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Not every business is a household name. If you're a small or medium-sized company, it's not always easy to promote yourself and compete with the big brands. Your products might be great, but if nobody knows about you, it won't be easy to sell. Even if someone stumbles upon your website, products, or social media pages, they may wonder whether you're legitimate. That's why you need to come up with clever ways to add credibility to your brand and products. Start by including elements that add credibility to your website. But that alone won't always do the trick. Using micro influencers is one of my favorite ways to add credibility to your products and promote your brand. I'm such a believer in this strategy that it made my list of the top marketing trends of 2018. What exactly is a micro influencer? They are defined as people who have between 1k and 100k followers on social media. In 2016, 94% of marketers reported their influencer marketing tactics were effective. With such a high success rate, what's stopping your company from using this strategy? If you've been interested in bringing micro influencers on board to help your marketing campaigns, now is your chance. I'll tell you everything you need to know about how to use micro influencers effectively to increase your product credibility and brand awareness. Why you should work with micro influencersOne of the top reasons why it's appealing to work with micro influencers is because it's cost-effective. Take a look at some of the prices you can expect to pay influencers to have them post your products on different platforms: These numbers will vary based on whom you're working with, the number of followers they have, and the type of post you're asking for. However, this is still a good price gauge. For the most part, micro influencers are just regular people. They're not famous. They have regular jobs but just happen to have large social media followings. The reason why I'm bringing this up is because you can use this knowledge to your advantage. If they aren't used to branding themselves as a business, you could get away with not paying them at all. Rather than sending money, you could start your initial negotiations offering free products. If it's the first time a brand has reached out to them, they might accept your offer and be excited to get some free stuff. You could also send them a gift card or something else of similar value. Most micro influencers won't have an agent, so you'll be communicating with them directly. This should make negotiations much smoother. Negotiations may not be so simple if you're working with middle influencers, macro influencers, or celebrities. These people have between 100k-500k followers, 500k-1 million followers, and more than 1 million followers, respectively. Another reason why it's better to work with micro influencers is because the engagement with their followers is very high. As you can see from these numbers, people trust micro influencers. This trust and engagement add credibility to your products and lead to buying conversions. That's because people can relate to micro influencers. They don't view them the same way they view a celebrity. Research shows 70% of consumers check social media before making a buying decision. It makes sense for you to work with people who already have a strong presence on these channels. Finding the right influencers for your brandNow that you've decided you want to work with micro influencers, where do you find them? Don't pick someone randomly. Make sure your influencers are aligned with your company image. As I said before, the majority of these influencers are just regular people. Investigate them through their social media profiles before you have them represent your brand. The last thing you want to do is work with someone who compromises your brand's reputation. You also want to make sure you're not working with micro influencers who represent brands in conflict with your products. For example, let's say you run a local business that creates vegan products. Preventing animal cruelty is part of your brand's mission statement. You shouldn't work with a micro influencer promoting companies selling leather jackets or delivering steaks to their customers' doorsteps. It just doesn't fit with your brand. Plus, if your customers find out you're paying someone like this, they may think your mission statement is fraudulent. This discredits your brand, which is the opposite of what you're trying to accomplish. Let me show you a perfect example of a micro influencer that fits well with a brand. Check out this post from James Tollefson's Instagram profile: As a fitness enthusiast with more than 14k followers, James is the perfect candidate for this branded post featuring Dick's Sporting Goods. If a successful national chain such as Dick's believes in using micro influencers, your business should be doing it as well. Start with your existing followers. It's easier to work with someone who already knows about your brand and may own some of your products already. Who knows, maybe they've even posted about your company in the past. Take some time to find out whether anyone who has posted about your brand on social media has lots of followers. This is a logical place to start your search. Use tools to help you analyze potential influencersAlthough going through your current followers manually, trying to find people with the most followers, may work for some businesses, it's not reasonable if you've got a ton of followers. Instead, you'll need to use tools to help you get matched with micro influencers. There are platforms that exist solely to connect micro influencers with brands. Klear is a great place for you to start. The system analyzes over 500 million profiles across 60k different categories from the last five years. It allows you to narrow down your search by network, such as Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, or blogs. Here's an example of what your search results would look like if you were looking for someone to promote your yoga brand in the United States via Instagram: If you want to work with influencers on this network, you can connect with them directly through this platform. You can even work with multiple influencers for each campaign. After, you'll see the analytics for each one with valuable information such as:
Klear shows you this information for each influencer on all the social platforms they're using to promote your products. That way it's easier for you to measure which influencers are having the most success with your brand. These are the people you'll want to work with in the future, but I'll discuss that in greater detail later. There's another reason why you should use tools to analyze your micro influencers. You can't just assume you know their target audience. For example, let's say your company is targeting males between the ages of 18 and 26 who live in or around New York City. You find a prospective influencer who is a 22-year-old male living in Manhattan with 20k Instagram followers. Perfect, right? Not so fast. Just because a micro influencer fits your target market doesn't mean their followers do too. If 80% of this person's followers are females living in California, you'll want to look for another micro influencer to represent your products. If you don't want to pay for software that connects you with micro influencers, you can still get this data free. Micro influencers with Instagram business accounts have detailed analytics and insights about their followers. Just ask them to send you screenshots of this information. Here's an example of what this data looks like: This will help you make sure your micro influencers have the same followers that fit your target market for specific products and campaigns. As a result, you'll see a higher rate of engagement, which increases the credibility of whatever you're selling. Online ratings and reviewsWhen people search for your products using Google, they are looking for as much information as possible about your brand and your product. Studies show 81% of consumers research products online before making a purchase. But what are they looking for exactly? More than 67% of consumers say they are influenced by online reviews. Furthermore, more than 50% of people conducting a search online won't look past the first page of Google's search engine result pages (SERPs). People won't automatically go straight to your website. They know you won't display any negative reviews. That's why they conduct their own research. In addition to working with micro influencers on social media, you need to populate the SERPs with reviews and positive comments about your product. Ask micro influencers to rate and review your product online to add credibility to your products. You can even ask influencers with an active blog to give a shout out to your product in a post. The more positive reviews, ratings, and comments about your brand there are on the first page of a search query, the more credibility your products will have. Have your influencers share a storyHaving micro influencers post about your brand is an effective marketing strategy. But you need to come up with ways to maximize engagement. Telling people a product is great isn't as effective as showing them it's great. Nothing adds credibility to a product more than results. One of the best ways to accomplish this is by mastering the art of storytelling. Have your micro influencers explain how your product improved their lives. They can do this by posting on social media or sharing these stories in their online reviews, which I just discussed. But it doesn't have to stop there. You can also set up a page on your website where micro influencers can share stories with your brand's community. Lululemon uses this strategy on their website with a campaign called “The Sweat Life.” This page is dedicated to micro influencers sharing stories about their yoga and fitness journeys. It serves as proof that these products work. Ultimately, this adds credibility to their brand and products. Incorporate the same strategy on your website when you're working with micro influencers. Build long-term relationships with micro influencersWhen you're searching for a micro influencer to represent your brand and add credibility to your products, consider looking for someone with whom you can build a long working relationship. It's easier to keep working with the same influencers over and over again as opposed to finding a new one every time you want to run a campaign. Don't get me wrong. Just because you used someone once or twice doesn't mean you should automatically keep using them. Refer back to what I discussed earlier regarding tools and analytics. If their engagement is low and their followers aren't responding, it's OK for you to cut ties. But if things go well the first couple of campaigns, see what else you can accomplish with this influencer. Let's say you start by having them post on Instagram. Next, you may decide to have them post on Twitter or share their success story on your website. After that, have them write reviews about your products on various third-party websites. Repetition is key. The more you get your micro influencers to post and talk about your brand consistently, the more effective your marketing strategy will be. ConclusionMicro influencers are a great way to gain exposure for your brand and increase the credibility of your products. Working with influencers is great because they have such high engagement rates with their social media followers. Plus, the rates to hire an influencer are very reasonable. Do your research to make sure people you choose to work with match your brand's image. You also want to be certain that their audience is the same as your target market. Use various analytics tools to help you determine this and measure the success of your campaigns. Try to find micro influencers you can build long-term relationships with. In addition to using social media to promote your products with micro influencers, have them populate the Google search results pages by rating and reviewing your products online. Allow micro influencers to share their success stories on your website to add credibility to your products. How is your brand using micro influencers to add credibility to your products? Growth hacking is the mother of all marketing buzzwords. It's the phrase you've probably heard it endlessly from new, edgy startup founders in your network. You've probably seen it in articles online touting that “growth hacking” as the primary way to succeed. And that's the problem: Marketers use the term “growth hacking” so much that it has become impossible to define or narrow down. But despite this, real growth hacking beyond the buzzword is critical to taking a company from ten users to ten million. Take a look at Facebook or Airbnb. They now have massive active user bases, and they got there by use growth-focused tactics. But not any tactic that results in growth is automatically a growth hack. With this cheat sheet, you'll learn the basics of growth hacking. You can use this checklist to implement growth hacking strategies to take your business to new heights. What exactly is growth hacking?Growth hacking has quickly become one of the biggest buzzwords in the marketing jargon dictionary. Everybody hears it and assumes that it's just some random tactic that takes your business from zero to hero overnight. But that's far from reality. Let me explain. Marketing isn't what it used to be. Don Draper's traditional marketing world of radio, newspaper, and television slowly disappeared, and growth hacking has developed in its place. Sean Ellis is the inventor of the term “growth hacker” and the founder and CEO of GrowthHackers.com. In a blog post that Sean published back in 2010, he wrote that a growth hacker is “a person whose true north is growth. Everything they do is scrutinized by its potential impact on scalable growth.” He first coined the term when he was attempting to come up with a new job title. He had experience helping businesses like Dropbox grow from nothing until they became huge. So for him, the title fit like a glove. But he noticed that when leaving companies to aid new startups and repeat his growth hacking process, he couldn't find replacements. Typical marketers and sales reps didn't have the ability to do it. With strict budgets, deadlines, and timelines to follow, growth hacking wasn't an option. So, what concrete ideas or examples are considered growth hacks? Take Dropbox for example. When starting out, they were simply buying PPC ads and running social campaigns to drive traffic to their site that would ideally lead to sales. But that wasn't working. Customer acquisition costs were through the roof. In short, it wasn't sustainable growth. Sure, it was growth. They were gaining customers, attention, and traffic. But long-term, that strategy wasn't viable. Instead, they started to implement a referral and reward-based program to scale their growth: By using referrals from interested customers and rewarding them for their acquisition efforts, Dropbox exploded. Their growth was now scalable, which is a key factor for successful growth hacking. PayPal followed a similar growth strategy, offering their current customers $10 per friend they referred. That means that PayPal didn't have to spend millions, or even thousands, a year on PPC ads to generate customers. They had their own customers do it for them, guaranteeing acquisition costs of just ten bucks a person. Now they offer $5 for each friend that a user refers. All you have to do is send an email to a friend. The cost-benefit analysis is simple and easy for any new user to complete. That's simply amazing. Twitter growth hacked their average user engagement by tapping into data and meticulously testing their strategy. Looking at the data, they saw that current social users were more active on the platform when they followed 30 or more users. They shared, commented, liked, and engaged more often. Based on this data, they created a growth hacking strategy. When new users create accounts, they prompt them to follow tons of people based on their interests. Twitter builds a curated list of accounts that they can easily choose to follow. This encourages users to follow more people and become active participants, increasing their growth and profit. Growth hacking can come in many shapes, sizes, and approaches. Let's recap. Here are the key points about what exactly goes into growth hacking:
Does that seem broad? Well, that's because it is. Growth hacking can be almost any scalable, sustainable growth action. It all depends on your business. With that in mind, here is a checklist for your business to ensure that you are focusing on creating sustainable profits through growth hacking. Tip #1: Break traditional goals into actionable stepsIn order to attain their overarching growth strategy goals, growth hackers hone in on smaller goals that are SMART: Specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound. While setting goals like “becoming the best SaaS company in the world” isn't bad, these kinds of goals aren't actionable or specific enough. What will be the driving sub-factors of that goal to help you achieve it? Some examples of realistic SMART goals for growth hacking include:
All of the above factors work together for the specific end goal of becoming the best SaaS company. Breaking down goals into subgoals and even further sub-subgoals allows you to focus on what specific inputs will drive desired outputs. Once you have listed these smaller, actionable goals, you can further break them down into separate, highly-defined subgoals. These subgoals should be narrow enough that you can list them out as an individual task. For example, say that your goal is to increase blog traffic by 15% by the end of the month. In that case, potential subgoals could include increasing content creation by 5% to beef up the blog and sending email campaigns and social media posts to promote the blog's content. By meticulously mapping out your overarching goals, actionable goals, and subgoals, you'll have more than just a well-ordered project task list. You'll also have a way to see what pieces of your strategy are driving results. This foundational step will set you up for success. When setting goals, growth hackers focus on their north star metric. But more specifically, they focus on what specific inputs will achieve desired outcomes: For example, when playing a basketball game, your desired outcome is to win the game. But that broad, unspecific goal is only achievable through micro-level subgoals. You need specific inputs that will generate the results that your overarching goals demand: When looking at Spotify, we can bring this back into the business world: The end goal for Spotify is to increase the usage of their service. When a user spends more time listening to content on Spotify, they become a better customer who pays more and sticks around longer. If you break that down, you can come up with specific inputs that will achieve that final goal:
With SMART goals, you have to continually break down each goal until you generate specific inputs like creating playlists or giving new artists recommendations. Start listing out your top goals and breaking them down into actionable steps that will lead to the result you desire. Tip #2: Get creative as you outline ideasThe first step to listing out your top goals is to gather ideas. Use a technique called mind storming to get started. Begin by taking out a blank sheet of paper and a pen, which can be more effective than using a computer or other device to take notes. Write your top goal at the top of the page, but reword your goal as a question. For example, if your goals involve landing more customers, write “how can I double my customer base in the next year?” Then write out as many answers to the question as you can, which might include referrals, advertising, better SEO, rankings, links, and so on. Don't spend any time judging your answers. The first few will come to you very easily. Keep pushing on. Try to reach 20 answers at the very least. Then, choose the best answer and form it into another question. If you choose “better SEO,” then write “how can I improve SEO within the next few months?” Repeat the process again and again. Before you know it, you'll have a main goal, subgoals, and sub-subgoals. You'll know what to test and how to test it. You can even bring your whole team together for the mind storming process. Allow everyone to first mind storm on their own. Then, bring everyone together to discuss what they have written down. Expand on those ideas in the meeting. Then, get to testing. It doesn't have to cost you a dime, either. There are tons of growth hacking tests you can run for free. If you want to boost conversions, try offering free trials and free content up front. That way, if leads aren't ready to spend money yet, you can nurture them until they are. Spotify accomplishes this by offering their premium features for free for 60 days. Try offering a free e-book if they sign up for your newsletter. On top of that, make it easy for them to opt in. Keep forms simple to reduce friction, like so: Test ideas shouldn't stop there, though. For example, Mint, a personal financial management company, developed a subgoal to get more traffic. In order to get traffic, the company tried a content-driven approach toward trying to stimulate growth and promote brand awareness. The brand started creating high-quality articles on a variety of finance topics like credit, investing, planning, and saving. To make a long story short, they tested a blog (which they now call MintLife Blog), and it took off. Because of the blog, Mint became a huge player in the finance world. If you're looking for content growth hacks like Mint was, check out these content marketing tactics that can help you boost your brand. From there, work on turning your ideas into actionable experiments, just like Mint did. Tip #3: Turn your ideas into experimentsOnce you've identified your goals, subgoals, sub-subgoals, and how you're going to test them, you need to start running experiments. This is as easy as taking it back to the basics with the scientific method. This will help you determine the success of your test. You were asking questions when you were coming up with goals. Next, ask questions about how you can test them. What tests should you run? Who can help you run them? Where should you run them? Then, do background research that can help you create a plan for answering those questions. Don't start from scratch. Research the best methods and resources that you can use to answer your questions. Search the Internet for ways that other companies have run similar tests in the past. Use your research to finalize a plan for your brand. Construct a hypothesis about what will happen. Think, “If _____[I do this] _____, then _____[this]_____ will happen.” Next, test your hypothesis by actually conducting an experiment. Your experiment has to be fair. Only change one factor at a time and repeat experiments to confirm results. This is where A/B tests (or split testing) come in. Split test headlines on your blog. Find out which headlines convert better. You could even run split tests with your Facebook ads to compare different versions of your ad for your next campaign. You could even run multiple product iterations to customer segments. Analyze your findings and draw a conclusion. Was your hypothesis correct? Finally, communicate your results with the rest of your team. Adjust your efforts depending on the results of the test. It might be a long road, but it's worth it. Airbnb growth hacked and tested new sites, and that eventually led the company to use Craigslist to share rentals. However, before finding this Craigslist growth hack, the company experimented for years by distributing flyers or going door to door. Be patient with your experiments and don't be afraid to test new things. To figure out what your next move is going to be, use the ICE test. Tip #4: Use the ICE test to inform your next moveYou could spin your wheels with small tests that don't move the needle. But you don't want to do that. Instead, you should be looking for the biggest impact. That way, you won't waste your time, resources, or money on the tests that don't have the biggest payoff. This is where the ICE test comes in. The ICE test is a framework that helps you prioritize testing. Sean Ellis created this method, and the GrowthHackers team uses it frequently. You can use it to find out which test will have the largest stimulus for growth. ICE stands for impact, confidence, and ease. Here's a breakdown of each piece of the pie. Impact: How impactful do you expect your test to be? This is the possible impact that your idea will have on the brand as a whole if the test is a “win.” Confidence: How sure are you that your test will prove your hypothesis? Try to be objective whenever you choose a confidence level. Do you have reliable proof that your test could work? Then give your idea a higher confidence score. Do you lack reliable proof? Then give it a lower score. Ease: How easily can you launch this test? How many resources would you need, and what kind of resources would be necessary? The more resources you'll need, the lower the score should be. If you can complete your test with a smaller amount of resources, go ahead and make this score higher. Grade each of these criteria from one to ten. The average score is the ICE score. Let's say that these are some of your goals/test ideas:
Based on these ICE scores, you should prioritize these growth hacks in this order:
The ICE score isn't a flawless system for prioritizing individual ideas. You should think of it as a system of “relative prioritization.” The goal of the ICE test is to prevent you or your team from attempting to fine-tune the score. The score you come up with will show you which tests you should run first. Tip #5: Analyze, improve, and repeatAs a growth hacker, you will test everything. It's just part of the nature of a true growth hacker. As you master A/B testing, you'll start running multiple tests at the same time, such as landing and pricing page designs and targeting leads. For growth hackers, this breadth and frequency of testing is par for the course. Using a tool like Optimizely, you can manage multiple testing campaigns at one time, reducing your likelihood of missing any fundamental developments. It can be easy to get too caught up in the testing cycle and forget to take the time to slowly analyze the results and pinpoint precisely what is (or isn't) working. Be patient. This process is all about trial and error. Rely on your analytics data to fine-tune and improve your approach. Then, it's time to repeat the testing cycle. You can either start a new test or create an optimized version of a previous test. As long as you keep following this system (testing, analyzing your data, refining your approach and retesting), you should see success through your persistence. You'll go through tests and experiments, both big and small, and wade through all kinds of data. As you do so, don't lose the sight of the big picture. Your product or service should be of the very highest quality for your users at any given time, and this may mean changing and evolving. For example, Facebook has changed a lot since it originally launched on college campuses in 2004. And it continues to change today with additions like live video and other features that users crave. It's why they have billions of people using their platform everyday. Tip #6: Leverage your strengthsTim Ferris, author of the 4-Hour Workweek, says, “It is far more lucrative and fun to leverage your strengths instead of attempting to fix all the chinks in your armor….Focus on better use of your best weapons instead of constant repair.” For example, imagine that you are working on two projects and are trying to decide which one to prioritize. Option one: You could add a new referral program to your website's landing page. Option two: You could send out an email to everyone in your contacts database. You have just over 50,000 people in the contacts database, and you're a pro with your email distribution system. On the other hand, it would take you at least a few days to design and edit a few different mockups for the referral program. A/B testing, programming, and implementation will also take time. You get the picture. In this situation, your strength is the size of your contact database and your competency with the e-mail system. So focus on that. Don't be afraid to cut out any segments that aren't working, either. If you've been putting a lot of time and effort into testing and redesigning your pricing page without any noticeable increases in views, it's time to take a break and try something else. Remember: Growth hacking is about sustainable inputs and explosive outputs. If you aren't seeing outputs from your inputs, don't do it. Growth hackers focus on growth as their true north. ConclusionGrowth hacking has taken over the Internet, leaving little room for understanding and lots of room for confusion. It's hard to pinpoint a concrete definition of growth hacking. But that's simply because growth hacking will be vastly different from one business to another. In short, growth hacking is involving all teams, systems, and processes in your business to test, iterate, and improve your growth. Whether it's growth in sales, reach, brand awareness, or engagement, any focus on scalable growth tactics is growth hacking. Follow this checklist to prepare your business for successful, scalable growth hacking. What growth hacking projects will you be trying this year? About the Author: Neil Patel is the cofounder of Neil Patel Digital. Not everyone has unlimited funds for a marketing budget. Even those of you with a high bank balance shouldn't dump every dollar into marketing without a plan. I understand how much you want to promote your business, but you need to come up with ways that efficiently accomplish this. You don't need to spend tons of money on marketing. Trust me, I know from experience. I've gone through both paths with my business ventures. There were times when I spent tons of money on marketing and other times when I paid as little as possible. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying spending doesn't always pay off. But there are still plenty of marketing tactics you can use that won't break the bank. I've outlined the top low-budget strategies to promote your brand. I've seen results with these methods in my own businesses and those I helped in my consulting work. These are the top 10 ways to market your business on a budget. 1. Create and distribute videosDespite popular belief, you don't need to spend a ton of money to create video content. You can easily do this yourself without hiring a professional. Don't waste money on fancy equipment. You can probably get away with using your smartphone to record videos. Otherwise, invest in a decent camera and microphone. Those will be your only expenses. Videos help businesses benefit from higher conversion rates and click-through rates. Look at those numbers. If you're not currently using video content as a marketing tactic, you need to start right away. Now is the time to get on board with this trend: 80% of global Internet traffic will be video by 2019. Nearly half of consumers browse the Internet for videos related to products and services before buying something. Don't just create one or two videos-make as many as possible. The reason why I love using videos as a marketing tactic is because they are versatile. It's easy to distribute the same videos across all your marketing channels. I recommend uploading all your videos to YouTube first. Then, you can embed the videos onto your website or share clips on social media. You can even send videos to people on your email subscription list. What kind of videos should you make? Upload anything that shows your brand in a positive light. Think about the data I just shared with you about consumers using videos to shop. Creating instructional content or how-to videos can be a great way to market your company. 2. Make lots of infographicsBuilding an infographic is easy and free. You just need to make sure you design them well. In order to illustrate the value of this marketing tool, I'll show you an infographic as an example: Look how easy it is to read this information. Sure, I could have written it out, but that gets boring. Only 16% of people read content word for word. But 79% of people scan pages. Since visuals are much more appealing and easier to comprehend, they jump off the page at people who are scanning. I know what you're thinking. This is all great information, but how can infographics be used as a marketing tactic? If your website has infographics, other sites will use them to improve their own content. I didn't create the infographic I used above. But I added a link to give credit to the source. People who use your infographics will do the same. These links will help drive more traffic to your website. Plus, they will also improve your search engine optimization. Just make sure all of the data from your infographics is accurate and up to date. Nobody wants to use research from 1999 on their website. 3. Publish high quality contentFor the most part, this tactic should be very obvious. However, I see so many businesses producing sub-par content that I thought it needed to be said. Publishing great content is free, and you can do it yourself. Even if you're not a great writer, you can still come up with easy blog topics to write about. Don't try to tackle a writing assignment that's over your head. Stick to ones that you can manage, like lists or best practices for your industry. Introduce yourself, and master the art of storytelling. The average time it takes to write a blog post has been steadily increasing over the past few years. I know you're busy, but I'm sure you can find the time to write high quality content, especially if you're posting only a couple of times per week. For those of you who are already at capacity with your time and who are not great writers, there are cost-effective alternatives. You can hire a writer or pay a freelancer, or you can produce content in-house. Someone on your team must be a decent writer. Assign these tasks to that employee. You're already paying them a salary or hourly wage, so it's not like this will drastically increase your costs. 4. Stay active on InstagramInstagram is one of the best social media channels for marketing your business. This platform has more than 500 million daily active users. Plus, it's easy to post content on Instagram. Unlike a blog post which can take hours to write and edit, Instagram is just pictures. Sure, you still need to write Instagram captions that drive engagement, but that's easy. In 2017, the percentage of businesses in the United States using Instagram as a marketing channel surpassed the percentage of companies using Twitter. Other companies are recognizing how important and valuable this social media platform is. If you're not actively pursuing customers on Instagram, you can bet your competition is. In addition to being free, Instagram is great because you've got many different options. It's easy to post pictures and videos to your profile, but your reach doesn't stop there. You can also add content to your Instagram story and even take advantage of Instagram Live. Add links to your bio to drive traffic to your website. Respond directly to your followers through comments and direct messages. Those of you who have some extra funds in your marketing budget can pay for targeted Instagram ads as well. 5. Don't neglect your email subscriber listIf you're collecting email addresses and have an active subscriber list, make sure you're taking advantage of it. This is a service you're already paying for. Depending on what platform you're using, you're probably being charged per subscriber. Once you hit a certain threshold, your monthly or annual cost may increase. That's OK. A growing subscriber list is great news. These are people who want to hear from you. The majority of people on this list are probably your current customers. All too often I see businesses focus on acquiring new customers as opposed to focusing on their existing ones. This is a big mistake. Not only is it much harder to sell to new customers, but it's also more expensive. One of the top benefits of email marketing is that it has a huge return on investment compared to other methods. Focus on your weekly or monthly newsletter. Make sure you're creating valuable content that drives sales. Send discounts and other promotional emails to your subscribers-don't underestimate the value of a coupon. Fifty-eight percent of people say they prefer to receive coupons, discounts, and promotions via email. Combine your other marketing tactics with your email campaigns. Earlier I talked about creating video content. You can add those videos to your marketing emails. 6. Recycle old contentIf you're really tapped out and low on funds and time, it can be tough to figure out ways to market your company. It's time to get creative. You can reuse your old content to stay fresh. For example, take your old blog posts and turn them into an ebook. Create content upgrades for old articles. Those of you who have conducted research and have lots of raw data can turn that data into graphs, charts, and infographics. Dig deep through your old marketing materials. Do you have coupons, flyers, or other promotional items that were never used? As long as they don't have an expiration date, you can distribute them. 7. Run a contest that encourages user-generated content (UGC)Encouraging user-generated content is one of my favorite marketing strategies. The reason why I love it so much is because it's free. Sure, if you're running a contest, you'll have to give away a product or gift card, but that's a marginal cost compared to the brand exposure you'll get from these campaigns. UGC creates social proof of influence. It's super easy to run a contest that will have this type of effect on your target audience. You can use Instagram or other social media platforms to run your contest. Keep it simple. Ask your followers to post a picture using one of your products and a customized hashtag to enter. Then, at a predetermined date, award the prize to the post with the most likes. As a result, you'll have hundreds or potentially thousands of people posting about your company on social media. This exposes your brand to a wider audience. That's because anyone who follows the people who participated in the contest will see those posts. According to research, 92% of consumers trust online posts from their family and friends-compared to other forms of brand messaging. Plus, half of consumers say UGC is more memorable than content produced by brands. More than half of Millennials say user-generated content influences their purchasing decisions. 8. Launch a customer referral programCustomer referral programs are beneficial for the same reasons as user-generated content. If someone gets referred to a business by a friend or family member, they're more likely to trust that brand. Rather than spending extra money on trying to acquire new customers, let your current customers do it for you. But give them an incentive to do so. While it would be great if your customers did this for free, it just doesn't happen that way. More than half of businesses rely on referrals to get new customers. The best way to encourage referrals from your current as well as prospective customers is to make it worth their while. For example, if your business generates an average purchase order of $250, offering your customers a $5 discount for a referral isn't going to get them motivated. I understand that $5 per referral can add up, but customers don't see it that way. Instead, consider something like Uber's old customer referral program. They offered a $20 credit to new as well as existing riders who referred a friend. That $20 could be enough to cover an entire ride. Come up with a referral system that will motivate your customers to recommend your brand to their friends and family. 9. Take advantage of any guest-posting opportunitiesInstead of just writing blog posts for your own website, you should contribute to other blogs as well. In my consulting work, I see many companies that are hesitant to do this because they don't see the value. Why should they spend time creating content for someone else's website? I'll tell you why. Guest posts generate free exposure for your brand. You can get your name out there to a new audience that may not even know your company exists. In addition to the exposure, you'll be able to drive traffic to your website through referral links within your guest posts. Links to your site from other websites help boost your search ranking, based on Google's algorithm. 10. Broadcast liveI know I've already talked about the benefits of creating video content and using social media. But live videos combine both of these strategies into one free marketing method. Go live on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Live videos help create a more authentic interaction with your audience. The opportunities are endless. Use your live video stream to host a question and answer segment with your social media followers. Respond to their comments in real time. Ask your customers to give you feedback about your products and services. You can even run a contest through your live video broadcast. Live video content is growing at a faster rate than other forms of online videos. Research shows 80% of consumers prefer watching a live video from a business as opposed to reading a blog post. Plus, 82% of consumers say they would rather watch a live video than read a post from a brand on social media. You can give your customers exactly what they want without having to spend much money doing it. ConclusionMarketing doesn't have to be expensive. There are plenty of ways for you to promote your brand without emptying your bank account. Start uploading videos to YouTube, and distribute them to all your marketing channels. Create infographics, and make sure you're always producing high quality content. Write guest posts as well. Stay active on social media platforms, especially Instagram. Use these channels to run contests that encourage user-generated content. You can also create a customer referral program. If you're pressed for time, recycle and update some of your old content. Send emails to your active subscribers. Broadcast live videos. If you follow these tips, you'll be able to successfully market your brand without having to spend too much money. What cost-effective marketing tactics do you use to stay within your budget? Confused on which redirect to use? Contributor Bryson Meunier breaks down the differences between 301 and 302 redirects and explains how Google and Bing view each when moving webpages.
The post Is a 301 or 302 redirect best for SEO? appeared first on Search Engine Land. Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article. How active is your company when it comes to social media marketing? It's great if you have a Facebook profile, Twitter account, and Instagram page, but if you don't have a presence on YouTube, you're missing out on an easy way to generate new leads. YouTube can also help you make more money from your existing customers. Ultimately, it's one of my favorite platforms to use for growing a business. One of the reasons why I love YouTube is because it's easy to repurpose the content using it. Rather than making the same videos for all of your platforms, you can first upload it to YouTube and then share it on your other pages. For example, I like to include videos from my YouTube channel in some of my blog posts. But you can also add YouTube content to your other social media profiles, email newsletters, or any page on your website. Uploading and sharing videos on YouTube is a great start, but it's not quite enough if you want to optimize the growth of your business. You also need to jump on the live video bandwagon. YouTube has more than 1.5 billion active monthly users. When it comes to streaming live video content, it's one of the most popular options available. YouTube Live is second on the list, by a marginal amount, only to Facebook, which has more than 2 billion active monthly users. If you have never streamed a live video on YouTube or new to the platform, I can help you out. And if you've been streaming content on YouTube Live but think your approach could use some improvement, this is the perfect guide for you. I'll teach you how to grow your business with YouTube Live. Here's what you need to know. How to start a YouTube Live video streamLet's begin with the basics. Before you can focus on your marketing strategy, you need to know how to start your stream. YouTube has a detailed tutorial on how to do this, but I'll cover some of the highlights and give you some extra pointers. Step #1: Verify your account and identity If you haven't launched a live video yet, YouTube needs to make sure your account is legitimate before your first stream. If you've got a special occasion you want to stream for soon, you should get your account verified right away. They use your phone number to verify your identity. You can either get a text message or a phone call with an access code. For the most part, this should be pretty quick. But with that said, it could take up to 24 hours to verify some people. Step #2: Set up your encoding software While you may be ready to start your first stream, you're not quite able to do so just yet. You need to download the YouTube encoding software before you can start streaming. Depending on what device you're planning to use, there is different software for each one. Some of the most popular software and devices verified by YouTube are:
There are some other options, but this gives you an idea of how versatile their streaming is. If you're planning to go live from multiple devices, you'll need to download and install an encoder for your first stream on each new device. Step #3: Add basic info to your stream Once all your encoding software is configured, you're ready to get started. Add some basic information to tell users about your stream. This part is pretty easy. Add a title to your stream that explains what you're doing. Here are some examples to steer you in the right direction: These titles make it obvious what each stream is about. Don't be mysterious or ambiguous with this info. Keep your title short. You'll be able to add a more detailed description as you continue adding more basic information. Next, you'll select a category from the following list:
Based on the industry of your business and what your video is about, I'm sure it will be easy for you to find a fitting category. Finally, make sure you set your privacy to public. Otherwise, you won't be able to reach a large audience. Step #4: Review your stream options I recommend you enable the DVR settings of your live stream. Not all of your viewers will be present for the start of your live video. You want to give them an opportunity to start from the beginning so they can view all your content. Next, you'll select the latency. Low-latency works best if you want faster chat communication with your audience. Make sure your chat is enabled as well. You definitely want the viewers of your live stream to have the option to send you messages in real time. You can also add various cards to your live stream. These cards can be used to:
These options can help you create a more authentic and engaging interaction with your live audience. Promote your products and servicesNow that you know how to use live video, you've got to figure out what kind of content you're going to stream. One of the first things you can do is promote your top products. It's no secret your company is trying to make money. You don't need to be deceptive with this approach. You're allowed to showcase your products. One of the best ways to do this is with a product demonstration. Depending on your company, you may have some products that need some extra explanation. Let's say you're selling something like a remote control drone. It's a cool way to show your current or potential customers how to use and operate something they may not be familiar with. Plus, people would rather watch videos about your products than read about them: In addition to educating and informing, these videos can also help you drive more sales. Some members of your audience might not be aware that you offer this product until they see it on YouTube Live. That tutorial could inspire them to make a purchase. You can also use YouTube Live to build hype and anticipation for a new product. Give demonstrations for products that haven't launched yet. This will keep your audience anxiously waiting for the release date. If you really want to get your audience excited, run a contest or promotion, giving away some products. Getting the viewers from your live video stream to participate in contests and giveaways can help increase your brand awareness. This is especially true if the promotion is run via social media. Live stream during eventsWhen should you go live? I hear this question all the time. While there's no right or wrong answer to it, there are certain times when you should definitely be going live. Anytime your company is running, hosting, or attending an event, you should stream it to your YouTube Live audience. Live events are so important that the YouTube dashboard even has a separate menu tab for them as you navigate through your live streaming options. Why is this is such a big deal? That's because 67% of people who watch live videos are more likely to buy a ticket to an event after watching a similar event via live video. So if you're in the entertainment industry, this is an awesome way to increase ticket sales. But it can be relevant to any other business that profits from various events. Think outside the box here. An event doesn't have to always be something major, like the Super Bowl or a sold out concert. You can stream live content of smaller events. Maybe your company is attending an industry trade show or setting up a booth at a college job fair. Anything that gives you an excuse to promote your brand and gives your audience something new and entertaining to watch is worth streaming via YouTube Live. Offer exclusive contentShow your customers something they can't see every day. Piggybacking on our last point, if you were attending an event, you could stream behind-the-scenes content as opposed to the event itself. This will give your audience a sense of exclusivity. They get to see something that others don't have access to. Again, try to get creative here. If your company manufactures products, stream a video tour of your production facility during a workday. Allow your audience to sit in on a meeting with your marketing team or give them access to your offices. All of this will help them get a better understanding of how your business operates. Plus, people are drawn to behind-the-scenes content. This type of video is a great way to ensure your audience tunes in. Once you get them hooked, they'll continue watching your live streams in the future. Keep your audience engagedDon't be boring. You need to have a plan going into each live video stream. If you just go out on a whim and decide to stream something without a plan, it may not be entertaining. If your audience isn't entertained and engaged by your content, it's not going to benefit your business. In fact, it may have the opposite effect. One of the great parts about YouTube Live is that the platform offers many ways to keep your audience engaged. It's up to you to take advantage of the built-in features. Refer back to the streaming options I outlined earlier. Use those as engagement tools. For example, let's say you're trying to build hype for a new product. You can create a poll about this product. Ask your customers whether they like it. Find out what kind of features they want to see. Giving your audience an input as far as your product lines are concerned will certainly help you grow your business. Customers who participated in the poll will be more willing to buy something they had a say in. Marketers across various industries believe live video content helps them create a more authentic interaction with their audiences. You can take advantage of this benefit as well if you focus on engagement. Not only will people be excited to watch your live videos, but they'll also be interested in buying whatever you're selling. It's your job to make that happen during those streams. ConclusionIf your company has an active presence on YouTube, that's great. But if you really want to grow your business, you've got to start using YouTube Live. Live video content is on the rise. You need to follow the newest marketing trends if you want to keep up with your competition. We know that 82% of consumers would rather watch a live video from a brand than see a social media post. No more excuses. Now is the perfect time for you to start streaming live videos via YouTube Live. Follow the quick tutorial I provided in this post to get your account set up and ready for streaming. After that, start planning the content you want to broadcast. Promote your products and services. Stream live events. Offer exclusive content, such as behind-the-scenes footage. No matter what kind of video you're streaming, audience engagement needs to be your top priority. If you apply these tips to your marketing strategy, you'll be able to create brand awareness, acquire new customers, and get your existing customers to spend more money. What type of content are you streaming on YouTube Live to help promote and grow your business? Most people are worried about how to get Google to index their pages, not deindex them. In fact, most folks try and avoid getting deindexed like the plague. If you're trying to increase your authority on search engine results pages, it can be tempting to index as many pages on your website as possible. And most of the time, it works. But this might not always help you get the most amount of traffic possible. Why? It's true that publishing a large number of pages that include targeted keywords can help you rank for those particular keywords. However, it can actually be more helpful for your rankings to keep some of your site's pages out of a search engine's index. This directs traffic to relevant pages instead and keeps unimportant pages from coming up when users search for content on your site using Google. Here's why (and how) you should deindex your pages to get more traffic. To get started, let's explore the difference between crawling and indexing. Crawling and indexing explainedIn the world of SEO, crawling a site means following a path. Crawling refers to a site crawler (also known as a spider) following your links and crawling around every inch of your website. Crawlers can validate HTML code or hyperlinks. They can also go extract data from certain websites, which is called web scraping. When Google's bots come to your website to crawl around, they follow other linked pages that are also on your site. The bots then use this information to provide up-to-date data to searchers about your pages. They also use it to create ranking algorithms. This is one of the reasons why sitemaps are so important. Sitemaps contain all of the links on your site so that Google's bots can easily take a deeper look at your pages. Indexing, on the other hand, refers to the process of adding certain web pages into the index of all pages that are searchable on Google. If a web page is indexed, Google will be able to crawl and index that page. Once you deindex a page, Google will no longer be able to index it. By default, every WordPress post and page is indexed. It's good to have relevant pages indexed because the exposure on Google can help you earn more clicks and bring in more traffic, which translates into more money and brand exposure. But, if you let parts of your blog or website that aren't vital be indexed, you could be doing more harm than good. Here's why deindexing pages can boost traffic. Why removing pages from search results can boost trafficYou might think that it isn't possible to over-optimize your site. Too much SEO can ruin your site's ability to rank high. Don't go overboard. There are many different occasions where you may need (or want) to exclude a web page (or at least a portion of it) from search engine indexing and crawling. The obvious reason is to prevent duplicate content from being indexed. Duplicate content refers to there being more than one version of one of your web pages. For example, one might be a printer-friendly version while the other is not. Both versions don't need to come up in search results. Only one does. Deindex the printer friendly version and keep the regular page indexed. Another good example of a page that you might want to deindex is a thank-you page – the page that visitors land on after taking a desired action such as downloading your software. This page is usually where a site visitor gains access to whatever you've promised them in exchange for their actions, like an e-book, for example. You only want people to end up on your thank-you pages because they completed an action you want them to take, like purchasing a product or filling out a lead form. Not because they found your thank-you page via Google Search. If they do, they'll gain access to what you're offering without having to complete the action you desire. Not only is that giving away your most precious content for free, but it could also throw off the analytics of your entire site with inaccurate data. You'll think you're capturing more leads than you really are if these pages are indexed. If you have any long-tail keywords on your thank-you pages and you haven't deindexed them, they could be ranking pretty high when they don't need to be. Which makes it even easier for more and more people to find them. You also need to deindex spammy community profile pages. Remove spammy community profile pagesBritney Muller of Moz recently deindexed 75% of Moz's website and found huge success. The majority of the types of pages she deindexed? Spammy community profile pages. She noticed that when she did a site:moz.com search, over 56% of the results were Moz community profile pages. There were thousands of these pages she needed to deindex. Moz community profiles work on a points system. Users earn more points, called MozPoints, for completing actions on the site, like commenting on posts or publishing blogs. After sitting down with developers, Britney decided to deindex profile pages with under 200 points. Instantly, organic traffic and rankings went up. By deindexing community profile pages from users like this one with a small number of MozPoints, irrelevant profiles stay out of search engine results pages. That way, only the more notable Moz community users, with tons of MozPoints, like Britney, will appear on SERPs. Then, profiles with the most comments and activity appear when someone searches for them, so it's easy to find influential people using the site. If you offer community profiles on your website, follow Moz's lead and deindex the profiles that don't belong to influential or well-known users. You might think that turning “search engine visibility” off in WordPress is enough to remove search engine visibility, but it isn't. It's actually up to search engines to honor this request. That's why you need to deindex them manually to be sure that they won't come up in the results page. First, you have to understand the difference between noindex and nofollow tags. Noindex and nofollow tags explainedYou can easily use a meta tag to prevent a page from showing up on SERPs. All you need to know how to do is to copy and paste. The tags that let you remove pages are called “noindex” and “nofollow.” Before we get into how you can add these tags, you need to know the differences between how the two tags work. They are two different tags, but they can be used on their own or together. When you add a noindex tag to a page, it lets search engines know that although it can still crawl the page, it can't add the page to its index. Any page with the noindex directive won't go into a search engine's index, meaning that it won't show up in any search engine results' pages. Here's what a noindex tag looks like in a site's HTML code: When you add a nofollow tag to a web page, it disallows search engines from being able to crawl any of the links on the page. That means that any ranking authority that the page has won't be passed on to the pages that it links out to. Any page with a nofollow tag is still able to be indexed in search, though. Here's what a nofollow tag looks like in a website's code: You can add a noindex tag on its own or with a nofollow tag. You can also add a nofollow tag on its own, as well. The tag(s) you add will depend on your goals for a particular page. Add only a noindex tag when you don't want a search engine to index your web page in search engine results, but you do want it to keep following the links on that page. If you have paid landing pages, it might be a good idea to add a noindex tag to them. You don't want search engines to bring visitors to them since people are supposed to pay to see them, but you may want the linked pages to benefit from its authority. Add only a nofollow tag when you want a search engine to index a certain page in results pages, but you don't want it to follow the links that you have on that particular page. Add both a noindex and nofollow tag to a page when you don't want search engines to index a page or be able to follow the links on it. For example, you might want to add both a noindex and a nofollow tag to thank-you pages. Now that you know how both noindex and nofollow tags work, here's how to add them to your site. How to add a “noindex” and/or a “nofollow” meta tagIf you want to add a noindex and/or a nofollow tag, the first step is to copy your desired tag. For a noindex tag, copy the following tag: For a nofollow tag, copy the following tag: For both tags, copy the following tag: Adding the tags is as simple as adding the tag you copied to the section of your page's HTML. This is also known as the page's header.Just open the source code for the web page you want to deindex. Then, paste the tag into a new line within the section of the HTML. Here's what the tag for both noindex and nofollow looks like within the header. Keep in mind that the tag is what signifies the end of the header. Never paste a noindex or nofollow tag outside of this area. Save the updates to the code, and you're done. Now, a search engine will leave your page out of search engine results. You can cause multiple pages to be unable to be crawled by changing up your robots.txt file. What is robots.txt and how can I access it?Robots.txt is simply a text file that webmasters can create to tell search engine robots exactly how they want their pages crawled or their links followed. Robots.txt files simply indicate whether certain web crawling software is or isn't allowed to crawl certain parts of a website. If you want to “nofollow” several web pages at once, you can do it from one location by accessing your site's robots.txt file. First, it's a good idea to figure out if your site has a robots.txt file in the first place. To figure this out, head to your website followed by “robots.txt.” It should look something like this: www.yoursitehere.com/robots.txt. Here's what our robots.txt file looks like. We have a crawl delay of 10 added to our site that delays search engine bots from crawling your site too frequently. This prevents servers from becoming overwhelmed. If nothing comes up when you head to that address, your website doesn't have a robots.txt file. Disney.com has no robots.txt file. Instead of a blank page, you might also see a 404 error instead. You can create a robots.txt file with almost any text editor. To find out exactly how to add one, read this guide. The bare bones of a robots.txt file should look something like this: User-agent: * You can then add in the ending URLs of all of the pages that you don't want Googlebot to crawl. Here are some robots.txt codes that you might need: Allow everything to be indexed: Disallow indexing: Deindex a specific folder: Disallow Googlebot from indexing a folder, except for one certain file within that folder: Google and Bing allow for people to use wildcards in robots.txt files. To block access to URLs that include a special character, like a question mark, use the following code: Google also supports using noindex inside of robots.txt. To noindex from robots.txt, use this code: You can also add an X-Robots-tag header to a certain page instead. Here's what a “no crawl” X-Robots-tag looks like: HTTP/1.1 200 OK You can use this tag for both nofollow and noindex codes. There may be some instances where you've added nofollow and/or noindex tags or changed up your robots.txt file, but some pages are still showing up on SERPs. That's normal. Here's how to fix it. Why your pages might still show up on SERPs (at first)If your pages are still showing up in search results, it's probably because Google hasn't crawled your website since you added the tag. Request that Google crawls your site again by using the Fetch as Google tool. Just enter your page's URL, click to view your Fetch results, and check your URL submission status. Another reason that your pages are still showing up is that your robots.txt file may have some mistakes in it. You can edit or test your robots.txt file with the robots.txt Tester tool. It looks something like this: Never use noindex tags along with a disallow tag in robots.txt. Don't meta noindex AND disallow in robots.txtWhen you meta noindex a bunch of pages but still have them disallowed in a robots.txt file, the bots will ignore your meta noindex tag. Never use both tags at once. It's also a good idea to leave sitemaps in place for a while to ensure that crawlers are seeing them. When Moz deindexed several of their community profile pages, they left the community profile sitemap in place for a couple of weeks. It's a good idea to do the same. There's also an option to prevent your site from being crawled at all while still enabling Google AdSense to work on the pages. Think of one of your pages, like a Contact Us page or even a privacy policy page. It's probably linked to every page on your website in either the footer menu or a main menu. There's a ton of link equity going to those pages. You don't just want to throw it away. Especially when it's flowing right from your main menu or footer menu. With that in mind, you should never include a page that you block in robots.txt in an XML sitemap. Don't include these pages in XML sitemapsIf you block a page in your robots.txt file but then include it in an XML sitemap, you're just teasing Google. The sitemap says, “Here's a shiny page that you need to index, Google.” But then your robots.txt file takes that page away. You should place all of the content on your site into two different categories:
There's no need to block anything in the first category in robots.txt. This content also should never have a noindex tag. Include all of these pages in an XML sitemap, no matter what. You should block everything in the second category with a noindex, nofollow tag or by robots.txt. You don't really want to include this content in a sitemap. Google will use everything you submit in your XML sitemap to understand what should or shouldn't be important to the tool on your site. But just because something isn't in your sitemap, that doesn't mean that Google will completely ignore it. Do a site: search to see all of the pages that Google is currently indexing from your site to find any pages you may have overlooked or forgotten about. The weakest pages that Google is still indexing will be listed last in your site: search. You can also easily view the number of pages submitted and indexed in Google Webmaster Tools. ConclusionThe majority of people are worried about how they can index their pages, not deindex them. But indexing too many of the wrong kinds of pages can actually hurt your overall rankings. To get started, you have to understand the differences between crawling and indexing. Crawling a site refers to bots crawling over all of the links on every web page that a site owns. Indexing refers to adding a page to Google's index of all pages that can show up on Google results pages. Removing unnecessary pages from results pages, like thank-you pages, can boost traffic because Google will only focus on ranking relevant pages instead of insignificant ones. Remove spammy community profile pages if you have them. Moz deindexed their community profile pages that had less than 200 points, and that quickly boosted their traffic. Next, understand the difference between noindex and nofollow tags. Noindex tags remove pages from Google's index of searchable pages. Nofollow tags stop Google from crawling links on the page. You can use them together or separately. All you have to do is add the code for one or each of the tags into your page's header HTML. Next, understand how your robots.txt file works. You can use this page to block Google from crawling multiple pages at one time. Your pages might still show up on SERPs at first, but use the Fetch as Google tool to fix this issue. Remember to never noindex a page and disallow it in robots.txt. Also, never include pages blocked in your robots.txt file in your XML sitemap. Which pages are you going to deindex first? About the Author: Neil Patel is the cofounder of Neil Patel Digital. You need to put lots of thought and effort into every page of your website. But your About Us page is arguably the most important. Why? Anyone who is reading your About Us page is interested in learning more about your company. If you write this page properly, it can be used as an effective lead generation tool. Put yourself in the mindset of a website visitor who is reading this page. They've already stumbled upon your website, so they have a general idea of who you are and what you do. However, they may not be ready to become a customer yet. This is the perfect opportunity for you to convince them. I see many About Us pages on a daily basis that are boring and don't provide any value to a website. It's as though some companies write their About Us pages as fast as possible because they think it's just a requirement to be fulfilled. You put much effort into scaling lead generation through blogging, which you have to update on a regular basis. But your About Us page will be much easier since you don't have to update it as frequently. If you do it right the first time, your About Us page will help you get more conversions. I'll explain everything you need to know to create an About Us page that generates leads and drives more sales. Here's what you need to do. Start with a strong headlineDon't waste space and be repetitive. The website visitor has already clicked on the About Us section of your homepage, so you don't need to use that as a headline as well. Instead, use a headline that enhances your perceived value. Check out this About Us page from SAXX: I love this headline because it speaks to the potential customer. SAXX is a men's underwear brand. So the headline of their About Us page reflects consumers' wishes. Active style. Extraordinary comfort. This headline is intriguing to say the least. It's also enticing enough to make the reader continue on the page. If you have a boring headline, people may not even read your content. The same idea is behind writing a blog introduction that makes the rest of your post irresistible. I also shares this example because SAXX uses multiple headlines on the page. As you read on, you see the second title, “How our story began.” This makes it clear to the reader what this section is going to discuss: the founding of the company. You will learn about it through a story rather than cold facts, which brings us to our next point. Tell a captivating storyAs I was saying, you should try to incorporate storytelling into your About Us page. Stories keep people interested, ensuring they will read through the page. If your content is stale, nobody will want to read it. You'll miss out on tons of potential leads. Not sure how to tell a story? Just be honest, and talk about how your company got started. You don't need to go over financial details or anything like that unless it's very entertaining. For example, if you found a way to turn a $20 bill into a business, that could be an interesting read. But nobody wants to hear about your startup loan negotiations at the local bank. Tell a story that focuses on your company's mission. What was the inspiration for starting your business? Here's an awesome example from the TOMS About Us page: People may or may not be familiar with this organization. Their concept is pretty simple: for every pair of shoes bought on their website, they donate a pair to a child in need. The inspiration behind TOMS came from the experience their founder, Blake Mycoskie, had when he saw poor children with no shoes. Witnessing that inspired Blake to form this company. It's easy to learn how the company became what it is today since it's told as a story. It's heartwarming and touching and stirs a variety of other emotions in a reader. Potential customers may be moved by this story and inspired to help these children as well by purchasing shoes from the website. Being this transparent and open about their story on the About Us page helps TOMS generate new leads. Use terms everyone can understandYour About Us page should definitely be professional. Make sure it's checked for grammatical and spelling errors. Don't swear or use slang. While it's important to make sure your About Us page is clean and proper, you don't want it to sound like a dissertation written by a doctor. You want to make this page as readable as possible. If people can't understand what you're saying, you won't generate new leads. This isn't a legal document, so it shouldn't sound like a team of lawyers wrote it. Avoid using industry terminology. Other business owners in your industry may know what you're talking about, but they aren't your customers. You need to put things in common language the average person can understand. Read this About Us page from Apptopia: Apptopia is in the mobile application's industry. They help businesses acquire more customers with mobile app analytics tools. This is something that nearly every business can benefit from, but not everyone will understand. That's where their About Us page shines. They acknowledge this space is a little bit complicated and people aren't sure what to do with their mobile apps. They mention all types of potential customers, including:
Their page explains that people use data to help them make decisions, but they aren't sure how to get and analyze certain data. This transparency can help their leads feel comfortable. It's written in plain language everyone can understand. You don't need an IT degree to decipher this page. As a result, they'll be able to get more leads. If their page was super technical, it wouldn't have the same impact on potential customers. It's important to keep this in mind, especially if you're in certain industries. Add images to break up the textI'm a big advocate of using pictures and other visuals to break up written content. If you've been reading my blogs for a while, you know I use pictures to aid my writing. Apply that same concept to your About Us page. Big blocks of text are intimidating. People aren't on your website to spend all day reading. So write in short sentences with paragraphs that are only a few lines long. Use pictures as well. Images can make your About Us page more appealing. It helps people scan content since the photos act as natural breaks in the page. Here's an example of how DeWALT uses images on their About Us page: I think this idea is very creative. This page establishes a timeline for their company that dates all the way back to 1922. For each company milestone, they have a quick description and an image to go along with it. This concept makes it really easy for people to scroll through and learn about the history of this business. As you can see, the images add value to the written content as well. Rather than just stating something about a particular milestone, they have photos to illustrate it. It's also really cool to see how the quality of these images changes over time. Now, I realize that not every business has nearly 100 years of photos to use for a timeline. However, that doesn't mean you can't use images on your page. If you're describing an event, product, service, or person, add a picture to enhance the story. Feature your best employeesAll too often I see About Us pages that focus on the founder of the company. While there's nothing wrong with talking about your personal accomplishments, it doesn't mean you can't showcase your employees. The average Joe can't always relate to a CEO. But they can connect with other workers. So including information about your employees helps humanize your company. It shows there are real people representing your brand. Adding the names, positions, and photographs of your staff also helps add credibility to your business. So if someone wants to reach out to your human resources department, they know exactly whom to ask for when they call. Here's an example of this strategy used by BuildFire: At the bottom of their About Us page, they feature their entire staff. It shows photographs along with the names and positions. You can even take this approach one step further and add a small biography of each member of your staff. Make it memorableDon't be boring. If your About Us page doesn't leave a lasting impression in the minds of the website visitors, it won't help you generate leads. Not everyone who visits this page is ready to be a customer at that moment. They need to let that information soak in before they decide to pull out their credit cards and buy something. So you've got to come up with a way to leave a lasting impression. But don't go too crazy or do anything that doesn't reflect your company. Check out this About Us page from Cultivated Wit: It's another example of showcasing employees and adding a biography, as I previously suggested. Look back at the photos in our last example of BuildFire and compare them to the photos from Cultivated Wit. As you can see, there's a drastic difference. These aren't typical or what you'd expect to find on someone's website. While it's a little bit out there, it's done in good fun. Plus, Cultivated Wit is a comedy company, so it fits nicely with their brand. Photographs like these may not work well for a company that specializes in retirement investments, but it works well in this case. Depending on your industry and branding strategy, try to have a little bit of fun with your About Us page so it's memorable. End with a call to actionSo a website visitor got through your entire About Us page. Now what? You can't expect them to navigate over to your ecommerce shop and start buying things. While that would be great, you'll need to give them a sense of direction. Just because it's an About Us page doesn't mean you shouldn't continue to market your products, services, and brand. Go ahead, pitch whatever you're selling. You've already got the visitor primed to become a customer if they've made it this far. End with a call to action that seals the deal. After explaining their background and company story, this is how the Cali Life Co. generates leads at the bottom of the About Us page: They jump right into showcasing their top products. The Cali Life Co. even has a link to promote their Instagram page. It's obvious that their general marketing goals are to drive sales and increase their social media presence. So adding these two sections to their About Us page helps them accomplish those goals. ConclusionGenerating leads can be tough. But if you've got someone visiting your website, you're already halfway there. Taking the time to write an actionable About Us page can help you scale lead generation. Use a strong headline to capture their attention. Then tell a story that keeps the reader hooked. Just make sure you're speaking in terms everyone can understand. Add images. Instead of just talking about yourself, provide some information and quick bios about your staff. Ending with a strong CTA will help ensure your new leads get hooked. Follow these tips, and your About Us page will start generating more business for your company. What changes have you made to your About Us page to help you generate more leads? |
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June 2019
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