What is Search Engine Optimization?

Search Engine Optimization, commonly referred to as SEO, is the act of improving content and webpages in order to rank higher on search engine results pages. Search engines have algorithms that determine which webpages hold the most relevant results, and those pages are ranked highest among the search results.

Using SEO tactics, such as keywords, meta descriptions, and links, your content will stand out to search engine algorithms as relevant information and ultimately rank higher. Ranking higher leads to increased traffic and consumer trust.

Do I really need a website?

Yes! Word of mouth can be great, but a majority of consumers find and research companies online before making any purchases. An online presence gives your company credibility and boosts brand awareness. Plus, websites are an avenue for endless marketing strategies, including e-commerce, online customer service, and consumer engagement.

What is social media?

Social media platforms allow users to connect and engage with one another through shared content. These websites were originally developed for social networking, but since then, social media has become a popular marketing approach. Businesses often use social media to showcase products and services, connect with current or potential customers, and boost brand awareness.

What social media platforms are best for my business?

While social media presence is crucial for all companies, each company will have different social media needs and strategies. For some, Facebook will be the best platform for business, while Instagram may be better for others. To determine which platform is best for your business, it is important to first determine your target audience and social media goals.

Do I need to pay for Facebook?

Facebook is a free social networking site. Users do not have to pay to create profiles or business pages unless they wish to market their page through ad campaigns. Simple and easy to use, Facebook Ads can help businesses boost their visibility, market products, or promote events.

What does responsive mean?

Nowadays, users are using a variety of different devices of all different sizes and orientations. As a result, companies should be establishing a responsive web design when building web pages. Responsive design has the ability to detect the user’s screen size and orientation in order to adjust the content and layout accordingly. For example, the layout on a mobile device will be much narrower than the layout on a desktop.

What pages should I include in my website?

Every small business is different, which every website will be different. Creating a new website can be a daunting task, but PDD is here to make it easy. Every website should have the basics: Homepage, About, Contact page, Products/ Services, FAQs, and Testimonials.

Besides the basics, every business should include additional web pages that are unique and relevant. Every small business is different, which means every website is different.

What makes for a good web design?

Websites should be designed to invite and entertain users, not push them away. The only way to attract and maintain users is with a good web design. The homepage should be visually appealing, easy to understand, and clear of any annoying pop-ups.

If the homepage is bad, the user will exit the website rather than continue exploring. The web design should also allow for easy navigation and fast load speed without blurry images or extensive copy.

How does a website increase sales?

The primary way a website increases sales is by offering users a convenient way to shop for products and services. Through the use of pop-ups offers and special online discounts, small businesses can encourage consumers to make the switch from window-shopping to buying.

With an enhanced incentive to buy, along with clear and concise product descriptions, users are quickly turning to company websites for all their consumer needs.

What is the main purpose of social media marketing?

Social media falls in the brand awareness and consideration stage of the sales funnel. Social media platforms allow businesses to connect with their target audience and slowly but surely nudge them down the funnel with content and links to learn more.

By providing relevant information about products and services, engaging with their audience, and providing free trials or specials, businesses are able to nurture leads into buyers.

Is it okay to re-purpose content?

With reports, statistics, research, quotes, and testimonials being created on a daily basis, there is bound to be content worth re-purposing for digital marketing purposes. There are countless ways to turn formal business documents into creative online content, including infographics, podcasts, videos, and animated graphics.

What is the difference between digital marketing and digital advertising?

Digital marketing allows businesses to raise brand awareness, share information about products, engage with the audience, and monitor online reputation. Digital advertising allows businesses to advertise and promote products, offer discounts or specials, and attract buying customers. Simply put, digital marketing establishes a target consumer audience while digital advertising drives this audience to sales.

How often should I update my web content?

As a general rule of thumb, companies should be publishing new blogs at least twice a month – blogs are key to keeping your website updated with the relevant and fresh information that search engines prefer.

If any significant news or information has been released, that content should be posted as soon as possible. Pillar pages and landing pages content should be regularly revised as the company grows and changes.

What is local SEO?

As compared to standard SEO, local SEO refers to Local Search Engine Optimization. Local SEO comes into play when users are searching for products, services, or resources near them in real-time.

For example, a search for “shoes” will yield greatly different results than a search for “shoes near me.” Local search often includes locations, which is why companies should keep their Google My Business profile up to date.

Marketing Automation FAQ 

What is marketing automation? 

Market automation is the process of using technology or software to automate repetitive marketing tasks across multiple channels. Rather than manually controlling campaigns, brands can use automation services to successfully plan, manage, and measure efforts on social media, email, text, and website.  

What are the benefits of marketing automation? 

Marketing automation is beneficial because it helps companies streamline their marketing efforts and nurture leads more effectively. Brands can set up automated messages to users based on predetermined behavior triggers. For example, if a consumer adds a product to their online shopping cart but exits the website before checking out, the marketing automation software will send an automated message to the user to remind them of their abandoned shopping cart.  

How do I know if marketing automation is successful? 

In order to determine whether or not marketing automation is being used correctly and effectively, brands need to track a variety of metrics. Activity metrics, such as number of emails sent and quality behavioral triggers, allows brands to understand if they are using the automation software to its full potential. Response metrics, such as open rate, click-through rate, site traffic, and unsubscribe rate, gives brands an indication of how well the automation is resonating with the audience. Efficiency and Value metrics both serve to show brands if the automation is worth the time and cost – these metrics include cost per customer, revenue generated, cost of investment, and close rate on leads.

What marketing tasks should not be automated? 

Marketing automation can save an abundant amount of time, but there are several tasks that should not be automated. All content for website, blog, and social media should be original and authentic to your brand. Content can be scheduled ahead of time, but should not be crafted by a software program. This will prevent your brand from becoming inauthentic and robotic. 

How to get started with marketing automation? 

When first getting started with marketing automation, determine the routine marketing activities your company participates in on a daily basis. This includes posting on social media, social media engagement, research, emails, track analytics, and project management. All of these tasks can be pre-scheduled and automated to save time and maximize efficiency. 

How can I post links on Instagram? 

If your business account has over 10,000 followers, the best way to share links is through the swipe up feature on your story. If you do not have 10,000 followers, small businesses can easily add links to your profile bio, include links in your captions, and create shoppable posts or stories.

Should I utilize marketing automation?

The simple answer: yes. The more complicated answer: yes and no.

Marketing automation offers a platform to plan, analyze, schedule, and post content on social media. The process allows marketers to automate their repetitive and tedious marketing efforts well in advance. But besides the initial posting, all secondary content should be posted in real-time, such as comments or replies.

Does email marketing still work?

All of us at Pink Dog Digital are big believers in email marketing campaigns, as all small businesses should be. Unlike social media platforms, emails are personal and individualized to your most loyal consumers. The email content is designed specifically for individuals who are interested in and have agreed to receive email communications from your company. Emails allow you to communicate directly with your audience, which can turn an interested user into an active consumer.

What are pillar pages and content clusters? 

A pillar page is a web page that broadly covers all aspects of a single topic. A content cluster comprehensively addresses specific keywords and topics relating to the pillar page subject matter. For every one pillar page, there can be countless accompanying content clusters. 

What hashtags should I use? 

While there is no right number of hashtags, standards best practices recommends using an average of 11 hashtags on each social media post for ultimate reach and growth. Always use hashtags that fit your brand, message, community, and industry. Branded hashtags are great for specific products, services, and campaigns. 

How to generate leads on LinkedIn? 

LinkedIn was designed as a virtual networking platform for business professionals. In order to generate leads and referrals, you must first ensure users understand your brand by posting a short introductory video and thoroughly filling out your profile. Broaden your audience by joining groups, adding connections to your network, and inviting connections to like/ follow your page.

What is a buyer persona? 

A buyer persona is a fictional consumer that represents a brand’s target audience. The persona possesses all the characteristics of the company’s ideal customer, including demographic, interests, and behavior. A buyer persona helps brands better understand their customer’s needs, experiences, challenges, and goals, in order to better market to and serve them. 

What is a domain authority score? 

A domain authority score predicts how likely a website is to rank based on its relevance within a specific industry or topic area. Each website is scored on a scale of 1 to 100, with 100 being the best. This means the higher the domain authority score, the more likely the website is to rank on search engine result pages. 

What is a page authority score? 

A page authority score predicts how well a specific page will rank on search engine result pages. Page authority is determined based on number of quality links, use of images, and presence of relevant content. Similar to domain authority, page authority is also ranked on a scale of 1 to 100.

Content Marketing FAQs

What is content marketing?

Content marketing involves the creation and publication of online marketing materials in an effort to boost brand awareness and sales. While the online material does not always directly relate to specific products and services, the content should educate potential customers about product need.

How do you create effective content?

Before creating any content, ask yourself this question: “What am I trying to say and who am I saying it to?” Defining your purpose and audience is the most important step in content marketing. Once you find your voice, you will be able to design effective content that will catch the eyes of your audience. Once you have their attention, use short optimized copy to get your purpose across.

What is the difference between content marketing and content writing?

Content marketing and content writing are two different marketing strategies but are commonly used in tandem. Content marketing refers to the overall approach, while content writing refers specifically to the textual copy used within content marketing.

What is Natural Language?

Natural language refers to the way humans speak, compared to the artificial or machine language from computers. This includes all the colloquialisms, idioms, and other linguistic styles used within casual communication.

How does natural language affect SEO?

Not only does natural language refer to the way humans speak to one another, but it also includes the way humans speak to their computers and devices. The rise of voice search has led to more conversational queries, such as “restaurants near me” or “what is the weather.”

To optimize your content for natural language, brands should write with the same kind of natural language in mind. This can be done by anticipating the way your audience uses search engines and matching that language.

What are negative keywords?

Typically, brands use paid search campaigns to appeal to users searching for specific keywords and phrases – these are considered positive keywords.

Negative keywords are the words that do not fit in your ad campaign. This includes certain questions, phrases, and other search terms that will never relate to your brand or industry.

By identifying these negative keywords, you will be able to prevent your paid ad from being shown to anyone searching for these keywords. Applying these negative keywords will help prevent brands from wasting money on ads that will not lead to conversions or sales.

What is lead generation? 

Lead generation involves collecting potential customer information, including names, emails, addresses, and phone numbers. This information will then allow brands to contact users in order to boost interest in products and services, and ultimately, improve sales. Job applications, email subscriptions, events, and online content are all great sources for lead generation. 

What is conversion optimization? 

Conversion optimization is the process of increasing the number of website visitors that convert into active customers. By improving your website’s user experience, users are more likely to complete the desired action on the page, whether that is signing up for emails or completing a transaction. 

The best ways to improve user experience is by removing unnecessary content, annoying pop-ups, offer guarantees, provide live support, and add testimonials or reviews. 

What are online local directories? 

An online local directory is a list of businesses within a certain location, organized by industry. Users can find these local directories on websites such as Google+, Yelp, Yellowpages, and FourSquare. Each business listing is complete with the business name, address, phone number, reviews, and industry. Businesses listed on local directories are more likely to appear on search engine result pages, which will improve brand authority and generate site traffic.

What are the 4 purposes of content? 

In content marketing, there are four main purposes of content: entertain, educate, inspire, and convince. These purposes allow brands to effectively craft content for each step in the marketing funnel. Beginning with entertaining and ending with convincing, these purposes follow consumers on their journey from brand awareness to purchase. 

How do I start content creation? 

Content creation is a process, and every process begins with an idea. The idea can come from keywords or industry phrases – any idea that will be of appeal to your audience. Once you have your idea, do your research, find sources, and determine the purpose of your content. Then, once you feel confident, begin writing your piece in whatever form of content you choose to use. 

What is content creation? 

Content creation involves generating topic ideas and creating written or visual content around those ideas in the form of a list, email, blog, video, infographic, or ebook. Content allows brands to provide useful information to their audience, which helps retain existing customers and attract new customers.

Does content marketing generate leads?

When done right, content marketing can absolutely generate leads. The important thing to remember is that the content needs to be geared towards your customer base in order to be successful. Additionally, it should be SEO friendly so that it’s easy to find on Google.

What are some common content marketing mistakes?

The top mistake that we see in content marketing is not doing enough research in advance. You need to know the topics that your audience wants to see and incorporate the correct keywords for them to be able to easily find that content. Other mistakes we see is content that isn’t long enough, doesn’t match the organization’s industry or tone, or is copied directly from another source.

What is inbound marketing? 

Inbound marketing attracts customers by providing relevant and valuable content through SEO, social media, blogs, videos, and emails. Inbound marketing attempts to build lasting relationships with consumers by offering products and services that will solve the user’s current problems. Rather than sending out messages to the general public, inbound marketing focuses on targeting users that are likely to be interested in your products and services. 

What is outbound marketing? 

Outbound marketing relies on more traditional approaches to attract users, including email spam, video ads, cold-calling, print ads, or radio ads. Outbound marketing might provide relevant content, but it might not always be content that the user necessarily wants or needs at that time. This type of marketing is often considered an interruption rather than a convenience. 

Is outbound marketing dead? 

While outbound marketing is not completely dead yet, it does present a lot of problems for businesses. For many outbound strategies, it is difficult to properly measure your return on investment – unlike website analytics, it is impossible to track if your consumers are coming from print ads or radio ads. Compared to inbound, outbound marketing often has much higher costs with lower conversion rates.

What is content repurposing?

Content repurposing is taking a piece of content that you have already created, a blog for instance, and using it to create something different. You might use the statistics from the blog to create an infographic or expand on the idea that you already have to create a whitepaper. Repurposing saves you time and research while allowing you to update content.

Do I need to share my content on social media?

Absolutely. If you want people to see your content and you want Google to be more likely to index it, it needs to show up on social media. Share to any of your platforms that are appropriate for the type of content you’re sharing so people can comment on it and pass it on to others that may find it interesting!

What is an editorial calendar?

An editorial calendar has all of the content that you’re planning to publish over a specific time period. At Pink Dog Digital, we usually create a month-long editorial calendar that includes blog topics, social media posts, and media. Having a calendar can help your business to plan ahead and strategize well!

Which is more important: SEO or paid marketing?

SEO and paid marketing both work best when they work in tandem. Having campaigns set up is a good way to see which works best for your business – and where you might need to tweak one or the other. It’s also important to remember that while advertising works more quickly, SEO helps build trust!

Why does SEO take so long to work?

When you first start implementing SEO strategies, you’re likely to notice that nothing changes for a few months. We generally recommend 3-6 months to look for any serious results. Google has about a BILLION websites to examine. Their bots are efficient, but it still takes a while to crawl that many sites and begin the process of indexing.

What is the next big thing in SEO?

Core web vitals is currently the big thing in SEO. This update from Google changes the way that the algorithm ranks websites. You can learn more about it here!

What are core web vitals?

A recent update to Google’s algorithm includes the top three web vitals they look for in order to process rankings. These include loading time, interactivity, and visual stability. While these aren’t the only factors that Google looks for, they’re considered some of the most important.

How can I check my Core Web Vitals?

Google Search Console has recently implemented a tool that allows you to check your vitals and see what improvements you need to make going forward.

Why do Core Web VItals matter?

First, because Google has specified that they matter. Second, because they strongly impact the way that users interact with your website. Google is becoming more and more concerned with user experience, which means websites need to do the same.

Email Marketing Campaign FAQs

How to get users on my email list?

The most effective way to get people on your email list is by leveraging pop-up forms on your website. Users that list your website are already interested in your brand or products, so they will most likely sign up for emails if prompted. This method is even more effective when coupled with a special incentive or offer – for example, 15% off your first order when you sign up for email.

Who should my company’s emails come from?

Emails sent from your company should always come from a valid business address. At Pink Dog Digital, our emails come from [email protected] or [email protected]. This ensures the emails you send are not being sent directly to your subscriber’s spam.

How often should my company send emails?

As with most campaigns, the amount of emails your company sends should match the needs and goals of your business. But, it is important to remember: sending too many emails is as bad as not sending enough. A majority of companies resolve to sending emails anywhere from 3 times a week to 2 times a month. It all depends on the amount of content you have to promote and share with your subscribers.

What content can I send over email?

When a new user subscribes to your email list, companies should automatically respond with a welcome email. Other common content includes promotions, blogs, newsletters, company announcements, videos, and even testimonials.

What is a drip campaign? 

A drip campaign is a type of email campaign that is triggered by the user’s actions or behavior. A trigger can be the user abandoning their cart, downloading content, not opening emails, or responding to a survey. Drip campaigns are designed to help brands re-engage with customers and move them to the next step in their consumer journey. 

What should I do after gaining a new email subscriber? 

Every time you gain a new email subscriber, you should have an automatic email to welcome them. This welcome email serves as the first step in developing a relationship with the user. The email should include a personal message, thank you note, and maybe even a thank you gift for signing up. 

What is a seasonal email campaign? 

A seasonal email campaign is based around any holiday or time of year. When it comes to seasonal campaigns, it is important to have a buildup before the event to build awareness, as well as a follow-up to show appreciation and offer last chance deals. One of the reasons seasonal campaigns are so effective is because they are for a limited amount of time, so it is best to start early and use urgency in your messaging.

What is an email bounce rate? 

A bounce rate is the percentage of emails that were not delivered to the intended recipient. The best way to improve your bounce rate is by requiring double opt-ins for new subscribers, regularly cleaning your email list, and making sure your emails are not labeled as spam. The average bounce rate for a business is between 2-5% – anything higher should spark further investigation. 

What’s the difference between a hard and soft bounce? 

Hard bounces are caused by permanent problems, while soft bounces are temporary issues that can be solved. Hard bounces are a result of outdated domains, invalid addresses, or the recipient blocking your domain. A soft bounce means the email is able to be delivered but it bounced back because the inbox was full, the server was momentarily down, or the email was too large. 

How can I make sure my emails don’t end up in the spam folder? 

Imagine putting hours of work into an email campaign, only for it to end up in your subscriber’s spam folder. To prevent your hard work from going to waste, brands should only send emails to users who have given permission, use familiar from and reply-to addresses, and use spam-checking tools. Brands should never send emails with deceptive subject lines, grammatical errors, or spammy sentences.

Photography FAQs

Why is photography important to social media?

Photography attracts followers and consumers. Visual content stands out and receives more views than a text-heavy social media post. Images can not only capture the attention of a user, but inspire engagement and social sharing, which ultimately drives business.

How is videography used in digital marketing?

It’s simple: a video has the ability to bring your brand to life. Video marketing allows companies to educate and communicate with consumers through an easy to digest and entertaining medium. Consumers prefer to engage with the “face of the brand”, and videos are a great way to humanize your company.

Do I need professional photographs taken of my products and services?

In this age of smartphones, most team members can take quality photos of products and services. But it is always a good idea to consider hiring a professional photographer. As a consumer, there is nothing worse than seeing blurry or unclear images from a company. Low image quality will result in low brand credibility.

How long should videos be?

The exact best length varies from platform to platform. On Facebook, videos should be under two minutes long. Twitter has a 30 second limit for videos. Instagram allows videos up to 60 seconds in length, but most videos are an average of 30 seconds long.

Social Media Strategies FAQ

When is the best time to post?

This is completely dependent on your audience and when they are online. On Facebook, users can see popular engagement times under Page Insights to determine the best days and times to post. Other platforms are based on a series of trial and error. Test out various times and days to see which ones work best for your company and audience.

Do all of my social media handles need to be the same?

Yes, this is how followers and customers will be able to find your company. Some companies choose to go by their full name, abbreviation, or shortened name. Whichever name you choose for your online presence, be sure to remain consistent. This will ensure followers can find and engage with you on any platform.

Who should I follow?

There is no real rule of thumb when it comes to following users, it all depends on your brand. Companies should not feel pressured to follow back every single one of their followers, it is important to build an authentic network. Loyal customers, engaged followers, influencers, and partner companies are among the few categories of followers that deserve a follow back.

Do I need an editorial calendar?

An editorial calendar is essential to the success of any social media strategy. Your audience followed you for a reason and an editorial calendar will keep that reason alive. A calendar not only aids in organization and consistently, but can help meet social media goals. It can help your company stay on track and ensure relevant and interesting content is regularly posted.

Digital Advertising FAQs

Display ads vs native advertising?

Display ads are the most transparent version of digital advertising. They appear on third-party websites in the form of banners pop-ups, video ads or images.

Native advertising is a little less apparent – they do not look like the typical advertisements users have come to expect. Native ads tend to appear as “recommended products” or “related stories.” Users might not realize they are clicking on an ad until they are redirected to the new website.

What is remarketing?

What happens when a potential customer visits your website but leaves without buying anything? Are they lost forever? Not at all!

Remarketing involves retargeting these users and redirecting them back to your website. With the help of “cookies”, businesses can temporary track this person and show them specific ads in order to lure them back to their website.

Is digital advertising just for sales?

No! Digital advertising helps businesses accomplish numerous goals, including increasing sales. Digital ads serve to generate leads, increase brand awareness, and attract potential customers.

What are the benefits of SEM?

Research shows that it pays to be at the top of the search engine results page. Search Engine Marketing allows you to pay for keywords that put you at the top of the page.

What are banner ads? 

Banner advertisements are small, rectangular ads that appear at the top, bottom, or side of a webpage. These ads are image-based rather than text-based, meaning they rely on images and multimedia to convey their message. The goal of these ads is to attract user attention in order to drive traffic back to the brand’s website. 

What are interactive ads? 

Interactive ads use videos, audio, gifs, and other rich media elements. These dynamic ads encourage users to interact and engage with the campaign, rather than simply view the ad and scroll. This allows brands to boost brand awareness, increase sales, generate leads, and increase social sharing. 

What are search ads? 

Search advertising is a pay-per-click advertising model in which brands pay to have their ads displayed on search engine result pages. When users search for specific keywords or phrases, the brand’s search ad will appear within the organic search results. Every search ad is complete with a headline, description, and URL – this will encourage users to click on this listing instead of competing companies.

Pay-Per-Click Advertising FAQ 

What is Pay-Per-Click Advertising? 

Pay-per-click advertising, otherwise commonly referred to as PPC, is a method in which brands pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked. The purpose of PPC is to increase website views through paid traffic, rather than earning organic traffic. Pay-per-click advertising offers companies a great opportunity to reach users who are searching for keywords and phrases that relate to their brand, products, services, and industry. 

How does pay-per-click advertising work? 

The way in which pay-per-click advertising works is simple. Brands can place bids for their ads to be featured in the top ad placements on search engine results pages. Each bid is placed on the specific keywords and phrases that the company wants their ads to be displayed for. Each search engine has its own ad auction process that determines which ads are the most relevant and valuable for each user query, meaning which ad campaign will “win” the auction and be shown on the SERP. 

What makes a successful pay-per-click advertising strategy? 

When planning a PPC advertising strategy, brands should always give special attention to keywords and phrases. If you do not choose keywords that are relevant to both your ad campaign and target audience, your PPC ad is less likely to be shown on results pages. The ad itself also needs to be creative and powerful – if the ad copy is not compelling, then users might not click on it, despite it being featured at the top of the SERP. A strong, persuasive landing page is always crucial when it comes to pay-per-click advertising because you want users to visit your website, but also stay and take action.

Email Marketing FAQs

What is email marketing? 

Email marketing involves using email messages to communicate with consumers about your brand’s products, services, special offers, news, and more. A consistent email marketing strategy allows brands to stay in contact with their consumers between purchases in order to keep them updated and engaged. Emails are also a great way for brands to build a nurturing relationship with leads and convert them into paying customers. 

What is email marketing used for? 

Email marketing can be used for a variety of different reasons, from increasing brand awareness to driving sales and everything in between. In order to accomplish these differing goals, brands can utilize different types of email marketing. 

What are the different types of email marketing? 

Welcome emails are typically the brand’s first communication with the user after subscribing to the email list – the goal is for the brand to get to know the user, and the user to get to know the brand. Promotional emails provide an opportunity to showcase any products, services, or events. Newsletter should be sent on a monthly or quarterly basis to update your audience on the latest brand happenings. Brands can also use email marketing tactics to connect with users on social media, re-engage with lapsed consumers, and share post-purchase information.

How do I increase my email open rate?

The key to improving your open rate is crafting subject lines that beg to be opened. Users receive hundreds of emails every day – the subject line is your chance to make an impression.

If you are looking to step up your subject lines, try including emojis, humor, controversy, questions, or a personalized feature. These subject lines are more likely to catch the user’s eye and entice an opening.

How long should my email campaigns be?

There is no right or wrong length for an email. If you are sharing a monthly newsletter, this is a great opportunity to share a variety of content, including announcements, upcoming events, or other important information.

Businesses can also take advantage of the one-column format to share a single piece of content. This minimalist format is highly readable and aesthetically-pleasing, which is to capture the attention of the viewer. One-column emails are perfect for sharing a blog or event invitation.

How do I incorporate dark mode into emails?

After the release of Dark Mode within the smartphone industry, there is no surprise dark mode is making its way into digital marketing trends. Not only is dark mode extremely modern and sleek, but it also creates visually striking content.

If you are thinking about incorporating dark mode into your email campaigns, try adopting transparent logos and using contrasting colors for graphic elements.

How can I get subscribers to open my emails? 

The key to getting subscribers to open your emails is by focusing on the first impression: the subject line. Since it is the only piece of content the reader sees before clicking on the email, it is their only determining factor when deciding whether or not to open the email. Just like the title of an article, the subject line must convince the reader that the information in the email will be valuable and worth their time. If not, your emails will be left unopened, resulting in unsubscribes. 

How do I write a good subject line? 

The most effective subject lines are short and to the point. It should inform the reader exactly what type of information and messaging will be in the email. The subject line is meant to be attention-grabbing and intriguing, so using funny, controversial, personalized, shocking, and mysterious lines will also encourage users to click. 

Do I need to constantly create new content? 

Brands should constantly be creating and sharing content, but it does not necessarily always have to be “new content.” Repurposing allows brands to share their content with a wider range of users by reworking the information into various forms. For example, the results of a study might be more clearly expressed on Facebook through an infographic, but those same results can be shared on LinkedIn through a blog post. This strategy allows brands to continually push out new content without consuming as much time or resources.

What is email segmentation? 

Email segmentation is the process of splitting up your brand’s email list into smaller groups in order to send highly targeted emails. Every brand is different, so it makes sense that the ways in which they segment their email lists will be different depending on needs and marketing goals. However, there are a few categories every brand should be segmenting, including new subscribers, interests, demographics, activity, email preferences, purchase history, and level of activity. 

Why is email segmentation important? 

Email segmentation allows brands to send more personalized and relevant content to their customers, which helps to decrease the number of unsubscribes and increase both open-rate and click-rate. List segmentation also helps to gracefully and effectively move users down the marketing funnel. For example, new subscribers should always receive welcome emails and other general information emails to help build brand awareness. Then, brands can start sending them more personalized emails based on product interests and engagement. Only after they have come to know and trust your brand will users become paying customers. 

How can I start segmenting my email list? 

The best way to get started with email segmentation is having current and new subscribers choose their email preferences. For current email subscribers, brands can send out an email asking users to choose how often they would like to receive emails and what types of emails they are interested in receiving, whether that is general news, product updates, or events. For new subscribers, brands can offer these same choices on the email subscription page. As brands gain more demographic information and consumer insights on their subscribers, then they will be able to further split up the email list.

Brand Voice FAQs

What is a brand voice?

A brand is not just a logo and tagline – every brand has their own persona with a voice to match. Every time a business posts, responds, launches, connects, thanks, or highlights, they are exercising their brand voice.

A brand voice needs to be strong and consistent on all social media platforms. Inconsistent behavior makes for a bad experience, which results in decreased followers and audience.

How do you establish a brand voice on social media?

To establish a brand voice, start by brainstorming about the brand’s personality. What adjectives would you use to describe it? What is the tone? What is the vibe?

Businesses should write like they talk. Avoid jargon or sensational headlines that make your brand sound fake or inauthentic. Consumers should know what company they are talking to whether online or on the phone.

Why is a company’s brand voice important?

A company’s brand voice is extremely impactful – it can help build trust within an audience and boost sales.

A caring and friendly tone can prompt an open line of communication, encouraging users to reply to posts or ask questions. This appealing tone of voice can also be used to highlight work and events successfully, without giving off a disingenuous or entitled vibe.

What is brand strength?

Brand strength, or brand equity, measures how valuable a brand is to its customers. Positive brand strength occurs when consumers respect the brand and think highly of the products or services. Negative brand strength occurs when consumers have a negative opinion or had a bad experience.  

How to measure brand awareness?

Measuring brand awareness can be done a few different ways, depending on which makes the most sense for your business. By looking at social media insights, brands can view impression, click, and reach metrics to see how many users have viewed your content. Brands can also use Google Trends to track mentions of their brand name, products, and services. Or simply go straight to the source and use focus groups or surveys to measure general brand awareness within a population. 

What is a negative SEO attack?

A negative SEO attack occurs when unethical techniques are using to sabotage a competing company’s search engine rankings. The most common attacks include website hacking, copying content, spam, and posting fraudulent negative reviews. 

Small businesses can prevent negative SEO attacks by setting up Google Webmaster Tool alerts, keeping track of backlinks, and installing website security. 

What is brand positioning? 

Brand positioning refers to the conceptual place a brand occupies in the minds of consumers. It involves how consumers perceive the brand as being different from industry competitors and the benefits related to the brand and its products or services. This strategy allows brands to help take control over their reputation and brand image. 

What are the types of brand positioning? 

There are a variety of different brand positioning strategies, including value-based, quality-based, competitor-based, price-based, customer service based, or benefit-based. All of these strategies allow brands to highlight the aspects of their business that differentiate themselves from competitors and work to put them at a higher position in consumer minds. For example, price-based brand positioning means brands can position their products and services as the most affordable option on the market. 

What is real-time digital marketing? 

Real-time digital marketing occurs when brands quickly react to breaking news or current events. Real-time marketing is usually reserved for topics or news that would be relevant or interesting to the brand’s audience. This allows brands to take advantage of the current situation in an effect to connect with users and market their products and services that might relate to the current happenings. Despite being published on the spot, brands should always ensure their real-time digital marketing efforts are consistent with their brand voice and values.

Google FAQs

What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics allows businesses to track website traffic in order to gain customer insights. By tracking user activity, companies can analyze how customers find and use their website. This will allow businesses to evaluate the performance of their website to identify which areas are working or not working, and make any necessary improvements to boost user experience.

What type of reports does Google Analytics provide?

Google Analytics provides five reports: Realtime, Audience, Acquisition, Behavior, and Conversions.

Realtime gives businesses insights into what is happening on their website at that very moment. The Audience refers to user demographics. Acquisition reveals what source the user originated from. The Behavior section shows what pages users visit, while Conversations show the actions they take.

How do I get started with Google Analytics?

To create a free Google Analytics account, visit google.com/analytics. Add your website as a property to allow Google to begin collecting data and configure your views to determine which data should be collected.

It should take between 24 to 48 hours for results to appear.

What is Google My Business profile?

Google My Business is a free online tool that helps companies appear on Google Search and Google Maps. With a GMB Business Profile, companies can connect with users and post updates, photos, special offers, and promotions. The profile also allows companies to post important information all in one place, including address, phone number, website, and open hours. 

Does my company need a Google My Business profile?

Yes, 100%. Not only does Google My Business gives companies control over their business listing, it allows them to attract and engage with customers. Your GMB profile provides your brand with a professional online presence that appears when users are searching for your company, products, and services. 

Under the Customers tab, brands can interact with customers by responding to reviews or booking services. Companies can also find insights that allow them to fully optimize customer engagement efforts. 

What is a Google My Business website?

Google My Business offers a free, professional website service that is great for new brands or small businesses with no marketing budget. Google automatically creates the website using information from the Business profile. The website is extremely user-friendly and customizable, including different themes and contact methods to choose from. 

The website comes complete with built-in optimized design features, such as call-to-action buttons, photos, product lists, and service descriptions.

What is Google’s Local Pack?

The Local Pack refers to the top three listings shown on Google’s result page when the query has local intent. Google determines the results by considering the location of the business in relation to the user, and how well the business answers the search query.

How Can My Business Rank For The Local Pack?

Nearly half of all searches on Google have local intent, which means optimizing for the local pack is necessary for higher rankings. Optimizing for the Google Local Pack starts with accurately updating Google My Business information with key factors, such as address, phone number, category, and keywords. Businesses can also improve their ranking by cultivating positive reviews and locally relevant backlinks.

What are the advantages of Google’s Local Pack?

Businesses that appear in Google’s Local Pack attract more attention than any other listing or brand. These brands receive more engagements and clicks than both organic and paid search results. This is because users who perform local searches are ready to visit a local storefront and buy now. 

What is Google Manufacturer Center?

The Google Manufacturer Center is a great resource for all e-commerce businesses looking to sell products and services. Businesses can provide accurate and authoritative product descriptions and details to Google. This will help online shoppers discover the products that are right for them, which will boost your brand’s sales and reach. 

The Manufacturer Center also provides businesses with insights and analytics to help their products perform better on Google. 

What is Google Lens?

Google Lens is an image recognition software that lets users search what they see by using their camera or scanning a photo. This artificial intelligence service allows users to learn about products, identify objects, and explore local places or landmarks. Users can even scan or translate text from business cards, posters, and books directly into their phone. 

How can I optimize my content for Google Lens?

In order to optimize for Google Lens, businesses need to optimize their marketing efforts for visual search. The first step is ensuring a consistent and clear brand image by placing logos on all products, signage, and other collaterals. Brands should also use detailed metadata, accurate image files, and plenty of product images to optimize for image search results.  

What is organic search? 

Organic search refers to any unpaid search result listings. These organic search results occur when a user searches for your brand by name or your business appears on the SERP based on the search engine’s ranking algorithm. Organic search does not include any traffic or listings resulting from paid advertisements. 

What is Google Currents? 

Google Currents is a communication tool designed for organizations and businesses. This G Suite product helps employees stay connected by easily sharing posts, messages, documents, images, and other files with the entire company or individual users. 

What is a featured snippet? 

A featured snippet is the search result listing featured in a box at the top of the search results page. These snippets are meant to directly answer a user’s question by providing an excerpt from the web page that best answers the query.

How do Google Ads work? 

With Google Ads, businesses can pay to have branded ads appear on search result pages, websites, videos, maps, shopping listings, and more. Companies bid on keywords that relate to their business, products, or services. Google then chooses the “winning” bid through an auction system that is based on the relevance of your ad, relevance of the keyword, relevance of your landing page, historical performance, and historical click-through rate. 

How much does a Google Ad cost? 

There is no one correct answer to this question since Google Ads is a completely customizable platform. Businesses can control how much they spend and when they spend it, and can even increase or decrease their spend amount at any time during the campaign. The average cost-per-click for Google Ads is $2 or less, but the price depends on a variety of factors, including industry, market trends, budget, keywords, schedule, and quality score. 

How do I create a Google Ad? 

Businesses can create an ad campaign in their Google Ads account. The first step is determining your advertising goal and then choosing the campaign type that best fits the goal. Google Ads offers a variety of campaign types, including Search, Display, Video, Shopping, Discovery, App, Local, and Smart. Then, brands will be able to choose their target audience, set their budget, add extensions, and choose keywords.

Bing FAQs

What is Google Beacon? 

Google Beacons are small physical devices, placed in store front locations, that send out signals to smartphones and other devices via Bluetooth. This allows businesses to target users within close proximity to send them messages and prompt specific actions. In addition to location targeting and proximity marketing, Google Beacons also allows businesses to measure frequency, increase loyalty, and boost customer recall. 

What is Bing Places For Business? 

Bing Places for Business is an online service that allows businesses to add or claim their online listing on Bing Search and Maps. This portal allows brands to accurately update their profile to not only help more customers discover the brand, but also help users find the right information for the business. 

What is considered a good website speed? 

Ideally, a website should load in under 3 seconds. Site speed is an important ranking factor when it comes to search engine algorithms. A slow speed results in poor user experience, which makes it less desirable to users, and in turn, less desirable to search engines.

Misc. FAQs

How do I keep my brand consistent on social media?

To keep brand consistency on social media, companies need to first associate their brand name with their brand theme. This means using the full brand name in every post, rather than a nickname or another variation.

Brand consistency also requires consistent brand-related messages. This means a consistent tone, voice, color palette, customer experience, purpose, or font. Every aspect of your social media should remain consistent so consumers can easily identify your posts.

What is an email funnel?

There are three stages to an email marketing funnel: attraction, engagement, and nurturing.

A company can attract leads by gathering email subscribers through web traffic, forms, and landing pages. Once the email list is compiled, the next step is sending strategic emails to engage with users to build trust and brand identity. Companies can nurture leads and deepen relationships by continuing to communicate with consumers after they purchase a product or service.

Website Design FAQs

Do I really need a website?

Yes! Word of mouth can be great, but a majority of consumers find and research companies online before making any purchases. An online presence gives your company credibility and boosts brand awareness. Plus, websites are an avenue for endless marketing strategies, including e-commerce, online customer service, and consumer engagement.

What is the best CMS, Content Management System, for my website?

The answer is simple: WordPress. For starters, WordPress makes it easy to customize and update your website. There are thousands of different themes and plugins to choose from, which means you can turn the website you have always wanted into a reality.

Once you create content, you want to share it with your audience as soon as possible. WordPress’s intuitive editor allows businesses to easily format and publish content.

What is imperfect web design?

Imperfect web design is the process of using organic hand-made graphics, illustrations, and icons. Instead of focusing on precision or using templates, imperfect web design allows businesses to create content with personality and emotion. These hand-drawn elements will serve to humanize businesses and allow them to connect with users.

Does Web Design Impact SEO?

Yes, search engines prefer websites that are both user-friendly and search engine-friendly. If your web design is poor and features elements such as pop-ups, illegible text, or slow page speed, it will turn users away. Low traffic and decreased time spent will show search engines your website is no longer relevant or quality.

But good web design features will encourage users to stay on your website, and therefore boost SEO.

User-Generated Content FAQs

What is user-generated content?

User-generated content is exactly that – any content that has been created by a user and posted to social media or other online platforms. This includes text, photos, videos, reviews, and audio content that features a brand’s product or service.

Why is user-generated content important?

User-generated content is important for the very reason testimonials and reviews are important. Consumers tend to trust the opinions of other consumers compared to content created by brands themselves.

User-generated content is one-of-a-kind content that can not be manufactured or replicated. It allows brands to engage with users and reach a wider audience.

How do I get user-generated content?

Brands can find relevant user-generated content by searching for existing content on social media. Start by looking through photos your company has been tagged in, searching your location, searching branded hashtags, and searching brand keywords such as product or service names.

Businesses can also gain user-generated content by encouraging customers to share. Provide a photo booth at events, add signs throughout physical locations, or promote hashtag campaigns.

Content FAQ

What is earned content? 

Earned content refers to any material written about your brand by a third party, meaning you did not pay for it or create it. Examples of earned content include online reviews, recommendations, social shares, mentions, media coverage, or any other form of free publicity that is created and spread on behalf of your brand. This content gives consumers and brand advocates the ability to share their experience in a high credible and authentic way in the hopes of encouraging other users to purchase your products and services. 

What is owned content? 

Owned content is any content a business creates for themselves, including their website, social media channels, and blog. The biggest benefit of owned content is that businesses have complete control over what the content is saying and how the materials are being used. Sharing these messages and stories allows businesses to build a strong brand presence and establish a strong relationship with their audience. 

What is paid content? 

Paid content refers to any digital marketing elements that a business pays for, such as search ads, display ads, social media promotions, and paid influencer partnerships. With paid content, brands can usually expect to see an immediate impact on exposure, traffic, sales, or conversions, but it is a more costly approach compared to earned and owned content

What is a guest blog?

Guest blogs are articles written on other peoples’ website about your business expertise or knowledge. These should always be informational rather than salesy.

What are the benefits of guest blogging?

First, you’ll be able to get a backlink to your website from another site, showing Google that you’re an expert in your field. Second, having a guest blog on a prominent website can help you gain visibility. Finally, it helps you to pose yourself as an industry thought leader.

Web Design Trends FAQs

How do you create an immersive 3D web design?

Unlike a flat 2D design, an immersive 3D website is all about creating depth. Soft shadows, layers, varying colors, and gradients provide a complex look that makes it seem like the graphics are floating over each other. This can be accomplished using graphics, text, and images.

An immersive web design is not just about creating advanced visuals, it draws users in and encourages them to stay on the website longer.

What is white space?

White space refers to the unused space surrounding elements on a website. The space is used to frame or separate objects and give designs more structure.

The space is commonly white, hence the name, but it can be any solid background color. The empty areas can be found between visuals, in margins, between text, and any other blank areas between design elements.

What is a dynamic landing page?

A landing page is the webpage a visitor ends up at after clicking on a link in an email, social media post, ad, or any other marketing platform.

The page is meant to convert leads into customers. In order to accomplish this, your landing page must include dynamic design trends, such as animations, illustrations, and other interactive elements. These elements keep users engaged and interested longer than a static landing page, which will encourage conversions.

Blog Title & Image FAQs

Do blog titles impact SEO?

Blog titles play an important role in SEO. Search engines prefer to rank blog posts that prove relevant to users.

That is why the best way to choose a blog title is to think like a search engine user. What would they search to get the information you provide in your blog? If your blog title matches what users are searching for, your post is more likely to rank, and rank highly.

How to improve SEO for blog titles?

For starters, it is always better to use actual text for blog titles, instead of images or graphics. Since search engines can not read the text on an image, your blog will not reap the SEO benefits of the title.

Keywords and phrases should be placed at the beginning of the blog title to ensure it appears on the results page. Search engines normally cut titles off after 60 characters on the SERPs.

Can blog images affect SEO?

Yes! Search engines can not read textual content within images, but it can read image titles. This means your blog post can appear on the image search results page – if your images are titled properly.

Try matching the image title to the topic of the blog post. You can even use the blog title as the image title to ensure relevancy and boost image SEO.

What is Alt Text? 

Alternative text, or alt text, is used to describe the appearance and function of an image on a web page. If the image does not load properly or the user can not see the image, the alt text will help the user understand the meaning and relevance of the image. When uploading images, businesses should always be using Alt text to not only help visually impaired users, but also help search engines better index their images. 

What is Anchor Text? 

Anchor text is the clickable text on a webpage that links to another webpage or initiates a file download. Anchor text is typically signified on the page by a different font or text color, and will become underlined when hovered over. The text itself should be chosen carefully – it should tell users exactly what to expect before they click on the link. 

What are image captions? 

An image caption is the text that appears in a gray box underneath the image on a webpage. The caption is meant to provide additional context to the reader as they scan through the article. Captions should be no more than two sentences long and should explain the who, what, when, where, and why of the image.

B2B Social Media FAQs

Do B2B companies need social media?

Yes! Social media offers B2B companies a platform to build relationships with customers and business partners.

Since the target audience is businesses, social media might not directly lead to sales, but it will build brand recognition and put your products in front of corporate decision-makers. That way, when they are looking for new opportunities, your brand will be the first on their mind.

Professionals also use social media to build B2B partnerships. Social platforms offer a way to build social connections, network, coordinate meetings, and, ultimately, boost trust.

What social media channels are best for B2B companies?

A majority of B2B companies use LinkedIn exclusively. While LinkedIn is a great way to find leads, social media is more than just selling products.

Companies have a better chance of connecting with consumers when those consumers are already familiar with the brand and products. That is why B2B companies should be using other platforms, like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest to build brand awareness and identity.

What content should B2B post on social media?

The key to social media is posting content that will resonate with the audience. For B2B companies, the target audience is obviously businesses, but you should tailor your content to fit a wider audience.

Try sharing resources and information that will benefit both businesses and individuals. This could include technical support, industry news, or product recommendations.

How can I increase social media following using emails? 

For many small businesses, it is not uncommon to have a larger email list than social media following. Brands can expand their social media following by including “Follow Us” buttons and “Share This” links in all email templates. Including content from your social media accounts will also show email subscribers “what they are missing” and why they should connect with your brand on multiple platforms. 

How can I increase social media following using my website? 

Users that visit your website and show interest in your brand are exactly the types of users you want following your social media accounts. Make it easy to follow by placing social media icons and social feeds on every webpage. Brands should also be encouraging users to follow and interact with their channels at the end of blog posts or checkout pages. 

What is retargeting? 

Retargeting is designed to target consumers based on their previous Internet actions and behavior. Through the use of cookies, brands are able to track users that visited their website but left without completing an action. This allows companies to reengage with users in hopes of rekindling their interest in the brand’s products and services.

What is an impression? 

An impression occurs when a user sees your content, regardless of whether it was clicked or not. The number of impressions will always be higher than the reach rate because one user can account for multiple impressions. This metric can be used to quantify the number of views for ads, social media posts, web pages, and apps. 

What is reach? 

Reach is the total number of users who saw your piece of content, including followers and non-followers. Unlike impressions, reach is defined by the number of clicks and engagements your content receives. Any unique user that likes, comments, or shares your content is counted towards reach 

What is engagement? 

Engagement occurs when users interact with your digital content. This includes liking, sharing, commenting, answering polls, or clicking on links. By measuring measurement, brands can determine the effectiveness of an ad campaign, webpage, social media post, or blog.

Why should I post to my personal LinkedIn page as a business owner?

While it’s important to post to your business page on LinkedIn, posting to your personal page will almost always result in a larger audience seeing your post. Business pages historically don’t have as large of a reach as personal pages. Your connections want to see your posts!

Is Facebook useful for social media marketing anymore?

Yes and no. Having a Facebook presence is important. However, Facebook is making it harder every day for businesses to get any kind of organic traffic. If you want your Facebook business marketing to go farther, you have to put some ad dollars behind it. It doesn’t have to be a lot but it needs to be something.

Does social media benefit B2B businesses?

Social media absolutely benefits B2B businesses. While Instagram might not be your target audience, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google My Business are all important places to be for any B2B business. It’s always important to remember that businesses are ultimately run by people.

Social Media Scheduling FAQ 

What is a scheduler? 

A social media scheduler is a marketing automation tool that allows brands to schedule social media posts in advance. Brands can schedule posts weeks or months ahead of time, which means they will be less likely to miss a day. They can also choose the specific time they want their content to be published so it can have the most reach and impact on their audience. 

What are the benefits of using a social media scheduling tool? 

A social media scheduling tool means brands can maintain a constant social media presence without having someone actually be online 24/7. It would be a complete waste of time for brands to manually post every time, especially if they are posting various times throughout the day on multiple social media accounts. Instead, brands can efficiently schedule all posts ahead of time, which effectively saves time and resources that brands can then use elsewhere. 

Do social media platforms ding you for using social media scheduling tools? 

No, social media platforms will not penalize brands for using social media scheduling tools. In fact, creating and scheduling social media posts in advance actually allows brands to create better content, which positively affects reach and engagement.

Facebook FAQs

What are Facebook Badges?

Facebook Badges are a great way to boost engagement and community morale within Facebook groups. The badges allow page admins to identify, understand, and give incentives to valued group members. 

The “New Member” badge is given to new group members for the first two weeks – this will allow admins and “Greeters” to engage with the member and make them feel welcome. 

“Rising Star”, “Conversation Starter”, and “Conversation Booster” badges identify the members that are the most interactive with likes, comments, posts, and replies. 

How can brands use Facebook Messenger?

Brands can use Facebook Messenger to answer questions, share content, make buying easier, and a variety of other ways to support marketing goals. 

Sharing relevant content with supporters allows brands to keep themselves at the top of the user’s mind. Facebook Messenger is one of the best platforms for customer service – companies can ask questions, give feedback, and fulfill requests. 

Brands can also increase sales and conversations by offering tips, recommendations, reviews, demonstrations, and even making purchases directly on Messenger. 

What are social media bad habits?

The most common social media bad habits for brands include not listening to the audience, deleting negative feedback, or being too promotional. By practicing social listening, brands can receive valuable feedback from users about the brand, products, campaigns, and competition. 

Companies should never delete or ignore negative feedback from customers, instead the company should use this feedback to improve their products or services and regain the trust of the user. When it comes to social media, companies should have a solid mix of promotional, funny, creative, and informative. 

How much does it cost to advertise on Facebook? 

Facebook ads are a great choice for small businesses because companies have the ability to set their own budget and schedule. Brands can choose between a daily or lifetime budget, along with the dates the campaign will run. With advanced budget options, brands can also determine if they want to get charged per impression or page like. 

How do I create a Facebook ad? 

The first step when creating a Facebook ad is choosing your objective and building your target audience. Brands can either manually choose the places their ads are shown, or Facebook can automatically place the ads where they are likely to get the best results. Then, brands can choose your preferred ad format, such as carousel, single image or video, or collection. 

How do Facebook ads work? 

Brands can use Facebooks ads to promote their business, get more website visitors, boost posts, increase ticket sales, or to get more leads. Facebook offers a variety of tools to help brands target users based on specific demographics, interests, and behaviors. The ad will then appear in the News Feed of users that are most likely to be interested in your brand and products.

Instagram FAQs

What is IGTV?

IGTV is a video sharing service that can be accessed through both the Instagram and IGTV app. IGTV is Instagram’s answer to the demand of a long-form video platform. 

IGTV consists of three pages: a homepage feed, Explore page, and Account page. This allows users to watch videos from creators they already follow, as well as discover new accounts they might like. 

How do I use IGTV? 

Any user can set up their own IGTV channel as long as they have an Instagram account. Videos must be at least 60 seconds long and can be up to 60 minutes long. Even though the platform has a vertical design, IGTV videos can be horizontal or vertical. 

Video content can be added to IGTV from the IGTV app, from the Instagram app, or online at Instagram.com. Users can upload videos that have previously been recorded, or they have the option to record a new video directly on the app. Simply upload or record the video, add a title and description, and share. In addition to IGTV, videos can be shared on Instagram and Facebook to reach an even bigger audience. 

How can I market my IGTV videos?

Brands can draw more attention to their IGTV videos by promoting them on different social media platforms. While uploading video content, IGTV gives users the option to post a video preview on their Instagram feed and share the video to Facebook. This allows brands to save time and reach a bigger audience by sharing their content to three platforms at one time. 

Brands can also promote the preview and link on Instagram Stories, Facebook Stories, and other social media platforms, such as Twitter or TikTok. 

What are the different Instagram aesthetic trends?

There are a variety of different Instagram aesthetic trends to choose from, but remember to choose a trend that matches your brand’s content and purpose. 

If you want to match the aesthetic to your brand’s logo colors, stick to a single or double color theme. This means your feed will consist of photos and content that heavily feature those colors. 

Other popular IG aesthetic trends include applying the same editing style to each post, whether it be neon, grunge, or even “no-filter.”

All-in-all your aesthetic should come naturally based on your company’s mission. If you are a flower shop, focus on photos with bright colors or create a pink theme. Or if you own a photography business, a layout theme using different borders or crops will separate images and highlight your range. 

How do I build an Instagram aesthetic?

Let us start by saying an Instagram aesthetic is the overall look and feel of your account. Brands can build an Instagram aesthetic by publishing content with consistent color palette, editing style, and theme. 

A consistent Instagram theme is not only more visually appealing, but it also encourages users to follow your account. If users like your aesthetic and previous content, they know they will like any future content. 

How to add TikTok videos to Instagram?

TikTok has quickly risen to the heights of Facebook and Instagram in the social media world. TikTok gives brands a unique opportunity to share fun and informative video content with users. 

Sharing your TikTok videos on Instagram is a great way to grow your following and brand awareness. After posting a TikTok, click the arrow button on the bottom right-hand side and share to Instagram. Once the video saves, it will automatically direct you to the IG app where you can share the video to your feed or Stories. 

How much do IG ads cost? 

When creating Instagram ads, brands have complete control over how long their campaign or ad set will run and the overall spend. Brands can choose between daily budgets or lifetime budget – a daily budget is the average amount spent each day, while the lifetime budget is the maximum amount of money spent over the course of the ad set or campaign. 

How do I advertise on Instagram? 

In order to run ad campaigns on Instagram, businesses must first set up their Facebook Ad account and Facebook Page. There are two different ways to run Instagram ads: within the app and on Ads Manager. Within the app allows brands to promote posts they have already shared. Ads Manager is the same portal used when creating ads on Facebook. Using this tool, brands will be able to create entirely new campaigns by selecting the ad objective, target audience, and ad format. 

Are Instagram ads worth it? 

Yes! Instagram advertisements allow brands to promote posts, reach users that are similar to your existing followers, drive awareness, increase product sales, and boost website traffic. Instagram offers a variety of different ad formats, including Stories, carousel, video, collection, and even ads on the Explore page.

Pinterest FAQs

How is Pinterest changing web design?

Pinterest does not use traditional web design elements or building blocks. Instead of giving information directly, Pinterest organizes content into blocks, complete with a photo and the ability to like, repost, or comment.

This vertical, basic design layout has become commonplace in web design. Rather than showing content in reverse chronological order, many websites are now offering information in a non-linear fashion.

Is Pinterest good for small businesses?

Pinterest helps users find inspiration, but more importantly, find the products and services needed to carry out these ideas. Every idea is represented by a Pin, which provides users with more information and can link users back to websites. Links can be added to the product’s page, blog posts, or company website to drive sales and traffic.

How can I optimize my Pinterest posts?

Over the past few years, Pinterest has become one of the largest visual search engines. Since Pinterest does not post in chronological order, your posts can reach many more users than on other social media platforms. But, your content must be relevant and quality. Content that does not fit with what users are searching for will not see high levels of engagement. Encourage users to save Pins by include product images and a keyword-optimized description.

Tik Tok FAQs

How can I build brand awareness on TikTok?

There are two main ways to build brand awareness on TikTok: content and paid ad campaigns.

Many users are interested in learning more about the inner workings of brands, rather than just knowing their products and services. Brands can use the opportunity to share funny, yet informative content, such as behind-the-scenes tours, company culture, team members, or production process. Brands can also create hashtag challenges or collaborate with influencers to boost awareness.

Paid ads on TikTok are also extremely effective. Ads are shown to users as soon as they open the app, which has offered brands a high organic reach.

What kind of content works on TikTok?

The best type of content is short videos that have the potential to go “viral” or become popular within the app. A majority of users use the platform to share videos of them lip-synching, singing, dancing, or simply telling a story. Users can put trending hashtags in their captions or use prevalent sounds to gain popularity and be featured on the “For You Page.”

What is TikTok?

TikTok is one of the most popular social media platforms for creating and sharing short videos. Users can create videos that are up to 60 seconds long and utilize the numerous effects, filters, and sounds offered. The platform allows users to browse videos and interact with other users by liking, following, sharing, or duetting videos.

What is TikTok Automation? 

Every small business knows how time-consuming and challenging it can be to keep up with multiple social media accounts, especially when trying to grow your brand. TikTok automation is a tool that will like, comment, follow, unfollow, and message users based on audience demographics and preferences. These automatic interactions save brands valuable time and resources, while still working to increase your audience and reach. 

What makes a successful logo? 

A logo is an essential element of brand identity. An effective logo does not describe a company, it represents and signifies the brand. 

When designing a logo, brands should use shapes, colors, fonts, and images that are unique – this will help users differentiate your brand from other logos in the same industry. The logo should be immediately recognizable, appropriate, simple, and most importantly, timeless. 

How can I effectively communicate with customers? 

Effective communication is crucial for any small business – without it, current and potential customers will choose your competitors. In order to effectively communicate with customers, brands need to have a variety of skills including patience, attentiveness, honesty, active listening, and accuracy. Not only do these skills serve to improve customer service, but they also increase customer satisfaction and brand loyalty.

Twitter FAQs

Can you run ads on Twitter? 

Yes! Twitter offers a variety of different ad formats, including Promoted Tweets, Carousel Ads, and Videos. These campaigns help brands to achieve their marketing goals – whether that is maximizing reach, getting more website clicks, or increasing engagement and followers. 

Promoted Tweets and Videos allow brands to convey their message in a short and effective way while expanding reach and increasing engagement. Carousel Ads consist of up to six images or videos, which work to tell stories or highlight different products and services. 

How much does twitter ads cost? 

Unlike Facebook, Instagram, and other online platforms, Twitter has no minimum spend requirement for ad campaigns. That means, businesses can fully customize their Twitter ad campaign to fit their budget needs. Twitter Ads operate on a bidding system, and offer three different bidding options. With Max Bid, brands determine the maximum amount they will pay for an engagement. Automatic bids are automatically optimized according to campaign goal, while target bidding automatically optimizes the campaign to meet the average daily cost. 

Can you target ads on Twitter? 

With Twitter’s targeting tools, brands can ensure their ads are reaching the right people, when they’re most receptive. Key demographic targeting helps brands focus on reaching users based on location, language, device, age, and gender. Brands can also target specific audience types based on events, interests, keywords, conversations, and engagements.

Web Design Principles FAQs

What is a Call-To-Action?

The Call-To-Action is a prompt that encourages the user to take a specific action. The most common web design for call to actions is buttons, but they can also appear as textual links, phrases, and forms.

A CTA is the goal of the website, and more importantly, the goal of the website user. If the goal of your website is e-commerce, your CTA would be “Buy Now” or “Shop Now.” Or if your company provides information, you could use “Sign Up” or “Learn More” to promote user engagement.

What are web design standards?

Web design standards are the elements that users expect from all websites. If a website does not feature these components, users will have to spend time figuring out how the website works, resulting in unnecessary confusion and frustration.

Common web design standards include placing a logo in the top left-hand corner that links back to the homepage, a link to shopping cart in the top right-hand corner, search box, site map, and navigation schemes. These components ensure users do not miss important information and allow them to successfully achieve their goals.

How can I appeal to my website visitors?

The best way to learn about your audience is through social media engagement. Pay attention to the posts that receive the most comments, likes, and shares. These insights will show you the topics and messages that users value. By using similar topics and verbiage, companies can create content that website users will be interested in.

Surveys also provide a straightforward way to understand your target demographics by learning about your current audience. Companies can embed the survey into the website itself, or ask questions through emails and social media posts.

Technical SEO FAQs

What is Technical SEO?

Technical SEO refers to improving technical elements in an effort to improve search engine rankings. This includes server connection, responsive design, fast site speed, security, redirects, and site architecture. Focusing on these on-page elements will help improve how well search engines can crawl your website to index content.

Should I use image maps on my website?

An image map is commonly used on websites for navigation. The image would feature clickable areas that linked to a different destination. These maps are mainly used when the information is easier to convey using visually over textual content.

Despite their popularity in the past, image maps should no longer be used in web design. Not only are image maps unnecessarily complicated, they can slow page load times and confuse users.

What is Neumorphism?

Neumorphism combines flat design with real-life designs. This results in design elements that are familiar and recognizable, yet futuristic and realistic.

Neumorphism designs normally include highlights, shadows, depth, edges, frames, and colors to create clean interfaces.TweetPin4Share4 Shares

What is structured data? 

Structured data is a standardized way of providing information about a page that allows search engines to better understand the content of the page. Using structured data on your website will enable special search result features, such as Carousels, Courses, Events, FAQs, Images, and other rich results. 

How can I use Google structured data? 

To be eligible for rich results in Google Search, websites must follow the structured data guidelines set by Google. Structured data must be coded using one of the three different supported formats: JSON-LD, Microdata, and RDFa. The content of the structured data must be relevant, original, complete, and can not be spam. 

What is site migration? 

Site migration occurs when a website undergoes substantial changes that could potentially affect SEO. This normally occurs when a business is rebranding, moving from one domain to another, migrating from HTTP to HTTPS, or replatforming. To reduce migration risks, brands should always start small, plan ahead, test, monitor traffic, resolve any content issues, manage sitemaps, and most importantly, keep control of the old domain.

How long does SEO take to work?

On average, SEO takes three to six months to really take effect. However, you may see some changes and improvements right away. The main thing to keep in mind is that most SEO efforts take time since Google has so many different sites to visit and rank.  

What is Local SEO?

Local SEO is optimizing for the area that your business serves. This is especially important for small brick-and-mortar businesses that only serve a specific location. Building local SEO requires being listed in local directories and building out your Google My Business profile, among others. You also need to make sure that your city and state are listed prominently on your website.

How do local directories help my SEO?

Local directories are especially important for small businesses that focus primarily on one service area or have brick-and-mortar locations. As search engines see more listings for the business that follow appropriate name, address, and phone number guidelines, it is more likely to list the business.

Video SEO FAQ 

Are videos good for SEO? 

Yes, video content is good for SEO for a number of reasons! First off, search engines algorithm prefers ranking websites with high-quality visual content, such as videos. Videos also keep visitors on your website for longer, which shows search engines that your content is relevant and valuable. 

Not only does video content keep users longer, but it also attracts more website traffic overall. Users are more likely to visit your website after viewing your brand’s videos, and other websites are more likely to create backlinks to your video content. 

Do videos slow down a website? 

All video content needs to be properly optimized and formatted to ensure they do not slow down the website. Before uploading, brands should convert videos into a browser-friendly format and compress the size of their videos to prevent buffering. Do not play video content on a continuous loop – instead set it to only play once or after a user clicks on it. 

How do you optimize a video? 

When optimizing videos, brands should always start by creating purposeful, actionable content. If users only watch your video content for a few seconds before clicking away, search engines will begin lowering your rankings on SERP to make room for more useful and valuable videos. All key information should be fully completed, including keywords, meta descriptions, titles, and captions – this will help search engines better understand your content.

Voice Search FAQ 

What is voice search? 

Voice search allows users to search the Internet through spoken voice commands. The function is available on desktops or mobile devices, as well as virtual assistant devices, such as Amazon Echo or Google Home. For each voice search query, the voice assistant will use information from the Featured Snippet to answer the user’s question. 

How do you optimize a website for voice search? 

The most important strategy when optimizing for voice search is ensuring all website content is structured properly and readily available. This includes using conversational language, FAQs, long-tail keywords and phrases. Including these types of voice search-friendly content makes it easier for search engines to parse through your website and show it in search results. 

Why is voice search important? 

Voice search has become increasingly popular in recent years. An estimated 50% of searches are done using voice search, which equals to about 20,000 searches every second. Optimizing for voice search allows brands to drive more traffic and improve overall user experience.