Converting website visitors into paying and repeat customers is the goal of e-commerce, but getting there isn’t always easy. In fact, studies estimate the average e-commerce conversion rate is just 2-3%. Sounds gloomy, I know, given all the effort that we go through to build e-commerce websites, and the promotions to get it seen! But, there are things we can do. Follow this simple checklist to optimize your e-commerce website experience, and turn more of your existing website traffic into sales. 1. Attention-grabbing photos (and video, too) Photography needs to do the job of making the shopper feel like they can (almost) touch your product. And the more photos, the better. Include multiple angles of the product standing alone, with people using it, and a shot of the packaging. A short video is great for showing how a product moves, works or how it should be installed. 2. Powerful product descriptions Your product copy should be short and hard-working. Use a mix of action words and sensory words to paint a clear picture of specific product features and benefits. This is also the place to have a little fun if that fits with your brand voice. And don’t forget to spellcheck your text. 3. A clear call to action (CTA) If you don’t ask a customer to buy from you, chances are they won’t. An effective CTA is short and clear, such as Add to Cart or Checkout, and they work best on coloured buttons. Your Checkout button is like a cash register, so don’t make shoppers look for how to give you their money. 4. Reviews and testimonials Product reviews are powerful persuasion tools. A good review can answer a nagging question in the consumer’s mind and give them the confidence to buy from your business. Testimonials, although more effort to obtain because they require outreach, are worthwhile, detailed accounts of the customer experience with your product or service. If you’re able to get media or industry experts to review your products, these are worth featuring prominently. 5. Free shipping With free shipping the norm these days, it’s easy to assume that it’s the only way to go. And while free shipping can increase conversion rates on e-commerce websites, it can seriously eat into your profit margin. Shipping carriers can increase their prices, too, further cutting your profits. Many merchants choose to increase product prices to maintain the same margin, but there is another approach. Free shipping minimums are a great compromise that incentivizes customers to increase their order value while offsetting your shipping costs. 6. Sales, deals, promo codes, and coupons Satisfy the deal hunter in everyone by offering special promotions and discounts. A designated Sale section on your website navigation clearly tells shoppers where to go for the best savings. Ramp up the sense of urgency by using time-limited coupon codes or bundling high-demand products with sellout potential. 7. A straightforward return policy Offering a reasonable return policy is an important part of your e-commerce business strategy. If your policy is too generous, it may be abused. If it’s not flexible enough, customers may choose to buy elsewhere. Post your policy and clearly outline terms for returns, refunds, and exchanges to give shoppers the confidence to place their trust in your business. Ensure returns are handled professionally, and you’ll continue to build customer loyalty for future purchases. Ready to take your e-commerce business to the next level? AtlanticOnline.ca can help promote your business online. Find out more by calling 1-902-717-8496 for a free consultation with one of our eCommerce Account Consultants .

There are plenty of exciting ways to grow your business! More people are using email and social media than ever before, and the result is plenty of new opportunities for leaders and marketing teams across all industries. One aspect of marketing you may be neglecting is your mobile strategy. Over 3.5 billion people own mobile devices globally, which means you’re leaving a lot of money on the table if you’re not doing everything possible to reach smartphone users. If you need more context, consider this; the average person spends 3.3 hours on their smartphone every single day. You can maximize sales and conversions by looking for opportunities to put your business front and center while your target audience uses their phones. The thing is, mobile users have slightly different behaviors and interests when compared to their desktop counterparts. Our goal today is to reveal four effective mobile marketing strategies you can use to help your brand thrive following the new year. Emphasis Personalization In 2021 and 2022, we learned that consumers love personalized experiences. Business owners quickly figured out that catering to their audience’s needs is a great way to generate more sales. You can see personalization aspects across all of the major marketing platforms today, including social media, email, and on-site. Nailing personalization will help you get more mobile conversions in 2021. People are interested in engaging with companies that offer products that help with specific pain points or cater to individual goals. The best way to make this strategy work for you is to understand the customer personas that visit your site. Personas are generalized personality type profiles that define your target audience. For instance, a sporting goods store would have personas for football fans and separate profiles for people interested in basketball. Because your products or services offer multiple solutions, you need to consider these factors when offering personalized content or promotions to smartphone visitors. Using a mobile-responsive design ensures that their experience is personalized to their interests and their device. Leverage the Power of Voice Search Another trend expected to impact mobile sales specifically is voice search. Consumers use smart speakers like Amazon’s Alexa to search the internet, but mobile phones play an equally important role. Android and Apple-powered smartphones have a voice assistant that smartphone users can use to ask questions, browse the website, and make purchases. We know that more people are using their devices to place orders too. A surprising 22% of people using smart speakers, including their mobile phones, used their devices to buy a product. You can improve your voice search visibility by including new keywords throughout your content. The truth is, people rarely speak the way they type. When you’re creating blog posts, use a conversational tone, and include some of these new words throughout your content. Now, when someone is searching for your chosen keywords, there’s a chance your site could pop up in their results. Due to this exposure, they could go to your website and become a subscriber or customer. Mobile users are likely to follow their voice-activated device’s suggestion, so getting this part of your mobile marketing strategy right is essential. Simplify Processes and Empower Users Next, let’s talk about your website’s design and choices you can make to empower users. The people interacting with your brand want a smooth and seamless experience across all platforms. Smoothing out your edges and using each marketing platform to your advantage will help you dramatically boost your mobile conversion rate. For instance, you may want to consider adding a customer support feature to your largest social media accounts. A whopping 63% of people expect customer support options through social media. If a smartphone user is thinking about becoming a customer, not having an additional support option could be a deal-breaker. Your objective is to make things as simple as possible for visitors discovering your company and those interested in the products or services offered on-site. So, improving your page loading times and reducing clutter on your website will ensure that mobile and desktop users alike can find exactly what they need. It’s also a good idea to simplify the big moments in the buying process. For example, fine-tuning your checkout page ensures that more customers stick around and complete their order. As a result, you’ll see fewer abandoned carts and an improved customer retention rate. This part of the process will evolve in phases. Take your time and slowly improve navigation, design, and function availability across all platforms, and you’ll see more mobile engagement. Shift to Visual Content We’ve also noticed a drastic shift in the way people consume content. Mobile users are a big fan of visual content like images and videos. Both of these types of media see more engagement when compared to simple text posts. There’s an additional engagement level that people get from experiencing others doing things instead of writing about them. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in; there are plenty of ways to mix up your content for mobile users. If you’re looking for a new way to generate more mobile leads for your email list, consider creating an infographic lead magnet. Lead magnets are essentially pieces of content that users can get in exchange for their email addresses. An infographic is a visual piece of content that displays interesting points and facts for people to read. Creating a lead magnet with a nice piece of visual content will encourage mobile users to subscribe, which opens the door to future engagement opportunities. Video content is also extremely helpful in helping brands grow their mobile audience. In fact, video content alone is 50x more likely to drive organic traffic than text-only posts! Think about unique videos you can make that focus on your products or industry as a whole. You can make an opinion piece, guide, tutorial, or even spend some time chatting with your followers. People love video content, and that trend will not change in 2021. Final Thoughts As you can glean from this article, trends will continue to grow. As more people get comfortable using mobile devices, expect to see a continued increase in shoppers. We think that there will be an increased demand for these strategies as brands continue adapting to their customers’ needs.

In a nutshell, dropshipping is the best business model for entrepreneurs who are looking to set up a business with low investment. For many business owners, launching a Shopify dropshipping store is a great way to get into e-commerce. We know that spending money and time on managing stock is a deal-breaker. Therefore, maintaining an e-commerce store that involves a dropshipping business model can be a great choice, as you’ll never need to maintain an inventory . In this way, you will be free to focus your resources and time on growing your online business and making more sales. Dropshipping gives you a flexible way of doing business and it is supported by the majority of e-commerce platforms including Shopify. What is Dropshipping? Dropshipping is a business model in which e-commerce entrepreneurs sell their products without carrying a physical inventory. Whenever a store owner receives an order from a buyer, he/she simply contacts the supplier, who will directly ship the product to the buyer’s door. There are also many apps like Oberlo which allow you to add products from different suppliers to your online store to fuel your product offering. Dropshipping is one of the great business models for new e-commerce entrepreneurs. It is quite easy to set up and manage an online store, and it does not require any large amount of investment. You can also run your dropshipping business in your free time or as a side business. You don’t need to exit your job to start an online store. Furthermore, there are many dropshipping strategies you can use to drive more traffic to your store. What is Shopify? Shopify is one of the leading platforms which enables entrepreneurs to make up their own online stores - and it's our favourite!! It is simple and easy to start a store on Shopify, especially a Shopify dropshipping store. And, while most people are positioned to build their own online store, many people call on us to help with the tech pieces, and the overall sales funnel strategy involving outreach, fullfillment and managing the post-sales relationshop. Additionally, Shopify gives you access to the wealth of a variety of apps and Shopify themes that are available on their website. Why use Shopify? Shopify is the most famous e-commerce platform in the world, more than half a million entrepreneurs are already using Shopify to grow their business. While working with Shopify it is more likely to get higher sales because it gives you more features that will make you succeed as an online entrepreneur. Furthermore, if you are looking for extra features that are not available on Shopify, you can find an app from the Shopify app store to fulfill your needs. Another huge requirement for Shopify is trust, many entrepreneurs are searching for an online platform that will stay even on shopping holidays, and this is what the Shopify is offering exactly. In a nutshell, dropshipping is the best business model for entrepreneurs who are looking to set up a business with low investment and Shopify is the simplest and easiest platform for running a dropshipping business. Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our email at: shelleyb@atlanticonline.ca

An online marketplace is a type of ecommerce business that can be rewarding to create, however, it comes with its own unique set of challenges. If you’ve ever thought of starting an online marketplace like the marketplaces you see online already such as Amazon, Etsy, or Airbnb then this is the perfect article to start off with. In this article, you’ll learn all about online marketplaces, what they are, how to start one and how to successfully run one. Ready to get started bringing an online marketplace to life? Read on. What is an Online Marketplace? An online marketplace is an ecommerce store where multiple merchants can sell goods or services to customers. Examples of online marketplaces include Amazon, Etsy, Airbnb, and eBay. These online stores are considered to be online marketplaces because there are many merchants (hundreds of thousands, in fact) who can sell their products to the customers that browse the website. Traditional ecommerce stores sell the goods and services of one brand, but not online marketplaces. Since an online marketplace has many merchants selling their products on the store, they have a greater product offering which can draw more visitors to browse the website. One of the main advantages of online marketplaces is that they draw in lots of digital foot-traffic, which can mean greater exposure for the merchants who sell on the online marketplace. What unites all the sellers on an online marketplace together is that there’s one checkout process. When customers shop on an online marketplace, they don’t need to click away to different websites to complete the transaction, they can purchase from many different merchants on the marketplace at once, even if the merchants aren’t associated with one another. When customers make purchases from online marketplaces, the merchants they purchase from get a notification that someone has purchased their product, and then each merchant can individually ship and send the customer the products that were ordered from them. This means that although a customer can complete just one transaction on an online marketplace when purchasing from multiple different sellers, their products will be shipped from each seller individually meaning they’ll receive a shipping package from each merchant they ordered a product from. Essentially, for consumers, shopping on an online marketplace is like shopping from several different ecommerce merchants at once, while being able to pay all the merchants in one transaction rather than in many transactions. Another thing that unites online marketplaces together is that they usually are focused around one particular niche. Amazon, for example, started as an online marketplace of booksellers. Airbnb started as an online marketplace to rent rooms in San Francisco. Online marketplaces are generally more successful when they center around one niche because it gives consumers a reason to shop there and when they do shop there, they know what to expect from the merchants selling on the marketplace. An online marketplace can also be referred to as a “Collaborative Economy” or a “Sharing Economy” because it’s usually made up of merchants who work together to share or sell their idle assets on a community-accessible marketplace. “Trust, convenience and a sense of community are all factors in pushing adoption of the sharing economy forward.” – PricewaterhouseCoopers Online marketplaces are becoming more mainstream for several reasons: First, consumers are more willing to trust online marketplace platforms to protect them from fraudulent merchants. Second, online marketplaces are a convenient way for merchants to earn revenue on goods or services they may have sitting idle, and finally, online marketplaces generate a sense of community where both merchants and consumers can support one another in niche markets that are important to them. We see this, in particular, on the online marketplace Etsy where merchants and consumers alike believe in supporting hand-crafted, small-batch, homemade and artisan products. Why You Should Create an Online Marketplace One of the main reasons to start an online marketplace is to either help merchants sell goods or services they don’t have a use for anymore—or don’t have a use for at certain points of the year—or to help consumers get access to goods or services more easily. By creating an online marketplace, you create a place where users can rent or sell goods, spaces or services online at a cheaper price, better quality, or in a more convenient way. Every successful online marketplace does this in a way big-box retailers can’t, which is what makes them competitive players in the ecommerce industry. Creating an online marketplace is also an ideal option because you don’t have to own any inventory to run one. This makes them an attractive option for entrepreneurs who want to provide a service or solve a pain point without investing a lot of their own capital into the business. Online marketplaces acquire inventory from the merchants who sell or rent their goods or services on the marketplace, so it’s not solely up to the founder of the marketplace to source inventory. “Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate.” – Tom Goodwin If there’s a niche that exists where all the products or services can be sold or rented online from merchants to customers in a way where big-box retailers can’t provide the same service at a cheaper price, more conveniently or in better quality, then you should start an online marketplace that can supply this to consumers. Marketplaces don’t always work, but there are likely still many circumstances that exist today where the online marketplace business model can still succeed. How to Create an Online Marketplace Creating an online marketplace can be a bit of a challenge. There’s plenty of online literature documenting how ecommerce entrepreneurs can start their own online businesses, but those online businesses tend to focus on solo entrepreneurs who are interested in selling their own products exclusively on their own websites. That’s not how online marketplaces work, so another approach must be taken. Building Your Online Marketplace Website First of all, the success of your online marketplace will be partly dependant on the actual online platform you use to create it. Fortunately, you don’t have to hire a web developer to create your online marketplace website as other options exist. Many solutions exist for ecommerce development...Squarespace and Wix offer simple ecommerce functionality. Larger, more complex solutions can be found with WooCommerce for the Wordpress platform, and one that's been getting a lot of attention lately is Sharetribe. In fact, it's well-recognized in the ecommerce industry as being the a reliable, user-friendly and cost-effective way for entrepreneurs to start their own online marketplace. With their software, any entrepreneur will be able to build a well-designed online marketplace in the most efficient and secure way possible. If you were to create an online marketplace from scratch with a team of web developers it could cost you thousands of dollars to build your website, but Sharetribe doesn’t cost nearly as much and you’ll be able to have a simple, online marketplace up and running faster than if you were to completely have it built from scratch. Coming Up With an Online Marketplace Niche Successful online marketplaces are typically successful because they hone in on one particular niche to service the needs of the merchants and consumers within that niche. This means that in order to create an online marketplace, you’re going to have to select a niche market that your online marketplace will cater to. This is an important step in the process of starting an online marketplace because it will impact what you sell on your online marketplace, the merchants who sell there, the customers who shop there, and the focus of your online marketplace as a whole. Without a niche to target, your online marketplace will have no focus or direction so it’s very important to find your niche and stick to it throughout the online marketplace building process. Focusing on a Minimum Viable Product for Your Online Marketplace With the Amazon’s, Etsy’s, Airbnb’s and eBay’s of the online marketplace world, it can be easy to get wrapped up in thinking about how you’ll scale your online marketplace to service millions of consumers right away. We encourage you not to get caught up in this way of thinking, because it takes a long time to grow an online marketplace like the ones we just mentioned, and you can still build a successful online marketplace without being a giant in your industry. When you’re just starting out building your online marketplace, we suggest focusing on your Minimum Viable Product and creating that. Don’t get caught up in thinking about how you’ll create the perfect online marketplace within your niche, just focus on creating an online marketplace that a small subset of your niche market really believes in, and start from there. By focusing on creating the perfect online marketplace you’ll likely cause yourself to feel overwhelmed in everything you have to do and accomplish to get there, but by zoning in on creating your Minimum Viable Product, you’ll be more likely to stick with your online marketplace idea and built it to fruition. It’s okay not to create a perfect online marketplace right from the get-go. Create something that at least 10 or so users can be interested in and use their feedback and experiences to grow from there. Like we mentioned earlier, other online marketplaces started small too, and so can you. Establishing Your Budget to Start an Online Marketplace Just like any ecommerce business, starting an online marketplace will take some funds to get going. One of the main advantages of starting an online marketplace, however, is that you actually don’t have to purchase or create an inventory to sell which can be a huge relief off of your startup budget. Although you likely won’t have to fork over any capital for inventory, there are other aspects of your online business that will require some budget. The main aspects of your online marketplace startup budget will likely include: A word of warning, however, when it comes to creating a budget for your online marketplace: Don’t spend too much. When you’re just getting started, it can be tempting to pump as much capital as you have available into your online marketplace, but remember that you’re just getting started and it’s going to take some time to grow. Don’t put too much into your platform and advertising before you launch or when you first launch. Put enough in to get started, and then give your online marketplace some time to grow and some time to earn revenue. At the beginning, focus instead on hustling to get free advertising whether it’s through SEO or your own social media, for example, and let your online marketplace start to generate its own revenue before you invest too much more into it. Even if it’s slow growth, it will help to validate your online marketplace idea before you go investing too much money into it which you may not get back if your marketplace idea doesn’t work out in the end. Focusing on the Outcome of the Online Marketplace Finally, when it comes to creating an online marketplace, don’t forget to focus on the main outcome of the online marketplace. Ask yourself, what are you aiming to achieve with your online marketplace? What is it that your online marketplace is providing that adds value to those in the niche market it services. The goal of any online marketplace is to connect merchants and customers within a niche to sell or rent goods or services, so think about how that actually begins to look within your online marketplace and how you want to bring that to life. Types of Online Marketplaces There are several different types of online marketplaces, and although they all run in a similar fashion, there are slight differences to them which can impact the shopping experience, the types of products that are sold, the customers that shop there and the service that the online marketplace promises to fulfill. These are the different types of online marketplaces that exist: Physical Product Online Marketplace Some online marketplaces focus on selling physical products only. This means that the merchants create or supply physical products that must be shipped to the customers who purchase them. When you have an online marketplace that sells physical products, customers will receive shipping packages from each merchant they order a product from, which can impact their user experience. It means that they’ll be receiving multiple different packages, which can be confusing for them if they don’t know to expect that. Be upfront with customers who shop on your online marketplace—if it’s a physical product online marketplace—that even though they may be completing one transaction, the products are sourced from individual merchants and the products they’ve ordered will be arriving individually from each separate merchant. Digital Product Online Marketplace Another type of online marketplace that exists is digital product marketplaces. These online marketplaces sell digital products that can be downloaded to computers or smart devices immediately after purchase which means that customers don’t have to wait for their products to be shipped and they won’t be receiving products one-by-one from each separate merchant they order from. An example of a digital marketplace is Creative Market, where designers and creators sell digital assets like stock photos, logo templates, graphic designs and more. We wrote a complete Creative Market Review, and we’ve even rounded up some of Creative Market’s Best Instagram Templates, which we highly recommend checking for your online marketplace. Property & Spaces Online Marketplace Another type of online marketplace is one that rents or sells property, rooms, event spaces or locations to customers. A great example of this type of online marketplace is Airbnb, which is an online marketplace for property owners to rent out rooms, apartments, houses or properties all over the world. This type of online marketplace comes with its own unique set of challenges, such as government regulations, property insurance, and booking confirmations that must be adhered to and organized in order to be viable and successful. Managing these types of online marketplaces can be complex, so ensure that you know what you’re getting yourself into if you decide to start an online marketplace like this. Services Online Marketplace Other online marketplaces can sell services to their customers, where merchants can rent or sell their own specialties to the marketplace. These types of online marketplaces can provide digital services that can be carried out online, such as website development services, or they can provide services that take place in-person, such as painting and restoration work, for example. Just like all other marketplaces, online marketplaces that provide services aim to connect merchants who have a resource to offer to customers interested in acquiring an asset, so if you’re starting a services type of online marketplace, make sure you focus on building that connection. The Challenges of Starting an Online Marketplace Starting an online marketplace is slightly different from starting an ecommerce business, so naturally, it comes with its own set of challenges to overcome. The challenges that online marketplace owners face aren’t necessarily deal-breakers, in that they shouldn’t hinder you from starting an online marketplace if it’s really something you want to pursue, however, they are things you should be aware of before you actually start building an online business. Being aware of these challenges in advance can help you find alternate solutions or prevent you from being blindsided by them when they arise. These are the top challenges you can expect to face when starting an online marketplace: Convincing Merchants & Customers to Use Your Marketplace When you first start an online marketplace, attracting both merchants and customers to use your marketplace is going to be your biggest challenge. Because you’re new, you’re going to have to build trust within merchants to sell on your site and you’re going to have to make sure customers know your marketplace exists so they even think to shop on it. The main issue you’ll face when convincing merchants and customers to use your marketplace is perfectly described by the well-known adage: What came first, the chicken or the egg? In this context, you’ll be asking yourself which comes first, the merchant or the customer? It will be challenging for you to convince merchants to come sell on an online marketplace if there aren’t customers already shopping there, and it won’t make sense to attract customers to your online marketplace if there aren’t any merchants selling their inventory there yet. Consider how you’ll approach this hurdle. The general consensus around this dilemma is actually for online marketplace owners to approach merchants to join their online marketplace first because they have a greater incentive to join the marketplace. Their incentive is to earn more revenue and profit, and if there’s little-to-no risk for them to join the online marketplace, they’ll be more likely to use it to sell their goods or services. By reaching out to suppliers first before attracting customers to your online marketplace, you’ll also build the inventory supply that your marketplace has to offer which is crucial for customers when they start landing on your online marketplace. Without any inventory, there’s no incentive for your customers to shop on your marketplace at all, so secure the goods and services before you start reeling in customers. In order to start finding merchants to sell goods and services on your online marketplace, consider reaching out to merchants who are already selling on online marketplaces! This shows that they’re already comfortable selling on online marketplaces and if you give them a good enough reason to sell on yours too, they might be interested. Be sure to look for merchants that sell products that align with your online marketplace’s focus niche. Investing Time Into Building a Successful Marketplace Building an online marketplace takes time—a lot of time. Because there are usually more moving parts to an online marketplace than there are with ecommerce businesses (like handling multiple different merchants), it can take much more time to build one that runs successfully. If you’re interested in creating an online marketplace, be prepared to have patience with it as it slowly builds and grows into the online marketplace you want it to be. Providing a Useful Service Online marketplaces can only be successful long-term if they solve a real problem for both merchants and customers. If they don’t provide a useful service, they won’t last long. This is why it’s so important when starting your online marketplace to make sure that you validate your idea beforehand so you don’t find yourself months or years later with a failed marketplace because it didn’t provide value to merchants or consumers. Like we mentioned before, take your time building your online marketplace and don’t invest too much capital upfront just in case your online marketplace idea isn’t something that can withstand the test of time. It’s better to grow your marketplace slowly so you can adjust and adapt to merchants’ and consumers’ needs as you go which can result in you creating an online marketplace that provides value to those merchants and consumers and thus, becomes a successful online marketplace long-term. Focus on solving a problem for both the merchants and the consumers, and you’ll be more likely to provide a useful service for both parties. Existing Competition in the Market Even if you think you’ve come up with a great idea for an online marketplace, it’s likely that someone else has already thought of it, too. Competition can be a hindrance to starting and growing your online marketplace, however, it shouldn’t completely deter you from pursuing it, either. If there’s an existing online marketplace on the market that would be in direct competition with your marketplace idea, then you have to find a way to compete against them. Try competing on price, selection, quality, choice, the number of merchants, the geographic area or something else that gives your online marketplace an edge over any others. If you aren’t sure whether there are any existing online marketplaces that are in direct competition with your online marketplace idea, then be aware that there probably is someone else also working on the same idea and you will eventually have competition. If this is the case, your only option is to execute your online marketplace idea better or faster than anyone else starting a similar online marketplace, so consider how you can make that happen. Execution is ultimately all that counts, so plan to execute well. Financing Your Online Marketplace Every marketplace needs to earn revenue and profit to survive, so you’ll need to determine a viable strategy to ensure that your marketplace earns the revenue and profits that it needs to last. How to Run a Successful Online Marketplace In addition to everything we’ve discussed thus far on creating and setting up an online marketplace, there are other aspects of growing an online marketplace that are important to consider in order to ensure long-term sustainability and success. Select an Online Marketplace Business Model Your online marketplace business model will impact how you will earn revenue and profit and how your merchants will earn revenue and profit, as well. It’s a fundamental aspect of every online marketplace and one that you should decide on before you launch. It’s important that your online marketplace business model is able to balance the best interests of not only the revenue you earn but also the best interests of merchants and customers. Finding that balance can be tricky but when you do it’s worthwhile. Create a Great Online Marketplace User Experience A large part of creating a great online marketplace includes creating a great user experience. If users can’t use your online marketplace the way they want to or in a way that helps them find what they’re looking for, then they’ll simply go elsewhere. The goal of your online marketplace should be to make it as easy as possible for customers and merchants to connect with one another so a transaction can take place. There are some important aspects you can integrate into your online marketplace to help make this as efficient as possible: Best Practices for Launching Your Online Marketplace When it comes to bringing your online marketplace to life, your launch will play a role in how your marketplace continues to progress over the course of its lifetime. Some best practices mentioned in Sharetribe’s How to Launch Your Marketplace article include utilizing promotion channels like an email list, advertising, press, influencers and online communities such as Product Hunt to get the attention of people who might be interested in what your marketplace has to offer. No matter how you choose to draw attention to your online marketplace when it launches, it’s arguably most important to build trust within each and every user that enters your website as soon as you launch. Trust in your marketplace is ultimately what’s going to make it successful in the long run, so no matter how many people your promotion tactics bring to your website on launch day, focus on building trust within them as they experience your online marketplace. Note: Need more help with launching your online marketplace? Check out our downloadable Ecommerce Launch Checklist to ensure that you cover all your bases. Now that you’ve reached up to this point, you should be well-equipped with the knowledge to start your own online marketplace. Remember that your online marketplace’s niche will be what sets it apart from other marketplaces in the industry and that executing ideas is what really matters to help you stand up to any competition. Focus on getting suppliers for your marketplace first and then instill trust into every visitor that lands on your online marketplace after launch day. Have a good online marketplace idea? Get started!

Social media is a powerhouse in the marketing world; both effective and reasonably priced. Since the eruption of digital marketing in the past 10 years, companies shift more of their marketing budget to social media and using the community built across social media platforms to engage people and beat their competition. Today, we’ll share some super simple social media marketing tips you need to kickstart your marketing online this winter and beat the heck out of your competition. How social media delivers ROI When you think about organic social media marketing, what we call owned and earned social media, ROI originates not from advertising, but from building a community of connections interested in your brand and its products. Beyond just creating a large following, you must achieve engagement for your social media marketing efforts to pay off. When your community engages with a post, through liking, commenting, sharing, ReTweeting, etc, the message reaches your community’s connections to amplify your messaging. Check out the image below to see how you can reach a massive audience by engaging average users. Starting with a respectable 2 million connections and assuming each connection has an average number of network connections (ie. Friends, followers), which is 388 Friends, on average, per user, you quickly reach 1.2 billion users or nearly half of Facebook’s number of active users (2.7 billion). When you consider that users consider posts shared or liked (or ReTweeted, Re-Pinned, etc), more trustworthy, acting as virtual word-of-mouth, you see the effect of this engagement offers not only more reach but, likely, more conversion, social media marketing is one of your best friends. User-generated content User-generated content, or UGC, goes beyond engagement with your brand to reflect posts generated by your community. This UGC offers all the advantages of engagement shown earlier in this post, along with other valuable outcomes including the fact that UGC reduces the strain on your staff to produce content, UGC provides unique value by answering questions and providing tips for using your products, and, maybe most importantly, a strong group of brand advocates (or ambassadors) is available to provide assistance to users around the clock, something you can’t do easily alone. The value of influencers Now, extend the analogy above to consider users with well above average numbers of followers. We call these social media influencers and there’s an entire marketing strategy built on getting social media influencers to engage with your content, bringing your brand to the attention of their huge numbers of connections, while tacitly endorsing your brand. Super simple social media marketing tips Now that we’re all on the same page regarding how social media marketing creates value for your business, let’s discuss our simple social media marketing tips to help you boost market performance and slam the competition. Create engagement After our discussion above, I hope you agree that the most important thing you must do when marketing using social media is to engage with your followers. Engagement doesn’t just happen and, if you attack social media marketing the same way you approach traditional marketing, you’ll fail to generate engagement, and your efforts will fail. The cornerstone to engagement on social media is crafting great content to share. But, instead of blasting promotional content, even if you use coupons or other valuable elements for users, you must generate a conversation with your community, not talk at them. Social media looks more like a backyard BBQ with friends than a commercial; at least if you expect success. So, don’t talk about yourself all the time. Listen and celebrate your community. That means recognizing the efforts of your community. So, if a member answers another user’s question, thank them. If a user shares a great story about your brand, offer them something for their efforts, such as a coupon for a free cookie if you’re a bakery. And, above all, listen for questions or concerns and address these posts as quickly as possible. Consider the platforms you use As you can see from our discussion on engagement, social media marketing takes TIME. Don’t expect to actively participate in every social platform out there unless you have a large staff dedicated to social media. Only choose a few platforms to ensure you dedicate sufficient time to each one. As a small company, when you start out using social media for your brand it is a good idea to keep the platforms down to a maximum of 3 as you learn the ropes. For example, if you are a food brand you might choose Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter in those first few months as you pull in new customers. The social media platforms you choose for your company largely depend on your target market. Consider the graphic below, as well as others you can find online to see which platforms match your target market.

The last decade has seen social media solidify into thriving, multifaceted communities where more than 3.2 billion people worldwide are active daily. More than 90 percent of millennials regularly use at least one of these platforms, and more than 85 percent of Generation Zers learn about new products through social media. It’s not hard to see why nearly three-fourths of marketers believe social media is an effective part of their business. As we close this decade down, there’s no doubt that social media will play a growing role in our lives for the foreseeable future. So, how should businesses, brands and even the average user anticipate the future for social platforms? Here’s a breakdown of some of the biggest trends we’ll see evolving on social media in 2020 and years to come. 1. The death of the “like” button on Instagram. It’s no secret that brands (and even regular users) often fixate on “likes,” comments and followers on social media as a measure of popularity and brand recognition. But this obsession is having a negative impact on our mental health and can actually stymie the free flow of engagement. We go along with the crowd, click a button and stop engaging in a meaningful way. Instagram is the latest in a long list of social media sites seeking to make likes less prominent. You will no longer be able to see the number of likes other Instagram posts get, although you can still see likes on your own posts. The idea has been hailed as a way to “depressurize” Instagram and could also help combat fake likes and followers -- these padded numbers can make brands and influencers appear to have a wider reach then they actually do. However, if likes do go away, marketers, brands and influencers will need to find ways to adapt to these changes. 2. Less emphasis on “vanity metrics.” Losing the “like” button on Instagram is part of a broader trend to de-emphasize the use of “vanity metrics” on social media. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has said that follower counts are now meaningless, and in a TED conference talk, he said if he could go back, he wouldn’t emphasize the “like” button so much. For social media marketers and influencers, this should signal that it’s time to start digging deeper into actionable metrics -- such as the rate and quality of user engagement on social media. Savvy marketers will take note, and begin exploring user demographics and relevant user data to better understand how to target potential customers. 3. Video story content is king. Video continues to be one of the most important trends in the social media world. In fact, video will make up 82 percent of all internet traffic in 2020, according to Social Media Today. As social media platforms look for ways to further prioritize video content, marketers will increasingly zero in on videos as part of their overall strategies to target specific markets. Keep a close eye on how this format reshapes marketing strategies. There will be an emphasis on creative, engaging storytelling that captures user attention in seconds. Brands will need to have a keen eye for how video stories engage users (especially on platforms where the like button goes away). 4. TikTok is disrupting social video. The emphasis on video means that video-driven platforms such as TikTok, Lasso and byte will continue to grow in popularity. Of these platforms, TikTok is the social media disruptor currently leading the way, especially with Gen Z users. The Chinese-owned social video app is well-positioned to shape this trend as it offers fertile ground for influencers, including micro-influencers (another trend we’ll discuss). TikTok is upping user engagement with its engaging, fresh and entertaining content that isn’t overly focused on a hard sell. In short, TikTok is the antithesis of your mother’s Instagram account because it shuns the overly curated and filtered view of life Instagram has become known for. 5. Social media audience segmentation. Whether we’re marketing a product or branding ourselves, we craft our social media posts with our audience in mind -- or at least who we think our audience is. The problem is, we don’t always have a firm grasp on who exactly is in our niche, nor do we do a good job of tailoring our message to target specific audiences. This one-size-fits-all approach is missing the boat on audience segmentation. Segmentation means to strategically divide your audience into meaningful groups based on individual preferences. Segmentation goes beyond basic demographics by allowing you to target and build rapport and a sense of community with specific audience members. In the coming years, segmentation will be a defining line between the savviest social media strategies and those that are just winging it. 6. Personalized video marketing will become a thing. Audience segmentation goes hand in hand with an increasing level of personalized social media marketing. It makes sense that combining segmentation with our love of video will result in personalized video marketing -- think video content that is customizable and hyper-relevant to specific segments of your market. Social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, are already pushing brands to produce video content through Story Ads, in part because these ad campaigns often see higher click-through rates than traditional News Feed ads. Twitter is also jumping into the fray with six-second video ads. Personalized content will take this trend to the next level. 7. Social shopping seamlessly incorporated into social platforms. In the last 10 years, social platforms have played a significant role in expanding ecommerce into a multibillion-dollar industry in the U.S. The fact is, social shopping is now a big part of social media. Users expect and want to have access to brands and products through social platforms -- the trick is to create a high level of interest through creative and engaging storytelling (which often relies on videos and influencer marketing). Another must is creating a frictionless shopping experience where customers don’t need to leave the social media site to buy products. There’s no doubt this trend will continue to expand in the new year. Look for an increasing number of shoppable posts, stories and links across all social media sites. And while TikTok isn’t yet being utilized in this way, it likely won’t be long before this platform evolves and retailers begin homing in on ways to crack this platform open to shoppability. 8. Less public, more private interactions. As our social media “friend” lists become more unwieldy, and concerns about information privacy grow, more users are turning to private groups and messaging apps to connect with others. Messaging apps like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram Messaging allow us to create more intimate groups where we can feel secure in sharing intimate and detailed information with others. This trend, which is really a return to direct communication, has the potential to be massive. In fact, messaging apps have outgrown social networks as the connective tools of choice for many users. The top messaging apps now combine for nearly 5 billion monthly active users. That’s more users than traditional social networks have worldwide. 9. Audiences want meaningful connections. As people become more wary of posting in the public social media domain, and interactions migrate away from public view, marketing will also need to follow suit. Brands must find ways to create more private, intimate connections with their audiences without becoming overly intrusive. This will likely come down to building brand communities, or groups where your brand message is relevant, but where you are also receptive to direct messaging. For instance, consider a 2018 Facebook survey of 8,000 people in which 69 percent of respondents said that directly messaging with a company helps them feel more confident about the brand. Other platforms, such as Instagram, offer a “List” feature that enables users to share posts and stories with a select group of friends. The goal is to give audiences more meaningful connections and a feeling of being in an exclusive and intimate environment. 10. Authentic content key to social selling. When it comes to wooing would-be shoppers to ecommerce social media stores, users are more skeptical than ever. They want to hear insights from real people before they pull out a credit card and close the sale. This is where user-generated content and employee-generated content are critical, with the key being that these must be genuine. User-generated content (think customer reviews) provide some proof the product may be worthy of trying. Employee-generated content is a bit broader and can include videos, images or blog posts, which may allude to their company’s mission and values, and the overall benefits of the product or services. Employees are seen as trusted insiders and customers find those insights more believable than canned company posts or other generic forms of social media marketing. 11. Influencer marketing goes nano. When it comes to influencer marketing, it’s time to look beyond the old adage “go big or go home.” For the biggest bang on social media, brands should consider the impact of micro- and even nano-influencers. While there will likely always be a market for big-name influencers, don’t underestimate the sway of micro-influencers, who have smaller, better-defined audiences. Influencers at this level offer a greater level of personalization and stronger audience engagement. Not only that, but users are more likely to follow an influencer they feel connected to than a faceless brand. 12. Social media is the place to nurture trust. Brands would do well to remember that social media isn’t just a platform for marketing and advertising; it’s truly the best place to nurture trust and build a relationship with their audience. Social media offers the ultimate opportunity for communicating brand value and engaging with potential customers on their level. Doing this requires brands to find ways to have a free flow of dialogue and let their hair down. Showing your brand’s human side and increasing transparency will build confidence with audiences. Focus on fun, simple engagement, be responsive to customer communication, and find meaningful ways to show social responsibility and a deeper level of social interaction. Doing this will help you stay ahead of the curve on everything else on social media.

Did you know that people in the U.S. and Canada spend 20% of their mobile time on Facebook or Instagram? And there are over 2.3 billion people using Facebook every month? With so many active users, Facebook Ads are a no-brainer for any marketer looking to reach new audiences in a place where people are already spending a significant amount of time. Facebook's business platform has grown to be more and more sophisticated, giving advertisers more options to reach new audiences and retarget previous site visitors back to their brand. However, with so many different options, it can be difficult for advertisers to figure out which Facebook Ad type is best for any given campaign objective. In this post, we'll walk through each of the different Facebook Ad types and help you figure out which ads you should run for different campaign goals. Facebook Ad Types Post Engagement Instant Experience Video Event Responses Offers Lead Generation Ads Page Likes Slideshow Carousel Collection Image 1. Post Engagement If you regularly post content on your Facebook page, you probably know that some content performs better than others. With Facebook post engagement ads, you can drive more engagement on individual posts and expand its original reach. This helps you generate more activity on your posts and helps you get more organic followers quickly by offering them the kinds of posts they'll see more of if they follow you. In the example below, the Fashion Stork Club ad promotes an update this company made to their Facebook photos. Notice that the add displays the post engagement (likes, comments, shares) along with the post to encourage viewers to engage with it. The ad also features a "like page" button which allows the advertiser to generate both page likes and post engagements all in one post. 2. Instant Experience While app engagement ads are intended to highlight specific features to drive in-app engagements, app install ads are focused on generating new users. Instead of calling out specific features, app install ads are more likely to showcase the app's core purpose and main functionality. The video ad features help educate your audience about your product features using video. Videos should be the highest resolution possible in aspect ratios 9:16 or 16:9. They also need to be a minimum of one second to a max of 240 minutes. A cool thing about Facebook's video ads is that you can upload a 360 ad, which is an immersive experience where users can drag their finger or turn their device to see an ad. In the example above, Spotify's ad uses a creative, colorful video that focuses on finding new music and playlists for users to enjoy. While a user might see the add and decide to sign up for Spotify immediately, Spotify used the brand awareness approach to create compelling content to draw the user's attention. 4. Event Responses Whether you have a new store opening or just want to boost awareness for one of your store's existing locations, you might consider using the local awareness ad type to drive brand awareness in specific geographic regions. This ad type is largely the same as brand awareness ads, but will be more oriented and targeted via location. For example, Cold Stone Creamery used a local awareness ad to target people in a geographic area when their store in Bangladesh opened. Notice how in this ad, Cold Stone chose to use a video as the creative asset featured in the ad. This is a great way to engage users and entice them to stop scrolling down their newsfeed. 5. Offers During the website conversion ads section, we touched on the fact that you could use conversion-focused offers as a landing point for your Facebook ad. That said, Facebook also allows you to set off-site offer downloads as a campaign objective. Whether you have discounts, holiday deals, or content-specific offers to promote via Facebook ads, the offer claim objective allows you to customize your ads with calls-to-action specific to the offer. For example, you might use a "Learn More" call-to-action if you're offering something that's good only for the first 500 sign-ups, like in the ad example below: As you can see, the offer claim Facebook Ad type should lead your users directly to a sign-up page on your website where they can claim the offer you promoted. 6. Lead Generation Ads In a traditional lead generation conversion path, users are driven to a landing page where they fill out a form. For example, you might use a Facebook offer claim ad (like we discussed in the previous section) to drive users to your website and have them fill out a form there. The downside to this conversion path is that users are required to leave Facebook altogether once they've clicked on the ad to actually claim what you're promoting. Luckily, Facebook offers the lead generation objective, which allows you to collect lead information without forcing your audience to ever leave the Facebook app. Here's an example that shows the conversion path the user goes through on a Facebook lead ad. First, the user see a traditional conversion-focused ad: Once the user clicks on the add and/or call-to-action (in this case, Sign-Up), they see this pop up within the Facebook app: Next, the user can click the register button and see a form (of your choosing) with their information auto-filled. Once the user submits the form on the lead ad, they can click out of the ad and go back to browsing on Facebook. It's a great user experience and Facebook will sync with your CRM so your leads are right where you want them. In some cases, you may want to use Facebook Ads to expand your organic reach. When this is your campaign goal, you should use the page like ad type to encourage new users to "like" your page. Once they do, they'll be able to see your organic content when you post it. Page like campaigns are best for advertisers who put lots of effort into their social media presence and produce content specifically for their Facebook users to drive engagement. Keep in mind, you can also ad a "like page" call-to-action option to other ad types if you want to accomplish two goals with one ad. 8. Slideshow Slideshow ads, in Facebook's opinion, are kind of in the video category, kind of not. Think of them as billboards: they move quickly and can give an immersive ad experience. Slideshows are an affordable alternative to video, and also provide a quick loading time, so you can capture the attention span of someone who doesn't want to wait for videos. These are a possible option for you if you want to quickly make ads. Facebook gives you the option of choosing from stock images and free video editing tools to make your ad spectacular. You can even choose music. Slideshows are also great for you if you want to simplify a process that is a little bit more complex. Like Carousels, you can use quickly moving images to tell a story or sequence. 9. Carousel Carousel ads are very diverse and Facebook hosts them on their website, Instagram, Messenger, and Audience Network. Carousels lets you show up to 10 images or videos in one ad. This expansive ad space embraces creativity. Common ways to use carousel ads are product demos, product highlights, showcasing specs about a product, and a way to tell stories. Although they're popular on Instagram, Carousels also have a place on Facebook, and can attract users who are into an interactive experience. 10. Collection If you're releasing a lot of products at once, collection ads may be something you look into, especially at the end of a campaign that drives a lot of interest. This is because collection ads lets interested buyers move from discovering your product to purchasing in a streamlined method. Collection ads are pretty much like an online store, with a primary image of the product along with four images customers can tap through. If they decide to purchase, they can do so without leaving the platform. 11. Image For driving visitors to your site, a quick creation process, and keeping things simple, image ads are right up your alley. They are a common form of an ad and come with fewer bells and whistles than other formats. Still, they can be extremely effective. With a single, stunning image and little text, you can create a stunning image ad, where that picture will be the focal point. Images on Facebook gives you a format to use, with spaces to make sure your photo is incredible and you have the option to include copy. How to Choose Which Facebook Ad Type to Use We've covered all of the different Facebook Ad types campaign objectives you can use to meet your specific ads goals. But is that all encompassing? Not really. In reality, many of the Facebook Ad type campaign objectives overlap, and you could use multiple ad types to accomplish the same objective. Additionally, Facebook has many different options for you to choose from once you pick a campaign objective, which means choosing an ad type isn't even half of the battle. So how do you decide which ad type to use? 1) Define your campaign goal. Before you begin any ad campaign, you first need to determine what the goal of your campaign is. Are you trying to drive conversions on your website? Drive attendance for an upcoming event? Simply get more customers to your local store? Don't just come up with a campaign around which ad type you want to use. Instead, start with your own marketing needs and build your ad around it. 2) Choose relevant types you could use. Once you've defined the goal of your ad campaign, take a look at the different Facebook Ad types available to you. Luckily, you already know what each of the ad types are. Choose the type most relevant to your goals. You probably noticed Facebook has multiple ad types you could use for a single objective. If your goal is to drive downloads for an ebook, for example, you could use any one of the following options: 3) Narrow down your options. Once you've chosen which ad types are most applicable to your needs, choose the one you think will work best for you campaign. Or, use the same creative, copy, and targeting options to set up a campaign test using different ad types and see if one performs better than the other. 4) Write copy and create assets. One great feature of Facebook's Ads Manager tool is the wide range of creative and layout options you have available to you. Not only can you choose between image, video, photo grid, and carousel layouts, you can also customize your ads for mobile and desktop audiences. Facebook also has lots of different calls-to-action you can use on your ads, or you can choose not to use one at all! As you run different ad campaigns, make sure to test and analyze what works best for your audience. 5) Use different ad types for different campaign goals. Don't just stick to one ad type for all of your campaigns. Instead, make sure you're optimizing your ads for the right campaign objectives. Try out different Facebook Ad types and different ad campaigns to optimize your ad strategy for your audience. 6) Target the right audience. Creating the draft of your ad is only half the battle. The other half is figuring out how to target the right audience for your ads campaign. 7) Test, analyze, and repeat. Once you've defined your campaign objective, selected your ad type, created your ad, and targeted the right audience, it's time to analyze your results. Remember: digital advertising is all about testing, analyzing, and optimizing future ad campaigns over time. Make sure you follow this important final important step, and you'll be on your way to implementing a high-ROI ads strategy in no time.

Pinterest has 200 million routine month-to-month people, as well as additionally while it might not be a social networks websites leviathan like Facebook or Twitter, it is a crucial social media sites websites system with deep seepage in useful demographics. You are losing out on out on opportunities to reach feasible new customers if you do not presently have a solid approach for specifically just how to make use of Pinterest in your business marketing and advertising strategy. Below are 5 efficient approaches for making use of Pinterest to produce also extra internet website traffic to your website as well as additionally broaden your solution. Consist Of Save Buttons to Your Site You have to make it really simple for them if you prefer your target audience to take task. Taking this fundamental activity will absolutely quintuple the variety of product people preserve from your internet site. Continuously Pin It's recommended that you Pin something to the socials media system daily, throughout peak times, which have in fact been confirmed to be in the evening as well as additionally on the weekend break breaks, for U.S. centered companies. Pinterest furthermore discusses that harmony is important. If you want to generate pins or upcoming celebrations, durations, or getaways, you have to start releasing them 45 days in advancement. Focus On Great Visuals Considered that Pinterest is a really visual system, it will definitely deserve your effort to create excellent pictures. The photos that you Pin need to be clear, well-composed, well-lit, along with in focus. If you do not have the time or the gadgets to establish your extremely own photos, you can make use of supply electronic photography websites for your photos. Use Keywords While Pinterest is a visual device, pictures alone are not virtually adequate to establish participation. Utilize the recap locations to notify consumers specifically what they will definitely get if they click the internet link. Make sure you contain essential keywords to help your Pins expose up in searches. Use Rich Pins Bountiful Pins are an existing improvement to Pinterest. They make usage of metadata that is attracted from your web site to provide people with added details concerning what they will absolutely uncover if they click on a Pin. These type of Pins are supplied for meals, applications, things, as well as additionally brief write-ups, along with are probably appropriate to the internet material that you Pin to the web site. Pinterest is swiftly winding up being a huge social media sites websites system for organisations to get a lot more targeted leads. Following these 5 social media networks strategies will absolutely assist you take advantage of Pinterest to increase your business. Pinterest has 200 million month-to-month clients, as well as additionally while it can not be a social media sites leviathan like Facebook or Twitter, it is an important social networks system with deep seepage in essential demographics. If you do not presently have a solid approach for simply exactly how to utilize Pinterest in your business marketing and advertising technique, you are losing out on out on opportunities to reach possible new customers. Below are 5 reliable approaches for utilizing Pinterest to develop much more internet website traffic to your net website along with increase your organisation. Bountiful Pins are an existing improvement to Pinterest. Pinterest is swiftly winding up being a gigantic social media sites system for business to get back at much more targeted leads. Pinterest has 200 million routine month-to-month people, as well as additionally while it might not be a social media websites leviathan like Facebook or Twitter, it is a crucial social media websites system with deep seepage in advantageous demographics. Plentiful Pins are an existing improvement to Pinterest. Pinterest has 200 million month-to-month clients, as well as additionally while it can not be a social media leviathan like Facebook or Twitter, it is an important social media system with deep seepage in essential demographics. If you do not presently have a solid method for simply exactly how to make usage of Pinterest in your firm advertising and marketing and also advertising technique, you are missing out on out on out on opportunities to obtain to possible new customers. Below are 5 reliable techniques for making usage of Pinterest to produce also extra internet website traffic to your web website as well as broaden your organisation.

Facebook is a platform that allows you to find your friends and follow their activity on Facebook. You can also share your idea on Facebook by creating a status, uploading photos and videos, or sharing other people’s posts. Once on your profile, your friends will be able to see it on their feed and they can like, comment, or share your posts. Your Facebook feed consists of everything your friends do on the platform – you can see what they’re liking, posting, commenting on, or sharing. Scrolling through your feed can be a blessing or your experience may not be great and this all depends on what your friends are doing. If you’re stalking someone on Facebook, this may be an ex that you can't leave alone or someone you admire (which may or may not be healthy - but hey, no judgement here), chances are that you’re going to be on their Facebook profile a lot. Or since you visit their profile so often, you always see their content on your feed. What Happens If You Like and then Unlike a Post on Facebook? When you’re on someone’s profile, or you may see their posts on your feed, then accidentally liking one of their posts is inevitable. This can be embarrassing especially if you’re far down on their profile and you accidentally like something from weeks ago. To save yourself from the embarrassment, you unlike the post in the hopes that they don’t find out. If you’re worried whether they’ll be able to tell you liked their posts, then it depends. If you accidentally like and unlike someone’s post on Facebook, chances are they won’t know you’ve done so. Depending on how quickly you unliked, they may not receive a notification on their phone. However, if they’re active on their phone and you took too long to unlike, then they are likely to receive a notification and see it. If they’re not using their device during the time you liked and unliked their posts, then the notification is removed from their device as soon as you unlike it. Even if they go to their Facebook notifications, they won’t be able to see that you’ve liked their posts because the notification gets deleted as soon as you unlike it. Tip: If you are on someone’s profile, looking through their posts or their pictures, then you can put your phone or airplane mode to cover your tracks. Before you do this, make sure to load up all of your content using Wi-Fi or data. Once it’s loaded, put your phone in airplane mode. If you accidently like something, it won’t be registered as your phone wasn’t connected to the internet. If you do accidently like someone, take your phone off airplane mode and refresh their profile – you’ll see that the like wasn’t registered. :-)

2023: The Year To Market Your Business Like Never Before

How to Choose a Web Design Agency?

There are plenty of exciting ways to grow your business! More people are using email and social media than ever before, and the result is plenty of new opportunities for leaders and marketing teams across all industries. One aspect of marketing you may be neglecting is your mobile strategy. Over 3.5 billion people own mobile devices globally, which means you’re leaving a lot of money on the table if you’re not doing everything possible to reach smartphone users. If you need more context, consider this; the average person spends 3.3 hours on their smartphone every single day. You can maximize sales and conversions by looking for opportunities to put your business front and center while your target audience uses their phones. The thing is, mobile users have slightly different behaviors and interests when compared to their desktop counterparts. Our goal today is to reveal four effective mobile marketing strategies you can use to help your brand thrive following the new year. Emphasis Personalization In 2021 and 2022, we learned that consumers love personalized experiences. Business owners quickly figured out that catering to their audience’s needs is a great way to generate more sales. You can see personalization aspects across all of the major marketing platforms today, including social media, email, and on-site. Nailing personalization will help you get more mobile conversions in 2021. People are interested in engaging with companies that offer products that help with specific pain points or cater to individual goals. The best way to make this strategy work for you is to understand the customer personas that visit your site. Personas are generalized personality type profiles that define your target audience. For instance, a sporting goods store would have personas for football fans and separate profiles for people interested in basketball. Because your products or services offer multiple solutions, you need to consider these factors when offering personalized content or promotions to smartphone visitors. Using a mobile-responsive design ensures that their experience is personalized to their interests and their device. Leverage the Power of Voice Search Another trend expected to impact mobile sales specifically is voice search. Consumers use smart speakers like Amazon’s Alexa to search the internet, but mobile phones play an equally important role. Android and Apple-powered smartphones have a voice assistant that smartphone users can use to ask questions, browse the website, and make purchases. We know that more people are using their devices to place orders too. A surprising 22% of people using smart speakers, including their mobile phones, used their devices to buy a product. You can improve your voice search visibility by including new keywords throughout your content. The truth is, people rarely speak the way they type. When you’re creating blog posts, use a conversational tone, and include some of these new words throughout your content. Now, when someone is searching for your chosen keywords, there’s a chance your site could pop up in their results. Due to this exposure, they could go to your website and become a subscriber or customer. Mobile users are likely to follow their voice-activated device’s suggestion, so getting this part of your mobile marketing strategy right is essential. Simplify Processes and Empower Users Next, let’s talk about your website’s design and choices you can make to empower users. The people interacting with your brand want a smooth and seamless experience across all platforms. Smoothing out your edges and using each marketing platform to your advantage will help you dramatically boost your mobile conversion rate. For instance, you may want to consider adding a customer support feature to your largest social media accounts. A whopping 63% of people expect customer support options through social media. If a smartphone user is thinking about becoming a customer, not having an additional support option could be a deal-breaker. Your objective is to make things as simple as possible for visitors discovering your company and those interested in the products or services offered on-site. So, improving your page loading times and reducing clutter on your website will ensure that mobile and desktop users alike can find exactly what they need. It’s also a good idea to simplify the big moments in the buying process. For example, fine-tuning your checkout page ensures that more customers stick around and complete their order. As a result, you’ll see fewer abandoned carts and an improved customer retention rate. This part of the process will evolve in phases. Take your time and slowly improve navigation, design, and function availability across all platforms, and you’ll see more mobile engagement. Shift to Visual Content We’ve also noticed a drastic shift in the way people consume content. Mobile users are a big fan of visual content like images and videos. Both of these types of media see more engagement when compared to simple text posts. There’s an additional engagement level that people get from experiencing others doing things instead of writing about them. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in; there are plenty of ways to mix up your content for mobile users. If you’re looking for a new way to generate more mobile leads for your email list, consider creating an infographic lead magnet. Lead magnets are essentially pieces of content that users can get in exchange for their email addresses. An infographic is a visual piece of content that displays interesting points and facts for people to read. Creating a lead magnet with a nice piece of visual content will encourage mobile users to subscribe, which opens the door to future engagement opportunities. Video content is also extremely helpful in helping brands grow their mobile audience. In fact, video content alone is 50x more likely to drive organic traffic than text-only posts! Think about unique videos you can make that focus on your products or industry as a whole. You can make an opinion piece, guide, tutorial, or even spend some time chatting with your followers. People love video content, and that trend will not change in 2021. Final Thoughts As you can glean from this article, trends will continue to grow. As more people get comfortable using mobile devices, expect to see a continued increase in shoppers. We think that there will be an increased demand for these strategies as brands continue adapting to their customers’ needs.

During the initial spark of the pandemic at the beginning of the year 2020, most businesses experienced a severe downfall as normal life came to a standstill. Work from home became a new normal and people started shifting their business to online. In all these months, we have noticed how the brick and mortar businesses have made their online presence and generated even more revenue than before. The entire concept of marketing can be seen reconceptualized during the pandemic period. Now when everything is getting normalized slowly, we can see how businesses are earning good revenue by applying the top digital marketing strategies in their business. Top 5 digital marketing strategies post COVID-19 ...that have been providing long term benefits to various businesses post-COVID. If you are looking forward to finding some real-time and proven marketing hacks, then I am sure, these strategies will take your business to sky-heights: 1. Shift your business online As already discussed above that most of the physical businesses have shifted their presence to online and are earning more. By this point, you must have understood the benefits of having an online business presence. With an online presence, you can connect with a huge number of audience than your brick and mortar business. Online shopping, being a trend, has proved to be a golden opportunity for e-commerce merchants and other business entrepreneurs for selling their products and services. It has been estimated by Statista, that online shopping would shoot up to 2.14 billion by 2021. So now you see, why it is so crucial to give your business an online presence. 2. Know your online audience better For establishing any kind of online business, you first need to know your target audience. Your potential audience can be your loyal customers if you can sell them your product or services in the right way along with satisfying them. You must be able to differentiate in various customer behavior, propositions, and their way of communication. Also, you must have a better understanding of the online marketplace. The foremost thing you have to do in this regard is to spy on your competitors. Find out what kind of marketing strategies they are applying, to be on the forefront. This will help you in understanding what kind of strategies should you apply to give a cutthroat competition to your competitors. 3. Invest in paid advertising Although you can drive in leads to your business through various tactfully created organic strategies, investing some amount in the paid ads can boost your chances of bringing leads & sales. One of the remarkable features of paid advertising is that it helps you to showcase your products and services in the form of visual & textual advertisements. These ads can be shown to both of your previous and new visitors. Since you are making an investment in Ads especially, you need to come up with a compelling and creative ad strategy, to ensure that it is reaching out to the appropriate audience. 4. Change your communication strategy If you are following just a single form of communication with your customers in your online business, then you are definitely going in the wrong direction. With time your audience’s schedule and priorities may change. And that is the reason why you need to change your communication strategies too. For instance, if you are just sending newsletters via email to your audience, then this might not be the right approach. You need to come up with several other communication modes so that you don’t miss out on any chance of letting your customers know about your business. 5. Bring in leads with offers Lure your customers by pulling their attention to special offers and discounts. People love freebies! And if you provide them with anything such, then they will stick to your business for a long-time. You can adopt several means like updating your customers with any recent product or services, any special discounts, offers on payment modes, SMS, and so on. You may also conduct podcast episodes, webinar sessions, and share your YouTube videos discussing the offers on your products or services. In this way, you have to come up with various offer-related strategies to bring in more customers to your business. For long-term business benefits, digital marketing strategies have proven to work amazingly, especially during the post-pandemic period. By leveraging the benefits of digital marketing strategies, the entrepreneurs are now making the best out of everything and climbing the ladders of success quickly. What are your views about it? Do you also think the same? Perhaps you would like to explore new strategies for your business. If so, kindly reach out to us at Atlantic Online.

The GDPR, which is Europe’s most comprehensive data privacy law, was enacted in 2016 but was only enforced starting in May 2018. Because both regulators and businesses are still in the process of solidifying its enforcement, there may be a lot of concerns over the requirements, especially for non-European businesses. GDPR has far-reaching consequences. As a law, its applicability is not limited by the physical boundaries of the European Union (EU) or the European Economic Area (EEA). It has the power to influence companies based in the USA, which is the biggest trading partner of the EU, as well as in Canada and other parts of the world. WHO NEEDS TO COMPLY WITH THE GDPR? Broadly speaking, the GDPR applies to Canadian and USA companies because it is extra-territorial in scope. Specifically, article 3 of the GDPR covers regulations over the “processing of personal data of data subjects who are in the union by a controller or processor not established in the Union”. The law clearly specifies that it applies to any controller or processor not established in the Union (or the EU), including those established in the USA and Canada . Not all US and Canadian companies, however, need to know the GDPR back-to-back. The law is only applicable to companies dealing with information on certain “data subjects”. GDPR covers the processing of personal data of anyone who is in the EU or EEA, including citizens, residents, and even visitors. Thus, any American or Canadian company needs to comply with the GDPR regardless of size or revenue as long as it involves data subjects who are in the union. However, businesses with less than 250 employees are not required to keep a record of their data-processing activities if those activities are unlikely to pose a risk to the rights and freedom of data subjects and if no special categories of data are being processed. WHAT IS CONSIDERED PERSONAL DATA & IT'S PROCESSING? Processing of personal data of data subjects includes at least one of these two activities: The offering of goods or services to EU/EEA data subjects, whether or not a payment is required in the transaction. Monitoring of user behavior, as long as the behavior takes place within the EU/EEA. Personal data is defined as any piece of information that can help identify an individual. This includes names, contact information, photographs, videos, as well as device details such as IP addresses, location data, and biometric information. A person’s e-mail address in a marketing list is considered personal data. Special categories of personal data are mentioned in most privacy laws. That includes medical information and records, as well as children’s personal data. Aside from these identifiers, the GDPR also covers the monitoring of user behavior. Among these are internet tracking by a website by using cookies and the use of algorithms that predict preferences for targeted advertising. Online businesses commonly use these strategies in boosting performance and website traffic. Any online business or website that targets persons in the EU will need to comply with the GDPR if any of the conditions above are met. The GDPR may apply to both the controller and the processor of personal data. As mentioned, the processing of personal data includes the collection, recording, organization, storage, retrieval, use, alteration, or disclosure of any data that can help identify an individual. A collector, on the other hand, determines what to do with the data. A clothing business gathering email addresses for sales, and a marketing list is a collector. Shipping companies and third-party payment companies are processors of personal data. Data processing also applies to internal company information. Large online businesses with agents or employees in the EU are also required to have measures for the handling, storage, transfer, and use of employee personal data. Here are several scenarios to illustrate data processing activities and the GDPR: California-based specialty store ships electronics to Paris, Berlin, and other European cities. Because it is targeted to the EU, it must comply with GDPR. Montreal-based online tutoring service only caters to customers in the surrounding region. The personal data of individuals accessing the website from Europe is not covered by the GDPR as the website does not offer goods or services to EU/EEA data subjects. Canada-based freelance writer publishes in French and accepts commissions from French publishing houses. GDPR applies because the offer of service is made to data subjects in the union. GDPR NON-COMPLIANCE PENALTIES AND CONSEQUENCES Non-compliance with the GDPR comes with heavy consequences. Failure to meet requirements will lead to a fine of 4% of the annual global revenue or €20 million, whichever is higher. For most purposes, the law mandates the appointment of a representative physically located within the EU/EEA to facilitate enforcement. In instances of non-compliance, any assets in the EU/EEA may be seized, including bank accounts and real estate. For online businesses and websites that have no physical presence in the EU, international law will take effect. The European Union has mutual assistance treaties with many countries, including the US and Canada. Always be congizant of data protection rules of the countries in which you are conduting business. Ignorance of the law is not an excuse when it applies to unsolicited online marketing. For further information, please contact Atlantic Online and we would be pleased to provided further clarification.

Making money from your website is not that hard. It all comes down to using the right approach and results can be more than impressive in the end. But as long as you take your time, you will find the experience to be very impressive and all sorts of rewarding. Here you have some great ways you can use to make money off your website! PR can come in handy and it helps you promote your website. As a result, you can generate more traffic and sales. It doesn’t cost that much but the value can be worth it. Social media integration allows you to share your content in social media, but it can also lead social traffic to your website. As a result, you get to have more customers and a higher quality value in the end. This is very helpful and results can be worth it. Forums can be great. By adding a forum to your website, you basically have the opportunity to increase your exposure in the online world. This allows you to acquire more traffic fast and easy, without any hassle. Email marketing is considered by many to be one of the best methods to generate money from your site. You get to use it in order to keep in touch with your customers and the return on investment can be huge in the end. YouTube can be a solid way to market your company. A lot of businesses get to have social media exposure and results can be very impressive due to that. You need to consider exploring all opportunities offered here, as YouTube has a massive reach. Facebook and Twitter ads. These are amazing tools that will help you boost the exposure of your business fast and easy. The return on investment can be huge here, so you should consider giving them a try. If you don’t manage to target a specific group of people, try to create better ads that make them come back. It’s a very good way to generate more revenue for your company and results can be worth it in the longer term. PPC can be another great source of market your business. It will provide you with a lot of traffic that, in the end, can turn into conversions. Blogging is very helpful and it can bring in front some incredible results. It’sone of the best things that you can check out and it will provide you with an incredible set of results right from the start. It’sone of the very best methods to promote your website online and it works very well. SEO is not expensive, yet it manages to offer you a resounding return on investment. It’s a pleasure to use and it will bring in front an incredible value, which is exactly what you want to have in the end. As you can see, there are many ways to market your website nowadays. All you have to do is to check them out and the experience can be more than impressive in the end.

Emails that are part of a larger campaign have the advantage of sparking customers’ curiosity and, hopefully, leading them further down the funnel. Take Welcome or Intro campaigns, for example. These are emails sent to customers right after they sign up for your email—ideally, immediately after, as they can be triggered to send as soon as a customer enters their email on your site. While many brands keep their Welcome campaign to a single email, you can also expand that into two or three. The first can be a simple B2B Email Marketing: The New Rules Email marketing has been a critical element of b2b marketing since the world went digital. Most b2b companies have historically embraced this, sending out regular e-newsletters and updates to keep their clients and potential clients engaged and abreast of new developments. The challenge, however—or one of the challenges—has been that b2b companies don’t have quite as many obvious reasons to send out emails as their b2c counterparts. Many b2b brands don’t have coupons or flash sales to advertise, after all. But that doesn’t mean that b2b brands don’t have plenty of reasons to stay in touch with their clients via email. In fact, today it’s more important than ever to do so. While lots of the tenets of email marketing have stayed the same, certain things have changed. Here are the new rules of email marketing for b2b, and why you should be playing by them. B2B buyers want to hear from you by email. It’s easy to think that most of the emails you send to clients and potential clients will end up in their Trash, but actually, b2b buyers want more email from you. According to research by Episerver, 54 percent of b2b decision-makers want b2bs to communicate with them more frequently via email. In addition, 45 percent of U.S. b2b decision-makers prefer to learn about a company via email more than any other channel. And yet despite these numbers, 59 percent of b2b brands don’t use email marketing at all. Among the brands that do, the average number of email communications sent is only one every 25 days. It’s important to note, as well, that phone calls were the least desired form of communication, meaning that it’s probably time to shift some of your sales department’s cold-calling to cold-emailing. Another thing to consider is that the b2b landscape is becoming more and more millennial-centered, as members of this generation are starting to hit their stride as decision-makers. And according to research from Adesta, 73 percent of millennials prefer communications from businesses to come via email. What this should tell you is that if you’ve been neglecting your b2b email marketing, it’s time to get back on that horse. Here are some guidelines for how to approach your b2b email marketing in 2020. Use email not only for the top of your funnel, but to move leads down to mid-funnel, as well. Email has generally been used as a top-of-the-funnel approach. B2B brands often focus on the channel as a way to increase awareness and engagement among their audiences. Newsletters, downloadable content, and promotions are all good examples of this kind of content. The idea for each is that a lead or perhaps a client who hasn’t converted in a while will see your brand’s name in their email, remember who you are, and hopefully click on the email to see how your employees have been helping their community, or what new product you’re offering, or what the webinar you’re promoting is about. If you move them down the funnel, that’s excellent—but most brands aren’t targeting their emails closely enough to make this a probability. If you have a promotional email, for example, that offers a free consultation on a new service you’re offering, you might send it to your entire list with the primary goal of getting more eyes on your brand. That’s fine—but let’s look at how you could increase the effectiveness of this email by using it to actually move clients down your sales funnel, so they ultimately convert. One way would be to create segmented email lists and adapt the email to each. For existing customers, you could include a “thank you for your business” message and give them a special deal you’re not offering others. That could be a larger discount, longer period of time to take advantage of the sale, or a sneak peek of your new product or service, among others. Source: MailBakery In this email, Atlassian is giving existing customers the chance to try their brand new features not only before anyone else, but for free. Personalize, personalize, personalize Gone are the days when using a customer’s first name in the greeting of your email counted as personalization. Today’s b2b buyers, after all, are connected consumers during their off-hours. They’re shopping b2b websites that have curated selections just for them, viewing emails reminding them they looked at an item two weeks ago but didn’t purchase, and scrolling through social feeds with ads that are designed precisely to appeal to their interests, values, and desires. So it stands to reason that they’re going to expect something similar from the b2b brands they interact with at work. If you’re not convinced, consider this statistic from Campaign Monitor: Marketers who use segmented campaigns note as much as a 760% increase in revenue. Because email lists can be segmented now based on lots of different criteria, email is actually an ideal channel through which to deliver personalized content. Say you segment your lists by customers who signed up for a service, but haven’t yet used it. You could create an email reminding them to get started, and offering some inspiration. That’s what CampaignMonitor did with this email: Source: MailBakery Other ways to personalize your email campaigns are: Don’t be stuffy Yes, your customers and leads want you to be professional. But formal, jargon-filled language is even more out of style than it was five years ago (and believe us, jargon has never been the way to any customer’s heart). As b2b continues to take more and more of its cues from b2c marketing, the language b2b marketers are using is becoming more casual and friendly than it’s ever been. Of course, you still have to know your audience. If you’re marketing your products to C-level executives of Fortune 500 companies, then you’ll need to adopt a more professional and confident tone than you would marketing to 20-something new small business owners. However, we are now seeing statistics that show a less formal tone is attractive to b2b buyers. For instance, 56% of brands using an emoji in their email subject line had a higher open rate than those that did not, according to Forbes. Doing something small, like adding an emoji to your subject line, is an easy thing to experiment with that can give you some insight into what your customers like. You could also write the same email in slightly different voices—one your typical brand voice, the other in a slightly less formal voice than you usually use. Then do an A/B test with them and see which email earns the most opens and clicks. Send emails often—but not too often If you’re among the b2b brands that are sending just one email communication every 25 days, it’s time to increase that frequency. The most effective schedule, according to CoSchedule, is to communicate between 2 and 4 times per month with your email list. 37 percent of B2B marketers said 2-3 times per month was ideal, with 25 percent saying 3-4 times per month worked best. You certainly don’t want to bombard your clients, but remember that the majority of b2b buyers, according to the majority of research, say they want more email, not less. So unless you’re sending out multiple emails per week, you can probably stand to increase that number. Remember your email marketing should aim at creating a dialogue, rather than just supporting a monologue Promotional emails and content delivery are valuable elements of any email marketing strategy—but make sure that you’re incorporating opportunities for your clients and customers to engage with your brand in a meaningful way, too. “Meaningful way” means more than just buying something or downloading a report. Here are a few options for building a robust two-way relationship with clients through email: Remember that emails work best when they’re part of a larger campaign, not just a series of one-offs and general welcome and overview of your brand. Next, you could take them for a spin through your content library, or give them a view of your product/service families. If you have a b2b ecommerce store, walk them through the ordering process. Just be sure to keep each email under about 400 words if possible. Save the heavy verbiage for your website—if they click your email link, you’ll know they’re probably interested in reading or hearing a bit more. B2B email marketing is critical for brands today, as the other most traditional form of communication—phone—is steeply declining in value for the majority of buyers. After all, b2b business is all about nurturing relationships with your customers, no matter where those customers are in your funnel. Ready to get started? Contact Atlantic Online today!

The internet is global by using nature, it is maximum useful for those business owners who want to target the global markets and customers internationally. But when you have a local enterprise and your clients stay within the same city or vicinity, it’s miles vain to run a universal search. You are losing your assets if you are concentrated on the global market. You need to give attention to the neighborhood marketplace and customers. But how to do this? Does Google separate the websites in keeping with their area? No, not certainly. But you could use some SEO techniques to divert your nearby customers towards your enterprise. Here are a few SEO guidelines for neighborhood enterprise owners Include your area on your keyword This is the first trick, you need to encompass the call of the region for your keyword.This will locate your website and your agency in front of those eyes that are in look for an amazing SEO organization inside the same region or round it. Also, encompass the location within the meta tags and the frame of the website. But make certain you do now not over do it. Yahoo Local and Google Places These are a few splendid locations to encompass your internet site. They will include your website amongst their list of particular places. Using the vicinity as anchor texts It isn’t always clean to get organic again hyperlinks with the call of your region because in most cases, the key phrases are not grammatically correct. But you could use them as an anchor textual content for blog commenting. If you comment on a do follow weblog you will win a one-way link in an effort to be helpful for you. Include your website on the local search engines Find out a few neighborhood search engines like google and yahoo that are very popular to your place and try and encompass your internet site on them. This will assist you to win greater visibility to your website among the neighborhood customers. When it comes to Search Engine Optimization additionally known as search engine marketing almost all internet site technicians have heard of it and want that they might do it as well. Well, bet what, search engine optimization is feasible to do on your website, you just need to take into account that SEO isn’t all of the websites is made of. You may even maintain up with the website in fashionable and not cognizance too much on the search engine optimization wherein the net page gets previous. First, you have to awareness on the key phrases. A keyword is a phrase that you will be the use of lots within the Web page text. In 250 phrase texts to your web web page use the keyword approximately 5-15%, You might imagine that there’s no such element as using a key-word for your net web page textual content too usually, but the fact is that you may. Using the keyword to your internet page textual content too many time can create the negative impact from what you’re trying. You may additionally discourage humans far from your web web page and they may no longer be able to find it in case you use that keyword too normally. When it comes to brilliant search engine marketing pointers that paintings something else to pay attention to is perhaps to discover someone who will compose the SEO text to your website for you, you could pay a chum or family member a little bit of extra money to write down the SEO textual content for you, make sure you tell them precisely what you need and what you’re searching out and if the primary time they mess up, or possibly even the second time doesn’t always end what you need, do not discourage them away from it due to the fact at the least you’ve got the base of a few type of SEO script to go by means of. Nothing will be the way you want it unless you do it, so of course, there may be a chunk of modifying to do to a search engine marketing if you have someone else do it.

This post explains everything you need to know about cornerstone content – or evergreen content, as it’s also known. You’ll learn what it is, why it’s important for SEO, how to write this kind of content and how you should link from your posts to your cornerstone articles. What is cornerstone content? Cornerstone content is the core of your website. It consists of the best, most important articles on your site; the pages or posts you want to rank highest in the search engines. Cornerstone articles are usually relatively long, informative articles, combining insights from different blog posts and covering everything that’s important about a certain topic. Their focus is to provide the best and most complete information on a particular topic, rather than to sell products. Still, they should reflect your business or communicate your mission perfectly. Cornerstone content can be either a blog post or a page. But whichever they are, you should make sure they’re very well written, update them often, and aim to get them to rank for your most competitive keywords. Why are cornerstone articles so important for SEO? Cornerstone content plays a significant role in any SEO strategy. It can be hard to rank for search terms that are very popular, but a cornerstone approach can help you tackle those competitive search terms. If you write a lot of articles on similar subjects, you need to tell Google which of them is the most important. If you don’t, you’ll be eating away your own chances to rank well in the search results. Providing the correct internal link structure between your posts tells Google which article is the most important. Link structure for cornerstones Cornerstone articles should have a prominent place on your website. Ideally, someone should be able to click straight from your homepage to your cornerstone articles. Also, all your other posts about similar topics should link back to their corresponding cornerstone article, so its importance is clear from your site structure. As your site develops, you will write tons of new blog posts approaching that topic from other angles, each one linking back to your cornerstone article. This internal linking structure will increase the chance of your cornerstone content articles ranking in Google searches. The following metaphor might help you understand this principle: imagine you’re looking at a map of a state or country. Small towns and big cities will all be interconnected somehow. But the big cities will have many more roads leading towards them than the small towns. Those cities are your cornerstones, receiving the most links. The small towns are your posts on more specific topics. There are some roads (links) leading to them, but not as many as to the big cities. A more concrete example: I write a lot of different posts about SEO copywriting, each looking at a different aspect of SEO copywriting. The cornerstone article for this topic is the Ultimate Guide to SEO Copywriting, and whenever I write a new post on SEO copywriting, I add a link to that cornerstone article. In doing so, I’ll make clear to Google that the Ultimate Guide is the most important article about SEO Copywriting on our site, thereby increasing its chances to rank. Which articles are my cornerstones? Choose your cornerstones carefully. Think of the four or five pages you would like someone to read when they first visit your website. These articles should be the cornerstones of your site. Which articles are most important to you? Which are the most complete and authoritative? Do these target the keywords you most want to rank for? The concept of cornerstone content is so important, that our Yoast SEO plugin includes an option to indicate whether or not an article is cornerstone content. If you mark articles as cornerstone, Yoast SEO helps you write a kick-ass article and build a solid internal linking structure. Marking your cornerstone articles means you can create a list of them in your post overview, so you can easily work on improving them. And, most importantly, the link suggestion tool in Yoast SEO Premium will give priority to the articles that you mark as cornerstone content, so you’ll never forget to link to your best article on a certain topic if you write about something related. If your website is enormous, you’ll have more cornerstones than if your website is small. You’ll probably write about more than one topic, so be sure to choose a cornerstone article from each category. Optimizing your cornerstones with Yoast SEO Yoast SEO offers some great tools that help you optimize your cornerstone content, including a text link counter, specific cornerstone content analysis and – in Premium – even internal linking suggestions, in which cornerstone articles get priority over other posts. With Yoast SEO you can filter your cornerstone articles in the post overview to see how many internal links a post has pointing to it and how many posts it links to. This text link counter is extremely useful because you can see at a glance if your cornerstone content has enough links from other, related posts: Cornerstone analysis If you really want to make your cornerstone articles great, you need specific content analysis for cornerstones. Content marked as cornerstone will be judged more strictly than usual on SEO and readability in the content analysis, as you want this article to be longer, have excellent content, keep the reader’s attention and rank high. Read how this analysis helps you optimize your cornerstones. Internal linking suggestions Yoast SEO Premium has an internal linking feature. We analyze what you write and use the most prominent words in your text to determine which articles are related – and therefore which you should link to. Cornerstone articles are treated differently in our calculation of internal linking suggestions because they are more important and have a higher value. To give these articles more prominence, we place the cornerstone articles at the top of the list of the internal linking suggestions. That makes it much easier for you to link to your critical articles. 5 steps to a killer cornerstone approach Ideally, you should do extensive keyword research, which will help you to produce really awesome, long, informative and beautifully written cornerstone articles. But what if you don’t have that much time? And what if you’ve already written tons of articles? Follow these five steps to make killer cornerstone content. Step 1: Think about your keywords You have to decide on the essential keywords you want to rank for. Your cornerstone articles should be optimized for the ‘head’ or most competitive keywords, so be sure to carry out some keyword research. Step 2: Choose the best post Go through the posts that are optimized for keywords surrounding the most important keywords. Which post do you think is the best? That’ll be your cornerstone from now on! Step 3: Rewrite it Rewrite your cornerstone article. Make it awesome and SEO-friendly. As cornerstone articles are usually lengthy, pay extra attention to readability. Make sure you use plenty of headings. An index at the beginning of a long cornerstone article is also a great idea. Expand your article and make sure it’s totally up to date. And don’t forget to rewrite and update that article regularly. Step 4: Optimize your other posts on long tail variants The other blog posts about similar topics as your cornerstone article should be optimized for long tail variants of the ‘head’ keyword you’re attacking in your cornerstone article. Step 5: Linking from tail to head You have to tell Google that your new cornerstone article is the most important article on that topic on your site. Don’t forget to link from all the long tail articles to your cornerstone article! Quick wins! In real life, perhaps you do not have the time to develop such an elaborate structure. Still, writing an article about a specific topic often leads to inspiration to write an article about a similar topic. You should then try to optimize this second post for a slightly different focus keyword and link these posts internally. Every time you write a post, you should think about similar posts you have written and link to these. Do you already have an important article about this, even though it is not entirely awesome yet? If you use Yoast SEO Premium, keep an eye on the internal linking tool to see what comes up. Also, make sure you set up the right linking structure. This does not take a lot of your time and could really help to rank your most important article. Take a look at all the posts on the topic you have already written about and add links to your most important article from all of your (less awesome) posts about that specific topic. You can use the Yoast text link counter to regularly check if there are enough internal links to your important articles. Yoast’s plans for cornerstone content Site structure is important for SEO. Having a solid site structure means both search engines and visitors can easily navigate your site to find what they want. To help you achieve this, we are continually working on many more features in Yoast SEO that’ll improve the structure of your website.