Do you think in spite of having a great design, your website lacks visitors? If yes, then it’s time to do a little exercise.
Jot down your primary keywords (words you think people will use to find your business online. For e.g. low cal energy drink). Open Google and type in the keyword and hit on search. You will see the search results displayed. Does your business show up on the first page? No? Second page? No? (People usually never go past the first page). This means your brand/business is not visible to anyone else. But the good news is, there are two techniques that can help improve your online visibility and they are Search engine optimization (SEO) and Search engine marketing (SEM).
What is SEO?
The process of SEO involves increasing a website’s visibility and traffic. Search engines, like Google and Bing, automatically scan the web looking for content that will be most useful for a person looking for information on the web. So when a person keys in a particular keyword, the search engine displays web pages that match the key word and search criteria. To get SEO right, focus should be on writing quality content with the right keyword and designing and building the website as per SEO standards.
What is SEM?
Commonly known as paid advertising, SEM is the process of buying your website visibility.
For instance, you bid and pay for keywords, you think people will use to see your ads. This way you can pay for top listing of your website on search engines.
Which one to use?
Businesses are often confused about which technique to use. While SEO strategies are long term in terms of implementation and results, the results will compound over time. SEM involves investment of time and money but can help you nail the keywords that are most effective for your SEO strategies and can help increase visits to your website through the well displayed ads.
For any technique to work, having an impressive website where you can route target visitors is most important.
All you need to know about Pay Per Click (PPC)
Pay Per Click is an internet advertising model which aims at directing traffic to websites or custom landing pages. A form of search engine marketing, pay per click involves displaying ads on top or on the right side of search engine results and are generally termed as sponsored listings.
As the name suggest, payment is made on the basis of the number of clicks the displayed advertisement gets. Pay per click is dependent on keyword selection, the budget set, search engine, ad creation and so on. Advertisers usually bid on the keywords that is their primary target. The more they bid, higher is the chance of the ad appearing among the listings.
Benefits of PPC
1. Quick results - Your ad will be displayed as soon as your campaign goes live giving you immediate results and traffic.
2. Budget - You can set budget for your campaigns thereby controlling your overall marketing budget.
3. Target audience - PPC allows you to create campaigns targeting specific market in a particular location or country.
4. Ad schedule - You can schedule your PPC campaign as per the day or hour you deem fit.
5. Measurable - You can monitor and measure the success of your campaigns giving you the liberty to tweak your ad campaigns as often as required.
Since advertisers have to pay for the number of clicks their ad gets, it is important to make sure that the ad campaign is successful in diverting traffic to the website. Here are some pointers on how you can ensure a successful PPC campaign.
1. Use keywords that is relevant to your business and has high ranking on search engines.
2. Use keywords that are pertinent to the website or landing page the visitors will be diverted to. People will expect to be taken to a page that is relevant to the keywords given in the ad.
3. Pause your ad campaign on days you cannot monitor it or days you think the ad shouldn’t run. This way you won’t end up spending on running the campaigns on irrelevant days.
4. Read the terms and conditions before starting an ad campaign.
5. Plan you ad campaign and focus on your target market. Narrow down your target market by location and demographics.
6. Strike out any keywords (negative) to avoid your ad being displayed to users of these keywords. For example, you don’t want your ad on residential real estate being displayed to people who search for yachts.
7. Make your ad attractive to prompt people to click on your ad. Include special offers and incentives to stand out from your competitor’s ad.
8. Test your keywords and ad to make sure you have an impressive ad campaign. Keep tweaking your ad by monitoring your analytics regularly.
9. Monitor the performance of your ad, click through rates and conversions. See which ad worked and which didn’t.
Due to highly effective results, PPC advertising is considered as one of most fast and effective way to drive traffic to your website. To know more about how PPC can help your business, email us at support@newplans.com
As the name suggest, payment is made on the basis of the number of clicks the displayed advertisement gets. Pay per click is dependent on keyword selection, the budget set, search engine, ad creation and so on. Advertisers usually bid on the keywords that is their primary target. The more they bid, higher is the chance of the ad appearing among the listings.
Benefits of PPC
1. Quick results - Your ad will be displayed as soon as your campaign goes live giving you immediate results and traffic.
2. Budget - You can set budget for your campaigns thereby controlling your overall marketing budget.
3. Target audience - PPC allows you to create campaigns targeting specific market in a particular location or country.
4. Ad schedule - You can schedule your PPC campaign as per the day or hour you deem fit.
5. Measurable - You can monitor and measure the success of your campaigns giving you the liberty to tweak your ad campaigns as often as required.
Since advertisers have to pay for the number of clicks their ad gets, it is important to make sure that the ad campaign is successful in diverting traffic to the website. Here are some pointers on how you can ensure a successful PPC campaign.
1. Use keywords that is relevant to your business and has high ranking on search engines.
2. Use keywords that are pertinent to the website or landing page the visitors will be diverted to. People will expect to be taken to a page that is relevant to the keywords given in the ad.
3. Pause your ad campaign on days you cannot monitor it or days you think the ad shouldn’t run. This way you won’t end up spending on running the campaigns on irrelevant days.
4. Read the terms and conditions before starting an ad campaign.
5. Plan you ad campaign and focus on your target market. Narrow down your target market by location and demographics.
6. Strike out any keywords (negative) to avoid your ad being displayed to users of these keywords. For example, you don’t want your ad on residential real estate being displayed to people who search for yachts.
7. Make your ad attractive to prompt people to click on your ad. Include special offers and incentives to stand out from your competitor’s ad.
8. Test your keywords and ad to make sure you have an impressive ad campaign. Keep tweaking your ad by monitoring your analytics regularly.
9. Monitor the performance of your ad, click through rates and conversions. See which ad worked and which didn’t.
Due to highly effective results, PPC advertising is considered as one of most fast and effective way to drive traffic to your website. To know more about how PPC can help your business, email us at support@newplans.com
Tweeting With #Hashtags
So what are #hashtags and why do tweeters use it?
Hashtags are used by adding a hash symbol (#) in front of any word or keyword, for example #newplans. This helps in categorizing these words so that they are easily searchable and visible on Twitter. Hashtagged words that are most commonly used become trending topic on Twitter. People can then search trending topics based on these hashtags.
Advantages of using hashtags
- You can join in on a conversation trending on Twitter and get noticed.
- You can use hashtags to pull followers to your Twitter profile.
- You can get up to date information on any topic on Twitter.
- You can use hashtagged word anywhere in your tweet.
- Do not overuse hashtags in your tweet. Ideal number of hashtags that can be used in a single tweet is two.
- Use relevant hashtags in tweets.
- Check Hashtags.org to check the popularity of your hashtagged words.
Attracting Leads To Your Business
As
a business owner you might find yourself struggling with lead generation
because you wouldn’t have a marketing department to support you by providing
quality leads. Neither will you have a sales team at your disposal to go
convert those leads into deals.
Here
are some very effective tips that would help you generate quality leads
yourself.
Web presence: Establish a strong web presence. As a
business owner, you will not have a physical office address, as such, but
that shouldn’t stop you from getting a virtual office space. We’re talking
about websites here! Having a business website will lend credibility and a
touch of professionalism to your home business.
Add value: If you want to attract leads make sure
you add value to them through your products, services and even the content that
you have on the web. For example, if you sell baked goods from home, it’s a
good idea to provide culinary tips on your website. Something like that will
attract people to your site, where they will eventually find more about what
you do and perhaps become a customer.
Get information: Get as much information as possible
about your prospects. You could have your prospects fill up one line web forms
that help you gather information about them. When someone visits your website
or social media page, you should be tracking their online behavior. There are
good marketing automation software programs that allow you to do so. You can
later use this insight to position your business offerings in a manner that
most appeals to them.
Advertisements on Facebook &
Google: Facebook and Google Ads are catching up big
time. These advertisements place your product/services on relevant web search
results and web pages. For example, if you are selling baked goods from home,
then you can choose to place advertisements of your products on sites and
Facebook pages that talk about cooking or on the search results for ‘cake
shops’ or ‘bakeries’ on Google.. To know how to go about AdWords or to get
started, click here.
Social media: Social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. are
fast becoming a home business owner’s best friend. Not only do these sites
offer unlimited audience for your services, but are also low-cost marketing
media. Along the same lines are blogs, newsletters and YouTube videos. All
these avenues act as great platforms to showcase your expertise and knowledge
in the domain of your business and to attract leads in the process.
Partners & referrals: It can get a little overwhelming to do it all at once—all alone.
That’s when you could use a partner to help you out. You could partner with
businesses that complement your start-up. For example, if you bake cakes at
home, consider partnering with the local supermarket or grocery vendor.
Similarly, ask every happy customer to provide you with a referral. Leads
through referrals are more likely to convert than the ones you generate in
random.
So, even though lead generation can seem
like a challenge for business owners, it can be easily surmounted if you have
the right strategies in place.
How to use Facebook to connect with potential clients
A lot has been said about leveraging Facebook for marketing.
Even though there are about thousands of strategies to tap the opportunities
that Facebook has to offer, it is important to understand how Facebook can be
used to get more clients.
Create your Facebook account if you don’t have one. It’s
always better to keep your personal account and your business account separate,
though it may work for some. Your clients may not be interested to know what
you did over the weekend or which party you attended. Instead, by having a
business account you can focus on sharing informative content with them.
Gone are the days when you handed out cards or asked for
contact details. It’s now time to find your potential clients on Facebook. So
make an email list of your prospects and send them a friend request on
Facebook. Avoid sending out too many friends requests in a day and send friend
requests only to people you know as Facebook might consider your requests as
spam and block your account for a few days to a month.
If you have a business page, invite your Facebook friends to
visit your page and become a fan.
Grab your prospects attention to your page by posting
regularly. You can post your listings and informative articles alternatively.
If you have a website, add your Facebook page badge for
website visitors to see your live Facebook feeds and to get immediate access to
your Facebook page.
If you’re posting articles and blogs, set them up to
automatically post the articles or blogs to your Facebook page.
Post links to your monthly newsletter and email campaigns to
your Facebook page.
Try to create a professional yet personal relationship with
your clients. It’s a good practice to ‘Like’ the posts they publish or to leave
a message on their birthdays.
Acknowledge every comment that your fans post. If someone
posts a comment criticizing or complaining about your services, take it in a
positive way, apologize and suggest a solution instead of ignoring it.
Tag people in photos and comments whenever you can. Just
don’t go overboard with tagging as some people may not like the idea of posts
showing up on their wall.
Try not to use your Facebook profile to oversell and avoid exposing
yourself too much by over posting.
Facebook marketing is effective and simple. The key is to
keep it simple and focus on building your fan base. All you need are a few
minutes and you can triumph over marketing. If you want help with Facebook,
contact us at support@newplans.com
and we will be glad to guide you.
How to create a property website with virtual tour in 5 simple steps
Today brokers
and agents
are looking for that one magic wand that can help them boost sales. Being
competitive is good provided you’re armed with the best marketing tool. So
let’s take a look at the one of the most important marketing weapon in real
estate – property websites with virtual tour.
But why do we need a property website? The answer is simple.
Time. Considering how much people struggle to get their routine things done in
a day, it will be a miracle to squeeze in time for other tasks. So if they have
to go look for properties in different locations, chances are they might settle
for the first property they see. Secondly, as a broker/agent you definitely
want to show you’re tech savvy and in tune with technology. A visual
representation of a property be it commercial real estate or residential real estate, with a virtual tour effect can definitely intrigue a buyer.
How can you build a
professional property website?
Step 1: Create your Newplans
account. You can choose the 15-day free trial
to try the platform first.
Step 2: Select a template
depending upon whether your property listing is commercial or residential and enter
your property details. In this step you have an option to add your Meta tags
and description to up your search engine rankings with search engine optimization tools (SEO).
Step 3: Upload images and documents. In this step you can
upload images that will go in to making your website interactive and also to
build your listing YouTube video and image gallery.
Step 4: Use the interactive tool to add interactive elements in your property website. Walk your
prospects through each rooms and floors with this easy to navigate tool.
Step 5: Publish your property websites on social media
sites, Craigslist,
YouTube and even download your flyer or send out an email campaign.
You can even add links to your property listings and property
image gallery to showcase on your company or personal website. You also get
access to website analytics report like who visited your website with their location details.
For more information on how Newplans can help you market your listings
better, send an email to support@newplans.com
I, Me and Myself of Personal Branding
Personal branding is all about how you market yourself to
the world. A personal brand is synonymous with reputation. Are you trustworthy?
Are you an expert? How do people respond to your brand name? What you choose to
project can influence the way people think about you and your business. A
well-built personal brand can help turn prospects’ perception into sales.
Why is personal branding important?
- Helps you attain a leadership role
- Helps build prestige
- Helps attract the right people and right opportunities
- Helps add perceived value to what you are selling
- Helps earn recognition
- Increases your earning potential
- Helps differentiate yourself from the competition
- Helps ingrain your focused message in the minds of your target audience
Ways to build your brand
- Define who you are by identifying your key strengths to help build your brand.
- Leverage your experience and expertise to make your brand successful. Bring an element of ‘you’ in your branding.
- Determine what you’re going to offer. As a product or service what you offer, how your product or services will help your target audience and so on.
- Set goals for how you want people to perceive you and work on how you can present yourself publicly.
- Be visible and consistent. Integrate your brand statement in whatever you do and offer.
- Use different mediums to expose your brand. Social media marketing and personal website are some of the important tools to build your personal brand.
- Monitor and evaluate your brand performance regularly.
Transform the way you market your
commercial or residential properties using Newplans – the next generation marketing tool.
Newplans helps you build and manage your residential or commercial property
websites, execute effective marketing campaigns and help
measure your ROI.
Our
online
marketing tool is here to help you create print and web marketing materials that
will help promote your property listings in an effective and cost-efficient
fashion. With our ready-to-use templates you can create property websites with interactive floor plans, site plans, stacking
plans, print flyers, e-mail marketing campaigns, personal website for agent/broker, or YouTube
videos and share them on major social networking sites like Facebook,
Twitter and LinkedIn and content syndication sites like Craigslist. Not just
that, marketing materials generated using Newplans are all Search Engine optimized (SEO)
and iPad and smartphone compatible, so that your properties get good web
exposure and better search engine rankings - that means more hits and increased
chances of sale.
To sum it all up, from Lead
Generation tools to
sophisticated Marketing Material tools to Personal
Brand Management tools to Social Media Networking tools to SEO tools, Newplans takes care of all
your marketing needs in just a few clicks.
For more information
visit us at www.newplans.com or call
us at 412-567-0010 x 217.
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