Wondering if your business can benefit from Snapchat or Instagram? Discover four ways B2B can use Snapchat and Instagram.
Read the full article at: www.socialmediaexaminer.com
4 Ways B2B Can Use Snapchat and Instagram : Social Media Examiner
Are You Ready for the Top 2017 SEO Trends?
There’s a lot of buzz about SEO these days, and while the jury may still be out on the nuances, there’s no doubt that SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, improves your rankings and helps your content get in front of your audience.
SEO helps readers and searchers, a.k.a. your audience and customers, find you when they’re “Googling” (or Bing-ing) a topic you feature. With literally billions upon billions of landing sites on the Internet, you have to tailor your content to move up in the ranks and be sure you’re there
to answer the call! There’s an infinite amount of content on the web. Without SEO, yours will be lost in the shuffle.
With all the talk of SEO these days, plenty of “experts” will tell you ways to “trick” your content or try to use sneaky ways to move to the top of the ranks. Unfortunately, most of these tips and tricks are obsolete before you can even get them into place. The truth is, content is king, and well-written, relevant and quality content is always your best bet. Still, with millions of relevant hits out there, it’s definitely worth it to stay up on the trends you can take advantage of to give yourself a boost.
As we look forward to our marketing goals for 2017, you might be wondering how you can reach your audience more effectively. What are the latest trends and the remarkable things you need to know in 2017? How can you make sure your content is getting out there, being found and read and giving you the highest ROI on your human capital?
Here are the 5 most important areas to focus on in 2017:
- Focused, Clear and Relevant Content
Google changed the face of web search in 2013, when it ran the Hummingbird update. The update was focused on returning the most relevant and best results for searchers. As Google’s web-crawlers improved their efficiency, they became more and more discerning. Keyword loaded “crap” content was instantly irrelevant, and in many cases, detrimental. Tricks were off the table. Relevancy and quality became the top priority. With each new update, link schemes and other hacks became useless.
Today’s top ranking sites must have content related to their business, the traffic searches and other content on their website. In other words you can’t load up your website with irrelevant content or flood your site with bait for the crawlers. While ranking for a single keyword or phrase isn’t impossible, it’s rapidly becoming outmoded. Even with long-form content and strong backlinks, natural, quality content trumps all.
The good news: It’s better for your site, your audience and your business’s integrity. We’ve all had the experience of landing on a “spammy” link-filled site or a site with content that was barely readable. Much of this content was put in place to fool web crawlers into and force Google rankings. Now that we’ve moved past that, we can get back to authentic content that moves organically through the Google ranks and hits its target audience.
- Mobile Optimization
If your site isn’t mobile optimized, it’s time to get to work. Over the past few years, mobile optimization has gone from convenient for your audience to absolutely mandatory. In fact, today, more people use mobile search than searching from their PC. Google now favors mobile-optimized sites in their search rankings. So if you want to get to the top, you must be mobile friendly.
Don’t scrimp when it comes to the setup and technical aspects of your site, even if you’re a small business. Your website in general needs to have good technical structure in order to be crawled and indexed. If you’ve got a disjointed website, if it’s hard to navigate, or not mobile optimized, you will move back in the search engine ranks, even if you products are popular and your customers love you.
Your site should be easy to navigate, and have a landing page that tells your mobile customers what they need to know. Local results are key, and are what most customers are searching for. If you don’t show up on local mobile searches your customers might just head to the next town over rather than visiting you right around the corner. Put your NAP (name, address, phone) content right up front, and have a site that’s polished, fast and simple to navigate. Don’t overload your site with pop-up ads, links and content that can slow your users down.
- Engaging Video Content
A look at the latest stats on video marketing, and it’s pretty clear—video is having quite a moment right now. Users love video. They love to share it, and search for it, and it will drive traffic to your site. Not only has Google’s partnership with YouTube strengthened Alphabet stocks, but it’s changed the way people search.
Video becomes the new way to answer questions. Rather than “Googling” for an answer, people now learn it by watching “Youtube”. Why? Because video is engaging, it’s entertaining, and online video is like an individualized television channel where the user gets to search out and control the content.
If you want to drive traffic to your site, video is a great opportunity to get in front of an audience. Even low-budget tutorials and grassroots video can be a great audience booster. Get your CEO to explain how your widget works, or film your FAQ’s.
Video boosts social media shareability, and audience engagement. Your customers are able to put a face with the business that they love, and video speaks to people in a way that text simply cannot do. If you can add video content to your site, do it right away!
- Linking Up to Quality Sites
Old links and outdated information won’t help boost your site in search engine rankings. Once again, it’s another spot where quality should be valued way above quantity. While it can be a bit of a scramble to keep every link relevant and fresh on your site, you can boost your chances by using links from reputable sites you’re familiar with, and building in links back to content within your own site.
When you add links to your site, don’t set them to open up in new tabs, even though it can be tempting. Readers find the tabs disorienting and messy, and chances are, it won’t help them stay on your site (in fact, it disables their ability to use the back button to return to your page, so they can get even more lost).
When you curate links, do it carefully and deliberately. Look for content from recent sites, and sites related to your business. For example, if you use the term “run your business” you wouldn’t want to link to a site about running, even if it’s popular. It’s off topic, confusing to your reader and won’t boost your ranks. Instead link to other web content that’s just as high quality as your own content
- Social Media, Apps and Other “Bonus Content”
E-Books, apps and other pieces of downloadable and streamable content can boost your SEO. Consumers want mobile apps, and in fact, apps now account for the majority of digital media consumption. People access content on apps and it keeps them visiting your site over and over.
When it comes to engaging with customers they want to reach you in a variety of ways. They want to connect with you via social media, they want to download an app and read your e-Book tutorial. Offering a variety of media and content helps you reach a wide range of audience members and connect in different ways. The majority of marketers are using social media to connect and boost their content and SEO.
It’s all about being creative with your content and offering a little something for everyone. It doesn’t have to be difficult or time consuming, but it does need to be quality, applicable and creative. It needs to be user-focused, speak to your audience and deliver the message they want and need.
Make it your goal in 2017 to avoid “tricks and hacks” to game the system, and instead to focus on quality content that’s engaging, relevant and fresh. The biggest secret to SEO is that it has to be done in a genuine, authentic way, and there’s really no fast-and-easy way to get around it. Focus on local customers and reaching your target market and you’ll have your most successful year yet!
At Insightly, we offer a CRM used by small and mid-sized businesses from a variety of verticals. Learn about Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.
Google Shopping feed optimization
Product titles are among the most important factors influencing the performance of your Google Shopping campaigns. Contributor Andreas Reiffen shares data on how to optimize them.
Read the full article at: searchengineland.com
Sink Your Teeth into the New Year
Turn It Up Tuesday: Tips from Insightly to Take Your Business to 11
Welcome to Turn It Up Tuesday, where we bring you 4 weekly tips—a tip on running your business, a tip on using Insightly CRM, a tip on improving your sales, and a tip on improving your life. Enjoy this week’s tips!
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Segment Your Lead List in Insightly |
| There are many compelling reasons to use Insightly. Certainly, among these is the product’s flexibility.
Unlike some CRMs that offer limited segmentation options, Insightly is somewhat of a blank canvas for your needs. You can slice and dice your data the way you see fit, rather than forcing your business model into something that doesn’t quite work. With regard to lead segmentation, Insightly presents a number of unique solutions. To illustrate how this can work, let’s imagine that your company provides web design services for a variety of industries. As your lead list grows, it becomes clear that certain sectors and customer types require slightly different sales approaches. To segment your list, you take the following actions: Create a filter for web leads – Your research shows that leads originating from your website tend to close faster than outbound cold calls. Creating a filter with the existing “lead source” drop down option gives your sales team a list of warm prospects to engage.
Add a custom dropdown field for your products – On your website, you’ve published your standard packages and prices. Before your sales team reaches out, the prospect typically expresses an interest in one of your service products. Capturing this information upfront will help your team prioritize their efforts and identify upsell possibilities. Set up a tag for “hot” leads – Some leads need answers now, not later. A “hot lead” tag could help organize time-sensitive follow up actions that need to happen first. Try using segmentation today!
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Use Segmentation Data to Develop New Profit Centers |
There’s a wild card factor associated with lead and customer segmentation: the creation of new profit centers. By segmenting your CRM records, you inherently become more in touch with customer needs. Each new bit of data helps you better relate to the many challenges, goals, and frustrations of the people you serve. Armed with this information, you can begin to think more like your target audience and identify innovative solutions. How can you use segmentation data to develop new profitable products or services? Here are a few suggestions:
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Set New Year’s Resolutions (with Teeth) |
The infancy of another year is upon us. As with any new year, people feel compelled to set resolutions for themselves. “I want to lose 15 pounds.” “I’m going to finally write that book that I’ve always talked about.” “It’s time that I hired myself an administrative assistant.” “I will spend more time with my children this year.” Although admirable, most resolutions unfortunately vanish into the cold January wind. Don’t let yourself fall into this trap. Hold yourself accountable in 2017 by creating resolutions with teeth. Since you’re already an Insightly user, you can use the tool’s project management capabilities to avoid forgetfulness. Try setting up a milestone and assign a due date. Then, start adding related tasks as stepping stones toward the accomplishment of your goal. As new emails appear in your inbox, your conscience will be more likely to push you into action. Let technology be your accountability partner in 2017!
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Keep Your Customers Segmented |
You just won a new client. Congratulations! Many companies stop all segmentation activities at this point. However, as the old adage says, “it’s easier to sell to an existing client than to a new one.” Why not capitalize on this truth by maintaining tight segmentation of your customers, too? As you develop your customer segmentation strategy, there are a number of factors to consider. You might want to think through these questions before going much further:
Once you’ve worked through such issues and begun applying segmentation data to customer records, you might be surprised at the many new revenue opportunities that present themselves.
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Send Us Your Tips. Would you like to share your tips with Insightly customers? Send them to us! If we use one in our weekly feature we’ll send you a $10 Amazon Gift Card! Contact us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or send us an email.
About the author: Matt Keener is a marketing consultant and President of Keener Marketing Solutions, LLC. Matt specializes in content marketing and strategic planning, having helped numerous Saas (software as a service) companies and other small businesses worldwide. Read more of Matt’s work, check out his book, or connect with him on Linkedin.
15 Essential Content Marketing Templates
15 tools, templates, and checklists to get your content marketing started in the right direction – Content Marketing Institute
Read the full article at: contentmarketinginstitute.com
User intent: Why organic content trumps social media
Don’t look for shortcuts. Columnist Drew Eastmead explains why you shouldn’t rely too much on social media to drive website traffic to your business.
Read the full article at: marketingland.com
How to Create a Social Media Content Calendar for a Year : Social Media Examiner
Want to deliver quality social media content for the next year? Discover how to fill a social media content calendar with a year’s worth of content.
Read the full article at: www.socialmediaexaminer.com
How Brands Can Build Trust with Millennials
Building trust with your millennial shopper is so vital in today’s retail climate. For retail marketers to be successful in reaching them, brands must present their value in an authentic way that meets millennial expectations.
Read the full article at: multichannelmerchant.com
7 Steps to More Productive Projects
It’s happened to even the best of consultants.
Despite your best efforts, the project you’re working on is far from over. With no end in sight, you’re starting to feel stressed. Will you ever get it done? How much is this really going to cost the client? Even if you finished it tomorrow, would the customer forgive you for letting it get out of control?
While you focus on getting things back on track, allow me to make the following recommendations for your next assignment.
- Define the Ground Rules
In many ways, today’s business world is much easier to navigate than it was a decade or two ago. The Internet is more accessible, devices are faster, and software exists for everything under the sun. With these advancements, however, new challenges have arisen. For starters, companies large and small now rely on dispersed teams. In fact, it’s not uncommon for teams to have workers from India, The Philippines, European countries, the United States, and other locations. The benefits are of course obvious: an around-the-clock workforce with unique perspectives and skills. The challenges, which are often overlooked, involve coordinating opposite time zones and fostering cohesiveness through a virtual environment.
With staff spread across the globe, it’s incumbent to set clear team rules. Consider these questions as you establish your ground rules.
Who will do what? Every team needs a leader, but it’s equally important to carefully match talent to the task at hand. Considering your team’s current skills, who are the best participants for this project? If you have a void to fill, consider recruiting through traditional methods or via one of the many freelancing marketplaces. Once you’re staffed up, be sure to introduce the team and define who will do what.
Which project management system? Accessibility is particularly important for virtual teams. Moving your project to the cloud can help improve visibility for everyone. There are a number of free project management systems available. If you’re already using Insightly, you’ll be pleasantly surprised to learn that it’s actually an all-in-one CRM and project management system. Even if you’re on the free plan, you can start using Insightly’s project management features at no charge.
By what means (and how often) will we communicate? Some projects require daily updates. Others have longer timelines, which means a daily meeting is overkill. Based on your project, set clear expectations for meeting frequency and format. Does a conference call make sense? Or could a group chat get the job done?
Are we biting off more than we can chew? When a client asks for help, he may not realize the complexities of the request. Despite the customer’s pressure to solve every problem by tomorrow, be honest when sizing a project. If everything can’t get done at once, consider breaking things into multiple phases. It’s better to be realistic upfront than having to miss deadlines when it counts.
What’s our plan for dealing with issues? Try to think about things that could go wrong and develop contingency plans. It’s wise to at least consider the potential risks and prepare accordingly.
- Customize Your Workflow
If your team uses Insightly’s project management tools, customizing your workflow is very simple. At a high level, Insightly offers two distinctive paths for tracking projects: pipelines and milestones.
Pipelines allow you to break a project down into linear steps. When defining pipelines, it may be useful to think in a broader context of your business. For example, if your company does a lot of websites for clients, you might break pipeline stages as follows:
- Gather ideas
- Select template
- Launch dev site
- Write copy
- Finalize graphics
- Input meta tags
- Test
- Go live
- Post-launch work
Or, if you’re a software consultant, your project pipeline might look something like this:
Pipelines help you build economies of scale and reduce downtime. As one project ends, a new one can be kicked off following the exact same logical workflow. No more head scratching or trying to figure out what happens next.
On the other hand, if your project does not follow a sequential order, then milestones might be a better choice. Unlike pipelines, you can create milestones that overlap or happen concurrently. For example, the implementation of a comprehensive marketing campaign may include the following milestones:
- Email blast to existing customers
- Press release
- Social media announcement
- Blog article
- Update feature matrix on website
As with pipelines, each milestone can be linked to one or more tasks. In the previous example, your content writer may have several tasks, each with a different due date, priority level, and description.
- Link Projects to Other Records
Even with a cloud-based project management system, teams often find themselves still relying on external databases, spreadsheets, inboxes, and paper documents. Siloed data slows down the team’s trajectory, creating new bottlenecks and minimizing the likelihood of a timely completion.
Constantly seek innovative ways to share project-related information with your team. For example, Insightly allows you to build links from your projects to other records. Users may find value in linking the following records to their projects:
- Customer contacts
- Organizations
- Uploaded sketches or drawings
- Scanned invoices, quotes, or RFPs
- Other projects
- Related opportunities
With a few clicks, your team can have a 360-degree view of each project. No more digging through old emails, business cards, or spiral bound notebooks. Instead, each team member is empowered with the information he or she needs to succeed. (As the project manager, you’ll also start to hear fewer excuses relating to missing information. That’s worth its weight in gold!)
- Maintain an Archive of Related Correspondence
Speaking of record linking, wouldn’t it be nice to have a historical archive of all emails relating to each project?
Sure, you could tell your team members to funnel all communication through your chat portal. Or, you could encourage users to post “notes” directly in your project management system. In a perfect world, this all sounds great. In the real world, it’s probably not possible. Sometimes, email is still the best way to get a point across.
If you’re using Insightly, you’ll be pleased to know that each project has a unique link email address. As long as your team members remember to CC (or BCC) that specific address when sending an email, the “Emails” tab on the project will automatically save a copy.
To illustrate how this might work, imagine that you’re working on a graphic design project that requires frequent back and forth with the client. During the conceptualization phase, you need to get their approval (in writing) before finalizing the composition. At the end of the project, you need to send the final vector files along with your invoice. With Insightly, each time you copy your project-specific email address, the correct project is instantly updated. If, in the future, the client claims he never approved your design, you have the proof you need at your finger tips.
By the end of a project, you may have dozens of emails stored, which would have otherwise only been accessible by the person who sent or received the message. Now, everyone is on the same page.
- Automate as Much as Possible
Technology should make your life easier – not more difficult. Invest the time necessary to learn how your project management system could add additional value. Identify opportunities to further reduce administrative effort through automation.
Some project management systems, such as Insightly, offer a suite of project automation features. These may include:
Follow Up Reminders – What’s the point of assigning a task without creating accountability? To hold team members accountable, be sure to configure email reminders for tasks. Once configured, Insightly automatically nudges users as due dates approach. It’s one less thing you have to do.
Future Tasks – Sometimes, simply remembering to input a future task is a struggle. For tasks that need to occur more than once, consider adding a repeat schedule. With repeating tasks, you’ll no longer have to remember to remember. Insightly does it for you.
Future Actions – As your team gains experience, you may notice that certain actions always precede other actions. Building activity sets can help you knock down barriers, minimize oversights, and increase the productivity of your team.
A final thought about automation: don’t try to overdo it. A prudent automation strategy involves considerable thought and planning. Be careful and strategic in what you choose to automate. Otherwise, you may find yourself fixing things that didn’t need to be automated in the first place.
- Seek Data that Actually Tells You Something
The basic act of pulling reports offers little value, that is, unless you have specific key performance indicators (KPIs) in mind. Before you spend time building custom reports in your project management system, identify which KPIs offer the most insight into how your team operates. Most teams could benefit by tracking one or more of the following:
- Tasks that are currently overdue
- Users with overdue tasks
- Projects that are behind schedule
- Upcoming milestones
- Activity by pipeline or pipeline stage
- Projects that are over budget
- Work completed last week, month, or year
If you’re just getting started with reporting, be selective. There’s no point in tracking too many things at once. Pick the two or three most important metrics, explain their importance to your team, and develop a standard procedure for measurement. As your team becomes more comfortable with your process and expectations, you may consider rolling out additional reports.
Insightly users will appreciate the flexibility built into the reporting module. The drag-and-drop interface allows you to quickly access the information you need. Paid users can even schedule reports to appear in their inboxes, offering an added level of automation.
- Do a Retrospective
No project is perfect. Even with the most robust tracking and delegation process in place, you always have an opportunity to improve. For this reason, it can be very beneficial to host retrospective meetings upon the close of each project.
A retrospective can be as simple (or complex) as you wish to make it. At a bare minimum, the following topics should be discussed:
Accomplishments – Recap what went well and focus on individual contributions from the team. It’s important to make your workers feel valued and appreciated, so spotlighting accomplishments can go a long way to achieving this goal.
Budget vs. Actual – Did you finish above or below budget? If the project exceeded the budget, what was the cause? If you stayed under budget, perhaps you need to refine future estimates?
Improvement Opportunities – Going into the meeting, it’s probably a good idea to have a few improvement ideas written down. Open up the discussion and solicit the team for their suggestions. Depending on your company’s culture, asking for input may or may not bear fruit. However, simply asking for team input further establishes a team environment.
If you take the time to do a retrospective, be sure to capture the meeting’s outcomes in a document. Before moving on to your next priority, be sure to upload and link the retrospective summary report to the project’s record. This way, if you ever need to refer back to it, everything is highly accessible and all in one place.
As you do more retrospectives, it may also be beneficial (and somewhat amusing) to refer back to your meeting archives. Take note of how your process has evolved and seek ways to further optimize it.
Get One Step Closer to Better Projects
Project management is not easy. But, with the right approach and technology, you may find yourself feeling less stressed and more productive.
The most important thing to remember is that each project is an opportunity to improve. Despite the pressure you may be under, never lose site of the bigger picture. Circumstances, which are often outside of your control, can cause you to miss a deadline or fail to live up to customer expectations. You may be surprised how understanding clients can be – especially if you’re always open and honest.
Take the next step to more productive projects. Your clients – and your team – are counting on you!
At Insightly, we offer a CRM used by small and mid-sized businesses from a variety of verticals. Learn about Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.
Matt Keener is a marketing consultant and President of Keener Marketing Solutions, LLC. Matt specializes in content marketing and strategic planning, having helped numerous Saas (software as a service) companies and other small businesses worldwide. Read more of Matt’s work, check out his book, or connect with him on Linkedin.
How to Find Social Media Micro-influencers for Your Small Business
Want to promote your small business on a budget? Discover how to find and connect with micro-influencers who can promote your small business.
Read the full article at: www.socialmediaexaminer.com
