All posts by April Heavens- Woodcock

About April Heavens- Woodcock

Author: April Heavens–Woodcock , is the Chief Buzz Officer Touching Clients a Digital Marketing Firm that specializes in strategic online marketing development for businesses. She is passionate about helping businesses grow their bottom line with effective tools. She speaks regularly on social media, email marketing, and marketing around the East Coast.

How to Secure a Sale Once You Convince Somebody to Visit Your Website

How to Secure a Sale Once You Convince Somebody to Visit Your Website

How to Secure a Sale Once You Convince Somebody to Visit Your Website

We all know how important marketing is when it comes to making money in business. It makes more people aware of your company, what you do, and what you sell. Which all contribute to why they should spend their money with you. The only problem is that even if you get someone to access your online store or visit one of your venues, there are still lots of reasons why they might decide against buying one of your products or booking one of your services. It’s important that you highlight any problems that might mean a lot of people aren’t purchasing and fix them. Failure to do so will simply mean all that time you’ve put into marketing will have been for no financial gain. Here are some of the ways you can help ensure you secure a sale when someone visits your website.

Make the process as simple as possible

One of the biggest things that puts people off shopping online is the checkout process. If it’s too complicated, time-consuming, or simply doesn’t work properly, it’s highly likely that your customer will simply leave. This means a competitor is likely the one to secure the sale. Somewhere with a much quicker and simpler checkout system to workaround. As it’s something that your customer won’t notice until after they’ve selected their goods, you might think that it’s not that big an issue. However, there’s so much choice out there. As such, people are becoming a lot more impatient when it comes to ordering and waiting for goods. It would be like having the choice between two ice cream vans, but one has a very long queue. People would soon move over to the other queue if they felt like the process was taking too long.

To make sure you offer your customers the best shopping experience possible, it’s important to employ the help of experts to design the checkout process of your website. Find a team who can incorporate a Shopify eCommerce system into your website. This way you’ll have the advantages of using a system that is trusted by thousands of companies around the world while being able to adapt the system to suit your needs.  Having a fast and simple check out process increases the chance to secure a sale from each visitor.

Impress with your products

Part of marketing is designing packaging that will stand out from the rest of the products on the shelf. The only problem when you’re selling online is that the customer will never see that packaging until they’ve actually bought, paid for, and then receive the product in the mail. That’s why it’s so important to transfer all of the best features from this packaging onto your website. Make sure you have high-quality photos of the product displayed on your website. Plus clear bullet points of features and details, plus a description of why people should purchase the product.

Get the price right 

Another important thing to get right when you’re selling online is the price. Unlike a traditional store, people can quickly compare the prices of your product and rivals with just a few clicks. That’s why it’s also important that you compare the price you’re selling goods at to those of your rivals.

If you’re selling a high-quality product, make sure that people understand why it might be more expensive than other versions of the same item.

How Can Good Customer Relations Improve A Business?

How can good customer relations improve a business?

How can good customer relations improve a business?

Nowadays, we all live in a world where we can get anything we want at the touch of a button. Due to the instant gratification nature of online shopping and a more technologically advanced world, it has never been easier to shop, whether it is for online food delivery or a little bit of retail therapy.

How long are we online for?

We spend so much time online nowadays, with the average person spending approximately 6 hours and 42 minutes online, something which was boosted even more when people were stuck indoors at the height of the pandemic. At least half of this time is spent on social media as society moves online. Especially in regards to socializing in the last 12 months. It is a staggering amount of time as it equates to a quarter of every day spent online.

This will continue to increase as more and more companies take the plunge and move some of their operations online. Not to mention how many websites and companies now have their own dedicated apps in an attempt to streamline their processes. With so much technology now available, it is little wonder why society is now constantly on their phones. The option is there, so it is only natural that people are going to use it.

Part of the shopping experience that would be encountered regularly is customer service. Consumer feedback is a vital part of any company. Whether it is to help them grow and improve service or, more commonly, deal with complaints. 92% of people said that they would call a company out on poor customer service skills. This means many companies who might not excel in that department run the risk of losing customers. Part of it can come from a jumbled brand message.

You need to remain consistent in your branding and messaging to provide a good customer experience. Rocketseed can help with this as, through email signatures, you can put out a refined and consistent message, allowing customers to know where they stand. This can improve both customer and business relations. People will be more likely to invest if they can understand the brand, while customers will potentially stick around longer if they know what they are getting from the outset.

What is the risk of poor customer relations and service?

One of the major problems that can arise from poor customer service is issues of customer retention. People are far less likely to stick around if they feel their problems won’t be resolved. Positive customer service can help to put the consumer back at the center of a business. All while helping to develop brand loyalty, and more importantly, can make it more customer-friendly. This trust can be vital as it helps the brand to grow as a whole. Over time, this enables you to reach more people with your product.

Even with the feedback available on apps, customers can interact more freely than ever before. Therefore, it is vital to get this side of things right. Otherwise, you run the risk of losing the trust of the consumer. Once that goes, it can be quite difficult to get it back.

A number of companies operate with an online chat service to help with any inquiries. This helps make the customer relations much more streamlined. Additionally, it can make the whole process seem more professional as there is always likely to be someone available if you need any help, reassuring you if you are having issues online.

3 Cybersecurity Strategies for Online Marketers

Cybersecurity Strategies for Online Marketers

Cybersecurity Strategies for Online Marketers

The marketing industry has changed immensely in the past two decades. Think about it: back in the 80s and early 90s, marketing teams didn’t have the ability to communicate to millions of people instantly. No, they had to reserve ad space for TV stations and take advantage of physical marketing. Nowadays, however, marketers have the Internet. Digital marketing is the new wave, and marketers have tons of platforms and tools to take advantage of.

Since many marketing teams work online, the data they handle—their communications, their ideas, their personal information—is constantly at risk of being stolen and/or leaked. Many online marketers treat cybersecurity seriously as a result, as stopping ransomware is crucial for business. Today, let’s go over a few ways that online marketers can protect their data.

3 Strategies to Improve Security

1. Install a VPN to Encrypt Your Network

It’s been a little more than a year since most of the world went into lockdown due to the COVID-19 virus. During this time, those who were lucky enough not to lose their jobs due to the pandemic were forced to work from home, and since online marketing can be done from home, many people started looking towards online marketing and similar jobs.

It’s true! Many online marketers work from home. Due to the nature of the job, that’s not surprising. Marketing teams can easily communicate via online platforms (Slack, Trello, Zoom), and as long as the marketer can stick to a strict schedule, there’s not much to lose in terms of efficiency.

There is one issue: public networks. While many remote workers have been working from home due to public places being either closed or at risk of COVID infection, some still go out to the local coffee place to do their work, including marketers. Public networks are dangerous to work on. Why? Their lack of security and encryption makes public networks perfect hunting grounds for cybercriminals.

If you are an online marketer looking to unwind at a local deli while working, it’s advised you don’t connect to the network. However, if you need to, download a VPN or at least a free VPN. The main VPN use is to encrypt your data enough that any cybercriminal lurking on the network will be unable to view your data. Even if they manage to get their hands on your data, it will be unreadable, unusable.

2. Stay Vigilant of Online Scams and Links

Two decades. Online scammers have had a little more than two decades to improve their scams, learn what does and doesn’t work, and how they can trick a new generation of Internet users into handing out personal information. From phishing scammers that rely on social engineering to cybercriminals that send out malicious email links hoping someone clicks on them, there’s no shortage of danger on the Internet. Going online nowadays feels like walking through a minefield.

Online marketers spend the bulk of their job online. As a result, they are a prime target for cybercriminals. Remember, data is gold, and online marketers handle quite a lot of data throughout their day-to-day.

Online marketers need to take some time out of their day to learn how to identify common scams and warning signs. Phishing identifiers, what constitutes a dangerous link, how to tell legitimate emails from scam emails: these are important cybersecurity tips that could save a marketer their job.

Fortunately, there are various online resources—free online resources—specifically to help identify online threats. These don’t take too long to read through and should be an online marketer’s first step on their to-do list after work.

3. Use Strong, Unique Passwords for Your Accounts

One tradition cybersecurity experts never tire of is the annual 20xx password roundup, where major cybersecurity corporations round up the most common passwords used throughout that year. Let’s just say that cybersecurity experts don’t enjoy these lists because of how good these passwords are.

With passwords like 123456, password, and abc123, it’s no wonder why so many fall victim to hacked accounts. But what happens if an online marketer has their work accounts hacked? Well, not only could they lose access to their projects, but they also put their company/clients in danger of having their data stolen.

For this reason, all online marketers should invest in a good password manager. Password managers will generate a strong, unique password for you to use then encrypt your password data so no one can steal it. If you’re not using a password manager, you’re putting your data at risk. Remember that.

Conclusion

The marketing industry has changed for the better since the inception of the Internet. However, online marketers need to tread carefully, as one mistake could mean the loss of their and their client’s data. With these three tips or by using passwordless security, online marketers can secure their data.

How to find what you are actually looking for on the internet 

find what you are actually looking for

find what you are actually looking for

Any way you look at it, the internet is massive. As of 2020, there were over 6 billion web pages indexed. The information on those pages covers every subject known to humankind, and probably a few that are completely made up. In the face of odds like that, the chances you find what you are actually looking for should be very slim indeed.

Luckily we have search engines, from Alta Vista and Ask Jeeves from years ago, right up to Bing and the mighty, all-conquering Google to fish the answers out for us. However, with all of that information to sift through, even Google won’t get it right all of the time. If you want to find what you are actually looking for on the internet, then you not only need to give Google a helping hand, you might have to look in other places altogether.

#1 Make sure you are asking the right question

You will have no doubt heard the phrase ‘garbage in, garbage out’ in the world of tech and computing. Well, that is also true when searching the internet, only on a much larger scale. If you don’t want to spend your entire day scrolling through pages of things that are vaguely what you asked for, you need to be specific.

Google and the other search engines are built to give you exactly what you asked for. So, if you just typed in ‘TVs’, be prepared for a load of results. If you type in the model number of the TV, you’ll get more of what you want. That example is a bit obvious, but if you apply the same principles to every search, you’ll waste far less time to find what you are actually looking for.

#2 Use a specialist search engine

This is where you leave Google behind and go very niche. Despite all of the criticism, Google is a very powerful tool, but it does try and cover everything. For very specific things, you need to look for a specialist search engine. There is nothing odd about this, it’s like visiting the local hardware store because they probably won’t have that color paint at the supermarket.

Plenty of them exist. For example, if you’re looking for the best royalty-free images for your blogs, you would search on Pixabay, and if you wanted the best datasheet locator you would go to Octopart. The same also applies by the way, if you want to be found in specialist areas. So, the amateur photographer needs to ensure they are listed on Pixabay, and electronics components manufacturers need to make sure they are on Octopart

#3 Be wary of manufactured results

The value of a first-page result on Google can’t be underestimated. For this reason, businesses will pay individuals or agencies to make sure their website fits in with Google’s criteria. Although Google changes this regularly (known as an algorithm update) these ‘search engine optimization’ people are good at their jobs. This means that what you see at the top of the search results might not be exactly what you’re looking for, but instead exactly what ticks every box in Google’s search criteria.

These top answers will normally be dominated by the companies who have the most money to spend, so they dominate certain ‘keywords’. You can bypass this by either clicking straight over to page two or three and seeing what is there or by cross-referencing your answer.

You can do this by using another search engine such as Bing or the wonderfully named DuckDuckGo, and see what those search engines come up with for the same search. If a website features on the front page of three different search engines, it probably has a decent answer for what you are looking for.

What Is a Negative SEO Attack?

What Is a Negative SEO Attack

What Is a Negative SEO Attack

A negative SEO attack refers to the use of immoral tactics to hack/sabotage rival website rankings in search engines. These can be highly damaging, and it can take a while to salvage your website’s reputation.

Types of Negative SEO Attacks

There are a variety of attacks that can happen to your website. This type of behavior is known as ‘Black Hat’ SEO. The following are common types of attacks that can happen;

  • Hacking
  • Removal of key backlinks
  • Ruining your online reputation 
  • Pinning spam links to your website
  • Content leaks
  • Attaching fake social media profiles to your website
  • Creating links that use inappropriate language

If you do experience a negative SEO attack, an LLC can protect the business owners, because of its unique liability protection. The importance of this should not be underestimated!

How To Detect An Attack

Comment Spam Links

A common way that people can sabotage your site is by leaving backlinks in comment sections. One way to spot this is if suddenly you begin to get comments on old/dead content this is an immediate red flag and is most likely being done with malicious intent. 

Unusual Activity

Pay attention to your links and anchor texts and make sure that they are your own legitimate content. The risk otherwise is that an anchor text gets lost within a body of text that looks like your own but is actually taking your users elsewhere. 

Fake Negative Reviews

Negative reviews may not seem like a big alarm bell, but the more these negative reviews are left on your site, the lower your website will rank will be on google. This is because Google uses bad reviews as a way to render through what websites rank where.

How To Stop A Negative Seo Attack

1. Set up Google Webmaster Tools Email Alerts

Setting up Google Webmaster email alerts is a great way to keep on top of things, as Google can alert you when malware is detected, pages are not indexed, server connectivity issues, and more. The alerts save you from checking manually.

2. Keep Track of Your Backlinks Profile

You need to be able to keep track of your backlinks profile and ensure that they are not creating links or redirects to your website. One way to be aware if someone is trying to create these low-quality links is to use tools such as Monitor Backlinks or Open Site Explorer. These kinds of tools will alert you when your website either gains or loses any backlinks. Having a tool like this in place will save you from manually checking your backlinks. Upping your security with solutions such as M2SYS will also make your website more secure.

3. Monitor Social Media 

Pay attention to how your brand is being represented online. An easy way for spammers to attack your SEO is to create fake social media accounts and ruin your brand’s reputation through negative and inappropriate content. There are tools available for you to check where and who is using your brand names, so this is worth checking out.

What Is a Negative SEO Attack?

4. Regular Checks

Another easy way to prevent a negative SEO attack is to regularly check your website, the comments, the backlinks, and to check for duplicate content. Duplicate content can affect your rankings significantly. It will benefit you to use tools such as Copyscape to see if your content is being used elsewhere without you knowing.