Month: July 2017

There is an untold confession in digital marketing – SEO is hard. No one can really guarantee to get you into the front page of Google or keep you there all along in the same place. There are too many factors that go into getting the equation right on ranking. Besides, you all need to stay abreast with the latest tweaks in search engine’s algorithms. And that is only part of the hard work. The other part is actually having to explain it all to your client! Organic traffic is a heavily loaded word. By calling other kinds of traffic ‘paid’, clients automatically tend to assume that Organic is free. Technically, it isn’t if you are (and should be) paying an SEO professional to get and maintain rankings for you.   While you can’t over-dramatize and commit on getting an amplified x times traffic in a proposal, nor can you promise “Page 1 rankings”, but you can always use examples to help clients understand how things may look in the near future. SEO is a long-term commitment and the proposal has to convince your clients that you’ll be around and get them the results they are looking for. It will showcase you as an agency or freelancer who is updated with the latest in SEO and can be agile enough to tackle future updates from search engines too. So is this THE SEO proposal that’ll work for you? We don’t know. A simple search for ‘SEO proposal template’ on Google gives 16,50,000 results. Those are templates that seem to have worked for a bunch of people. We can tell you that this one works for us. In this second part of our three part series on writing proposals, we present the tried and tested SEO proposal template that has helped us not only get a good few SEO clients but also retain them. Get our guide to writing winning Social Media proposals here   As always, let’s start at the beginning – The Brief Before a written proposal is submitted, you’ll most likely have a call or meeting to discuss the problem at hand. Over the years, we’ve noticed that most of these briefings have two common points – – I want to rank on No. 1 for x term – I want to increase my traffic exponentially At this stage, many clients aren’t too keen to press about targeted traffic, leads or conversions. It is about building reputation and visibility with the right terms and getting a boost in traffic. Then, depending on how much knowledge they have about SEO and its workings, other demands then crop up. During the brief meeting, it is important to gauge your client’s knowledge graph on the subject. If it is just the page 1 rankings they want or the overall online reputation management that comes from real SEO. Use the brief meeting to analyse the client’s most important business goals and how it maps back to marketing goals and metrics.   Set expectations right Take the opportunity of the brief meeting clear off the myths on SEO. It isn’t a magic portion. It will cost money and that too monthly. It will need to be done consistently. You can’t just stop with On-page SEO. You’ll have to complete a round of technical SEO too. The effects of SEO will be seen only when you sustain it with link building efforts. And last, but not the least, it doesn’t come with guarantees.   Gather data to be used in your proposal / pitch Data is an invaluable driver in an SEO proposal. Unlike social where the numbers are clearly visible, an SEO check will require some digging into analytics to give a proper audit report. You can either ask for view access or specific reports to be emailed to you.   The Proposal We use four key elements when we design a proposals   1. A background After you present a quick executive summary, you can delve down straight into the insights and analysis that you’ve gained from your research. Right from the opening part of the proposal, you’ll have to find and use every opportunity to wow your client. The research has to be thorough, but more importantly, the insights have to be well-presented and aligned with the business. Limit yourself to 5 key takeaways at the end of it so that you don’t overwhelm with too much jargon or analysis in the first go.   Reports to include a. A website audit report: The report that presents a health certificate rating for the website. There are many free and paid audit tools available including some with white label options to do the heavy lifting for you. We use a mix of tools, not just one to do our analysis, pick out the best insights and put it together. Other than testing for the standard content / text ratio and page speed time, deep delve from a customer perspective – were you able to quickly find what they were selling. Did the check out process work find. Use both Search engine and human element when doing a website audit. b. A ranking report: Without going into indepth keyword research, this report can include the top 10 non-brand keywords that you would generally type into Google to look for a site / product like this. You wouldn’t need any sophisticated tools right now but going forward you’ll definitely need a tools like WebCEO to keep a track of your client’s ranking over a period of time. It helps when memory fails on what the ranking was a year back and you need a quick graph to showcase the ranking changes over a period of time. WebCEO is one of the best ‘Rank checker’ tool out there which has automated scheduling and even does ranking checks for blended search. c. A link audit report: Research on the clout your client holds in the online world. If they are new, this report wouldn’t make

Like other streams of digital marketing, SEO is passing through a transition.  What was popular yesterday may not be relevant today. This is not limited to a few strategies and practices, but your overall understanding of SEO and how you should approach it. Earlier, SEO was all about ensuring that you rank well for the right keywords on popular search engines. The overarching objective of SEO has now shifted to creating an online footprint both for your prospective customers and the search engine spiders. It comes through building links, relationships, and a content strategy. When it is done right, it increases your website traffic, positive brand mentions, search engine rankings and last but not the least – conversions. Online reputation building goes one step further. An extension of traditional link building, reputation building is about how other websites / customers perceive your brand. Your customers now have access to this information either when they come across it directly or indirectly in search results. Because this directly affects their purchase decision, it becomes an important part of your off-page SEO strategy. An SEO expert’s job is to expand the digital footprint of your brand. While the process of building backlinks continues to remain a standard practice, savvy SEO experts now include all aspects of a brand’s organic digital presence under SEO. When you keep this insight in mind, backlinks will follow automatically. Your website is also like your home. If you want people to visit your website, you need to understand what off-page SEO is all about. Reputation building is an essential element of SEO and it should be an ongoing effort. Importance of offsite SEO for your brand  According to some estimates, an average consumer is exposed to thousands of brands every day. Chances are they already have some information about your brand before they seek it online. The important factors influencing this opinion can be the reviews, comments, and recommendations from the people you know and also what other people say online on social channels. Just like traditional marketing, online marketing is all about branding and promotion. The only difference is that it is two-way marketing rather than one. For example, before buying a mobile phone, you would like to listen to the feedback from friends and family members first.  It usually follows a brief research online that includes the comparison of features, specs, and prices. At any stage during the decision making process, a single negative comment about the phone’s battery or performance may reverse your decision to buy that phone. Because there is an off chance that these reviews are indexed and rank high for your brand name, the negative SEO can directly impact your leads and sales. So, it’s more about reputation building, PR, and social marketing. Links definitely help in online marketing and SEO, but it’s not the be all and end all of SEO. A successful off-page SEO campaign involves creating positive signals and interactions about your brand.  It will bring you many positive reviews, mentions, and links, which would serve your purpose and boost your online marketing. It’s about considering the entire digital marketing ecosystem from creating a product and matching it with excellent customer service. It also includes blogger outreach and influencer marketing using earned and paid media, capturing positive reviews, increasing social media interactions and “mentions” of your brand. This way we would be able to achieve much better results. In his article about off-page SEO strategies, Ronell Smith has divided off-page SEO into three broader categories: Brand Audience Content  A. Product and Branding  According to him, the first step of branding is to create a 10x product or service. Even the best off-page SEO strategies are useless if your product or services are inferior. i. Focus on offering a good product  You should perform a thorough research online and offline before you even think of launching a product.  Research your competition and look for the positive feedback about their products and services. Also look for the complaints about similar existing products and scope of improvement if any. Now, you should design your product according to the most sought after benefits it may offer to the audiences. This way we can automatically remove objection and improve brand mentions. ii. Don’t dare ignore customer service As we know that customer service is an important element of a brand and that poor customer service can spell the doom of a brand. The news of bad customer support may go viral overnight acting as a nightmare for the brand. Make sure that your staffers answer queries in a warm tone and professional manner – both online and offline. Also make sure that they treat every customer individually with a cheerful disposition, exhibit genuine concern and offer solutions that work. The same goes for your content. It should leave people feeling good about your product or service. That’s probably the reason why we think that SEO and content marketing are married as one and both act complimentary to each other.   B. Audience If people do not have anything great to say about your product or services your SEO will become a tough job. When there are no positive reviews or conversations about your brand, referral traffic, and resultant sales would also be quite low. i. Get to know your audience better using social platforms  The best way to get to know your audience is to go through the conversations, comments, complaints, opinions, and feedback of your targeted audience on different social platforms. Social media can be instrumental in your off-page SEO game. Hire someone to monitor social interactions on a regular basis and answer questions in a timely manner. Allow genuine interactions to take place without resorting to blatant promotion. On social media, you should be humble, friendly, honest, polite and ready to help. Make sure you don’t ever sound robotic or self-centered. ii. Be a resource for your audiences Try to become a resource for the online audiences in your domain. It

  Crisp as a waffle and layered like lasagna, here’s the top happenings in the world of digital – Here’s to finishing your serving before the coffee break!   1. Google rolls out job search and email alerts   Once again, it is time to ring out the old and ring in the new. The Father Christmas of the web world is testing out a new service that directly pulls job search platforms under one search. This means that you’ll now be able to google the latest job opportunities. (Does this mean ‘job post optimization will be a new SEO spin-off?) You’ll also be able to set email alerts for the keywords you choose. What will this mean to recruiters. Will more visibility translate to more and more resumes in the stack for recruiters and a longer recruiting process? Only time will tell once the test moves past America.   2. Linkedin updates its search options   On the heels of the previous news came the update about Linkedin also updating its search for better discovery of new jobs. The new feature allows users to see how many have people have found them through the platform, their company profiles and job titles. Another feature it rolled out recently was re-targeting for advertisers. This isn’t ‘new’ per say as all the others including Facebook and Google have been doing it. But it comes as a better targeting option now for Linkedin advertisers too.   3. Have we reached the end of the app economy   Did you just start building an app? You better stop to read this slightly scary but true article. With limited space in smartphones and an almost unlimited supply of apps, getting people to hit ‘Download’ is getting tougher by the day. Even if people cross that threshold, only 36% are retained after one month and 11% after a year. This means almost 80% apps are zombies. Think of it in the perspective of webpages. Does it matter if you are ranking on the 34th position among 3,40,000 search results on Google? The only difference being that it takes a lot more money to build and maintain an app than a website. Are you still planning to make yours?   4. Reply to Instagram stories with photos and videos   Have an opinion on an Instagram story? Now you’ll get to express exactly how you feel. You can now reply to a post using creative tools like camera, filters, rewind and stickers. While the sticker feature has been around on other social sites, Instagram is looking to enhance its stickiness and engagement with this new feature.   5. Facebook is letting Groups create online learning courses       eLearning has changed over the years. Online learning MOOC courses and even peer-to-peer learning has worked for some over the years and not for others. The thing to note here is that Facebook is allowing everyone to create courses! What can possibly go wrong? Now that’ll be a fun answer, won’t it. A certification from the University of Facebook!   6. Google Posts are now Live for all My Business users   If you have a GMB account, you should now be able to access ‘Posts’ within the account by navigating to the menu on the left. These posts allow businesses to share events, current updates and promotions or even showcase new arrivals. Posts can show up high on both search and maps results when you google using the business’s name. The catch here is that all posts will be removed after 7 days to ensure the info remains current with exceptions where the posts are based on future events.   7. Will visual search be the new way to search?       The statistics between images and text overwhelmingly shows that people are much more receptive to visuals. This one has been a tough nut to crack in a while with Microsoft recently launching Bing’s visual search feature. Similarly, Google too recently launched ‘Lens’ where you can take a picture of any object and Google will help you understand it better… if it is a salon, for example, Google will show its name, its reviews and show if any of your friends have visited it before. Soon eCommerce sites will directly allow people to buy from their visual search.   Food for thought Companies should become a content creation engines via GIPHY Jeffery Dachis, co-founder of Razorfish says that the owned content you create will be at your marketing core. Between advertorials and copied content, customers will constantly seek a ‘trusted voice’. If you need that voice, you’ll have to own your content creation strategy right now.   Should we give Artificial Intelligence human rights via GIPHY This question seems to jump straight out of a sci-fi movie. Except that this is a reality we’ll have to face soon. AI is one of the fastest growing spheres of Future Technologies and we are looking at Machine Learning to automate several things in the near future. With the combination of various aspects of Data Science, the reality of AI will be here before you know. So, if AI is set to replace human intervention, should it also get human rights?   Have you been facing content marketing challenges? Contact us today for a free consult.

We marketers are constantly in the search of inspiration. We want to know what’s happening in the world out there – applaud success stories, learn from other’s failures and more importantly try and remember the right examples that can be quoted to clients during the pitch meeting! But with sooooo much content out there (and we are all guilty as charged on bombarding the world with 2M blogs a day!) how do you pick and filter the best from the noise? Well that is a very difficult task given that we keep pushing away even our “favourite” marketers and bloggers in read-later folders, which we often forget to even open for months. To sum it up, you probably need to be fed with a good curation of all the best blogs that are worth a read. Well, the good news is that is what we have decide to do every month – put together the best reads on content, marketing, and business in general. Here’s what we do at Justwords. We have each of our writers nominate their list of best reads from the month and put together a final list for you. (We do get into some serious debate when someone’s choice doesn’t make it to the list, but hey, in the interest of maintaining balance in the universe, we choose on the best that get voted in majority) So here are the best reads that you might have missed in the month of July. 1. A quick ad writing refresher course we all need As a digital marketer we execute SEM campaigns for our clients on a daily basis. There are tons of insights gained from our collective work, which we fervently and automatically implement during the execution phase. Some like ‘Sell benefits and not features’ is what we use as a baseline, while complete focus on analytics and A/B testing is what we like to keep trying out. This 30-point playback blog from Neil Patel works as a good refresher course for seasoned marketers and a checklist for the new ones. 2. The updated content creation tools checklist Gone are the days when writers were alone with their typewriter and thoughts. From idea generation to grammar checks to hustler writing, if there is a writing aid you are looking for, someone probably has created it already. This is our favourite checklist. Here at Just Words, we use quite a combination of these on a daily basis. An on wicked Fridays, when both deadlines and the weekend looms large, we love to use Write or Die to balance our work and play. (Like I said, its Wicked with a capital W) 3. Data Science and Marketing – Buzz word update 10 years ago, Digital Marketing and eCommerce was touted as the next big thing after the internet to conquer the world. That prediction has come true. Smart businesses have made digital a part of their regular marketing strategy. Today, the same prediction holds true for Data Science. In the next few years, it will be the one thing that controls a lot of our decision making. From Big Data to IoT, here’s what savvy marketers need to get started. 4. Smart, Alert, Strong, Kind, Brave No – we aren’t describing qualities of a good content marketer. It is what we need to teach our kids when it comes to the big (sometimes bad) world of internet. And apologies for the cheat – this one isn’t a blog but a whole website. Why is this featured here? Because along with being content marketers, we shoulder the responsibility of making the world a better place with safer content for kids. This one is for your tea-time reads. Because we love to take a Saturday outing to a school near us to share some of this awesome content. 5. Influencers are the new brand We’ve all been through that phase when we want to drink a particular brand of cola because our favourite actor was making it look ‘oh-so-cool’. (taste, health and calories be damned!). That is the power of influencer marketing which both traditional ATL and BTL have always been good at exploiting. But the internet has made ‘brands’ out of food bloggers, shopaholics and even toy reviewers – everyday people who now have a decent ‘following’ on the internet. The numbers may not match up to Kim Kardashian’s but it is still good enough to get a lot of their followers to try out products. If you are selling tees, have a popular ‘Instagram model’ wear one and endorse it – and get their followers scampering to your website for more. Connect food porn with blogs and you just may get a restaurant’s registers ringing. 6. The updated guide to writing Privacy Policies We content marketers don’t like to talk legal mumbo jumbo. Most people just find a similar website and do a straight cut paste after a Ctrl + F and replacing the company name. Do you have such redundant pages on your website which you can put an insomniac to sleep? Let’s take the ‘boring’ out of this page, keep it in the language we speak and understand. And more importantly, let’s not make it ‘fine print’ but be transparent and engaging. 7. Marketing conferences – to go or not to go Do companies gain anything tangible by sending employees to marketing conferences? Is it just a bunch of people giving out ‘gyan’ while others hover around the cafe? Do employees get to network for their personal gains and not come back with anything tangible? Conferences are tricky – you can’t see the benefits immediately but you can definitely see the costs in your monthly bill. While it does get a bit difficult, our favourite Rand Fishkin sums it up well CFO: What if we invest in our people and they leave? CEO: What if we don’t and they stay?  8. If You Had 24 Hours to Improve Revenue as Much as Possible, What Would You