Marketing Archives - Page 2 of 3

Posts

Content, Marketing, Mobile, Social Media

The Top Instagram Marketing Hacks

entrepreneur.com

We all know Instagram is imperative to growing – and maintaining – a business. But some business owners aren’t as savvy when it comes to Instagram marketing. So, we’ve rounded up some of the best marketing hacks to help you grow your business using Instagram!

Hashtags are KEY

Chances are, you’ve seen hashtags on an Instagram post. But how many are you supposed to use? Which ones are the most effective? Hashtags are used in addition to your caption in order for those not already following you to find your page. Users search for relevant, industry-related hashtags and you want to make sure your posts show up.

When choosing and using hashtags, use a mix of both popular hashtags and less popular hashtag, yet extremely relevant hashtags. With this mix, you’ll attract those searching for popular hashtags while also attracting those who are interested in your specific industry.

Try to use at least one hashtag per post. You can even put them in a separate comment if you don’t want to clutter your caption.

Join the Instagram Community

Like any other social network, Instagram is most effective when you use it as a way to form relationships with other users. It’s not just a platform to post snapshots of your own life, it’s a way to form a community with others.

To build lasting relationships, use the appropriate hashtags as well as like and comment on other users photos. It’ll show that you are supportive of other people and put you in front of people who may not have otherwise found your page.

Keep Images & Profile on Brand

A super important Instagram marketing hack is to keep your images on brand. That means ensuring your images are cohesive and closely related to your brand. For example, if your brand is bright and colorful, don’t post dull, lifeless photos. Make sure you keep fonts consistent (or at least in the same font family), too.

Furthermore, optimizing your profile as a whole will ensure you stay on brand. Include a backlink to your website in your bio – it doesn’t have to be static, you can change it if you are running a promotion or campaign.

Use your logo – typically as your profile picture – so users know it’s your brand and include your physical location (or at least city and state), especially if you have a physical location. Use your bio to articulate exactly what your brand is to help users know exactly who you are.

Post Efficiently

While it is ultimately up to you how many times you want to post on Instagram, there is some research behind optimal posting frequency. According to one study, out of 55 brands, most post 1.5 times per day. Interestingly enough, they found that brands who most more than 1.5 times per day didn’t have decreased engagement.

So, don’t be afraid to post more than once or twice a day. Begin with one per day and if that works, try experimenting with two to three and go from there!

Enlist the Help of Apps

While you don’t necessarily need an outside app to be a successful Instagram marketer, it certainly helps. Iconosquare, for example, allows you to access your Instagram account from your computer.

There are also a number of apps that allow you schedule out posts as well as some that help you connect with the right audience and find engaging posts to share.

Use Instagram Ads

If you’re really looking to really rev up your business, consider Instagram ads. Similar to Facebook or Google ads, Instagram ads allows you promote a specific service or product using an advertisement. You can do an Instagram photo ad, video ad, carousel ad, or Instagram stories ad.

You need to have a Facebook page in order to run an Instagram ad but it’s fairly easy! Then, you can choose the type of ad you’d like and set your budget and choose how long you’d like to run it for. Try different types of ads to see which one works best for your business.

Grow Your Following

The best – and most loyal – followers are those that genuinely care about your brand. Sure there are ways to buy followers, but growing your audience organically will have a lasting effect.

One way to organically grow your audience is to post regularly and consistently, use quality photos and content, include relevant captions and hashtags, and engage with your followers!

Use these tips and you’ll be a pro Instagram marketer in no time! And if you’re looking for a little extra help when it comes to content marketing, let Retaliate1st help you! We offer services in social media, performance marketing, content marketing, and search engine optimization to help you take your business to the next level. Learn more about our services here.

June 9, 2017/by chris

Content, Digital, Marketing, Mobile

How To Utilize Micro-Moments & Increase Your Content Campaign

huffingtonpost.com

Where’s your phone? If you’re like most people, it’s probably already in your hand or sitting right next to you. Now more than ever, people rely on their smartphone for just about everything – from checking social sites to asking Google where the nearest gas station is. And Google has a name for those moments: “micro-moments.”

Micro-moments are “split seconds of time where consumers use their devices to act on a need.”

And these moments can be huge for your brand.

Seventy percent of mobile searches lead to instant action. If you make sure your content is easily found, relevant, and accessible, your brand can capitalize immensely on the micro-moments. Here are four ways to do so.

Understand The Customer

As with any content campaign, you have to really understand who your customer is – what do they like to do? What do they look like? What are their habits? Getting a good sense of who your customer is will help you attract the right ones.

What types of questions are they asking before purchasing a service or product? By creating content with the answers to those questions, consumers are more likely to turn to you during those micro-moments.

Make Sure You’re Relevant

Although following best search-engine optimization practices will help your brand stay relevant, content is still king when it comes to relevancy. Your brand not only needs to answer the right questions through your content, it also needs to be easily readable and digestible. Consumers shouldn’t have to go searching for answers. Making sure your content is educational and not overly promotional will also help.

If you can’t provide the answers our customers are looking for, they’ll have no problem turning to another brand. Fifty-one percent of smartphone users actually purchased from a different brand or company they intended to because the competitor’s information was more relevant and useful.

Distribution is also important when it comes to content. You could create the most beautiful piece of content but if no one can find it, it’s utterly useless. Make sure you share your content on all the appropriate channels.

Anticipate The Micro-Moments

Companies that anticipate micro-moments have a higher ROI in mobile and marketing investment. To be micro-moment-ready, understand the when, where, and why of the moments and how your brand fits into that.

The anticipation correlates to the questions consumers ask prior to making a purchase. If a customer is searching for the best sushi restaurant in Los Angeles, sushi restaurants located in that area need to be ready to make sure customers choose their restaurant.

Create An Experience

Creating relevant and useful content is, of course, necessary but creating an experience is just as important. Focus on creating and implementing a positive experience with your brand to ensure the customer keeps coming back to you – even after those micro-moments.

Eliminate any unnecessary steps or filler to help make the experience as smooth as possible. If they have to fill out long forms to get what they want, they’ll lose interest pretty quickly and move right over to your competitor.

With a little preparation and some killer content, you’ll be micro-moment ready in no time.

If you’re looking for help creating an effective content campaign, let Retaliate 1st help you. We offer everything from help with content marketing to social media to business strategy. Learn more about our services here.

June 2, 2017/by chris

Marketing, Social Media

7 Ways To Create An Effective Facebook Ad Campaign

impactbnd.com

It seems like you can’t be on any social platform without running into an ad. And while each platform is unique in their own way, Facebook is still king when it comes to advertisements. But not all brands utilize the platform effectively. So, we’ve rounded up 7 tips on creating an effective Facebook ad campaign.

Audience Insights

Using the audience insight tool will help you find new potential customers. This tool will allow you to target people based on the interests of people who are already fans of your page as well as their personal characteristics.

Use A Campaign Landing Page With Your Ad

Aligning a Facebook post and landing page will help you get a higher Ad Relevance score – meaning you’ll end up paying less per click. Furthermore, it’ll increase your conversion rate. When someone clicks on an ad, they are expecting to get what that post said. If that happens, it’ll increase your credibility and gain their trust.

Trust is important if you are using Facebook ads to increase product or service sales. Customers are more inclined to purchase something if the brand appears trustworthy. And, alignment between post and page will decreases cart abandonment.

Test One Ad At A Time

Rather than creating different ads and A/B testing them, create variations of an ad that performs the best and change one aspect at a time.

Take your best ad, for example, and make copies. Change the headline of each version and see which one does best. Then, make copies of that ad (with the best headline) and change another element like an image or description.

You can also test different combinations with various split tests. Take the ad with the winning headline and add various descriptions to see which one performs best. Then, put the ad with the best description and test different headlines.

Utilize Ad Placement

Don’t just choose one format for Facebook ad placement – split test them. For example, don’t just choose right-column news feed ads or all news feed ones – switch them up. See which ad performs best in each location through reporting.

Three campaigns or ad sets are ideal – one for right-column news feeds ads, one for news feed desktop ads, and one for mobile news feed ads.

Use Conversion Audiences to Refine Targeting

If you have a remarketing pixel installed, you can exclude those who already visited or converted to avoid irrelevant impressions and clicks. This will help with bounce rates and abandoned carts.

Target New People Using Like Campaigns

With Power Editor or in your live Facebook account, you can set up a campaign and exclude people certain audiences, such as those who already like your page. This will help keep irrelevant impressions down by showing ads only to those who haven’t liked your page already.

Use Geographic Targeting

To help save money on bidding, create ad sets based on geographic target areas. Each ad set should ideally target one geographic area as cost per clicks can vary. Using separate geographic targets will allow you to adjust your bids accordingly – bidding higher when necessary and excluding or bidding lower on those that don’t make sense.

This is especially helpful when it comes to seasonal products or if you plan on targeting just one country or area.

Use these seven tips and tricks to make the most out of your Facebook ads and watch the conversions roll in!

If you’re looking to create a seriously effective Facebook ad campaign, let Retaliate 1^st help. We specialize in social media strategy, development, acquisition, and more. To learn more about our social media services, click here.

June 2, 2017/by chris

Marketing, Social Media

5 Influencer Marketing Myths

madefreshly.com

It’s no secret that influencer marketing is no longer a luxury, it’s a necessity. Consumers are becoming more and more attached to influencers – even changing their entire purchasing behavior based on what they say.

But just how much power do influencers have on audiences? According to a study in Adweek, 49 percent of consumers said they rely on an influencers recommendation before making a purchase.

Furthermore, businesses tend to generate $6.50 for every $1 they spend on influencer marketing. Influencers have a way of making sense of all the social media content – and consumers follow and trust them.

And while there is a lot of information on influencer marketing out there, not all of it is true. Here are five myths you should stop believing when it comes to influencer marketing.

It’s Expensive

Thanks to human psychology, we want instant results. But with typical marketing, that doesn’t typically happen. Numerous marketers invest in paid media since it’s easy to define and measure results – but you don’t always get the results you want.

Some marketers are weary of investing in influencer marketing since they think the risk is greater than the reward – but that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Of course big-name celebrities will require a lot of money, so the better thing to do is to work with niche, organic influencers. They’ll put the legwork in for your brand and you’ll keep your costs down.

You Have To Pay Influencers

Many marketers assume that influencers cost money – a lot of money – but that isn’t always the case. In fact, some influencers don’t even require monetary compensation for working with your brand.

Compensation is a widely debated topic among influencer marketing but for most influencers, money isn’t the most important aspect. You can offer them all the money in the world but if it doesn’t resonate with their audience, they won’t accept it. So, targeting those that align with your brand will be the most beneficial.

Influencers don’t always require money as compensation, either. If you have products, for example, you may offer product or inside scoop as compensation.

The More Followers The Better

Just because an influencer has hundreds of thousands of followers, that doesn’t mean those followers are right for your brand.

Joe Chernov, vice president of marketing at InsightSquared said, “Stop ‘big name hunting.’ They’re all ego-trapped out. Focus instead on the next-generation leaders and you’ll have them all to yourself.”

Celebrities, for example, typically have hundreds of thousands to millions of followers. But, not all those followers are engaged nor are they right for your brand.

Instead of looking at numbers look at the influencer and the followers. How engaged is the audience? Do they have a voice in your industry? The more engaged the audience is, the more likely they’ll purchase something the influencer is marketing.

Measuring ROI Is Impossible

Although measuring ROI in general is a challenge many marketers face, it doesn’t have to be difficult when it comes to influencer marketing. The first step is to define your goals. Are you looking to increase brand awareness? Track engagement and social shares? Track click-through rates and conversions? Or get your audience to do something?

When you ask an influencer to share content, provide them with specific tracking links in order to see how many clicks they get. Don’t try to track everything – you’ll overwhelm yourself. Instead, focus on several key metrics and go from there.

You Don’t Need FTC Compliance

When it comes to the Federal Trade Commission, if you don’t follow their regulations precisely, you may end up with thousands of dollars in fines. The FTC, for example, requires influencers to disclose paid sponsorships on the social sites.

Although 88 percent of marketers say they follow the rules, 12 percent still don’t comply. If you’re part of the 12 percent, make sure to get compliant. It doesn’t matter if you are a big-name brand or a small one, if you pay an influencer to promote your product or service, they must disclose the sponsorship on their social site.

If you haven’t explored influencer marketing yet because you didn’t know where to start or you had questions, use this guide to help you. And if you’re looking to really rev up your social media strategy, let Retaliate 1^st help you. Learn more about our marketing services here.

June 2, 2017/by chris

Culture, Digital, Marketing

Top 3 Tasks to Outsource for Your Small Business

Retaliate1st grew through hard work both internally and externally. We spent most of our first year using freelancers and a team we had to outsource to. We wanted to share some of the critical elements we chose to outsource.

Bookkeeping and Invoicing

Nothing can eat up the time of a small business owner quite like keeping the books, crunching the numbers, and invoicing.

Chances are you started your business because you had a talent or passion for your product or service. Unless that passion was accounting, hand the books to someone else.

As you grow, keeping the books will only become more complicated and time consuming. Instead of letting record keeping eat up a huge percentage of the time you could be putting into pulling the big levers on your business, outsource the task to a CPA. If you need help with the day-to-day numbers, tracking, and invoicing, you can easily find and train an employee or intern to do this for you.

Graphic Design and Your Website

If there’s one area where small business and solo entrepreneurs make a huge mistake it’s in doing their own graphic design and website building.

Learning a “little about SEO and websites” will give your business a site that looks terrible, is extremely time consuming to build, generates no sales, and projects a very unprofessional image.
Free site creators give you a website that looks like it was made for free.

Doing your own HTML or CSS usually looks like an amateur did the site… at best. Remember that designers and developers go to college for 4+ years to learn coding. This is not something you can become an expert in by reading a For Dummies book over the weekend.

Doing your own graphic design in Photoshop or Paint will take time and give your ads, brochures, and other marketing materials an unpolished, unprofessional look.

We’ve all seen these pieces. Someone is trying to sell us a high-end product (like a new car) and their flyer features a blurry, askew image, hovering above a mass of text set in huge block letters in all caps (and in multiple colors).

Do you want your clients and customers to see your business as being a two-bit amateur operation? If you sell services or quality products, hire someone to do your site and your graphic design.

Don’t Outsource To Family

And no, getting your nephew who “knows all that computer stuff” to do your site is not the answer.

Your business website is part of your physical business. It’s no different than building a brick-and-mortar property. Would you hire someone to build a structure simply because they know how to use a shovel?

You can find amazingly high quality designers overseas through outsource sites like Upwork and Elance. They work cheap, they’re fast, they’re incredibly effective.

And, using their services allows you to keep a designer “on staff” without having to pay a full-time employee.

You’ll need to do some research and try different designers before bringing one on to do a big project like your website.

Ask for their portfolio and references
Give them a small task to start (a logo, label for a new product, a one-sheet flyer)
Then, find a back-up designer. Having two designers at your disposal is always a good idea for emergency situations (you have to present something to a new client by tomorrow morning and you just found out about it). If one isn’t available, you have your back up read to roll.

Reception and Appointment Setting

IF you are selling products, you may be able to hire a virtual assistant to hire your phone calls and email responses.

Same goes for appointment setting.

Do you want to have to find the leads, set them yourself, then go sell them?

Do you want to be on the phone all day because your customer’s delivery arrived at 5:15pm when the tracking told them it’d get there at 5:00?

If you’re uncomfortable going virtual, hire someone to do this for you. You may even be ablet o score an intern. There are a lot of talented people looking for work. Put in some effort to find someone competent to handle your appointments, customer service calls, and general reception. This will not only free you up to do more important tasks, but it projects a highly professional image for your business.

January 29, 2017/by chris

Culture, Digital, Marketing, Website

Do You Really Want More Clients and Customers?

If you’re running a small business, or are a solo entrepreneur, you probably spend much of your time thinking about how great life would be if you could only get a few more clients, get a few more customers, or land that one big account.

But, before you go big time, you should take a moment to make sure you’re ready to scale your small business up.

From Barley in Business to Busty to Death

It happens all the time.

A small business is doing ok, but the cash flow isn’t exactly overwhelming. When you run an online or service based business, especially if you’re running the show alone or with a small group, this can be a frustrating time.

Then, all the work, all the banging your head against the wall, and all of the planning takes a turn. You hit the tipping point. Whatever you want to call it, your business goes from scraping by to breaking through.

Now, it doesn’t have to be breaking through to super-stardom. Even if your business grows 20% suddenly, that can translate to a lot of extra income.

And a lot of extra work.

Are You Ready to Grow Your Business?

Take a minute to assess your current work load, productivity, and efficiency.

If you have a few customers or clients and you’re behind on orders or fulfilling service agreements, you’re probably not ready to grow. Getting more contracts might help your bank account, but it will not magically cure your productivity issues.

However, if you are consistently knocking your work load out of the park, you might be ready. If you work with a team, make sure everyone is on board. Having a key employee bail during a growth surge can leave you and your customers frustrated.

Think Big

When you’re ready to grow, start thinking big. If your firm normally handles 10 clients per month, or 20-customers per week, start to think about how it will be to take care of 100 clients a month or 200 customers. Then, think a little bigger.

This isn’t an exercise in daydreaming. It’s actually part of the planning process. If you’ve planned how you’ll handle the extra customers, you’ll be ready when it happens. Sure, no plan is fool-proof, but you’ll be in a much better position if you know where you’re going vs winging it, failing, then losing your new customers.

Find Financing

If you’ve bootstrapped so far, it may be time to consider financing or investors.

If you’re a solo-business, this can be intimidating. But, if you want to jump to the next level (and the levels beyond), finding funding may be necessary.

Before you panic and lose your nerve on this one, understand that funding can mean as little as a few thousand dollars to invest in equipment, marketing, or anything that will help you service more customers.

Concentrate on What You Do Best

The E-Myth by Michael Gerber talks a lot about how most entrepreneurs have one area of expertise, i.e., the baker who opens a bakery. But, most small business owners don’t just do the baking.

They do the baking, the ordering, the marketing, the cash register, the clean-up, and the book.

When you’re ready to scale, you’re ready to hand off some of these jobs. Stick to baking and you’ll have the best baked goods in town. Leave the marketing to a marketer, the books to your accountant (or bookkeeper), and the minutia to your employees.

January 29, 2017/by chris

Creative, Digital, Marketing, SEM, Social Media, Website

Buying Facebook Ads Directly

Facebook is the great advertising platform of our time. Were once television ads and billboard ads were the go to platforms for advertisers, they have now lost ground to Facebook ads. Retaliate1st discuss the reasons why you should focus on this platform for your advertising.

Customers Can Buy from You Without Leaving Facebook

This is huge for both your business, where can sell directly to a warm audience that you’ve built a strong relationship with, and for Facebook, which can help businesses sell more products, buy more ads, and have the whole thing take place on Facebook’s platform, without having users click away from the social media giant.

It works by giving your customers the option to buy products in Facebook messenger. If they’ve already filled in their Name, address, phone number, etc. for their profile, all they have to do is click “pay.” If not, they can do so at point of purchase.

Payments will go through PayPal or Stripe. At this point, these are the only two usable payment platforms, and you can only sell in the U.S. However, both of these rules will likely change as the program grows.

If you’ve ever fretted about the transition your customers make between Facebook and your landing or sales pages, now you don’t have to worry. If you crafted a great ad or promoted post, your customer can now buy with one click.

How to Sell In Messenger

This will take some finesse. Facebook is allowing click from ads in the newsfeed to be sent directly to messenger now. This is a slow roll-out, but it will take off soon enough. Obviously, some customers will be put off by having their messenger blow up with ads, but it seems Facebook will allow consumers the ability to choose who they receive ad messages from.

Once there, your customer can chat with a “sales bot” or they can buy direct. And, in a further move toward utilizing similar buy-sharing options as Amazon, Facebook will allow your customer to send the ad copy to their friends if they need help deciding between multiple products. So, if your customer can’t decide between the wing-tips and the quarter-brogues, they can now share it with their friends.

This helps them take the plunge and make the purchase, and it exposed your products to an even larger pool of warm prospects.

October 15, 2016/by chris

Creative, Digital, Marketing, Social Media

Boosting Leads Through Twitter Ads

Facebook and Instagram get the most attention when it comes to social media pay per click advertising. But, don’t neglect Twitter; it can be a great source of new leads and sales.

If, you do it the right way…

What’s a Twitter Follower Worth

The first thing to figure out is what is a follower worth to you? “Follower” campaigns are the most popular, and cheapest ads to run on Twitter.

But, don’t blow your budget attracting followers until you run the numbers and figure out what a follower is worth. This can be tricky, as the metrics are not as helpful as they are on Facebook or Google. So, you’ll need to figure out the best method to track sales and legitimate leads that came directly from your followers.

This will look a lot like figuring out the lifetime value of a client, because that’s exactly what you’re doing. Try to plan for the long term when running follower campaigns, and not focusing so much on cost per click and trading clicks for dollars. In this case, the dollars will come later. If you can figure how many, you’ll know how much to invest.

Advantages to Twitter follower campaigns? Like Facebook, Twitter allows you to be very specific in your targeting – age, location, sex, interests, etc.

Disadvantages – if you don’t do the math first, you can end up overspending for followers that don’t buy from you.

Traditional Twitter Ads

You can also use Twitter ads to drive traffic and conversions.

The interface for ads is much like Facebook, so if you’ve used Facebook ads, you’ll have an advantage here. IF not, the program is not difficult to master. It’s a matter of targeting a very specific audience according to the parameters that bring you leads. Usually this is age, location, and interests.

You develop your creative, add a photo, and send users to yoru landing pages.

Alternatively, you can create a Lead Generation Card where users can sign up (opt-in) directly on their Twitter feed. This again comes down to choosing a stellar picture, and strong, benefit-rich headlines. This can be a more simple lead generation effort as well, since this is a one-step process.

Advantages – decent analytics, highly-targeted demographics are available for your ads.

Disadvantages – the main disadvantage is figuring out conversion rates and long-term value of followers, clicks, and leads. This will take tracking, but if you can figure out the sweet spot for your business, Twitter can provide a steady stream of leads and sales.

October 15, 2016/by chris

Content, Creative, Digital, Marketing, Mobile, Social Media

3 Tips to Improve Your Instagram Photos

When it comes to marketing on Instagram, you can subscribe to a lot of theories on what works, but the one common thread among all marketers, and the research, is that your Instagram campaigns live and die with the quality of your Instagram photos.

Better Instagram photos = more views, more likes, more engagement and more sales.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at 3 ways to improve your marketing on Instagram, through better Instagram photos:

How To Improve Your Instagram Photos

Use Your Phone’s Native Camera App

Using your phone’s camera is a better option than using Instagram’s camera. This is especially true if you have a newer version of the iPhone or Samsung Galaxy, both of which come with powerful cameras.

Why is your phone’s camera better than Instagram’s?

You can take photos without filters
You can edit photos much more easily, and much more quickly, in your phone’s native camera app and editing software
You can set your phone’s cam to take pics that are 640 x 640, making them perfect for Instagram without having to crop
Most phones have more powerful zoom, clearer pictures, and better lighting
The free, or near-free, photo editing apps on smart phones are actually pretty powerful, and can help you enhance lighting, focus, remove red-eye, and make your IG pictures clear and eye-catching

Interesting Instagram Photos Excel

Take Pictures of Interesting Things

This should be obvious, but we’ve all unfollowed a brand (or person) that insists on posting boring photos.
No matter what your product or service, there are opportunities to post photos of really dynamic content that will engage your followers.

Before and after pics work well for weight loss products, home improvements, design, graphics, and clothing stores.
Photos of your product being modeled are always a safe bet. Research shows that including a human face in a picture of a product increase views (and sales). Have great clothes you’re selling? Put it on a model that is a slightly idealized version of your customer and do a photo shoot. One shoot can give you a strong catalogue of content.
Cool places – if you are an adventure traveler, restaurant, or you sell lifestyle, pictures of nature, especially breathtaking views, always perform well on Instagram
Food – we all love to look at pictures of food. If the pictures are bright, clear, and the food is colorful. This should be a no-brainer for restaurants. But, next time you’re on Instagram, check out how many clothing and watch dealers use food in their photo shoots. Elegant coffee displays are the focus of a picture, but the watch on the wrist of the woman with her hand poised on the cup is the real draw.

Instagram Photos Of People Are Most Liked

Use Instagram Photos of People

This can be applied to using models, or taking pictures of your staff having fun, working, or doing interesting things.

Remember, Instagram is simply another marketing channel. No matter where you’re selling, people want to buy from people, not faceless corporations. This is why product images featuring faces do so well. It’s also why any marketer worth a damn will tell you to include pictures of your staff on your website’s About page. Put a face on your Instagram and your brand identification (and sales) will grow.

October 8, 2016/by chris

Content, Digital, Marketing, SEO, Website

6 Key Questions to Ask an SEO Firm

Despite the insider blogs that proclaim that SEO is Dead, the reality is that as long as Google exists and dominates the market, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) will be a huge part of the success of your business. Most people cannot perform SEO elements themselves and the key decision is which SEO firm they should hire. Here Retaliate1st list the questions you should ask any SEO form you are considering hiring.

Offsite SEO Factors

6 Key Questions to Ask an SEO Firm Before Hiring Them

Even those who scream that paid traffic is superior miss the fact that unless your site is optimized, you’ll pay more for clicks and lose visitors, leads, and sales because your site is confusing to use, doesn’t have good content, or is poorly written. At its base SEO is taking great copywriting and optimizing it slightly for the search engines.

It is an art and a science, and should be done by a professional. But, the SEO field is rich with scammers, fly-by-night companies, and fraudulent freelancers.

Before you make the wise decision to invest in professional services, ask the SEO firm these questions:

What’s Your Method?

How an SEO firm plans to get your business to the top of the rankings heap can tell you a lot about how successful they are.

Everyone has their own methods, and some are better suited for your business than others, but some are just plain terrible.

The SEO Firm Should Have a Method

For example, link building is still a key to getting your site ranked. It’s old-school, time-consuming, and requires an investment of cash. But, it works.

However, if you do a quick search and find that most links in your industry cost between 20 and 50-dollars, and the firm is pitching you on getting 10,000 links for $19.99, you can be sure they’re involved with spam tactics.

2. How Good is Your Content?

Content –> SEO and Social Media

Not all SEO firms will provide content, but they should. Content is the future of digital marketing. Without relevant, useful, well-written content, your site (and yoru sales) will suffer.

The easiest way tot get a handle on their skills is to ask for samples. Even if they’re new, they can mock up an article or two for you.

If the text reads like it was written by a foreigner, or by a computer program, they’re trying to scam you. Google hates garbage content and will penalize your business.

Who Have Your Worked With?

It doesn’t matter if they’ve worked with Fortune 500 companies, or a mom-and-pop shoe store, everyone outside of a complete newbie will have reviews. If not, don’t be shy about asking for references from past clients.

Don’t neglect this step! It can tell you a lot about the service you’re about to invest in. Even if they’re inexperienced, every SEO expert has done some free work to build their portfolio, so they should absolutely have a handful of references and reviews.

Is Your SEO Firm Producing Results

How Will I Know It’s Working?

If your business site is new, it can take a while to show up on Page 1. Sometimes you’ll see your site climb slowly, going from page 25 to 20 to 16 to 15 to 8, and so on until it reaches number one. Sometimes, it will be lost in space then suddenly pop up on the top of page 2 before climbing to the first page.

In between, there are several ways to measure progress. Ask them what analytics they’ll share with you so that you can track progress together. If they’re unwilling to share data, or give you vague answers rife with meaningless buzzwords, don’t do business with them.

Which Type of SEO Do Your Perform?

SEO can be broken down into:

On-page – optimizing text, photos, video, landing pages, and all content for your search terms. If they provide content, this should be done along with content creation as well as helping you optimize any self-generated content.
Off-Page – Link building either through paid links or building links by creating articles, guest postings, and blogs. Both should be used for best results.
Internal – Working on coding so that Google’s bots can “Crawl” your site.

Your best bet is to hire a firm that does all three.

Do You Guarantee Your Work

Few SEO firms guarantee their work. IF they don’t, they’re probably not very good. Yes, SEO is mercurial, but the best firms keep in step with Google’s temeprmental changes, and keep pushing yoru site to the top no matter what updates hit.

September 24, 2016/by chris

Posts

How To Utilize Micro-Moments & Increase Your Content Campaign

Understand The Customer

Make Sure You’re Relevant

Anticipate The Micro-Moments

Create An Experience

Top 3 Tasks to Outsource for Your Small Business

Top 3 Tasks to Outsource for Your Small Business

Bookkeeping and Invoicing

Graphic Design and Your Website

Don’t Outsource To Family

Do You Really Want More Clients and Customers?

6 Key Questions to Ask an SEO Firm

6 Key Questions to Ask an SEO Firm Before Hiring Them

The SEO Firm Should Have a Method

Is Your SEO Firm Producing Results

Contact

Get in touch

Address

Get in touch

Sitemap: