Guest Blog Post Written by The Hosting Tribunal
Currently, there are countless websites with more to come tomorrow, the day after that, and so on. If you want to create a successful website, you’ll need to pull out all the stops to catch the attention of online visitors. This includes having a great domain name as well. It’s 2019, and a lot of the catchiest names have probably been picked. But that doesn’t mean you can’t create a domain name that will never be forgotten.
Go Beyond a Single Word Domain Name
One thing that popular brands like Google, Facebook, YouTube, and Yahoo have in common is that they all have single word domain names. Don’t pressure yourself in trying to create something similar, as shorter isn’t always better. People would choose a long and catchy domain name over one that is short but easy-to-forget.
Here’s the deal:
Try using a phrase as a domain name. If you are starting a food blog, go with something catchy like “BoyEatsWorld.com” or “TheFoodie’sGuide.com.” What’s great about taking this approach with your domain name is that you’ll be able to immediately project what your website is about. It’s also easy to remember these phrases once your viewers have associated themselves with it.
…Or Stick With Tradition
While long domain names work, sometimes shorter is indeed better. One challenge when using short, single-word domain names is that you won’t be able to let visitors know what your website is about straight away. On the bright side, short domain names are easier to remember and are very catchy when done right.
Stick With Well-Known Domain Extensions
A domain extension is a word at the end of your domain name that starts with a “.” There are many domain extensions available, and there are some that are more fitting for certain types of websites. It’s best for you to stick with some of the most well-known extensions such as .net, .info, and the ever-reliable .com.
Also, avoid using unique or uncommon domain extensions, as these might lead visitors to believe that your website is suspicious or is a threat to their cybersecurity.
Most importantly, you should use a domain extension that’s appropriate for the type of website you are running.
Don’t Be Afraid to Get Some Help
When all else fails and you still have to come up with a good domain name, get some help from your friends. Alternatively, you can use this domain name generator to find a name or quite possibly some inspiration for what your website should be called. By putting in the nature of your business in this platform’s text bar, you’ll be able to get a list of available and appropriate domain names.
Some web owners say that the hardest part of starting a website is picking a domain name that will stick with the audience. However, if you exert some time and effort into this process, you will benefit from it greatly. Don’t rush this process if you don’t want your website to drown in the vast ocean that is the internet.
Need some helping with your website? At Cloud9 Marketing, we offer a variety of web services including web development, hosting, SEO and more. Read more on our web services here.
Infographic source from: https://hostingtribunal.com/blog/domain-facts/
Creating the Best Domain Name in 2019
Guest Blog Post Written by The Hosting Tribunal
Currently, there are countless websites with more to come tomorrow, the day after that, and so on. If you want to create a successful website, you’ll need to pull out all the stops to catch the attention of online visitors. This includes having a great domain name as well. It’s 2019, and a lot of the catchiest names have probably been picked. But that doesn’t mean you can’t create a domain name that will never be forgotten.
Go Beyond a Single Word Domain Name
One thing that popular brands like Google, Facebook, YouTube, and Yahoo have in common is that they all have single word domain names. Don’t pressure yourself in trying to create something similar, as shorter isn’t always better. People would choose a long and catchy domain name over one that is short but easy-to-forget.
Here’s the deal:
Try using a phrase as a domain name. If you are starting a food blog, go with something catchy like “BoyEatsWorld.com” or “TheFoodie’sGuide.com.” What’s great about taking this approach with your domain name is that you’ll be able to immediately project what your website is about. It’s also easy to remember these phrases once your viewers have associated themselves with it.
…Or Stick With Tradition
While long domain names work, sometimes shorter is indeed better. One challenge when using short, single-word domain names is that you won’t be able to let visitors know what your website is about straight away. On the bright side, short domain names are easier to remember and are very catchy when done right.
Stick With Well-Known Domain Extensions
A domain extension is a word at the end of your domain name that starts with a “.” There are many domain extensions available, and there are some that are more fitting for certain types of websites. It’s best for you to stick with some of the most well-known extensions such as .net, .info, and the ever-reliable .com.
Also, avoid using unique or uncommon domain extensions, as these might lead visitors to believe that your website is suspicious or is a threat to their cybersecurity.
Most importantly, you should use a domain extension that’s appropriate for the type of website you are running.
Don’t Be Afraid to Get Some Help
When all else fails and you still have to come up with a good domain name, get some help from your friends. Alternatively, you can use this domain name generator to find a name or quite possibly some inspiration for what your website should be called. By putting in the nature of your business in this platform’s text bar, you’ll be able to get a list of available and appropriate domain names.
Some web owners say that the hardest part of starting a website is picking a domain name that will stick with the audience. However, if you exert some time and effort into this process, you will benefit from it greatly. Don’t rush this process if you don’t want your website to drown in the vast ocean that is the internet.
Need some helping with your website? At Cloud9 Marketing, we offer a variety of web services including web development, hosting, SEO and more. Read more on our web services here.
Infographic source from: https://hostingtribunal.com/blog/domain-facts/
Top 5 Website Metrics to Track
Web analytics are an integral part of a successful website. Detailed website metrics tell you about your website visitors’ behaviour and are the key to accelerating continual positive online growth.
With the installation of a piece of code onto your website, called a pixel, platforms such as Google Analytics can collect anonymous data about your visitors and the actions they perform on your website. The data collected is considerable, and can often be very overwhelming for people who are not familiar with analytics and website metrics.
These are the top 5 website metrics to track in order to measure the performance of your website:
Traffic Sources
Being able to see where your traffic is coming from is a very important tool. This allows you to measure the success of marketing efforts across different platforms such as email marketing or social media and determine where to put your time and money.
Bounce Rate
Bounce rate is the percentage of users that enter your site and then leave after just viewing a single page. A high bounce rate can be a strong indication of possible issues. These issues could include problems with your website such as slow load speed or problems with your advertising efforts such as targeting the wrong groups or irrelevant keywords. Understanding why your website has a high bounce rate may take some time and research, however, it is important to fix as soon as possible — It doesn’t make sense to be spending time and money on directing people to a website for them to leave right away!
Conversions
Tracking conversions does require some extra legwork as you will need to set them up individually in your analytics platform. In Google Analytics, conversions are set up as “Goals”. Conversions will vary by website. For some, it may as simple as a newsletter signup, for others it could be an online sale in an e-commerce store. Understanding how many users are converting on your website allows you to determine if your efforts are successful. If conversions are low, new strategies will need to be implemented and could include paid advertising, stronger calls-to-action, or other techniques.
Behaviour Flow
Most analytics platforms will allow you to track your website users’ behaviour flow. This enables you to see your website visitors’ actions as they move through your website. Google Analytics provides a flowchart which shows which pages people are visiting, where they exit your website and their journey from one page to the next. This will give you a better understanding of which content users find the most useful, if your calls-to-action are leading users to the right pages and if people are leaving your website where you want them to.
Average Session Duration
Similar to the bounce rate, average session duration allows you to determine if your content is relevant to the people that are finding their way to your website. If people are spending a lot of time on your website, it most likely means that they find the information interesting. However, an average session duration could also mean that visitors are having a hard time finding or understanding the information on your website. This is why it is important to be able to understand various website metrics that could be correlated.
While analytics platforms are relatively easy to install and access their dashboards, understanding the information and using the data to manage and improve your website takes experience.
Cloud9 Marketing offers Google Analytic set-up, reporting and ongoing data analysis with monthly actionable recommendations to improve your website’s page rank, visitation, increase conversions and more.
For more information on our web analytics services, read more here.
G+C Research Survey
Is Mobile Really Overtaking Desktop?
We all know that the last few years have seen a dramatic rise in mobile searches. But how prominent actually is it? Studies have shown that even though most searches are done on mobile devices, 80% of conversions still happen on desktops. Here is how you can tailor your strategy for today’s modern consumer.
Think about Mobile
You need to think about what your audience is looking at when they are using their mobile phone. Users are usually spending time texting, scrolling social media and doing some basic searching. You can use this to think about how you can reach your audience. Creating ads that are engaging that won’t seem disruptive, will help reach customers at an earlier stage of the sales funnel. You should note as well that mobile devices account for more clicks. While most conversions happen on a desktop, you should still make sure you adjust mobile bids to get the best results for your campaigns.
Send customers to stores
You may be surprised to hear that 90% of sales still happen in actual brick and mortar stores. Use this information to send customers straight from their mobile devices into your physical store rather than solely focusing your mobile efforts on directing customers to your website. Consumers use mobile devices to access coupons, compare prices and check reviews to make sure these elements are all optimized.
Think about the sales funnel
You can reach the right audience at the right point in their sales journey by thinking about the sales funnel. If you tailor your mobile ads to consumers first showing interest while creating desktop ads aimed at increasing conversions your sales will dramatically increase.
Boost Shopability
Customers who want to buy, often want to buy right now. Make it as easy as possible for them to complete an online purchase. You can add chatbots to your site to help users who have questions.
Smarter Search Strategies
You will find by creating a smarter search strategy you will generate more conversions. Make sure your business listing is up to date with the correct address and opening hours. Use ads to promote local instore inventory and have an in-store pick-up option.
Analytics
Don’t forget to use analytics to analyze data. You can use the results to tailor your strategy to make sure you’re reaching the right people at the right time to sell more of your product.
Here at Cloud9 Marketing, we can help you maximize conversions. Book a free consultation now!
How To Use Trending Topics To Boost Traffic
You don’t need to be an SEO wizard to know that engaging, SEO-friendly content is the key to generating organic traffic. Here are some ways to help you stay on top of trends and produce relevant, engaging content.
Trends
If you’re already seeing lots of articles on a topic, it’s a sign you’re already too late to produce anything worthwhile. Getting ahead of a trend may seem like an impossible task, but there are many tools out there to help you. You can look at Google Trends to show popular rising searches related to your keywords. Take advantage of hashtags on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to learn about trending topics that your audience are interested in.
Look for opportunities
Creating content about trending topics doesn’t mean you have to create something totally from scratch. Look at what your audience is interested in and what your competitors are talking about. Think about what has worked well in the past and how you can link this to the trending topic.
Create engaging, shareable content
You should think about what the best format is for your topic. Think about whether your message would work better on a video, a blog or even a cartoon. If you want to create content that people want to share, you need to reach a wider audience. You want your content to be found and shared, so it needs to be optimized for both search engines and for sharing. You should follow search engine optimization best practices and make sure you include clear sharing links.
Repurpose across platforms
Sharing a link to a blog post on Facebook is great, but it isn’t always the best way to generate viral content. You should think about how you can repurpose across different platforms. Make a YouTube video summarising your blog topic, or address the article on Facebook live. You can even include it in your business’ Instagram story or share your blog to Facebook groups. Creating an email campaign with the link, or connecting with influencers are also effective ways of getting content out there.
Creating content your audience will engage with and share isn’t as difficult as you might think. Struggling and want some help? At Cloud9 Marketing, we have content wizards who will help you.
Top 5 Ways to Market A New Product
When you have a new product, you want to make your audience interested. After the most successful product marketing campaign in history, stock prices for Apple Mac skyrocketed, with a 78.7% increase. Here is how you can successfully market a new product and how we can help you.
Tell a True Story About your Product
If you simply sell your product with benefits, features and facts and not the experience, you’re guaranteed to have a less successful marketing campaign. By telling a story, you are creating emotions that draw an audience and entice them to buy your product above your competitors.
Consider your Audience
While originality may seem like the key to success, you must be careful not to deviate from your brand. If you are a soda company, you shouldn’t use your name to market a new shampoo. Your audience will expect the shampoo to have soda features, or even taste or smell the same.
Be better than your Competitors
If you want to stand out from the crowd, you really need to think outside the box and be prepared for things to not always work every time. Nike, after many failed marketing campaigns, was the first company to use celebrity endorsements. You may be thinking that your small business can’t afford this. Being the best doesn’t necessarily mean spending the most money. Nike today are doing campaigns centred around Middle Eastern woman in sports. Think of something original and you’ll notice the results.
Market to your Existing Customers
You may remember one of the most successful marketing campaigns of the 90’s – The Got Milk? campaign. Rather than trying to make a necessary and not so interesting product into something it’s not, MilkPEP, appealed to the existing audience and created a campaign around the fact that milk is something people forget to buy.
New Brand Name from New Products
Your product doesn’t have to be marketed with the same brand name as your old one especially if it’s completely different. Instead of worrying about losing an audience you’ve already created, think of the positives. You will be able to evaluate what worked and what didn’t from previous campaigns. You can build a stronger campaign and not leave your audience confused by inconsistencies. P & G have 55 different brands including Oral-B, Febreze and Pampers!
Product marketing can be fun and exciting and when you get it right, you can quickly see massive results. Got a new product and need help devising a marketing campaign? At Cloud9 Marketing, we know what it takes to make your product stand out.
Simple SEO Tactics To Improve Your Site
When it comes to Search Engine Optimization, we all know it can be very time-consuming. But it doesn’t all have to be hard work. Here are some simple SEO wins to help you get ahead of the game.
Remove outdated and low-quality content
You may be reluctant to remove low-quality or out of date content but it can negatively effect your ranking. You should start by first identifying the pages you want to prune. Using software like Screaming Frog will help you with this by crawling your site and identifying a list of URLs with their position on Google and impressions. You don’t just have to delete pages, however. Most of the content you’re removing can be redirected to a stronger higher quality page. Although if you can’t find a relevant page, you should let the pages go to a 404 – page not found.
Tip: utilize your 404 (Page Not Found) page by adding a search option.
Improve content
You don’t have to get rid of every low scoring page. Building upon what’s already there is an easy way to improve ranking. You can use your previous Google history and develop it. Review your Screaming Frog results and use the pages that rank anywhere from position 5 to 30. You can improve content by ensuring pages have 300+ words, are useful and well written. Using a plugin like Yoast will give you a readability score which you can use to improve content. Make sure you answer frequently asked questions and include long-tail keywords you want to rank for. Adding media to your page will encourage viewers to stay on the page longer, thus improving ranking.
Update internal links
You should review and identify your internal links from time to time to ensure they are still relevant. Using a site like Screaming Frog will help identify any redirect chains.
Page load speed
You may have heard the words ‘page load speed’ but not be sure what they mean in terms of SEO. Simply put, if your webpage takes too long to load, potential customers will likely leave your site. Though these improvements require an element of technical skills, the results will cause a significant improvement.
You can help by upgrading from a budget web hosting site. Cheaper web hosts can be overwhelmed with traffic. By investing in a higher quality web host, you’ll be surprised what it does for your site speed.
Optimize
Optimizing images and media files will increase the swiftness of your site. You can reduce the file size by resizing, making sure the image is saved in the correct format (JPEGs are best for photos whilst PNG files are best for images with solid areas of colour) and compressing the file. WordPress has some great plugins for compressing images.
Don’t worry you can leave the JavaScript/ CSS weird complicated stuff to us.
We know that SEO can seem a bit daunting. You don’t have to worry as we’re here at Cloud9 Marketing to help with all your SEO needs. Want to see how your site’s performing? Book a free consultation or a site audit!
How To Create An Effective Social Media Marketing Strategy?
Devising a proper and effective social media marketing strategy can make a massive difference to return on investment from your social media efforts. Every post should be well thought out and aligned with your brand and goals. Here is how you can devise a proper strategy and how we can help you stay at the top of your game.
Set goals and measure them
It may sound basic, but if you don’t have any goals, you won’t be able to track what you are achieving. Establish your objectives and set SMART goals – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-based Goals. If you follow this framework, you’ll find tracking your own progress far easier. Use data from Analytics to see where you were when you started so you can monitor how far you’ve come.
Learn your audience
If you want to engage with your audience, you have to understand their social media needs. By tailoring your posts to mirror what your audience are engaging with, you will get better results. Don’t just guess. Use analytics to see where your audience comes from, what their interests are and how they interact with your brand. Studies have shown that when this data is used properly, it results in a 40% lower cost per referral.
Research your competition
Having an insight into what your competition is doing well can work wonders for your own social strategy. You can find opportunities by analysing competitors. If your main competitor is marketing heavily on Facebook but not on Instagram, you can use this as a chance to build a fan base on that platform.
Find inspiration
For the best content plans, you need inspiration. Have a look at your favourite accounts and see how they are delivering their content. Ask your followers what they like seeing and what they’d like to see more of. Informing your followers about events in your area or industry news will help you to appear as an expert in your field and gain more of a following.
Create a content calendar and schedule posts in
Creating a content calendar not only makes your content varied but ensures that you post regularly at the times that your followers will engage. Make sure you schedule in your posts, so you don’t have to dwell on whether you’ll remember to post.
Here at Cloud9, our team of social media experts can help you devise the perfect content strategy for your business. We have a range of social media packages tailored to suit our different client needs. Book a free consultation today!
Spring Cleaning for Digital Marketing
Spring is in the air! You may be aware the longer days and beautiful sunshine in Whistler mean it’s time to dust off the ceiling cobwebs and clean all the places you’ve been neglecting all year. But spring cleaning isn’t just important for your house. Here are the top ways you can spruce up your digital marketing strategy.
Check Your Goals
You can’t tell if you’ve made any progress if you haven’t set any measurable goals. Set specific, measurable, agreed upon, realistic, and time-based goals (SMART Goals.) Use Google Analytics to work out what you want to achieve. Break these down so you have an achievable figure to work towards. By having proper goals, it’s a lot easier to track your progress and check your marketing strategy is where you want it to be.
Freshen up your strategy
What’s working? What’s not working? What were you doing when you had high levels of engagement? Think about how you can create a new strategy that will engage with your audience and reach the people who are more likely to become customers. Devise a social media content plan and focus on engagement.
Ensure your branding is consistent
Having a strong brand can really help your business be recognized and grow. But if you’re not consistent with your branding, it can confuse your customers. You should take a look at your online profile, fonts, colour schemes and print ads. Make sure they are consistent across the board. If you find they’re not, evaluate what you like, and create some brand guidelines. If you don’t think your brand looks modern or relevant anymore, it might be time to think about rebranding.
Explore all social platforms
Social media is an essential tool for engaging with your audience and getting your brand voice out there. Make sure you are utilizing all platforms to reach a wider audience. Each have their own merits so make sure you don’t overlook any.
Check social platforms are closely monitored
Studies have shown that users expect an almost instant reply from a business they have posted to on Twitter. Check all your social accounts are properly monitored. Replying to both good and bad comments in a timely manner can really help build trust and connect with your customers.
At Cloud9 Marketing, we have experts to help you in any area that you’re finding difficult. Whether you want to devise a more solid social media strategy, want to produce more original content or want help with branding we can give you all the advice you need! Book FREE a consultation now!
Why Is Video Marketing So Important?
Video marketing is a growing trend. By the end of this year, video traffic is predicted to account for 80% of all consumer internet traffic. Here are the reasons why you should make video content part of your marketing strategy and how you can achieve results.
Increase conversions
Studies have shown that having a video on your landing page can increase conversions by as much as 80%. It is far easier to build an emotional connection and gain your viewer’s trust through video marketing. You can create a picture of your brand’s message and show your audience why they should purchase your product.
Google Loves Videos
You’re 53 times more likely to show up first on Google if your site has a video on it. Users will spend more time on your site when watching a video. Google views websites with longer page sessions as more valuable to users, thus ranking these pages higher. It is important to optimize your videos for SEO and ensure your title has keywords, your video is relevant and is above the fold on your site.
Measure it
You have access to a whole range of data to monitor how well your video is performing. View count on Youtube shows you how many times someone has watched your video for more than 30 seconds. This is a great way to monitor how many people your brand has reached who have engaged with the content. Play rate is an important piece of data for marketers. It shows the number of people who were shown your video (impressions) vs the number of people that watched it. Using this data, you can make changes to improve the quality of your video. You can also use data to see how much of your video people are watching and how many conversions a video is creating.
Encourages social shares
You’ve all seen a cool video that you’ve wanted to share with your friends right? With viral videos on the rise, 92% of mobile users have said to have shared a video. Creating strong social content that your audience will share, is a very simple way to direct traffic to your site and build a social following.
Live Video opportunities
If you want to stay on top of trends, live video is an exciting way to engage directly with your audience. A Livestream survey found that 80% of people would rather watch a live stream than read a blog. Staying on top of market trends means you are more likely to successfully promote your brand and generate more conversions.
Video offers lots of opportunities to reach a more engaged audience, grown your brand and increase conversions. At Cloud9 Marketing, our experts can help you take video marketing to the next level. Book an appointment for a free consultation today.