How to Make Thought Leadership Content Work for Your Business

Why is thought leadership content so valuable?

Because it can:

But creating thought leadership content that makes an impact isn’t easy, or every company would be considered an authority in its sector.

So, how can you make thought leadership content work for you?

Our Orange County SEO specialists have the answers …

 

Support Points with Original Research and Data

Conducting your own research is one of the most effective ways to help your thought leadership content stand out. This might be as simple as creating a poll on social media or as complicated as surveying industry experts around the world.

Regardless of its scale, original research provides readers with insights they can’t find anywhere else and ensures your content is unique. You offer more value than a competitor regurgitating others’ data, and establish your site or business as a useful resource.

 

Create Gated Thought Leadership Content to Generate Leads

Most of your thought leadership content might appear on your business’s blog or other websites e.g. industry news publications. But you can create longer pieces as gated content to capture leads.

For example, a free 40-page ebook packed with unique, actionable insights can inspire visitors to submit their email address more than the promise of a monthly newsletter.

Newcomers can check your existing content before deciding whether to sign up or not, and you can incentivize them further with a small discount or free trial.

 

Look at Competing Thought Leaders (and Do Better)

One simple step in creating thought leadership content is to explore your competitors’ output. What blog posts, articles, whitepapers, and even books are they publishing? How do they promote it? Do they use special offers to attract interest?

But remember: your content must be unique. So, be inspired by competitors but focus on establishing a distinctive presence.

 

Make Content Relevant to Industry Changes, Product Releases, and Events

Good content is relevant. Not just to your audience, but to industry changes and events.

That’s why it’s important to create a content calendar and schedule pieces to make the biggest impact. For example, if your business is attending an expo in two months, start gathering material for a deep post as soon as you can.

This might document the creation of a product you plan to reveal or explore said product’s expected market impact.

Whatever the topic, the content can generate interest in the product and vice versa. And both can bring curious new visitors to your site.

 

Thought leadership is a fantastic addition to a content marketing strategy and helps drive traffic. But what else can you do to attract more visitors, build authority, and boost engagement?

Our Orange County SEO experts are here to help. Just get in touch for your FREE Relevancy & Quality Score Report now!

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Content Marketing Tips for Small Businesses – The Right Way to Reach Your Audience

A well-planned content marketing strategy is a crucial asset for any small business, though it’s not easy. You might find yourself sweating at the prospect of having to write blog posts three times a week or putting together a comprehensive whitepaper. but the truth is, all the hard work can really pay off.

Just ask those small businesses posting blogs on a regular basis and earning 126 percent more lead growth than those that don’t have a blog.

So, to help you get more out of your content marketing, we’ve put together the following tips.

 

Know Who You’re Writing For

One of the most important steps in building a good content marketing strategy is understanding your audience. If you try to write for everyone, the results could be vague and, most likely, interesting to no one.

But when you focus your aim and write for a specific segment, you can inject more truth and power into your content.

Think about your current customer base, your competition, and the pain points your business addresses. This helps clarify your ideal reader and the action you want them to take.

 

A Content Calendar is Key to Success

It might be tempting to create content as and when the mood takes you. Especially when your small business is operated by a skeleton crew with little spare time to flex their creative muscles.

But implementing a content calendar establishes a tighter focus and boosts relevance. For example, generating ideas for Christmas-themed content weeks in advance gives you the time to think carefully about the sort of answers your audience will be looking to solve in the run up to the season.

Planning themes and topics early reduces time wasted scrabbling for ideas on the day a blog post is due, too.

 

Use Long-form Content to Achieve Better Results

Research shows long-form content brings stronger results, with articles of more than 2000 words performing well for around 56 percent of creators.

That’s not to say you should never publish short posts, such as news updates, insights into forthcoming products, or simple articles offering a quick read.

Just make sure to publish long-form content that demonstrates thought leadership and gives readers something they can sink their teeth into regularly.

 

Experiment with Visual Content

Images help users process information and grasp the core topics or themes of a piece of content before they even start reading. Posts including images generate 650 percent higher engagement and earn three times as many links as text-only ones.

Try publishing infographics and videos on a regular basis, but spend time and money getting them to a professional standard first. When using images in your content, use original photos or graphics as often as you can. Only rely on stock visuals when you have no other option.

These content marketing tips can help small businesses build more effective campaigns and reach the right people. But it can be difficult to implement a strict plan when you have a company to run and a team to manage.

Want to work with a professional Orange County SEO agency committed to achieve real results instead? Just get in touch for a free marketing analysis now.

 

 

 

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Social Media Marketing in Orange County

How to Get Social Media Marketing Right for Your Business

Social media marketing is a must for every business. Big or small. New or established.

Why?

So, we know social media marketing has big potential to get your brand and products in front of a huge audience.

But how can you get it right?

 

Know Who Your Audience is and What they Care About

When you know your target audience, their interests, their values, and their buying habits, you can narrow your marketing’s focus.

For example, let’s say you want to target millennials. You’re in luck: more than 90 percent of them use social media, compared to just 48 percent of baby boomers.

That means you have a high chance of reaching your ideal customer base through effective social media marketing. You need to:

  • Gather information on your existing customers (age, location, spending habits, purchase preferences)
  • Look at your competitors’ social media marketing: what techniques do they use to reach your shared audience?
  • Survey customers to discover which social networks they use, which days and times they tend to browse, etc.
  • Create buyer personas for different demographics within your audience

The more you know about your ideal customers, the more effective your marketing should be.

 

Focus on Engagement, Not Just Selling

It’s tempting to promote your products or services on social media shamelessly. But this is likely to bore and frustrate your followers.

Work on engaging your audience through relevant, valuable content. Use images, videos, concise text, and more to keep your posts diverse.

Another key element of engagement is interacting with followers, responding to comments on posts, and more. Be transparent and accessible. Build relationships with the potential to translate into conversions down the line.

 

A/B Testing is Your Friend

A/B testing (or split testing) is a simple but effective way to determine the best ads and content for your social media marketing campaign.

Create two versions of ads or posts, incorporating different images, language, video lengths, GIFs, and more. Run them both at the same time, split between your audience equally, for a fixed period.

Analytics will reveal which version secures the highest engagement. You may or may not keep it as is, or build a new variation implementing the strongest features of the most successful one.

 

Stay Consistent

Establish a voice and stick to it.

That’s not to say you can’t evolve over time and embrace a slightly different tone. But it does mean it’s best to stay consistent across posts and social networks.

So, if you use punchy language and humorous GIFs on Twitter, don’t be painfully dry on Facebook.

This can disorient your audience, and suggest your team behind the scenes is unprofessional or disorganized. Consistency helps your brand develop a recognizable personality, build trust, and ensure followers know what to expect during interactions.

 

Social media marketing isn’t easy, but it’s worth putting time into developing a sound strategy that suits your business goals, audience, and budget.

Focus on building brand awareness, gaining trust, and establishing a consistent voice to maximize your campaign’s performance. Want help from a seasoned Orange County SEO team? We’ve got a free marketing analysis with your name on it!

 

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Good First Impression with Effective Ads

Good First Impression with Effective Ads

Marketing your niche business isn’t easy. You might face less competition than bigger brands in popular sectors but you still have to actually make an impact to secure those all-important conversions.

That means marketing. Smart, effective, consistent marketing. And one of the most important options open to any niche business is social media.

Here are some must-know tips to get you started.

 

Identify Your Audience

You should have a clear grasp of who your target audience is before you start marketing on social media. If you don’t, you could waste a lot of time and money throwing ads out to people who just don’t care how great your niche goods are.

Take advantage of Facebook’s Lookalike Audience tool to narrow your marketing reach. Twitter’s Tailored Audience lets you turn engagement into valuable marketing opportunities too. Do your research: look into what’s available and how it helps.

 

Reach Out to Influencers for a Little Boost

Niche businesses can receive some much-needed help from influencers. They might not generate $500 million for you like Cristiano Ronaldo did for Nike, but it’s still a smart move.

Working with individuals who have a lot of followers likely to take an interest in your products or services is a popular social marketing tactic. See if you can scoop a recommendation or two, whether you need to pay them or offer freebies instead.

 

Encourage Facebook Reviews

Invite customers to create honest reviews on Facebook: star ratings and a few sentences about your products, services, customer care, prices etc. lend real credibility to your niche business.

The more reviews you get, the better your business will look. First-time buyers may find the encouragement they need to convert when they see multiple solid ratings.

Just be sure you resist the urge to create fake reviews yourself: assume your consumers are smart enough to know when something doesn’t ring true.

 

Be Smart: Limit Your Network Choice

Running your niche business probably means long days, keeping multiple plates spinning and just trying to stay on top of everything you need to do to stay in the black.

So, be careful to not spread yourself too thin when diving into social marketing. Trying to run accounts on as many social networks as you can might be too much too soon.

Instead, focus on making the most of just one or two. Do a little research to find out where your target audience tends to be most active and really engages with businesses.

 

Trust the Professionals to Help Drive Success

The next key point to bear in mind: don’t take on more than you can handle. You have enough of a challenge growing your niche business and securing a foothold in the market without trying to navigate the complexities of social marketing yourself.

Trust professional marketing experts to handle your social marketing instead. Our Orange County digital marketing agency has the tools, the talent and the experience to bring your niche business to a bigger audience.

Want to know more? Have questions about how we can up your digital marketing game? Just get in touch now!

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Must-Know Tips for Marketing Your Brand on Social Media

 

Social networks are a fantastic place to find new customers and build brand visibility, though it’s not easy.

Why? While billions of people use social media regularly (Facebook alone has more than two billion members), there are thousands upon thousands of business competing for consumers’ attention on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc every day.

Marketing your business on social media can be a challenge, then, but there are ways to get ahead. Read on for our Orange County digital marketing agency’s must-know tips.

 

Be Consistent with your Branding

Make it easier for users to recognize your brand from one social network to another. Keep the same colors, avatars and logos across all your social accounts to maintain consistency.

If users check out your brand on a few different networks and each one’s different, they might be unsure how authentic they are.

 

Establish a Voice

Every business needs a consistent tone over all social channels. You have to speak to your audience in an appropriate way, based on their average age, lifestyle, purchasing preferences and other key determining factors.

This is easier when you know which demographic(s) you’re aiming for. Relating to followers in an authentic way will maximize engagement and help drive more traffic to your site too.

 

Stay Active

Users looking at your social accounts may wonder how legitimate your business is if your posts are sporadic. Keeping a regular posting routine is critical to keep your audience engaged and aware of your brand.

 

Build Relationships with Influencers

Connecting with an influencer on social media can help you gain more attention and attract followers you may not otherwise. Having a prominent figure with a loyal fan-base promote your products or services may give your posts more traction.

Users will take an influencer’s endorsement as an indicator of your brand’s reliability and credibility too.

 

Be Careful with Automated Messages

It’s fairly common for businesses to send new followers an automated message to thank them for their interest and forge a stronger connection. While this might seem like a good idea, it can actually appear quite lazy and impersonal if messages are clearly generic.

Personalize automated messages you send to followers as best you can, especially when it comes to responding to complaints or queries.

 

Mix your Visual Content Up

Images, videos, GIFs and infographics should all feature in your social posts. Don’t just rely on text.

A mixture of visual content keeps your social activity more interesting and engaging. Posts will stand out more from competing ones and be more likely to prompt users to share them.

Our Orange County digital marketing specialists will create the right social media marketing campaign for your business, tailoring your package to your specific goals and needs.

Want to know more about what we can do for your social media presence? Just get in touch for a free quote now!

 

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5-Essential-Image-Tips-to-Benefit-Your-SEO-Campaign

5 Essential Image Tips to Benefit Your SEO Campaign

Never underestimate the power of visual content.

Put yourself in potential customers’ shoes: if you landed on a website looking for a specific product or service, would you be impressed if there were no images? Would you feel this was a dynamic brand that cared about engaging buyers?

It’s unlikely one page after another consisting of blocks of text would win you over. Images are essential to convey information that complements your copy: you need to show off your products / services, introduce your team (even if just a few members) and, ultimately, make your website exciting to look at.

Images can make a big difference to your SEO campaign, and in this post, we look at 5 essential tips you need to know.

 

Be Original

Stock images definitely have their place. Quality stock pictures can fill a gap and still add a professional touch to your site, but use them sparingly.

Users will recognize stock images when they appear on countless sites, and if they see them on yours, they may feel it makes you a little less credible. Use original pictures as much as you can to be authentic, and ensure they’re of a high quality.

Slick, polished images help you stand out in search results and make your site unique.

 

Don’t Overload your Site

Too much visual content can affect your site’s performance, causing pages to load slower than they should.

JPEG images are typically best for maintaining decent load times, and cope well with compression, allowing images to load faster without too much of a drop in quality. PNG images are of a higher quality but too many can strain your load times.

Consider using PNG files for your most crucial images and JPEGs for the rest.

 

Keep your Captions Specific

Captions are a useful addition to your images. This is a brief line or two of text that explains the picture’s purpose, allowing readers to understand what they’re seeing straight away.

Captions can help search engines identify how relevant your images are to users.

 

Apply Descriptive Names to Images

Like captions, descriptive file names with quality keywords let search engines know the image’s content. It has to put the picture in context and boost your chances of being discovered by a user.

If a prospect runs an image search, a descriptive title can get your website put on clear display, hopefully driving more traffic your way.

 

Keep Background Images Minimal

Images in your page backgrounds and / or borders may add satisfying decoration to your site, but they only add extra data that has to be loaded.

If you find your site is taking longer to load, non-essential images like these could be to blame. You have to balance images that add obvious visual appeal with those that don’t.

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What is A/B Testing?

What is A/B Testing?

A/B testing (or split testing) is mentioned again and again in the world of digital marketing, but what is it?

This can be an incredibly powerful part of optimizing your website and boosting your conversions. Performing an A/B test lets you compare two versions of a web page to identify which one works best.

This involves presenting the two pages to visitors at the same time, and whichever achieves higher conversion rates becomes the final version.

A/B testing gives you the power to make the most of your current traffic, and it can be applied to virtually any element of your website which impacts visitors’ behavior. This includes your headlines, sub headlines, testimonials, text in paragraphs, images, links, and more.

After all, Google is used to perform billions of searches each month, and you need to do everything you can to grab prospects’ attention.

 

Gathering Key Data

Before you run your A/B testing, you need to gather data that will ultimately help you identify the strongest variation.

Visitors’ behavior is one area to focus on, and certain tools can show obstacles that might prevent conversions or cause prospects to click away. For example, uninformative text which is too clustered together for comfortable reading, unattractive images, or an unclear CTA button can all contribute to a lack of conversions.

After exploring the results of such analysis, you would then be able to see where a potential new page would have to go. If you have problems with your CTA button or your text’s layout, you can create a new one with the same content presented differently.

If you can establish which of your options has the power to make a stronger impact on visitors, you should be able to increase conversions and build your user-base.

 

Trial and Error

It’s vital to make both variations as high-quality as possible, and give both a fair chance. Don’t be tempted to effectively sabotage one version of a page if you prefer the other, because what you prefer might not necessarily match your audience’s tastes.

A/B testing allows you to try different styles and presentation formats too. For example, if you feel your copy may be a little bland, your B page can be quirkier and funnier. If you find this garners fewer conversions during your sample period than the A page, you could perhaps try another new version that resembles the original more.

You can try again and again over time, eliminating less-successful variations and gathering data from the best to transform your site.

At Nett Solutions, our Orange County SEO team is passionate about helping businesses just like yours maximize your visibility, boost conversions, and ultimately achieve higher rankings. Give us a call now to see what we can do for you!

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5 Must-Have Features for Every Business Website

5 Must-Have Features for Every Business Website

A staggering 46% of small businesses are operating without a website, but 24% plan to build one in the near future.

Today, every company needs a website that caters to your customers’ exact needs. Any prospect looking for information on your business, ethics, products, shipping process, and anything else they could possibly need to know before buying should be able to find it.

Which features must be on your website?

 

Social Media Integration

Social media is critical for every business. It allows you to market to existing and prospective customers, and reach a wider demographic. After all, 22 percent of the planet’s population is on Facebook, while over 50 million companies have Facebook Business Pages.

Beyond Facebook, 93 percent of Pinterest’s users plan or make purchases, and 88 percent of companies use Twitter as a marketing tool.

Add buttons to your website and enable visitors to check out your social pages with just a click. This helps to boost engagement and is invaluable as a fast customer-service tool.

 

Multiple Contact Channels

If customers go to your ‘contact us’ page only to find an email address or an international phone number (with expensive charges), they may well be put off. It appears unprofessional and suggests your business has little interest in receiving feedback.

Provide users with email addresses (one for product queries, one for complaints), local phone numbers, and live chat. This latter option is vital today, providing a free chance to exchange text-based messages with support agents in real-time.

 

High-End Security

Never take security for granted. For businesses handling online transactions, an SSL certificate will show customers that you take their safety seriously, and all critical details (credit card numbers, bank-account numbers etc.) are encrypted.

With an SSL certificate, a tiny green padlock will appear to the left of your HTTPS URL. Today’s online consumers are security-savvy, so invest in the best you can.

 

Clear, Logical Navigation

Make navigating your website as quick, simple, and logical as possible. Use clear names for pages in your tabs and site maps (About, Contact, FAQ etc.), and use calls to action to help visitors find the most important pages, such as specific product catalogs or live chat.

Imagine yourself as a customer visiting your website for the first time. Where would you want to go first? Would you be able to get their with your current design? Explore the site with this mindset and make note of any potential problems.

 

A Comprehensive FAQ

A variety of contact channels is key, as we mentioned above. However, add an FAQ to your website so visitors can help themselves before having to get in touch with your support team.

Again, put yourself in your customers’ shoes. What would you want to know? List as many questions as you can think of, and then add any others being asked on a regular basis.

 

At Nett Solutions, we’re a leading Orange County digital marketing agency. If you want to know more about boosting engagement and maximizing your online performance, give us a call now.

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Which Key Digital Marketing Trends Should You Follow?

digital marketing trends
Image via flickr.

No business can afford to neglect its online presence in 2016. With research indicating that a staggering 31 million people across the US alone will have used their mobile devices to go online by the end of the year, the internet is clearly never far from users’ reach.

The internet’s proliferation and global reach means consumers have more choice than ever today. Even the most well-established brands face stiff competition from smaller enterprises offering similar products and services at lower costs.

Following the latest trends is key to success. Which your business already be embracing? (more…)

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4 Social Media Techniques to Drive Traffic to Your Website

drive traffic to site with social mediaIs your business using social media to its full potential?

Today, more than 2 billion people use social media and have an average of five accounts across different networks. Impressed? You should be.

From a business perspective, social media’s purpose is to drive traffic to your site. Simply creating an account and checking in every other week is a waste of everyone’s time: you have to commit to making the most of your social channels.

Here are four great social media techniques to drive traffic to your website. (more…)

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