Banner Ads And Visual Marketing

Banner Ads And Visual Marketing. Banner advertising has come a long way since its humble beginnings centuries ago. Yes, that’s right… centuries Flip through any old newspaper or publication from the American colonial era and you’ll find rectangular banner ads pitching everything from beer to stockings, complete with a main image, carefully chosen brand colors, a motto or unique selling proposition, and even a call-to-action! Of course, we’re not here to discuss old print banner ads for stylish powdered wigs or state-of-the-art wooden dentures (although it is useful to remember how long the ancestors of today’s digital banners have been around). In this 4 articles set we’re going to discuss modern digital banner ads in all their glory. So, for starters, what are they? Basically, banner advertisements are actionable, clickable, tappable images that invite web visitors to buy, learn about, or receive something in exchange for a click-through. These ads can appear anywhere and are typically seen within and around the content of various websites such as the header area on a forum page, the sidebar of a blog or news site, or even squeezed in among the paragraphs of a news article. What are banner Ads? These banner ads come in all shapes and sizes (typically variations of the trusty old rectangle) and will either be static (.jpg, .png, or .gif) images or animated (.gif or Flash) banners. In more recent years, some businesses have been leveraging “Rich Media” banner ads that do all sorts of whacky stuff like send a car zooming across your screen in front of the article you were reading. And these ads aren’t going anywhere soon. Banner ads still make up around 34% of all online ad spending, second only to Search Engine Marketing (SEM). So, since they’ve been around for hundreds of years and businesses are spending a ton on them every year, clearly, they work. The question is, should you be using them in your business? Click on the images below to download the PDF and MP3 files: To Know More…Visit us at: JoseFrancOnline.com If you are interested in Internet Marketing, Get FREE GIFTS in: “YOUR GIFTS” Our Product About Visual Marketing Visual Marketing Mate Become an affiliate and get commissions! JoseFrancOnline.com/affiliates.html

Facebook Marketing – Mistakes to Avoid

There are very common marketing mistakes that even promotion veterans commit on Facebook. It seems like even the very best of us are not immune to these common mistakes. It’s a good idea, if you want to save a lot of time, effort and money at this point, to become aware of these mistakes. This will decrease the likelihood that you will probably commit these same errors. Starting Off Paid Campaigns with a Bang Do not start off your paid campaigns with a bang. Start with a free campaign first, build your audience organically, get some consumer intelligence, then you should have the information you need to put together an experimental paid marketing campaign. Start low and slow. The worst thing you can do is to jump in with a massive budget, and absolutely no clue. Starting a Paid Campaign with an Immature Page If your page is very new or there’s really not that much engagement yet, you might want to hold off on a paid campaign. You simply don’t have enough target audience profiling information to base a successful paid campaign on. Using Mass Content Posters with Discovery Tools Many marketers use some sort of one-size-fits-all mass promotions tool for Facebook. They would discover all sorts of Facebook groups and pages, and then they would use this tool to spam those areas. Don’t do that. You’re not doing your brand any favors when you do that. All you’re really doing is you’re spamming. It’s only a matter of time until you get banned! Promoting Direct Affiliate Links or Direct Sales Page Links There’s an old saying, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.” By the same token, you can get a lot of people on Facebook to click on your links, but don’t expect them to convert once they go to that affiliate sales page or your own direct sales page. Why won’t people buy? After all, they did click on your ad, right? Answer: they haven’t been properly qualified. In many cases, they clicked out of curiosity. Maybe they clicked by mistake. Whatever the case, you still did not get a sale! Posting direct links is not the way to go. You have to build confidence. You have to build trust first. Pulling Random Content and Curating Them Based Solely on Keywords You can’t be lazy and just set Facebook publication tools up to just pull any and all content from Facebook that has something to do with your keywords and then just blast them out. You’re just spamming when you do that. You have to be very deliberate and careful regarding the kind of content, whether curated or not, that you will associate with your brand. Rotating and Republishing the Same Content Over and Over Again Have you ever gone to a Facebook page and it seems like all the content got reposted over and over again within the same day? The idea behind this practice is that the more the Facebook audience members see the content, the more likely they will click through. It looks like you’re just spamming your page fans over and over again. Don’t be surprised if they unlike your page. Wholesale “Optimization” of Ads Another common rookie mistake on Facebook involves paid ads. If you notice that one of your ads is simply not performing, it’s very tempting to just come up with a brand new ad by completely replacing the ad with something that looks totally different. When you do this, you really don’t know which part of the new ad is succeeding or failing. You’re basically taking shots in the dark. If your ad’s performance improves, you don’t know what caused the improvement. You have to have some sort of strategy or method that will enable you to track where the improvement in your click-through and, ultimately, your conversion rates are coming from. Simply swapping out ads in total or in whole doesn’t really give you the data that you need to make effective decisions. Copy and Paste Competitor Ad Strategy Some marketers are so lazy that they would just look at their competitors and essentially just copy their ads. Of course, they’re not going to copy word for word, but they still end up failing. How come? Well, your competitors spent a tremendous amount of money optimizing the ads that they’re showing. Their ads work. However, you won’t get a competitive advantage if you copy them wholesale. You can’t just copy somebody’s ad without knowing what you’re doing. Indeed, only a certain portion of your competitor’s ads truly deliver results. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you don’t know what portion that is, so you’re basically taking a wild stab at your ad’s design. You may be saying the wrong things at the right time, or you’re saying the right things to the wrong people. You end up failing. Quitting Paid Marketing Too Early Many rookie Facebook marketers have a one-time, big time mindset. They’ve heard of how awesome Facebook traffic is so they put together some hard-earned, precious capital to run an ad campaign. If the campaign doesn’t work out according to their expectations, they’re too quick to pull the plug and quit FB ads altogether. Just because things aren’t working out, it doesn’t mean that you have to pull the plug on the whole thing. You can stop certain campaigns and start new ones and operate with the same budget. You can make modifications of your existing campaigns. Failing Like a Huge Train Wreck Have you ever seen a slow-motion train wreck? It’s quite sad because it’s all too predictable, but you can’t turn your head and look the other way. You want to know what’s coming next. You know, at the back of your head, what exactly is going to happen, but it’s so slow, so massive, that you just can’t help but look. Your Facebook marketing campaign can proceed the same way. You know that the

Marketing School – Digital Marketing and Online Marketing Tips: 4 Secrets to Skyrocket Your Traffic with Long-Tail SEO | Ep. #1341

In episode #1341, we share four secrets to rapidly increase your traffic with long-tail SEO. There are several resources and tools that can help you find relevant keywords and thereby improve your SEO. Tune in to hear how monitoring the performance of your posts can help you to remain proactive! TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:25] Today’s topic: Four Secrets to Skyrocket Your Traffic With Long-Tail SEO. [00:33] Look for all the related keywords that people are searching for. [01:13] Blend the keywords in with the rest of your text so that it flows well. [01:26] Monitor the traffic from your high and low performing posts. [02:00] Check out The Beginner’s Guide to SEO by Moz and structure your content this way. [02:50] Use power pages and pillar pieces and how they differ. [03:31] The tools you can use to find keywords and add them to your content. [03:55] That’s it for today! [03:57] To stay updated with events and learn more about our mastermind, go to the site for more information. Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: This post was originally published on mschool.growtheverywhere.libsynpro.com And also… Learn Online Marketing in Just 5 Minutes a Day Do you want to learn how to generate more traffic and sales on a website? My name is Neil Patel and my goal is to teach you one new marketing tactic each day. Subscribe here to learn more of my secret SEO tips: https://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=neilvkpatel Find me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/neilkpatel/ Read more on my blog: https://neilpatel.com/blog/ On this channel, you’ll find tons of marketing videos that will teach you a specific internet marketing tactic in less than 5 minutes. The videos are short, to the point, and more important contain step by step instructions.

Facebook Pages Just Got a Lot More Customizable

Back in 2006, creating a Facebook Page was mind-numbingly simple. You picked your URL, uploaded a picture, filled out a few boxes, and that was it. Unlike its chief rival, MySpace, there was no mucking about with HTML, no picking the right animated backgrounds, no blinking green fonts to fine-tune. Of course, the flipside of that simplicity was a complete lack of control. Your page was indistinguishable from every other. White background, Helvetica, blue buttons, a simple newsfeed-type layout. Facebook has slowly been adding options to the mix the past few years. You still can’t create a true rotating-skull-gif masterpiece like you could on MySpace, but you can make your page more useful to your audience. This week, Facebook began rolling out a new batch of settings for pages. These new options are aimed squarely at marketers; they’re all about converting traffic into action (and paying Facebook for more action whenever possible). Here’s how to optimize your shiny new Facebook Page. #1: Brush up Your Images It’s not all “brave new world of tomorrow;” most of the changes are far enough under the hood that your casual traffic won’t notice them. Your trusty profile and cover photos are still the first thing people see: So now is a good time to give both images a once-over. Are they visually compelling? Are they the right size and resolution? Make sure you’re putting your best face forward. Your profile picture should be square, 170×170 pixels. The cover photo should be 851×315 pixels. Use a JPG for the cover photo if it has lots of color depth. For photos with large flat areas of color or lots of text, use PNG instead. If your images look good and your CTA button is ready to for action, you can start organizing your page. #2: Choose a Template First, head to the “Settings” button at the top of your screen. Then select “Edit Page”: Here’s where you can drill down into how your page looks to your potential audience. Start by having a look at the types of templates available. If you’re in a few very specific industries, Facebook has you covered for a preset look: • Shopping is for ecommerce sites. It highlights your products and encourages people to buy • Venues puts the focus on your upcoming events, hours, and location • Gaming highlights your fans, with a tab for Groups where fans can connect. • Politician encourages people to send messages, and features photos and videos your page shares • Professional Services has a “Call Now” CTA and puts your Services tab up at the top of the list • Restaurants & Cafés is designed to highlight your hours of operation, location and menu Each of these templates automatically rearranges your tabs and buttons. Before you choose one, take a look at the details to see which tabs are featured—if you pick a template that’s missing some of your current tabs, those tabs will disappear. In the incredibly likely event that your industry doesn’t fit neatly into one of these six templates, you can… #3: Rearrange Your Tabs (And Your Feed) Your page has a row of tabs on the left side that people can click to go straight to specific types of content. This is where you can make a huge difference in how your page looks and feels. In the new layout, the order of your tabs top to bottom determines the order content is displayed on your page. In other words: If you put the Photos tab at the top of the list, your latest pics will show right under your profile picture. If you put Events up top, visitors will see the event and your “Buy Tickets” CTA button first. You don’t have to pin one post and hope for the best! You can show viewers exactly what you want them to see! O, frabjous day. Put your most relevant content types at the top, and turn off tabs you don’t need: Make sure your most visible content will lead to the action that’s most valuable to your goals. If you’re raising awareness, photos or videos might be the top. If you’re keeping your audience up to date on news, keep your posts up top, etc. Note that Facebook will sometimes add a “Featured for You” box at the top of the feed for individual visitors, with content its almighty algorithms determined will be of most interest. #4: Take Advantage of the New Posting Templates The final change you will notice is a row of colorful boxes underneath your usual “Write something” post prompt: This is Facebook’s less-than-subtle way of clueing us into new post templates(and, of course, subtly encouraging specific types of posts). Each icon leads to a custom form you can fill out to quickly create ads, invite discussion, create events, and more. If none of the templates is appealing, just click in the “Write something” box to write a plain ol’ post, just like grandpa and grandma used to write. #5: See the Final Results Once you’re done customizing and adding new content, take a look at what your page looks like to visitors. Your view is full of buttons, tips and tools to help you funnel advertising cash to Facebook. If you log out completely, you can look at the page as a visitor—but the bottom half of the screen will have a big “Sign Up or Log In” banner. It can take some clicking around to find the “View as Visitor” option—it’s hiding in the “More” button just below your profile picture: Take a minute to look around and make sure your page is looking its best. Give Your Facebook a Facelift Even with these changes, Facebook Pages will never be confused with a properly-optimized, well-designed landing page. Still, you can exercise a lot more control now over how your audience encounters and interacts with your page. So brush up your images, get your tabs in order—and most importantly, keep serving up

5 ways your merchandising strategy is affecting SEO performance

How does your merchandising strategy affect SEO? Columnist Stephanie LeVonne describes the various challenges that can arise if you overlook the importance of communicating your merchandising strategy with your SEO team. When optimizing an e-commerce website for SEO performance, you’ll often notice that the product being sold (i.e., the bread and butter of the business) is generally not a focal point in the SEO discussion. After all, SEO recommendations aren’t necessarily based on a brand’s product mix, but rather a strategy is developed based on the holistic needs of the website. While it’s important to understand the product and how it’s positioned in the marketplace (luxury product, discount product or something else), that’s typically where the conversation ends. Often SEOs liaise directly with marketing managers, and because of this, there’s generally little discussion around the merchandising strategy and how it can affect SEO. Below are five common, yet overlooked, scenarios which detail the importance of communicating your merchandising strategy. Challenge 1: Inventory issues & negative reviews What does inventory management have to do with SEO? Turns out, a lot. While I think it’s safe to say that most brands use a live inventory system, meaning that stock-status is updated in real time, some companies haven’t yet adopted this technology. And for this reason, order fulfillment can become a real challenge. One consequence of having loosely managed inventory is overselling merchandise. While this is undoubtedly a huge problem, it may not seem like one that affects SEO, until of course, we examine the trickle-down effect. Essentially, orders that cannot be fulfilled will need to be refunded in a timely manner. While this might not seem like a criminal offense, telling someone that the sweater they ordered for Christmas is now on back-order probably isn’t going to make them a brand advocate any time soon — especially if this is their first interaction with the brand. While some customers might call to voice their concern, many will likely take to social media or Yelp to air their grievances. What was once a problem with fulfillment has now turned into a full-fledged issue of reputation management. Challenge 2: Out-of-stock products & schema markup Perhaps your brand has implemented “stock” schema markup which allows you to display whether products are in stock or out of stock directly in the SERPs. This nifty little enhancement gives consumers information at the tips of their fingers, without ever interacting with your landing page. Going back to the inventory management discussion, the real problem begins when products that are frequently going out of stock aren’t updating their stock status on the back end as they are replenished. This can result in incorrect “out of stock” messaging appearing in the SERPs. In the most extreme cases, depending on how your products are set up in your CMS, one color variation going out of stock could trigger all instances of the product to appear completely out of stock. Not only will you lose sales, but your traffic will likely take a hit as well. As a best practice, continually check the appearance of your schema markup on a regular basis. If worse comes to worst, you can always temporarily disable the schema until you get a handle on the situation. Challenge 3: Product variants & canonical tags One common issue that many websites face is URL confusion (i.e., multiple products or pages competing against each other in the SERPs). In the case of many e-commerce sites, these are often products which are identical but differ in color. An easy way to mitigate this issue is to use color swatches on each page and ensure that when a color is selected, it does not generate a dynamic parameter in the URL. Color swatches allow for consumers to browse all variants of a product — and since only one URL is created, you reduce the chance of duplicate content. Source: Nordstrom.com While this would be deemed a “best practice” rather than a strategy, there are still some websites that create individual URLs for each different color of a product and each different size. For instance, if you offer the same shoe in red, gray and black, and it’s available in six different sizes, imagine the number of pages that would generate! (Hint: It’s a lot) Another common scenario that can have major implications is the following: Product goes out of stock and page is taken down, and product comes back in stock and new page is created. Firstly, let’s address the fact that taking down a page or removing it from your navigation does NOT mean it’s gone. In fact, that page is likely still live and being indexed, especially if it’s in your XML sitemap. Without a solid canonical tag strategy in place, you will inevitably create pages and pages of duplicate content. If this is an issue for your brand, it’s essential to make sure you have canonical tags in place. Ideally, you should try to have one product page where users can select multiple colors. In the event that the product goes out of stock, you could change the on-page messaging to say something like, “This product is temporarily unavailable — check back soon” rather than remove the page in its entirety, especially if there is a slim chance you will remember to reinstate it. Challenge 4: Never-ending sales Whether your brand plays in the luxury space or targets the bargain-savvy shopper, you understand the power of a good promotion. Sales generate a sense of urgency which entices consumers to buy now. With many retailers trying to take advantage of unofficial holidays (think “national ice cream cone day”) it’s easy to get overzealous with your promotional calendar. Running promotions too frequently can cause consumers to become immune to your messaging and tune you out. Rather than take out their credit cards, consumers are more apt to debate the necessity of the purchase — and even delay the sale if they know they can expect another in a few

Essential Search and Social Media Promotion Tips for News Content

Essential Search and Social Media Promotion Tips for News Content Lee Odden on Apr 17th, 2017 Content Marketing, Online PR, Social Media Serena Ehrlich BusinessWire Marketing and PR greatness must include equal parts intelligence, creativity and a focus on results. But there’s one more important ingredient necessary to help you stand out: enthusiasm. Serena Ehrlich from BusinessWire has all of these characteristics and at the Digital Summit LA conference, she shared a cornucopia of practical advice about media relations and promotion of news content with zest and gusto. Here are a few highlights. Serena EhrlichIt’s common sense and supported by research that industry media is a source of news and trusted information for buyers of every kind. Consumers and journalists have changed right along with the technology used to discover, consume and engage with content. Therefore, it’s essential that marketing and communications professionals empathize with their audience to understand their preferences and give them what they want. Because newsrooms have shrunk and journalists are overwhelmed with bad pitches along with a news cycle that runs 24/7 it’s a challenge to stand out. But no fear, you can really increase your chances of successful media pickups by following a few news release tips from Serena: Include usable support data Be interesting Be relevant to target audience Be catchy Include quotes Include multimedia Of course, outbound media pitching isn’t the only way journalists can be exposed to your news content. Search engines and social networks can deliver thousands of additional readers that are actively looking for information that your brand has to give. That means making sure news releases and newsroom content is optimized for the right keywords and promoted through social media. Serena suggested using Google Trends to find keywords to add to your release headlines to increase opens, which is great. You can also use tools like keywordtool.io, Moz Keyword Explorer or if you have a Google AdWords account, their Keyword Planner. (we’ve covered press release optimization extensively here in the past in case you want to venture that way) Serena brought up that since journalists are increasingly judged on the traffic or page view performance of the articles they write, be sure to let them know when they cover your story, that you will share what they write across your social networks. If they know you’ll help promote the article, they might be more inclined to use you for the story and again in the future. When it comes to social media promotion, Serena stressed the importance of earning trust. How do you do that? Here are her tips: Share smart content: – News releases and coverage – New ideas – Stats and data – Ask provocative questions Share happy content: – Case studies – User generated content shares – CSR content – Employee life Share negative-fix content: – How can you solve this pain point? – Share consequences Social networks are where people spend their time, period. And to engage with customers, brands need to be where the customers are. To help you promote your news content where people are actually spending time, Serena shared these tips for LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat and YouTube: LinkedIn Tips: Professional Competition – Link with coworkers: Trigger LinkedIn’s algorithm by sharing updates simultaneously – Include contact information in your release: LinkedIn promotes people mentioned in news releases – Use LinkedIn blog opportunities to reach new audiences and drive traffic via company blog teaser – Write content that includes the 6 Ws, you, lists, hacks, psychology, careers, talent and multimedia Twitter Tips: Smart, Clever, First – Format: 118-character count – include a headline, link, comments – News content types to post on Twitter: Stats, releases, coverage – Don’t forget to use relevant hashtags – up to 3 – Include up to 4 images, GIF or video – Join hashtag chats – Add Influencers to Twitter lists – Create RT DMs groups – people you can reach out to for mutual sharing of content Facebook Tips: Personal, Smart, Visual – Increase Your Reach – Facebook parses content by type – Facebook matches word use in updates – Use free audience targeting – Upload video in early afternoon Use Facebook Live for reach: – 10 minutes in length – Include surprise material – Comment pinning pending Be sure to try Facebook Notes for the SEO value Reddit Tips: Passionate, Smart, Informed – Reddit has a large audience with 45,000 targeted communities – Share links to drive traffic, but be sure to participate with the Reddit community first to build relationships (don’t just dump your links) – Only share relevant information Instagram Tips: Fame, Recognition – Instagram is a visual social network, so be sure to use high quality or interesting imagery – Showcase behind the scenes, physical products, physical locations – Highlight employee engagement On Instagram, be sure to: – Sign up for a business page – Drive traffic via URL in profile or Stories – Be descriptive – Use hashtags (up to 30) – Like other people’s images to increase interactivity Pinterest Tips: Showing off + Smart – Pinterest is the most aspirational network – It is very focused on B2C, but there are opportunities for B2B – Extremely high CTR On Pinterest, be sure to: – Fuel the smart board – Be hyper-targeted – Be descriptive – Use hashtags Snapchat Tips: Unvarnished Truth – 71% of Snapchat users are 18-34 years old. – Users have an average of 15 friends – To maximize your impact on Snapchat, buy a geofilter! On Snapchat, be sure to: – Provide VIP/exclusive access to content – Be highly relevant with real time discussion – Include offers and coupons – Consider takeovers YouTube + BizWireTV Tips: Video News – 33% of YouTube searches are for news – YouTube TV is launching in 2017 On YouTube, be sure to: – Create content for all sales funnel steps – Determine what your audience watches in long form and shorten it – Create a video of text