Without a doubt, Google keyword searches are one of, if not THE most important battleground for the majority of businesses. Not to say that secondary search engines and Facebook aren’t a good way to get ahead, but for the time being, Google is still king. If you don’t rank on that first page for a given keyword, then you might as well not even be in the mix.
So what do you do when one of your competitors outranks you for a keyword you want? First of all, you have to do your research to confirm that it’s not only a high-traffic keyword, but also one that will drive conversions. When you monitor AdWords competitors are using, you need to evaluate whether their strategy is working. If it is, then you need to figure out how to spy on your competitors’ SEO rankings and Adwords strategy.
Four Top Competitive Analysis Tools
There are dozens of products out there that can help you keep track of what your competitors are doing, but here are a handful you can check out, and one of them you might already be using:
1. WooRank
WooRank is designed to help you track your keyword ranking and analyze your site performance and usability, keyword usage, and the quality of your backlinks. But what’s really nifty about WooRank as a competitive analysis tool is that you can add several competitors to your analysis to see how your site and landing pages stack up to theirs in the rankings and why.
2. SEMrush
This one is a bit more of an all-in-one tool that includes SEO, keyword research, and even PR and social media intelligence, but it offers great features to help you spy on competitors.
Because it can do so many things – like analyze billions of keywords and trillions of backlinks – it can be a little overwhelming on the UI front, but SEMrush can enable you build your own toolkit to keep an spy on competitors’ SEO rankings, AdWords, and even their Google Ad budgets! And to keep you from getting caught off guard, SEMrush can also help you identify new competitors of which you might not have been aware.
3. Google Adwords Keyword Planner
We’d be surprised if you don’t already have this one in your arsenal of competitive analysis tools, and if your business is just getting up and running, this might be the only one you have the budget for at the moment. But, even though it’s a free tool, it can still help you keep an eye on the landscape by seeing how any given page – either yours or your competitor’s – ranks for any given keyword in either organic search or paid AdWords.
4. Spyfu
This tool is the one that’s the most focused in its goal of helping you spy on competitors. More than just showing current rankings, it shows you what keywords your competitors are paying for and what ad tests they’re running, giving you a window into their strategy.
Like many of the other competitive analysis tools, Spyfu also helps you analyze how competitors are achieving their organic SEO rankings, whether through keyword usage, backlinks, or other methods. All of the data is refreshed periodically to help you stay ahead of the curve.
It’s about customers, not just keywords
Ranking for your desired keywords in Google searches can be a grueling process that requires a lot of research, sneaky tactics, and a ton of trial and error. But, keywords and rankings will only go so far if you don’t really know your audience and what they want.
So, remember that as you use competitive tools and battle with your competitors, the point is not so much beating them as it is winning your potential customers. Make sure that your keywords drive the right customers to you so that you can provide them with the services or products they need.
In order to be successful in affiliate marketing, you need to identify your individual target market. Once you’ve done that, you can use powerful techniques to claim your share of the market and start generating revenue. In this blog post, we’ll discuss some of the most effective affiliate marketing techniques. We’ll also provide tips for finding profitable affiliate programs and optimizing your campaigns for success. So, whether you’re a seasoned pro or you’re just getting started in affiliate marketing, read on for some valuable tips!
What Is Affiliate Marketing?
If you’re looking for a way to make extra money, affiliate marketing might be the perfect solution for you. Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer they bring to the business. In other words, you earn a commission by promoting someone else’s products or services. This can be a great way to make extra money while helping others promote their businesses. Here we’ll take a closer look at what affiliate marketing is and how you can get started with it.
How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?
Affiliate marketing works by matching businesses with relevant affiliates. When a business signs up for an affiliate program, they provide you with a unique affiliate link used to track referrals from you. When someone clicks on your affiliate link and makes a purchase, you earn a commission. The amount of commission you earn will vary depending on the terms of the affiliate program and the product or service being sold. But,as a general rule, you can expect to earn anywhere from 5% to 20% of the sale price.
What Are Some Effective Affiliate Marketing Techniques?
There are many different techniques that can be used in affiliate marketing. However, not all of them will work for every organization. It’s important to experiment and find the techniques that work best for you and your business. Here are some of the most effective affiliate marketing techniques:
Use multiple affiliate programs. Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket. Promote products from multiple affiliate programs in order to maximize your earnings potential. This will also help you diversify your income stream and protect yourself from potential losses.
Create compelling content. If you want people to click on your affiliate links, you need to create content that is compelling and relevant to their interests. Write blog posts, create infographics, or make videos that offer valuable information or insights into your niche.
Use social media. Social media is a great way to reach new people and promote your affiliate links. Create social media accounts for your business and share your content with your followers. You can also join relevant online communities and participate in discussions to get more exposure to your business.
Leverage email marketing. Email is a powerful marketing tool that you can use to promote your affiliate links. Send out regular newsletters or email blasts with valuable information and include your affiliate links in the emails. You can also offer incentives like discounts or coupons to encourage people to click on your links.
Run ads. Paid advertising is another effective way to reach new people and promote your affiliate links. You can run ads on search engines, social media platforms, or websites that are relevant to your target market. Just be sure to choose your keywords carefully and monitor your results to avoid wasting money on ads that don’t perform well.
Affiliate Marketing’s Advantages for Businesses and Consumers
There are many benefits of affiliate marketing for both businesses and consumers. For businesses, affiliate marketing can be an effective way to generate new leads and sales. And, for consumers, it can be a great way to earn money by promoting products and services that they’re interested in. Here are some of the key benefits of affiliate marketing:
It’s a performance-based marketing model. Affiliate marketing is a performance-based marketing model, which means businesses only pay for results. As a result, it is a very cost-effective strategy to market your company.
It’s a great way to reach new customers. Affiliate marketing allows you to reach new customers that you wouldn’t be able to reach with other marketing methods. This is because you’re only paying for results, so you’re not wasting money on ads that no one will see.
It’s a fantastic method to establish credibility and trust. Affiliate marketing can help you to build trust and credibility with your audience. This is because you’re only promoting products and services that you believe in. And if you’re providing valuable content, people will be more likely to trust what you have to say.
It’s a great way to earn passive income. Affiliate marketing can be a great way to earn passive income. This is because you can make money even while you’re not doing any work. All you need to do is promote the products and services of other businesses, and you’ll earn a commission on every sale that you generate.
It’s a great way to learn more about your audience. Affiliate marketing can also be a great way to learn more about your audience. This is because you’ll be able to see which products and services they’re interested in. And you can use this information to improve your marketing strategy.
The Future of Affiliate Marketing
In the ever-changing landscape of digital marketing, video has emerged as one of the most powerful tools at a marketer’s disposal. And, in the world of video marketing, affiliate marketing is becoming an increasingly important strategy for earning high-quality traffic and conversions. So, whether you’re just getting started with affiliate marketing, or you’re looking for ways to boost your results, these tips will help you to use this growing channel to work for your business and take advantage of this exciting field!
Take Away:
As you can see, there are a variety of techniques that you can use to be successful in affiliate marketing. It’s important to identify your niche target market so that you can focus your efforts on reaching the right people. Once you’ve done that, it’s time to start using powerful marketing techniques to claim your share of the market. And, don’t forget to optimize your campaigns for success! By following these tips, you’ll be well on your way to generating revenue through affiliate marketing.
Social media is one of the most popular sources of information for customers. About 55% of people learn about brands and companies on social networks, so you definitely need to use this opportunity and tell users about your product or service out loud.
However, it’s not that easy anymore. With constantly growing competition, it becomes more and more challenging for brands to increase user engagement on social media. We have analyzed a breadth of data from marketers and have outlined the most useful tips to increase user engagement on social networks below.
The Importance of Social Media Engagement for Your Business
Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter can help you build strong connections with customers. Each time a user likes, comments, or interacts with your posts, it demonstrates their interest in your company and in what you are sharing. This, in turn, can increase word-of-mouth referrals, raise brand loyalty, and boost sales.
The importance of social media marketing is also due, in part, to the unique opportunity it presents to improve communication with users. Customer engagement can provide valuable insight into the quality of your content and how well it resonates with users. With the information you gather from this constant feedback loop, you can optimize posts in order to draw more attention, thus increasing user engagement.
Moreover, 54% of people surfing social media are doing so to find information on certain products, and over 60% decide to purchase a product after seeing it advertised on social media. Thus, Instagram and other channels can play a powerful role in generating more leads and sales.
In summary, establishing a social media presence, building a follower base, and effectively engaging users with high quality content can have a variety of benefits for a brand. By taking advantage of the incredible capabilities of apps available to marketers, as well as tailoring the following tips to best fit your brand and your consumer base, you can quickly enhance your social media engagement.
5 Tips to Increase Social Media Engagement
While you can simply post content on social media in hopes that your followers interact with and share it on their own, chances are, they may need a little extra push. For this reason, we have provided some tips you can implement immediately to increase engagement with your social media content.
Before we move on, let me introduce you to the bonus tip. Just like you send a personal welcome message to new subscribers, consider sending a “Welcome-to-our-network” message to your new social media followers! Receiving a direct message could make your users feel compelled to respond, which is a strong first step in engaging customers to interact with your brand.
1. Develop a Content Plan and Post Regularly
What is the foundation of a social media content plan? It’s to figure out the ideal ratio for the content that you share. For example, look at your last 10 Facebook posts, how many of them are shared from your blog and from partners’ blogs? What is the balance of promotional content?
There are many theories as to how much of each kind of content you should post, but let me tell you about the golden ratio. It says that 30% of your content should be owned, 60% of posts must be curated, and no more than 10% can be purely promotional.
Once you have the general framework for the content plan figured out, you can decide on the frequency of your posts. The ideal frequency is entirely dependent upon on your specific product and audience. That being said, research has shown the following ranges to be most effective:
Post to Instagram: 3-7x per week
Post to Facebook: 1-2x per day
Post to Twitter: 1-5x per day
Post to LinkedIn: 1-5x per day
2. Interact with the Audience
Social media is about connection and communication, so instead of endlessly talking about only your brand, take some time to interact with your audience. There are plenty of ways to do that, but an easy and effective option is to start by joining discussions to engage with consumers more directly.
For instance, become a member of a Facebook group where people talk about topics relevant to your business, ask questions, answer others’ queries, comment, and share your opinion. Let people notice your valuable insights on the subject. Also, consider creating such a Facebook group of your own where you can not only discuss questions but also freely share promotional posts from time to time.
Another essential step is to respond to comments and direct mentions on all social platforms. When doing this, you have to be consistent and quick. If a customer shared a good review on their social media and mentioned you, go to the comments section, say thank you, and point out what a pleasure it is to have such a great user among your customers. This strategy can also lead to more unique comments, which can boost user engagement.
If someone shared a bad review, reacting to it is even more critical. Comment and say that you are terribly sorry, offer a special promotion or other benefits to ease a tense situation.
Each interaction increases brand awareness and builds a general brand image in the eyes of customers and potential users, so don’t waste this opportunity to build brand equity.
3. Add a Little Humor
Evoking emotions is one of the most effective ways to market. People feel good when they are laughing, as it relaxes the body, releases endorphins, improves the immune system, and allows stress relief. In short, if you want your customers to be happy and associate good feelings with your company, make them laugh.
Being funny on social media is harder than it seems, as a bad joke can spread just as quickly as a good one. Something that you may consider funny, others may see as offensive. That’s why it’s important to check the joke with a diverse array of people you can trust before posting it online. Generally, the better you know your audience, the more successful you can be in making them laugh.
How do you come up with humorous content? Start with exploring current funny trends, and then make them unique to your brand. It will show that your company is relevant and committed to closely connecting with their audience . The brand Charmin executed this perfectly with this social media post:
Contests are another fun way to boost your engagement and make people interact with your social channels. Instagram, Facebook, and many other popular social platforms have features that allow you to create interactive elements, such as quizzes, that you can share on your profile or within a story. Think about topics that help people feel like they have real influence or even partial ownership of your brand, like voting on a new feature, website design, or flavor choice.
You can also hold contests on your social media platforms to initiate good-natured competition among users. Ask a question, and offer a special prize to those who are first to answer correctly. Telling followers to invite friends to join the contest for the chance to win can help to expand the audience even further.
5. Collaborate with Influencers
Collaborating with influencers can massively increase your number of followers and encourage them to engage with your brand. It can also be a refreshing change of pace for your existing followers, as collaboration with different influencers keeps your feed fresh and diversified, breaking up your typical promotional posts.
Pick the right platform to manage influencers, select people who have many potential leads for your brand among their follower base, and organize a mutually beneficial collaboration. One popular way to do this is to host an influencer takeover. Letting an influencer take over your social media account for a day is a commonly used tactic on Snapchat and Instagram and can significantly increase your social media engagement.
Maximizing exposure on social media is important, as many consumers use Instagram as a shopping platform. It is critical for marketers to leverage this opportunity and make their accounts look attractive with stunning photos and influencer collaborations.
Other effective ways to collaborate with influencers include featuring influencer content on your own social media page, sharing videos in which you interview bloggers, or having bloggers create an overview of your product or service to share on their channels.
Here is how Revlon Professional is doing it on Instagram:
Attracting followers and compelling them to interact with your social media content is no simple task. However, by implementing a few of these key strategies, you can take advantage of these rapidly growing platforms to sharpen your brand image and increase brand awareness. By using
tips from expert marketers that have consistently proven successful, you can increase user engagement on social media, boost organic traffic to your site, generate more leads, and improve sales.
In our digital economy, businesses of all sizes can reach more customers than ever before. Social media has become one of the most popular ways to promote a brand or product. It’s no surprise that Facebook advertising is one of the most affordable and effective tools for reaching your target audience.
With approximately 2.9 billion active users worldwide, Facebook is still the leading social media platform among all its competitors. While there are many other options for businesses looking to advertise their products, few can compete with the scope of Facebook as a marketing tool.
Whether you have an established business or are launching a new brand, it’s important to understand how you can use Facebook to your advantage.
7 Things to Consider Before Posting Facebook Ads
But creating a Facebook ad for your brand doesn’t guarantee quality traffic without putting in some work. Like most other digital marketing platforms, you need to consider several things to ensure you get maximum return on investment (ROI).
1. Ensure Your Campaign Objectives and Business Goals Are in Sync
what’s the main idea behind using Facebook marketing? Are you after increasing sales, improving brand awareness, or trying to get more people to read your newsletters? Figuring out what your objective is will be a great determinant of how you will set up your Facebook ads.
Thankfully, Facebook already figured out why it’s important to create ads based on business goals, and therefore has outlined several objectives for almost any goal you might have for your marketing campaign. There isn’t a standard approach to prescribing an objective for every business. Through Facebook, you can learn about each of the listed objectives and how best they suit your business profile.
2. Understand your Target Audience Better
One of the best ways to start with a new Facebook account for business is to understand your target audience. Through Facebook Ads’ Audience Insights, you can simplify the task even more, just ensure you’ve linked your Business Manager account to your Facebook page to be able to view this data.
Under Facebook Business Manager’s main navigator, go to the planning section then select ‘Audience Insights.’ In the next popup, you’ll have two choices; ‘Everyone on Facebook’ and ‘People connected to your Page.’ You should choose the second option and then you can view the relevant data according to the Facebook page selected.
Here, you’ll have access to demographic information, device data, Facebook activities, and everything else you need to know. If your report is blank, it simply means you still have a milestone to cover to add more audiences for Facebook to create some insightful analysis. All isn’t lost though. You can still use insights from larger brands that you share similarities with.
3. Learn How to Best Use Facebook Ad Geotargeting
If you run a small business, you might be tempted to assume that your audience will find you on Facebook as long as you keep posting content that targets them. It’s important to note that most small and medium businesses mainly rely on local audiences and the immediate community for traffic generation.
Some businesses may have a nationwide audience outreach while others extend beyond to reach the global community. Regardless of which business category you operate and where your target audience is, you can leverage geotargeting to create more awareness and improve outreach.
You can access all Facebook live geotargeting settings when creating an ad. Your first point of concern is to ensure your targeted audience is in a location where you intend your brand to reach. The default geotargeting setting is ‘People living in or recently in this location.’
Check each setting and match them to your business case scenario. For instance, if you operate a local home appliance outlet and usually don’t offer shipping outside your area, it’s best to adjust to target audiences who live within that location. That way, you won’t be wasting your ad spend targeting those audiences who are just passing by because they most likely will be in another location by next week.
4. Create and Maintain a Responsive Facebook Marketing Strategy
You must also create a strategy that is responsive to your audience’s needs and desires. Your approach will be different for a B2B enterprise than for a B2C retail brand, for example. You’ll want to know your audience demographics, psychographics, and behaviors.
You’ll also want to know what your competitors are doing on Facebook. You can also use Facebook’s ad insights tools to see what’s working, what’s not, and why. You can also use Facebook’s free marketing tools in combination with paid advertising.
Use the Facebook pixel to track and measure your results. The key to success is to not treat Facebook like it is something mysterious. Instead, you must treat it like any other marketing channel. You must know your audience and be able to relate to them with the right combination of words and images.
5. Learn Intensively About Facebook Ads
Facebook ads might be the single best way to grow your audience. Whether you’re looking to generate leads or increase sales, Facebook advertising is a tried-and-true method for seeing results. Once you have a basic understanding of how Facebook advertising works, you’ll be able to target your ideal audience and boost your reach.
There are a variety of ad types to choose from, including image ads, video ads, carousel ads, poll ads, slideshow ads, and instant experience ads, among others. You can also create custom ads specifically for Facebook. This can give you a leg up on your competition.
Facebook ads are easy to create and you can use them for almost any type of business. You can also use these ads to drive traffic to your website, build your email list, or increase sales. No matter what your goals are, Facebook ads can help you meet them. So, before launching your marketing campaign, ensure you’ve prepped yourself well on what Facebook ads are and what they can achieve.
6. Use Video to Increase Visibility, Keep the Content Engaging
An estimated 80% of people who visit social media sites watch videos. It’s hard to deny the popularity of video marketing. With Facebook’s new algorithm, however, businesses are no longer struggling to get their videos in front of their desired audience members.
You can upload videos directly to your Facebook page, but you also have the option to create a video ad. It’s crucial to use videos in your Facebook marketing strategy because it is the best way to grab your audience’s attention. You can also create video posts by uploading the video directly to your page and adding text or a poll or even an offer or coupon code.
Remember, nothing’s annoying like a boring and stale ad repeatedly displayed. If you resort to posting other ad types other than videos, ensure you keep them fresh every week. Repurposed ads will make your marketing campaigns attractive and engaging to your audience.
Some of the key things to consider when creating your Facebook content is to elaborate on new features, product uses, and pros of your services. Additionally, you can explain what your business is generally all about while introducing your products and services to your new audiences. If you choose this, ensure that you grow from it to something more engaging to catch your audience’s fascination.
7. Find out The Best Times to Post on Facebook
Despite being the most used social media platform, Facebook still ranks among the most challenging social platforms for organic content use. The ever-changing Facebook algorithm also contributes to the difficulty in determining the optimal time to post content.
The best way to navigate this challenge is to schedule your posts. The Facebook page controls allow you to schedule posts to go online at the right time. This feature can also help you identify missing topics and gaps within your posts.
Alternatively, you can use third-party tools such as ViralPost® by Sprout Social, which analyzes audience data and identifies the times with the most activities to help you achieve authentic engagement.
Bonus: Integrate Facebook with Other Platforms
If you want your Facebook efforts to go viral, you should take advantage of the fact that you can link your Facebook page to Instagram, Twitter, and other social media platforms for maximum exposure. You can achieve this in several ways. One way is to share photos from your Instagram account on your Facebook page.
The reverse is also true. Another way is to repost your Facebook posts on Instagram. You can also link your Facebook page to your website to increase your audience reach. And you can also link your Facebook page to email campaigns for even greater exposure.
Final Thoughts
Facebook is a great marketing tool if you take advantage of its rich tools to make your brand more popular and attract organic traffic. Before diving into Facebook marketing, you need to bring yourself up to speed on the different things to do to ensure that every ad spend yields good returns. Paying attention to the points discussed will not create magic changes right away, but will align you in the right direction of Facebook marketing success.
About the Author
Dean Braiden is a director and the leader of the marketing team at Seek Social, a UK-based social media growth company.
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GrowthHack #1 Optimize, adapt, overcome.
Pinterest achieved significant improvements in SEO traffic and in signup conversions, here’s how they did it.
Huge players like Pinterest optimize almost everything. And it’s OK if new tests can bring even 0.0001% improvement. It’s impossible to expect more. Right?
Wrong.
Here are the results of a test that Pinterest ran in 2016:
1. A 15% increase in SEO traffic.
2. A 15% increase in conversion rate to signup.
They rebuilt their pages for performance, decreasing Pinner wait time by 40%.
Here’s how they achieved this (this list is for your CTO):
1. In the past, they fetched the CSS/JS for the entire site.
Now – they only fetched for content above the fold, followed by lazy loading afterward.
2. Migrated to React from a homegrown framework.
3. Introduced multiple layers of caching in their CDN setup, enabled IPv6, switched to higher tiers of service (CDN) and introduced SSL edge termination (DSA) globally.
4. Automated the optimal parallelization of API data fetches.
8. Click an icon and choose “Facebook Post with Comments”, as shown on this image:
9. Below your FB ad hit the arrow-down icon and choose one of your FB pages that look like the names of real people.
10. Hit “Like“.
11. Repeat bullets 9 and 10 with all your FB pages.
Boom. Your newly created FB ad has a bunch of likes from the start ;).
Source: Team TTL
GrowthHack #3 Optimize your snippet box
An optimizedGoogle featured snippet shows an increase in CTR of over 114%, even if you are ranking #1 on page one.
Matthew Barby recently analyzed patterns of results appearing in Google’s featured snippets. He saw an average increase in CTR of over 114%, and that’s even if they were already ranking #1 on page one.
Here are his findings:
1. The query should be either, “how to,” “what is,” “how do,” or “how does.”
2. It doesn’t matter whether your page takes 1 or 10th position (not further than10th).
3. The search query should be in h1, h2, h3 or h4, etc.
