The year of the video!

Every year since 2005 when Steve Jobs proclaimed it the year of the video with Final Cut Pro, every year digital marketers say, “This is the year of the video.”

More than a decade later it’s still the year of the video. Probably, not even Steve Jobs imagined just how much impact on the digital world video has.

Video is a way to communicate in a personal way with many people in visually. Use video as part of your marketing strategy, your competitors are likely doing so.

Years ago, producing videos was something only expensive productions companies could do. Today, even your smartphone can make decent videos on a small business budget.

Going viral

People always ask, how can I make a viral video. Not every video will go viral. Some videos will go viral for no other reason than they catch a funny moment, like a cat falling off a TV or kids coming on the set of a BBC interview.

Spontaneous moments that capture the fancy of millions of people are a great thing. However, to succeed with video marketing you need to have a strategy in place and communication tools that help drive users to your video. Some people can get lucky but in reality, it takes practice.

Is video really for me?

People will say, “I created a video and only 4 people watched it. I’m wondering if video is really for me.” Just creating a video thinking somebody is just going to come across it without promoting it doesn’t work.

There are many ways to promote your video on social media and with paid advertising. PPC ads can quickly grow an audience. Then as your audience grows, you can watch clicks on your video grow organically.

Here is the thing about “going viral” though – If you reach the hundred people you want to reach through the video, you really don’t care if 23,944,424 people are watching. The more niche your business is, the more value you’ll have with reaching a smaller audience.

If 100 people in out of thousands watch your video – you’re doing well. The video need not be a viral sensation to bring new customers. Just follow the ten steps presented later here and you can have some good results.

Your video doesn’t have to be an expensive slick production with all kinds of fancy effects. It is the content that counts. It’s difficult to create a video that goes viral, but doable if that is your goal, as shown in the following example/case study.

$100 Viral Video

Maybe you’ve seen the Blendtec “Will it Blend?” series of videos where things you would never put into a blender such as an iPhone are smashed to smithereens.

These viral videos started when the Marketing Director saw the R&D team blending up wooden boards to test product toughness. He had an idea to shoot a video of the operation and post it online.

With only a $100 in supplies, they made a video in the company break and blended up various non-food items – crazy things like marbles and a garden rake. Within five days of posting their videos on YouTube and on their own website, they had SIX MILLION YouTube views.

The take away here is to think of video as storytelling. Unlike viral videos that are often coincidental and just by chance, in the Blendtec case, it is a clear-cut strategy to say – how can we draw attention to the product, without talking just about the product?

Video length

If you listen to music, most songs are 3 minutes long and you can apply that as well to video. Anything more than that, if you look at that the trends in the graphs, after 3 minutes people fall off.

You want to have your 3 acts in 3 minutes when you tell a story with video. You can always go much longer, but it needs to be engaging to the audience.

One strategy is to design a campaign that is a series of short videos that if played in full would be 30 or 40 minutes long. Record ten or twelve 3-minute videos at the same time and then release one every week.

Video SEO

Google puts videos into the organic search results. If you have a video, you have a better chance of getting on the front page of the search results for your keywords because of your video content far more than just text. Another reason video is an important marketing tool.

10 steps to creating and promoting your video

Step 1: What is your story?

Number one – you will tell your story. For example:

• Why are you the best in the area you serve?
• What is your story about customer experience?
• What do customers think of you?
• What is your company culture?
• Who works for you what do they do?
• What kind of awards have you won?

You need to have a clear idea of what your story is and what are the theme and the purpose of your video. Making a video just for the sake of making a video is not a good reason. Take your story and connect it with the business objective.

What is the objective or your video? Are you looking to create an awareness of your business and promote it? Maybe you are trying to get more reviews or improve SEO for increased web traffic, leads, and sales. You could be looking for new employees.

All of these are possible reasons for the video, but the number one reason you’re creating videos is to tell YOUR STORY – and everything here is tied to the number one objective of all marketing – you want to grow your business.

SEO/content value and increasing traffic

If one of your motives for making a video is SEO content and keywords, you can add keywords when you upload your video and that will drive your SEO.

Step 2: Who are you trying to reach?

Step two – determine exactly who your audience is.

Do you want to reach business owners? Are you targeting a certain age group? Most businesses don’t have just one audience. Is there a segment of the population you wish to reach but have not done so successfully? Maybe a video aimed towards them will help.

Often people are searching for answers on how to do or fix something. Create a video to reach people who need content for education. Show them a “how to video” that shows what you are doing for your specialty.

Step 3: Plan your production

Plan your shoot and then – shoot your plan!

There was a time when all the new video social networks had started that just shooting a real-time video interviewing people while walking was enough, that’s OK for a live video shoot.

However, when you’re going to tell a story, be prepared and think – what are the themes and stories that match your objective. Be clear about the purpose of the video and the intended audience.

Gather a team in your company and brainstorm on what the video story will be. You could create 3 versions and vote on which one is best. Look at other videos that have been very successful and learn from them.

Use a script to know exactly what it is you are going to say so you can deliver your message in a clean and concise manner. Decide whether you can produce in-house or if will you need a pro, and set a budget.

You can make videos nowadays easily on your Smartphone with video editing apps. Use the resources you have within your company and you can produce a video at very low costs. Remember – it doesn’t have to be really fancy – it is the content that counts mainly.

Step 4: Upload your video to YouTube and Facebook

The most important step is number 4. You can’t just shoot the video, leave it on your phone for months and months, and decide one day to upload it. You need to take action and tell the world your story.

YouTube and Facebook are two of the biggest and have tremendous viewership. People still watch TV, but they watch considerably more TV and video on YouTube, Netflix, and other Internet sources, especially teens and young adults. You need to upload your video to both YouTube and Facebook.

If you don’t have a Facebook page, which is different from a profile page, you need to create one. Every business should have a Facebook business page. Just go to “Create Page” on Facebook and select:

• Local Business or Place
• Company, Organization or Institution
• Brand or Product

Tips for increasing your video’s online visibility

To increase traffic to your website, put in information that gets people to go to your website in the description areas when you post a video on YouTube or Facebook, even if they’re watching the video in the in the YouTube or Facebook ecosystem itself.

YouTube

When posting your video to YouTube and filling out descriptions and titles, think about the people who are looking for your story. Your title shouldn’t be something like – video taken May 9, 2017. It should be something like:

How to Lite a Fireplace – When to Replace Your Roof – Best Way to Remodel Your Kitchen.

Be direct with your title. Add your brand name and relevant tags about the subject of the video. These are the things that Google and other search engines are going to look at.

Here are some more tips to get your video delivering results:

• Add the URL to your website in the description, best if it is in the first 6 words. This way people don’t have to scroll down and search for it.
• Search for similar videos on YouTube and add a comment letting them know about YOUR video.
• Engage and respond to people who comment (positive and negative) about your video. The number of comments helps increase the video’s visibility.
• Post short videos or teasers on Instagram, which will let you syndicate to other sites.
• Embed the videos on your website. This works as a backlink to YouTube.

Facebook

• Upload the video to your company Facebook page.
• Post from personal pages to increase reach (employees can help a lot)

Step 5: Click once and share all over

Your website should not be your whole web presence. Your web presence should work in symphony with social media, maps, and other local listings to give you a large web footprint. You will want to share your videos on as many social networks as possible.

If you have a Yelp channel or Google My Business or some of the other hundreds of directories, it can be very time-consuming logging into every single one and your social media to add videos. Then, if you need to update anything you have to go back and do it all again.

There are many publishing tools that allow you to just click once and your video goes across your entire web presence. Then signals come back so you can monitor your video’s web presence and see things such as how many views it has, how long it’s being watched and more.

Whether it’s a video or a photo, make sure that you have Metadata turned on, if you’re taking a video with your phone make sure geographical location is turned on. These are all signals that tell Google and other search engines this is really a local business.

Step 6: Create ad campaigns

When you spend a lot of time and effort creating a video, make sure that you get as much of your audience as quickly as possible. Especially if there’s a call to action. The way to do this is advertise on YouTube, Facebook, and the Google Display Network.

Create a Google ad campaign

TrueView video ads

Google’s TrueView Ads are a great way to promote your video. Everyone by now who watches YouTube is familiar with the advertisements that appear before many videos start and the “skip” button that appears to go straight to the video.

With TrueView video ads you’ll pay only when users engage (watch for 30+ seconds)

You can laser target your videos to any audience you choose in the Google Network using keywords, demographics, affinity groups, shopping behavior, remarketing list and more.

Step 7: Connect with community and industry influencers

Connecting with the community of others in your industry is a good way to promote your video. Show people in your community the video, get their feedback and ask them to share it on social, blog posts, and emails. Share it on the Facebook pages of industry influencers.

• Work with your community
• Let them know you’re working on something big
• Remind them when your video goes live
• Engage influencers via social media

Step 8: Create a specific email marketing campaign

Emails are one more way to get people to watch your video and reinforce your brand’s story and one of the most effective tools for generating sales. Another advantage is that unlike using paid advertising to boost your video views – emails are free!

Social media is a very busy and noisy environment with many messages coming across. Emails are a more personal one-on-one conversation that if done right can be more effective than social media.

Don’t just tell them about your video, embed it in the email by using the embed function from your video host. Marketers who use video in email campaigns see increased click-through rates, increased time spent reading the email, and increased sharing and forwarding.

• Send a special update to your email list
• Include a link to the video in your next newsletter
• Share the video with your employees internally
• Have your team add a link to the video in their email signatures

Step 9: Prepare for any crisis or controversy

Did you see the 2017 Super Bowl ad from 84 – Lumber? Here is a perfect example of why you should have a plan to deal with negative feedback or controversy on a video you are ready to launch. Have a focus group, discuss possible concerns, and prepare responses.

• Accept that you can’t please everybody
• Consider all possible negative feedback ahead of time
• Prepare various responses to possible concerns, then tailor the reply to the platform (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, email etc…)

Step 10: Post-release promotion

Finally, when you release your video, create a press release and send it out saying – Hey, everyone, watch our story. To make it more interesting you could interview the CEO of your company or perhaps a customer that was in the video and include your video in the Press Release.

• Send press releases
• Create a post and share the results
• Send a thank you email to everyone who worked on the project
• Submit your video to industry award contests

Video Ads

PPC Video

If you’re running a pay per click campaign with Google Ads, advertising with video works the same way – it is showing a video as the ad. With the pre-roll (an ad that appears before of a video), you won’t have to pay if no one clicks it.

You need something short, it could be 5 seconds or 15 seconds long. Don’t put up an entire video that would run 15 minutes. The probability a viewer will click and watch the whole thing goes down quickly

With video ads, just think about what you’re trying to say and deliver the message in the first 5 seconds.

If you have a dental practice, for example, a person uses the search term on Google or YouTube “bleeding gums treatment,” you could have a pre-roll video show up that talks about the common causes of bleeding gums.

That’s a chance to get in front of somebody interested in what you do. There are also ads that appear in the video as pop-ups and in search results.

How much does video advertising cost?

Just like pay per click, you have control over a daily budget. You may work with an account manager that manages this for you, so the cost is between you and the business that handles your account.

If you want to do it yourself and you understand AdWords a little, again, the one thing you need to remember is you only pay when someone engages your ad. If they skip BEFORE 30 seconds or the end, you don’t pay.

Say you’ve got a longer video that was 2 to 3 minutes long and they watch beyond the 5-second pre-roll and they go to 24 seconds, you’re still not paying YouTube for that advertising. For this reason, it’s good to get your message in as soon as possible.

Targeting

Whether you’re doing a campaign on YouTube or Facebook, just like Ad Words, with video advertising you target who you want to see the ad.

There’s a variety of targeting options that can help you reach the right customers for your business. Age, gender, location, interests and other subcategories allow you to say – I want my video in front of these people. Tailor your ad to the exact crowd you want to target.

Reach out and touch someone!

When you make a video to reach out to a potential client, you want to make it something that’s personal. Something they can easily understand and feel like you’re talking directly to them. Human to human – this is the mantra you need to attract customers.

You will want to talk about who you are, what you can do for clients and how they can contact you. 3 simple things that you can put into your video.

Built-in Analytics

What’s great about YouTube is the analytics built in so you can see the ad performance. You can make adjustments throughout it live and run multiple ads for A-B testing. You can also tell how long somebody’s engaged and watching.

Say you have a 5-minute video of an overview of how you do a project or job. If it’s 5 minutes long and you’re losing people at 3 minutes, what’s going on that people stop viewing? This information is powerful for knowing what is working and what’s not.

With analytics you can also see:

• How many views are paid for?
• Where your ads getting viewed
• How many clicks the ads getting

Analytics helps you see if your advertising’s working if you need to tweak anything or are if you in front of the right audience. These are all things you can change up.

Final thoughts

If you are communicating via video, you want to build trust with the viewer. You are showing your story about your business one on one. You are showing what you do and how you do it.

Make sure that your logo, contact information – phone number, email, your website all get into the video. Even if it’s a short video, people will be watching to the end if they are engaged.

PrimeView offers video distribution and video optimization as one of its many content marketing services.  Contact us and learn more about how we can help your Video Marketing efforts!

User-generated content caught people by surprise. This is why some call it a phenomenon of the digital age. By definition, it’s when the users are the ones who provide the content of a page. It consists of reviews, comments and chat forums among others. It has become a category in SEO because user-generated content has been, believe or not, more trusted by other people than regular content.

Do you ever wonder why people press the back button within seconds after landing on your page? It can be frustrating when you accomplished designing a great website with all the best details. You even edited the content ten times over and believe that your pages are true masterpieces. So, why aren’t your visitors sticking around?

As one of the leading web design agencies in Phoenix, Arizona, we have compiled ten design elements that increase your website’s bounce rates:

1. Pop-ups

Pop-ups are forms of online advertising on the Internet. It is a graphical user interface (GUI) display area, usually a small window, which suddenly appears in the foreground of the visual interface. Pop-ups are a way to get your message across in the fastest, most in-your-face possible. One pop-up is usually tolerable. However, if you bombard your visitors with pop-up after pop-up, they are likely to lose their patience and leave. Always remember the very reason why a web visitor is on your page in the first place: he or she assumes that you have the answer to their search engine query. They did not go to your website to read the contents of your pop-up windows.

2. Immediate Registration Demands

If there is anything worse than a pop-up, it’s a pop-up asking web visitors to register for a newsletter or service immediately. This is especially true for first-time visitors who know nothing about your company and only clicked out of curiosity. Before asking web users to sign up for anything, allow them to browse through your homepage at the very least. Tease them a little. Timing is everything.

3. Auto sounds

There was a time back in the nineties and very early 2000s when sound or music on websites was all the rage. Today, it is incredibly unlikely for anyone to prefer automatic audio. It is unfair to assume that your visitor wants you to auto-play sounds for them. So, even if you are confident that they share the same tastes in music and video as you, it does not immediately mean that they want to hear it. In fact, it is without a doubt driving people away from your website.

4. Slow Loading Time

According to surveys conducted by Akamai and Gomez.com, nearly half of web users expect a website to load within two seconds or less, and that they tend to abandon a site that does not load within three seconds. In other words, never make your visitors wait. A lot of people pay premium prices for 50MB home and office broadband connections. If your website is taking too long to load, they will know that your site is to blame. Specifically, if a web user is only curious and has clicked your URL on impulse, they are more likely to leave.

5. Confusing Navigation

Navigation ensures your visitors that they can explore your website without having to hunt for a hidden treasure. The design of a website’s navigation has one of the most significant impacts on the success or failure of a site. It affects traffic and search engine rankings alike. Web visitors expect to find seamless, horizontal navigation across the top fold or vertical navigation down the left side of your page. Conversely, putting your navigation in standard places makes your site so much easier to use.

6. Typos

Types and poor grammar do not make you look professional. Enough said.

7. Bad Selection of Fonts

Your website and your message need to be as clear as daylight. Otherwise, your viewers will not respond to it. Having breathtaking designs with illegible typography will confuse your viewers and turn them off. Using web fonts cleverly will help you avoid all of that. To help you get started, here are the top recommended fonts from Google Web Fonts.

8. No Impact

If your overall web design is not attractive and engaging, or if your copy does not evolve with your business, it is going to come across as boring. There is nothing wrong with wanting your website to look professional, but just because it’s professional does not mean it should have the personality of a deer in headlights. The colors, font, images, and overall organizational schematic can either make or break your web design woes.

9. No “About” Page

Your “About” page delivers the most important and relevant information about your business. Most web users look for this page for a reason: It answers their question about your business, including what your contact information is, where your office is located, and how long you have been in business. Not having this basic and crucial page may impact your legitimacy as a company.

10. Lack of Clarity

When users visit your website for the first time, they need to be able to tell what your company does within seconds. If they scratch their head in confusion, you may need to consider re-conceptualizing your identity as a business. What you need is a unique selling point, which is what defines your company’s unique position in the marketplace. It is the heart of your business: the value you offer and the problem you solve. A strong USP clearly articulates a specific benefit — one that other competitors do not offer and makes you stand out. A descriptive, meaningful, plain English strapline is often key.

When you look at some of these ten factors individually, they may not seem enough to make visitors click out. However, when combined, they can give off an entirely wrong impression.

Give Your Visitors a Reason to Stick Around

It’s not always easy to create a brilliant user experience, and there is a lot of pressure knowing that every aspect of your website represents the competence of your business. In reality, even the smallest defect can significantly increase your bounce rate. If you require assistance in making online visitors stay longer, PrimeView can help develop web design strategies that fit your site’s needs, goals, and identity as a business. Call us today at 480-970-4688.

In situations like this, most people would look at their marketing strategy, SEO or their content. What most people forget is that the website’s actual design might be the culprit. Your efforts can be hurt by bad site design. To avoid this, we put together nine common web mistakes for you to nip it in the bud and finally get the results you were hoping to achieve.

Your Website is Hard to Navigate

Primarily, guests are going to use your site menu to navigate where they need to go. For this reason, making it easy to understand and usable is going to be beneficial for you. If you look at WordPress, you will see how the site makes it easy to navigate for viewers. Check your site and see how easy it is to navigate. A rule of thumb is, the easier, the better.

Bad Content

You may have all the bells and whistles as well as all the trendy new developments in web design, but if there is not much substance, guests will immediately go somewhere else. Most people need value above everything else so if something looks very shiny but don’t have the information they are looking for, they will attempt to search it somewhere else. Instead, focus on the content and make sure that it provides the value that people need. Good content is king. In fact, even if you need minor tweaks on your site, viewers will tend to be a lot more forgiving if the content you provide them is exactly what they need.

Your Website Looks Outdated

New trends on the web are constant and keeping your site looking fresh and up to date will garner more viewership. Pay attention to new developments, particularly if you are a tech company or are selling gadgets. No one is going to want to deal with a technology website that looks like it is still in the nineties.

Responsive Design Doesn’t Exist

If your website is not available to view on a mobile gadget or a different format other than on a desktop, you might as well close your business. More and more viewers view sites from their phone, and if this is something you simply did not spend time doing for your site, your efforts would be futile. Instead, make sure that your site has a responsive design for those who do not surf the web on a desktop computer. This way, you can cross this one off the list as your culprit and focus on other stuff instead.

Bad Call to Action

The call to action is the focal point of all websites. In fact, the goal and purpose of your site is to move viewers forward. When your call to action is hard to find, or when it is nowhere to be seen, this will cause viewers to become confused. Instead, prominently display calls to action. Remember, this is not the time to play hide and seek. Make it easy for every guest on your website to say yes. The more obstacles that stand in the way of your viewers and your goal, the less likely they will hit the YES button.  Rather, making it easy for your viewers to click YES will make a tremendous difference in terms of website success.

Uninterrupted, Large Text Blocks

Quick scanning is the norm today and when you have one large text block on your screen, without paragraph breaks in between; this will turn viewers off immediately. Remember, a website is not a page of a novel and viewers find it easier to scan information if this is broken down into chunks rather than presented with no paragraph breaks as one giant piece of text. Using different colors, font sizes and fonts will make a huge difference in becoming more appealing to the viewers. When you include subheadings, this divides your text into smaller chunks, making it easier for the viewers to sift through all the information they need.

Clutter and Inconsistency

When it comes to web design, less is more. A good site design’s objective is to provide content hierarchy, focus, and guidance. Pages cluttered with too much stuff will cause the viewer to put too much effort trying to find the correct link or may cause confusion about where they want to go.

Your Websites Loads Slowly

One major factor that contributes to viewers leaving your page quickly is when it loads slowly. Slower response times to page loading increases page abandonment, for obvious reasons. People are simply not going to wait to find out what time of day your entire page fully loads.

Your Site Makes A Bad First Impression

When it comes to web design, first impressions are everything. You know the saying that you never have another chance to make a great first impression? Well, the same can be said for websites. Guests tend to decide at lightning speed whether your site is worth their time or not. Thus, making a clear, positive first impression is something you want to do. Everyone that visits your site should want to stay there.

Avoiding these nine common web design mistakes will help your site turn one-time site visitors to frequent ones. Remember that in the ever constant world of changing trends, keeping yourself on top of things and doing periodic revamps of your website to tweak it to make it more attractive and easier to use will enable you to reap the rewards of your efforts. After all, with so many people online these days, things can only look up from here.

Does your website need a makeover? A refresh might be the thing you need to push your visitors to customers, call us today 480-970-4688

Photo by Julian O’hayon on Unsplash

Email marketing stands as a dominant force in modern business strategies, offering a direct and cost-effective means of communication with potential and existing customers. Its impact on sales, brand recognition, and customer engagement cannot be overstated. Let’s explore the key benefits, strategies, and compelling statistics that underscore the unparalleled effectiveness of email marketing:

Driving Sales

Email marketing serves as a powerful tool for boosting sales by showcasing products, services, and special offers. Promotional emails highlighting discounts, deals, and exclusive perks entice customers to make purchases. According to a report by DMA, email marketing boasts an average ROI of $42 for every $1 spent, making it one of the highest-performing marketing channels available.

Enhancing Brand Recognition

Consistent email communication reinforces brand recognition and keeps your brand top-of-mind for customers. Incorporating brand elements such as logos and imagery strengthens brand awareness, making your brand more memorable and recognizable. According to Statista, the number of global email users is projected to reach 4.6 billion by 2025, highlighting the extensive reach and accessibility of email as a communication platform.

Establishing Authority

Providing valuable content in the form of newsletters and industry insights positions your brand as an authority in your field. Sharing tips and product information demonstrates expertise and builds trust with your audience. Data from HubSpot shows that personalized subject lines generate 50% higher open rates, demonstrating the importance of segmentation and personalization in email marketing campaigns.

Expanding Networks

Effective email marketing efforts not only engage existing customers but also attract new opportunities. By staying visible and relevant to your target audience, you may attract partnerships, speaking engagements, and collaboration opportunities. According to Content Marketing Institute, email newsletters are among the top three tactics used by B2B marketers to nurture audiences, demonstrating the role of email in building and maintaining brand engagement.

Improving Customer Retention

Email marketing plays a crucial role in improving customer retention by maintaining regular communication and encouraging repeat purchases. Personalized emails, such as “We miss you!” campaigns, re-engage inactive customers by offering incentives and special deals. Campaign Monitor data reveals that segmented email campaigns result in a 760% increase in revenue, emphasizing the effectiveness of targeted messaging in driving conversions and sales.

Crafting Compelling Messages

Effective email marketing hinges on delivering compelling messages that resonate with your audience. Tailor your content to address customer needs and interests, focusing on providing value and relevance. A skilled copywriter can craft engaging emails that captivate readers and drive action, maximizing the impact of your email marketing campaigns.

In conclusion, email marketing remains a vital component of modern business strategies, offering unparalleled opportunities for driving sales, enhancing brand recognition, and fostering customer relationships. By leveraging the power of email marketing effectively and incorporating data-driven approaches, businesses can unlock new possibilities and propel growth in today’s competitive landscape.

You may be thinking about a new design for your site, especially if you are tired of looking at the same old same old each and every day. The real question is whether or not you need one, however. Redesigning your site can be time-consuming and often, the process requires budget allocations that your business may or may not be prepared for. Of course, you can always pinpoint site areas in which less expensive, simpler designs can be made. At the moment, however, you need to know the deadly signs that it is time to get your website redesigned immediately.

1. 1. Are you visible? Try and type a few keywords or product names on the search bar for Bing or Google. In fact, use any of the search engines you prefer. Type the name of your company or any product you provide. Does your page pop up on the first page of the search engine? If not, you will need to do a complete SEO makeover of your site. Most companies gain traffic from searches that happen organically or naturally. However, potential buyers or clients have a tendency to stay on page one. Keeping your site where the action is on page one will mean making sure your SEO works and that your products show up when customers look for them.

1. 1. Your brand is not reflected accurately by your site. In so many different ways, it is your website that gives everyone the first impression they will have of your brand. Make sure you are virtually putting your best foot forward with an understandable, clear and aesthetically pleasing site aligned with the core values of your company. Remember that if your brand is getting a revamp, your site is a tool critical to help facilitate this change. Brand perceptions by consumers are influenced by your digital identity in a big way. Thus, what visitors feel and think the moment they first get on your page will have a big impact on whether or not a sale is made in the long run.

1. 1. Has your rank changed? Of course, there may be different factors affecting your site ranking. For instance, your content may not be relevant or your SEO needs work. You may not have high-quality links or a blog on your site. It may even be that the content strategy of your site is old-fashioned. No matter what the reason is for your ranking to remain where it has always been, you will need a site revamp.

1. 1. You have outdated third-party tools and an old-fashioned content management system. A site should be user-friendly not just to the ones who are doing the navigating and the users who browse in it, but also for the website owners. If you are having a hard time doing site updates for your site when necessary including page amendments, events, business updates, and news, then this means you need to get a website that works better. In this event, an update is definitely in order.

1. 1. Leads are not being converted. You may have an awesome looking site and have all the most important info about your company. However, you need to know whether or not your business is growing with the help of your customers. If your site is not doing conversions to leads, you might need a new design. Find out what the rates of conversions your websites have. This way, you will know what adjustments to make on your site.

1. 1. Your site is not optimized for mobile. If the website you use for business is not designed to be friendly for mobile users, then you seriously need to consider an update. These days, who doesn’t have a cell phone? Those who own smartphones will probably have a tendency to use it for more and more stuff, from browsing to reading books, to shopping and paying bills. This tells you that each day; more and more searches are going to be conducted through a smartphone. Not having a site friendly to mobile users will mean that if someone gets on your landing page using a phone, your site won’t be ready to show itself on this gadget and may drive the user out immediately. In fact, you might want to try whipping out your cell phone right this minute and getting on your website.

1. The competition’s site looks much better than yours. Put yourself in your consumer’s shoes and see what your competitor’s website looks like. Do they have great looking sites that are organized well? You will need to step up to the plate and consider a new design. This will help get your target audience looking at your products. A great looking site also does wonders for credibility. It is always a good idea to stay ahead of the game and make sure that rather than you being nervous about how great your competitor’s site looks, it is the competition that is nervous about how great your site looks.

It might surprise you how many people have not checked their own websites on various gadgets they own. In fact, it comes as no surprise if you yourself have not done this. You might want to do this yourself using your own site. Use a tablet, a phone, and a laptop.

Check to see what the graphics are doing and whether or not the text can be read. Is it easy to click on the various tabs and links? This shows you how much of a business necessity getting a site revamped is. In the last decade alone, the internet has made such tremendous progress at a dizzying pace. Keeping up with as much of the progress as you can only work wonders for you.

“Every time we start a new project, we always ask ourselves the same question: What can we do better and different?”  -Ricardo Guadalupe, Hublot CEO

Gone are the days when traditional marketing dominated the business arena. With new technologies on the rise, companies are now ditching the drab static brochures and print advertising to give way to blog posts, social media, and brand narratives to keep up with today’s trend. And why on earth not? There is no better way to reach out to one’s target demographic than to shift to content marketing.

What is content marketing?

According to the Content Marketing Institute, the leading global online resource of all things related to content marketing, “Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

The need for businesses, whether small, mid-size, or big, to connect to their target market in a more engaging way gave rise to what is now known as content marketing. It is no longer enough to just inform the market about their brand. Nowadays, businesses are competing to send their message across the worldwide web with a bang. And this “bang” means creating an impact loud enough to land them on top of the Google search engine.

How is it done?

There are many ways by which businesses communicate to their audience through content marketing. It could be done through compelling and organic written, visual, audio, or audio-visual materials to cover all bases.

In terms of visual, for instance, some businesses make use of graphs and charts to keep its audience engaged. This way, a complex message will not get drowned in a pool of words. Another example would be the use of infographics. Who does not love pictures? Infographics provide a different approach to presenting your ideas in a more creative way instead of the usual play on words. They’re appealing and shareable too.

On the other hand, in terms of content marketing through effective textual approach, some companies incorporate customer interviews on their websites. By showcasing client feedbacks and stories in their content, businesses are able to establish their brand’s trustworthiness and credibility. It could also be a means to establish rapport to the audience by getting them involved with the brand.

What are the elements that comprise a great content marketing strategy?

The first and probably the most important of them all is the goal. The end goal will determine the process that businesses will take in their content production cycle to achieve their desired results. For instance, should the end goal be to establish brand awareness? Is it to invite new customers? The end goal is crucial because the flow of the content should run to achieve the company’s objectives.

The second element necessary for a great content marketing strategy would be its core message. But to be able to create a riveting message, it is important for a content to begin with “a headline that instantly commands audience attention,” according to Entrepreneur. The headline will determine if the blog or article is worth reading or not because it is the first thing they will see in your article. If the headline is bold, catchy, and inviting, then the core message should be able to follow through to achieve customer conversion.

The third element involves the audience or personas. The Content Marketing Institute notes that “a deep contextual understanding” as another key element of an effective content marketing strategy. Of course, to be able to formulate a good marketing approach, businesses must be able to have a clear understanding of their target demographic. Oftentimes, companies make the big mistake of making their content more about hyping the product and less about communicating and addressing the needs of their users.

How effective is content marketing strategy?

The statistics do not lie. The Content Marketing Institute enumerates a few key points as to why content marketing is effective and advantageous to businesses, namely:

• Content marketing leaders experience 7.8 times more site traffic than non-leaders 1

• While content marketing costs 62% less than outbound marketing, it generates more than three times as many leads 2

• Content marketing drives higher conversion rates, nearly six times higher than their non-adaptor competitors 3

Content marketing is so powerful that businesses allot a huge portion of their budget to it. This is why everyone is abuzz about content marketing- it produces great results.

What does SEO have to do with the success of content marketing?

One of the reasons why content marketing is so effective for a lot of businesses is because SEO complements their content marketing strategy. The former determines the essential keywords, link backs, and whatnot, and the latter executes and puts them to good use. SEO is like the fuel that keeps the car going- the car being the content. It is the reinforcement essential for the execution of a good marketing strategy.

As blogger Lee Odden puts it, “Think of SEO this way: If a customer-focused content marketing program is the sandwich, then SEO is the mayonnaise. It touches nearly everything and enhances the overall flavor of the sandwich, but on its own, it’s not very appetizing.”

In conclusion, it is not surprising why more and more businesses are jumping into the bandwagon of content marketing. It is fast becoming the norm. Businesses are allocating a chunk of their budget for content marketing because they know that this is worth their resources. Even big established brands such as Nike, Rolex, and Whole Foods are continuously innovating their content marketing strategy because they acknowledge the fact that it is important and necessary. If businesses want to keep up with their competitors in this age of digital marketing, then they have no other choice but to step up their content marketing game so as not to fall behind.

References:

• 1-3 (Mccoy. Why is Content Marketing Today’s Marketing? 10 Stats That Prove It. 2016; http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2016/08/content-marketing-stats)

Ready to boost your business with content marketing? Contact PrimeView today and let’s create a strategy that drives results.

The Ever-Changing Search Landscape

Your favorable rank today doesn’t mean it would continue to do so for the upcoming months. Search engines are updating their algorithms in order to ensure that users are able to find the information they are looking for in the very first page. This means there is less emphasis on the “frills” and you would really have to work in order to get to the first page. Every single piece of content you throw out would have to be optimized and hardworking, so much so that your site would be chosen out of the perhaps millions that talk about the same content.

As for the other scenario, well, you can always do better! If you’re content with how your business is currently going, then that means you haven’t been dreaming big enough. You can always do more, and be more so that your business will become the best there is in your industry!

You may be wondering how we can claim that SEO is not outdated. Let’s take a look at some numbers.

As of May 24, the average number of annual Google searches has already reached 2 trillion – that means there are about 2.3 million searches per second. This is coupled by the fact that 11.095 billion searches came from US desktop, and more than half of that number is from mobile devices.

With these staggering statistics, wouldn’t you agree that SEO should be a vital part of your marketing plan, now more than ever?

A New Breed of SEO

Five years ago, keyword density and link building were the winning combinations you have to constantly hit if you want to rank favorably. However, the recent algorithm changes turned things upside down, and while keyword is still important, its importance has been significantly reduced. What do we mean? It’s time to introduce the SEO Best Practices for the year.

User experience – Today, the focus of Google and other search engines is to ensure that their users are able to get the right information on the first page, if possible. That means they need your content to be able to cater to their needs from the moment they click your link. Your content has to benefit your reader by providing them with the right information, and not just adding to the clutter in the virtual web.

This, therefore, brings us to…

Unique content –

Do you still remember when 250- to 300-word blogs were already deemed significant, as long as you properly space the keywords? Today, long-form content is more valuable. Forbes’ Jayson DeMers reports that the ideal length for content is within the range of 1,140-1,285 words. Some content marketers tend to go over this by setting their word count to 1,500-2,000 words.

Yet no matter how long your content may be, remember that it has to be unique and that it should be relevant to your reader. To help the reader digest and understand the text better, you can use images, bullet points, and subheads, as well as illustrations. This will help with the flow of the article as well as give readers the summary of what they are about to read.

Also, while keywords are still important, you don’t have to keep on repeating them within the same article, or even mention them on the title and the meta descriptions. Today, search engine picks up on your actual content. For example, if your keyword is “most affordable clothing,” then you can mention the words “high quality,” “affordable,” “inexpensive,” “cheap,” and “clothing,” and the search engine would know that you are talking about offering an affordable line of clothing. It would pick up on what you are targeting, based on the content you have on your page.

Mobile Matters –

Another trend this year is how much emphasis is placed on mobile. Your mobile website should be responsive and well-designed, it should be SEO-optimized, and it should be completely functional. Likewise, all your content must be readable on mobile, and every page should be laid out in a way that it is easy to share your content. After all, the majority of your target market is most probably using a mobile device. This is your chance to harness it and to ensure that you would be maximizing this tool.

Website Optimization –

That’s not to say that your website should be neglected altogether. Rather, your website should be everything that your mobile site is, and more. Your website should be clean, SEO-optimized, and must be easy to navigate. There should be no dead links, the loading time shouldn’t take long, and the overall user experience must be positive. Your headers should be very clear so users would clearly see where they need to click next.

So that means you should do away with the heavy Java-backed video you wanted to load on your landing page but just takes ages to load. If you insist on doing this, then your potential clients would be bored waiting for the page to load and would just close the page.

These are just some of the latest and more pronounced changes in SEO algorithms this year. Despite the algorithm changes over the years, however, there is a single piece of advice that has stayed with us. It is: never use black hat techniques to rank higher in a shorter period of time, rather than trying to build your ranking through hard and good work. If you try to take shortcuts (in this case, trying to use black hat techniques), then you would be setting up your business for failure, as the moment the search engines get wind of how you are trying to circumvent the system, then you might be penalized, or worse, banned.

Conclusion: SEO’s Future is Bright

Whatever the case, SEO is clearly here to stay. We’re excited to see what new changes to expect in the upcoming months!

Ready to boost your search rankings with proven SEO strategies? At PrimeView, we specialize in creating SEO-optimized websites and implementing cutting-edge digital marketing solutions that drive real results. Our team stays ahead of algorithm changes to ensure your business maintains its competitive edge.

Contact PrimeView today to learn how we can elevate your online presence and help you dominate search results.

Img c/o Pexels.

So you set out to create an SEO strategy with the hope of boosting your rankings which will hopefully result in increased traffic, higher conversions, more leads, and business growth. As far as you’re concerned, you’re employing only the best and acceptable practices. However, you still experienced a drop in rankings.

Initially, it’s normal to get worried. But it’s important to act fast and figure what caused that ranking drop and address it from there. Typically, negative ranking changes happen for several reasons. Some can be dealt with on your end, while others are just way beyond your control.

Let’s look at 10 reasons why websites experience ranking changes and the ways on how to deal with them.

1. Links

Links leading to your domain can affect your rankings in several ways.

First, if you have an influx of new links leading to your website, you can experience a temporary drop in rankings. This usually happens when you had issues in the past regarding unnatural links.

Meanwhile, lost links can also contribute to a ranking change. This happens when there are links going to your website that has been removed or may be temporarily unavailable.

Low quality links pointing to your website is a bane of SEO, and you want to avoid them at all cost if you want to maintain good rankings. If you have a lot of poor and irrelevant links leading to your website, search engines can view that as spamming and your website can be penalized or worst, get de-indexed. If you fell victim to link buying schemes or manipulative linking practices, it’s recommended to do a link clean-up.

Track links actively and continue building up high quality links to your domain. You can do this through creating quality content that’s share-worthy, substantial, and relevant. You can also market your content and brand through participating in different platforms to share your insights and expertise.

2. Search engine penalties

Search engines can also penalize websites if they violate the practices recommended for SEO, which are ultimately geared towards improving user experience on the web.

When Google rolled out the Panda algorithm, a lot of websites suffered a huge drop in rankings because of thin and low-quality content. Meanwhile, websites who employed spammy linking techniques were greatly affected when the Penguin algorithm update rolled out.

If you have been penalized, don’t fret. It may feel like doom and gloom has set upon your website, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t recover. What you need to do is to re-assess your website, revamp your strategy, remove low quality content and links,  adhere to recommended practices moving forward, and always monitor the performance of your website.

3. Search engine changes and tests

There are cases when search engines implement changes or conducts trials, and it may affect your rankings. There’s not much you can do about these instances as they are not within your control. If you’re employing best SEO practices, you wouldn’t have to worry so much and you can expect your rankings to be back up in a few days. 

4. Slow page speed

Page speed plays a crucial role in user experience, and ultimately in your rankings. It wouldn’t matter if your website has the most comprehensive design and content if it will not load fast enough. So check your servers, and make sure that they are efficient in giving your visitors a fluid way of navigating your website. Likewise, use tools that can help track your website’s page speed and determine what elements are slowing down your pages.

5. On-page problems

Sometimes, issues within your pages cause your rankings to take a plunge. It could be due to poor internal linking and optimization of your website, incorrect robots.txt file, incorrect canonical tags, absence of index tags, slow page speed, or worst, due to a hacking incident. This further reiterates the importance of conducting website maintenance and regular monitoring of on-site elements so that you can spot errors and address them before they can affect rankings.

6. Competition

If you used to be on the first spot and you suddenly dropped one to two notches, it could be that your competitor outperformed you. While it’s important to always keep your website well-maintained and strategies in-line with acceptable marketing methods, you also need to monitor your competitors if you want to stay on top. Be aware of their recent actions so that you can stay one step ahead and devise new strategies before they do.

7. Website modifications

A decrease in rankings can also be caused by changes made on your website like a new design or updates in the code, layout, plug-ins, and other components. Make sure that all key persons involved in your internet marketing efforts are in the loop with these changes, so that you can avoid any implication on other areas of SEO and on your placement on the SERPs.

8. Changes in user behavior

User behavior is one of the reasons why SEO is dynamic and ever-changing. If your strategies are not connected with how users behave, you can experience a drop in rankings.

There are cases when the way users input queries changes, which happens when they demand for fresher results. This occurs when a particular subject becomes trending. As a result, news and more up to date pieces about the topic dominate the top of the SERPs and evergreen content are pushed down. Since that is the case, it pays to be abreast in your industry, so that you’re always in the forefront of delivering quality and up to date content to your target audience.

9. Changes in click-through rates

If your click-through rate has dropped, it could be the reason why your rankings experienced a decline. Remember that Google is all about user experience and generating results that they think is the most relevant to search queries. If you proved that your CTR is to blame for the drop in your rankings, you can work on improving your listing on the SERPs.

10. Poor content

Even if it sounds like a cliché, content is king when it comes to SEO. Poor content can drive your rankings down or worst, take you out of the SERPs altogether. Devote time in developing quality posts that your target audience would be compelled to share and cite as source. If you master the art of content marketing, traffic, links, good reputation, and high rankings will follow suit.

“The best web content team is a group of individuals who always come up with fresh ideas, concepts and topics to cover for a blog post or other forms of content and publication”, says no web content team ever.

When you’re working on a particular niche for too long, it’s normal to have moments when you run out of steam and can’t find something new to write about or base content upon. Well, it’s normal and something that you shouldn’t beat yourself up too much for. But what separates the good content marketers from the best ones is their ability to innovate and find ways to still manage to provide their audience valuable and quality content despite limited topics and concepts to work with.

One of the secrets of the best content marketers is re-purposing content. But before you gasp and say that’s cheating or downright lazy, allow us to explain how reusing existing content can work to your advantage.

How Repurposing Content Can Help You

The best thing about re-purposing content is that it saves you time, increases your reach, and allows an existing post to reach its full potential. Essentially, it’s getting the most bang for all the work you’ve poured into a particular piece of content.

However, re-purposing content is not as simple as digging up old posts and re-posting them. If you want them to make more noise than the first time they were published, you need to tweak them and present them differently in order to appeal to a wider audience. Here are eight different ways to do so:

1. Transform how-to articles into video tutorials.

Videos can easily grab attention and pique interest because they are easier to digest as compared to written word. If you have how-to articles, you can transform them into a video tutorial or turn them into a slide show. It’s also a smart way to highlight your content again and present it in a new form to people who have missed it the first time it went live. Just the same, it can further reinforce your point to people who already saw your content and compel them to share it this time because it’s in a new format.

2. Go deep.

If you have a long article, you can dissect them, separate sections into different posts, and go deeper into the topic.

For instance, you have a long article on insurance buying tips, and there’s an item about comparison shopping with different insurers. You can take that topic and add more information such as the qualities to look for in an insurance company, how to deal with insurance agents, and important questions to ask insurance companies. With that, you can create a completely new post and have the opportunity to promote the existing post where it came from as well.

3. Create a podcast.

Podcasts are ideal for people on the go and don’t have the time to read textual content or watch videos. They can also help you reach potential customers who are visually impaired.

There are people who prefer to listen to what you have to say rather than read or watch about it because they are always on the move. They may be interested in what you offer, but if they are too preoccupied to read content or watch your presentations, you could be losing an opportunity for conversion. What you can do is turn existing content into a podcast. If it sounds too pedantic or technical, you can make it more casual, so that your piece becomes easier to grasp through listening.

4. Transcribe podcasts or videos and turn them into articles.

If you have existing podcasts and videos, you can turn them into articles or blog posts through transcribing them. Those with hearing impairments or those who prefer to read will love you for doing so.

When turning videos and podcasts into written content, consider breaking down information into subheadings, lists, or bullet points, so that they are easier to skim and digest.

5. Divide in-depth publications or white paper into smaller chunks.

If you published a long publication like an e-book or a research paper, you can divide that into smaller pieces of content. Do a series of blog posts or articles on the subject and publish them on regular intervals, say every week. This gives people something to look forward to and will keep them coming back.

You can also try to publish a section of the publication and use it as a bait to convince people to download the rest of your e-book or white paper. If you’re using the publication for lead generation or something users get when they fill up a form, publishing an excerpt as a teaser may increase your leads.

Meanwhile, if you have a long infographic, you can also take out the most interesting pieces of information and turn that into mini forms of content that can be easily shared on social media.

6. Turn data into infographics.

If you have content rich in data and other interesting details such as statistics, you can present that information through infographics.

Infographics are visually appealing and engaging. They can be very comprehensive, but not too time-consuming for an internet user. More so, they’re more shareable, which helps boost your reach and even conversions.

7. Improve existing content.

Sometimes, what an existing content needs are simple updates or tweaks so that they can be more palatable to today’s internet users.

Go over the content and change any outdated piece of information. You can also consider reformatting it so that it becomes more readable or easier to digest. These simple changes can help make the content more timely and ready to be promoted again.

8. Aggregate previous posts.

Compile existing blog posts or articles about a related topic and weave them to become an ebook or white paper. For instance, if your niche is on life insurance, and you’ve written articles on why you need it, the best time to buy, essential riders to have, and factors that affect the cost of a policy; you can gather those articles and turn it into a life insurance 101 presentation or e-book.

Aggregating existing content helps you provide in-depth content and value to users, especially those who come across your website or brand for the first time.

The same thing is recommended for interviews. If you have conducted discussions with industry experts in the past, you can re-purpose that into a publication filled with insider information and insight.
Much of content marketing has to do with creativity, but it’s not just limited to draining your wits just to churn out something new all the time. Sometimes, it’s about making the most of the information and data that are already at your disposal. If you’re a bit stuck on generating new concepts, look into your pool of content, pull out your analytics, and find evergreen posts that can do better and re-purpose them according to current trends and internet user behavior.

Maximize Your Content Strategy

You may also want to read:

• Short vs. Long Blog Post: Which is Better?
• 17 Secrets to Keep Your Content Fresh and Engaging