A/B Testing…?!

What A/B testing is.

A/B testing is the way you can compare two websites or mobile apps against each other in order to find out which one executes better (Optimizely, 2015). A/B testing is also known as bucket testing or split testing. It is used to improve your conversion rates by using data and statistics to validate new designs changes. A/B testing is an expression or phrase used for non-specific experimentation which sole purpose is to test a theory and produce statistics (Martin, 2015)

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Running an A/B test that compares a variation against a current experience, allows you to ask focused questions about changes to your website or app, and after that collect data about the impact of that change. In order to sustain your business you have to be able to literally read and understand the customers which are visiting your website or app every day (McMillen, J., 2014).

How does It work?

You simply take the screen of a webpage or app and create a second version of the same page. The change could be something small, just one button or it could be something substantial such as new design on the entire page. Then your traffic is shown on the original page and also on the second version, which is with the changes.

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When customer enters your webpage or app and has been served by the control (original page) or variation (modified page), then their experience of engagement is recorded, measured and analysed through statistical engines (Kohavi, 2009). After that you can have a clear view whether the changes that were made have any effect or not.

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Why you should use A/B Testing?

This testing allows you to make changes to what the customer experiences when visiting your website and at the same time allows you to collect data on the results of the implemented changes. For example, a business wants to increase its sales volume by implementing a new landing page. In order to achieve such a goal, the particular business has to use A/B testing when changing headline, adding call-to-action buttons or a completely new layout. By testing each new component individually, the business is going to have clear view of which change works best.  A/B testing could also be used if there is a new product, which is about to be launched.

Some ideas for A/B testing.

Below I’m going to list some ideas of how to start A/B testing, but the testing itself depends on the industry your business belongs to. For example, a media company wants to increase the time the reader spends on their website and expand their articles with social sharing. In order to achieve its aim, the business has to test variations on: Email sign-up, suggested content and button for social media sharing.

Travel companies would have to make other changes such as faster and a more reliable booking process. The company needs to test variation of: home page, search results of the page or the way the service is presented to the customer.

A/B testing tools

There are a number of A/B testing tools available out there such as Google Analytics, KISSmetrics, Unbounce and so on.

In my previous blog I have mentioned Google Analytics, but now im going to emphasise on KISSmetrics, which In my opinion offers a pretty good and flexible service. KISSmetrics is a well know testing tool which highlights the human side of data. The testing data is attached to people who engage with your website and are monitored throughout the time spent on your website (KISSmetrics, 2014). KISSmetrics allows you to keep a constant track of what is happening from the beginning to the end of the communication funnel. But not everything is ideal, there are pros and cons.

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The advantages are: very flexible reporting data options, simple to use software, can track data to real people, the funnel-based data is highly accurate and not at least work well with other paid or free softwares.

The disadvantages are: KISSmetrics is low power in comparison with other testing tools, its highly costly, more specific data requires a more in depth learning abilities.

Overall the A/B testing have a positive impact on your website or app, but bear in mind there are several disadvantages. A/B testing may lead to losing some conversions due to the experiment. This means that you could lose sign-ups in order to experiment with a bad variation and if you repeat the process with a worse variation than the control, you may end with substantial loss of your sign-ups. Another disadvantage is that things change with the time. In A/B testing you receive only quantitative data, it just tells you the better one of two given options, but we also need qualitative data, which tells you how to make a better change just given one option (Zuupy, 2011). Also NEVER test the control first and then the variation, you MUST do both at the same time, otherwise you will end up with inaccurate data.

Zuupy.com, 2011, The Disadvantages of A/B Testing, [Online], Available at: https://zuupy.wordpress.com/2011/06/18/the-disadvantages-of-ab-testing/. (Accessed 8th of May 2016).

McMilen, J., 2014, How To Chose The Right Testing Software For Your Business [Online]  Available at: https://blog.crazyegg.com/2014/06/25/best-testing-software/. (Accessed 8th of May 2016).

Optimizely, 2015, A/B Testing, [Online] Available at: https://www.optimizely.com/ab-testing/. (Accessed 8th of May 2016)

KISSmetrics, 2016, Supercharge Your Testing With The New Kissmetrics A/B Test Report, [Online] Available at: https://blog.kissmetrics.com/kissmetrics-ab-test-report/. (Accessed 8th of May 2016).

Martin, E. J. (2015). The ABCs OF A/B TESTING. EContent, 38(7), 12-17.

Kohavi, R., Longbotham, D., Sommerfield, and Henne, R., (2009)  “Controlled experiments on the web: survey and practical guide,” Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 140-181.

 

Paid Advertising

Paid advertising is an amazing way to drive traffic to your website, but could become let’s say out of control if you are not careful. By out of control I refer to the fact that it could become very expensive and at the same time not serve its purpose. You could make such a mistake if your AdWords for example are too broad and not specific. Marketers pay for search engines to do text advertisement in respond to keywords, but these keywords could be generic (computer) and branded (Apple Mac) (Rutz & Bucklin 2011).

There are number of tips that we should use to make sure we get what we pain for. Let me share some of the bang on tips with you guys.

  1. Understand how AdWords work:

The first thing you have to do is literally understand how the AdWords work and more specifically how Keywords work. Google AdWords tool is the ideal place to discover keywords in your industry. This tool is very good, BUT is leading you to keywords which are very broad and not particularly effective. The keywords you should look for are the ones your customers are looking for and best describes your business. Therefore, you are looking for so called ‘long tail keywords’, which means that the words are long and more specific and added up together they make up most of the search-driven traffic. According to (Internet Advertising Bureau UK (iab), 2016), AdWords takes approximately 60% of all paid advertising, which is leading us to the notion that it does work.

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In the example shown above, the term ‘how to get out of debt’ is a ‘head’ keyword which means that it has been searched very often. But here you are aiming for more specific words, which are searched less, but better exemplifies a long tail keywords. Most of the businesses make the mistake to purchase ‘head’ keywords and spend tremendous amounts of money and at the same time reduce your ROI substantially. The best source of keywords could be your own website or maybe a customer survey, which is going to navigate you to what the customers are interested and looking for.

  1. Knowing what paid Ads are available.

As a beginning you should know some of the most popular paid advertising such as:

Display/Banner Ads- Display or also called Banner ads are the first thing that appears in our mind when it comes to advertising due to the fact that they are so visibly noticeable. The use of such an Ads is very wide spread, but used for targeting customers which are not looking for a particular thing at that particular moment. This means that if you read your online newspaper, but encounter an advert about cars you can use and click on the banner which is going to lead you to a landing page which more information.

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Text Ads- Text Ads are the ads, which we see as soon as we go to the primary Google or other Search engine. These ads are not as expensive as others and targets customers which are looking for something specific. Text Ads could be very successful, but it depends on keyword research and A/B testing.

Google AdWords- These type of ads are one of the most used by businesses. They can be looked at as a merge between display and text ads. The Google AdWords will generate a better return on your investment if you use them for a longer period of time and at the same time you are going to be rewarded by Google with better ‘quality scores’.

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Here we come to the question, Why not Bing or Yahoo ads? You are right, they offer the same service, but some businesses state that they don’t bring the same amount of traffic, therefore most of the businesses prefer Google AdWords.

Facebook – LinkedIn- Using social media as a way of advertising has increased in recent years. This type of advertising include banners and text and are preferred due to the fact that you can target the customer’s preference, demographics and location.

Infographic-20-Compelling-Reasons-to-Spend-Less-Time-on-Facebook-and-More-Time-on-LinkedIn

3. Time to Track Your Progress 

If you can’t see the progress of your advertising what is the point of having it ? One of the advantages of the online advertising is that you can track everything. Google Analytics is a necessity and also another good thing about it is that it is free and easy to install.

google-analytics-example

Once you get to know how Google Analytics work, you should create a customized URL for each of your advertisements and this will help you monitor your ads performance. This type of tracking is vital in order to track which clicks have been converted into genuine leads or long-term subscribers.

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There are a number of disadvantages when it comes to paid advertising. Such a disadvantage is when you get high volume of traffic through your website, but do not have any sales or subscriptions due to the fact that this traffic comes from unreliable sources (. These are people paid to surf the internet.

Another disadvantage in paid advertising is due to its efficiency is the competition, which can drive the price per click in excess of £10 for commonly used phrases.

 

 

References:

Rutz, O., & Bucklin, R., 2011 From Generic to Branded: A Model of Spillover in Paid Search Advertising. Journal of Marketing Research (JMR). Vol. 48 Issue 1, p87-102.

Gyatham, A., 2015, 5 Disadvantages of Paid Traffic (PPC Traffic), [Online]                                                            Available at: http://www.shoutmeloud.com/paid-traffic-disadvantages.html. (Accessed 8th of May 2016).

Internet Advertising Bureau UK, 2016, Digital Adspen, [Online]                                                                                Available at: http://www.iabuk.net/research/digital-adspend. (Accessed 8th of May 2016).

Kissmetrics, 2016, 5 Things You Must Do Before Jumping Into Paid Internet Advertising, [Online]                Available at: https://blog.kissmetrics.com/paid-internet-advertising/. (Accessed 6th May 2016).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Social Media Marketing for Businesses

Why using Social Media?

By using social media for marketing allows small and medium businesses to reach further for potential customers. The customers are networking with different brands via social media, thus in order to sustain their attention an excellent social media marketing plan needs to be put in place. Marketing and social media are supplementing together and if applied appropriate could lead extraordinary success to the business.

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If you want to engage with your customers and also find out what their opinion is about your product or service and how they perceive your brand, Social Media is the ideal way to achieve this and also create a network with thousands of people (Brown, 2012).

What is actually Social Media Marketing?

Social Media Marketing (SMM), is online marketing which by using different social media networks allows businesses or individual to communicate with others and represent their goals. There are different ways of communicating your goals using SMM such as: blogs, vlogs, images or pictures with marketing determination, also paid Social Media Ads .

Before even considering using SMM, you should think of your goals and what exactly want to achieve through SMM. Also very important aspect of SMM is to know who is your target audience, otherwise you may reach people not interested in your product or service, therefore you want be able to acquire new customers. The message you want to send via SMM should be clear and not dubious and ambiguous.

What are your Goals?

Using social media marketing can help with achieving a number of goals, such as:

  • Growing website traffic
  • Creating Conversions
  • Showing the existence of your Brand
  • Building your brand identity and networking
  • Creating good communication and relationship with targeted audience

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Is it enough just to address goals, but not to measure your Return of Investment (ROI)?

Most of the small businesses tend to forget about that important measurement, which means that these businesses don’t know whether they benefit from the particular SMM or not. According to (Cohn, 2013) as high as 70% of the online businesses have ignored ROI. Okay, I agree with this, but is ROI really for you? Do not focus too much on ROI until you know that this is exactly the right measure for your chosen social marketing (Evans & Mckee, 2010).

Social Media Marketing Tips!

Now, I am going to list some of the most common tips when it comes to SMM, which will keep you focused on your Social Media Campaign. You might say that your strategy implemented couple of years ago is still working – I doubt it!!! The pace the internet is changing is enormous. Some of my tips are as followed:

  • Engage with social media participants: influencers and bloggers/vloggers

Probably, you have heard of the fact that many brands use such influences in order to acquire more customers. Nowadays most of the people are influenced by family, friends or one of these (famous) influencer, hence this method is used for advertising goods or services. It is also seen as more productive and trustworthy rather than the usual paid Ads.

For an example if you are selling cakes, try to get in touch with somebody (influencer) who is followed by thousands of people in social media( YouTube, Instagram, Facebook…) and ask them to promote your product. The way it works is exactly the same when you see a celebrity advertising different products. People assume that the celebrities are using these products, so they should be worth it.

  • Live Streaming

Live stream become very popular in recent year and more in particular in 2016. The live stream could give the target audience customers or businesses a view behind the scenes. In this way you could build brand loyalty or acquire new customers, but why not potential investors as well. This could be as easy as just getting an Apple or Android app. This way people can see what is happening just by one click on their phone or tablet even if they are on the go.

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  • Social Media Advertising

When using social media and seen ads is the most popular way that the social media users find out about new business, new product, discounted products or services and so on.  Using social media as an advertising platform gives you an advantage due to the fact that most people are social media users. It is not only young people who use social media, nowadays different age groups are users of different social media platforms.

According to (eMarketer, 2016) almost half of the worlds digital buyers (45%) are using social media and stated that social media activities influence their behaviour whether to buy or not. Also as a shopping behaviour influencers are considered the discounts.

  • Special Deals and Discounts

When giving a special deals and discounts to your followers you can sustain even larger audiences and generate new customers while also being able to take a better measure of conversions. There is even a possibility for building loyalty with customer.

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  • Keep an eye on your competitors

It is imperative to keep an eye on your rivalries due to the fact that they may share data for key research, where to accumulate links about the industry you are in, and also other social media marketing tricks and tips.

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You can always spot a good tip, which works for your competitors and adjust it to suit and serve your needs, but try and do your best. Social Media Marketing is considered as one of the most popular tools – of course if you get to use it properly.

How to measure socal

But just using social media for marketing is not easy as it sound as it has number of Disadvantages and Risks.

In order to keep your SMM in a good pace it takes time, a lot of effort and not least cost. The person in charge should know the companies ins and outs, new and developing products, which means that the SMM is not entirely free due to the fact that somebody has to be paid to do it. Also whatever information about a service or product you post should be updated regularly, otherwise it could end up overwritten by other posts.

In general Social Media includes several risks such as negative comments from rivalries, unsatisfied customers or angry employees. Often these comments can not be removed and could affect the business as they can become viral very quickly and we all know the consequences of Word of Mouth – WOM.

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Follow my tips for your SMM and you will definitely get the benefit of it.

Good Luck. 

 

References:

Agrawal, A., 2015, Social Media Marketing: 5 Tips to Get It Right in 2016.  [Online]

Available at: http://www.inc.com/aj-agrawal/social-media-marketing-5-tips-to-get-it-right-in-2016.html (Accessed  March 29th 2016).

eMarketer, 2016, How Social Media Influences Shopping Behaviour. [Online]

Available at: http://www.emarketer.com/Article/How-Social-Media-Influences-Shopping-Behavior/1013718 (Accessed  March 29th 2016).

Cohn, M., 2013, How to Measure Social Media ROI – Is It Even Possible?  [Online]

Available at: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/how-measure-social-media-roi-it-even-possible (Accessed Martch 03th 2016).

Sandilands, T.,  2016, Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Media Marketing. [Online]

Available at: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/advantages-disadvantages-social-media-marketing-21890.html (Accessed April 4th 2016).

 

Brown, I., 2012. Working the Crowd: Social Media Marketing for Businesses. 2 ed. s.l.:British Computer Society .

Evans, D. &. M. J., 2010. Social Media Marketing. The Next Generation of Business Engagement.. 1st ed. s.l.:Sybex Inc.

 

Electronic Word-of-Mouth (eWOM) Marketing

Word-of-Mouth also known as WOM is a type of buzz marketing, which could turn into viral if the message is addressed appropriately and catchy enough to attract the customer’s attention. WOM has become one of the most important factors when it comes to physical and digital channels. With the advance of the technology, WOM is still one of the most influential elements in regards to customers and their communication about certain product or service (Smart Insight, 2016). In fact when you encounter something new the first thing to do is to share it with your friends, family and people you meet on daily bases what you found and your positive or negative feelings about it.

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According to (Lopez and Sicilia, 2014) Word of Mouth plays a vital role with regards to sources of information and at the same time is more trusted, credible and persuasive than commercial information. When using technology it is much easier for the consumer to share information about the encountered brand, product or service and this is making the information viral (Morrison, Cheong and McMillan, 2013).

Why is eWOM so influential?

Share with people: due to the people sharing information, social media, review websites and forums have become so successful. There are several reasons why people share information online. People like the networking and expressing their experience in order to help other and also to be seen as somebody who have a substantial knowledge about the subject and also to be perceived as a person with variety of connections. Therefore eWoM could be seen as a chain, one person share information and then his friends share the information with other friend and so on. This is the reason why eWoM could become viral.

Advice from other people online: 9 times out of 10 when we are looking to make a purchase, we always rely on information shared by other customer about the product or service we are about to buy. There are always numbers of reviews at the bottom of every product, but sometimes they are all positive. Is that true?!? MMMM I don’t think so! We could be tricked with great but false reviews made by the company selling the particular product or service and we could be misled as customers.

Trust in people: Nowadays customers take more into consideration people’s opinion rather than just believe in an advert. This is also known as ‘social proof’. eWoM has a substantial influence on consumer’s buying decision, but this could lead to positive and also to negative impact. One of the disadvantages of eWoM is that you do not know who sits behind the spread information and is it to be trusted. It is also important to know the person’s tone of voice, network and Digital Influence .

Despite the highlighted disadvantage above, eWoM is more powerful than the traditional one due to the fact that via internet you can reach hundreds of people if not thousands and not at least the post or review live forever on the internet and could be seen by anybody at any time.

What are the opportunities when using eWOM?

Monitoring: The traditional way of WOM is spread between individuals, but after a period of time is forgotten and becomes invisible, where as using EWOM stays on the internet for a very long time and could be seen not only by individuals, but companies and also rivalries. EWOM also gives the opportunity to monitor and analyse the BUZZ .  By analyzing, you could find how a potential or existing customer feels about your product or service. Sometimes the feedback could be negative, but this is a good chance for you to spot where your mistake is and fix it. People are discussing your product or service and your brand, but do you take a note of what they thing about it???

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The diagram above shows the publication per week, but what exactly does that diagram mean??? Most of the companies using online marketing do not have any third party tracking for their sites and even if they do, they could still make errors and don’t read the data correctly and can’t take an appropriate decision about their business.

One of the most important things to do in order for people to share your product or service with other people is to add a share button…. If you still don’t know exactly how it works, please Click here .

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Start the BUZZ: this could happen when you create an excellent marketing campaign, which will trigger a response from the readers. Then you just have to monitor and analyse the impact of the Buzz and also use the data to improve your service or product.

Be part of the BUZZ: by having web presence, you could influence your customer or potential ones. When giving a quick response to comments made by somebody, this gave the customer more faith and also more control over what is said so far. Anyway it is impossible to have a full control over the EWOM.

In order to monitor the subject that people are talking about, you can use a useful tool called Kloud Score.

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Kloud is a website and mobile app that ranks its users according to online social influence by using Kloud Score – a value which is between 1 and 100. Kloud is an excellent indicator of how influential your social media activities are (Lane, 2015).

E- Word of Mouth in fact could have a devastating impact on your business due to the fact that someone could spread the word of the bad experience with your company. Even if you have your digital presence you still may not be aware that there are negative words in circulation until the actual disappointed customer raises his/her concern.

 

 

 

 References:

Mooney, L. 2016, The Disadvantages of Word of Mouth Advertising, [Online] Available at: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/disadvantages-word-mouth-advertising-26133.html (Accessed March 22th 2016).

BuzzTalk Blog, 2012, Electronic Word of Mouth Presents a Window of Opportunity for Businesses, [Online]                Available at: http://www.buzztalkmonitor.com/blog/bid/233669/Electronic-Word-Of-Mouth-presents-a-window-of-opportunity-for-businesses (Accessed March 22th 2016).

Smart Insights, 2016, Viral & Word of Mouth Marketing.  [Online] Available at: http://www.smartinsights.com/online-pr/viral-marketing/ (Accessed April 12th 2016).

Lane, J. 2015, What is Kloud and What Does my Kloud Score Mean? [Online] Available at: http://rawdigital.training/what-is-klout-how-raise-klout-score/ (Accessed April 12th 2016).

Morrison, A., Cheong, H., and McMillan, S., (2013), “Posting, Lurking, and Networking: Behaviours and Characteristics of Consumers in the Context of User-Generated Content.” Journal of Interactive Advertising, 13 (2), 97–108.

López, M., & Sicilia, M., (2014) eWOM as Source of Influence: The Impact of Participation in eWOM and Perceived Source Trustworthiness on Decision Making. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 14(2), p.86-97

 

 

 

Business Blogging….???Why Would I Benefit of It and How???

Blogging is a real benefit for the Business, of course if you have your aim and know what you would like to achieve. The blog can help to drive more traffic to your website: who doesn’t want more website visitor and at the same time potential customers. There are few steps you should follow if you want all these benefits from blogging. Let’s start with:

  1. Driving traffic to your webpage.

Have you asked yourself how do people find you website? There are few ways of doing so:

  • they could just type your website name on the searching bar (which ever browser they are using), but this is the audience that already know you, is that what you want? Of course not, we all want more traffic on top of the existing one.
  • buying an email list- WASTE OF MONEY from my point of view. Literally buying something may or may not bring you more traffic as in nowadays most of the people are FED UP with getting SPAM emails. Would they even consider reading them? I can lay money on it-mmmm NO!!!
  • Google paid Ads- could be good approach, but cost a lot of money at the same time and for small organisations is really difficult to keep up with it.

 

Other ways of getting more traffic hmmm… how about social media, blogging and of course not at least Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Every time when you post a blog is another index page on your website, which in another words means that it gives you better chance to go higher in Search Engine ranking and also drive traffic to your webpage in organic search.

The blog also can be shared via social media such as: Facebook, Twetter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc. The benefit of this is that people share between themselves a lot of information (blogs or vlogs) on their so called walls which is visible for the entire list of friends they have and at the same time your business gets viral and meets new audience. More and more people get to know your business and what service or goods you provide.

Just to re-cap: Blog post gives you the benefit of: – drive new traffic, work well with SE and social media.

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  1. Transform the traffic in to leads.

Simply just add call-to-action (CTA) button and according to (Hubspot, 2016) this can get your click through rates increased by 1,300% (may be more). So when you keep your visitors longer on your page they might become leads.

In simple language sounds like this:

  • Customer come to website
  • Visitor encounter CTA for free offers
  • They do click the CTA button and are lead to landing page which have a short form which have to be completed with the persons details
  • Submit the form and get the free offer

Call-To-Action-Button-Examples

It is a good idea to have CTA button and many professional bloggers are giving their positive opinion about it and the fact that there is a significant benefit of having CTA button. This is the way of turning your visitors into leads.

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Let’s be realistic, of course not every single person who read your blog will become lead. Just keep blogging and get better and better to attract more people and at the same time potential leads.

  1. Helps crating Authority

As previously mention in my other Blog, if you frequently crate a blog containing useful information for your target audience you will look as an authority in their eyes. This is very helpful tool especially for sales and service specialists.

Blogs are also used as a platform where negative comments and disappointment (often ignored by the media) from particular service or product can be discussed by the customers, therefore the blogs are seen by the people as more trustworthy and reliable (Johnson & Kaye, 2004).

  1. Long-term results

Lets say that you had 100 people that visited your website and 10 of them become lead. The next day you have the same visitors and the same amount of leads, but the following 2-3 days NOTHING. Do not Worry, Be Happy I would say. One you have posted your Blog it going to be ranked in search engines, so that’s mean that even after months, years you still can generate traffic and leads as well. In easy words you put effort and sweat today, but the results may not come straight away (as it is with everything else) but you may be surprised what can happen in future with the Blog post that you even forgot about. According to (Hubspot, 2015) 70% of the traffic to a certain website comes from post published in the past ( in the past i don’t mean 50 years ago 😉 ).

PS.

I hope my blog will inspire some of you and will help you to develop your own. 😉

 

Source of Information:

Johnson, T. (2015) Effective Call-To-Action Tips For Business Website. [Online]

Available at: http://www.alecanmarketing.com/effective-call-to-action-tips-for-business-websites/  (Accessed Jan 28th 2016).

Broussard, J. (2013) Business Blogging: Why Should Any Business Owner Care?. [Online]

Available at: http://www.blinkjarmedia.com/Inbound-Marketing-Baton-Rouge/bid/323508/Business-Blogging-Why-Should-Any-Business-Owne (Accessed Jan 29th 2016).

Wainwright C. (2015) Why Blog? The Benefits of Blogging for Business and Marketing. [Online]

Available at: http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/the-benefits-of-business-blogging-ht (Accessed Jan 28th 2016).

Johnson, T., & Kaye, B. (2004). Wag the blog: How reUance on traditional media and the internet influence credibility perceptions of weblogs among blog users. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 81, 622-642.

 

 

Search Engine Optimization – HELP!

Struggling with the SEO for your Traveling website?

 Not anymore!

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plays a vital row when it comes to Travel Industry and each firm have to pay a significant attention on it in order to have a successful online business.

The first thing which have to be taken into consideration is the on-page optimization. The website have to come on the top of the ranking list if we want to make any progress. As we all search for different thing in Google, Yahoo, Bing and other search engines we are more likely to check the first 1 to 5 websites as they come as the most relevant. Often the rest of the website are ignored even though we might find more beneficial information, but the digital marketer fail to deliver appropriate digital strategy.

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Some tips of how to bring our Website to the top of the ranking list.

Writing a title which gives a clear explanation, but at the same time make sure it isn’t longer than 65 characters, because you might end up with half a massage you want to address to your potential customers.

Write the most important bits that help the customer to identify your business – Quality vs. Quantity.

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Some other helpful tips 🙂 

  • Write your keywords at the front of your title – when we people search we always scan just the first few words as we don’t want to read the how content and then realise it’s not what we are looking for.
  • Keep it predictable – Your title when clicked on should lead the customer to a page that meets their expectation.
  • Clear – as mentioned above write a title which gives the reader information of what the webpage is about.

Write a great Meta description

The Meta description is the next step you must optimize. You may struggle to quiet understand what Meta-tag means, therefore i will try and explain it to you in the most simple way. Hope it helps.

Meta‐tags are non‐visable, or hidden HTML tags that could give the site owners and authors with a level of control over how a Web page is indexed (Henshaw, 1999; Henshaw and Valauskas, 2001).

The Meta Tag that customer see looks like:

MetaTag

 

But what you see, is totally different as you see the source code which looks like that:

<META NAME=“Description” CONTENT=“informative description here”>

The Meta description is not as significant as your heading, when it comes to get clicks. The reason is because potential customers don’t look like to pay much attention to it, but it is still very important from an SEO ranking prospect. Therefore, Never Ignore it! Never!

Meta Descriptions are limited by Google up to 160 characters or less. In order to get them to work, make them Unique, Descriptive and of course as mentioned Short

 

Link Building in Travel SEO

I could state that Travel SEO is highly relying on High Quality Link Building. When customers are searching for deals or any sorts of holidays, they are more likely to look for off-site where they expect to find trustworthy information which will back down the information provided by your website.

httpkarinatama.comlink-building-and-content-marketing

Some of the links might be:

The Telegraph Travel, Gov.uk Travel Advice, The Guardian Travel Money Saving Expert, Travel Advice for more information about SEO importance in travel industry Click here.

All of the links above could be very helpful for travel business due to the fact that they have a good Domain Authority and they are important source of information for travelers.

There are other ways to make the web working in your favor and get the website and services/goods that you provide closer to the customer. If you are looking for more Tips of How to do that, simply Follow My Blogging Page!

 

 

 

Source Of Inforamtion:

http://www.quicksprout.com/2012/02/23/seo-tricks-to-help-you-rank-above-the-fold-and-increase-your-ctr/

https://www.hallaminternet.com/2013/travel-seo-importance-seo-travel-industry/

Got SEO Basics? 5 Tips To Boost Your Organic CTR

Henshaw, R. and Valauskas, E.J. (2001), “Metadata as a catalyst: experiments with metadata and search engines in the Internet journal, First Monday”, Libri, Vol. 51 No. 2, pp. 86101.

Wow, more E-mail marketing from B&Q

Recently my mail box is bombarded by emails, which aim is to sell goods or services. By sending millions and millions of emails companies are trying to build a close relationship with their customers. The email marketing nowadays is an important go-between companies and customers (McCloskey, 2006 and Chaffey et al., 2003).

 

Most of the time the emails have really catchy names so they can attract your attention, but once that has happened there we go again, another thing to draw your attention: weekly, monthly, seasonal promotions, discount, 50%-80% cheaper price, promise to beat any other retailer prices and so on.

When initially opened, the email revealed a nice welcoming picture, which sometimes could be personalized with your name or just general. That depends on the company’s approach towards its customers.

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With Christmas approaching soon, the animation is a vital part of the email marketing, but do i really want to buy something from that particular retailer, hmm…..? I’m not totally convinced, but just scrolling down the page boom… another offer. That offer requires me to click on the link or to to print out the voucher which is valid until the 6th of December 2015. This is so called “Call To Action” which of course diverts you to their website with even more discounts, etc.

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B&Q have used a good way to approach a potential customer when their emails are mainly pictures and not too much writing which is really annoying sometimes, by the time you have read the whole email the begining of it is forgotten already.

I personally never use any promo codes or online discounts as the retailer is always trying to trip you up and get you to buy goods or services which are not a necessity at the moment.  My opinion about B&Q’s email marketing is that they should personalize the emails by using greetings including your name or nickname.

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Overall the campaign is well made and delivered to the customers. B&Q have achieved their target by making people more aware that Christmas is coming and there isn’t time to waste: start buying presents and Christmas decorations.

 

 

Reference:

(McCloskey, 2006 and Chaffey et al., 2003) Web advertising: The role of e-mail marketing. Journal of Business Research. Volume 65, Issue 6, June 2012, Pages 843–848

 

 

 

Game of Thrones and Geoffrey`s hanging in NZ

King Geoffrey was hanged in New Zealnad, but did he deserve that?

A statue of King Geoffrey was placed in a prime locaton: Aotea Square(large public space in Auckland). The statue complited with a winch and rope arround the neck in scenes reminiscent of those we have seen played out in history. DDB then transimitted a live stream from the square, which become the largest live stream event in Australasia`s history.

A challange was posted to the world by  encouraging the fans to make their voice heard and bring down the king through the power of social media. Every tweet that include the hastag #bringdownthe king would turn the winch and pull the rope tighter, eventually of coure toppling the evil king. Brandwatch was involved with keeping track of which participants had the highest number of followers. By using brandwatch Analitycs to optimze their activity, DDB was able to record almost 875 000 individual interactions relating to their compain. The campain reached 43 million people in 158 countries, by using Brandwatch Analytics.

End of Class….

 

Source of information: Case Study SKY, DDB & G.o.T(Game of Thrones)

https://www.brandwatch.com/2014/07/sky-ddb-game-of-thrones/

 

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