How to Find the Right SEO Agency for Your Company
As a business owner, you may be wondering what the best way to optimize your website is. And if you’re not quite sure where to start, you’re not alone. In this blog post, we will outline the different factors to consider when choosing an SEO agency for your company. After reading this post, you will have a better understanding of what to look for in an SEO agency, and you’ll be able to make an informed decision about who to work with.
Why go with an SEO agency?
If you’re looking for an SEO agency to help your business achieve better search engine rankings, it’s important to find one that is experienced and qualified. Here are five things to look for when choosing an agency:
1. Size and experience: The first thing you’ll want to consider is the size and experience of the agency. A smaller agency may not have the resources or expertise to help your business reach its goals, while a larger agency may be able to dedicate more resources.
2. Services offered: You’ll also want to make sure that the SEO agency offers the specific services your business needs. Some agencies specialize in one area of SEO (such as website design or web marketing), while others offer a broader range of services including blog management, link building, and social media marketing.
3. Expertise: It’s important that the SEO agent you choose is highly knowledgeable about search engine optimization techniques. Ask which methods they use most commonly and whether they have experience with particular brands or types of businesses.
4. Value for money: Finally, be sure to evaluate how much value the agency offers for your budget. There are a number of affordable options available, but don’t forget about luxury agencies that may charge higher fees but provide greater results.
5. Customer service: One of the biggest benefits of hiring an external consultant is access to customer service should you need assistance along the way. Make sure you interview several candidates and assess their level of responsiveness before making
What to look for in an agency
If your business is looking to improve its online presence, it’s important to find an agency that has the skills and experience to help you achieve your desired results. Here are a few things to look for when selecting an agency:
1. Certifications and experience in SEO
One of the most important factors in choosing an SEO agency is checking their credentials. Make sure the agency has extensive experience in search engine optimization (SEO), as this will be critical in helping your business reach higher on search engine rankings. Additionally, make sure the agency has obtained relevant certifications and training, as this will demonstrate that they have the knowledge and expertise required to help your business succeed.
2. Experience working with your industry
Another key factor to consider when choosing an SEO agency is whether or not they have experience targeting your specific industry or market. If your business services a particular niche, it’s important to find an agency that has expertise in working with those types of businesses. Likewise, if you’re a small business trying to break into a new industry, it’s important to work with an agency that understands the challenges you’ll face and can provide guidance on how best to approach that market.
3. Client feedback and reviews
When researching agencies, it’s always helpful to read client feedback and reviews on sites such as Yelp and Google Local Business Review (GLBR). This will give you a good indication of how successful the agency has been at helping businesses achieve their desired outcomes
The three stages of a successful SEO campaign
There are three stages to a successful SEO campaign: planning, execution, and evaluation. In planning, you need to determine what needs to be done and who will do it. In execution, you need to put in the hard work and make sure that all your marketing efforts are directed towards the right targets. And in evaluation, you must track your progress and make necessary adjustments.
1) Planning is key in any successful SEO campaign. Before starting any marketing efforts, you need to know what needs to be done and who will do it. This can be tricky because different departments within a company have different priorities and protocols. However, by breaking the task down into manageable parts, everyone can agree on what needs to be done and when it needs to be done.
2) Execution is where the majority of the work actually takes place. You need to set up goals for each stage of your campaign (such as website ranking or increased traffic), determine which channels will achieve those goals (such as search engine optimization or social media advertising), and then put in the hard work. There’s no room for complacency here – if something isn’t working correctly, you need to find out immediately so that you can fix it before it becomes more serious.
3) Evaluation is important not only because it helps you track progress but also because it allows you to adjust your strategies as needed based on results. If your website’s ranking starts declining for no apparent reason
How to find the right SEO agency for your business
If you’re thinking of hiring a SEO company, it’s important to do your research first. There are a lot of scam artists out there, so make sure you find an agency that has the experience and credentials to help your business grow. Here are some tips on how to find the right SEO agency for your business:
1. Do Your Research
Before hiring any professional, it’s important to do your research. Ask around, check out reviews online, and look for certifications or other evidence of experience. Make sure the agency you choose is accredited and has a good reputation in the industry.
2. Make Sure They Have Experience with Your Industry
Just because an agency claims to be experts in SEO doesn’t mean they will be effective with your specific business goals. Make sure the company has experience working with similar businesses and industries, so they can understand what works best for yours.
3. Ask For References
Once you’ve narrowed down your search to a few agencies, ask them for references. You can also ask them if they have any sample projects or case studies they can share with you. This will give you a better idea of their abilities and how they would approach working with your specific business goals.
Tips for working with an SEO agency
Working with an SEO agency can be a great way to improve your website’s visibility and rankings. However, not all agencies are created equal, and it can be difficult to find the right one for your company. Here are some tips for choosing an effective SEO agency:
1. Do your research. Before hiring an SEO agency, make sure you have a clear understanding of their services. Ask plenty of questions and research their past work (both on their own site and elsewhere). Make sure you understand what they will be working on for your website and the timeframe in which they anticipate completing the project.
2. Establish a budget. Once you have researched your options, establish a budget for the project. This will help ensure that the agency you choose is able to provide the level of service you need and that the costs are manageable.
3. Evaluate different firms based on their team composition and overall experience. Look for teams that include individuals with a range of technical expertise, as well as marketing and customer service skills. Also consider how many years the team has been working in SEO (and whether they have any previous experience with your specific industry or niche).
4. Ask questions during interviews. During interviews, ask about the team’s approach to SEO, their experience with your specific industry or niche, and their fees (including hourly rate and total cost). Be prepared to ask plenty of questions yourself!
Seeing that we are an SEO agency, you can book a call here: https://calendly.com/digitalconsultingpros/30min
Services That Will Help Your Business Optimize Their Digital Marketing
Digital marketing has come a long way in the past decade. Gone are the days of hand-written newsletters and poorly designed websites. Today, businesses can take advantage of a variety of digital marketing services to help them reach their target audience. Whether you’re looking for keyword research, website design or email marketing services, there is a service out there that will suit your needs. If you’re not sure where to start, check out these seven services that will help your business optimize their digital marketing strategy.
Digital Marketing Services
Digital marketing is the process of creating, managing and executing a digital strategy to create and sustain a competitive advantage in the marketplace. The goal of digital marketing is to connect with your customers where they are, when they are interested in what you have to offer.
There are many different types of digital marketing services that can be beneficial for your business. Some common services include SEO (search engine optimization), PPC (pay per click) advertising, social media marketing, content marketing and lead generation.
SEO is the process of improving your website’s ranking on search engines such as Google. This will allow people searching for specific information about your business to find you more easily.
PPC (pay per click) advertising is an online advertising campaign that allows businesses to place ads on websites that users visit after clicking on an ad or visiting via a link from another website.
Social media marketing is the use of social networking websites (such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn) to communicate with customers and followers about your business and products.
Content marketing is the creation and distribution of valuable content across various channels (such as blogs, e-books, videos and articles) to attract attention and drive traffic back to your website. Lead generation is the process of acquiring new customers by generating leads from among your current customer base.
To optimize your digital marketing efforts, it’s important to have a comprehensive plan that takes into account not only how you want people to find you online but also how you want
Services for Search Engine Optimization
Looking to speed up your website’s search engine optimization (SEO)? You may be wondering what services are out there that can help.
Luckily, there are lots of SEO services available that can help your business achieve higher rankings in search engines and generate more traffic. Whether you need a one-time boost or ongoing assistance, these services can get your website noticed by potential customers.
Here are some of the most popular SEO services:
1. Search Engine Optimization Services
These companies offer a range of SEO services, from basic keyword research to on-page optimization and backlinking. They typically charge based on the amount of work they require to complete the project, as well as how many pages need to be optimized.
2. Web Design and Development Services
Many businesses want a professional looking website but don’t want to take on the burden of web design themselves. These companies can create a custom website for your business with all the bells and whistles – including SEO – included. They typically charge based on the number of pages required, so it’s important to discuss your needs upfront.
3. Social Media Management Services
If you only have a limited budget for marketing, social media management may be a good option for you. These companies will manage all of your social media accounts for you and help to promote your content through engagement strategies like retweets and likes. They typically charge based
Services for Social Media Management
Social media management is an ever-growing field that is growing more complex by the day. There are a number of services available to help businesses optimize their social media presence, from managing accounts and content to helping with analytics and reporting.
One of the most popular services for social media management is Hootsuite, which provides users with a dashboard that lets them monitor all of their social media accounts in one place. Hootsuite also offers some helpful tools, such as the ability to schedule posts, track followers and reach, and analyze data to find out what works best for your business.
Another popular service for social media management is Seesmic. Seesmic allows users to create and manage their own blogs, as well as monitor the blogs of other people or companies they follow. Seesmic also offers tools for tracking posts, analyzing follower growth, and measuring engagement rates.
If you need help optimizing your digital marketing strategy overall, we can help! With many years of experience working with various digital marketing channels, we can help you focus your efforts on the areas that will produce the biggest results for your business.
Services for Email Marketing
There are a plethora of digital marketing services out there that can help businesses optimize their online presence. Whether you’re looking for help with SEO, email marketing, or social media management, these providers have the tools and expertise to get your business moving in the right direction.
SEO is a critical part of any online marketing campaign, and many providers offer tailored packages to help your business rank higher in search engines.
Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to reach your target audience, and many providers offer automated templates and customizable wizardry to make the process easy. S
Social media management can be complicated if you don’t have the right tools on hand, but several providers offer robust platforms that allow you to track how your campaigns are performing and make adjustments as needed.
The options available for digital marketing services are endless, so it’s important to do your research before choosing a provider. Browse reviews and compare prices before making a decision; you won’t regret investing in better visibility for your business!
Understanding Digital Marketing
Digital marketing is the practice of using electronic tools and techniques to promote a business or product. Digital marketing includes online advertising, online content marketing, online search engine optimization (SEO), email marketing, and social media marketing. It is an important part of any business’s strategy because it allows businesses to reach potential customers where they are already spending their time.
There are a number of services that businesses can use to optimize their digital marketing efforts. These include Google AdWords, Facebook Ads, Twitter Ads, and LinkedIn Ads.
Google AdWords is the biggest and most popular digital advertising platform in the world. It allows businesses to place ads on Google websites and Google properties like YouTube, Gmail, and Google Search.
Businesses can choose which keywords they want to target with their ads and how much money they want to spend on each ad campaign. They can also create targeted ads by using targeting criteria such as geography, age group, and interests.
Facebook Ads is another popular digital advertising platform. Businesses can place ads on Facebook pages or groups and then target those ads based on demographics like age, gender, location, and interests.
Twitter Ads is a great way for businesses to reach out to their followers directly. They can create individualized campaigns that focus on specific topics or hashtags relevant to their brand.
LinkedIn Ads is a great tool for businesses looking for more targeted connections with potential customers. They can place ads in
Developing Your Digital Marketing Plan
Creating a digital marketing plan is essential for any business looking to take advantage of the internet. A well-crafted plan can help your business track and measure results, which will help you optimize your effort and ensure that you are getting the most out of your online presence. There are a number of services available that can help create your digital marketing plan, so it is important to choose one that fits your specific needs.
Some popular services include Google Analytics, Hootsuite, and BuzzSumo. Each offers its own set of features and benefits, so it is important to consult with an expert if you have not used them before. Once you have created a basic plan, it is important to track your progress and make necessary adjustments as needed. This will help ensure that you are maximizing the value of your online presence while minimizing costs.
Implementing Digital Marketing Tactics
Digital marketing is an essential part of any business’s marketing mix, and can help improve customer engagement, lead generation, and sales. There are a variety of digital marketing tactics businesses can use to improve their online presence and grow their bottom line.
One important aspect of digital marketing is understanding the different channels through which customers interact with your business. You should have a strategy in place for each channel, including website design and layout, content creation, SEO (search engine optimization), social media management, email marketing, and advertising.
In order to increase website traffic, you should create high-quality content that is both informative and engaging. You can also use SEO techniques to make your website more visible in search results pages. In addition to website traffic, you can also generate leads from website visitors by creating landing pages that capture lead data such as name, email address, and company size.
You can also use social media platforms to connect with customers and build relationships. You can create effective social media campaigns by using targeted ads and promoting relevant content. Additionally, you can use social media platforms to drive traffic to your website or other associated websites.
Email Marketing is another effective way to reach out to customers and generate leads. By setting up an appropriate email campaign structure and using email automation tools such as AWeber or MailChimp, you can easily send consistent messages to your customer base. You can also segment your customer base based on mailing list interests in order to better
Evaluating the Effectiveness of Your Digital Marketing Strategy
Digital marketing is an ever-growing field that businesses can use to reach more people with their message. When done correctly, it can be very effective in helping your business grow. However, ensuring that your digital marketing strategy is effective is essential if you want to see the best results. Here are a few ways to evaluate the effectiveness of your digital marketing strategy:
1. Measure how many people have contacted you through your digital channels versus traditional ones. If more people are contacting you through digital means, then it may show that your digital marketing strategy is working.
2. Compare how much money you’re spending on Digital Marketing versus other business expenses. If Digital Marketing is generating more revenue for your business, then it may be worth continuing investment in this area.
3. Evaluate which types of content are performing best on social media and elsewhere online. Try different formats and strategies to see what works best for reaching different target audiences.
4. Look at engagement rates from all of your social media posts and other online content pieces. This will give you an idea of how well you’re being liked and shared by potential customers who have seen your work.
If you are looking for digital marketing support, you can book a call here: https://calendly.com/digitalconsultingpros/30min
Powerful 20 SEO Ranking Factors: How Google Ranks You On Google.
Credit: Nick Skliarov
Have you ever thought about how Google’s SEO Ranking Factors and SEO works? Here is an in-depth overview of what it has under the hood:
✔️ 𝐁𝐄𝐑𝐓 is an AI-powered system that helps understand the meaning of words and query intent.
✔️ 𝐂𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐬 𝐈𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 – Responsible for extradition alerts during various crises (personal or catastrophes).
✔️ 𝐃𝐞𝐝𝐮𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 is a grouper of similar search results for inquiry. Works with both pages and fragments, removing useless duplicates from the search results.
✔️ 𝐄𝐱𝐚𝐜𝐭 𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡 𝐝𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐧 – an algorithm that calculates the key weight of a keyword (phrase) in a domain if it turns out that it is named purely for SEO.
✔️ 𝐅𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐡𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 – a system that monitors the freshness of the results for those queries where it is expected. For example, by the name of a movie that just came out.
✔️ 𝐔𝐬𝐞𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 – Makes sure users see original and useful content written by people and for people. And not just to get SEO traffic.
✔️ 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐀𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐬 𝐒𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐬 – This includes many subsystems that analyze document links and their usage.
✔️ 𝐋𝐨𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐍𝐞𝐰𝐬 – a system for identifying and displaying multiple news sources (“Top News” and “Local News”).
✔️ 𝐌𝐔𝐌 (𝐌𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐬𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐔𝐧𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐌𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐥) – Created for language understanding and generation. Used only in some search cases.
✔️ 𝐍𝐞𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 − Classifies queries and queries for their respective pages (links) to each other.
✔️ 𝐎𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 is a canonicalization system for content. Gives preference to original sources and works with the hreflang/canonical attribute.
✔️ 𝐃𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧-𝐁𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐃𝐨𝐰𝐧𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐞 – system for removing information from a search (personal or copyrighted).
✔️ 𝐏𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 – analyzes page performance and safety.
✔️ Passage ranking is an AI system for analyzing rare sections/passages on a page for full disclosure of how relevant it is to a query.
✔️ 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰𝐬 — analyzes the quality of reviewers.
✔️ 𝐑𝐚𝐧𝐤𝐁𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧 is an AI system that links words to concepts. It improves the search by phrases that do not contain the right keyword enter thanks to the understanding of linking words and concepts.
✔️ 𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 is a system that selects authoritative content. It uses what SEOs call the E-A-T concept.
✔️ 𝐒𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐕𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐭𝐲 – Group results from one site to show no more than two at the top. Subdomains here are considered the same site as the main domain (with rare exceptions).
✔️ 𝐒𝐩𝐚𝐦 𝐃𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 – analyzes content spam and behavioural spam.
✔️ The remaining systems are implemented in the Core Algorithm or separate subsystems:
— Hummingbird
— Mobile Ranking, Page Speed System, Safe Sites
— Panda, Penguin
And there you have it, the powerful 20 SEO ranking factors that you should keep in mind for your content marketing.
If you are looking to rank high in search engines to get a lot of targeted traffic, book a call here.
How to Choose The Best Digital Marketing Company in Malta
We often read news of fraud, scams and reports from some digital marketing agencies that do not add value to their clients’ businesses. In a world where companies spend millions of dollars each year on digital marketing campaigns, the need to distinguish the good agencies from the bad can never be stressed enough.
By combining various internet marketing tactics with other forms of media and strategies, digital marketing has become one of the most effective methods of generating leads, building brands, and gaining a larger customer base. Broadly speaking, it can be subdivided into internet marketing, mobile marketing, and offline marketing.
The importance of having a digital marketing agency for any type of business is obvious. It is the nature of any business to focus all of its attention on the industry it is in, and subsequently on the core goals that make up the business. This requires delegating other jobs like digital marketing to outside agencies.
For example, a company that makes clothing will dedicate the majority of its workforce to making and selling clothing only. That company’s business is clothing, not marketing or advertising; And even if you do your own marketing campaigns, there’s a better chance that a marketing agency, whose sole business is creating marketing campaigns, will do the job much better than the company’s marketing department.
And in a world where most consumers are now equipped with mobile phones, TV, the Internet and other electronic media, there is no need to mention the need to digitize marketing campaigns. Because there is a simple truth above all: digital marketing works. It is cheaper than traditional strategies and visibly more effective.
So how do you find the right digital marketing agency to work for?
Choosing the right agency can be a daunting task, especially since new businesses pop up almost every day. And because the variety of services offered by these companies is not the same. Let’s take a look at the various elements that will help you choose the best digital agency for your business:
Services offered
The first thing you should always consider when looking for digital marketing agencies to work with is the nature and variety of services they offer. A good agency should offer as many services as possible under one roof. This will save you the hassle of finding another company for a specific service, as you can easily delegate all your digital marketing needs to that company.
A full service agency typically offers:
– Web design and development
– Search engine optimization and marketing.
– Mobile marketing
– Junk mail
– Social Media Marketing
– Online advertisement
– Online reputation management
Portfolio and Testimonials
A good digital marketing agency will always have a portfolio made up of clients with visible levels of success. You can easily access this wallet from their website. A portfolio page that lists a good number of clients is more trustworthy than one that lists only a few.
Testimonials are another criteria to help in choosing a digital agency for your business. Good agencies will have reviews and testimonials from past clients. The more testimonials, the better.
Online presence and reputation
It is natural for a company that is dedicated to digital marketing to have a visible presence online. Do you have a Facebook page and if so how many likes do you have on the page? How are your followers on Twitter? The presence and activity on social networks is a good measure of a company’s reputation.
A quick Google search using the business name as the search term will reveal a lot of information about the business, including reviews and comments on review sites, if any. A search query that returns too few results may not be the best company to delegate your marketing work to.
Support for:
Any good company should have excellent support. Try contacting the digital marketing agency you’re currently researching from their website or through their live chat app, if they have one. How long do they take to respond? Call them and talk to them. Find out how knowledgeable your support team is. This is a company that you are going to give a lot of money to, it is important to know in advance if it is worth investing and that if you ever have problems, they are there for you.
You can book a call here: https://calendly.com/digitalconsultingpros/30min
How to Select the Best Web Design Agency Malta for Your Business?
I can hear many of you saying “Why do I need to have a ‘good’ website for my business?”
Now more than ever people are spending more and more time online. The online presence of companies becomes the norm compared to a simple extension of a new commercial arm. Still many small and medium-sized businesses have this question. They seem to be very reluctant to spend time and invest in the best website for their needs. The reason is that they often ask themselves “How to choose a suitable web design agency?” It might not be a difficult task if we do some homework before meeting potential web design agencies.
People who have the desire to grow obviously need a website that is usable and capable of attracting a crowd. However, designing and building websites can consume enough time and money if you don’t choose the right web design agency or the right team. The most common problems with inexperienced web agencies are irrelevant work, which goes beyond the estimated time and, in turn, burns money, lack of personalized attention, lack of creativity, lack of additional work and even additional cost for indefinite work. or unspecified that may not have been included in the original estimates.
Growing face of our business:
Your website, for many users, will be the face of your business in today’s online world. It replaces your front line support and sales team in many situations and has to reflect your corporate tone of voice; reflect the character of the brand, be original and more obvious and convey the message of what you do. Do you think your website does this? If not, this is the right place to be, read on and find out some crucial things when deciding how to hire a web design agency to get the perfect site for your business.
You may want to follow our guide below for steps to take before hiring a web design agency:
Spend time looking at the web design agency’s clients and portfolios.
Who have you worked for before? Check out some sample websites and see the color combinations, attractive ideas, simple yet innovative designs, and easy navigation options. One of the most important generic factors is the layout and design of the site. It must convey the purpose of the business and be easily usable for the target audience.
Interview the web design agency before going to the actual job
Website design is all about communication, specifically the communication of your brand through all others to your audience. In order to build a site that effectively communicates with its target audience, the web design agency must first understand what their goals are. So talk to them, invite them to chat informally over coffee and see if they understand your business or if they have worked with other similar businesses. See if you can tap into a talent pool within the web design agency, but always have a single point of contact to ensure nothing is lost in the transaction.
Know your main programming languages and operating systems
It is really vital to know your technical strength. The company must be open about the languages it uses and its preferred choice of software systems. The basics to look for are the open source programming languages PHP/MySQL and ASP.NET, two code schools, but specialization in each account. They should be ready to provide you with the technical advice that best suits your needs and budget.
Estimate the deadline to complete the project.
Find out about the response time for projects similar in size to your project. This should give you a pretty good idea about your workflow. If you have a hard deadline to meet, be sure to let the design company know right now so they can plan accordingly. You may even want to ask about project overruns on previous projects, if any, and what tolerances exist for budget and time controls.
Check if they offer innovative ideas and designs.
Research shows that most readers’ eyes will be drawn to the creative design before reading the text on the page. A small, creative and intuitive design is worth a thousand words. So the web design agency should be able to give interesting and innovative ideas. While your ideas are most important in site design, you should expect the web design agency to explain what works and what doesn’t, to take the creative lead and help you achieve your design goals.
You can book a call here: https://calendly.com/digitalconsultingpros/30min
Top Benefits of Hiring a Digital Marketing Agency Malta
Gone are the days when hiring a marketing agency was considered an expensive affair. But with increasing competition in the marketplace and social media, companies are now considering investing in hiring a digital marketing agency.
The main goal of hiring the agency is to gain a strong online presence and stay ahead of the competition.
Small and medium-sized businesses reserve a separate budget for online marketing. The good news is that small and medium-sized businesses believe that agency contracting is a profitable investment.
This article explains the main benefits of hiring a digital marketing agency:
Online Tech Expertise: The marketing agency is backed by a professional team of tech experts who are up to date on online media. The team understands how and when to use the online experience for the best return on marketing.
Cheaper Than Offline Marketing: Previously, a business had limited options to promote its brand in print and on TV, which was quite costly. But as time has changed and social media has taken over, companies are now exploring digital media, which is quite a bit cheaper than offline. The company has to pay a certain fixed amount to the agency on a monthly basis and promote the brands.
Online Marketing Data: Agencies have data from many companies and have a lot of technical knowledge to share with the client. This collaborative work helps the website grow online.
Quick reach to the target audience: one of the benefits of hiring a digital marketing agency is quick reach to the target audience. The agency has information and data on consumer behavior and accordingly sets up a plan to promote the brand. This certainly leads to a faster effective hearing.
Backed by Valuable Resources – Regular social media updates and lead generation are valuable resources a business gets. In addition, the company is well backed by strong analytics and media experts who understand the market well and accordingly come up with an idea for the campaign.
Reduce the load: Companies go through various departments and need to take care of each and every department. By moving the marketing function to the agency, the burden on the company can be reduced and focus on other departments.
Much more than marketing – A digital agency is not just limited to marketing but also has a good resource of a content writer, SEO, graphic designer, and web designer. So by hiring only one agency, you will also have access to other areas of marketing.
Saving money and time on training – Hiring a separate team and training them for social media can be time consuming and expensive. The most reputable digital agencies have trained professionals ready to work for you.
Able to walk along with the current marketing trend: Online marketers keep up with the latest marketing trend and use it to promote their brand. Consulting firms invest time to stay current with the latest trends in tools, technologies, and strategies.
Great Leadership – Many highly successful agencies are run by great leaders, who may or may not be working directly with you. They involve their experience in marketing each brand which certainly helps the company to earn a good return.
Conclusion:
In general, the main goal behind hiring a successful digital marketing agency is to promote your product and build a long-term online brand.
For any questions about business promotion, contact our digital marketing agency. We will surely help you grow your business online.
You can book a call here: https://calendly.com/digitalconsultingpros/30min
How To Get Free Traffic: A Quick SEO Guide.
Introduction: Why you should care about getting more traffic from the search engines
SEO is short form for “search engine optimization.” It is a long-term marketing strategy employed in order to improve a websites visibility and organic search results in google and other global search engines. When done correctly, affordable SEO services can result in dramatic increases of website traffic, leads, and sales.
The basic concept behind SEO is that if you can improve your website’s ranking on the search engine results pages (SERPs), you will receive more website visitors. The higher your website ranks, the more likely it is that visitors will click on your link over one of your competitor’s links.
Step 1: Choose the right keywords
SEO is one of the most important aspects of online marketing. It refers to the process of optimizing a website so that it can rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). By doing this, you can attract more visitors to your site, who are then more likely to convert into customers.
So how do you go about optimizing your website for SEO? The first step is to choose the right keywords. These are the words or phrases that people are most likely to type into a search engine when looking for information on a particular topic. You should think carefully about which keywords best reflect your business and its products or services.
Once you’ve selected the right keywords, you need to incorporate them into your website’s content and onto its title tags and meta descriptions. You can also use them in your paid advertising campaigns and in social media posts.
Step 2: Research your competition
The second step in SEO is to research one’s competition. By understanding what techniques their websites are using to rank high, business owners can adapt and improve their own website accordingly. There are a number of free tools available online that can help with this process, such as Google AdWords Keyword Planner and Moz’s Open Site Explorer.
Once the competition has been researched, the next step is to begin implementing SEO techniques.
Step 3: Optimize your website for the search engines
On-page SEO is the practice of optimizing a website’s content and structure to improve its ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs). The goal of on-page SEO is to make sure that a site’s content and markup are as relevant and effective as possible for both users and search engines.
On-page SEO techniques include optimizing the title tag, meta description, header tags, image alt text, and internal links. In addition, site owners can use tools such as Google Search Console to help them track their site’s search engine visibility and performance.
In the ever-changing and complex world of SEO, off page SEO is one of the most mysterious and least understood aspects. Many people are still unclear on what it is, how it works and why it’s important.
Off page SEO is the process of optimising a website through external methods, such as link building, social media and article marketing. The purpose of off page SEO is to improve a website’s position in the search engine results pages (SERPs), by increasing its visibility and credibility. Off page SEO can also help to drive traffic to a website from other sources, such as social media networks and directories.
There are a number of factors that contribute to a website’s ranking in the SERPs, including its visibility, relevance, authority and trustworthiness.
Technical SEO is all about making your website as search engine friendly as possible. This means optimizing your site for crawlability, indexing, and ranking. This is also done by ensuring that your website is well-constructed and following best practices for on-page optimization. Advanced techniques like schema markup, canonicalization, and hreflang implementation to make sure your site ranks well in international searches.
Step 4: Publish great content
There are a variety of factors that go into SEO, but at its core, it’s about creating valuable content that will rank well in Google search results. This means using keyword research to identify high-traffic keywords relevant to your business, then incorporating those keywords into your website content and blog posts in a way that sounds natural and engaging to your audience. You can also use keyword optimization tactics like title tags, meta descriptions, and H1 headers to help your site rank higher in Google search results.
Step 5: Use social media to promote your content
One of the most effective ways to promote your website and its content is through social media. Sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn offer great opportunities to share your content with a wider audience, and can also help to improve your website’s ranking on search engines. By sharing your content on social media sites, you can reach more people and improve your SEO at the same time.
Conclusion
If you’re ready to increase the traffic to your website and are unversed in the realm of SEO, you can either get us to do SEO for you or get a more detailed guide here.
5 Ways To Get Free Website Traffic
Are you looking for ways to increase your free website traffic? If so, you’re in luck! There are many free methods you can use to boost your web traffic. In this article, we’ll discuss some of the most effective techniques for free website traffic.
Introduction: What is website traffic and why do you need it?
Traffic, or website traffic, is the amount of people who visit your website in a given period of time. It’s important to have a lot of website traffic because it means that your website is being seen by more people, which can result in more customers and/or followers.
There are many ways to increase website traffic, including using keywords, social media, and SEO. You can also buy website traffic from various sources. However, the best way to get free website traffic is to optimize your website for search engines and create interesting and valuable content that will attract people’s attention.
SEO
SEO, or search engine optimization, is the process of improving the ranking of a website on search engines. This can be done through optimizing the website content, as well as the use of keywords and backlinks.
The goal of SEO is to improve the visibility of a website so that it can attract more visitors from search engines. This can result in increased traffic and leads for the website.
SEO is a free way to improve the visibility of a website. There are many techniques that can be used to improve rankings, and most of them are free to implement.
SEO can be a powerful tool for businesses looking to attract more visitors to their websites. By optimizing their websites and using the right keywords, businesses can see a significant increase in traffic from search engines.
Social media marketing
Social media marketing is a great way to generate free website traffic. By creating compelling content and sharing it on social media, you can attract new visitors to your website.
Additionally, social media platforms provide a great opportunity to connect with potential customers and build relationships with them.
By using social media marketing wisely, you can significantly increase the number of visitors to your website and boost your sales.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to generate free website traffic. It can also be used to build relationships with potential and current customers. When done correctly, email marketing can result in increased sales and brand awareness.
One of the benefits of email marketing is that it’s a fairly low-cost way to reach a large audience. Additionally, email marketing allows you to target your audience by demographics, interests, or behavior. Another advantage of email marketing is that you can track how well your campaigns are performing. This allows you to make necessary adjustments and improve your campaigns over time.
Blogging
Blogging is a great way to get free website traffic. By writing blog posts, you can attract new visitors to your website who are interested in the topics you write about. In addition, blogging can help you improve your search engine rankings, which can result in more visitors from search engines.
Referral marketing
Referral marketing is a great way to increase website traffic for free. When someone recommends your website to their friends or family, that person is acting as a referral. If those friends and family members visit your website as a result of the referral, then you have gained new visitors without having to do any extra work.
There are several ways to encourage referrals. One way is to offer incentives such as discounts or free products or services for referrals. You can also make it easy for people to refer your website by providing social media buttons or links that allow people to share your content with their friends and followers with just one click.
You can also promote your referral program on your website and through other marketing channels. Make sure you clearly explain how the program works and what the benefits are for both the referrer and the person being referred.
Conclusion: Which of these methods will work best for you?
When it comes to increasing website traffic, the above methods are the ones you can start with. However, not all of them will work best for you. In order to get the most out of your website traffic efforts, you need to identify the methods that will work best for your business and your audience and test, test, test!
How To Generate Leads With Our Lead Gen Tool Prospekta
Generating leads is a must for every business. Just depending on word of mouth is not a option for some businesses, especially if they are just starting out.
That’s the same hurdle we faced when we started Digital Consulting Pros. We needed leads, and we needed them fast.
That’s why we created the DCP Lead Generator.
So here is a demo that we created to help you generate leads with DCP Lead Generator.
There are also a couple of add-on services that we created which can help you get reviews, build chatbots, and more!
We decided to go for a 7 day free trial for you, so you don’t have to buy unless you are absolutely happy with the service.
Our dedicated customer service team is also happy to answer any questions you have, so do use the chat bubble on the right bottom corner if you are requiring support.
To register for the 7 day free trial, you can click here, or go here for the product page of the DCP Lead Generator.
If you are looking for a done for your solution, you can book a call here to see if we are a good fit.
B2C Lead Generation: How to Generate 30-50 High Quality B2C Leads Per Month For Your Business
Which B2C Lead Generation Strategy?
Paid ads, specifically Facebook Ads, are the fastest way a business owner can generate a high quality lead as part of B2C lead generation strategy.
Facebook has billions of user and its highly powerful algorithm can be utilized to target audiences in a very granular fashion.
Does your business target cat lovers based in the US? No problem.
Maybe you are selling an app only developed on Android? Easy peasy.
Targeting by audience psychographics and demographics allows your ad to be shown to potential customers which have a bigger chance of becoming a client, then just showing your ad to everyone on the platform.
Facebook Lead Generation Strategy
There are various campaigns you can run on Facebook. We will be focusing on one in this particular blog post: The Lead Generation campaign functionality on Facebook.
Of course you can send traffic from Facebook to your website, preferably to a landing page for your lead capture. However you must ensure that your landing page loads fast and is continuously tested for copy, call to actions, colours and so on.
With a lead gen campaign, the potential lead is generated within Facebook. The form generated is built in within Facebook, which eliminates the optimization of a landing page altogether.
Now most people using lead gen forms only collect names, emails and numbers at best. The problem with this strategy is high volume of leads, but of low quality. You must ask at least 2-3 questions which serve to qualify the leads.
For example, if you are a real estate agent, you might as the type of property you are looking for or what is their credit score.
This will result in lower quantities, but higher quality of leads.
At Digital Consulting Pros, our B2C Lead Generation campaigns priorities quality over quantity.
What about the actual ad itself?
You want to deliver value, some sort of lead magnet ideally. A lead magnet is something which is easily consumed by the subscriber, which delivers a lot of value from the start. Psychologically, if the subscriber gets a lot of value for free, they will be excited with the value you will give them if they had to do a paid transaction and becoming a client of yours.
Lead magnets can come in very forms, such as: white papers, audios, PDFs, eBooks and webinars among others. You can test either or, but we have found that the shorter the lead magnet, the better, whilst delivering a ton of value.
For example, 1 secret to drive 1000 visitors to your website everyday rather than 99 ways how to get traffic online.
Essentially, the reason why they are subscribing and parting with their private info, is that you are giving them a piece of value for free. Such is the start of your relationship with your prospect.
You can download your lead list directly from the Lead Centre on Facebook. However we like to use an automation tool like Zapier to “zap” the leads from Facebook to Google Sheet which we give access to our clients to.
An extra added touch we added, is that we added an email ping. This means that every time a lead comes in, the user generating the lead gets an email notification. This eliminates the need of having to refresh the Google Sheet to see if new leads came in.
Summary
So to summarise, one can sum up the above B2C lead generation strategy in the following steps:
- Come up with a lead magnet that delivers a lot of value to your prospective clients.
- Come up with an ad that draws them to the lead magnet and convinces them to subscribe for it.
- Setup the campaign on your Facebook Ads Manager account.
- Wait for the leads to come in!
We did not give any technical details because we want this post to be evergreen and not constantly updated. The strategy remains the same, but Facebook updates its platform from time to time, rendering the screenshots and instructions outlined invalid.
If you need help with setting the above up and maintaining it, feel free to consult the Facebook Business Blueprint or you can also setup a discovery call for your B2C Lead Generation strategy here.
5 ways to be amazing at your B2B Lead Generation
B2B Lead Generation is crucial for any company looking to build up its client portfolio.
Building up leads, following up and nurturing them, building a relationship with them, and ultimately converting them into clients, is the bottom line of any B2B organization.
Here are 5 ways to be amazing at your B2B lead generation.
- Know your target
- Know your message
- Getting a meeting
- Getting a good lead generation software
- Outsource it
1. Know your target.
It might seem obvious, but a lot of B2B companies adopt a shot gun approach, reaching out to companies, that, more often than not, do not even require their services. This wastes an invaluable commodity for businesses: time.
They would not just need your services as well, they would need to want it. Need and want have different desire levels entirely.
Targeting has to be as granular as possible.
Here are some targeting parameters you need to consider when narrowing down your list of prospects:
- Location
- Role
- Company Size
- Company Annual Turnover
- Niche
- If they are B2B, B2C or both
A buyer avatar must be established to have a list of highly targeted, high quality prospects as part of your B2B lead generation strategy.
2. Know your message.
Now that you have a list of leads or prospects that you know that need your service, it’s time to craft your message.
Now you might be tempted to reach out on LinkedIn or via email straight out of the gate with a pitch of how awesome your service is.
Trouble is, everyone else is doing that. And most companies you are going to speak to get bombarded by this on a daily basis.
So how do you stand out?
You provide value.
How?
Your message should include reaching out to your prospect, telling them a bit about yourself, and then giving some sort of value piece that they can consume easily and get something big out of it.
For example, at Digital Consulting Pros, we give value through free digital audits and value based blog posts.
Providing value is the building block of B2B lead generation. Once they see what you can offer free, they might want to go for the paid version of your service.
Think of it as getting a free sample from a shopping mall. You test it, and if you see great results with it, you normally end up buying the product right?
Don’t forget, no matter what medium you use, you need to get them straight in a meeting with you, so let’s go to the next point…
3. Getting a meeting
Regardless if it’s LinkedIn, email, search engine marketing, social media marketing…the bottom line is getting a meeting with your prospect. A face to face meeting, a video call, a phone call…the more personal the better.
This is where you get to ask questions to qualify your prospect. The more questions you ask, the better you get to know your prospect and know what they want as part of your B2B lead generation strategy.
What happens in this meeting and beyond depends on your sales cycle, being a 1 call close or a 5 call close or whatever you are normally used to in your client conversion process.
Bottom-line however, is getting them from the online realm, and onto your appointment calendar.
4. Getting a good lead generation software
Manual B2B lead generation can take a lot of time and money. In today’s world of artificial intelligence and automated processes, you can save a lot resources by engaging with a B2B lead generation software that can save you both time and money, whilst also making you money!
This is why we have developed the DCP Lead Generator™ when we started our agency back in 2017.
We wanted a system that could get us leads, and contact them and follow up automatically.
Following the development of what we believe is one of the best b2b lead generation software out there, we closed 17 B2B leads into clients in 73 days. That translated into a cool 5 figure sum in our pockets.
You can read more about it here to see if it’s worth giving it a shot in your business.
5. Outsource it
Sometimes you just want to either give you B2B lead generation to someone else or support your existing department.
At Digital Consulting Pros, we used LinkedIn and email to generate 15+30+ leads per month for our clients.
What is a lead though?
Our definition of a lead in this case is someone who has been targeted, contacted, and engaged into a conversation, usually leading up to an appointment.
The client normally takes over and starts nurturing the prospect and, eventually, into a client.
You can find more info about our B2B Lead Generation Service here.
Conclusion
Regardless if you take up B2B lead generation yourself with the help of a software perhaps, or outsource it to a B2B lead generation agency, just remember that targeting and the message are the foundations of a potentially lucrative B2B lead generation strategy that can take your business to the next level.
Are You Looking For A Digital Marketing Agency In Malta?
You might be a business based in Malta and looking for a digital marketing agency in Malta.
But why do you need a digital marketing agency?
How does it help your business and what is its scope in helping your business grow?
A good digital marketing agency will help you with the following:
- Web Design and Development
- Social Media Management
- Paid Ads – Google and Facebook
- Search Engine Optimisation
- Content Generation
- Email Marketing
Lets go through them one by one shall we?
Web Design and Development
A website is the number one asset you will ever own online (together with your email list). It is one of two things that you can only control and own on the internet.
If you play your cards right, you can even have it as your high ROI engine, converting incoming traffic into clients and buyers.
A good digital marketing agency should be able to design a website for you based on what we call “current Good Website Practice”. It is a phrase that we came up with which basically means that your website is both pleasing to search engines and your visitors.
Websites have to be fast, intuitive and adaptable to any device, so your visitor can get their problems solved through learning about your service and becoming a client.
As a digital marketing agency, rest assured we can deliver an amazing website that will make an impression and convert.
Social Media Management
Ah, social media. How it took the world by storm from the 2000s onwards.
Starting from what now is the lowly Myspace, all the way to Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
There is no doubt that social media has taken a major part in our lives and every business without a single exception must have a solid social media presence.
A digital marketing agency should guide you through the ins and outs of social media management and how to draw traffic from these sites, into your own, converting this traffic into clients.
Do we help you with social media? You bet!
We have literally seen the rise and rise of social media with our own eyes, and as a digital marketing agency, rest assured that we will handle your social media campaign like pros!
Paid Ads – Google and Facebook
Google and Facebook, as of time of writing, are literally the gods of the internet. Apart from being the most visited websites in the whole wide internet, they practically own most of the traffic passing from one site to another. With several partners across the internet, rest assured that most of the banners you end up clicking on, are most likely Facebook or Google partner ads.
Google and Facebook charge per click or impression. Depending where you place the ads, they can really translate into high quality traffic, which in turn convert into clients for your business.
As a digital marketing agency, we will take you through the step by step process required to design and maintain such paid ad campaigns, from keyword research and targeting, to ad copy and optimisation.
Search Engine Optimisation
Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO, is the strategy to ensure that you rank as high as possible when someone uses search engines for a keyword that means that they are ready to buy.
This is more of a long term strategy, as it takes time to rank for a keyword, depending on competitivity.
SEO has a lot of facets to it, and can be easily daunting to the uninitiated.
You can either decide to learn SEO and get ranking yourself, or you can get an experienced digital marketing agency (such as ourselves) to do it for you.
Content Generation
Writing content is no doubt, a very important part of the SEO process. Having a regularly updated blog on your website shows search engines that you are active and care about your image in producing high quality content to help your potential clients.
There is a lot of work that goes into content generation…research, keywords, structuring…that is why as a digital marketing agency, we handle this completely, leaving you only to review our work if you so wish, before we have your traffic digest your amazing content, and hopefully, trust you enough to become a client!
Email Marketing
We left the best for last…
Email Marketing has constantly proven to be the digital marketing strategy with the highest ROI.
The reason is simple.
When traffic goes into your website, visitors will have the chance to subscribe to your content and/or offers. This means they are already interested in what they have to offer, albeit not becoming a customer just yet.
Emails are very personal and the average person opens their inbox at least once a day.
With a well placed email marketing strategy, not only will you remain top of mind with your prospects, but you will also build a relationship with them, and encourage them to buy when the time is right.
And before you ask, of course we can do this strategy for you!
Final Thoughts
So there you are…this is why hiring a digital marketing agency in Malta could propel you the top of your market. Here at Digital Consulting Pros, we strive to be the best digital marketing agency there is, period.
We do this through amazing customer care, great results, and overdelivering on our work ethic and experience.
Lets have a strategy session, its on us!
You can book a call here: https://calendly.com/digitalconsultingpros/30min
Get Your Website Funded By The Micro Invest Scheme
Once of the reasons why we exist as Digital Consulting Pros, is because we believe every business, no matter how big or small, should have an online presence.
Not only having a website, but a website which adheres to what we coined as “current Good Website Practice” or cGWP.
A website is one of the very few assets you actually own fully online. Take a Facebook page. That can be removed by Facebook any time they see fit. Whilst having a Facebook page is encouraged, you have to embrace the fact that its not yours and anything can happen to it. The same goes for any social media site (Twitter, YouTube, etc).
Websites can come in various forms – and there is quite a cost range to them. Whatever the cost, it is always great to have a discount or have your website partially sponsored. This is where the the Micro Invest Scheme comes in.
What is the Micro Invest Scheme?
The Micro Invest Scheme was launched by Malta Enterprise to support businesses in setting up their online web presence. You can check their FAQ here and their guidelines here.
Businesses who are eligible for the Micro Invest Scheme can earn up to 45% tax credits if they are based in Malta. They have not forgotten Gozo too, giving them up to 65% tax credits if any business in Gozo are looking to setup their own online web presence. That is quite a hefty discount either way.
We speak to hundreds of prospects on a monthly basis, and budget always seems to be an issue. With the Micro Invest Scheme, there is ample reason to invest in a solid online web presence.
So why trust us with your website?
We have built websites since 2008 (that is a long time in the internet space) and have also upgraded websites to perform better, faster and stronger.
Our goal is not only to develop a website, but to develop a website that search engines would love to rank and prospects would love to visit and get converted to clients!
So what’s next?
Book an obligation free call with us by picking a time and date from our calendar here. It’s so easy, your pet can do it 😁
Lets get digital!
Email marketing – the highest ROI strategy
What is email marketing?
Email marketing is a commercial channel used to deliver advertisements, offers, education, and other marketing content directly to an interested user’s email inbox.
Here are some metrics that can pique your interest for email marketing:
- 82% B2B and B2C companies use email marketing
- 75% Email revenue is generated by triggered campaigns
- 53% Emails opened on mobile devices
Email marketing can also be used in tandem with retargeting, SMS and direct mail.
There are various types of emails one can broadcast to their list:
- Announcement
- Product update
- Newsletter
- Event invitation
- Social media updates
- Internal updates
Automated emails can also be in the form of welcome, confirmation, thank you and abandoned cart emails.
What is a list?
A subscriber list is the contact information for all of the users who have requested emails and are allowed to be emailed.
Opt-in permission
Optins can be single or double.
Single optins result in efficient and easy list building whilst double optins result in slower but higher quality list growth.
Inbound Email Marketing
Email is inbound when it is used to attract highly qualified leads organically.
Its advantages are the following:
- Targets specific buyers
- Low-cost high-return channel
- Easier to personalize
- Generates high ROI
- Cheap in terms of cost per lead and cost per acquisition
- Fast, effective and measurable results
Legislation and Regulations
Regulations are designed to prevent spammers from acquiring people’s email addresses without their permission and sending them unsolicited emails.
Some notable regulations are the following:
CAN-SPAM constraints
CAN-SPAM stands for Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003
- Include physical address
- Simple opt-out process
- Can send to any user who has not “opted-out”
- Subject line must accurately reflect the content
- Identify the message as an ad
CASL constraints
CASL stands for Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation of 2014
- Emails sent only to consenting users
- A pre-checked box is not an express opt-in
- “Implied opt-in” valid for 24 months
- Social media interaction and conditional opt-ins are not valid
GDPR constraints
GDPR stands for the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation of May 2018
- Marketing emails sent after explicit consent
- Personal user data protected
- Users may request any of their personal data
- Users may request data about them be deleted
Email Strategy
Segmentation
Segmentation is the division of email subscribers into smaller segments based on set criteria, such as geographic location, interests and purchase history.
Email marketers can use segmentation to cater to different email lists rather than creating one mass message for all.
There are many parameters for segmentation, namely:
- Demographics
- Job role/Industry/Company type
- Purchase history
- Web traffic
- Interest groups
- Clicks/Opens/Content format
- Change in engagement/behavior
Personalization
We all like exclusivity and emails are no exception. Having a personalized recommendation as a customer, addressed by name, and having a personalized search history (by product for example) are all strategies that keep us engaged and responsive.
Timing
Test your audience. Use A/B testing to get better insight into your audience’s preferences.
Send on optimal days. Emails sent between Tuesday and Thursday work best for B2B campaigns.
Send on optimal send times. Take account of customers across different time zones
Engagement
Make sure to welcome new subscribers.
Ask yourself: How often you will email them? What are your emails focused on? Make sure to simplify your email message.
Create targeted segments for your specific emails and always test your audience.
Analytics
Keep an eye on your email insights, normally handed to you by your email marketing service provider. Optimize according to your data for maximum business growth.
Email Service Providers
An Email Service Provider (ESP) operates and maintains the software and hardware for delivering bulk email. They provide a platform for managing and segmenting your contact lists, building email templates, and sending and tracking your campaigns on a large scale.
ESP Functions
Email Service Providers manage several functions namely:
- Contact Database
- Segmentation Personalization
- Automation Tracking
- Behavior
- Unsubscribe Management
- Email &Landing Page Creation
Email marketing can virtually be wholly automated with a plethora of services from where to choose from.
Example Services
Advantages and limitations
Advantages
- ESP Provisioning, Domain, and IP Setup
- Deliverability Reporting
- Enterprise MTA Configurations
- Bounce and Complaint Handling
Limitations
- Cheaper to send internally
- No control over rate limits and sending volumes
- Restricted to their reporting and user interface
Data Capture
To capture data, is to generate a lead, and one can do this by having a “lead magnet” in place.
This can be anyone of the following:
- Newsletter with relevant content
- Downloading a whitepaper
- Offering a coupon
- Free trial for your product/service
- Placing an order
Should I Rent Or Purchase A List?
The simple answer is: no. Such lists are not used to your language, and you will have no idea about their quality and responsiveness.
List Building
There are many ways you can build a list:
- Blog signups
- Social media signups
- Offline events
- Partners
- Opt-in media (lead magnets)
- Referrals
List Segmentation
It is very important to manage your contact database through list segmentation. You can have leads who never bought from you but conveyed interest, and customers who have already purchased once.
This will result in higher open and click through rates as well as lower complaints and unsubscribe rates.
Campaign Delivery
Email Campaign Creation
Here are the basic steps from start to finish:
- Identify the need for an email
- Define campaign requirements
- Write email copy
- Add email copy to an email template
- Set up email tracking (opens and clicks)
- Test your email
- Proof read your email
- Send your email
- Analyze your results
Deliverability Factors
Some factors affecting deliverability can be:
1. Custom Authentication: this is when an inbox will ask you to confirm that you are really sending the email, normally giving you a reasonable time window to do so, otherwise it will go to spam.
2. Single Opt-in: We recommend using single opt-in instead of a double opt-in although the latter protects against incorrect sign ups, reduces spambots and builds your sending reputation. You have to weigh the pros and cons on this one.
3. Domain: Sending from a free domain email address normally lowers your deliverability. Use address domains or authenticated subdomains as they help prevent ISP filters from blocking your emails, are instantly recognizable to your recipients and help build the sending reputation for your domain.
4. Subject Lines: Avoid using unclear or spam flagging subject lines such as using ALL CAPITALS, avoid excessive and unnecessary use of punctuation and using SP$C!AL CH@RCT3RZ sparingly, and only when relevant.
5. Images: Avoid Sending emails with too many images. Use alternative text for blocked images.
6. URL shorteners: Avoid general URL shorteners and inserting the full URL link as text. Instead, create a hyperlink with appropriate text and ensure all your links go to legitimate domains.
Campaign Delivery Challenges
The main challenges when delivering marketing emails are:
Bounces
Soft Bounce
- Temporary delivery failure
- Mailbox was full
- Receiving server was down
- Message too large
Hard Bounce
- Permanent delivery failure
- Email address is invalid or no longer in use
- Typo in email address
- Retries will not be successful
Spam Complaints
Why people report spam:
- Confused about who you are
- Unsure why you are emailing them
- Can’t find the unsubscribe link
Spam Traps
Typos: Email address with ISP domain misspelled (e.g. Comnast.net, Homtail.com)
Recycled: Email address that existed, then abandoned, and later reactivated by the ISP
Solicited: Email address that never opted into any email communication
Sending Volumes
ISPs look for:
- Consistent sending pattern
- Established sending history
- Spikes that trigger spam filters
Engagement
ISPs look for:
- Recipient’s engagement levels
- Type of engagement (open, click, save, reply, forward, move, etc.)
- Sender’s IP and domain reputation
Testing Before Sending
Test and Optimize
- Subject line
- From name
- Time of day
Reviewing previous performance
- Sent versus delivered
- Measure opens and clicks
- Monitor bounces and unsubscribes
Checking for blacklists
- Email address is on blacklist
- Domain is not authenticated
- Email contains errors
- No broken links
Understand, manage and remove
- Monitor Delivery: Track your email delivery by looking at bounce rates and response rates
- Good List Hygiene: Purge your list regularly of invalid emails and emails that do not respond (when sending a question email).
Final Thoughts
This is a very brief overview on email marketing and how it can help your business. Check out our blog posts on how to design the perfect email and how to test your emails and track your email marketing performance for a better outline on email marketing.
If you are looking to outsource email marketing, click here to get an email marketing strategy in place designed to get you and your business results!
Email Testing & Measuring Performance
Email Testing
Make sure you test your emails before sending en masse:
Seed Testing: List of emails you will send to before launch
Rendering Testing: How your email displays on various email clients and browsers
Load Testing: How quick your images load on desktop and mobile devices
You can use an email testing tool like Litmus.
With Litmus you can:
- Preview email in 70+ apps and devices
- Validate links, images and tracking
- Test load times
- Build email
- Access analytics
Components to test
Test the following components in your emails:
- Subject Line
- From Name
- Pre-header
- Calls to Action
- Social media icons and links
- Unsubscribe link and address
- HTML vs Text email
- Personalization
A/B Testing
A/B testing is a method of comparing two versions of an email against each other to determine which one performs better.
How does A/B testing work? Here is a great video that explains that:
Keep these tips in mind when doing A/B testing:
- Only test one variable at a time
- Split your groups equally and randomly
- Test early and test often for the best results
- Test as large a sample as you can for more accurate results
- Trust the data collected, not your gut instinct
A/B testing will lead to:
- Better understanding of each segment
- Determine the best subject line
- Improved content
- Increased conversion rates
- More sales
Measuring Campaign Performance
Click-through rate
What is it? Percentage of recipients who clicked on one or more links
How to calculate (Total OR Unique clicks / delivered emails) * 100
Example (500 clicks / 10,000 delivered) *100 = 5% CTR
Conversion rate
What is it? Percentage of recipients who clicked a link and completed desired action (purchase)
How to calculate (Number who completed desired action / delivered emails) * 100
Example (400 completed action / 10,000 delivered) *100 = 4% CTR
Bounce Rate
What is it? Percentage of emails sent that couldn’t be delivered
How to calculate (Bounced email/ emails sent) * 100
Example (75 bounced emails / 10,000 sent) * 100 = 0.75% bounce rate
Share/Forwarding Rate
What is it? Percentage of recipients who clicked “Share this” button to post to social media
How to calculate (clicks on share button / delivered emails) * 100
Example (100 clicks on button / 10,000 delivered) *100 = 1% share rate
List Growth
What is it? The growth of your subscriber list
How to calculate Add the number of new subscribers per week/month
Example 10 new subscribers a day = 70 per week
Overall ROI
What is it? Overall return on investment for the email campaign
How to calculate (($ in additional sales made minus $ invested in campaign) / $ invested in campaign) * 100
Example ($1,000 in additional sales – $100 invested in the campaign / $100 invested in the campaign) * 100 = a 900% return on investment for the campaign
Optimizing Campaign Performances
Optimizing Open rates
• Well-targeted subscriber lists
• Familiar sender name
• Effective subject lines with personalization
Click rates
Here are some tips to increase your click rates:
- Simple explicit CTAs – be direct.
- Multiple links for the same action – increasing your probability to getting a click.
- Offering deals for a limited time – scarcity encourages action.
- Testing different colors – seeing what works best.
Why optimize email for mobile
81% of people use their phones primarily for email – which is a good enough reason to optimize your emails for mobile.
You can do this by:
- Keep the flow of mobile all the way to the landing page
- Make images and emails lightweight for mobile devices
- Code for phone, tablet, and desktop
- Use reports to identify mobile device opens
Minimizing Bounces and Unsubscribes
Keep content relevant to your audience.
Ask yourself:
- Is the content aligned?
- Does subject line and content match?
- Are emails meeting subscriber expectations?
How to monitor for bounces and unsubscribes:
- Review campaign open and click dips
- Determine unsubscribes and reasons for complaints
- Understand campaign conversions
- Monitor for deliverability issues, including bounces
Final Thoughts
Email Marketing keeps topping the charts as the best ROI digital marketing strategy out there. You should also make sure to design the perfect email.
If you are looking to optimize and improve your email marketing, click here to get an email marketing strategy in place designed to get you and your business results.
Email Marketing: 6 Components To Designing The Perfect Email
Email Components
There are various components that make an effective email. The subject line, imagery, copy and call to action are all crucial to a successful email marketing campaign.
Audience
Your strategy must include your buyer’s journey to align your emails to the right audience.
Potential customers should be getting welcome and promotional emails.
Existing customers should be getting regular newsletters and seasonal or holiday emails.
Long term clients should get loyalty discounts and offers.
Subject Line
The subject line is your first chance to convey a good first impression. It will determine if they will open the email. Therefore a sense of urgency and tone help drive opens. The subject line should also match the body of the email and be engaging as well as relevant to the recipient.
Subject lines can be with the following tones:
- Self-Interest: direct, benefit, provide a clue (‘‘28 ways to increase organic social traffic’)
- Curiosity: generate interest, not giving away too much information (‘Pokemon GO: 3 Marketing Mistakes, Millions of Users Lost!’)
- Offer: free stuff, give something away (‘10-week live training and certification’)
- Urgency: scarcity, limited availability, act now (‘Are you In or Out?’)
- Humanity: person behind the product, thank a user, human appeal for attention (‘Why I (kinda) HATE surveys… ’)
- News: new features, latest developments (‘ANNOUNCING: Marketing Mastery Class’)
- Social Proof: success stories, familiar names, highlighting number of users (‘[Case Study] $25,865/mo in recurring revenue’)
- Story: tell a story, tease the beginning (‘I got Botox—& THIS is what it looked like’)
You can have a better open rate for emails that have personalized subject lines. Segmentation also further increases email opens by 14% and clicks by 100% as the subject line is relevant to the recipient. Always keep in mind that spelling errors in subject lines are an unacceptable mistake.
Email Copy
It is essential to grab attention, build anticipation, call the reader to action and target to the right recipient.
Setting the right tone will engage the reader to go through the entire email and capture their
Attention. Write like you are talking to a friend and keep it to the point
Keeping the email scannable will allow the reader to skim through the finer points before reading it completely. This means having punchy subheadings, bullets lists and short paragraphs.
Focus more on the reader by meeting their needs and providing value.
Ask yourself, what’s in it for them? Describe the benefits rather then features.
Make sure you keep in line with the subject like and follow through on what you promised. Knowing your target marketing by learning through market research will give you a bigger chance for your subscribers to relate to your emails.
Create a sense of urgency such as deadlines for a sale to encourage to take action immediately.
Keep the font legible and consistent.
Legal Requirements
Always have a working unsubscribe link or a preference center in the footer of the email as well as a postal address.
Some optional entries in the email footer can include your social media links and privacy policy.
Call to Action
This is arguably the most important part of the email, with which you can generate a ROI on your email marketing efforts.
Here are some examples:
- Apply Now
- Book Now
- Download Now
- Learn More
- Buy Now
- Sign Up
The guidelines for having an effective call to action are the following:
- Use action verbs
- Make it obvious
- Set expectations
- Bring you somewhere
- Give a sense of urgency
Images
Be careful with using images in emails. Email with images are not a replica of a print mailer or brochure and not all email service providers will display your email images. Overusing images may land you in spam as well.
Here are some best practices for using images:
- Use your brand assets
- Product photos
- Size your images
- Use pixel tracking images
- Use the less than 25% rule
- Include alt and title text
- Don’t trap your messages
Final Thoughts
Email Marketing remains the best digital marketing strategy in terms of ROI, simply because the subscribers are at the bottom of the funnel, classified as warm and interested leads, and ready to be converted into clients.
Are you struggling to get any traction or results with your email marketing? Click here to get an email marketing strategy in place designed to get you and your business results!
SEO: A long term digital marketing strategy.
What is Search Engine Optimization?
According to Search Engine Land, it’s defined as: “The process of getting traffic from the free, organic, editorial or natural search results on search engines”
Organic vs Paid
Paid traffic through search engine advertising can generate near-instant results and often in minutes. You pay-per-click (PPC) on a cost per-click (CPC) keyword basis and ROI is much easier to measure but can stagnate and decline over time. Statistically, a 20-30% of searchers click on paid results.
Organic traffic on the other hand, takes a long time to achieve, most of the time over the course of months, sometimes even years. So whilst traffic is free, it does require time and investment. ROI is hard to measure but tools like SEM Rush, Ahrefs and Google Search Console make things much easier. A good SEO strategy will also net you a good portion of the remaining 70-80% of the searchers that click, providing you rank well.
Both organic and paid traffic require a solid keyword research.
The Three Pillars of SEO
Technical SEO includes non-content onsite activities that improve SEO.
On-Page SEO includes content and keyword targeting onsite activities that improve SEO.
Off-Page SEO includes offsite activities, like gaining external links (also referred to as backlinks), to improve SEO.
All the strategies mentioned above helps the search engines crawl, index and rank each website accordingly.
At the end of the day, search engines exist as algorithms that look for clues to give the searcher back exactly what they want.
Keyword Research
All good SEO strategies start with a strong keyword research.
Keyword research is the process of discovering the keywords used by potential customers to find your products and picking the most relevant keywords that are within your reach and that have good search volume.
Keywords can be how to queries, navigational referring to sites or best of all, transactional queries that are most likely to lead to a sale:
Informational Keywords
- Collectively the largest proportion of all keywords
- Earlier stage of the buying cycle
- Harder to convert into sales
- Less competitive to rank for
Navigational Keywords
- Smaller proportion of all keywords
- Often brand related keywords
- Can occur at all stages of the buying cycle
Transactional Keywords
- Smaller proportion of all keywords
- Last stage of the buying cycle
- Easier to convert into sales
- More competitive to rank for
The right types of keywords lead to:
- Get the right kind of visitors to your site
- Identify keywords with high search volume and omit low volume terms
- Identify content gaps on your website
- Target keywords that are within your reach
Keywords can be short tail or long tail. Short-tail keywords are typically one or two words and less specific such as summer holidays. Long-tail Keywords are typically three or more words and more specific such as summer holidays in Rome.
Long tail keywords work better then short tail keywords as accounts for 70% of all search traffic and are easier to convert and rank for. This comes with a caveat though as they harder to research and require more in-depth and a greater amount of content.
A good keyword research can be carried out with the following steps:
Step 1: Pick a topic
- Focus on one topic at a time
- Think of topics closely aligned to your objectives or industry
- Have a webpage in mind
- Think of the needs of your customers
Step 2: Brainstorm keywords
- Think of closely related keywords
- Think synonyms
- Include plural and singular keywords
- Aim for quantity, rather than quality.)
A good idea is to use Google Keyword Planner, you will get the keywords recommended by the search engine and best of all, and it’s free!
SEM Rush and Wordstream are also other great tools to help you look up keywords.
Step 3: Review keyword value
Search Volume and Relevancy are the two main factors to consider with valuing keywords. The ideal keywords have high search volume and relevant to the topic you are developing your SEO strategy around. Remember long tail keywords over short tail keywords to have more specificity around your topic.
Technical SEO
As explained earlier, Technical SEO includes activities completed on your site that are designed to improve SEO but are not related to content. This will allow web crawlers from the search engine to crawl your website effectively.
You can ensure your website crawlability by:
1. Minimizing site errors
2. Using redirects wisely
3. Creating and submitting an up-to-date XML sitemap
4. Minimizing duplicate content
5. Checking for indexed pages
Google Search Console is a free service offered by Google that helps you monitor and maintain your site’s presence in Google Search results and can help greatly with your Technical SEO efforts.
Technical SEO also includes page speed, mobile responsiveness and website security.
Page speed
Page speed can be achieved by:
- Aiming for 3.5 seconds or less
- Making image file sizes smaller
- Compressing text and files
- Minimizing the number of requests made
- Upgrading your web hosting.
Another free tool by Google, PageSpeed Insights, measures your page speed, as well as giving you recommendations on what you can do to improve it.
Mobile Responsiveness
Google announced mobile-friendliness as a ranking factor back in 2015 and mobile usage overtook desktop in the same year.
Website Security
Google announced HTTPs (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) as a ranking factor back in 2014. HTTPs was primarily used to protect pages that collected information like a contact us or a shopping cart page. Implementing HTTPs from HTTP requires careful redirect planning and requires an SSL certificate.
On-Page Optimization
On-Page Optimization is the process of ensuring your content is both relevant and provides a great user experience. It includes targeting the right keywords within your content and plays a leading role in search engine rankings.
Factors that include on page optimisations are:
- Title Tags
- URLs
- Meta Descriptions
- Headings
- Main Copy
- Images
Of course, the before mentioned keyword strategy applies here.
For title tags, it is key to include as many keywords as possible, although the space is limited to 70 characters, so it is recommended to be as descriptive and engaging as possible.
The same applies for meta descriptions and URLs, although the space is limited to 156 and 70 characters respectively.
Content should be organized properly with headings and subheadings using the conventional H tags (H1, H2, H3 and so on).
There are no strict guidelines with length but keyword stuffing/spamming is to be avoided. The idea is to have content which keeps the reader engaged.
Hyperlinks should be included in the main copy which is called anchor text and pass relevancy to the receiving page. The more internal links a page has the more important it is deemed to be, so it will stand a better chance of ranking.
Any images added should a description in the Alt text. Images must also be optimized in size to avoid weighing down on website speed.
Off-Page Optimization
Off-Page Optimization is the process of enhancing a website’s search engine rankings through activities outside of the website. This is largely driven by building backlinks to your site.
A backlink is an incoming hyperlink from one website to another and increasing the number of backlinks to your site is one of the key SEO goals you should definitely implement.
Backlinks are either relevant to your industry, respected and trusted by authority websites or earned on merit.
Ultimately, backlinks lead to improvement in Page Rank.
When a website receives a link from an external website (backlink), some reputation is passed to it. It acts like one webpage is voting that the page it links to is credible. Google has a sub-algorithm called PageRank which calculates how much reputation is passed.
PageRank should be considered more as a concept and not as a metric.
The role of social media in the context of backlinks are also known as social signals. These are different to backlinks because they tend not to pass reputation or PageRank. However, the more views you get from your content, the more likely a person will link to you from their website in the form of a backlink. Therefore social signals are still perceived as important.
Monitoring your SEO Strategy
Traffic can be direct, referral or organic.
Direct traffic can be URLs typed in directly in the browser, links in PDFs and emails.
Referral traffic can be backlinks.
Organic traffic is gauged on how well you rank for keywords on search engines.
Key Metrics
Metrics measuring SEO performance are:
- Keyword Rankings: Keyword rankings for a targeted list of keywords.
- Traffic: Monthly organic traffic and referral traffic year-on-year.
- Conversions: Total number of monthly conversions.
- Links: Number of external links.
SEO can falter for various reasons. You can use Google Search Console to check for any errors in your URLs as well as indexing your pages properly. Check that your keywords are not excessive and following best practices. A lack of backlinks can also be a reason why your website is not ranking well enough.
Monitor organic traffic in Google Analytics. Remember to set up a segment that will allow you to analyze organic traffic only. Where relevant, setup conversions and sales traffic in Google Analytics. If you are selling things online, take this a step further and set up goals to track ecommerce also.
Final Thoughts
SEO can be a long and arduous journey. However it can be one with great rewards when implemented and maintained properly. It can take 2-6 months to rank for a competitive keywords (some hyper competitive keywords, even longer).
If you require an expert in SEO at your side to either implement an SEO strategy for you, or guide you on one, feel free to check out our SEO service here.