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7 Ways To Build Your Brand On Social Media Sites

Any business, irrespective of its size, can benefit by using social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedln and Google+. By building a community of followers, you can promote your brand, establish a loyal customer base and attract new customers. This will help turn your small, struggling business into a successful enterprise.

How to Build Your Brand on Social Media Sites

1. Optimize your online presence

This simply means completing your Facebook, Twitter, Linkedln and other social profiles! Many business owners start a page on social media sites but fail to put in the extra work to complete their profile page. Remember having a complete profile page and placing your keywords (those that relate to your business) in the profile is exactly what will get you noticed on social media.

2. Promote your pages

While it’s important that other people know about your business website from your pages or profile, it's also crucial that they can actually find your Facebook and Twitter profile when they visit your website. Most people find it easier and more comfortable to comment on posts or else give feedback on the social media sites than on business websites. Take advantage of this by placing links to your Facebook pages or profile on your website (nowadays there are “buttons”) and get useful feedback from customers.

3. Interact with your fans or followers

Generally, people love to engage in conversations with others but no one likes being ignored. If you will not be replying to comments and posts from your fans and followers, avoid the trouble of owning social media pages early enough. You have to react to the feedback you get from other people, whether it’s positive or negative. This way your customers will see that you’re concerned enough to listen to their complaints, opinions, ideas and so on.

4. Offer incentives

People love gifts and incentives and you can use this fact to increase followers and attract new customers. Organize frequent contests and offer something to the winners (gifts can be something simple like a discount coupon or a free download). The trick is to be creative and identify ways to let your customers or followers feel the benefit of following you.

5. Post relevant content

What kind of information are you posting or tweeting about? What kind of articles are you sharing on Linkedln? The things you put on social media sites should reflect your brand and business. Make sure you post about things which are valuable to customers or followers, those that they are interested in or are likely to be interested in.

6. Place social sharing buttons

People love sharing useful information or good promotions. Having sharing buttons on things like articles and posts can help followers to share information about you, your brand and business with their friends and followers. Simply make things easy for them. If your potential customers find it a lot easier to comment, follow, share or like your content, they will likely be keen to do so.

7. Have random surveys

Surveys can be a good way to get feedback from your followers or customers. There are sites that offer survey design and distribution services so you shouldn’t have any difficulty putting up a survey. Be sure to ask your followers and customers to contribute to your business planning process via social media. Let them feel part of your business.

10 SEO Tips To Get Your Pages Ranked On Top of The Search Engines

If you are a beginner and planning to do Search Engine Optimization all by yourself, you will be in a dilemma on what tips to follow to boost the ranking of your websites. You may look into SEO services to help you with escalating the web page of yours in the search result, too.

But by following certain SEO methods, you yourself can perform the optimization by yourself. Simply by following the ten tips, mentioned here, you can begin to rank your website at the top of the search engines.

1) Blogging

You can extend your network through blogging. Create a blog and produce quality content which may popularize your website and people start taking an interest in following you.

Free blog hosting can be used like blog.com, blogger, or WordPress or you may purchase a new web host and a new domain.

2) Content is king

Let more and more people get linked to your site by improvising the quality of the content. Try to include some unique and fresh writing, which will interest the viewers to visit your website frequently.

3) Importance of keywords

Introduce keywords phrases or keywords within your titles and texts. Keywords can also be used as excerpts, meta descriptions and meta tags. You need to be cautious while implementing the keywords though. Your post can be marked as a spam by Google if it is comprised of excessive number of keywords. So you need to be wise while using it.

4) SEO Plugin

Let your posts and web pages appear to be more friendly to the readers and search engines by the usage of All in one SEO plugin - a plug-in for Wordpress. SEO plugins helps in successful optimization of the content of your web pages.

5) Performance of your site needs to get checked

Ensure that the site performance is in perfect condition so that quick loading may take place. Never forget that the plugin numbers and the types you use may hamper your site and can make it slow. It is highly recommended to avoid using big images and files like slide shows, flash and gallery on the landing page. In general, minimalist web designs are considered to be more SEO friendly.

6) Sharing with social media sites

Your content should be tied up with Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and various other social networking websites. This will result in the creation of the website traffic more to the site.

7) Headlines used should be catchy

Make sure that your permalink goes well with the post title. Never give a title which has no significance to the content of your article. Generally, catchy headlines will drag more people to visit your webpage.

8) Actual terms should be used

Use correct grammar, syntax and sentence structure while writing your articles. Make sure that the articles are sensible enough to read and convey the right message. Avoid writing content which have no relevance to the theme of your website.

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It’s no longer enough for your content to just be unique, it needs to be authoritative, provide substantial value, answer questions and offer the very best, most researched information and material possible.

We used to call this kind of content “pillar content” and it would be used as a lead-in to our blog, often featured on the front page. These days, every post and article on our website and blog needs to be created in the same way.

Authoritative content goes beyond just originality. It offers direct answers and useful information on key conversations and topics that are relevant to our overall website.

High Content-to-Advertisement Ratio

Your website also needs to feature a high content to advertisement ratio. While authority websites can feature ads for relevant products or resources, every page on our website should feature a much higher ratio of content per advertising space.

In fact, you should limit the number of ads on your website to 2-3 per page while making sure that advertisements never appear above the fold.

Google requires that your website features compelling value criteria in order to be given a high ranking. Build content-rich websites that feature current, up to date information in article format.

Keep in mind that it’s no longer about the length of each article but rather the actual content. Google wants to provide the best resources based on search queries, so that search engine users are given the most relevant sources possible.

Engage Visitors

In the world of social media, it’s important that you find a way to engage and interact with your customer base. Implementing engagement tools will help your website’s overall ranking and traffic volume in a number of ways including:

Sticky Factor - the more you engage your audience, the more often they will return to your website. Repeat traffic equates to customer loyalty.

Encourages Activity - When you give visitors an opportunity to communicate with each other they will feel more connected to your website, and your brand. Integrate comment boxes, forums, discussion groups and communication channels.

Increased Value - It’s not only your customers and visitors that will gain a positive experience from your website but the search engines as well. The more significant user engagement is on your website, the higher your quality score and ranking.

Create Micro Sites

If you plan to cover multiple topics or niche markets, it’s wise to create a series of micro-based websites.

Micro sites are smaller content-rich websites that are focused on specific topics and themes. Not only are they important to search engine optimization but they are a great way to push your main website to the top of the search engines.

Create topic-focused websites that provide valuable content and link to your main website, cited as the primary source for information. Since Google is looking for relevant links that point to your website, creating a network of micro-sites that offer information relevant to your niche that also feature a prominent backlink to your ‘mother site’, you’ll be able to siphon link juice, increase visibility and expand your presence within your niche.

Just make sure that you set up your micro-site network on a different IP block than your main site. You can do this easily by signing up for two different hosting accounts and verifying that each one uses a different address (IP block). Ask your hosting provider for help if you need to!

Diversify Anchor Text

Anchor text consists of the keywords used to describe a link. It used to be easy to rank for a specific keyword just by focusing on building a backlink campaign that optimized keywords through anchor text. Not anymore.

These days it’s important to diversify anchor text, spreading out the keywords used through a solid backlink campaign. Consider replacing anchor text links that are focused on keyword strings with anchor text focused on your website title, domain name or company name.

Websites that were optimizing anchor text for their website, domain, business name or direct page name were not heavily affected by Google’s update so keep this in mind!

Monitor Your Results

Many webmasters weren’t even aware that another Google update had taken place until it was too late. It’s important that you stay on top of your traffic sources, overall ranking and on-site activity so that you can repair traffic leaks and continue to optimize your website for the most highest ranking possible.

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In order for your videos to convert, you need to target buyer’s not just viewers. To do that, you will want to take advantage of Google Adwords's demographic targeting options in order to reach out to your audience.

This includes: Advertising based on keywords, age groups, gender, location, or language.

Ad-targeting is extremely important because without it, you are basically advertising "blindly" with no way of knowing whether the right audience is even seeing your ads. Failing to target your advertisements will also cost you - big time, as your ads will be seen (and even clicked on) by people who have no real interest in what you have to offer.

So, take the time to tailor your ads to your audience, nailing down specific demographics so you can easily reach out to your customer base.

YouTube advertising through Google Video Ads is very easy to set up because you are able to choose from a set of comprehensive options that will help you better target your customer base.

This includes:

Keyword based advertising

Interest categories

Topics & Placements

Demographics (all kinds - age, location, language)

Social interests

In addition, with TrueView ads, you only pay when a viewer chooses to watch your ad, similar to pay-per-click advertising, so you are only paying when a prospect has seen your ad!

Maximizing Exposure

With Google video ads, you are able to promote your business within YouTube, the #1 online video community, as well as the Google Display Network, which includes millions of individual websites (reaching over 89% of the online population!).

Imagine your ad appearing on millions of websites all across the Internet!

Not only will you be able to infiltrate any niche market you wish, but also you'll be able to create a unique brand that is instantly recognized by potential customers.

Spread your marketing message instantly, exposure your business to new customers and promote your video marketing campaigns on a large scale.

With Google’s, "TrueView" advertising portal you are also able to maximize exposure through connected channels, including:

TrueView in-stream

TrueView in-search

TrueView in-display

TrueView in-slate

Let's take a quick look at what each of these channels has to offer:

TrueView in-stream

Ads play as a pre-, mid- or post-roll on YouTube partner videos of all lengths.

After an ad plays for 5 seconds, viewers get the choice to skip it or watch the rest.

Pay only when viewers watch 30 seconds of the ad or to completion if the ad is less than 30 seconds.

TrueView in-search ads

Based on user search terms, ads rise to the top of Promoted Video search results and suggestions.

Viewers see certain ads promoted (placed above others or suggested) and click to watch if interested.

Pay only when viewers choose to watch your ad.

All of the videos shown in the right-hand column are TrueView ads as well as the group of ads that appear at the very top of the search results window!

TrueView in-slate ads

Ads play before long-form YouTube partner videos over 10 minutes.

Before a video plays, viewers choose to either watch an ad from 1 of 3 different advertisers, or to watch regular commercial breaks during the video.

Pay only when viewers choose to watch your ad.

Ads are promoted against related content across the Google Display Network.

Viewers click to play the ad if they are interested.

Pay only when viewers choose to watch your ad. ? Display ad formats will vary by publisher. On YouTube, the ad appears as a highlighted suggested video.

Final Words

In order for your video campaigns to be successful, you need to encourage your audience to take action. You do this with a "Call-to-Action" overlay on your video.

This can be a simple "Click Here Now!" or you can use this call to action overlay as a way of sharing additional information about your business, or to make your viewers an offer that they can't refuse (Free products, discounts, coupons, etc).

Calls-to-Action appear as overlays on your TrueView “in-search” and “indisplay” videos that are featured throughout YouTube, and can be easily edited from within your advertising center.

Maximizing profits also means knowing your audience, and so it's important that you keep a pulse on how well your video is performing as well as WHO is viewing your ads (especially helpful if you are still in the process of surveying and researching your market base).

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Linkedln makes it very easy to create laser-targeted campaigns by allowing marketers to target ads to specific user demographics including:

Job title

Industry (or sector)

Interests

Qualifications & skills

Accreditations & affiliations

Members of existing Linkedln groups

It's easy to see why so many B2B have begun to advertise through Linkedln rather than some of the other advertising channels such as Facebook, which only allow you to target ads by overall lifestyle interests.

Linkedln also simplifies the ad-creation process.

In fact, within just a few minutes you can create a powerful, targeted ad that will appear throughout the entire network - and best of all, it can cost you as little as only $10 a day (a drop in the bucket compared to the vast majority of advertising channels online).

And once you've created your ad it will appear in two prominent places - in the side bar (along with an image/photo and your advertising text) and depending on your ad's outreach (and overall performance), a text-only version of your ad may be used. Linkedln ads include an image, 25-character headline and a 75-character description/text.

Step 1: Build A Powerful Ad

To get started, you will need to decide on what you want your message to convey.

Use power words and eliminate unnecessary "banter". Keep it short and

concise. Since you are limited to just 75 characters, it's very important that you keep your ad wording tight, focusing only on action-based words that invoke emotion, excitement, attention and interest.

Focus on powerful headlines that will trigger a response from your

audience and don't forget to test out different ads to determine best overall performance (this is called "split-testing" and will help you create a solid ad that yields responses).

Use relevant, eye-catching images that capture attention.

Since your Linkedln ads include an image, you should use this to your advantage. Make sure that your image is not only relevant but that it’s crisp, clear and represents your offer.

Choose your ad destination carefully.

Linkedln allows you to direct people to a link on your own website, or to a page on Linkedin such as a company page or group.

Use a VERY strong call to action. Focus on action-driven phrases such

as “Click Here To Download”, “Sign Up”, “Request Demo”, or “Register” are all strong call to action statements that are clear and direct.

Implement a sense of urgency to encourage actions from viewers and

boost click-through rates. “Limited Time Only”, “20 Copies Available”, etc.

Step 2: Target Your Linkedin Ads

It’s important to really narrow down your scope so that you are targeting a specific audience that is most interested in your services and offers.

Linkedin offers many different targeting options including location, job function, industry, gender, groups and more.

Take your time when creating targeted ads, ensuring that you are reaching out to the best audience possible.

Step 3: Choose Ad Type & Set Budget

You will have to decide whether you wish to set up an ad based on CPC (cost per click) or CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions).

You will also have to set a daily budget, which is the maximum amount that you are willing to spend on your daily advertising. The cost to display ads will also vary based on the time of day - when users are more active on the website.

For example, 75% of your ad’s daily budget may be spent in the mornings when there are a greater number of active users on the Linkedln website, with the remaining 25% of your daily budget used throughout the evening.

Once your daily budget has been met, your ads will no longer appear until the next day, so choose a reasonable budget to get started. You can continue to increase your ad spend once you’ve seen results.

Also, keep in mind that each time a potential lead visits a page on Linkedin.com; an “ad auction” instantly takes place between your advertisement and other advertisers.

Note: Linkedln will provide you with a suggested bid range in order for your ads to appear, or an estimate of the current amount of all competing bids, giving you an idea as to the overall cost of winning the auctions.

Step 4: Monitor Ad Performance

In order to spend advertising dollars wisely and to ensure that your ads are performing well, it’s important that you closely monitor your Linkedln advertising campaigns, specifically your click-through rate and your visit-to-lead conversion rate.