Every business aims to rank at the top of Google SERPs, so the number one position has become the holy grail of SEO. However, it takes a lot of effort, time, and resources to run count for specific keywords, especially in a highly competitive niche.

However, in the real world, to gain visibility, attract traffic and leads, the number one position on search engines is not always the be-all and end-all for the marketers. You have the opportunity to rank in position 0, where Google highlights your content with a featured snippet.

Search engines are constantly evolving. The prime objective of Google is to satisfy the search intent of users, and introducing featured snippets is Google's massive step in that direction. The user can instantly find the information he is looking for and on the first result page, enhancing the overall user experience.

Featured Snippet is a gift for marketers and businesses because featuring in position 0 doesn't depend on your website's link metrics or domain authority but more on the content quality on your web page. So, if you still have miles to go to cultivate genuine backlinks and improve user experience on your site, you can instantly leverage featured snippets.

But, it's easier said than done since the search engines are constantly evolving, with businesses jumping into the fray to reap the low-hanging fruits of featured snippets and position 0. It's primarily because, apart from desktops and smartphones, we use voice assistants such as Google Home, Microsoft Cortana, and Amazon Alexa.

But, before we delve into how to rank in position 0 on the SERPs, let's discuss Position Zero on Google and why is it so crucial for your SEO strategy?

What is Position Zero (P0)?

Position Zero (P0) is the crucial first position on the first page of Google search results visible because of the helpful snippet that Google features with it.

It appears above organic results and instantly attracts users' attention because of the snippet that Google adds below it, enhancing its visibility even on mobile devices.

It enhances user experience as they can immediately find answers to their queries without having to click on the search results links.

How Can I Get Google Position 0 in 2022?

To rank in position zero, you should make sure that:

1. Your content provides a detailed and satisfactory answer to the user’s query
2. Write content that promptly answers the FAQs and other common questions about your business. It should include answers to 5 Ws, i.e., Who, What, When, Where, & Why
3. Offer instructions and how-to articles, where you can use lists, text, images, and even videos to instruct your audience
4. Include definitions of intricate terms
5. Offer comparisons
6. Include the cost and features of your products and services compared to your competitors
7. Add listicles that include “bests,” “top,” “less than $X” lists
8. FAQs

Things to Remember

If you're wondering how to get a featured snippet, read on.

You cannot force Google to incorporate your content in featured snippets or Google position 0. Google itself picks it up based on its relevance and other search query optimization techniques.

All you can do is write insightful content and properly format it so that it has an increased likelihood of being featured as a snippet in SEO position 0.

What are Featured Snippets?

Let's have a look at what a P0 result looks like. If I search, "What is a featured snippet?," the Position Zero result looks like this:

So, here we see that the user doesn’t have to click the link in the search results to see the tips to make a cranky baby smile. The Google Position Zero result provides users with a direct answer to their query, with several tips on making a baby smile.

Here is another example, where Google directly answers a user’s query, “how to calculate ROI for marketing,” through a featured snippet.

Google introduced Featured Snippets to provide searchers a better user experience as they can directly pull information from the website copy. The results are chosen based on their relevance to the search query.

But how would Google determine where to pull the information from for this coveted position?

The methodology is simple. Google bots scan billions of web pages to answer search queries, and the most relevant results are displayed as Featured Snippets or Position 0 results.

So, apart from the direct answer of the query in bullet points or a paragraph, you will also find the page title of the specific web page where the complete information is published, making the P0 result so important.

According to Julia McCoy, strategist and author at The Content HackerTM, Google's featured snippets are the territories all marketers can use, regardless of their size, budget, tenor in the market, and SEO expertise. However, you might have to work hard to attain it.

How to Create Featured Snippets and Win Position Zero in Search Results?

How should you create your content to earn the top spot as Featured Snippets?

There are plenty of featured snippet opportunities out there. Here are some tactics I've used to create content that ranks in the snippets.This post explains exactly how you can create content and optimize it for featured snippets & other Google SERP features to easily earn SEO Position Zero.

1. Create Content to Answer Customer Queries

To land as a featured snippet, your content should be highly informative. According to Neil Patel, your content should provide detailed answers to the customer's questions. If it doesn't, it won't earn the top spot.

Google loves in-depth answers. When Google bots find the matching information and in-depth answers to popular questions from countless pages, the algorithms place it on top as a featured snippet. This way, users can quickly locate the desired information.

Before you develop the content, it is crucial to research the questions your audience is asking to frame your content around those questions.

Most of the search queries that begin with the following terms usually are responded to by Google through a featured snippet.

• What is
• How to
• How do
• How does

So, instead of targeting broad keywords like depression, you can frame a question a searcher can use, such as "how to deal with depression." Such long-tail keywords will convert your otherwise plain content into SEO-optimized content that the readers would also love. Such types of terms mimic the queries people use on search engines.

You can also find search keywords through Google suggested keywords when you type the main keyword into the search field. For example, let's have a look at the following screenshot, where Google offers many related popular search terms you can use in your content to satisfy search intent and boost your website traffic.

Similarly, you can also use a site, Answer The Public, to find such questions. Here are the 60 popular questions the site returns for the search term “content marketing.” So, if your niche is content marketing or you want to create content around this topic, you can use the suggested questions by the tool.

2. Create High Quality, Comprehensive and User-Focused Content

Google's algorithm is complex, and it will not pick your content just because it is snappable, written around a specific topic, and keyword-optimized. To rank high in search results, you need to provide informative, user-focused, entertaining, and comprehensive content. So, your content should always be relevant and of high quality.

How to Create User-Focused Content?

To create such content, you should know who your content is talking to. It is better to reach 500 of the right people than reach out to thousands of uninterested people.

How Should you Find your Target Audience?

The harsh reality is a big chunk of people aren't interested in your content. People want engaging content that addresses their needs across different industries. They are likely to reject poorly executed content that is irrelevant and insincerely written.

They do not want aggressive sales pitches or verbose. They want content that helps and provides insights and information they can successfully apply to solve their issues.

While creating customer-focused content, you shouldn’t commit the following mistakes:

• Bragging about your brand, size of the company, and plans
• Creating sales-focused content
• Using exaggeration and marketing buzzwords
• Dense information presented in a complex manner using industry jargon
• No clear value proposition or benefits
• Absence of a coherent content policy across different customer touchpoints

To avoid such mistakes, you should keep customers at the center stage before initiating any content conversation. Instead of thinking about products, marketing, and sales, you should think about the customer.

For example, Clara, a millennial career changer and fond of technology and gadgets, needs help solving an issue during her transition period. So, before you start creating content, research the who, what, and when drivers.

To get a clear picture of your audience, build their buyer personas. The following steps will help you in building buyer personas.

• Define their demographics and personality types
• Know their goals
• Find out the problems they are facing
• Find out the information they are looking for
• Discover the triggers that drive their needs and actions
• Know their mindset, beliefs, interests, passion, preferences, and viewpoints

What Are the Tools You Can Use to Create Better Content?

You can use the following tools to create better and user-focused content:

• Buzzsumo
• UberSuggest
• Awario (a social listening tool)
• ContentIdeator headline generator
• CoSchedule Headline Analyzer
• Portent’s Content Idea Generator
• Answer the Public
• SEMrush
• SEOMoz
• Quora
• Reddit
• Google Keyword Planner

What Type of Content Do Customers Need?

You can tap the following methods to gather valuable insights and customer data on the content type they are looking for.

• Analyze social media site behaviors, interactions (shares, likes, etc.), and social conversations
• Conduct research, surveys, and polls
• Assess content performance
• Conduct website analytics
• Monitor chat sessions and customer service logs
• Go through questions, discussions, and threads on forums like Quora, Reddit, and support sites
• Watch out for reviews, comments, and testimonials
• Use keyword research tools
• Perform secondary research

The users’ search data gathered through the above methods helps identify what type of content people need. It also reveals the demand for that content.

How to Write Customer-Focused Content That Converts?

Here are some of the tips you should follow to deliver user-focused content:-

A. Be consistent in your approach, creation, and publishing content
B. Choose the language according to the audience and keep it a bit informal
C. Personalize communications using data and past transactions and interactions
D.  Tap into users’ emotions and shared experience using storytelling
E. Be helpful in an exciting manner
F. Be genuine and honest about your brand and align the voice and tone of your content  with your brand

While delivering content, remember, it should be authentic and convincing, so it helps build confidence and convert people.

4. Strive Hard to Provide the Best Answer

Your content’s chances of landing the featured top spot depend on your ability to provide the best answers.

To provide the most helpful answers, you should know your customers’ psychology and how they think inside out. Provide detailed information and valuable content that helps them achieve their objectives and use relevant keywords and phrases.

With shallow content, you cannot earn the featured snippet spot.

Here are three tips for writing the best answers:-

• Dive deep into the topic and provide in-depth answers — Include most of the questions related to the topic.
• Split your answers into logical steps and bullet points.
• Use visual content such as screenshots, tables, infographics, and videos to illustrate and explain.
• Personalize your content to help even the absolute beginners.

Once one of your articles starts ranking in the Featured Snippets, visitors will identify your website as an authentic source for content and will likely revisit, increasing the overall brand authority and traffic on your website.

However, you need these three things to see success with snippets: Time, investment in resources, and patience.

If you work hard and strategically employ your resources, you'll likely land your article in the coveted Position Zero within a few weeks. You may require a few more months to rank on Google. Once you attain a top spot on Google, your post will likely remain there for years without spending a single penny on advertisements. It will also keep your conversion machine moving.

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Conclusion

With greater emphasis on user intent and user experience, Google is working hard to provide direct answers on the SERPs themselves. So, Featured Snippets will remain in fashion and acquire even more importance in the future. If your content is relevant, in-depth, well-researched, and helpful, it can easily capture the coveted Position Zero in search results.

It will boost your online engagement, improve your brand authority and make it easier for searchers to find your content and interact with your site. So, try the above tips and win the top spot as Position Zero on Google and reap its many rewards.

“88% of searches for local businesses on a mobile device either call or visit the business within 24 hours.” (Source: Nectafy)

With “near me” searches gaining momentum on the web, more than 95% of customers search online to find a local business. And nearly half of all Google searches seek local information. Therefore, it becomes crucial that you improve your local business ranking on Google.

Creating a Google My Business account and optimizing it is the secret recipe to improving your local rankings on Google.

How Do I Improve My Local Search Ranking?

Creating a business listing on Google My Business also helps you outsmart your competition and boost traffic and sales. Additionally, it helps you boost brand awareness and earn the trust of your customers.

However, creating a listing on Google My Business is not enough to achieve high local rankings. You need to rank your listing higher on Google, and the only way to do it is to optimize it using all of the GMB features and improve your local SEO.

How Can I Improve my Local SEO?

To improve your Google local SEO, you must first understand the following local SEO ranking factors.

Local ranking factors also depend on the following three aspects:-

1. Relevance
2. Distance
3. Prominence

To know more about these three factors, read the following article:-

12 Essential Google My Business Optimizations to Rank Higher in Local Search

This article contains important tips to improve your local ranking on Google in light of the above-ranking factors:-

1. Set Up and Optimize Your Google My Business (GMB) Listing

GMB or Google My Business has transformed the way marketers perform local SEO. This Google tool is specially developed to promote local businesses and give the best results for “near me” searches. Recently, Moz revealed that your GMB listing is one of Google’s leading ranking factors for organic search.

To begin with, go to the GMB website and start creating your listing.

Here is the checklist of the items you should fill out:

• Complete and correct business name (The same as you use it in your store, visiting card, or signage)
• Local store/office address
• The precise location on a map
• Business category
• Phone number and website (if applicable)

Once you complete the above steps, your GMB listing goes live. Google now initiates your business’s verification. They’ll do it either by phone or by sending a postcard to your registered address. The postcard will contain a code, which you need to enter into your GMB account.

After the verification is complete, you need to begin optimizing your Google My Business profile.

• Post photos of your business. In this section, you can include pictures of the interiors and exterior of your premises.

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• Add your business hours.
• Add the primary and other categories that define your business.
• Regularly share your business updates and fresh content to optimize your GMB profile further and enhance its visibility.

2. Optimize It for Mobile

Most of the “near me” searches are performed using mobile devices. According to an Uberall study, 82% of respondents used their mobile devices to conduct a “near me” search. So, it makes sense to optimize your GMB listing for mobile devices. Make sure your website is mobile-friendly.

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Mobile optimization of your business profile is incomplete without adding click-to-call buttons on your GMB listing. 60% of mobile users prefer to call a business directly from their search results. Therefore, ensure you add a click-to-call button to your GMB listing.

3. Focus On Getting and Responding to Google Reviews

According to Moz's local search ranking factors, review signals also significantly contribute to your local search and snack pack ranking. Star ratings and reviews help build trust. Having lots of reviews speaks volumes about your credibility and reputation as a business. It also enhances your visibility in local search.

Google considers star ratings as a ranking signal. According to a Blue Corona study, more and better reviews directly translate into higher search rankings, more leads and sales, and increased profitability.

So, you should set up systems and processes to earn floods of authentic reviews and train your teams to make it a regular occurrence. Encourage your customers to post reviews using free tools like a review shortcut link.

Apart from your GMB listing and website, you should also have reviews on other review sites. Google also collects your reviews from product comparison sites, consumer directories, and social media. Make use of the vast real estate of reviews that includes Foursquare, Thumbtack, Amazon, Facebook, BBB (Better Business Bureau), Manta and Angie's List, etc.

Apart from the number of reviews, Google also considers the following:

• Does the star rating accompany text + pictures also?
• Does the text include relevant keywords and terms in the review?
• What’s the average star rating given to the product by users?
• Are reviews posted consistently or occasionally?
• Is there a pattern being followed in your reviews? Check review sentiment.

Pro Tip: Don’t request for a review just after the sales as there is a likelihood that the customer hasn’t experienced the product yet. Give them some time and ask them for a review when you think they might have the time to thoroughly experience your product or service.

4. Build Local Links

Whether it is organic ranking or Google Maps, links have been one of the most powerful ranking factors for Google. Studies prove that building local links is vital for ranking in Google Maps. The backlink qualifies if it isn’t marked as “nofollow” for boosting local rankings. Local links are taken as essential factors for driving actual business.

Building local links isn’t rocket science. You can employ simple tactics such as utilizing your local relationships and the companies you have worked with. You can also collaborate with the organizations you support or serve. Tap the companies that fit into a “shoulder niche.”

It is better to tap the companies you are already familiar with. You can return the favor by writing or video recording a testimonial. You can also collaborate to create a piece of content benefiting both the parties and their audiences.

Some businesses and niches are interrelated, and they operate in the same neighborhood. They often complement each other but do not compete for head-on with you. So, when you develop a content outreach program, don't forget to involve these businesses.

For example, a landscaping business may decide to create a valuable piece of content about cost-effective ways to design your interiors or fix your roofing issues. They may also include tips about energy-efficient home design, landscaping, exterior waterproofing, mold damage, painting, and replacing windows and doors.

Before creating the content, you can reach out to a few service providers who provide these services in the neighborhood and ask if they would be willing to collaborate on the content and, if possible, provide a link to their resource pages.

Since it is a mutually beneficial process, it would work even if you don't have any prior relationship with that company.

5. Clear the GMB Spam in Google Maps and Rise in Ranking

If you take a close look at Google Map results in the local organic search, you will find lots of illegitimate entries that do not have a proper website, have an incorrect address, or something like that. To move up the ranking ladder, you must clear such spam so that you can appear above all others.

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Google Maps is full of spam, and you can remove it by using the following tactics:-

A. First and foremost, maintain the record of all the GMB listings you want to edit or report. So, you can identify if the info reverts even after editing.

B. Go to Google Maps>>Go to the listing>>Click on “Suggest an Edit.”

C. You’ll find two options here, and you can pick one according to the situation.

• “Change name or other details“
• “Remove this place.”

If you find keyword stuffing in your listing’s business name, you can suggest it. Choose the first option – “Change name or other details“>>make the required edits.

To remove spam, select “Remove this place” and then select the specific issue.

What if “Suggesting an Edit” Doesn’t Work

If you cannot remove a spam listing through this method, you can try using Google’s Business Redressal Complaint Form. However, Google needs some evidence before it takes any action. You can refer to this resource for more details.

Ensure Business Details (NAP) Consistency

According to Moz, Google seeks consistency in citation and NAP (name, address, phone number) across the web. It means your business information, especially the NAP, should be consistent everywhere, including citation websites, directories, GMB, Maps, Foursquare, Yelp, and Facebook, etc.

Watch out for discrepancies in spellings, business name, address, or phone number. Avoid duplicate listings. Resolving all such issues improves your local SEO to a great extent.

6. Use This Google Maps SEO Checklist

Finally, it’s time to ensure that you have taken all the steps to improve your local SEO and that no critical area is overlooked.

At this point, you must have learned why it’s crucial to fill out your GMB profile entirely and accurately.

But, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

To rank high on Google Maps, you need to perform a variety of optimizations at different levels.

It’s worth pointing out that you need to be meticulous in fixing your local SEO. Here is the Google Maps SEO Checklist for reference to make sure you omit nothing while performing the local SEO of your website.

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7. Track Your Performance

You can track your performance in local SEO by using the built-in analytics in your Google My Business account.

Steps: Sign in to your account>>Select “Insights.”

Here is how it looks like:

Analytics helps you in many ways, and some of them are:

• Identify the specific search queries and terms that triggered your listing. You can use a tool and expand them.
• Know the frequency your listing appeared in organic and local Google searches. If it’s too little, increase your digital footprint and optimize your listing completely using the above tips.
• Observe the customer actions taken (e.g., making a phone call, visiting your website, seeking directions, etc.).
• Create the customer journey map on the website.
• Know the days of the week you get the most calls and inquiries.

You can’t do rank tracking using GMB analytics. However, you can do rank tracking locally and dig into customer information using Moz’s Local Market Analytics.

Conclusion

Covering the Google My Business basics is essential, but comprehensive optimization and consistent improvement can change the game. Experimenting, testing, and tracking different optimizations is a consistent process.

Monitoring the results will direct you to take the right strategic step. If you aren't sure what to do, always put the customer first and do something in their best interest.

Invest your time and money in local SEO and Google Maps marketing, and you'll be able to drive local traffic and generate leads to your business invariably. Various case studies prove that local SEO can amazingly increase keyword visibility manifold and boost local rankings.

Targeted visibility on Google is everybody's dream, but to achieve that, you also need to focus on optimizing your Google My Business profile apart from ads and websites. People often refer to it as a business profile on Google, but it is much more than that.

It is a dynamic snapshot of your business that highlights your best features, current promotions, product descriptions, and so on. Since it is your top profile on Google that is easily accessible through SERPs, it provides you the best opportunity to allow people to find you, engage with you and learn about you.

So, in a nutshell, it fulfills most of your marketing objectives, such as awareness, branding, and advertising. Last but not least, it is entirely free, making it indispensable for marketers.

Despite an astronomical number of searches performed on Google, the number of views on a business profile is very low. According to a BrightLocal research report, a typical business profile attracts 1,260 views out of 167 billion searches performed on Google every month.

The problem is not that Google My Business is not a good platform, but very few people know how to effectively use it for the best results. This platform offers an excellent range of features that can transform your marketing.

Why Do you Need a Google My Business Account?

Here are the three primary reasons you need a GMB account:-

1. Be discoverable in digital search (How to show up on Google search)
2. Keep customers informed about your products and services
3. Build trust and boost consumer confidence

The Benefits of Optimizing Your Google My Business Profile

A significant benefit of optimizing your Google My Business profile is that it provides you an edge over your competitors in terms of visibility on Google. Google delivers you through your GMB profile without spending even a single penny, and it is an unfair advantage. The slightest benefit you get in terms of visibility on Google pays you back many times over as brand awareness, traffic, and revenue generation.

However, optimizing Google My Business profile benefits aren't limited to increased visibility; they go beyond it to increased engagement, higher local rankings, and improved lead generation. Here are a few benefits of optimizing your GMB profile:-

1. Improves Local Rankings

Do you know how to rank higher on Google in local or Near Me searches?

The more optimized our GMB profile is, the better local rankings you are likely to achieve. Apart from proximity and relevance, a better GMB profile corresponds to improved local rankings as Google's algorithm favors activity and quality of information. It increases engagement and visibility.

2. Improves Engagement

Google is constantly upgrading, and its new feature, "zero-click searches," is even more formidable. It is part of Google's initiative to provide most of the information related to a query on its SERP itself. "People Also Ask" and "Local Search Results (with Google Maps") are some of the features that help you to get your answers on the SERP itself.

So, suppose you have a well-optimized Google My Business profile with pictures and the latest posts. In that case, you will drive more engagement and conversions as more and more people try to interact with you through your dynamic profile details.

3. Drives Conversions

Regular GMB profile doesn't help drive conversions, but users can locate you through keyword searches, directly call you from your business profile, and view FAQs when you optimize it. They can also make a reservation, book an appointment, request a quote and perform many other activities directly from your GMB profile.

How to Optimize Your Google Business Profile?

This article is entirely dedicated to educating and guiding marketers to use this platform and optimize their business profiles to get the best results. It helps you in the following three ways:

1. To increase your prominence in local searches
2. To attain better online visibility than your competitors
3. To contact and acquire customers online through features such as booking a reservation, making an appointment, requesting a quote, etc.

Here are the ten marketing tactics that you can use to optimize your Google My Business profile.

1. First, Create a Google Business account

For making a GMB profile, creating a Google My Business account is a prerequisite. Later on, you can connect it with your GMB profile. You can straightaway visit the URL https://www.google.com/business/ to create a business account and sign in using the Google ID you use for business purposes. Don't use your personal Google ID to start a business account.

2. Fill Out Every Section

Google has added many elements and categories to the Google Business profile that appears on the first page of SERPs. They keep on doing it to help you create a profile that can attract your potential customers and answer their queries before they decide to buy from you.

So, beginning from the essential details such as name, address, phone, website, and opening hours, you can move on to the following sections that might be a bit time consuming, such:

• Category and attributes
• Products and services
• Questions and answers (Generated by the business owner)

After that, there is a dynamic section where you can keep on posting and adding:

• Posts (To engage users and announce promotions/discounts etc.)
• Reviews (For reputation management and branding)
• Questions and answers (User-generated)

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Local SEO ranking factors

Google considers the following three factors to determine local rankings.

• Relevance: How closely your business profile matches a search query
• Distance: What's the distance between the searcher and your business location
• Prominence: How popular and well-recognized is a business (Google uses many factors to determine it.)

3. Add Contact Information

Make sure that the business name in your profile is the same as you use it in your store, visiting card, or signage. Google considers adding location-based keywords a spam activity, so stay away from any such practice.

Keep your business name and address the same across the web, including listing sites. Google algorithms may perceive small things such as using "st" instead of "street" as an inconsistency, affecting your credibility.

Mention both regular and holiday hours in the "Hours" section. Otherwise, customers might visit you when your premises are closed and may post negative reviews.

4. Write Your Business Description

The important thing is that the brief business description that you see below your business name is not written by you but by Google. The good news is that Google does a pretty good job writing an editorial summary and keeping it consistent across the platform.

However, you can exercise a bit of control on the "From the Business" section in your Google My Business account dashboard. To find this section, scroll down your profile and see it under the reviews section.

Here is how you can optimize this section of your profile:

• Use all the 750 characters for a better description, with vital info in the first 200-300 characters.
• Don't forget to use popular keywords, especially those your target audience uses to find businesses similar to yours.
• Avoid repetition of information from other sections. Instead, describe your USP, what differentiates you from competitors and what customers appreciate about your business.
• Avoid including links or markup language.

5. Choose a Category

Most Google Business profile visitors come from discovery searches, which means they land on your website looking for something using the specific keywords. Only 16% come from direct searches, i.e., the search bar uses the business name, product name, or address. It, therefore, becomes inevitable to include the relevant keywords in your GMB profile that ordinary searchers use to search your business type.

If you choose a category, Google offers category-specific features for your Google Business profile. For example, Ocala Yoga Center, Florida, mentions its type as a Yoga studio.

However, try to be specific while choosing your business category. For example, using "Tibetan Meditation Center" instead of just "Meditation Center" will attract more eyeballs.

Here is a complete list of categories you can use to choose the most specific one for you.

Product categories shouldn't be confused with products or attributes. You can talk about them in a different section. Also, don't add unnecessary categories as it might confuse Google.

6. Select Appropriate Attributes

Once you choose the right category, Google will prompt you to select the appropriate attributes. These attributes don't exist exclusively on Google you can find them on Yelp as well. However, Google is known to use granular and exciting attributes.

Click this link to see an exhaustive list of attributes you can choose from.

7. Attract Eyeballs through Stunning Photographs

Adding pictures to your business profile shouldn't be a one-time activity. Be active and keep your GMB profile lively and up-to-date. Soon, Google might show these pictures in the local search, giving you added visibility.

Pictures are directly linked with engagement. According to a BrightLocal study, businesses with more than 100 photos get five times more calls than average businesses. However, don't try posting 100 images in one go.

• Post at least one new picture every week.
• The logo should be placed as a thumbnail photo.
• Your brand should inspire your cover photo. However, Google displays different pictures as your cover photo based on the search query.
• You can add photos of happy customers, views of business premises, and team photos as a general rule. Adhere to Google's photo guidelines for specifications.
• Avoid stock photos and special effects. Upload genuine pictures of your business.
• Use high-quality images with clear depictions.

Google selects a photo from a Business Profile and displays it directly in local results based on the keywords used.

• You can geo-tag your photos to showcase your expertise in your area
• Adding videos is also a great way to highlight your business profile
• You can also add a 360Āŗ view of your organization/products to your profile

8. Encourage Users to Post Google Reviews

Believe it or not, the bright yellow stars of Google reviews in search results influence a user's buying decision. At least these star ratings compel them to visit the seller's website or contact them through call buttons.

Note: You can also add "Call Now" buttons to posts created in Google My Business.

These gleaming star ratings make other entries look duller, giving you an edge over your competitors.

It is one of the most prominent reasons why Google considers star ratings as a ranking signal. Have a look above at the screenshot of search results on Google. The entries without star ratings appear below the ones with them.

Pro tip: Keywords used in the reviews also help you rank higher and appear in top search results.

You can easily see that the relevant keywords are encouraged by Google.

Tips:

1. Ask, incentivize and encourage your loyal and new customers to post their reviews using free tools like a review shortcut link.
2. Ask your customers through email, social media, text, and in-person conversations to post their reviews, and they will more likely do it.
3. Don't forget to respond to reviews; it encourages even more reviews.

9. Post to Your Google Business Profile

You can use your GMB profile as social media and regularly post on it. Google encourages you to share your announcements, events, offers, and products on your GMB profile. You can easily create posts in the GMB dashboard, and they will appear at the bottom in the "Updates" section.

Posts increase engagement and, therefore, the overall activities performed by the user on your GMB profile. Similarly, regular posts will soon catch Google's attention and will help you improve your rankings.

Note: People on search engines have a higher buying intent than social media platforms, so posting on your GMB profile will also boost your conversion.

If users follow your business profile, they will get notifications for your posts, and you will get loyal and regular visitors to your business profile free of cost.

Pro Tip: Regularly post on your Business Profile to increase your digital footprint. You shouldn't do it to send signals to Google, but for the users. You can use it to enhance customer experience, announce events and offers and add links and CTAs. Specific posts have a timeline and are deleted when they are expired, so post frequently and update the customers about what's happening.

10. Ask and Answer Questions

Similar to Amazon, Google also features a section that includes questions and answers in your business profile. These questions and answers address relevant queries of the customers to push them down in the sales funnel. These answers are meant to help customers to decide to choose your business. Anyone can ask these questions, and anyone can answer them.

However, when someone else answers a question, it can also lead to inaccurate answers. To avoid this, you can set up alerts, so whenever someone posts a solution or a question, you can quickly have a look.

Pro Tip: You can also seed your FAQ section and upvote your answers so that the customers can refer to them first. It doesn't violate Google guidelines. Since Google picks up the keywords included in the answers in the Q&A section, write answers with the focused keywords in mind. You can naturally follow your keyword strategy without stuffing keywords. While features like "add me to search" are not yet available, optimizing your Google My Business profile effectively can significantly boost your visibility and improve your chances of appearing in search results.

With proper monitoring and management of your Q&A section, you can address the doubts of the customers, highlight your USPs, and clear hurdles of their buying process.

11. Add Products and Services

When your offerings are not clear from your business name, it's time to add products to your business profile. It will give your products even more visibility and allow people to have a look at them without even visiting your website. Adding such content enriches your profile and helps it rank for relevant searches.

While mentioning your product or services, you may also add their description and price. When the user clicks on it, the full description will appear. Google may also link your products from the category section, giving them even more visibility.

12. Set Up Messaging

Google enables searchers to contact you directly from your Google Business Profile through its text messaging option. With more than 82% of smartphone users using local searches for shopping, Google provides one of the most valuable features. To enable this feature, go to Google My Business dashboard and choose the "Messaging" tab. You can install this from Google Play. You can easily set up message alerts from your GMB dashboard.

Conclusion

As a proven and dynamic marketing tool, setting up Google My Business isn't a one-time activity. Instead, it's an ongoing activity that periodically requires inputs from the business owner to grab users' attention and provide them updates about their products and brand.

It increases your online presence and helps you to be in the spotlight without spending anything on it. You should update even the minor changes in your business.

Publish posts, photos, and upload videos. Use different strategies to get reviews and keep on responding to them. Use as many GMB features as you can to increase your visibility on search engines. Apart from that, you can add quality content and information to your GMB profile and your website, social media, and review sites.

Google's ultimate objective is to connect its users with the best business solutions. Make a Google My Business strategy to thoroughly and accurately maintain your business information through your GMB dashboard and regularly post fresh content to reap its rewards.

For most digital marketing agencies, scaling remains a sweeping challenge. Most agency owners struggle with workforce-related issues such as lack of resources, idle resources, and workflow issues. Managers are busy firefighting as they find their employees rebuilding everything for every new client without a standardized workflow.

Apart from that, managing client relationships is the second biggest challenge faced by many digital agencies, as explained by Arsalan Sajid, startup community manager at Cloudways.

What is Startup Scaling?

Startup scaling is directly related to a startup's ability to survive and flourish in the wake of fluctuating demand. Since the fall of 2019, we have been experiencing these market fluctuations, when the deadly pandemic broke out that is still active across the globe.

A scalable business is flexible and can efficiently handle an increased workload without any disruption in its workflow. When an agency can scale successfully, it can increase its workload without compromising quality and performance.

The best way to deal with these challenges and scale your agency is to leverage proven agency tools and technology. Here are the three game-changing tools that will transform your processes and workflow:-

1. InstaSites Builder: For Instant Websites

DashClicks' InstaSites Builder helps you achieve customer delight by easing out the painstaking process of creating professional websites. On several occasions, agencies need to develop websites for their clients. This tool allows agencies to create hundreds of niche-specific websites within seconds. An added advantageāyou don't pay anything unless you make a sale.

You'll be surprised and thrilled to know that it doesn't require any coding or any technical knowledge on your part. Choose a niche-specific website template from hundreds of readily-available templates and enter your client's business information. Now you have to press the build button, and the software will automatically create a niche-specific professional website for your client within seconds. Sounds interesting, doesn't it?

What's more? You can share this newly built website with your prospects using an inbuilt send function. It will help you make an excellent first impression on your clients and speed up the entire process of prospecting and closing the sale.

As you know, website development takes a lot of time. Building a professional niche-based website is even more time-consuming and tedious. It includes spending time with the developers, arguing with them, and still not getting a website according to your specifications and expectations. DashClicks' InstaSites Builder comes as a breather for agency owners in such kinds of situations.

The Benefits of InstaSites Builder:-

• Has the capacity to build hundreds of niche-specific websites instantly and swiftly
• Creates SSL secured websites
• Offers numerous latest design templates
• Comes with advanced features
• Creates ready for use websites that turn sales in autopilot mode

2. InstaReports: For Instant Data-Driven Reports

Reports are an integral part of digital marketing. Both the agency and the client are curious to identify the digital blind spots and strategy mistakes to maximize their ROI on digital marketing.

However, creating reports is time-consuming and a tedious task that takes up a lot of productive time. Luckily, technology integration can save your life and time spent collecting data from different analytics tools and presenting it in an easy-to-understand format.

With DashClicks' InstaReports tool, you can create detailed data-driven reports for your clients in a matter of seconds. InstaReports tool is powered by Google Maps and can directly pull data from different channels such as the website, Facebook, and mobile. It can also fetch data from online listings and other places on the web for the local SEO and directory listings.

After collecting data from several resources, the tool creates a detailed report in an easy-to-understand format. It also highlights the problem areas where the project requires maximum attention, helping maintain transparency and keeping the client and the agency on the same page.

DashClicks InstaReports Highlights:

• Offers Complete Analysis
• Offers Listings Analysis
• Provides Social Analysis
• Provides Google Ads Analysis

Apart from that, the reporting tool offers several other analytics and reports.

How to Use InstaReports for Prospecting?

In these competitive times, prospecting can be a challenging game. To win a project, you need to exhibit your capabilities and prove that you are better and unique than the rest. A presentable report created by DashClicks’ InstaReports tool will not only throw a positive impression on your prospects but also will explain how it helps them identify the weaker areas of their marketing campaign. The eye-catchy stats-based reports are sure to win the hearts of your prospects.

The tool delivers a solution-oriented analysis and highlights the gaps in your digital marketing strategies.

How Can InstaReports Help You in Prospecting?

Here are some of the InstaReports features that will boost your conversion rates during prospecting:

A. Offers in-depth online business reports within seconds
B. Helps you make an excellent first impression on your prospects by creating multi-channel business reports on the fly
C. Highlights gaps within your marketing strategy and helps you tweak it for better results
D. Helps you manage all incoming leads, saving both you and your team valuable prospecting time.
E. Helps you close more deals by providing instant in-depth marketing reports

How Does InstaReports Help Increase Your Sales?

InstaReports helps you present a great sales pitch to your demanding prospects. It will help you win their trust and convince them about your capabilities as a professional and global digital marketing agency. Since the report mainly highlights the problem areas, it will help you convince the prospects that they will immensely benefit from your services and expertise.

It will help you gain more and more clients in the long run. Here are some of the features InstaReports offers to help increase your sales.

1. InstaReports is a tool powered by Google Maps that allows you to automatically pull in business data and create business reports
2. Helps you deliver beautifully crafted business reports in seconds
3. Provides your prospects with the most accurate insights
4. Helps you identify the biggest pain points of your client’s business
5. Provides relatable solutions to your campaign, conversion, and sales issues

3. Agency Website

We have already discussed how DashClicks' white label resellers services allow you to use fantastic agency tools to build bulk websites and generate professional reports. These tools can prove to be your most lethal weapons during prospecting and adding new clients to your portfolio. Apart from these, DashClicks also offers an Agency Website tool that helps you create your agency website in a few seconds. This website is professionally designed and optimized to attract more and more clients for you.

DashClicks' white label tools such as agency website software help you save time and scale your operations by instantly creating a professional niche-based website. If you are an agency owner, you must be familiar with the pain of creating a professional website that converts.

Choosing a template to tweak the design and add content is a time-consuming task, and developers can further add to your woes by delaying things and rendering a web design you don't like.

If you want to create a professional website that quickly loads, converts, and positively impacts your clients and visitors, use DashClicks' Agency Website tool

Conclusion

59% of businesses think that the primary reason why agencies hire white label services and tools is cost-cutting, but it would be akin to just scratching the surface. The actual benefit of hiring white label services is the access to a platform that empowers the agencies and clients and helps them manage and monitor their campaigns.

A white label agency platform helps them transform their workflow and drive their business. It also includes access to the above three tools that can be game-changers for a startup agency. These tools resolve some of the most significant issues you face in your day-to-day operations. Prospecting is a big challenge, but these tools give you an edge over your competitors during prospecting and help you swiftly seal the online marketing contracts without doing any additional legwork.

Tools like InstaReports, Agency Website, and InstaSites Builder will keep your clients happy and help you generate more business. Visit our website today to know more.

Technology has empowered marketers in many ways. One of the best examples of technology-driven marketing solutions is the retargeting tools that enable a marketer to target the site visitors who visited the website but didn’t complete the purchase. What makes this tactic even more exciting and popular is that it is inexpensive to retarget. Moreover, you can expect a higher return on investment since you’re only targeting the people who have shown interest in your products.

This article will discuss the major types of retargeting that works and how to implement them.

What are Some of the Most Effective Retargeting Strategies?

The best way to retarget your website visitors is to display Facebook ads on their mobile browser. The three most powerful retargeting strategies to reinstate the visitors to your site are as follows:

1. Retargeting specific URL visits
2. Retargeting existing customers
3. Retargeting leads based on page engagement

Let’s dive into these three strategies separately.

1. Retargeting Specific Page Visits

The most prevalent method of retargeting is based on website visits in the past 90 days. However, it takes time and doesn’t work if you don’t add any filter to it. So, do it intelligently and don’t aim to target everyone who visits your website. To increase your conversion rate, target only those who show keen interest and are willing to buy.

So, how to choose that small group of audience you should focus on for retargeting?

To find those visitors, you need to trace their specific actions taken on your website. For example, if someone lands on your website through a blog post backlinks, they will only read the blog post and bounce away. Targeting such visitors is useless if your immediate goal is conversion. However, if someone comes to your website, reads your blog post, signs up for a newsletter, and also checks your products and services page before he leaves the website, then it reflects a strong buying intent.

This doesn’t mean the first type of visitor may not be your potential customer. However, even if we take them as prospects, they are more likely to be top of the funnel (TOFU) customers, who still need a lot of education, interactions, and nurturing before they convert.

Now how will you retarget both types of visitors?

If you show a lead magnet in a retargeting ad to the second type of visitor, it won’t make sense as they have already shared their contact details on the lead magnet form while visiting the website. Similarly, you cannot offer a free trial to the visitor who just read your blog post and went away because he may still not be aware of your product or services.

Such unplanned retargeting never yields any results, and it’s like targeting the wrong prospect with the wrong offer. Their stages in the buyer’s journey are pretty different.

The Ruskin Bond Ad

Check out this retargeting ad I received on my Facebook account:

You may notice how hyper-focused this ad is. This ad seems to be inspired by the web pages I visited while visiting Ruskin Bond’s website. Ruskin Bond is an Indian author of British descent.

The advertisers might have tracked my activity on the website to serve me with an ad focused on becoming a better writer.

This ad also emphasizes how this product can add value to my life. You should follow the same approach while creating retargeting campaigns.

Here are the two reasons why people don’t want to buy from you.

A. They are not ready to spend money on your product
B. They are not aware of how your product can add value to them

The above ad is the best example of the second reason.

This ad is targeted at a group of high intent buyers.

These targeted ads are flashed as soon as someone visits a website, including the pages that only the strong intent buyers visit.

Tip: Retargeting based on a specific URL or a landing-page-visits always works, and it is the best retargeting practice these days.

Facebook ads are highly effective and popular for most niches and products compared to Google Ads.

Here’s the complete procedure of creating effective retargeting ads on Facebook.

Open Facebook Business Suite. Facebook is known for regularly updating its platform, so instead of giving you the steps, I’ll suggest the path.

First, create a new custom audience.

You need to go to the Ad Manager from the “More Tools” section and create a new campaign. Enter your information and then select “Create a New Custom Audience.”

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Facebook is best known for its custom audience feature, and hence it can be the best retargeting strategy for a business. To make ads even more effective, Facebook offers diverse customization options for their campaigns. You can easily create a new custom audience from the drop-down menu.

Your marketing goal here is to attract website traffic which you can choose from the custom audience menu.

When you choose this audience type, you will be able to create lists of people who visited specific web pages on your website for laser-focused targeting.

The devil lies in the details. So, after creating lists, you can dive into other elements.

You can design a campaign for different objectives, such as promoting a webinar or driving traffic to a specific landing page. Hundreds of thousands of people regularly read about your product and see details on social media channels but never convert. Through retargeting, you can get them back. Here in this section, you can add the URL pages that include a specific word such as a product name, etc.

Facebook allows you to refine your retargeting ads according to options such as “device used” and “frequency.” Frequency is a crucial metric because it shows that the visitor is a ripe lead and needs a slight push to convert.

All you need to do is create ads that explain to your audience how they can use your product, save time, and add value to their lives.

It is one of the most effective remarketing strategies because the user is quite familiar with the product, and they are most likely to make the purchase if they are fully convinced the product will help them.

2. Retargeting Existing Customers

The second type of retargeting is aimed at unresponsive email subscribers. Over time, many of your email subscribers stop responding to your emails and buying from you. To convert them into active buyers, you need to share your engaging marketing messages with them.

Anybody familiar with email marketing will agree that over time new visitors join you, and old subscribers become unresponsive. However, it is easy to sell to your old subscribers because they have already purchased from you, and you don’t need to put in additional efforts to educate them about your products or services.

Sometimes your emails don’t even reach some of the subscribers because of the filters and network issues. In all such cases, this retargeting method can resurrect those unresponsive customers. It is incredibly cost-effective because such retargeting ads have a high CTR and a high degree of relevance.

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You may try to upsell your unresponsive customers as many companies such as AT&T and American Express are already implementing this strategy and have been quite successful in boosting their sales.

This strategy is beneficial for retailers such as clothing and apparel sellers. It is a harmless way of marketing to existing customers with your current offers. Here is how to set up these ads.

Go to AdWords or Facebook and then go to Facebook Ads Manager>>Audience Section>>Click Create an Audience.

You can create another custom audience from here. Select “Customer List” and upload your audience list.

If you see a green checkmark, you have done it. If a yellow exclamation sign appears, you need to manually update some entries.

You can directly import contacts from MailChimp, apply filters for old and current customers, and upload them on Facebook.

You need to sort your email list to make separate lists for unresponsive customers and old customers.

There is no point in wasting your advertising dollars on customers who are regularly buying from you. Instead, you should target the customers who don’t respond to your marketing emails and don’t convert.

You can try to bring them back to your products by sending messages like “we are missing you!” etc.

3. Lead Generation Ads Based on Page Engagement

If website-based retargeting doesn’t work, you can try lead generation ads-based targeting. “Lead Ads” is Facebook’s powerful lead generation tool. This type of retargeting uses form-based ads as lead magnets. The goal is to collect customer information.

Before we dive into how we can create such ads, let’s look at a few examples.

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As soon as you click the ad, it will take you to the lead generation form that looks like the one shown in the next column in the above table. Such ads don’t force you to leave the Facebook platform. As you know, most people come to Facebook to interact with their friends and family and don’t like to move away from the platform.

Lead form in the lead gen ads appears within the platform and doesn’t take the user offsite, making such ads immensely effective and less annoying. So, it works as a lead magnet that doesn’t interrupt the flow or habit of a social media user.

Suppose you retarget people with page engagement as a metric. In that case, you will get better results because these social media users are hyperactive and hyper-aware and are always on the lookout for new brands and products on Facebook.

Let’s dive into how to set up lead generation ads.

Create a custom audience>> Choose “Facebook Page” from sources>>

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From here, you get a wide range of options to choose from. You can try to be as specific as possible here.

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So, you can target visitors who perform any activity on your website or Facebook pages, such as clicking on a CTA, saving a page or post, or showing engagement with your Facebook post or ad.

After selecting the right metric, save this audience and create a new ad on Ads Manager.

Your goal is lead generation, so select the “Lead Generation” option and select your ad format. You can choose a single image or video for the purpose. Don’t opt for carousels when you are creating a lead generation ad. Now, you can edit the content on the ad.

Don’t forget to give some incentive in exchange for your customers’ email addresses.

You can offer an informative ebook, coupon, or a study or white paper to them, and they will happily fill out your form and click on a CTA button if there is a sound reason for doing that.

Don’t forget to edit your fields to match your needs according to the audience.

Make sure that the form questions are specific and designed to capture only the most crucial customer data. The idea is to take up only a few seconds of the visitors without annoying them.

Most marketers feel that Facebook’s page-based retargeting is the best way to drive visitors back to your site. It’s observed that the most engaged users use social media platforms differently than the average users.

Many specific psychographic customer segments are always searching for businesses and products that add value to their lives. Savvy marketers should take advantage of this fantastic feature of Facebook to convert those who showed interest in your pages or posts but didn’t convert for any reason.

Conclusion

Marketing is no more a simple phenomenon, and it can be an act of sheer folly on behalf of a marketer to assume that they can convert prospects on their very first visit. Since the sales funnel has become highly complex and lengthy, and your first-time visitors might not know who you are or how your product could help them, they are unlikely to make any purchase decision. In other words, they are not ready to buy from you.

Retargeting ads help bring those visitors closer to conversion. The more targeted these ads are, the more likely are users to make a purchase.

The most accurate way of retargeting is retargeting specific page visits. It will help you a lot in converting your site visitors. The second most effective way is to target unresponsive existing customers. If they haven’t bought anything from you in the past few months, send them a few enticing ads to boost sales.

In the end, you should run lead generation ads to pull in already engaged users. As emphasized above, your retargeting ads should be highly focused to drive significant results.

Most companies have an immature and casual approach to social media. They know that social media marketing is a crucial part of inbound marketing, but they don't know how to leverage social platforms to achieve their business goals.

Sometimes they recruit Gen X to manage their social accounts, thinking that younger generations are far more social media savvy. However, without a proper social media strategy, this practice can be extremely harmful. We are already past the first stage of social media, wherein publishing a post was enough to generate awareness and achieve many business goals.

These days, social media platforms are crowded like never before, and everybody is striving to gain some visibility and attention from users. So, we can't sit back and hope for miracles to happen. Brands should learn to run their social media accounts in an effective, well-planned, and measured way.

Here are some of the stats that would immensely help the marketers. 71% of customers will happily recommend a brand if they get an excellent service experience on social media. Unfortunately, more than 95% of people who participated in brand conversations didn't follow the social accounts of those brands. For the sake of branding and maintaining a personal touch, you should manage some of the social media accounts yourself.

Given the challenges lying ahead, here is a 13-step social media marketing strategy for businesses to succeed and give your brand a voice in 2022:-

1. Perform Competitive Research
2. Decide on a Rational and Feasible Budget
3. Decide the Type of Content to Share
4. Follow a Social Content Calendar
5. Set Realistic Social Media Goals
6. Find the Most Relevant Social Metrics You Should Target
7. Understand Your Social Media Audience
8. Set Your Accounts in a Professional Manner
9. Promote Your Social Properties
10. Engage With Your Audiences
11. Ā Build a Community
12. Ā Rope in Influencers to Increase Your Reach
13. Ā Measure Your Results and Adapt

So, without further ado, let's dive in.

1. Perform Competitive Research

Do you know the secret recipe to beat your competition, hands down? You need to conduct competitor analysis to succeed on social media without wasting time in hit and trial. If you think that everybody should have a unique approach to digital marketing, you should keep in mind that your competitors have already done their research. They understand customer psychology better than you.

Competitive research helps you in many ways, including finding the key phrases your competitors are using and the strategy they are implementing to succeed. It will save you time and energy when making your strategy.

Competitor analysis involves the following steps:

1. Identify your competitors
2. Perform SWOT analysis of your competitors
3. Assess your competitors' website and customer experience
4. Determine the market positioning of your rivals
5. Check their pricing and current offers
6. Learn about the technology they are employing
7. Review feedback on social media

The primary purpose of competition analysis is to identify your brand's major competitors and determine the best strategies to beat them. It also helps you understand why customers choose them and what you can offer instead to persuade your target audience to buy from you.

Exploit the gaps you find with the help of competitive research and do your best to meet customer expectations.

You can also use tools such as BuzzSumo to discover the most effective content your competitors are creating and sharing on social media.

For example, here is the screenshot of the search results returned by BuzzSumo for the keyword brand engagement online. We have chosen the option of most shared content, and the first result that appears is an article published on Moz in 2015, whereas the second most shared article was published on Forbes in 2016.

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You can choose similar topics and can develop even better content that resonates with your audience.

2. Decide on a Rational and Feasible Budget

When it is a matter of serious business, lip service doesn't work. Allocating a feasible budget for your social media accounts is important. However, you shouldn't spend more than what you earn from social channels. Sometimes, you are unable to calculate your income directly from social media marketing, but you can easily estimate the average returns by contributing to achieving your business goals.

For example, you can assess the contribution of social media channels in increasing your brand awareness and brand recognition. So, the best way is to calculate the ROI of your social media expenditure. First, decide your budget for digital marketing and then decide how much should be allocated to social media.

According to WebStrategies, a company allocates around 5% to 15% of its annual income to marketing. Then, they spend 35-45% of this budget on digital marketing, and only 15-25% of this amount goes to social media marketing, including the paid campaigns.

3. Decide the Type of Content to Share

Social media is not a marketplace where you spoil everything and tarnish your brand image by selling. Social media users do not use the platform to buy anything. So, you must be thoughtful about what you post on social media and avoid promotional content at all costs. You can try a mix of informational and entertaining content to engage people who follow your account.

Occasionally, you can post promotional material and other people's content, but that should be a fraction of the entire content you publish on social platforms. To engage users, follow a social calendar and punctuate it with trending content. You can also follow the influencers in your industry to take inspiration on the type of content you should share on your social media platforms. These influencers know their audience, so they create perfect content to engage them. That's the reason influencers are so successful.

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Another important thing is to be realistic about what kind of content you can create. Many businesses want to launch their video channels and produce quality videos. However, creating professional videos require equipment, expertise, people, and time, which makes it an arduous and time-consuming task. In that case, you should altogether avoid this option as there is a lot of competition on YouTube, and just one or two poorly created videos will only tarnish your image.

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You should also make sure that you don't post personal stuff or something that interests you personally. So, the personal accounts and the company accounts should strictly be kept separate. We should assess every post from our target audience's viewpoint.

Tip 1: The probability of visual content to be shared online is 40 times higher than text-based content. So, try to create visual content which is getting popular day by day. It also has a very high engagement rate.

Tip 2: As per an official statement by YouTube, mobile video consumption increases by almost 100% annually. It is also linked with a high conversion rate as 64% of customers conceded that they are more likely to shop a product online after watching a video about it.

Tip 3: Bring diversity to the content you create, as only one type of content can reduce the user's interest. For example, you can try a mix of entertaining videos, fascinating imagery, and a compelling text copy. You can also try memes, slides, or carousel and introduce humor, drama, and fun elements.

Tip 4: Customize your content according to the social network you're using. For example, attract people through enticing visual content on Instagram, keep it brief on Twitter, add short videos and links on Facebook, and post educational content on professional networks such as Linkedin

4. Follow a Social Content Calendar

Following a social calendar and choosing the best time to post will result in increased audience engagement. If you spend time on social media, you will quickly identify the best time to post so that the majority of the people are able to view your post.

Most social networks use algorithms that control users' feeds. If you don't post when your target audience is most likely to be active, chances are your followers might never see your post. It's therefore recommended that you use social scheduling software to schedule multiple posts at different time intervals when your audience is likely active on that social platform. These tools are Buffer, CoSchedule, Hootsuite, Agorapulse, Sendible and Sprout Social, etc. You can also use ContentCal.

You should also decide the frequency of your posts for each of your clients on different social platforms and post a variety of content both for entertainment and information. Focus on high-quality content and visually appealing graphics. You can use a social scheduling tool such as Buffer or Hootsuite to make your life easier.

5. Set Realistic Social Media Goals

Goal setting is an area most people overlook, but you should remember that it is the first step to your social media marketing success. Many people do not know where to start because they have very little knowledge about social media and what they can achieve.

You should set the goals in the light of your business plan. Setting strategic goals will help you take your business to the next level. So, in a way, your social media goals should complement your overall business objectives.

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Learn to set SMART goals, i.e., Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

Setting SMART goals is crucial because it means that your goals are attainable and realistic. Setting unrealistic goals may sound glamorous in the beginning, but you may not be able to achieve them, leading to disappointment later on. That's why setting limits to your goals and choosing the right social platforms become so critical. You can't succeed on all the social channels, so don't spread yourself too thin. Choose the network your audience spends the most time on.

Here are a few examples of social media SMART goals:

• Creating brand awareness
• Improving ROI on marketing campaigns
• Achieving high sales targets
• Increasing footfall to boost in-store sales
• Expanding your fan base

Attach a realistic figure to each such goal and then try to accomplish it using analytics. Social media may help you achieve all such objectives.

6. Find the Most Relevant Social Metrics You Should Target

If you think you will achieve your business goals by creating a social presence and spending your precious resources and time on it, you are on the wrong track. Social analytics can be a bit confusing over here, so to ensure success from social media, you need to choose the most relevant metric and focus on it.

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It's a folly for marketers to focus on vanity metrics such as the number of followers, likes, etc. You should also avoid unethical practices like buying fake followers. So, to increase your brand awareness, the right metric to focus on is "Post Reach."

It will provide you with information about your content's reach across different social channels and demographics.

If you are using social media to achieve your sales targets that involve driving people to perform a specific action, the number of clicks would be the most desired metric to track.

Fake followers or audiences other than those you want to target won't help you achieve anything at all. That's why marketers call it vanity metrics.

7. Understand Your Social Media Audience

The right mantra for succeeding on social media platforms and driving meaningful results from influencer marketing is using the same social platform as your target audience. For example, if your audience loves to spend time on Instagram, you should also choose Instagram as your marketing channel and find Instagram influencers in your niche.

If your target audience is Gen Z, then the best platforms for you would be Instagram and Snapchat rather than Facebook. Even with its 2.27 billion active monthly users, Facebook may not be that effective for you as a channel if your target audience is Gen Z. Facebook is known for a bit of a mature audience, say 25 to 34 years old.

The better you learn about the psychographics and demographics of your audience, the easier it would be for you to choose the right marketing channel.

Tip 1: Instead of worrying about managing different social platforms, find the one that is majorly used by your target audience and focus on it.

Tip 2: If you don't know which social platforms your target audience uses, conduct a survey.

Tip 3:Ā  You can start with your audience's most preferred social platform and then expand it to the other networks they visit. You don't need more than three channels to tap them.

Tip 4: Apart from the top social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and Snapchat, you can also tap other popular platforms such as TikTok, WeChat, QQ and Telegram, etc.

Tip 5: You can use the research papers such as the one released by Pew Research to explore data about social networks usage by different demographic groups in the US.

Tip 6: Don't waste your time on the network your audience doesn't use.

Tip 7: You can create multiple accounts on a single platform or multiple YouTube channels to target different interest groups if you have the required resources.

8. Set Your Accounts in a Professional Manner

Your social media accounts represent your brand, so they should follow your branding consistently and professionally. It applies to the colors, logos, and graphics used on your social profile or page.

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You should appropriately fill your profiles and bios. Link your social profiles to the relevant properties such as the related landing pages on your website, etc. Upload high-resolution images that are correctly optimized for banners, background, and profile pictures. Make sure your target audience loves your social media page.

9. Promote Your Social Properties

You need to vigorously promote your social handles. Add buttons for your social media real estate all over your website, especially at the most visible places such as the home page, About Us page, and footer and blog page.

Similarly, you should also include buttons of your social accounts in your emails. You can easily do it in the email settings and add these buttons in the footer below your name and contact details.

Tip 1: Promote your accounts both online and offline. Add them everywhere ā€” store signage, pamphlets, brochures, visiting cards, banners, posters, etc.

Tip 2: Cross-promote it on different channels. For example, you can mention them on your YouTube channel's profile page. Promote your YouTube channel on Instagram and Twitter and vice versa.

10. Engage With Your Audiences

Most of the social networks are meant for engagement and not just for watching and scrolling content. All successful businesses try to engage people as much as possible rather than act as a broadcaster.

A social media strategy that aims to cover every social network can be a big disaster as we all have limited time, energy, and resources. Therefore, focus only on the platforms frequented by your target audience.

To further improve the engagement, you can also try custom hashtags that promote healthy discussions and sharing.

Tip 1: Don't ignore any mention and respond to them everywhere. There are multiple tools that you can use to find your brand mentions.

Tip 2: Ā Provide top-notch customer support and make customers feel valued.

Tip 3:Ā  Encourage customers to talk and participate in discussions. Resolve their queries and aim to achieve customer delight.

11. Build a Community

Another perk of using social platforms is your ability as a business to build a community. You can always put in efforts to make your social media property a go-to place for your audience, so you can engage and nurture leads and, above all, build long-term relationships.

Tip 1: Create interactive posts and include your followers and fans.

Tip 2: Use quizzes and questions to know the opinions of your audience

Tip 3: Don't repeat your ads on social media. Make it enjoyable, so people find value in your content and frequently return to your posts.

Tip 4: Hire people to run your social accounts that match your target audience's social demographics. For example, if your target audience is roofing contractors, the existing homeowners would be your best choice as your social media professionals.

Tip 5: Never underestimate the importance of paid promotion. It allows you to target audiences you can never reach otherwise.

Tip 6: You can use paid advertising to create brand awareness, achieve sales targets, generate leads, and promote posts and videos.

Tip 7: Create interest-based groups such as Facebook groups. It's a great way to build a community without being promotional.

12. Rope in Influencers to Increase Your Reach

Engaging with the right influencers has its advantages. Influencers know the craft of social media marketing, which makes them highly reliable for brand promotion. They have a distinct style their audience is primarily familiar with, so their posts are pretty effective and engaging. People follow their advice because of the reputation they enjoy in their respective fields.

Tip 1: Collaborate with influencers whose followers match your target audience.

Tip 2: Create exciting content for your influencers so they can convince their audience to consider buying from you.

13. Measure Your Results and Adapt

Even the best marketers on the planet can't predict the outcome of their campaigns. Something or the other might go wrong. That's the reason periodically measuring your results is important to tweak your strategy accordingly. You've already set your goals and determined the key metrics to focus on.

You can use an appropriate analytics tool to measure the performance of your campaigns, especially concerning the metrics you've chosen. If you're not getting the desired success, you can change your campaign strategy. Most of the social networks have inbuilt analytics tools, and they offer relevant data about the campaigns. On Facebook, it's known as "Insights." Twitter and YouTube also have their inbuilt tracking software.

If you find that some of the content pieces perform well on the platforms, create more such content. On the flip side, if your content is not performing, try to figure out the reason behind that and switch to a better content strategy. You can also conduct an online survey for that.

Conclusion

Regardless of the goal you set, you can fearlessly dive in and invest in social media marketing as it has a massive impact on brand awareness, followers count, and sales. Your social media strategy is directly related to brand awareness, lead generation, lead nurturing, and conversion. Apart from that, social channels have long been used to provide instant and quality customer support to build a loyal customer base. Constantly track your results and improve your campaigns. Implement the 13-step social media strategy discussed above and be ready to embrace success.