If you want your website to improve its search engine optimisation ranking or maintain it, understanding the importance of backlinks is one of the keys to achieving that.
When backlinks became one of the benchmarks for search engine optimisation ranking, they have established themselves as hyperlink posts that give value and power to websites, drastically changing the terms on which websites are ranked.
Backlinks are links that can lead you from one web page to another. Otherwise known as inward link, inbound link or incoming link, backlinks are links that are located from a different website that leads to your website. If it does the opposite, wherein the links on your website lead to a foreign website, it is called outbound links, outgoing links, outward links or outlinks.
Why should online entrepreneurs consider working on creating backlinks for their website? First of all, backlinks help improve your organic search engine optimisation ranking. Second, your web pages will be indexed faster. Search engine bots crawl on numerous web pages every day but they prioritise web pages that are linked from other existing web pages. On top of that, backlinks can refer more traffic back to your website. For instance, if a popular website features a link that goes to your website, chances are, their visitors will check out your website. Think of it as gaining more leads and potentially more loyal customers.
There are many ways to build backlinks to your website. One of the best ways is to gain it organically. If your website is filled with amazing content that is relevant, informative and evergreen, other websites will organically link your content to their website.
There are many online tools that can help you check your website backlinks for free. One of the most popular is the backlink checker from ahrefs.
Aside from growing your backlinks organically, you can also find a broken link on your website, rewrite the content found on it and create an active link that will take the place of the broken link. Another way of gaining good backlinks is by writing blogs for other websites. Guest blogging is the practice of getting in touch with other websites and writing content that is relevant to both parties. This is actually a win-win situation because it will help build your industry authority and expose your website to other audiences that are not yet familiar to you. The same is true with the website that will agree to host your guest blog.
You are already familiar with growing backlinks organically, fixing broken links and guest blogging. Another way of improving your backlinks is by asking other websites to help you.
When you reach out to other people, companies, businesses or webmasters, show them what you want to share on their website. Make sure it is content that is relevant to both parties, such as an article or an infographic. Ask them to feature it. In return, they might even ask you to do the same for them.
When it comes to backlinks, do not underestimate the influence of your competitors. You can check out their website and check their backlinks. You will probably gain benefits if you will use their backlinks on your website, especially if it gives them high rankings.
Another option is to make local citations. Local citations are a list of businesses that are found in online directories such as Google, Linkedin or the Yellow Pages. This option is great if you want to gain good rankings on local searches.
Another way of getting backlinks is through user-generated content. It usually takes the form of a comment placed on a blog or a listing in a business directory. As we have mentioned earlier, getting listed in online directories is good for gaining traction on local searches. If used properly, it can have a great impact on your website. If abused through spamming, this method can be detrimental to your SEO ranking.
You can also find websites that mention your brand, products or services but does not link back to your website. Get in touch with the owner or webmaster and ask them to link your website to the web page where you are mentioned. This is called link reclamation and this is a great way to lead their users to go to your website.
Backlink checker tools allow you to see who is already linked to your website, enabling you to take advantage of those links and build relationships with other websites that link to yours. As we have mentioned earlier, there are many online tools that can help you with this task. Aside from Ahrefs, you can also check out Buzzsumo, Google Seach Console, Majestic, Moz Link Explorer, SEMrush and Ubersuggest.
Now that you have some knowledge on how to build backlinks, you don’t have to apply each technique. All you need to do is ask the SEO experts which option will be most beneficial for your business then you’ll have to start from there.
By now, you already have a good idea of why backlinking is good for you and your website. Not only does it give you online credibility, but it also helps improve your search engine rankings, increases your website traffic, makes your site metric and SEO scores higher, gives greater revenue, allows you to get more leads and sales, enhances your relationship with other websites in your niches and gives you an edge to stand out as an authority within your industry.
Although backlinking sounds complicated, the tasks are simple enough that you can even dedicate your time to doing it but if you want to avoid making mistakes and get faster results, it is best to leave this matter to the experts.
Earlier, we have mentioned a list of backlink checker tools that you can utilise for your website. You don’t have to use them all. Just one is enough to make a positive impact on your website.
You are already familiar with the many ways to gain backlinks. You will be surprised to know that there are actually more!
We understand that you may not have time to figure out what backlinks are and if you do, you may not have the time to do it on your own, which is why working with the experts in this field is always a good idea. If you are interested to improve your backlinks or SEO ranking in general, get in touch with the SEO experts of Smarter Media today!
If you want your website to have the best possible search engine optimisation rank, you are probably considering the services of an SEO management company. Looking for one is not the problem but finding the right one is quite another. How can you find the best agency? What questions do you need to ask them? What answers should you be cautious of?
One of the aspects of online marketing is managing your website’s SEO. Although SEO is essential for every online enterprise, there’s not a strategy that will fit all circumstances. SEO has to be customised for your business, industry and enterprise goals.
Even if your website is currently optimised, it is not a guarantee that you will attract your target audience immediately and once you have brought them over to your website, it doesn’t always mean you will get leads and sales right then and there.
With that in mind, how will you be able to find the right partner who can help you achieve your business goals? Here are just some of the elements you need to consider when looking for your potential SEO management company.
Find out how they will aim their SEO efforts. Try to ascertain if they have a good research program to back you up. After all, SEO is all about preparation and knowing what you’ve got. Research is a big part of it. Without it, you won’t be able to determine areas you need to improve on, finetune your marketing strategies or even create a marketing plan in the first place.
SEO is geared towards the satisfaction of web users and the application of SEO techniques to websites. Some business owners have no idea about SEO so their initial plans and goals may not align with the SEO agency may have in mind.
For instance, a business owner may want to rank higher on a keyword on a national scale. If the SEO agency can determine that this is not the best way to reach the client’s business goals, they would suggest a change in the strategy and lean the client’s focus on topping the local searches instead. In this case, the client needs to be educated about the best strategies that would be beneficial for their website for the short and long term. But if you are an entrepreneur who knows your way around basic SEO, then by all means find an SEO company that is willing to work out your plans, as well as include their own too.
Figure out if their SEO strategy will include website analysis, navigation, coding, content creation and formation of backlinks. After analysing your website, a good SEO management company will be able to give you recommendations on what needs to be improved in order to create a better user experience for your customers and increase your conversions. The tasks we have mentioned earlier are just some of the elements that will affect your website’s SEO ranking. Therefore, adding technical SEO to your strategy should be a requirement in your online marketing arsenal.
Establish if they will perform competitor analysis. Finding out who your competitors are and why they are performing well is one of the most effective ways of improving your SEO ranking. If an SEO company will not do this, better find another one who will.
In addition, an SEO company with many years of experience in the industry is also a great criterion to consider however, do not let this single criterion be the dealbreaker. Some SEO management companies are fairly new but their staff could be highly experienced and results-oriented. What’s more important is their capacity to accept new clients and apply their expertise to your business and help it grow.
Determine if they will work with existing content or create new content for you. Any of the choices are fine but combining them is better. Find out if the SEO management company can get the most out of your existing content and improve it by adding fresh content, after they have done a thorough research of your website, of course. If the company is not capable of creating content if you need it, it is probably best to consider another company who can.
Although no SEO management company is keen on sharing their trade secrets, they should be open about their goals, tactics and tasks that must be delivered to you. For instance, they might offer you suggestions to update your existing content, optimise the content headings, metadata or create a new navigation structure and compress your images to make your website lighter and easier to load.
Suggestions must be based on thorough website analysis and not just guesswork. After all, there is no single approach to implement SEO tactics.
An SEO management company should have some or all of the following services for its clients:
SEO is complex and time-consuming but with the help of various tools, the workload can be transformed into something practical and feasible. SEO management tools also help the agencies to perform their job better, supervise their progress and spot errors in your website faster. These tools can also provide real-time results and data which can be used to improve your website in real-time too. On top of that, the tools can help them keep pace with SEO updates which happens more than once in a given year.
If you are unsure if you need online reputation management, think again. A lot of web users nowadays trust user-generated content before making a decision or finalising a purchase. If you are not keen on checking out constructive criticism from your customers through comments, you might find out that it’s already too late when it’s hurting your bottom line.
A lot of customers prefer to research a restaurant online even before setting foot inside a restaurant and if they see a lot of negative reviews on your website, they will probably think twice about booking dinner for two in the near future.
Your offline and online reputation will also affect the hiring of talented individuals in your company. If people think that your reputation is questionable, you might have a hard time finding potential employees to work for you.
Still unsure which SEO Management Company to work with, you can talk to an SEO expert at Smarter Media about it. If you are ready to ask serious questions and take the definitive step towards online business success, feel free to get in touch on 01793 292 171 or hello@smarter-media.co.uk today.
We are looking for a Business Development Executive to join our ever-expanding team!
The role of the BDE is to grow our client base through ‘new logo’ wins. You will be responsible for the delivery of new clients via prospecting & following up on inbound enquiries; using solution selling techniques to identify client’s key objectives; match needs to solutions; deliver proposals; & close the sale, whilst providing a superior customer experience.
If you think you’d be an ideal candidate for this role, email your CV and cover letter to jobs@smarter-media.co.uk
We do not accept speculative agency CV’s. Any CV received by Smarter Media will be treated as a gift and not eligible for an agency fee. PSL agencies should only send CVs if authorised to do so by Recruitment.
Will my website benefit from 67,000 back links like this company?
Having carried out some competitor research today I was surprised to see another business having so many back links and after the question was posed I was keen to investigate a little deeper.
At a first glance of course this all looks quite good doesn’t it, 67,000 backlinks from 133 referring IP addresses.
However, when I explored this in greater detail I could see that 63,834 of these links were coming from one website alone which did seem a little unusual.
Perhaps this was a website that was relevant and was driving relevant traffic to this UK based service provider.
So I took an even closer look…the link took me to a website overseas. The website wasn’t relevant to the one I was inspecting in any shape or form, it also had no noteworthy authority therefore their visitors would not make worthy referral traffic and they may be even be penalised for it if anything!
As a business owner investing in SEO, do you really want a tonne of spammy back links from sites in other countries that aren’t relevant, have no authority and are quite simply, just spam? The choice is yours however, if it were my business I know what I would rather 
In reality they will do you more harm than good.
With back links you need to be thinking in terms of quality, relevance and authority rather than quantity.
When it comes to SEO there are many factors to consider, and they all carry different weight in terms of delivering results but best practice should always be adhered to, something we pride ourselves on at Smarter Media.
So, the morale of the story here is there is no quick fix and there is far more to the SEO process than overloading a tonne of spammy backlinks from a random site!!
Perhaps you’ve heard about link building before and been wondering if it could help your business but since you don’t know much about it, you have forgotten about it over time. Just like you, a lot of people tend to overlook link building and we’re here to help you understand why it should be part of your marketing arsenal.
If you want to promote your business online, acquiring relevant and authoritative backlinks is one of the great ways to improve your organic website traffic and keyword rankings. The methods used in carrying out this process may have changed over time but they all produce the same results.
Today, we will be sharing to you what you need to know about link building and the methods you can use to significantly boost your online presence.
Now that you are aware of the importance of backlinks, you might be wondering how or where do you start. First, you should determine how many websites are already mentioning or linking to your website. This can be carried out using tools like SEO auditing or SEO backlink checker. These tools will help you find websites that are willing to link back to you and which of your web pages have the best chances of gaining relevant backlinks.
Furthermore, you can take a look at your competitors. Find out what keywords and marketing strategies they are using. Additionally, take a closer look at your existing backlinks and the links that your competitors are using. This will help you gain ideas on what strategies are working well for your specific target audience, niche or industry. What works for them will probably work for you.
As we have mentioned earlier, there are many ways on how you can carry out link building. Here are a few techniques and tips that you can use to get started.
Local Link Building. This is the process of using locally stationed links to establish your business and help it gain the highest possible rank of geo-targeted keywords. This technique has a high chance of conversion on your end.
This technique is accomplished by encouraging other businesses in your area to link back to your website. Although it sounds very simple, executing this process might be quite challenging, especially if there are limited opportunities available in your area. Although this would mean linking to authentic and relevant businesses in your town or region with low domain authority, this leverage can help you gain more organic visitors.
Another strategy for local link building is persuading local news websites and directories to share your meaningful content. For instance, you can ask the local chamber of commerce, local business directory (a legitimate one), or local government to feature your products or services on their website. This potential for brand exposure may come for free or at a cost.
The best way to catch the attention of other webmasters and gain backlinks is to publish content in various forms such as videos, infographics, assessments, quizzes, 360-degree tours, surveys and pools, calculators and more. Just make sure your linkable assets are genuinely helpful, evergreen, useful, non-promotional, in-depth and top-of-funnel. Your ultimate goal is to become a comprehensive guide to whatever industry you specialise with.
Find Unlinked Brand Mentions. This might surprise you but there is a possibility that many websites are already mentioning you in their content but are not linking to your website. This is a great opportunity for link building. All you need to do is contact the website and ask them to link back their content to your website.
How will you determine which websites are already mentioning you? You can use the search engine and use the search command “your brand name” -site:yoursite.com. Narrow down your research by concentrating on content that is fresh and relevant. For instance, you would want to stick to news and content that has mentioned you in the past year. As soon as you get a list of websites mentioning you, double check if they are linking back to you or not.
If you want to be notified whenever your name is mentioned in the internet, you can set up your Google alerts to do so.
Guest blogging. If you have the time, you can reach out to other websites or publications and write high-quality content for them. In return for your time and resources, the third-party websites will allow your blog to link back to your own website. This technique will also help establish you as a thought leader in your own field or industry.
Aside from using the 4 techniques we have mentioned earlier, you suggest that you implement a systematic approach to your goal.
First, create a strategy that will help you hit your goals.
Second, find the right SEO tools to do the job. You can stick to tried-and-tested competitor analysis tools, backlink checkers, marketing toolkits like SEMrush, Majestic, Moz or Ahrefs.
Third, keep an eye on your success rate. Monitor the number of websites you have reached out to, the number of replies that you have received, and determine the Trust Flow or Domain Authority of the websites you have earned a link with. This will help you determine which of your tactics are effective or not.
Lastly, just allow the process to go through and wait for the results. It may take time to get the results that you desire but as long as you stick to the techniques that are working for you, your efforts will be worth it.
As we have mentioned earlier, link building is one of the effective ways to boost your online presence. Although search engines are constantly changing the algorithms, link building is one of the techniques that is tried-and-tested when it comes to improving your website’s SEO performance.
Search engines now view high-quality links as votes of confidence to your website and the more links you have, the better your SEO rank will be.
Do you want your website to gain more organic traffic? Do you want to increase your brand recognition? Do you want to build lasting relationships with other websites in the same industry as you are? Talk to the digital marketing experts of Smarter Media today and they will help you get started!
The world of digital marketing is well-known for its constant change and rapid pace but more than often, a lot of entrepreneurs actually have no idea what goes on inside an SEO agency. So that you will be able to know what we really do, let’s deal with first things first: what is SEO?
Search engine optimisation, in simple terms, is the process of boosting the online visibility and organic traffic of a website by improving its search rankings. It involves the creation of high-quality content, the building links, the application of appropriate coding that will help your website rank well on search engines, and the optimisation of your website for desktop and mobile devices. Aside from those things, SEO also involves making your website secure, making it load fast, making it stand out among its competitors, and improving its crawlability (refers to the ability of the search engines to access and crawl on your content) and indexability (refers to the ability of the search engines to analyse your web pages and add it to their index).
As an entrepreneur, you might be wondering why all these things are essential. Just to let you know, more than 90% of the people begin their online experiences and local service discoveries through search engines and in order for you to take advantage of this statistic, your ultimate goal must be to reach the first page of the keywords that are relevant for your business.
If all of these things are too overwhelming for you, don’t worry. That’s why SEO agencies like us exist: we are here to make your life easier and better.
When it comes to rates, there is no fixed rate that is applicable to all SEO agencies. It will also depend on what SEO services you are going to avail. For instance, if you want to avail social media, SEO, digital funnels, paid search campaigns, Facebook advertising or web design and development, the rates may start from £250 to £500 per month, more or less.
Reasonable rates. We understand that every penny matters, which is why you should look for an SEO agency that offers reasonable rates for their services.
A wide array of digital marketing services. It is the responsibility of SEO agencies to offer realistic results to all their customers. This is possible by carrying out tried-and-tested services.
Testimonials. It’s not enough that SEO agencies offer affordable and wide-array of services. They should be able to deliver it satisfactorily. You can determine this by reading testimonials from their customer base.
Support a cause. Aside from delivering excellent services, SEO agencies who are passionate on giving back and supporting local or national charities by raising needed funds could be a standard that you can include in your search for the best SEO agency.
To determine if an SEO agency is the right fit for you and your business, here are some of the key questions you should be asking.
If you are looking for an SEO agency with a genuine passion for small and medium-sized enterprises, Smarter Media is more than willing to help you reach your business goals!
ow much time do you spend to prepare the content you intend to publish on social media? And to design nice graphics? These are two very important questions you probably ask yourself a lot if you work in marketing. Why? Because nowadays only attractive content can really make a difference for your audience. Usually, the post “lives” about 2 hours (it means that for 2 hours it is shown to the right group of recipients, later it’s “covered up” by other content displayed in their newsfeeds). That’s why it’s worth asking yourself: what should you remember of before you hit “Publish”? First of all, pay attention to these six questions that should be verified when creating content for your purposes:
#1 Did you choose the proper format of the post?
This is an extremely important question, which will determine the level of engagement of your target group. In turn, the organic reach of the post depends on the number of reactions to what you’ve published, and thus how many people found it interesting enough to share further. That’s why it’s worth considering the purpose of publishing the content. If it is to increase the user engagement (and thus increase the reach), the post should contain an interactive question and be presented in an attractive form. Surveys, GIFs, videos or infographics will work well. The less standard form of the post – the better. It’s also good to post about the topics that are close to your target group’s interests and make sure what you post is always high-quality.
#2 Will the post be displayed on the right social channel?
Choosing the right content for a specific social media channel and the audience is very important. Other features characterize active Facebook users, other Instagram, or YouTube ones. It is up to the social media manager to use the potential of a given platform. If the goal is to display video – it will be much more effective to upload it on the platform, not to share it through an external link. Interestingly enough, videos are the most catchy, shared and commented types of content, so it may be worth to post them in all your channels. But, it’s worth to remember that YouTube was created to share and store such content. Thanks to many functionalities, users of the site can search for certain videos they are interested in at any time.
#3 Did you choose the specific time of the publication well?
The above-mentioned question is connected to another essential one: when to publish content in order to reach the widest audience possible? Fortunately, most of the information necessary to answer this question can be found in statistics, available on most social media platforms from the administration panel.
Facebook actually knows a lot about its users. Many of the stored data is used to help business profiles to target posts and ads more effectively. Therefore, when running marketing campaigns across social media, we can also get details about the target group (mostly demographic data, such as gender, the origin of users, as well as the hours when they are the most active). Thanks to this, you can publish a post at times when there is the highest chance that it will reach a wider audience. It’s worth remembering that the competition is not sleeping and probably the most convenient posting hours may overlap. It is worth paying attention to this and not forget about monitoring the activity of rivals.
#4 Does the post meet the requirements of the strategy and will help to achieve the set goals?
Even the most engaging post won’t contribute to your sales and marketing efforts if it has nothing to do with your overall strategy and goals. Therefore, before the first post is published, you should consider what are the KIPs (Key Performance Indicators) you want to keep an eye on. They should be easily measurable, quite ambitious, but also possible to achieve. In addition, clearly formulated content plan, as an element of your marketing strategy, will allow you to adapt all posts to a specific vision and expected outcomes.
#5 Is the post compliant with the regulations of the selected social networking site?
This point is often overlooked by marketers, especially in smaller companies. Most of the time it doesn’t happen because of ignorance or being in a rush, but rather because of being unaware of such rules. It often happens on Facebook, where marketers use different competitions to attract users. But actually, it’s not allowed to publish contests use private profiles to promote the competition content. This means that you can’t ask people taking part in the competition to share the content, like your profile or a post. It’s also forbidden to require users to mark their friends in the comments. Seemingly, this is a way to quickly increase the number of people following the profile, but fans gained in this way won’t add any long-term value for the brand, and may even negatively affect its image. Warning! Each competition should contain properly formulated, in accordance with law, regulations.
#6 Is the language correct?
The most important and often overlooked point that affects the overall image of the brand is the correct grammar, spelling and punctuation. The way in which the brand communicates with its recipients can either strengthen its authority or harm its image, so it’s definitely worth double-checking your content in order to be perceived as professional and trustworthy.
The COVID-19 outbreak is all that’s on everyone’s mind right now and a load of uncertainty and panic comes along with it.
Changes have to be made for many businesses, both employers and employees are being affected, and everyone is getting themselves prepared for the worst.
In a crisis, however, there is always opportunity.
Businesses can find that they thrive in these circumstances, which is why it is so crucial to continue SEO work!
Despite what it seems, the world keeps going round.
People still need things; they still need products and services, even if they’re shut indoors.
If you’re in self-isolation, it’s likely that you’ll find yourself getting bored quite quickly – and what do we do when we’re bored?
We use our devices! Whether it be on a smartphone, tablet, or desktop, we will be scrolling, searching, clicking and buying.
Search engine marketing
If you’re advertising your product, you’ll still have the opportunity to make money. Even if sales slowdown as a result of the pandemic, investing in your SEO and search engine marketing will assure that the cash will keep flowing and position you well for when things do improve.
The great thing about search engine marketing is that you can easily track your results and see what’s working and what isn’t via analytics.
If something isn’t working so effectively, you can simply change tactics depending on what your data says. This assures that every penny is being well spent because, in some cases, you need to stretch your pound further!
You already know customers will be searching, so capture their attention at this point of the buying process. A campaign can be set up in a matter of hours via Google Ads and it’s a great way to reach customers with buying intent.
Searching in a time of scarcity
You’ve probably seen evidence of this already, but scarcity makes people buy. There’s no doubt that keywords such as ‘hand sanitser’ and ‘toilet roll’ are being searched in their thousands every day, and purchases lead to such items being sold out!
And what happens when items become sold out? People start searching for alternatives.
If your products or services can be considered as alternatives, then brace yourself for a lot of orders or enquiries coming your way!
If you see an opportunity to capitalise on certain keywords, then seize it! Work on content surrounding those keywords and similar topics to improve your rankings.
Popular keywords are likely to have a very high cost, so sticking to SEO can ensure you keep your spending down while still benefiting from scarcity buying.
Back to normal
Even when things have returned to their normal state, SEO and search engine marketing will still be the best way to reach customers who are searching – and customers will always be searching, no matter the state of the world!
An SEO campaign is a cost-effective way to get your business visible to potential customers, but it doesn’t happen overnight.
Campaigns can take months before you see results – so the sooner you start the sooner you’ll see those benefits.
Sometimes challenging a crisis head on can be the best foot forwards!
These are certainly unprecedented times when every business on the planet will be facing challenges that they haven’t faced or planned for before.
We asked our non-exec Chairman, James Phipps for his top 10 tips to get through it so we could share them with our followers.
1. Keep communicating – to your teams, customers and suppliers.
2. Show your company values – goodwill goes a long way and people will remember them after a time of crisis.
3. Show leadership – It may be a hugely stressful time but all of your team will be having a stressful time, especially if low paid or zero hour contracts.
4. Preserve cash – think about the things you HAVE to have versus the things which are NICE to have. Talk to suppliers about more flexible payment terms, talk to lenders about support if required and be aware of any help from government or sector/business support organisations. Remember it is not a lack of profit that will stop a business trading, it will be running out of cash.
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5. Show loyalty – If you possibly can stick with your team, you will grow as a team for going through this together. Show loyalty to your customers, work with them on flexible contract/payment terms as I did to many in the last recession and they are now 10 times bigger and have shown that loyalty back.
6. Look for the opportunities – a crisis brings change and some of these can be permanent ones. It can provide a unique opportunity to grab market share or create a new market even, like pubs going into takeaway food for example, so although most businesses in a crisis pull all their marketing and PR actually if you possible can invest now to grow out of it stronger.
7. Stay positive. It can be tough for anyone who runs or owns a business but the reality is what goes down comes back up and the mental health of the team may not survive unless the right culture and approach is shown.
8. Really try and add value to your customers in this difficult time, not just trying to exploit the situation for more profit. If you go above and beyond for them now to help them survive then they will remember it. Think of extra services that may cost very little but may help them a huge amount.
9. Be ready to react quickly. Make sure your information is as up to date as possible, customers payments for example, and that your decision-making is prompt. In times like this where the world can be moving very quickly knowledge is power and you do not want to be left behind.
10. Remember you are not alone, this will affect every single business not only in the UK but the world. Ask for help, if you have a mentor or Non-Exec team then use them as they may have good advice and experience in a situation like this. It is hard to not be emotional when it is the survival of your business but the best decisions are the ones made without the emotions looking at the business not being in the business.
Remember survive….then thrive.
Hope you and your businesses and family stay safe.
Every business needs proper tools that will help to analyze, optimize and improve the core processes, including marketing activities. Here’s a list of 8 useful online solutions which, if used properly, can improve your operations and increase sales in your online store.
The most basic tool that every marketer should know, especially if working in e-commerce. It allows you to study the behaviour of your users when they are on your website. You can easily check the sources of traffic, devices that your visitors use to shop online, or social channels from which they were referred to the store. Thanks to this data, it’s possible to adjust the communication to the preferences of your shoppers. In addition, Google Analytics locates the users and provides the website owners with accurate demographic data on them (such as gender, age, origin or interests). Thanks to Google Analytics, it is possible to optimize your content and its placement on the website, to adapt them to the exact target group, and thus improve the effectiveness of your business activities.
Google is the largest search engine in the world, which makes it popular among all the users who are looking for answers to many of their questions each day. Thanks to Google Trends, however, it’s possible to verify the most interesting topics for users from particular countries and cities. The tool allows you to check how many people asked about a certain topic on Google. This can actually help you optimize the content on the website and its positioning, additionally allowing to improve the content strategy (mostly blogging about relevant topics).
This online tool allows you to analyze almost every piece of content on the internet in terms of key phrases. Thanks to the app, it’s possible to plan the whole communication strategy of the brand and the content published by it, so that it all fits into the current trends and needs of the public. BuzzSumo is also useful when it comes to RTM (Real Time Marketing) communication. It allows you to identify posts most frequently shared by users, and find influencers who could become your brand ambassadors. This tool is also a great solution if you want to monitor the competitors on the Internet. The cost of using BuzzSumo depends on the selected plan and scope of its features, but there’s a trial period that you can choose to familiarize yourself with the options offered by the app and decide on a specific subscription plan after the end of this period.
One of the most popular internet monitoring tools out there. It owes its success to very precise monitoring results, intuitive interface and a very helpful customer service. The app allows you to customize your search phrases and generate relevant reports. Depending on the selected plan, the results can be updated twice a day, every hour, every 30 minutes and in real time. Thanks to the appropriate configuration of the tool, it’s possible to respond to customer’s problems and needs in real-time, immediately react to any problems described by the users and easily build an expert when commenting on trade-related topics.
More and more often shopping decisions are made thanks to the design of the product, packaging or visuals. Therefore, it’s very important that the graphics on the website are as well-designed and professional as possible. There are many solutions available that facilitate the creation of nice visuals, and Canva is one of them. It’s easy to use, allowing you to create graphics for many purposes, such as social media, ads, presentations and printed materials. Thanks to the possibility of choosing an individual size, Canva allows you to create almost any visual. The tool is equipped with a wide range of free items such as stickers, icons, layouts, frames, etc. Not all of them, however, are free.
Crello is often perceived as the older, more advanced sister of Canva. Why? Like Canva, Crello allows you to create graphics in many different shapes and sizes. The additional feature, though, is the ability to create animated posts for Facebook or Instagram. Crello is an intuitive and easy-to-use tool that can be used even without any graphic design skills.
Generally speaking, Allthefreestock is a search engine for free photos. After finding the right photo, you can save it on your computer with a few clicks. One of the advantages of this tool is the ability to search not only for specific photos, but also free icons (which can be useful when creating infographics). All visuals are available in a very good quality, which makes them look professional on websites, in mailings or across social media channels.
Marketing automation is a growing trend, especially in e-commerce. Mostly because it can improve your sales without consuming too much of your time. For example, web push notifications can easily get you new subscribers and new leads, and PushPushGo is a great tool to implement those in your marketing strategy. Its panel lets you track users on your website and tag your them on the basis of their interests. Then, you can segment your customers, create different scenarios depending on the segments, and send dedicated, automatic notifications to the right people at the right time.
