Basic Digital Marketing

When SEO came into play a decade ago, anything online retailers created fell under that category. Whether it was good or bad, it was SEO as long as it was packed with relevant keywords and would show up on the first page of the search it was related to.

Now that SEO emphasizes keywords and the like much less, creators can focus on developing content that readers actually like, not just content they can immediately find. In fact, they have to develop good content, because their competitors have already started to do just that. They must achieve a healthy balance between quality and discoverability.

One you decide to zero in on improving your company’s SEO, keep in mind that you want to appeal to your customers. They don’t want to be blatantly advertised to; they want to be unknowingly drawn in by your seamless wording and superior products or services. That all starts with them being able to find you when they plug a specific term into their search box. Though it’s difficult to identify what this search term was, you’ll always know which page they ended up on.

To be a successful entrepreneur, it’s an absolute must that you sort out your finances. To ensure the success of your business, it’s important to follow a set of rules to make sure you’ve got your money under control. Here’s our list of financial guidelines to help your business stay afloat and eventually shine. 

Create and follow a strict budget. Running out of money is a quick and easy way to kill your business, regardless of the quality of the products or services your company offers. Put just enough money into employee salaries, especially towards the beginning, and keep a certain amount of money to invest or put away at the end of each month. By following these tips, you’ll never run out of money.

Keep track of what you give and what you receive. Take note of who your most prominent clients are and which enterprises you’re associated with to determine your return on investment. It’s equally important to monitor your company’s individual expenditures as well, because there can be unexpected costs and monthly rate increases in many places. Record every instance of outgoing or incoming money. 


As consumer habits and technology change, marketers change to accommodate. They’ve had no problem doing so in the past, and the present is no different - it simply offers new challenges to overcome.

Internet access is so common among consumers nowadays that they have the resources to do thorough research about the products and service they’re interested in, depending heavily on customer reviews and recommendations from friends or family members. Despite the patterns in consumer behaviour, no two individuals are identical. That’s why user personalization is so effective.

User personalization sends suggestions, photos, general messages, and special offers to potential customers with the use of artificial intelligence and advanced profiling. By combining these two elements, you’ll be able to cater to your customers almost perfectly and make more conversions than ever before. Enthusiastic customers enjoy receiving suggestions based on their past purchases and online behaviour.

With its 300 million photo-centric users worldwide, Instagram is fast becoming an attractive marketing site. Better yet, Instagram’s advertising setup is nearly identical to that of Facebook, the company that owns it. Rarely discussed however, is the price of advertising on this social media media platform.

Instagram advertisements are presented to their target audiences as sponsored posts, regular photo or video content with a blue sponsored tag above it. Even users who don’t follow the company posting the ad will see it if they fit the target audience criteria. The ads were originally reserved for partners of Instagram, but that changed two years ago when the platform gave all businesses the freedom to market as they please.

The average cost-per-thousand-views for photo ads in 2015 was $6.50. This price may seem steep, but data shows that users are more likely to click on your ads on Instagram than on other social media platform. The average cost-per-thousand-views for video ads was $3.00, while the price of the newly introduced carousel ads, a sort of photo album users can flip through and click on, has not yet been determined.

With the wide range of platforms constantly buzzing with activity, social media is the ideal place to advertise your company and its products. Nearly all social media platforms now offer features that market products to consumers that will like them and ultimately help companies create conversions.

The decades-old marketing strategy that focused on creating and maintaining customer relationships has been passed onto social media from print and television. This strategy is much more effective than adding a name to your marketing list and immediately pushing your products into the faces of your new customers. When companies take the time to gain their followers’ trust, they become more respected and talked about, expanding their reach.

It may sound mysterious, but it’s not all that difficult to do. Start by developing content for each social media platform you use, taking the time to cater to the audience and layout of each one. Your target audience will like the familiarity of the content’s style, making them more comfortable with your brand right off the bat.

Nearly every successful company has a great business website, but they need to have ways to get the word out and keep previous customers coming back for more. The best way to do that is through email newsletters.

Email newsletters are different from customer service and purchase confirmation emails in that they focus solely on content rather than details. Fluffed-up newsletters seldom keep the attention of your customers, so it’s important to incorporate your newest products and services into your newsletters without boring your readers or getting swept away in a sea of inbox emails. Look at your newsletters as a way of creating long-lasting relationships with your buyers.

You’ll make leads out of listed names by playing up your role as a credible source, creating a communicative network, and promoting related content without poking and prodding too much. If you think well-done newsletters aren’t worth your time, keep in mind that interested customers enjoy the ones from companies that put in the effort to stand out and meet each consumer’s needs.

Everyone wants to know just how much SEO will cost them but quantifying the effectiveness of SEO is difficult with things like search result attention and keyword ranking. Although each situation is different, it’s important to come up with a rough estimate for the cost of your company’s SEO. Here are some things you should take note of:

Start with some basic information about your company’s search result status. If you know your number ranking and the approximate SEO spending of your competitors, you can find out how many links you’ll need, what additional SEO improvements need to be made, the industry your company is part of, and how long it will take to complete the overhaul process.

After you’ve updated that part of business, it’s essential to stay on guard and match your competitors when they counter you. Because of this harsh reality, you’ll need more than keyword rankings to keep up; you’ll need high-quality content and rule-abiding strategies. Creating a private blog network, for example, could get your company into a lot of trouble.

It isn’t easy for Google to decide how pages in search results rank, so it relies on many things. However, it focuses the most on backlinks. The second most important feature is content, and understandably so. Mediocre content shouldn’t come before great content. If you want to rank higher in search results and gain traffic, follow our lead.

Start thinking about which websites you’d like to pull links from. Because each website is different in content, popularity, and web design, you’ll have to choose wisely. Make a concrete list of digital sources that contain material strongly related to your niche. These sources can be blogs, scholarly articles, databases, or even videos. Attach the links you know will benefit you, and start your research on the rest.

It’s very important to your research as well as conduct a website audit. Go to SEMrush or a similar program and type in the URL of your most prominent competitor. SEMrush will collect and show all relevant data from that website, including backlinks. Scroll down and press the “Backlinks” button to have a look at which links the company is using. If your competitors are successful, their backlinks are probably working.

With the recent increase in influencer marketing, previously unknown companies have gained more authority and legitimacy while forming lasting relationships with their audiences, creating long term customers. Its recent success has caused many brands to partner up with powerful market influencers and market themselves on several different social media sites.

Taking advantage of this trend, Instagram will soon introduce a special paid partnership tag for the stories and posts related to influencer marketing. The photo-based social media platform explained that it aimed to further its endeavour in connecting people with similar interests, which isn’t limited to personal account users. Instagram is set on making it more clear when paid advertising is being shown to its users.

The paid partnership tag was tested out on the platform in March of this year, and the finished product is expected to arrive in July or August. Of course, consumers aren’t the only ones who need to know about the tag and what it entails - it’s equally as important for brands that are active on Instagram to understand the ins and outs of the new feature.

Despite its waning popularity, Facebook is still going strong. If you’re wondering what the company has in store for its on-page advertisements, we’ve got all the information you need to decide how to use its system as part of your online advertising efforts.

More marketing companies are using Facebook to advertise their products this year, and nearly two-thirds of those companies stated that the platform was essential for success in their marketing campaigns. Facebook’s specialized ad controls were introduced less than a decade ago, which raised revenue from $272 million to $777 million in just one year. This year’s revenue will be around $36 billion.

Facebook’s personal account growth was 12.8% from 2015 to 2016, but slowed to 9.6% from 2016 to 2017. It’s predicted to drop to 7.9% from 2017 to 2018. This, plus limited page space, will cause ad spending to decrease to less than half of what it was in 2016.

Most startups and smaller companies don’t put much effort into creating a good Facebook cover photo. Unfortunately, it’s not enough to pick a clean, professional photo: your banner should both welcome your customers and let them know what they’re in for. Not sure where to start? We’ve got a few tips for you.

Before you begin creating your cover photo, define your company’s main goal. This goal should be fairly long-term to avoid having to change your banner constantly. Instead of opting for your brand name or logo on a neutral backsplash, design your cover photo around your main goal, which can include promotions, general sales, social media interaction, or new products and services. Place relevant buttons just below your banner as well. Your customers are more likely to click these buttons once they’ve been primed with the message on your cover photo.

The regular creation and distribution of quality content is the key ingredient for your business’ recipe for success. Content marketing is essential if you want to build your brand, expand your network, and most of all, increase sales.

Content is just as important as website design. It’s the key factor behind search engine results, sends targeted traffic to your page and can help establish your company as an online authority in your area of business. You also have to keep your competition in mind. With so much content out there, you need to be sure to stand out and offer your readers/viewers something of value.

Most Toronto bloggers or blogs have a message they desperately want to share with the world, but it’s never easy spreading the word to everyone about your blog. It’s even harder gaining income from blogging, even after you’ve gained popularity. So how do you do it? You start with a solid foundation of principles.

Zero in on the topics you care about. Going too broad may appeal to more people, but your fan base won’t be as consistent or as loyal. Stay focused on your goal and ensure each post is as good as it can be. You don’t need a massive amount of content to increase your popularity - you only need good content. Integrating your own knowledge and experiences is a great way to get readers interested.

Next up is creating an attractive-looking blog. If you can afford it, it’s a wise choice to hire a  web design company to add some style to your blog. If not, platforms such as Tumblr, Blogspot or Wordpress are simple enough to use and offer many options, layouts, and website templates you can customize.

Gaining followers on social media is great for your business’s publicity, but putting all your energy into that alone won’t generate sales immediately. Devote yourself to selling your product first, chasing after success by differentiating yourself. If you stand out, potential customers will choose you over others.

Of course, being different is easier said than done. You may think you’re original and maintain that mindset until you take notice of a very similar competitor with just as many clients as you. Here’s how your company can offer new things to your Instagram followers to transform them into loyal customers.

Your audience should first know what they’ll get out of following you and interacting with your posts. Be direct in your message - clients seldom appreciate when companies beat around the bush. Then, ensure you’re reflecting that message in your posts. It’s a good idea to zero in on one or two ideas rather than multiple, as your customers won’t want to be constantly bombarded with information. Choose a clear message and present it well.

As humans, we tend to wonder where exactly we came from, and some of us make a living off figuring out the answer. It was long thought by anthropologists that homo sapiens appeared in Africa roughly 200 millennia ago. That theory, however, has been called into question with newly found humanoid skeletal fragments that were one hundred millennia older than they expected.

Miners working in Marrakesh at the beginning of the 1960s discovered a shard of human bone in the limestone wall they were taking apart. When another bone appeared, archaeologists made it their mission to dig up the site and analyze the other remains, which were deemed to be around 40 millennia old. Excavation of the area stopped for four decades, with researchers having assumed there was nothing left to find.

With the constant presence of technology and social media, there are more known business events than ever before. Many entrepreneurs receive too many invitations to count and end up disregarding most of them. Some of the events they do choose to attend have hundreds of guests, making it difficult to socialize and truly connect.

Business leaders are slowly fixing this problem by creating more intimate events with fewer people and a maximum number of attendees that cannot be surpassed. Although entrepreneurs meet fewer people this way, they form valuable relationships that lead to longer lasting collaborations. These events are also much less expensive, usually costing no more than $10,000.

Every writer has moments where they struggle to coherently get their thoughts down on paper, or to move past that dreaded blank page on their computer screen. Some days are good, others are bad. However, it is possible to write a compelling blog post no matter what phase you’re going through - and here’s how you can do it in less than an hour.

Start with the basics by creating a mind map to effectively organize and brainstorm your ideas. You can do this on a spreadsheet or a blank sheet of paper, whichever you prefer. When you have everything sorted out, look at what you’re providing your clients and readers, and identify what could cause them to turn you down or stop reading. Writing down questions to ask yourself and answering them truthfully will help you shape your blog post for your intended audience.

Edinburgh University representatives say that an email sent to graduating students claiming some students had failed to complete their degree was the result of a system malfunction.
The email indicated that the recipient/student had not earned enough credits to successfully obtain their diploma. It even went on to claim that as a result of insufficient credits, the recipient would be unable to attend their graduation ceremony as a result of having to finish their studies later that year. Understandably so, the email caused much anxiety and stress to its recipients. The emails were sent out at night so to top it off, many students weren’t able to reach administration or staff members until the next morning to find out what was going on.

Upon accusations from the US Department of Labor of paying men more than women for identical jobs, Google claims that obtaining wage data is too expensive and time-consuming.

Company representatives explained in court in San Francisco that the data request would cost $100k and require around 500 hours of work, but these numbers aren’t all that outrageous considering Google’s yearly profit of $28 billion. The heated discussion between the two parties was first sparked in January with Google’s federal law violations related to salary records.

In addition to the bits of pay information labor officials collected from 2015 that show a clear wage gap, the department requires older data and employee contact information to complete one-on-one interviews now that Google has shot down unequal pay accusations. The company claims global equal pay across all races and genders, and refuses to release wage information in fear of violating privacy rights of employees and amendment rights of businesses.

It goes without saying that LinkedIn is the best online platform for all things business. With its ever-growing network, millions of businesses and consumers can find each other through a simple search. To increase your revenues by finding new customers, it’s essential that you know how to use LinkedIn’s search tool to its full advantage.

Type in words, phrases, and titles that match what you’re seeking to get a wider range of results. If you want to get more specific, use LinkedIn’s search filters to look up content, companies, people, and topics that use those terms. Connecting with consumers becomes much easier when these tools are implemented.

Posting a comment on a potential customer’s page can give them a casual introduction to your company and make the messaging process easier. Starting with a casual connection is better than contacting them out of the blue, and will likely build a stronger relationship. After that relationship is established, introduce the product and explain what your company stands for.

Many people fall behind, become distracted, or begin to procrastinate after a few years of work, no matter what that work is. If you want to achieve your goals and have a bright future, try out some of these tactics - they’re sure to keep you focused and driven.

Don’t put things off. Begin new projects as soon as possible, maintaining a reasonable outlook on how quickly they can be done while remaining high-quality. You’ll ultimately have more time to complete tasks that need completing. Whenever you’re tempted to jump right to your favourite pastime, remember that it will be waiting for you after you’ve dedicated a good chunk of your time to your greater goal. It’s a good idea to start with the harder portion of the task at hand to give yourself time to recuperate.

Acknowledging your mistakes can be painful, but it’s extremely important to do if you want to see improvement. When something goes wrong, investigate how it happened and how it can be prevented in the future. You’ll learn a lot this way. To reward yourself, put aside some time for your favourite activities or book a short vacation. Use these relaxing stretches of time as recharging periods. Working all day every day is like trying to sprint a 5km run, something no athlete would attempt.

With their lives based strongly on technology, the characteristics and decisions of millennials are often affected by social media. How and what millennials choose to buy is just one of the many things that platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Snapchat can influence.

Contrary to popular belief, it isn’t the advertising on these sites that draws millennials in, but rather the opinions of their contacts. Personal experience is extremely valuable to this generation, especially with the increase in social networking.

The numbers don’t lie: 47% of millennials claim that social media affects what they buy, and the likelihood of them paying for a product or service on the day they first see it shoots up to 29% when they use social media. With this in mind, why not try targeting millennials through social media platforms with the use of their marketing tools?

McDonald’s has just released its latest commercials, and there’s one thing about them that stands out: they don’t use the company’s name. In fact, they’ve decided to include Coca-Cola and Google instead.

Why did the fast food chain choose this tactic, exactly? It’s expected to target teenagers and young adults, an age group that reportedly prefers recommendations from friends and trying brands out for themselves over being directly advertised to. This is why ad campaigns that promote themselves in an aggressive manner often fail to bring in younger customers.

While these new commercials avoid using the brand’s name, they do include rising star Mindy Kaling to appeal to a more youthful audience. She mentions Coca-Cola and Google while encouraging consumers to find McDonald’s without saying the chain’s name. To make the message clear, she stands in front of a red background dressed in yellow. The fast food business is currently promoting its summer dollar drink deal.

Think you need to update your marketing approach? Take a look at what your current strategy is and analyze what it’s doing for your company. You may not be sure what to look for, so here are a few signs that indicate that you need to change your strategy.

If your views, shares, and mentions are minimal on all social media platforms, chances are you’re not advertising correctly. Taking the time to create a relationship with your target audience and then directing them to your profile is the key to gaining more customers. Download an analytics program that records the amount of interaction each of your posts receives. Reuse the formula of the ones that work and scrap the ones that don’t.

Yes, it’s indeed possible to draw the eyes of potential customers to your Instagram page without posting pictures of magnificent landscapes or decadent meals. The photo-centric social media site is steadily growing in diversity and generating sales for startups, and now is the time for your company to take advantage of that.

One of Instagram’s most popular features is the space in each user’s biography to insert a link. If you create a new video, web post, or special offer that you want people to see, put it into your page’s biography and post a picture about the update with a caption directing your customers to the content.

For a more advanced approach, consider using Instagram ads. These ads are shown to users whose likes, interests, and location align with what your product offers, and they’re all equipped with a click function that takes the user right to your page. Setup is much like that of Facebook’s clickable ads, allowing you to choose a target audience based on specific criteria. The service costs as little as $5 to use, a real deal in the world of advertising.