Posts
What is Google ads optimization? How do I optimize the ads and achieve optimal outcomes? Here is the best checklist to achieve your goals!
Google Ads is an online program allowing marketers and companies to create ads and reach their target audiences interested in their products or services. The program or platform follows the pay-per-click or PPC advertising approach, meaning you pay every time an online user clicks the ad.
According to Search Engine Land, users perform more than two trillion searches annually. So, that’s over five billion searches per day. So, if you are a marketer or small business owner, you can use Google Ads in various ways.
For instance, you can directly reach out to people seeking similar products or services. Likewise, you can target consumers belonging to specific geographic locations or demographics. You can drive customers to your website’s landing pages and track real-time data to analyze the results.
According to Web FX, 65% of small-medium enterprises use Google Ads to improve their marketing efforts and achieve optimal results. However, Google Ads optimization is one of the most significant problems small businesses experience, preventing them from streamlining their advertising and other business-related operations. Today’s article will provide you with Google Ads optimization checklist.
Evaluate the Mobile Site Speed
About 50% of web traffic comes from smartphones or mobile devices. Still, PPC conversion rates are lower on smartphones than on PCs, laptops, and other devices. Do you know what the reason is?
Tarek Riman, a professional digital marketer with years of experience, has answered this question. Riman says mobile website speed is essential to optimal consumer experiences, particularly on Google.
Riman further adds that a slow website forces the consumer to exit the landing page before it even loads. While you spend money on the ad because the user has clicked on it, you won’t achieve an optimal outcome.
Therefore, The first critical thing to focus on is to improve your mobile website speed and achieve the desired results. You must have a well-designed, intuitive, fast website that loads quickly and grabs the customer’s attention.
Tarek Riman recommends modifying your landing page or making changes across the website. Although this will take time, you must do it to streamline the overall process—the more seamless the experience on your mobile site, the lower the chance of a bounce.
So, the visitor will trust your business website and take an interest in your products or services. Likewise, people will become more likely to buy from you and become loyal customers.
You can use different tools to check your website speed and optimize it accordingly. Some of the best tools are Google’s site speed tester and page speed insights. However, you can also use Google’s Master Mobile Web Guide to improve your website speed and achieve more optimal outcomes from PPC ads.
Search for and Use Relevant Keywords
Keywords are critical components of Google Ads optimization. For instance, if you choose keywords that people don’t search for frequently or don’t align with the target audience, they won’t get valuable traction. As a result, you will spend more money on ads and fail to achieve the desired results.
According to Tarek Riman, you must identify keywords that consumers use frequently. Likewise, Riman says that these keywords must align with your business content and users’ intent.
Select relevant and meaningful keywords with a decent search volume. You can use keyword research tools to discover the best search terms for your Ads optimization strategy. It helps you with a wide range of keywords and expands the list based on your needs.
Bid on keywords with different intent levels to strengthen different stages of your PPC strategy and marketing funnel. For instance, you can create a list of negative keywords to reduce irrelevant traffic to your business site and prevent paying more for clicks on the Ads.
So, go through the search terms at least once or twice weekly to identify new keywords that align with your business. At the same time, find negative keywords and exclude them from your Google Ads optimization strategy.
Run a Dynamic Ads Campaign
Running a dynamic ads campaign means generating headlines targeting relevant keywords and search phrases based on consumers’ needs. The purpose is to direct users to your landing page and increase the likelihood of selling your products or services.
While dynamic ad campaigns are similar to conventional marketing/PPC strategies, they forgo keywords and use your business website or product instead. So this allows Google to match the users’ searches with the product or service type on your website and create a customized ad.
However, if you are unsure how to start with keywords, you can hire Riman Agency to create a “dynamic search ads campaign” for your business. The purpose is to optimize ads for the best performance.
Our professional marketers will use your landing pages instead of keywords. Thus, you will see the type of searches consumers perform to access your website or landing page.
Review Your Bidding
Focusing on your Google Ads bidding is essential once you have achieved a faster website speed and grouped relevant keywords. Remember, your bid is the amount of money you wish to spend on the ad when someone clicks on it.
According to Tarek Riman, analyzing and reviewing your bid strategy based on your budget is critical to streamlining your campaign. If your bids are low, they won’t perform well and limit the ad’s visibility on Google SERPs.
In contrast, if you bid aggressively, it will increase the costs. Riman says there is no guarantee that the ads will generate optimal results. So, you have two options for bidding with Google Ads.
First, you can choose your own bids. Second, you let Google set bids for your ads campaign. Each strategy has its own pros and cons. You can manually bid for individual keywords, groups, and campaigns when placing your own bids.
On the other hand, you can take advantage of Google’s bidding system to determine how much you wish to pay for an ad click. It optimizes your bids for ads based on your campaign’s goal and saves you time.
Riman argues that the ultimate choice to use manual or automatic bidding depends on your preferences and budget. So, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to streamline the process. However, you can hire Riman Agency and let our experienced professionals do the job adequately, reliably, and cost-effectively.
Reach Your Target Audience
Every marketer and small business wants to optimize their Google ads for higher returns on investments (ROIs). If you have the same goal, you must define and reach your target audiences.
Tarek Riman recommends location targeting to reach specific demographics or consumers with unique online behaviors. The purpose is to collect real-time data and modify your ads strategy that aligns with your ideal customers.
Thus, you can reduce low-quality clicks and irrelevant website traffic. You can set up different audiences to build awareness, improve communication, influence consideration, and drive action.
Riman Agency has a team of qualified and skilled marketers with extensive knowledge of Google Ads optimization. Our team optimizes adverts based on your target audience’s demographics.
In addition to age and gender, we also consider other factors, including interests, affiliations, and ideologies from historical data. The objective is to identify your target audience and their interest in your business, products, or services.
Moreover, we use cutting-edge tools to optimize your Google ads and align them with your target audience’s interests. Thus, you can reach out to people, engage them with valuable content, and turn them into loyal customers.
Furthermore, Riman recommends site targeting for specific placement of the advert. What kinds of websites should run the ads? It is an essential question asked by marketers and small businesses.
Tarek Riman gives an example to clarify the concept. For example, if you run a café in Montreal, your ads must show on websites that discuss different aspects of Montreal’s French culture. Riman Agency can make this happen efficiently and reliably. We use advanced analytics to control ad placement on sites.
Optimize the Landing Page
Aligning your landing page with Google ads is essential to streamlining the process and achieving the desired results. Simply put, your landing page must match the ads and keywords.
For instance, you can include a bold, attractive headline matching your offer in the Google ad. Remember that you must entice potential customers and meet their expectations.
In addition, a “good” offer includes a reliable “call-to-action (CTA)” on the landing page. So, when a potential customer arrives on the landing page, they must know what to do and how to redeem the special offer.
Tarek Riman recommends avoiding too many links to prevent customers from browsing different pages. Otherwise, customers will get bored and may leave the website without purchasing your product or service.
Therefore, create simple, reliable, easy-to-use CTAs on your landing page. Moreover, your landing page must explain the product or service’s features and benefits. We suggest including positive or 5-star customer reviews on the landing page. Likewise, optimize the content and ensure everything you post on the page is authentic and meaningful information.
Leverage Retargeting for Optimal Results
Retargeting is an excellent way to optimize Google ads. It re-engages your target audience and encourages them to revisit your website. Studies show that 98% of people revisit the website and take practical actions, such as purchasing a product or leaving a positive review.
So, not only does retargeting improve your brand recognition, but it also helps you acquire the most loyal customers. Retaining customers is directly proportional to increasing sales and improving the business’s overall bottom line.
According to Tarek Riman, retargeting, also known as remarketing, tracks your online visitors and drops cookies in their browsers. Bear in mind that the goal of retargeting is to use these cookies to encourage users to visit the website when they are online. Some of the most prominent advantages of retargeting are:
- Increased ROIs
- Affordable strategy
- Customization
- Quality traffic
- High conversion rates
- Brand exposure
- Brand visibility
- Custom ad designs
Final Words
Google ads optimization is integral to your marketing strategy because it allows you to create relevant ads for users. The purpose is to let online users see your ads and click on them to purchase a product or service.
Riman Agency has been in the digital marketing business for years. We have a team of experienced digital marketers with in-depth knowledge of targeting the right audience, crafting tailored content, and messaging, using the best tools, and reducing customer acquisition costs.
Our team can streamline the Google ads optimization process to reduce costs and increase investment returns. Contact us today for more information on our PPC ads services. Until Next Time!
If you are looking for the best eCommerce platforms for your small-medium business, look no further than this article. Read the details here!
5 Best E-commerce Platforms for SMBs
eCommerce offers a wide range of opportunities and benefits, including reaching your target audience, increasing sales of products or services, expanding your operations, boosting your clientele, and improving your business’s bottom line.
A single online store allows you to reach your target audience and customers without worrying about moving locations. According to Tarek Riman, you can manage your eCommerce business from home.
In addition, eCommerce is an excellent business option for B2B and B2C companies, allowing them to improve their brand awareness in the market. Your eCommerce website is a powerful marketing tool because you can reach customers via social media, search engines, email, and pay-per-click ads.
At the same time, you need a sophisticated eCommerce platform that offers valuable SEO tools. Tarek Riman, a professional and experienced digital marketer, says social media networks provide you with a platform to build trust and engage customers through ratings and reviews.
However, choosing a robust eCommerce platform with numerous features is vital to promote your products and services. Today’s article will list the top five eCommerce platforms for small-medium businesses or enterprises. But before that, we will discuss some critical statistical information about eCommerce. Read on!
eCommerce Facts and Figures
According to Statista, eCommerce sales will reach a whopping $7.4 trillion by 2025. Compared to eCommerce sales of $4.9 trillion worldwide, it will grow by 50% in the next three years. So, Tarek Riman argues that there are no signs of internet platforms or online shopping slowing down even after the Covid-19 pandemic.
Research highlights a consumer makes an average of 19 transactions per year via the internet. However, Riman says this varies based on location. For instance, Oberlo highlights that a consumer in China makes an average of 22 online transactions. The same study highlights that 53% of consumers prefer online shopping due to free shipping.
Similarly, 41% of people buy products or services with coupons and discounts. 35% of people read reviews from other customers before purchasing a product. 33% of consumers focus on easy return policies, 30% prefer a quick online checkout process, and 28% emphasize next-day delivery.
Another research report shows that 38.4% of online consumers in the United States are under 35. People born between 1981 and 1996 account for the largest group of online consumers. On the other hand, only 14.4% of people in the U.S are above 60 years of age.
Statista, the most reputable consumer index website, estimates that 2.14 billion people use eCommerce platforms/websites to buy products and services. In contrast, about 1.66 billion people purchased products online.
According to Tarek Riman, these statistical data from credible sources show that eCommerce businesses grow efficiently and quickly. Color Whistle reports that WooCommerce hosts three million live business websites, each with powerful plugins to streamline business operations.
Acquire Convert shows that 1.75 million people use Shopify to set up online businesses and promote their products or services. Similarly, over 600,000 active online stores operate on WIX, and over 250,000 merchants use Magento.
Moreover, data shows that smartphone users account for 45% of all eCommerce sales in the U.S. So, Tarek Riman recommends optimizing your website for mobile users to increase sales and improve your business’s bottom line. Here are the top five eCommerce platforms for small-medium companies.
1. Shopify
Shopify is one of the best eCommerce platforms for entrepreneurs, small businesses, and corporations. It offers a comprehensive website builder with free features and tools, allowing small business owners to sell online and in person.
At the same time, Shopify is an excellent platform for selling products through social commerce, drop shipping, and third-party marketplaces. The website builder enables you to design your eCommerce store using free or paid themes.
There is no need to learn and practice programming skills. The reason is that Shopify is all about the “drag and drop” feature. In addition, it can manage various business areas, not just eCommerce.
Tarek Riman, a professional entrepreneur, recommends Shopify due to its best-in-class suite of tools to establish a sophisticated business command center. For example, you can leverage “Shop Pay” for affordable transaction fees.
Shopify offers POS systems for in-person sales and “Shopify Fulfilment” for shipping products. The platform has a solid partnership with reputable companies like Express, DHL, UPS, USPS, and other shipping carriers.
Similarly, it provides eCommerce owners unlimited bandwidth and storage without affecting the overall prices. The purpose is to ensure your website drives more traffic, engage potential customers, and turns them into high-paying clients.
Shopify has a free marketing service, search engine optimization (SEO) tools, and abandoned cart recovery systems. It offers a mobile application allowing you to manage your online business from your smartphone.
Thus, you can use your smartphone to fulfill orders, add products, analyze real-time data, increase sales, and track inventory updates. The basic price of Shopify is $29.99 per month, but the advanced package is $299 per month.
You can take advantage of a three-day free trial. Shopify has numerous customer support options, including callback, email, community forum, and supportive content in nineteen languages. It also features integrated sales channels, including Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Google, Facebook, and Instagram.
2. Wix
Wix is the second-best eCommerce platform, featuring a user-friendly site builder with numerous eCommerce-specific tools. Tarek Riman recommends opting for the paid plan to leverage advanced eCommerce capabilities, such as:
- Order tracking
- Online payments
- Abandoned cart campaigns
- Multichannel selling
A paid plan also enables you to access real-time data and analytics. So you can track your eCommerce KPIs. WIX offers over 500 templates to choose from to design your storefront.
It has an easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface, allowing you to customize the appearance and aesthetics of your online store. In addition, it also supports subscription-based billing through third parties. WIX also supports dropshipping from other online channels.
The basic price is $23 per month. However, when you choose the business unlimited package, expect to pay $27 per month. The business VIP is $49 per month. Although you can start with the “business unlimited,” we suggest using the “business VIP” package to leverage cutting-edge tools.
The biggest problem with WIX is that it does not offer free trials. It supports integrated sales channels, including Instagram and Facebook. WIX has a mobile app with various features and tools, including inventory management.
3. Squarespace
Squarespace is one of the best eCommerce platforms that enables you to build an eCommerce website for your small business. It offers an easy-to-use interface and does not require the technical experience. So, you can use the templates, drag-and-drop tools, and design features to set up your online store.
While Squarespace is a website builder, it provides numerous eCommerce features to streamline operations for online sellers and small businesses. In addition, Squarespace is best for service-based businesses, but you can also set up a produce-based eCommerce store. Some of the best features are:
- Email marketing
- Calendar integrations
- Scheduling
- Social media integrations
- Embeddable maps
- Design tools
- SEO tools
It offers various packages, including “Personal for $16 per month, “Business for $26 per month,” “Commerce for $30 per month,” and “Advanced Commerce for $46 per month.”
The best thing about Squarespace is that it offers a 14-day free trial. So, you can take your time to try the platform and test the design/SEO features. The purpose is to determine whether Squarespace is reliable for your small business.
Customer support options are live chat, available Monday to Friday between 4 AM and 8 PM, and 24/7 email support. Moreover, integrated sales channels, including eBay, Etsy, Google Actions, Amazon, etc. Squarespace also has an excellent smartphone application with reliable features, such as:
- Website design
- Website Editing
- Order management
- Label scanning
- Inventory management
- Live chat
4. WooCommerce
WooCommerce is the best WordPress platform for setting up a sophisticated online store and selling products or services. What makes WooCommerce unique from others is that it is a full-fledged website builder with reliable tools and systems to make sales.
WooCommerce is an open-source platform, meaning you can customize the site based on your needs. Likewise, you don’t need any designing or coding skills to set up an eCommerce store.
Like Shopify, WooCommerce offers more than 6,000 third-party integrations, allowing you to expand your store’s functionality and flexibility. It is a free business platform, but you will pay to leverage advanced features when you add plugins and integrations or access premium tools.
The average monthly price for hosting is $30 or $120 per year. You can register a domain for $15 per year and select a theme for $100 per year. You will pay $108 for shipping and $348 for communication and marketing. SSL certificate requires you to pay $65 per year, and SEO will cost $79 per year.
WooCommerce offers a free trial with a 30-day money-back guarantee; email and live chat are customer support options. Integrated sales channels include Etsy, Google Shopping, Facebook, Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Pinterest, etc. You can also use mobile applications to add products, manage orders, analyze payments, and view analytics.
5. BigCommerce
BigCommerce is a perfect platform, offering a wide range of eCommerce features. Although BigCommerce is slightly overwhelming for small-medium businesses, it offers several plans to access technical resources, making it a reliable choice for companies looking to promote and sell their products quickly and efficiently.
It offers valuable solutions with customization features to small businesses and large corporations. Small-medium enterprises can access technical resources based on their budget to build and customize an online store. Some of the best features include:
- International commerce
- Multichannel selling
- Marketing and SEO
- Integration with third-party marketplaces
- Numerous payment options
- Free payment processing rates
It offers various packages, including “Standard for $29.95 per month,” “Plus for $79.95 per month,” and “Pro for $299.95 per month.” BigCommerce offers a 15-day free trial length with 24/7 technical support via email, phone, and chat.
Integrated sales channels include Facebook, Instagram, Google Shopping, Etsy, Walmart, eBay, and Amazon. BigCommerce also has an excellent and easy-to-use smartphone application with sophisticated features like:
- Analytics
- Order updates
- Inventory management
- Product management
- Customer search
- Market research
Final Words
While you can choose any eCommerce platform to improve your small business and boost your company’s operations, we recommend hiring a professional service provider like “Riman Agency” to streamline the entire process and make the most of your online store.
Riman Agency has a team of qualified professionals with years of experience to use cutting-edge tools and create an eCommerce store for your small business with flexibility for customers, product promotion and marketing, affordable advertising and PPC campaigns, tools for faster response to market demands, product listing, pricing mechanisms, and much more. Contact us today for more information on our services.
How does TikTok marketing work? How to get started on this social platform and improve your brand visibility? Read this post for the details!
Social media is an integral part of your digital marketing strategy. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok are social media platforms that allow brands to improve their reputation, promote products and services, and drive traffic to their websites to increase sales and generate higher revenues.
According to Tarek Riman, the founder of a professional digital marketing company, TikTok has captured the attention of the entire generation. Most millennials and Gen Z have attention spans of 8-10 seconds. These are enthusiastic and committed consumers of meaningful, helpful, and genuine content.
Likewise, TikTok appeals to various aspects of consumer behavior. So, it brings a combination of millennials and Gen Z’s favorite short video snippets. Although Instagram is a mainstream social media channel for marketing, TikTok has gained popularity in recent years, allowing companies to engage younger audiences and promote their products/services. Read on!
Why Use TikTok for Marketing Purposes?
A press release published by TikTok highlights that the company reached a milestone of one billion active users. The app has more young individuals than adults and elderly people, making it a solid platform for businesses to reach their target audiences and increase their social media presence.
According to Statista, a reputable consumer index website, TikTok is the seventh most popular social media platform. However, it competes with other channels, such as Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube, Instagram, and WeChat.
Tarek Riman says TikTok will become more popular in the future due to the type of content people and businesses post on the app. Research highlights that TikTok’s iOS version has 30.8 million active users who browse the platform daily.
Statistical data shows that the android version of TikTok has 14.43 million daily active users. Therefore, this social media networking site is beneficial for companies who want to reach their audiences on iOS and Android platforms.
Because social media applications are available at people’s fingertips, they can access apps like TikTok multiple times a day. A recent report states that an average user opens TikTok about 19 times daily.
Moreover, females dominate the TikTok app in the United States because data shows that women account for more than 61% of active users. However, men also use TikTok, accounting for more than 39% of active users on the platform.
These statistics show that TikTok is an excellent social networking site for brands and marketers to achieve their goals. Here are a few more benefits of using TikTok for marketing and promotional purposes.
Higher Ads Success
Whether you run a small-medium enterprise or a large corporation, you can run ads on TikTok to reach your target audience. However, TikTok ads require a unique approach, meaning you must define your target audience and develop personas to tailor advertisements that align with users’ interests and preferences.
Research highlights that 63% of all ads on TikTok are successful. However, you must secure your audience’s attention early on and create unique advertisements that stand out from the competition. Remember, TikTok is all about entertainment, meaning you must create enticing content.
Increased Engagement Rates
Engagement is one of the most critical factors for companies to track on social networking sites, including TikTok. It indicates how your content resonates with your target audience.
However, TikTok has a unique algorithm, and Tarek Riman says it favors accounts with higher credibility, trustworthiness, and engagement. So, if you can create quality content, you can achieve a higher engagement of 18%.
Popular Among Marketers
Hootsuite, a professional and reputable digital marketing and data management company, highlights that 14% of digital marketers and brands use TikTok to promote products and services.
In fact, these companies and individuals achieve higher success rates on TikTok, leading to increased sales and higher revenues. However, the competition is getting more intense day by day because more companies see value in TikTok.
So, it has become one of the best video-sharing platforms. Because videos engage more people than textual content, marketing on TikTok can generate higher returns on investments and improve your company’s bottom line. Here are a few practical ways/strategies to get started with or improve your TikTok marketing efforts. Continue reading!
Focus on the Current Trends
Getting started with TikTok is not daunting and frustrating. You need to create an account and start posting relevant videos. However, Tarek Riman says creating videos that leverage whatever is trending on this platform.
So, you must focus on the current trends, including viral memes, sounds, challenges, and video ideas. At the same time, you must use hashtags to achieve efficiency and reliability. The purpose is to gain more visibility on this social media networking app.
Trends on TikTok are synonymous with currencies. For example, you can use the most popular trends to reach your target audience and encourage the platform’s algorithm to push your account to more users. So, you can get more views, increase engagement, drive traffic to your website, and boost sales.
Therefore, identifying and understanding the trends is essential to start with TikTok. Engage yourself on TikTok to discover the most relevant trends. You can search hashtags in your industry or niche and like or comment on videos you watch to improve your brand visibility.
Leverage the Power of Hashtags
According to Tarek Riman, hashtags make the foundation of TikTok, meaning you must use the popular ones to create engaging content and stand out your brand from the competition. The primary objective is to gain more visibility and engage more users.
Because the TikTok algorithm looks at the hashtags when deciding what and when to promote content, using the correct tags will ensure the platform targets your content at the right audiences.
In addition to TikTok’s algorithm, users on this platform also adopt hashtags to signify to others what content the videos contain. It allows users to discover or find videos efficiently and quickly without hassle.
So, your target audience may search tags to find content published by your company. According to Tarek Riman, using the right and relevant hashtags is essential to put your brand on the path of engaged viewers.
Improve Your TikTok’s Account Credibility
Most beginners find it challenging to improve their accounts’ credibility. Riman says this is your ultimate goal. Your video content will go viral if you have a trusted, quality, and credible account.
What does this mean? Simply put, you must prioritize regular, consistent uploading over time and demonstrate your TikTok account credibility and trustworthiness to the algorithm.
Although you can repurpose content on Instagram, TikTok does not allow users, marketers, and brands to use this strategy. The reason is that it hurts your account’s authority and credibility. So, if you want to leverage the full benefits, you must follow the rules.
Moreover, TikTok’s algorithm identifies and flags unoriginal, fake, or low-quality content. Therefore, repurposing can harm your video marketing strategy, costing you a lot of money in the long run.
Audiences on TikTok consume original, organic, and native content on the platform. According to Tarek Riman, remove copied, poor-quality, and irrelevant videos from your account to ensure the algorithm favors it and increases its visibility.
Post Videos Consistently
Brands that engage with their target audiences and stay responsive perform better on TikTok. For example, if your video has gained traction, you must follow up and post more videos.
Creating and publishing additional videos consistently is an excellent way to engage your target audience and maximize your reach. The purpose is to build authority and credibility and make your brand stand out from the competition.
Likewise, it would help if you focused on engagement variety and speed because it pushes a video further. When you follow up quickly with new and original videos, you will reach a maximum number of users and build your brand authority and reputation.
Moreover, you can use influencers to boost your brand’s video content. Influencers have hundreds of thousands of followers and viewers on TikTok. So, building relationships and enlisting their help means accessing a large number of engaged users on the app.
However, if you don’t know how to reach influencers or streamline your TikTok marketing strategies, you can hire a professional digital marketing service like Riman Agency to achieve your goals. Riman Agency has a team of qualified TikTok professionals with extensive knowledge of how to reach the target audience and make the most of the marketing strategy.
Publish Short and Engaging Videos
It would help if you learned the optimal length for your content to stand out from the competition. According to Tarek Riman, an experienced digital marketer, creating shorter and snappier videos are better for maximizing watch times and improving completion rates.
Remember, Gen Z is the primary audience on TikTok, and this age group demands quality and short content. You have 8-10 seconds to capture your target audience’s attention.
So, ensure the video content you create is quality, engaging, short, and effective enough to entice your target audience. You can use different video editing tools to get the job done. If you lack editing tools’ knowledge, you can hire Riman Agency to streamline the process.
Moreover, a swift transition between video content/clips will cut down time and ensure the content looks fresh, entertaining, and engaging. Therefore, you must emphasize watch time and complete rate to achieve your goals.
Build Relationships with Influencers
As soon as you publish a few videos on TikTok, reach out to influencers with hundreds of thousands of followers and discuss your requirements. Some influencers will promote your videos without charging a penny, while others may provide these services for money.
Interact with famous influencers and ask them to promote your videos. The purpose is to trigger the platform’s algorithm and increase your account’s visibility. The best way to increase engagement on TikTok and gain more views, comments, etc., is to ask influencers to share your videos on their accounts.
Not only does this speed up your account growth, but it also increases engagement rates. So, you can leverage this strategy to boost your brand visibility on TikTok and drive organic traffic to your business website. Furthermore, speed and diversity of engagement are critical factors in improving TikTok video content performance.
For example, a responsive video is valuable, leading to more likes and comments. So, make sure your content achieves a higher response from viewers. Remember, community spirit is the epitome of this social media app.
Final Words
You can’t improve your brand visibility without social media marketing. Although you can post textual content on Twitter, infographics, and photos on Instagram and follow a hybrid approach on Facebook, posting shorter videos on TikTok can streamline your brand visibility and improve your business’s overall bottom line.
TikTok has a large audience base, greater user engagement rates, an endless number of influencers, and younger audiences, making it a reliable platform for businesses of all types and sizes. Contact Riman Agency for a more comprehensive, result-driven, affordable TikTok marketing strategy. Until Next Time!
Are you looking to improve your business’s bottom line via social media in 2023? If yes, look no further than this guide to achieve your goals!
Social Media Best Practices in 2023
Social media influences consumers in North America to purchase products or services. It is one of the most effective and inexpensive digital marketing tools. Companies can use social networking platforms to increase their online presence, reach their target audience, and attract new customers.
It also enables businesses to highlight new products and services, collects customer feedback, and build relationships via relevant, engaging, and positive experiences or content.
Social media is a popular and convenient digital marketing tool for businesses. However, many businesses in Canada, particularly small businesses, do not use social media for digital marketing.
According to Tarek Riman, a professional entrepreneur, experienced digital marketer, and skilled social media expert, businesses neglect social media because they think it is confusing, daunting, and time-consuming.
Most small businesses also do not understand how to create and implement a solid social media strategy. Tarek Riman says social media can help a company attract followers and convert them into loyal customers.
However, effective social media marketing requires companies in the U.S and Canada to connect with the right audience, establish a comprehensive strategy, and treat followers/consumers as if they were face-to-face customers.
In addition, it requires offering contests, events, and giveaways to convert social media followers into loyal and high-paying customers. So, how to do this? What are the best social media practices in 2023?
Today’s article will give you the most practical tips/tricks to streamline the entire process and make the most of your social media strategy across different platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Read on!
Define Your Goals
Define your goals using the S.M.A.R.T framework. For instance, you may want to gain 100 new followers on Facebook in one month, create at least 2-3 events that generate $500 or $1,000 in sales in the next three months, or drive 2,000 people to your website.
On the other hand, you may incorporate Twitter or Instagram in your strategy to provide optimal customer experiences and services to increase brand, product, or service awareness among your target audience. According to Tarek Riman, your goals will you to track, analyze, and evaluate your digital marketing activities.
Build Your Brand
Content is king. Right? The content, especially the graphical or visual elements you post, is crucial to establishing your brand identity and reputation on social media. For instance, you can create a logo that represents your brand. Make sure you use the same logo across social media platforms.
In addition, use the same color palette for your photos and images consistently. The purpose is to ensure your followers on social media recognize your business. Use your profile, bio, and cover photos to communicate with your target audience and tell them who you are and what your company does better than others.
You can use hashtags for search terms or keywords that highlight your business vision, mission, brand value, products, services, events, campaigns, and industry. Remember, hashtags are a powerful way to increase engagement, build awareness, and categorize visual content.
Select a Relevant Social Platform
Most businesses jump into all social media platforms. However, Tarek Riman recommends finding the network that aligns with your business and customers’ profiles. Your company has unique consumer segments with specific psychographics, demographics, and behavioral characteristics.
Therefore, you must perform thorough research to determine what social networking platforms your prospective and existing customers use. The purpose is to align your events, content, and ads. Each social media platform has its strengths and weaknesses.
For instance, Instagram is a powerful social networking platform for businesses looking to reach younger audiences via graphic-rich content, such as photos, infographics, and videos.
Likewise, Twitter is the best social media channel for businesses to provide exceptional customer service. However, Facebook is an all-inclusive social media app for starting digital marketing.
Tarek Riman recommends filling your business page, making your photos and videos look good, and using ad tools and analytics to gain insights. Once you feel comfortable with a specific social media site, you can expand and diversify to other platforms, including Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and TikTok.
Consistency is Key
According to Tarek Riman, a successful business project requires consistency and dedication; the same principle applies to social media. I.T. requires you to commit resources and time and post messages daily and at the right time to ensure your followers see them.
Determine the best time to post by understanding the locations and demographics of your social media followers. You must track the engagement of your social media posts from time to time to gain valuable insights and use them to modify or maintain your strategy.
Remember, textual, graphical, and video posts must engage your target audience and provide them with relevant information to build relationships. Don’t forget to reply to comments, questions, concerns, or problems immediately. Use events and promotional strategies to engage your target audience.
Engage Your Target Audience
Customers want to buy products or services that positively impact their lives. Communicate with your followers and tell them about your business story, share your company values, and highlight the positive impact of buying products or services from your business.
Tarek Riman recommends posting behind-the-scenes photos to communicate your business passion. You can pose questions to your target audience or customers and inspire them to participate in conversations.
Post videos of your events, campaigns, and videos to tell your business story. Fill in your posts with relevant content, photos, and videos that express the foundation of your business and your reason for selling products and services. Let us now discuss how to make the most of social networking sites for marketing purposes.
Facebook is the most powerful and widely used social networking site. It can help your business spread the word about your brand, products, or services and provide information about your business to persuade your target audience and educate and entertain them. Here are a few best practices to consider when using Facebook.
Optimize Your Posts
Optimize your post according to Facebook’s algorithm. Determine the anatomy of your Facebook posts and analyze whether your target audience uses the web or mobile app. Riman says most people use mobile devices to access Facebook.
Therefore, you must optimize your post for smartphone users and display your posts using the correct dimensions. Likewise, post graphical content with the right font and size so your target audience can read it easily.
Post Content Daily
Although you may find it challenging to post content daily, it is worth your time. People make more friends and “Like” pages daily, meaning if you fail to post content daily, you may not stand out from the competition.
Tarek Riman says posting at least 3-5 times a day is enough for businesses to engage consumers. Riman recommends checking Facebook insights to analyze when the right time is to post content on Facebook.
Likewise, you can see when your target audience is online. Thus, you can post at optimal times; once in the morning, in the afternoon, and the evening.
Talk to Your Audience
Have you ever wondered why it is called social media? Social media is social, meaning you must communicate with your target audience and connect with them to resolve their issues and get positive responses. Tarek Riman recommends:
- Asking questions
- Posting helpful tips
- Linking to blog posts
- Encouraging your audience to like and share
- Tagging users on other business pages
- Highlighting relevant posts
- Using hashtags
- Sharing
- Infographics
- News articles
- Images
- Videos
- How-to blog posts
- Brand stories
- Quotes
- Stats and facts
Add a Call-to-Action (C.T.A.)
Adding a C.T.A. to your posts is essential to drive traffic to your website or encourage consumers to act and buy your product or service. A CTA is an integral part of your Facebook posts. However, it would help if you did not overuse it.
Riman recommends following the 80-20 rule. 80% of your Facebook content is educational, and 20% is promotional (this is where you add a C.T.A.). So, make sure you use the C.T.A.s properly.
Use Facebook Analytics
Facebook Analytics is a powerful tool that gives you an overall picture of your page interactions. You can look for content, engagement, and other trends and keep posting more content your target audience likes and shares.
Instagram is another powerful marketing tool for businesses to drive brand awareness, build and track engagement/interaction, and increase sales. It is an excellent platform for companies to find customers and leverage valuable insights to develop a tailored marketing strategy. Here are a few best practices to ace Instagram.
Promote Your Profile
According to Tarek Riman, promoting your Instagram profile is an excellent way to drive more people to your business. You can use other marketing platforms to drive traffic to your Instagram.
Like you promote your website via email marketing and blogging, you can use business cards, newsletters, and other social platforms to share your Instagram link and encourage users to check your profile.
Use Hashtags
Instagram is hashtag paradise. If you have a small audience, you can use hashtags to grow your audience, but you must use hashtags your audience searches for on Instagram. Using random or irrelevant hashtags won’t do anything well.
In addition, think about branded hashtags, event hashtags, campaign hashtags, industry hashtags, product hashtags, and location hashtags. The purpose is to improve the user experience.
Post relevant hashtags as the first comment on your business post. The purpose is to keep your message alive and reduce the risk of getting lost in the ocean of hashtags on Instagram.
Post Relevant Content
There is a season for everything, such as spring cleaning, Halloween, holidays, bathing-suit season, Easter, Eid, Christmas, etc. Tarek Riman recommends linking your Instagram post to a current event or seasonal trend.
Make sure you find the trends on Instagram and define or implement your strategy accordingly. Become a part of the event or conversation that aligns with your business and is relevant to your target audience.
Run Contests
Running contests is an excellent way to build and grow your audience on Instagram. The primary objective of contests on Instagram is to increase engagement. Set the rules to engage users and encourage people to follow you on Instagram.
Likewise, encourage participants to like, comment, and share your posts or use a specific hashtag. You can use user-generated content by asking your followers to submit photos and videos with a specific contest hashtag.
One of the most significant advantages of Twitter for companies is that it enables them to share information quickly or start conversations with their followers. Your audience will find your tweets easily, but you must have educational, valuable, and promotional content that engages your target audience.
Optimize Your Tweets
According to Tarek Riman, a good tweet is between 120 and 130 characters because it leaves space for the link and at least 1-3 hashtags. In addition, if you are sharing statistical data, an article, or a quote from a brand, include that company in the tweet.
The purpose is to increase the likelihood for your followers to see, comment, and retweet your tweets. The more content you share, the more following you will gain. Thus, you can spread your brand message and engage your target audience and existing customers.
Post Visual Content
Although people don’t use photos and videos frequently on Twitter because tweets are text-based, tweets with photos and videos receive higher engagement rates. Research shows that tweets with images see 55% more engagement and lead conversions. If you want to post a photo, use the correct dimensions, such as 440 x 220 pixels.
Add Links to Tweets
Add links about 25% of the way through your tweet. Links added to the tweet receive higher click-through rates. However, it would help if you placed them at the start of the tweet because links placed at the end of a tweet have fewer engagement rates. In addition, shorten the links to ensure they appear cleaner and simple to read in a tweet.
Try Twitter Ads
Using Twitter Ads is a brilliant way to grow your followers, drive traffic to your website, and convert leads. It also increases engagement, finds leads, and turns people into loyal customers. Twitter ads are relatively less costly than other platforms. So, giving Twitter ads a try or test run is worth your time and money.
Use Twitter Analytics
Twitter Analytics is a powerful tool for businesses to analyze data and generate valuable insights. You can use this tool to measure the engagement and understand how to post successful tweets. Twitter analytics also tells you about your target audience’s demographics, locations, and interests.
Final Words
Social media is integral to your digital marketing strategy to promote your brand, products, and services. It can help you build a brand reputation and increase sales. However, you must develop a solid social media strategy and follow the best practices to achieve your goals.
Riman Agency has been in the digital marketing industry for many years. We have a team of social media marketing professionals with years of experience and extensive knowledge of innovative techniques and tools to develop a sophisticated and result-driven strategy for your business. Contact us today!
What is a holistic digital market strategy? How do I create a successful plan? What factors should I consider? Here is what you need to know!
How to Create a Holistic Digital Marketing Strategy for Your Business
Digital marketing plays a critical role in connecting your company with your customers. It establishes a solid business relationship with your existing and potential customers, whether on Google through PPC or SEO, social media, or email marketing.
A holistic digital marketing strategy is an integral part of your business, allowing you to cover all aspects of marketing and promotional campaigns you run to drive traffic or customers to your website or other platforms and boost revenues. Today’s article will discuss creating a holistic digital marketing strategy. Read on!
Define Business Objectives
According to Tarek Riman, a professional digital marketer, you must understand your overall business driver, whether increasing sales, gaining market share, or expanding business. Defining business objectives is critical because they let you know the difference between micro and macro conversions.
Riman says macro conversions do not exist without micro-ones or vice versa. Therefore, what your company wants to achieve is an integral part of your business goal. It also includes focusing on your company’s mission and vision.
The purpose is to link everything together and streamline the process. You can’t set up marketing objectives efficiently and quickly and continue assuming that they will act as meaningful guides to action. Riman recommends focusing on a hierarchical goal breakdown structure to link your high-level objectives to clearer daily goals.
Business marketing objectives can tell you about the direction in which your marketing and business activities move, but this requires thorough planning, development, and implementation. Goals guide your day-to-day marketing activities and streamline the entire process. Consider the following factors when defining objectives:
- Begin with a broad design and keep all goals in the hierarchy
- Encourage your employees to understand the objectives
- Develop realistic objectives and use resources appropriately
- Analyze your company’s external opportunities, threats, and constraints
- Consider the creative conception strategies
- Consider the cost of each activity you want to carry out
- Reconsider and redefine our objectives from time to time
Perform Market Analysis
According to Tarek Riman, performing marketing analysis is integral to creating a sophisticated digital marketing strategy for your business. So, move beyond the fundamental concepts covered in SWOT or PESTEL analyses to understand your market and define your target audience.
When working on this holistic digital marketing strategy phase, you must collect valuable feedback and analyze it to generate broad insights into your target market. Make sure you focus on:
- Age range
- Likes and dislikes
- Kind of brand they like
- Types of pages they follow on social media
When you move beyond the traditional approach and develop more in-depth marketing insights, you can better select your marketing mix and use the budget appropriately. For example, you can reduce costs and spend money on relevant marketing channels.
Remember, extensive market analysis is daunting and time-consuming. However, it can help you gain an in-depth understanding and knowledge of your target audience. Riman Agency can carry out the process via thorough market analysis to help you define your target audience and its characteristics.
Create Audience Personas
An audience persona is a fictional, generalized representation of your ideal client or customer. Because personas allow businesses to view their products or services from their perspective, building a perfect customer persona can help you target your audience and improve your methods to solve their problems.
However, you can build the best customer personas on actual research, surveys, and interviews of your target audience. The problem is that following this approach takes time, resources, and money.
Sometimes, companies don’t have enough time, resources, and money to conduct surveys, research, and interviews with their target audiences. However, you can gain valuable insights from small-scale research.
For example, you can pull together a small focus group or interview a few customers. On the other hand, if you think this is impossible, you can follow a fictional approach to creating buyers’ personas.
According to Tarek Riman, author of bestselling digital marketing books, a company must focus on accuracy and precision when following a fictional approach and use information about consumers from previous research studies, web analytics, or email queries.
In addition, an audience persona allows you to act more strategically with your digital marketing methods and execution. It enables you to customize your business or marketing messages to your target audience and streamline communication strategies.
Tarek Riman recommends starting with 2-3 buyer personas. However, if you need more, feel free to create them. Some businesses create 15-20 buyer personas with different characteristics and choose the one that best fits their needs and consumers’ requirements. Consider the following:
- Who?
- Background
- Job
- Career
- Martial status
- Demographic data
- Age
- Gender
- Location
- Income
- What?
- Goals
- Primary and secondary goals
- Concerns and challenges
- Solutions to overcome challenges
- Why?
- Realistic goals
- For example, I am a father with two young children. I want to learn French while living in Montreal, but I find it challenging to spare time. So, I need a flexible schedule to balance my family and work life.
- Common Objectives:
- Why would this person purchase or not purchase my online French language course or training program?
- How?
- Marketing messaging
- Describe your business solutions to the persona, such as “Flexible at home French language tuition in Montreal.”
- Elevator Pitch
- Sell your persona on your business solution to their problems
- “Our company provides flexibility that fits your work and family life schedule. We aim to provide course options that best fit your needs.”
- Marketing messaging
- Realistic goals
- Goals
Carry Out Customer Segmentation Process
Carrying out customer segmentation is the next step after you have created and used your audience persona knowledge. The purpose is to take the information forward and start to categorically answer different questions, including:
- What does my target audience want from my business?
- What are their specific needs?
- What do I want my target audience to do?
- What are my goals onsite?
- What type of content will give them the correct information?
- What content will convince them to go through the buyer’s journey?
- How can I convert visitors into customers?
- What does success look like to me?
- What are my digital marketing key performance indicators?
Like the persona research, you will have numerous customer segments. Each segment will have a unique profile, needs, and desires. Tarek Riman gives an example of how to segment your audience.
| Audience Category | Market Segment | Profile | Audience Needs | My Goals | Converting Content | Key Performance Indicators or KPIs |
| Is my target audience a person, small or large organization, community, startup company, public, or private sector?
|
If the audience category is a person, is it a teenager, young adult, woman, girl, or older adult? | What characteristics set each market segment apart?
What features make each segment unique?
|
What is my target audience looking for, and what solution do they need from my company? | What are my goals based on the audience’s needs?
Do my goals align with their problems? Do the solutions I provide solve their issues?
|
What content can convince each segment that my product or service is a reliable solution for their problems? | Micro and Macro conversions |
Competitor Analysis is Key
The advantages of conducting competitor analysis are apparent. As a business owner, you don’t want to miss things or processes your competitors do that may cause a threat to your company and steal traffic or conversions from you. In addition, there are a few critical learning you can take, such as:
- What are my competitors doing?
- Can I replicate a competitor’s strategy?
- Do they have a highly engaged audience on social media?
- How do they engage users on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter?
- Is their website intuitive and easy to use?
- How do they display information and content?
Performing competitor analysis allows you to understand your competitors, their digital marketing strategies or methods that lead to success, and critical factors, such as:
- Annual reports depending on the company’s size
- Companies’ profiles and product information
- Product or service categories
- Published media articles
- Press releases
- Customer reviews
- Website information
- Social media platforms
- PPC activities
- Keywords
- Search engine rankings
Your first step in a competitor analysis starts as if you were a prospective customer and run a few tests searching for common or popular keywords. Determine what the market or industry leader does and how it differs from your approach.
Likewise, who appears on top of Google or other search engines’ rankings? Who appears first in the PPC positions? Do I get confused with ads after leaving my competitors’ websites? Answering these questions will give you essential information and insights.
Content Strategy
Content marketing is an integral component of your holistic digital marketing strategy for your business. It creates and shares premium-quality, relevant, and engaging content to attract and convert users into customers.
A solid content strategy involves conversations between your business and customers via brand stories. The primary objective of content marketing strategy is to build a long-lasting relationships with existing and potential customers.
You can achieve your goals by providing your customers with valuable content that improves trust, awareness, and engagement through different channels in the digital marketing mix.
For instance, a content strategy that primarily depends on AdWords PPC and displays ads to drive more traffic will see poorer performance and increase your website’s bounce rates.
The good news is that organic traffic from Google and other search engines can balance this approach. For example, visitors who organically make their way to your website through search queries or interest can yield better results. However, organic traffic requires a solid search engine optimization strategy. Tarek Riman recommends:
- Relevant approaches or tactics in your digital marketing strategy:
- SEO
- PPC
- Affiliates
- Display Ads
- PR
- Social media marketing
- Content strategy
- Conversion rate optimization
- Lead generation
- Landing page optimization
- Product page SEO
- A/B testing
- Email marketing
- Newsletters
- Promotional emails
Digital Assets Analysis
Grouping your digital assets into the paid, earned, and owned categories is the best way to streamline the analysis. Paid media means you pay money to advertise your ads on third-party platforms.
Likewise, earned media means when people share your content, use word-of-mouth marketing, and discuss your brand, products, or services. Remember, “earned” can either positively or negatively influence your brand because the results depend on your target audience and customers.
Moreover, owned media is a platform or asset you own, create, manage, or control. Having a brand website or blog is a typical example of owned media. Social media channels are also examples of owned media. Popular channels include Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. The following table will clarify the concept of these three categories:
| Paid | Earned | Owned |
| PPC
Social media ads Display ads Content promotion Paid influencers |
Organic traffic
Reviews Likes and shares Mentions Reports |
Website: web and mobile
Smartphone apps |
Final Words
No business can survive without a solid digital marketing strategy because we live in a fast-paced technology world that requires every company to improve its online presence. Digital marketing increases your brand identity, recognition, and reputation and drives traffic to your website and other platforms.
It promotes your products or services, increases sales, and generates higher returns on investments (ROIs). However, many companies, including small-medium enterprises and giant corporations, find it challenging to streamline their digital marketing strategy or create a holistic plan.
Riman Agency has been in the digital marketing industry for many years. We have a team of professionals with years of experience, extensive/up-to-date knowledge, and skills to create a holistic approach that covers all aspects of digital marketing and improves your business’s bottom line. Contact us today! t@rimanagency.com
So many businesses are slowly focusing on the digital aspect of their business, recognizing the opportunities that come with having a strong online presence. Big or small, digital marketing can have a big impact on your business if executed correctly, which is why I am here to help. Fundamentally, there’s a lot more to Digital Marketing than just search, in fact, Digital marketing is an ever-evolving mix of different digital channels that you can use to promote and drive value to your business. While most people think of SEO and SEM when it comes to digital marketing, and while yes, they are a big part of it, there are also other crucial channels to look at when trying to optimize and prepare your business to excel in the online world.
- SEO (Search Engine Optimization): The process of aligning the various elements of your site (tags, content, data, information, links, etc.) with the best practices of search engines, so that you can rank as high as possible in search engine results.
- SEM (Search Engine Marketing): The process of implementing search and display campaigns on advertising platforms such as Google Ads and Bing Ads, with the aim of creating relevant traffic and awareness for your brand and website.
- Social Media Marketing: The process of marketing your brand and website on social channels to create awareness, loyalty, retention, traffic and conversions.
- Most common social channels: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc.
- Email Marketing: The process of collecting email subscribers, then creating and sending email campaigns intended to grow brand awareness and sell more products and services, or otherwise convert subscribers such as encouraging event sign-ups, content downloads, etc.
- Common email marketing platforms: Mailchimp, Constant Contact, GetResponse, SendinBlue (this is a highly saturated market, and there are many to choose from)
- Content Marketing: The process of creating and sharing videos, articles, images and other forms of digital content.
- Local Marketing: The process of marketing your product or service to specific geographical locations or neighbourhoods.
- Landing Page Marketing: The process of creating highly targeted landing pages and directing traffic to said pages based on a set of predetermined criteria. The main goal of these pages is to get visitors to stay longer on your site and convert (buy, signup, etc.)
- Landing page marketing is also known as CRO or Conversion Rate Optimization.
While these are not the only ways to grow your business online, they are a gold standard that should be practiced with every business. The channels help build a foundation for your business to not only survive online but to thrive in it and sail the waters efficiently.
How and Why to Master Site Structure
Not all websites, pages and blogs are created (or ranked, searched for or indexed) equally. This is true when it’s a human interacting with it and when it’s a search engine.
If you are a marketer or business owner, you probably know the 80/20 rule of websites: 80% of your business will come from 20% of your pages. If you have a blog of 100 posts, about 20 of those will drive the majority of your conversions (whatever “conversion” means for your business model). This is totally normal and not something that necessarily needs to be “fixed”.
However, because a minority of pages drive the majority of conversions, site structure becomes extremely important, for both visitors and search engines.
When I work with a client, one of the first things I do is audit their website to get a clear picture of what we’re starting with. Having performed hundreds of such audits, I’ve come to realize that site structure if a common issue for many businesses.
Think about it like this: brick and mortar stores carefully layout and display merchandise to make it easy for customers to move around and find what they’re looking for, and to highlight particular items for quicker sale or to draw in street traffic. Site structure is the web equivalent of that practice.
Here are the main disadvantages of not having a well-structured site:
- Dilution of page strength
- Site cannibalization (self-competing)
- Lack of consistency
- Potential for duplicate content
- Harder for search engines to crawl and understand
5 things you can do to get a more structured site:
-
Divide content into categories.
There are many ways that the human brain and search engines are similar. One of those is that we both LOVE to categorize things! We like it when information fits neatly into set categories. When someone else clearly defines those categories for us (whether human or search engine), we can find things more quickly.
Aggregate related content and organize it into categories or with tags. When you have a lot of content, it is ideal to create a new directory (subdirectory, NOT subdomain as a new subdomain is much harder to rank for). The content in your subdirectories should be specific and should not overlap with other content.
As you categorize and tag your site, ensure that highly related content is put in the right subdirectory as one of your main goals is to avoid cannibalization.
-
Create a sitemap and submit it to search engines.
XML sitemaps are important for your ranking on SERPs (search engine results pages) because they make it easier for search engines to find pages on your site. Rather than have to follow a bunch of links, search engines know to look for your XML file so they can see all the pages in one place. Kind of like those giant maps in shopping malls.
Another key role of the XML sitemap is to tell search engines which pages are ok to crawl. This way, they know right away which pages not to bother with and can quickly crawl the others.
When creating your sitemap, it’s important to know which pages are your key pages, as you will need to organize the map accordingly.
Here is a great tool for creating an effective sitemap: https://www.xml-sitemaps.com/
Once you have your sitemap, add it under your default sitemap URL, which should look like this: https://thecaminowithin.com/sitemap.xml. Use this URL (obviously with your own website, not mine) as your sitemap URL when connecting Google Search Console or Bing Webmaster Tools.
-
Use canonical tags.
This is one of the most basic and impactful optimization tools. It’s a way of telling search engines that a certain page represents the original copy of a page in order to avoid duplicate content.
The word “canon” means, generally, “authoritative”. When a page is canonical, it means that’s the main one. The original. It’s the one that should be referenced above all others like it. So, if you have different URLs hosting the same content, designate one page as “canon” to instruct search engines to ignore the others. This ensures all search strength is directed towards your one main page, and not diluted among many.
Here’s an example of a canonical page: https://thecaminowithin.com. That’s my canonical homepage, but all these URL structures may be considered variations of that page:
https://thecaminowithin.com/
http://thecaminowithin.com/
https://www.thecaminowithin.com/
To the human eye, we can tell that these are probably all the same page. But, without canonical tags, a search engine will see all these as separate. Use a tag like this to tell search engines which page is your canon page: <link rel=”Canonical” href=”https://thecaminowithin.com”>
-
Remove duplicate pages, content or tags.
Duplicate content happens when content appears in more than one place within the same website. It makes your site repetitive and irrelevant for both humans and search engines.
When navigating through a website, both humans and search engines look for (and expect) unique information or content with each new page visit.
Duplicate content makes it hard to figure out what is original and what is not. It confuses search engines in deciding which version should get ranking strength and which should be ignored.
The best analogy is that you are taking a good piece of content and watering it down. Diluting its strength.
Aim for all your content to be unique, concentrating on the following areas:
- Duplicate titles and descriptions.
- Duplicate headers.
- Duplicate paragraphs.
-
Interlink properly.
An internal link is a type of hyperlink on a webpage that links to another resource (page, image, document, etc) within the same site.
There are many advantages to interlinking, such as connecting relevant pages, enabling visitors to easily find information and helping them spend more time on your site.
But, when it comes to interlinks, you must stay structured, relevant, consistent and not overdo it.
A best practice is to use relevant and descriptive anchor text that relates to the content of the page or resource you are linking to.
Just like a brick and mortar business, your website needs to be well structured for it to perform optimally. Don’t ignore site structure. Master it.
References:
- https://yoast.com/site-structure-the-ultimate-guide/#why-important
- https://moz.com/learn/seo/internal-link
I was recently invited by a networking group to give a presentation on how digital marketing is impacting the way we market and do business.
As I began the presentation, I introduced myself and what I do, then moved into an explanation of search engine optimization, search engine marketing and the ins and outs of this constantly changing market.
About 25 minutes into the presentation, as I immersed the crowds in details of digital marketing and how I use it to make brands and businesses grow and increase their online presence, I saw a shaky hand emerge from the audience.
I assumed the hand indicated a question about my current slide. I welcomed the question.
The gentleman attached to the hand took his time standing up. He looked at me with a blank face, seeming hesitant to ask his question.
He then uttered these 4 words: “What is digital marketing?”
You had to be there to see the surprise on my face. I wasn’t expecting this question at all, especially not so far into the presentation. And not because the question was wrong to ask. In fact, this 92-year-old gentleman was brave to ask it.
I was surprised because, while I have answered this question many times, for many different people (even an 8-year-old!), I was not prepared to answer it for a 92-year-old.
There I was, onstage, trying to put myself into a 92-year-old mind. What kind of marketing has he been exposed to in his lifetime? What kind of marketing would he be seeing today? Where would he go when looking for a product or a service?
With more than a 60 year age gap between myself and this gentleman, it was a challenge.
I decided to start answering what I knew – comparing traditional marketing to digital marketing and explaining the difference.
“As marketing throughout the 60s,70s, 80s and 90s was mainly through TV, radio and newspapers, that is considered ‘traditional marketing’. Digital marketing is done through more recent technologies such as mobile phones, computers and tablets, while utilizing different channels such as search engines and social media.”
The blank stare persisted. Except now, it looked even blanker.
I was trying to find something in my mind that this fine gentleman could relate to.
Suddenly, I had an epiphany.
I remembered helping a friend’s parents move. I clearly remembered seeing stacks of Yellow Pages as we moved boxes of books and magazines from their basement. I asked why they kept them, to which they replied that they wanted to ensure they had the numbers and contacts of everyone from year to year, as advertisers tended to vary annually. To them, it was a coveted database of contacts.
Back in my onstage moment, I took a deep breath, smiled and said to the gentleman,“Remember in the old days when you wanted to find something or someone, your first instinct was to look for them in the Yellow Pages book? Nowadays, all you have to do is search them up on search engines such as Google.”
As soon as I said this, he smiled. His whole face lit up.
To him, digital means that the coveted Yellow Pages book and its wealth of information are now online. Advertisers that once used the Yellow Pages as a channel to increase their presence now use search engines and social media to do the same.
You see, the game hasn’t changed. Only the field. Marketing has always been about getting your message where people will look for it, find it, see it, consume it.
So the next time you are sitting down with Grandma and Grandpa and, out of nowhere, they throw you an unexpected question on any digital-related matter, you will know exactly how to answer them. Start with the playing field they know.
Follow Tarek Riman on Twitter @tarekriman