SEO 101: Methods for Client Acquisition and Retention

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Search Engine Optimization involves a lot of aspects should you want better client acquisition and retention. Should you be an SEO consultant, being in the business alone would test the boundaries of your patience. Apart from that, you need to be crafty and creative in very diverse aspects. But apart from thinking out of the box when it comes to link building services, you should also be great in acquiring clients and retaining them as well.

After all, what good is a service if people do not even buy it or at least recognize it?

Perhaps the easiest (yet overlooked) and the most basic way in acquiring and retaining your clients is to consistently provide great service. Alone, this would suffice and would directly influence your client acquisition process but compounded with effective delivery, then you have in your hands a top notch SEO service. 

However, this is easier said than done and no matter how easy SEO may come off to some people, it is a reality that some of the processes may be a bit difficult to comprehend. That is what this post is for, to further expound on the processes you can utilize in order to strengthen and lengthen the partnership you have with your clients.

Keyword research and discovery compounded with content strategy is key

Selecting keywords that will assist your clients in having their sites discovered by potential customers is a rather conventional and commonplace wisdom when it comes to search engine optimization practices. However, what most people in the business overlook is the fact that in order for this to be effective, you need to align your data with the content of your site. This will give your audience better pages that would target to organic search visitors.

Do not disregard advanced search technologies

In order for your client to maximize his reach on potential visitors, clients and customers, you should not discount the impact of advanced search technologies. It is best to integrate this into your SEO practices as early as today as search is gradually transitioning into these newly advanced techniques. Should you disregard these new practices, you run the risk of offering obsolete and outdated procedures to your clients.

Utilize holiday campaigns to be relevant as well to herd potential customers

Do you want your clients' websites to stay relevant all year long? Planning holiday campaigns might help you there. This practice will help your clients' customers and visitors feel more connected to them as launching holiday campaigns makes them feel like you are reaching out to them at a personal level. Apart from that, holiday campaigns usually have an uplifting and joyous aura about them. Do not just limit yourself to holidays worldwide, research for various holidays celebrated around the world, choose an appropriate one and integrate them in your holiday campaign.

Do content networking

To get more visibility for your clients' websites then it would be best if you start investing on building quality niche sites. As this specifically targets industries and markets where your clients are in, this would assist them in getting more leads in their businesses and would also prove to be an advantage to your service in various ways seeing as these niche sites will make a few aspects in your process a lot easier (piercing the blogosphere where your client's business is, creating hard to replicate links, earning extra income through ads, etc.)

Foster a good relationship with your clients

This may sound basic, but it may surprise you how so many of SEO industries tend to neglect this. Fostering a good relationship with your clients builds their confidence in you and would likely result into retaining your clients for the long haul. When you invest in your relationships with your clients, they would feel like they got more than their money's worth, trust you and are likely to give you an outstanding word of mouth recommendation.

Search engine optimization alone can be tricky. When compounded with the need to acquire clients and retain them as well, it just got a lot more difficult. However, it does not have to stay that way all the time. Utilize these various techniques and let it work to your advantage.

4 Online Marketing Scams you Need to Avoid

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Online marketing scams are rampant. Some of you here might have already experience being deceived by interesting offers and/or promos while others just didn't realize that they have already been victimized by some online marketing scams. Like any other online marketing agencies, there are companies that give you an intriguing offer with the hopes that you might like and engage with the products and/or services that they had the offer.

When you are exposed to online activities, there will be a higher chance that you will encounter these kinds of scam. Of course, at first you will not know that it is a scam since the offer is quite reasonable enough for you to be tempted to engage with their business. However, as you go along, carefully reading their business or company description, you will eventually realize that that particular company is a scam. You will only know that if you are keen enough to every online transaction that you will have.

Yes, the offer might sound appealing to you, but how sure are you that it is not a scam? There are actually a lot of online marketing scams, and below are the top 4 most common online marketing scams that most people have already been victimized by it. Some of you here might encounter these scams – well, just ignore it!

1. Fake affiliate marketing training

Online training seminars can immediately grab the audience's attention, especially when he/she is really looking for one. Offering an online training for SEO Marketing, for example, is a temptation, enough for you to engage immediately with the offer. And if you are searching for more, there will be hundreds to thousands of people trying to sell and/or offer you a course, an e-book, and/or other various kinds of information that you want to have.

Yes, they might have offered you a good product, but these products are often nothing more than a rip-off. You don't actually learn anything useful and you have already spent your money for a single course or an e-book. Moreover, the materials that were given to you were full of fluff and no real, actionable lessons. If you want to have a good training, you have to make sure that you know the company very well. Check their backgrounds if they are really credible for conducting online training seminars.

2. Get-rich-quick offers

Getting rich in the quickest way as possible is definitely impossible! They gave you an interesting deal that when you invest a $2,000, it will be doubled or tripled overnight. This is definitely a mind-blowing offer, but don't fall for it. If they are not scams, they will let you invest in an open book product or service – not with the "secret system that works". Also, this is one of the most rampant scams you will see online. When you fall for its offer, then you have been deceived.

Money is very important to our everyday lives. We live with the use of money. However, you always have to remember that money doesn't come in an easy way; you have to work for it. Investing it with some offers that you are not sure with is definitely not a good option.

3. No product/service to sell

When a marketer is convincing you to join their business with no products and/or services to sell, then you better think twice before saying yes to them. If a particular company is offering you a good deal with no products – then this is obviously a scam. How can one person get rich or double their money when in the first place they don't have something to promote or sell to? What is it that you are actually selling?

A pyramid scheme is one of the most common scams that you might encounter later on. It is a scheme where no one is actually making any money.  One person tries to make an investment to join the program and after that, the money that you have invested will be passed around from one person to the next. And you just didn't realize that you already being deceived.

4. Pay-to-join programs

Online marketing nowadays already has programs for people who are interested in joining. However, not all online programs are legit and trustworthy enough for you to be joining. Usually, they will let you pay first before signing in for the registration. And when you do, there will be higher possibilities that you cannot open a particular link for you to be one of the ‘members' of the club and/or whatever program that you are joining.

Yes, online is used to connect with other people and share some new and interesting ideas. However, it will always not be the case. Before joining a particular club or program, you have to make sure that you have checked their background on to what they are up to, or what company they really are. With that, you will have an idea on the things that you are doing online.

Be seen on Google: Craft Better Tutorials!

 

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Anyone with a smart mobile phone or desktop/laptop and Internet access is bound to have an instructional how-to guide. Recipes, do it yourself projects, computer programming—you name it and there is a guarantee that you are bound to find something useful online. Just type away at the search box, hit enter and voila! Instant results!

In relation to this, should you be a wise digital marketing agency, you would be exploiting this marketing potential. After all, every single online marketing agency in business is competing for the much coveted top spot of Google's search results. So what better way than to make use of what people are constantly searching for online?

However, as straightforward as that may seem, it is not as easy to execute. Yes, writing a how-to guide can be easily done in a matter of hours or minutes in fact but lump that with a hundred or more so similar guides and your page will be buried in the search results. Before long, your how-to guide will not gain as much traction as it should and eventually, it will become irrelevant caused by stagnancy. For this reason, you need to make your how-to guides interesting and catchy, make it stand out.

To achieve this, you can:

Just like in school, showing and telling works to your advantage

No matter how comprehensive and expansive your tutorial is, nothing really beats explaining it in video format. And it makes sense because people would rather see how to do it than be taught how to do it simply by a large block of text. As can be gleaned in illustrious video sharing website, YouTube, video tutorials make up a huge block of its existing videos. From this, it can be inferred that users prefer this instructional medium above others. Consequently, utilizing this technique and having a great presence on Google's own video-sharing website will greatly reward you.

Use photos. Show and don't just simply tell.

If resources are hard to come by then use interesting photos that relate to your content. Sure, it may not be as effective in showing your viewers what to do, but a photo illustrating each step in the process is just as fine. Consequently, as this is written text and information, it would be best to use traditional SEO techniques that are appropriate for this format. 

Choose an appropriate target keyword, use the same keyword in headers and tags and include the same keyword in potential phrases people may likely search up. Including many photos as you possibly can in your how-to content creates a better understanding for the reader where words are not enough. Additionally, it would increase website visibility in image searches by including alternative tags and titles that include your keyword.

Utilize all available social media platforms

This is a basic technique in SEO: Be seen, be relevant, gain traffic and traction.

Accordingly, as this is the case, you should not limit your marketing campaign in a single social media platform. Widen your reach and diversify your content your social media content and gain more followers, viewers, and users this way. The more platforms you utilize, the chances of it getting shared by viewers are higher. Consequently, viewership rates will increase which would signal Google that your content has value.

Visit Quora or Reddit to find ideas for your next tutorial or how-to list

If you truly want your tutorial to make waves online or at least be relevant or if you are just at a loss as to what to write next, visit Quora or Reddit for a hub of tutorial and how-to ideas. These sites will serve as your window of information as to what the online population is currently clamoring for or what particular tutorials are on demand. After crafting your own tutorial, you can then go back to the site and post your tutorial for the users to see. Consequently, you wouldn't just be catering to their demands but promoting your page as well.

These four tricks are jumpstart tips to get you started with your tutorials or how-to lists and videos. Utilize them well and perhaps, maybe you can even discover some tips for yourself.  

How to Excel at Asking for Advice from SEO Experts

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Doing SEO on your own is a challenging thing to do. Agree? That is why, some of you here seek help from an SEO consulting services or an expert to have better and desirable SEO results.  Well, seeking out the opinions and advice from an SEO expert is not a bad thing at all. In fact, you will definitely avoid unwanted and costly mistakes made of naivety. Yes, you already decided on asking some help. But do you know how to get that conversation started?

One way or another, social media has made it easier for us to connect and be connected with the experts. When you involve yourself socially, you can get new SEO ideas. However, most SEO experts are interested and willing to give advices when you know how to ask – not just simply asking. Yes, it is a matter of the approach and/or how you ask rather than simply asking them for help. Well, if you can pull it off, they are much more willing and interested to offer a hand.

If you think that some of them might be ignoring you, then perhaps you are asking the wrong way. Yes, experts help people who are in need when it comes to SEO. However, they are also a busy person, and catering people who don’t even know what they want to ask is just wasting their time. If you are one of those people who have a hard time on how to properly ask SEO experts for any advices, then below are some of the tips you might want to try to apply in order to get their attention.

Before you ask an expert a question, try to answer it yourself

It is a fact that not all questions that we ask is hard enough for us to answer. Right? Sometimes, we just ask something without thinking that we can answer that particular question ourselves.  Well, if you really don’t know, Google is there to help you know. However, when Google doesn’t even know the answer, then this might be the perfect time to seek help from the SEO experts. Be resourceful enough to find some answers, SEO experts might think that you don’t extend enough effort to find the right answer for your question.

Briefly explain who you are

Aside from the concerns you have, one of the things SEO experts want to know is who you are. They want to know who they are talking to, and to make sure that they are not talking to a robot. Generally, if they know who you are, they might give some advices that best fit with the position or the situation that you are in. Also, giving experts a brief background about you is one of the appropriate and professional ways to approach an SEO expert.

Ask questions that are clearly defined, but not necessarily specific to your exact circumstance

We all know that the clearer the questions are, the clearer the answers we can get from an SEO expert. However, just because it has to be clear, it doesn’t mean you can be too specific in giving the exact situation that you are in. It is mostly not the case! Sometimes, experts don’t care about the exact situation that you are experiencing. They find it annoying when you go too personal about it. If you have a specific concern, then try focusing on asking on a more general question. Yes, experts may not know the exact scenario on the circumstance that you been experiencing; however, they can give you advices that are more likely close to the situation that you are in.

 Proofread what you write

One of the most embarrassing for you to experience is when you have a lot of grammar and spelling errors in your question. And since you don’t proofread what you write, there are times that the words and/or sentences are scrambled, that even you don’t understand what you want to ask. Embarrassing, isn’t it? Well, in order for you to avoid it, proofread and edit what you write.

Double and triple-check how to spell his/her name

Know who you are addressing your concerns to. His/her name is important for you to know and how to spell it. Although, this might just be a simple thing for you, however, for them, it might be a sensitive thing to have since you already murdering their name. Moreover, having their name misspelled means that you are not paying attention to your message – and it is definitely a no-no!

Ridiculous Sentences That Are Holding You back From a Marketing Success

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Words are dangerous, how much more if it is a sentence? It can create and destroy your career.  Yes, as human beings, we are prone to making excuses. Every one of us here deals with the same sentiments, especially when we feel like being insecure and immature at times – and then, excuses came in! Do you know that excuses are ridiculous and can hold you back from a marketing success? Well, if you are working in a digital marketing company Philippines, excuses are strictly a no-no!

If you try to ask successful marketing professionals who excel in their work, one of the common qualities they possess is doing their respective task without any excuses. Excuses will definitely make your day. Well, if you are one of those marketers who are unaware that you are already trying to make an excuse, then below are some excuses that you might tend to use it all the time.

“I’m too busy.”

If you are busy, we are too! We are all busy with our own duties and responsibilities as a marketer. There are even times that our tasks are already pilling with another task – and it is annoying just by thinking that we still have a lot to do. Yes, it might be a valid reason, but definitely not an acceptable one. Do you know that being “too busy” can hinder the success of your marketing career? Yes, due to our busy-ness, we are unaware that we already tend to create a wall that hinders change. Sometimes, we are not willing to re-prioritize, to examine possibilities, and to change to accommodate another opportunity – and it’s a sad thing.

Why don’t you try having a to-do list? In that way, you will identify which of your task is the most top priority for you to do, rather than accumulating and finishing all your tasks at once. It's tiring and it’s killing you.

“I don’t have the experience.”

Having this as an excuse often means of perfectionism – not in an “anything worth doing is worth doing it right” way. You definitely won’t know and learn anything if you don’t try it in the first place. If you lack experience, this is one of your opportunities to know more about it. Doing digital marketing is a skill, it can be learned. Even if you don’t have any slightest idea about the marketing industry, if you are just willing to learn, then there is definitely a room for improvements. Learning for the first time might be a challenge on your end, however, that’s when the learning fun begins.

“I need more money.”

Oh please, we all do! Yes, we may be struggling and stuck with our financial responsibilities, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t use any other means. It is a matter of how you perceive things and on how you approach them. Well, if you don’t have any budget to do and have the things that you need, then you might as well find an alternative route to find your own funding. Sometimes, you have to make some sacrifices and cut unnecessary expenses on the things that we like. Most of the successful digital marketers start their business with small about of budget, then they make it grow.

“It’s not worth it”

 Do you know that success starts with small opportunities that come your way? There are times that we ignore small things and go after the big ones. Yes, it is a good thing that you aim high. However, aiming high without any certainties that you can definitely achieve such goal, then it might not be the right path for you. Especially if you are one of those starters, you have to invest first and in smaller ones. In that way, you have a lot of room for improvements. And as your business grows, your journey as a digital marketer also grows through your own personal experience.

“I can’t”

Don’t even think about it! These words are definitely unhealthy for you and for your career. Thinking and putting negativity on your system will surely doom you. Why is it that you can’t, while everybody can? Even if you don’t excel in a particular field, at least you have tried doing it; you will excel in it eventually. If you are a marketer, never allow this kind of excuse ruin your life.

4 Personal Things You Should NEVER Put on Social Media

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The main purpose of social media is to connect with other people. Right? We usually use it to make friends, to reach out to our close families and/or relatives who are far away from us. And most especially, almost all of the people nowadays rely on social media in getting information about the happenings with the surroundings that we have. Even digital marketing agencies use social media to connect with their potential clients. Without social media, just imagine how things would be inconvenient for us.

 Social media is important to our everyday lives. However, not all the information that we see and read can be on our advantage. Sometimes, we tend to be deceived by the tempting offers we see on social media – sounds real, but it is a scam! Of course, it is just not about what you see; it is also all about what you put on your social media account that puts you in the disadvantage side.

Yes, there are certain things that we put in our social media accounts that we are unaware of. When we do, there are high possibilities that the things that you include might be used against you. Well, if you are cautious enough when it comes to your security, then below are some things you should never include in your social media accounts.

1. Your personal phone number

Putting your personal number on your account is way too private for you to do. What’s the point in sharing your phone number publicly when they can even reach through private message? Also, if that person has something important to talk about with you, they can ask your phone number through messaging you privately.

The danger when you share your phone number is that, you will most likely have some prank calls, stalkers, scammers, and identity thieves that would love to mess with you. And I’m sure you don’t want to experience being annoyed with those calls. Right?

 

2. Your home address

Your home address, especially when it is your permanent address, is definitely a confidential thing to share in public. Yes, your information is also important, however, sharing it in social media without knowing the consequences might put you in danger. If you don’t want to have some stalkers, burglars, thieves, and/or any other people who might want to know where you live, and with a bad motive in mind, then you better keep your home address private.

3. Your valuable and expensive things

One of the common attitude that we have is that, whenever we have something that we really like and proud of, we tend to boast it through online. Yes, there might be a lot of people will like it. However, you don’t know what others might think. There are times that it might be the cause of misunderstandings between the other people. Also, you might not know, there is someone out there who wants to steal it. And I’m sure you don’t want that to happen with you. Just be cautious of the valuable things that you have.

4. Your payment information

There are social media platforms that want your credit card number, and adding your financial information lets you buy gift cards and other products without any hassles at all. Well, that might work on your end. However, how sure are you that the financial information that you gave is safe with them? Giving them what they want might be one of the many ways that they can easily hack your account. You just don’t notice that you have been already robbed by unknown users. Yes, it already happened, and many people were already victimized by that kind of scam.

There will always be a freedom of expression in social media. Whatever you want to post something, you can definitely post it – without someone reprimanding you. Of course, it is your personal account and you have all the right to do what you want. However, you have to be responsible for what you do socially, that if you don’t want to put your life at risk – and I’m sure you don’t! You can enjoy using it without putting your life in danger. Well, just make social media as an entertainment, the source of information (verify it though), but definitely NOT your dairy!

Content Marketing 101: Six Types of Content to Boost Traffic and Engagement

People make the rookie mistake of thinking that content marketing is all about blogging. 
However, this is a vast understatement and a misconception no less. We have reached new depths in the creation of content that blogging is just one of the many and diverse ways to do it.

 However, with so many options to choose from, which of these drives more traffic to our respective websites? 

Which of these have better online traction and user engagement? 

A direct answer would be the hip and trendy ones. However, it is not as straightforward as we all think it should be. Utilizing just one type of popular content may initially guarantee you results, however maintaining this would prove to be difficult. Moreover, marketing just a single type of content is a surefire way to make your traffic and engagement rates tank and dip. The key is to add something new to the mix every once in a while. Make your page fun, exciting and fresh. 

So if you’re looking to add a new spin to your contents, let this article serve as your menu of the various types of contents you can choose to utilize on your page. 

GUIDES 

Guides are fairly common online and more often than not, they are usually exhaustive when it comes to detailing the information they are trying to convey. This is understandable as guides do not simply offer their readers information but rather, they have that authoritative voice that teaches their readers the relevant techniques on how to go about what is discussed. 

This content is relevantly popular as it encourages readers to do things themselves and take whatever task they have at hand by the reins. Though they are lengthy compared to other types of content, they are popular as they provide extensive information. 

MEMES

Making memes is one of the best content marketing ploys to attract a diverse population of online users and readers as it is fresh, new and trendy. It was fairly unheard of in the early 2010’s and made a sudden impact in the latter part of that same year. Memes are popular in a sense that they are humorous and readers can relate them better which is why they are such a hit with the online community. Memes utilize the voice of your audience who made this type of content popular in the first place. 


Memes are fun-filled pictures usually associated with pop culture alongside just a sprinkle of words. To make this more effective, they usually have a humorous undertone. It does not take a lot of brainwork to do and is relatively easy to utilize which is it is so popular. 

VIDEOS 

Videos offer you a lot more variety than ordinary writing ever can. 

It offers you a whole lot of possibilities and it certainly presents your content in a more visually entertaining way. Because videos are a lot more versatile than written contents, aestheticism is easily achieved through the utilization of motion pictures. Additionally, it helps you convey your message better, memorably and succinctly as well making this type of content effective in gaining traction. 


If it is done well, its power of persuasion will be unmatched.

HOW-TO’S

This one is a bit more popular than the rest and is certainly making rounds online. In fact, each and every content writer must have written at least one how-to article in her career. This is because how-to’s are relatively easy to do and succeed in capturing the interest of your audience. 

It is less extensive than a guide and is certainly not as exhaustive as one which is why it is an effective type of content for the type of audience who wants to get the gist of how to get a particular thing done without going through all the specifics.  For writers, this is a content that is rather easy to manipulate and create seeing as options are rather inexhaustible and seemingly endless. You basically focus on a single task at hand and create a step by step plan on how to accomplish it. 

In order for you how-to article to gain traction and efficacy, make it thorough and informative. Include diagrams and pictures as much as you can. 

In closing…

The options offered in this article are just a smidge of the various possibilities you can still try out there. When it comes to content creation, the possibilities are endless and in there is teeming potential for traction, traffic and audience engagement. Now, it is up to you to exploit that potential in your content strategies. 
Remember; do not stick to a particular type of content. Mix it up. 
Now, get up and get creating.