Author name: Tanushri Saxena

Industry-specific

Digital Marketing in the Financial Industry

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Financial industry’s products and services are just like any other product or service. They need to be marketed. The services provided by banks, insurance companies, mutual funds, financial institutions etc. have their customers just like in any other industry. These companies require customers to purchase their securities. The traditional style of marketing any financial product is publishing through yellow pages, hoardings, advertisements on televisions, magazines, newspapers, etc. It is not easy to get this age-old business (and often controlled by the government) to adapt to new technologies. There is often tremendous friction. However, the companies which have made (or are making) this shift well are the ones that are thriving in the 21st century. Let’s explore some ways in which Financial Industry can use digital marketing. 5 WAYS TO USE DIGITAL MEDIA IN THE FINANCIAL INDUSTRY 1) TO FIND PROSPECTS With the world going digital, it is easy to segment and target very relevant persons who might be interested in specific types of products. Both Social Media Ads and Google Search or Display Ads have very powerful ways to reach people interested in any niche product. Devising a behaviour-based and customized marketing strategy, showcasing the right product to the right person at the right time – can be achieved through digital media. 2) TO GET CUSTOMER FEEDBACK & ENGAGEMENT Social media is the finest way to assess genuine feedback and concerns. A company that keeps its ears open for social media conversations around their industry will often achieve the best insights and design strategies that alleviate the most customer pain-points. Social media monitoring tools are an enormous resource for any finance-based company. 3) TO HAVE AN ONGOING CONVERSATION WITH THE MARKET A rational and relevant conversation with the customers can elevate customer experience. Customer issues and grievances can be solved virtually to boost company goodwill. A company that responds quickly online builds enormous trust in today’s customers. 4) TO TELL YOUR BRAND STORY USING VIDEO People prefer to watch videos rather than read large amounts of text. A business social media page with a lot of videos tends to have more likes and followers. Websites have also been using videos very effectively in the last 6-7 years. They engage customers by posting mouth-watering videos. ICICI bank posts about numerous activities they perform on their social media channels very effectively. If a finance company explains its schemes, policies and procedures through videos instead of written content, people will learn more, get attracted more, and get retained more. Good video content is also rewarded by Google and Facebook’s algorithms. You’re more likely to reach your target audience if you use video instead of plain text. 5) TO RESOLVE QUERIES USING CHATBOTS Customers not only want online services, but also want to solve their minor queries on digital platforms. Companies can now ensure that they are 24*7 available. Using Chatbots , most customer queries can be resolved using a conversational and easy-to-approach tone. The advances in machine learning and A.I. have made the design of effective Chabot extremely viable. REAL INSTANCES OF DIGITAL MARKETING OF FINANCE INDUSTRY. 1) Yes bank digital diya campaign in 2017. Yes bank launched a website (http://www.thedigitaldiya.in) where every visit on this website will light up a digital diya. An amount equal to every visit was contributed towards the fund for eradicating rural financial illiteracy. The success was easily measured by counting the number of visits. Following this creative trend, the bank managed to light up over 1 million diyas. 2) ICICI mobile application – iMobile app. With the world obsessed with smartphones, mobile apps keep you a step ahead. ICICI advertised about its mobile app in a very creative way. ICICI mobile app provides you the travel card and there is no need to get into issues of currency exchange. ICICI has been awarded with India’s best mobile banking app by The Forrester banking wave. 3) SBI-Cashkiaadatbadlo In the wake of demonetization, it was very needful to go digital for customers. People suffered liquidity crunches. SBI early in that year of demonetization came up with the campaign of CASHKIAADATBADLO. It advertised products like SBI debit card, SBI Pay and SBI buddy mobile wallet. Its advertisements were so real and relatable for the audience that it was more reliable and trustworthy. You can see the video here. 4) Chatbots developed by Indian banks. Yes bank has Yes robot, ICICI has software robotics, City bank has Humanoid Laxmi, HDFC bank has Onchat. These chatbots help customers by providing various services like checking account balance, tranfering money, opening new accounts, locating ATMs and branches, giving current interest on loans. About the Author: Tanushri Saxena is pursuing her MBA from GLS, Ahmedabad. Currently, she is interning as a content writer at WebKow. She enjoys an occasional cup of coffee and is an avid Game of Thrones fan (but not season 8  ).

Uncategorized

Chatbots For The Future

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Chatbots will rule the digital platform. They are growing fast, with the demand scaling up. Before we know about the future of chatbots and their importance, let us first understand what they are. WHAT ARE CHATBOTS? Chatbots are basically robots that stimulate human conversations. They are also known as virtual assistants. But wait, how can they stimulate a human conversation? How is it even possible for them to fathom the human language? Using sophisticated AI solutions, the programmers try to replicate the pattern of end-user interaction so that the bots can carry out a (seemingly) human conversation. They are so cool. Why bother to have people 24*7 to chat with users or potential customers, with their attitude and performance constantly affected by moods? Yes, people at call centers are trained to perform well and remain polite, but no one can vouch for their consistency. A company will never encounter such issues with chatbots. CHATBOTS WILL RULE THE FUTURE I never give inductive statements. I always have points to support my claim and try to make it deductive. And perhaps by the end of the blog, you will also agree to it. My rational points to support my claim are here: 1) EVERY BUSINESS WILL HAVE A BOT. Have you ever observed that Facebook messenger is getting more popular and used than Facebook itself? This shows that people love to converse more virtually. So it is ideal for every company to grab and engage to customers via these digital conversations. People are busy and impatient and they want their questions answered as quickly as possible. Your company needs to match up this expectation to survive and thrive. So you can provide this amenity to your visitors in two ways: A) Set up an arrangement like a call centre where humans will be chatting all day long. This is not at all cost-effective, and most of the businesses will not be able to ever implement this. OR B) A business can have a chatbot to perform that part. Computers will answer queries and will talk to multiple people simultaneously. And they are getting better at handling different situations in the way users expect. So if messaging apps are the platform where all companies aim to engage with people, then yes, chatbots will rule. 2) Bots are faster than websites and mobile apps. Suppose I want to know what the current discount schemes are in Ahmedabad’s Central mall. I can get it from several modes. 1) I may get an email or SMS from the mall itself if I am a member.2) I have to visit the official website and get it from there.3) I can use some app to know such offers. 4) Personally visit the mall and ask staff members. But these modes can be made redundant if Ahmedabad Central has chatbots. Simply ask the chatbot and get all the information you need. For such queries, people want an even faster, more personal and more reliable method than Google search. Isn’t it easy to directly ask chatbots and get the answers? I hear you thinking-  people are resistant to change. They won’t adapt to chatbots. They will. Here is why people will prefer a bot. 1) The options users currently have often taken too much time. People want a faster way. Bots load instantly. They will solve all the queries. 100s of queries, one solution. 2) Apps need to be downloaded, they take up valuable space (it’s like giving a part of your mobile real estate) and you can’t have different apps for every purpose. Chatbots will not demand any part of your mobile storage space, as they live inside other apps (like FB messenger), websites, SMS or email. They will simply answer you what you need when you need it. (Chatbots are so kind!) Still not convinced? Check out this SquareUp article on 5 companies that are successfully using chatbots. Read our 5 tips to boost your Google Ads. About the Author: Tanushri Saxena is pursuing her MBA from GLS, Ahmedabad. Currently, she is interning as a content writer at WebKow. She enjoys an occasional cup of coffee and is an avid Game of Thrones fan (but not season 8  ).

why video marketing for b2b
B2B digital marketing, Uncategorized

Why Video Marketing For B2B?

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Video is the future of content marketing for all types of businesses, including Business-to-Business companies (B2B). Researchers and buyers have less time and patience than ever before, and they would love to save time in reading by watching a short video instead. In B2B video marketing Videos that are on point, short, relevant and cater to the needs of most of the researchers get a lot of traction. DID YOU KNOW? 48% B2B buyers watch videos longer than 30 minutes and 20% more than 60 minutes. 91% growth in B2B researchers use smartphones with a motive to purchase. 46% B2B researchers fall in the age group of 18 – 34. Many B2B brands try to engage in video marketing once they understand the importance of it…but often they fail in making suitable and effective content because of false notions prevailing in the market. There are several myths about B2B researchers that this blog will clear: Myth 1) Millennial are not making the business decisions (wait… what?)  Nearly half of the B2B researchers and decision-makers are millennial. They are young and competent to make major decisions in the company. They definitely prefer videos over text. This is not a general statement but videos make it easy to understand and fathom the objectives of the content. If the videos possess good content with high-quality graphics and good delivery of concept then researchers and buyers do watch it for their purpose. Myth 2) Focus should be only on senior executives If you focus your B2B video marketing on only C- suite then the employees who are researchers and purchase order placers will be ejected out of your gamut. Before making any video marketing content, do not believe in conventional norms, prepare a video that will appeal to everyone in your sales process. Myth 3) B2B researchers are not using mobile Why to curb your ambit by creating videos only for desktop mode? Your video should be flexible and must focus on all types of devices. Across all industries, more and more people use mobile to do their searches. They read, watch, learn, compare and determine their results. It is always desirable to make videos which are mobile-friendly too. This particularly has implications on the font size and video width that you choose. Myth 4) Videos are solely watched for gaining awareness 70% of B2B buyers are watching videos throughout their path. Why will a buyer watch a video of a product if he or she does not intend to buy it? Even if your web-visitors are watching these videos for awareness purposes, video can lure them by revealing interesting features, exciting offers and much more. This will ultimately influence them to buy your product. If you create videos that are not for the selling of products but relevant to it, it will still have an impact on your subsequent videos which may be solely sales-oriented. TRENDS OF VIDEO MARKETING FOR B2B 1) People love to laugh B2B companies like to give a touch of humour in their marketing videos. Video makers understand that any content should communicate in the simplest way possible. Adding creative attributes that make viewers laugh will influence them and position the brand in an ideal way in their mind. While making a business content video, do not think of the following: “What about my stakeholders?” “What if my target audience is elderly?” These are legitimate concerns. But people of all ages and backgrounds can appreciate a chance to smile. They will consider your efforts and creative ways of showcasing your product. There is no need to make an entire standup-comedy video, but consider the small moments where you can make a playful joke about yourself or a common problem that your customers have. 2) Let your viewers have an experience There are certain products and services which require experience before a purchase decision is made. Services are intangible, they are experienced. A video can be used to give your viewers a glimpse of that experience. Videos can also be used to showcase your engineering excellence or domain expertise. For example, if you are into manufacturing big machines as an input for the production processes of other companies, then you can do the following. Take your viewers to a virtual tour of your manufacturing process. Slip into one day routine of an assembly line worker and show how your finished products are manufactured. Make a video on raw materials, materials used in the entire production process and provide knowledge about those materials to show customers that they are purchasing equipment of the best quality. Example: Toyota is one of the biggest car engine manufacturers in the world. It supplies its car engines to various brands such as Lotus Cars, Spyker Cars, Pontiac and many more. Toyota has many videos on its car engine manufacturing process. Such videos enable their customers to experience the process and ensure that the engines purchased are produced through a premium process which ultimately fosters trust and confidence. 3) Use video to showcase what good you’re doing for society CSR not only helps our society but builds your reputation and goodwill in the eyes of customers. TATA and Mahindra are respected for their CSR activities. Make videos that advertises your CSR activity, make it loud on a large platform (only if your capital permits). But do not advertise your social activities using paid campaigns. Example: CEAT tyres under the CEAT Safety banner arranged stretchers, barricades and a changing room in Kumbh Mela 2019. These amenities were strategically provided at the most crowded places with an intention to serve the devotees, and a video on Youtube was issued to publicize their social service at Kumbh Mela. 4) Keep your videos short and sweet Unless the content demands it, do not stretch your videos for too long. Business researchers will only watch your video if it is on point and not unnecessarily lengthy. Of course, business researchers do watch long videos if the content demands it. Keeping

5 tips to boost your google ads
Google Ads, Uncategorized

5 tips to boost your Google Ads

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Google receives almost 6 billion searches every day and many of the search page results include Google Ads (previously called Adwords). Google Ads can play a very significant role when it comes to drive relevant and quality traffic to your website. Google Ads are displayed on the top of SERP followed by organic search results. They appear like this: Results in red box are Google Ads and results in green box which are displayed below the red box are organic results. How do Google Ads appear? Google Ads work with the very simple formula. Google Ad auction is focused around keywords. Advertisers focus on the list of keywords which are most likely to be used by people for a product or service of their industry. Then they bid on these keywords, basing on how much they are willing to pay for a Google user to click on their Ad. Google’s algorithm is such that it combines the bid and quality score of the ad and determines which ad must be displayed on the SERP. When the users click on their ad, advertisers pay a fee to Google. This is how Google Ads appear on SERP. If you already have a Google Ad and want to optimize it to the best then this blog is perfect for you. Tips that will work for Google Ads. 1) Make your landing page appealing Viewers who clicked your Google Ad will land to your landing page. Google Ad completed its duty by bringing traffic to your page and now it is the duty of landing page to be appealing enough to convert viewers into customers. You should optimize your landing page for PPC conversions by making the message of your ads align with your landing page message. KEYWORDS ➡ GOOGLE ADS ➡ LANDING PAGE Repeat the message of Google Ad on your landing page which will craft more compelling content and increase the conversion rates. Be very clear about your offer and highlight the CTA button where you think that a particular place on your page has high probability of getting clicked. 2) Fill all the Ad content ETA (Expanded Text Ad) were introduced to the world of AdWords in 2016 which made a substantial impact. It is desirable to fill all the details of Google ad which will make your Ad more compelling. It’s like you get more character space to write for your Ad. This field gives you the additional space to write. Take full advantage of this field as it allows you to describe more about your brand, offer and idea. Final URL – Make this unique and highly relevant landing page. Headline 1 – Put the name of your brand or the primary value of your Ad. Headline 2 – You can set up the base of your description or secondary value for your Ad. Headline 3- Now this is the new space provided by Google, use it to attract customers. Description – This is the money maker section where the needs of customers will be solved by your solution. Put a strong CTA at the end of description to help frame the ad and engage your reader. This is how your Ad will look when you fill all the fields of your Ad content. 3) Eliminate negative Keywords Yes, there are keywords which negatively affect your ad campaign and advertisers don’t realise it. Keywords such as “free” or “jobs” will bring you visitors who want free products or services. These visitors will not add to your customer base. If main objective of your advertisement is to increase sales then never use keywords that include word “free”. By optimizing your ads for negative keywords, you can help eliminate any potential searches that would waste your ad budget without bringing you the return you want to see. Making your lists more efficient so that they remain focused directly on the prospects most likely to engage with your brands will ensure that your money goes to the best possible use. 4) Track which mode is bringing traffic Track everything you can. Get answer to following questions to improvise your Google Ad. Which campaign is bringing most traffic? Which site has highest bounce rate? Which site has longest average time on site? These questions can be easily answered by UTM codes. UTM codes helps you track everything from keywords to campaigns. They are just the codes which are attached at the end of the URL. It helps in determining source, medium and campaign name. This will enable Google Analytics to tell you from where visitors reached your site and by which campaign. This is how UTM codes will show up in your Google Analytics dashboard. UTM codes help you determine 3 main things. 1) Traffic Source This will help you know that from which source traffic is generated. Add utm_source to know traffic source parameter. Your traffic source could be facebook, Instagram, Google, Bing etc. 2) Medium It determines that what was the medium of generating traffic? It could be cpc, referral, email, display etc. Example – &utm_medium= email. 3) Campaign Name It allows you to determine the performance of a specific campaign. It helps you differentiate Facebook campaign from email campaign or any other campaign. By knowing the performance of every individual campaign, you can determine which campaign should be focused more or which one should be removed or just improvise your strategy. Example – &utm _campaign=example_campaign 5) Offline Tracking Why to keep account of only online deals? You provide your phone number in the Google Ad to contact you for any queries. This is also a medium where traffic is generated. It is important to track which campaign or keyword enabled them to call here. Google analytics keep an account for that but it does not show campaign name or keywords. Google analytics give you only start and end time of the call, call duration, area code and call type. You want to track everything like UTM codes. So you

LinkedIn Ads

How to Improve your LinkedIn Profile

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WHAT IS LINKEDIN? LinkedIn is a social media platform that often seems to work merely like an employment exchange agency, although it goes way beyond just that. The feed of LinkedIn is similar to, say, Facebook’s feed and it is user friendly just like any other social media. Whether you’ve never used LinkedIn or have been on LinkedIn for years, this blog might help you learn how to improve your LinkedIn profile. The difference between LinkedIn and other social media like Facebook or Instagram is the intention of people. People here are not for entertainment purpose – to stalk, to troll, to add spice to gossip or to flaunt, but usually for a more serious professional purpose. Here people check and view others’ profile page, which is more like a personal sales page. It is not just a regular bio where people write about themselves – what they like, what they prefer, what they hate, etc. Here people list down their skills, key interest areas, places they have worked, testimonials from colleagues; they join groups of their fraternity, follow alumni to check what they are up to, and much more. If you have created a LinkedIn profile and are baffled about what to do next after creating your initial connections, then this blog will help you determine how to improve your LinkedIn profile . WAYS TO IMPROVE LINKEIN PROFILE. 1) Join a group Yes, this is the first thing you must do to develop your profile. Perhaps after creating your account you just went on connecting to people you know from different industries, who could be your friends, relatives or colleague. Your main motive may have been just to increase the number of connections. If you join a group which is of same industry or people from the same fraternity, then it will enable you to know people and enable relevant people to know you. This will help you make a lot of useful connections and you will be able to make a strong network. You can also join the group of your seniors or classmates to stay in touch. 2) Update your profile Maybe you are very busy with your current job which never allows you to pause and think about your current LinkedIn profile. Maybe you changed 2 or 3 jobs and did not update your profile. Well great, this is the biggest mistake on LinkedIn. It is like putting a veil on your resume. There are so many recruiters on LinkedIn that are searching for appropriate employees with relevant experience. When you update your profile, you give yourself a complete chance to be discovered by these recruiters to check your profile and provide a job that you deserve. Even if you have a business, you may get potential clients or partnerships if you’ve updated your profile. 3) Check the list of your skills If you still have Good with Ms Excel, Ms PowerPoint and Ms Word in your skills then you need to filter this list. These are common skills that almost everyone on LinkedIn possesses, and is no big deal. You need to write something unique which will fetch you a job. You can write things which are the core demands of your industry, but do not write small things which will add nothing to your profile. 4) Customize your LinkedIn profile When you first created your account, you must have received a long, unappealing URL which definitely does not look great. Now is the time to treat yourself as a brand and make your own URL which is appealing. Isn’t it great to move from Neha-sharma-118996 to NehaSharma? You can customize your URL is these easy steps: Go to your profile In the right corner click to “EDIT PROFILE AND URL” Edit your URL and write a more suitable one. 5) Request for Recommendations When you apply for a job and make it to the last few rounds, many recruiters may ask for some references. Not only recruiters but also customers require recommendations for a business owner or for a service provider. Isn’t it great when people who know you and value you are ready to endorse you publicly? When you get an endorsement from your past supervisor or colleague, it shows your profile visitors that people vouch for you and for your work. A lot of people do not feel OK asking for recommendations, but if you’ve done genuinely good work there should be no embarrassment in giving a little nudge. You could ask within LinkedIn or write an email or drop a message anywhere else. Ask, and you will receive. So do it really fast, ask for a recommendation and improve your profile. 6) Update your profile picture Although I am writing this point towards the end, it does not mean that it is of the least concern. A person who is active on social media will usually keep his or her recent photo, and will update it at regular intervals. This shows a sense of interest and suggests to visitors that the person must be responsive on that social media. If you pamper your LinkedIn account by regularly updating it, then recruiters can expect a quick reply from your side. So do update your pictures regularly. 7) Follow the right people You are on LinkedIn not only for seeking a job or clients, but also to get wise and sensible advice from people around the world. If you follow people that you admire, who are from same industry and successful, then you will get a ton of knowledge and information about your industry, learn tactics, get recent updates, monitor companies and learn about various industry events. LinkedIn is more than your personal network, so always be willing to peep outside of it. 8) Stay active! Last but not least, stay active on LinkedIn by replying to personal messages, commenting on interesting posts, and making your own posts regularly. This will help your personal brand to stay top of mind for your

SEO vs PPC
Facebook Ads, Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads, SEO

SEO vs PPC – How To Decide

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Search Engine Optimization and Pay-per-click (on search engines) are the ways that help you grow traffic on your website. Both the techniques are useful to fulfill your purpose but the selection depends on the type, scale and motive of the business. The end goal of both the approaches are the same but the way they work is quite different. Explore our blog SEO vs PPC to decide which technique is the best for your business. Before you move ahead for SEO vs PPC comparison and determine which one is more desirable for you, let us first understand both the techniques in brief. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO) SEO is the practice of increasing quantity and quality of traffic through organic search results. It is the organic approach of attracting visitors. Google crawls your website and with the help of its algorithm, it determines the quality and content of the site and ranks the pages accordingly on Search engine page results for different search queries. PAY PER CLICK (PPC) Pay per click is the technique where advertisers pay a fee to the search engine every time their ad is clicked. It is like buying visits for your site rather than making an attempt to earn them organically. Typically, if you put any search query into Google, the first few links are likely to be paid ads. (New to PPC? Learn how to set up your first campaign here.) APPROACHES Both the approaches are completely different but a businessman or a website owner’s objectives may differ. A businessman who can afford the cost of PPC and desires to get huge traffic to his website quickly, and demands big turnover, will opt for PPC. But a small businessman who can afford the time to boost the traffic by improving quality will opt for SEO. And a businessman who understands the importance of a website’s quality and the significance of attracting visitors that will get converted to customers will opt for both the techniques. It will be a hybrid approach of SEO and PPC and this approach is often most desirable. WHEN IS IT BEST TO USE SEO? WHEN CONSISTENT RESULTS ARE REQUIRED SEO is not a practice that will happen overnight or in a week. You need to have patience and wait to get your site show up on the first page of search result. Once your site is there, you may get to enjoy consistent and free traffic. If you continue with the same tactics and SEO campaigns, you will be able to stay there and can reap fruits for a longer period. DESIRE TO BE AN AUTHENTIC SITE  It’s like building a reputation for your website on the virtual platform. When the content on your site is so relevant that it makes the other members of your niche to recommend your website. It is like the “go to” website for your niche. Your webpage will get mentions that will generate backlinks and this helps Google to determine how significant your website is in your niche. This way your website will be able to get a lot of traffic which is organic, significant and consistent. INCREASE THE VALUE OF YOUR SITE   In case you think of selling the website in the near future, you can earn a higher price only when the value of your website really stands out in the market. Websites are like real estates on the digital platform. To earn a good price, you need to augment the value of your website. Some of the variables that go into determining the value of your website are: Traffic generated Consistency of traffic generated Page rank Search engine rankings over the period of time Link popularity Likes and Followers on Social Media (Check out our Link Building Guide for SEO.) These factors fall under the ambit of SEO. WHEN IS IT BEST TO USE PPC? WHEN YOUR BUSINESS DEMANDS IMMEDIATE RESULTS PPC results come very fast! The results are instantaneous. Once your paid promotion campaign is started, you can get a lot of visitors visiting your page immediately. This happens because once your PPC campaign is approved, provided that your bids are high enough to get the priority placement, your advertisement is seen by plenty of people who can click on it to visit your webpages. This works really well for product launches, affiliate marketing, seasonal promotions, event marketing and many more. WHEN YOUR SITE DOES NOT QUALIFY SEO CRITERIA For SEO, website needs to be rich in content and must be regularly updated. This is the only way to say to Google that your site is relevant and it must keep your site on top of the pile. But many websites cannot afford regular updates. Also, some keyword categories are so competitive that it seems unrealistic to be among the first few links in that niche. Also, just think about squeeze pages, what is there to update on such a page at regular intervals? (Squeeze pages are pages with forms and no other links, they force your visitors to either sign-up the form and get the offer or to leave the site. They’re usually high-converting pages.) Squeeze pages usually can’t even afford to merit themselves on the second page of Google. Such pages can grab traffic through PPC campaigns. DOMINATE YOUR KEYWORD CATEGORY. When you are very sure about the keywords which are apt and also popular on search engines that will bring paying customers to your business, then dominating that keyword is a great move. PPC results are always displayed over organic search results. And 50% of the traffic goes to the top 3 sponsored links. So if your business requires instant traffic, quick conversions, or to maximize your turnover by dominating the keyword category, then you must opt for PPC. CONCLUSION One cannot choose which method is better without knowing the motive and the website’s situation. In my opinion, you must never believe that there is a trade-off between SEO and PPC. Both the techniques (SEO vs PPC)

How to set up your first google Ads
Google Ads, Uncategorized

How To Set Up Your First Google Ad

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Google Ads (earlier called Adwords) is Google’s advertising system in which marketers bid on certain keywords so that their clickable ads come first on Google search page results. This blog is all about how to set your first Google ad account, Google campaign and your first Google text ad. A step by step guide for creating a Google Ad Account. STEP 1 First you need to go on https://ads.google.com and click the START NOW button. Congratulations, you are now starting the process to make your first ever Google ad! STEP 2 You can use your own Google account to sign-in, or if you want to make a different account then you can set up one. STEP 3 You will land to this page. You can skip the “goals of advertisement: because here we focus on creating a Google ad account (not the simpler “Google Ad Express” account which has limited features). So just click on Experienced with Google Ads? STEP 4 You can select any type of campaign you want. But here we are skipping that part as we will cover it later, so just click on Create an account without a campaign. Alternately, you can also create a dummy campaign and then pause it immediately after the account is created. STEP 5 Now you have to fill up all the details about your billing country, time zone and currency. Everything here is by default in the context of your country. If you want to edit any of this, you can do it here. STEP 6 Congratulations! You are done here. Just click on Explore account and you will land on the dashboard of your new Google Ad Account. STEP 7 YOUR GOOGLE AD ACCOUNT DASHBOARD HOW TO CREATE YOUR FIRST GOOGLE AD CAMAPAIGN Now that you have made your Google Ad account, your next step is to create your first Google Ad Campaign. STEP 1 You can go to campaigns at the left corner and click the blue + button STEP 2 1) Google Ads wants to help you by asking certain specifications. You can now select a goal for your campaign. You can select from the following: Sales Leads Website Traffic Product and Brand Consideration Product and Brand Awareness App Promotion Without a goal’s guidance  Here I am selecting Sales because it is a common purpose for running Google Ads. You can select any of them which suits your purpose. 2) Now you have to select the Campaign type from the following Search Display Shopping Video I want my campaign to be of Search type, where the user types in a relevant search query in Google and then my add shows up. So here I will select Search. 3) You can see the 4 options given to you for selecting a way to reach your goal. Website Visits Phone Calls Shop Visits App downloads In this example, I will select Website visits. Phone Calls is a good option if your business runs mostly on phone calls – such as if you’re a service provider. Shop visits and App downloads are, of course, relevant if you have a physical shop or if you have a mobile app for which you want more downloads. STEP 3 1) Give a name to your campaign. The name is not shown to anyone else, but it is for your own use. Keep it relevant to your business and its purpose. Here I have named my campaign as Digital Marketing Services. 2) Enter your location. You can be very specific here or leave it to the default state. It depends on your campaign type and your target audience. In Search ads, it is recommended to not narrow down your target audience too much unless you have a specific niche to target to. 3) Language You can select language apart from the default language, which is English. 4) You can add extensions for Site links, Callouts and Calls. They are not compulsory but are available and can help your ads’ performance. STEP 4 Now it’s time to create your Ad Group. A single campaign can have multiple ad groups. For example, you could have a campaign for generating sales on an ecommerce site, whereas each ad group might target different types of audiences or product categories. Here I am creating only one ad group as an example. My ad group is for “social media marketing services”. This is that product or service you want to sell. You can take the help of keyword planner tool to suggest the best ideas for the ‘keywords’ for your product or service. (Keywords are what the user will type into Google search for your ad to appear.) Google Ads also provides you many ideas relevant to your business. Select the best ideas for your ad and save and continue. There are four types of keywords which you can learn in detail about on this link. STEP 5 Now is the time to create your first ever text Ad. 1) First enter the final URL of the webpage you want your visitors to visit when they click your Ad. 2) Write Headline 1 and Headline 2 (maximum 30 characters) and an optional Headline 3, and a mini-description (maximum 90 characters) which will be displayed like this: Click on save and continue button and hey, congratulations! You created your first Ad Campaign on Google Ads. Google also came up with the new ‘responsive search ads’ which you can read about by clicking here. If you faced any doubts, feel free to reach out to us. About the Author: Tanushri Saxena is pursuing her MBA from GLS, Ahmedabad. Currently, she is interning as a content writer at WebKow. She enjoys an occasional cup of coffee.

How Uber Cracked India's Code For Digital Marketing
Case-Study, Uncategorized

How Uber cracked India’s code with Digital Marketing

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SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY When it comes to online marketing strategy, an easy first step is to focus on social media. Uber is present on all social media platforms to connect to the millennial who form a major part of their customer base. Uber is deeply aware of its target audience and the ways to engage with them. SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE OF UBER      SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM URL LIKES/ FOLLOWERS Facebook https://www.facebook.com/uber.IND/ 22,158,300 Twitter https://twitter.com/Uber   991000 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/uber/ 945000 LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/uber-com/ 1010700 Let’s get a glimpse of Uber’s Social Media presence through Facebook, where Uber has more than 22M likes. Uber’s Facebook account is more of a broadcasting account where it reveals all the latest offers and deals. Uber’s content comprises of Video marketing Updating Customers Repositioning Brand UBER SOCIAL MEDIA  APPEALING OFFERS In India, Cricket is not just a game but an emotion and the Cricket World Cup is treated as a festival. So just before the 2019 Cricket World Cup, Uber has titillated customers by offering them a chance to fly to England by earning runs through rides. The highest earner will fly to England to watch the World cup.  FOLLOWING THE TREND At the time of writing this blog, the Game of Thrones final season has been the buzziest topic to market. A key factor for audience engagement is to follow the trend which connects people, and Uber is doing exactly this. PROMOTING THE APP Mother’s Day is always celebrated by showing love, care and affection on social media. Many people surprise their moms with gifts and trips, and many brands use this opportunity to connect with people. Uber doesn’t miss these trends, and shares exciting and relevant details of its upcoming offers and updates in apps. One of the finest example is Uber app has a feature of sharing your Trip Status. You can now share your current status to your closed ones which will keep you safe and will provide a sense of security. Of course the one who is mostly concerned about your wellbeing is your mom. This is a creative way to advertise with the example of a mom and a daughter and highlight the trip sharing feature. UBER WEBSITE  IMAGES MORE THAN TEXT Any advertisement, post or website only has a few seconds to grab the user’s attention. This can be done through simple and clear images. Uber’s website has clear and big images which make it easy to understand the service Uber offers. Customers with warm and pleasant faces are shown. To show that the customers are happy and you are at right place to have a pleasant service of a private driver. VIDEOS MORE THAN IMAGES At the time of writing this, the front page of Uber’s website has an emotional and sensitive video of a deaf driver, first transgender driver and a Saudi Arab woman driving. This is all pointing towards a radical change in the world. Videos of human and animal concerns connect with people. Indirectly, they also connect with the brand. https://www.uber.com/in/en/ PARTNERSHIPS WITH FACEBOOK People often make plans on messaging apps. Whether it be a birthday party or a college reunion, marriage reception or office work, FB messenger has been used to plan it all. There is no need to open a separate application to book a ride. You can now book a ride while interacting in the messaging app itself. Just check that your messenger app is of latest version. SOME AREAS OF IMPROVEMENT CALL TO ACTION BUTTONS Uber’s website contains very clear and big images. However, it doesn’t have a prominent call-to-action on the first screen that opens up. (Call-to-action buttons are for the actions websites want visitors to take – such as signing up.) Visitors have to scroll down the website to see the Call-to-action buttons. Generally, if a website wants more conversions then its Call-to-action button should be in the zone where it has the highest probability to get clicked – i.e. the very first screen. First Screen: Right at the bottom: Key takeaways: Social Media is all about timing. Use the current trends and whatever’s on your audience’s mind and connect it with your brand to get higher engagement. Wherever possible, try to highlight your product’s features by socially relevant messaging, such as the Mother’s Day example shared above. Have a website with clear messages and relevant images that make visitors easily connect with your brand. Give prominent places to the most important Call-to-Action on your webpages, especially your homepage. About the Author: Tanushri Saxena is pursuing her MBA from GLS, Ahmedabad. Currently, she is interning as a content writer at WebKow. She enjoys an occasional cup of coffee and is an avid Game of Thrones fan.

Link Building guide for SEO
SEO

Link Building Guide for SEO

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What is link building? Links are votes of trust, and link building is a signal to Google that your site is a quality source worthy of citation. For example: If you visit an unknown place and ask for a good coffee shop and 4 people point towards one cafe, your votes of trust will lead you to that coffee bar. Google works in the same way. The more the number of sites linking to yours, the more likely Google is to showcase your site higher in the search results. Of course, it also matters what kind of sites are linking in to you. Are they reliable? We’ll explore all this in more detail below. How do links help in ranking? Let us understand this with an example Student activity time: There are 5 girls in the class of 100 students who are nominated to become the captains of 5 houses. The ranking of the houses are as follows: Captains Rank Blue house 1 Red house 2 Green house 3 Pink house 4 Yellow house 5 Student votes for these representatives will determine their rank. The girl with the highest votes gets the Blue house, and the one with the lowest gets the Yellow house. Links are votes here. Your website is one of the representatives. The number of links pointing to your website will be a big factor in determining your rank in SERP (Search Engine Results Page). This example does not explain the quality aspect of links. Not only the number of links (quantity), but also the quality of links matters. What is meant by ‘quality’ of links? There are two types of links. Natural links Unnatural links Natural links When webmasters, bloggers or website owners link to your site because they think that content on your site is useful and effective. Your content earns these links. These links are not invited, not made by manipulative tactics, and are not at all self-made to boost ranking. Yes, the process is long, and organic links are earned on the basis of your content’s worth. Google algorithm is smart enough to determine natural and unnatural links. Links coming from authentic domains are of high quality and more such links will give you a higher score. These links build reputation and help you fetch more relevant traffic. Unnatural links Links which are not editorially placed or vouched for by the site’s owner on a page. Many owners make links and place them on their own page to boost ranking. This breaches the guidelines of Google webmaster and Google simply tracks it and penalises it. There are links which are purchased, but this too can often be traced by Google. (Buying and selling of goods and services for a link also means purchase of links). Digital marketers face severe penalties, so it is not advisable to indulge in any such activity that puts your site at a risk. Do not focus on quantity of links, focus on quality of links. A hundred new blogs linking to your site will be less useful than a high authority site like CNN.com linking to it. Earn quality links, earn real trust. Internal and external links       Internal links are also known as inbound links. They direct the reader to a particular target page on your own website. On the other hand, external links direct the reader on a reputable external webpage from your website. Of course, you don’t want your reader to move away, but it is desirable to have relevant external links if they will help your readers. Internal links might prompt a viewer to learn more about a topic or schedule a contact to learn more. External links that navigate to webpages of a similar kind will help Google to understand more about our website. More internal and external links that are navigated to appropriate pages will help Google in crawling and so your site will be properly index. No-follow and do-follow links: No-follow link is just a useless link from an SEO perspective that does not have any back linking love to pour to your website. No-follow links ask Google to not consider them. It comes with a no-follow HTML tag. All links are do-follow by default links unless they are provided with a no-follow tag. If you don’t want to give your link to an unreliable site, then you could use a no-follow tag so that it doesn’t harm your ranking. Link building strategies: 1) Ask for backlinks This is a good way to start. Think about your friends, relatives and all the contacts that write a blog or have a website. Ask them for in-content links and not for links which are displayed in the side bar or footer. Make sure that the blog they write or the post content in which they link to you is relevant to your website’s content. 2) Build relationships Start building relationships from niche related communities. These could be in the form of forums, groups or social blogs such as Link Building Experts Group on Facebook. Initiate, interact and build contacts. You can take the first step by commenting and posting frequently, and giving contextual value to each discussion. By taking active participation in these forums and groups, you will not only gain backlinks but also get to know about any news or updates from your industry. 3) Start a blog Do not make a blog with one post or to generate one backlink. You need to keep your blog alive. Make blogs which are very specific to your niche and client’s needs. This will enable other website owners of your niche to get relevant data, and they will end up giving your reference. Earn backlinks by tempting them with your on-point content. 4) List your site on trustworthy directories:  There are so many directories that provide no real value to the users and Google doesn’t really care about them. You do not want to list your website in those directories. But not

SEO, Uncategorized

How to do an SEO Audit

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SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the practice of increasing quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search results. SEO audit is the process of analyzing how well your web presence relates to SEO best practices. Learning how to do an SEO audit is the first step of developing an SEO plan and strategy. Let’s get started with the basics. What is quality traffic? Of course your website has a lot of potential to attract visitors, but if Google tells foodies to visit your site because your restaurant MANGO is supposed to be a chill frill place with good ambience and delicious food, but actually you are the owner of a mango garden, it is not quality traffic. Quality traffic is when people with a relevant interest or intent visit your site. Quantity traffic – Once you get the right people clicking through from those search engine result pages, more traffic is better. However, quantity without quality can backfire, as it’d mean a very high bounce rate and lower reputation for Google’s algorithms. Organic results – Traffic that comes to your site from a search engine, without any paid advertisement campaign. What is the meaning of SEO audit then? It is the process of determining a website’s friendship with search engines. It evaluates how well the website is optimized for generating high quality and quantity organic traffic. And why on earth do you need to conduct an SEO audit of your website? In real life you adjust a bit to maintain relationships. You bow, you abide by certain customs, you cooperate, and this is how relationship go. The same is the case with search engines and your website. They are friends, right? Your website need to abide by the basic rules, principles and adjust a bit according to Google’s requirements, so that Google (as well as other search engines) keep sending you traffic! So how do you do an SEO audit? For that we need to go through the steps of SEO audit. SEO AUDIT STEPS: 1) CHECK FOR GOOGLE PENALTIES Yes, you read it right. As your teacher penalized you in your school for not obeying rules, Google could penalize your website. You may lose your Google traffic if you are in the blacklist. For avoiding this, you must know that there are 2 types of Google penalties. A) Manual penalty Remember how your classmates use to complain about you when you were a kid. In the same way users (mostly web spam team) can impose a penalty to your site. You can check what the complaint is by logging in Google search console >> search traffic >> manual actions. There you can find the message which discloses the reason why you are penalized, and also the solutions to recover it. Follow it and then send a reconsideration request. B) Algorithm penalty This penalty lies in darkness. You will not be able to find out the exact reason why your site is penalized. You need to be updated to all the amendments that take place with Google’s algorithm. For that you can get to Google analytics, compare your traffic which may have increased or decreased in comparison to prior to the date of update and take action accordingly. What to do if your site is blacklisted by Google? Go through the changes that Google has made and adjust your SEO strategy accordingly. For example – thin content issues are very common, so ensure you improve or change your content and make it relevant for the visitors. 2) SEARCH APPEARANCE It is all about how your website shows up in search results. You must check the following. Does your homepage appear first in the search results when you search your brand? Does it show the site links along with your listing? Is the small description below your homepage accurate? Are the rest of the pages listed on the first page relevant to your brand? If all the points are not ticked by you then the best approach to get it are Review and optimize your site structure Review your homepage on-site description, meta-tags, etc. Claim your Google my business page and give all the information correctly and accurately. 3) TECHNICAL SEO A) Search console – Is your website registered with Google search console? No? Then stop reading, go ahead and get it registered. It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes. It is a free tool provided by Google that discloses a ton of information and data that Google has for your site. It answers questions like – How many pages are submitted to Google? – How many pages are actually indexed? – Which keywords will generate Google traffic? It helps you to determine coverage by showing total clicks, total impressions, average click through rate (CTR) and average position, your web search clicks, your logos and many more. B) Site maps – The next thing you must check is your sitemap. Have you created a sitemap? But wait, what is a sitemap anyway? Sitemap is an XML file that contains the list of all webpages on your site. It allows Google to detect and crawl your website. If you want to control what must be crawled, then create a robot.txt file. A mistake in robot.txt file can cause some serious indexing issues. So getting your robot.txt file optimized should be a high priority for you. C) Are URLs SEO friendly? Pay good attention to your URLs. They must be perfectly formatted. Poorly formatted URLs are keyword-stuffed and messy, while a good URL is separated by hyphens and slashes. E.g. Bad URL – https://www.notgoodurl.com/12/badformattedurl/121358898 Good URL – https://www.example.com/good-formatted-url A secured website always has an upper hand over non-secure websites. Make sure your URL is of https version by having an SSL certificate installed on your site. Also never use ‘underscore’ (_) in your URLs, use hyphens (-) instead. D) Check your breadcrumbs You may have liked to prepare an index for your notebooks. You simply fill up the

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