1. Visitor Engagement:
- Multiple engagement features
- Free for businesses with less traffic volume
- Brings latest engagement features like web notifications and surveys
- Highly Customizable: Customize the chat widget to your websites’ branding
- Optimized for Mobile: Allows easy engagement with mobile-based visitors
- Multi-lingual: Supports more than 40 languages
- Proactive chat features: Triggers to reach your visitors in an automated manner leading to more engagement
- Customizable social sharing
- Engaging pop-ups with multiple setup logics
- Analytics enabled to track performance
- Free to use
2. Web Automation:
- Abandoned Cart Visitors: Send auto-reminders who have left the shopping process in the mid. Allows you to set reminders at defined intervals
- Wooing inactive customers: Provide special offers and reminders to inactive customers
- Personalized Coupons: Allows to generate personalized coupons improving the user experience
- Sale notifications on wishlist items: Sends update to visitors when their wishlist product opens for sale
- Create automated marketing campaigns based on user actions
- Allows you to create customer journey based workflows, which enables emails on relevant triggers
- Comes with built-in analytics
- Can be integrated with your woocommerce based store
3. Web Analytics:
- Heatmaps and beyond: This plugin not only creates heatmap based on user interaction on your website but is also capable of actual recordings of the visitor interaction on your website. This is a feature to look out for
- Conversion funnel enabled: Allows you to track the visitor journey and at which steps they drop out
- Feedback polls and surveys: Allows you to create polls/ surveys and get the feedback from the visitors
- Scroll map: Represents the data which shares the level of scroll visitors are makingon the pages
- Heatmaps: This tool also generates heatmaps representing user actions
- Overlay map: It tracks the number of clicks on each web element thus allowing you to manage the key clickable sections effectively
4. Website Security and Back-ups:
- Free of cost: This is a free plugin (comes with paid pro version as well)
- Complete backup: Free version allows complete backup including plugins, database, theme files. Hence with one click complete backup can be taken
- Restore logic: One-click restore to any of the previously saved backup version
- External backup: Even with the free version you can take backups on external storage platforms like Google drive, Dropbox and other platforms
- Comes with free and paid version
- Brute force protection
- Two-factor authentication and blocking of IP on multiple incorrect login attempts
Website Conversion: Here are 34 quick tips!
Getting the visitors to your site is great, but if those visitors don’t convert, it is useless!
The goal of any website is that a visitor takes some action on the site.
Conversions can be in any of the forms, whether it is:
- Signing up for
- Buying a product
- Filling out a contact form
- Registering for a webinar
- Downloading an E-book
All that matters is how many visitors convert or how many times your on-site users convert.
Let’s see how we can calculate the website conversion rates in simple terms it goes like this:
Website Conversion Rate = Desired actions/ Visits
The conversion rate calculation looks too simple, but getting it work is not that simple, there are countless factors that decide whether a visitor converts or not.
Website design is one of the major conversion optimization parameters, but once you are good with the aesthetics of your website, there are other essential conversions factors that play a vital role in the growth of your business revenue.
Let’s look into some tips and tricks that will help you increase the number of conversions to your site.
1Put in strong call to action (CTA) panels
Let your users know what you want them to do next, fill up a form, click a button, register for a seminar or order a product, let it all be easy and exact.
Let the CTA stand out, let it be clean and unique at the same time.
Use tangible action verbs!
2Don’t forget to use the Sticky bar
Websites with sticky bar tend to convert better. Sticky bars are slim and non-obtrusive; they provide relevant buzz for visitors to take action. They are easy to integrate and can be used for any website looking for leads.
3Short forms make a huge impact
The lesser the number of form fields are, the more are the sign ups. Ask for little!
Don’t complicate, let it be exact and quick.
Let the process complete in less than 30 seconds and it is all good.
4Bring credibility to the website
Testimonials and reviews speak a lot about you, these are the major trust factors, especially when it comes to new users.
Big brand affiliations, feedbacks, badges or any third party reviews are going to keep up the trust. Always provide a social proof.
You can also consider offering guarantee on your product or no questions asked refund policy, you know it kind of relieves the customer.
5Do not let your web design go overboard
Keep it simple and eye appealing. Avoid the flashy stuff.
Use high-res professional images with soft and elegant colors.
Avoid too much of the content, let it be clean and readable with enough blank spaces.
6Let your headline be strong and effective
The headline is perhaps the most important element that can either make it or break it!
Your product or offer should seem as compelling as possible with just a handful of words.
Let your headline make a clear value proposition, let it be concise and strong. Let the user not only know what you have to offer to them but also let them know why are you the best to offer it.
7Product features have a role
List the product features or the services in a straightforward manner, let it all be transparent.
Use honest bullet points, let the potential customers know how your product or services can provide them with a solution to their problems.
8Keep it visual, humanize your product or services.
Customers prefer visual stuff over written words, visual makes it easier to sell after all sight is the strongest sense!
Include a simple video to demonstrate what the product or the service is about and how it works.
9Create dedicated landing pages
Landing pages can dramatically increase the lead conversions ratio.
Landing pages are specifically for one particular purpose that gets the visitor to take one specific action without any distraction.
Involve into A/B testing to figure out what works the best.
10Keep a separate mobile version
People want it all on their fingertips, and when it comes to the web they want quick access to it.
The faster they get the product or the service information the more likely they are to convert.
Moreover, having a mobile version is also good for SEO.
11Use High quality images
Like it goes without saying, the visuals are more appealing and convincing!
Use high quality images which are not too flamboyant or flashy, let be simple and elegant.
12Chat tool might be a good idea
The potential customers might have questions and being there live to answer them and alleviate any concerns they have can add up to the conversions.
Let the visitor get answers to all his questions.
13Privacy statements on opt-in forms
A privacy policy will convince the visitor that the information he shares is going to be confidential and will only be used for business purpose.
Let them know, you will never spam their inboxes!
Trust and credibility are the keys.
14Let the navigation flow be easy
Remove the distractions, let the process be smooth and easy going without any glitches in it.
Try not to confuse the customer.
15Exclude registration process when buying a product
Ensure minimum road blocks to checkout, offer your users a one-time express checkout.
Make it easy for the buyers who are not your members.
16Keep an eye on the site load speed
If your site tends to load slowly, it’s here where the visitor will either explore further or part their way from the site.
To be under the safe criteria, your site should load in less than 3 seconds.
Make sure you at least pre-load the most relevant and significant information to keep your users engaged.
17Check your website’s accessibility
Let your website be accessible to anybody and on any device.
There are various devices available these days and hence it is really important for your site to be highly device compatible.
18Offer multiple payment options
Not everyone uses PayPal, give them options, let them pay the way they’d like to.
You have Stripe, Amazon payments and more.
19Keep track of your visitors’ actions
Once you know what the users are doing on your site, you can better define on the improvements your website might require.
If they are looking for a specific product continuously, you can work on the presentation of that product. Let it appear a bit more prominently.
Once you know what they want, just give it to them.
20Speak about benefits
Don’t only talk about what you do, talk about why the customer would need your service or product.
Focus on just portraying your business benefits and how is it going to be a solution for your prospects.
21Let the visitors see your subscriber or social media follower counts
These terms tend to provide social proof and helps build up a trust factor, hence increasing conversions.
22Let each page have a goal
Focus on having a goal for every page on your website that way every page on your website will get you noticed.
One strong message can get you a lot of conversions.
23Bounce rates are not the majors
Bounce rates don’t matter as long as your conversion rates are up.
They might not actually affect your business revenue.
24Optimize for revenue and not conversions
Better conversions don’t always happen to generate more revenue.
Even if you double the product price, but your conversions, reduce to 20%, you still generate a good amount of revenue!
25Don’t be afraid of making drastic changes
It’s good sometimes to keep on trying something that is radically different.
May be it a different styling or design, small tweaks won’t affect much on your conversions.
26Let your ideas be yours
It isn’t necessary what works for one company might also work for you.
Keep testing and keep checking what idea and tactics are helping your online business to grow.
27Ensure TRUST badges or the BBB Seal
When it comes to payment online, people tend to avoid it as entering their card details, this leads them to end up not buying the products.
28Guide your visitors with directional cues
Always make it easy for the visitor to locate the most important on-page element.
Use of arrows or other visual cues might help!
29Let every page on your website have CTA’s
Every page that is visited on your website should include a CTA, your visitor should know what are they supposed to do next.
30Never give up on testing your site
Testing a website is really important in order to keep up with the conversion optimization.
Try all the possible testing options like from small change to a specific element to introducing a completely different layout, keep checking on what is actually working!
A website should always be tested for improvements on a daily basis.
31Let your checkout process talk
If your checkout process has several steps, you can put up a progress indicator so that the user knows which steps are remaining and what has to be done next.
32Include bread crumbs
Let the people know where they are on your site. If it’s a secondary navigation scheme.
The visitors won’t feel lost on your site, breadcrumbs will help the visitors find their way back.
33Take advantage of the error pages
Don’t just give them the 404 error instead direct them to most recent or relevant content.
Keeping a track on your conversions is really important for a mere reason, it lets you measure your business profitability and at the same time helps you predict the future success or determine the stuff that isn’t working.Conversion optimization, well, we do a lot of it! Connect with us, we can help you with this.
Got some more tips to share? Jot them down!
Read MoreFind your place in the Food blogging community
Being a Food blogger has a lot of plusses. You get to share your talents!
One of the challenges bloggers have to face is on expanding their audience, but the market these days is so saturated that it’s very difficult to get your name out there.
The best way to get on to the Blog market is, to look out for the bloggers in the market, I understand they are your competitors, but trust me it’s a great source that could help, it could get you and your Blog on air, ultimately reaching your audience.
So to get going, join a Blogging community as per your niche!
Especially, if you are a newbie blogger or are looking to grow your blogging business and are not sure on how to start…..
Start from here…
Find yourself a blogging community, that’s the first and the foremost step in growing your blog. It’s like reaching out your blogs to your audience, using the blog community power!
Remember that every single blogger started off small and have reached out large, and so can you!
Before you move on to something else, creating that tribe around you is imperative to growing your blog.
Let’s dig a bit into who or what is a Blogging Community…
A blogging community is the one which focuses on blogging itself….well, I know you know that!
Making it more sensible, Blogging communities are a collection of individual blogs over a single space, where you get a practical support in terms of may be templates or image sharing or How to post videos while some offer a chance to chat with other bloggers out there, discussing on what works and what doesn’t.
So summing up everything together, the result that comes out is that Bloggers need other bloggers!
Okay…So we’re clear why do we need to set a connection in the blogging community!
So now that you know why it’s important, let’s learn how could we find it and take advantage of it…
1
Read and comment on other blogs from your niche and be active
Always keep reading and commenting on the blogs over the community blogs, not only the blog owners but also the other blog readers cum writers scroll through the comments, and this gets you noticed.
You are now in the picture! You are now ready to develop good terms with bloggers who are now apt to share your blogs with their followers.
And what do you see….?? You see your blogs getting noticed and shared too!!
2
Follow and comment on social media accounts in your niche
Always follow bloggers on social media platforms, comment on the bloggers with whom you share a connection, they are likely to follow you back hopefully returning the same.
Putting up random comments like “great info!” or “yummy recipe!” won’t take you very far.
Let it be genuine.
Always be over social media groups and indulge in social sharing!
3
Offer Guest posts being written by you….yeah!!
Guest posts are like using a co-bloggers platform and sharing your content over their platform, yes you can involve in doing this as well, and it is quite helpful.
You can also offer, sharing their content over your platform.
Remember, this could be done with relatively small blog platforms who would benefit from guest posting.
Your blogger friend’s audiences are noticing you through this.
So share your knowledge.
4 Join in On Link-ups and Round-Ups
You could allow other bloggers to include a photo and caption at the bottom of the post, of Course, something related to that theme.
When readers scroll through the host blog (or blogs), they may be interested in your post and click through to your blog. You never know who might become a new reader!
Link-up etiquette, make sure to always credit the hosts.
Involve into round-ups, get your blog on other blogger’s radars.
It also establishes some goodwill and hopefully you sharing other people’s content will, in turn, result in them sharing yours.
Make sure to tag other bloggers in your social statuses if you include them in a round-up!
Some tips on when trying to find like-minded bloggers:-
- Shop Around
Find your people and not just your readers.
Make contacts with people who come from your niche, someone with whom you can share tips and tricks and someone who can support you.
Make contact with people in your paddling pool.
- Be active
Ask questions, offer feedback, encourage and continue collaborating.
Share blogs and don’t forget back-linking the blogs to the original blogs.
Link-ups are resources for you to find other bloggers in your niche.
- Play Fair
Make some new friends and colleagues, get along with some new readers and just keep growing. While amidst of this, don’t forget on returning the support.
Make sure you are giving something in return, don’t just take support and run away, it’s like being mean spirited!
Help others too! That is the true value of networking!
Grow your network, and add value to that network, get support and give support!
Find your community and make the most out of it!
Got some questions?? Or is there something you’d like to share about the blog community??
Let us know your suggestions and ideas are most welcome:-)
Read MoreGoal Settings & Google Analytics
But what’s more important is how it is helping your business, is it providing a meaningful outcome?
You need to make sure that all the analysis you perform is actually providing value to your business.
All of us in this web marketing world are aware of the most trending visitor tracking method, Google Analytics. But are we taking the most out of it and in the right manner??
Well, I am sure you got to rethink while you answer this question.
Come, let’s try and analyze.
We are already familiar with a lot of website tracking metrics, let’s list them down:
- Leads
- Sign Ups/Account creations
- News Letter Sign Ups
- E-book Downloads
- Trial Sign-Ups
So these are the metrics that you should be tracking….Right…! But we are still just the half way.
How do we do this? I know the answer…of course using Google Analytics.
The question should be something like…How do you do it using Google Analytics??
Let’s elaborate this…
Google Analytics tool is an amazing tool if it is properly used, what I mean is, we need to make some additional setups that would let the Google analytics tracker speak up about your business.
How would you do that? You have to tell Google Analytics to keep track of what’s critical to your business.
You do this by setting up goals!
You must be wondering on Why Should you setup goals?
Goals are an enormous amount of extra but valuable information which lets you track if your visitors are acting the way you want them to over your website, and that’s what would benefit you.
When you set goals, you have some goal set up options like:
1Using a Goal Template
- Preexisting goal templates by Google helps you set actionable goals that meet standard business objectives.
- Every template is based on a specific industry.
- The template lets you edit any of the fields if required.
2Creating a Custom Goal.
- With custom goal setup, you can build a goal that best suits your business objectives, the choice is all ours!
Google Analytics provides you 4 custom goal set up options:
- Destination Goal
- If you want to treat a specific page view or say a specific Url as a conversion point, set up the destination goal.
- Allows you to make a goal for people always ending up on a certain page.
- This type of goal can be ideal for Thank you pages, confirmation pages or say a PDF
Destination goal set up comes with a special term or an option named as Funnel.
Let’s dig a bit deeper on this…
A Goal Funnel allows you to see exactly how many people move through each step of your marketing process.
Making it more generic, Let me put it this way:
The process people go through to buy one of your products or to sign up for your newsletter.
Let’s visualize an example:
A funnel lets you know of how many visitors abandoned your funnel at each step so that you know which pages on your website need to be fixed or improvised. You have the percentages and the overall funnel conversion rate on hand to make the necessary improvisations.
1Visit Duration Goals
- If you want to track the visitors who have spent more than the amount of time you had defined set.
- This type of goal is more useful to sites that provide on the spot help to customers with their queries.
2Page Visit Goals
- This type of goal tracks the number of pages each visitor visits before they end up leaving your website page.
- If the number of page views you have set up meets, it indicates a goal completion.
3Event Goals
- This in one of the most complicated yet fruitful goals with better outcomes.
- You need to setup events and later select any event as a goal.
- You need to be a bit handy with coding…yeah…something like JavaScript!
- You can just track anything using google analytics events:
- Downloads
- External Links
- Social Media Buttons
- Time Spent watching videos
- Widgets usage
Your visitors interacting with any of these can be tracked.
All of the Tracking and Goal set up stuff would seem quite confusing at the start, but once you’re through you see your business objectives turning into success.
Google Analytics is waiting to help you track the progress of your business.
All you need to do is just set up a Goal.
Set them up….Not sure how to start…??No worries, Come to us!
Others…Got some cool goals set up yourself using Google Analytics??Or you have some useful insights to share?? You can share them in the comments below.
Read More
Small Businesses: Best Web Design Practices
Small business or big..A website can be an asset to any business if, not an asset but it’s definitely a necessity. It houses important information about you and your business moreover, your customers expect you to have one.
These days it’s very important for any type of business to have a website, you might be in a wrong notion that a Facebook page or a bit of content on twitter can do it all for your business growth.
But the only and the proper way to promote your business is by creating a digital home for you where you can engage and connect with your audience and potential customers.
Your website acts as a media between you and your audience, it lets them determine if they want to do business with you.
Well, that’s for Newbies! No, wait this applies even to the established businesses.
Although, you are a well-known business in the market with a solid customer base, a website is a surefire way to attract new customers into your business services. Moreover, people surf the internet to find a solution to any of their problems.
But is your website a potential problem solver for your customers?
Is it the looking the way the audience want it to be??Is it answering the solution to their problems? Does it look simple and clean at the same time? Is it well showcasing your business?
Well! Well! I know you must be looking for an answer all of these questions…Only thing you need to do is come up with a website that creates a connect and well portrays your business.
The only thing you need to do is come up with a website that creates a connect and well portrays your business.
This might vary from industry to industry, like if you are a web agency, your website should be able to portray your web skills along with credibility-the ability to be found.
Let look on to some must-haves and some best practices that any type of industry or any type of business can follow…Be it small or a big business.
Here’s how you can come up with an awesome website:
1Clean, fresh and Unique
Let the design be clean with great color and contrasts along with nice and soothing fonts, which could grab the attention of your audience.
Lots of white space well balanced with the selected colors and fonts.
Use elegant yet stunning images and visual elements that talk about your services.
Remember, too much of anything, can probably put you down!
Using design patterns that users are comfortable with can help them ease into your website.
You need to get yourself recognized, so you gotta be unique.
2Simple and easy to interact with
Let your user interface be designed from the user experience angle, let the user play with the flow.
Keep a straight focus on the most important elements maintains a consistency throughout the design.
Navigation should be simple and retained throughout.
Your website needs to be such that guides the user of where they are and where they need to go.
3Let it be all for your audience
First, get to know your audience, it goes without saying that most important insight into design decisions should be taken from the user’s perspective.
All you need to do is do some research on your target audience. You have to have a clear picture of what things needs to put up on your site that will bring people.
You can check on the competitors, well that’s not bad, you just need to gather some insights for your business.
At first sight, your website should be able to reflect your business to your audience.
4Let your website speak on your behalf: Interactive Content
Don’t test the audiences patience level, by putting too much of a reading activity over the site.
Research says, users typically read only 28% of the words during an average visit.
Don’t overload your site with too much of content it leads to poor user experience. Keep it limited.
Let the content be limited, but rich and well presented.
Make use of the formatting facilities, use head tags, relevant keyword highlights, and bullet points. Be careful, don’t overdo it.
Well organize your content.
5Let it be responsive, Let your site be visible to every user on the globe
Responsive websites are great performers. They are always available to the audience on the go.
May it be information or solution to a problem, everything needs to be there on your finger tip.
Mobile devices are accounting for an increase in web traffic and hence you must have a mobile version up for your website.
A website should be flexible with the variety of devices and screen sizes.
6Let your brand be trusted and believed
Nothing is more important than being visible on search. Your audience need to find you…right?
Not being seen on the search engines is one of the fastest ways of losing credibility for your business.
Indulge into optimizing your search ratio. Let SEO be a part of your web strategy.
There are many aspects to SEO success from the words on your page to a perfect site structure.
You need to invest some of your time into getting your site SEO friendly.
Well, that looks something big but, what it all says is, may it be a small or a big business having a website is a great way to convey important information to your customers.
You need not worry how are you going to get it done for your business, we are right here to build that gap for your business!
Do you have some extra web design tips you’d like to share or is there something that you would like to discuss or something similar? Let us know in the comments below!
Read MoreWeb design trends that have been on the charts in the year 2017
New Year! New Web design practices.
With every New Year, new web design forces come into the picture and they spread like wildfire over the internet. Web design era thrives to come up with something new at all times.
All the design firms tend to incorporate the latest trends that come up, stick to them until it becomes ubiquitous, and start looking for the next big thing that is going to cover the design market.
Web sites these days follow a very different design trend than they were following a year ago, and why not, it helps you stay ahead of the competition and lets you meet your client’s expectations.
Don’t forget, a trend does not always mean that it should be “new”. It might happen that you follow the same design trend for some upcoming years because that design has won its place in the design trends list.
Let’s talk out the web design trends who have made the charts this year:
1Micro interactions
These kind of interactions are crucial for mobile app design, they guide users how to work with the system.
It shows the user that their action performed was accepted, it guides the user on how to interact with the site.
2Card design trend
Organizing the most relevant information into pieces within a single container.
Card layouts are easy to recognize and understand without explanation.
It’s the One Card, One click, multiple colors concept
3Minimal Design
Keeping away the distractions and artfully displaying the content, making it visually appealing.
4Flat Designs
A finished design that well portrays the functionality when projected with just 2 dimensions.
Flat visuals lead to quick loading time.
5Rich Animations
A lively illustration that creates an engaging experience.
Animations enhance long scrolling and navigation functionalities that make learnability more intuitive.
6Typography
It is the art and technique of conveying a message in impressive and attention grabbing form.
It conveys the feelings and keeps the people reading.
7Vibrant Colors
Color has a direct effect on our emotions, it can affect our choice of whether to buy a product or not.
The minimalist approach to color has been in the trend.
8Long Scrolling
Scrolling has replaced the page-by-page navigation standard.
Long scrolling promotes interaction. It lets engage users by its storytelling potential.
Its works well on mobile screens as small touch devices mean more scrolling, and scrolling well works with touch controls.
9HD Visuals
Fascinating videos, potent photography, and rich graphics are all getting on the new design trend and are significantly increasing time on site.
Users with HD devices expect it.
10Illustrations
Illustrations establish a stronger connection with the site visuals, it activates the viewers’ imagination power.
Interacting through visuals.
Well, these are some of the trending web design techniques that have been prevailing throughout the year.
Staying up with the latest design trends is good but sacrificing the best design practices in order to follow the new design trends, can result in worse user experience.
Never follow a trend just because it looks great, apply it to your design standards only if it actually benefits your users.
Let’s look into some of the design factors you shouldn’t give up in favor of trendiness
1Let conversions be the deciding factor
Let not your design trend overshadow your conversions, keep a check if the new design or other alternatives are returning your visitors or customers.
Always keep a tool at your disposal to optimize conversions.
Considering Numbers and statistics over designs might sound strange, but trust me you will reward your site with higher rated of engagement.
2Indulge into putting up CTA’s
CTA’s maximize your returns. So just never give up on them!
Steer away from such CTA designs that make you look less visible, consider the color, size and shape of your CTA, let it shine out.
Let then be seen close to the key spots like on somewhere close to the navigation bar or top of the screen.
3Let Search Boxes be there
Let anything and everything be available easily when visitors search through your website.
Search boxes need to remain visible, easily identifiable, and usable.
You might be wondering a small site will not need it, trust me this is one of the most expected features regardless the size of your website.
A visitor does not want to visit every page, they want everything just on a click.
A simple search box, it need not be splashy or unique.
4Create user friendly shopping carts
If you want your visitors to shop from your site let your e-shopping bag be interactive and user-friendly.
May it be a reminder to check out, availability of a product or addition of a product.
Try to use visual icons as far as possible, let it be easily identifiable.
5Informative: Maintenance and Error pages
Sometimes your website may go under maintenance or for some reasons, it might lead to error in loading a page.
Let the users know this.
Put up a simple headline that says it all, try to put in some extra information regarding what exactly happened or make it easy for them to go back to your main site.
Let it be informative and at the same time good looking, something that portrays your design skills.
6Impressive looking Content is the key
Use the right font style that can really tie a design together.
Make it readable and easily noticeable.
Let your font be light-hearted and engaging.
Don’t lose visual appeal over substance. Design your website keeping the usability factors in mind.
Design trends come and go, but customer experience stays.
We do it smartly, keeping in mind both the trends and the usability factors.
Do you also have some amazing design aspects that have kept you up with your conversions, in spite of not following the current design trends? Do Share with us!
Read MoreBest Practices of Effective Website Performance Measurement
In: B2B KNOWLEDGE BASE, COOKING FOR BLOGGERS, Nichehype
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Like if you look back and analyze for how your website is doing? We all go a bit shaky while answering this. Again, if you are not measuring its performance at all, trust me, you won’t be able to answer this question.
Measuring a websites performance can be tricky yet useful to a great extent. As it is said, one can improve his website by measuring its failures, not just its successes.
You need to understand specifically what you are measuring, why you are measuring it and how you can improve once you have the measurements.
It goes without saying, you won’t be able to measure if you don’t know what to measure. A websites performance can be well measured once you establish a clear and a measurable goal.
Defining a goal for your website lets you create a measurable metric which can be analyzed to check if you are getting the desirable results.
Set Up Goals
Make sure you are setting up realistic and measurable goals, Trust me setting up goals is going to help you a lot.
The progress of your goals and their success keeps you motivated and focused on you business aims.
Track your goals and objectives
All set with your goal? Now it’s time to track the progress.
You need to keep a close eye on what happens online that reflect the success or failure of the goals you have set for your business.
You need to match your websites performance actions to the goals you have set.
Don’t just rely on default information obtained from website traffic reports, the number of visitors or the number of leads, sometimes they are just numbers and not your websites progress reports.
Yeah…You heard it right! Try to dig deeper on what these figures are actually telling you…
Like the website traffic and the leads generated might be good in numbers but is it actually getting you the right type of visitors and qualified leads? The problem here is these figures don’t accurately represent the effectiveness of your website.
What should you look for is, are your website visitors acting the way you want them to? Do their website actions relate to your business goals?
For example, as an employee working at a web agency, I would want people or say freelancers or B2B audiences to fill in my contact forms and get in touch with me for business and to achieve this what processes have I defined, is actually going to reflect my websites success.
Here we trying to connect the actions performed on your website to exactly what your business outcome should be.
Being a Web services offeror, you need to be thorough with the wants of your stakeholders.
Once you are thorough with this, you will be able to provide them with the right analysis report which would help them realize the progress that they are making towards their business goals.
Every time we tried working this way, we hit the target! You should definitely try us out! I am sure you won’t be disappointed at all!
You can share in the comments the interesting analytics insights that worked well for your business, After all, the more you share the more you know!
Read MorePlanning on Increasing your food blog traffic and visitors? Read on
Running a blog is not as easy as it sounds, you need to put in a lot of work. Perfecting the recipes to mastering the art of food photography, everything…But after all this you still can sometimes fall short of.
No that’s not because your recipes are pathetic or your photos are below average, it’s because no one is reaching out to your blogs.
And yeah…That’s a huge problem!
But don’t worry, most blogs including food blogs are going through the same, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have a way out of this…Of Corse you do!
What if, you can boost your food blog traffic and make people aware of your business?? Or if you can find ways to automate your business growth?
You heard it right….You can adapt many such strategies and get things right!
We have some proven tactics that can help you get out of this successfully. Some are simple while some are difficult to implement, but they are all here and they are assured to help you increase your food blog traffic. You just need to put in some more time and efforts!
After all, success is the sum of all your efforts!
Just keep in mind, some techniques take time to come into effect while some may happen overnight….So just be patient.
Let’s go step by step first, let’s look into how you can bring on more visitors?
Some techniques may cost money while some are free, from social media, email marketing to SEO techniques, we have it all covered!
Here’s how you can grow your food blog traffic:
Get into Social media Marketing
Social Media is one of the best resources when it comes to reaching out to your target audience, and in the current picture, you’ll find everyone over social media, hence it gets easier to reach out.
We’ll look onto where and how you can boost your food blogs
- Make your images beautiful
Yes, you need a good content, but if the images are equally good you are increasing your share ability chances.
Especially, when it’s about food visitors they are likely to look on for more images, they are more interested in checking out the images.
You got to water their mouths! 🙂
- Don’t forget social share buttons
Let readers share your content, this leads to higher search engine rankings as well as more social traffic to your blog.
So let people ‘share’ your content along with ‘Hitting likes’.
While you enable your readers to share your blog you are essentially disrupting their friends and followers newsfeed and displaying your content.
- Make a Pinterest profile and join a group board
Did you know 72% of Pinterest followers are women and the most trending category is “food and Drinks”, yeah you heard it right!!
By joining group boards, you can reach out to all those people who might be the right fit for your content.
If you are a food blogger you need to be on this social media today.
- Use twitter it’s a perfect source
Twitter is like a cocktail party of social media.
This is a platform where you can talk to people and get to know them and their interests, you obviously need not promote your food blog right away, see if you can offer any assistance and act accordingly. Try not to annoy them….that is bad!!
Use the search feature, look out for people who have been tweeting about the subject that is relevant to your blog, this lets you strike up a conversation directly.
- Restaurant Food Blogger?? Use Urban spoon
If your blog mainly consists of restaurant views, then you should add your blog to Urbanspoon.
Urbanspoon actually has a separate section for restaurant and food blog reviews.
It’s all yours. It has everything that you need! 🙂
Keep up your SEO rankings
Ranking on the search engines gets you to the audience. So you need to be smart on this.
Let’s check out how you could maintain your google ranks:
- Your food blog should be self-hosted
Yes, there are a lot of platforms that get you hosted for free. But in the long run, launching a self-hosted blog would benefit in your site rankings.
Moreover, you will have a lot of flexibility and more hosting options.
Let your website be unique and self-standing!
- Focus on long tail keywords
Keeping short keywords can put your ranking down.
For example, a recipe “chicken noodle soup from scratch whole chicken”
Would be much better than just using “chicken noodle soup”.
You see the difference? Being specific can rank you higher!
The more specific you are with your keywords, the less is the competition.
- Use content delivery network
A CDN stores your blog images and files in data centers, so whenever you have a site visitor the closest data center loads your stuff quickly.
What’s more is by speeding up your site, you could rank higher on the search engines.
- Make your recipes and articles shareable
Let people share your content!
Social shares are one among the ranking factors over search engines, it can actually push you with your rankings.
- Make sure you have your punch words highlighted…You know the heading tag!
Punch words as in the Keywords, they are the ones who keep you up on the search engines.
Use Heading tags, bullet points…present your content well!
This idea of presenting stuff actually leaves a positive impact.
- Have a mobile friendly food blog
Don’t forget mobile is the new face of engagement!
Ensure your food blog is responsive on all platforms.
- Submit a site map
Site maps enable the search engines to easily crawl over your blog content and images, and through this your site is indexed on google.
Keep Email marketing and Newsletters campaigns on your list
- Attract the visitors
Offer them free recipes or provide them free guidance, the “Free Stuff” is always attention grabbing. 🙂
- Offer unique opt-ins for every food blog you post
Offering something unique with every blog you publish can help you collect email addresses…You know, more subscribers.
Like for example if your blog is about “5 Healthy Replacements for Unhealthy Ingredients” offer a lead magnet by saying you have “recipe ready with the healthy ingredients”, with this you are sure of collecting subscribers.
- Write impressive emails – especially the subject line
We already know, we never tend to read on the marketing emails, we just ignore them, but if it has an interesting subject line like……”20 minutes or less- your healthy weeknight meal plan”….I’m sure many of us will click over!
When it comes to health, people are quite conscious about it…right? So keep it smart!
Content marketing: Write an amazing content
No one likes to read anything that is rubbish or irrelevant, provide such content to your visitors that is of true value.
- Let your content be long…Don’t worry it is okay!
I know what’s in your mind!
People usually avoid reading if the content is too long, but that’s not the case always! If it’s relevant and well written, it keeps the user engaged.
Moreover, it is said that long content blogs are shared more and linked more.
- Focus more on promoting your content than just writing so much
It doesn’t matter if you just have 5 blogs, what matters is how convincing is the content and is it reaching into the right hands?
So spend more time on marketing your content rather than just publishing content.
Don’t Forget, Quality is more important than Quantity!
- Find a gap in the market: Check on your Uniqueness
Spare some time analyzing your forte and how can you utilize your specialty to stand out from the millions of food bloggers.
Find your unique angle!
- Indulge into Guest blogging…Yeah, you heard it right!
Blogging on other people’s website helps you build your brand awareness and provides you more visitors.
Let your post be informative and incredibly helpful, it’s actually helping you get your brand name out!
- Master your food photography
Working on your food photography skills can give a good exposure to your tasty food recipes.
If it looks good it feels good!
Yeah…you have to kinda tempt your audience, by letting them see the amazing food you prepare.
I have some extra tips for you and they are equally important for your food blog success.
- Let the blog be creative and modern
Before anything else, your blog should be aesthetically appealing.
If it looks good it keeps people engaged on your site for long.
Use awesome images, highlight the content, and let the navigation be simple and interactive.
- Use the white space concept
If your site is junky and messy it reduces the readability ratio.
Use a lot of white space, that lets your readers focus on your content.
Make them feel good!
- Join some other food communities
If you join some food community groups, you can give some more exposure to your food recipes.
You can interact, share and also get to know what’s going on!
Well, that’s it, if you have some questions just drop them in the comments and we’ll get back to you.
If you find it helpful, Do hit the share button!
“The more we share the more we have”
Thanks for reading 🙂
Read MoreFeeding yourself to keep ideas fresh
Being a blogger you need to regularly crank out new original ideas and it takes in a lot of hard work.
You need a lot of creative energy and to explore the creativity you need to remain fresh, you’ve got to find ways so that you could fuel in the supply so that your blogs are fresh and exciting to readers.
Share quality content that creates value!
At times writing blogs can be time-consuming and tiring, you just need to keep reminding yourself that writing is not a race and you need not stress out with that, keep calm and you’ll be good!
Having a food blog means having a pact with your readers, hence you need to well prepare your blogs.
Every blogging category has different challenges. As a food blogger, you need to try out different recipes, you may fail but don’t worry, you can always re-do it and you may succeed 🙂
Working on a food blog is kind of fun, you get to try out different food stuff for just for blog writing inspiration….sound interesting…right?? 😛
Let’s look on to some ideas on how you can treat yourself to keep up fresh blog ideas:
1Treat yourself with some amazing food, something exotic and new.
Take yourself out for a lunch, try out a new restaurant.
Order on some food stuff that’s looks new on ingredients or has a fancy dish name…something that’s impressive and tastes yum just with the name itself 😛
Relish the experience and make notes on the flavors, the texture, the aroma…
Try going out for lunch or dinner once a week, try a different restaurant… Bring alive the foodie in you!
The food varieties with diverse ingredients, prepared in an unusual way with the perfect dressing and beautiful serving will inspire you to experiment with your food blog, you’ll be fresh with ideas!
Moreover, sharing your personal food experiences interest the readers more.
2Keep reading…food articles, recipes, guest posts, comments and more…be updated!
Try reading with the point of view of a writer, you’ll learn on expressing better.
Writing about food requires you to have rich sensory description…you need to express the taste through words, the content should be such that is able to define the taste 🙂
You need to keep reading on your industry so that you could be aware of what’s going on while you’re writing.
Join online food communities, understand on what people are liking and how are they commenting on various posts, this way you get to know what interest your readers.
3Challenge yourself- Try out new recipes
Get out of your comfort zone, try exploring some new recipes, you might fail but you will definitely discover something new.
Challenges keep us fresh and motivated!!
You could just visit your local market and pick on some fresh ingredients that you might not try otherwise and come up with something unusual you neva know…. it might work!
You need to keep experimenting, only then you will come up with something new and better.
When you are running short of new ideas, don’t worry just look around, you have it all around you,
You just need to pick them, analyze about them and make it your own.
Creativity lies within! You just need to figure it out!
Feel free to add in your comments, what did you like in particular or if you have anything to share? Ur welcome 🙂
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Generating Income through Affiliate Marketing & Advertisements
Blogging is more like a hobby with fun and it’s more fun when it generates an income for you…Yeah! you heard it right…Food bloggers can monetize their blogs and get rewarded!
What’s a better reward for your efforts than money? 😉
Let’s see how we can do it!
Before anything else, you need to establish your blog and your identity as a blogger.
Start writing! Make it as creative as you can. Talk about your Food adventures on the blog or add in lots and lots of recipes, share them with your circle, share it over the Social media just let your blog reach out to a wider audience. (Remember…do not try and over-do anything, we need not annoy anybody)
More than anything, Content and traffic come first, your content decides your traffic.
Try getting more insights, engage with others in the food blogging space and learn, how and what is needed for your blog to succeed with better outcomes.
Be patient, wait till your blog has enough traffic. (This might take time, but it’s going to happen, so keep calm)
What exactly, is Affiliate marketing??
An advertiser pays you for promoting his product through your blog…Affiliate marketing looks good….right?
Affiliate marketing works with blogs that have a good amount of traffic.
You basically need to recommend some products/services of your advertiser by placing product links on your blog, if someone visits the merchant’s website and purchases the product through your link, you get a commission for that sale.
The basic idea is something like this:
The advertiser or the merchant is the brand/business website owner, who pays you .i.e. the blogger for sending traffic to their site.
It’s a great idea for making money from ads on your blog!
Connecting with Advertisers
You must be thinking, how you would connect with the advertisers…??
Affiliate marketing can be in done both ways, direct or through advertising Networks. The more convenient one would be through advertising networks, it’s pretty simple!
The simplest way to connect with the advertisers is through an advertising network.
An advertising network gathers Ad space from publishers and distributes them to advertisers as per the demand.
So the Advertising network does it all for you, you need not drum up Ad sales you just need to register with the networks.
We have some best Ad Networks listed down for you:
1. Google Ad sense:
- This network is the largest and perhaps the most well-known one, offering display advertising, mobile, video, and search monetization.
- It’s free and will generally accept the smallest of websites.
- If you’re just starting, you must apply here!
2. Media.net:
- You get access to sponsored display Ads and contextual Ads from Yahoo and Bing.
- It’s easy to join.
3. Blogher
- Most Popular Ad network for food bloggers.
- It has great support.
- It helps you promote your blogs.
4. PlateFul
- It’s not exclusive, it lets you work with other Ad networks.
- It has a good CPM rate.
5. AdBlade
- If you are already on to the online market, this is very useful for you.
- Accepts website with massive traffic.
6. Foodie Blogroll Publisher Program:
- You get to become a social media influencer, you get paid for spreading the word on social media sites.
- It will also help you drive traffic to your blog.
Selling Ad space on your own
A publisher can directly sell Ad space to an advertiser. All you need to do is set aside a spot on your blog in your sidebars or so for advertisers who are willing to buy an Ad space.
If you are planning to work one to one with small advertisers, you can directly sell the Ad space.
One of the best way is to create an Ad box and advertise to people on why they should advertise on your site.
It’s kind of promoting your blog Ad space.
Simplify this process by using BuySellAds:
- You can list your Ad inventory and CPM for each Ad zone.
- A great AdSense with great control.
How Ads are going to pay you!
Mostly, businesses tend to pay per thousand impressions.
The impressions are measured using the term CPM .i.e. Cost Per Mile.
A good CPM rate starts around $1.50.
So it’s like,
1000 Views = $1.50
Let’s say your network offers you 60% on every 1000 views, you make 0.90 per mile. So according to this ratio, if your blog brings on around 20,000 readers per day, you make about $18/day.
$18/day…Not bad at all!
Will joining the premium networks better my ROI?
Premium networks get you high dollar advertisers that pay $5.0/CPM and more, and it’s actually good!
But, as the high dollar advertisers invest more they expect higher quality Ad display, they prefer being on sites that are extraordinary.
So be smart on your Ad network choices.
Sponsorships will get you discovered
Yeah, you heard it right…
To get your blogging site discovered, create an “Advertise Us Page” on your blog site. Share some information about your blog’s reach and its audience.
Try promoting that your blog has advertisement space!
This will help potential advertisers discover you easily.
Well, that is it…
Try out these monetization strategies for your Food Blog.
Let us know how Affiliate marketing helped you make money from Ads on your Food blog!
Did you find it helpful, let us know!
Thank you for reading!
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