart Abandonment Email Campaigns

Did you know that 81% of online shoppers report that they are more likely to make a purchase as a result of receiving personalised email messages?

Just last year, e-commerce site, Choxi, generated an additional $3 million in sales when they implemented behaviourally-triggered browse and cart abandonment email campaigns.

Although personalisation automation through email may seem elusive for many businesses, implementation isnít impossible.

You can use the same strategies Choxi used to increase revenue for their business. In 2017, when itís crucial to maximize every bit of traffic youíve got, these may just be the 4 highest converting email campaigns youíll ever send.

Automated Campaign #1: Product Browse Abandonment Emails

• User Segment: These are shoppers who have viewed specific, individual products on your site but did not actually add any of those products to their carts.
• Content/Messaging: Use a slight sense of urgency referring to the product viewed by the shopper and use soft calls to action inviting shoppers back to the site.
• Product Recommendation Algorithm: Display the exact product that the shopper viewed and then insert a mix of product-related best sellers and category-related best sellers as an upsell/downsell tactic
• Average Open Rate: 56%
• Average CTR: 23%
• Average Revenue Per Email: $3.66

Automated Email Campaign #2: Cart Abandonment Emails

• User Segment: These are the shoppers who have gone so far as to actually add a product or products to their carts! This is only ever about 5% of site traffic, so if theyíve made it this far, itís worth trying to get them back!
• Content/Messaging: Encourage shoppers to come back to the carts they left behind using customer service oriented messaging coupled with a sense of urgency.
• Product Recommendation Algorithm: Display the actual cart that the shopper left behind, fully populated with the products he added to his cart plus insert product and category-related best sellers as an upsell/downsell tactic
• Open Rate: 46%
• CTR: 34%
• Average Revenue Per Email: $2.70

Automated Email Campaign #3: Homepage Browse Abandonment Emails

• User Segment: Shoppers that browse your homepage but never make it any further into your site. Like window shoppers.
• Content/Messaging: Speak to your window shoppers with friendly greetings that welcome them back to your site, and highlight running promotions and top selling items.
• Product Recommendation Algorithm: Display a mix of site-wide best sellers and recent top sellers
• Open Rate: 21%
• CTR: 14%
• Average Revenue Per Email: $0.43

Automated Email Campaign #4: Category Browse Abandonment Emails

• User Segment: These are the shoppers that click on and view a specific category, brand, or department but never actually view specific, individual products.
• Content/Messaging: Show browsers that you noticed their interest in the category that was viewed, and lead them to view related products within that category with soft calls to action.
• Product Recommendation Algorithm: Display product recommendations from the category the shopper was browsing, taking into account the best sellers within that category
• Open Rate: 47%
• CTR: 21%
• Average Revenue Per Email: $0.96

Using These Campaigns To Increase Revenue for Your Site

Choxi isnít the only online retailer to enjoy an increase in revenue due to intelligent email marketing strategies. Even eCommerce giant, Amazon, reportedly generates one-third of their revenue from similar personalisation strategies.

So while 74% of marketers report that personalised messaging can successfully increase customer engagement, itís surprising that so few merchants are actually sending browse and cart abandonment email campaigns.

This year, whether your online business is big or small, use these 4 automated campaigns to generate more revenue. With results like these, your business has nothing to lose and everything to gain by engaging more intelligently with shoppers through email.

 

Daniel Kohn is the CEO and co-founder of SmartMail.io, a company that helps e-commerce stores and online retailers increase sales, average order value, and lifetime customer value through email. You can download SmartMails 4 highest converting email templates to help jump start your e-commerce email marketing program.

source http://www.smartinsights.com/lead-generation/marketing-automation/4-automated-email-campaigns-every-online-retailer-send-2017/

How important is influencer marketing for you and your business?

Chart of the Day: New research highlights increasing importance of the different types of influencer marketing

If you think of the changes that the rise of digital media have wrought in marketing, the rise of importance of earned media to support online PR and influencer marketing has to be one of the largest.

A new in-depth report from Traackr starts by explaining 6 different types of influencers. This highlights the different opportunities from influencer marketing - like their previous infographic on 10 types of individual influencers.

The report then goes on to assess the overall importance of influencer marketing in larger organisations. This chart shows that, although it's not seen as a primary investment by many (just around one quarter), integrating into other activities is seen as important by more (just over half).

The importance of influencer marketing will vary by business sector and company size, so it's worth bearing in mind that this research focuses on the largest brands, it's often the case that there will be a larger impact on smaller businesses.

I'd recommend taking a look at the report to see how your use of influencer marketing compares, it's written by digital transformation expert Brian Solis of analysts Altimeter, a digital marketing influencer naturally.

• Research report: Influence 2.0: The Future of Influencer Marketing
• Sample: Small (102), but senior (102 brand strategists from larger companies (70% more than 1,000 employees) around the world including Microsoft, American Express, 3M and Diageo)
• Smart Insights recommend resource: Influencer outreach guide - 2017 update due within next month

source http://www.smartinsights.com/online-pr/influencer-marketing/important-influencer-marketing-business/