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Enter the World of Marketing Ethics

Dealing with ethical companies is a big deal to some people. It can be difficult to find brands that meet their standards, especially when it comes to big business. In the corporate world, it can sometimes seem like a struggle to be completely ethical all the time. But any business, no matter its size, can make some effort to conduct themselves ethically. Marketing is one area to pay attention to because being ethical can mean different things. At a basic level, it means using ethical marketing methods and avoiding underhand tactics to beat competitors. But it can also involve brand identity and how values and ethics relate to that.

Know the Rules and Etiquette

To market your company ethically, you need to know the rules you should follow when carrying out your marketing activities. Some of these rules are expressly written, while others are unwritten guidelines that you nevertheless should follow. One example of where you need to pay attention is SEO. When you choose an SEO agency, make sure they only employ ethical methods. Google has certain rules about ethical behavior, and your website could be penalized if you break them. Following the rules is the smartest way to build a solid website and get long-term results.

Creativity Of Your Workforce

Outline and Stick to Company Values

Building your brand identity is an important part of your marketing strategy. When you do this, you need to consider your company values. These might partly be influenced by your target market, but they’re likely to be largely based on what you feel is important. There needs to be passion behind your values, so you can’t choose them for a soulless, corporate reason. What matters to you? Is it important that your brand is inclusive of everyone? Do you want to make sure you minimize your impact on the environment?

Promote Social and Environmental Causes

Finding social and environmental causes to promote is a great way to demonstrate your company’s ethics and values. They can become part of your marketing strategy, clearly showing your customers what you care about. Some brands closely tie their identity to the causes they support. For example, they might put on all their product labels and advertisements that every purchase directly benefits a particular cause. You could form a partnership with a charity, sponsor charitable events, or raise awareness of particular issues with your marketing.

Have Respect for Your Audience

When you’re planning your ethical marketing, one of the best things you can do is treat your audience how they wish to be treated. Consider various social issues and how people want you to talk to them. If you want to create an inclusive brand with marketing that speaks to many, one thing that can help is to have a diverse marketing team. If all your marketing experts are from similar backgrounds, the input you receive won’t be as diverse as it could be. Diversify the voices you hear from if you want a message that speaks to more people.

Ethical marketing requires thinking about a few different issues. Try to approach it from different angles to cover all your bases.

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How to Keep Yourself Safe from Being Caught By Phishing Scammers

Phishing email scams are among the common scams in circulation. Essentially, they’re created to trick you into believing they’re from a trustworthy source—a friend, perhaps, or a corporation. Their creation and designs are often sophisticated. In many cases, they look identical to legitimate emails from legitimate companies, and that’s how they trick you.

The point of a phishing scam is to trick you into believing you’ve received a legitimate email. The emails might offer incredible savings or warnings. They always include a link of some sorts. Tricking or persuading you into clicking the link is the point of the scam. Clicking the link can infect your computer or device with malware, which can put your personal information at risk. Collecting this information—often to perpetrate identity theft—is ultimately the point of a phishing scam.

Phishing Scammers

The Impact of Phishing on Business

Since phishing scams are so effective, they’re on the rise. As a result, they affect millions of people. The Anti-Phishing Working Group, an organization dedicated to tracking scams and educating people, state that phishing scams increased by 65% between 2015 and 2016. In those years combined, phishing scams affected nearly 2 million people.

These scams cost millions, especially for American businesses. According to statistics, the average business with upwards of 10,000 employees spends more than three and a half million dollars a year combating phishing scams. Combined, businesses in America alone lost over 500 million dollars every year to or fighting phishing scams.

Most people are connected online in some way. Businesses these days rely on the internet for a variety of reasons. Since so many people are connected, scams of all varieties, including phishing scams are rising. Mega corporations such as Apple, Google, and Equifax are susceptible to them. No one is immune from them. Recently, news of the breach at Equifax have riled citizens and politicians alike.

Tips to Keep Yourself Safe from Phishers

2-Step Authorization

This is a layered approach to security, one you’ve probably encountered. Essentially, a 2-step authorization adds a failsafe to websites holding your personal information. Many websites offer this approach, and you should take them up on their offer. Here’s how it works: you punch in your username and password. Then you’re directed to a screen asking you to input a security code. The most common means of receiving this code is via text messaging. A few seconds after you’re directed to this screen, you should receive a text with the security code. Entering the code verifies your identity. It’s a great added layer of security. Take advantage of it whenever a site or app offers it.

Check the Sender’s Address

As we mentioned in the opening section, phishing scams work because they replicate emails from legitimate sources—some even down to the HTML coding. As a result, many fraudulent emails are indistinguishable from legitimate ones. Sometimes, scanning the email alone might not alert you to the fact that it’s a scam. One way of discerning the legitimacy of the email is to check the sender’s address. Major corporations use addresses associated with their companies—and they use .com, .org, .co.uk, etc. Phishing scams use bogus email addresses that are easily detectable as fake. If you receive an email from Amazon warning that you’re account has been suspended, and the email was sent from racooon@genericwebsite.de, then it’s safe to assume this is a phishing email. Mark it as junk and delete it promptly.

Be Wary of Urgent or Emergency Emails

Quick! Act! Don’t think! Something terrible has happened or is about to happen, to your account, and you must address it immediately. Don’t think! Click this link! This is the gist of many phishing emails. They use language to create a sense of urgency to manipulate you into lowering your guard and clicking a link. The point of emails with strong language is to prevent you from thinking and to convince you to click that link as quickly as possible. Whenever you receive an email that creates some sense of urgency, then you should raise your guard and scrutinize it.

Look for “HTTPS”

Websites these days incorporate a layer of cyber security into their designs and servers. The key to identifying which sites are operating on secure servers is to check the URL. All URLs begin with “HTTP” or “https.” You should only input personal information—including username and passwords—into websites with “https”—the “s” means the site is secure. Never put your personal information on sites with a URL beginning with “HTTP.” These sites are not secure. Entering your information might immediately compromise it.

Enroll Yourself in Security Training Classes

Businesses now exist to educate people in cybersecurity and identifying online scams such as phishing. These online cybersecurity classes are designed to educate and inform. They equip people with the knowledge to battle phishing scams. Many training classes are offered online. They’re great resources, and you should consider using them.

It’s easy to fall for a phishing scam. Millions of people do it. These scams are engineered and released by sophisticated scammers with one objective: to obtain your personal information, often for fraudulently accessing money in your name. Identifying phishing scams is key to avoiding them. Knowledge, as they say, is power.

Steve Orowitz is a recently retired small business operator and is now a consultant. He is passionate about entrepreneurship, travel, and technology. When he isn’t consulting, you can usually find him out on the river with his fly rod, or hiking in the hills near his home in Fort Collins Colorado.

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7 Apps to Elevate Your Instagram Marketing

Many did not know that Instagram marketing had started long before Instagram introduced ads as an addition to their features. However, it’s only been done impressively most by huge enterprises who were able to employ intelligent marketers in their roster. To mention a few; Coca-Cola, Anthropologie, W Hotels and many others. Further, there are also various brands that are expected to be boring that were actually able to obtain excellent Instagram presence. We can have General Electric as the best example.

Instagram Marketing Tips

Now, for practicality’s sake let’s say you’re one of those visually boring brands and what you are selling are B2B services targeting a number of markets. Thus you should not overlook your business’ necessity to compete when it comes to the aesthetic front, especially in one of the most effective podium available today, the Instagram.

These following apps will help you elevate your Instagram marketing campaign at the most operative way.

Offerpop

Offerpop, a marketing tool lets users create and manage campaigns across every social media channel (sad, but we’ll have to exclude Google+ this time). Through this app, you will be able to track Instagram hashtags, view performance, store user-generated content in a more efficient and easy-to-access library, give auto replies and publish photos to different platforms.

It is also noteworthy that this app is used by leading brands including Pepsi, TOMS, Gap and even American Express.

Repost

Did you know that 65% of Instagram users say they feel more honored when a particular brand mentions them? Repost could be the best tool to make your followers feel more appreciated. It can make sharing other user’s videos or photos a lot simpler. You just need to browse your feed or search for a particular user or hashtag, then click on the photo and then tap on “repost”. It’s that simple.

This app could be a great way to enable brands show their user-generated contents and give appreciation to their customers.

Many big brands or even celebrities utilize Repost. One example is the soccer superstar Giovani dos Santos.

Just one good tip: make sure to create a hashtag unique to your brand. It will make it easier for you to find user-generated photos or videos that you can exhaust for your brand’s marketing campaign.

Like2buy

A huge portion of consumer purchases as reported by socialmediatoday.com is actually influenced by a brand’s social media marketing campaign. We are aware that it’s a crucial practice to include a link to your website or blog in your bio and Like2buy takes this very step further. This app can help you achieve a simplistic gallery of your products that can be instantly available for purchase.

Like2buy will give a link to brands that they can put in their bio. The moment a user will click on through the link, he/she will be directed to a page where the brand’s featured products are listed. Know that it would take only a few clicks to get from your Instagram account to your Like2buy product page.

Forever 21 is just one of the numerous brands that use Like2buy to make their clients’ buying experience get even better. For further efficiency, you may use a caption that says “shop link in bio” to remind users that they can have convenient options whilst buying your products online.

Slidagram

Going over into the sphere of free apps for a more effective Instagram marketing campaign, Slidagram allows a user to craft slideshows on your website that are based on popular hashtags or location. For brands with a huge compilation of Instagram images, this could be an effective and easier way to extract photos that pertain to your upcoming event or campaign. Plus, is there something more epic than free?

VSCO Cam

An abbreviation for Visual Supply Co., VSCO allows Android and iPhone users to make striking images with the use of creative filters that are almost in complete contrast with Instagram’s heavy-on-the-saturation filter. Your brand will surely obtain further aesthetic benefits through this app. With this app, boring and dull images can get interesting and effective.

Afterlight

Afterlight, like VSCO Cam, is photo editor that provides various filter choices to make plain photos become extraordinary. Be open to doing some experiments by combining the editing features of the two apps and you will find yourself headed off in a direction of an aesthetic bliss. Afterlight can offer 75 unique and completely adjustable frames.

Followgram

Followgram is your great source for Instagram analytics. This is an essential app while marketing through Instagram. This app provides a myriad of free stats about who liked and commented on your posted contents. Further, it also offers special tools that help brands in running contests and in obtaining accurate analytics. Followgram users include Ford, Nike, National Geographic and many others.

Takeaway

The above-mentioned apps, when utilized intelligently, will certainly help you elevate marketing and obtain success in an Instagram promotion. Do you have some apps to add in mind? Feel free to drop a comment below.

Patrick P. is the mind behind LinkVista Digital Inc. If your business needs outsourced web-based services, you might want to give them a call.

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The 5 Benefits Your Employees Appreciate The Most

Employees love a good boss. They feel loyal toward the company, and they might even be inspired to go the extra mile to support your business strategy. So what makes a good boss? Is it the managerial skills they come to work with every day? Is it their charisma and reputation? It might be down to the benefits you’re offering as part of their remuneration!

employee

Taking Care Of Your Employee’s Health

Healthcare benefits are one of the most important options you can offer a full-time member of staff. So many big companies are offering them, and even the up-and-coming businesses are investing. If your business strategy involves significant growth plans, you can’t do that without your employees. You need them fit, well, and raring to go! And you’ll find you can attract better talent if you advertise a role with this benefit attached.

Vacation or Holiday Days

Offering your employees extra days off is sure to put a smile on their faces. You are legally obliged to offer a minimum number plus public holidays. Why not add another for their birthday? Some big companies operate a sick days policy too. It means workers can take a sickie if they need time off for any reason. Of course, as a company boss, you also need to follow the law when it comes to pay and illness.

Insurance

Life insurance is something that can make all the difference for an employee’s family. Some younger members of staff also see the value of this coverage as an added benefit to working for you. Prices vary wildly so use a comparison website to find rates on life insurance for employees. In some sectors, this benefit is seen as a standard part of any remuneration package.

Caring

Most of us find ourselves caring for someone during the course of our lives. It might be kids, or it might be elderly parents that require us to take time from work. Offering flexible-working hours is enormously helpful for this. Alternatively, set targets or volumes to be accomplished. Then you can leave it to the employee to meet those requirements within the working week at their own pace. It helps employees to fit their caring duties around their work commitments.

Fit & Healthy

Offering in-office motivators like free massages, free fruit, and gym memberships can be hugely popular. Beyond putting a smile on your employee’s face, you will also be reducing the number of sick days lost. Healthy workers are also more productive. Promoting a healthy lifestyle shows you care as a boss, and it can help build a really great workplace culture too. Why not have sports and activities afternoons once per week? Dividing the office into two groups means key functions can still be covered.

Most of us spend more time at work with colleagues than we do with our own families. This is a huge commitment to ask of people, even when you pay them well. Making life at work a little easier and healthier can bring loyalty, productivity, and positivity to your business.

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Expanding A Business While Living In A Big City

Businesses that are given birth in metropolitan cities where there are millions of potential customers are perhaps the most exciting of all. Unlike many other types of location, a small business in a large city shrugs off the fact that it might be small in size, because of the amazing amount of traffic it can see. The sheer number of people that are at your disposal with regards to talent and a number of consumers wandering around you make a small business feel as if they have a client base as large as big corporations. That scale of opportunity is unmatched, and you simply cannot find that anywhere else in the rural parts of the country.

This is the reason why so many businesses don’t know whether they should expand, or simply just internally grow until they have a speedy and efficient business.

Expanding A Business

However, there are a few things you should consider if you do want to physically widen your grasp and influence.

Look for commercial property

A business can show a lot to its customers purely by the stature it decides to hold. Moving to an office in a skyscraper building would be the cherry on the cake. By officially having a headquarters, where the entire operation may be conducted, can elevate your position in the minds of other businesses too. When expanding your business, your physical activity is going to increase however so is your administration. The amount of paperwork is going to skyrocket and double overnight. You’ll be dealing with more clients, therefore more accounts, as well as needing to have a professional location where boardroom meetings can take place. When investors and rival businesses meet you, it’s better that you have an office with employees that are representing your brand than in the back room of your store. With many staff members working so closely together, your operations will become faster and smoother in an office setting.

Have the funding

Money talks and everything else that’s below par walks. No matter how great your plans are for expansion, without the proper funding they cannot come to fruition. Private investors will always want either a large return and in a time schedule of their choosing, or they want some kind of control over your business. Usually, this slice will mean that you don’t have a complete say over what kind of direction your business shall take. Therefore getting a business loan from a company such as https://smallbusinessloans.co is the better option. Unlike personal loans, because your business model will be the proof of the pudding and potentially your sensitive information about sales etc., you can get a larger amount of money. The interest rate can be around 5.5% to 8.5%. The risk factor will be taken into account, and during the application process you can choose between a variable rate or fixed.

The two most important factors about a business expansion in a large city are the possible new location and the amount of funding you have to fuel your future operations. Changing from your original store to a professional office or just a larger store is definitely something that is the mark of a growing business. Making sure you have full creative control of the business is why business loans are better than the private investor route.

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High Quality Images Can Set Your Luxury Property Apart From the Rest

If you are looking for a way to successfully market your luxury rental property, you will want to start by looking at the pictures that you use to promote it with. People today are looking for a property that meets with their travel personality, and they are taking this search online in increasing numbers. This means that you need to take your marketing efforts online as well.

There are many ways that you can effectively accomplish this, so keep reading to learn more.

Photos For A Digital Brochure

A great way to promote a home today is through the creation of a digital brochure. Once you have done this, you can distribute it online in a variety of ways. The focus of such a brochure should be on color photos, and not on the text. Let the picture paint the story of your home. That is what people want to see. Use a high quality camera that takes high definition digital photos. Better yet, consider hiring a professional photographer that will take the photos for you and then you can just store them for later use. Make sure that you include the entire property and any corresponding views that a prospective tenant would find helpful in making their decision.

how images improve your SEO

Don’t Forget Your Website

If you are looking to rent out your luxury home, a website is certainly a helpful way to do that. This is a place where you can post detailed information about the home, and even provide a way for interested tenants to make a booking with you. This is also a place where you will want to focus on quality, and that begins with the photos and videos that you post there. If people are going to be interested in your luxury home, you must showcase it in such a light. Spare no effort at making sure that this happen.

Video Footage

If you want to capture nearly every angle of your home and surrounding area, video footage is the way to do just that. Photos can be rather limiting in terms of what the viewer is able to see, which is why guests interested in your home will benefit from any type of video that you post online. Aerial views are considered to be the most effective way of doing this, so you will want to consider using drones for real estate. This is a way to effectively video the entire property from the air in a way that was not really possible a few years ago. The quality of the images that are produced are exceptional, and those who view the video will be impressed with what you have put together. This will highlight the amenities and features that drew you to the luxury home in the first place, and that will sell itself.

These are three great ways that you can provide interested guests with excellent imagery of your luxury home. This might just make all of the difference between landing a booking and having the home sit empty for much of the upcoming season. If you are looking to get a great return on your investment, having professional photos and images uploaded online should be considered a primary part of your overall marketing plan.

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5 Steps in Creating Your Successful Content Marketing Campaign

“Content Marketing” is a buzzword all over the web these days. Content comprises a variety of things. It can be blog posts, videos, webinars, and social network shares, among the many. Is sounds like a great idea doesn’t it? If you get to do it right, you can yield considerable benefits from a well-executed content marketing campaign. Businesses and entrepreneurs can surely take advantage of this. With this kind of strategy, businesses can have the power to position themselves as a topical authority, making the owners and executives as the experts.

Just like what we always hear, “the devil is in the details.” We can say that it is also true for such a campaign. Just because it’s a digital campaign doesn’t mean it’s as easy as clicking a button, no. It will take a bit more effort than that. The time you will need in aligning your company to its online persona and with your customers’ needs will highly depend on your business goals.

Successful Content Marketing Campaign

But once you post your content, the shares you need to get still needs interactions from your end. Here, you should directly interact with your community. Say something that’s meaningful, useful, and interesting. Continually stimulate an engaging conversation with them.  In this article, we will look at some of the steps that can help boost your content marketing campaign.

Get to Know You Audience and Keep Your Content Relevant

Every social network has its unique audience and identity. Part of the research you should do must be the demographics of the social media platforms you will be using. No site is the same. For example, more men use Google+ while more women use Pinterest. You can check these kinds of information on the sites so that you will get to know on which social media platform is the best one to share your content and get the best possible effect.

Maybe you market to consumers or businesses, either way, you ought to have a grasp of their interests. To build an engaged community with your brand and interests in mind, blogs can still do wonders. One example of a blog that is successful in using content marketing is SavvySeller.co. With its community site, it offers very helpful advice for other online sellers while also displaying advertisements for its parent company, World Lister.

You can also check what your customers are sharing in their social media. When you make your blog posts relevant to your readers, you make it possible for them to pass your content among their friends and possible. It will in turn award you with free and valuable marketing.

Be Cautious of Constant Self-reference

One thing that will surely kill engagement is constant self-reference. The days of broadcast advertising are long gone. These days, you have to give your message a twist. Simply broadcasting will just discourage your readers. What you can do is to use stories so you can illustrate what the benefits will be if they engage in your business and what it has to offer.

Get personal with your message to the reader, be direct and use the pronoun “you.” It is in this way that your posts can directly address your community and spike their interests. When it comes to promotional content, remember the 1-to-7 ration and nothing more. In this way, you can stop talking about yourself and instead talk as yourself.

Share Something of Value

Consider your time and your talents when it comes to creating your contents for your business. You may not be comfortable in sitting down and writing, or you may not have the time and resources to produce them. What you can do is consider the format you are more comfortable with when it comes to communicating your messages. You may experiment with the following:

  • Short-form articles such as this one
  • Infographics or small sharable graphics that can easily be produced on a platform such as Canva
  • Photographs of products in action that you can instantly share on Instagram
  • Short product demonstrations or instructional videos (It is best to keep them under two minutes)
  • And other related business content

Remember to share content that you are passionate about. Post ideas and subjects that are relevant to you as the business owner. It is in this way that your company can project your humanity through the influence you gain online.

Consider Curating

These days, a growing trend is content aggregation. It is deriving content straight from others’ RSS feeds and then turning them into shares automatically. However, aggregating is not curating. It is quite different. Curating content requires that a human being able to find, read, and qualify the digital contents relevant to their audience. It may sound like quite a lot of work, but it can take just thirty minutes a day. If you have a team to work with you, they can regularly read digital content that is relevant to your business. They can find articles with simple propositions that they can share.

Owners of niche businesses can also find articles that their audiences can relate to. Curating and sharing content from others will allow you to become the reliable source of your audience for information on a specific topic. Another benefit of sharing third-party contents is that you can build relationships by widening the conversations with other people within your industry.

Measure and Analyze Once and Then Again

For your contents, always track the comments and responses. When sharing your links on social media platforms, use some of the free metrics tools so you can analyze which of the posts are on track. Posts that are on track are those that are read, shared, and acted upon. Remember that if a platform or content seems like it isn’t working for you, focus more and put more effort in the ones that are doing good.

Takeaway

Two more factors you ought to consider in building your content marketing is time and continuity. So you have to be patient with it. Remember that social content may not necessarily and immediately translate into sales. With this in mind, you have to set up a plan for the future and have reasonable expectations about your campaign. Your content marketing campaign is your way of building your brand for the long haul.

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Is This SEO Agency The Right Choice? Tips to Hire a Right SEO Company

Anyone who deals with search engine optimisation knows that they need help. Sorry to dent your ego, but it isn’t embarrassing to admit that you aren’t an expert. What is shameful is pretending you are and running your business into the ground.

Companies outsource marketing for a reason: it’s a specialist subject. If you’re not an expert, you shouldn’t be in charge, and it’s that simple. But, you should choose a partner that can fulfil your needs and take the strategy to the next level.

Tips For Hiring The Right SEO Firm

To make sure you pick wisely, here are the questions you must ask and what they reveal.

Can You Guarantee Results?

There isn’t a company on the planet that doesn’t want to back a sure thing for obvious reasons. But, no matter what a firm says, there is no way to guarantee anything. They can, of course, show you a plan of action which will increase the chances of a higher ROI. And, they might use the term ‘guarantee’ as a means to show off their confidence. However, you should always take it with a pinch of salt. Instead of empty words, a business like yours needs to look for a deal that provides results through their actions.

How Long For Results?

Now, this is a tricky question because you want to hear something along the lines of immediately. After all, everyone is impatient and wants results as soon as possible. The thing is that SEO is a long-term game. To win the game, you need to be patient and wait for your strategy to gain traction. Otherwise, your short-term plan will burn out and you’ll be up a particular creek without a paddle. Quality agencies know this, so they should look to the future instead of the present. It might seem like they are stalling, but they’re just pragmatic.

Does One Size Fit All?

The answer is a firm no. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that businesses have certain unique requirements. And, the agency has to meet these needs for guaranteed SEO results. Although it sounds simple, it’s amazing how many organizations use the same tactics over and over again. They can use excuses like they are going with what they know, but it’s just lazy. Any SEO company worth their salt knows that they need to tailor a strategy to the individual firm. If they can’t show evidence of this, they shouldn’t be in your considerations.

How Is SEO Different In 2017?

Nope, this isn’t a trick question. In fact, it’s a very real and important one that requires a detailed answer. Simply put SEO changes and evolves every year. So, what was successful in the past isn’t as effective any longer. An ‘expert’ should know this because it’s their job to provide a platform for success. By testing their knowledge, you can gather whether they are faking it or if they indeed know their stuff. It goes without saying that you also need to know how SEO has changed in the past decade.

These questions aren’t exhaustive, but they are four of the most important and revealing.

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How to Write Blog Posts That Drive Traffic

There are thousands of blogs on the internet, but only a few of them get noticed or rank well in the search engine pages.

There is so much content overload on the internet and you have to use specific keywords to find the right content. And search engines are working hard to provide their users the best search results that they are looking for. They have a ranking system that separates a blog from a great blog. This is where you need to focus in order to write a blog post that easily ranks higher for the keywords.

While you have a great content to share with the world, you will still need to master the optimization techniques which make a blog more likable than the others.

How to Write Blog Posts

You might have the same content that is already there in the internet. So, it is the presentation that matters. Combine the great content with the optimization techniques and proper layout and you have a great blog post to share and rank higher.

Writing a great blog post requires a little efforts and talent. Here are some of the ways you can write a great blog post:

Using the right keywords

Keywords play a major role when it comes to writing a blog post. You don’t have to use the old ways of placing the keywords randomly in the blog post so that it can rank well. You need to be smart about it. One of the best ways to make your blog post efficient is through the use of long tail keywords. People who are familiar with basic SEO know what a long tail keyword is. It’s a variation of your core keywords with some extra words that is further empathizing the keyword..

The benefit of using the long tail keyword is that it has less competition and easily ranks well in the SERPs. With long tail keywords you don’t have to use many keywords. Instead you can focus on one or two long tail keywords and let the content flow easily. All looks natural and smooth and that is how you are going to rank well in the SERPs.

The power of internal links

When you use the internal links of your blog post you make things easier for the search engine crawlers. The bots can easily trace the links and create a clear map of your domain. This will help you rank well as well as help other blog post rank well too. Internal links can help the other blog post in your domain remain relevant and get better ranking as well.

Show your Research work

Nothing drives an audience than a thoroughly researched topic. One of the best ways to make the readers know you have done extensive research is through sharing of the external links. Showcase your research sources. This will make the readers stay longer on the page as they have more relevant materials to read. Readers will appreciate your effort and the amount of research you have done to create a blog post. This also established you as an authentic and reliable blogger. Good bloggers know the importance of external links and do add to their blog post. This is highly effective technique that will help your blog post rank well.

Longer posts are relevant

Unless you are on Facebook or Twitter you content should be longer and descriptive. Search engines love detailed information and so do people. If they are looking for a solution to their problem they need answers that are having all possible solutions. One line answer won’t do, you need to be more specific and detailed in your approach. These are the posts that get shared often in the social media platforms. One of the best ways to make the blog post work well is through effective headers. Let the readers get the gist of the blog post through the headers and the rest will be taken care of.

Conclusion

Writing a great blog post requires a bit of consideration and little bit of technicality. Combine these things together and you have a great blog post that will definitely get the best ranking and become popular among the readers.

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Spam Trigger Words You Shouldn’t Use In Your Email

The spam folder is like hell for emails – the final destination where no email marketer wants to land up. That’s why we need to think about how we craft our emails, starting right from the Subject line to the very last word.

Here is a list of trigger words you should start avoiding right now to avoid landing up in that spam folder!

Spam Trigger Words

SPAM TRIGGER WORDS TO STAY WELL AWAY FROM

Commerce Words

  • Orders shipped by
  • Buy direct
  • Order
  • As seen on
  • Order status

Employment Words

  • Double your income
  • Earn extra cash
  • Additional income
  • Home based
  • Make money
  • Earn per week
  • Work from home

Financial Words

When you’re sending out an email about money and other finance related stuff, make sure that you avoid using any of the following wordsas some of these words will automatically land your emails in the receiver’s spam folder.

  • Cash bonus
  • Best price
  • Incredible deal
  • Beneficiary
  • No cost
  • Easy terms
  • Compare rates
  • Bargain
  • Discount
  • Stock alert
  • No investment
  • Consolidate your debt
  • Big bucks
  • Lower your mortgage rate
  • Get out of debt
  • Stock pick
  • Save big money

Marketing Spam Words to Avoid

If you’re sending emails to promote your products and/or services, take note of the following words to avoid. Refrain from using these words in the Subject of your email and, as much as possible, as a part of the body of your email. Try using a different word to convey your message.

  • Bulk email
  • Ad
  • Click below
  • Auto email removal
  • Click here
  • Direct email
  • Click to remove
  • Increase sales
  • Notspam
  • This isn’t junk
  • One-time mailing
  • Mass email
  • This is not spam
  • Unsubscribe

Numbers to Avoid

Believe it or not, numbers can land your marketing emails in the spam folder, too. Remember that email signature templates from Zippysig and similar signature generators are a great way to ensure you get things right. Aside from that, using the following words and phrases should be avoided:

  • 100% free
  • Billion
  • 100% satisfied
  • Join millions
  • 50% off
  • Million
  • One hundred percent guaranteed

Calls-to-Action You Should Not Use

  • Give it away
  • Cancel at any time
  • Copy accurately
  • Print out and fax
  • See for yourself

Offer Words to Avoid

  • Being a member
  • Confidentiality on all orders
  • If only it were that easy
  • Have you been turned down?
  • Important information regarding
  • Mail in order form
  • No age restrictions
  • No experience
  • No catch
  • Obligation
  • No purchase necessary
  • No middleman
  • Per day/week
  • What are you waiting for?
  • You’re a winner!

Adjectives or Descriptive Words Seen as Spam

  • For free
  • It’s effective
  • All new
  • Amazing
  • All natural
  • Promise you
  • Outstanding values
  • Congratulations
  • Drastically reduced
  • Risk free
  • Real thing
  • Promise you

Poor Sense of Urgency Words

You may want to entice the receiver to either sign up, purchase your product, or contact you as soon as possible but you also do not want your email to land up on the SPAM folder. As much as possible, avoid these words that indicate a sense of urgency.

  • Apply online
  • Get it now
  • Call now
  • Act now
  • Great offer
  • Limited time
  • New customers only
  • Get started now
  • Urgent
  • Special promotion

Take note of the words we’ve listed above. Refrain from using those words in your emails so you can ensure that your emails would be read by the recipient and not just land in their spam folder.