Optimizing your website for success has never been easier thanks to the power of the internet's number one analytics tool - Google Analytics. It is estimated that as much as 53% of all websites use the platform to reach their business goals.

While most users may be able to navigate Google Analytics at the elementary level, there are countless tools available for tracking goals, analyzing user behavior, and increasing your level of user engagement.

If you've had an opportunity to poke around the platform and are ready to take your experience to the next level, then continue and learn how to navigate Google analytics like a pro and start gaining an edge over your competition.

What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is an analytics tool developed by Google to help users monitor and analyze their website traffic. It provides invaluable insights including the number of unique visitors, geographic locations, demographic information, time spent on individual pages, and traffic sources.

While other alternatives exist including Chartbeat and Semrush, Google Analytics is unquestionably the industry leader thanks to its accuracy and ease of use. Creating an account is also absolutely free.

However, a premium version of the tool does exist called Google Analytics 360. This subscription will cost businesses $150,000 a year for the additional reporting features and tools. Thankfully, unless you're managing a large-scale enterprise or corporation, the free version provides everything a website owner needs to have mastery over their domain.

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Why Should I Use Analytics for My Website?

Attempting to create and operate a successful website for your business is like attempting to travel to a foreign location without a map. Though it's technically possible for your journey to be a success, you will undoubtedly waste valuable time, money, and resources without a reliable guide pointing you in the right direction.

Google Analytics allows you to tag any material you create for marketing so that you can gather actionable information about your audience in real-time. If your analytics reporting determines that certain website pages have a high bounce rate, it's a sign that the content or layout of your page is low-quality and unengaging.

Demographic insights can tell you the age, gender, and average income level of those who most frequently visit your website. You can then utilize this information to create and optimizing future website content and marketing campaigns to capitalize on those visitors and create conversions.

Not only will Google Analytics automatically track all of this data and more automatically, but it also offers the ability to create countless custom goals and reporting so that you can tailor solutions that fit your business's unique needs.

How to Navigate Google Analytics Like a Pro?

Now that you understand the importance of having a website analytics tool on your side, it's time to take a look at how you can start improving your website reporting today.

1. Start Crawling and Indexing Your Site with Google Search Console

For those that are new to managing a website, the concept of web crawlers might be brand-new. Google Search Console is a tool that's separate from Google Analytics but is necessary if you want to gain reliable data from the latter.

Crawling is what a web crawler, also called a spider, performs to grab and index all of the information from all websites across the web. Search engines like Google use their crawler to index information along with its search algorithm. This is how the search engine can rank websites and provide you with the best search results possible.

You can manually submit the latest version of your website to Google Search Console so that it crawls and downloads the most recent information. This same tool will also help you in remedying existing issues with your sites such as URL structure, duplicate content, page speed, and mobile performance.

You can access Google Search Console here by logging into your existing Google account. From there, you will need to select the domain you wish to crawl and index. If you have yet to submit your domain to Google, you will need to verify ownership of the site before proceeding. You can add a new domain by clicking on + Add Property when searching for a property.

After completing that step, you can begin the process by clicking on Fetch as Google underneath a section titled Crawl. Make sure to do this for all versions of the site. After the Google Search Console finishes fetching data, be sure to index it.

If Google Search Console detects any issues with your site health, you will need to take steps to remedy each one. Failure to optimize your site in this regard will almost certainly cause any actions taken as a result of Google Analytics to be in vain.

You can also submit a sitemap to Google Search Console to potentially improve its ability to properly read and index your entire site. You can learn more about that topic here.

2. Implement Google Tag Manager to Track Your Marketing

Google Tag Manager is an essential feature within Google Analytics that allows you to easily track events on a given website page. This will provide you with a short code snippet that you can paste into the header and body of the page without needing to edit or modify any lines of code. Many modern website editors provide a field for you to paste this without ever needing to access the HTML.

The power of Google Tag Manager is the ability to sort captured data automatically so that it only reports the information you want to see. You can access GTM here.

While it can be easy to get overwhelmed with all of the tools and dashboards associated with Google Analytics, allowing them to work together harmoniously will give you the best results. In the Tag Manager, simply select the same domain you are managing through Google Analytics. Then, you can click the box that says New Tag to start tracking new events.

You can also find your existing tags by selecting Tags within the column on the left-hand side. Examples of events that you can track include conversions, completing a form, downloading a file, link clicks, video plays, scroll tracking, and much more. By aligning your business goals with the right events, you'll be able to know exactly how your site is performing and make adjustments as necessary.

Learning Google Tag Manager will not just be beneficial for your core website, but can benefit any additional campaigns you run when creating new landing pages or sales funnels.

3. Get Comfortable with All Types of Google Analytics Reporting

Google Analytics offers a treasure trove of reporting options so that you can keep your eyes on what’s happening with your site both in real-time and in the long term. Those primary types of reports include:

• Real-Time
• Audience
• Acquisition
• Behavior
• Conversions

4. Real-Time Reporting in Google Analytics

Real-time reporting will provide insights regarding your web traffic each moment that it happens. This type of data allows you to utilize actionable data and make changes to your website and campaigns immediately. Real-time reporting allows you to review visitor locations, the origins of the web traffic, custom event goals, goal conversions, and what pages users are spending time visiting.

For all of these, you can view what active visitors are doing on your site at the moment or within the last half hour. Not only are the insights invaluable, but real-time reporting offers the added benefit of allowing you to catch errors in your campaign early. Whether there's an issue with your Google Tag Manager, your content, or a page loading correctly, you can solve the problem before it has a lasting impact on your marketing results.

• Audience Reporting

Audience reporting refers to any data that Google Analytics can determine about the types of users visiting your website. When multiple users happen to share similar attributes, you can consider that segmented group one type of audience. By observing the actions and behavior patterns of different types of audiences, you can determine which types of audiences are more worthwhile to pursue.

The Audience tab allows you to gain reporting based upon age, gender, interests, geographic location, behavior, technology, and device types. You'll be able to filter unique visitors from returning ones, determine which types of devices are being used to visit your site, and even compare your website's data with competitors in your industry.

Audience reporting data is invaluable as it allows you to tailor future campaigns to your audiences based on how they interact with your content. This makes Google Analytics one of your greatest allies in building remarketing campaigns that can help push buyers that are on the fence to become paying customers.

With audience reporting, however, it's important to note that while this data is valuable, it is ultimately a general assumption. There is no definitive way for analytics tools to know exactly why a visitor came to your site. You will still need to utilize strategies such as A/B testing to explore new ways of engaging with your audience. However, these insights give you the target you need to aim for rather than aiming in the dark.

• Acquisition Reporting

Acquisition reporting within Google Analytics allows you to take a deep dive into exactly how your website acquires visitors. You can access a snapshot of your traffic through the Overview subsection found underneath Acquisition.

This will show you the top channels used to access your domain whether it be through organic keyword searches, social media, or direct navigation. You can also easily view statistics such as bounce rate, average session length, or conversions for your various custom goals, which we will cover later in this article.

Your Acquisition Reporting is further segmented into closer looks at the following:

• Channels (The method used to access your site)
• All Traffic (The top traffic sources from all channels)
• All Referrals (Websites and social media links to your site)
• Campaigns (Visitors from ad campaigns using UTM parameters)
• Keywords (An analysis of keywords used for organic and paid search)
• Cost Analysis (The costs per session)
• Social (Activity from social media including referrals and conversions)
• SEO (Impressions, Clicks, Ranking, Clickthrough Rate, etc.)

The Acquisition reporting tab provides you with comprehensive data that can positively impact every aspect of your digital marketing. From optimizing on-page content to improving site health to improving your overall search rankings, Acquisition reporting through Google Analytics will allow you to operate your website like a professional.

While all of Google Analytics' tools will improve your game, spend time getting familiar with each column and metric available in this section of the platform. These insights will allow you to create highly personalized campaigns and advertisements that push for better conversion rates than your initial discovery efforts.

• Behavior Reporting

The Behavior Reporting section is invaluable for learning exactly how your visitors spend time on your website. This will not only cover the basics such as time spent but will demonstrate the behavior flow of your visitors.

Behavior flow is a term used to describe how a visitor moves from one page to the next on a website. An example of a behavior flow would be as follows:

Home Page > Services Page (2nd Interaction) > Service A Page (3rd Interaction) > Contact Page (4th) Interaction

If significant portions of our audience follow this behavior flow, we can deduce that something about our content is driving visitors to learn more about a specific service before inquiring how to contact the business. We could then look into link clicks or form submissions within our events to determine if any further action was taken beyond this page navigation.

Gaining a visualization of your audience's behavior flow can give you a greater understanding of how your content impacts the user's choices. This is tremendously advantageous when you are attempting to funnel users to specific sections or your site to trigger specific events or goals.

Behavior reporting will also give insights such as time spent or bounce rate for every page. If users are spending more time on a page, it's a great sign that our content is effective and keeping audiences engaged. To contrast this, a high bounce rate on a page means that we need to improve the content on a page to avoid losing visitors at that point in the sales process.

Finally, Google Analytics also features an Event Flow visualization that can help you track a visitor's journey when engaging with a flow of events as opposed to pages. This is a highly important tool if you happen to be running a campaign on your site that requires users to participate in events within a sequence. A multi-page form would be an example of this as it includes engaging with form fields, following links, and submitting the data upon completion.

When you gain a mastery level of knowledge over your audience, you can cater your website and campaigns to suit their needs while still reaching your goals.

• Conversions Reporting

The point of Conversions Reporting is to help you determine if and how your website is helping you to drive conversions. A conversion can simply be a sale (the end goal) or any other custom, predefined goal you set for your website.

Not unlike the behavior and event flows, Conversions features reports that can help you visualize your goal path and the actions users take on their journey to fulfilling that goal.

The most common strategy for tracking goals is to push users to a confirmation page any time they complete a goal (making a purchase, completing a form, etc.). In your Conversions reporting, that page will display a high goal success rate. However, Google Analytics allows you to create as many steps in that goal as you would like so that you can track performance at each step and learn when users abandon the conversion. An example of a multi-step conversion might look like this:

Add to Cart (Step 1) > Enter Shipping Information (Step 2) > Enter Payment & Billing Details (Step 3) > Review Your Checkout Info (Step 4) > Complete Purchase (Goal)

As a general rule, it's easier to drive conversions with as few steps as possible. However, this is not always possible. With Conversions reporting, you not only track when users reach the finish line but can count your wins at each step. If large numbers of users are abandoning the process as step 3, for example, there may be ways we need to improve that part of the process.

Familiarize yourself with Conversion reports to help guide you in achieving your various business goals. In this way, Google Analytics can become your greatest ally when it comes to increasing your sales.

5. Set Up Your Custom Goals in Google Analytics

Now that you've gained familiarity with the wealth of reporting options available, it's time to set up your own custom goals in Google Analytics. This elevates your data from simply being informative and helps you to visualize how your business goals and needs match up with how visitors engage with your brand.

As we briefly described above, a goal can be an act of any kind that you wish for a user to perform when visiting your website. You can begin the process of creating custom goals by navigating to Admin > All Website Data > Goals.

Google Analytics features an intuitive setup process that walks you through the goal creation process step-by-step. It even features pre-built templates for common goals that other Google Analytics users frequently employ. These templated goals include actions like payments, account creation, contact inquiries, or media plays. If one of these suits your needs, you can start there. Otherwise, go to the bottom and click Custom.

Next, you’ll need to select the type of goal you want to set up within your Google Analytics account. Your goal will fall under one of four umbrella categories including:

• Destination (Track when a user arrives at a designated place on your site)
• Visit Duration (Set a goal for how long you wish for a user session to be)
• Pages Visited Per Session (Set a goal for how many pages you want a user to interact with)
• Events (Assign a specific action as an event and track every time a user performs it)

It may take testing for you to create custom goals that accurately define what you need for a user to accomplish. With the help of all of the reporting options available, your initial goals may provide insight into what you need to do when creating new goals, so that you can further optimize website performance.

Remember from above that you can track all of this data in real-time, make corrections on the fly, and gain a horde of in-depth data that can help to push conversions further. When using Google Analytics, you set your goals, watch how the data lines up with your goals, and continuously optimize aspects of your website and campaigns to keep pushing the numbers in your favor.

6. Don't Forget About the Demographics and Interest Reports

Finally, you should know that Google Analytics offers Demographics and Interests Reports that can further improve your insights about your visitors. However, this feature must be manually enabled to take effect. To do this, find the Audience while selecting your domain. Then click on Demographics > Overview. You can then find a blue button that to click that says Enable.

After this, you're all set. This process is not instantaneous, and it may take several days for your new data to populate in the dashboard.

This reporting feature will show you valuable personal data regarding the audience that is visiting your website. However, a key feature is that it also shows the other interests that these users have that may or may not be related to your brand. The more well-rounded the visualization of your potential customers is, the better equipped you are to create campaigns tailored to their wants and needs.

7. Finally, Track What You Want with Custom Reports

If there's anything left to learn from what Google Analytics has to offer, it's that there is no one-size-fits-all solution for every business. For this reason, Google Analytics also offers you the ability to create customized reports to track the metrics most critical to your unique goals and success.

To create a custom report within Google Analytics, find the Customization section within the left-hand column. Then, click on Custom Reports underneath it. You can create new reports by clicking on + New Custom Report and even categorize them by clicking + New Category. There are four major types of custom reports, including:

• Explorer (A line graph with a data table – the basic report you should be familiar with now)
• Flat Table (A general table that allows you to custom sort your columns and rows)
• Map Overlay (Contains a geographic map that’s color-coded to represent key metrics)
• Funnel (Generate a graph of your funnel steps and see which were completed by users and which were not)

You can also take advantage of the Google Solutions Gallery by clicking on Import from Gallery. This allows you to browse and select countless custom reports generated by other business owners and marketers like yourself. While these custom reports were made by the user for their needs, you may find other like-minded individuals who already created exactly what you need.

Custom reporting exists primarily due to the sheer amount of data available within Google Analytics. While all of it is extremely valuable, it only is so in the correct circumstances. By setting up a custom report that better aligns with your business goals, you can save countless hours by sorting out that data automatically and capturing exactly what you and your partners need to see. This allows you to examine the data with purpose, rather than manually clicking through the data each week or each month.

Navigate Google Analytics Like a Pro for Website and Marketing Success!

Google Analytics dominates the market for website analytics for great reason. For zero cost, you have access to countless intuitive tools and reporting features that can automatically track exactly what happens on your website, how your audience engages, and then use that data to improve in every area.

The moderate time investment of learning Google Analytics is worthwhile as it can single-handedly be the deciding factor in making better content for your website and improving steps on your website to achieve more conversions. You can also quickly sort that data by creating custom goals and custom reports so that you can capture and use that information with a purpose.

In addition to setting up your Google Analytics account, don't forget to crawl and index your website with Google Search Console to improve your site health. Failure to do so will completely undermine any marketing efforts taken with the help of this incredible tool. Also, be sure to set up your Google Tag Manager on any site where marketing actions are taken so that you can more easily track your events and conversions.

Now that you're familiar with everything that Google Analytics has to offer, the only thing left is to analyze your domain and start testing these features for yourself. With time and application, Google Analytics will become a critical ally for your business success just as it has been for countless others to date.

If you want to boost your popularity in search results, improving your meta descriptions is a great place to begin. Compelling, keyword-focused snippets will tell your audience exactly what your content is all about and what they're missing by not clicking.

Below, we're going to provide you with proven tips for how to write compelling Meta descriptions that will boost your rankings. With a few key adjustments, you can expect to see a surge in web traffic and discover for yourself that dominating Google search results is possible for anyone.

What is a Meta Description?

A meta description is an attribute of HTML that describes the content on a web page.

Whenever you enter a keyword or phrase into a search engine, a list of results will appear. The main clickable link features the headline. Below this, you will find the meta description. While the meta description serves a variety of purposes, it effectively acts as advertising copy to win users over to your website versus the other results.

You must manually enter a meta description either through HTML or by using built-in tools offered by your CMS (content management system). You can generally find the place to enter your meta description under your SEO settings along with your topic and URL. Meta descriptions should be no longer than 160 characters, and you should aim between 120 and 150 characters.

Why Do Meta Descriptions Matter?

It may surprise you to learn that the meta description is one of the few things that does not directly impact search rankings. By that, we mean that crawlers are focusing on the content, tags, and links featured on the page itself. So, why do meta descriptions matter when it comes to rankings on search engine results pages?

Meta descriptions play a significant role in clickthrough rates. If given the choice between a result with an attractive description and promising information versus a boring description that's unclear, users will always choose the carefully crafted one. What Google is interested in are the pages that more users are choosing to engage with. When more people click on a website, Google weighs this into consideration, they can more easily determine which websites have a higher quality of content and are more deserving of higher rankings.

Whether or not a meta description directly impacts the search algorithm directly or indirectly is inconsequential. The ultimate goal when seeking higher rankings is to get more clicks and a well-crafted meta description is proven to achieve just that.

How Do I Write Compelling Meta Descriptions?

Improving the quality of your meta descriptions is not difficult if you know what works best. Start employing the key suggestion below if you want to start boosting your rankings the right way.

1. Provide a Succinct Description of the Content

Your meta description should always help to describe exactly what the reader will find when they click on your link. This is not an opportunity to misdirect or deceive users into clicking through by making false promises. Google's main priority is to help users find the most pertinent and valuable data that relates to their queries. Being dishonest with your descriptions will adversely affect your website. Those types of clicks will also negatively impact your bounce rate.

Instead, explain to the user what's waiting for them on the other side of the link. Remember that you have between 120 and 150 characters. Focus on the highlights, make use of your primary keyword, and trust that your content is worth viewing.

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2. Inspire Intrigue with Your Meta Descriptions

Even though you must describe the content accurately, that doesn't mean you need to give away all of the most valuable material right away. Just as you would do with any other form of marketing, you want to give away just enough to inspire interest without giving away the entire product. The meta description naturally lends itself to this concept due to its naturally short length.

Let’s look at an example. If someone is searching “how to draw” and your result is on the first page, what sounds more appealing?

Example A: “Anyone can learn how to draw whether they are talented or not. Drawing is a skill, just like reading or cooking, or playing soccer. Sure, some people seem to…”

Example B: “Here is where you’ll find every single one of our how-to-draw lessons! It’s a massive drawing library! You’ll find lessons for young and old kids.”

These meta descriptions come from actual search results. The first is a result that's relegated to page four. It appears that the webmaster failed to create a meta description, leaving Google to retrieve its snippet from the actual on-page content. While it is still relevant to our search, the snippet features vague statements that don't compel us to learn more.

The second meta description is from our number one result. Even though it's not the most eloquent description, it tells us exactly what they're promising. By clicking their link, you're not only going to learn how to draw, but you will gain access to an entire library that accommodates all age groups. The description is unquestionably better, and we can assume that their clickthrough rate is quite high as a result of their ranking.

Use this premise to highlight the value you're offering to the user with just one click of your link.

3. Use Your Primary Keyword in the Description

Not only is a meta description another opportunity to incorporate your target keyword, but the entire phrase will also be highlighted in bold to grab the user's attention. When competing with other results, you always need to focus on doing what you can to pull eyes to your link. A user is far more likely to skim past results without a bolded keyword or phrase than ones that have them.

However, this does not mean you should pack keywords into your description. Always keep in mind that you have limited characters to work with, and stuffing keywords into that space seems obvious, off-putting, and makes your text read poorly. Google is also not fond of keyword stuffing, so it's best to avoid this practice no matter where you are typing.

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4. Every Meta Description Must Be Unique

Duplicate content always makes a poor impression. At worst, it can result in penalties that lower your SEO score. At best, it makes your brand appear lazy, negligent, and uninspired.

Take the time to review your website and check for any pages that might share identical meta descriptions. Consider rephrasing the duplicate ones either manually or through an online tool to make them 100% unique. Revise each description to reflect the content that the user will find on the page and avoid overgeneralized descriptions that fail to do this.

Though there are circumstances in which experts can argue for allowing an auto-populated description, writing your own each time you create a page or post an article is the best way to avoid this problem.

5. Focus on Value

Writing a meta description should be similar to writing short-form ad copy. In that regard, you should take advantage of the opportunity to promote value to your audience. If you're providing a special offer, a promotion, an opportunity for free materials, be sure to highlight this in the description.

A great way to do this is to make use of value terms or phrases such as “the most popular,” “the best available,” or “highly-rated.” Consider that users have already expressed interest in your offerings by searching for the keywords you are ranking for. Take advantage of that innate interest by demonstrating the value you offer over your competitors.

6. A/B Test Your Meta Descriptions

A/B testing will always serve as an excellent way to see what works with actual numbers to support it. Instead of writing a description and calling it a day, work with your team to create two or more variations of a description for each page.

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This will allow you to explore different methods of advertising your content. It may surprise you to see how a slight variation to a sentence or the inclusion of a new keyword can attract more clicks.

Set your initial meta description and allow that page to run long enough to gather data with Google Analytics. It will generally take several weeks to gather enough input to make an actionable decision. Then, change only the meta description and leave the content on the page the same. Test your new description and see what earns you a better clickthrough rate.

Not only will this research boost the performance of that single page, but you can also use the knowledge gained from A/B testing to craft better meta descriptions in the future that appeal to your unique audience.

Conclusion: Begin Writing Compelling Meta Descriptions Today!

Meta descriptions may not be a direct factor in Google's ranking algorithm, but it nevertheless has a tremendous impact on your site's SEO value. It is your opportunity to advertise your content, intrigue the reader, and entice them with your unique proposition value.

Effective keyword usage will also support a clear description by highlighting the exact phrases the user is searching for. Including unique meta descriptions for each page will also provide each of your website pages with an opportunity to demonstrate its own, unique value. If you ever have any doubts about the right direction for your meta description, always defer to A/B testing and allow the analytics to speak for themselves.

By staying conscious of these tips each time you create a new page or write a new blog post, you, too, can boost your rankings.

One final tip - take time to search for topics that interest you. Study the top results and consider how those brands take advantage of our proven tips as well as the unique things they do that are unique to their style. To be the best, you need to learn from the best. In doing so, ranking your site at number one can become a real possibility.

"The two worst strategic mistakes to make are acting prematurely and letting an opportunity slip; to avoid this, the warrior treats each situation as if it were unique and never resorted to formulae, recipes or other people's opinions." —— Paulo Coelho

It is shocking to know how many brands have lost their reputation and value overnight after making strategic blunders in digital marketing. Indeed, you learn from your mistakes, but the Internet can further amplify marketing disasters. Sometimes, it can be too late even to initiate damage control.

It may lead digital marketers to embarrassment and confusion as their mistakes are exposed to thousands and even millions of people. It may also lead to substantial financial losses as sales plummet.

In a bid to showcase their product as a unifying force in the US society, Pepsi decided to feature reality show star Kendall Jenner in one of its ads. The advertisers showed her trying to settle a Black Lives Matter standoff between furious protestors and the police. In the ad, they showed her offering a can of Pepsi to a police officer.

The advertisers intended to portray it as a warm gesture to forge camaraderie between both the parties, which were at loggerheads. Unfortunately, it didn't go down well with people, resulting in a widespread outrage.

After the spot being trolled on social media and SNL, Pepsi had to pull it off quickly. The brand's in-house team created the entire ad, and no professional agency was involved in it.

A few months down the line, PepsiCo president Brad Jakeman resigned. In a public comment, he conceded that the spot was "the most gut-wrenching experience of my career." A lesson learned the hard way by Pepsi is that understanding your audience is crucial to successful marketing.

How to Get Success in Digital Marketing?

This article discusses the components of a digital marketing plan, including the dos and don'ts of the game. Here are the thirteen key ingredients to succeed in digital marketing strategy making.

1. Define Your Brand

Explain how your brand is different from your competitors and what you're bringing to the table. Determine your USPs as they will convince people to choose your business over others. Whatever it is, it's all about making your company unique.

Understanding your current brand identity is at the core of all your efforts to improve your brand identity.

The "Golden Circle" concept helps businesses focus on "why" they exist on the planet. It doesn't matter what they do or how they do it. You can use it to define your brand.

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Here are seven questions that you can use to simplify things and define your brand:

A. Why Does Your Company Exist?

It is a crucial question that decides the future of your company and something that makes you get out of bed every morning.

People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it and what you do proves what you believe. ā Simon Sinek

B. What Is Your Story?

Create and tell a story of your brand and share information about what you do and how you do it. You can use these five components to create a compelling story, i.e., the characters, the setting, the plot, the conflict, and the resolution. Compile a few case studies involving your best customer stories that you feel proud about.

C. What Problems Do You Help Your Customers Solve?

In this age, when more and more people research products online before making their first purchase, it's expected from the brands to create a fabulous firsthand experience. To do this, companies should research the market, especially the problems that their customers are facing. Besides a mad rush to promote their products, brands should take one step back and redesign their products to meet people's core needs.

D. Why Do These Customers Trust Your Team Over Your Competitors?

While performing a SWOT analysis, it's critical to know what makes you stand out from most of your competitors. Take advantage of other companies' deficiencies and weaker areas and improve your products and services to fill the gap in the market. Turn these improved features into the salient features of your products and advertise them vigorously.

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E. What Brands Do You Look Up To?

There must be some brands you draw your inspiration from. You should imbibe those values and use some of their ideas to transform your own brand. For example, many companies look up to Tesla and Apple for the kind of innovation they have underway.

F. What Characteristics Would Your Employees Use to Describe Your Brand Today?

It's essential to know how your employees perceive your brand. To develop all probable conflicting adjectives, you can invite your teams for a survey and brainstorming sessions. Ask them what resonates with them when they think about your brand. Find out if your employees know your company's mission statement and vision. If their perception of your brand differs from yours, it's time to conduct sessions together so everybody is on the same page.

G. What Is Your Brand Voice?

Your brand voice decides the tone of your communication and the way you speak to your audience. Your employees should follow your brand voice everywhere, from blog posts to social media and print media briefings.

2. Create Buyer Personas and Identify Your Target Audience

Can you create a marketing plan if you are not aware of who your audience is? Buyer personas are fictional personalities who resemble your customers or the people who are most likely to purchase from you.

To create your buyer personas, you can begin with location, psychology, age, passion, pressing needs, advantages, routine, family size, income, job title, hobbies, interests, goals, etc. You can't approach a Gen-Z single woman the way you'd approach a married woman with three kids.

3. Set Your Goals

To achieve a big goal, you need to set twenty small goals. For example, your broader goal is to increase conversions by 50%; your small goal can be to grow your email subscribers or Instagram followers by 15%. Make sure each goal is measurable. Setting goals will help you rapidly achieve success in digital marketing.

While trying to establish realistic outcomes, always leave some room for uncertainty. And you should do so based on a set of predetermined KPIs as per your strategy and marketing objectives. Make your strategy based on a trimmed set of metrics. The idea is to sharpen your focus on those goals and not allow yourself to deviate. Keep things simple while delegating and communicating, and plan your project with a clear timeframe for your team, so everybody is focused and ready to collaborate.

4. Create a Customer Journey Map

Customer journey maps are an integral part of digital marketing strategy. These maps help you visualize the end-to-end customer experience with the help of infographics, diagrams, and illustrations.

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With the help of these maps, you can know all the touchpoints customers interact with your brand. It includes offline touchpoints as well. Customer journey maps provide you a bird's eye view of your brand, products, and processes as the customer sees them. It gives a holistic idea about a customer's journey through the marketing and sales funnel. Here is the step-by-step process to craft a detailed journey map for your business and use it effectively.

In the 21st century, customer journeys are not considered linear and funnel-like as we believed in the 90s. These are far more complex and longer than a funnel that has a few fixed stages. Though a funnel is still relevant to visualize it from a marketer's perspective, journey maps include more than the four or five stages. Here is a customer journey map for your visual aid and understanding.

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What makes it unique is that you can't use an official template to map customer journeys, because just like our fingerprints, our customer journeys are also not the same.

5. Make Your Buyer Persona

You can exercise a great deal of flexibility while mapping customer journeys as they can vary based on different factors such as the product, business, or service. You can be a bit creative here and use the following steps to create your primary customer journey map.

Making buyer personas will help you understand the customer and the way they think and behave. Despite individual uniqueness, psychographic and demographic groups act specifically, and buyer personas, though fictional, contribute significantly to understanding customers' collective behavior patterns. It provides us valuable inputs to map buyer journeys.

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6. Understand Your Buyer's Goals

After creating buyer personas, brainstorm what customers' ultimate goals can be in each phase. You should keep in mind that goals are variable and will change as we move ahead in the funnel.

To create the right content for each such stage, you need to do the following:

 
• Figure out the different options available for the customer
• Ensure that the products are not overpriced
• Make sure that the prospects have all the necessary information about the products

The best way to understand this is to identify the path taken by your website visitors. Where do they go first? Is it the login page if they are a member? Then, which other pages? Do they compare products on your site? Or do they browse it?

Once you figure out their activity map on your website, you should identify different touchpoints and use them to achieve your marketing and sales objectives. The primary focus should beā€“are you able to help the customers achieve their goals and answer their queries?

Here are a few other methods you can try to get some insight into customers' goals:

 
• Conduct a survey or interview customer groups
• Go through customer support emails
• Carefully notice customer questions in each phase
• Try customer behavior analytics tools like Hotjar to collect information

7. Map Out Buyer Touchpoints

A "touchpoint" refers to moments and instances when a customer comes into contact with a brand. It can be anywhere in the funnel ā online or offline ā over the phone, online, or in person.

Some of these touchpoints can be critical. For example, a bad customer service experience can ruin your entire day when confronted with an emergency.

However, it's imperative that an organization takes advantage of every touchpoint and uses it as an opportunity to improve, make their customers happy and satisfied.

Here are some of the touchpoints you can identify and use:

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8. Identify Customer Pain Points

When you club all your data to get a big picture, you can quickly identify the customer pain points or call them roadblocks in the funnel. The touchpoints and journey mapping will also help you discover the areas where you're doing good or improving further.

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You can use tools such as UserTesting and discover issues like:

 
• Is our website allowing customers to achieve their goals?
• Where are they frequently facing roadblocks and experiencing frustration?
• Where are the most cases of purchase abandonments happening (and why)?

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9. Prioritize and Fix Customer Journey Roadblocks

Finally, have a look at your touchpoints. Take note of what's happening there that's perfectly alright vs. where you need to improve. Is there anything that needs to be reworked from scratch? Identify a few simple tweaks that can dramatically improve the customer experience on your website.

Creating a customer journey map is not a one-time activity. You should update it frequently, mainly because your customer landscape is constantly changing and evolving, and it should also reflect in your journey map.

Use it as a living document to identify the bottlenecks and find ways to improve the customer journey. You must use it as an auditing tool to find out the areas of improvement in your website and how to plug the loopholes with parallel marketing action to move customers down the funnel.

We live in an era where businesses are all about customer experience, and customer journey maps help you transform it. You can use your journey map insights for various purposes, such as:

 
1. Creating a user story
2. Writing requirement description
3. Figuring out KPIs
4. Discovering measurement opportunities

To implement data-driven marketing, you need to collect the data from departments, teams, and stakeholders for decision making and distribute the knowledge you've gained with your team members.

10. Plan Your Content

Content is at the soul of digital marketing, but it should be well-planned to achieve your targets. There are numerous ways to do it, such as making content calendars, content mapping, and creating timelines. You can use various tools for that, such as HubSpot, Buzzsumo, and much more.

Content mapping helps you to target your buyer persona. The best thing about content mapping is that it allows you to create specific content according to the prospect's position in the buyer journey.

For example, if a prospect is already aware of your brand and in the consideration stage, they don't need the introductory content meant to create awareness. At this stage, you should focus on creating content that showcases your USPs against competition and why someone should choose you. You can use a Content Mapping Template for this purpose.

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The buyer's journey or buying cycle is usually divided into three parts, i.e.,

 
1. Awareness
2. Consideration
3. Decision

11. Identify Digital Marketing Channels You Should Choose

Since digital marketing is so dynamic, you should change your method according to the situation and product. Here are some of the ways you can try:

 
• Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising
• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Content marketing
• Email marketing
• Social media marketing
• Affiliate marketing
• Influencer marketing

To learn more about such channels, visit our digital marketing blog.

12. Set Your Budget

Setting your budget for digital marketing is crucial. In the absence of a predefined budget, marketers tend to spend heavily on one of the methods only to find that they have no money left for an important channel. For example, if you invest $1000 in a PPC campaign thinking that it's more than enough, but you get negligible results. Then you realize that you won't get any significant results in your segment unless you spend at least $3000. That's why it's essential to plan your digital marketing budget, given the money you have in hand and your fiercest needs.

13. Measure Results

Without measuring your results, you can't succeed in digital marketing. After testing different methods, you'll want to measure the results, so you can tweak your campaign to achieve even better results. You'll also have to use your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to measure your success. If you can't reach the results you want, you need to optimize your strategy again.

Let's discuss how to measure the impact of your strategy and optimize it if required. Set up SMART goals. SMART goals are:

 
1. Specific
2. Measurable
3. Achievable
4. Relevant
5. Time-bound

The purpose is to build a process where you can easily measure and scale.

For example, if one of your business goals is to increase brand awareness, your SMART goal should be along the lines of: "My target is to add 50% more Instagram followers within the next four months."

Conclusion

To gain success in digital marketing, having a strategy is crucial as it provides organizations the blueprint to thrive in the given situation. The strategy covers every aspect of online marketing operations, such as controlling the flow of work, achieving your business objectives, and tracking campaign performance in real-time. A well-planned strategy also helps you adapt to change swiftly, where everything is changing and evolving in this dynamic world.

E-Commerce is no longer the way of the future. As society began trending toward the online world, the past two years pushed more consumers to digital storefronts than ever.

But, there's a problem - making your e-commerce website visible can be a challenge for even the most reputable, established local businesses. This is why optimizing your e-commerce store for modern search engines is mandatory for business success.

Fortunately for you, the strategies for bolstering your website rankings are no longer a secret. Below, you'll find our tips that make up your ultimate guide to SEO for e-commerce websites.

What is E-Commerce SEO?

SEO, or search engine optimization, is the act of optimizing a website to increase the quality and quantity of its visitors. Because Google possesses nearly 93% of the search market share, the latest and greatest strategies are based upon changes and updates to Google's search algorithm.

E-Commerce SEO is quite similar to SEO for a standard, informational website, but comes with the added goal of persuading users to interact with product pages to make purchases online. With that in mind, many of the SEO strategies you may already be familiar with are still effective for your digital storefront.

If you can learn these strategies and align them with buyer intent, you can effectively drive traffic to your website and increase your number of monthly conversions.

How to Do SEO For E-Commerce?

While e-commerce SEO can prove complicated depending on your number of website pages, you can see rapid improvements by simply focusing on what works for countless other websites:

1. Make Your E-Commerce Website Mobile-Friendly

Mobile optimization is one of the best things you can do to improve the performance of your e-commerce website. Roughly 55% of all web traffic now comes from mobile devices including cellular phones and tablets.

When it comes to digital purchases, it's increasingly common for users to search for a product via mobile from any location. It's also easier than ever to search and compare product information and prices when browsing physical locations, granting you more opportunities than ever to win sales over your competitors.

To keep your e-commerce site mobile-friendly, be sure to choose a minimalistic design that remains attractive while considering the size of the screen and the power of the device. Avoid outdated software like Flash, which greatly increases loading speeds. Also, be sure to use image formats such as PNG that greatly compress file size without overly compromising on image quality.

If you are proficient with HTML and CSS, we also recommend taking advantage of media queries. This code allows search engines to more easily determine which style and page format options you wish to load on your website depending on the type of device being used to access your domain. You can then design your website specifically for desktop and mobile experiences without compromising the experience you wish for users to have on one versus the other.

To check the loading speed of your e-commerce site, use Google's PageSpeed Insights.

To determine if your site is mobile-friendly, use Google's Mobile-Friendly Test here.

Both of these tools will generate a report that grades your website in both areas. This report will also describe existing errors and provide instructions on what you can do to optimize your website for improved performance. Page speed and mobile optimizations rely on one another, as mobile devices feature less processing power and rely on weaker data connections than a hardwired desktop computer.

2. Improve Your URL Structure

A common issue for e-commerce websites is poor URL structure. While this is essential for every type of website, it becomes increasingly difficult as you expand your storefront with hundreds of unique product pages. Poor URLs will not only make navigation more difficult for your users, but Google will have a much more difficult time indexing parts of your e-commerce website.

To make your URLs more SEO-friendly, always utilize this format:

For most common practices, you will primarily be concerned with the slug and permalink of your URL structure. For e-commerce, your site will almost always require additional categories and subcategories to go into your URL. In that cases, your URL may look more like this:

“www.mydomain.com/products/category/sub-category/productname”

You will want your URL to be clean and contain only the necessary information for navigation and product identification. Avoid messy structures that contain long strings of numbers or characters that do not benefit the user. Your website’s page editor will generally contain an SEO tab that allows you to modify your URL structure in addition to creating your page title and meta description.

3. Add Breadcrumb Trails for Improved Navigation

While on the topic of navigation, adding breadcrumb trails with structured data markups can help Google classify the content on a given website page. Though this is a more advanced SEO technique, it effectively allows website users to quickly move forward and backward by following the categorical flow. An example of this would look like this:

Home Page > Products > Hair Care > Shampoos > Product A

This is tremendously hopeful for both the user and for web crawlers to properly navigate your site. As you begin to add more categories and sub-categories, it becomes easier to get lost. If a user is unable to easily backtrack to a previous category page, they might then have to jump back to the home page or products page, which results in additional time searching instead of learning, engaging, and buying.

While creating breadcrumb trails is typically done through HTML on the backend, many modern website editors now provide convenient ways for you to incorporate visible breadcrumb trails on every page. With the help of Back4App you can focus on the frontend and offer exceptional experiences to users.

If you wish to learn more about this topic and view examples of the required HTML, click here.

4. Avoid Duplicated Content by Using Canonical Tags

As a general rule, website pages should always contain unique content. That means avoid reusing or copying content from other pages on your website.

However, e-commerce sites have the unique problem of creating multiple pages for different variations of the same product. The problem can be compounded whenever creating additional versions of the same page to better suit different browsing devices. As a result, you may end with pages featuring the same content as well as nearly identical URLs. While it may not prove to be an issue when starting, duplicate content is an incredibly common SEO issue.

One remedy for this is to write fresh, unique descriptions for every product page on your website. This is the manual way to resolve the problem but results in a lot of tedious labor that you may not have the time or means to complete. Also, resellers will likely be required to use a specific descriptor as a part of your permission to sell a brand's product in your storefront.

The alternative is to utilize canonical tags. A canonical tag is an HTML descriptor that tells the search engine which version of a web page is the primary (master) version. The tag will look something like this in your HTML source code:

<link rel="canonical" href="https://www.myecommercesite.com/products/productA/" />

Google will read the canonical tag and understand that this version of the page is the only one that it should index. This helps you to avoid any unwanted duplicate flags without needing to modify or eliminate pages on your site that you otherwise want or need present.

In addition to using canonical tags, consider using different images of the product on each of the different variations of the page. Make sure to update the alt text on these images appropriately.

5. Provide Rich Snippets with Schema Markup

Schema markup is the language search engines use to better understand your website's content. This is far more reliable than allowing Google's algorithm to decipher your content from plain text alone. By marking up content on your website, Google can track connections and better understand how

You can use schema markup to tag a variety of values including persons, places, organizations, products, pricing, reviews, locations, and much more. By tagging and classifying information, Google can then produce what's called a rich snippet that includes more detailed information about your webpage alongside your meta description.

While meta descriptions and rich snippets do not directly impact your website's SEO value, both highly impact the user clickthrough rate. They effectively act as an advertising space that attracts users to your link versus others on the same search engine results page. With this in mind, an e-commerce site result that features a flashy meta description and detailed product information.

Schema markup you should prioritize for your e-commerce site includes product schema to detail the featured item, pricing, availability, and product reviews. There are a wide variety of schemas you can and should use to boost your SEO, but these are the ones that tend to be unique to e-commerce.

If you wish to learn more about schema markup and how to apply the vocabulary, check out the documentation made available by Schema.org.

6. Use Meta Descriptions to Advertise Your Products & Services

Building up your meta descriptions continues on the same principles mentioned with rich snippets. Every web page features a meta description in Google search results that serves to inform the reader of what to expect when they click on a link. If you do not create one manually, Google will do its best to source your page for relevant content and use an excerpt of on-page content as a meta description.

It is almost always preferred for you to create your own meta descriptions as you have full control over how your link is advertised. Meta descriptions have a maximum length of 155 characters, but we recommend keeping them within the 120 and 150 character range. This ensures that your description fits nicely underneath the link without the risk of abruptly cutting off on search results pages.

Meta descriptions should succinctly describe the content that the user will find on the page. If the page focuses on a product, focus on selling that product. If you are describing your About page, focus on selling what makes your brand unique and give the reader reasons to care. Take advantage of the short length and provide just enough to whet the appetite. Be sure to use your focus keywords as these terms or phrases will be highlighted in bold, causing your result to stand out even more.

Your e-commerce site should also use special offers to encourage clicks whenever applicable. Using call-to-actions is always an effective way to promote engagement, so be sure to use words or phrases such as “buy,” “shop now,” or “explore.” You can also create a sense of urgency by including phrases such as “while this offer lasts” or “while supplies last.”

While meta descriptions won't suddenly boost SEO for e-commerce, they will drive clicks and engagement. Google will then notice this increase in activity and recognize your site as trusted, giving you the desired result indirectly in the long term.

7. Build Backlinks to Boost Your E-Commerce SEO

A backlink is any link that links back to your website. If another website links to your e-commerce site anywhere on their domain, you have a backlink from them. Whenever another high-value domain backlinks to your site, they refer some of their domain's SEO value to your domain.

Earning genuinely valuable backlinks is difficult for any website, but it may be even more difficult for e-commerce websites. This is because e-commerce sites arguably rely more on rankings than informational websites due to their innate reliance on clicks and engagement to gain sales. On top of this, a huge percentage of online sales goes to just a few online distributors, with Amazon expected to claim 50% of the market share by the end of 2021.

With that said, it is not impossible to earn valuable backlinks for your e-commerce website. The primary way of accomplishing this is to create compelling content that users won't find elsewhere. Creating and optimizing content is king when it comes to boosting your SEO value. You can create content for your website, attempt to write feature content for other sites as a form of self-promotion, or both.

However, many website owners make the mistake of believing content does not matter the same for e-commerce sites as it does for informational sites. This is a mistake as creating content is one of the primary ways to implement keyword usage, establish authority in your industry, and build consumer trust. By creating click-worthy and share-worthy content, you provide other website owners with a natural incentive to backlink to your website. This brings us to our next SEO suggestion.

8. Google PageSpeed Insights

If you run a website in 2021, you need to have a blog that features new content regularly. This is your opportunity to show off your expertise in the field and support both your brand and your products.

Posts that take the opportunity to show off new products are a great way to educate and entice consumers that are on the fence about purchasing from your site. You not only can support your product's value with facts and research but can demonstrate with evidence how your product beats the competitor's product without the same restrictions that a product page will have.

But, your e-commerce site's blog is not limited to self-promotion. Consider that many consumers start their buying journey by searching Google for answers to specific problems. You can and should take advantage of these commonly searched questions by writing articles that answer their queries. As someone who works in and sells products related to the matter, you are best suited to provide authoritative answers to these questions. A user can discover your brand through your article and learn to trust your brand thanks to your well-researched information.

Now that the user is already on your site, they don’t have much farther to go to click on your products or services that provide solutions to their problems. This makes your blog an excellent place to “soft sell” consumers on your offerings without the need for aggressive, paid advertisements.

Finally, a blog is also a great place to feature user-generated content. This can include videos or coordinated efforts with influencers who genuinely enjoy using your products or services. Not only will it give users insight into how your brand impacts real lives, but it also goes that much further in helping those potential customers place trust in your brand.

9. Create a FAQ Page

An FAQ page is an excellent way to provide additional SEO-friendly content that can boost your site rankings. You can dedicate this page to directly tackling a variety of commonly searched questions that users utilize to discover new products and services that provide solutions to their issues.

A prime location to identify what types of questions you should answer is the “People Also Ask” section within Google search results. Even if you have yet to rank high for specific keywords, you may be able to rank your e-commerce site high by providing the best answer to specific questions.

A FAQ page, however, is not the place to sell your brand or products explicitly. Remember that Google's primary goal whenever ranking search results is to help its users gain the most valuable information possible immediately. Therefore, you should avoid using flowery language or self-promotion when answering these questions. Use the question itself or key phrases when answering and provide accurate information in the most succinct, user-friendly way possible.

You can always return to your FAQ page over time as your actual prospects or customers message you with their questions or concerns. Not only does providing answers to these questions on your site help you rank, but it will also empower your visitors to feel that they are making smart purchasing decisions by educating themselves first.

10. Feature Testimonials and Reviews Throughout Your Site

The value of consumer trust cannot be overstated when it comes to driving sales through your e-commerce website. One of the best ways to do this is to allow your satisfied customers to bear some of this responsibility for you. In most cases, a customer that's on the fence is more inclined to be swayed by fellow happy consumers than a business whose primary focus is to make a profit.

You can feature testimonials throughout the entirety of your site. You do not need to create a dedicated page for this. It is strongly recommended to include testimonials for specific products or services on those pages. This is because that content will be most relevant there and has the greatest chance to impact users that made it to that product page. It may be the last thing they need to click “Add to Cart.”

While you don't have control over what a testimonial says, these blurbs will likely contain keywords or phrases that can be beneficial to your SEO rankings. They will also benefit you indirectly by encouraging engagement and retention time. The more users interact with your site and purchase from you, the more SEO value you can accumulate over time.

11. Utilize Listings and Local SEO (If You Have a Location)

Directory listings are still used in many SEO strategies for local businesses. These directories such as Google My Business, Yelp, or Facebook provide users with alternative ways to browse businesses that are relevant to their interests. This can help SEO for e-commerce websites if you are looking to branch out or boost sales online in addition to what happens at your physical location.

By ensuring that your listings profiles are complete and updated on each of these directory listings, you can indirectly generate clicks and sales online by promoting brand awareness locally. Your profile will contain a link to your e-commerce website and provide users with an alternative way to buy. It will also let existing customers know that they can take advantage of multiple buying options when engaging with your brand.

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Your primary goal with directory listings is to ensure that each directory contains the same, accurate information regarding your business. Inconsistencies or inaccuracies among these listings can negatively impact your SEO value. However, if you keep your profiles optimized and up-to-date, Google will observe how your business information is consistent and trustworthy across a variety of different websites that feature their own authority. That authority can then have potential benefits on your e-commerce site value over time.

12. Remove Outdated Information and Discontinued Items

Make sure that you don't negatively impact the SEO value of your e-commerce site by continuing to support outdated information. Aspects of your e-commerce business may change over time including product selection, costs, shipping policies, etc. If customers report that information as unreliable, it will also impact the level of trust Google has with your domain.

With that in mind, you should also be sure to eliminate outdated or discontinued items from your e-commerce store. Keeping your website organized and easily navigable is already a challenging task and you won't want to compound the issue with pages that no longer need to be present.

As a general rule, try to keep your e-commerce site as clutter-free as possible. It's acceptable to have 100+ pages so long as each page provides content that is of value to the visitor. If any pages are not up to date, are irrelevant, or could be consolidated, consider making the necessary changes to keep your e-commerce site a lean, SEO-friendly machine.

13. Capitalize on Long-tail Keywords

Keywords are the bedrock of any great SEO strategy. However, long-tail keywords are often overlooked due to the low search volume. A long-tail keyword is a long, specific phrase or question that users often search when looking to make a purchase. While it may not produce a sudden boost in sales, ranking for these keywords can be a great way to boost your e-commerce SEO quickly and efficiently.

Examples of long-tail keywords look like this:

“Best keyboard for online gaming”

“Effective tools for cutting hair at home”

Notice that these long-tail keywords contain the primary keyword or product name, but also express an innate intent to purchase. These types of searches happen to educate one’s self to make the smartest purchase possible. A great place to grab long-tail keywords for your e-commerce site is from Google’s “People Also Ask” section, which we discussed above.

This creates an excellent window of opportunity for e-commerce site owners to rank for noncompetitive keywords that accurately describe and sell their products or services. The lower volume also translates to lower costs than those of shorter keywords.

With that in mind, it's important to research which keywords you pursue the right way by focusing on user intent. It won't help to rank for an informational keyword if you treat it as an opportunity to sell a product because it doesn't match the original search intent. When content doesn't match the search intent, it results in a high bounce rate which will negatively impact your SEO.

When selecting keywords to boost your e-commerce SEO, be sure to not only consider competition and cost, but the intent of the user's search and how well you can formulate a valuable response to their query.

14. Empower Customers to Share on Social

If you look to other popular e-commerce sites for research, notice how all of them now feature share buttons on every single product page. These webmasters make it as easy as possible to copy direct links or share them on your social platform of choice including Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and more.

The ability for a user to quickly share a link on social media is an opportunity to create a natural discussion centered around your products and brand. Someone researching the best product for a particular use might express interest in your product, but want to share it with others online to discuss before committing to a purchase. That share not only gets people talking about your e-commerce website but can drive additional referral clicks from those that are interested or involved in the conversation.

Social media is another aspect of SEO that may not have a direct impact on search ranking algorithms but still packs tremendous value by providing additional exposure and the ability for users to market your brand for you.

While all of your product and service pages need friendly share links, don't stop there. Make it a priority to incorporate social media into your marketing strategy, so that you can directly share new content, your latest promotions, and feature your newest products to your audience. The best way to help your brand establish a reputation and climb the rankings is to dominate mindshare and keep users constantly thinking about your e-commerce website.

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Conclusion: Use These Tips to Boost SEO for E-Commerce Websites

If you look to other popular e-commerce sites for research, notice how all of them now feature share buttons on every single product page. These webmasters make it as easy as possible to copy direct links or share them on your social platform of choice including Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and more.

The ability for a user to quickly share a link on social media is an opportunity to create a natural discussion centered around your products and brand. Someone researching the best product for a particular use might express interest in your product, but want to share it with others online to discuss before committing to a purchase. That share not only gets people talking about your e-commerce website but can drive additional referral clicks from those that are interested or involved in the conversation.

Social media is another aspect of SEO that may not have a direct impact on search ranking algorithms but still packs tremendous value by providing additional exposure and the ability for users to market your brand for you.

While all of your product and service pages need friendly share links, don’t stop there. Make it a priority to incorporate social media into your marketing strategy, so that you can directly share new content, your latest promotions, and feature your newest products to your audience. The best way to help your brand establish a reputation and climb the rankings is to dominate mindshare and keep users constantly thinking about your e-commerce website.

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Conclusion: Use These Tips to Boost SEO for E-Commerce Websites

Improving the SEO value of your e-commerce website can prove a difficult task, but it’s not an insurmountable one with the correct strategies.

Removing clutter, organizing your storefront, and optimizing your user experience to be fast and mobile-friendly should be the number one priority for any e-commerce website owner. You need to ensure that your website provides an experience that is on par or better than your competitors and is worthy of a customer’s attention.

Focus on providing meaningful content updates to your website that answer commonly searched questions and also help you rank for long-tail keywords. This can help you save on budget when keyword bidding and help you rank faster in the short term. Be sure to always examine the search intent before creating new content for the keyword in question. Valuable content will naturally lend itself to backlinks from trusted sources, but you should also look for opportunities to build those connections directly.

Finally, empower your users to solve their problems by educating them about the industry and your products. Utilize schema markup to make key details accessible within SERPs, consistently eliminate outdated information, and provide users with the ability to share their findings with others on social media for additional promotion.

Search engine optimization is a process that requires unwavering commitment and dedication. By utilizing our guide to SEO for e-commerce websites, you can see continued improvements to your SEO value and rankings.

Google is the world's most popular search engine with over 86% of the market share. Just behind that is YouTube, which coincidentally is also the property of Google. But, why does this matter to you?

According to experts, the number one Google search result accumulates as much as 33% of that search traffic. The next nine results fall off of a cliff by comparison, with the second bringing in 18%, the third at 11%, while traffic continues to fall to virtually nothing after the tenth rank.

As a business owner, this spells doom for your online marketing if you don't know how to get your rankings in gear fast. Fortunately, those who came before you cracked the secrets of helping your website perform better and rank higher, so that you, too, can learn how to improve your Google rankings without getting penalized.

How Does Google Determine Its Rankings?

It may not be exactly what you want to hear, but no one knows the exact formula for how Google ranks every website. If there were Google ranking hacks or tricks on how to rank higher on Google, everyone would already be doing exactly that.

What we do know is that Google uses an extremely sophisticated algorithm to filter through the overwhelming amount of data on the web and rank it accordingly. What's more, Google is making changes to improve that algorithm for their goals almost every single day of the year.

We can, however, approximate how to improve our rankings by considering Google’s mission statement: “Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and usable.” From this, we can begin to extrapolate Google’s intention to find and highlight the most reliable data that is accurate, verified, and easy to use.

For marketing experts, it becomes much easier to determine what we then can do to start improving the quality of a website in the eyes of the algorithm. In addition to this, resources exist that can help you stay up to date with every change Google pushes to the algorithm. Keeping up to date with what's happening can make the process of understanding and fixing issues with your website that much easier.

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What Can I Do to Improve My Google Ranking?

While our deductions may seem vague or out of reach, we are going to provide the ultimate guide for how to improve your Google rankings without getting penalized. With hard work, dedication, and a commitment to following these concepts, you can expect to see a steady, predictable rise in your website ranking over time.

1. You Need to Make Your Website Faster

Nobody has the time or patience for a website with poor load times. Pingdom states that the ideal website should take no longer than two seconds to load on any device. Any longer than this increases your bounce rate by as much as 32%. Even longer than that is a guarantee that no one is spending time learning about your brand whatsoever.

Fortunately, Google's PageSpeed Insights tool is a powerful method of determining your website's current health. This tool will score your website out of 100, with 90 to 100 being good, 50 to 89 requiring improvement, and anything less being poor. However, they won't leave you out to dry. In addition to the score, you'll receive comprehensive diagnostics and suggestions on how you can improve your page speeds.

It is worth your time to diagnose your webpage and address each item that fails the audit. Red items are critical errors that you must address immediately, while yellow errors may not be as imperative. Nevertheless, if you're pursuing the number one ranking, it is in your best interest to correct these issues or recruit a developer that is capable of optimizing your web pages for improved speed.

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Failure to improve your loading times provides a miserable browsing experience and fails to meet Google's goal of making important data easily accessible. It also provides a very poor first impression of your products or services by neglecting to optimize your user experience first.

2. Optimize Your Site for Better Mobile Performance

Your website will not perform well in 2021 or beyond if you provide your users with a less-than-satisfactory mobile browsing experience. This is because as much as 55% of all web traffic now comes from a mobile device. More people are on the go and operating remotely than ever, often using cellular devices, tablets, and mini-laptops that feature a unique browsing experience that's separate from your desktop one.

You also must consider that the traffic coming from these devices relies on slower, cellular data connections. While 5G transmissions are an improvement, most are still stuck using 4G, with both being vastly inferior to a LAN or even Wi-Fi connection. However, your audience will still play by the page speed rules described above regardless of what device they are using to browse.

Fortunately, Google also provides us with an easy-to-use tool to test our websites to help improve browsing for all. While this tool provides a fairly general audit, you can also input your domain into Google Search Console to get a more in-depth mobile accessibility report.

While many mainstream website builders like WordPress provide ready-to-go, mobile-optimized templates, there are several things you can easily do to improve your mobile experience.

First, be sure to follow our first tip by prioritizing your page loading speeds above all else. The type of content on the page will ultimately prove inconsequential if users bounce from the site before it has a chance to load. Correcting issues with your script, compressing image sizes, and maintaining a simple layout will both improve your speed and lend your website to a better mobile experience.

Also, look into whether or not your website builder allows for a customized version of your mobile site as opposed to the desktop experience. With this, you may be able to provide a more elaborate desktop experience, while choosing to keep things simple and clean for your mobile visitors. You can and should also increase font and button sizes on the mobile version for improved accessibility.

For those savvier with CSS and HTML, we also recommend setting media queries for your website. This essentially tells the browser to check what type of device is being used and loads a customized style sheet made specifically for that device. This will ensure that the website does not attempt to load any unwanted elements that will hinder the browsing experience.

Finally, avoid using Flash at all costs. It is generally regarded as outdated technology that does little more than add unnecessary load times to your website.

3. Track Your Penalties and Correct Them

There once was a time where individuals used strategies known as “Black-Hat SEO” to take advantage of Google’s algorithm and force websites to the top. However, it was only a matter of time before those strategies were crushed to improve the quality of search results for all.

For this reason (as well as many others) Google takes violation of their policies seriously and demands that every website meet its standards for quality before it can be ranked. There are two major types of penalties you may receive:

• Algorithmic Penalty – These occur as a result of algorithmic changes put into effect by Google. Your site may be fine one day, but incur an automatic penalty if it happens to violate anything reflected in a new algorithmic update. To fix these, you simply need to verify the penalty and perform the appropriate action to update your website.
• Manual Penalty – This is a penalty issued directly by Google personnel. This means an actual person was involved with the penalty as opposed to being triggered by the algorithm. In this event, you must not only fix the problem, but you must also file a Reconsideration Request with an explanation of what went wrong. If you can sufficiently explain the mistake, how it occurred, and the actions you took to correct it, Google will reverse the penalty.

To verify if you have a penalty, be sure to visit the Google Search Console regularly. If a Google employee issues a penalty, you will receive a notification here. Also, be sure to stay up-to-date with the algorithmic changes linked above to determine if you may have violated something described in a recent change. Search Engine Journal provides us with an extensive list of the possible penalties you might incur from Google.

Many of these penalties are uncommon as they will only occur if you intentionally perform them. This can include intentional keyword stuffing, spamming either through cloaking or link-spamming, low-quality content that exists to simply fill a page or stuff keywords, manipulative outbound linking, or publishing content that violates Google policies (pornography, extreme violence, criminal activity, promoting falsified medical tips, etc.)

With that in mind, the most common type of penalty occurs as a result of backlinking. When someone links to your website from theirs, they are backlinking to you. If you link to their website, you are backlinking them. The penalty happens when one of these websites backlinks to you yet fails Google's quality audits.

If you're wondering why a poor-quality website would link to your website without permission, you're not alone. This generally would occur for one of two reasons. The other website owner is using your quality domain to improve the quality of their domain.

The other cause would involve you intentionally stuffing links to your domain on as many websites as possible to improve your quality score. This used to be a common black-hat SEO technique, but this does not work any longer and will result in serious, lasting penalties for your domain.

Unfortunately, there's no quick remedy for dealing with toxic backlinks. You will need to use Google's Webmaster Tools to download a complete list of linked websites and manually verify each website yourself. In addition to this, you will need to contact the owner of the domain directly to request that they remove the link to your website.

In some cases, the domain owner may be polite and cooperative. However, in most cases, you can expect them to ignore your request, or worse, attempt to hold the link for ransom. In either of these cases, be sure to keep a record of your initial email request, and proceed to disavow the entire domain. You will need to submit your request and evidence in a formal Google Disavow report within Google Webmaster Tools.

Do not just send a general email to Google. Get informed regarding Google's policies, document the penalty, keep a record of your attempts to remedy the situation, and file a formal request with all of these materials, and you can expect the issue to be resolved in several weeks.

4. Track Keyword Rankings for Both You and Your Competitors

Now that we've taken steps to optimize and improve our website from the backend, it's time to start looking into what we can do to improve our quality on-page. All web searches start with the act of a user typing in specific keywords. Google then attempts to take that query and yield the most valuable results possible.

Knowing this, we can also know that efforts to improve our own Google ranking involve making use of those keywords. It's essential to research to determine what keywords users are already using to find our website as well keywords we could be using that are immediately relevant to the industry. You can do this by taking advantage of popular SEO tools like Moz, Semrush, or Ahrefs.

Image Source

You'll be able to track your current position for each keyword, the search volume for that keyword overall, and the amount of traffic your website receives as a result of that keyword search. It's equally important to use the data to determine how your closest competitors rank for those same keywords.

Depending on how stiff the competition is for certain keywords or phrases, you may wish to adjust your strategy to pursue more viable options. For keywords that you are already ranking highly for, you will want to continue reinforcing the traffic gained from those as they've already proven reliable.

You can improve your keyword rankings by creating relevant, well-researched content centered around specific terms. For example, a landscaping company might try to rank for “lawn maintenance” by creating the article “10 Must-Know Tips for Better Lawn Maintenance.” A great way to look for topics is by looking for questions that auto-fill in Google searches as well in as the “People Also Ask…” section.

You can also naturally include the keyword on your site by placing it when appropriate in your metadata or alt tags for images. However, remember that “keyword stuffing” will result in a penalty. Be sure to use the keyword naturally and whenever appropriate.

Finally, coordinate with your other marketing efforts to promote your new posts and help them gain additional traffic. Google not only looks at the keyword usage but also views traffic and engagement with the content in question. The best strategy for improving this is by ensuring your content is of high quality, links to other authoritative sources, and answers the user's pressing questions concisely and clearly.

5. Link Building

Link building is an effective strategy for improving SEO, and therefore your Google rank. The idea is for you to get as many high-quality websites to link back to your domain as possible. By providing a consistent flow of valuable content and services, you make your website link-worthy without ever needing to ask for it. When starting, however, you'll need to make connections directly.

However, you must avoid the temptation to utilize older strategies such as submitting your domain to web directories or overusing links on other domains that may not be considered valuable. This is due to a major algorithmic change known as Penguin, which specifically targets and penalizes SEO specialists that abuse link-building strategies for superior rankings.

With that in mind, you can still implement a link-building strategy by forging connections with other reputable sites or blogs. Reach out to these individuals or teams, allow them to learn about your brand, products, or services, and allow your value to speak for itself. You can also bolster your value by continuing to present yourself as an authority with well-researched content that these website owners will want to share and reference in their content.

This can be one of the most difficult strategies to implement as you must earn high-quality links by providing something worthy of linking to in the first place. If you can build these relationships, it's undeniable that links from trusted websites will improve your Google rank. If you discover opportunities, reach out to the webmaster, remain professional in your pitch, and do your best to learn from the interaction if they decline your offer.

6. Rework Your Existing Articles

Continuing from the subject of link-building, consider revisiting the content that already exists on your website. You should always be looking for opportunities to revise or improve content related to your brand and ensure that it is always up-to-date. Likewise, your blog articles may now feature outdated information, or worse, lack any substantial data altogether.

When creating content for your site, consider the information you want to see and the content Google prioritizes and places in the number one ranking. This information is always extremely concise, generally easy to understand regardless of education, and is supported by personal or scholarly research. The content is rich with examples, actionable data that people can use immediately, and links to sources that you can trust and support the on-page material.

Look through your past content and look for opportunities to build up and support what you've already written. If you need to research the topic before featuring it, include the sources used whenever appropriate for the reader to see. If you are an expert yourself, ensure that your website features your licenses or qualifications in places that are easy for the user to view and verify.

Authoritative content speaks for itself and is the type of content that is most likely to be shared and linked. By providing Google with what it needs to answer user questions, you will rank higher for those keywords and improve the authority of your website overall.

7. Improve Your On-Page SEO

On-page SEO is the art of optimizing your website and its content for search engines and web crawlers. You may be able to write excellent content with valuable information, but it will mean very little if Google is unable to determine what your website is all about.

That isn't to say that the bulk of your content is unimportant. Google will still identify valuable keywords used correctly throughout the article. However, organizing the content and wrapping it into the appropriate headings makes it that much easier for Google to be confident about what is on the page.

If you view this article you are reading as an example, notice that we identify it with a title tag, H1 header tags to group major topics, and H2 tags for concepts within that topic. H3 and H4 headers also exist to illustrate the flow of your content from most to least significant. Search engines and web crawlers can immediately identify those tags and understand the content on-page immediately.

Outside of the article itself, you should always have an SEO widget available depending on the website builder or text editor you are using. This widget will allow you to customize things such as title tag, meta description, and URL. You should always customize this information and follow these basic rules for the best results:

A. Title Tags

Title tags should always be somewhere between 50-60 characters. It should include the topic of the page, important keywords, and branding. An example of this might look like this:

In the title tag, we take the opportunity to brand our article as we do for every piece of content we publish. We use a separator to distinguish the branding from the title. Google can see the exact topic title, which also happens to include the keyword phrase “Google Ranking.” You may wish to include your entire topic title, but this is not always possible as it can go over the recommended character limit. When viewing your article in a search engine result, you want to see everything on one line and avoid any cut-offs or ellipses.

B. Meta Description

Meta descriptions are the short snippet you see below a search result. You should keep these around 120 to 150 characters and succinctly summarize the content. Be sure to use your primary keyword and include a call-to-action such as “Learn how your brand can become number one.” Be sure to use active voice, avoid misleading terms, and attempt to explain the value of your content in as few words as possible.

You can use this free tool courtesy of To the Web to get you started. There are also popular paid alternatives such as Yoast that can help you with all aspects of your on-page SEO.

C. URL

The URL of each page on your website is also important for improving your SEO. A URL should be succinct, contain a primary keyword, be free of stop words, and use hyphens to separate words. It’s also ideal to keep your URL structure uniform throughout your entire website.

Here’s an example of a solid URL structure:

www.dashclicks.com/blog/how-to-improve-google-rankings

This contains our domain, the category of the page (blog post), and a string that tells us exactly what the content contains. We omitted certain words to keep the URL succinct without losing the meaning of the topic. It also contains our primary keyword “Google rankings.” Be sure to follow this format for every new page you publish on your site.

D. Images and ALT Tags

High-quality images improve the quality of your website in several ways. Great images will support the written content by attracting the reader’s attention, serving as visual examples, and providing a necessary break from long stretches of text. Pages with images demonstrate a far greater retention rate than those without.

You can also improve your accessibility and SEO by ensuring that each image features an alt tag. This text is meant to describe what is being shown in the image if the user cannot see the image from their side. That alt description is also another opportunity to tell search engines and crawlers about the content on the page with a short, accurate description that features your primary keyword. Google strongly values the use of alt tags in all circumstances.

However, be certain that your images are properly compressed and do not negatively affect your load times as we discussed above.

E. Internal Linking

Linking one page back to other relevant pages on your website can also boost your SEO. It’s a highly effective practice to categorize your pages and posts, and also include subcategories whenever necessary. Not only does this make it easier for users to navigate your site, but it also makes it easier for search engines and web crawlers, too.

A page should include internal links back to the main category page as well as the home page. Most website owners easily achieve the latter by ensuring that the header contains a link back to the home page through the brand logo as well as the main navigation bar. You can set your header to always be visible on every page. This creates a nice sitemap and layout that’s easy to follow.

F. Include Attractive Call-to-Action

This last one focuses more on encouraging engagement, which will also help to boost your website’s value. Every single page of your website should contain some type of CTA. Your goal as a business is to generate leads and each page should be encouraging the user to engage with your brand in one way or another.

What you should do is avoid generalized CTA’s. Many website owners make the mistake of copy-pasting a basic “Learn More” button throughout every page of the website. However, this fails to take advantage of the unique content that’s presented throughout the website. Different users may click through to learn more about specific services and your CTA’s should reflect their journey in ultimately purchasing that service.

For example, if your page has a short form for the user to fill out in exchange for a free ebook, do not write something plain like “Sign Up” Instead, try “Sign Up Today for Your Exclusive, Free Guide!” The latter encourages a user that might be on the fence to take action now. It also accentuates the value by declaring that the ebook is an exclusive item for those who participate and it is also entirely free. While it won’t convince everyone, many users will take the plunge and give up a few personal details in exchange for a free reward.

A Call-to-Action serves as a reminder for the person on the page to do what you want them to do. If you want them to purchase your product, make sure you have plenty of CTA’s that provide them with the opportunity to do so. If you’re running a special offer or promotion, don’t hesitate to remind them of the available value. You might be benefitting from the sale, but you are also helping them to help themself by taking advantage of the deal.

Carefully crafted CTA’s are proven to help drive engagement throughout your site and give you the results you need. When more users engage, they spend more time on your website, which makes Google see your domain as valuable and worth recommending to new users.

G. Create a Sitemap

An XML Sitemap is a blueprint that you create to assist search engines and web crawlers with reading and indexing your website pages. It’s uncertain how big of an impact creating a sitemap has, but on your quest to rank one, you need to take advantage of every available tool.

A sitemap may become increasingly important as your website expands in length. A basic five-page website will likely be trivial for web crawlers to navigate, but a 100-page website may prove more complicated. It also becomes increasingly important to distinguish your most important pages from less consequential ones as your site expands.

A variety of tools exist to help you quickly build sitemaps such as Google XML Sitemaps and Yoast. Not only will it automatically create your sitemap, but it will also show you what pages on your website are valid and which may have issues worth addressing. Common issues can include duplicated content or URLs. Though it is more of an advanced issue, there may be situations in which you need to exclude a page from the sitemap entirely. Doing so will help web crawlers better understand your site and help you avoid penalties for duplicate or low-quality content.

Updating your sitemap regularly can also assist in improving your SEO faster. It can take weeks to see positive results from website changes be reflected in your SEO score. By updating your sitemap and crawling your site with Google Search Console, Google sees the updates to your site sooner. This can potentially help you reap your rewards and climb in the ranks faster than the competition.

8. Create and Optimize Your Directory Listing Profiles

Directory listings are not directly involved with your website, but they do have an impact on your domain’s value. Directory listings are websites that compile a list of businesses by the industry for your local area. Examples of these include Google My Business, Yelp, Facebook, and Yellow Pages.

Search engine crawlers are constantly cross-examining data about any given subject they find online. This means that any data related to your business must be consistent and accurate throughout the internet. The more sources that feature accurate data regarding your business, the more trust Google places in your domain.

With this in mind, it is in your best interest to sign up for every directory listing available to you and ensure that your business profile is up-to-date. This includes providing a primary business telephone, email, business hours, address, a business summary, a list of products and services, and images of your location. There are also tools available online that allow you to create one business profile and publish it across all directory listings available simultaneously.

Not only can directory listings provide a boost to your SEO and Google ranking, but it also provides additional discoverability for your brand. Many users often defer to listings to find businesses that cater to their interests without ever actually clicking on a website. Do yourself the favor of completing your listings to not only help your rankings but help a potential new audience discover you today.

9. Stay Engaged on Social Media Platforms

Social media may not provide a one-to-one benefit for your SEO and Google rankings, but its role in your marketing strategy should not be understated. Platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram serve to bolster brand awareness. Not only can you regularly distribute “micro-content” to your audience, but you can use your social media following to direct traffic to your website pages.

For example, you can coordinate your social media marketing with your content marketing efforts to promote your new article to an audience. Not only can users discover your article through a Google search, but new audiences are also now seeing that page promoted directly on their timeline. This can increase your flow of organic traffic, which, in turn, will improve your SEO and domain value.

In addition to this, a well-optimized social profile may also rank on Google for certain keywords relevant to your industry. Even if a user discovers your social profile first, your posting strategy will direct these new audience members to your website in the long run. Social profiles are also proven to do a better job of building a sense of trust between the consumer and the brand.

Research each social platform and determine which contain audiences that may be most receptive to your brand and industry. Ensure that your profile contains all of your relevant business information, not unlike a directory listing. Then, be sure to remain engaged with your audience by posting regularly, replying to user comments, concerns, and suggestions, and sharing your content with those who want to see it.

How to Improve Your Google Rankings Without Getting Penalized?

While we may never solve Google’s search algorithm, employing these practices will put you on the same playing field as your top-ranked competitors. We guarantee that if you follow these tips and suggestions correctly, you are guaranteed to improve your Google ranking.

However, it is important to note that no business ever saw a surge in rankings overnight. SEO is a long-term marketing strategy and a necessary one if you want your brand to gain awareness online. Improving your ranking requires a dedicated plan and relentless commitment toward improvement. You should never look at the work on your website as done but always look for opportunities to improve.

This also includes keeping an eye on your competitors to see what types of content garner attention for them. Study and observe what works and make an effort to create similar content that capitalizes on the unique benefits that only your brand can offer.

Finally, be sure to use the link we provided to keep up-to-date with the latest Google algorithm changes to ensure your website complies with Google’s expectations. With your newfound knowledge and strategy, you can avoid those pesky penalties and watch your Google rankings climb in a steady, predictable manner.

Scaling your startup is an essential step for every business. However, it's also the step that leads to the downfall of countless great business ventures due to poor planning, lack of knowledge, and the absence of a strong digital marketing strategy. Experts report that even in a normal year, eleven out of twelve startups fail.

The past eighteen months compounded this issue, stopping countless brands in their tracks and even causing the premature demise of long-standing staples in the community. It is hard enough for a startup to survive the initial scaling process, but is it possible to do so effectively even in a crisis event?

Below, we'll dive into ten of the best low-budget digital marketing tips to scale your startup in times of crisis.

1. Adjust the Way You Communicate with Your Audience

In times of crisis, consider how every individual is impacted, not just your bottom line. A greater percentage of your audience is likely to be struggling with employment issues or facing economic hardships. With that in mind, the last thing people want is to be inundated with advertisements that encourage them to spend more money on your startup business. However, going radio silent is not an option, either.

Instead, use this opportunity to adjust the way you approach your audience. Make the effort to speak about current events and remind your audience that you are there for them. This includes going out of your way to share frequent updates about how the crisis is impacting your business and its ability to interact with customers. This can include changes to business hours, changes to services, expected shipping delays, and any other information that can help the individual plan ahead.

A strong tip for any business owner, even who has just finished an MVP process, or marketer, in times of crisis or not, is to invest in the customer. Always remember that they are an individual with their own story and a problem that needs solving. Your brand offers a solution to that problem. Let them know that you will remain as reliable as always, and they will likely become more loyal to you than ever.

You can reflect these changes in communication by doubling down on your email marketing campaign efforts. You can use these to highly target specific users at various stages of the buyer's journey. Remember to adjust the way you communicate to different types of consumers to reflect the context of world events whenever possible or relevant. Remind your audience that while you may be a business, there are still people behind that business that cares.

2. SEO Remains As Vital As Always

No matter what is happening throughout the world, SEO (search engine optimization) is always going to be a primary strategy for bolstering your startup online.

Search engine optimization is the process of optimizing your brand's website to ensure that you receive the maximum amount of traffic possible. Search engines determine your SEO value through several factors including the quality of content on the site, loading speeds, image and video sizes, and overall user engagement.

SEO is also extremely cost-effective, making it an essential marketing strategy regardless of your current financial situation. However, in the context of a crisis, other businesses and startups may scale back key marketing efforts like their SEO. This is a mistake.

Working to the top of the ranks through strong SEO is an ongoing battle against competitors. Brands that make it to the top of search results only stay there through relentless strategic effort. Dialing back those efforts can cause anyone to fall down the ranks in a matter of days. With this in mind, sticking to your SEO efforts in the time of a crisis may yet yield the best results for your brand.

While other companies begin to slide due to poor budget management or poor strategy decisions, you can capitalize on their mistakes and help your startup begin to scale.

3. Double Down on Content Marketing

If you spend any time at all researching marketing strategies for your startup, you will undoubtedly see the phrase Content is king. The value of a strong content marketing strategy cannot be overstated.

You can think of content marketing as the soft sell whereas a paid advertising campaign would be a hard sell. Content marketing is there to provide your audience with valuable content that keeps them engaged. This content can and should be educational, entertaining, and provide value to their everyday life. Content marketing can include articles, blog posts, video clips, podcasts, and much more.

Content can provide you with an advantage as you can naturally tailor your content to reflect real-world events and experiences. If you look at the COVID-19 epidemic as an example, you will notice that every proactive business made the effort to create content that was relevant to our rapidly changing environment. However, rather than just including the crisis for the sake of using the keyword, you should look for an opportunity to make your startup's services or products relevant to the problems people may be facing during the crisis.

A strong content calendar also feeds directly into tip number two and will continue to bolster your SEO efforts. As you continue to provide free content of value to your audience, your audience will continue to support your brand and help drive you to the top of search rankings.

4. Stay Strong on Social Media, Too

While portions of your audience may be dealing with a major crisis in their way, their online activity is certainly not impacted. Being stuck at home is significantly driving up the number of hours we spend visiting websites from laptops and desktop computers. For social media, experts suggest that we are spending as much as two additional hours per day on social media.

Social media is now a vital part of any solid digital marketing strategy. Facebook already stands as one of the most widely used paid advertising platforms online, while other platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube continue to grow. It is inherently a conversational platform and provides a great opportunity for your brand to provide instantaneous communication and build real relationships.

As technology improves, consumers are becoming savvier regarding marketing strategies every day. Rather than desperately advertising your startup to survive, make the concerted effort to prove your brand to be unique, trustworthy, and loyal. In a crisis when times are tough for everyone, consumers are eagerly looking for those who have their best interests in mind. The sales will come naturally to your startup if you provide something real to your consumers first.

5. Take Advantage of PPC Platforms

This tip may sound counterintuitive for a startup during a crisis where the budget is tight, but consider that marketing budgets are tight for everyone.

PPC campaigns generally work through a bidding system. You and your direct competitors place bids on specific keywords, and the highest bidder wins that advertising spot at the top of keywords. During times where other businesses may scale back their budget, there may be an opportunity for you to capitalize and secure premium advertising for a lower cost than you normally would.

Additionally, platforms like Google and Facebook feature built-in smart technology that automatically tracks and gathers all the valuable data you need for your campaigns. You can set your budget for the month to ensure that you never overspend. As you gather data, you can further tailor your campaigns to hyper-target customers that are ready to engage, while also looking for potential new audiences with the actionable data you gather.

This tip may not be the solution for every startup, but it is worthwhile to research and determine if the potential ROI is worthwhile. Attempting to make others' disadvantages your key to scaling your startup today.

6. Begin Looking for New Audiences

If you're considering scaling your startup, then you should already feel completely secure in your products and services and the audience consuming them. If you experience any hesitation regarding this fact, then you are running the risk of scaling your business prematurely. However, for those that are ready, it may be time to start branching out and expanding your business's reach.

Continuing from the previous point regarding paid ads, your past campaigns should feature a treasure trove of valuable information and statistics regarding your current consumer base. You can take advantage of that data and use your ad accounts to apply that data to new users. These are called lookalike audiences and these new users will feature characteristics that they have in common with those who already buy your products.

Combining these tools with the fact that more consumers are spending more time online during a time of crisis, you have a great opportunity to connect with more prospects. Additionally, when you're confident in the heart and soul of your brand, you can begin to explore how your startup can help individuals outside of your usual scope. A key part of this is learning to adapt to new digital channels that new potential customers spend their time on.

Remember the basics - stay authentic to your brand, spend more time listening to your audience and learning about their needs, and let them tell you how your brand might be able to improve their lives.

7. Reassess Your Marketing Metrics

While many of our tips encourage you to be bold during a time of crisis, you still need to remain sensible and constantly analyze all of the metrics that you receive from your marketing efforts. If a campaign is not working out, look at the data, analyze what works and what doesn't, and scrub out anything that's not getting you the profitable results you need.

You're not left to guesswork, either. Social media and paid ad platforms offer A/B testing tools, which allow you to push different versions of a single ad to your audience. Your campaign will gather data in real-time and allow you to determine what aspects of your marketing and which do not.

Your audience itself is the best form of feedback possible. With the conversational nature of social platforms, you should remain engaged and allow your audience to tell you what works and what doesn't. Digital marketing is a constant, never-ending analytical process and a rapidly changing landscape. If you find yourself standing still, you've already missed the boat for the next opportunity.

8. Adjust Your Offerings if Applicable

While countless businesses failed during the recent crisis, others were able to adapt and thrive despite the circumstances. Adaptability is one of the most powerful characteristics a startup needs to survive. However, this trait will not just help you during this initial scaling process but will benefit you throughout the lifespan of your business.

A strong example of this comes with the foodservice industry. Countless restaurants and dining facilities were able to mobilize and enact a plan to offer safe and effective take-out solutions for the community. They analyzed the situation, saw that many consumers were restricted to their homes and missing the outside world, and provided a simple solution that benefitted both parties.

In an office or school setting, teams were able to rapidly adjust with the help of technology. Employers and employees were able to function just as effectively through online communication. They could then extend their services to customers who were interested in continuing service with the company through the web.

Even if you did not originally envision your startup functioning a certain way, take a deep look at the crisis and see if your brand can offer new solutions for customers despite the circumstances. If you are unable to adapt to challenging circumstances, there will always be a competitor that is happy to step up and help your customers out instead.

9. Educate Yourself and Secure Emergency Funding

In times of crisis, your government may have a variety of solutions available to help your startup survive. It is in the best interest of the community for businesses to survive and for economic activity to continue. Therefore, as a business owner, you must educate yourself regarding solutions that may be available to you including emergency funding, tax breaks, or emergency suspensions of fees you may otherwise be responsible for.

For example, the Small Business Administration features a variety of programs that can assist with payroll, debt relief, emergency funding and grants, and much more. Accepting help where you need it is not accepting failure, but being a smart business owner that protects the best interests of yourself and your employees.

Source: Marketers Mindset Webinars

10. Be Dependable to Those Who Need You

While other businesses make the mistake of reacting poorly to a crisis, it's that lack of stability and reliability that contributes greatly to failure. Remember that even the most loyal audience does not give you their business out of charity, but out of an expected level of quality and dependence on the product or service you provide.

With that in mind, it's essential to maintain a level head, analyze the crisis, and find ways to adapt your strategies to your new circumstances. Your audience, and also your team, is already experiencing rapid change and anxiety as a result of these new experiences. That provides your brand with the opportunity to solidify itself as a dependable rock for the community.

Continue to provide valuable content and regular updates to those who interact with you online. Stay involved in the conversation on social media and be sure to remain totally aware of how your audience receives your communications. Finally, offer meaningful solutions to new problems your audience may be facing whenever possible as a result of this new crisis. Being reliable and valuable no matter what will single-handedly give you a huge advantage over competitors who cannot adapt.