Technology

As we enter the third decade of the twenty-first century, we’re well into the digital age, and the world of marketing will never be the same. Every business, from the most massive multinational conglomerate to the smallest mom-and-pop shop, must now consider their digital brand. Of course, this is easier said than done, since the world of digital marketing is fickle and ever-changing. Here are a few tips to help make sure you are keeping up with branding in the digital age: 

Who Is Your Ideal Customer?

One of the great advantages for smaller businesses in the digital age is the ability to target a very specific customer base, without spending millions in advertising costs. With modern SEO tactics, artificial intelligence, and the latest software, you can send tailor-made ads right to your ideal customers for a relatively low cost. However, this comes with its own challenge: who is your ideal customer? What audience are you trying to reach with your business?

To discover exactly who you should be targeting with your ads, first put yourself in the customers’ shoes. What product are you selling? Who, exactly, can benefit from this product? Why should customers choose your product over your competitors? Once you can answer these questions, you can begin to narrow it down even further. 

Where is your ideal customer located? What is their occupation? Where will they buy your product? When do they buy? How often? Once you have answered all of these questions, you’ll be able to optimize your advertising towards this prospective customer. 

Strive For Consistency!

Consistency has always been key in branding. This was true long before the digital age, but it’s especially true now. Indeed, remaining consistent is especially crucial for online advertising, because your potential customers will see your brand from multiple angles. That is to say, if a customer takes notice of an ad on Instagram, and follows a link on that ad to your Facebook, and then another link to your company website, your pages on all those sites should feel like a unified whole. Many businesses fail to do this, and this lack of consistency costs them customers. 

How, exactly, do you remain consistent? Start simple: use the same font, the same colors, and the same letter sizing across sites. You should also strive for a consistent tone; different web pages shouldn’t be tailored to completely different customers. Simplicity is also key; don’t needlessly complicate things. Just know what your message is, who it is for, and be confident in your product. 

What Is Your Brand Message? 

Creating a consistent, unified product that is perfectly tailored to your ideal customer really boils down to one thing: brand messaging. You have to have a vision for your brand, and you have to be able to communicate that to your customers. First, think of your ideal customer. Why should they choose your product over that of your competitors? Or, more specifically, what problem are you solving for your customers? If you can’t answer these questions, you may need to go back to the drawing board, because you don’t have a strong vision. 

Actually, you should be able to answer several questions about your business. What does your company believe in? What are your core ideals? What is your core mission? The answers to these questions will inform all of the content you create, and that is your brand message. 

SEO

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is an absolutely crucial feature of marketing in the digital age. In fact, without it, your business is unlikely to ever go anywhere, regardless of how great your product is, and how strong your brand message is. Nothing else you do will matter if potential customers can’t find you, and, in the modern digital age, they will be looking for businesses like yours via search engines. 

There are several strategies you should be undertaking in order to ensure your brand appears at the top of your potential customer’s search results. Make sure that all of the content, across all of your company pages, is on-brand, and on-message. Absolutely every sentence you type, and every picture you post, should be in service of displaying your brand message to the world.

Another key to success in SEO is schema. Schema is a code that you place into your website to make your search engine results more informative for users. For example, let’s say you sell sporting goods through your website, and you find that the ideal customer in a certain area seems to be most interested in tennis. Through schema markup, you can make it so that when a prospective customer searches for “Sporting Equipment,” the result that they find includes information on “Tennis Equipment.” This will make the customer that much more likely to click on your page over that of potential competitors. 

Expand Your Reach Through Social Media

If you want to survive in the business world in the modern day, you need to have a reach on social media. We’re not simply talking about paid ads, either: those will only get you so far. You want social media that customers will share with one another, organically, and if your social media is well-crafted and engaging, they will do just that. 

If you manage to target your social media to the right place, and you target the right customers, you’ll end up expanding your reach even further as your customers share your brand with one another. Discuss how to expand your reach with your SEO professionals. 

Build Relationships With Your Customers

Of course, no amount of advertising success is going to matter if you can’t earn the loyalty of a devoted cadre of customers. In order to survive in the business world, you have to develop a relationship with your customers. How can you do this? Well, how do you develop a relationship with anyone? You engage with them. Empathize with them. Treat them with respect and courtesy. If a customer sends you a message, never ignore it. If they have a complaint, address it quickly. If they pay you a compliment, thank them. As you develop a relationship with your customer base, you will put down the roots for a long-lasting, successful business. 

Spread Awareness Of Your Brand Through Search Engine And Programmatic Marketing

Search Engine Marketing is different from Search Engine Optimization, but no less crucial to the success of your brand. While SEO seeks to place you at the top of search engine results, SEM is focused on paid, targeted ads. In some ways, this is similar to SEO – you need to ensure you are targeting the right customers, for example – but in other ways, it’s a bit different. You will need to keep track on who is clicking on your ads, how long they are spending on your pages, etc., and you will use this information to create better targeted ads in the future. 

Programmatic marketing is similar to SEM and SEO, and is becoming ever more important in the business world. Programmatic marketing creates targeted ads through automated bidding on advertising inventory. In other words, you’ll be competing with other businesses to reach the exact same customers. How much are you prepared to pay to ensure your ad can be seen? How can you ensure that utilize this as effectively as possible? Discuss this with your online marketing professionals. 

Connect With Relevant Influencers

Influencers are increasingly more important in the social media world of today, and if you can connect with the right ones, you’ll find that you are automatically in touch with a built-in customer base. For example, if you have a business that’s devoted to selling clothing to a certain demographic, you can pay an influencer to wear your brand in an Instagram post. Instantly, you’ll be connected to a wide array of people who are already interested in clothing and looking for the perfect thing to wear. This will immediately increase your brand visibility and help put your business on the map. 

Work with Professionals

Running a business means there are a million things on any given day that require your attention.  Often, overseeing your own digital branding is the type of thing that has to fall by the wayside. Working with professionals that understand your brand and your vision can be key for success. Intrix Media digs deep to understand the core of your business, and to communicate it to your target audience.  Contact us today to learn how we can work with you to supercharge your digital branding. 

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an industry that, since its inception, has never stopped evolving. This  should come as no surprise: any major industry that’s technology based needs to always be growing, adapting, and developing in response to the ever-changing market. 

2020 promises to be one of the most innovative years in the history of SEO. Even in a field that’s defined by its ability to track with the latest trends and technologies, recent advancements have been proceeding at a breakneck pace. 

All these advancements are exciting, of course; but they can also be a little stressful if you find that you’re not up-to-date. After all, if you’re a business owner, you should be doing everything you can to keep current with the latest developments in the world of SEO. Your competitors certainly will be! Read on to learn about what to expect with SEO in 2020: 

Voice Search

Voice searching as a technology certainly isn’t new. Actually, it’s probably older than you think: digital assistants like Siri first started to appear way back in 2011! That means we’re approaching a full decade of being able to search the web with our voices alone. 

Nevertheless, in the early years this was a technology in its infancy, and it had more value as a novelty than as a legitimate search feature that SEO companies had to take note of. Lately, though, all that is changing: more and more homes are making use of digital assistants such as Siri, Cortana, and Alexa. 

The newfound popularity of these digital assistants has had – and will continue to have – a profound effect on the world of SEO. After all, it has completely changed the way that people search the internet. It’s now possible to search the web while you are engaged in other activities, such as driving, cooking, or planning an event. Finding a nearby pizza place is as simple as asking your smartphone a question. 

With voice searches becoming ever more popular, search engine optimization is being tailored to match it. After all, people do not speak and type the same way: often, they’ll type only one or two words into a search, whereas a query that is spoken out loud may be much longer and more complex. This means that, in 2020, SEO companies will have to make major changes to various common keywords, as well as anticipate questions related to the businesses that hire them. 

Featured Snippets

Search engines such as Google are making every greater use of Featured Snippets. If you’ve spent any time searching for information online, you’ve most likely already seen a snippet relating to your query. It’s actually a very advanced technology, making use of algorithms to try to place the right answer to your query at the very top of the search results. 

For example, if you were to search, “Where is the Eiffel Tower?” you would get back page after page of search results, with all of the information on the Eiffel Tower you ever wanted to know. But in a box at the very top of the page, you’d receive the exact answer to your specific question: the exact address, in Paris, France, of the Eiffel Tower. That box is your Featured Snippet, and if it answers your question, you may never read any further on the page. 

The same applies to businesses. For example, if you search, “best food near the Eiffel Tower,” a very short list of restaurants will show up. The restaurants in this snippet, of course, will have far more visibility than any others searched for in the area. 

It’s for this reason that businesses are clamoring to ensure they show up on Google’s Featured Snippets. SEO companies will be working overtime in 2020 to ensure their clients utilize the right keywords and keep within the optimal word count to try and earn a spot in that coveted box. 

AI 

Each year, artificial intelligence (AI), becomes more and more advanced. And while we’re probably still a few years away from robot butlers ala C-3PO in Star Wars, AI is already having a profound effect on the world economy. The fact is that an AI can discover patterns that humans simply can’t, and in the world of Search Engine Optimization, this is a huge plus. 

Major search engines such as Google will make use of AI to read the entirety of your website as a search is happening, and utilize the information therein to decide where you should rank in a search result. You will need to be a step ahead of this in 2020. 

If you put your SEO data in the hands of the right AI software, it will be able to deliver you a huge amount of incredibly valuable information. It can discover the best recommended keywords – and other keywords related to those – as well as recommended word count, and all sorts of details pertaining to your potential customers’ preferred searches. 

Video

Here’s another feature of the Internet that has become absolutely ingrained into our daily lives: videos. People view multiple internet videos every day, and take in a good deal of their advertising from them. Online videos have replaced television and radio for millions of people all over the world. 

Despite this popularity, however, many businesses still aren’t grasping how to optimize searches so that their videos appear first. It’s simply not the same as other types of SEO, and if you want to know what to expect from SEO in 2020, you will need to start thinking about video SEO. 

If you want to take advantage of the power of online videos, you have to create a product that people will watch – remember, your videos are competing with thousands of other things for their attention – and ideally, one they will come back to. In 2020, you will have to work with your SEO company to ensure your videos rank. 

Mobile UX

The last few decades have seen more and more industries become digitized, and in 2020, everyone will be looking to their phone for nearly everything. Each year, more and more purchases happen online, and more and more people don’t even bother with a desktop compute for most of their chores. It’s all done via mobile phones. 

Despite this, some businesses remain desperately behind the times when it comes to Mobile User Experience (UX). The fact is, it doesn’t matter how great your product is; if it can’t be easily accessed on a phone, you simply won’t sell. In the world of SEO in 2020, nearly every business everywhere will have to ensure that mobile users have a positive experience when searching their products online. 

User Safety

If you have spent vast amounts of money – not to mention countless hours – to ensure that your business ranks high in search engine results, then it would certainly be devastating to lose all that in an instant. And yet, if your web security is poor, this is exactly what can happen. 

In a world where more and more things are becoming digital, cyber security is becoming more and more critical. Indeed, the security of your website has a direct affect on your SEO rankings. If your site becomes hacked, that could spell the end of your SEO rankings, but even unsuccessful attempts from hackers can slow down your traffic. 

Why are hackers targeting your site, anyway? Well, the reason is actually SEO. By putting malware onto your page, hackers can alter the links you have on your website and replace them with spam. Ultimately, this can lead to your site becoming blacklisted, which will have a profoundly negative affect on your business prospects. Despite this, only about half of businesses take the time to protect themselves from malware. In 2020, make sure that you are fully committed to user safety. 

Location Specificity 

Chances are, you’ve already put some thought into location-specific SEO. After all, most businesses operate at a local level and you will presumably be targeting a specific demographic, whoever they may be. How granular you should get with this; however, depends on the nature of your business.

In other words, let’s say you are operating an Italian restaurant in a major metropolitan area. If that’s the case, you’ll want people in that area to find you when they search “Italian Restaurant,” “Italian Food,” “Best Restaurant Near Me,” and similar queries. It’s crucially important that your SEO has a specific focus on your area, otherwise your restaurant will simply get lost among the vast amount of other search results for “Italian Food.” 

Schema Markup

One of the more recent developments in the SEO world, schema markup is currently rather under appreciated, with few business owners understanding its true value. In 2020, that will begin to change. 

Schema markup is a code that’s placed into your website that helps to organize your search results. Without it, the search engine won’t know what to focus on. So while your page may come up, as far as the search is concerned, it will just be a jumble of information. 

As an example, let’s go back to the aforementioned Italian Restaurant. If your restaurant is famous for its ravioli, you could put schema markup around the word “ravioli” on your website, rendering it more important than the thousands of other words there. That way, when local people search, “ravioli near me,” they’ll be able to see a snippet of your menu. This can be invaluable when driving traffic to your site.  

SEO Progress

Although it can feel like a lot to keep up with, these constant developments are what make SEO such a powerful and effective tool.  These changes are exciting, and having a thorough understanding allows businesses to utilize them for their advantage. That’s why it’s so important to work with professionals who live and breath SEO and digital marketing, and who can understand the possibilities for your business. 

Try Intrix Media’s free SEO Audit today, and get a thorough analysis of the SEO status of your website, as well as the improvements you can implement. 

Your website is important. It’s the core of your online presence and likely how others find and engage with you. Whether you’re running a business, a blog, or using your site as a personal portfolio, keeping your site secure is crucial.

All websites, however, can be targeted by hackers, who may put spammy links throughout your content, infect your site with malware, or even shut your site down until you pay a ransom. In fact, according to a recent study, more than 150,000 small businesses could be infected with malware at any given moment.

Fortunately, we’ve put together some tools and strategies for keeping your site secure in 2020. Using these maintenance techniques, you can protect your data and help to prevent hackers from gaining access to your website. Let’s take a look!

1. Use a Secure Password

This might sound obvious, but it is a truly important part of maintaining the security of your website, and your password might not be as safe as you think. If it’s too short or not complex enough, hackers can use what’s called a brute force attack to break into your website. 

Brute force attacks use software to randomly generate passwords to try and get into your website. In some cases, these programs can try thousands of different passwords a second until they find the right one. Then, once they’re in, the hacker has free reign to do whatever they want to your site. 

To avoid this, always follow the recommended password guidelines. It is recommended that your passwords be at least eight characters long and always include at least one number and one special character (such as a # or @). Do this and you will make it much harder for anyone to break into your system. 

If you’re having trouble coming up with a password, you can use a password-management app to generate a complex one for you. It will then save your password and automatically fill it on your devices when you go to sign in. 

2. Set Up Two-Factor Authentication

For additional security, use two-factor authentication to protect your website. Two-factor authentication adds a second piece of information that will be required to log in to your account. 

You’ve likely encountered some forms of multi-factor authentication. One type uses a CAPTCHA, such as Google reCAPTCHA, to help prevent bots or automated software from accessing your account. Other types require the person logging in to have a seperate device, such as a smartphone. In these instances, a code is sent to the person’s device that must be entered in order to access the website.

Even if using two-factor authentication seems like an inconvenience, it will also make it almost impossible for brute force attacks and other software to break in. Although once only employed by high-level government websites, it is now common practice and recommended for all website owners. 

3. Install a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) Certificate 

Another important piece of website security that needs to be mainted is your SSL certificate. Fortunately, most web hosts come with a free option, such as Let’s Encrypt, or offer a number of different ones.

You may have noticed the padlock symbol next to the URL on many websites. That symbol means the website has SSL protocol activated. This extra layer of protection encrypts data that is sent back and forth from your website to the server so that even if someone is able to intercept your data, it will appear to them as a string of random characters and they won’t be able to read it. 

As you may be thinking, this is particularly important for e-commerce stores or any website that deals with sensitive information, such as credit card numbers or classified data. However, it’s also a good idea to activate an SSL for your site because it is good for SEO. Google ranks websites with an SSL higher than those that don’t have one. 

4. Keep All of Your Software Up to Date

No matter what platform you choose for managing your site, software updates are critical. Without them, your website may not run as smoothly and could experience glitches or even downtime. 

It is especially critical to be on the lookout for security updates and install them right away. Many times, software developers push these kinds of updates out when a possible security weakness is discovered, either by users or by hackers themselves. When this is the case, some hackers will try to exploit this weakness before it is patched and if you’re one of the ones who is slow to update, your site could be at risk. 

The good news is, most updates are small and won’t take up much of your time. Some systems can even install them in the background while you’re working on other things. On top of that, you can usually set up automatic updates or install an app to manage them for you.

5. Back Up Your Website Regularly

Just like updates, another important security measure to make a part of your maintenance routine is to back up your website regularly. After all, a lot goes into creating and running a website and bad things can happen. 

For instance, with a proper backup file, you can restore your website even if a hacker manages to get in and hold it for ransom. In this circumstance, you will be able to delete your website and start again from your last backup. This is especially critical if you run a business, as any amount of downtime could mean lost customers and revenue. 

There are a number of ways to go about backing up your site. You can, of course, do it manually, but almost every platform has a way to automatically manage backups. With WordPress, for example, you’ll find a number of plugins you can install for monthly, weekly, and even daily backups, such as Jetpack.

Keep Your Site Secure in 2020

Just like a car or a home, your website requires maintenance. Using the tools and strategies discussed in this article can help in keeping your site secure in 2020. Checking the following regularly can save you a lot of money, time, and trouble in the long run:

1. Use a secure password.
2. Set up two-factor authentication.
3. Install an SSL certificate. 
4. Keep all of your software up to date. 
5. Back up your website regularly.

Questions? Comments? We’re always happy to discuss website security and maintenance. Ask away in the comments section below! Or, if you need assistance to keep your site secure, connect with the Intrix pros!

Every year, hundreds of thousands of new small businesses are registered. In 2020, each of these small business, in order to be competitive, needs an online presence. Sometimes, that presence can exist solely on social media.  But for most of us, our business is best represented by it’s own website. Professional websites can be a major investment, but there are services like Squarespace and Weebly that let you build your own DIY website for a much lower cost. The question is, when is it necessary to invest in a professionally-built website, and when is it reasonable to go the DIY route?  By answering six questions, you can determine this for your business. 

What is the scope of your business?

What does your website need to do? Is it sharing basic information, selling goods, or organizing data?  How interactive is it? How complex does it need to be? The less functionality your website requires, the more likely it is that you can create a DIY page. 

If your website is mostly a blog, this is something that most people can handle on their own. They make the updates themselves with no middleman, and don’t require a high level of branding, personalization, or functionality.  

However, if you marketplace requires functionality, specific branding, or interactive tools like online contracts or online account access, you need to invest in professional web development. If you are taking data and information from your audience, you need to know the site is secure and that user experience will be solid.

What is the level of competitor websites?

In order to launch a website, not to mention a new business, you have to research your competition. Search for websites with a similar business model and offerings, and comb through their website.  Analyze what they offer potential clients as far as information, organization, usability, and responsiveness. Check out the advanced visual effects of the website.

Acess the best and worst parts of competitor sites and consider how you would create your own website. Sometimes a professional web designer’s most important use is helping you create a unique digital brand that doesn’t resemble other businesses. They can also keep your technology at or above the level of your competitors. 

If your competition has a robust and sophisticated website, then you most likely need to work with a team that can create and manage a quality site.  However, if you have little competition or if your competition doesn’t have a great online presence, you can start with a basic DIY site.

Who is your audience?

As you research competitors, you also need to research your audience. What are the expectations of this demographic? What style and layout do they often find familiar and appealing?

There is a different standard if you are selling a simple product to dog lovers, or if you are selling an app to tech industry insiders.  If you are blogging for moms, or for travel enthusiasts. 

Know your audience well enough to know what information will be of the most value to them, what level of usability they prefer, how much time they spend online, the aesthetic they will find most appealing, the ways in which they might search for your product.  The standards and needs of your potential customers will help you know how high-tech your website needs to be.

What skills does your existing team have?

What skills and knowledge does your existing team have? If you have someone that is familiar with coding or website development, you may be able to leverage those skills.

If you or your team have built sites before and are already are familiar with the time required, the pitfalls and holdups, and the resources needed, then building your site yourself is a great option. 

If this is a totally new skill to everyone, you may find that it’s worth employing professionals to get you up and running properly. 

What’s Your Budget?

Budget is a major consideration. If you run an established business, or have access to startup capital, it’s well worth it to devote the money required for a professionally built site. Further, it’s worth it to have the site managed to make sure updates are performed properly and the site is secure. 

However, if you are starting from scratch with little funding, a DIY site may be the only way to go. Luckily, many website builders offer tiered pricing so you can just pay for the services you need.  Plus, you can build a basic site, and then graduate to a professional site when your business begins making money. However, most DIY sites don’t allow you to retain the rights to what you’ve created, so when you move on to a more advanced site, you will have to recreate everything.  Most people, however, find that they are ready for enough advancements that this is well worth it.

What is the Timeline?

Many DIY website builders face a problem with perfection. When building a site yourself, it’s easy to feel like the site is never good enough. Many people just don’t have adequate time, especially with the demands of starting a new business, to pull off the vision that they have in their heads of their completed website.

Professional website developers are very up-front about the time and cost to complete your vision, and have the experience to be accurate in their estimates.  They also have the resources to complete updates and solve problems in a timely fashion. 

Investing in a Professionally-Built Website

After considering the above, you most likely know the best route for your business. One final consideration is this: let’s say you have the time, most of the skills, and the vision to create your own site. The question is, will you? Will you actually make the time in the immediate future to get through the frustrations and difficulties? If you will, great, then do it now. 

If you have a list a mile long of other things you have to get to first, then bite the bullet and employ professionals.  Intrix Media provides any and all digital services, including branding, web development, and hosting. Let us work with you to create a website you will love.

If you write it, they will come. That is, as long as you’re writing for SEO. 

For many online businesses, having a content marketing strategy in place is a major factor to their success. However, you can’t write just anything and expect people to come running to your website. After all, the most successful content is carefully crafted using Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques. 

The good news is, the basics of writing for SEO may be easier than you think. With proper keyword implementation, an effective linking strategy, and a few simple tricks, the next content you write is sure to find your customers. 

Writing for SEO: What Is Search Engine Optimization?

Too often, with a buzzword like SEO, people will talk about it without really knowing what it means. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving your content to rank highly in search results. 

In other words, the techniques we are going to discuss may help your content and your website to be searched for and found more easily. The higher the ranking of your content, the more it will appear as a top link in popular search engines, such as Google. When it does this, your customers are far more likely to find it, click on it, and engage with your website. 

Also important to note, you can use SEO techniques in all forms of copy, in both long-form blog posts and in short-form webpage writing. For example, with blog content, you’ll want to carefully craft valuable information or expertise you have to share around a keyword targeted at your particular audience. On the other hand, for short-form page copy, you’ll want to implement keywords in much the same way, providing a clear description of what each page is for, both for search engine crawlers and for website visitors. This is particularly important for Call to Action (CTA) pages. 

How to Write for SEO (4 Crucial Strategies)

Writing for SEO starts with a keyword or phrase to build your content around. From there, implementing the following strategies will help to give your content an SEO boost. Let’s take a look…

1. Research Your Keywords

Using effective keywords can make all the difference when it comes to the success of your content. Finding popular keywords in your industry in which you can rank highly is the key to driving organic traffic to your website. 

To identify keywords that will work best for your content, it helps to do a little research. One of the most effective ways to go about this process is to use Google Keyword Planner. This tool can help you to identify strong keywords, as well as assist in coming up with new ones. For example, when we do a search for “writing for seo,” this is what we get:

As you can see, Google Keyword Planner offers a number of alternative keyword phrases and shows us the average monthly searches for each one. Also useful to know is the level of ‘Competition’ that you can expect to face when using that particular keyword. This information can be used to brainstorm effective keywords, as well as to tell you if the one you’ve come up with is unlikely to attract much traffic. 

Once you’ve chosen a keyword, it’s time to weave it into your content. Use your keyword whenever it naturally comes up in your text. This is important, as including it too frequently is called keyword stuffing and can negatively impact SEO. 

You’ll also want to include your keyword in your title, headlines, and meta description, but we’ll get to that in a moment. 

2. Implement a Linking Strategy

Links are another important factor for SEO. Content with both external and internal links can increase the value of your page. 

When creating your content, it helps to always look for linking opportunities. For instance, when you introduce a new term or idea. This is an excellent chance to link to another outside resource that provides additional information to your readers. However, be careful to check the sources you use, as higher quality links can boost SEO, while false information may actually harm it. 

For internal links, reference your other content whenever relevant. Search engines favor pages that include several links to additional information. Think about how you can offer added value to your readers. It may be that you can answer a question some of your readers may have by linking to more content on your website. 

Of course, a linking strategy would not be complete without a call to action (CTA) or a link to your landing page, products, or services. However, when you do link to a sales page, be sure to make your offer organically. Consider how your product or service adds value for readers of your content. Don’t be pushy. 

3. Optimize Your Title, Headings, and Meta Description 

Next, you’ll want to optimize your title, headlines, and meta description. But don’t worry, this is easier than it sounds. 

SEO optimized titles will have your keyword in them, preferably at the beginning. For this reason, it’s important to choose a keyword that directly aligns with your content and describes as closely as possible what visitors are about to read. 

In addition, you can improve SEO by including your keyword in your headings and subheadings. Nonetheless, some search engines, like Google, will look for and penalize articles that use the keyword in every heading, so be sure not to overdo it. 

Lastly, your keyword should be in your meta description. The meta description is a brief summary of your article’s content. Typically, search engines favor articles that include the keyword in the first sentence of this summary. Many content management systems (CMSs) provide a way for you to write and edit your own meta description. If, however, you do not have access, Google will usually use the first or second paragraph of your content, so be sure to carefully craft your introduction. 

4. Write Quality Content

Putting all of the technical SEO elements aside for a minute, it’s important not to forget about your readers. After all, your writing is truly for them and not for search engine robots. 

Actually, this one can’t be stressed enough. In the end, what will determine the lasting success of any piece of content is its readers. The reason for this is that the more visitors a post has, the greater the SEO boost it will receive. On top of that, the more it is shared on social media platforms and linked to from other websites, the more it is considered valuable to search engines. 

When writing for SEO, don’t be afraid to share your expertise and knowledge. Sometimes, people are afraid to share their “trade secrets.” Don’t be. If you truly are a master of something, no one can take that away from you. What’s more, it could establish you as an authority on the subject on the internet, which is huge for SEO, not to mention the overall success of your business. 

Writing for SEO

Overall, carefully writing for SEO will help your customers to find your website. From there, it’s up to the quality of your content to convert page visitors into sales and paying customers. To help, remember these four crucial strategies:

1. Research your keywords.
2. Implement a linking strategy.
3. Optimize your title, headings, and meta description.
4. Write quality content. 

Have a question about writing for SEO? Please don’t hesitate to leave it in the comments section below!

For many, it’s hard to imagine trying to measure a website’s traffic without Google Analytics. However, once you set it up and the information starts flowing in, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by page after page of statistics and data. 

The good news is, a lot of the most important data is simple to track and provides a wealth of valuable information you can use to help improve your website. With it, you’ll be able to find out how visitors discover your site, identify your most successful content, and fine tune your pages and posts.

In this article, we’ll discuss five simple and easy-to-use ways Google Analytics can be useful, even for beginners. Let’s get started!

What Google Analytics Can Do for You

Google Analytics is for anyone who has a website, from blogs to static sites to complex web applications. Quite honestly, it’s for everyone. On top of that, it’s free and it has a lot to offer. 

However, the problem most beginners come up against is trying to figure out what they should actually be doing with all of this newfound analytics data. In other words, what’s it really for?

For starters, Google Analytics enables you to analyze the behavior of visitors to your website. It can provide the answers to many different questions you may have had, such as:

• How many people visit your website?
• Where do your visitors come from?
• Which pages on your site are the most popular?
• What websites send traffic to your website?
• What marketing tactics drive the most traffic to your website?
• How many visitors have you converted into leads or customers?

With data like this, you can, for example, leverage your most popular content to increase conversions, or assess which marketing platforms work for you and your audience (and which don’t). Without it, every change you make to your site is done in the dark. 

Google Analytics for Beginners: Best Uses

The key to running a successful website is to understand how visitors interact with it, which is exactly the kind of information Google Analytics provides. With that in mind, let’s take a look at five simple ways you can make it work for you. 

1. Analyze Your Pageviews

One of the first metrics to look at is pageviews. A pageview is logged when a visitor lands on a page on your website. In addition, you can see which pages on your site are being visited the most and an average time of how long they are spending on them. This data gives you an idea of how visitors use your site. 

To see your pageviews, go to Behavior > Site Content > All Pages:

For instance, if visitors are spending all of their time on your blog, that’s great, as this is an indication that you have some quality content that is engaging users. On the other hand, this may also mean that your posts are not converting or moving visitors to other parts of your site. 

In this case, you may need to look at the navigation on your site and make it cleaner. Also, consider adding a few Call to Actions (CTAs) throughout your content, inviting users to explore other content or introducing them to your products or services. 

2. Monitor Your Bounce Rate

Another simple metric to look out for that can tell you a lot about your website is your bounce rate. Your bounce rate is how often visitors land on your site and then leave without taking any further action. In other words, they “bounce” off of your website.

You can view your bounce rate on the same page as your pageviews. Go to Behavior > Site Content > All Pages:

The average bounce rate for most websites is 45%. If your site is below this rate, your content is likely very engaging and effective at drawing visitors into your website. However, if your bounce rate is higher than 45%, then there’s room for improvement. 

Fortunately, many of the same tactics that apply to pageviews also work for improving your bounce rate. Start by examining your navigation and CTA placement. You can also entice potential customers with a promotion or special offer, use popups, and make sure your site is fast and responsive. 

3. Look for New Users

Monitoring the number of visitors who came to your site for the first time in a given day is another effective way to measure the growth and success of your website. 

To see how many new users you have, go to Audience > Audiences:

If you are seeing an increase in the number of new users, this is an indication that your marketing tactics are working. It may also mean that your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques are paying off. 

To see an improvement in this metric, your content is key. The more high-quality content you have, the more new users you are likely to see. Make your content engaging for your audience and you’re likely to see growth. 

4. Consider Your Sources of Incoming Traffic

In addition to the above metrics, that tell you about the amount of traffic your website is receiving, it’s also helpful to consider where that traffic is coming from. Fortunately, Google Analytics provides this data as well.

For information on where your traffic is coming from, go to Acquisitions > All Traffic > Source/Medium:

On this page, you’ll be able to examine how people are finding your site. You’ll be able to tell if they have come from social media, a search engine, a link from another site, or other sources.

This information can be very helpful for putting together a marketing strategy. For instance, if you see a lot of people coming from social media, that may mean your Facebook posts or ads are performing well. Alternatively, if you are not getting much traffic from search engines, it may be time to try some new SEO techniques. 

5. Take Note of Keywords People Are Using to Find Your Site

Lastly, Google Analytics has a feature that shows you the keywords people are typing into Google to find your website. This information can be extremely valuable when it comes to tailoring your content for your target audience or optimizing your marketing efforts. 

For a list of keywords people are using to find your site, go to Acquisition > Campaigns > Organic Keywords:

These keywords are what people have actually typed into Google to find your website. They then clicked and engaged with your content. 

With this information, you have a ready-made list of effective keywords you can create content around. When blogging, this can greatly improve the SEO process, in order to increase traffic and boost engagement. 

Making Google Analytics Work for You

Even if you’re just starting out, don’t be intimidated by the overwhelming amount of charts and data Google Analytics has to offer. After all, keeping your focus on a few of the most important metrics is all you need to begin improving your SEO, online marketing, and your website. 

For beginners, utilize Google Analytics by focusing on the following metrics for the best results:

1. Analyze your pageviews.
2. Monitor your bounce rate. 
3. Look for new users.
4. Consider your sources of incoming traffic.
5. Take note of keywords people are using to find your site.
   
   

Questions? Comments? Please feel free to ask away in the comments section below!

How will it look for us to have Artificial Intelligence in the future of digital marketing? Artificial Intelligence is an exciting, futuristic term but in reality, it encapsulates a variety of technologies and algorithms that already exist in today’s world.

The mind, influenced by Hollywood, may first jump to evil AI robots destroying mankind or digital assistants like in the movie “Her” (with Scarlett Johansson voicing a personable AI). But the fact is artificial intelligence will, and already has, taken on many different forms.

What exactly is artificial intelligence? 

Stanford University defines it as:

“Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a science and a set of computational technologies that are inspired by—but typically operate quite differently from—the ways people use their nervous systems and bodies to sense, learn, reason, and take action.”

To put it in more technical terms: AI often refers to voice/speech/image recognition as well as machine learning.

Are you thinking of Cortana, Alexa, and Siri? These are all chatbots powered by AI. They can already act as personal assistants in a way. They tell you the weather, send texts for you, and remind you of appointments. These bot personalities can respond and converse with you.

But AI can take many forms besides digital assistants:

• Self driving cars are AI. Yes, autonomous cars means the car is in control and doesn’t need any human to direct it. This says a lot about the algorithms developed for the skills to drive–such as vision and quick responsiveness to sudden obstacles or dangers on the road.
• Your unique recommendations on Netflix are configured with AI software. Now, the company is also using AI to compress video streams – resulting in faster, higher quality viewing for subscribers.
• Same with Pandora’s complex music system. Instead of associating songs with other artists in the genre, their tech analyzes the actual musical structure of a song and plays other similar sounding songs. There are literally hundreds of different elements by which a song can be analyzed.
• The Nest Thermostat, bought out by Google a few years ago, is a smart home device which learns your heating and cooling preferences then provides them without any programming needed. It is smart enough to adapt itself to both your life and the weather.

What will the future look like with artificial intelligence?

What will artificial intelligence in digital marketing look from an everyday user standpoint? Well, you’ve probably already heard the inevitability of self driving cars in the near future.

On a smaller scale, perhaps we won’t need so many apps on our phones in the future. Instead, we will allow AI assistants to navigate and report back the information for us.

How will artificial intelligence impact content marketing?

AI doesn’t mean the end of content marketing work done by humans. Rather, it will become another highly valued tool in the arsenal. Using AI-generated content marketing only wouldn’t be enough by itself to get the best possible results.

To do so, you need a real person with an innate understanding of other humans and the intelligence to properly analyze the marketing data.

AI auto-pilot isn’t the ultimate answer. Rather it’s about utilizing AI strategically in your marketing.

How exactly can Artificial Intelligence in digital marketing make a difference to marketers?

AI isn’t going to replace human marketers but assist them to overtake the time consuming or mechanical tasks involved with marketing and subsequent research.

Marketing is going in the direction of working with the algorithms and utilizing AI for the technical aspects:

• AI can transform data into discernible information at a much faster rate than humans can. For example, AI can scour data to find when your ideal customers are most active, their shopping behaviors and patterns, and what platforms they use online. By processing large amounts of data, AI can save marketers valuable time. Time that can then go to analyzing the data reports for insights. Marketers can interpret all this information to make better decisions of who to market to at the right time and place.
• AI can help with predictive analytics and to predict the buying habits of customers and how likely they are to purchase from you once or even multiple times. 
• Lead scoring done by AI can help so companies can devote time to the hottest leads and be more efficient in sales and saving time.
• AI technology can help to target ads better through machine learning algorithms, allowing the best possible placement of your ad.
• AI generated content could work well with data specific content such as financial reports or sporting events. But content “written” by AI can’t mimic the human voice in terms of talent, coherency, or relatability. You would want a human to write the relatable social media posts or “advice and tips” type blogs that bear a certain tone of voice.
• AI can help with email acquisition and more effective email marketing campaigns.
• AI chatbots can speed up customer service questions and make inquiring more convenient for customers. 

Step up your digital marketing by taking advantage of the Intrix Free Website Audit, and learn how your website’s digital presence can improve.

People of all ages are on social media and have made it part of their everyday routine. Since your customers are online, your business should be too. Using social media in your content marketing strategy is a smart way to connect with customers. Since its a budget friendly-tool, it’s a great method to amp up your marketing efforts. Through social media, you can connect with your customers and start a conversation with them.

Social media and content marketing: the two terms aren’t interchangeable-although social media is driven by content. Think of social media as an integral component of content marketing but it is only one part. Other aspects of your content marketing strategy could include search engine optimization (SEO), email marketing, pay-per-click (PPC), or videos.

Why is Social Media Important?

Unlike most forms of traditional marketing, social media allows brands to directly build relationships with customers and reach an online community.

When you’re active online, your brand has a convenient avenue for communicating with customers. You can reach out to potential customers and target them with social media ads. Customers who are already loyal to your brand can now engage with you online and become brand advocates, sharing your brand’s content with their friends and recommending you.

Make yourself accessible for interaction with people who want to follow and talk to your brand online. They want your vital business info like your hours; address, and website link available to find on their favorite platform.

The first place many customers go to ask a question of a brand or complain about a brand is Twitter. Big corporations have someone hired just to handle customer service inquiries on social media. But small businesses should answer inquiries and be available online too.

Return On Investment

Businesses might be wondering how much of an ROI they can get from social media marketing. A research study into how social media communication influenced how consumers perceive brands showed that it had a positive influence on brand attitude and brand equity. Both of these were also proven to have a positive influence on purchase intent.

Social media can be an affordable part of your content marketing strategy. By managing your social media accounts strategically with clear goals in mind, you can get an impressive ROI.

You can measure your success by different metrics such as how many clickthroughs you get to your website or blog through a social media post. You can also measure success by the level of engagement. Did your post reach a hundred likes? How about a thousand? How many people commented? 

When done right, social media can increase brand awareness as well as drive website traffic and sales. Using social media in your content marketing strategy can really boost traffic as well as give you customer insights.

An amazing benefit of having a business account on social media is that you can gather detailed data and insights into your customer base. This might include what they care about and their concerns. Perhaps you have a larger female audience than you realized before looking at the data and you’ve only been targeting your content for males.

Getting Started

Plan ahead and allot time or resources to maintaining your social media accounts. Pages which haven’t had any activity for months look abandoned and can make your business look lazy. An outdated social media page can look worse to existing and potential customers (those seeking you out) than being absent on the platform completely. 

It’s recommended to only start up your social media if you can maintain a presence by regularly posting. Managing the page is another important aspect which involves responding to people who leave comments, messages, and reviews. It can involve outreach efforts too. 

Focus your efforts on the social media platforms that your main audience uses. Don’t worry about being on all the different ones, do your research and be present on the ones that fit your brand best.

Decide your target market before you start posting. These are the group of people most likely to buy from and be interested in your brand. This group will be who your social media content appeals and is relevant to. You will craft your content to attempt to engage this demographic.

How often you post may depend on your business and audience size, the goals you’d like to achieve from your social media, and the time you can designate for this effort. Some brands post every single day, others post every week. Either way; consistent content and management is important to growing your following and meeting your social media goals.

10 Tips for Using Social Media in your Content Marketing

• Choose a tone for brand’s social media and stick with it. This is how your brand will speak to the world. Will the voice be more professional or casual? Friendly? Informative? Do you speak as the brand “we” as a collective entity or as the real individuals behind the brand?

• Does your business have a blog? Get more organic views by sharing new blogs on your different social media accounts.

• Share company news. Social media posts are a fast way to let your audience know about new products, seasonal sales, general business news, and changes in your business like closures or different hours.

Photos

• Imagery makes a big difference on social media. Facebook posts without a picture aren’t eye catching on a constantly updating feed. The same is true for Twitter. An image with a tweet stands out more than a text-only tweet.

• It’s fantastic to share quick snapshots of company outings, events, or holidays. But you should develop a content plan so your posts have a cohesive look, feel, and are purposely crafted to meet your business goals. 

Analysis

• Many platforms have built-in analytics to help you better understand the success and audience of both social ad campaigns and organic social posts. Facebook has a great option for businesses to “boost” a normal post for whatever amount they want (as low as a dollar or two) and target it to a certain audience. 

• Share company news. Social media posts are a fast way to let your audience know about new products, seasonal sales, general business news, and changes in your business like closures or different hours.

Promotions

• Social media platforms like Instagram are a fantastic medium for holding contests and giveaways. You can grow your audience and increase brand awareness with these type of promotions.

• Special sales for your followers can drive up online sales or get more people in the door.

Stick with It

• Monitoring the accounts is important. When people tweet at brands, they expect a quick response. A prompt reply is more expected the bigger the brand is. But small businesses should still be available and respond as well even if their volume of inquiries is drastically lower.

• Don’t be afraid to share content across platforms and more than once. For example, retweeting your blog link later in the day for your followers with a different schedule or time zone who missed the original tweet.

To get a leg up on smart digital marketing, take advantage of the Intrix free website audit and find out how your website is really working for you!