Where Web Designers and Entrepreneurs Can Discover Trends
Understanding and using trends are critical for any creative professional or entrepreneur. Trend forecasting is the phrase that is used when people try to tell the future. It is important because it can help you design products, websites, services and experiences that will help to shape the needs of people in the future. This is hard to do because the future isn’t here yet. Trends in fonts, colours, imagery and layout are always changing. On the marketing and business front, knowing how the business landscape is changing is equally important. Have you ever noticed that the same colours, trends and patterns are usually in different stores? How do they end up with the same palettes and styles? It is because they all use the same method of gathering trends. They hear about trends from the same manufacturers and go out and shop at the same places across the globe. Trend forecasting services can also be purchased for almost any industry. Here are a few places where you can discover trends to drive change in your design, branding and business: Digital Culture This is a broad term, but it refers to knowing what is going on currently on broadcast news, Google, websites and news sites. Physical Retail If your products or designs show up in the real world in retail, you need to go out and shop it regularly. Go out and pay attention to really observe what is happening in stores so that you can recreate this in online experiences. Competitive Research Go online and look at the blogs and social media of your competition; as it is really critical for discovering trends. This way, you will know what they are doing over time and be able to jump when your competition launches new campaigns, loyalty programmes or other services. Staying on top of your competition is one of the best ways to pick up on trends in your industry. Need help with your web design or digital marketing? Then contact WSI OMS...
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3 Tips for Optimising Paid Advertising on Facebook
Paid advertising can be a great way to boost your social media marketing strategy. However, there’s an art to getting it right. Here are three helpful tips for successfully optimising paid advertising on Facebook, courtesy of the digital marketing experts at WSI OMS. Understand Message Matching There is no doubt that you would like to get the best possible results for the least amount of money, right? Well, the key to this is to understand what message matching is and to use it to your advantage. In other words, match your advertising pitch to your targeted audience’s level of readiness. For example, do not try to encourage your audience to purchase something if they have yet to discover your brand as a whole. Build Your Audience It is no use trying to sell to an audience of followers that does not exist. Therefore, when first starting out, angle your Facebook ads to encourage people to follow you, rather than trying to push for conversions. This will help you to build your audience and is sure to lead to improved interest and conversions in the future. Try Split Testing Keep your ads fresh and powerful by split testing to see which big changes lead to conversion-lifts. Do not change minor aspects of the ad, such as a word here or there or the background colour of your image. Make larger, more noticeable changes, like using a custom photo and then a video to push the same message/objective. If the world of paid advertising and social media marketing has become too complicated to manage, there is always the option of hiring a reputable digital marketing company to manage it for you. Contact WSI OMS today to learn...
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Content Marketing 101: Creating Better Briefs
It is imperative that you get a handle on how to create clear, concise briefs if you hire a freelancer or a content marketing company to take on all of your digital marketing on your behalf. Here’s a brief breakdown on how to create better briefs: Indicate Your Expectations What do you want this specific piece of content to achieve? Should it inform? Describe? Entertain? What is the ultimate call to action? Do you want the reader to click through to view a product? Sign up to your mailing list? Follow you on social media? Highlight the Main Message What is the most important aspect of the content? What is the main message that you would like to get across? Or the most important piece of information that you would like to communicate? Give a Clear Description of the Target Audience The target audience will have a great effect on the tone of the piece, so it is always important to provide your content marketing lead with this info. Give Info About Your Brand What is the brand’s general tone of voice? What is its desired perception? Also, be sure to send through a style guide if you have one handy. Keep it Concise Some clients think that the more information they give their content creator, the better the outcome will be. However, giving a 30-page brief for a page worth of work is not going to do you, or the piece, any favours. If the brief is too long, there is a good chance that the writer won’t read through all of it, and it is easy for the most important information to get lost this way. Need assistance when it comes to content marketing and digital marketing in general? The team at WSI OMS can help! Contact us now to learn more about our content writing...
read moreHow To Use PPC Advertising To Build Your Brand
Have you ever wished that you could flip a switch and have instant traffic to your website? And not just any traffic. The traffic you want needs to be from people who want to do business with you because they trust your brand. Paid Google advertising, also known as pay per click advertising, isn’t only just for getting traffic and moving products. If your brand is not yet top of mind amongst your target audience, then you should consider using it for branding purposes. Many companies who use PPC don’t bid on their branded terms. They undoubtedly reason that they would rather earn traffic for keywords of products and services that they offer. Subliminal brand exposure leads people to act in certain ways and it can have an impact on your bottom line. When embarking on a PPC campaign to build your brand, you need to focus on making it easier to choose you than your opposition. If your brand is at the top of Google and you have a clear and compelling call to action, a dedicated landing page, and all the trust signals and easy payment processing tools that website visitors need, you will make it easy for them to choose you. Don’t make the mistake of always looking for the next niche longtail keyword if you aren’t getting the basics right. Organise the site links in your ad copy according to a potential customer’s level of interest. Another way to build your brand with PPC is by answering helpful questions. If you are already bidding on your branded terms, take a look at the most common questions related to your products and services that people are asking. Instead of a hard sell, create landing pages that serve an educational and helpful purpose to your website visitors. Need help with your online advertising or digital marketing? Then contact WSI OMS today....
read more3 of the Most Important On-Site SEO Factors
SEO can seem like a never-ending rollercoaster. Just when you think you have overcome the worst, you are faced with a new dip or an unexpected twist and turn that shakes you up completely. With all of the algorithm updates that take place each year, it is nearly impossible to keep up with what Google really wants. Having said that, there are three important on-site SEO factors that are likely to remain super important for the time being – and it is these factors that you should be dedicating most of your time towards perfecting if you are to see some long-term, positive results in your rankings. Content Relevant to User Intent As always, content is key. But not just any content! With Google now making use of neural matching technology, it is becoming more and more important to really understand user intent. In other words, why is a person clicking through to your website? Whatever this reason may be, it is essential that your website adequately mirrors this. User Experience Stop worrying so much about tailoring your website design to suit the expectations of search engines. If you focus your attention more on providing an overall positive user experience, you are going to look good in the eyes of Google in any case! Take note of metrics like ‘Pages Per Session’ (the number of pages a user visits before leaving your website), bounce rate (a good indication of how well your landing page is or is not working for you) and click-through rate for a better idea of how your website is being received by its visitors. Linking Inter-linking within your website is always good for SEO as it makes your website more crawlable, allows for easy navigation from a user experience perspective and helps to contribute to link building. When it comes to perfecting on-site and off-site SEO, WSI OMS is the company to contact. We specialise in all aspects of digital marketing including search engine optimisation, website design, website development and content marketing. To learn more, please do not hesitate to get in...
read moreBoost Your Twitter Social Media Marketing Strategy with These 3 Tools
Offering a host of incredible features, we take a look at three online tools guaranteed to boost your social media marketing strategy. Followerwonk Followerwonk is dedicated to finding, analysing and optimising Twitter analytics. This makes it possible for you to collect important insights and information on various Twitter users, seek out and discover popular accounts in your industry niche, as well as identify potential brand influencers to collaborate with. The tool also allows you to compare Twitter accounts, your relationships with your followers as well as your competitors. Ultimately, it’s everything you need to really make a noticeable impact on this ever-growing social media marketing platform. RiteTag What is Twitter without hashtags? The question is, how can you find the best hashtags to help promote your brand and get your content seen? With a tool like RiteTag! This software provides suggestions in terms of which hashtags are currently trending and relevant to tweet. It will almost certainly help you to increase your tweets’ impressions and engagements. TrendsMap Struggling to get creative in terms of what to tweet about? The free feature of TrendsMap is to find out what is trending in specific areas of the world, as well as a 7-day history. You can view what is trending within a country or zoom into a specific city if you wish. If you are willing to invest in the program, other helpful features include adding an alert for your topics, extended Twitter history searches and on-map visualization of any topic. Here at WSI OMS, we make use of the best social media marketing tools to help take your strategy and results to all-new heights. If you’d like to see an improvement in your interactions, engagements and online conversions, then we’re the experts to contact. Get in touch now to learn...
read moreHow Twitter Can Aid Your Link Building Strategy
The goal is to boost your website’s SEO and organic rankings with the help of high quality backlinks. The question is, how do you actually go about landing those high quality backlinks? The secret is to find a way in which to build beneficial relationships with journalists, editors and content contributors who have the power to publish your content and, of course, link back to your website on various respected platforms. Here’s how Twitter can help with this: Optimise Your Profile Journalists and editors will take you much more seriously if your Twitter profile is complete, informative and, most importantly, grammatically correct! Give both professional and personal info on your profile and be sure to list your contact details as well. Also, ensure that you are regularly active on the platform and use your timeline as an opportunity to really showcase your personality. Follow the Right People Twitter lists make it easy to keep up to date with your prospects and their Twitter activity. Keep journalists who have published or shown interest in your content in a separate list to those with whom you would still like to build a relationship. Engage The key here is not to come across as though you want something from those that you engage with. Try your best to be authentic in all of your interactions. ‘Like’ the tweets that you truly connect with, retweet the tweets that you agree with and reply to tweets that really spark something inside of you. If your reply is genuine and contributes something of value, there’s a good chance that it could be the start of a conversation and, hopefully, a solid, mutually-beneficial relationship between you and the original poster. Remember – it is also all about timing. Don’t send a pitch through to a journalist after you just had your first two-minute conversation with them. Take your time to really build and work on that relationship so that trust is forged before asking for any favours. When it comes to SEO and link building, WSI OMS can help make your life easier. Just as search engine optimisation, web design and social media marketing experts, we have the tools and expertise necessary to make sure that your brand really stands out. For more information about our services, do not hesitate to get in touch with our...
read moreSocial Media Marketing: What Does It Take To Go Viral In All The Right Ways?
In the past, it was very hard to become famous. Thanks to social media and YouTube, however, any of us – and any of the creative things we do – can become famous literally overnight. Of all the hours of videos that get uploaded to YouTube every day, only a small percentage gets millions of views and becomes a cultural moment. What sets these videos apart? Tastemakers, communities of participation and unexpectedness are the three key things that can make your content go viral. In 2012, Jimmy Kimmel shared a video of a rainbow that a person in the Yosemite mountain park had uploaded. The video instantly went viral because Jimmy Kimmel, as a tastemaker, alerted a huge community of the video and many of them went to check it out. Unlike the one-way communication of the twentieth century, the community participation that social media provides lets everyone become a part of a new phenomenon. People become a part of a phenomenon by spreading it or doing something new with it, such as creating memes and parodies. To create content that goes viral on social media, you have to focus on content that ignites creativity within a community. This creativity and interest can be used for new versions of your content, to make fun of whatever you have posted and to set a trend. People don’t just enjoy content, they participate in it. By being totally surprising and humorous, you could get your content viewed by millions of people who want to participate in what you are doing. Need help with your social media marketing or digital marketing strategy? Then contact WSI OMS...
read more4 Essential Questions to Ask Your Website Developer Before Getting Started
Building a brand-new website for your business is always an exciting time, but it can come with a few pitfalls and challenges if you do not make doubly certain that both you and your website developer are on the same page. Below, we highlight four important questions to ask regarding your website development before the project officially kicks off. What Can I Expect from You in Terms of Communication? You should both decide on a communication-based plan of action before getting started. There is nothing more distracting for a website developer than being hounded every hour by a client who is looking for an update. Agree to check in with each other at a certain time every day/every other day and choose a communication platform that works for you both, i.e. phone call, email, Skype, Slack, etc. How Will You Handle Small Decisions? Some website development professionals will insist on a certain amount of creative freedom when it comes to designing a website. This is usually regarding smaller details that most clients would not even really notice. However, if you would like to be consulted about every design-related decision, it is important that you let your developer know this to avoid any unexpected surprises. Are You Able to Work According to a Deadline? If you need your website completed on or before a specific date, highlight this to your developer from the get-go and make sure that they have the capacity necessary to accommodate the deadline. What is the Scope of the Project? Make sure that you have told your website development professional exactly what it is that you want from your new website’s design and ensure that he or she has quoted for all of this before commencing. You do not want to have to pay extra down the line! Looking for a website development team that you can count on? Look no further than the experts at WSI OMS! We specialise in website development, website design, SEO and more. Contact us now for more info about how we can help you transform your company’s website into a conversion-ready customer-driven...
read moreContent Marketing 101: Handy Online Tools to Improve Your Writing
We all know that content marketing relies on a brand’s ability to serve its followers interesting, shareable and easy to read content. Unfortunately, not everyone is a gifted writer. With this in mind, we have put together a list of the internet’s best-loved online tools guaranteed to improve your writing and give your content marketing efforts the boost that they need! Grammarly Poor grammar and incorrect spelling can have a negative effect on people’s perceptions of your brand. So, you will want to avoid these little mistakes like the plague! Luckily, you do not have to be a grammar-nazi to publish error-free content. Grammarly is a useful online tool that will help you rectify any issues – quickly and effectively. It offers a basic free version which provides notifications of any spelling and punctuation errors, as well as a premium version which goes more in-depth, providing information on other errors like poor word choice, wordy sentences, inappropriate colloquialisms and weak or uncertain language. Hemingway Editor Hemingway Editor has been designed to maximise your article’s readability. It is a great choice for people who tend to write longer, more complex sentences. It highlights aspects of your writing that could use work, using a different colour to mark each error. For example, purple is used to highlight a word that could be replaced with a simpler alternative and yellow is used to highlight sentences that could be shorter. The end result is bold, clear writing that is sure to grab attention. One Look Reverse Dictionary If your vocabulary is quite limited, you have probably found your online thesaurus a real life-saver. Well, One Look Reverse Dictionary is a functional thesaurus on steroids. Similarly, it helps you to identify repeated words in your content and suggests alternatives, but it also provides suitable words according to a definition. For example, if you could only think of ‘open shoe’, it may suggest ‘sandal’. Perhaps it is time to get a professional to take care of your content marketing needs? Here at WSI OMS, we are specialists in the fields of content marketing, social media marketing, email marketing and PPC advertising. We have the know-how that is necessary to get your brand noticed – and remembered! Contact us today to learn...
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