online marketing solutiins

What is a Bounce Rate and How Can I Avoid It?

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online marketing solutionsWhen it comes to online marketing solutions, a steadily climbing bounce rate can be the kiss of death. It’s defined as the percentage of viewers who visit only one page of your website and then leave without interacting or visiting any other pages. This includes visits where the user closes their browser, clicks on an external link in your content and navigates away, types in a new URL or stays on a page for 30 minutes or more without any interaction.

There are many reasons why your bounce rate is not as low as you would like it to be. It could be that your site takes too long to load, is difficult to navigate or simply doesn’t have the products, services or information that your visitors are looking for. If your site is suffering, here are a few tips to help prevent high bounce rates, get your visitors to engage, and ultimately, increase conversion.

1. Deliver

The most common reason for a high bounce rate is that your site doesn’t deliver what the visitor is looking for. This could be due to poorly targeted keywords or those that are not in alignment with what you’re really offering, as well as misleading advertising. It’s essential to set your users’ expectations correctly so that they won’t be disappointed. If you’re selling outdoor gear and one of your keyphrases is “backpacking equipment,” make sure that you have content related to it and that it’s a type of product you sell.

2. Have clear navigation

Make sure that your site’s navigation is clear and easy to understand.

3. Employ a responsive design

It’s best to ensure that every type of user will have an enjoyable experience. Invest in a responsive design that will accommodate users on all devices available.

4. Be clear

Make sure your landing page has a clear purpose or call to action. Many times, visitors bounce from a site because they’re confused as to what it offers.

5. Create strong content

Make sure your site has lots of compelling, engaging content for visitors to browse or read. Create excellent descriptions of your products and services, and establish a blog and post regularly.

Employing these strategies will help your reduce your bounce rate, establish credibility and trustworthiness, and boost your brand’s visibility. For information on our online marketing solutions, visit this link.

SEO marketing

Top 5 Reasons You Need SEO

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Online Marketing Services | Top 5 Reasons You Need SEO

While the internet is a constantly evolving entity, SEO practices aren’t going anywhere. They are fundamental to the success of your company and your online marketing services strategy has a definitely effect on your business as a whole. If you maintain a strong SEO campaign, your company will be able to adjust to the constantly changing factors of the industry, from Google’s influx of algorithms and the growth of other search engines to the impact of social media and the need for mobile-responsiveness.

Here are five reasons that SEO should be an integral part of your online marketing strategy.

1. Greater visibility = conversions.

SEO is ultimately what can put your website on the top of the search engine pages and therefore generate leads and increase conversions. The more targeted your SEO, the more relevant your traffic will be.

2. Your competitors are doing it.

Across the gamut of industries, most companies are integrating SEO into their marketing campaigns. The longer you wait to start SEO activities, the more time your competition will have to dominate search engine rankings and have greater visibility than your company.

3. Good SEO improves the user experience you provide.

The search engines loves it when you create a quality website, but so do the users. Ensure that your website has good navigation, an intuitive design and relevant, original content. Also make sure that there are no 404 errors or broken links. This will help you provide a user-friendly, enjoyable experience for your visitors.

4. SEO helps you build credibility.

When you develop strong content and engage strong SEO practices, this will help show your brand in a positive light and attract targeted visitors who are actually looking for the kind of products or services you offer. The greater your visibility and exposure, the more opportunities you have to create a positive image and boost your brand’s reputation.

5. SEO is very cost-effective.

The benefits of organic SEO outweigh advertising costs because the results are long-term. Unlike other marketing efforts, your costs are fixed and your results don’t just disappear if you take a break like they would if you stopped an advertising campaign.

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digital marketing

How SEO Resembles the Video Game Industry

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digital marketingSearch Engine Optimization (SEO) is something that many businesses use to gain more targeted traffic with their online presence. The video game industry is similar in many ways, but different as well. One would not think to compare the two of them, but if you look closely enough, you could make several connections between the two. So how is it that the video game industry is anything like a SEO digital marketing agency?

In video games, there are multiple levels of gameplay and everyone is trying to make it to the top. The same thing can be said for the internet and gaining new customers. When someone like Nintendo, Bethesda or Valve comes out with a new game, they release it onto their network where there are hundreds of other games similar to it, but different and unique in its own way. SEO digital marketing is very similar—people will use networks, resources, and tools, but they are actually the same ones used by other companies as well.

Secondly, they each use weapons of some sort. Video games and their heroes always have some sort of weapon to overpower their enemies—and so does SEO. In SEO, you mainly work a lot of offensive moves to monitor and steal links, using various tools. By making sure you beat your competitor, you have used the weapons of SEO instead of the real weapons used in a video game.

Of course, an actual game is different than the industry and that is where these two things will differ. While the industry works as a whole, an individual game such as World of Warcraft is more detailed and full of life. Games like this can really be compared to the world of SEO. The industry itself is growing every day and adjusting to the changes made by Google and other search engines. Nevertheless, if you would have looked at these two things before, you may not have made any sort of connection between them. But when you look closer, you see that there are many similarities between them. You can actually see how SEO online marketing works when you compare it to a video game. Thinking in terms of weapons and a battlefield will actually help to make it more real and show you just how companies can use SEO to gain the competitive edge they need to become successful.

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3 Tips for Making Emails Work Better in Microsoft Outlook 2015

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3 Tips for Making Emails Work Better in Microsoft Outlook 2015All Outlook users have been there at one time or another—whether you receive an email that looks awful or your own blast is hardly presentable when opened up in Outlook, it can be a very frustrating position to be in. When you spend so much time crafting and executing an online marketing campaign, it almost seems like a waste when the delivery leaves so much to be desired.

The good news is, there are several ways to overcome these Microsoft Outlook 2015 obstacles. Here are three of our tried and tested strategies for preparing an email campaign for Outlook.

1. Use tables in your blast. When sending email blasts or newsletters to a multitude of Outlook users, tables are your only surefire way to have your campaign look the way it does on your screen when it reaches the recipient’s inbox. While Outlook removes the styles you use in your template so that things are no longer laid out the way you want them to be, when you use a table, your images and text will look the way you want and won’t be “floating around.”

2. Style some breaks. Unfortunately, Outlook won’t wrap your text automatically; therefore, you may have some “floating” words or punctuation in weird places. Avoid this by adding styling that will cause a break in text so that it doesn’t go beyond 600px, which is considered the standard width for emails. Also make sure to add in paragraph breaks where necessary.

3. Get specific. It’s essential to pre-determine the specifics of your text, such as font, font color, font size and any other stylistic elements you want to include, such as italics are bolding of certain words. It’s all important to define the line height. Most templates include a simple toolbar that allows you to execute these characteristics.

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Is Twitter Marketing Having an Online Identity Crisis?

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social network Is Twitter Marketing Having an Online Identity Crisis?Rumors have abounded this week that Twitter is considering rolling out a new limit for tweets by the end of the first quarter of 2016—to the sound of 10,000 characters. This is a significant boost from the current limit of 140 characters. While longer tweets seem like a logical step to many, with the potential for serious commercial benefits, others feel that Twitter is suffering an identity crisis. Considering the fact that Twitter’s stock price hit an all-time low this week, dropping to $19.98, investors could be getting jittery about the potential for change. The decline in stock price currently brings the company’s value to around $13 billion.

Twitter plays an important role in many social media and online marketing campaigns, but a lot of that is based on the simplicity of its rapid fire messages. 10,000 characters is practically a blog post—and while the rumors point to a “read more” button at the end of the shortened content at the beginning of the tweet, this puts it in a different realm. Will users still be able to see a list of tweets without scrolling? Will they still experience the instant gratification of reading a quick celebrity tweet or message from their favorite brand?

if you remember, you used to be able to check Twitter on your phone and see a whole list of tweets without touching the screen. Now most tweets include some form of media, which tends to add a lot of value for many users. For others, it requires a little more work to get what was once a quick fix from checking Twitter.

Change is good and evolution is often necessary to grow as individuals, as a company and as an industry. Yet when a product of any type, from a social media site to a coffee, strays too far from its original form, users tend to lose interest and loyalty. With too much deviation, they may stop using it altogether.

Thoughts?

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5 Strategies for Writing Better Headlines

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5 Strategies for Writing Better HeadlinesWhen you spend time and effort to craft stellar blog posts, you want them to be read and shared as much as possible. Yet what many bloggers don’t realize is that you have to grab your readers’ attention with the headline or it’s not happening. It may be hard to believe that those 8 to 11 words are going to make such an impact, but according to “The Father of Advertising,” David Ogilvy, “On Average, five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy.” In fact, Ogilvy himself spent nearly half of his time writing better headlines as he would spend on the rest of the advertisement content.

With that in mind, the following five strategies should help you create the most compelling headlines possible and maximize your online marketing efforts.

1. Shorter headlines pop. Back in the day, it was recommended that headlines be 5 to 10 words. In present day, the standard is between 8 and 12 words. Keep your headlines short and succinct if you want to grab readers’ attention.

2. Use numbers. Research shows that the most successful headlines include a number. Readers assume that the number lets them know how long the post will be and lets them make the decision if they want commit or just skim the content.

3. Make lists. With the number rule in mind, lists make for ideal posts. List headlines make a specific promise and they’re more readable, easier to skim and scan, and most importantly, the reader knows what to expect.

4. Inspire curiosity. One of the best ways to capture readers’ attention is to ask a question that evokes an emotion and makes them feel like they have to get an answer. This technique utilizes the curiosity gap, making readers feel like there’s a void between what they know and what they want to know.

5. Use what’s trending in your industry. Look at what’s trending, what your clients are discussing and what the competition is doing and take note. Doing this will help inspire ideas to blog about and craft the most attention-grabbing headlines.

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3 Tips for Engaging Your Subscribers

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Opt In And Out Signpost Showing Decision To Subscribe Or AgreeWhen you work so hard to get subscribers to sign up for your email blasts and newsletters, it’s disappointing when they ignore or don’t open your emails, or worse yet, unsubscribe from your mailing list. By following some simple but well thought out strategies, you can keep your new subscribers happy, re-engage inactive customers and improve the results of your online marketing efforts.

1. Be specific with how you lure subscribers. How often are you sending out your campaigns? Do you send out a monthly newsletter or weekly email blasts? For starters, make sure that your signup information is specific, so that your subscribers know what to expect. They don’t want to sign up for a monthly newsletter and then get bombarded with emails every week or few days. Be clear so that your subscribers know what they’re signing up for.

2. Don’t bombard subscribers. There’s a fine line between sending them a few promos a month with some thoughtful information and blasting them every few days. Consider creating a content-rich newsletter that goes out every month or biweekly, in addition to some well-timed blasts. Use the click and open rate reports that your provider offers to gauge which type of campaigns engage your subscribers the most and emulate those for future emails.

3. Make your website and campaigns mobile-responsive. The widespread expansion of the mobile market has made it imperative to make your site and campaigns mobile-responsive. Being mobile-responsive is not only necessary to accommodate your visitors and buyers, but to stay in Google’s good graces as well. Lack of mobile-responsiveness definitely takes you out of the mix for mobile searches and affects your overall rankings as well. The mobile market is only going to continue to grow, so now is the time to bite the bullet and update your site if you haven’t already.

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The Benefits of using pinterest for business marketing

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Benefits of Using Pinterest for Business marketing | ExtimaPinterest is a bit like a digital vision board—you pin photos you like and categorize them according to topics of your choice in an online profile. Some use it for personal purposes and others use it to gain exposure for their products and services, while many use it for both. Many clients wonder whether there are any benefits to using Pinterest for business marketing or as part of their social media and online marketing campaigns. The consensus is that it can definitely be a great tool for garnering online exposure and attracting new customers. Read on to learn about how it can benefit your business.

One of the many benefits of Pinterest is that it enables you to define and garner exposure for a brand and the people behind it. When the people behind a brand showcase their passions and interests, it helps them become relatable and connect with potential customers. Pinterest also allows users to demonstrate their expertise in their area of business. If your company is a service-oriented firm, you can pin photos of happy customers or client projects. This is an excellent way to promote everything from fitness training, hairstyling and makeup artistry to interior décor, auto restoration or original art, for example. Followers will be inspired and visit your board for ideas, which will increase your credibility and appeal among both new and potential customers.

While an obvious use is to upload photos of your products or services offered, Pinterest also offers a great way to promote text-based content, such as blog articles. When you pin the photo that accompanies the blog post on a board, you can link it to the content to attract traffic. This is a popular method for workouts, recipes, how-to guides, house décor, real estate listings and more.

On the SEO front, Pinterest is beneficial because it adds backlinks to your website and increases overall visibility.

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3 Tips for Harnessing the Power of Video Optimization

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3 Tips for the Power of Video Optimization | Extima WebVideo optimization and YouTube are an important part of online marketing, yet many companies overlook this avenue for boosting their search engine rankings and gaining exposure for their products and services. Every day, billions of videos are watched on YouTube alone—it’s considered by many as the second largest search engine in the world. Building a strong YouTube presence can have an incredible impact on your brand reach and will give you the chance to engage with the millions of visitors of using the platform.

It makes sense to leverage these audiences and use video to boost your online marketing efforts. Here are three tips for optimizing your videos and making them easier to find and share.

1. Provide relevant, interesting content. You want to make sure that your video is compelling, related to your products or services, and interesting to watch. Make sure you’re not shoving your brand in viewers’ faces; they are there to learn about whatever they searched for. If content feels too promotional, they will quickly move on to the next item that their search query brought up. Don’t make your videos too lengthy either; studies show that viewers’ attention spans rarely last more than three minutes.

2. Make your video optimization search-friendly. Just like Google, YouTube uses algorithms to determine which videos appear in the search results and where. YouTube will evaluate the bounce rate of your videos—as in how long viewers watch your content before clicking out. Other important factors include the number of subscribers your channel has and the number of likes, dislikes and comments each video garners. They will also look at keyword relevance and the length of your videos.

3. Provide a clear call to action. Since you have viewers’ attention, you want to capitalize on it. Here is your chance to create a call to action that is compelling and attractive so that viewers have the opportunity to take advantage of what you have to offer.

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5 Ways to Generate Blog Ideas

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Online Marketing strategy | 5 Ways to Generate Blog IdeasDo you have writer’s block? Are you running out of ideas or feeling at a loss for words? It’s easy to get drained creatively when you’re blogging on a weekly or even daily basis. If you need a little inspiration to keep your content fresh and your online marketing strategy in place, read on for these four tips.

1. Listen to your customers. An easy way to get ideas is to listen to the questions your customers are asking regularly and evaluate client feedback. Find the most common questions and turn them into a blog post. This will help position you as a reliable source of valuable information and help you bond with your audience. To capture your readers’ attention, use the question as the title for the post.

2. Size up the competition. In order to stay relevant and keep your finger on your industry’s pulse, it’s important to keep tabs on what your competitors are doing. While you definitely don’t want to copy their topics, what they’re blogging about will help you brainstorm and generate some fresh ideas.

3. Stay on top of industry trends and news. It’s essential to stay abreast of what is going on in the industry as a whole, current news and what events are taking place. Read the industry trades, leading blogs and news sites on a regular basis. Attend relevant events—for example, if your company produces smartphone cases and covers, you’ll want to read all about Apple’s media events or even cover them for your blog. To set yourself apart from other bloggers, look for key details that others may not include in their coverage so that your audience will learn something new and won’t be bored.

4. Broaden your horizons. In general, it’s important to spend time observing what’s going on in the world—you never know where your next hit of inspiration will come from. See relevant movies, read books about your industry and attend events you wouldn’t normally go to. Research what companies similar to yours but based in other countries are doing.

Always look for new ways to keep your inspiration flowing. This will help you continue to produce rich content that helps you bond with your audience and keeps them coming back for more.

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