Author name: Neeraj Ramnani

Free Marketing Tools

Top 11 Free Marketing Tools To Supercharge Your Traffic

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When it comes to tools that we actually use as a digital marketing agency, we are quite frugal… Why pay for software when you get a similar result for free? So this is a list of eleven free tools that we regularly use for ourselves and for our clients to be successful with our marketing. 11 Best Free Marketing Tools 1. MailerLite Mailerlite allows you to create a few simple landing pages on their free-forever plan (this is no 14-day or 30-day trial. Now other email service providers have free plans like Convertkit and Mailchimp but they don’t allow you to send automatic emails on their free plans- something which Mailerlite does allow. 2. Ubersuggest The next free tool on our list is a keyword research tool. There are so many out there but after testing quite a few of them I’m not going to say that Ubersuggest gives you the best bang for your buck, especially when your buck is zero, i.e. when you’re not paying anything. Unlike what it was in its initial days, they have actually started to gate some of the results inside of Ubersuggest. However, if you just need some keyword ideas, you want to see some posts that are ranking for keywords you want to go after or you just want to see how a competitor’s website is performing, Ubersuggest gives you a lot of information that you don’t have to pay for. 3. Google Trends If you still can’t figure out what you should be talking about Google trends is this little-known gem that you can actually type in different keywords and subjects and you’ll be able to see the current search volume trend. This is great especially if you’re trying to make content that is relevant now and updated versus trying to make those really long blog posts or really long youtube videos that are more evergreen and going to rank forever. So you can get a lot of great ideas from google trends as well. 4. WordPress Now when it comes to your blog itself- you can actually get started with WordPress for free. Now obviously there are lots of plugins, including many paid ones, there are lots of other things you could do if you decided to upgrade in the future. But if you go to wordpress.com (or .org if you want to host it separately on a server), and go to their pricing page you’ll actually see that you can get started creating a free site. WordPress is one of the largest digital communities around, so you can basically get most of the features you can think of and get answers to most of the common questions just by a few Google searches. An absolute winner for all kinds of businesses. 5. Calendly Next on our list is going to be Calendly. This is a calendar booking application so someone can set appointments with you ahead of time and as a part of an agency I can tell you that this is such a lifesaver because you never want to have the back and forth that you have to go through when it comes to scheduling… Especially if you’re in different time zones like I am where sometimes we are halfway across the world from our clients and so this just makes sure everyone understands what time they’re supposed to be meeting in their specific time zone, and it eliminates all of the back and forth emails. 6. Canva The 6th one is going to be Canva. You’ve probably heard of Canva before and if you haven’t already this is an awesome tool for creating pretty much any graphic under the sun. In fact, all of the graphics that are created on our website are a combination of just ppt slides and Canva, I have no photoshop experience personally, and Canva really has a lot of great templates there whether you’re trying to make a lead magnet pdf or you’re just creating a business card for some reason. 7. Pdf escape Now right next to Canva is something called pdf escape and this is where you can actually create editable fields inside of your pdf. So if you create a worksheet. or a template or some sort of script inside of Canva you can actually upload it to pdf escape and you can start making drop-down menus and you can have places where people can actually type in their own information and save it themselves. A lot of people who create pdfs just don’t do this extra step and pdf escape does allow you to do it for free, of course, you can always upgrade in the future if you want to save your work – that’s the downside of the free plan.  8. Google Optimize And this next one is one of the most underrated marketing tools out there because it’s free, and a lot of software’s try and charge you a ton of money to do this when you can just do it for free… And best of all this actually can work with Mailerlite as well even if you’re using the free plan. The tool is Google Optimize. And so long story short what this does is it allows you to split test your pages so say you’re driving traffic to a page on your website or landing page and you want to try changing the headline or changing the image to see if maybe the new headline gets more people to opt-in versus what you have now or maybe you’re going to get more social shares if you have this headline on your blog post versus the other one, well with google optimize you can do this. So, you don’t have to pay for any fancy software to split test any page on your site: headlines, images, bullet points, body paragraphs, you name it, you can test it with Google Optimize. You just have to install some code on your website and then you

B2B digital marketing

B2B Lead Generation Strategies (3 Easy Techniques)

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In this article, we will cover actionable B2B lead generation strategies for generating leads online for your business. These strategies will work even when you’re just getting started on a tight budget. When it comes to lead generation there are only two things you need to do: Find your ideal customer Collect their contact information So in this B2B lead generation guide, you’re going to learn actionable and free techniques to find your ideal customers. We will also cover ways to attract them into your funnel. We will start off the first few techniques with how we attract our ideal customers or ideal prospects. In the next few techniques, we will talk about how to convert them. And finally, in the last step, we will finish with what do you do with the leads once you have that contact information. 1. Content Marketing for B2B Lead Generation When it comes to free B2B lead generation techniques or strategies, content marketing continues to be the best route. Content marketing is about engaging your prospects, educating your potential customers, positioning yourself as a trusted authority, and most importantly exceeding the value of your paid offers. There are three types of content posts that you should stick to in order to ensure that every content post that you create is actually pushing forward the sales process (as opposed to just being a nice video or blog post that some random person watches or reads.). So here are the three: “How to” posts Reviews Decision guides Here I want to talk about the three different platforms you should be looking at when it comes to B2B lead generation specifically, because platforms like Pinterest, Instagram or Facebook are not really going to help you all that much to generate leads, especially in a business-to-business environment. However, if we look at podcasting, blogs, and YouTube there is a lot more opportunity and it’s a lot easier to convert leads from those platforms. So let’s first talk about the “old but gold”, and that’s blogging. a) Publish Blogs for B2B Lead Generation The good news is all the information you need on how to write a great blog and do SEO is available free on YouTube. You really don’t need to pay for any courses when you’re just getting started. When it comes to blogging itself, what’s very important is you have blog posts that are at least 1500 words. At least some of the posts you make should be 1500 words or even more- 2500 to 3000 words may work even better. Use this blog post to attract traffic from search engines, and then focus on converting them through a clear call-to-action (such as a free consultation call with you). b) Podcast The main advantage with podcasts is of course you don’t have to show your face like on video, and it’s a great way to attract your ideal customers on the go. Podcasts can actually build relationships- and it’s easy to have a call-to-action via links in the description or mentioning email addresses on the podcast. c) Video The final one is a video on YouTube. You can create a how-to post, a review post, or a decision guide that’s very specific to your niche or industry. In many cases, you will find that there’s not a lot of competition for being successful on YouTube for niche industries. The key is to view YouTube as a search engine as opposed to a social media platform because you are not competing with the channels that have millions and millions of subscribers, you are creating educational-style content mainly for the ‘search box’ of YouTube. Now once you’ve got your content strategy in place, how do you get people who’ve seen your blog posts, watched a video, or listened to a podcast to provide their contact information so you can continue your sales process? This is where something called a lead magnet comes in – providing something of value in exchange for that contact information. 2. Lead Magnet A lead magnet is a free item or service that is given away for the purpose of collecting users’ contact details. For example, lead magnets can be free subscriptions, downloadable e-books, free video courses, e-newsletters, and free consultations.  What contact details should you be asking? If your sales process involves you calling people back then go ahead and ask for their name and phone number, if you can follow up with them via email and then later on in the process you can ask for their phone number then go ahead and just ask for their email. A general rule of thumb the more information you ask for the less leads you will get. Here are some specific ideas of how you can design a lead magnet: a) Provide some Niche Training This is quite hard to put together but also very rewarding for lead generation. The training needs to be something that is genuinely different and truly based upon your own personal experience- something that they’re not going to find just browsing YouTube or trying to learn something. Ideally, in this training we want the user to have them have some sort of mini epiphany, an “aha” moment. This cements you as someone who can be genuinely helpful and valuable. b) Template A template is an easy-to-follow fill-in-the-blank type process that you’re providing to your potential customer. An example is a template to track your habits or to write your first sales email etc. The goal is to make some processes very simple for the user. Of course, the process should be related and relevant to the niche you are in. c) E-Book Now, don’t worry, this isn’t as difficult as it may sound. You can easily design a simple 20-50 page short e-book on Canva or even PowerPoint, and cover some information about your niche. A cover, an index, an introductory page, and a final page with contact information- that’s already 4 pages. Add some images and some

YouTube

How to Promote a YouTube Channel [5 Simple Strategies]

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In this article, you’re going to learn five proven strategies to advertise and promote your YouTube channel to the right people. Before we dive into these five strategies, I want to mention the three big promotion mistakes that you need to avoid at all costs, when it comes to promoting your channel. 3 big promotion mistakes that you need to avoid 1. Commenting on other peoples video The very first one is commenting on other people’s videos. This is just going to make you look just desperate. This is for the newbies and kids. Do not comment on other people’s videos and then link back to yours unless you’re genuinely participating in another video through the comment. It doesn’t matter if you write a full-on blog post, as soon as you link to one of your videos or a link to your own channel: You’re going to annoy the creator because they know what you’re trying to do. Other people already know this game of pretending to “add value”, and then immediately asking for a like, subscribe, etc on someone else’s content. 2. Promoting in Facebook groups Another thing that’s going to waste your time in trying to promote your channel is advertising or promoting yourself inside of Facebook groups. Again, this is a common but outdated strategy of joining a bunch of Facebook groups in your niche or industry, adding value, and then a week or two later, going in and starting to promote your own content. As soon as you post a link to your own stuff, you look like you’re promoting yourself, which is indeed what you’re doing, which makes everything you did up until that point looks extremely disingenuous. 3. Buying Fake Views Please don’t use Fiverr and such other websites to promote your videos. They’re going to send bots. You can message them and say, “Hey, are you going to send robots?” And they’re going to say, “No, of course, we won’t send robots.” And then they’ll send robots and destroy your video. Also, they’re going to spam Facebook groups with your video and it’s actually going to be hurting your brand. So those are three things not to do. Avoid them at all cost. 5 Strategies to Promote a YouTube Channel Here are the five things you do want to be doing to Promote a YouTube Channel: 1. YouTube Discovery Ads to Promote a YouTube Channel Kicking things off with the very first one is actually using YouTube discovery ads to advertise your channel. What’s really cool about discovery ads is that these are ads that show up across YouTube, in search results, and as suggested videos on other videos. And so all you have to do is to go into the Google ads interface- you can sign up for Google ads for free, and then you can create a campaign and tell Google what channels you want to target. You want to look for 10 to 20 channels to target with your campaign and create a video ad that will talk about who you are and why people should subscribe to your channel. You can even re-upload an old content video of yours and change it a little bit (so that YouTube doesn’t penalize you for duplicate content.) It’s important that you don’t do this with your organic videos. Separate out the ones you use for Discovery ads because otherwise, it will mess up your view-time and other stats around your channel. So you can run your new or re-uploaded content videos or a special video that talks about why your channel is so great and awesome. Run those as discovery ads to these audiences. This is a great way for a few dollars a day, to gradually bring in brand awareness. So more people in your space know who you are. And of course, it brings in more likes, views, and the right kind of subscribers. 2. Content Circle Now the second great way to promote your channel is to leverage the power of the YouTube algorithm with a content circle. Chances are, you have a bunch of ideas of what kind of content you want to promote to your subscribers and potential audience. Here’s how the strategy works. You pick three to four topics that you really want your channel to be about. You want to signal to YouTube, “Hey, my channel is about these three or four topics.” The more specific you can get, the better. And then you make a bunch of videos around that topic. You want to do at least three to five different videos around any one topic. Here’s an example: Let’s say one of the things you like talking about is ‘how to lift heavier weights for benchpress’. So you go out and make five to seven videos about this topic- strategies, exercises, and so on. And you will within a few months start to rank for these types of keywords (or at least be much more likely to rank- if you have more than one video on the topic and the content is of good quality). Now what’s so powerful about this is that once you get one video to rank for that search term or variation of that search term, it’s a lot easier to get your other videos to rank. And they also get more traffic from the ‘suggested’ videos. Now, it does take a while. It can sometimes feel like you’re making the same video three or four different times, but it’s going to work in the long run. It’s going to help signal YouTube what your channel is about. And this will give you preferential treatment from the algorithm. 3. Content Build-up Now another strategy to help promote videos is to promote your videos inside of other videos. Initially, this is going to be very hard to do, if you only have a couple of videos on your channel, but this will become easier as time goes on. For

Facebook Ads, LinkedIn Ads

Facebook vs Linkedin ads: Which is better? [3 Things to know]

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Are you looking to generate leads or sales for your business through online advertising, but are not sure which channel is better- LinkedIn or Facebook ads? Well in this article I’m going to go through the pros and cons of each channel when it comes to doing paid advertising. When it comes to Facebook vs Linkedin ads, we will be looking at three main things: Targeting options available Algorithmic Intelligence behind the advertising platforms of Facebook or LinkedIn Cost/ROI: which one is going to be the most cost-effective and likely to give a better return on investment? One thing to keep in mind is that when it comes to which channel is best, there are a lot of different variables. So it’s not always a one clear-cut answer. Ultimately the only thing you can do to know for sure is to test it, and see which channel works best for your business. What I’m going to do to help you out is go through what I’ve experienced and learned when I’ve tested Facebook and LinkedIn. That might give you a jumpstart to set up your own campaigns. Another thing to keep in mind is that when it comes to advertising on LinkedIn and Facebook you need to have the right overall strategy. If you don’t have the right strategy, it doesn’t matter which channel you use. It’s just not going to work. Now with that, let’s start with the first thing we’re going to look at which is the targeting Facebook vs LinkedIn ads: A comparison of 3 Parameters 1. Targeting By targeting I mean how easy and effective it is to find your ideal clients on those respective channels. Now, people have experienced that Facebook ads- when it comes to things like targeting business owners or people inside of businesses at specific designations- is just not as powerful as LinkedIn. With LinkedIn, because of its detailed company targeting, you can really drill down and find exactly who you want to target. However, there are certain advantages that Facebook has over LinkedIn. First of all, Facebook has a lot more data than LinkedIn. I mean data in terms of the behaviour of actual users who are using Facebook platforms (and also remember Facebook owns Instagram and WhatsApp.) You can also advertise on Instagram through Facebook ads, and Facebook and Instagram are the largest social media channels. They are much bigger than LinkedIn in terms of total users and daily active users. Also note that when it comes to Facebook’s data, it’s not just about the amount of people Facebook, Instagram, etc. Facebook also has the Facebook pixel installed on a lot of different websites. Most websites will have the Facebook pixel installed, whereas most websites will not have the LinkedIn pixel installed. All that data is compiled together by Facebook. LinkedIn, on the other hand, has a lot of specific data when it comes to individuals, such as job titles, what company do they work at, what size is that company and very specific things like that. Over time, Facebook’s algorithm can see which people are responding to any ad and then they can look at those people and find similar people. So, the targeting will get better over time automatically. So ultimately which channel is better when it comes to targeting? I would give Facebook the advantage mainly because they’ve got so much data. There are some exceptions, but for a majority of businesses, FB ads can really help them target extremely well. 2. Algorithm Which advertising platform uses the best algorithms to get you the best results? How effective is the algorithm at optimizing your ads automatically? In this regard, Facebook algorithm is a lot more effective and smarter. Again, it just comes down to the data that Facebook has. FB Ads is the clear winner in this one. 3. Return on Investment Which one is going to be the most cost-effective solution for your business, and which one is going to get you the best return on investment? This one is difficult to answer because it’s going to be different for every business. I have had success both on LinkedIn and on Facebook – for myself as well as for my clients. Both channels have been able to generate good leads and sales. Both have potential for successful campaigns for nearly any business. However, for most businesses, the overall cost on Facebook is a lot less and the return on investment with Facebook is better than LinkedIn Using the sponsored messaging ad on LinkedIn can be somewhat better, but still not comparable to FB ads for most cases. Also note that the more generic the group of people in your target audience , the more advantages Facebook is going to have. I have found LinkedIn ads to be much more expensive in terms of cost per click and how many people you can reach and how many impressions you get and things like that, which ultimately means your cost per lead is usually higher on average. Conclusion on Facebook vs LinkedIn ads So, which platform should you use to set up your digital campaigns- Facebook or LinkedIn? My answer- If you want to know for certain you have to test both and just see what happens. If you have a limited budget or time, though, I would recommend Facebook ads over LinkedIn to start with.

Uncategorized

The 6 Basics of Digital Marketing in 2021 [The Ultimate Guide]

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I will talk about the basics of Digital Marketing in this article. These are important, well-known principles but yet many companies seem to ignore them. If you stick to only these basics 100% of the time in your digital marketing efforts, you’d probably be better off than most of your competitors. The 6 Basics of Digital Marketing 1. Build a website that’s conversion-friendly Usually, people design websites based on their personal preferences. This is often a recipe for disaster because what you prefer may not be what customers prefer. And what’s more- what customers prefer may not be what customers convert on. For example, you will find many websites that look and feel better than Amazon, yet very few convert as well. This is partly because their design is so well-tested for conversion optimization. Every element works together to maximize total sales. The most important principle to remember is to keep the design of your website simple and easy to navigate. Even the slightest amount of overwhelm can put off buying or registration decisions for your prospects. Make it so simple that they don’t need to think more than a second or two to understand anything on your site. This also means using simple images and clear text instead of trying to go the Shakespeare way. 2. Focus on Google Google is easily the most important website on the internet. So much traffic is governed or directed by Google that any new website cannot ignore SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and PPC (Pay-Per-Click advertising) on the Google platform. By investing in your SEO long term you can get higher rankings on Google (and Bing) which means a lot of free traffic can come to your site from relevant search terms. And then there is pay per click advertising (PPC). Many people click the ads in the first few results on the Google Search results page, so it’s important that you appear there for relevant keywords. For example, if you’re selling running shoes for those with flat feet, it’s important that keywords like “running shoes for flat foot” are not neglected by you as they could be easy sales for you once you get that click. 3. Retargeting Once you’ve driven people to your website and the website is conversion-optimized, the next important step is retargeting. Don’t let your visitors disappear forever. Make sure that these people are coming back to your site. You’ve paid a lot of money or put a lot of effort to get them to your site the first time. It should be easy for them to find you again. Usually, more than 90% of your visitors won’t buy your product or sign-up for any offer the first time.  By investing in retargeting and building that retargeting list, you can assure that you are bringing people back to your website, and nudging them to eventually buy or subscribe, or sign-up for any offer you’re running. 4. Have killer content Invest in your content- especially in videos. Think of videos like salespeople who are always working for you- even while you sleep. Put videos of your product or services wherever you can. Once you’ve got the right video that converts well, put that video up on your social platforms, your website, and wherever else you can. It’ll do the job of a salesperson for you. Videos also rank highly on Google and YouTube, so a good video content plan can help with your SEO as well. 5. Online Reputation This includes having good reviews, a strong reliable presence on the important platforms on the internet. Most customers don’t buy products that do not have reviews. The two most important places to have your reviews are Google My Business and Facebook. Other than these, there could be various industry-specific websites where you may want to have a presence. This is the oldest yet most reliable way of letting customers know that they can trust you. 6. Be Social Don’t forget to focus on your social media. These are free platforms for you to expand your digital real estate and your presence. More than 50% of shoppers say social media presence is important for their buying decisions online. Produce high-quality content in the form of images, videos, or even text. Make sure that the content is entertaining or informative, or both. Be friendly to your followers and engage in conversations with them by replying to important comments or posts. Social media is a two-way space.  You might also run lead generation or conversion ads on social media to generate leads or sales from platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. One important thumb-rule to remember is to try to start with not more than 3 social media platforms. More than 3 might be overwhelming and it’s better to have a strong presence on a few platforms instead of a casual one in many. Hope you guys like all the 6 Basics of Digital Marketing. Thank you for reading!

Google Ads

How to optimize Google Ads for better conversions

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Google Ads are still one of the best platforms that you can use to grow your business. It’s the place where users intending to find your products, discover them at the right time by search-based advertising. Nonetheless, because of the complexity of the platform, a lot of people find it difficult to optimize Google Ads to make their campaign profitable. In this blog, we will share the four keys to running successful Google ads for conversions. What are these “conversions”? It depends on your business- but for most cases, it’s going to be leads or sales. Also read How To Set Up Your First Google Ad For e-commerce, for example, it’s typically online sales. And for many B2B businesses, it typically leads. 4 keys to optimize Google Ads for better conversions: 1. Keyword Selection Spend a lot of time on keyword selection and negative keywords:It’s important that you spend a lot of time thinking of the different ways people might search for your product. For example, if you’re selling comfortable chairs, people who are relevant for you may include people searching for a “comfortable chair” or “desk chair”. But also, higher in the funnel would be searches like “my back hurts when I sit for very long”. The second kind of search is usually not intended to buy a chair, but it’s still relevant for a chair business and could be directed to an article on the website about how your chairs can help reduce or remove backaches. It’s also important that you focus on long-tail keywords. For example, someone searching “chair” might be relevant if you’re an e-commerce site selling chairs, but a long-tail keyword like “buy office chairs online” is far more relevant. It’s also typically cheaper (per click) than the shorter, more generic keywords. Also, for each positive keyword, try to have at least two negative keywords. These include obvious negative keywords like “Free”, “vacancy”, “Job”, “download” etc but also more specific ones that could be similar to what your business sells, but not exactly so. For example, if you sell desk chairs but not gaming chairs, you could add “gaming” or “gamer” and such keywords in the negative list. Such negative keywords will be a huge step in your effort to optimize Google Ads. 2. Create in-depth remarketing audience The CTR for remarketing or retargeting campaigns can be as high as 10 times of regular campaigns. Adding detailed targeting to remarketing efforts makes it all better in terms of spend and conversions. We recommend you set up campaigns for people who have already been to your site more than one time. This is a “warm” audience that already knows about your brand and is much more likely to buy from you. 3. Add Exclusions Add exclusions in terms of people’s incomes, geographies, etc. Google ads allows a lot of selection in the type of people whom you want to target for your ads. This includes income levels and of course areas. Make sure you exclude people who’re less likely to be interested in your products or services, or less likely to afford it. 4. Test Different types of Copy to optimize Google Ads Last but not the least, don’t forget to test different copy. It’s important to write multiple versions of your ads- and make use of relatively new aspects of Google Ads like responsive search ads, to give the perfect headline and description that generates the highest CTR (clickthrough rate). Don’t just set up a single ad or two, try to test multiple versions and find out which headline and description get the best CTR, and then scale that one.

Industry-specific

How to get your first freelance client without spending any money on ads

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Here I will share some easy steps to get your first freelance client. Many people have skills they know they could trade on the internet for a handsome income and free lifestyle. They are frustrated with their jobs and think they’d love to start a side-income, or they’re without employment and could do with a freelancing income stream. The biggest hurdle they face is “where do I start?” There are so many false promises on the internet that it’s easy to get overwhelmed and give up. However, one simple approach works wonderfully well. In this short blog, I’ll share the 9 easy steps to get your first few freelancing clients: 9 easy steps to get your first freelance client 1. Create a free offer. It could be a free consultation in your domain, a free design if you’re a graphic designer, a free SEO audit if you’re an SEO expert, etc. It’s important that this offer is something that many business owners need and usually have to pay for. 2. Design a simple post for social media about this offer, asking for their email ID on a link or in the comments. Here’s a sample: 3. Join forums for business owners or freelancers on Facebook, LinkedIn, Reddit etc. and post this offer in all such forums. 4. You will start receiving responses if the offer had any wings. Reach out to all the email IDs you receive and send them a Google Form (or something similar) to fix an appointment with you to discuss their case. (If you don’t receive many responses, you may have to rethink your free offer and try this step again.) 5. Once you’ve got a handful of appointments, start calling them and delivering on the promise of your offer. It’s important to be ethical- even if you feel that a particular request won’t convert into a paying client, I’d highly recommend you go ahead with and deliver on the free offer. 6. Tell them exactly what they should be doing for growing their business (in your particular domain). If you’re a designer, for example, you could tell them how their social media presence needs a face-lift with better designs. If you’re a digital marketer, you could lay out a strategy for growing their business. It’s important to give out everything you’ve got at this stage. Don’t hold back your best ideas just because this is free. Why? Because… 7. Make them a paying offer. The way to do this is simple. After you’ve laid out all the things that business should be doing in your domain, you end with one question. “Would you like me to do it for you?” Then pause. Let them speak. The silence can be awkward, but if you’ve delivered genuine value in the free offer, a surprisingly large percentage of people will respond with “Yes”. This is when you move on to giving them a quotation. 8. Make it risk-free. Give them a quotation with a moneyback guarantee. Don’t ask for money upfront. All this is important because you want to minimize the fears in the clients’ head. Since these will be your first few clients, don’t rush to get the money. Focus on learning from the experience, getting some positive reviews from your freelance client, and getting a comfort zone with freelancing. 9. Ask for referrals and reviews. Once you’ve got some clients (or even after the “free” offer), don’t forget to ask these people for any referrals and for reviews on your website or Google page or Facebook page, etc. This is the way to get the wheels rolling, and one freelance client will lead to another and towards building your freelance business. These 9 steps, if done well, would work for a wide variety of expertise areas. Of course, they won’t work for everyone. If your talent or expertise is an extremely niche area, you may find it harder to find people online who would take your free offer. Nonetheless, the basic principles in this approach would work for any freelancer, even if the ways to reach out to potential clients varies.

Facebook Ads, Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads, SEO

Good Copywriting for Facebook Ads, Google Ads and Email Marketing [The 3 skills]

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Copywriting is one of the most underrated skills in digital marketing, and in business in general. Copywriting is writing text for the purpose of advertising or other forms of marketing. In digital world, good copywriting can be used in your Google ads, social media, blog posts, email marketing etc. Many businesses can rise or fail solely on how good a copy they write. Some of the biggest brands we know of- Coca Cola, Pepsodent, Mercedes and Rolls-Royce, have a lot to thank good copywriting for. And genius marketers like Ogilvy insist that good copywriting is the foundation of good marketing. So what, then, is good copy? Are there some principles we can follow to write good copy- each and every time? In his much acclaimed classic, “Tested Advertising Methods”, copywriting genius John Caples gives some simple rules. These rules can help you improve your copywriting for your Facebook ads, Google ads, emails, newspaper ads, and so on. There are three basic rules for Good Copywriting: 1) Focus on the benefit to the user: This seems obvious, but if you look around, so many companies forget this simple rule. It’s important to remember that people DO NOT care about your brand. They care about themselves. How does your brand or product help them? Be direct about this. Headlines that insist how great your brand is without pointing out the benefits it’ll give users are ineffective. For example, “Trusted since 1929” is a useless headline for an ad, even if your company is about to turn 100 years old. Who cares? Headlines like “Amazing offer for you” are useless. You may ask- “aren’t these talking about the user’s benefit?“ On the surface, it appears like that. But there are thousands of offers floating all around a modern user. Who cares if you have one more? It’s too vague. “Best T-shirt offers for you“- now that’s a little bit better. It lacks personality, but at least it’s more direct about the benefit- you will get T-shirts at offer prices. 2) Make it NEWS People hate salesmen and advertisements. They, however, love to know the latest news. Use this to your advantage. Make your sales copy about a news. How can you achieve this? It’s simple. Start your ad with words like “Introducing…”, “Announcing…” or “All-new…” Words like this make your ad copy sound more like a news or announcement, and less like desperate sales. They catch more eye-balls and make more people read the rest of your ad. 3) Use curiosity IF (and only if) you’ve done the first point right (made the self-benefit to the user crystal clear), can you move to the next point of good advertising. WHich of these do you think is a better headline for an ad or email: Improve your sales performance How I went from total failure to massive success in selling in one year Both the headlines get the first point (self-benefit) right- they’re both going to teach the user how to improve their selling skills. But the second headline gets an added advangate, it makes you curious to learn the story. As a caveat, note that using just curiosity without self-benefit is a recipe for disaster. For example, a headline like “how I went from failure to success” in itself is terrible. Even if it makes a small percentage of people curious enough to read the rest of your ad or email, they might not be the ones who’re actually struggling with sales. Those who want solutions for their sales problems are the ones who should read the ad. How do you filter them without even mentioning “sales” or “selling” in the headline (or subject line.) Therefore, above all else, remember to keep the self-benefit direct. Things to avoid while writing good copy: Do not forget rule 1: focus on self-benefit to the user. This is 90% of the game, and still often ignored. Do not try to write like Shakespeare. Good copy should be easy to read. Fancy poetry can be wonderful to read as a pastime. IT IS not wonderful to sell products. Do not write your copy in a hurry. Spend time on making it perfect. Get feedback from others. Especially spend time thinking of the headline or subject line. Do not make it a chore. Enjoy the process. The more fun you have writing copy, the better your copywriting will turn out. The advantage of the digital medium for marketing is that feedback is instant. You can figure out how even a minor change in your copy improved your clickthrough rate or conversions on facebook ads, for instance; and this makes the process more exciting as you really start learning more about human behaviour. Do not forget to use good images to support your copy. It’s a myth that people see the image before the headline when they see ads. Most people read the headline first. However, a good image which makes your product or product benefit obvious will assist your copywriting. Ideal is to have images of person(s) using your product and enjoying it. That’s why all cola drinks have images of celebrities happily drinking from their bottle in their ad campaigns. Do not ignore audience-targeting. Even more important than copywriting is reaching the right audience. If you show a beautiful ad for a Rolls Royce to a family with a very low annual income, and I show a terrible ad of Rolls Royce to families with huge net worths, guess which of us will do better? It’s nice to improve ad performance with copywriting, but audience selection still remains the main skill for a digital marketer.

B2B digital marketing, Facebook Ads, Google Ads

How is the coronavirus pandemic going to impact digital marketing?

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In this article I, Neeraj, am going to go through what I think business owners should be doing in response to the coronavirus. We’re getting emails from people asking us what they should do with their marketing amid these unprecedented times. There is a lot of panic, and we’re given everyone the same advice… The news makes people question whether or not they should pause their marketing or reduce their budget or things like this. The funny thing is, there’s a statistic in the classic business book “Good to Great” by Jim Collins that says almost all the successful businesses and Fortune 500 companies were started in recessions… And the reason I bring that up is when there’s so much panic all around, your competitors are panicking too. Warren Buffett is famous for saying that when there’s fear in the air that is when he pounces and buys more stock. When others are optimistic, he stops buying, but when others get fearful, he buys stocks at amazing prices. And we all know how successful that man is in his field. If the marketplace is in fear, and you can be the one brand that’s confident in your industry… that is where great brands are built! So let’s think of the realities about coronavirus More searches come when people are spending more time at home More people spend time on social media as they work from home I’m talking about Google searches for which what matters is SEO or Google Ads… and probably spending more time on Facebook and Instagram too because they’re less likely to be in their office. So this could actually be a time where people are spending more time on the internet and therefore many of you’d want to double down while your competitors are in fear. The way online advertising works is through an auction – a bidding system – and most people have stopped ads during these times. It’s a great time to get more clicks on less spending. For our own clients– we looked at the number of clicks we got, the number of impressions we got and actually on our own advertising account we got more impressions this week than we did in the past weeks. The point is this: though if your competitors are backing out and you’re still going after the impressions in your market even if you’re not getting as high of a conversion rate (because people may not start business any time soon), do you think that’s going to be a win once all of this fades away? And when  it does, these people will already know your brand… Certainly for B2B businesses and services this is something to consider. Coronavirus impact on Digital Marketing So what I would say is this, the Coronavirus pandemic will have the following impact on Digital Marketing: it’s probably going to increase online activity it’s probably going to raise concerns for your competitors and hence lower the cost-per-click for any online ads it’s going to be an opportunity for you to double down on your internet marketing strategyhowever, it’s also going to reduce your conversion rate (people who actually buy the product or hire your services) as a percentage of total clicks or leads A note here: there are obviously businesses for which advertising at this point wont make sense. If you’re a restaurant owner in Italy or run a movie hall or have other such physical outlets where you need a lot of people to come in, this might be too early for you to jump back in to your digital marketing game. For others though, this is a golden time to generate leads and start warming them, or even converting them, while the rest of the businesses stop all their advertisement. So what are your thoughts for your business?

SEO

KGR technique in SEO

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The Keyword Golden Ratio (KGR) technique is an information-based approach to discover keywords that are actually underserved or unattended on the Internet. If you’re lucky to locate a KGR keyword and write content that is focused on the keyword, your article could usually rank in the top 50 in 2-3 days, sometimes you can rank it in hours. In the event that your site has a good page authority and isn’t new, you can rank in the top 15 links of the search results on search engines like Google. Why use KGR Technique in SEO Getting the best keywords and getting your business to rank well for those can be very challenging. You either have a powerful website so you can focus on high SEO difficulty keywords, or you have simply begun, and you have to start growing on your site’s quality score. In the latter case, using longtail keywords having less competition would be a good technique. Fortunately, there is an incredible method to locate the low-competition list of keywords– the highly searched but under-used words that will assist you in positioning high in search results in a matter of moments, prompting more clicks and improving the SEO quality of your site. Utilizing the Keyword Golden Ratio technique, you can do exactly that. What is keyword golden ratio Keyword Golden Ratio is the strategy for finding low volume keywords that actually have a low difficulty to rank on the first page. The keywords that are filtered utilizing KGR are simple to rank since fewer other websites are going after that specific keyword. This way, the website pages that are made by focusing on the KGR keywords are competent for positioning the pages on top when it is recorded by Google. It is an equation-based procedure that helps site proprietors discover the keywords they might be missing out on. This can assist them with positioning on the main page of Google rapidly. You can also find queried search terms that can help drive business your way. How to find KGR keywords To find KGR keywords- first, locate your country for the targeting keywords. After that, find the search volume of the keyword which you can find with most keyword analytics websites. Some of the websites we recommend are Ubersuggest, Searchvolume.io and ahrefs. After getting the search volume, find the number of pages that are trying to rank for the exact keyword by searching the keyword using “allintitle:search term” in the search bar. After getting both the search volume and allintitle volume, apply these numbers in the KGR formula to find the difficulty ratio to rank. KGR formula The formula is simple – divide the second result by the first result. KGR Formula: KGR = (# of allintitle results)/(search volume) If KGR is less than 0.25: You should rank in the top 100 easily once your page is indexed by Google. If KGR is between .25 and 1: You could still rank in the top 250 pretty quickly. If KGR is greater than 1: You know it’s a very competitive term even if the search volume is low. You should avoid targeting such keywords. Does the KGR technique work Absolutely. More and more SEO experts are recommending the KGR technique, and we have tried it with our clients and our own blogs and it works amazingly well. It’s a shortcut to free traffic! How to much time does it take to rank a keyword using the KGR technique? The short answer is- much less than you might think. KGR technique can help you rank in days and generate traffic to your website, whereas at other times your content could have taken weeks, months or years to generate traffic. It’s a simple demand-supply gap. By using KGR, you are delivering content for which there is a high demand but low supply on the web. About the Author Fenil Kalal is an SEO expert and a WordPress developer. He works with WebKow as a full-stack developer and also assists in keyword research and technical work for SEO.

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