Gulf Coast Local Blogdescription...https://gulfcoastlocal.com/Blog-DetailsWhy Now Is the Time to Develop Your Marketing Strategyhttps://gulfcoastlocal.com/Blog-Details/PostId/161/why-now-is-the-time-to-develop-your-marketing-strategyDigital MarketingMon, 27 Apr 2020 20:46:03 GMT<p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">As the nationwide lockdown continues to devastate the economy, a strong marketing strategy may be the last thing on your mind. Millions of businesses across the country have made deep cuts to their marketing costs in an effort to combat the quarantine’s strain on their profits. For those unfamiliar with marketing, it makes sense - why focus on marketing <i>now, </i>when customers can’t leave their homes to buy your product?</span></span></span><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">This line of thinking can have lasting negative effects on your company’s future. While saving money on marketing may seem like a quick fix, it will ultimately hurt your business when the economy rebounds. In fact, the current business climate provides a few advantages that make marketing right now easier than ever!</span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">If your marketing strategy is weak, ineffective or even non-existent, now is the time to start ramping it up. Here’s why:</span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b>You’ll Get Ahead of the Competition</b></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b></b></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">The best time to get ahead of the game is when there aren’t as many players. Right now, many businesses have taken their foot off the gas when it comes to marketing, making it easier for you to get several laps ahead. Think of it like the tortoise and the hare - while the competition is taking a break, you have the opportunity to blow right past them. </span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Take this example from <u><span style="color:#1155cc"><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradadgate/2019/09/05/when-a-recession-comes-dont-stop-advertising/#60d7f9da4608"><span style="color:#1155cc">Forbes</span></a></span></u>: </span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">“During the 1990-91 recession, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell took advantage of McDonald’s decision to drop its advertising and promotion budget. As a result, Pizza Hut increased sales by 61%, Taco Bell sales grew by 40% and McDonald’s sales declined by 28%.”</span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">It’s clear - those that employ a strong marketing strategy right now will come out on top financially.</span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b>You’ll get a Strong ROI</b></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b></b></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Less competition for your business means less “noise” in the industry. As competing businesses go silent, the constant race for attention from customers and search engines slows down. Ultimately, that leads to a better ROI on your marketing strategy. You’ll find that it’s faster and easier right now to show up in search results, grab consumers’ attention, and turn your market spending into increased profits. Developing a strong marketing strategy now means getting more results for less money!</span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b>Maintain (And Gain) Customer Relationships</b></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b></b></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b></b></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">It’s no secret that consumers buy more readily from brands they can believe in. Right now, consumers that feel isolated are desperate for connection - with people <i>and </i>brands. Failing to market effectively right now may sever valuable connections with current and future customers that could help you weather the economic storm.</span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">A strong marketing strategy does more than make quick sales - it connects with your customers, increases awareness of your brand and creates a long-lasting business image that will remain long after the country has reopened.</span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b>Come Out Of This Stronger</b></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b></b></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">We’ve shown how brands that increase their marketing efforts during a recession come out stronger financially than they were before. But it’s not just a matter of profits - businesses that employ a strong marketing strategy during this challenging time will also come out stronger in their customers’ minds. </span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Businesses and brands that are ineffective at marketing - or worse, radio silent - during this time will find themselves scrambling to do damage control with their customers when it's over. They’ll have to recapture their audience’s attention, explain their vanishing act and regain their trust. That’s going to make regaining their profit margins even harder. </span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Businesses that keep a strong marketing strategy will save themselves that daunting hurdle. By building a strong brand image and staying active in your customers’ minds while things are slow, you’ll be able to hit the ground running with promotions and CTA’s as soon as possible. </span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">If you need to develop a strong marketing strategy, we can help! We offer expert marketing solutions in a variety of areas that will take your business to the next level, both now and in the future. <u><span style="color:#1155cc"><a href="https://askbisdesigns.com/Contact-Us"><span style="color:#1155cc">Contact us</span></a></span></u> today! </span></span></span></p> 161How to Utilize Social Media to Promote Your Business During the COVID-19 Pandemichttps://gulfcoastlocal.com/Blog-Details/PostId/160/how-to-utilize-social-media-to-promote-your-business-during-the-covid-19-pandemicDigital Marketing,Social MediaMon, 06 Apr 2020 20:39:55 GMT<p style="margin:0in 0in 8pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:107%"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">The coronavirus made its way into the U.S. fast and abruptly. Businesses across the country are being forced to limit their hours or even close due to restrictions set by the government. In such uncertain times, small businesses must think quickly and efficiently. Social media is a powerful and cost-effective tool to advertise your business and maintain revenue. Your services or products may be limited but utilizing <a href="https://askbisdesigns.com/Social-Media">social media</a> in a variety of ways can bring in customers and boost your online presence. </span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 8pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:107%"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 8pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:107%"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b>Stay Consistent</b></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 8pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:107%"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">Although your business may not being able to offer your normal services or products, it doesn’t mean you have to come to a complete stop on social media. Remaining active on your social channels lets your audience know you are still around. Also, posting consistently gives you the chance to increase your brand awareness, resulting in potential new customers! </span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 8pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:107%"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b></b></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 8pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:107%"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b>Educate Your Audience</b></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 8pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:107%"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">Use this time as an opportunity to educate your followers about your business. A great way to do so is by highlighting parts of your business most don’t know about. Make sure you’re focusing on something that will benefit your audience. For example, an HVAC company could make a post about how to change an air filter. Educating your followers and offering tips and tricks not only provides knowledge but also shows them you’re reliable and extremely qualified in your industry which builds credibility.</span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 8pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:107%"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 8pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:107%"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b>Highlight How Your Business can Help</b></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 8pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:107%"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">Market your services on social media while keeping COVID-19 in mind. Most people browsing social media don’t know they have a problem until you present it. Address a problem your customers may have and explain how you can solve it. Right now, the biggest problem is social distancing. Inform your audience on how your services can be performed without direct contact. A great example of this is the restaurant industry moving to curbside take-out or delivery. Verizon reported a 20% increase in online traffic, so don’t miss out on the opportunity to advertise your business.</span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 8pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:107%"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b></b></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 8pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:107%"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b>Take Advantage of Social Media Features</b></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 8pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:107%"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><i>Facebook Live</i></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 8pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:107%"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">Facebook Live is a feature available to all Facebook users and business profiles. It can be used for many industries, all it takes is a little creativity! Let your customers and clients know you are still available virtually. Retail stores can use Facebook Live as a “Virtual Live Try-on Session”. Gym owners can offer “Live Morning Workout”. </span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 8pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:107%"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><i>Instagram and Facebook Stories</i></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 8pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:107%"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">These social features are another great way to reach your audience. Neglecting to use them can cause you to miss out on reaching parts of your potential audience. Not only can Instagram and Facebook stories be used to keep your followers informed, but it also increases engagement. Use these features to interact with your followers by asking questions, creating polls or designing fun challenges. Look at stories as a way to spread positivity and also get to know your audience.</span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 8pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:107%"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 8pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:107%"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">Adjusting your current social media strategy during this challenging time can help your business in more ways than one. Use your spare time to take advantage of these simple yet effective tips. BIS Designs understands the impact COVID-19 is taking on your business and we are here to help. We are offering a free business consultation to go over repurposing your digital marketing strategy during this time. Visit <span class="MsoHyperlink" style="color:blue"><span style="text-decoration:underline"><a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">https://www.askbisdesigns.com/</a></span></span> or call us at 251-405-2535 to schedule your consultation. </span></span></span></p> 160How to Dominate Your Industry on Googlehttps://gulfcoastlocal.com/Blog-Details/PostId/159/how-to-dominate-your-industry-on-googleDigital Marketing,SEOThu, 05 Mar 2020 03:39:00 GMT<p>The concept of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) technically applies to all online search engines, but let’s face it - with over 70% of online searches in its corner, Google is king. If you’re budgeting for SEO in your marketing strategy (and you should be), you should be doing it with Google in mind.</p> <p>Google is a large ocean, and your website is one of the millions vying for its attention. So how do you get noticed? Google’s algorithms exist to fairly crawl and index all websites, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t steps you can take to get ahead of the game and rise through the ranks.</p> <p>If you’re looking for a first-page Google ranking, use these tips to dominate your industry on Google.</p> <h2><br /> Narrow Your Niche</h2> <p>When you’re asking “How do I dominate my industry on google?”, what you’re asking is “How do I out-rank the competition?”</p> <p>If you’re going to out-Google your competitors, you need to know who those competitors are. That’s why the first step of dominating your industry is to define it as a specific niche. The more specifically you define your business, the better. You’re not just a law firm - you’re a personal injury lawyer. You aren’t a financial company - you’re an accounting firm that specializes in corporate tax. </p> <p>Ask yourself what product or service you want to be known for and keep your focus on dominating that niche. Think about it this way - the more narrow your industry, the less competition you have.</p> <h2><br /> Optimize Your Site with The Right Keywords</h2> <p>Once you’ve defined your niche, it’s time to find the keywords that will help you rise to the top of those search results. The point of using targeted keywords is that it will make your content relevant and easily searchable on Google, which is exactly what your SEO goal should be. </p> <p>In previous days, keywords were all it took to dominate Google rankings. Companies turned to stuffing their content and websites with as many keywords as possible, and it worked. As expected, Google has gotten smarter, and now websites that keyword stuff are penalized, so choosing the right keywords takes a bit more work.</p> <p>Many keyword tools on the market can help you research keywords for your niche and narrow down your options. Your keywords should be as specific to your business as possible. Don’t automatically choose the most-searched keyword in the list (remember what we said about competition!) Long-tail keyword phrases and those with lower search volumes can help convert users more easily than trying to compete in the most popular searches. </p> <h2><br /> Write Well - And Often</h2> <p>Content is extremely important for Google rankings - as long as it’s relevant, high-quality and authoritative. Your content should be optimized with on-page SEO and keywords, but it’s even more important that it makes sense, is engaging and keeps your audience’s attention. Many businesses fall into the trap of writing for search engines instead of for humans, and while that may get you an initial boost in your rankings, it’s ultimately bad for your business. Be sure to write with your audience in mind; avoid keyword stuffing, irrelevant links or badly re-spun content.</p> <h2><br /> Use On-Page SEO</h2> <p>On-page SEO means optimizing the content and HTML codes of an individual webpage so it gets noticed by Google. On the technical side, on-page SEO includes optimizing your headlines, images and HTML tags (header, meta, and title tags). On-page SEO is a great way to rise in the ranks from behind the scenes instead of strictly through content, and it’s a must for any website wanting a first-page ranking. For more information on how to dominate with on-page SEO, check out these great tips.</p> <p>Getting your website optimized to dominate Google has many moving parts. To take your business to the top of Google, utilize these tips. If you’re feeling lost in the SEO jargon, don’t worry! BIS Designs offers SEO services that are guaranteed to move you through the ranks and top your industry on Google. Contact us today to learn more!</p> 159Email Marketing and Social Media: Better Together?https://gulfcoastlocal.com/Blog-Details/PostId/156/email-marketing-and-social-media-better-togetherDigital Marketing,Internet MarketingTue, 22 Oct 2019 02:31:00 GMT<p>If you’re active online, you likely have an email. You also probably have a social media account (or several). And, you’ve probably seen ads, promotions, and content from businesses on both. Email and social media marketing are both very popular ways that businesses use the digital sphere to market themselves to customers. And for good reason - they’re both effective. But many marketers focus on one or the other and they’re missing out on the benefits of using them both.</p> <p>Much like salt and pepper, email and social media marketing are good apart but better together. To understand why, let’s first look at them separately before we explain how they can work together to strengthen your marketing efforts.</p> <h3><br /> Email Marketing</h3> <p><br /> When you checked your email this morning, did you scroll through a few email promotions from businesses? Of course you did! Email marketing is the most heavily used form of digital marketing - so much so that it can sometimes become an annoyance (how many times have you clicked “no thank you” today?). But the fact is that email marketing is so popular because it works. In the simplest terms, email marketing is the act of sending marketing materials via email directly to customers who have signed up to receive them. 99% of people check their email every day, many of them first-thing, so marketing there is a lucrative and worthy activity for any business.</p> <p>So how exactly does it benefit you? People subscribe to your emails because they are interested in your company and want to be kept up-to-date on the latest news and promotions. When your email marketing is done correctly, you’re providing those customers with useful, interesting information each day, directly to their inbox (so they don’t have to search for it). This keeps your business fresh in their minds and helps you stay relevant, strengthening your relationship with them. It also pushes your promotions directly in front of interested customers as opposed to appealing to the masses.</p> <p>As a business, we all want new customers - but keeping the lines of communication with your existing ones open is equally important, and that is done through email marketing.</p> <h3><br /> Social Media Marketing</h3> <p>We all have a favorite social media business. They may appeal to you because they are funny, innovative, inspiring, or heartfelt; the point is, they do appeal to people, and they keep you coming back for more. This is the result of a well-done social media marketing campaign. Businesses use social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube to market themselves to the public, often very successfully. Social media has 3.2 billion daily users, making it a very big pond full of many waiting fish.</p> <p>Social media is so important because it allows your business to reach new customers by connecting with your current ones. Through shares, likes, and comments (especially tags), a business can boost its organic reach and get in front of new consumers on a daily basis. It’s also one of the best ways to build your brand, as the tone and type of content you post on social media helps visitors understand and connect with your business. All around, social media marketing is a crucial part of your marketing campaign.</p> <h3><br /> Integrating Your Social Media and Email Marketing</h3> <p>At first glance, it may seem like email and social media marketing are at odds. After all, email marketing only connects with current customers, while social media marketing engages new ones. How do you choose just one?! The strongest marketers don’t. The two can actually co-exist quite nicely, and when integrated they take your marketing efforts from meh to marvelous.</p> <p>So how do you do it? It’s easier than you think. Think of this as a kind of fishing pole (there’s that fish reference again). Your social media account can get new customers to bite, then your email marketing reels them in and keeps them hooked. Here are a few examples.</p> <h3><br /> Entice Social Media Followers To Sign Up</h3> <p>Social media is a great place to promote your emails! Use your social media accounts to give teasers about your email content or promise exclusive email-only offers to entice followers to sign up. By promoting your email subscription through your social channels, you can increase your mailing lists and then turn those casual followers into loyal customers. It’s like having your coffee and drinking it, too!</p> <h3><br /> Include Social Media Links In Your Emails</h3> <p>Don’t assume that your email audience is aware of your social presence! The next time you send out a marketing email, try including links to your social media pages. You can do this by simply adding clickable widgets to your layout and pointing your viewers in their direction. Add a helpful call-to-action to point them in the right direction.</p> <h3><br /> Promote Your Social Media In Your Emails</h3> <p>Better yet, take it a step further and encourage your email readers to tune into your social media accounts for specific or ongoing information (like promotion or event details). Letting them know that you’re active on social media and giving them a reason to tune in will both boost your social followers and increase your brand awareness.</p> <h3><br /> Use Social Media To Find What Works</h3> <p>Crafting email content can be hard, especially if you’re sending them frequently. Social media can help you decide what types of content your audience is looking for, and it also lets your content play double-duty. Use content that has high engagement from your audience in your emails! This can be facebook posts, Instagram photos, or even follower’s comments. You’ll already know that your audience is interested, and you can promote your social accounts at the same time. Win-Win!</p> <p>If you aren’t a marketing whiz, this may seem a bit overwhelming. The good news is, we can help! Bis Designs helps businesses just like yours create killer marketing campaigns through email and social media (and more). Contact us today to get started!</p> 156Video Content for Social Media (Yes, You Need It)https://gulfcoastlocal.com/Blog-Details/PostId/155/video-content-for-social-media-yes-you-need-itContent Marketing,Digital MarketingTue, 08 Oct 2019 02:27:00 GMT<p>Most of us have fond memories of watching grainy, embarrassing home movies on large VHS tapes in our childhood living rooms. Video has come a long way since then, but its impact on our lives has only grown. These days, videos are used as a powerful marketing strategy to help businesses increase their profits and connect with consumers. In fact, video content is the most powerful form of social media marketing and businesses that aren’t using it to their advantage are falling behind. To stay on top, hiring a professional videographer to handle your video content should be a key component in your social media strategy.</p> <p>But do you really need a video content strategy? Here’s what social video content can do for your business:</p> <h3><br /> Videos Boost Engagement</h3> <p>Digital marketers agree - there is no medium more engaging to an online audience than video. To begin with, users are more inclined to actually watch videos than other types of content. According to a survey done by Animoto, 60% of users say that they watch branded videos on social media every day. And when it comes to sharing, video content is shared 1200% more than text or image content! In the numbers game, video content will always come out on top.<br /> So why are they so engaging? Videos are able to capture your audience more effectively using two things that always grab our attention: movement and sound. And once your audience is ensnared, video content can use things like facial expressions, tone of voice, and sounds to convey and evoke emotion. This is much harder to do in text content, which requires punction or visual cues to suggest tone. Emotion is a driving factor in purchasing decisions, so you want to hit your audience where they’ll feel it the most. And speaking of purchasing...</p> <h3><br /> Videos Boost Product Sales</h3> <p>Have you ever seen a cool product online, but you weren’t sure how it worked? I bet you weren’t inclined to buy it to find out! One of the best uses of video content is showing a product in action, especially if the product is new. In today’s busy world, consumers don’t have time to read lengthy product descriptions. Videos are easily digestible and can make new concepts easier to understand. By showing how a product works, you can also show them how it will benefit them in a real-life way. A viewer is much more likely to visualize that product in their hands when they see it in someone else’s rather than in the pages of an advertisement.<br /> <br /> If your business relies on product sales to thrive, video content is something you can’t slack on. Animoto’s survey found that one in four consumers lose interest in a product if it doesn’t have video. That’s 25% of your audience!</p> <h3><br /> Videos Build Trust</h3> <p>Ask yourself: are you more likely to trust something pitched to you by a friend or by a hawker on the street? Video content is so effective because it helps build trust between your business and your customers. Though most of the world relies on digital technology, consumers remain more likely to invest in a business that they feel connected to. Videos are inherently personal, especially if the content is authentic, natural, and conversational. That’s why storytelling is such a crucial element in your video strategy - it makes your business feel like a trusted friend rather than an infomercial. When your video content is consistent, your audience will begin to seek out your page to experience your brand rather than just clicking on your videos in their feed. And that is exactly where you want to be.</p> <h3><br /> Videos Build Your Brand</h3> <p>Speaking of the personal nature of videos, it makes them the perfect tool to create and maintain your business’s brand. A brand is a complex concept, affected by everything from your word choices to your punctuation style. When your video content is consistent with your brand, it helps develop your company’s personality and connect to your audience. Quality video content can combine all of the things that make up your brand and deliver it in a ready-to-go package. One way to do this is by inserting appropriate text and graphic elements into your videos. People are strongly influenced by visuals, so creating a consistent look with your videos is one of the easiest ways to make your brand - and your business - recognizable.</p> <h3><br /> Why Do I Need A Professional?</h3> <p>Now that you’re convinced that you need strong video content for your social accounts, you may be wondering how to get it done. Many companies don’t believe they need to hire a professional videographer, and they often assign video content to existing members of their staff. But this isn’t always the best decision - and sometimes it’s a downright bad one. Here’s what a professional videographer can do for your video content strategy:</p> <p> </p> <ul> <li>Use professional equipment to create high quality, dynamic video content</li> <li>Give you a better ROI than less qualified staff</li> <li>Bring industry knowledge to the table to create content that is successful long-term</li> <li>Help develop your company brand</li> <li>Increase your profits</li> <li>And more!</li> </ul> <p>Our professional videography service can help you create a video content strategy that turns your social media accounts into marketing gold. Using professional equipment and the latest industry trends, we can deliver video content that is engaging, dynamic, and beneficial to your business. Ready to see your social media engagement skyrocket? Contact us for a consultation today!</p> 1554 Ways Duplicate Content Hurts Your Sitehttps://gulfcoastlocal.com/Blog-Details/PostId/154/4-ways-duplicate-content-hurts-your-siteContent Marketing,Digital MarketingWed, 25 Sep 2019 02:23:00 GMT<p>The words ‘duplicate content’ strike fear into the hearts of marketers everywhere, something akin to cavity search or TV Reruns. Actually, it’s pretty similar - who wants to watch the same show over and over again? It’s the same with content - users don’t want to read articles that just repeat information and don’t bring anything new to the table. More than that, duplicating content hurts your reputation as a website and as a business. But what exactly is duplicate content? And why is it so bad?</p> <h3>What Is Duplicate Content?</h3> <p>Duplicate content can be a variety of things, and not all of them are bad. Google defines duplicate content as “substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely match other content or are appreciably similar.” Google actually distinguishes duplicate content by two types: non-malicious and malicious duplicate content.</p> <p>Non-malicious duplicate content includes instances such as syndication - when a website publishes your content on their own website - or when your website has multiple URLs, such as when you have pages optimized for different browsers, among others. These types of content duplication are not penalized by Google and are actually common, if not unavoidable.</p> <p>Duplicate content that is malicious is done to manipulate search results. The short of it is that duplicating content occurs when a website recycles old content in an effort to rank higher for keywords or tags (more keywords = higher results). This is not always their intent. There are many other reasons that a website might reuse its own content - one example would be an e-commerce store that struggles to write hundreds of product descriptions, so they reuse what they’ve already created. The distinction here is the intention behind the content, but Google is not all-knowing and can often misconstrue it, so it’s better to avoid duplicating your content as much as you can.</p> <p>Note: It’s important to distinguish duplicate content with outright plagiarism, which is not only seriously bad form but can carry legal penalties. We know you would never plagiarize, so we’ll keep our definition of duplicate content to the reusing of your own work. Additionally, if someone else has plagiarized your work for their own site, you should report the site to Google.</p> <p><strong>Of course, you own the rights to your work and are free to reuse it in any way you see fit. But if you’re looking to bring your website high SEO rankings and an engaged audience, it’s a bad choice for a number of reasons. Let’s take a look at them.</strong></p> <h3>It Hurts Your Keyword Rankings</h3> <p>Duplicate content hurts your keyword strategy. Keyword placement is a staple of good SEO practices, and getting your content keywords just right can take a lot of time and effort. That’s why some websites recycle old content that has successful keyword rankings - you know they work, so why not use them again? It’s faster and cheaper than writing new, original content!</p> <p>While this may seem smart, it’s actually counter-intuitive. Because when you recycle your content and keywords, you’re actually giving yourself competition. As Google algorithms crawl the internet, they collect keywords and index them for searches. So, if you post content that uses the same keywords multiple times, Google is going to crawl both articles and pit them against one another. See the problem? Your original content will now suffer because of increased competition, essentially making all of that time you spent doing keyword research a waste. It’s a lot like hobbling yourself before the big race - just not smart.</p> <h3>It Hurts Your SEO</h3> <p>As we’ve noted, search engines crawl websites and index the results for users. Because they want to give users the best possible experience, they rarely post multiple websites with the same content on their result pages. For you, this means that if multiple websites online have your content, Google may not mark your original page as the best page to show. If your duplicate content is on a different URL that has a higher domain score than yours, this can lead to them getting higher search results for your content. Plus, you don’t want your printing pages showing up as the landing page for users, or your mobile site ranking higher for desktop users.</p> <p>Syndication is an important part of marketing, so you shouldn’t avoid it. But, be sure that any websites that publish your content link your site as the original page so Google knows which one to index first. Also, there are plug-ins and other technical ways to note your own website pages as the original pages and remove other pages from indexing altogether. If you aren’t sure how to do this, contact us for a consultation. We’re here to help!</p> <h3>Google May Penalize You</h3> <p>Google’s algorithm is constantly learning and evolving, and it can now separate duplicate content that is malicious or non-malicious - to an extent. If Google decides that you are copying or “scraping” old content to increase your search results, it will do a manual audit of your site. If you’re found guilty, they can penalize you stiffly - even so far as removing your site from their results altogether. And getting back into Google’s good graces is no easy feat - it requires that you address and fix all of your duplicate content and then request a new investigation, which can take some time. You don’t want to get called into the proverbial principal’s office, so avoid posting duplicate content when you can.</p> <h3>Your Audience Will Get Bored</h3> <p>Setting the technicals aside, duplicate content will negatively affect your audience’s interest in your site. As we said earlier, nobody likes reruns. Publishing old content that doesn’t add any value to your readership will ultimately lead to a decrease in your website traffic by itself. If you’re posting duplicate content across landing pages, this will negatively affect your click-through and bounce rates as users leave your site for something more interesting. If your published content is stale or repetitive, you may lose user loyalty and sabotage your chances of return visitors.</p> <p>If you’re having trouble keeping up with your content marketing - or just need some fresh ideas - let us help! We can create a content marketing strategy that’s perfect for your business and then help you implement it!</p> <h3>What do I do?</h3> <p>Publishing content that is new and original is the best way to avoid the negative effects of duplicate content. Be sure that anything you’re posting on your website is authentic, adds value to your readership, and introduces new keywords and ideas. If you have an article syndicated by another site (go, you!), be sure that they are appropriately linking back to your website as the original version so that they don’t beat you in the search results. And be sure to use the correct URLs and tags when creating duplicate pages to make sure that Google indexes the correct one.</p> <p><strong>Need more help? Contact us today! BIS Designs can handle all of your content marketing and website design needs.</strong></p> 154The Top Website Design Trends For 2019-2020https://gulfcoastlocal.com/Blog-Details/PostId/152/the-top-website-design-trends-for-2019-2020Digital Marketing,SEO,Web DesignTue, 03 Sep 2019 20:50:56 GMT<p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Website design trends are as fluid and changing as the sea (or the internet). What is popular today may be a website faux pas tomorrow, and what was deemed uncool two years ago can make an unexpected comeback. Staying on top of the day’s trends can feel like a full-time job. Luckily, we’ve done it for you!</span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">We’ve scoured the industry’s top leaders for the day’s most popular website design trends. The ones that can make or break your website. The ones that will set you apart from your competitors. The ones you can be sure will stick around for 2020. Check them out below!</span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b> </b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b>Mobile-First Designs</b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b><b> </b></b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">The days of desktop dominance are gone, and mobile devices are the undisputed king of screen time. <a href="https://www.comscore.com/Insights/Presentations-and-Whitepapers/2017/2017-US-Cross-Platform-Future-in-Focus?"><span style="color:#3498db;">Users spend an average of 69%</span></a> of their media time on smartphones, so if you want to reach your audience then you’ve got to optimize your site for mobile use. Also, Google now ranks mobile sites ahead of desktop sites in search rankings, so focusing on a mobile design will help make sure your site is seen. And studies show that users are <a href="https://designadvisor.net/blog/web-design-trends/"><span style="color:#3498db;">67%</span></a> more likely to buy a product from your site if it is optimized for mobile use. See the pattern?</span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b> </b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Mobile devices aren’t exactly new, and they’ve taken up a big spot in web design for a few years. But the new focus on mobile-first designs means that website designers are focusing on mobile templates <i>first</i> rather than creating websites for desktops and then making them responsive to other devices. Because users expect a website to load in under 3 seconds, optimizing a website for mobile loading also means you’ll decrease your bounce rate and increase your user engagement.</span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b> </b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">What does that mean for you? Well, it means a focus on layouts that can be compressed to fit a smaller screen without losing content. It’s also important to keep in mind that mobile screens are touched rather than clicked, so you’ll need to adjust your designs to be accessible by various fingers. In short, simple and direct navigation, adaptive designs, and responsive frameworks will reign supreme.</span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b> </b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b>Speedy and Trendy Designs</b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b><b> </b></b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b></b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">We’ve already discussed optimizing your website for load speed (recap: you should), but doing so involves more than just technical work. The design of your website also plays a big role in how quickly it loads. Keep your design simple but trendy to stay on top of your speed and your relevance. Be generous with your white space - it helps guide users down the page and keeps your site uniform, while also loading quickly. You should also reduce clutter by ridding your site of unnecessary graphics and complex designs to make your site quick and scannable.</span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b> </b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">For the trendiest site on the web, use a good mix of contrasting colors, large and playful fonts, and high-quality images and videos. Grid patterns are becoming especially popular - a good example of this is the block layout of Pinterest pins. Grouping your content and related pages into easily scannable squares keeps your users attention while looking sleek and modern.</span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b> </b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b>Video is King</b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b><b> </b></b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b></b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Unless you’ve had your head in the sand, you’ll know that video content is the name of the internet game. Today’s users are more concerned than ever with immediate gratification, and information is often easiest to access and digest in video form. In fact, static pages (those without any animated or video content) are likely to be obsolete by 2020. That’s why the top websites have shifted their content focus away from text graphics and articles and instead use full-screen or embedded videos to boost their site traffic.</span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b> </b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">One of the top ways to do this is to place videos in the header of your website to immediately gain the attention of visitors. Or, you can place multiple related videos along your page to entice users to scroll down. Some websites even choose to display looping videos as the background of their homepage. Whatever method you choose, video content should be your prime focus as we move into 2020.</span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b> </b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Don’t have video content? Jump on the motion bandwagon with GIFS or animation to keep your page from looking static.  </span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b> </b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b>Chat Bots</b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b><b> </b></b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b></b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Chat Bots are a new feature in AI that have taken the internet by storm in 2019 and show no signs of slowing down. A chat bot interacts with users on your website through chat ‘conversations’ to provide automated customer service, saving you time and money. They also allow users to access information and engage with your site much more quickly than traditional methods. Chat bots use assigned ‘rules’ and information along with really cool artificial intelligence to allow users to do a multitude of tasks. They can do things such as ask questions, file complaints, make online orders, book flights, buy tickets, and more.</span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b> </b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">There are two types of chatbots: simple and advanced. Simple chatbots use pre-filled keywords to process and respond to customer queries. This type of bot is much simpler (and cheaper) to implement on your website, but it isn’t as good at engaging with your users; it often responds to difficult or unanticipated questions with an ‘I don’t understand’ message. On the opposite side of the coin, advanced chatbots use artificial intelligence to learn customer preferences and enhance conversation. They are able to make jokes, understand sarcasm, and answer complex questions.</span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b> </b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Artificial intelligence is not yet an art, so there are still bugs in the system. Plus, chat bots can be extremely expensive and they require technical knowledge that many companies may not have on the payroll. However, we anticipate that as technology advances, chat bots will become much more streamlined and accessible for all.</span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b> </b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b>Sticky Elements</b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b></b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Sticky elements is a very descriptive name, as they “stick” to your webpage. In other words, as users scroll down your page the sticky elements scroll with them. It’s a great way to keep navigation simple and keep your users engaged.</span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b> </b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Sticky elements can be a variety of things. Newsletter sign-ups, contact information, and promotions are all good sticky element materials. Many websites create sticky “floating” menus to make navigation easier for a better user experience. Perhaps the most important one is social media links, which allow users to quickly link to your accounts or share your material on their pages. Which is important, because social media attracts billions (with a b) of internet users every day. That’s a huge audience!</span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b> </b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">But, be careful not to over-saturate your site with too many sticky elements. Doing so can make them seem spammy and intrusive, plus they’ll cover your other content. Stick to the sweet spot - no more than two or three at a time.  </span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b> </b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Well, there you have it. The top website design trends for 2019-2020 focus on increasing speed, keeping your designs simple but engaging, and using technology to stay ahead of the game. Trends evolve, but we’re confident that keeping these in mind will help keep your website relevant and modern through the New Year and beyond.</span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b> </b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Need more help? We do <a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Website"><span style="color:#3498db;">website design</span></a><span style="color:#3498db;">!</span> From consultations to complete overhauls, BIS Designs can transform your website into a stunning reflection of your business. <a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Contact-Us"><span style="color:#3498db;">Contact us today</span><span style="color:#3498db;">! </span></a></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b></b></span></span></span></p> 1524 Ways To Use Instagram And Facebook Stories For Your Businesshttps://gulfcoastlocal.com/Blog-Details/PostId/150/4-ways-to-use-instagram-and-facebook-stories-for-your-businessContent Marketing,Digital Marketing,Social MediaThu, 25 Jul 2019 16:03:00 GMT<p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">You’ve been using social media to promote your business. Smart move! Social media marketing has taken the business world by storm. You’re making posts, sharing great content, and drawing in followers. Promotion is great, but these days it is not enough. You’ve got to share your business <i>story </i>to really connect with your audience<i>. </i>And that’s where the new story feature for Instagram and Facebook comes in.</span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b> </b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">A story is a relatively new feature for Facebook and Instagram that can help your business connect with your audience in a personal way. Stories are pinned to the top of your followers’ newsfeeds and last for a maximum of 24 hours. Businesses aren’t penalized for stories, so they are sure to be seen (unlike posts, which are quickly lost in the newsfeed shuffle and have limited visibility due to algorithm updates).</span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b> </b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">If you’re looking to grow your audience and increase your brand awareness, then stories are a tool that you can’t afford to ignore. But how do you use them effectively? Let’s take a look at 4 ways to use Instagram and Facebook stories for your business.</span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b> </b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b>Post Authentic Content To Engage With Your Audience</b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b><b> </b></b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b></b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b></b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">The stories feature is meant for...well, stories! A story is more personal than a post and it is most effective when it is used for authentic content. Remember that your stories are only seen by your followers, who are already interested in your business, so there’s not as much need for direct promotion or marketing. Instead, use candid content to give your audience a glimpse into a side of your business that they can’t see anywhere else. Making your business seem real and relatable drives engagement and instills trust in your audience - after all, you’re just like them!</span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b> </b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="line-height:115%">Here are a few ideas for authentic content:</span></span></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><b> </b></span></span></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="line-height:115%"></span></span></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="line-height:115%"></span></span></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">- ”day in the life” snapshots that show the daily goings-on of your business</span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">- candid photographs of your team or working space</span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">- informal interviews with staff and management</span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b> </b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Pro Tip: Remember that the goal is to be authentic, so don’t overuse the photoshop or filters in these types of stories. Your audience can tell when your images and videos have been highly doctored, and this can hurt your engagement. Keep it simple to achieve the best results.</span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b> </b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b>Use Teasers To Promote Upcoming Events Or Sales</b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b><b> </b></b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b></b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">We aren’t saying that you can’t <i>ever </i>use promotions in your stories. Your goal is business growth, after all. Stories are a great way to share information about future happenings in your business. Upcoming events, product launches, or sales are all great content for teaser stories that can interest and convert your audience. But keep in mind the 24-hour rule and don’t tease them too early or your audience might forget about it before the big day!</span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b> </b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Pro Tip: Filters and effects can help make your teaser stories really pop and help you deliver the right message. Both Facebook and Instagram have story editors that allow you to insert text, graphic elements like countdown buttons or coupon codes, and all sorts of other fun designs!</span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b> </b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b>Turn Articles And Blog Posts Into Bite-Sized Segments</b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b><b> </b></b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b></b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b></b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Let’s face it, audiences today have a short attention span. That’s why social media gets more engagement than traditional websites or articles - it is a revolving door of new material. So use that to your business’s advantage by turning your website content into digestible chunks. Research your business content for pieces that can be divided into smaller sections and post them one at a time or in a slide-show story. This will help increase your website traffic if your content (and your story) is engaging.</span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b> </b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Pro Tip: Graphic design is an important factor in these types of posts. Make sure that your images are relevant, attractive, and clean. Also be sure to hyperlink your story to your article’s URL or reference it at the end so your followers know where to go.</span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b> </b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b>Use Stories To Connect Your Accounts</b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b><b> </b></b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b></b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">The goal is growth, and stories are a great way to grow your account followers. The majority of social media users have accounts on multiple platforms - that means an Instagram user also has a Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest account, etc. Referencing your various social media accounts on your stories can drive audience members who may be following you on just one app to follow all of your pages.</span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b> </b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Pro Tip: Teasing an upcoming Facebook event on Instagram is a great way to convert your Instagram followers to Facebook, and vice-versa. Doing this will increase engagement on both sides of the aisle. And due to social media algorithms, growth begets growth. But be sure to instruct your audience on how to follow you - don’t forget to provide the handle or page name for your referenced accounts.</span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b> </b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">If you aren’t using stories in your business accounts, start today! It’s a great way to up your <a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Blog-Details/tips-for-successful-content-marketing"><span style="color:#3498db;">content marketing strategy</span></a><span style="color:#3498db;">.</span> Using the above tips will help you engage with your audience, increase your followers, and grow your business. For more tips on using Instagram to grow your business, check out our post on <a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Blog-Details/5-tips-for-instagram-success"><span style="color:#3498db;">5 Tips For Instagram Success.</span></a></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><b> </b></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p class="Standard" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Still have questions? <a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Contact-Us"><span style="color:#3498db;">Give us a call</span></a> to discuss how BIS Designs can help with your social media and content marketing needs!</span></span></span></p> 150Tips for Successful Content Marketinghttps://gulfcoastlocal.com/Blog-Details/PostId/149/tips-for-successful-content-marketingContent Marketing,Digital Marketing,Internet Marketing,Mobile Marketing,Social MediaTue, 26 Mar 2019 17:46:50 GMT<p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span calibri="" style="font-family:">Google and social media platforms (like Facebook) continue to change their algorithms, making it increasingly difficult for a company to reach its audience. Stellar <b>Content</b> <b>marketing</b> can help your company jump some of the hurdles. In fact, Google and Facebook often reward companies with great content. That’s why it’s critical for companies to provide valuable and informative content on their website and social media pages.</span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span calibri="" style="font-family:">&nbsp</span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span calibri="" style="font-family:">If you’re struggling to create killer content, follow these tips to help guide you in creating successful content for your company: </span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><b><span calibri="" style="font-family:">Engage with your followers. </span></b><span calibri="" style="font-family:">You’ve probably heard it many times: engagement is crucial for online marketing success. Here’s why:  </span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span calibri="" style="font-family:"> </span></span></span></p> <ul> <li style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span calibri="" style="font-family:">- Part of the algorithm Facebook put in place that decides how many and who of your followers sees a post has to do with how much engagement your post receives. The more people like, comment on, or share your post, the more people will see your post. </span></span></span></li> <li style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span calibri="" style="font-family:">- Engagement builds trust and loyalty among your audience when you add personality to your company. Add personality by engaging with your audience through conversations and various interactions and not simply posting about your products or serves. This causes people to connect with your brand as if it is a person, and not simply a product or service. You have a much better chance of selling a product or service to someone who trusts you.</span></span></span></li> <li style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span calibri="" style="font-family:">- Engaging with your audience makes people feel like they’re more than just another dollar in the bank account. People like to feel important, especially by brands they love. So start paying more attention to your audience. Share and like their posts, comments, Tweets, etc. </span></span></span></li> </ul> <div><font face="Cambria, serif"><span style="font-size: 16px;"> </span></font></div> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><b><span calibri="" style="font-family:">Establish thought leadership. </span></b><span calibri="" style="font-family:">Position your company as a thought leader that provides valuable resources to its audience. Highlighting yourself as an expert in your industry will draw your audience to you. Instead of going straight to Google for information about your industry, people will start going to your website, blog, and following your social media pages to learn industry trends, tips and tricks, and more.</span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span calibri="" style="font-family:"> </span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><b><span calibri="" style="font-family:">Keep it fresh. </span></b><span calibri="" style="font-family:">Keep your content fresh by incorporating new and a variety of content for your customers to read and engage with. Consider mixing up your weekly posts with a guest post or a live product/service demo. Be sure to post on special holidays and incorporate seasonal content into your posts. Use catchy images and high-quality graphics to keep your page looking fresh and not like spam. Incorporate monthly themes, where you focus on certain topics each month, educating your audience beyond their expectations about each topic (thought-leadership!).  </span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span calibri="" style="font-family:"> </span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><b><span calibri="" style="font-family:">Be authentic. </span></b><span calibri="" style="font-family:">With the growth of the Internet and social media platforms, it has become increasingly important to be authentic. Advertising your product, service, or company falsely will always come to light through reviews and comments from customers. Your audience is far more informed than you think, and they will call out a scam without hesitation. One of the top influencers on the web, Neil Patel, put it best when he said, “Authentic businesses inspire and prosper”. Neil Patel advises people to be authentic by:</span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span calibri="" style="font-family:"> </span></span></span></p> <ul> <li style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span calibri="" style="font-family:">- Being real, charitable, consistent, responsive (See, we told you engagement was part of the key), and accountable (If you make a mistake, don’t be afraid to admit it and apologize to your customer)</span></span></span></li> <li style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span calibri="" style="font-family:">- Providing statistics and facts to back up what you say</span></span></span></li> <li style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span calibri="" style="font-family:">- Respecting the privacy of your customers</span></span></span></li> <li style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span calibri="" style="font-family:">- Telling your true brand story</span></span></span></li> <li style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span calibri="" style="font-family:">- Highlighting your good reputation</span></span></span></li> </ul> <div><font face="Cambria, serif"><span style="font-size: 16px;"> </span></font></div> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><b><span calibri="" style="font-family:">Engage with your followers. Establish thought leadership. Keep it fresh. Be authentic.</span></b><span calibri="" style="font-family:"> Each of these tips will help you create a better content marketing strategy to help your company grow. In combination, these tips will help your company soar!  So, give it a try, and if you’re still struggling, give us a call! We’re here to help you create content and manage your digital marketing in a way that will capture the attention of your audience. </span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span calibri="" style="font-family:"> </span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span calibri="" style="font-family:"></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span calibri="" style="font-family:"></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"> </span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><strong><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif">RELATED: </span></span></strong></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><font face="Cambria, serif"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Blog-Details/should-you-outsource-your-business-blogging">Should You Outsource Your Business Blogging? </a></span></font></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><font face="Cambria, serif"> </font></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><font face="Cambria, serif"></font></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"></span></span></p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Portals/0/plong_1.jpg" style="width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left; margin: 5px;" title="" />Phillip Long - CISSP, CEO of BIS Technology Group, along with his team of marketing and information technology experts, will walk you through an overview of  what your business should be doing to protect your data and plan your digital marketing strategies.</p> <p>About BIS Technology Group</p> <p>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 group to their full potential while minimizing risks. To learn more about BIS Technology Group, visit <a href="http://bistechnologygroup.com/">bistechnologygroup.com</a>.</p> <p>You may reach out to us at:<br /> Phone: 251-405-2527<br /> Email: plong@askbis.com</p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span calibri="" style="font-family:"></span></span></span></p> 149Stay On Top: SEO in 2019https://gulfcoastlocal.com/Blog-Details/PostId/147/stay-on-top-seo-in-2019Digital Marketing,Internet Marketing,Mobile Marketing,SEOThu, 24 Jan 2019 15:01:52 GMT<p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></b></span></span><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times=""></span></span></span><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></span></span><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></span></span><span style="color:null;"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span style="font-size:10.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times=""></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color:null;"><span style="background-color:null;"></span></span><span style="color:null;"><span style="background-color:null;"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span style="font-size:10.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color:null;"><span style="background-color:null;"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><b></b></span></span></span></span><span style="color:null;"><span style="background-color:null;"></span></span><span style="color:null;"><span style="background-color:null;"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span new="" roman="" times="">Hello, 2019! It’s a New Year, which means it’s time to get ahead of the competition and on top of your search engine optimization (SEO). In the next few minutes, we’ll cover these five topics to get you thinking about improving your SEO strategy: Mobile-first indexing, page speed, thought-provoking content, featured snippets, and RankBrain. </span></span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="color:null;"></span></p> <p><span style="color:null;"></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="color:null;"><span style="background-color:null;"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></span></span></span></span></p> <h1 style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><b><span new="" roman="" times="">1. Mobile-first indexing </span></b></span></span></h1> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in"><span style="color:null;"><span style="background-color:null;"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></b></span></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="color:null;"><span style="background-color:null;"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span new="" roman="" times="">As of March 2018, Google started rolling out what they call “mobile-first indexing”. In 2019, this concept will become even more relevant as mobile users rise and Google adapts mobile-first indexing to more and more websites. </span></span></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="color:null;"><span style="background-color:null;"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></span></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="color:null;"><span style="background-color:null;"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span new="" roman="" times="">Searches on desktops are declining, driving the pressing need for appropriate indexing based on the mobile versions of websites. Due to this, mobile-first indexing was created with the intention of helping mobile users easily find what they’re looking for. So, what does this mean for you? Should you completely disregard the desktop version of your website and solely focus on the mobile? The simple answer is no. Both your desktop and mobile versions will come into play in the New Year. This is why Google’s new strategy is called mobile-first indexing, not mobile-only indexing.</span></span></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="color:null;"><span style="background-color:null;"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></span></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="color:null;"><span style="background-color:null;"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span new="" roman="" times="">In order to avoid negatively impacting your rankings, ensure your mobile and desktop versions are developed with quick loading times and optimized images and content. It’s important not to sacrifice your desktop version for your mobile version, or vise versa.  </span></span></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="color:null;"><span style="background-color:null;"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></b></span></span></span></span></p> <h1 style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><b><span new="" roman="" times="">2. Page speed</span></b></span></span></h1> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="color:null;"><span style="background-color:null;"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></b></span></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="color:null;"><span style="background-color:null;"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span new="" roman="" times="">In the new mobile-first index, page speed has become a huge ranking factor, primarily impacting pages that deliver the slowest experience to users on mobile versions. Slow loading speeds cause users to bounce from 32-90% as page load times increase from 1-5 seconds. Research has shown, consumers don’t like to wait for content, especially while on their mobile devices. </span></span></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="color:null;"><span style="background-color:null;"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></span></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="color:null;"><span style="background-color:null;"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span new="" roman="" times="">How can you increase your page speed? There are three easy steps you can take to increase your speed. First, you can conduct a page speed test using <span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="text-decoration:underline"><a href="https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool</a></span></span>. Next, take into account the size of your pages; many sites are loaded down with too much information, making it difficult to process. Cutting down on the bulk will help your speed improve. Third, contact your web/SEO expert, like us! We can help determine what steps you should take to improve your page speed (and overall SEO).  </span></span></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="color:null;"><span style="background-color:null;"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></b></span></span></span></span></p> <h1 style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><b><span new="" roman="" times="">3. Thought-provoking content </span></b></span></span></h1> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="color:null;"><span style="background-color:null;"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></b></span></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="color:null;"><span style="background-color:null;"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span new="" roman="" times="">It’s time to stop creating content for the sake of creating content. Focus on creating content that solves a problem by offering advice, motivation, and engagement for your customer. Creating exceptional content shouldn’t be forgotten and will likely always be an important key to improving your SEO. Exceptional content keeps people wanting more, bringing them back to your site. </span></span></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="color:null;"><span style="background-color:null;"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></span></span></span></span></p> <h1 style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><b><span new="" roman="" times="">4. Featured Snippets </span></b></span></span></h1> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="color:null;"><span style="background-color:null;"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></b></span></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="color:null;"><span style="background-color:null;"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><span new="" roman="" times="">A featured snippet is a short summary to a user’s search displayed on top of Google search results. The image below is a snippet, and trust us, it’s where you want your website to appear when consumers search for a service or product. </span></span></span></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="color:null;"><span style="background-color:null;"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><span new="" roman="" times=""></span></span></span></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="color:null;"><span style="background-color:null;"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><span new="" roman="" times=""><span style="background-color:null;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="color:null;"><span style="background-color:null;"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><span new="" roman="" times=""></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color:null;"><span style="background-color:null;"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><span new="" roman="" times=""><span style="color:#222222"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt;">By using snippets effectively, you can maximize your authority, prove that Google chooses your page over competitors, and increase your traffic. You can earn a featured snippet by analyzing keyword opportunities and implementing them into your site, creating strategic content, having a Q&A section on your website, clearly outlining your subheadings, lists, tables, etc., and polishing up any existing snippets.</span></p> <h1 style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><b>5. RankBrain</b></span></span></h1> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"><b></b></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif">RankBrain is a machine-learning algorithm that works alongside Google’s current algorithm, Hummingbird, to improve Google’s search engine by learning and identifying patterns and interpreting unknown search strings. Machine learning is what happens when a computer learns by experience, and that’s exactly what RankBrain does. It intelligently gathers users habits and needs to direct them to the most useful content for their search. It works by taking segments of the entire search and relating them to the most popular searches with those related terms, and as people click on their desired result, RankBrain grows in its search knowledge. RankBrain affects how Google ranks search results. It learns which results are relevant and pushes them to the top.</span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif">According to Google, RankBrain is the third most important factor in SEO, after content and links. The key to overcoming RankBrain is to provide users with a positive experience through easy-to-navigate, detailed, and quality content to optimize your site. </span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif">If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the slough of information and ever-changing world of SEO, don’t stress! We’re here to keep you abreast of the changes, and help you implement them into your website structure. </span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"></span></span></p> <table style="border:undefined"> <tbody> <tr> <td> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="color:#ffffff"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif">RELATED: </span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Blog-Details/responsive-web-design-and-why-your-business-needs-it"><font face="Cambria, serif"></font></a><font face="Cambria, serif"><a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Blog-Details/responsive-web-design-and-why-your-business-needs-it">Mobile-Responsive Web</a></font><font face="Cambria, serif"><span style="font-size:16px"><a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Blog-Details/responsive-web-design-and-why-your-business-needs-it"> Design and Why Your Business Needs it</a></span></font></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"> </p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"></span></span><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"></span></span><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:Cambria,serif"></span></span><br /> <img alt="" src="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Portals/0/plong_1.jpg" style="height: 75px; width: 75px; border-width: 1px; border-style: solid; margin: 5px 2px; float: left;" title="" />Phillip Long - CISSP, CEO of BIS Technology Group, along with his team of marketing and information technology experts, will walk you through an overview of  what your business should be doing to protect your data and plan your digital marketing strategies.</p> <p>About BIS Technology Group</p> <p>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 group to their full potential while minimizing risks. To learn more about BIS Technology Group, visit <a href="http://bistechnologygroup.com/">bistechnologygroup.com</a>.</p> <p>You may reach out to us at:<br /> Phone: 251-405-2527<br /> Email: plong@askbis.com</p> 147Should You Outsource Your Business Blogging?https://gulfcoastlocal.com/Blog-Details/PostId/144/should-you-outsource-your-business-bloggingContent Marketing,Digital Marketing,Web DesignWed, 03 Oct 2018 16:37:31 GMT<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times="">You may have noticed the blog trend that is ruling the cyber world from Google to social media.  Whether it is fashion influencers or tech gurus and travel enthusiasts, blogging is a trend that continues to grow each year. </span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times=""> </span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times=""></span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times="">How does this relate to your business? Blogging is a way to share your expertise and knowledge with your target audience.  In doing so, you are 1) helping to provide information needed by your potential customer and 2) demonstrating your expertise on the subject which in turn keeps the customer coming back to you for further assistance.  You are building trust with your potential customers/clients and this results in more leads for your business. </span></span></span></span><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times="">Having well-written and updated blog content on your website also strengthens your relationship with Google which boosts your rankings in search results.  </span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times=""> </span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times="">Now that you know<b> why</b> you need a business blog, let’s talk about <b>how</b> you’ll find the time to add this task to your agenda. </span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times=""> </span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times="">It is common for small and medium sized businesses to outsource business functions like payroll, human resources, accounting and more to keep the organization lean and flexible.  Outsourcing blog writing? This might seem more challenging – after all, your blog is the voice of your business and a critical part of your content marketing strategy. </span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times=""> </span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times=""></span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times="">It is definitely possible to outsource blog posts, and do it well.  Below are two of the most common questions we get here at BIS Designs about blogging: </span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times=""> </span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times=""></span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></span></span></span></p> <h1 class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times="">Question 1: Can an outsourced blog writer really capture my tone/style/business personality? </span></span></b></span></span></h1> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times=""> </span></span></b></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></span></b></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times="">Writing is personal and every business feels like they have a unique tone or style they’re looking to capture in their blog.  The very concept of outsourcing might feel like it will cause you to lose some of your business’s personality. </span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times=""> </span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times=""></span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times="">Solution:</span></span></b><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times="">  Take time to educate your writer.  We’ve all heard it, “you get what you put in”, and in this case, it is definitely true. A good writer will research and educate themselves as much as possible but to keep your business personality/style/tone the same, you’ll need to give some details on what makes your business stand out from your competitor. </span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times=""> </span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times=""></span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></span></span></span></p> <h1 class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times="">Question 2: Where will the blog content come from? </span></span></b></span></span></h1> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times=""> </span></span></b></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times="">If you give your writer nothing to work with, you get nothing in return worth reading. It’s that simple. You are the subject matter expert for your business. A good outsourced writer will bring your expertise to light in a readable way.  If you’ll provide more information and direction, you’ll get more of what you expect from your writer and overall blog content strategy. </span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times=""> </span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times=""></span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times="">Solution:</span></span></b><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times=""> Make a list of topics.  Whether you do this once a month or once a quarter – take the time to send a few topics to your writer. Once your blog writer has a list of topics, he/she can now get started on the time-consuming part of the project - creating engaging content.  The few minutes that you spend concentrating on topics will help to keep your business personality/tone/style alive on your website.</span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times=""></span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times="">A big perk of outsourcing your business blog writing is that your new writer will bring fresh ideas to the table.  This simply adds new insights that can make your blog better. </span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times=""> </span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times=""></span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times="">Fun Fact: The average blog post takes 3 hours 20 minutes to write and the most engaged blog content on the web now has 41% more words than it did 3 years ago.  </span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times=""> </span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times=""></span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times="">If you have a blog on your website that you simply don’t have time to keep up or you would like to add a blog to your website but aren’t sure where to start, give us a call! Outsourcing to a local company who can meet with you face-to-face to discuss your marketing goals is a great way to start the new season. </span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times=""> </span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times=""></span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times="">RELATED: </span></span></b></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times=""><a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Blog-Details/5-benefits-of-business-blogging" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><span style="color:#ffffff;">5 Benefits of Business Blogging</span></a><span style="color:#ffffff;"> </span></span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"> </p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"> </p> <p><span style="color:#66ff33;"></span></p> <p><span style="color:#66ff33;"><span style="color:#ffffff;"></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"></span></span></span></p> <p><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/plong_1.jpg" style="height: 75px; width: 75px; float: left; margin: 5px;" title="" />Phillip Long - CISSP, CEO of BIS Technology Group, along with his team of marketing and information technology experts, will walk you through an overview of  what your business should be doing to protect your data and plan your digital marketing strategies.</p> <p>About BIS Technology Group</p> <p>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 group to their full potential while minimizing risks. To learn more about BIS Technology Group, visit <a href="http://bistechnologygroup.com/">bistechnologygroup.com</a>.</p> <p>You may reach out to us at:<br /> Phone: 251-405-2527<br /> Email: plong@askbis.com</p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:16px;"></span></p> <h1 class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times=""></span></span></span></h1> 144Algorithms: How Each Social Platform Keeps You Engaged https://gulfcoastlocal.com/Blog-Details/PostId/142/algorthms-how-each-social-platform-keeps-you-engagedContent Marketing,Digital Marketing,Social MediaThu, 03 May 2018 21:42:39 GMT<p>The social media marketing discussion is now dominated by algorithms &ndash; almost everywhere you engage, within almost every platform you use, machine learning and data sorting is used to decide what it is you see.</p> <h3>The evolution of social algorithms has, no doubt, made things harder for social marketers. The development of algorithms follows much the same progression as the technical elements of SEO &ndash; in order to show searches the most relevant responses to user queries and weed out spammers, Google has had to constantly update its algorithm to stay one step ahead.</h3> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Now social platforms are in much the same position, which adds a more complex, technical element to the social marketing process.</p> <p>With this in mind, what do you need to know to ensure you&rsquo;re on top of the latest social algorithm shifts, and how can you best prepare yourself, and understand the focus of each platform to maximize your business page performance?</p> <p>Here&rsquo;s a quick overview of the current state of each platform&rsquo;s algorithm, based on what I&rsquo;ve studied of their workings.</p> <p><span style="color:#ffffff;"><strong>FACEBOOK </strong></span></p> <p>The most influential social algorithm is Facebook&rsquo;s. The Social Network was the first to implement an algorithm feed, in response to the flood of spammy posts and junk which had taken over the app as its popularity grew.</p> <p>Facebook&rsquo;s algorithm aims to show you the content you&rsquo;re most likely to engage with &ndash; though obviously there&rsquo;s a lot more to it than that.</p> <p>To best understand Facebook&rsquo;s algorithm, you first need to get your head around the basic engagement equation Facebook uses.</p> <p>Facebook&rsquo;s News Feed chief, Adam Mosseri, explained this in several webinars, conferences and online publications last year, comparing their selection process to choosing a meal for a friend at a restaurant:</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/blog1_1.png" style="width: 450px; height: 450px;" title="" /></p> <p>This process, says Mosseri, is essentially utilizing an algorithm within your own head &ndash; Facebook&rsquo;s system simply transfers these though processes to a machine, shifting the same core elements into more technical factors &ndash; Inventory, Signals, Predictions and Scores.</p> <p><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/blog2_1.png" style="width: 450px; height: 450px;" title="" /></p> <p>Here&rsquo;s the same calculations with Facebook actions replacing restaurant options:</p> <p><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/blog3_1.png" style="width: 449px; height: 251px;" title="" /></p> <p>Facebook rates each post based on your individual usage patterns, which, along with a range of other measures, enable it to come up with a score for each post. That score then dictates where each will appear in your feed.</p> <p>Sound confusing? Yes, it is. These algorithms change constantly so studying and keeping up with the social channel&rsquo;s updates are crucial to any business social media marketing plan. In basic terms, Facebook measures the likelihood that you&rsquo;re going to take a particular action which their data suggests is the most engaging, then shows each story to you based on that probability.</p> <p><span style="color:#ffffff;"><strong>TWITTER </strong></span></p> <p>Twitter&rsquo;s algorithm is less advanced than Facebook&rsquo;s, but they are putting increased focus on their machine learning efforts to boost engagement.</p> <p>Users were initially outraged that Twitter would even consider changing to an algorithm, but the data has since shown that the system has helped the platform boost performance &ndash; as algorithms have on virtually every platform.</p> <p>Twitter&rsquo;s main objective with their algorithm is to show you more content you may be interested in &ndash; similar to Facebook, though Twitter is more about showing it to you in addition to the other tweets you might see, as opposed to &ldquo;instead of&rdquo;.</p> <p>Even with an algorithm in place, Twitter can still show you almost every tweet, due to the real time nature of the feed. Nowadays, when you first login into Twitter, you&rsquo;ll see tweets you may have missed, which are basically the most popular tweets from the people you follow. Twitter has also been working to boost engagement by showing you tweets that people you follow have liked, too.</p> <p><span style="color:#ffffff;"><strong>INSTAGRAM </strong></span></p> <p>Instagram is one of the hottest social platforms at the moment for social engagement.&nbsp; They have now also implemented a Facebook-style algorithm.&nbsp; Facebook actually owns both platforms now, so the algorithms are almost exactly the same now. Like Facebook, Instagram&rsquo;s algorithm is based on your likelihood to engage.</p> <p><span style="color:#ffffff;"><strong>LINKEDIN </strong></span></p> <p>Like Twitter, LinkedIn&rsquo;s algorithm is not as advanced as Facebook&rsquo;s.&nbsp; A good example of how LinkedIn&rsquo;s feed algorithm works is their comment sorting tool &ndash; LinkedIn recently published an update on how comments are displayed on each post, based on engagement.</p> <p><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/blog4.jpg" style="width: 450px; height: 255px;" title="" /></p> <p>In my opinion, and the opinion of many other LinkedIn users, their algorithm needs some work.&nbsp; You&rsquo;ll often see posts from weeks ago in your feed but they are refining their data, and working to show you more relevant content, slowly but surely.</p> <p><span style="color:#ffffff;"><strong>PINTEREST</strong></span></p> <p>The last platform has a constantly evolving algorithm to uncover more relevant Pin matches. Their goal is to keep you searching and their system has been upgraded from its initial matching efforts to better highlight relevant content.</p> <p>Do you have ideas of how these social platforms might improve their algorithms in the future? Tell us in the comments!</p> <p><span style="color:#ffffff;"><strong>RELATED: </strong></span></p> <p><a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Blog-Details/PostId/138/why-your-business-needs-a-paid-facebook-ad-budget">Why Your Business Needs A Paid Facebook Ad Budget</a></p> <p>Author: <a href="mailto:smay@askbisdesigns.com?subject=Re%3A%20Blog%20Post">Stephanie May -&nbsp;smay@askbisdesigns.com&nbsp;</a></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/plong_1.jpg" style="height: 100px; width: 100px; float: left; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 5px;" title="" />Phillip Long - CISSP, CEO of BIS Technology Group, along with his team of&nbsp;marketing and information technology experts, will walk you through an overview of&nbsp;&nbsp;what your business should be doing to protect your data and plan your digital marketing strategies.</p> <p>About BIS Technology Group</p> <p>BIS Technology Group is the technology leader on the Gulf Coast and is comprised of four divisions: Information Technology, Web Design &amp; Digital Marketing,&nbsp; Office Equipment and Business Consulting. Together these divisions help local businesses exceed expectations and allow them to group to their full potential while minimizing risks. To learn more about BIS Technology Group, visit&nbsp;<a href="http://bistechnologygroup.com/">bistechnologygroup.com</a>.</p> <p>You may reach out to us at:<br /> Phone: 251-405-2527<br /> Email: plong@askbis.com</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> 142Facebook and Cambridge Analytica: What exactly happened?https://gulfcoastlocal.com/Blog-Details/PostId/141/facebook-and-cambridge-analytica-what-exactly-happenedB2B,Customer Relationship,Digital Marketing,Internet Marketing,Social MediaWed, 04 Apr 2018 20:54:31 GMT<p>If you&rsquo;ve been keeping up with the national news for the last two weeks, you&rsquo;ve heard the reports of political campaigns acquiring&nbsp;private data on millions of Facebook users.&nbsp; It has now sparked new questions about how the social media giant protects user information.</p> <p>First of all, as a business advertising on Facebook, we are all thankful for the data which identifies personalities and buying trends of users.&nbsp; This doesn&rsquo;t mean people&rsquo;s personal information like credit cards, social security numbers and other secure information was ever shared via Facebook.</p> <p><span style="color:#ffffff;"><strong>What does it mean?</strong></span></p> <h3>When you &ldquo;like&rdquo; a certain post, take a quiz or share a family, friend or&nbsp;business page&rsquo;s post,&nbsp;Facebook keeps track of this content.&nbsp; Why? Well, when they know what you like, they know what to put in your newsfeed.&nbsp;</h3> <p><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/save.jpg" style="float: left; width: 75px; height: 50px; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 5px;" title="" />This all plays a big part in Facebook&rsquo;s algorithms, which have changed drastically in the last two years.&nbsp; The algorithms now only allow content that you are interested in to be in your newsfeed.&nbsp; To me, this isn&rsquo;t a bad thing at all.&nbsp; It is a highly intelligent way of keeping users happy and engaged.&nbsp; For businesses, it also makes it more difficult to advertise because you need to pay attention to what users want to see on a daily basis and tailor your content to that audience.&nbsp; Otherwise, your content will go unseen.&nbsp; This is what I do on a daily basis for dozens of business accounts, study trends in order to make sure the business pages are&nbsp;reaching the most customers.&nbsp;</p> <p>Now, back to Cambridge Analytica. What&rsquo;s the big deal? The firm offered tools that could identify the personalities of American voters and influence their behavior.&nbsp; This behavior was then, allegedly, used to target voters for the election.&nbsp; This app has since been removed from Facebook but there are reports that the data still exists, so this is why Facebook is being scrutinized.</p> <p><span style="color:#ffffff;"><strong>What kind of information was collected and how was it acquired?</strong></span></p> <p>The data included details on users&rsquo; identities, friend networks and &ldquo;likes&rdquo;.&nbsp; The idea was to map personality traits based on what people had liked on Facebook, and then use that information to target audiences with digital ads.</p> <p>Researchers in 2014 asked users to take a personality survey and download an app, which scraped some private information from their profiles and those of their friends, activity that Facebook permitted at the time and has since banned.&nbsp;</p> <h3>The technique had been developed at Cambridge University&rsquo;s Psychometrics Center.&nbsp; Facebook says no passwords or &ldquo;sensitive pieces of information&rdquo; had been taken.&nbsp;</h3> <p>Facebook has always prohibited this kind of data to be sold or transferred &ldquo;to any ad network, data broker or other advertising service&rdquo; so the question everyone has been asking is, was&nbsp;Facebook hacked? No one really knows for sure.</p> <p><span style="color:#ffffff;"><strong>What is Facebook doing to fix the situation?</strong></span></p> <p>Really, there isn&rsquo;t much they can do about it at this point. Once the data is out, there isn&rsquo;t really a way to recall it. They can conduct all the forensic audits they want, but the information will remain out there in some form, and will likely remain useable and indicative. For damage control, Facebook needs to show users that it is&nbsp;improving, learned its lessons and their systems are actually now better for it.</p> <p>We&rsquo;ll see in the next year whether or not users pull away from the social giant or whether it will blow over and everyone will go back to using Facebook as usual.&nbsp; As already stated, no sensitive information was really obtained but it is simply a matter of users trusting Facebook to keep up with their social habits without exploiting it for political reasons.</p> <p>What do you think? Does it bother you that Facebook tracks your likes and, in turn, creates a personality profile of your daily habits in order for businesses to advertise to you? We want to know! Let us know on Facebook!</p> <p><strong>RELATED:</strong></p> <p><a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Blog-Details/PostId/134/12-reasons-why-your-business-needs-a-content-marketing-strategy">12 Reasons Why Your Business Needs A Content Marketing Strategy</a></p> <p>Author: <a href="mailto:smay@askbisdesigns.com?subject=Re%3A%20Blog%20Post">Stephanie May -&nbsp;smay@askbisdesigns.com&nbsp;</a></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/plong_1.jpg" style="width: 100px; height: 100px; float: left; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 5px;" title="" />Phillip Long - CISSP, CEO of BIS Technology Group, along with his team of&nbsp;marketing and information technology experts, will walk you through an overview of&nbsp;&nbsp;what your business should be doing to protect your data and plan your digital marketing strategies.</p> <p>About BIS Technology Group</p> <p>BIS Technology Group is the technology leader on the Gulf Coast and is comprised of four divisions: Information Technology, Web Design &amp; Digital Marketing,&nbsp; Office Equipment and Business Consulting. Together these divisions help local businesses exceed expectations and allow them to group to their full potential while minimizing risks. To learn more about BIS Technology Group, visit&nbsp;<a href="http://bistechnologygroup.com/">bistechnologygroup.com</a>.</p> <p>You may reach out to us at:<br /> Phone: 251-405-2527<br /> Email: plong@askbis.com</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> 1415 Tips for Improving Your Emails https://gulfcoastlocal.com/Blog-Details/PostId/140/5-tips-for-improving-your-emailsB2B,Digital Marketing,Internet Marketing,Mobile MarketingWed, 21 Mar 2018 21:20:49 GMT<p>When it comes down to it, <a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Email-Marketing">email marketing</a> is all about getting the basics right.</p> <p>Yes, you should be segmenting your lists and yes, paying attention to those open rates and conversion rates are important but you also want to invest time in strategies like positioning, voice and value of your emails.&nbsp; These 5 tips may seem basic but you&rsquo;ll find that many of your favorite emails coming through your inbox, the ones you open every day, employ the tips in a single email.&nbsp; For best results, apply liberally.</p> <p><span style="color:#ffffff;"><strong>Create an exclusive club.</strong></span></p> <p>Making your email subscribers feel special is a great way to generate excitement for the content or offers you send them.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s also a powerful community-building tool.&nbsp;</p> <p>Exclusivity can be subtle, like the Apple example below.&nbsp; Whenever <a href="https://www.apple.com/">Apple</a> launches a new product, customers camp outside their stores to get their hands on the latest device.&nbsp; By offering a pre-order, Apple can cash in on that excitement without putting additional stress on their retail stores.&nbsp; With free shipping as an added incentive, these emails will no doubt drive huge sales before the next iPhone is even released.</p> <p><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/blog1_1.PNG" style="width: 600px; height: 300px; float: left;" title="" /></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><span style="color:#ffffff;"><strong>Ask for Feedback. &nbsp;</strong></span></p> <p>As long as you&rsquo;re not too pushy, it&rsquo;s okay to ask for feedback. Find a way to ask without making it sound like the feedback is for the company&rsquo;s gain but rather to help you, as a business owner, find ways to make their service better.&nbsp; Here is an example:</p> <p><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/blog2_1.PNG" style="width: 700px; height: 200px;" title="" /></p> <p><span style="color:#ffffff;"><strong>Get personal.</strong></span></p> <p>Email is a great way to humanize your brand.&nbsp; The inbox is an intimate place, mostly used for personal conversation.&nbsp; Your presence there is a privilege, so do your best to write like a human.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s okay to talk about challenges, obstacles and even failures.&nbsp; Readers can relate since they are likely facing similar situations, whether in business or in their personal lives.&nbsp; Even quotes from your company&rsquo;s CEO can go a long way, like the example below.</p> <p><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/blog3_1.PNG" style="width: 704px; height: 67px;" title="" /></p> <p><span style="color:#ffffff;"><strong>Tell readers what to do next.</strong></span></p> <p>One big mistake people make with conversion is failure to make the next step completely clear.&nbsp; How can someone convert if they aren&rsquo;t sure what to do next?</p> <p>Conversion rate experts stress this over and over again: &ldquo;Be clear and direct with your users, telling them exactly what you&rsquo;d like them to do.&rdquo;</p> <p>The idea is simple: just add the webinar to your calendar.&nbsp; Not only does this reinforce the behavior pattern of clicking the emails, but it also increases the chances that the registrants actually attend the webinar.&nbsp; Once it&rsquo;s on the calendar, they will get alerts from their phone and/or computer&hellip;it&rsquo;s like free marketing!</p> <p><span style="color:#ffffff;"><strong>Keep readers on their toes.&nbsp;</strong></span></p> <p>This tip is unconventional, but it&rsquo;s proven to work.</p> <p>On one hand, you want your readers to know what to expect in your emails.&nbsp; In our case, here at BIS Designs, that means a <a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Blog-Details/PostId/136/5-benefits-of-business-blogging">new blog post </a>every Wednesday.&nbsp; Our readers know there will be a new blog post each week but they don&rsquo;t know what topic will be covered until they receive an email once the new blog has been posted on our website.&nbsp;</p> <p><span style="color:#ffffff;"><strong>Conclusion</strong></span></p> <p>There are plenty of tips out there about how to increase your open rates but you also want to concentrate on becoming and remaining valuable to your clients and customers. If you have any additional tips to share with us, feel free to share in the comments!</p> <p><strong>RELATED:</strong></p> <p><a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Blog-Details/PostId/135/5-ways-to-get-creative-with-email-subject-lines">5 Ways to Get Creative with Email Subject Lines</a></p> <p>Author: <a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Social-Media">Stephanie May</a></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/plong_1.jpg" style="margin: 5px; float: left; width: 100px; height: 100px;" title="" />Phillip Long - CISSP, CEO of BIS Technology Group, along with his team of&nbsp;marketing and information technology experts, will walk you through an overview of&nbsp;&nbsp;what your business should be doing to protect your data and plan your digital marketing strategies.</p> <p>About BIS Technology Group</p> <p>BIS Technology Group is the technology leader on the Gulf Coast and is comprised of four divisions: Information Technology, Web Design &amp; Digital Marketing,&nbsp; Office Equipment and Business Consulting. Together these divisions help local businesses exceed expectations and allow them to group to their full potential while minimizing risks. To learn more about BIS Technology Group, visit&nbsp;<a href="http://bistechnologygroup.com/">bistechnologygroup.com</a>.</p> <p>You may reach out to us at:<br /> Phone: 251-405-2527<br /> Email: plong@askbis.com</p> 1404 Basic Tips of Blogging Search Engine Optimizationhttps://gulfcoastlocal.com/Blog-Details/PostId/139/4-basic-tips-of-blogging-search-engine-optimizationContent Marketing,Digital Marketing,Internet Marketing,Mobile Marketing,SEO,Social Media,Web DesignWed, 07 Mar 2018 20:56:22 GMT<p>Here&rsquo;s a quick illustration of how SEO works&hellip;</p> <p>Google has developed automatic algorithms that rank your website.&nbsp; They send out what are called &ldquo;spiders&rdquo; to &ldquo;crawl&rdquo; your site and check it for over 100 indicators that determine whether the<a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Website"> </a>website is valuable or useless.&nbsp; These indicators include things like backlinks, domain age, traffic, fresh content, etc.</p> <p>SEO can be considered the art of making&nbsp;sure those crawling spiders are happy with what they find.&nbsp; It is a very complex field that is always changing but in all that chaos there are a few constants that have remained the same since the beginning.&nbsp;</p> <p><span style="color:#ffffff;"><strong>1. You need your own domain and hosting.</strong></span></p> <p>One thing that beginners need to know is that you need your own domain and hosting.&nbsp; Free blog set ups don&rsquo;t do any favors for your SEO efforts.&nbsp; Why?</p> <p>People tend to speculate that if you were serious about your website you would get your own name and host it yourself.&nbsp; Google only wants to point to <a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Website">websites that are considered serious and trustworthy</a> and so this is a basic signal.</p> <p>Starting your own website, hosting and a business blog can seem intimidating but that&rsquo;s why we&rsquo;re here.&nbsp; We offer multiple packages to meet your needs, which saves you a lot of time.</p> <p><span style="color:#ffffff;"><strong>2. Problem solving with original content.</strong></span></p> <p>Keep in mind that Google&rsquo;s entire purpose is to provide their customers with relevant and useful search results.&nbsp; Everything they do is built around this goal.</p> <p>To be realistic, the most important thing you can do for your <a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/SEO">SEO</a> is create the most useful content that solves people&rsquo;s problems. If you are solving problems that people are searching for then it is likely that you are going to get shared on social media and ranked higher in Google.</p> <p>And &ldquo;original content&rdquo; means so much more than just blog posts these days.&nbsp; You can expand into:</p> <ul> <li><strong>Videos&nbsp;</strong></li> <li>Make tutorials or video posts.&nbsp; This builds links and traffic from YouTube and does well on mobile devices.</li> <li><strong>Photography</strong></li> <li>Original images and photos can boost your rankings as well as add value to your blog posts. Adding your own logos and sharing to social media is an extra layer of marketing, too.</li> <li><strong>Podcasts</strong></li> <li>iTunes has grown fast as people get better smart phones and spend more time plugged in.&nbsp; Adding a <a href="https://internationalpodcastday.com/what-is-podcast/">podcast </a>to your blog will ensure a unique and original addition for SEO. You want to build a relationship with your customers and readers by helping them out.&nbsp; This will mean more sharing and faster results in your search engine rankings.</li> </ul> <p><span style="color:#ffffff;"><strong>3.&nbsp; Make sure your theme is SEO optimized.</strong></span></p> <p><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/blog3.png" style="width: 75px; height: 75px; float: left;" title="" />Think of SEO as having two components: the off-site stuff like social media and backlinks and the on-site stuff like optimizing your theme.</p> <p>Optimizing your theme is important because it helps give Google indicators that you are a trustworthy site.&nbsp; It also helps Google find your content.&nbsp; Some of the things to keep in mind when optimizing are:</p> <ul> <li>Mobile Response</li> <li>Cleanly coded</li> <li>Fast loading</li> <li>Secure domain</li> <li>Original theme (rather than a pre-made template)</li> </ul> <p><span style="color:#ffffff;"><strong>4. Build your social media profiles constantly.</strong></span></p> <p>You want to have a big focus on <a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Social-Media">social media</a> for SEO purposes as well as traffic building purposes.</p> <p>Why?</p> <p>Because Google is now looking to social media as a signal of an article&rsquo;s authority and relevance.&nbsp; If people are sharing on Facebook or tweeting about it, you must have written something pretty good.&nbsp; The best way for this to happen is to build a strong following, <a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Blog-Details/PostId/134/12-reasons-why-your-business-needs-a-content-marketing-strategy">keep them engaged</a> and they&rsquo;ll see your blog posts as they are shared.&nbsp;</p> <p><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/blog2.png" style="width: 51px; height: 75px; float: left;" title="" />Commenting and sharing other business blogs is always a great way to build a community and possible cross-promoting opportunities&nbsp;for the future as well.</p> <p>Are you now ready to get a blog started and make sure your SEO is on the right track? <a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Contact-Us">Schedule a meeting</a> and we&rsquo;ll handle every detail from writing, optimizing your website and sharing to your social media!</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Author: <a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Social-Media">Stephanie May</a>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>RELATED: </strong></p> <p><a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Blog-Details/PostId/136/5-benefits-of-business-blogging">5 Benefits of Business Blogging</a></p> <p><a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Blog-Details/PostId/134/12-reasons-why-your-business-needs-a-content-marketing-strategy">12 Reasons Why Your Business Needs A Content Marketing Strategy</a></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/2026496073.jpg" style="float: left;" title="" />Phillip Long - CISSP, CEO of BIS Technology Group, along with his team of&nbsp;marketing and information technology experts, will walk you through an overview of&nbsp;&nbsp;what your business should be doing to protect your data and plan your digital marketing strategies.</p> <p>About BIS Technology Group</p> <p>BIS Technology Group is the technology leader on the Gulf Coast and is comprised of four divisions: Information Technology, Web Design &amp; Digital Marketing,&nbsp; &nbsp;Office Equipment and Business Consulting. Together these divisions help local businesses exceed expectations and allow them to group to their full potential while minimizing risks. To learn more about BIS Technology Group, visit&nbsp;<a href="http://bistechnologygroup.com/">bistechnologygroup.com</a>.</p> <p>You may reach out to us at:<br /> Phone: 251-405-2527<br /> Email: plong@askbis.com</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> 139Why Your Business Needs A Paid Facebook Ad Budgethttps://gulfcoastlocal.com/Blog-Details/PostId/138/why-your-business-needs-a-paid-facebook-ad-budgetContent Marketing,Digital Marketing,Internet Marketing,Social MediaThu, 22 Feb 2018 22:09:51 GMT<p>Whether you&rsquo;ve noticed or not, organic traffic on Facebook has dropped &ndash; and it&rsquo;s likely impacting your company in a big way.</p> <p>There are a few reasons that you need a <a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Blog-Details/PostId/134/12-reasons-why-your-business-needs-a-content-marketing-strategy">Facebook advertising strategy</a> and budget.&nbsp; Let&rsquo;s start with the basics &ndash; because Facebook&rsquo;s algorithm does not make it easy for business pages to succeed on Facebook.&nbsp;</p> <p><strong><span style="color:#ffffff;">What does the term &ldquo;Facebook algorithm&rdquo; actually mean? And how does it work?</span></strong></p> <p>Facebook&rsquo;s algorithm controls who sees the content that you share.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s not as simple as you posting a status update then Facebook pushing it out to all of your followers.&nbsp; That&rsquo;s a thing of the past.&nbsp; Not everyone who follows your page will see your posts.&nbsp; Facebook is way more intelligent now.&nbsp; And, there&rsquo;s a reason for that, but we&rsquo;ll get into that later.</p> <p>Adam Mosseri (VP, News Feed at Facebook) puts Facebook&rsquo;s algorithm in layman&rsquo;s terms for us.&nbsp; He says he thinks about it like he would when ordering his wife something to eat at a restaurant.&nbsp;</p> <p>The Facebook algorithm process goes like this: &nbsp;</p> <ol> <li>Facebook considers all recent posts (this is like checking the menu to see what options you have).</li> <li>Facebook looks for signals that you might like a particular post (like knowing your wife likes salmon).</li> <li>Facebooks makes predictions on what you like and shows those posts first (like ordering the salmon).</li> </ol> <p>This process happens on millions of devices countless times each day.&nbsp; And, it&rsquo;s also the reason why your Facebook business page&rsquo;s posts aren&rsquo;t getting as many views as it used to.</p> <h3>Why isn&rsquo;t my Facebook business page performing well?</h3> <p>This makes a lot of sense when you think about it from a business perspective. The reality is that Facebook is a business.&nbsp; And how does a business like Facebook make money? You guessed it &ndash; paid advertising.&nbsp;</p> <p><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/11.PNG" style="width: 150px; height: 119px; float: left;" title="" />So why isn&rsquo;t your Facebook business page making you money? Because the only way for company pages to succeed on Facebook is through Facebook paid advertising.&nbsp; Facebook&rsquo;s only real concern is to find ways for more business pages to spend more money.&nbsp; You can&rsquo;t blame them.&nbsp; Any CEO would do the same thing.</p> <p>The truth is that social media doesn&rsquo;t work the way it did in the past.</p> <h2>Facebook&rsquo;s current algorithm is very different than it used to be in 2000.&nbsp; Back then, you could post anything on Facebook, and it was guaranteed to be shown to your audience.&nbsp;</h2> <p>This is because posts were served in reverse chronological order.&nbsp; In 2009, Facebook changed the algorithm to be based on popularity.&nbsp;</p> <p>As you might&rsquo;ve guessed, the Facebook algorithm is changing more frequently than ever.&nbsp; Simply posting on your page every day without a Facebook advertising strategy or budget is a waste of time.</p> <p>Here&rsquo;s what you should be using Facebook for &ndash;</p> <p><span style="color:#ffffff;"><strong>Facebook Paid Advertising</strong></span></p> <p>The new reality is that businesses on Facebook are unlikely to succeed without putting a budget toward Facebook paid advertising.&nbsp; In turn, this requires a Facebook advertising strategy similar to how you would strategize for billboard, radio or TV ads.&nbsp;</p> <p>When creating a Facebook ad campaign, there are a few key things that you need to consider &ndash; like your goals, target audience and the content of your ad.&nbsp; Unfortunately, this isn&rsquo;t as easy as it sounds.&nbsp; Facebook ad campaigns can get incredibly detailed and complicated, and the platform itself isn&rsquo;t exactly user-friendly.&nbsp; We&rsquo;d love to dive into the specific best practices for executing a Facebook advertising strategy, but that&rsquo;s a <a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Blog-Details/PostId/134/12-reasons-why-your-business-needs-a-content-marketing-strategy">whole other blog</a>.&nbsp;</p> <p><span style="color:#ffffff;"><strong>Its Database</strong></span></p> <p>What you&rsquo;re really doing when you create a Facebook ad campaign, is using Facebook for its extremely extensive database.&nbsp; In other words, you&rsquo;re using Facebook paid advertising to buy an audience.&nbsp;</p> <p>Think about all of the millions of people that use Facebook.&nbsp; In fact, Facebook has more than 2 billion monthly active users according to the company&rsquo;s website.&nbsp; That&rsquo;s a lot of people &ndash; a lot of people that may be interested in your product or service.&nbsp;</p> <p>Think about Facebook&rsquo;s database as an untapped market.&nbsp; You may not have their email or mailing address but you have their Facebook profile.&nbsp;</p> <p>When you use Facebook paid advertising, you are purchasing access to advertise to millions of people that you otherwise would have had no access to.&nbsp; Even better, you can segment your audience to the specifics of your ideal customer by choosing preferred age, gender, interests, etc. to give you an incredibly high customer value.&nbsp;</p> <p><span style="color:#ffffff;"><strong>Organic Posting 2-5 Times a Week</strong></span></p> <p>Just because you realize that Facebook paid advertising is more lucrative than simple sharing updates on your company&rsquo;s page (otherwise known as organic posting), doesn&rsquo;t mean that you can give up organic posting altogether.&nbsp;</p> <p>There&rsquo;s a huge difference between social marketing and social selling.&nbsp; Social selling is where you can really see the return on your investment, and it includes your Facebook paid advertising strategy that we talked about in this blog post.&nbsp; However, <a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Social-Media">social marketing</a> is also essential.</p> <p>Other than running Facebook ad campaigns, it&rsquo;s still very critical to be active on your company page.</p> <p>Think&nbsp;about this scenario &ndash; a highly qualified lead that saw your Facebook ad in their newsfeed now visits your company&rsquo;s Facebook business page to learn more about you.&nbsp; But, you haven&rsquo;t posted an update in months because you focused all of your efforts on your Facebook advertising strategy.&nbsp; That scenario isn&rsquo;t exactly ideal because the customer doesn&rsquo;t get any added value, in turn stopping their customer journey.&nbsp;</p> <p>This is why it&rsquo;s extremely important to pay attention to your Facebook advertising strategy as well as organic posting.&nbsp; It may seem like a lot to balance, which is why marketing companies like us (BIS Designs) are here to ease you into the process.&nbsp;</p> <p><span style="color:#ffffcc;">Fun Fact: Did you know that the average person will spend over five years of their life on social media. WOW! That&rsquo;s a lot of time spent on Facebook!</span></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Author: <a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Social-Media">Stephanie May&nbsp;</a></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><span style="color:#ffffff;">RELATED:</span><span style="color:#ffff99;">&nbsp;</span></p> <p><a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Blog-Details/PostId/136/5-benefits-of-business-blogging">5 Benefits of Business Blogging&nbsp;</a></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/2026496073.jpg" style="float: left; height: 105px; width: 100px;" title="" />Phillip Long - CISSP, CEO of BIS Technology Group, along with his team of&nbsp;marketing and information technology experts, will walk you through an overview of&nbsp;&nbsp;what your business should be doing to protect your data and plan your digital marketing strategies.</p> <p>About BIS Technology Group</p> <p>BIS Technology Group is the technology leader on the Gulf Coast and is comprised of four divisions: Information Technology, Web Design &amp; Digital Marketing,&nbsp; &nbsp;Office Equipment and Business Consulting. Together these divisions help local businesses exceed expectations and allow them to group to their full potential while minimizing risks. To learn more about BIS Technology Group, visit&nbsp;<a href="http://bistechnologygroup.com/">bistechnologygroup.com</a>.</p> <p>You may reach out to us at:<br /> Phone: 251-405-2527<br /> Email: plong@askbis.com</p> <p style="margin-left:.25in;">&nbsp;</p> <p style="margin-left: 0.25in;">&nbsp;</p> <p style="margin-left:.25in;">&nbsp;</p> <p style="margin-left:.25in;">&nbsp;</p> <p style="margin-left:.25in;">&nbsp;</p> 1384 Marketing Tips To Get More Leads https://gulfcoastlocal.com/Blog-Details/PostId/137/4-marketing-tips-to-get-more-leadsB2B,Content Marketing,Digital Marketing,Internet Marketing,Lead Generation,Mobile Marketing,Social Media,Web DesignTue, 06 Feb 2018 21:46:09 GMT<p>The most common question from marketing clients is &ldquo;How do I get more leads for my business?&rdquo;&nbsp;</p> <p>There are plenty of practical methods for generating quality leads.&nbsp; Blogging. Sharing and caring on social Media.&nbsp; Strategic landing pages. Event marketing. Email.&nbsp; Most marketers are using all of these channels and more. So why aren&rsquo;t the majority of brands drowning in qualified leads?</p> <p><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/growth3.jpg" style="width: 100px; height: 68px; float: left; margin: 5px;" title="" />Research shows that 65% of marketers are still struggling to figure out which <a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Blog-Details/PostId/134/12-reasons-why-your-business-needs-a-content-marketing-strategy">content is effective</a>.&nbsp; 60 percent are unable to produce engaging content.&nbsp; Only 23 percent of B2B marketers have moved to a customer-centric organizational structure.&nbsp; A lot of marketers are still missing the mark, using content to appeal to customers, rather than to provide <a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Social-Media">value to customers</a>.&nbsp;</p> <p>If you want to get more quality leads, you need to do better quality marketing.&nbsp; The trick to doing that is to first step back, in order to move forward.&nbsp; Go back and refine your buyer personas.&nbsp; How can you better meet their preferences and expectations? Look at where you can improve your blog, email and social media content to better serve your audience.&nbsp;</p> <p>No more bull running in a china shop approach and generating mediocre content and tossing it at your audience.&nbsp; No more throwing dollars at Facebook ads and waiting for the leads to roll in.&nbsp; Here are the hacks that will help you refine and improve your marketing and truly excel at lead generation.&nbsp;</p> <p><span style="color:#ffffff;"><strong>UP YOUR CONTENT GAME</strong></span></p> <p>You should always be on the quest to enhance the type of content you are using.&nbsp; Content marketing goes far beyond blog posts.&nbsp; Consider investing more so you can deliver a premium level of content.&nbsp;</p> <ul> <li>Infographics</li> <li>Event Marketing</li> <li>Webinars</li> <li>White papers</li> <li>Interactive Tools</li> </ul> <p>Your content should be engaging and &ldquo;pretty&rdquo;.&nbsp; All photos should be of great quality, captions should be short but interesting.&nbsp; Ever notice how television commercials use a short amount of time to catch your attention? The attention span of the average human is not very long, so you need to catch their attention with your graphics, photos and captions on social media within a glance.&nbsp; Blogs and email campaigns need to have clear and concise titles or subject lines.&nbsp;</p> <p><span style="color:#ffffff;"><strong>SIMPLIFY YOUR WEBSITE DESIGN</strong></span></p> <p>Dynamic isn&rsquo;t always a good thing when it comes to trying to get across a message.&nbsp; With <a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Website">website design</a>, the more complex, the bigger disaster you may have on your hands.</p> <p>Keep your website design clear and to the point.&nbsp; That doesn&rsquo;t mean you can&rsquo;t be creative.&nbsp; It does mean avoid excess text, confusing visuals and too many concepts.&nbsp; What you do what is a clear message and navigation bar.&nbsp; Lots of white space.&nbsp; Use website real estate for the essentials for getting leads, like forms and contact info.&nbsp;</p> <p>You don&rsquo;t want your design to scream when a prospect lands on your site.&nbsp;</p> <p><span style="color:#ffffff;"><strong>BETTER PERSONALIZE YOUR EMAILS</strong></span></p> <p>How are your email open-rates? Small businesses get around a 2 to 3 percent open-rate percentage, and larger companies get closer to 10 percent or even more.&nbsp; Overall, the average hovers around 4 percent.&nbsp;</p> <p><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/growth2.jpg" style="margin: 5px; width: 100px; height: 120px; float: left;" title="" />The goal should be to improve your email rates to help get more leads.&nbsp; <a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Blog-Details/PostId/135/5-ways-to-get-creative-with-email-subject-lines">How to do it?</a>&nbsp; A simple trick is to use more personalized messaging.&nbsp; With the style and tone expectations of your target audience in mind, see if your emails make more of an impact with a more conversational tone.&nbsp; Try adding an image in the closing signature &ndash; a staff member whose name is on the emails.&nbsp; Use names and first person tone of voice in the subject line, greetings, and closings.&nbsp; Segment your emails with your marketing software to ensure the right people are getting the right messaging depending on where they are in the sales funnel.</p> <p>Research has shown that personalization leads to six times higher email transaction rates.&nbsp; Worth a shot!</p> <p><span style="color:#ffffff;"><strong>KEEP REFINING</strong></span></p> <p>You don&rsquo;t necessarily need to revolutionize your marketing strategy to get more leads. You may see the results you&rsquo;re after simply by making a few changes or trying new techniques.&nbsp; Try these hacks.&nbsp; Measure their impact.&nbsp; Then keep making them better.&nbsp; You&rsquo;ll get more leads as long as you continually prime your marketing for the people you&rsquo;re trying to reach.&nbsp; For more tips and to hire a team of marketing professionals to handle this part of your business for you &ndash; contact our office.</p> <p><span style="color:#ffffff;">RELATED:</span>&nbsp;</p> <p><a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Blog-Details/PostId/136/5-benefits-of-business-blogging">5 Benefits of Business Blogging&nbsp;</a></p> <p><a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Blog-Details/PostId/134/12-reasons-why-your-business-needs-a-content-marketing-strategy">12 Reasons Why Your Business Needs A Content Marketing Strategy&nbsp;</a></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Author: <a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Social-Media">Stephanie May&nbsp;</a></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/2026496073.jpg" style="float: left; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 5px; height: 100px; width: 100px;" title="" />Phillip Long - CISSP, CEO of BIS Technology Group, along with his team of&nbsp;marketing and information technology experts, will walk you through an overview of&nbsp;&nbsp;what your business should be doing to protect your data and plan your digital marketing strategies.</p> <p>About BIS Technology Group</p> <p>BIS Technology Group is the technology leader on the Gulf Coast and is comprised of four divisions: Information Technology, Web Design &amp; Digital Marketing,&nbsp; &nbsp;Office Equipment and Business Consulting. Together these divisions help local businesses exceed expectations and allow them to group to their full potential while minimizing risks. To learn more about BIS Technology Group, visit&nbsp;<a href="http://bistechnologygroup.com/">bistechnologygroup.com</a>.</p> <p>You may reach out to us at:<br /> Phone: 251-405-2527<br /> Email: plong@askbis.com</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> 1375 Benefits of Business Blogging https://gulfcoastlocal.com/Blog-Details/PostId/136/5-benefits-of-business-bloggingB2B,Content Marketing,Digital Marketing,Internet Marketing,Mobile Marketing,SEOTue, 23 Jan 2018 19:24:29 GMT<p>These days, having a company website is no longer enough to stand out among the thousands of competitors you compete with in the digital space.&nbsp; Blogging isn&rsquo;t just a place to host your company press releases, it&rsquo;s about providing valuable content to your future customers.</p> <p>What is <a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Blog">business blogging</a>? Blogging is a marketing tactic that uses articles to get your business more online visibility.&nbsp; A business blog is a marketing channel (just like social media, email campaigns, etc.) that helps support business growth.</p> <p>No matter what kind of business you have, whether you&rsquo;re a local mom and pop shop, or giant corporation, there are some serious benefits are seemingly endless.</p> <p>Here are 5 benefits of business blogging:</p> <p><span style="color:#ffffff;"><strong>1. Creates Brand Authority</strong></span></p> <p>Consistently updating an active blog for your business allows you to personify your business by giving it a voice.&nbsp; Your blog is a space to discuss industry related topics, market trends and upcoming products.&nbsp; Focusing on these topics actively builds brand-trust.&nbsp; Trust generates leads.&nbsp; Leads grow sales.&nbsp; Can you see where this is all going?</p> <p>When you utilize your blog effectively, you are creating a two-way conversion between you and your customers, prospects and other industry professionals which can be very helpful for gathering insights for future business development.</p> <p>Having an active blog helps you stay ahead of the curve when it comes to industry news and competitors.&nbsp; By staying ahead of the curve, you are positioning your company as a leader as opposed to a follower.&nbsp; Your blog also serves the purpose of having a place to share your brand story, although it should be noted that it&rsquo;s not advised that you blog only about yourself as a company.&nbsp;</p> <p><span style="color:#ffffff;"><strong><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/blog.png" style="width: 150px; height: 90px; float: left;" title="" />2. Business Blogging Fuels Your SEO</strong></span></p> <p>There are some pretty obvious <a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/SEO">SEO benefits</a> blogs can offer, such as viewers spending longer amounts of time on your website, increasing page views and lowering bounce rates.&nbsp; However, it&rsquo;s also important to mention that search engines love valuable content and reward it with higher search result placements.&nbsp;</p> <p>As more people are putting out content to capture the attention of search engines, the algorithms are getting smarter.&nbsp; Your business blogging content should focus on having frequent high-quality content as opposed to having constant poor-quality content.&nbsp; Opt for longer blog posts because Google actually favors in-depth blog articles but a regularly updated blog, no matter the length of the articles, ranks higher in search engines than websites with no blog at all.&nbsp;</p> <p><span style="color:#ffffff;"><strong>3. Supports Your Social Media Advertising Efforts</strong></span></p> <p>Using blog articles as part of your content strategy on both Facebook and LinkedIn platforms has been proven to be very effective.&nbsp; Depending on the nature of the industry, boosted blog posts typically generate more engagements as opposed to generic click campaigns.&nbsp; This increased engagement impacts your overall organic reach for the post, which essentially means you are getting more viewers and spending less money as you&rsquo;re running your ad campaigns.</p> <p>Aside from using blog content for your ads, leveraging your blog posts throughout your <a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Social-Media">social media content</a> also increases the chances of gaining extra exposure.&nbsp; When you can write a blog article that is so interesting that others will want to share it, you are ultimately gaining free exposure.&nbsp;</p> <p><span style="color:#ffffff;"><strong>4. Generates a Great ROI</strong></span></p> <p>Business blogs are cost-effective marketing investments.&nbsp; Many business owners choose to outsource their blogging efforts entirely because it can be a time-consuming task when you are already wearing multiple hats for your business.&nbsp; According to Hubspot research, B2B marketers who use blogs as part of their content marketing mix get 67% more leads than those who don&rsquo;t.</p> <p><span style="color:#ffffff;"><strong><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/bigstock-157322675.jpg" style="width: 135px; height: 90px; float: left; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px;" title="" />5. Blogs Serve as a Lead Generation Tool</strong></span></p> <p>Blogging is an integral part of your digital sales funnel.&nbsp; In addition to driving traffic to your website, business blogging offers a great opportunity for capturing leads.&nbsp; By using non-intrusive lead capturing tools such as lead capture forms and call-to-action buttons, you can gather valuable data on the quality of the leads your blog posts are generating.&nbsp;</p> <p>How many times have you read a blog post and downloaded a free e-book because you were interested in gaining more insightful information about the topic you were reading? If you recall a moment where you have personally done this, congratulations! You were successfully moved from the inbound marketing stage of attraction to the stage of conversion.&nbsp;</p> <p>Each blog post you create is an additional page that can be indexed by Google, which can be used with a combination of lead generating call-to-action buttons such as free webinars, fact sheets and e-books.&nbsp; Asking for emails isn&rsquo;t an easy task but when you offer valuable data in exchange for emails, you can leverage it for better prospecting.&nbsp;</p> <h4><span style="color:#ffffff;"><strong>The Takeaway</strong></span></h4> <p>Although it can be difficult to find the time to keep up a business blog, you don&rsquo;t want to neglect the benefits blogging has to offer.&nbsp; By utilizing a local outsourced marketing company, like BIS Designs, your blogs can serve as a central piece for all your other marketing efforts which can include social media, SEO, email marketing and much more.</p> <p>When business blogging is done properly, it creates an opportunity that will have lifelong benefits to boosting your business marketing efforts.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>RELATED:&nbsp;</strong></p> <p><a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Blog-Details/PostId/134/12-reasons-why-your-business-needs-a-content-marketing-strategy">12 Reasons Why Your Business Needs A Content Marketing Strategy</a></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Author: <a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Social-Media">Stephanie May&nbsp;</a></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/2026496073.jpg" style="height: 105px; width: 100px; float: left; border-width: 2px; border-style: solid; margin-left: 4px; margin-right: 4px;" title="" />Phillip Long - CISSP, CEO of BIS Technology Group, along with his team of&nbsp;marketing and information technology experts, will walk you through an overview of&nbsp;&nbsp;what your business should be doing to protect your data and plan your digital marketing strategies.</p> <p>About BIS Technology Group</p> <p>BIS Technology Group is the technology leader on the Gulf Coast and is comprised of four divisions: Information Technology, Web Design &amp; Digital Marketing,&nbsp; &nbsp;Office Equipment and Business Consulting. Together these divisions help local businesses exceed expectations and allow them to group to their full potential while minimizing risks. To learn more about BIS Technology Group, visit&nbsp;<a href="http://bistechnologygroup.com/">bistechnologygroup.com</a>.</p> <p>You may reach out to us at:<br /> Phone: 251-405-2527<br /> Email: plong@askbis.com</p> 13612 Reasons Why Your Business Needs A Content Marketing Strategyhttps://gulfcoastlocal.com/Blog-Details/PostId/134/12-reasons-why-your-business-needs-a-content-marketing-strategyB2B,Content Marketing,Digital Marketing,Internet Marketing,Social MediaWed, 27 Dec 2017 17:40:37 GMT<p>Research by the Content Marketing Institute has reported that B2B marketers who have a documented strategy and an individual to oversee the strategy, are the most effective group of content marketers out there. Whether you are just now starting your digital marketing process or you have made sure your brand has a recognizable presence on the web, you&rsquo;re missing out if you aren&rsquo;t using a content marketing strategy.</p> <p><span style="color:#F8C100;"><span style="font-size:130%;">There is a lot more to it than running a few social media accounts and publishing a blog for your brand. Even with great, well-driven content, if you don&rsquo;t have the SEO skills to drive organic traffic to your website, the landing pages to capture leads and the email marketing, white papers, dynamic offering of webinars, infographics, event marketing and more to convince your customers that your brand is an industry leader and has long-term value to offer, then your content lacks dimension.</span></span></p> <p>You need a system for gathering and analyzing your customer metrics, and using this data to constantly update your strategy. Without this system, you&rsquo;re failing to offer what customers expect today from marketers. Your content may slip through the cracks, going unnoticed as your competitors are appealing to your market with a direct approach at content that touches every point. Stringing everything together to create something that matters is the ultimate goal.</p> <p><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/desktop.jpg" style="width: 175px; height: 117px; float: left; border-width: 2px; border-style: solid; margin: 10px;" title="" />Richard Pattinson, CEO of Brafton, says &ldquo;The intention behind content can be good, but the scaffolding is missing, weak or flawed.&rdquo; Pattinson sees this as a major flaw for businesses.</p> <p>With a documented strategy, there is a place and purpose for each piece of content. Everything flows into the next. A case study, vlog or email subject line sets up other aspects of your strategy and holds the entire plan together. A good flow will allow your entire strategy to be flexible enough to evolve along the way as your make an effort to continually work towards creating that simple, clear and yet remarkably complex brand environment that is the most effective way to attract your market and build long-term customer relationships at the same time.</p> <p><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color:#F8C100;">A good content marketing strategy is:</span></span></p> <ul> <li><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color:#F8C100;">- Well-defined KPIs and clear goals.</span></span></li> <li><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color:#F8C100;">- Three-dimensional buyer personas that help you craft content for your market</span></span></li> <li><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color:#F8C100;">- A content management system for tracking your customers&rsquo; experiences, automating some of your content publication, and for gathering data.</span></span></li> <li><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color:#F8C100;">- A balance between creativity and pragmatism that yields an ongoing river of fresh content, with each part connected seamlessly, from the font styles on your website to format used in your webinars.</span></span></li> <li><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color:#F8C100;">- An ongoing learning process, with the goal of utilizing multiple content tactics and identifying the ones that work the best for your target audience.</span></span></li> </ul> <p>The better your strategy, the more potential you give each piece of content created.</p> <p><span style="color:#cccc99;"><u><span style="font-size:larger;"><strong>WHY YOU NEED A&nbsp;CONTENT MARKETING STRATEGY </strong></span></u></span></p> <p>1. <b>A better content marketing ROI </b>&ndash; as you refine which tactics are the most appealing to high-quality leads and which are the most motivating, you&rsquo;ll be able to invest in the content that works and either reduce or eliminate what isn&rsquo;t working.</p> <p>2. <b>You&rsquo;ll actually know what your content ROI is </b>&ndash; only with a documented strategy are you going to have the metrics to give you an idea of how effective your content marketing is.</p> <p>3. <b>Repurposed content </b>&ndash; with a dynamic strategy, you can plan ahead how you repurpose your in-person events into eBooks and podcasts, your video interviews into blog&nbsp;posts, and your white papers into infographics.</p> <p>4. <b>Better customer segmentation </b>&ndash; with a content management system, you&rsquo;ll be able to personalize your content for different segments, the key to boosting your conversion and retention rates.</p> <p>5. <b>More accurate buyer personas </b>&ndash; you&rsquo;ll also be able to create smarter campaigns with better buyer personas as you use your gathered customer data to continually evolve your ideal buyer personas.</p> <p>6. <b>Less churn </b>&ndash; when you have a better idea of what your customers want because you&rsquo;re using a strategy, you&rsquo;ll be able to reduce your churn rates and boost your long-term revenue numbers.</p> <p>7. <b>Ability to leverage more marketing tactics </b>&ndash; with a short and long-term plan, you&rsquo;ll be able to see ten steps ahead, planning for that mega branding conference in five years and pulling off your brilliant influencer marketing campaign six months from now.</p> <p>8. <b>Optimized social media channels </b>&ndash; when your social media posts are integrated with the rest of your content marketing strategy, your customers grow used to the value that comes out of following and engaging with your social platforms and are more likely to stay engaged. Rather than random posts, they&rsquo;ll know there will be a consistent flow of value coming out of your Twitter feed and Facebook pages &ndash; industry news or tips, special deals, links to informative blog posts, early bird event registration they don&rsquo;t want to miss.</p> <p>9. <b>Boosted brand reputation </b>&ndash; with your comprehensive brand presence both online and off, you&rsquo;ll do wonders for your brand reputation as you&rsquo;ll have a larger social following, contact list, and more activity on your website such as blog comments, online reviews, and forum posts (depending on what channels are relevant for your business).</p> <p>10. <b>Improve lead generation </b>&ndash; when you flow your social media posts and email marketing into your blog posts and to your landing pages and CTAs, you&rsquo;ll attract more visitors to your website and invite more qualified leads down your sales funnel.</p> <p>11. &nbsp;<b>Higher customer acquisition rates </b>&ndash; as you get to know your market better, you&rsquo;ll be able to turn more leads into customers.</p> <p>12. <b>You&rsquo;ll become a better marketer. </b>The more love you put into your strategy, the more you&rsquo;ll learn about just how much content marketing is capable of.&nbsp;</p> <p>Getting the results you want from your content marketing all boils down to strategy. Even if your strategy is limited to a blog, a modest website and social media &ndash; make each piece work together and that strategy will do more than a disconnected collection of components ever could.</p> <p><a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Social-Media">BIS Designs offer these services and more. </a>As a business owner, having a team to handle the content marketing for you can be a better option than spending the time to do it yourself. We&rsquo;re happy to discuss ideas with you. Give us a call!</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Author: <a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Social-Media">Stephanie May&nbsp;</a></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>RELATED:&nbsp;</p> <p><a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Blog-Details/PostId/123/create-a-winning-content-marketing-strategy-in-5-simple-steps">Create a Winning Content Marketing Strategy in 5 Simple Steps&nbsp;</a></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/plong_1.jpg" style="border-width: 1px; border-style: solid; margin: 10px; width: 100px; height: 100px; float: left;" title="" />Phillip Long - CISSP, CEO of BIS Technology Group, along with his team of&nbsp;marketing and information technology experts, will walk you through an overview of&nbsp; &nbsp; what your business should be doing to protect your data and plan your digital marketing strategies.</p> <p>About BIS Technology Group</p> <p>BIS Technology Group is the technology leader on the Gulf Coast and is comprised of four divisions: Information Technology, Web Design &amp; Digital Marketing,&nbsp; &nbsp;Office Equipment and Business Consulting. Together these divisions help local businesses exceed expectations and allow them to group to their full potential while minimizing risks. To learn more about BIS Technology Group, visit&nbsp;<a href="http://bistechnologygroup.com/">bistechnologygroup.com</a>.</p> <p>You may reach out to us at:<br /> Phone: 251-405-2527<br /> Email: plong@askbis.com</p> 134How Is Voice Search Affecting SEO?https://gulfcoastlocal.com/Blog-Details/PostId/133/how-is-voice-search-affecting-seoDigital Marketing,Internet Marketing,Mobile Marketing,SEO,TechnologyThu, 14 Dec 2017 22:15:31 GMT<p>Have you talked to Siri, Alexa or Cortana lately? You probably have, and you wouldn&rsquo;t be alone.&nbsp; According to Google, more than half of teens and 41% of adults are using voice search daily.&nbsp; For users, voice search is basically the best thing since sliced bread and now marketers are racing to optimize their content for it.</p> <p>Why is voice search hailed as the next big opportunity? Let&rsquo;s break down what voice search is, how it&rsquo;s impacting search, and some quick tips on how to optimize for these new types of queries.</p> <p><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/voice-search-app-ss-1920.jpg" style="width: 267px; height: 150px; float: left;" title="" /></p> <p><span style="color:#ffffff;"><span style="font-size:larger;"><strong>What is Voice Search? </strong></span></span></p> <p>People tend to use voice search when they are multi-tasking, like asking for directions, dictating texts, and getting quick information.&nbsp; And because voice search is a drastic new medium to perform searches, the types of queries and ways in which people are searching are changing immensely.</p> <p><span style="color:#ffffff;"><span style="font-size:larger;"><strong>What&rsquo;s Its Impact? </strong></span></span></p> <p>Voice search is making long tail, colloquial keywords more relevant.&nbsp; People are now having conversations with their devices, whether it&rsquo;s a smartphone or voice assistant, so preparing for longer, more descriptive terms is imperative.&nbsp; Also, searchers are using more interrogative words within their searches.&nbsp; Imagine you&rsquo;re driving around town, jamming to your favorite song and realize that your gas light just turned on &ndash; chances are you might quickly ask Siri, &ldquo;Where&rsquo;s the closest gas station?&rdquo;, and voila! In a couple of minutes your tank is full, you&rsquo;re back on the road downing a Dr. Pepper and pretending to be Britney Spears.</p> <p><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/voice-search.png" style="width: 270px; height: 150px; float: left;" title="" /></p> <p><span style="color:#ffffff;"><span style="font-size:larger;"><strong>How Do I Optimize For It? </strong></span></span></p> <p>An easy way to begin optimizing your site&rsquo;s pages is making sure you&rsquo;re tracking voice terms, which include long tail keywords and searches with question terms attached &ndash; like who, what, where, when and so on. Once you have a benchmark, you&rsquo;ll be able to track your improvements.</p> <p>Next, create or update an existing FAZ page predicting relevant voice searches.&nbsp; This page can include questions like, &ldquo;How much is shipping?&rdquo; or &ldquo;How does it work?&rdquo; so when people are searching questions that might relate to your business, you have a page ready for them to land on.</p> <p>And lastly, make sure your site passes the mobile-friendliness test.&nbsp; People using voice search want quick answers to their pressing questions, so if your landing page doesn&rsquo;t load fast enough, your user might bounce right off your site and get answers from elsewhere.&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Author: <a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Social-Media">Stephanie May&nbsp;</a></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>RELATED:&nbsp;</strong></p> <p><a href="https://www.askbisdesigns.com/Blog-Details/PostId/125/emerging-trends-in-digital-marketing">Marketing Trends for 2018&nbsp;</a></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/plong.jpg" style="width: 100px; height: 100px; float: left;" title="" />Phillip Long - CISSP, CEO of BIS Technology Group, along with his team of&nbsp;marketing and information technology experts, will walk you through an overview of&nbsp; &nbsp; what your business should be doing to protect your data and plan your digital marketing strategies.</p> <p>About BIS Technology Group</p> <p>BIS Technology Group is the technology leader on the Gulf Coast and is comprised of four divisions: Information Technology, Web Design &amp; Digital Marketing,&nbsp; &nbsp;Office Equipment and Business Consulting. Together these divisions help local businesses exceed expectations and allow them to group to their full potential while minimizing risks. To learn more about BIS Technology Group, visit&nbsp;<a href="http://bistechnologygroup.com/">bistechnologygroup.com</a>.</p> <p>You may reach out to us at:<br /> Phone: 251-405-2527<br /> Email: plong@askbis.com</p> 133