As the demand for a multipurpose content solution rises, more marketers than ever are jumping on the headless CMS bandwagon. However, this is one marketing trend that demonstrably lives up to the hype and aims to remedy several problems that plague content creators within the workflow, presentation, and delivery.

If you're not up to speed on the latest CMS for marketers, we're here to help. In this article, we're going to instruct you on how to define a headless CMS, how it compares to the traditional model and the pros and cons of deploying this technology for use by your marketing team.

What is a CMS?

A CMS, also known as a Content Management System, is software that allows you to write, read, and edit website content without the need for coding and web development knowledge. Before we had CMS solutions, all websites needed to be developed and styled by implementing HTML and CSS code within a text editor. This would become particularly cumbersome for marketers that simply want to create and add content to a website without interacting with the code and accidentally breaking features on the website.

If you work in business or marketing, you are almost certainly already using a traditional CMS. The most popular example of this is WordPress, which allows users to create beautiful websites quickly by selecting a pre-built template as a starting point. You can then use the intuitive tools within the software to add text, images, video, and optimize your SEO data for search engines.

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You get to take advantage of the simplified tools, while the software automatically implements the HTML and CSS for you. Your team can quickly add content in the backend and the CMS readies that content for front-end presentation on the website only.

What is a Headless CMS System?

A headless CMS system is software that allows you to create and deliver your content to any platform or device utilizing API, Application Programming Interface. This allows your team to rapidly repurpose your content for iOS, Android, eCommerce solutions, and more in addition to just your website.

The content repository, or the backend, is where your CMS allows you to create and ready content for publishing. The head, or the frontend, is where that content is displayed on the world wide web. With traditional CMS systems, the body is inextricably tied to the head, which happens to be your website. A headless CMS severs the head along with the typical restrictions and allows developers to utilize API for rapid content presentation across numerous platforms.

With a headless CMS, all of your content can be published to your website, eCommerce centers, Android applications, and iOS applications from the same backend. Examples of this include popular shopping websites like Amazon. With their customized, headless eCommerce solution, they can repurpose the same content to buyers whether they are shopping from a desktop computer or the Amazon mobile app without the need for additional systems. The buyer can also seamlessly add an item to their cart when browsing on a pc and seamlessly resume the checkout process from the mobile app at a later time. If your brand aims to provide this level of multipurpose functionality to its customers, then a headless CMS provides the tools you need.

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What is a Decoupled CMS System?

A decoupled CMS sometimes referred to as Hybrid CMS, is a content repository that decouples the body from the head, or the front-end delivery system. While this sounds similar to the headless CMS, the decoupled CMS still has its unique front-end for presentation built into its overall systems. This is compared to the open, API-first technology that a headless system utilizes.

Decoupled CMS systems are appearing as the need for multichannel marketing solutions becomes undeniable. You'll still have access to the typical head, meaning pre-built templates and tools, but these are not necessary for creating and distributing your content online. The headless system does not feature front-end presentation or preview options.

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5 Headless CMS Advantages Over a Traditional CMS

There are several advantages of using headless CMS', but the main advantage is its flexibility in website design. Front-end developers can easily extract required data from the CMS and use it the way they want. So, instead of going ahead with the restrictions associated with traditional CMS, businesses prefer to use a headless CMS to design more extensive and unique websites. Here are some of the advantages of using a headless CMS:-

1. Reuse Content Across Channels for Rapid Scaling

While it can be confusing and difficult to absorb the technical jargon surrounding a CMS, the advantages of using a headless CMS are a little less so.

The primary benefit of utilizing a headless CMS is that it removes the restrictions that content creators and developers face when utilizing a traditional CMS. Because your content is not limited to website presentation, you can use the backend repository to create material for multiple channels all at once.

Previously, you would need to start fresh and create brand-new content for each new marketing channel. This was because your original website content would be bound to the website code. Headless CMS systems are different because they place API first. In other words, you only need to create content once and can rapidly present it across every other platform or device a customer might be using to explore your brand.

Your ability to reduce the amount of time and effort required to create omnichannel content also allows your brand to scale with greater ease. Instead of relying on a static system, your entire marketing team suddenly becomes more agile and can meet every customer wherever they are on their customer journey. You can ensure that your content is seamless and uniform regardless of the device or platform being used to interact with your brand.

2. Your Web Developers Have More Freedom for Creativity

Many people like small business owners understand the need for a strong website but do not have the knowledge or ability to develop something on their own. This CMS simplifies the process and allows you to build something great without those skills. However, that same ease-of-use comes with proprietary development restrictions that will prevent you from exploring new ways to improve your content.

The headless CMS system removes the shackles restraining your web development team. They can develop with any type of platform or integration in mind. After they are finished with their project, they simply connect their code to the new channel via a webhook, which uses an HTTP request to call for the information from the repository.

Being able to program for any type of channel gives you the ultimate freedom to explore your options when it comes to business marketing. The downside is that a headless CMS system expects that you and your team fully understand how to create and implement your own code as the traditional assistive tools will not be available. This makes it more ideal for those who know to make all of the moving parts work in harmony.

3. A Headless CMS Will Future Proof Your Business

That same freedom of development discussed above is what will ensure that your brand is future-proof. New platforms and technologies are being developed all the time, which allow marketers to better create engaging content and connect with new audiences. Because the headless CMS system works through an API, you'll be able to hook into any new platform with ease.

What's more, is that content created in a headless CMS requires minimal to no changes to implement within new channels. Your creations will remain evergreen and save you time and money in the long term.

4. Improved Workflows Among Teams

Because a headless CMS system removes the confines and restrictions you might typically face, it allows for greater collaboration between the various departments of your marketing team. It no longer takes additional effort to recreate, modify, or repurpose content, but instead allows teams to explore new opportunities to strategize and deploy high-quality content to greater effect.

Furthermore, these teams will be able to work within the same system. This makes it much easier for your experts to view, interact with, and collaborate on new projects. Your creative materials are no longer confined to separate repositories with unique restrictions but can be rapidly shared and modified by whoever is interacting with them.

5. Your Content is Better Secured and Protected

Because the repository and the publishing platform are separated, your content is better secured and protected than ever. When these two items are connected, it means that when something negatively impacts one side, it is guaranteed to have an impact on the other. For example, if your CMS application is experiencing technical difficulties, it will have no impact on how your content is presented through connected web applications.

Likewise, utilizing a headless CMS means that your company is the only point of access for the original content source. This means that you have full authority and control to implement any security procedures and protocols necessary to protect your data. This is compared to relying on an external CMS system that sets its own requirements as to what protocols may or may not be set in place to put your content online.

Which CMS Should My Company Use?

While the benefits of utilizing a headless CMS are abundant, it may not be what your company needs right now. You also may not have the proper resources to truly take advantage of what a headless CMS offers over the monolithic, standard model.

You may want to stick with the standard CMS system if:

• You’re a small brand that utilizes a small website with basic features offered by a template
• You don’t have the resources necessary to leverage the benefits of a headless CMS
• You’d rather utilize a selection of pre-built templates
• You want to have access to community support within the platform

However, you’ll want to switch to the headless CMS system if:

• You need to repurpose content across multiple channels in addition to your website
• You need to deliver content to multiple platforms including your website, iOS, and Android from the same backend
• You have plans to start scaling your brand and your content creation efforts
• You want to give your developers more freedom in how they choose to present content
• You want more control over the security of your content

Remember, there is also an in-between with the decoupled CMS if you find yourself unsure of which solution best aligns with your marketing plans. If you plan for your website to be the core focus of your efforts but want to explore some additional API offerings, you can look into systems now offered by WordPress or Drupal.

Conclusion - Headless CMS for Marketers is the Way of the Future

With the growing demand for solutions that can ease the process of multichannel marketing, the headless CMS is the clear winner for creating and distributing your content. The impact is so apparent that sites like WordPress that previously offered a monolithic CMS now offered a decoupled solution that allows users to integrate with new APIs.

Instead of restricting yourself to the rules of your website, developers will be able to write and create code that can rapidly be repurposed to other existing platforms. It also future-proofs your content creation efforts by providing the open solution you need to integrate with future tools that are yet to exist or yet to be fully realized. This allows your brand to be agile and rapidly scale to accommodate new technologies as they become available and necessary for a successful marketing strategy.

It's also an effective way to ensure that the various arms of your marketing efforts promote brand consistency across the board. Because you can push your content to multiple sources from one repository, your teams will be able to better coordinate, communicate, and develop strategies. It's that much easier to ensure your marketing efforts single harmoniously without sacrificing quality on any channel.

If you're ready to grow your brand and want to prepare your business for an all-encompassing digital future, it might be time to start exploring headless CMS options for your content creation and content delivery needs.

If you work in marketing or digital sales, you need to utilize marketing funnels. It is an entirely automated process that effectively functions as an around-the-clock sales device for your agency or business. The funnel provides carefully curated content that nurtures your prospects as opposed to cold selling.

Because the sales funnel is now such a staple, experts provide us with numerous options to more efficiently create, test, and manage our funnels. Here's a list of 9 AI marketing funnel tools that will revolutionize the way you market your brand online.

1. DashClicks

DashClicks is a SaaS (software as a service) platform that promises a complete package of solutions for digital marketing agencies. Included in this is a complete CRM for tracking your leads, deals, and existing customers. You can also use software applications included in every subscription to quickly build websites and landing pages with their drag-and-drop web builder.

A huge benefit that DashClicks offers over other platforms is its Inbound software application that offers integration with other marketing platforms including:

• ClickFunnels
• Instapage
• Facebook
• Google Ads
• Kartra
• CallRail
• PhoneSites
• ManyChat

Even if you prefer to utilize one of these other platforms for your initial funnel build, DashClicks allows you to instantly integrate your campaigns from any of these platforms. After integrating your sales funnel, you'll be able to automatically create new contacts from leads, create new deals from every interaction, and create automated actions such as email follow-ups depending on where the contact lies within your sales pipeline.

DashClicks offers three tiers of paid plans, but you can access the basics you need for your new funnel campaign with the free plan. This includes 500 contact records with a data import utility, one Inbound campaign with built-in reporting and lead freshness tracking, analytics tools, a customized dashboard with a white-labeled domain, and much more. Their paid plans range from $97/month for their Pro plan to $597/month for their highest-tier plan.

Image Source: DashClicks Leads CRM Dashboard

The major benefit of this platform is your ability to get all of the automated tools you need to enhance your funnel performance all within one account under one subscription. In addition to these marketing funnel tools, you'll get everything an agency could ever need including a form builder, 50-250GB of file storage, reputation management tools, dedicated support, and much more. They even provide a dedicated fulfillment store including website page creation and content marketing at additional costs, so that you can rely on a team of experts to build your new sales funnel for you.

2. SendPulse

SendPulse is a multi-channel marketing automation platform that optimizes communication with customers through email, SMS, web push, and messenger bots. SendPulse combines these channels to improve customer reach and engagement. Pricing starts at $6.40/month for a subscription plan. Also, you can pay for each email separately at a rate of $32 per 10,000 emails on a pay-as-you-go plan. There’s also a full featured 7-day free trial.

The free plan of SendPulse offers an opportunity for smaller businesses to start with their marketing and automation or to test out the platform’s basic functionalities before subscribing. Features include:

• Sending 15,000 emails to 500 subscribers each month.
• Basic automation with 5 flows and 1 event.
• 3 chatbots with 10,000 messages per month.
• CRM with 5 users, 2 sales pipelines and 2 boards.
• Intuitive visual builders for emails, websites, forms and workflows.
• 1 website or bio link page.
• Pop-ups.
• Unlimited web-push notifications for 10,000 subscribers.
• Sending 12,000 transactional emails per month.
• Template libraries for emails, websites, forms and workflows.
• Detailed statistics reports and analytics.

However, even if SendPulse's free plan generously allows for a good number of emails, bots and subscriber count, users are limited in their ability to add more without upgrading their plan. Additionally, many advanced premium features are not included which may limit marketing strategies.

SendPulse’s paid platform offers far more extensive features and capabilities. Paying users can enjoy the advantages of multi-channel marketing with unlimited numbers of emails and higher subscriber limits. The platform also provides access to advanced marketing automation, where users can automate marketing campaigns across multiple channels based on user behavior. Additionally, there’s the opportunity to use advanced segmentation, behavioral variables and event tracking for improved personalization of marketing efforts. This robust nature of the SendPulse paid platform makes it a reliable tool for growing businesses and marketing teams to communicate and engage with their customers more effectively.

3. ClickFunnels

ClickFunnels is one of the most popular sales funnel management tools among marketers and for great reason. This is a sales platform dedicated exclusively to building beautiful landing pages, collecting and tracking new signups, and seamlessly integrating payment solutions for immediate transactions.

Within the ClickFunnels platform, someone with zero HTML or CSS knowledge can quickly create multi-step sales marketing funnels that automatically walk prospects through the sales process. You can begin building from a variety of pre-existing templates or start from a completely blank page for full personalization. It also provides the option to create pop-ups with varying triggers, built-in timers, email marketing followup, and even SMS messaging with an additional integration.

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The basic ClickFunnels plan begins at $97/month and includes an unlimited contact book with the ability to create up to twenty unique marketing funnels. They offer two additional plans at $297/month and $2,497/month that offer unlimited campaigns, unlimited website pages, and email. The most expensive plan will also get you access to twenty-seven unique payment integrations, and the ability to use up to twenty-seven custom domains.

ClickFunnels also offers the powerful benefit of including built-in A/B testing tools, which allow you to test out new content and features within the same sales funnel. You can automatically pivot traffic to the best-performing pages and make optimizations as you go.

Finally, the platform offers all users access to support options and training tools. You can quickly access a library of resources for any particular issue you're facing with your sales funnel. Alternatively, you can quickly connect to a live chat and speak with an agent that will walk you through the solution for your sales funnel issues.

4. Systeme.io

Systeme.io is a powerful choice for marketing funnels due to the number of features being offered for no cost. Their free plan grants you the ability to create three sales funnels with up to ten total steps, a blog, a membership site, and much more. You'll gain the ability to send unlimited emails, unlimited file storage space, and the ability to add up to 2,000 contacts.

Systeme's free plan also grants you the following features, but limits them to just 1 per item:

• Automation Rules
• Workflows
• Tags
• Email Campaigns
• 1-Click Upsells
• A/B Tests
• Order Bumps
• Custom Domains

If you're looking to explore different options for your marketing funnels, Systeme.io offers all of the essentials to get started and then some. If you require a larger contact list or wish to create even more marketing funnels with these AI tools, you can upgrade to a paid plan which ranges from $27/month to $97/month. The most expensive plan grants you 15,000 contacts total as well as unlimited access to all other features.

In addition to the no limits offered with the highest-tier plan, you can migrate existing sales funnels into the Systeme.io platform. Finally, a team representative will meet with you one-on-one to coach you through all of the features and tools available to ensure that your marketing funnels are a success.

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While that covers the core features offered for marketing funnels, Systeme offers more with your membership plan including a drag-and-drop website builder that requires no coding knowledge. Rather than pay for additional memberships from other platforms, you can quickly create a beautiful website for your business or agency in addition to your next sales funnel. Within this membership site, you can create online courses for your members and easily regulate webpage access by membership tier.

5. HubSpot's Marketing Hub

HubSpot is one of the largest platforms available for marketing, sales, and customer service. It offers a vast number of free tools for anyone that signs up and furthers those benefits for subscribers. Rather than simply scaling membership fees behind certain limits, HubSpot tailors each of its plans to better suit the size and scope of a business with its Starter, Professional, and Enterprise plans. These range from $45/month to $3,200/month for large-scale operations.

Before we look at the paid plans, we'll go over the vast offerings you can get access to at no cost at all. Simply sign up for a free membership and gain access to the following:

• Create up to 20 landing pages
• 2,000 email sends per month
• Simple website audiences for any 2 supported integrations
• Create standalone, pop-up, embedded, and collected forms
• Segment submissions into 5 active lists or 1,000 static lists
• 1 automated form follow-up email
• 10 custom properties
• Basic live chat and chatbot
• Ad retargeting
• Ability to work through the HubSpot mobile app

This free membership grants marketers access to several new tools generally not offered by platforms without a monthly subscription. The caveat is that nearly all of these features will come with HubSpot branding. You cannot customize your branding or place your landing pages on a custom domain. Nevertheless, it's great for your basic needs and allows you to test out the platform with zero investment.

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If you're ready to upgrade and take ownership of your marketing funnels, you can do so with their Starter plan. You'll gain five times the number of contacts, access to more lists, reporting dashboard, email reply tracking, three automated emails, and 1,000 custom properties.

The biggest selling point for HubSpot is the ability to not only create and manage sales funnels, but to manage all other aspects of your business including sales, operations, and customer service all from one platform. The company takes the approach of offering each Hub as a separate membership so that business owners can select only the services they need to get the job done.

Its Sales Hub also starts at $45/month and can take the leads gained from your landing pages and begin the process of auto-creating contacts from submissions and assigning them to a sales representative and their own respective deal in a sales pipeline. Additional subscriptions will also grant you the ability to create and automate tasks, integrate payments, create custom goals, host videos and documents, and much more. While the vast array of tools available is impressive, some platforms offer similar tools for less of a cost overall.

6. Wishpond

Wishpond is an increasingly popular platform that focuses primarily on digital advertising, landing pages, and marketing funnel creation. While it does offer some basic features through its free version, those members will be limited to just 200 leads total, which doesn't amount to very much even for a smaller-sized business.

Its paid memberships range from $44/month to $199/month with the ability to expand your total lead contact list to one million upon request. That paid membership will grant you access to all of the essential tools you need to get the job done. This includes a drag-and-drop web builder for landing page creation, an online form builder for easy lead collection, email marketing, automated follow-ups, payment integration, and appointment scheduling.

Wishpond is also built for integration with Shopify stores, making it an excellent solution for eCommerce businesses. Its built-in reporting software not only tracks the quality of leads but provides day-to-day breakdowns of order activity. You'll also be able to set up additional email and SMS triggers based upon rules set by you and your team when actions are taken on your landing pages or website.

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While Wishpond offers the core features you need for marketing funnels and presents them well, its main drawback is that other platforms offer these same features for less. Platforms asking for more generally offer more core features to support your campaigns. In addition to this, there is currently no way to manage or post from social accounts directly from the platform.

If those issues aren't a dealbreaker, then Wishpond is a platform we can recommend due to its clean user interface and intuitive marketing funnel tools.

7. Instapage

Instapage is one that we would consider a direct competitor to ClickFunnels as both platforms are fully dedicated to the marketing funnel. However, while ClickFunnels provides a variety of solutions for different aspects of the sales process, Instapage promises a more in-depth landing page builder that might be more attractive to certain businesses.

For many business owners and marketers, the basics are all that's needed to get the job done. This is in no small part because your average business person will not know anything at all, or at least beyond the basics, of HTML or CSS coding and formatting. However, these simple web builders generally only feature very basic templates and lock their additional template library behind the most expensive plans.

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Instapage provides users with the best of both worlds by granting them the same ease of use as other building platforms, but without sacrificing the vast number of options. This includes hundreds of templates and layouts to work from, thousands of fonts, color schemes, and a built-in stock photo library. For those more technically inclined, Instapage still also supports third-party HTML, CSS, and Java.

Like ClickFunnels, you'll be able to conveniently A/B test various aspects of your funnel in real-time to get the most conversions possible. You'll be able to view reports of activity-based upon your content and make the necessary changes to improve underperforming areas.

If a dynamic builder is a high priority, then we highly recommend Instapage over other competitors. The downside is that you will still need to make use of other tools to manage other aspects of the marketing funnel and sales process. Instapage's primary concern is to help you deliver beautiful landing pages that perform and not much else.

8. Exceed.ai

Exceed.ai is a virtual sales assistant that can assist in qualifying the leads that you funnel through your landing pages. In the past, your team would need to contact every lead to determine which were worth pursuing. Now with the help of automated AI, you can eliminate that tedious work by having your leads speak with this sales assistant first.

The platform currently does not list public plans but instead shifts its pricing to the size and scope of your business. The AI is used for both marketing and sales and will communicate with all of your visitors as though it were a real person operating on your team.

This AI tool utilizes information provided by your company to assist in answering general questions from leads, gathering CRM data from your existing prospects, and providing a determination to the individual as to whether or not they qualify for the offer listed by your marketing funnel. For example, if the lead must meet a certain income quota to qualify for your offer, the AI chatbot will inform users that they do not qualify and eliminate the task from your plate entirely.

Image Source: Exceed.ai

Likewise, the AI assistant can continue the marketing and sales process by performing basic tasks such as scheduling appointments on your calendar. All of this collected data then appears in your CRM. If you are utilizing automation tools in conjunction, those leads and appointments will automatically be assigned to your sales representatives.

9. Akkio

Last, but not least, in our list of AI tools for successful marketing funnels is Akio - an automated conversion prediction software that converts your existing conversion data into an accurate prediction model.

Similar to Exceed's virtual assistant, Akkio provides what they call augmented lead scoring that compiles your historical marketing and deals data into a spreadsheet, and utilizes AI processing to predict future results. As with all predictive models, the tool becomes increasingly accurate as you feed it with more data to analyze. As a result, Akkio promises to combat the issue of customer churn, so that you can focus your resources on the leads that are most likely to convert.

Rather than dedicating staff to manually read spreadsheet after spreadsheet of lead data, experiment with Akkio at only $50/month to determine if this AI tool works for your marketing funnel needs. They also offer a free trial and a 20% discount for those who elect to pay in a lump sum annually.

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Utilize AI Tools for Successful Marketing Funnels

Artificial intelligence has forever changed the way we handle marketing and continues to improve with each passing day. The internet is filled with a variety of software and platforms that can assist businesses and marketing agencies with every aspect of funnel marketing from landing page construction, to lead qualification, and to appointment scheduling.

Each platform listed provides you with high-quality features you can use to get started with building your next marketing funnel. Depending on your needs and the tools currently used by your team, these recommendations can serve either all-in-one solutions or specific tools for hyper-focused purposes. Additional tools such as Facebook Ads, Exceed, and Akkio serve to augment the qualifying and nurturing aspects of your marketing funnel so that you can maximize your conversions and ROI.

Regardless of which tools your business chooses, it's important to note the power of the marketing funnel and how it can boost your profits. Investing in these tools will grant you a foundation for success that will serve you well into the future as AI continues to advance and change the way we advertise.

Your agency's website is one of the most powerful tools you can use to market your brand online. However, a well-designed website also needs to support SEO best practices in order for you to get the best results possible.

In this article, we'll outline how to create an SEO-friendly website for your digital marketing agency. You'll learn some of the best practices to implement when designing each page and provide the tools you need to get the job done efficiently and affordably.

How to Create an SEO-Friendly Website?

Creating an SEO-friendly website is no rocket science. According to Moz, satisfying search intent is the primary goal of Google, and therefore it should be the primary goal of SEOs. It is followed by user experience. So SEOs should focus on creating a fast and responsive website that answers user queries in minimum steps.

You can also use our Sites Tool to make a professional and SEO-friendly website. These websites are specifically designed for digital marketing agencies to convert more clients. You don't need any developers to create a website when you use this tool.

Here are some of the proven tips to develop an SEO-friendly website:-

1. Focus on Improving Your Website Speed

A fast, responsive website is one of the most important things for a marketing agency to possess. Digital marketing and advertising is an extremely competitive field that grants users hundreds, even thousands, of unique options. If any of your pages take longer than a couple of seconds to load, then you've already lost to your competition.

Studies indicate that conversion rates can drop by as much as 20% as page loading speed increases from 0-5 seconds. Compounding this negative result is the fact that Google's search ranking algorithm utilizes page speed and responsiveness as a ranking factor. Faster websites generally demonstrate lower bounce rates, greater retention time, and, therefore, rank higher than slower websites.

Fortunately, there are many solutions to ensure that your agency's website remains lightweight and quick. You should be certain to utilize Google's PageSpeed Insights tool to diagnose any speed-related errors that are impacting your website. It's as simple as entering your URL and allowing Google to render a list of errors and suggestions for optimizations.

Many modern website builders and CMSs feature built-in tools and plugins that help to improve loading times. This can help you to implement “lazy loading,” which describes the process of deferring the loading of content that is not immediately visible in the user’s viewport. This allows the website to load critical content first while loading additional images, videos, or texts later or as necessary.

A second tip is to compress images to an appropriate size that allows for faster rendering without compromising quality. Seldom is a full-size, high-resolution image imperative for general viewing, especially when those images are commonly viewed from a mobile device. Stick to image formats such as JPEG and PNG for faster rendering. The former generally allows for slightly higher quality at the cost of some speed, while the latter is built for maximum efficiency.

Finally, be sure to minify any HTML, CSS, or Javascript located on your website. When a browser attempts to communicate with a server and access your site, it reads each line of code one by one. The more information there is to process, the longer it will take to load the content.

We mentioned above how “lazy loading” can communicate which assets are vital to load immediately to a browser within these lines of code. However, you can further improve your speed by making sure to eliminate any redundancies in the code or chunks that are dead and no longer being used. This can commonly happen if you used a third-party tool at one point but are no longer relying on it. Even if your developer initially needs to write the code in a specific way to ensure functionality, they should take efforts to minify it as much as possible afterward.

For even more tips on how you can improve your page loading speeds, click here.

2. Keep it Mobile-Friendly

Another important Google ranking factor in addition to page speed is mobile readiness and responsiveness. More than half of the entire world’s web traffic now comes from a mobile device, whether it be a cellular phone or tablet. However, because these machines are generally less powerful and rely on 4G, 5G, or Wi-Fi connections, your website needs to accommodate this.

Google once again can be our ally as we can use Google Search Console to check our domain for any health errors. Included in this free error report are factors that are negatively impacting mobile performance. It will also include direct feedback as to what you can do to correct the unique errors that are affecting your website’s performance.

To avoid mobile-friendliness issues when designing your site, be sure to implement media queries in your CSS. A media query essentially identifies the content on your website that you wish to load based on the device being used to access it. This can greatly improve load times and performance by eliminating the process of loading unnecessary data that won't actually be used during the mobile experience.

With this in mind, you should tailor the appearance and layout of content to fit smaller viewports. This includes further optimizing images, condensing content (or temporarily hiding some of it via lazy loading), or eliminating media outright to keep the mobile design minimalistic and fast. A simple design and theme are essential for getting the most out of your mobile performance.

3. Optimize Your URLs and Meta Descriptions

The content on your website, your page URLs, and even your meta descriptions all assist Google's algorithm in understanding the purpose of your website. The better it understands the information on your website, the more confidence it has, and the more likely it will share your domain as a search result to inquiring search engine users.

In accordance with SEO best practices, you must manually optimize the URL for every page on your website. URLs should follow a consistent, organized structure, make sure of the primary keyword, and be free of any unnecessary characters and clutter. The poor URL structure will often contain dates, numbers that reference the page or post, and other unwanted characters that make it difficult for both the user and Google to read. However, an optimized URL might look something like this:

www.dashclicks.com/blog/best-seo-practices-in-2021/

This made-up website URL tells us everything we need to know about the specific page we are visiting and the pathway taken to get there. The use of “www” and “.com” are standard, necessary protocols, with our domain name taking center stage. Then, we describe the pathway by indicating that the active page is under our “Services” category. Finally, “Local SEO” describes the primary content and keyword for that page.

If you were to further optimize the rest of the URLs for this website, you would want to follow a similar structure to keep things uniform and efficient. If you utilize web pages that contain similar content for desktop and mobile viewing, be sure to address the primary version of the page with a canonical tag. This tells Google to only crawl the primary web page, which avoids a penalty for duplicated content.

Meta descriptions also communicate the content on a page to Google and the user. These are the brief descriptions that appear underneath a website on a search engine results page. You must manually enter an optimized meta description for each web page, or your CMS will like auto-populate the field with an excerpt it finds on-page.

While there is no “limit” on meta description length, Google will truncate anything longer than 160 characters. This cuts your idea off mid-thought and generally looks less appealing than a clean, concise description. Try to keep your description less than this character limit. Additionally, a meta description should help communicate what a person can expect to find when clicking the link. It should not be clickbait, dishonest, or misleading. You should use it as your opportunity to advertise and intrigue your potential visitors.

You can learn how to write the perfect meta description here.

4. Protect Your Website and Your Users

Yet another ranking factor for Google is upgrading your website from the HTTP protocol to HTTPS. This is the process used between your website server and a browser to access and download information. Google promises to elevate the rankings of websites that feature an encryption protocol over those that do not.

HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is the standard protocol used across the web. HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) indicates that an encryption protocol has been added to the process. This is done by purchasing an SSL certificate to protect any data transferred between your website and the end-user.

You can upgrade your website to HTTPS by purchasing an SSL certificate for your website. This verifies ownership of the domain and ensures that any data transmitted is being sent to the correct server. It also encrypts any data being sent to protect it from threats online. There are a variety of SSL certificates to purchase depending on the size of your brand and your needs, but a basic SSL certificate will suffice for most small businesses. eCommerce websites will want to consider purchasing a more sophisticated SSL certificate to protect sensitive data used in financial transactions.

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5. Feature Keyword-Optimized Content

When most people think of SEO, they think of keywords and keyword ranking. Featuring keyword-optimized content throughout your entire website is a foundational component of any strong SEO strategy.

After you design your website, you will need informational content for users to consume. This content should concisely describe your brand, your various services, your unique value proposition, and anything else that can assist the reader in making informed decisions as a consumer. The average word count is roughly 500-700 words per page, but more will work to your benefit so long as the content is of high quality. The longer the content, the more opportunities there are to use keywords and describe your business.

Not only is this information empowering for your visitors, but it also helps Google understand the nature of your business. Marketers use keywords that exhibit high search volume and match the content with consumer intent. Focusing on the right keywords and ensuring that your content falls into the hands of the right kind of consumer is key to boosting the amount of content on your site.

After you're satisfied with your core web pages, you need to consider adding a blog to your website and integrating it into your SEO strategy. Rather than bloating your pages with excess content that distracts, expand your keyword strategy by writing information articles for your blog. This allows you to create additional content that focuses on a variety of topics that are relevant to your industry. Because blogs serve to inform and educate rather than sell, this can help to build trust between you and your audience and establish your brand as a reliable authority.

6. Use Internal Linking

Internal linking is another vital SEO strategy that serves to keep visitors on your website for longer periods of time. Any time that a page links to another page on the same website, it's known as an internal link.

Internal linking should be implemented naturally and suggest content to visitors that relates to the content on the page that they are visiting. For example, you may want to direct users from one service to additional related services that can help with the topic at hand. Additionally, you can sprinkle notes in blog articles that address issues or topics that are immediately relevant to the products or services you offer.

Internal linking also serves the purpose of helping Google crawl and understand your website better. When you manually create connections between pages, Google's web crawler will follow those links and process those additional connections. The more relevant data it receives, the more confidence it has in using your website as a search result for keyword-related topics.

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7. Build Up Your Backlinks

While an internal link connects two pages within the same site, a backlink is whenever another website links back to a page on your website. Backlinks are incredibly valuable for your SEO and can noticeably boost your rankings when implemented correctly.

When you build a brand-new website, it starts with no previous relationship with Google's search algorithm. Even when you utilize best design and content practices, it takes time and consistency to build the authority and confidence you need to progress upward through the ranks. However, a backlink from a website that already has authority and confidence with Google can help to boost the SEO value of your own.

You can think of a quality backlink as a vote of confidence from peers that consistently utilize best SEO practices. Google understands the nature of those websites and the brand. When that website backlinks to yours, Google then assumes that your brand is tangentially or directly related to the subject matter by association. From a user perspective, that trusted website also directs its traffic to your webpage. The more incoming traffic to your website, the better your results will be when it comes to your SEO efforts.

With that said, building backlinks requires more outreach and effort than other strategies. You will need to connect with webmasters and look for opportunities to bring your brands together. A common method of doing this is by writing guest blogs for other websites, which then allows you to boost your own website and online profiles naturally. This calls back to our reliance on high-quality, keyword-rich content that provides legitimate value to consumers. If your marketing team offers the ability to build monthly backlinks to your site, the impact on your SEO will be significant.

Get an SEO-Friendly Website for Your Agency Today!

With these tips in mind, you might be wondering where to start when it comes to building your website. DashClicks' brand-new platform offers marketing agencies the ability to create a fully-branded site instantly when you sign up and utilize our Sites application.

Every paid account owner is eligible to select from a variety of templates to use as their new agency website. These websites are low-cost, lightweight, and complete with everything your business needs to hit the ground running. When you select from our list of existing website templates, you get the following immediately:

• A 15-page website hosted by Amazon Web Services
• A ready-to-go SSL Certificate
• SEO-friendly content for every page that features your personal branding
• Personalized branding throughout the site – upload your assets and get moving
• Built-in contact forms and call-to-actions
• Daily website backups to protect you from losing any data
• Drag-and-drop web builder (no coding knowledge required)
• Built-in website analytics to track visitor activity

Among these pages includes a ready-to-go blog page, which you can use to start creating high-quality, informational content that's relevant to your industry. Simply create a new entry, start writing, and post at any time. The easy-to-navigate menus also simplify the SEO process by giving clear fields to customize your URLs, meta descriptions, search images, and more. These sites are built to be lightweight, fast, and mobile-ready for every new agency.

All you need to do is update your DNS records, point them to the new website, and your new website will be updated with your custom domain. After purchasing your new site, it's yours forever. We can provide ongoing SEO support by providing the strategies mentioned above and more, including content creation, backlink building, on-page hygiene, and keyword research.

Build SEO-Friendly Websites for Prospects

In addition to claiming your new website, a membership will grant you access to our InstaSites application, which allows you to instantly create similar websites for your prospects. You can modify these websites to your liking at any time and only need to purchase when you successfully convert your prospect into a customer.

Our InstaSites selection features well over 200 website templates that span 60+ unique industries. These sites use the same technology that allows you to automatically personalize each site with the prospect's name and branding. Our easy-to-use drag-and-drop editor requires no coding knowledge and allows you to make some final editing touches that can secure the sale.

The number of pages included varies based upon the template, but each includes all the SEO-friendly content a site needs to get started immediately. These sites utilize the same system and processes as our agency websites, making it convenient and simple to get your clients moving. It makes your workload easier, and the speed and quality are guaranteed to impress any prospect.

If that's not enough, our InstaReports software allows you to instantly create reports for your prospects that explicitly outline site health errors with their existing site. Quickly compare these issues with the immediate conveniences offered by our ready-to-go websites and start securing more deals than ever before. Our platform offers everything a marketing agency needs to improve its online presence, secure new clients, and fulfill services all in one location.

Conclusion

Creating an SEO-friendly website requires strategy and commitment to see the job done correctly. Each page not only needs to be well-designed for a high-quality user experience but also needs to be fast and responsive for mobile devices. You can look into addressing these issues immediately by utilizing free tools mentioned above, such as Google PageSpeed Insights and Google Search Console.

Improve the security of your website by purchasing an appropriate SSL certificate that meets your brand's needs. Google promises an SEO ranking boost for site owners that utilize HTTPS and protect their visitors according to their own standards. Not only do you receive this direct boost, but a secure website is immediately visible to visitors and establishes the trust you need to acquire new and returning visitors.

You can further boost your site's SEO value by ensuring that each page is complete with high-quality, keyword-rich content. You can continue supporting your core website pages by investing your time into a blog that features informational or newsworthy content that interests visitors and is relevant to your industry. When building this content library, be sure to utilize internal links whenever possible. Then, begin your commercial outreach to connect with other website owners that can provide you with valuable backlinks over time.

Finally, note that building an SEO-friendly website is not a one-and-done process. Google's algorithm changes almost daily, and this varies from having minimal to substantial impacts on how a website's health and value is ranked. Continue to monitor your website regularly, utilize Google's free tools to check for errors, and implement the necessary changes to ensure that each page is healthy and SEO-friendly. With consistent practice, any new digital marketing agency website can work its way to the top of search rankings.

When researching the latest marketing campaign strategies, don't make the mistake of overlooking the strict legalities in place when it comes to advertising. While many common mistakes will simply result in a flag or ad takedown, other mistakes can cost you thousands in penalties. Violations can even cost you to lose your professional licenses when applicable.

Fortunately, education regarding these laws is readily available and not all may necessarily apply to your business. Below, we'll tackle some of the most important regulations that you should be aware of and follow before creating your next digital marketing campaign.

The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003

The CAN-SPAM Act defines the FTC’s obligation regarding electronic messaging as follows: “defining the relevant criteria to facilitate the determination of the primary purpose of an electronic mail message.”

In other words, the FTC mandates that all businesses must clearly disclose the purpose of any emails to consumers and be explicit in their messaging in the headline, subject, and body of any content. The business must also provide the recipient with a legitimate method to opt out of any marketing and honor those requests appropriately.

The easiest way to ensure that your business never violates this act is to always be completely direct and truthful when it comes to any email marketing campaigns you employ. You need to express to the consumer somewhere in the email that this is an advertisement, provide only accurate details regarding the products or services advertised, and disclose any information that the consumer should know. This includes the domain address of the sender and the physical location of the business.

If you are ever unsure if your email messaging falls under this, consider the intent of the email. If it is being sent to inform the consumer of a promotion, a special deal, or any of your products or services that could result in a business transaction, the email is commercial. Therefore, you must fully comply with all regulations.

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If the email is transactional, such as an order confirmation message or receipt, then your email is not necessarily classified as commercial. Nevertheless, all information found within must be accurate and explicitly educate the customer with accurate data.

You can follow the link above to the Federal Trade Commission's website to review every protocol in detail to ensure that your messaging is not in violation of this act. Failure to comply with all regulations can result in a fine of $43,792.

Though CAN-SPAM is specific to the United States, most countries around the globe feature their own version of email marketing and consumer privacy laws. If you are outside of the country, be sure to research the mandates as set by your government.

COPPA - Children's Online Privacy Protection Act

COPPA is an act enforced by the Federal Trade Commission that regulates data collection for advertising from individuals under the age of thirteen. While this particular act applies only to the United States, countries worldwide feature similar privacy protection laws. However, the age will vary depending on your country.

The most common way that businesses deal with the COPPA act is by asking users to disclose their age whenever creating an account with them online. Users younger than the age of thirteen are generally not allowed to create an account. Others may not do this as they believe that their products or services are not marketed to younger persons.

However, taking the latter approach can potentially be risky as you are entirely subject to the ruling of the FTC. The Act targets businesses that actively promote material directed at individuals under the age of thirteen. This idea is ambiguous as to what can be defined as “directed.” It also can apply to businesses that generally target wide audiences as opposed to strictly targeting adults. You can review an extensive list of definitions regarding this act from the government here.

If you so much as suspect that your business must comply with COPPA, be sure to do the following:

• Disclose to your customers on the website how you collect data about children and how it is used. Every website should contain a Privacy Policy outlining this. However, additional efforts should be made to connect with parents regarding this matter.
• Provide parents the ability to regulate and review data collection from within their accounts. Many websites require a parent to also make an account when creating an underage account so that parents can easily monitor any activities and data collection on the website.
• During account creation, ask for parental consent before beginning any type of data collection from an underaged person.
• Demonstrate on the site your ability to successfully secure information about underaged persons and maintain confidentiality.
• Never entice an underaged person with prizes or free goods for more information.
• Make the effort to remove any data you have about underaged persons when it is no longer useful for your business purposes.

COPPA also applies to businesses located in other countries that target United States users.

Truth in Advertising

Truth in Advertising is a series of laws set by the Federal Trade Commission to protect consumers from false or harmful information in commercial advertising. Any business found guilty of perpetrating fraud is subject to asset seizing and freezing, serious financial penalties, and/or a federal lawsuit that can result in significant jail time. You can learn more specific details from the FTC here.

Examples of areas examined closely by Truth in Advertising include:

• FTC Green Guides for environmentally-friendly goods
• Fraudulent health and wellness claims
• Funeral marketing and the protection of vulnerable consumers
• Fraudulent and deceptive practices concerning gift cards and virtual currency
• Promoting goods with fraudulent or misleading endorsements
• Any claims about a product or good lacking legitimate scientific evidence

The FTC has also found it necessary to inform users of unlawful conduct in regards to global events such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Effectively, it is the business’s complete obligation to present strictly factual information to consumers regarding any advertisement, purchase, or interaction otherwise.

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While these policies are broad and cover a lot of territories, the rule of complying is simple: do not lie to or mislead your customers under any circumstances. While it may not necessarily be your obligation to educate customers about certain matters, you can never promote or advertise a product or service without supporting factual and scientific evidence even if you, yourself, choose to believe otherwise.

Truth in Healthcare Marketing Act of 2017

The Truth in Healthcare Marketing Act of 2017 exists to protect consumers from any marketing or business practices that misrepresent a person's legitimate medicinal expertise. In other words, an individual or business may not sell products or services under the guise of being a medical professional if they do not possess the appropriate training, qualifications, and licenses.

This marketing regulation should generally only apply to healthcare providers that solicit medical services. If you are a healthcare specialist, run a medical clinic that offers health and wellness services, or offer PA to MD bridge programs, you must disclose the necessary qualifications as determined by your state.

For example, when marketing prescription medications like semaglutide tablets, healthcare providers must be transparent about their qualifications and ensure all claims about the medication's effects are supported by scientific evidence.

The Act also mandates that healthcare providers cannot promote or sell medical practices or products that are not fully supported by medical and scientific evidence. Failure to adhere to this policy could result in major penalties including a permanent suspension of medical licenses to practice.

While the healthcare provider themself will almost certainly be well-educated regarding federal and state policies for healthcare and patient privacy, your average marketer may not be up to speed. If you are providing marketing services for a healthcare professional, be sure to educate yourself regarding healthcare policies and privacy acts. Be sure to work with your client to ensure that you fully disclose qualifications and studies when necessary in any marketing materials.

The FTC Green Guides

Areas concerning environmental marketing terms fall under the Truth in Advertising rules mentioned above. The Green Guides are rules provided by the FTC to guide brands on how to properly define and utilize terms for their products or services that concern the environment. You can find details from the FTC here.

These guides cover a vast amount of terminology, so you will need to review these guides for yourself before making any types of claims. You will also want to double-check any terminology you wish to use to ensure that your version of the definition complies with the definitions determined by the FTC.

As with most advertising regulations, simply avoid making any unsubstantiated claims about the environmental-friendliness of your products or services. You should research terms or phrases such as “recyclable,” “renewable,” “non-toxic,” or “free-of” before including them in your marketing.

The Protection of Consumer Privacy

This section entails another subset of laws that regulate how businesses can utilize data that they collect from their customers. This applies to transactional information, data regarding finances and debts, personal browsing data and security, and COPPA, which was discussed previously above. You can learn more about the FTC's approach to protecting consumer privacy here.

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Where it can get tricky is that these laws will apply to your business if you do any type of business with people that live in a location. That means, for example, that a United States business that interacts with European customers must still comply with European law regarding consumer privacy. An example of this includes the General Data Protection Regulations which dictates how much data you can save from consumers, while also complying with requests to erase it.

You can learn more about the various consumer privacy laws by state using this informative guide. Depending on how strict the state regulations are, you may need to provide consumers with the right to access their personal data, the right to correct any personal data, or the right to delete any personal data. You must, however, always disclose what information is collected and what isn't through a Privacy Policy on any business website.

Read Copyright Laws Before Using Content

It should go without saying, but you cannot use just any content you find on the internet to advertise or promote your business. All content including images, videos, or text is considered the private property of the owner unless otherwise dictated for public use. For this reason, you are likely already using or looking into royalty-free websites for your images, videos, or audio.

However, many businesses commonly overlook the fine print when downloading content from these sites for use. In many circumstances, the content may only be available for use for editorial or informational purposes. The issue arises due to confusion over phrases such as “creative commons” and “public domain.”

Public domain content applies to any content that no longer has copyright or was created by the U.S. government for public use. You may utilize public domain content for any purpose including commercial use.

Creative commons websites will generally feature a variety of content that can either be free to use, free to use but with restrictions, or copyrighted. The first is similar to the public domain. The second will depend on the restrictions put into effect by the owner and may prevent you from using it in marketing. The last point fully excludes you from using it unless you gain permission from the owner either through mutual benefit or by paying for a license to use it.

Disclose Relationships with Influencers

A common digital marketing strategy is to build relationships with influencers that can endorse and help sell your products or services. However, the FTC has mandated that businesses and influencers must disclose their relationship with one another for consumer knowledge. You can find full guidelines from the FTC on how to approach this here.

To quickly summarize the guidelines, any influencer you compensate for promoting your product must visibly disclose their status as a sponsored influencer. You can quickly satisfy this requirement by tagging a product or service post with “#Ad”. You can also say things like “Sponsored by” or “product provided by…” when creating your promotional content.

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Influencers must then follow the same marketing regulations described by the FTC as you would yourself. In this sense, the influencer is seen as an extension of the business and you will be liable for any violations of any policies put into effect for consumer protection. This includes making unsubstantiated claims about the benefits of a product or providing false information about what the product or service actually provides. They also cannot be an influencer for a product they have not used themselves, but this can be a little more difficult to prove in some situations.

If you attempt to work with influencers for marketing purposes, it is your responsibility to educate them and ensure they comply with all of the rules. Failure to comply with these rules will result in penalties against your business. As a general rule, influencers will be keen to behave responsibly as their reputation depends upon positive relationships with brands online.

Allow Consumers to Share Honest Reviews

Last, but not least, all consumers must be afforded the right to post their honest reviews of your brand. This means that you cannot unlawfully prevent someone from leaving a review about your business on a directory, social website, or other platforms. While you can and should select positive reviews for your website or advertisements, you cannot penalize a consumer or impose a contract that prevents them from providing a review.

If a user does happen to leave a negative review that you find harmful or dishonest, you must follow the rules set out by the platform. You can choose to engage in honest interaction by replying to the post and addressing criticisms in a public manner. If the user is unwilling to delete their review, you can write to support and discuss the issue directly. Try to provide proof of any false claims and ask to have the review removed. If your claim is legitimate, the support team may be able to remove the negative review of your business.

You can learn more about the exact details concerning the Consumer Review Fairness act here.

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Make Sure Your Campaigns Do Not Break Marketing Laws

While managing your marketing campaign strategy is no task, do not allow your brand to inadvertently break any laws regarding fair and ethical advertising. Even accidental violations can result in hefty financial penalties. Bigger violations could have even larger ramifications that alter your ability to do business forever.

This document is by no means a comprehensive list but should serve as a starting point to bring awareness to how heavily regulated the advertising industry is. Start by considering your business industry and the audience you directly market to and begin your research regarding the policies and regulations that apply to your brand.

In all cases, make every effort to demonstrate honest and ethical practices and a commitment to good faith concerning consumer interactions.

"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.

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.