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BIS Designs Releases Mobile App to Streamline Customer Experience

BIS DESIGNS RELEASES MOBILE APP TO STREAMLINE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

Robertsdale, AL (April 4, 2017)BIS Designs, experienced web design and digital marketing firm on the Gulf Coast, releases newly developed mobile app to make the customer experience easier and more convenient. Businesses can now download the BIS Designs app from Google Play or the Apple Store. 

With the app, clients can submit tickets, view upcoming company events and receive alerts and notifications. As a special incentive, BIS Designs will post in-app specials that will only be released to those who have the app. 

The app can be downloaded by visiting askbisdesigns.com/bis-designs-app

Phillip Long, CEO of BIS Designs, stated, “It’s exciting to provide this type of technology and service to our clients. Now, they can simply submit tickets through the app and even request appointments with our staff.” 

To learn more about BIS Designs, call 251.410.7601 or visit www.askbisdesigns.com

About BIS Designs 

BIS Designs provides web design and digital marketing services to hundreds of small and medium businesses in the local market. With the solid understanding that marketing is vital to the success of your business, BIS Designs is de-bunking the “if you build it, they will come” myth by providing the highest quality web design and digital marketing solutions available. Headquartered in Robertsdale, Alabama, BIS Designs has been serving Gulf Coast businesses for over 6 years. Learn more at www.askbisdesigns.com

About BIS Technology Group 

BIS Technology Group is the technology leader on the Gulf Coast and is comprised of four divisions: information technology, web design & digital marketing, office equipment and business consulting. Together these divisions help local businesses exceed expectations and allow them to grow to their full potential while minimizing risks. BIS is located in Robertsdale, AL. To learn more about BIS Technology Group, visit bistechnologygroup.com


Intro to Video Marketing for Your Business
Video marketing

By now, you’ve probably heard that video marketing is all the rage. It’s evidently more impactful and can engage many more people on social media networks than a post with an image alone could. You may be saying, “Yeah, that sounds great, but I don’t have the time and the resources to make a video!” Well, don’t throw the idea away just yet.

 
What if we told you that within just a few hours, you could have enough video content for almost a whole year to dole out each month? There are many styles of videos for marketing and some will take much longer to make. However, a simple Q& A style video can be done relatively quickly and provides numerous beneficial results to your marketing. 

by addressing topics you believe are important to your audience, your business value is increased and deeper relationships are developed as you’re looked at as a trusted expert in your field.

 

Before you take your first stab at making a video, keep in mind the following pointers to get the most out of your work:

1. Grab attention early.

Ideally within 1st 10 seconds or less, appeal to the viewers’ emotions by addressing particular pain points, concerns, or other impassioned viewpoints.

2. Establish a clear Call to Action (CTA).

Determine what your ultimate goal is for the video, i.e. visiting your website, sharing the video, etc. and incorporate that into a straightforward CTA usually toward the end of the video, such as “Learn more at (insert url).” 

3. Don’t forget about the post text.

What you write about in the text for the video post is very important and should be used as the bait & hook to the video. Be sure to not spam it with hashtags.

4. Set it to autoplay with subtitles.

One study found that 85% of Facebook videos are watched without sound. The video needs to be able to attract attention without sound, meaning an aesthetically pleasing background and camera quality is important, but so is the need for subtitles. Facebook offers this as an option now. Contact us if you want more specifics! 

5. Know how to measure your success.

Depending on the platform the video is posted on, make sure you know how to read the metrics, i.e. the number of shares, the amount of engagement, and the number of clicks to your site.

6. Follow the golden rules.

Make sure you have a good audio (lavaliere wireless microphone), a clear and aesthetically pleasing, but not distracting background, and that you’re discussing something that you are passionate about.

7. Upload the video individually into the social networks rather than sharing a YouTube link.

While it would certainly be easier to share the same link across all channels, Facebook’s algorithm favors videos placed directly onto their platform more than links. Doing it this way will create greater organic reach, especially on Facebook. 

8. Optimize for search.

The text you include in your post about the video won’t be searchable, but the headline and descriptions you post with your video will. Try to include those keywords or phrases you think viewers would be searching for to help them find your content, and include a couple relevant hashtags on platforms like Twitter and Instagram to boost search results.

Now for the director & producer in you, here’s a list of ideas for topics:

 

1. Share a how-to video.

It’s important to keep the video short, so if it’s a visual “How-To”, use the speed-up feature in your video editing software to shorten the duration. 

2. Answer questions.

Give brief answers to a few of the main questions you know your audience is interested in. This is a great way to establish your business’s expert credibility.

3. Take viewers behind the scenes.

This is a powerful brand-building tool as users on social media follow companies typically because they have an affinity for the business and want to learn more about what the brand really is and what it stands for. Show viewers how something works or how something is made and this can lead to major increases in brand loyalty.

4. Tell a story.

By creating a story with a beginning, middle, and end that fits into a 30-second video, you’re bound to easily connect with viewers. Telling stories about real people is ideal, but even telling a story about your customers, your business, or a cause you want to raise awareness on are dynamic tools to build and sustain loyal relationships.

Are you ready yet?

If you’re pressed for time, but feel video marketing is an excellent strategy you want to give a try, start out with the Answering Questions format. 

  • Develop a list of 10 questions that your clients and prospects most frequently ask you about your business. 
  • Then brainstorm another list of 10 questions that you think your clients and prospects need to know, but rarely ask.
  • Rehearse the answers so you can keep the videos short and sweet, ideally within the 60 sec range. This way, you don’t even have to worry about editing except for the start and finish. Doing them all at once can be filmed in just a few hours. 

If you schedule a day on your calendar that you can sit down and record 20 videos back to back, you can have 10 months of videos ready to go that get posted online every two weeks. Pretty efficient, right?

Once you have a video created, cross promote it on your blog, post it on YouTube so the link can be embedded into an email newsletter campaign, and add it as a video post to your social media networks.

 

BIS Designs is more than happy to come to your location or schedule time in our studio to record video tutorials, testimonials, or any such video as described above. Our comprehensive marketing services can integrate your video marketing with your website, social media, and print marketing endeavors, all the while ensuring your videos are efficiently optimized to help your search engine rankings. Contact our Designs team to learn more about our video marketing services and how we can increase your brand’s recognition, reinforce your business’s credibility, and boost both your search rankings and social engagement


 


6 Marketing Trends to Watch in 2017
Digital Marketing Trends

 

At the end of each year, we like to pull together the marketing community’s top digital marketing trends to look out for in the upcoming year. By keeping our finger on the pulse, we hope to be able to provide our clients with valuable insights that will sustain their growth and keep them ahead of the curve.


So what’s the meter showing? There are many advances on the horizon that will impact marketing in a big way in years to come, such as virtual and augmented reality devices, applications and games, but we’re going to keep this article’s focus on practical strategies that can be implemented right away should our clients request it.

As you embrace the idea of a new marketing strategy for 2017, here are the top digital marketing trends to consider and hopefully capitalize on:

Cross-Device Marketing Optimization
Longer Sales Funnels/Increased Content Marketing
Live Video Streaming, e.g. Facebook Live
Big Data: Consumer Behavior Analytics
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
BLE Beacons


Cross-Device Marketing Optimization 

Most companies understand by now the value of having responsive website designs that are mobile friendly. The key term here is cross-device or multi-platform. The majority of web users are still using multiple devices for their web searches. When purchasing something online, often users will want to see the details on bigger screens such as their desktops or laptops. This means we need to adopt strategies that engage the “multichannel majority” and not just our smart phones.

Longer Sales Funnels

Understanding the sales funnel is crucial to developing successful marketing campaigns. A big trend that we’re seeing is that companies are investing in marketing pursuits that provide a high level of value upfront, long before asking for an email address or moving into the Calls to Action that prompt users along the sales process. By providing valuable content will ultimately establish a strong level of trust, which is needed for someone to choose you over a competitor. This may take longer than the traditional sales funnel, however, the rewards will come in easier sales when you do ask your visitors to purchase from you.  They will already have developed a sense of trust because you’ve established yourself as an authority on certain subjects.

Live Video Streaming, i.e. Facebook Live

Your fans and social media followers want an immersive experience that connects them with your particular brand. No longer can you rely on static blog posts or images alone to impact your audience.  Whether Facebook Live, the Twitter-owned Periscope, or Google’s YouTube, mobile live-streaming has a captivating power that can spread a company’s message into the far reaches of social networks.  Curious on how to get this started for your business? We’ll guide you through it!

Big Data: Consumer Behavior Analytics 

Website analytics is by no means new, but the full potential of this kind of reporting and analysis is continually emerging. As consumer decision behavior is growing in complexity, companies will soon start using web analytics for more than the 20% the majority of us access today. The Affinity and In-Segment reports in Google Analytics is just one hidden gem that can demystify the types of customer personas that makeup your intended audience. The more we know about what makes our target audience tick, the more successful we’ll be at marketing to them.

Google Analytics Affinity report 
Image: Kaushik, 2015

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Compiling user behavior facts from a global population–and in a timely manner–is an enormous feat beyond human ability. This is why the biggest research companies in the world use AI to establish patterns for this kind of pre-emptive marketing. The type of automation we see in establishing the ideal audience for Facebook ads, for example, is one way this is already being used. In the coming years, we believe this process will heavily increase, and we are bound to see major advances in customer behavior, user experiences (UX), and profitable outcomes for businesses.

BLE Beacons

Beacons are another hot new trend that is expected in increase heavily in 2017.  BLE Beacons are used within brick-and-mortar stores to “hypertarget” customers through new levels of proximity awareness. They are low-cost transmitters that use Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) to provide smart devices with valuable location-based information. Beacons can be installed throughout entire buildings and can be used in a variety of ways. These include: 

Sending coupons and notifications when someone is near a specific retail display.
Serving as a store guide by providing a virtual map of a store.
Educating visitors on specific exhibits as they tour a museum.
Alerting people of the arrival and departure times of specific bus routes or plane delays. 

Beacons are already being used by 85% of the top US retailers, and it’s estimated that 500 million beacons will be in use by 2021. 

With all of the fascinating advancements in technology and the pervasive infiltration of the IoT lifestyles, 2017 looks to be a year that will go down in history as marketing tactics take a giant leap forward and hit their stride.

If you’re ready to explore what makes your target audience tick, give us a call and let’s talk. Our web designers and analysts will work with you to create intriguing and conversion-inducing websites that will be consistently monitored and optimized for the best possible outcomes. Our goal at BIS Designs is your success. Let’s get you back on track! Schedule your free consultation & quote today. 


Why Customer Support Needs to be a Priority on Social Media
Customer Support graphic

 

There’s more to running a successful business than simply having a superb product or service. Market saturation and growing consumer power have rendered traditional means of differentiation ineffective. To tackle this, businesses must raise the bar on their customers’ experience.

Social media is one of the most powerful tools available to assist in providing impeccable customer support.


While most businesses adopt social media in their marketing endeavors, there remains a bit of ambiguity over how best to gain and retain loyal customers. Social media marketing reinforces brand recognition, assists in search engine optimization, and strengthens public relations. 

However, to truly wow customers and retain loyal repeat business, the need to interact on a one-to-one basis on social media is crucial.

Common sense and analytical reports tell us that people on social media don’t want to be bombarded with preachy posts. Instead, they want to engage in conversations and interact with their favorite brands. 

Be warned though: this type of interaction presents a few vulnerabilities to companies. We’ve all seen posts on Facebook from a disgruntled uncle over how his credit card gouged him, or read a rant from a friend about how rude a store clerk was recently. When a business decides to embrace social media as a marketing tool, they need to be prepared to go all-in. Having an employee dedicated to monitoring and responding to your social media page is essential. Many companies find it to be too time-consuming and outsource their social media marketing, but it’s still important to have staff that can assist in customer service related issues or questions from time to time. 

A couple of years ago, customers were pleasantly surprised when they received a customer care response on social media. Now, if a company does not respond quickly, consumers have no problem moving down the line to the next company. Undoubtedly, social media is the new customer-service platform and business owners must have a plan in place. 

Today, the appropriate window for a response on social media is 60 minutes or less.

Your customers don't have time to wait for you to get around to their queries, and they will move on to your competitor if you aren't on top of their needs. 


Not convinced on the necessity of using social media for customer support yet? Consider these benefits for both companies and customers:

Communication is instantaneous.

If you can respond within minutes of a post, you will make your customers very happy. It also demonstrates to their followers – and potentially many others – that your company actually cares and is committed to handling customer service issues quickly.

Companies can offer a personal experience. 

Consumers like being able to contact businesses on social media. It means they don’t have to waste their time on the phone. To have the chance to deal with a living, breathing person, rather than with a nameless, faceless corporation, is much more palatable. 

Companies have the opportunity to think carefully about a response and craft it in a casual, conversational manner. This way, the brand voice can still resonate, while at the same time adding the human element.

The conversation is transparent.

Customers want vindication when something goes wrong, and posting on social media allows them the perfect place to be heard. Not only does the customer feel more in control, but the company also benefits from the transparency.

Other potential customers will witness how well the situation is handled. If you can answer a customer’s concerns quickly and effectively, you ultimately gain trust as a company that really cares and goes the extra mile.  

Prompts positive feedback.

It’s in our nature to share the wealth. When we discover a good company, our altruistic side steps in. A report by Hootsuite claimed that 78% of online customers recommended a brand to friends after a great customer experience. Due to the nature of social media, it only takes a moment to leave a positive review for a company or post on Facebook about a pleasant experience.

Resolving customer issues and questions on social media does present some potential risks if not handled correctly and promptly. However, the positive effects solidifies long-term relationships and increases the visibility of your brand in the process. Interested in more benefits of social media? RSVP for our Executive Business Luncheon on How to Develop & Implement a Successful Digital Marketing Plan to Increase Company Revenue.





Newsletter: Don't Ignore Shadow IT!

 Read Our June 2016 Newsletter Here!

Digital Marketing in Mobile, AL

From this month's newsletter, learn:

  • Shadow IT: Ignore at Your Own Risk
  • 12 Tips for Your Data Security Plan
  • Facebook Wants to Help You Blow Up Your Business
  • What If Your Smartphone Had Wings

  • 12 Unusual & Historical Facts on Printing

  • Which App Best Helps You Take Notes on the Go - Google Keep or Evernote?

  • Separating Yourself from the Start-up Pack

 


Newsletter: 10 Things You Need to Do Now to Prevent Costly Data Disasters

 Read Our May 2016 Newsletter Here!

LinkedIn Marketing in Mobile, AL

From this month's newsletter, learn:

  • 10 Things You Need to Do Now to Prevent Costly Data Disasters
  • Laptop, Tablet...Or 2-in-1
  • 6 LinkedIn Marketing Tips to Attract More Clients
  • Calculating the Cost of Downtime

  • Access Your Emails & Calendar Directly from Your Printer

  • Conquering Connecting

 


Effective Campaigns to Gain Emails and Capture Leads

Sign up for our FREE webinar on February 25th at 2 p.m. CST to listen to us discuss our best campaigns to generate leads and new emails. You can ask questions and listen along. This is a useful webinar both both business owners and marketersSign up for the webinar. 

 

If you’re a business, big or small, you need to have a running list of email contacts for marketing purposes. This means collecting your current customers’ emails along with potential customers’ email addresses. Having a running list of emails from your customers and prospects provides valuable ways to marketing your target audience and keep them informed.

Whether you are sending an email blast out about the latest updates and news within your company, promoting a new service or product, or notifying customers about an issue or update that could affect their business, it’s important to communicate with your target public via email.

But for many businesses, particularly small businesses, it’s tough to collect emails, especially if you don’t have a strong email marketing game plan. Even if you do, your current email list will shrink by the end of 2016, specifically by about 22.5%. Email addresses change, get deleted, people leave companies for new ones, and people opt-out of your email marketing. It’s just a fact of email marketing, but you need to have a strategy to tackle that shrinking list.

We use a strong email marketing strategy at BIS Designs, Inc. It’s essential to keep our customers informed and to reach out to prospects and qualified leads. Obviously, we keep an active list of all our current customers and that list is not hard to retrieve, but for generating new emails we use a couple different methods. We also have great advice for B2C businesses, as B2B and B2C marketing can differ.

 

1)      Run online contests and giveaways

This is one of the easiest ways to gain emails. If your business is active on social media (which it should be), run a contest or giveaway that people will want to enter and have participants sign up using their email address. Make sure you specify in the contest or giveaway rules that they are agreeing to be opted-in to your company’s email marketing campaigns.

If you’re going to promote on social media, make sure you always create a landing page or form on your website as well. This will direct traffic to your site and make it easy to submit their information.

 

2)      Create valuable, meaningful content

The saying, “Content is king” really rings true here. People sign up or get added to email lists and then get spammed with irrelevant or badly-written content. Provide value to the reader. This in turn can encourage them to share the email with their friends or colleagues- make sure you have social shares buttons and “email to a friend” buttons on all your emails to make it easy for them to share.

 

3)      Make sure you create specific email lists for your groups

Not everyone in your email list will want to receive an email about a specific product or service. Make sure you send specific emails to specific groups who will be most interested in what you have to say— or else you will have opt-outs and unsubscribes.

 

4)      Have a sign-up form on your website

This is a big one. It goes hand-in-hand with # 1. If you don’t have a way to sign up for emails on your website, then you are missing a huge avenue to gain emails. Very likely, your website visitors are interested in your business and products— that’s why they are visiting your website.  Those people are qualified leads that you could market to, and they will more than likely want to sign up for emails from your business. Take a look at our sign-up incentive on our home page.        

  •  You can also use incentives for your website visitors that will prompt them to sign-up for emails:Offer a one-time discount or coupon when they shop at your store if they sign-up, or a free white paper download, eBook or guide if you are a B2B business. It doesn’t cost much, but can have a significant effect on your ROI.

 

5)      Consider creating a Sign-Up Popup on your website

You’ve seen them before: They are a popup that takes up a good bit of space and asks the website visitor to sign up for more information on a topic. You can easily exit out and continue on the website, so it’s not forcing anyone to sign up, but it’s giving them an easy avenue to enter their information by taking the option to sign up to them and not the other way around.

Mail Chimp offers this service.

 

6)       Host an Event

This goes beyond just email marketing, as hosting an event is another marketing tactic that can do wonders for your company. Whether it’s a luncheon, seminar, webinar or phone conference Q & A, and all these events need email addresses to register. Plus, it puts your company in a thought-leader position in your community. Check out BIS Designs’ events for guidance (We have a webinar on this topic on Feb. 25th!).

 

7)      Cold-Calling

Sure, it’s not the most exciting or fun task, but cold calling on a list of qualified leads is a way to introduce yourself over the phone and ask to send them more information via email. One of the best resources to create a call-down list of your local Chamber of Commerce directory for small businesses.

 

8)      Promote your sign-up forms on social media

Make sure you have a clear way for your social media followers to sign up to your email list. On Facebook, tabs (we like Woobox) or the Call to Action button is a great way to take visitors to the sign-up landing page on your website. Make sure you consistently promote sign-ups in your social media posts with a link to the form.

 

9)      Use social media advertising to promote your company and encourage sign ups.

Make sure the link in your advertisement takes the visitor to a sign-up form with the incentive. Either to “learn more,” “download a free ebook or white paper,” or “to get a free coupon or discount.” Give them a reason to sign up.

 

10)   Partner with another company

Co-host a webinar or event or offer that will generate sign ups through your partner’s audience along with yours. Share leads with each other. 

 

Sign up for our FREE webinar on February 25th at 2 p.m. CST to listen to us discuss our best campaigns to generate leads and new emails. You can ask questions and listen along. This is a useful webinar both both business owners and marketers. Sign up for the webinar. 


4 Ways to Use Facebook Advertising to Drive New Business

If you’re marketing your business digitally, which you should be in this day and age, you probably have a nicely designed website, maybe some SEO integrated into your site and a company Facebook page. It doesn’t take a huge budget or hours of labor to get your business seen online. Actually, some digital marketing tactics are pretty downright inexpensive.

 Compared to traditional advertising via print or TV and radio spots, digital marketing puts less strain on your wallet and can be seen by thousands of people daily. But it really depends on how far you want to go to market your company online. Don’t be surprised if a “barely there” presence is not generating the amount of traffic to your website as you hoped.

But many small business owners ask, What do I do to help grow my business online? Well, there are many avenues to go down when it comes to digital marketing, some complex and some simple, but there is one specific tactic we want to highlight: Facebook advertising.

We are firm believers in using social media to help grow a business. Social media creates exposure, two-way communication with your audience and helps expand your business. There are organic ways to do that such as creating valuable content, establishing dialogues with your page fans, posting consistently and sharing interesting, cool articles and knowledge. But there are also paid tactics to grow your business on social media. 

Facebook advertising is one of those tactics.

Facebook offers businesses a way to promote, grow and drive website traffic through “sponsored” posts. These advertisements show up on your target audience’s newsfeed and have a strong call to action that prompts viewers to:

  1. Click to your website
  2. Like your page
  3. Engage with a post
  4. Enter a contest or apply for an exclusive offer

 The list extends further than just those four CTA's too. It really depends on what you want your Facebook advertising to do.

The best part about Facebook advertising is that you can place your ad in front of the people who truly matter to your business.

 You can select very specific demographics that you want to target and Facebook does the rest. For example, say you were a local clothing boutique who catered to women aged 16 – 32 that lived in Baldwin County and are interested in shopping and fashion. You can enter that information and Facebook will find users that match those specifications and put your message in their newsfeed.

But how does this directly translate into new sales? 

Well, if you don’t yet see the value, let me simplify:

Facebook ads put your business front and center of the people who matter on a channel they use daily. This exposes your business to people who have not yet heard of your company, but who will be interested in your product, then prompts them to visit your website to take a look at your services/products, and ultimately can lead to those visitors calling about how your business can help them. Ta-da!

Best part of all, as mentioned at the beginning of this post, this is a digital marketing tactic that is very inexpensive. You can create an ad for as little as $10 or as much as $300. It’s all based on your budget. Talk about a deal! Facebook is not the only social media channel offering advertising either.LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram are other channels that let your business shine.

So, think you want to jump on the Facebook advertising bandwagon, or are you still hesitant? No worries, that is why BIS Designs is here to help. Get in the know all about digital marketing with our free luncheon coming up on January 28 at the Original Oyster House in Gulf Shores, Alabama. RSVP today and enjoy a complimentary lunch and listen to our experts present on “How to Develop & Implement a Successful Digital Marketing Plan to Increase Company Revenue.” We want to help business owners grow their business and market the right way! Walk away with a powerful toolkit to make 2016 the best year yet for your business. Sign up here: http://askbisdesigns.com/seminar 

 

Whitney Jones

Digital Marketing Specialist 

 

Tips for Marketing to Tourists Digitally

Ah, life on the beach. It’s many people’s dream retirement destination. Luckily for us, and everyone else that calls the Gulf Coast their home, someone else’s dream is our life. But as great as it is living by the water, for businesses in our area, it can be extremely profitable. Living in an area where tourism is a main profit-generator, businesses can be either very successful marketing their brand, or sometimes miss the mark.

As tourism fuels our economy here, local businesses look forward to times of the year when tourists are most abundant. Summer, as you can imagine, is the peak-season to travel to the beach for vacations. Spring break and winter getaways are also very popular. But the times of the year people visit the beach play into their demographics too. Fall and winter yield a higher number of elderly visitors, seeking refuge from the harsh winters in the northern parts of the United States, while spring is when many college students vacation for their Spring Breaks.

Local businesses prepare for tourists year-round and adjust their marketing programs based off of the season and the common demographics of visitors for each season. At least most business do. Now that digital marketing is here to stay, and is an important player in the marketing sphere, make sure your tourism marketing includes digital.

Facebook Advertising

Targeted social media advertising lets you select exactly who you want your ad set to reach. Whether its adults aged 55 + whose interests are traveling and shopping, or adults aged 18 – 25 whose interests are water sports and the beach, you can determine your exact audience with Facebook advertising. This lets you get your message out to the people that are most interested in your product.

Social Media

Facebook represents one of the largest online communities in the world. You can connect with friends, groups, and business pages. Set up a business page to engage with fans and followers, inform them of yours services and products, specials and discounts and create a two-way conversation with them instead of just spitting out promotions. Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest are just a few others that have excelled for businesses. Travelers will look up businesses on social media channels to see if they are still in business, check out user reviews and what the business is posting about. Check out BIS Designs' social media services. 

SEO

Provide travelers with the information on destinations they are looking for at every stage of their planning process. When deciding upon a destination location, internet users go to search engines, with Google dominating the market at 67%. Google is the key search engine that you should focus on because of all the applications Google owns, such as Google Maps and YouTube, which aids in SEO. The higher your business ranks for your specific keywords, the easier it will be more tourists to find your shop, restaurant or whatever your business may be. Google Maps is now becoming a fast and easy way to search for businesses in the user’s location. There is a lot of SEO works that goes into making your business searchable. Page titles, great content, meta tags, backlinks, and HTML code are just some ways to use SEO to increase your ranking. If you feel overwhelmed with the task of SEO, that is what BIS Designs is here for.

Pay-per-click

PPC marketing uses search engines in a different way to help market your business. PPC is paid advertising that shows up at the top of the search results. Say someone searched “water activities in Gulf Shores.” You can use PPC to have your water recreation business show up at the top of the search results for a limited time. This does not take the place of organic SEO, but helps to showcase your business quickly.

Websites

Make your website responsive on mobile devices. This is a MUST. The majority of travelers, and online users in general, use their mobile devices to search locations and business. In 2014, one half of all local searches were performed on mobile devices. This number is higher in tourists because they are on the go and don’t have a desktop readily available when they are traveling. Use landing pages attached to your website that redirect searchers to coupons or discounts on your products.

Travel Blogs and Review Websites

Reach out to travel bloggers. These bloggers are followed by thousands of people and are opinion leaders online. Pitch your business to a well-known travel blogger and if they agree, these bloggers will come visit your business and write about their experience. User reviews on businesses hold more sway than traditional advertising. You can manage your online reputation through blogs and business review sites, such as TripAdvisor. Review website are a key component to reaching travelers and helping make their decision whether to visit your business, or not.

 

These suggestions are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to digital marketing designed for tourists. There are many different outlets and methods to help communicate your message to your target audiences. At BIS Designs, we have a highly-educated staff that understands digital and how to effectively market your business. Give us a call today! 251-923-4252

 

 

 


The Importance of Backlinks in SEO for a Website

SEO? What does that stand for?

If you are not sure what the term “SEO” stands for in today’s digital marketing landscape, you have some homework to do. SEO, standing for search engine optimization, is a pivotal function that helps get traffic to your articles, blogs, posts, websites and practically anything you want to get noticed on the internet.
When users search for a specific topic in a search engine, a list of related articles and links are displayed. But how do you get a user to see your article above the thousands of others in a search result?
Well, search results are based on a ranking system that is created using Google’s search algorithm.
That’s where the backlink comes in.

The Backlink

If you have a basic understanding of SEO, you’ve probably heard of the backlink. But although it is a common term in the SEO world, they can be difficult to understand.

When you read an article online that has links to other webpages embedded in the article, like this, you are seeing a backlink. When another page or article online is linking to your webpage, it’s helping your article increase its SEO ranking. In turn making it easier to be found. Get it?

Any article with links to other webpages create a higher SEO ranking, i.e. search engines will pick up webpages with backlinks more than webpages without.

But just understanding the definition of a backlink is just skimming the surface. Backlink terminology is wide and varied.
Here are a few:

Link juice: When another page links to your website, or vise versa, this creates "link juice." Link juice aids in producing a higher ranking for your webpage, domain and article. But take note:Link juice is connected to the quality of the website's link "power," so to speak. An example: If a well-known website such as Huffington Post were to backlink to your webpage, the link juice would be more powerful than if a lesser-known website backlinked to your page. Having a quality website backlink to your webpage is valuable because it increases the power of that backlink in relation to SEO.
No-follow links: If an article creates a link, but doesn’t want to pass the link juice around, they can create a no-follow link. These types of links don’t improve the article’s ranking, but they prevent link juice from being passed to webpages that are not reliable sources.
Do-Follow Links: By default the links you put in your article are do-follow links and pass on "link juice."
Anchor text: the text you click on that re-directs you to a link. It is important the text a user clicks on pertains to what the link is actually about.

Recently, Google Search switched up its search algorithm to prevent webpages with unreliable or questionable links to be pulled up in the search engine. Your article needs to have links to RELEVANT and credible sites backlinking to it, not spam-y bogus sites.
Don’t forget to incorporate specific and relevant keyword out-bound links in your articles.

Quality over quantity

Having credible websites and articles linking back to your webpage is key. You don’t need to have hundreds of links directing users to your webpage to obtain a higher SEO ranking though. Many times if you pay for questionable or non-relevant pages to create links to your website, Google’s search algorithm will penalize you. Quality webpages linking back to your page is what is important- not a million different websites you pay to link, but have nothing in common with what your article or webpage is about.

Review

OK, so we talked about some technical terms, some do’s and don’ts of backlinking, and quality vs. quantity, but let’s summarize:

Backlinks refer to the webpages that are creating links to your webpage. Having substantial, quality sites link to your page is better than having thousands of miscellaneous, irrelevant websites linking to your page (plus you may get penalized by Google).
Create anchor text that is relevant to the hyperlink—this will help raise your SEO ranking instead of creating a link that says CLICK HERE to read more.

Backlink knowledge is a lot more complex than just these few suggestions, but with an overall understanding of what they do and why they are useful you are already ahead of the competition.