Long-Tail Keywords: What are they?

/in , , , , /by

Are you tired of trying to rank for the two or three-tail high-competition keywords as your competitors? Long-tail keywords could be the answer. What are long-tail keywords and how do they work in search marketing? Let’s find out!

Targeted keywords filled with intent can help you reach your target audience. If they’re clicking to your site from the search engines, chances are they’re finding you through longtail keywords. Let us break down how to use long-tail keywords for your business’ benefit.

What are Long-Tail Keywords?

Long-tail keywords are specific search queries that tend to have relatively low search volumes. They make up a large percentage of overall searches when added together. The term long-tail was coined to describe the phenomenon of niche products becoming a top seller.

The term “long tail” refers to the tail at the end of a curve when looking at keyword searches on Google. Long-tail keywords are specific but least-searched. A head keyword is typically a broad term when it comes to searching for a product/brand.

Here are a few examples of long-tail keywords vs. head keywords:

Head Keyword:

Nike

Long Tail Keywords:

Nike Air Max Ones

Nike sustainability policy

Vintage Nike shoes

Nike Men’s Yoga Shorts

While exact length doesn’t matter, long-tail keywords are typically at least three words in length due to their specificity.

Why Are Long-Tail Keywords Important?

Head terms are competitive, especially the popular ones. This in turn, makes it difficult for them to rank well with SEO. By using long-tail keywords you’re able to differentiate your business and services while having fewer to compete with to rank on the first page of Google.

Long-tail keywords can help you get more out of your advertising return on investment. High-volume keywords have a high cost per click, but they don’t convert well. Low-volume keywords are highly targeted and therefore have a higher conversion rate.

Using Long-Tail Keywords Effectively

Finding a good long-tail keyword is only part of the heavy task at hand. Once you’ve found your desired keywords, you need to use them strategically on your page. Here are a few on-page SEO tips that apply specifically to long-tail keywords:

  1. Using keywords naturally
  2. Placing keywords strategically
  3. Consider your user’s search intent

Final thoughts

The foundation of any successful SEO campaign is keyword research. In addition to long-tail keyword strategies and other digital marketing updates, we will continue to share case studies and the latest SEO updates to help you drive your business. Our goal is to ensure we help improve your marketing and drive success.

At Onimod Global, we have endless experience and expertise when it comes to all things SEO, general social media advertising, and digital marketing. Got questions about keywords or want to learn more about our services? Contact us here today.

Digital Marketing Tips for Small Businesses

/in , , , , , /by

Small businesses should always be looking to find opportunities to stay ahead of the competitive market and reach their potential customers. With the right tools, you can create an effective strategy to have a big return in reach and awareness. 

The internet has become an indispensable tool for almost any consumer making a decision. Whis is why it’s always a good time for business owners to think about the most effective small business marketing ideas. 

Unsure of where to start improving your website or social media pages? Here are 5 quick and effective ways that you can jump start your digital marketing for your SMB.

1. Research Competitors and Differentiate Yourself

Competitor research is important because as a small business, you’ll want to be able to offer additional value in the market. One way to do this is by using Google Search Ads. Doing a search and seeing the results that pop up is a great way to start. For example, if you’re a plumbing company and you see the terms “No Call Out Charge”, “Fully Qualified Plumbers” and “1-Hr Response” for your results, they’re likely to be great selling points for other businesses looking to compete with these results.

How can you differentiate your company from other plumbers in the area who provide similar services? Most times, if you don’t have anything that differentiates your company from others, you can invent one. You can do this by giving your products, services, and reputation more attention and detail.

2. Get Your Website Basics Right

Users are increasingly demanding in terms of the experience they expect from a website. They want a fast loading website as a minimum requirement. As a local business, you may not have the budget of larger firms, but you can at least get the basics right.

Here’s a couple things you can do to fix this problem. You can start by test your website’s mobile speed with Google’s free tool and see how you could decrease bounce rates. If this doesn’t provide clarity you can move onto the following options:

1. Compressing Text and Images: Decreasing or converting your image sizing and scales can help dramatically, as well as removing any video content that isn’t critical to your site’s content.

2. Website Design: Over-designing web pages by adding loads of banners, images, icons, and other additions can lead to slower loading times.

3. Mobile Optimization: Last but not least, making your site mobile friendly is probably the most important thing you should do for your website. A majority of consumers now access the internet via mobile browser. So make sure your website is designed so that it is responsive per device and screen size.

3. Improve Google My Business Listing and Customer Reviews

When a customer searches for your products or services, your online reputation could be the deciding factor. Luckily, Google My Business gives you control over how people perceive your business.

Some of the common mistakes to avoid include:

  • Duplicate listings
  • Setting up unnecessary new listings after a change of address
  • Business name misuse e.g. adding unnecessary promotional messages

Customer reviews are not a new concept, but you might be surprised at how often they are overlooked. 30% of consumers said that reviews were a key factor in judging local businesses, so make sure this as a top priority in your digital marketing strategy.

4. Create Interesting Blog Content

In highly competitive industries, a content strategy is necessary to drive search results. When working with smaller businesses, it’s likely that they will not rank on the first page of Google for a broad term related to their product or service. Blog content plays a big role in creating and converting leads to customers. You can easily increase your organic traffic for local businesses through researching blog content that you can create in house. Here are a couple tips to amp up your blogs:

  • Putting the audience first
  • Making sure it’s SEO friendly
  • Correct tone of voice
  • Showing readers they can trust you

Final Thoughts

As a small business owner, you can use digital marketing to reduce barriers-to-entry in your industry by increasing the reach of your business through the Internet. But you need a plan to get there. A strong content marketing strategy and experimenting with different topics, measuring the results, and tracking your progress all help you develop an effective coverall content marketing strategy.

Onimod Global is your Chicago-based, in-house marketing team, your partner experts for specific marketing verticals or some nice balance in between. We excel in customer service and will teach you the most relevant and up-to-date digital marketing skills. From social media to SEO and paid search, you will have the tools to ensure your business succeeds online.

Have questions about creating your online presence and need help strategizing? Contact us here today.

How to Measure Social Media ROI

/in , , , , , , , /by

As one of the top digital marketing channels for businesses, social media is a critical component in your company’s success. Here’s how to engage your network, drive collaboration, stay up-to-date, and share best practices.

Every business should be able to calculate their social media return on investment. By tracking ROI, it shows the monetary value of your social media campaigns. You can double down by using marketing methods that work and avoid ones that dont. Social media is a crucial part to anyone’s marketing strategy if your goal is to drive brand awareness.

Here’s how you can measure your social media ROI and improve your content.

What is Social Media ROI?

When you’re looking to increase your social media ROI, it’s important to know how to calculate the value of your activities.

The calculation is simple: (return – investment made) / investment made X 100 = social media ROI.

If your ROI value is more than 0 percent, it means you’re making money from your campaigns. If it is anything below that, then you are losing money.

ROI calculation depends on your goals and objectives as an organization. Different organizations will have different objectives. There are many social media goals you can choose from. It all depends on your core objective, which could be:

  • New followers
  • Click-through rates
  • Conversions
  • Completed lead generation forms

Metrics Used to Measure Social Media ROI

Your social media strategy is the backbone of your business. Without it, you’re just flailing around in the dark, hoping that things work out.

And they won’t. It’s time to get a plan in place.

  • Engagement – This metric is measured by the level of people interacting with your content and brand. A recent study shows that over one third of executives that create content are using engagement as a way to measure their contents performance. Clicks, likes, shares and brand mentions are all part of tracking engagement for you social media channels.
  • Reach- This metric is measured on views and interactions with your company on social media. Reach can be harder to measure than engagement because it only factors how many people saw your post.
  • Leads – This metric is generated by social media, and it’s important to know which channels provide the most leads and what content drives those leads. The best way to achieve ROI with leads is by linking your campaigns to your activity.
  • Conversions – This metric uses UTM parameters on the links within your posts so you can track clicks by each campaign and platform.

When you have all four of these metrics implemented correctly, it will drive ROI to your business.

Best Way to Track ROI

Once you have your plan laid out and you know which targets you are hitting it is time to set up a system for tracking your ROI. There are so many different types of platforms on the market that do a variety of things for you. The simplest way to do this is by using Google Analytics and setting up goals and event tracking.

Google Analytics is a simple tool to use and their help page provides their users with a step-by-step guide on how to use their program. Most importantly, Onimod Global is a Google partner. Google Partners are online marketing companies, trusted and recognized for exceling with Google’s products.

As more customers use social media to browse, connect and purchase, marketers need to know how social media continuously evolves. No matter what your ROI percentage is, there is always room for improvement. Some last key things to remember are:

  • Understand your audience – make sure you know who is interacting with you and how you can provide them with content that will engage them.
  • Think outside the box – quality not quantity, take time to create interesting and engaging content for your audience.
  • Test and Optimize – fine tune your organic social posts by using new imagery, keywords and headlines.

Last Thoughts

At Onimod Global, our goal is to help you align your content marketing efforts to real business results. Our data-driven content strategies make it easy to understand your audience’s needs, where your competition is winning, and areas where you have an opportunity to lead your industry.

As a Chicago-based, in-house marketing team, we are your partner experts for specific marketing verticals or some nice balance in between. We excel in customer service and will teach you the most relevant and up-to-date digital marketing skills.

Have questions about creating your online presence and need help strategizing? Contact us here today.

Marketing Metrics Businesses Should Be Tracking

/in , , , , , , /by

Marketing metrics matter because smart marketing is built on the foundations of solid data. That is why any business with a digital marketing strategy should be closely monitoring the following 4 metrics. Let’s hop right in! 

In today’s digital marketing landscape, there are a number of data points to measure. Some of these will help businesses with consumer insights and others with direct response. This can be tricky as trying to measure both consumer behavior as well as whether specific marketing activities have led directly to sales. After all, aren’t you ultimately in the game to book more meetings?

A business is only as good as the data it collects. Data reveals the most critical questions to help a business grow faster. Here’s a look at digital marketing performance indicators, along with best practices on how to evaluate the data they provide.

Traffic Sources

Knowing where your future prospects are coming from is important. Did they visit your website after google searching your company? Or did they find you through social media? There are so many places where your clientele can stem from, and its valuable knowing how they found you.

By having access to these insights, it will help you prioritize and optimize those channels. Once that has been done you can easily make simple improvements to other channels that are underperforming.

Tracking Engagement

When someone visits your website, it’s always best practice to know how long they’re browsing. This metric reveals how interested visitors are in your content and if you are attracting additional visitors.

If you see that visitors are only browsing on your website for a few seconds, it could be an indicator that they either didn’t end up on the site they were looking for or quickly realized they’re disinterested in what you’re offering. On the other hand, if you see that your visitors are on your website for an extended period of time, it can signal that you have content the market is interested in.

Everytime you post on social media, send out an email campaign or put out display ads you should be measuring your engagement rates. A great example of this is seeing how many likes an instagram post gets. At times one post may have more likes than another post. Knowing how your audience engages with your content will help you cater and craft future content for them.

CAC & CLV

CAC stands for customer acquisition cost, CLV stands for customer lifetime value. Both of these are crucial to your marketing metric strategy. With customer acquisition cost, there is a cost associated with every customer. Businesses need to measure how much it costs to acquire customers throughout their buying journey.

With customer lifetime value, you’re measuring how much the average customer will spend on your brand during their lifetime. This metric indicates the total financial value a customer brings. Ultimately, this metric will help you decide where to invest the most.

Brand Equity

Lastly, become an expert on your audience. Know how they view you and your products. Household name brands such as Nike and Coca-Cola are all names you recognize, even if you don’t buy their goods. A great example of this would be referring to the product as the brand name. Most people purchase disinfecting wipes and refer to them as “Clorox Wipes,” whether or not they’re purchasing that specific brand.

Analyzing your brand strength will help you know how strong you are in the market and if customers prefer your brand over competitors. It will also be a relevant factor in whether or not customers are willing to pay more for your products since they find your brand valuable.

Last Thoughts

When it comes to business, every company is different, and as such, will need to rely on their own unique set of KPIs and metrics to track their performance. Even the digital marketing metrics that are relevant to your business will vary greatly, depending on what you’re trying to accomplish.

We hope you have learned a little bit more about the importance of metrics and how beneficial it can be to your business. Our goal is to ensure we help improve your marketing and drive success.

At Onimod Global, we regognize the unique and individual nature of every client, and work with your business to help develop a custom strategy that is designed to bring you the highest success possible. Digital Decisions driven by Data is our mantra. Advanced analytics and reporting capabilities is what we do best.

Got questions about tracking and measuring your business performance? Contact us here today to start the conversation.

4 Tips for SEO Content Strategy

/in , , , , /by

Want to create your best SEO content this year? Try these four data-driven content strategies to get more traffic and leads.

There have never been more new and exciting opportunities to master your content and reach a wider audience than right now.

An SEO content strategy isn’t just a document with instructions and requirements. The best SEO strategies come from an in-depth conversation, whether it’s between a writer and an editor, or a marketing team and the people who actually write the content.  In order to create a strategy, you’ll need access to how your content is performing. If you want to scale SEO, you need to prioritize it.

In this post, we’ll discuss how to make SEO a priority in your content strategy, and how this impacts scaling SEO.

Tip 1: Include SEO as part of the writing process

Incorporating SEO into the writing process is a great way to ensure that your content is optimized as it’s being created. If this doesn’t happen, there’s a chance that optimizations will be made after the content has been completed. This leaves out the opportunity for writers to include relevant keywords that have search volume while they are crafting the piece.

Tip 2: Provide Keyword searches for content topics

Keyword research is a crucial part of the content creation process. This is an opportunity to provide writers with relevant keywords so they can write holistic SEO copy. It allows them to pick and choose the keywords they want to write about to ensure content is in line with SEO strategy.

This can also prevent keywords from product pages from being the focus keyword of the copy. This is done to prevent two or more pages from competing for the same keyword in Google’s search engine results. Finally, it ensures relevant keywords with search volume and user intent are used.

Tip 3: Provide Keyword research for omnichannel campaigns

When you’re creating omni channel campaigns, it can be a challenge to find relevant keywords with any search volume. It’s important to ensure that your keyword research is accurate, because if the keywords you use aren’t relevant, then your campaign will not perform well on search engines. Here are some tips for finding the right keywords:

1. Try to include additional longer-form content with keywords that address users’ pain points and that have search volume. For example, instead of writing “Find out where we deliver in San Francisco,” write “Find out where we deliver in San Francisco, California!”

2. We recommend internally linking these assets into the campaign content to overcome organizational created language. For example, if the user searches “find out where we deliver in San Francisco, California!” and clicks on your ad, you can provide a link directly to your landing page with more information about delivery in San Francisco so it won’t feel like an interruption when they click through from Google Search Ads (GSA).

3. Map out your content by topics and keywords in a spreadsheet so that you can better internally link your content to the user’s journey

Tip 4: Content and keywords should be aligned

Keywords are important—they help Google and users find your site, after all—and they should be considered throughout the entire lifecycle of a buyer, from when they first start searching for information about your product to when they actually make that purchase.

If you’re not careful, you could end up with a disconnect between your keyword intent and the copy on your site. This can confuse both Google and your users, which means fewer people will see and click on your content.

To avoid this issue, make sure there is no disconnect between the keywords associated with copy and different stages of the buyer’s journey. Don’t confuse your users and Google!

Final Thoughts

SEO is a must for anyone who wants to scale their content marketing and create a profitable business model. If you want to learn more about SEO from someone you can trust, we would love to have the opportunity to speak with you.

In the end, Onimod Global is more than in tune with all things SEO, Content marketing and social media, so it doesn’t hurt to drop us a line and ask questions. We are always happy to chat about the latest trends in digital marketing or help you develop a custom digital marketing strategy for 2022. Contact us here today.

How To Effectively Use Hashtags on Social Media

/in , , , , , , , , /by

Promoting your brand on Social Media is paramount nowadays. And hashtags are an extremely effective tool when used correctly. Let’s delve a little deeper into the world of the previous pound sign (#) and how it can captivate audiences in 2022.

Hashtags can be one of the best way to make your content available in other realms of the social media world. The history of hashtags and their origin stem from Twitter and slowly began to grow across the board on other social media outlets.

Here’s a look at how to properly use hashtags to help people find your topics and expand your audience.

What are Hashtags?

By definition a hashtag is a keyword phrase or word preceded by a hash symbol (#). It’s used all over social media nowadays within the body of a post. The purpose of the hashtag is to bring attention to your posts in order to create interaction with new potential followers. When using a phrase as a hashtag, you spell it without spaces i.g. #onimodglobal.

Hashtags can include numbers but it cannot use symbols or punctuations. Beginning middle, or end you can place a hashtag in the body of your social media post or within the comment section. When you utilize this strategy it can help people who don’t follow you to find your content.

Why are Hashtags Important?

Hashtags are important for the sole purpose of your content being found by the right people. By using hashtags that are relevant to your business or the services you provide it can help drive your content to the right people. When this happens, you will have traffic to your content that will in turn boost your views, likes, and shares.

However, using them only makes a difference in your social media strategy when it’s done the right way. Here are some hashtag tips:

  1. Don’t get carried away with hashtags – The number of hashtags you can use depends on which platform you are using. Twitter would be a great example where one to three hashtags will have more of an impact opposed to using lot of them.
  2. Keep hashtags short and memorable – It’s in best hashtag practice that you don’t use a lot of words within a tag. A great example of this would be hashtag activism campaigns. The summer of 2020 was huge for the #BlackLivesMatter movement in America, and is still widely used within social media today.
  3. Don’t choose hashtags that are too obscure – If you choose a tag that no one is going to search for, it won’t benefit your marketing efforts.

Create your Own Hashtag Strategy

Anyone can create their own hashtag strategy. While there are many ways you can go about this, the best way is to choose specific hashtags whenever possible. The more specific you can get, the more likely you are to attract a targeted audience. Another strategy is using capital letters at the front of each word. This clarifies what you are trying to communicate.

Your competition is more than likely already using hashtags within their social media strategy. How successful are they at engaging your mutual audience? Pay attention to how much or how little they use hashtags and what the response is.

A successful hashtag strategy starts with knowing your audience and taking the time to become familiar with what works on each platform. With that knowledge in hand, you will continue to learn what works and what doesn’t, by using hashtags as part of your social media strategy and analyzing your results.

Overall, hashtags are a great tool for communicating with your followers as well as increasing engagement and attracting new customers.

Last Thoughts

Whether you’re new to social media or have been around it for a while, you can greatly benefit from learning a trick or two about hashtags. From Facebook to Instagram and Twitter, you will understand how to drive engagement and extend reach.

More From Onimod Global

Onimod Global releases the latest digital marketing news and essential marketing tips every Tuesday and Thursday! To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here. If you’re looking for assistance with your content marketing or any other areas of digital marketing, contact us today!

How To Increase Your Online Visibility Through Social Media

/in , , , , , , /by

Social media plays a vital role in today’s society. It can help you generate buzz around your products and your brand by having users share your content. But social networks are incredibly busy and filled with stimuli. With so much going on, how do you make sure that users will find your content throughout all this mess? Read on to find out more…

Social media is a great resource when it comes to increasing your online visibility. There are so many ways that an organization’s pages can be optimized in order to do so.

We’ll take a look at how you can bring a couple of strategies together to generate more searches for your business—and from this, achieve a greater online presence.

Does Social Media Posting Help With Online Visibility?

While social media cannot directly impact your rankings, you can create a more holistic approach to online marketing. However, social media activity can raise your company’s profile and increase the clicks on their website. What are you aiming to achieve by linking social media activity with online visibility? Here’s a couple things you can do to get started:

  • Getting clicks on your organization’s website
  • Having an increase in online searches for the company
  • Social shares for a wider post reach and increased audience
  • Sharing information to help analyze social engagement

All of the things above have one thing in common and that is that they all increase the possibilities for lead opportunities. The way you can achieve lead opportunities above is by having and creating quality content. Often times quality content gets overlooked, its truly one of the best ways you can leverage and boost your online presence.

Which Social Media Platforms Are the Best for SEO?

Which platforms do you currently use? Most social media platforms can help with online visibility. A lot of people have that mindset, but you should honestly be thinking about  using the platforms that will help you reach your target audience. Each social media platform works slightly differently when it comes to encouraging clicks and shares.

It goes without saying most brands have a Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Google My Business accounts. But many businesses also utilize Youtube, Tiktok and Pinterest. But which performs best? Facebook continues to be powerful all over the world. With more than 1.71 billion monthly users, the social media platform is ripe for SEO. Be attentive with your company page and find and nourish your best promoters on the platform. Facebook is a great lead generator, so always stay on brand and use targeted keywords in your posts. Make sure to cross-post videos you produce and publish on your YouTube account as well.

Although Meta owns both Facebook and Instagram, they perform differently for different organizations’ offerings.

Also, any social platform a company uses has to be “on brand” for them, otherwise it will defeat the purpose of boosting your SEO. At the end of the day, a great website should have all the key elements of an effective inbound marketing strategy:

  • An active blog.
  • Responsive design.
  • Intuitive navigation.
  • Effective conversion strategy with calls to action.

What Are the Best Ways to Optimize Social Media for Better Online Visibility?

How can you make the most of your brand’s social media platforms? Here are a couple of techniques that you can use to improve your websites online visibility. 

LinkedIn & Facebook

Most people breeze by “SEO-ing” their About us/Summary section. It’s one of the easiest ways to put the information you want out there for leads to easily access. Filling out as much as you can in the About section is a great start.

  • The “About” summary section gives you the capacity to use 2,600 characters (on LinkedIn, Facebook gives you 50,000!) to explain what you do. Use keywords that your clients are using to find your products and services.
  • Use keywords that describe your products and services in your headline.
  • The “Experience” section also gives you 2,000 characters to show case your expertise. Make sure you include a few paragraphs that talk about what your company provides from a product/services perspective.

How do You know if your Social Media Strategy is Improving SEO?

All social media platforms have some sort of analytics feature that you can use to measure the attention your socials are getting. You can also look into social media engagement tools, which you can download and use to generate tables and graphs. You can compare the social media and website stats to see the effect the former has on the latter. Lastly, you can see the organic changes in your Google Analytics account.

Last Thoughts

Social media is a crucial part of your marketing strategy. It can help you generate buzz around your products and your brand by having users share your content.

As trusted Google experts, our team is here to help with holistic digital marketing strategies including optimizing your Google Business Profile listing and ensuring you have the highest rank possible. Whether you’re looking for SEO tips, social media marketing ideas, or paid media strategies, our goal is to make your business more successful. Get a free audit and see how you can improve your digital presence with us here.

Skills Every Digital Marketing Agency Should Excel in

/in , , , , , /by

A great digital marketing agency should have the ability to learn your brand quickly and be ready to act as your in-house digital experts.  Since the digital industry is so diverse, how do you know if a digital marketing agency is really as great as they claim to be?  

Looking for a new digital marketing agency but have no clue where to begin? Working with a good digital agency that specializes in quality marketing strategies is an obvious starting line. Knowing how to choose a digital marketing agency is essential in your search to find the right agency fit for your brand.

Spending money on digital marketing is a big deal, and you want to find an agency that makes the most of your money and works with your business goals. If you’re tired of being burned by agencies that make big promises but deliver no results, check out our three must-have skills (and top red flags) to watch out for. 

1. SEO & SEM

Across the board, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the most important skills you can have in this field. Knowing how SEO and content optimization work is essential for running a successful campaign. A good marketing agency should have an up-to-date website. If they’re practicing their SEO successfully you can easily find them doing a simple google search. 

Both SEO and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) form your entire digital strategy on a data and content level. At the end of the day, a great website should have all the key elements of an effective inbound marketing strategy:

  • An active blog.
  • Responsive design.
  • Intuitive navigation.
  • Effective conversion strategy with calls to action.

2. A Solid Team

A great agency should have a team that is equipped with versatility and expertise. Building a team that has experts in their respective fields i.e. design, development, SEO, content strategy, social media and brand development, will only make your agency more sought after and stronger as a whole.

Content is perhaps the core of digital marketing. Content marketing will continue to be a crucial part of the game no matter what happens. After you’ve created your all-star team you should then be able to create high quality, SEO-friendly content for various channels. By understanding how to create an effective content strategy you’ll be able to easily engage and convert to various audiences.

Things can be a little challenging when it comes to creating different content formats. From video to social media, emails, web content, blogs, e-books, videos, and white papers, it can be tough to create content that translates to these different formats. Working together as a team is the best way to face the beast that is, content marketing.

3. Tools and How to Utilize Them

Due to the marketing industry being so technology-driven, you need a good grasp on technology as well as be able to learn it quickly. It is immensely beneficial for a marketing agency to have a solid understanding of marketing tools as well as the technical skills that go along with them. For example, a CMS like WordPress – used by a third of websites – can be tweaked to boost SEO. 

Project management tools are important and its always good to ask what platform your desired marketing agency is using.  Nowadays there are many tools you can use to get the job done, for example Google Analytics, Hubspot, Salesforce, the list goes on. The bottom line is, any agency should be comfortable and familiar with all of these tools.

Now that we’ve covered the 3 top things to have as an agency, lets discuss the 3 Red Flags to watch out for.

Red Flag #1 – You Don’t have an Account Manager

A solid agency will pair you with a marketing strategist or account manager who oversees your business’s marketing success.

Something to look out for is talking to a new person every time you call. When you’re looking for an agency, make sure to ask who will handle your account. If it’s one person, that’s great. If they’re running a call center, look elsewhere.

Red Flag #2 – You Can’t Access Your Marketing Data

If the agency refuses to give you access to analytics, you should find an agency that will let you track your marketing success with them. There’s no reason for a digital marketing provider to be dishonest or hoard a business’s data.

The right digital marketing agency will allow you to see your data, and they’ll talk to you about the analytics as they work to improve your marketing performance.

Red Flag #3 – False Promises

If an agency is promising you that your business will be at the top of search results by working with them in a matter of weeks – it’s a bad sign. It’s always important to ask how if they’re promising you things they cant keep. If they’re talking about paid advertising, then rest assured you have nothing to worry about.

Its always best to find an agency that has realistic goals for you to improve your local search results.

Last Thoughts

Digital marketing is fast-paced and demanding. Understanding an agencies top 3 must haves and top 3 red flags to look out for will have you off to the races. At Onimod Global, our goal is to ensure we help improve your marketing and drive success.

From SEO to social media, content marketing and strategy, We can help you gain up-to-date and relevant knowledge that will help you become an awesome digital marketer. Got questions about Facebook advertising or want to learn more about us? Contact us here today.

Social Media Strategies That Boost Awareness and ROI

/in , , , , /by

Social media marketing is absolutely necessary for brands and businesses in order for them to stay relevant. By having a social media strategy in place, it helps businesses engage and influence their target audience. 

There are so many campaigns across social media that have gone viral by simply having a strategy in place.

The average amount of time that people spend on social media is 2.27 hours. Considering the increase in popularity with apps like TikTok it has people spending more time scrolling throughout the day. Here’s a look at the benefits of having a social media strategy in place that can drive both brand awareness and ROI.

Benefits of Having A Social Media Strategy

A social media strategy is a plan that outlines your social media goals, the tactics used to achieve them and metrics tracked to measure performance. A strategy doesn’t need to be over-thought and difficult. The best way you can go about creating a strategy is by having a simple yet specific plan with meaningful measurable. 

This will help you clearly identify whether or not the tactics you’re implementing are successful or not. Ultimately, your social media strategy should drive brand awareness and engagement across social media channels for your target audience/s. 

One of the hardest things about social media marketing is consistency. It can be tough to try and recreate a campaign and hope for the same results. By having a social media strategy you can provide your business with the following benefits:

  • Increase Your Brand Awareness
  • Increase Your Web Traffic
  • Generate Quality Leads
  • Quality Data you can analyze and measure

There are so many benefits to social media and having a strategy in place will only strengthen your ability to achieve your business goals.

Steps to Building a Successful Social Media Strategy

Now that we have covered the basics of a social media strategy, let’s get into a couple specific steps you can take to create one. Here’s a couple tips on how you can implement a successful social media strategy:

Set Goals for Your Business

Spending some time in this step will help you understand and define what your social media goals are. This will ultimately determine the rest of your strategy.

Think about what your business wants to achieve from social media and understand that marketing and business goals are different. For example, are you trying to draw brand awareness in the marketplace, or expand your following or generate more leads? You may want to achieve these goals, but it’s crucial to note each one of them as they will involve different tactics on social media.

When you set your goals, define your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to understand which social media metrics are important. To be successful on social media, set metrics for each channel you use. Over and above basic metrics you can dig deeper and track audience growth rate. There are many metrics you can use to track success, so narrow them down to what matters to your business.

Research Your Audience & Your Competitors 

Your audience and your competitors go hand in hand. In order to create personalized messaging and content, you need to understand who your audience is and what they want. The best way to achieve that is to do market research. You can do this through online surveys, interviews with your customers or by setting up a focus group.

Once you’ve done this, you will get a better look at your buyer personas which in turn help you create a better understanding of what your ideal customer is. Then you can begin catering to that demographic.

Competitor research helps you understand what your competitors are doing online such as what platforms they use and campaigns they run. You can also see what their messaging is like, as well as their content and how frequently they post. By understanding how they engage with customers and the success of that engagement you can either emulate it or take another direction to capture customers’ attention.

Social Media Platforms

Choosing the best channels for your business can be confusing at the beginning. There are a lot of platforms out there to choose from. Depending on the type of business you are, you may be making a mistake by not being present on all of the platforms. 

Facebook: Is one of the biggest social media platforms and the oldest around. Facebook offers a targeted way to engage with prospects and customers. 

Instagram: Is a great visual platform. Instagram continues to be one of the most popular amongst younger audiences and has seen huge growth over the past few years. It’s a great platform to showcase products and connect with influencers to grow your customer base. Plus with in-app shopping coming to Instagram soon through shoppable posts, customers will be able to purchase on the platform. 

LinkedIn: LinkedIn is the place to be for B2B businesses and provides opportunities for B2C too. It provides businesses with a way to connect in the B2B space both organically and through paid advertising. Content that works well on this platform are blogs, white-papers, eBooks, and industry-related content. 

Twitter: Twitter is a real-time platform which means your content should be timely and relevant. It can be a great customer service channel for brands as it allows quick replies and its hashtags help discover new and trending content. 

TikTok: As one of the fastest-growing social media channels, TikTok is a great place for video content. Known for its short-form and quirky videos, it’s developing rapidly as a platform and can be used effectively for marketing. TikTok is a great place for influencer collaborations. 

Planning Your Content

When you plan your content, you’re creating a tone for your pages. It’s a way for you to figure out if you engage with your audience in a formal or informal voice. It’s how you showcase your brand’s personality. The best way to plan your content is by creating a content calendar. That way you can create posts and schedule them regularly on social networks.

You can measure your posts by monitoring their performance, tracking your KPIs, and lastly, testing out new content to see which keywords resonate with your audience.

Final Thoughts

Doing content marketing without a content strategy is a disaster waiting to happen.

The more you know about how social media works, the better your strategy will be. It’s important to understand the fundamentals of social media marketing along with the intricacies of each platform so you can target the right audience.  

At Onimod Global, our data-driven content strategies align your content marketing efforts to real business results. Our content strategy services make it easy to understand your audience’s needs, where your competition is winning, and areas where you have an opportunity to lead your industry.

As a Chicago-based, in-house marketing team, we are your partner experts for specific marketing verticals or some nice balance in between. We excel in customer service and will teach you the most relevant and up-to-date digital marketing skills. 

Have questions about creating your online presence and need help strategizing? Contact us here today.

4 Ways to Boost Your WordPress SEO

/in , , , , /by

Yes WordPress is SEO-friendly, but simply launching a WordPress website isn’t enough to rank at the top of the search engines.

WordPress has been around since 2003, and has certainly come a long way to help define itself as a powerful marketing tool. Over a third of all websites are using WordPress, simply for its publishing platform and well-designed SEO.

However, if you want your site to rank higher than your competitors’ sites, you still need to do some work yourself. Here’s a couple ways Onimod Global can help you improve your WordPress site’s SEO.

Carry Out Keyword Research

Without keyword research, you are not going to know which search terms you should be optimizing your site’s content for. Keyword research should come at the start of any SEO project and be used to plan your site content and on-page optimization.

You can use our Keyword Overview tool to identify the keywords you should be using and optimizing for. Whether you are starting to optimize your site from scratch or are creating new content, knowing the keywords you are trying to rank the page for is essential.

Craft Unique Optimized Title Tags & Meta Descriptions

Your page’s title tag tells users and search engines what your page is about and is commonly regarded as being an important ranking factor. It is what feeds the clickable page title you see on Google search results.

Yoast automatically sets your page’s title tag using your page heading. What’s nice about Yoast is that you also have the ability to overwrite this and improve it in order to work in variations of keywords that you might not include in your page’s heading. Here are a couple things you can do to optimize your title tags and Meta descriptions:

  • You can either use snippet variables, add custom text as your title tag, or use a mix of both.
  • Meta descriptions indirectly impact your site’s organic performance due to Click-through- rate. It is worth spending time to write enticing descriptions. 

Use Internal Linking

You need to use internal linking within your content to help establish topical relevance between different pages on your site, to pass authority earned from external links, and to help users efficiently navigate.

Adding in internal links to other pages in WordPress is really simple. All you need to do is highlight the text which you want to link (this will be your link’s anchor text) and click the ‘link’ button on the toolbar, which will then allow you to either paste a URL or search for pages within your site.

Mark Up Your Pages with Schema

Schema markup can help to enhance your SEO efforts by adding context to your content and data. It helps Google to understand your content, present it in different and useful ways, which enhances a searcher’s experience.

By adding context to your pages, you are making it more likely that you not only rank higher but also get clicks when your page receives impressions. Since Yoast 11.0, a full structured data graph is built for every post or page on your site, but there are instances where you will want to mark up specific blocks within WordPress.  

Last Thoughts

WordPress is one of the most SEO-friendly CMS’ out there, and that is one of the reasons why it is so popular. It is user-friendly and easy to implement a whole host of SEO tactics using just a small number of fantastic plugins. By following the steps above, you are putting yourself in a great position to outrank your competitors.

Onimod Global is your Chicago-based, in-house marketing team, your partner experts for specific marketing verticals or some nice balance in between. We excel in customer service and will teach you the most relevant and up-to-date digital marketing skills. From social media to SEO and paid search, you will have the tools to ensure your business succeeds online.  

Have questions about creating your online presence and need help strategizing? Contact us here today.