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    How to write great SEO titles as part of your overall strategy

    Did you know that your search engine optimization (SEO) title is your website’s gateway to higher click-through rates? Since the SEO title is a potential customer’s first point of contact with your business, it must work to rank you as high as possible on search engine results pages (SERPs). While simply ranking high allows readers to see you first, it’s typically the title that will capture their attention. This blog will assist you in creating engaging headers, which in turn will take your SEO strategy to the next level. 

    Tips for creating titles that are optimized 

    Here we will provide some best practices for coming up with SEO titles and subheadings that will be optimized: 

    • Utilize a/some keyword(s) throughout the content: Aside from mimicking what competitors are doing, you can invest in your SEO strategy by researching the right keywords to help your content rank better. Be sure to remember that using too many technical words might confuse the reader, so when writing a title, be sure to stick to direct, concise words that are used by the general public. The keyword(s) you select work best when included in the title as well as within the content. 
    • Consider how long it is: While titles should be descriptive to attract readers, you want to make sure that they won’t get cut short on a SERP.
    • Emotional hooks are key: Not only do content titles possess the power to hook a reader emotionally but they should also evoke a response emotionally. For example, excitement or interest. When your title is fun and engaging, a reader thinks, “Oh, I want to know more about that.”
    • Don’t forget to sprinkle in your brand when you can: Now, this tip doesn’t mean that every title should include your company name. However, when it’s appropriate to do so, be sure to use add the name and stick to words that fit your brand voice to promote consistency throughout your site. 
    • Know your capitalization: If you capitalize incorrectly, your title will look spammy and not achieve the best ranking possible. Plus, no one wants to read or take tips from an author who leaves errors in their titles. As a rule of thumb, either capitalize all of your words or just the first one—don’t forget to capitalize the names of people, countries, etc. 

    Consistency and professionalism are key in formatting the titles that are used within the content on your website. So, if you’re looking to revamp your SEO strategy moving into the new year, consider the above tips.

    Which tip did you find most helpful and plan to implement into your SEO strategy? Drop a comment below to share. 

    7 useful tips for creating more festive holiday emails

    A solid email marketing strategy is needed for any business to reach potential customers, especially amid the buzz of the holiday season. That said, since inboxes are jam-packed with a wide variety of emails this time of year, you need to stand out, especially for those on the hunt for last-minute gifts for their loved ones. Hopefully, this blog serves as inspiration, with useful tips on how you can create festive holiday emails. 

    Are you ready to get started?

    Here are a few strategic email marketing tips that will help you to gain traction this holiday season:

    • Brainstorm: Before investing time and money into holiday email campaigns, we recommend that you analyze anything that you completed this time last year. This allows you to see what performed well and if anything can be recycled and reused. 
    • Review your competition: When in doubt, it’s easy and takes little effort to see what competing businesses are doing. Simply sign up for their newsletters and await emails to your inbox. 
    • Spend time on the subject line: Opening rates are extremely dependent on how well a subject line grabs the attention of the audience. Since the context of each email varies greatly, as will the result in given situations. However, as a rule of thumb, you should stick to 50 characters, be mindful of spelling and grammar, utilize capitalization, and consider powerful language. 
    • Take advantage of the holidays: Even if you’re hosting a sale or announcing a new product, a simple holiday greeting is a great way for your email marketing strategy to show the receiver that you care. 
    • Don’t forget the call to action: As much as you don’t want to believe it, customers rely on you to tell them what to do. If you’re promoting an item of a sale, be sure to include a “buy now” button in a large, colourful way to catch their attention and let them know what you’re hoping for. 
    • Account for everything: If you’re showing a picture of an item or service in your email, ensure that it’s something that they can buy. There’s nothing worse than getting hyped up about something that isn’t even available. Also, on that note, it needs to be easy to access as well. Remember to link the items and if needed, create a holiday landing page to make finding things easier. 
    • Emphasize a deadline: Most promotions have an end date, so if you’re running a campaign this holiday season, be sure to mention that this amazing deal won’t last and that it’s only available until a certain date. Likewise, with shipping times varying, make a note in your emails that there is a deadline to receive an item by Christmas. 

    We hope that you’re now feeling inspired by your email marketing strategy and that you’re keen on creating holiday-friendly emails to better connect with your audience. If you need help getting organized or want a professional company to handle the details for you, we’re happy to chat and answer any further questions you may have about holiday email marketing.

    What promotion are you offering or planning to offer for the holiday season? Drop a comment below to share with our readers.

    How to create an effective holiday landing page

    While landing pages are excellent tools to drive website traffic and sales any time of the year, they’re particularly effective over the holidays. Since the season of gift-giving offers shoppers a bombardment of offers, it can be challenging to get noticed among the plethora of stores targeting the same audiences. Continue reading to learn more about how creating a landing page could help your business this season.  

    What is a landing page?

    The best landing pages are a single-page concentrating on converting customers for a specific offer. They’re used to generate leads, collect email addresses, gather market research, or capture direct sales of goods and services. Part of the reason they’re so effective is that they work to eliminate barriers where customers become distracted and forget to take action—navigation issues, visual clutter, and slow checkout processes.

    How is a landing page different from a product page?

    A product page is a broader catalog on your site. These pages are dynamic and can be sorted and filtered to narrow down a variety of options. Then, the customer can take action by adding them to a wishlist, their online shopping cart, sharing, or purchasing them. 

    What are the best practices for creating holiday landing pages that convert?

    Since we specialize in professional content writing, we can offer you a few tricks of the trade that will give you the best chance of creating successful landing pages. 

    1. Keep your landing pages simple: The best landing pages are the ones with no distractions. We recommend eliminating headers, footers, navigation menus, and share buttons so that visitors know exactly what to look at. 
    2. Quick load times are important: No one wants to wait on your website to load and chances are that they won’t. Make sure that your landing page loads fast and that it works across all devices. 
    3. Your call-to-action (CTA) should be compelling: If you don’t ask, customers won’t be inclined to act. CTAs need to be compelling so that the messaging is direct and appeals to buyers. Use generic language but create a sense of urgency.
    4. High-quality photos are a must: One or two images should do the trick in showcasing the purpose of your landing page. If it’s to sell a particular product, display photos from multiple angles and be sure to include the item in use. 
    5. Use this as an opportunity for add-ons, upgrades, and cross-sells: The holiday season is all about helping shoppers find the gifts they’re looking for, so why not provide suggestions that increase your sales? Add-ons like gift wrapping and personalized messages are super popular!
    6. Make it festive: The best holiday landing pages should include messaging and graphics that match the rest of your website but with a twist. Be sure to keep the charm that your customers know and love about your business but also utilize holiday-themed photos and language where appropriate to get shoppers in the gift-giving spirit. 

    Are you ready to create the best landing pages for your holiday shoppers? Drop a comment below if you have any questions before getting started. 

    Digital marketing tips for the holiday season

    The holidays are quickly approaching, and the holiday season means big business for e-commerce companies. While big box stores are bound to get an influx in sales, the holiday season is also a great opportunity for small businesses to shine. Shoppers are always on the hunt for the best deals, the quickest and cheapest shipping, and unique products to give away as gifts. Since November is when people begin to explore and evaluate their options, it’s a great time to focus on your marketing plan. Here are some tips for the holiday season.

    Set SMART goals

    After you take the time to brainstorm some ideas, it’s time for you to set some business goals. Since goal setting is an important part of launching a successful marketing campaign, we recommend that you try using the SMART goals formula—an acronym that offers a framework to develop a path to success.

    What does SMART mean?

    • Specific: Focus on one area or task
    • Measurable: Assign a number or percentage to your task to measure progress
    • Attainable: Can you reasonably achieve your goal?
    • Relevant: Can you benefit from achieving this goal?
    • Time-sensitive: Can you create a deadline and ensure that you hold yourself accountable? 

    When creating goals, it’s important that you focus on one area at a time. For example, if you want to increase traffic this holiday season, you will want to invest in digital marketing services that directly correlate to an influx in traffic. Next, once you pick your goal, make sure it’s something that you can measure. You could say, “I want to increase my traffic by 10% over the holidays” which is something that you can track through Google Analytics. Not only do you want to ensure the said goal is measurable, but it also needs to be attainable. The holiday season has already started and for most people, ends by January 1. Is it attainable for you to increase traffic by 10%? Possibly 5% would be a better benchmark. With a specific, measurable, and attainable goal, you need to test its relevance. Will a 5% increase in traffic have a positive impact on your business? It absolutely will! Finally, you need to make sure that your goal is time-sensitive. Set your deadline. You have at least six weeks onwards to get the job done and keep yourself motivated.

    Be sure to define your target audience

    When speaking with a specific person, we naturally adjust what we say and how we say it. Your marketing should be the same. 

    Here are some questions to ask yourself when marketing to your target audience:

    • How well do you know your customers?
    • What makes them buy specifically from your business?
    • What are your customers thinking when they begin the holiday shopping journey?

    Knowing your audience is an essential part of creating marketing materials that will appeal to them. 

    Don’t forget to tell your story

    Customers join a retailer’s business journey at varied stages, so the holiday season is a great time to reintroduce yourself. 

    Your story could include:

    • How you got started
    • Your brand’s history
    • Customer success stories
    • Advice on products or services

    Hi, we’re Trek Marketing! We hope that all of the above holiday season digital marketing tips allow you to better connect with your audience in a successful and impactful way. 

    Which tip(s) have you added to your radar for the holiday season? Drop a comment below. 

    How to prepare your shop for increased holiday traffic

    The weeks leading up to the holidays are some of the busiest of the year for e-commerce businesses. That said, with more people hunting on the wide web for gift ideas, it’s safe to assume that you can expect a higher-than-average number of visitors to your store—as long as your SEO, social media, and email strategies are working in your favour. Needless to say, if you aren’t equipped to handle an increase in website traffic, it will cost you sales this holiday season, so it’s best to be prepared. 

    Don’t make any big changes to your website layout

    While it’s great to keep things fresh, especially during the holidays, changing up your website’s layout right before the biggest shopping time of the year isn’t recommended. Shoppers rely on consistency, especially when they’re trying to find products to fulfill their orders, and drastic changes to these processes can be frustrating and cause unexpected technical glitches. So, instead of focusing on a web re-design, use this time to present holiday deals to get those sales up. You can create a holiday-specific landing page, a new shopping category, change up with some seasonal banners, and update your content to showcase special deals. Basically, you can develop a festive look without changing the website’s functionality. 

    Ensure mobile shoppers can also enjoy

    The start of November is the perfect time to prep your website for mobile commerce. Since almost every online shopper has a phone these days, it would be silly to not ensure that your website is legible and workable on a smartphone. 

    Our sister company Numinix Web Development offers a mobile optimization service that will adjust font and button sizes and enable mobile payments to ensure that the customer experience is the same regardless of the device they wish to use.   

    Stock up on inventory

    Whether you have items that are seasonal or you have a list of popular goods, it’s important to look at your previous year’s sales trends. This ensures that you can properly stock your products before the influx of sales can in. Keep in mind that if you have inventory on the way, you should be providing regular updates so that customers can come back to purchase. It’s also a good idea to offer alternative suggestions to keep sales in-store rather than offering up sales to your competitors because of a lack of inventory. 

    Which one of our proposed tips for an increase in website traffic do you find most important? Drop a comment below to share with our readers.

    How to allocate your digital marketing budget

    While there is no universal strategy for small business budget allocation, successful e-commerce companies will invest in a mix of both paid and organic initiatives. With a wide abundance of marketing channels available in various sectors of online advertising, it’s important to know where your money can be wisely spent to yield a higher return on investment (ROI) and which activities will strategically reach your target audience. In this blog, we will walk you through some steps that you should take when appropriating your marketing budget and offer tips on how to better budget yourself in the future. 

    Making the most of your digital marketing budget

    Whether this is the first digital marketing budget you’ve ever built or you’re looking to give your process a little refresher.

    Here are some steps that can help you to determine where the money should go:

    • Use a budget tracker: All businesses need to track their expenses and analyze where cuts can be made to further the profit. Likewise, your first step to allocating a budget for digital marketing for a small business is to prepare data into a report that shows proposed spend, actual spend, and the results of your spend for future planning.
    • Review goals: Your organization’s top priorities and initiatives are things to consider when budgeting for the next quarter. However, when reviewing these goals, you also need to factor in new product launches, deals, promotions, and event signups.  
    • Select the right sales channels: What works for one business or industry may not work for another, which is why outreach, demographics, behaviours, and intent are elements to consider when choosing the right sales channels. This will not only help you to avoid wasting money but also build up your buyer persona. 
    • Paid search: Online ad campaigns like Google Ads may use up much of your budget because of the cost-per-click but if you secure the right visitors to your website, the investment is well worth it.  
    • Paid social: Popular choices include Facebook ads, Instagram ads, and LinkedIn ads, which show up for potential customers on their social feeds. Depending on the dollar amount you spend, your chances of acquiring new customers can become heightened. 
    • Content marketing: Content is king and since it can typically be put online for little to no charge, the only cost associated with the content is the time that it takes to write. If you can do that yourself, great! But if you’re one of the many who need to rely on freelance writers to produce awesome business content, be sure to budget what you can afford and post as much as you can. 

    If you allocate your budget based on data, you’re setting yourself up to be successful. Since Trek Marketing works with digital marketing for small business, we have all the services and expertise you need for allocating your budget. 

    What other strategies do you consider when depending on your business budget? Drop a comment below to share.

    3 effective digital marketing services regardless of your business

    In online shopping, digital marketing is the most effective way for a business to advertise its products and/or services to the masses. While budget is often the only roadblock that stops a brand from investing in all digital marketing agency services, there are three effective ones that work best when learning to understand the needs and interests of the consumer. Let’s delve deep into the various techniques that can be used regardless of the type of business. 

    Service #1: Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

    Since SEO is one of the most effective online sales techniques, it’s often the first service that businesses outsource. That said, since the SEO process relies on research and orchestration to gain results like a higher search ranking, it can also take a bit of time before visibility for particular keywords starts to generate more traffic. Be sure to remember that no matter where the user is in the buying journey, SEO possesses the power to target them while highlighting said products or services for a larger audience. 

    Learn more about Trek Marketing’s SEO service

    Service #2: Social Media Marketing (SMM)

    Social media is a realm where businesses can go to promote their products and/or services, but depending on the platform, it’s also a great way for brands to make personal connections, show off their personality, and increase awareness. Although the main goal of SMM is to create dialogue with new and existing customers, it seconds as a valuable opportunity to influence purchase decisions. Whether you choose to automate some marketing campaigns or promote a few pieces of content ongoing, SMM is a great and easy way to communicate across the social sphere. 

    Learn more about Trek Marketing’s SMM service

    Service #3: Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC)

    For those who may not know, PPC is a digital marketing technique that allows businesses to display ads on search engines and various other websites. While the goal of this service is to bring traffic and sales for the company, the return on investment can vary depending on how many clicks are made versus how many purchases are carried out. Since the business can choose how to strategically appropriate their campaign and bid within their budget, while more expensive than many other digital marketing agency services, PPC can be very effective across a wide range of industries. 

    Learn more about Trek Marketing’s PPC service

    Which digital marketing agency services have you tried with your business? Please drop it in the comments section below to start a conversation. 

    How to write social media content that engages with your target audience

    There is a misconception that creating content is easy, and while that may be true for crafting a single post, generating continuous posts is a challenge for any brand. If your business is on the hunt for tips to create compelling social media engagement posts, you’ve come to the right place. As part of our many digital marketing services, we analyze the ongoing trends with various social media platforms to look for new ways to interact with customers and prioritize strategic methods of connecting with partnering brands. Are you ready to learn how to better engage with your target audience? 

    Use fewer words and more visuals

    As people who endlessly scroll through social media ourselves, we know how exhausting it can be to be hit with a wall of text. Not only do consumers lose interest but this may even extend further and discourage them from finding your content in the future. Our best suggestion to avoid this roadblock is by delivering a healthy dose of visual content s well. Videos are a fantastic and quick way to deliver your on-brand messages through social media engagement posts, plus they offer a way to get creative and speak with your audience.

    Stock photos are good but not great

    If video isn’t something you can commit to, start with some personalized photos and watch comments and likes rise. While stock images can be effective for social posting, the don’t perform quite as well as authentic images, and as a result, they’re bad for search engine optimization (SEO).

    Do you need help creating custom, unique social media images? Here are some tips we’ve crafted for readers like you: 

    Repurpose your site’s evergreen content

    Evergreen content is search-optimized content that is continually relevant. Since this content is already sustainable, it’s a great resource for repurposing. Take your best pieces and transform them into infographics, charts, graphs, and social media images. Not only is it great for showcasing but you have a high chance of it being shared on assorted social channels.

    Host some competitions 

    Whether you want to host seasonal sales or promotions based on increased following, social media competitions are a surefire way to grow your audience and gain tons of engagement. 

    Those who aren’t interested in re-inventing the wheel can try one of the following to get things moving:

    • Like, comment, and share campaigns: This allows you to gain as much attention as possible in the given time frame.
    • Tag a friend: This allows you to extend your reach to new audiences.
    • User-generated content: User create posts according to the parameters that you set and tag your business—allowing you to get awesome content that can be used promotionally later on.

    With creativity and effort, you can create engaging content that will drive traffic to your website and increase brand awareness.

    Which tip are you most keen on trying to increase the following for your social media engagement posts? Drop a comment below to let us know.

    3 ways to get the best return on investment for your company

    Before you can work to improve your business return on investment you must first define what “return” means for you. This could include higher sales, increased revenue, bigger profits, reduced overhead or production costs, higher employee retention, better customer satisfaction, increased brand preference, or fewer government regulations. Once you select your “return” goals, you can work towards achieving them. However, for the purpose of this blog, we will discuss three ways to get the best return on investment for companies overall. 

    Increase revenue

    One way to increase your return on investment is by generating more sales. While the easiest way to achieve this could be to just raise your prices, this is not always the most beneficial. We recommend always looking at ways to improve your sales without affecting your current business practices. For example, you could increase your spending budget on advertising or host a sale. While this will cost money, the return could elate your profits, making an improved return on investment!

    Reduce costs

    Another way to improve your return on investment is to reduce your expenses. You won’t need to raise prices or increase your sales if you can reduce costs. Overhead and production costs vary between industries but there are ways for business owners cut these costs and get their best return on investment. For example, focus on reducing non-product costs like rent or having a work phone. If possible, you could focus on an online shop rather than a brick-and-mortar and have a responsive email instead of a work phone. On the other hand, you could focus on reducing production costs as well. Shop around and see if you can lower your cost of materials and labor. It may not be possible but it’s worth it. 

    Reevaluate your expectations

    Every investment doesn’t need to provide an immediate dollar benefit. In fact, many forms of digital marketing, such as search engine optimization or pay-per-click advertising, can take time to increase your sales. However, this shouldn’t stop you from considering these services. These types of marketing campaigns are not only valuable over time but they allow you to track insights like new customers, increased traffic, and increased awareness. Maybe it’s time that you re-evaluated your expectations. 

    Which ways do you plan to adjust to achieve the best return on investment? Drop a comment below to let us know.

    The customer buying journey explained

    With the accessibility of the internet and vast amounts of information available, the modern shopper is now more informed than ever. Because of this transition, sales conversations are in the hands of the buyer. With no pushy salesperson to push the features of a particular product like it used to be, instead, online businesses must adapt to continue to target their audience on their path to purchase. This is known as the customer buying journey. 

    What’s the customer buying journey?

    The customer buying journey is everything that happens on their path to purchase. Since people don’t usually just wake up and decide to make purchases on a whim (this can happen!) the process in which they become aware of a product and/or service, consider and evaluate that product and/or service, and decide to purchase that product and/or service is known as the customer buying journey. Understanding the experience of the customer buying journey can help business owners to influence their digital marketing decisions and allocate their budget to a service that best reaches their consumer audience.

    What are the stages of the customer buying journey?

    There are three steps in the customer buying journey:

    1. Awareness: The buyer because aware of a problem or something that they need
    2. Consideration: The buyer defines their problem or their needs and considers options that might solve it/them
    3. Decision: The buyer evaluates and devices on the right provider to administer a solution—this includes elements like price, delivery time, reviews, etc.

    The awareness stage applied:

    The buyer is experiencing a problem with pain in their back and their goal would be to alleviate it. They may then decide to use online resources to understand and frame the problem. For example, “Why is my back hurting?”

    The consideration stage applied:

    The buyer has defined that their back pain is a problem and they are committed to researching and understanding all of the available approaches to solving their problem. For example, “How do you treat back pain when you sit at work?”

    The decision stage applied: 

    The buyer has decided on their solution strategy, method, or approach. Their goal now is to compile a list of available online vendors, and ultimately, make a final purchase decision. For example, “Is better chair support needed? Should I get a sit-stand desk? 

    How to tailor your sales process to better meet the customer buying journey

    With everything mentioned above, it remains important for sellers to know that buyers don’t wish to be pursued and simply want to rely on your knowledge when the time feels right. We recommend utilizing services like social media marketing and search engine optimization as a way to get noticed, display your knowledge, and await sales.

    Did you have any further questions about the customer buying journey? If so, drop them below for a prompt response.