Do’s and Don’ts of Online Advertising on Big Markets

posted on March 1, 2022

tags:

I’ve been involved in digital marketing with StubGroup for nearly a decade, and in that time, marketing platforms have dramatically changed. I’ve also seen massive changes in how people go about their online research, how they engage with advertising, how they expect advertising to look, and how they choose which platforms to use. It’s an ever-evolving market, so let’s look at what’s working now.

Which digital marketing channel should I use and why?

The largest advertising channels available are owned and operated by Google, Facebook, and Amazon. Google offers platforms such as Google Search, YouTube, Google Shopping, and Google Display. Facebook has both Facebook and Instagram. If you are an e-commerce company selling products directly to consumers online, Amazon is the go-to place.

When deciding what channel to use, it boils down to understanding your target audience and what they’re looking for. If you offer a service or product people are already searching for online, typically, Google searches will be your best place to start. Google search allows you to reach people at the exact time they’re searching for your service or product. After that, all you need to do is show them you have the solution.

On the other hand, if you’ve created a new product people aren’t yet aware of, Google Shopping isn’t the best channel for you. Using Facebook or Instagram to proactively create product awareness will be a more successful strategy. The best choice of online marketing channel depends on what you’re selling, where your audience is, and whether they know about your product.

In online marketing, is SEO or PPC better?

SEO and PPC are both essential ingredients in the alphabet soup of online advertising. SEO stands for search engine optimization, and it involves getting content from your website to appear organically in search engines. People go to search engines like Google or Bing to enter keywords related to things they want to find. If you can get content from your website to rank high in search engine results, the people searching for those keywords will visit your website and see the product or service you provide.

The beauty of organic traffic is that it’s free. When I say “free,” I mean you’re not paying Google or Bing directly. Good SEO strategy can still be expensive, however. To rank high in searches, you need to create high-quality content and get that content posted across the internet.

PPC stands for pay per click. It’s an advertising model where you pay for each click that brings people to your website. When you search on Google, you’ll usually see paid ads at the top of the page and organic listings below.

The downside of PPC is that you pay for the traffic. Don’t let this deter you from PPC’s benefits, though.

Paid ads are the first thing most people see when they search Google. If you’re not up there, you’re going to miss a lot of traffic. Since people usually click the first one or two things they see, that exposure is a big deal.

It can be tough to rank organically on competitive or popular keywords. It can take years, and sometimes it never happens. PPC ads offer you control and predictability. You’re paying to reach the exact users you want to engage.

PPC will usually offer faster results. SEO is a longer-term play. The best strategy is to use both. Showing up in both paid ads and organic listings will maximize traffic to your website.

How can I best leverage my existing online audience in advertising?

If you have an existing audience, there are ways to leverage that asset in online marketing. First-party data, such as an email address list, can extend your online reach and engagement.

First, providing that data to Google and Facebook enables you to deliver ads to those specific people. Let’s say you have a seasonal product you want to cross-sell. Every Valentine’s Day, you can reach out to existing customers using their first-party data.

Another way you can leverage your existing audience is by identifying new customers similar to your current customers. You can accomplish this through Google’s Similar Audiences and Facebook’s Lookalike Audiences. After you provide a list of your existing customers, Google and Facebook examine their behavior patterns and demographics and target ads to people who have similar interests or behaviors.

Finally, you can leverage your existing audience through user-generated content. This strategy involves motivating your audience to create content related to your product, such as unboxing videos, reviews, and testimonials. You can leverage those assets in marketing campaigns on your website to increase the conversion rate. The content will also help you rank higher in organic searches.

What strategies are working best right now on Google?

Google is currently pushing automation in advertising campaigns. The most important thing is knowing when and how to use it.

Don’t put blind trust in Google’s automation. I’ve seen way too many cases where things go wrong. It’s crucial to have experts who know what to look for and monitor things.

You need to have parameters on the advertising campaigns you’re running, monitor things closely, and be ready to make changes if you see a problem. At the same time, if you try to keep everything manual, you’re going to be left behind by competitors who’ve figured out how to utilize automation to capture the customers you want.

Should online marketers run standard or smart shopping campaigns?

You’ll use shopping campaigns to provide data to Google about the products you sell through your e-commerce website. Shopping campaigns allow you to enter data and images related to your products into a format that generates ads. These are the ads you see at the top of Google’s search pages with pictures, prices, and links to specific products.

There are two different ways you can run campaigns to highlight your products. A standard shopping campaign involves a manual approach. You’re selecting which product you want to advertise and setting your own bid. You retain more control, but more work goes into that campaign.

A smart shopping campaign is automated. You’re still selecting which product to feature and setting some parameters, but Google does a lot of the work after that. In most cases, smart shopping campaigns work more efficiently and drive higher returns on ad spend with higher volumes in sales than standard campaigns. We use standard campaigns to prime the system and collect information such as conversion rate data and click data. Then, we let the smart shopping campaign take over.

What are common mistakes new advertisers are making?

There are definitely some common pitfalls new advertisers encounter in online marketing. We frequently see a lack of understanding of Google’s and Facebook’s advertising policies. Many people new to marketing accidentally violate these policies resulting in their suspension from Google or Facebook. That suspension can cause all kinds of delays, frustrations, and problems for new entrepreneurs.

Another common mistake I see occurs primarily in the e-commerce space. Many people new to e-commerce are drawn in by claims that online marketers can set up a website and outsource all the work. The truth is, you have to invest a lot of time and energy into any kind of successful e-commerce business. There’s no such thing as a “get rich quick” business model. We see a lot of new e-commerce entrepreneurs throwing up a quick e-commerce website and expecting the money to roll in. That very rarely works.

Another common mistake is trying to do everything yourself. A lot of expertise goes into determining where you should invest your marketing budget. There’s certainly a place for you as a business owner to explore advertising because it plays a vital role in your company’s success. At the same time, you’ll want to take advantage of the experts. People who work in agencies like StubGroup focus entirely on digital advertising and its rapidly changing strategies. Their expertise can save your business a tremendous amount of time and money.

The post Do’s and Don’ts of Online Advertising on Big Markets appeared first on SiteProNews.

Benefits of Online Marketing in Business

posted on September 13, 2021

tags:

Why you need online marketing for every small business out there in the country? It gives you a brand identity and establishes the brand online. The brand awareness becomes high and video content marketing is now trending. Anything done with the help of videos is trending – may it be reels, IGTV or lengthier videos. It is now ruling the world of marketing. Once you invest something in videos, you can be sure of swiping the attention of the audience. It will be beneficial for both your business and increase your sales. Coupling effective content and attractiveness is the best marketing strategy for small business owners. With ad campaigns more people get to discover your brand and there is an increased online presence.

Create a Clear and Concise Presence Online

When you have a noticeable online presence, the internet acts as a powerful tool to provide you with increased revenue online. How? You get a chance to interact with the target audience directly and you can also educate them about your products. They can interact with you directly and clarify their doubts in case they have any. You can educate them with the benefits and usages of every product and service. You can be in constant touch with the customer and grab their attention every single day. You can convince them directly and persuade them to buy your products.

The Ruler of Online Marketing – E-Commerce

Gone are the old days where you had to step out of your house, inquire on 2-3 shops for buying a single product. With the invention of the e-commerce industry, all people do is open 3 different websites, compare them with one another, place an order and get the product in 2 days without any hassle. Online shopping is stealing the traditional marketing! Starting from groceries to engagement rings to wedding sarees, everything is possible to buy online. Engagement rings like moissanite are available online – all you need to do is simply choose and place your order. With the Covid-19 outbreak, jewelry shopping has also been switched to online mode. There is no need for anyone to step out to buy their favorite moissanite wedding rings and jewelry or you can even compare moissanite vs diamond before you decide to make a purchase.

How Online Marketing Helps More?

Now that we have established the online presence, what do we get from it? Firstly, you get to build trust online. People trust people and this happens on social media platforms. Trust is the foundation of any online business. The target audience should have some faith in you or your products to buy them online. Give more information to them and overload them with testimonials about your products or services. Next, improve the rankings on your website and share them across all social media platforms. The more people visit your website, the higher the chances of growing your brand identity. The most important advantage is that you can reach any geography online. Unlike the traditional marketing methods, online marketing is revolutionizing the world of marketing by making it possible to target specific users in every location based on their desire. By measuring all of these marketing strategies, one can start online marketing for their business.

The post Benefits of Online Marketing in Business appeared first on SiteProNews.

Publishing Content Online Tutorial

posted on June 5, 2021

tags:

 

You now know the key to an unforgettable and successful marketing campaign starts with brilliant content. Yet 74% of marketers focus solely on the content itself, not the actual publication. If you’re adopting an “if I write it, they will come” philosophy, you will undoubtedly experience failure. Creating relevant, educational, and unique content for your audience is only the first step. The second step – and in many ways the most crucial – is getting published.

Earlier in 2014, Google’s Matt Cutts essentially ‘spelled the end of guest blogging.’ (https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/guest-blogging/) That was bad news to anyone not on the content marketing train, but most savvy marketers knew by then that creating their own content and publishing it throughout the web is the secret to customer acquisition. This was only another nail in the coffin regarding the old ways of generating leads.

Content alone is not the only component to successful content marketing. There is a trifecta that must be mastered by companies if they want to play big. The three prongs of content marketing are:

1) Content – unique, compelling, and timely.

2) Audience – you absolutely must have a clear focus on who you are marketing to, based on research that shows your who your quintessential customer is.

3) Timing – content must be relevant, never outdated, and important to your demographic as it is published.

Step 1: Finding Your Voice

Before you publish a single blog or video, it’s essential that your company spend time establishing a clear voice and identity. If you’re all over the map with your marketing, it will show. Consumers will become confused by your messaging, and loyalty will be incredibly hard to come by. Furthermore, it’s bloody hard to draft content when you’re unclear about what voice to use.

As you clarify your brand’s identity, find a voice that is authoritative but not off-putting. Your content creators must have the ability to write with conviction and confidence, but in a way that relates to your readers. This is by no means an easy balance, and it’s the reason why hiring cheap freelancers that don’t know your business can cause more harm than good.

Keep in mind, too, that the best way to engender confidence is to speak the language of your customers. Use the art of surveys and polls to learn more about your demographic, and log metrics religiously so when you draft your content, you know exactly who you’re speaking to. Case studies are also invaluable assets to your marketing team; by understanding your previous successes and failures, you continue to narrow in on the exact sweet spot your company has carved out. That’s precisely who you should create content for.

What does this have to do with publishing your content? Absolutely everything. If you don’t have a clue about who your ideal customer is, you don’t know what publications to seek out. And if your content isn’t created with an air of authority and expertise, your target publications will no doubt pass you by. Step one is always about establishing your thought leadership prowess; otherwise, you are likely to get lacklustre (at best) results.

Avoid Duplicate Content

If you want to be published in any reputable publication, you need to have something unique to say. In this age of content clutter, that is no small feat. Need some inspiration? Here are some tips for creating intriguing and original content:

1) Take a New Perspective

Finding a brand new topic in your industry and area of expertise may seem impossible. But what about taking a different position on a commonly discussed theme? If everyone is talking about the features of a given piece of software, as an example, talk about the target user. Or the inadequacies. Or perhaps the competitive landscape. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, but you do have to find a different way to talk about what the wheel does.

2) Expand Your Thought Horizons

Most content these days has a somewhat narrow focus, discussing how things are impacting the present moment. Don’t be afraid to expand into the historical or future implications of any given product or movement. If you’re a business that’s been around a while, let your content tell the story of your evolution, the snafus you encountered, the lessons you learned, and everything in between. Examine details that haven’t yet been discussed, or expound on future plans; either on a minute or a broad scale. The point here is to encourage you to think beyond the obvious, and to create thought leadership around the topics you know best.

3) Interview the Experts

Find people that know your world well and feature interviews and quotes from these top-tier contributors. Interviews are still very popular in almost all industries, and they’re a great way to generate compelling content and inspiration for future pieces as well. Plus, you’ll gain loyalty from those you highlight, as well as access to their audiences. Featuring influencers is always a win-win.

Once you master the process of speaking to your audience in a commanding way, and you know exactly how to create pieces that fill in the information gap, you are absolutely gold to publishers. Next, you’ll want to spend significant time finding the online magazines, blogs, and sites that cater to your audience. Don’t just rely on top tier destinations like Forbes; branch out and find niche sites that are magnets for your demographic. To find these, comb through articles AND comments to find what sites are most engaging amongst those that feature content from your industry. Analyze social sharing metrics, and start relationship building with these publishers so your amazing content finds its ideal audience.

Getting published starts with knowing your audience, creating relevant content, and then creating bonds with the folks that need your creative genius. Publishers need great content, and content creators need successful publishers. If you focus on these two aspects of content marketing, you just might see results that exceed your wildest dreams.

Is Private Domain Name Registration Necessary?

posted on May 8, 2021

tags:

When you register a domain name, your contact information (name, physical address, phone number and email) all go to a public Whois database. Now, this database is completely free and available to anyone who wants to check a specific domain name on the Internet.

The problem is that someone can easily abuse Whois. That’s where private domain registration comes in.

So, do you need a private domain registration? I would say not always, but if you want to:

Avoid unwanted solicitors

Let’s say you have a nice domain name and someone wants it for themselves. So, they check the Whois for your contact information and then keep pestering you to sell them the domain. No matter how many times you tell them that it’s not for sale. To avoid this, simply register the domain privately and prevent them from ever finding your contact information.

Protect your privacy

Whois contains a myriad of information that you might not necessarily want publicly known. For instance, I always wondered about the need to include your physical address in it.

Well, suffice it to say that there are a lot of opportunities for a hacker to use the Whois database for identity theft. With private domain registration, all they will see is a proxy service.

Then I would say, get private domain registration.

If you want to see Whois at work, you can check this Whois in action.

Changing Domain Names and Not Losing Your Page Rank in Google’s Search Results

posted on May 6, 2021

tags:

There are 11 important SEO steps to consider when redesigning your website and more importantly switching domain names. Because the concept of time is awesome, we’ll jump right into them.

1). Export URL’s using Google Webmaster tools

If you’re taking your internet marketing & SEO seriously then you have Google Webmaster tools installed to monitor your site’s performance. If not, no worries. Simply install Google webmaster tools onto your old site before you design your new site. Export Google’s list of indexed URL’s on your old site into an excel document. Now you know which blog posts & interior pages have the most authority on your old site. These are the url’s that you should be sure to redirect to a subsequent matching new url on the new site.

2). Beware of Content Duplication During Beta of New Site

Ensure that your development environment or beta sections of the new site are excluded from search engine’s view until the new site is officially live and until all redirects from the old site are set up.

3). Keyword Ranking Check

Take note of which keywords you are ranking for in Google. Put these in an excel document with the URL ranking that keyword.

4). Note Old Title Tags, Content, & Url Structure

Take note of the title tags, keyword URL structure, and keyword density of those pages that host ranking keywords. For example, if your “about us page” is ranking for the keyword “San Diego Surgery”, then take note of the title tag used on this page and the content layout. You’ll want to emulate this on the subsequent matching page of your new site.

5). Choose Desired Target Keywords

Pick your target keywords prior to website design. Include old keyword you currently rank for that you want to keep rankings for.

6). Keyword URL Mapping

Group 2-3 keywords to rank per page. Then determine which keywords will be assigned to which new pages of your new site. Consider how old keywords need to fit into the new pages.

7). Mock Up New Site Content & Images to Match Keywords

Draft up the content that will help individual pages rank on your new website for matching keywords. Consider the layout of the old website’s content that ranked keywords to help structure what should work on the new site.

8). Complete Interior Page & Homepage 301 Redirects

Using Google’ Webmaster’s tools’ list of old url’s…. go ahead and set up 301 redirects from old interior pages and blog posts to the subsequent matching new interior pages and new blog posts. This step is crucial for maintaining SEO legacy and link juice from the old site. Then setup the 301 redirect from the old domain to the new domain. If you aren’t switching domains in your redesign then you don’t need to worry about this.

9). Generate New XML Sitemap & Upload to Google Webmaster Tools

Submit your new sitemap to Google via Webmaster tools immediately. This manually gives Google a layout of all new pages of your new website.

10). Request Manual Crawl and Index of Your New Site

Using Webmaster Tools you can manually ask Google to crawl your site. We always do this in addition to the sitemap submission for precaution.

11). Update Old Social Links & Neighbor Links

Try to update your social media profiles, bookmarking profiles, and neighbor links as quickly as possible. Neighbor links are those links which you may control such as links from another web property, mini-site, or your mom’s blog. Even though these old links will redirect from your old site to the new site (via the 301 redirects you setup in step 8)… the links will be more powerful if they link directly to your new site with optimized keyword anchor text.

Of course there are many other on-page and off-page SEO factors that contribute to your keyword rankings. (Keyword Rich Domains Win Always and Web Hosting is also important) These 11 we believe are most crucial and most controllable without making heads spin. If all goes according to plan here’s what you can expect.

What Are The Best Sites for Buying Premium Domains?

posted on May 4, 2021

tags:

There are plenty of domain selling marketplaces out there. The biggest difference is the fee you’ll need to pay for registering and the commission for each transaction.

Here are five, in my opinion best domain marketplaces:

1. NameCheap Marketplace

– Fee: $0 Commission: 0%

2. Sedo

– Fee: $0 Commission: 10-20% (from seller)

3. Flippa

– Fee: $15/month Commission: 5-15% (from seller)

4. GoDaddy Auctions

– Fee: $4.99/y Commission 10-20% ($15 minimum) (from seller)

5. NamePros

– Fee: 5-10/month Commission: 0% (from seller)

Now, before you go to any of these to buy/sell domains, I’d recommend doing a couple of things first:

1. Research the seller

For instance, do they have a social media presence or a blog?

2. Research the domain

Has the domain been penalized by Google before (check Open Site Explorer)? Is the domain using a trademarked name? Has it been sold before (http://www.domaintools.com/buy/sales-history/)?

3. Social media profile availability

Depending on your business, you’ll probably want a Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest or some other social media connected to the domain and website. If you can’t do this, it’s going to be hard to brand your business.

4. Consider an alternative domain

If the seller is not interested in selling or is asking for too much money, you can always try an alternative name.

5. Don’t “low-ball”

Unless you want to piss off the seller with your offer, don’t low-ball him. Buying a domain requires careful negotiation and though you don’t have to accept the first price, don’t insult the seller either. Send him a reasonable first offer to see that you are serious.

6. Have patience

Don’t give up if the seller is not accepting your first offer. Sometimes, these things can stretch for weeks or months before you close the deal finally.

Check out some Premium Domains!

What is an Online Market Place?

posted on May 4, 2021

tags:

A B2B eCommerce marketplace is exactly what it sounds like: brands sell their products wholesale in an online marketplace right alongside their competitors.

The Marketplace Model: Increased Visibility, Fierce Competition

Discoverability & Competition

There’s often a belief amongst smaller wholesalers that leveraging the Marketplace model will lead to increased visibility for their brand. In many scenarios, this is true. However, competition in a marketplace tends to favor larger, more well-known brands.

In a marketplace, all brands, regardless of their size, are stacked up against each other and the ability to stand out in a sea of competitors is limited. In a scenario where retailers are browsing a marketplace looking to buy, big brands have a major competitive advantage against their smaller competitors simply because of brand recognition.

What, then, can a small brand do to compete in a marketplace and stand out from other brands? One strategy small brands try to use is to leverage unique marketing strategies to out-position their competitors, but a marketplace’s rigid templates are often unable to accommodate particular font treatments, colors, videos, and other brand-specific assets.

e-Commerce Models: The Differences

The Pricing Game

Many small brands respond to the pressure of being transparently compared against competitors (particularly larger ones) by cutting prices. However, price is often an indicator of product quality, and by slashing margins, smaller brands end up with less capacity to invest in innovation and marketing.

This situation leaves them at an even greater disadvantage to larger brands that can compete on the strength of their brand and the perceived quality of their products. In addition, the effectiveness of price reductions is further diminished as other brands enter the marketplace and pursue a similar pricing strategy.

Devaluing your product by competing aggressively on price is a scenario that no brand wants to optimize for, but is often considered a necessary evil in the Marketplace model. You will need a reliable web hosting service provider for your successful online marketplace.

Scale

Brands that lack efficiencies of scale may find that complex Marketplace models allow for a superior customer service experience for their buyers, as many smaller brands have not established fulfillment processes that are as sophisticated and cost-efficient as those of a marketplace.

While brands should consistently be working to improve their shipping and fulfillment processes in-house, it can be worthwhile to take advantage of the scale of complex Marketplace models while those capabilities are being built.

New Customer Acquisition

The best, highest value customer relationships your brand has are ones that order frequently, merchandise your products well and correspondingly have a high lifetime value (LTV). Your goal is to find more of these star customers. Customers that discover you on a marketplace website are taking a chance on you and your brand and, accordingly, are placing smaller orders. It’s a transactional relationship very different from your core customer relationship.

New customers acquired from marketplaces require close monitoring to ensure that they are successful and economically viable for your business to support. Any customers that cannot be nurtured into strong, high quality relationships may require a disproportionate level of investment to support, relative to the amount of sales they generate.

Brand Equity

Brand equity and loyalty are engendered as a positive output of the full range of experiences and interactions your customer has with your company.

In a scenario where your products are showcased in a marketplace, the brand equity that is being built by the customer is actually the brand equity of the marketplace provider. It’s their template, user experience, and in the case that the marketplace owns fulfillment, it’s their customer service team. Although you may be able to reach new customers and generate additional sales without control of the customer experience, your ability to use B2B eCommerce for brand building is reduced in a Marketplace model.

If your marketplace provider is a well respected forum for high-quality products, and has an exceptional user interface, it is possible that your brand can benefit by association. However, it is important to continue building standalone brand equity for your company in tandem. Complete reliance on marketplaces is generally not a long term strategy.

Ultimately, there are pros and cons to each model. The marketplace model offers greater visibility, but also increased competition and less flexibility.

While the marketplace model does present some advantages, it is ultimately not a sufficient way to serve your high value customers and nurture long-term relationships. Whether you decide to implement only a Direct B2B eCommerce site or use it to supplement an existing marketplace eCommerce platform, it remains a key part of an effective wholesale B2B eCommerce strategy.

What is the Best Way to Do Marketing Online?

posted on May 4, 2021

tags:

Some tactics could be used to do marketing online, and you may find more after you adopt the related marketing strategy, which will require a reliable web hosting service provider.

1. Content Marketing

Content marketing is the process of producing blog articles, videos, photos, infographics, or any other form of ‘content’ that appeals to your target audience, with the aim of attracting visitors to your website.

How it works

Imagine you sell handbags. It’s coming up to the holiday season, so you write a blog post titled ‘The perfect outfit for the office Christmas party’.

In the article you list a dress, jacket, shoes and, crucially, one of your own handbags. You include good photos of all the products you mention and ensure you link to the product page where readers can buy your handbag.

So how does this attract traffic? This is your ideal scenario: a fashion-conscious woman is looking for inspiration on what to wear to her office party. She turns to Google and searches for ‘christmas party outfit’ - and up pops your article.

She clicks on the article and likes what she sees, so she clicks through to your handbag product page and then starts browsing your shop. Bingo!

A content strategy

Having a strategy for your content is essential. It should be something you set aside time for each week.

The most important aspect of your strategy is understanding your target audience. What are their interests? How old are they? What content will be useful to them?

Once you know who you’re targeting, the next step is to plan your posts. Coming up with valuable and relevant content can be hard. Keep a list of potential headlines that you add to whenever you have an idea.

As well as a list of content ideas, add important dates to your calendar with reminders to publish relevant articles. So, a month before Valentine’s Day you might post an article like ’10 fool-proof Valentine’s gifts for the woman in your life’.

You should also think about how the content will be structured. Types of posts that work well are:

  • Lists: Quick reads that can be packed with products. e.g. ’10 great handbags to go with that little black dress’
  • Informative/‘how to’ posts: Articles with tips or advice. e.g. ‘What to wear for that all-important job interview’
  • Topical/relevant: Making your post topical is a great way to get people reading it. e.g. ‘The best and worst handbags at the Oscars’
  • Amusing posts: Difficult to achieve but very likely to be shared on social media if they hit the mark. e.g ‘5 hilarious things we’ve woken up with in our handbags

2. Mailing List

Email marketing

is the most powerful tool in your marketing arsenal. If you’re not using it effectively, you’re missing out on sales.

Building your mailing list

If you have a visitor on your website and they don’t buy from you, the next best thing is to capture their email address.

One of the best ways to do that is to use a box with a sign-up form, ideally offering something in exchange for the visitor's email address. e.g. ‘Sign up and get 10% off your next order’

Another good technique is to incorporate a sign-up field at the end of your blog posts. The idea is that, if they enjoyed reading one of your posts, they’ll likely enjoy the other content you might send them.

You should also offer customers the chance to join your mailing list as part of the checkout process.

Using your mailing list

Once you’ve built your list, it’s time to start using it.

Just like your content marketing strategy, it’s important to have a plan for email marketing.

In fact, it should simply be an extension of your content strategy.

Create a list of ideas for marketing emails, and update it frequently. You should be aiming for one email a week, so you’ll need plenty of ideas! Here are a few:

  • Promote new or upcoming products
  • Offer discounts or promote sales
  • Send out relevant articles from your blog
  • Mix up product and non-product content so it doesn’t feel too salesy

Take inspiration from other brands' mailing lists - particularly those you subscribe to and read.

3. Social Media

If you do it right, social media can have a big impact on your sales figures. The aim of the game is getting your customers to be your brand advocates - promoting your company for you.

Where to start

The first thing to do is think about which platforms you’re going to use. Typically the visual ones, like Instagram and Pinterest, work best for online shops. But Twitter and Facebook are also very important. A Shoppable Instagram, as in the Skinnydip example above, can be a great way of generating revenue for visual industries, such as fashion or homeware.

It can sometimes be useful to focus on one platform, particularly if you are limited with the amount of time you can spend.

What should you be posting?

Just like your mailing list, your social media strategy will be closely tied into your content marketing strategy.

Our advice would be to split your posts so that only 20% is promotional. The rest being interesting content that appeals to your audience. Followers won't appreciate a constant stream of promotional messages only. They want to be informed and entertained, rather than just sold to.

Join in the conversation

As well as posting out content to your followers, it’s important to get involved with conversations.

A good way to do this is to see what’s trending and comment on it - particularly if it’s something that your target audience might be interested in. It will sometimes seem off-topic to talk about current events, but it all helps give your brand personality.

Reward your followers

A great way to engage people is to give something away. Typically in exchange for them posting, sharing or ‘liking’ something.

This might be simply sending a personal message when they buy something, or an exclusive discount code, or a competition.

Going back to our handbag company, an idea might be to get people to post photos of themselves wearing your bags, tagging your company in the post. The great thing about this is that their network of followers will all see these posts, creating a viral effect that spreads the message of your brand.

4. PR

Getting good PR is all about having a story. Magazines, newspapers and blogs are always looking for article ideas, so the key is to make your story relevant to their audience.

Know your audience

The first thing you need to do is make a list of publications that your target market is likely to read. Find out contact details including a contact name for each one.

Once you have your list, you then need to segment it into different focuses. A national newspaper will have a very different focus to a blog, so your pitch to them will need to be different.

Work out your angle

Still using the handbag company example, if you were pitching to a blogger that focussed on sustainable fashion, you might centre your story around your locally-sourced materials and the process for developing the bags.

If you were pitching to a more style-focussed blogger, your story might rather revolve around a unique design element or a tie-in to a new trend.

Make it easy for them

Journalists are busy people, they receive a constant stream of promotional messages from brands trying to get featured. Make sure your pitch is clear, concise, and it has something to stand out from the crowd.

Include a phone number in your email so they can easily call you for more information.

Give something away

This is only applicable to certain businesses, but if you can, it’s worth giving your product away to the journalist you're pitching to.

Firstly, they’re getting a nice freebie, so they’ll immediately be in a good mood. And secondly, they're able to get a much better sense of the product.

This works particularly well in the fashion industry. Many style bloggers will 'review' (read: wear and photograph) your product, but they'll expect to keep it as a gift in return.

6. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is when you let other people market your products in return for a percentage of sales that you generate as a result of their efforts.

How it works

Affiliate marketing relies on being able to track the source of a particular sale. You typically provide a unique URL that affiliate marketers can use to advertise your products.

A blogger, for example, would then post this URL on their website with an accompanying article about your company.

When a customer clicks on that URL, they’ll be taken to your website and, if they make a purchase, the affiliate tracking software will attribute that sale to the blogger.

Affiliate networks

An affiliate network is a ready-made network of marketers that are looking for affiliate schemes like yours. They take the pain out of finding affiliates, so are the easiest option for getting up and running.

Some example networks include Rakuten LinkShare, Commission Junction and ShareASale.

DIY affiliate marketing

The alternative to using an affiliate network is to promote your affiliate scheme yourself. This involves contacting potential affiliate marketers and selling them your scheme. Whilst this approach requires more effort, it is also much cheaper.

If you want to take this route, you’ll need to invest in affiliate tracking software, such as Lead Dyno, Wigify or Refersion.

What Are the Benefits of Reseller Hosting?

posted on May 3, 2021

tags:

Reseller hosting is a web hosting package where the allocated bandwidth and disk space of a hosting account can be split and then resell it to different users in the form of separate hosting accounts. That means the reseller purchases the hosting space from providers in bulk and then subdivide it to numerous parts for the purpose of reselling it to different clients. Reseller hosting is a method for individuals to start making money of their own with web hosting. Hence, reseller hosting requires less knowledge on how to get started. Moreover, those who are comfortable with the internet can commence their own reseller hosting business.

Benefits of using Reseller Hosting:

Reseller hosting will not be much expensive for new entrepreneurs or for start-up businesses. In Reseller hosting, they will design their own service plan and their own pricing method. Reseller is able to manage their own branding through particular control panels and servers. Reseller hosting is nothing but the relationship between the retailer and the wholesaler. Web hosting service provider performs as a wholesaler and provides space on their servers to the resellers(retailers).

The Reseller will price for space which he has leased. Resellers are very much helpful in the quick and easy way to grow your business to new surroundings domestically and globally with less of investment. You can also increase the experience through the network of resellers, as the reseller will promote your business and accept the cost of marketing and reduce the cost of advertising. Strategic Resellers will help you out in viewing new vertical markets, which may be difficult or require significant marketing investment to enter.

How does Reseller Hosting work?

Reseller Hosting is similar to web hosting services. Reseller method is nothing but purchasing the hosting services for wholesale and then reselling it to clients to make a profit. Reseller will sell a certain part of disk space and bandwidth to their clients, without the need to rent a server from a hosting provider. Reseller hosting does not require any knowledge related to technical aspects of hosting services. And reseller will be responsible for interfacing their client base, but if there are any software and hardware problems it is being sent to the server providers, like from whom the reseller plan has been purchased. Usually, profit earning reseller company will do extensive marketing to attract the clients. Most of the time reseller might be a web designing industries or web developer, who provide web hosting as an additional package.

What is SEO Marketing?

posted on April 30, 2021

tags:

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation is an integral part of digital marketing. In today's time after getting social media and Google AdWords, it may have lost its place but still, SEO is important in digital marketing.

Earlier in the mid-90s corporates and big firms have just got introduced to the concept of SEO. They started hiring SEO experts as it was all about keyword stuffing and manual submissions. In 2004 startups started taking interest in SEO as they want to build their online presence. Hence SEO in digital marketing changed over the years. In today's time, SEO is very different from earlier SEO practice. Nowadays organic searches and website traffic are given priority in SERP(search engine ranking page).

Whether it's a local business, mid business or big business all are changing their marketing approach and changing to digital marketing. Therefore there is a radical increase in the importance of SEO in digital marketing. Nowadays people are always searching on a search engine such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc before buying something to check reviews of that product. It amazes me that people also searched how to boil water. Hence we need to grab maximum eyeballs for our business to generate leads and convert them into sales through sales funnel.

Search engine optimization is simply used to create visibility of your webpage. More traffic is proportional to more sales. A proper SEO of a website helps to rank in SERP.

Simply understand this, we type certain keywords related to our niche which we need for various reasons and shows us pages with more relevance to our keywords. The more the relevance of the keyword more the accuracy of the result more the traffic and thus more the sales.

Search engines are not humans but the software that scans the pages by completing a set of activities like crawling, indexing, caching. This is done by robots which are a set of instructions created by search engines to perform a specific task such as crawling, indexing and caching.

Your web hosting service provider speed performance is very imporant as well.

Search engines are further categorized into two parts on-page SEO(onsite) and off-page SEO(offsite). Many experts in the market will give you the percentage of importance of both but frankly, nobody can fully understand the Google algorithm which is a fact.

Types of SEO

  • Whitehat optimization Whitehat is a set of instructions given by search engines and is also known as guides rules.
  • Blackhat optimization: Blackhat is a set of instructions given by search engines and is suggested not to follow them.
  • Greyhat optimization: Greyhat is a set of steps which is not included in the search engines algorithm yet, some experts misuse it for instant results.

Advantages Of Pay Per Click Marketing

posted on April 29, 2021

tags:

Are you struggling to find a way to promote your business online? Have you given PPC marketing any thought? This type of advertising is one of the best choices for startups, as it offers budget flexibility, measurable and quick results, excellent campaign control, and optimal business exposure.

Pay-per-click is the quickest way for companies to catch up with the progress of their competitors and orient the campaign towards their objectives. There are numerous PPC agencies, such as Searchific, helping businesses improve their revenue flow.

It’s goal-oriented

One of the top advantages of PPC marketing is being goal-oriented. It allows businesses to tailor their goals in order to achieve the results they hope for. For instance, pay-per-click helps companies get more phone calls by enabling clients to book appointments or contact a salesperson. Also, it drives visitors to their websites by encouraging them to make a purchase or fill out particular forms.

Moreover, PPC has the power to increase the number of visits to your physical store. This tool is highly effective in the middle of sales funnels, as it stimulates visitors to move forward to the end of the funnel by providing content entries, asking for newsletter signups, and promoting content downloads. Regardless of how major or minor your business goals are, pay-per-click will ensure you achieve them.

It’s measurable

Another advantage of PPC advertising is providing businesses with measurable and trackable results. By using various forms of metrics, pay-per-click offers an insight into the number of conversions, clicks, and impressions. Such statistics are crucial for tracking the performance of your campaign and planning your budget.

Furthermore, these metrics help clients check whether their ads are genuinely converting visitors into prospects. The rest of the marketing methods aren’t exactly clear when it comes to determining how much of the budget is used for completing the goals of businesses. Google Analytics is essential for tracking PPC traffic to conversion. See this site to learn about the essentials of PPC for small businesses.

Traditional forms of marketing, on the other hand, could never provide the same measurability. For instance, there is no possible way for billboards and magazine ads to be measured in terms of conversion. No business has insight into the number of people who decided to take action after seeing their products advertised on a billboard or in a magazine.

In addition, pay-per-click is an advantageous marketing method because of allowing businesses to isolate the aspects of the campaign that provided the best results. It helps them determine the conversion rate of keywords, landing pages, and ad messages.

It provides quick results

What businesses love the most about pay-per-click advertising is gaining fast results. Even if your competitors are much ahead of you, this marketing method can boost your progress in no time. Unlike SEO, which requires plenty of time to provide results, PPC campaigns are launched in a much shorter period.

The process of setting up a PPC campaign is rather simple, consisting of a couple of steps. The first step requires users to open an account, following which they need to create ads and choose keywords. The keywords should be selected after a detailed analysis of the target audience. The ultimate step is directing visitors to a particular landing page. Visit the following link, https://www.wikihow.com/Do-Keyword-Research, to learn how to do keyword research.

Once you complete all three steps, the rest is just waiting for visitors to click on your advertisements. Fortunately, it won’t take long before seeing the first results. Apart from targeting individuals who are already aware of your brand, you will have an opportunity to reach a much wider audience.

It makes you in charge

PPC marketing is one of the few methods allowing businesses to be in complete control over their advertising efforts. For instance, it allows users to target keywords of their preference and decide on their restrictiveness. Another way in which it puts users in charge of their campaigns is by providing budget flexibility.

Additionally, businesses have the freedom to set their own budgets, which is perfect for start-ups. The minute you experience positive results, you can increase the budget. In contrast, if you wish to take a break from spending, you can pause the campaign for a certain period. No other marketing method provides such flexibility regarding the budget.

Business owners will be happy to learn that they can optimize their ads while they are running. They can make edits and conduct tests on a daily basis without disrupting the course of the campaign.

It can be paired with other marketing channels

Another advantage of pay-per-click advertising is the opportunity to pair it with other marketing methods, such as SEO. Both methods have the potential to work well together because of targeting the same audience, referring to the individuals using Google to look for products, services, and information. The statistics provided by PPC are helpful in creating a base for keyword creation in SEO campaigns.

Moreover, remarketing is another method of keeping prospects engaged. Even if visitors didn’t find your website through PPC ads, remarketing could still be useful. Remarketing advertisements are shown to the visitors who have visited your website at some point but decided to take no action. This technique is considered useful due to being low in the sales funnel.

It provides business exposure

PPC marketing campaigns are designed to provide the required business exposure on a local, national, and international level. Many businesses fail to succeed because of advertising their products and services to the wrong audience. There is no logic in advertising your company globally if you aim for local exposure and vice versa. Fortunately, pay-per-click provides excellent control over business exposure by allowing users to decide where their advertisements will be exposed.h

Final thoughts

Pay-per-click advertising has undoubtedly won the hearts of numerous companies.

It’s affordable, effective, and goal-oriented.

If looking for quick results online, PPC is the best solution!

How to buy a new domain name from registrar?

posted on April 26, 2021

tags:

Getting your own domain boils down to two ways:

  •     Buying and registering an entirely new domain, or
  •     Purchasing one that's currently owned by someone else.

There are pros and cons to both ways but ultimately, it's up to you whether you prefer to pay for expensive but well-known addresses (domains that are active) or cheaper but lesser-known ones (brand new domains).

One thing you need to consider is how to name your domain.

As mentioned earlier – A really good domain name can be the deciding factor that makes or break your brand, so choose one wisely.

1. Check for domain availability

Now that you’ve decided on a really awesome domain name, it’s time to check whether the domain name you want is available or not.

Checking on whether a domain name’s availability is easy enough. You can do a simple search with one of the domain registrars; or, use a Whois search engines such to verify whether your domain name is available or has been taken.

If the domain name you want is not available, try to see if different extensions are available instead.

2. Register your domain name with a registrar

The domain name you’ve chosen is perfect and you’ve verified that it is available, now it's time to actually register the domain name itself.

Just add your desired domain to cart and proceed to payments; and the domain is now yours.

How to buy an existing domain name from its owner?

What if you wanted to purchase a domain that’s already active instead?

You can choose to purchase active domains and transfer ownership through services such as a domain name escrow.

What’s a domain name escrow?

A domain name escrow basically an independent third-party agent that assists in the selling-buying process of domain names on the internet. These sites provide a safe way for buyers to purchase domain names from sellers who want to let go of their domain name.

There are a number of domain name escrow services available, but here are a few that you can check out: Escrow.com, Sedo, and BuyDomains.

How to Purchase Domains Using Escrow

Let’s say you found a domain name and both you and the seller have decided on the amount. The conundrum becomes: How do you safely pay the money and make sure the owner transfers the domain ownership to you?

That’s where escrow comes in. You can use escrow services to make sure that the transaction goes about smoothly. How do you actually do that? Here’s how:

  • Set up an escrow transaction between you and the seller
  • Register an account at an escrow service site, and determine the terms of the transaction between you and the seller, which includes the domain name(s) and sale price.
  • Make your payment to the escrow company
  • Once you decided on the amount, you make your payment (via wire, credit card or any other method) to the escrow company.
  • Domain name is then transferred from the seller to you
  • When the escrow company receives and verifies the payment, they will then instruct the seller to transfer the domain name to you.
  • Confirm that you’ve received the domain name ownership
  • You’ll need to confirm with the escrow company that the ownership of the domain name has transferred to you. Use WHOIS or WHSR Tool to check if the owner profile has been updated or not.
  • The seller receives the money from the escrow service site
  • The escrow company will verify that the domain name has been transferred and they will then give the money to the seller, minus their fee. (You can decide beforehand which party pays the fee or have it split down the middle.)

How to determine the value of a pre-owned domain name

When you’re looking for a pre-owned domain name, which can usually be found on aftermarket services, private sellers, and auction houses – you’ll notice that their value can range anywhere from a few dollars to as high as a six or seven-figure range.

These might not be the best place to get a domain name if you’re just starting out.

How an existing domain gets its price can be determined by a number of factors such as length, language, trends, and demographics. There’s no one single method that can give you a perfect asking price. There are ways, however,  to give you a ballpark estimate of a domain name and it requires a little bit of researching on your part.

1. Using Recent Domain Sales

A good rule of thumb to understand how domains are valued is by looking at the recent sales. A look at the recent sales can give you an idea of what type of domains are being purchased and for how much.

DNJournal posts a domain sales report which they regularly update and in it, they list out domain names that are recently sold from multiple premium domain services. When looking through, pay attention to the domain’s keywords, length, and other related factors to get an idea of how a domain name is valued.

It’s important to note that the report only covers a small number of domain names, so it’s not exactly the most comprehensive list.

2. Using Online Domain Valuation Tools

The other way to determine a domain’s value is through a domain appraisal service or an online valuation tool. These sites will allow you to enter a specific domain name and will give you a suggested asking price for it.

A few of the sites that you can check out are Estibot, WebsiteOutlook, and URL Appraisal.

These sites determine the value of a domain using SEO-related factors like search ranking, keywords, Alexa rank, monthly searches, number of searches, and cost per click.

One thing to note is that different sites can give you different estimations. A good plan would be to use several different sources and compare them to give you a better estimation of a domain name value.

Again, there are no definitive prices for buying a domain name and you can expect them to fluctuate quite often. If you want a general idea of domain name prices, you can go to sites such as SEDO.com, Afternic or Buy Domains to get a feel for the cost. Many hosting service providers offer free domain for the first year on sign up.

Branding a Domain Name Correctly

posted on April 21, 2021

tags:

Google is one of the most well known online brand names – indeed it is one of the top brands of any business. Yet the name is wrong…! The correct spelling is “googal” – the mathematical name for the number of items the founders of the company were hoping to index. But in spite of the incorrect spelling, the name “google.com” is one of the most recognized and used in the world.

Facebook, started out as “facemash.com”, almost certainly for the better. Twitter is what birds do, of course. And few people would ever have dreamed of going up the Amazon to get a book. Many well-known online brands use domains which fail to really tell us what they do – yet we know and love them.

But you have to ask yourself why is it we love to buy books from a domain name which actually represents the name of a river? Or why we are prepared to adore a search engine whose owners clearly cannot spell? It is because they are massive brands and they have built those brands almost entirely OFFLINE. Massive public relations campaigns, journalistic articles and media coverage have meant that in the early days of each of these well-known domain names we all heard about them. Indeed, even today you can hardly move in the media without bumping into mentions of Google, Facebook, Twitter or Amazon. The URLs we type in are so well-known we don’t really stop to think how daft they might be..!

For the rest of business – companies that do not have the fame of international brands, or who cannot afford their PR budgets – the domain name they choose matters much more. There are a couple of reasons for this.

If you want website traffic, your domain name needs to be passed on easily – whether in actual person-to-person word of mouth, or on the likes of Twitter. If your domain name is some seemingly whacky and apparently brilliant piece of nonsense, you might be following the likes of Twitter or Yahoo or Bing, but without their budgets you are not going to get that name to stick in minds.The only domain name you are likely to get to be memorable is one that makes sense. If you offer an accountancy service in Wisconsin perhaps the domain name “wisconsinaccountants.org” is going to make much more sense to people and be more easily remembered and passed on than “swishswishswosh.org” – the “brand” by which you are supposedly known. In other words you need to choose a URL to make it easy for people to pass on.

That also happens to be true for clicks. Recent research shows that when your website name “says what it does on the tin” there are more clicks than for a name which is more abstract. If the domain name you choose for your websites explains what people will get from it, you will get more clicks than you will from a domain name which is abstract and meaningless.

The only way out of that is to follow the lead of the big brands and spend big bucks on massive offline publicity to get brand recognition for your domain name.

Ultimately, getting the branding right for your domain name depends upon understanding exactly what your customers want it to do. Once you know that, you know the domain name to get.

Resell Web Hosting in Five Easy Steps

posted on April 20, 2021

tags:

If you`ve ever wanted to resell web hosting, but weren`t exactly certain how to get started - this article is for you! We`ll outline the five basic steps necessary to create a web hosting business through reselling accounts that are provisioned in a reseller web hosting data center. While there are many details that are required to be successful in any business, these five steps should get you started, and with some diligence and persistence - you may become a sizable web hosting venture.

Reselling Web Hosting - Step 1: Get an Exceptional Domain Name. It may be obvious to you, but having the proper domain for your web hosting venture is critical to your success. Why? There are two basic reasons: branding (recall) and search engine optimization. In order to sell web hosting to your prospects, they first have to be able to find you. That is, they have to know that you offer web hosting accounts for sale.

The most common form of online research is the ubiquitous search engine. There are really only 2 that matter: Google and Yahoo! In order to come up on the first few pages of any relevant search for web hosting related keywords, it is imperative that your domain name contain some form of that keyword phrase. You can prove this to yourself by conducting a search for the keyword, `hosting` at www.google.com. You will notice that many of the top results contain the word `host` or `hosting` in the domain name. It simply gives you an advantage in search rankings.

So where to get such a name? You can go to a good domain search site like, www.whois.sc (use the domain explorer tab) and see if there is a name that has not yet been registered. The chances of a great, short, memorable name being available is low (but not zero) - so you can increase the odds of getting a great name in two ways: get a domain that is expiring or buy a name from the current owner.

There are many great names that are expiring each day - that is, the current owner has not renewed the domain by paying the yearly registration fees. In fact, around 20,000 expired domains come back into circulation each day. Sometimes the owner forgets, sometimes they lose interest - in any event, you can snag a great name if you are willing to do some research. For instance, click here to see a free list of daily expiring domain names.

Alternatively you can simply buy a domain name from the current owner. Sites such as www.sedo.com can assist you in finding eager sellers for a wide variety of domain names. Okay - now you`ve got a great domain name - let`s move to step 2.

Reselling Web Hosting - Step 2: Finding and Setting up a Great Web Hosting Reseller Account. Unless you want to set up your own domain registration process, get connectivity from major bandwidth providers, and have a warehouse full of high end computers - you`ll want to get a reseller account from an established supplier. A good reseller account will offer tools (control panel) to manage multiple domains and accounts from one central location. That way, you can log in once and check the billing and provisioning status of all of your customer accounts.

Domain Reseller Account - You are selling hosting which means many people will also want to purchase domain names from you.

Billing Manager - A billing manager allows you to offer automated account creation, keep track of payments, as well as all of your clients` account information. Just because you`re purchasing a reseller account do not assume it comes with a billing manager. The majority of reseller hosting companies use the control panel called, "cpanel/whm." This control panel does not come with a billing manager so depending on the reseller company you go with they may or may not include a billing manager.

Multi-language Control Panel Support - If you speak more than one language it would make sense for your customer`s control panel to support the languages you will be marketing to.

Fantastico - Is a tool that has over 50 scripts that can be installed with a click of the mouse. This would empower your customers to create blogs, forums, shopping carts, portals, and much more without any scripting knowledge. This is a huge marketing seller.``

Now that you`ve gotten a reseller account set up, it`s time for step 3.

Reselling Web Hosting - Step 3: Set up a Great Website and Order Form. You have to look professional in order to convince customers to sign up with you as a web host. That means a website designed by a professional. You can either hire a designer (expensive) or use a template (inexpensive) like those found at: www.templatemonster.com. The benefits of hiring a designer is that you get a unique website that looks exactly the way you want. It may cost you quite a bit, though. In contrast, a template will be somewhat cookie-cutter, but will look professional and help you save some money during your startup process.

Whichever way you decide to go, make sure that you pay close attention to the sign up process. Make the order form as simple and easy to fill out as possible. If you can have something default checked to save time, by all means do so. Be sure to include a summary page of the order so that your customers can review their order before purchase.

Now it`s on to Step 4.

Reselling Web Hosting - Step 4: Driving Qualified Traffic to Your Website. You can`t get customers with out having some traffic to your new website. There are complete textbooks written on how to market and gain website traffic. I will focus you on only one possible traffic-driving solution, but one which has proven to work for many small online businesses - Google`s AdWords advertising.

You can see a complete and detailed step-by-step tutorial on using google AdWords here: www.sitepoint.com/article/adwords-select-parts-1-4.

Below is a quick-start guide to getting your Google traffic flowing in a few hours:

Setting Up a Google AdWords Account Step-by-Step

    Okay, take a deep breath. Settle into the chair in front of your computer and get ready to go. Follow these steps exactly:

    1. Navigate your browser to: https://adwords.google.com/select and click on the `Sign Up Now` area.

    2. Select the appropriate language and geographical targeting – `Regions and cities` if you are a local business, `Global or nationwide` if you serve all regions (we`ll use this setting for our example). Click the `Save and Continue` button.

    3. Next you choose your countries. If you are a North American business, I highly recommend selecting `United States` only. To do this - go to the right hand box entitled `Selected Countries` and highlight `All Countries` with your mouse. Then click the `Remove` button. The `Selected Countries` box will now be empty. Go to the left column and highlight `United States` - then click the `Add` button. Click the `Save and Continue` button.

    4. Now you name your ad group and create your first online ad. Don`t worry - you can always go back and edit your ad at anytime. Just have fun with it for now! To get started, think up a name that you want to call your first group of ads. Type this name into the box labeled: `Name this Ad Group`.

    Now go to section A: `Create Ads` just below. You simply fill in the boxes and Google does this cool `automatic update` that shows you what your ad will look like as you are filling in the boxes. When you have an ad that you like - click the `Save and Continue` button.

    5. Choose the keywords that will trigger your ad. If you sell `Unix Web Hosting` then start with that keyword. If you sell ASP.NET Hosting` then start with that. Once you have typed in a search term, you can always use the `Keyword Suggestion Tool` link on the same page to expand your list. Google will automatically suggest words that may expand your traffic. Be sure to do a reality check against this list - it`s automated and some terms may not be appropriate for your business. Once you have a list of keywords, click the `Save Keywords` button to continue.

    6. Choose your maximum bid. I always set this to $.05 (five cents) to start. This is Google`s minimum bid amount. You can always change it later if you need more traffic. Type in .05 and click the `Calculate Estimates` button. Ignore the resulting estimates - they are almost always wrong. Simply click the `Save and Continue` button. At this step Google will ask if you want to create another ad group - simply bypass this step by clicking the `Continue to Step 3` button.

    7. Now you specify you daily budget. I suggest being conservative here as well. You can always increase this later. For now - figure out how much you can spend each month for traffic and divide by 30. Put in an amount that is this number or even lower. I usually start with $5 per day as a maximum. When you`ve decided, simply click the `Save and Continue` button.

    8. Entering your contact information and password. This step requires you to give Google a valid email address that you can check - in order to send you to the final confirmation and billing step. Fill in your email and pick a password that you can remember - preferably one that has at least 1 numeral and is difficult to duplicate easily.

    When you`ve filled in your information, click the `I agree - Create my AdWords account` button.

    At this point you should see the following message: ``Thank you for signing up with AdWords. Please check your email (you@youremail.com) for a message from Google containing a link to our verification program.`` Follow the link in that message to confirm that we have your correct email address.

    9. Check your email and finish setting up your account. Go to your email and retrieve the Google email. Follow the link inside - this will verify that your email is valid. Then simply login to your AdWords account using the email address and password that you supplied in the last step.

    10. Once you log in you will see the following message: ``Note: Your account hasn`t been activated. Payment information is required in order to run your ads. Please provide your payment information on the Billing Preferences page in the "My Account" section. Typically, your ads will begin running almost immediately after you submit this information.`` Simply follow the `Billing Preferences` link and enter your credit card information. When complete click the `Save Changes` button.

    11. Your AdWords account is now live! You will see traffic from your ads coming to your site almost immediately if you have selected popular keywords.

    Then entire process described above can easily be completed in less than 2 hours. I did it myself in less than an hour. Good luck and remember if you ever have any problems with the account running through too much cash - you can simply `pause` the account giving you time to reduce your bids, or delete keywords. While you won`t become an AdWords expert from this start up guide, you will begin to see highly targeted web traffic come to your site in less than one day!

Okay - traffic is now coming to your site - time for the final step.

Reselling Web Hosting - Step 5: Differentiate Your Offering! You can`t expect to sell your web hosting to anyone of you adopt a `me-to` attitude. Make certain that you are different in some significant way from other web hosting offerings out there. You can differentiate by creating a unique special offer, by having an exceptional promotion or giveaway, or by bundling services that other companies don`t offer together - it doesn`t matter exactly what is different about your web hosting offer - just make sure it`s different.

One last thing - remember to give a high level of customer service, or your new found customers will flee to a more attentive competitor.

Good luck in reselling web hosting. If you follow the five steps outlined above, you`ll be on your way to a great new business venture!

Increasing Your Click Through Rate (CTR)

posted on April 20, 2021

tags:

CTR stands for `click through rate`, that is, the percentage of users who click on an ad on a page they are viewing. As this is a significant source of income for most websites, numerous strategies have evolved to increase CTR to increase income. In this article we will look at an overview of ways to increase CTR.

While a very high CTR can spell trouble in that it may mean your site visitors aren`t interested in the content on your site, a very low CTR will mean you are going to lose your advertisers. An ad with good CTR will see about a 3% rate. You should still however obviously always shoot for the highest quality content you can.

Ad design and placement

The placement of an ad on the page is the number one factor for determining if it will be clicked or not. The design and the content of the site and the ad being in accord are also important. For the best results try experimenting using the following guidelines.

When considering where to place ads you should consider where a visitor to your website`s eyes will be looking. Ask yourself what your visitor`s goal is for each page of your website and what they will do on the page to accomplish that goal. Ads should be integrated into the page and place your ads near content that will be most useful and visible to your visitors.

Ads placements near the top and to the left of the page as a general rule perform better than ads near the bottom or the right hand side of the page although the highest performance spot is typically just above the center of the page or below a navigation bar.

Ads that are placed in between blocks of high quality content work the best but if you feel that the content is shaky then place the ad at the top. However, ads placed at the bottom of a story or article can see a high CTR as well. When a user gets to the end of a good story there is a pause like in a conversation where the user doesn`t quite know where to go next. An ad that features content that is similar to the content of the story gives them something to continue on with.

An ad that is short and broad will typically receive more clicks than a narrow tall advertisement. English is read left to right and if the words in the ad go down they don`t have as great a chance to make a mental impression.

Choose ads that have colors which compliment your site without being exactly the same and without clashing obnoxiously. Changing the colors up every so often is also a good way to get clicks so that visitors don`t become so totally accustomed to an ad that they always ignore it.

Animated banner ads tend to do a lot better than static ads. Be careful and don`t overdo it however because an obnoxious flashing ad can make visitors simply want to go to another site.

If you have the money it is a good idea to have your ads professionally produced if you are not handy with graphics tools yourself. It`s a good idea to have more than one ad created for each product you have as well. After seeing your ad 2-3 times visitors will ignore it. By rotating your ad you can get a few more clicks.

This may be pretty obvious but make sure the ads are targeted. If the ad is selling anti-war T-shirts then the NRA`s website would be the wrong place to try to sell them. On the other hand, if you are selling guns then the NRA`s website would be a great place to advertise.

Keep ads at less than 20k. Heavy ads are bad for the website and they are bad for the ad. A slow page load will only cause visitors to go somewhere else.

Word Choice

While the position of the ad and what site it`s on and what color it is will have a major impact on the clicks it gets the content of the ad itself are also extremely important. Furthermore, the style the content is presented with is really what is going to make the difference.

You have about 2 seconds to get the site visitor to click an ad so you better sell what you got quick. Use language that is active and strong (as opposed to strong language). Use imperatives. For example, if you are selling anti-virus software, "Brand X routinely scans for and removes viruses" isn`t nearly as `exciting` as, "Protect you most valuable assets from hacker attack."

Don`t try to trick people into clicking your ads by making them resemble Windows dialogues or program alerts. You may get a click but the visitor will likely be upset to have been tricked into clicking the ad and won`t fall for it again.

A Marketers Work is Never Done

It is important to monitor the CTR and track what is happening. An ad may perform very well for the first few days and then suddenly have a very low performance. People may get tired of a flashing over-the-top ad. Most ads receive a 1-2% CTR and if your ad is falling below .5% then is should be replaced or moved or changed.

Also, calculate what your ROI or return on investment is. Make sure you are making a profit from your ads or that your advertisers are getting their moneys worth from advertising on your site.

You can then take the more successful models and use them on other sites or suggest them to other advertisers or adjust your ad pricing accordingly.

Don`t be afraid to experiment but track the changes you make and the performance of the ad as a result.

If you follow these steps, whether you are an advertiser or website owner who is seeking advertisers, you should see a rise in your CTR and therefore your profits.

Why Does Your Hosting Business Need a Blog?

posted on April 14, 2021

tags:

As a web host, you might have set up thousands of blogs for your customers but never once considered needing one yourself. Why, you might ask yourself, do you need a blog? Well, the immediate answer is fairly simple: check these out:

The Official Microsoft Blog
Official Google Blog
AWS Official Blog
Rackspace

If companies like Microsoft, Google, AWS and Rackspace need a blog, YOU need a blog!

We are only a small company - what do we need a blog for?

A good blog is an ideal tool for promoting a web hosting business, or any other business of any size. Yes, of course you have a website. But chances are that your website is big and polished, and perhaps a bit rigid.

Having a blog associated with your website gives you the potential to quickly and easily add news and new content to your site without bringing in a designer and a coder. A blog is quick, easy and cost-efficient.

But really – why?

SEO
As we said, your website is very probably shinny and has all the bells and whistles, but none of that really counts with Google. Google likes content. Google Search now offers search tools that can find content on websites that have updated in the last week, day, and the last HOUR. Sites with new content are deemed better than websites with fixed content, so for what might be a reasonably crass reason, you need a blog to help your rankings!

Communicating with customers
The standard blog format (see the typical ‘WordPress’-style site) allows the site owner to add content and visitors to add comments. This could be absolutely critical for your business. If you have a new line in servers and your customers come back to you with critical comments via your blog, you can fix the problem today. Blogs give customers a sense of discourse and they appreciate the transparency of a company that puts comments right there on their website.

Communicating with customers – and the rest of the world
Over the last few years there have been a number of high profile hacks. This is a terrible situation for any company, not least a web host, and when things go this badly wrong, a blog can be a wonderful tool. Used alongside social media, a blog can show your customers – and the rest of the world – that you acknowledge an issue has taken place, and that you are doing something about it… you can blog on an hourly basis, or even every 5 minutes – the more you communicate, the more serious your efforts to address a problem appear to be.

Spreading good news
What better way is there of letting your customers know about discounts and promotions? Well, of course there is email, but how would prospective customers get to know about price cuts and special deals?

Showing your expertise
Well rounded blogs covering specialist areas of interest of your customers are considerably more effective than sending customers an email telling them how smart you are. Blogs give you the opportunity to show off, but in a constructive way.

OK – so how do I write a good blog?
When you realize that a blog is for your customers, not for you, what you should write on a blog becomes self-apparent. Primarily, solve customers’ problems and fill them in on issues that are of concern to them. If the blog is valuable to customers then it has met its objective.

Who should write the blog?
Make a blog a team effort – don’t just put one person in charge, but get a representative from every department in your organization to fill customers in on what you do and how well you do it. Set up a cycle where one department adds something to the blog every few days or every week. If the blog gives your customers memorable insights into your operation, your company will remain memorable, and you will never get a better chance to make a good impression.

Keep up the good work though – an abandoned blog or one that is poorly maintained is likely to have a negative effect on people’s opinions of you. Likewise don’t get lazy and fill up a blog with pictures of kittens from Facebook.

So how do I do this?

People have busy, busy lives these days and they have short internet attention spans. Also bear in mind that your blog content is competing against those Facebook kittens.
Even though this article is just over 1000 words, don’t follow my lead! Keep posts short and sweet – 500 words is long enough. If you have to write more, split a post into viable sections and make those sections into separate blog posts.

What if we get negative comments?

Thank your customer/visitor for his/her candor and set about addressing the issue and ensuring that all customers/visitors are fully aware of your efforts to deal with problems – by blog posts that show them what you are doing!

How do I know this is working?

If you get negative comments, it’s working! But if you don’t get any comments this doesn’t mean that you aren’t getting visitors.
Most web hosting control panels can give you an idea of how many people are visiting your blog, but if like me you aren’t a backend person, add Google Analytics to your blog.

After registration you add two lines of code to your blog page and then you get to know how many visitors you receive, where they are from, and a wealth of other useful information.
If you are a web host, setting up a blog is going to be easy and the benefits certainly outweigh the effort it will take.

Web Hosting Add-ons

posted on April 12, 2021

tags:



Many companies have diversified their product and service offerings that they have outgrown their business classification. Web hosting companies, for example, are no longer just web hosting service providers nowadays. They offer several other related services that many of them can already become one-stop shops for those who want to create and operate their blogs or websites. The following are some of the most important services web hosting companies are offering:

1. Website Builder

Website builders are usually not a paid service but it’s something worth including in this list. Many web hosts now provide simplified or sophisticated website builders that allow customers to quickly create their sites right after subscribing to a web hosting plan. Many want to create their own sites as quickly as possible with minimal need to understand the technicalities. Web hosting companies apparently acknowledge this, that’s why many are now offering website builders. Even better, there are companies such as Weebly and Wix that actually use the free website builder service as the “bait” for customers. They offer customers the opportunity to create their professional-looking websites for free, and in turn, offer provide reliable hosting (for a fee) for the site.

2. Web Design

This is different from website builders. There are web hosting companies that actually provide professional web hosting services. These web design services are usually intended for those who are availing of a web hosting package and are in need for a design upgrade. Their sites may have to be overhauled to take advantage of new technologies or the new features of the web hosting package. Sometimes, it is advantageous to use the web design services of a web host because they likely have already mastered how to optimize a site’s design for the hosting they offer. They can provide advice on what to do and what not to do to ensure that the resulting website performs at its optimum.

3. Domain Name Registration

Domain name registration is one of the earliest related services web hosts have been offering. There have been many companies that conveniently bundle domain names with their web hosting packages. There are also those that provide the service separately. Most of them specialize in domain names for their specific country or region. A web host based in the UK, for example, offers .uk and .london domain names. Moreover, in years, there have been web hosts that are already able to register the new top level domain names such as .cafe, .restaurant, .club, and .store.

4. SSL Certificate

There are also web hosts that help website owners secure their sites through SSL certificates. The web hosts are not the ones granting these certificates. They simply help obtain them from trusted certificate providers such as GeoTrust. Having an SSL certificate means the encryption of sensitive data in a website. This is particularly important for sites that accept user registrations, ecommerce sites or online stores for example. It’s important to have data encrypted to prevent data theft and fraudulent schemes such a phishing. SSL certificates may be offered in different ways. It could be basic entry-level website protection, protection that covers all sites and sub-domains, or protection intended for enterprises. For the uninitiated, SSL certificates are typically manifested by the presence of a “lock” icon on the browser, on the address bar in particular. It’s also worth noting that there are claims that SSL encryption can help raise Google search ranking.

5. Search Engine Optimization

Web hosts haven’t stopped with just putting a website up and running. There are those that have also ventured into search engine optimization (SEO). After providing the solutions to build and operate a blog or website, they also offer services to make sure that the site is competitive in terms of being searched using certain keywords. SEO has many aspects. It’s not just about optimizing the content with the insertion and positioning of certain keywords. Optimization techniques are also implemented in the design of a site. There are do’s and don’t to observe to maximize searchability and avoid getting penalized, especially by Google. Additionally, there’s the link building aspect. Not many web hosts may go as far as undertaking link building campaigns, though.

6. Online Marketing

Although there aren’t that many web hosting companies that offer online marketing solutions, you shouldn’t be surprised to find some that help their hosting clients in promoting their websites. After providing everything needed to start a site, they also offer services to boost the reputation, awareness, and popularity of a site. This can entail something as simple as email marketing or a full-fledged website marketing package that includes SEO and social media marketing. Just a reminder, though, for those who want to try these online marketing solutions: ascertain that the company offering this service has a proven track record

Web hosting companies at present are like modern mobile phones. Everyone still refers to them as “phones” even though they are way more than just phones. The emphasis on phones now are more on their camera, display, battery life, and other features but they are expected to still perform well for their basic phone function. Web hosting companies offer several other important services that allow them to provide virtually everything needed to start and run a site or blog. It’s important, however, not to forget that their hosting services should be reliable, not laden with flaws to be compensated for by the other services being offered.

Disclosure: We are a professional review site that receives compensation from the companies whose products we review. We are independently owned and we have spent time and effort doing our best to offer you the most relevant and accurate information. All the "customer reviews" are posted by real webmasters (hosting customers) and we're not responsable for their opinions. Purchasing any service from the hosting companies listed on our site is your solely decision.

Statistics Panel

Stats Panel Last 24h Last Month Total
Articles 0 95 5166
News 0 647 18356
Hosting Sites 0 1 2452
Reviews 0 26 1807
Coupons 0 0 561

Categories

Top Rated Sites

GigaPros(158 Reviews)

(5)

PlanetHoster(110 Reviews)

(5)

Host4Biz(107 Reviews)

(5)

GlowHost(72 Reviews)

(4.9704861111111)

GlobalTeleHost(69 Reviews)

(5)

Recent Reviews

Recently Added Web Hosts

AllWebHost.com(0 Reviews)

(0)

CentoServer.com(0 Reviews)

(0)

Web Idea Solution(0 Reviews)

(0)

PHP Development Company | PHP Development Services | Technource(0 Reviews)

(0)

PM IT Solution(0 Reviews)

(0)

Articles & Tutorials

6 Best CRM Software for Small Business for 2024

Hubspot CRM Review 2024: Features, Pricing, Pros & Cons

5 Best AI CRM Software for 2024

TIOBE Index News (April 2024): PHP’s Popularity Declining

Determine Which Version of Microsoft Copilot is Right for You

...More Articles & Tutorials

News

Apple Lifts Some Restrictions on iPhone Repairs

Europe’s A.I. ‘Champion’ Sets Sights on Tech Giants in U.S.

What if Dario Amodei Is Right About A.I.?

Qué son los datos sintéticos y cómo se usarían para entrenar a la IA

Sony debuts new flagship 4K60p Pan-Tilt-Zoom camera with AI auto framing

...More News