How To Boost a WordPress Website's Popularity

An alluring design is just the start when you are to optimize your WordPress website. You may use multiple elements later to enhance your website's appeal. No portal is perfect initially. Instead of desiring eagerly to launch a perfect site, you may opt for one with reasonable appearance and features and improvise later. And of course you can outsource WordPress development to a popular destination like India.

Here's how you can boost your WordPress website's popularity:

1.Feedback:

Your website or blog visitors should be able to provide feedback easily. Making it too cumbersome for visitors to add a comment or send a message to the webmaster is unwise. If you want them to fill up a registration form just to comment, most are likely to depart without obliging.

On your part, respond to every feedback, be it negative or positive. Acknowledging negative reviews will portray you as a transparent business and boost your credibility. Only positive comments may seem concocted.

2. Better Images:

On websites, images act like paintings, the only exception being the paint never dries. Use as many impressive photographs, infographics, cartoons, GIFs, or other visual elements as possible to bolster the design element. You may beef up your website's image line if you feel your site lacks enough competitors.

3. Videos:

Intriguing videos are a powerful means to retain your website visitors. Seasoned marketers confirm videos are generally more engaging than images and plain content. Just ensure the videos are loading fast enough; else users may get exasperated and leave. You also need to strike the right balance between videos and text as too many videos may distract the visitors.

4.Human Face to Content:

If various writers are penning your website's blogs, you can acknowledge their contribution by adding an image and a short biography of each of them. Users tend to respect businesses that recognize their contributors. It'll also give the blogs a human touch.

5. Useful Links:

To up the usefulness of a visit to your website, you may add links to valuable resources to your content. If visitors are interested in something and want more information, they may turn to external resources for the same. Research has established that providing useful external links doesn't harm your prospects in any way. Instead, both human users and search engines will use them positively.

6. Social Media Boost:

A robust social media presence is critical to your brand's success. Install social-sharing buttons for visitors, making it easy to share your website. Doing this takes a few minutes. To encourage your visitors to share, you may set up a counter near the buttons, displaying the number of times the data has been shared.

7. Sitemap:

Users may struggle to find relevant content if it's not categorized well. A sitemap can help visitors find the desired content, thus improving user experience and aiding search optimization too. Sitemaps facilitate navigation between the various sections of a website.

8. Transactions:

All business websites must have an element of e-commerce like buying a product or enrolling for content subscription. Work with your team to find how you can maximize financial transaction opportunities.

9. Using Themes Smartly:

WordPress entails a gamut of themes that you can customize as per your specific requirements. Though there're plenty of free themes, you may try the paid ones to benefit from their unique features.

Summing Up

Boosting popularity of your WordPress website is essential if you want to increase the number of visitors and subsequently business transactions. Your requirements can easily be taken care of if you outsource WordPress development to India. Seasoned professionals there will certainly be able to deliver the goods.

4 Ways for Small Businesses to Implement a Solid Mobile Strategy

Today, people across the world are more connected than ever before, thanks to the fast increasing smartphone usage. As per the latest Ericsson Mobility Report, 85% of the world’s population will have 3G coverage in 2017. Similarly, Google Databoard has said that 77% of smartphone users do research on a product or service at one point or another using their phones.

So, what’s the implicit message in these expert reports for small enterprises? It’s that SMEs can no longer remain indifferent to this evolving business technology of mobile phones. Most of them think that mobile marketing is not worth investing in and they can even make do without it. This is because they don’t see the real value in such a strategy. Or maybe, they don’t know where to really start. But if these businesses don’t leverage this trend right now, they must become ready to be left out and left behind in the game, which is not a very good idea.

For the benefit of the clueless small players operating in numerous industries, we’ve enumerated here 4 rewarding ways to implement an effective mobile strategy that shall yield results unfailingly without busting the limited budget of these small companies:

(1) Make your business website mobile friendly

Whether you like it or not, PCs are fast becoming obsolete and are giving way to a practice wherein more and more marketing communications and business transactions are being carried out over smartphones. Due to this, it’s become obligatory to make your website mobile phone compatible. The site must look good, pleasing and user-friendly on hand-held devices. This is a hallmark of a responsive web design with mobile phone-friendly layout and content. The mobile-friendliness of a website ensures that you get your point across and consumers get what they want with ease sans unnecessary site anomalies, disruption, and frustration.

(2) Tap into the power of social media

Unarguably, social media is where all the exciting actions are happening at the moment. It’s also one area where you enjoy almost a free hand in deploying a methodically conceived mobile strategy, no matter whether it’s B2C or B2B. A vast majority of social media users access platforms like Facebook and Twitter using their smartphones. Speedy likes, comments, and shared by hundreds of users via mobile phones unlock the potential of social media in attracting traffic and achieving business conversions. Social media is also definitely the place where small businesses can carry out meaningful and consequential conversations about their products and/or services with potential customers.

(3) Magnify your digital presence through Google AdWords

This online advertising service from Google is something small businesses can’t do without in today’s highly digitized world of ruthless marketing. It offers effective tools to optimize, manage and track mobile ad campaigns and the resulting traffic. Google’s relatively new feature such as mobile click-to-call function wherein users is given the provision to call advertisers directly without having to visit the website is a shot in the arm for businesses. Be it PPC advertising or remarketing, a small business can now monitor a separate segment i.e. mobile searches made by customers, make use of mobile analytics and gain useful insights.

(4) Put your web address in shortened and manageable form

Smartphone users these days have a fleeting attention span arising out of unlimited information and choices. That’s why it’s wise to make your brand messages as condensed as permissible. Especially, the URLs must be short, to the point, easy on eyes, and easy to recall. This will make the mobile experience an easily manageable and enjoyable one. Directing prospective customers to your landing page shouldn’t be a laborious task. Simplify things as much as you can. Try out URL shorteners that are available for free. When considered just like that, this point may sound like splitting hairs, but shortening URLs does make a huge difference in the long run.

           

The above steps have been known to help small businesses consolidate their mobile strategy early on by providing the necessary framework. They make any mobile marketing campaign resilient and more consistent. So, prepare a detailed mobile plan for your business without further delay.

3 Practical Tips to choose the right Affiliate Marketing Program

You may have chosen the niche for your affiliate marketing program, and now it may be time to select the right affiliate partner. This thing will help you decide whether your affiliate marketing program is going to be successful or will lead to failure. Everyone has heard about Commission Junction, LinkShare, and Google Affiliate Network, but the list does not end here; there are more options that you can try out. This,  however, is not easy as hundreds of affiliate networks pop up daily on the Web and choosing the right program can actually be confusing.

Below are 3 solutions that shall help  you find the right affiliate partner:

Find  merchants that offer the highest value

You should try to seek a list of merchants who are very much similar to yours. Though you may not desire to run a similar affiliate network as that of your competitor, you must try to find merchants who perform effectively in your network. For example, if yours is a food product company, you should think how well your program will perform in the technology segment.

Find  the most prominent affiliate models in your network

Search for offers that resonate most effectively in your affiliate network. This will help you evaluate the pay-for-performance model that excites affiliates in your network.  According to Marketing Land, “If you’re looking for an affiliate network that  will serve as a platform to grow e-commerce sales, be absolutely certain that  the network is e-commerce centric with affiliates that like rev-share splits on  a Cost Per Sale basis.”

What types of affiliates are most successful in nature?

Identifying the most successful affiliates in a network is very important and so is studying their marketing methods. In case you deny affiliates to go for pay-per-click (PPC), opting for an affiliate marketing network with a big coupon will probably not be worth it.

Summing up


These strategies look simple, but they are quite effective in ensuring the success of an affiliate marketing program.  It is to be noted that affiliate networks also offer managed services for an additional fee. Some merchants also feel that continuing with an affiliate management agency is a better option. The answers to such questions will help you streamline your affiliate marketing process.

For more information read in Virtual Employee Article 

How to Increase Viewership of Your YouTube Channels and Videos

You may be producing high-quality video content, but it will serve little purpose if it is not getting noticed. Around 300 hours of video content is uploaded on YouTube every minute; so, you will need to make a serious effort if you want to get noticed.

The number of visitors who view your content mainly depends on the search engine rankings of your YouTube channels and videos. Here is how you can increase the visibility of your YouTube Channels:

1. Choose a short and descriptive channel name so that people are able to figure out immediately what the channel is all about. Names that cannot be comprehended easily put viewers off.
2. Include relevant keywords in the channel description. For instance, if you make travel documentaries, they should necessarily find a mention in the channel description you write. The description must make it clear to viewers what they should expect from the content published on the channel and at the same time, it must also adhere to the search algorithm of the social media platform.
3. Fill in additional channel details. Select an icon that represents your brand effectively, upload an impressive cover photo and provide maximum information in the profile.
4. Put up a link to your channel on your website so that visitors are aware of your YouTube presence. Competent marketers give links to all their social channels on their website. These links are generally placed at the bottom.
5. Embed YouTube videos on the website. This will enable your visitors to view your YouTube videos without actually leaving your site.
6. Stick to a schedule. Regular uploading of content helps in building an audience and sending the signal that the channel is active.

YouTube Videos

1. Keep the title brief and meaningful, and make sure the keywords are included. You need to choose keywords that are in sync with the content of the video. People will simply close the video if the keywords do not match the content.
2. Focus more on the first 100 words in your keyword description. YouTube’s search results show the first one to three sentences; so, write the content in a way that it becomes easier for viewers to comprehend it. The description should be concise and must describe the video’s content accurately.
3. Use tags to make it simpler for the YouTube algorithm to understand the video content. However, you must not go into an overdrive and use only as many tags as are required.
4. Use annotations to increase the engagement rate of your videos. They will remind viewers to like your video, request them to subscribe to your channel and inform them of your other content.
5. Add a YouTube card to your videos to create a clickable Call-to-Action (CTA), thereby making it easier for viewers to respond. You can insert cards at any point in the videos.

Final Word

One of the most popular social media platforms, YouTube, can play a big role in endearing you to your audiences. Just make sure you optimize your channels and videos, and you will be able to attain your objectives.

Read more at: Virtual Employee Article

Why Accelerated Mobile Pages Matter From SEO Point of View

We have been reading and hearing a lot of 'Mobile First' slogans for quite some time now. The idea of Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is a major part of this large mobile phone compatibility plan.

So, what is AMP all about? It’s an open-source project backed by Google, Twitter, WordPress and other publishers to encourage the creation of mobile-optimized content with pages that load fast on mobile devices. This initiative is taken to boost the mobile responsiveness of web pages and do away with a majority of desktop website elements thought to be completely unnecessary for a mobile site. In short, it is AMP that is optimizing the browsing experience of mobile phone users with a fully standardized mobile version of a given site.

Greatest opportunity for publishers

Those sites that produce large volumes of content on a regular basis stand to gain the most from AMP. It is not advisable to convert every landing page and service page into AMP; this can be counterproductive and wreak havoc on conversions. Rather, what Google wants is publishers convert article and blog sections into AMP.

SEO boost from AMP

Your SEO activities get a boost from AMP in that search engine-optimized content in an AMP format shows up first on Google search on a priority basis. Page load speed also plays a paramount role in SERPs. The faster a page loads, the higher Google ranks it. Therefore, this is another area where AMP comes into play from SEO point of view.

No dearth of supporters

Just how important AMP is today from SEO viewpoint can be ascertained from the full support it receives from media giants like BBC, New York Times, and Washington Post as well as networking service providers like LinkedIn and Pinterest.

Enhanced visibility of sites

Mobile friendliness enhances the visibility of sites and is thus good from SEO perspective. AMP also has an in-built visitor behaviour tracking system that throws valuable insights on customers, which is important from consumer analytics perspective.

Greater viewability of sites & higher customer engagement rates

With AMP, Google has set the right kind of standard for mobile-friendly sites, and it is truly something that no Internet marketer who is serious about optimizing their pages would like to ignore. According to DoubleClick Ad Exchange, more than 80% of publishers realized higher viewability rates after embracing AMP. Similarly, 90% plus publishers reportedly enjoyed greater customer engagement through higher CTR.

Helping build brand authority

Last but not least, when a product or service is displayed in the Google carousel at the top of SERPs, it creates a good impression amongst visitors and maximizes the trust quotient. Furthermore, it helps build brand authority too. Again, only a code like AMP can bring about such positive results.

You may go for partial or full AMP for your website depending on your requirement, but whatever the case may be, AMP is definitely not something that SEO professionals can afford to ignore. Invest in AMP and see your ROI improve dramatically. A countless number of companies are adopting AMP as we are talking. So, what are you waiting for? Go ahead and do it.

Read more at: Virtual Employee Article

5 Advantages of Outsourcing PPC Management Services

If you have a website that commands attention and interest, it is also necessary that you remain at the top of search engine rankings. PPC management and SEO are significant for any business. Additionally, in this era of constantly changing trends and high competition, PPC in particular now demands a higher level of expertise to work properly. The most trusted option is to outsource PPC management services to an agency, which can run a specialized digital marketing campaign for your business.

In this article, we discuss 5 benefits of outsourcing PPC services:.

1. Lower Cost

The cost of outsourcing PPC services is much less when compared to managing an in-house team for the same. When you outsource the services to a specialized firm, you can remain assured that the task will be handled by a bunch of thoroughly trained professionals who have a comprehensive understanding of all the technicalities involved in PPC services. On the other hand, managing an in-house team requires you to put up with all the overhead expenses and this makes it a far costlier proposition.

2. Access to Innovative Techniques

For a successful PPC campaign, there are several tools that you can use for keyword research, landing page designs and bid management. Specialized PPC agencies constantly look for new techniques and designs to get more trusted results for their customers. Availing the services of such specialized agencies is always more beneficial compared to conducting the research in-house.

3. Availability of Trained and Knowledgeable Professionals

PPC advertising is changing constantly. Successful PPC campaigns require you to adhere and quickly adapt to varied modifications. Precisely, it requires PPC specialists to stay abreast of the evolving requirements. When you outsource PPC services, you always have access to trained and knowledgeable experts who are highly experienced in PPC management and who undergo constant training to get a job done as required.

4. Holistic Approach

When you consider an agency to outsource your PPC services, it is always a better option to invest in one that follows a holistic approach. For instance, you can always look for a specialized agency, which focuses on PPC, SEO, and digital marketing. This always helps ensure that the different teams work together in achieving the common goals.

5. Complete Time Management

It is vital for the PPC campaigns to be monitored multiple times a day. When a website is successful online, its owners have to work for multiple hours each week, managing and writing new advertising copies. In short, there is always a lot to do and there is less time. Thus, when you outsource your PPC services, you literally buy the agency's wealth of knowledge in handling PPC accounts, strategies, platforms and techniques. The quality and innovation that PPC professionals bring to the table are endless and without any additional charges.

A trained and knowledgeable PPC team can handle all the required activities and run a campaign on your behalf in accordance with the instructions given by you. Moreover, established PPC agencies have good knowledge of what works for your business and can also advise you on SEO, landing pages, email marketing and social media pages. By outsourcing PPC services, you can remain assured that all the marketing activities are working together to yield the most suitable results. 

Read more at: Virtual Employee Blog

Five Most Common Online Marketing Mistakes You Need to Avoid

Having a sound digital amrketing strategy is imperative for online success. If the same old mistakes are holding you back from making it big, it is important that you take note of them and ensure they do not recur.

Here are 5 major mistakes business leaders make in their online ventures:

Undefined Goals

Generic objectives such as ‘making more money’ or ‘engaging customers’ won’t keep let you make much headway. You need to set up specific goals such as increasing the number of leads generated by your website from 5000 to 10000 per month or make the lead conversion rate increase by 15%.

Tangible, measurable goals will help you devise an appropriate strategy for yourself. Different marketing methods such as SEO, PPC and mobile marketing are available online. Your goals will enable you to determine the right marketing medium, set a budget and stick to it.

Not Using Analytics

You need not hit and try when a plethora of analytics tools such as Google Analytics, Coremetrics, HubSpot and much more are there for you. You can use any of these to provide critical data about your website. These insights will let you know of the pages on your website that are most popular, the keywords that are bringing visitors to your site, the most effective online marketing channels and a lot more.

Thanks to analytics, you can have precise information on how your website is performing. Armed with the required tools, you can frame an effective strategy for attaining your defined goals. Performance can be reviewed on a regular basis and the marketing tactics can be adjusted accordingly.

Not Using Customer Personas for Content Creation

Before you initiate marketing of any sort, you must know who you are marketing to. Understanding your target audience and building customer personas prior to content creation will help develop effective content. You need to do adequate research to find your prospects’ pain points and their expectations from your products or services.

Knowing your audience and their specific problems will help you communicate with them effectively. You need to conduct a detailed research for having a crystal-clear picture of your target audience. This will help you determine the best ways to address their requirements and expectations.

No Call to Action

Great that a stream of visitors swarms your website every day! But how will it benefit you if they leave without doing anything? They won’t if you advise them about the action they should take. You can’t just create a website and expect that people would purchase or download stuff on their own.

Be explicit about the action that you would like your visitor to take. Should they proceed to purchase something, or call for the consultation? Specify.

Same Special Offer for Everyone

Having a one-size-fits-all approach is a sure-shot recipe for failure. It is like going to a restaurant where you can order just one dish. If you find this abominable, how can you think of offering something similar to your visitors?

You need to come up with offers that appeal to your prospects at the various stages of the buying cycle. For instance, someone in the initial stage may appreciate an offer for a free download of a white paper, but someone on the verge of purchasing will find a free trial better.

If you have been guilty of making these mistakes, you need to take out time to mull over them and build an optimal online marketing strategy.