This year has been a rollercoaster ride for most brands and businesses. 2020 has taught many of us new concepts like being in quarantine, working remotely, and most importantly, marketing digitally. Although digital marketing has been the heart of branding for some years now, most businesses have started becoming aware of this term or its gravity only recently. And they often confuse it with content marketing Services, which might seem similar but is quite distinct in reality. So, if you are someone who doesn’t know which side to pick in a digital vs. content marketing scenario, this blog post is for you. After all, not every business needs the same marketing strategy or wants to invest in the same plan. Hence, understanding the difference between digital and content marketing and where each might come in useful is important. So, let’s start by defining each of these terms before we go ahead with some detailed insights. What is Content Marketing? As the Content Marketing Institute has beautifully defined, “Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.” In short, content marketing is a process that: Involves producing and publishing content that speaks to your target audience. Creates engagement and attraction towards your brand. Educates and entertains your customers with valuable and relatable content. The next question is, how does this strategy help you? Content marketing helps a business by creating a reputation in the market. It is mostly related to making potential customers aware of your brand and your expertise in the field. It also helps to establish your authority in a certain industry. For example, if customers find useful and interesting information on your website, they will keep coming back for more. Gradually, you will be able to convince and convert them, or even encourage them to share a good word about your brand. So, with content marketing, you can make people aware of your brand, help them decide to make a purchase, and let them share their experience with others. What is Digital Marketing? Digital marketing refers to any and all marketing efforts that involve the internet and digital devices. So, think of any ad that you see on the internet, content piece, or even a tweet from a brand – it’s all part of digital marketing. In fact, digital marketing is like an umbrella term that covers content marketing. Now, if you ask, how will digital marketing help you? The answer is simple. It is the same as traditional marketing, just executed on a digital platform. And so, even the goals are usually the same for both the marketing techniques i.e. conversions and sales. What is the Difference between Content Marketing and Digital Marketing? To put it in a straight forward manner, while content marketing focuses on establishing relations and engagement with the audience, digital marketing is more about conversions and sales. But then, why should one waste time on content marketing and not directly jump to getting more sales? It is because you need to follow a certain process to lead potential customers to your website and convert them into paying customers. It’s like cooking, where you need to follow a proper recipe to get a delicious outcome. Let’s take the example of Biryani to make things easy here– You need to let the meat marinate first for hours, then add some spices, let the meat sizzle, add rice, and finally let the flavours set in (I should try my hand at food blogging next!). In the same way, you need to guide prospects along a marketing funnel to get conversions. Ideally, a sales funnel goes like this: Step 1: Make people aware of your brand. Step 2: Create interest regarding your product or service. Step 3: Help them decide what they want or need. Step 4: Navigate them to take action. Step 5: Retain the customers or upsell them or let them review your products or services. And this where content marketing plays an important role to initiate the process, so that you can reach the sales phase (where digital marketing plays a big role) in a structured manner. So, if you ask me, content marketing and digital marketing are interdependent. Content marketing helps build awareness, generate interest, influence decision, and ensure retention, while digital marketing actually gives you sales. Now, let’s take a look at the various types of content and digital marketing. Types of Content Marketing If you are taking baby steps in the world of content marketing, you might be wondering what comes under it. Well…. Content marketing covers all kinds of content, be it in words, videos, images, infographics, or any other style. Even memes, GIFs and presentations are a part of this form of marketing. So, let’s check out some of the common trending styles (that will definitely help you). Blogs The reason why blogging ranks number one on the list is because it comes with multiple perks. Blogs can help you in building trust, establish domain authority, rank better on search engines, and finally drive traffic to your website. In short, it hardly has any drawbacks if your content is unique, relatable, and produced consistently. Videos Videos are among the most popular content styles these days. Since people have a very short attention span when they go online, videos do a better job of interacting with the target audience than long blogs. The human brain tends to recall visuals better than plain text, even after a long time. Plus, videos offer a more immersive experience and especially come in handy when you want to showcase how a product is made or how it works. Images When it comes to visuals, images or photos are widely used by different kinds of businesses to convey messages more meaningfully. Just make sure that they are well-shot, crisp and have a decent resolution. Most importantly, you can share these
Month: November 2020
How to Find Right Service Provider for Your Small Business SEO?
SEO is constantly evolving. And you need to match its pace to achieve your goal of ranking high on the first page of search results. This is only possible when you review, renew, and implement the strategies, and not settle for the same old ones. And that’s where an in-house SEO team or SEO services come in handy. But the next question is, can you actually afford to hire an experienced team to handle your SEO? This is important to consider, especially if you are a small business owner. To overcome this problem, and stay afloat and visible on search engines, you can go ahead with an agency that offers SEO services for small businesses. But again, you might ask – Isn’t it important to choose the best service available? How to actually choose one? And that’s exactly why, I have decided to pen down this article. Here, I will try to help you answer some major questions like: What does an SEO agency do? What services will they offer? How to check if the agency is any good? Which red flags should you steer clear off? So, let’s dive in… What Does an SEO Agency Do? Well, in short, an SEO agency helps businesses to improve their online visibility and rank better on search engine platforms. The agencies can achieve this by combining various strategies like site performance, keyword practices, website structure, content creation, campaigns, and many more marketing techniques. But why should you hire an SEO agency for your business? As I said earlier, SEO is constantly in an evolving phase that needs you to put in regular work to maintain standards. Nevertheless, if you still need a reason to hire a company that excels in SEO for small businesses, then here are a few for you. 1. SEO is a Complex Process Although it looks easier on the surface, it takes a lot of work, strategies, planning, implementation, and time to get it sorted. And you might even not succeed after going through this daunting process in case you don’t have experience. 2. SEO Needs Ongoing Work You cannot simply keep following one strategy that worked for you in the past. Ranking higher in the digital world requires fresh content, regular webpages updates, adding new links, and constant promotion on different channels. 3. SEO Requires up-to-date Knowledge Google keeps on changing its algorithm, and you need to keep track of all minor and major updates to stay on top of the industry. Without expertise, it is difficult to know all its various ranking factors that determine the quality, accuracy, and relevancy of the page. 4. Experience and Expertise in Handling SEO Tools With experience comes the knowledge of using SEO tools to their proper extent. Although a set of free SEO tools have made the job easier, you still need to have the experience to know which tools to use when. What Services Will an SEO Agency Offer? Generally, SEO is categorised into three sections: on-page, technical, and off-page SEO. Each section focuses on a different aspect of your strategy. An agency will help you out in all three sections. On-Page SEO This section basically checks all the ranking factors that are present or appear on the webpages. It means it includes everything that falls under the category of page optimisation. A classic example that I can give is keyword optimisation. Off-Page SEO Also known as off-site SEO, it is ideally the process of building your brand reputation beyond the website. SEO isn’t only about optimising websites and focusing on keywords, it includes a lot of different factors. With external forces playing a role in brand reputation (like social media and review sites), it is important to maintain and manage the brand reputation on third-party websites. Another important factor is the link-building. The agencies will reach out to influencers, industry experts, and thought-leaders to build a network and garner some powerful backlinks. Earning links from reputed websites will increase your value in domain authority. Lastly, an off-page SEO strategy will also include creating scope for guest blogging and social media marketing campaigns to increase brand reach. Technical SEO As the name suggests, an agency while offering these small business SEO services focuses mainly on technical aspects of the websites. In this, the agency will generally look out for opportunities wherein your competitors lag behind, in order to rank higher on the SERPs. A classic example of this is the loading speed of your webpages. Google places high importance on this while ranking on the search result page. So, checking your website for speed, ease of navigation, structure, crawling factors, etc. come under technical SEO. That being said, not all SEO agencies will offer all the services. You need to make a choice – like, you might have to pick between a package that offers all the services with different expertise levels and different packages with high expertise level in every single sector. Also Read: List of Best Free SEO Tools for Your Website How to Check If the Agency is Any Good? Now that you have decided to get an SEO agency on board, how do you choose one? Do you choose by SEO benefits or budget? These are the normal questions that might pop up in your mind. Although you should take both the factors into consideration, there are certain things to stay clear off. Some of those are: Do not blindly use Google as your filter. Although you would think number one would be the best, it isn’t always the case. Stay away from articles that mention ‘top SEO list’. There’s a high possibility that the website is being paid for listing certain agencies. Do your research and don’t go for sponsored stuff or just Google ranking. How would you do that? Here are some points to help you out. 1. Know Your Goals Before you start, sit with your team and define your goals. Figure out the priority SEO goals that you need to
It’s Time to Steer Clear of These 8 Awkward Grammar Mistakes
There is a reason why your English teacher at school used to stress so much on getting the grammar in an essay or even a sentence right. Grammar mistakes can spoil a reader’s experience in seconds, even if the content is interesting and highly informative. And no matter how careful you are about grammar, there are certain mistakes that tend to occur time and again. So, we have decided to make life simple for you with this post. You will find out about the 8 common grammar errors even the best English language experts make and will be able to avoid confusion and embarrassment in future. Whether you are writing a novel, content for your website, an article or product descriptions for your ecommerce store, here are some top mistakes to avoid. 1. Who or Whom? Even experienced writers end up confusing between ‘who’ and ‘whom’. So, for starters, remember that ‘who’ is used for the subject in a sentence while ‘whom’ is used for an object in a sentence. So, when to use which? To keep things simple, if you can replace the word with any noun or he or she, then use ‘who’. And if you can replace the word with him or her, use ‘whom’. Some examples will make it clearer. Does this sound right to you – The maestro, for who the audience applauded, was an elderly man. So, did the audience applaud ‘him’ or ‘he’? Obviously, they applauded ‘him’. This means, the sentence should include the word ‘whom’ and not ‘who’. The correct sentence should be – The maestro, for whom the audience applauded, was an elderly man. Take another example to see the other side of the coin. Does this sound right to you – David shouted at Jay, whom seemed to be cowering. In this case, ‘whom’ can be substituted with ‘he’ rather than ‘him’. So, the sentence should include the word ‘who’ and not ‘whom’. The correct sentence should be – David shouted at Jay, who seemed to be cowering. 2. Who or That Though this is a common and confusing grammatical error, it is easier to avoid than the confusion between ‘who’ and ‘whom’. All you have to do is remember that ‘who’ is used in case of a person and ‘that’ is applicable for an object or anything inanimate. Example of ‘who’ – Tina is the one who will sing at the event or He is the one who knows how to throw a ball. Example of ‘that’ – That is the book she wants to buy or Here is the pen that left a mark on his shirt. 3. That or Which If I was paid for every time I noticed someone use ‘that’ and ‘which’ interchangeably, I would be very rich by now! However, such a practice is wrong. For starters, though ‘that’ and ‘which’ are both clauses, ‘that’ is restrictive and ‘which’ is not. Now, let’s take a closer look at what it means. Restrictive clause – This refers to a part of a sentence that cannot be removed as it restricts another portion of the same sentence. Non-restrictive clause – It is just opposite of a restrictive clause. The following example will make the concept clear: Sentence 1 – The hospital, which has those famous doctors, is based out of London. Sentence 2 – The hospital that has those famous doctors is based out of London. In the first sentence, the readers know which hospital is being talked about. In other words, if you take out ‘which has those famous doctors’; the sentence’s meaning will not change. This phrase simply offers more information to the readers, but they anyway know that the hospital is based out of London. Also Read: 12 Grammar Tips for Content Writers Who Pursue Perfection However, in the second sentence, if you take out ‘that has those famous doctors’ the readers won’t know which hospital you are talking about. ‘That’ creates a restriction in this case. So, if you don’t know whether to use ‘that’ or ‘which’, first find out if the meaning of the sentence will change if you remove the concerned part of the sentence. 4. Less or Fewer To keep this famous grammatical error at bay, just remember that ‘fewer’ can be used when you are talking about something that can be counted. And when any object seems uncountable, use ‘less’. These examples will make it clear as to when you can use ‘fewer’: There are fewer apples on this table than yesterday. This summer, fewer children will go for camping. In both examples, the nouns (apples and children) are countable and can be assigned numbers. Hence, using ‘fewer’ is correct. Now, look at these examples for ‘less’: A little less anger could have prevented this damage. Arnold takes less sugar in his tea than Mary. Since neither anger nor sugar can be counted, using ‘less’ is correct. 5. Me or I The thing about pronouns is that they can take different forms to indicate the various roles they have in a sentence. For instance, ‘I’ and ‘me’ are the subject and object forms of the pronoun. And many writers often end up using the wrong form. So, how do you know when to use ‘I’ and when to use ‘me’? Consider this example – My husband and me will go to the opera together. It doesn’t sound right, right? That’s because, if you take away ‘husband’ from the sentence, then ‘me will go to the opera’ sounds strange. After all, ‘me’ is the object form of the pronoun and needs to be replaced with a subject form like ‘I’. So, the correct sentence is – My husband and I will go to the opera together. Here’s another example to help you understand where ‘me’ is needed. Consider this example – The football coach helped my brother and I when we couldn’t get the moves right. What’s wrong with it? Well, if you take out ‘my brother’, the