4 Tips to Setting Your Social Media Budget in 2016

As we are half-way through the year, many marketers are starting the exercise of looking ahead to 2016 and beginning to think about what their social budgets should be.  Since we frequently consult with brands on social media planning (including the budgeting exercise) we wanted to share some tips on how to set your social media budget for next year.

1. Compare benefits with spend

The first part of every budget exercise should be an evaluation of your spend to its actual performance and benefit.  While every line item may not help you achieve your social
objectives, it’s good to scrutinize costs and to fully understand the benefits you received from them. In this exercise, don’t overlook tool costs.  While they may seem like they are the cost of “keeping the lights on”, they should be cut if they aren’t resulting in efficiencies, insights, or meaningful outcomes to your strategy or tactics.

2. Diversify media dollars beyond Facebook and Twitter

In previous years, most social media advertising dollars were primarily allocated to Facebook and Twitter.  Now that we’ve seen many other platforms starting to offer new media opportunities, it’s important for marketers to think ahead and allocate enough money to test new ad units as they arise. Go ahead and earmark media dollars so that when the opportunities arise your brand can have budget to try them in 2016.

3. Invest in content that is sharable

Take a critical look at the content your brand is producing to-date.  Is it sharable?  If it isn’t – uncover why.  Odds are that your brand doesn’t have a ton of highly visual or organic content at its fingertips. And even if you feel your brand is killing it, I bet your brand still has some work to do if you were to ask your customers.  The truth is, it’s hard to create content that people naturally want to share, simply because the brand always has a hidden agenda.  Creating highly sharable content that accomplishes a business objective is a craft, and you need to invest in the creation of it.

4. Account for rising costs

While highly efficient, the costs of social media marketing are obviously rising.  With more competition entering the space, and continual platform changes that make it more difficult to reach your audiences, you’ll need to account for these rising costs in your budgeting.

The following are a list of rising costs to consider as you plan your budgets:

• Reaching your audience organically and paid (expect increases in media costs per quarter)
• Developing visual & video content
• Working with influencers
• Social network fragmentation (more channels to manage than before)
• Developing social programs with mobile in mind
• Developing & optimizing content
• Retaining & attracting social media talent

Increase your visibility and Sales Today.
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Increasing your site’s visibility to search engines

Use search tools to maintain updates

Search engines won’t notice changes to your site instantaneously. Google and Bing offer search tools to help you manage your site’s search presence. Whenever you make major changes to your site, you can request that a search engine re-index your content by using these services. For help, visit the following guides:

• Verifying your site with Google Search Console
• Verifying your site with Bing Webmaster Tools

Customize page and site titles

Search engines typically prioritize site titles, page titles, blog post titles, and headings. These titles also appear in browser tabs and search results, so it’s important to write them so they’re friendly to both search bots and human readers.

In the SEO panel, you can set default title formats for the homepage, collections like Blog, Gallery, Album, Products, and Event Pages, and items like blog posts and events. You can manually enter text or use default variables. The benefit of using default title formats (versus customizing them for every post) is to keep them consistent for all content.

For step-by-step instructions, visit Customizing title formats.

Differentiate page titles and navigation titles

Every page in your site has a Navigation Title and Page Title. You can edit these titles in Page Settings. Page Titles appear in browser tabs and search results and are indexed by search engines. The Navigation Title is what displays in your navigation menu.

You may want to title these separately. For example, you can use the page title to promote keywords for search engines, but keep the navigation title short to help it fit in your navigation menu. To learn more, visit Renaming a page.

Structure content with headings

When adding content to Text Blocks, select Heading 1 or Heading 2 from the text format drop-down menu to organize content. These styles automatically create <h1> and <h2> tags in the page’s HTML, so there’s no need to add them manually.

Like titles, search engines typically give headings a higher priority. Clear headings that describe the content that follows make it easier for search engines to detect the major themes of your site. At the same time, they helps visitors scan your page and quickly find the information they’re looking for.

Add alt text to images

Alt text is text associated with an image that people can view by hovering over it. Search engines usealt text to identify the content of a page, since bots can only read text. Adding alt text to images lets search engines understand what the image is so they can include it in relevant searches.

When adding alt text, it’s best to use short terms that describe the image and relate to your overall site content. To learn more about adding alt text, visit Adding alt text to images.

Tags and categories

Search engines scan tags and categories to identify what products, blog posts, or gallery images are about. Adding tags and categories that accurately describe the item could help it appear in search results. For our guide on tags and categories, visit Using tags and categories.

Start blogging

All Squarespace sites include blogging capabilities. Blogging involves updating your site frequently, which helps search engines see it as an active site. Even if you’re a business and not a blogger, adding a Blog Page and updating it regularly with relevant content could potentially benefit your SEO while building your brand.

When adding blog posts, use tags, categories, and H1 and H2 tags to label content.

Physical location

If you’re a business with a physical location, listing your address on your site could potentially help visitors find you in location-based services. There are many places where you can add your location:

• Map Blocks
• Basic Information Settings
• Text Blocks on a Contact page
• Text Blocks in a footer

Visit my website and Improve your SEO power!
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4 Secrets to Winning More Sales

Sales is king in the new economy. Your success will be determined by your ability to generate revenue and sell, not just your products and services, but also yourself.

Here are five signs you’re well positioned to succeed at the art ofselling:

1. Remember you’re in the people business.
Lots of salespeople get caught up in what they are selling and forget that they’re in the people business. Your customer wants to be treated personally. I was recently at a dental office that had clearly forgotten they were not in the business of teeth, but of making patients happy and comfortable.

Getting attention and maintaining your customers’ interest is a huge problem today. But walk into any big-box outlet, restaurant or professional office and you might not even be acknowledged. Before I visit or work with any client, I remind myself, “This is a unique individual who deserves distinct treatment.”

2. Focus on the results, not the effort.
The sales game is not one of organizing, planning or meetings — it’s about getting results. Sales people often spend time kidding themselves about doing busy work and don’t get in front of customers who can buy their products.

Your success in selling is about getting results and that means getting your products into the hands of more customers. A great salesperson knows how to get the customer’s attention and present their product or service in a way that causes the customer to buy. Don’t confuse results with efforts. You don’t try to get an appointment — you either get it or you don’t.

3. Do the uncomfortable thing.
The best sales people I have ever known are willing to throw themselves into harms way. So convinced of their offer, they are willing to get in front of the tough customers, ask the hard questions and go for the close. Doing the uncomfortable thing is where the top performers live.

I always call my toughest clients first and keep calling on them long after everyone else has given up. Once a month, I make a list of our company’s most difficult customers and create an attack plan on how to get those accounts. The first month we incorporated this strategy, I landed one of the biggest deals of my career. You can’t bring the big deals home without getting into the deep waters where the big fish swim.

Related: Why So Many People Resist Networking and Miss Out

4. Wow the customer.
Great sales people look for ways to inspire a customer’s emotional involvement and create the urgency to take ownership. When you wow a customer you make a difference and cause them to want to hold onto that experience. You can take any product — even a boring one — and make it a wow presentation.

I once showed a client the glass doors on a home by demonstrating how they would be hurricane proof, slapping on both sides to evidence their construction quality. This immediately got the customer’s full attention and set apart the product and me from the competition. Average doesn’t pay in sales. Wow them with your presentation, your dress, your belief in the product and the service you offer.

What is Digital Marketing? :: True Website Traffic

What is Digital Marketing? :: True Website Traffic.

10 Quick SEO Tips Even Your Mother Would Love

1. If you absolutely MUST use Java script drop down menus, image maps or image links, be sure to put text links somewhere on the page for the spiders to follow.

2. Don’t be obsessed with PageRank. It is just one isty bitsy part of the ranking algorithm. A site with lower PR can actually outrank one with a higher PR.

3. Fresh content can help improve your rankings. Add new, useful content to your pages on a regular basis. Content freshness adds relevancy to your site in the eyes of the search engines.

4. Focus on search phrases, not single keywords, and put your location in your text (“our Palm Springs store” not “our store”) to help you get found in local searches.

5. Use keywords and keyword phrases appropriately in text links, image ALT attributes and even your domain name.

6. Check the link to your home page throughout your site. Is index.html appended to your domain name? If so, you’re splitting your links. Outside links go to http://www.domain.com and internal links go to http://www.domain.com/index.html.

7. Frames, Flash and AJAX all share a common problem – you can’t link to a single page. It’s either all or nothing. Don’t use Frames at all and use Flash and AJAX sparingly for best SEO results.

8. Got a new web site you want spidered? Submitting through Google’s regular submission form can take weeks. The quickest way to get your site spidered is by getting a link to it through another quality site.

9. Search engines want natural language content. Don’t try to stuff your text with keywords. It won’t work. Search engines look at how many times a term is in your content and if it is abnormally high, will count this against you rather than for you.

10. Be aware that by using services that block domain ownership information when you register a domain, Google might see you as a potential spammer.

5 ESSENTIAL MARKETING TIPS FOR EVERYONE

Follow these ten easy easy wins for an instant marketing boost…

1. UNDERSTAND YOUR CUSTOMERS

Getting to know your customers is the most important stage of marketing process. The more accurate your information and knowledge, the more effective you will be at selling. Use all the information at your disposal to understand customer’s behavior, demographics, and requirements. This information should steer your major business decisions and allow you to write a marketing plan.

2. OBSERVE THE MARKETING ENVIRONMENT

Knowing your customer is vital, but there may also be business opportunities which emerge as a result of changing global circumstances. For example, in recession budget brands such as camp sites or cheap food stores tend to flourish as people dial down their annual spending. Emerging technologies may make new products possible, and new legislation may shift consumers behaviors – a good example is the reduction in road tax for low polluting cars. Make sure you regularly ‘scan’ the external environment for opportunities (and threats).

3. DESIGN YOUR PRODUCT OR SERVICE AROUND THE CUSTOMER

Once you have a marketing plan in place, you need to make sure your product or service is tailored to your customers – from the packaging to the way it is promoted. Entrepreneurs often fall into the trap of making the product they want to sell, rather than designing and presenting things in the way the customer wants.

4. ENSURE YOU ARE SMOOTH AND EFFICIENT

The process of conducting your business is almost as important as the product itself – make sure delivery is quick, returns are dealt with courteously, your staff greet customers with a smile and a cup of coffee. Surprise and delight your customers by going above and beyond the call of duty for them. Word of mouth is a powerful selling tool and this is exactly the way to generate it.

5. DESIGN TARGETING ADVERTISING & CUSTOMER COMMUNICATIONS

Placing a few ads just isn’t enough to get noticed any more. Consumers are bombarded with hundreds of marketing messages every day of their lives and take less and less notice. You need to do something pretty special to stand out, so make sure your messages are clear and appeal to exactly the people you are trying to sell to. Use both emotional and rational arguments to demonstrate what you are selling and why they need it.

The 4 Steps to Effective Email Marketing

Segment your Audience

Segmenting allows you to match content to recipients’ interests, creating a level of personalization that can achieve far greater results. Types of segmentation:

1. Geographic – adding a little local flavor to your emails can help give prospects the feeling that you know and understand their situation.
2. Behavioral – segmenting based on behavior is another easy way to provide relevant and timely information to prospects.
3. Purchasing power – position within a company is another valuable way to segment your audience. It ensures that you’re providing the right content to drive decisions.

Test your Deliverability

Even the best email in the world won’t be effective if it never reaches your audience. You need to test the deliverability of your emails in three key areas to give your email to best chance of being read.

1. Compatibility – make sure your email displays correctly on all devices, including desktop, mobile, and tablet platforms.
2. Spam Analysis – run your email through a spam analysis tool to ensure your hard work won’t wind up in a spam filter.
3. Format – your email should have both HTML and TEXT formats to ensure readability in all email clients and platforms.

Use the Right Tools

Drag-and-drop-builder – well designed emails no longer require complex coding. The best email services include easy to use builders that allow you to drag and drop elements and easily change colors and themes. WYSIWYG Interface – you should never be left wondering how your email will display. Your email service should allow you to preview the final product as you are creating your email to ensure that the design is just right.

Track, Analyze, and Adjust

Tracking produces actionable metrics that can be used to determine the effectiveness of an entire campaign or any of its elements (such as the timing of particular email offers) and to compare the success of each campaign. What to Track?

• Open rates: how many people opened your email
• Click-throughs: how many people clicked on your links
• Bounces: how many emails are returned undeliverable

About the Author

My name is Lissa Anderson I am a full time SEO consultant. I’ve been doing freelancing,web development,web designing & internet marketing stuff for more than 8 years. Now I am affiliate with one of the world’s largest online advertising company. If you need Increase your SALES or SEO contact me.

Build Your Business on Google+

Google plus has a huge user base of over 300 Million and counting…..

Why should you use Google Plus?

Google plus has become growing platform, which is only ever getting bigger.

• 42% Interact with brands content
• 70% of top 100 brands use Google+
• 40% of Marketers use Google+
• 22% online adults use Google+
• 33% growth rate per year
• 50% users sign on daily

And how does Google Plus aid your Business?

Google plus offers huge benefits:

VISIBILITY – having a google plus account connected to your business website can increase your overall SERP rank.

ENGAGEMENT – circles and communities allow you to promote your content to a large, targeted audience who are more likely to engage with your material.

ANALYTICS – get accurate & up to date information by linking your Google plus account with Insights.

INFORMATIVE – use G+ to display current information to your clients, which will in turn exhibit this Information via google and rise your chances of being interacted with.

Optimise your Profile

This is the first step in building your business through the use of Google Plus.

Profile Image: Always use a relevant profile picture. Use a professional image of you self for personal profiles, or a logo for a business page.

Background Image: Again, you want your background image to be relevant to what you do. Think hard about how you have an image which is both aesthetically appealing but also conveys something about your company.

About Me: Fill out this section with every detail about yourself, or your business. Drop in keywords and relate it back to your industry.

Google plus are host to many features

Understanding these features are key to fully using them to your advantage.

1. CIRCLES

• Create & Manage – create circles to easily organize like-minded people into different groups. You can then tailor your posts in accordance with the interests and unique composition of each group.
• Target Audience – tailor your content to specific circles & spark engagement from those who genuinely identify with your topic and are more likely to share it on.
• Filtering – you can easily filter various figures describing posts and attach notifications to circles which are more important to you.

2. HANGOUTS

• Quick Conversations – message, send photos and emoticons to your Google plus friends, even if they’re offline!
• Live video – you can easily have live video conference calls with up to 10 members.
• Versatility – everybody can use Hangouts – its available on Android, iOS & Windows.

3. COMMUNITIES

• Find Shared Interests – communities bring people with similar interest together to have discussion, or create private communities for specific topics.
• Engagement – share pictures, images, videos and gifs to communities and communicate with them via hangouts.
• Private Communities – create private communities for any closed groups so you can stay connected with them.

About the Author

My name is Lissa Anderson I am a full time SEO consultant. I’ve been doing freelancing,web development,web designing & internet marketing stuff for more than 8 years. Now I am affiliate with one of the world’s largest online advertising company. If you need Increase your SALES or SEO contact me.