Day: October 14, 2022

7 Helpful Digital Marketing Tips for Small Businesses

7 Helpful Digital Marketing Tips for Small Businesses

Are you struggling with improving your website, doing more for your social media, generating leads, or just about anything in the digital marketing field? Here are seven helpful digital marketing tips for small businesses like yours.

As a small entrepreneur or business owner, leveraging digital marketing is one of the keys to success, especially in our world today when everything is available at the tip of our fingers. Compared to traditional marketing, taking up your business to the digital world has so many more advantages. To learn how to get those advantages, heed these tips and advice.

Research Your Competitors and Differentiate Yourself From Them

Knowing your competition is vital because you would want to be able to offer additional value in your market. A great place to start your research is on Google. Observe how your competitors position themselves in terms of their ads. What are their selling points? How can you be different from them and do better? As per marketresearch.com, there are 6 ways you can differentiate your business from your competitor: your product, service, ways of distribution, customer relationship, brand image & reputation, and pricing.

Improve Your Website

The user’s experience should be your priority when it comes to improving your website. On top of the list, your website needs to be fast-loading, user-friendly, and attractive. Slow websites will lead to customers closing the tab to your site and most of the time, they won’t be returning. This will ruin your chance to convert new users into customers. As we shift into being a mobile-first world, page speed and page load time are becoming more and more important. Get tips from google on how you can reduce your website’s loading time.

Improve Google My Business Listing and Customer Reviews

Your business’s reputation online is just as good as the reviews and listings it has. People nowadays rely heavily on ratings and previous customer’s reviews before trusting a brand unknown to them. With Google My Business, you will be able to control and manage how people perceive your business. Optimize your listing by removing any duplicates and unnecessary promotional messages.

Create Interesting and Engaging Content

Being in a competitive industry, you have to constantly think up new ways to drive the results you want. Make sure that your content strategy builds up your brand’s reputation. Some tips to keep in mind when making the perfect blog post: put your audience first, use the correct tone of voice, make sure your blog is SEO friendly, and show your readers that they can rely on the information you release.

Not sure what blogging can do for your business? Read this: Why Blog for your Business?

Stuck and don’t know where to get new content ideas? Read this: Content Creation and Generating New Ideas

Create Professional Visual Content

Content will always be king and as we all know, content marketing has already proved itself to be an industry in its own right. That is why your content is an important part of your digital marketing strategy. Making content for your business is not only limited to blog posts, you can also make infographics and videos.

Video contents are all the rage these days, may it be short or long. According to Hubspot, 97% of marketers say that videos help increase brand awareness by showing how their products and services work. 76% say it helped their sales increase, and 81% of consumers have been convinced to make a purchase after watching a brand’s video. If these numbers don’t speak volume, I don’t know what does. Did you know that there are over 2 billion users worldwide logging into YouTube and consuming video content each month? Big brands such as Apple, Disney, Nike, Nintendo, and many others understand the power of video marketing and I think it’s time you should, too.

In need of a videographer? View our portfolio.

Focus on a Primary Social Media Channel

Social media is becoming a part of every business’ marketing strategy, and while it’s easy to fall into the hype and go along with the flow, social media marketing strategies are always changing as each platform changes. Small businesses would often ask what platform should they put more focus on. Well, that’s simple. It should be the platform that is most relevant to your business and where your audience and customers are the most active.

If your business leans toward offering products and services to other businesses, the choice is Linkedin and Twitter. If it’s for B2C, Instagram and Facebook are your options. Whatever you choose, have a primary social media channel to focus on and grow.

Improve Your Local SEO

Your local SEO is vital if you are a local business. Update and link your business to your location. Link building is also important. Build local links from local newspaper sites, bloggers, and sponsorship sites if there are any.

These digital marketing tips for small businesses should help you improve your overall business if you use these strategies wisely.

October 14, 2022
9 Tips on How to Do a Social Media Detox as a Good Marketer

9 Tips on How to Do a Social Media Detox as a Good Marketer

Being always active online and on social media can physically and mentally drain you. It’s been a concern for everyone who uses social media apps and taking a break from it once in a while will do wonders for your well-being. If you are searching for a sign to have a social media detox, this is it.

There is actually nothing wrong with spending time on social media. As marketers, it’s an outlet that helps and aids in our careers. It can also be a source of happiness and inspiration for some. However, when you can feel that the time you spend on these social media apps has bad effects on your life, it may be time to take a break from it.

A proper detox from social media can do wonders and has helped a lot of people become more relaxed, focused, and more productive.

6 Reasons Why Small Businesses Should Use Video Marketing

Social media apps like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and more, are the most common platforms that let people from any part of the world connect and communicate with each other. These platforms give us the ability to know what’s going on around the globe and form societies and friendships. When you focus on these aspects, these really make spending time on social media worthwhile as it teaches you new things. However, this is not the only thing that social media can give us.

Back then when social media wasn’t yet invented, people get to know about current events in newspapers and talk to actual people personally rather than just facing a screen to communicate. Today, we automatically grab our phones the moment we wake up to learn about the latest news and updates. We learn so many things on social media and we get to see news upon news on so many things – animal mistreatments, natural and man-made disasters, politics, terrorists, war, deaths caused by COVID19, and all sorts of heartbreaking news.

Getting all kinds of news in one sitting can cause anxiety and depression. And as an avid social media user, it’s recommended to step back from these mentally draining things to put your focus more on your personal and business life. As a marketer, you should not let the number of likes and comments on your promotional posts get you stressed.

We all want to be productive and use our time wisely so that we can improve our lives. With the toxicity of social media these days, it’s no secret that sometimes it really affects people negatively. So when this does happen to you, you can always have a social media detox to take care of your mental health.

How to Do a Social Media Detox

Here are some tips you can do to lessen or maybe stop the negative impact of social media on your life.

Look and scrutinize your apps

Do you really use all of the apps you have on your phone? Look into it and really think about it if each app is significant in your daily life.

Oftentimes, we just download an app thinking that it can be helpful for us eventually. So, the first step in your social media detox is to review the current social media apps you have on your phone and delete the ones you rarely use.

If there are any apps that are not necessary for your work, remove them. You don’t have to interact with its content as its notifications will only distract you or add to your stress. Moreover, additional apps will only consume your phone’s storage space, so you won’t only take care of your mental health, you’ll also be making way for more storage space for more work-related stuff.

Turn off all push notifications

Push notifications are those messages that pop up on your phone whenever something new happens from a certain app. It’s when your phone lights up and pings to alert you that there’s something new. What this most likely does is stop you from whatever it is you’re doing and check your phone to see what the notification is about. When you disable the push notifications, you’ll have the power to decide when to look at your phone instead of getting distracted every time it pings. This will allow you to regain control over your attention and time.

Remove the apps from your home screen

When you have all of your apps on your phone’s home screen like most people, chances are you can’t help but browse on them when you find yourself bored. Removing some apps from your home screen and only leaving those really important ones can be helpful. Put them into folders so they’re not always visible and you’ll be less tempted to access them. Out of sight, out of mind…

Don’t take your phone to bed

During bedtime, it’s not advisable to take your phone with you. Leave it out of arm’s reach at least an hour before bed so that it’s not the last thing you see at night. It can be quite tempting to browse through social media before sleeping but this is just counter-productive and it will even affect your sleeping habits.

Schedule Your Posts in Advance Social Media Detox

Social media is a part of your job and it’s understandable to allot a certain time of your day to check upon them. But if you want to take a social media detox, it’s still possible to keep the accounts you manage active by simply scheduling your posts in advance. There are many social media scheduling tools that you can use and you can create updates in bulk and schedule them ahead of time.

Decide on Active and Non-Active Hours Social Media Detox

Set your daily pace and decide the average time you’re gonna use Social Media Detox. Schedule a certain time of your day dedicated only to working on your social media accounts and when to stop using them. Make a conscious effort to focus on the real world and do the important tasks you’re supposed to do. If you find this challenging, place your phone somewhere you can’t see it and use your desktop or laptop and open your messaging apps there so you’ll only chat with your colleagues about work-related issues.

Start small and go offline for a day

FOMO or Fear of Missing Out is real and it’s not as easy for everyone to just turn off their phones and go offline to take a break from social media. So to ease in a social media detox in your life, take baby steps and start small. Start with spending a few hours going offline and see how it goes from there. You can then build up your offline moments up to a day or two as you incorporate this practice into your life.

Organize Social Media-Free Weekends

As a marketer, it may be ‘impossible’ for you to leave your phone even for just a while. You think you always have to be online to catch up on the latest trends in your field and niche. In this case, you can choose to be social media-free on weekends or during your days off. Go do other activities that don’t require you to use your phone for a change. Go hiking, meet your friends, read books, or maybe go swimming.

Find A Detox Buddy Social Media Detox

Having a detox buddy will push you through doing it more than just by doing it yourself. Having someone on the same journey with you will motivate you and will hold you accountable to really do that social media detox. You’ll both root for each other and push one another to go through with your journey.

Final Thoughts

We live in a digital era where phones and social media have overtaken our lives. Being in the digital marketing industry, you won’t be able to avoid using social media from time to time but you can always control it. Follow the tips we shared above and you can then use your free time constructively, doing other things that will make you more productive.

Taking a social media detox once in a while will let you live a simpler and much calmer life. You’ll get to take care of your mental health as you spend your time wisely doing other things than just mindlessly scrolling through your phone. Take this as a step for a better lifestyle and you’ll gain the benefits eventually Social Media Detox.

If you liked this article, make sure to visit our blog for more.

October 14, 2022
5 More Free Websites That Every Content Creator Should Know
5 More Free Websites That Every Content Creator Should Know

Being in the digital marketing industry, especially in the content creating scene, you need to always be on the lookout for exciting ways to create new quality content. With that said, while we have already posted 9 Helpful Tools for Content Creation a few weeks ago, there are still more free websites that every content creator should know. If you are one, these will be very helpful, if you are not, this knowledge could still be valuable.

Let’s take a look at these websites, shall we?

Free Websites Every Content Creator Needs to Know

Answerthepublic

This is one helpful website when you want to know what people are asking on the internet, whether it’s on social media sites or forums and communities. Answerthepublic allows you to generate ideas for topics you can write that will be interesting for your audience.

The website is easy to use. You only have to type down a keyword or a topic related to your industry and then it will give you results with popular questions and other keywords related to your topic. It’s a great tool to learn more about what people are searching for online. You can get inspiration for a new blog post or social media content here, so utilize it as much as you can!

Ubersuggest

This tool from Neil Patel’s website is a keyword research tool that can help you find relevant keywords when you are creating content. Ubersuggest gives you 3 free searches daily and this tool shows you a list of related keywords, their volume of searches per month, their CPC, and the level of competition in paid and organic search. It will show you if this certain keyword and other topics surrounding it is worth creating content for.

Headline Studio

This is a free online tool you can use to write catchy headlines for your posts, all you have to do is make an account and you can then start using it. Type in the headline you’ve thought of and click the ‘Analyze Now’ button. This free tool will give you a score and data about how powerful your headline is. It will give you insights into how many times web users have viewed similar articles and what makes them engaging. This headline analyzer tool will also give you tips and suggestions on how to improve your headline.

Copy.ai

This free tool is perfect for content creators who needs a little help when they feel a little lazy (ahem). If you feel lazy to start writing from scratch, Copy.ai can help you by leveraging its features to reduce the time and effort you spend on writing content and copy. It’s basically a tool that writes copy for you with the help of an AI.

Copy.ai generates a copy that sounds as authentic as possible and it provides you with choices that you can then tweak and edit to your liking. Here’s some stuff Copy.ai can write for you:
- Blog posts
- Social media captions
- Social ads
- Email and sales copy
- Product descriptions
Pexels

In our other blog, we included Unsplash as a free website to get free images. Another one that’s just as good is Pexels. It’s a great resource for free high-quality photos you can instantly use for whatever project you have. The photos are readily available in different sizes and are free of watermarks. Just search for any photos on the website and download as much as you like!

Final Thoughts

And those are the free websites that every content creator should know. It’s always a welcome sight to learn more things when it comes to furthering our knowledge in improving our craft. As content creators, it’s important to always have a plan B when struck with the ever-elusive creative and writer’s block. And in digital marketing, this will happen often if not all the time especially when swamped with so much content to create. Use these helpful tools to make your job easier. Work smart.
October 14, 2022
10 Actionable Content Marketing Tips for Digital Marketers

Content Marketing Tips for Digital Marketers

With millions of blogs on the world wide web, content marketing has exploded and has grown exponentially over the years. But with every brand making use of this marketing strategy effectively, content marketing has become saturated more than ever.

It’s easy to get lost and overwhelmed in this jungle and having these many competitors, is it still going to be worth your time to join the bandwagon?

Yes, because if not, you will be missing out on a lot of opportunities and leads that will be useful for your business.

Here are 10 actionable content marketing tips that you can implement in your content strategy.

Plan your content

First things first. Define your goals. What do you want to achieve with your business? What do you hope your business will become in a year? Do you want to reach more audiences? Do you want to have more site readers? Do you want to rank on SERPs?

Just like any aspect of your life, you’ll have to know what you want to achieve before you try to achieve it. Set out a goal and create your content marketing plan on how to achieve that goal.

Write relevant content

Having high-quality content for your website is only great when that content is also relevant to your niche. Users are more interested in content related to your industry because that is what they came for you.

Do your research to find out what your audience is looking for. There are many useful online tools like Google Analytics and Google Trend Finder to help you find relevant topics to write about. Make your content engaging and make sure that they are free from grammar errors and typos.

Check your content for grammatical and typographical errors

Don’t publish anything without checking them twice and proofreading them. Typos and grammar errors are painful to the reader’s eye and they will cause you to lose your credibility. These errors will also reduce the quality of your content and will ultimately affect your content’s potential to be ranked on Google. So be aware of this factor. A tool like Grammarly or Hemingway can be very useful in checking typos and basic grammar errors.

Use headlines and proper structures

Understand that content with proper formatting, headlines, and structure makes it more visually interesting that will capture a reader’s eye. Make sure that your content is properly edited before you put it out for your audience to see.

Create the right headlines, subheadings, and bullet points. Make your sentences bite-sized so they’re easier to digest.

Use relevant keywords

In content marketing, keywords are very important. Using relevant keywords will make your content visible to the search engines that will eventually drive traffic to your website. Use keyword finder tools to find the relevant keywords in your niche that you can strategically use in your content.

Educate first, sell later

When you write content for your business, you always have it in the back of your mind to sell something. And we can’t deny that content sells, just don’t do it directly. Hard selling makes your audience feel uncomfortable and this may discourage them from reading what you have to say.

Instead, talk about your products or services subtly and make your audience aware of its features and benefits and how they can improve their lives. Introduce your products and educate your readers about them first, and then sell them afterward.

Offer a strong Call to Action

A call-to-action is important and all of your content should have it at the end. This is what you want your readers to do after consuming your content. How do you want them to proceed? What do you want them to do next?

Create a strong call to action. Do you want them to visit your blog and read more content? Link-related articles that might interest them. Want to offer them your product or service? Put that in your article.

Be mobile-friendly

More and more people now use mobile phones and it would be safe to say that we surf the web more using our phones. It’s important to have your website responsive for mobile.

Optimize your website, images, and ads so that they are mobile-responsive.

Gain authority with guest posts

Guest blogging has been popular in the blogging world and it’s done so that your blog can gain authority. It allows you to get backlinks from authority websites and gain a new network from the host blog. It’s a great way to not only promote your brand but also build your brand authority.

Be consistent with your content update

In our fast-paced world today, content has become outdated for just about a year or two. So aside from writing new content, it’s also important for you to update your old content to keep them relevant with the times.

Go through your blog and rewrite things you need to rewrite. Update your resources and check if all of your links are still functioning. Replace outdated images and refresh your intros and outros.

Audit your blog to see which entries you need to update.

We hope that these actionable tips will help you improve your content writing skills and content marketing strategy. Online content marketing can be overwhelming but put these tips into practice and you’ll see it’s worth it.

Need SEO help? Visit our blog for more tips and useful information.

Need any digital marketing help? VE Digital offers different services to aid businesses with their digital marketing. Contact us today!

October 14, 2022