5 Online Tools to Help Your Business Grow
Are you a new startup or an established business? You are undoubtedly harnessing the effect of the internet to carry out daily tasks to market your business. By seamlessly impacting certain aspects in your business, you can focus more of your time and energy on growing. Just as humans develop from childhood to adulthood, businesses are expected to transform from taking baby steps to giant strides. We certainly understand that it takes a lot of time for most business owners to research for online tools that can help simplify their businesses. Sometimes, people make the mistake of going for tools that are trending, rather than going for what will really add value to their business. To help you, we’ve put together a list of 5 free tools that you should consider using that can really help your business grow online: Hootesuite: The truth is – your business needs to be super active on social media. No social media, no business! Take it as it is. It’s not even an option, it’s a necessity. With quite a number of notable social media platforms, wouldn’t it be wise to improve your social media management as simple as it can be? Likewise business owners, they need to carry out several projects while multitasking daily. 2. Slack: We totally love slack! We recommend it a lot to fellow entrepreneurs and we’ve got nothing but positive feedback. There quite a number of top companies that use Slack and we consider it to be a must have tool for business growth. In our honest opinion, when it comes to a better team communication tool, Slack tops our list. MUST READ: Online Strategies Every Entrepreneur Needs 3. Dropbox: Want you and your team to access all your files on any device? Laptop, desktop, smartphone etc, from anywhere in the world and share them with anyone you choose, think Dropbox! Business growth comes when you are able to carry out even the tiniest tasks seamlessly. For example, accessing documents and files, it takes out a lot of wasted time. If you haven’t taken advantage of the free plan on Dropbox, which gives you 2GB of Storage space, you’re seriously missing out. 4. Mailchimp: Talking about emailing campaigns, newsletters, and other juicy contents, Mailchimp is your go-to platform. Mailchimp is an email newsletter platform that is used by over 6 million people. There is however, a free plan that allows you to send newsletters to 2,000 subscribers and less than 12,000 emails per month (Which in all honesty, can be unlikely when you are just starting out). We highly recommend using Mailchimp. 5. WordPress: Once you’ve created your website and everything is set up, you should install a CMS platform which your contents and web pages will stay. WordPress, which was originally a blogging platform, is one of the most popular web solution in existence today. Many bloggers around the world use and recommend WordPress. Want to know the best part? It’s completely free to use. Use WordPress for any type of website, but if you’d like to create an e-commerce store, there are other options you can consider. Are you starting an online business? Which of these tools are your favorite? Do you think we should add more? Tell us what you think in the comments below!
Online Strategies Every Entrepreneur Needs
Entrepreneurship involves the capacity and willingness to develop, organize and manage a business venture along with any of its risks in order to make a profit. Literally, entrepreneurship combined with skills and strategies can turn around a business and produce profit. There are necessary online strategies that every entrepreneur must possess. It is beyond the usual interpersonal and communication skills, it is the basis and foundation of structuring a well established that can actually stand the test of time. Are you a budding entrepreneur? These 5 online strategies will help you in the long run: Personal branding: Successful businesses can generate a ton of momentum from successful entrepreneurs who lead them. Branding yourself, before your company, gives you the opportunity to leverage a more trustworthy, personal image to promote your brand. Content Marketing: Content marketing takes a variety of forms, and depending on how you form your strategy, could accomplish a number of different goals. For example, you could use white papers, ebooks and other long-form content to attract downloads, signups and conversions, or you could use an on-site blog to attract more inbound traffic to your site. Search Engine Optimization: SEO is the process of making your site more visible in search engines, so you get more traffic from people searching for the products or services you offer. Much of your organic search position ranking comes from the technical structure of your site and your ongoing content development strategy. Diversion Optimization: Most of these strategies aim to get more people on your site, but what do those people do once they’re there? Conversion optimization helps you ensure you get more value out of each and every visitor by maximizing your rate of conversion. Social media marketing: This isn’t the get-rich-quick scheme you may have been promised, but there is significant potential in building and nurturing a social media audience. Again, content will come into play heavily here, as it will likely be the factor that attracts your audience to begin with. Here, you stand to gain greater brand visibility, a greater reputation and far more inbound traffic with your syndicated links. Think of these strategies as something to kick-start your entrepreneurship journey and do all that you can to work your way to the top.
Brand Communications Strategist, Sophie Mokah, Talks About the Impact of Social Media in Canadas Fashion Industry
We recently caught up with the super smart Sophie Mokah, Brand Communications and Fashion Enthusiast. She is the Chief Creative Officer of Pinq Communications a Brand Communications and Creative Agency. She is a fashion connoisseur and a lover of all things creative. A Christian, a wife and a mom of two children. She is currently living with intention and navigating being a business owner and motherhood all at once. TFA: Please tell us a little bit about yourself SM: My name is Sophie Mokah, I am a Brand Communications Expert and a Fashionista. In 2019 I founded Pinq Communications a Brand Communications and Creative Agency. My agency has different sides to it, it touches every creative part of Marketing – Ibrand.ca. I have always loved creative arts as a little girl, I grew up with fashion, arts and music. My mom has always been my biggest fashion inspiration. She ran her own fashion and creative agency too, and that inspired me a lot. Three years ago, I stumbled on digital marketing while working as a Creative Director for a Fashion Company. I immediately fit into it, it was like I found the missing piece of the puzzle, and it was easier to merge both knowledge and experience to create masterpieces for my clients. One of my goals in life is to change lives and transform brands using people focused strategies that genuinely help people and solve everyday problems. This would make me happy. I am a happily married mom of two gorgeous children. I am family oriented but also an advocate for self-care – I mean you have to be mentally strong to care for your family. So a little me time is highly recommended. TFA: How do you describe your personal style? Who would you say are your inspirations? SM: I am an all fashion, trendy and chic kind of girl. My fashion is a mix of variety ranging from casual to semi-formal, formal, old school, luxurious, girly, sporty and clean- cut professional. I can wear it all, it all depends on the event, place and time. I love to accessorize a lot to compliment my outfits, I use belts, scarves, hats and jewelries. Most times I seem a bit over dressed at functions but I also love being conspicuous so I do not mind the attention Lol. My mom is my biggest fashion inspiration. Everything I know now about fashion, I learnt from her. I watched her dress up, we played dress up, I watched her design things and I just fell in love. I currently do not have any other fashion inspiration but I pick a little from everyone. I love to watch runway shows, because that tells you the latest trends and what to look out for the coming year. TFA: How is the fashion industry in Canada? Does social media and tech have a huge impact in the industry? SM: Before I moved to Canada, a friend that grew up here told me that once I get to Canada my fashion sense would evaporate Lol. It was funny at that time and I didn’t believe her, but now I see the reasons why. First of all, Canada is 100% different from Nigeria where I grew up. It is one of the coldest countries in the world. Sometimes fashion literally goes out the window when you are only thinking about staying warm, layering up and not getting the flu. It is hard to keep up with fashion here, but doing it with intention is the only way to keep up. When I first moved here, I started researching Canadian fashion. I found out that three provinces Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver are like the fashion hubs of Canada. So I figured I just moved to a non-fashion hub. I started attending fashion shows (there are like two fashion shows in Calgary where I live) to have a feel of what fashion looks like here and it sort of informed my own creativity. I would say the fashion industry is improving in Canada. Social media and tech has really upped the fashion game in Canada. Social media is merging the fashion world and designers are springing up in Canada every day. The Canadian Arts and Fashion Awards is a huge impact on the industry. It is putting Canadian fashion on the map and it has nurtured the love for fashion in more young people. Retailing aspect is still a bit dicey, because shopping for fashion is really expensive in Canada, so brands find it hard to make profit. I figured it has to do with taxing goods being imported into Canada (a little bit high), but yeah once that is sorted, fashion will make a huge impact to the Canadian economy. TFA: What are your favorite social media apps for lifestyle and fashion contents? SM: Instagram and Pinterest are two of my favorite social media apps when it comes to fashion and lifestyle content. They both cover every bit of fashion and lifestyle content either in motion or still pictures. These two social media platforms have been evolving and changing with the times. You can literally search for anything on Instagram and it gives you a sort of direct connection to your favorite brands. They carry you on a journey from sketching to actual finished designs which we didn’t have years back. I also like this new app called Like to Know It – it is a fashion app that links Instagram photos to an app that links the shopping website so you can directly shop any outfit in real time. TFA: What would be the notable trend for fashion in 2020? SM: Old school is coming back with a bang. I know we saw a little bit of old school in 2019 but it is coming in with a bang this year. I mean just look back at the last fashion shows in 2019, you sort of have an idea where the trend is heading. We
What you should know about Online Advertisement
You’ve probably come across the term “online advertising” before in some form or another. Maybe while having an online training on marketing, or you’re simply scrolling through your social media. Online advertisement is sometimes referred to as Search Engine Marketing (SEM), paid channel marketing, or pay-per-click (PPC) marketing. The terms are often used interchangeably to best explain what is critical and essential about the same concept – rented online advertisement is like acquired traffic through online ads or online display ads. We need to understand that when it comes to rented advertisement, the traffic will stop coming in once you run out of money to keep the ads active. Moreover, if you’re not clever about your online advertising strategies, there is a high-risk that you might lose a whole lot of money on your investment. However, you should know that indulging in online advertisement is also very important in the promotion of your business and this could make your business quite attractive in the eyes of your audience. This is achievable because online advertisements are highly sophisticated with effective targeting. This means that it’s actually possible to calculate both a long-term and short-term value for how much revenue resulted from each and every incoming website visit. And it’s also possible to target a very specific part of your demographic for more effective marketing. In summary, here are 5 5 ad networks to give you an idea of which ones will work best for you: LinkedIn: This is mostly used for B2B marketing as it continues to grow at a rapid pace. Online advertisement on LinkedIn can help your brand connect with the world’s largest audience of active, influential professionals. Facebook: Ads on Facebook work like display ads, and are best for top-of-funnel marketing. You can create a well defined audience for each ad you run. Twitter: Fast becoming the go to space for viral contents. Seriously amazing content that grabs the users immediately. Google Adwords: Offers CPC ads and can be highly targeted to get in front of customers when they’re searching for businesses like yours on Google Search and Maps. Bing: Similar to Google Adwords, but with less competition.
8 FREE SEO Tools to Increase your Website Visibility in 2020
It’s a new year, and I’m pretty sure you may want to take on digital marketing projects. Well, it is time to work smart and fast, only if you can get your hands on the right tools. Think about all the time you may waste if you do not have a helpful tool. So, my question is, wouldn’t it be amazing to achieve results effectively with great tools? So, let’s talk about Google rankings. How would you like to work smarter and more efficiently with Search Engine Optimization? It obviously starts with having the right tools for your website. That’s is why we have combed the internet to present to you 8 free SEO tools that can really cater to your basic website needs. These SEO tools are: Fast Free Very easy to use We do hope that you would be able leverage on one, two or eight of the tools to increase the visibility of your website. So, let’s set the ball rolling: Google Analytics: This free SEO tool provides complete web statistics and search engine insights. Imagine a free tool that tracks every single traffic to your website, analyses keyword insights and locates the terms people use to land on your page. Below is a step by step on how to get this type of date: Step 1: Acquisition Step 2: Campaigns Step 3 Organic Keywords 2. Google Keyword Planner: This is another amazing tool that lets you know what people are searching for. How does it work? Enter a keyword or group of keywords into the tool, then Google will display all sorts of helpful stats that can aid the strategy of your keywords. It can even display some suggested terms you may not have thought about. 3. Ahrefs’ Backlink Checker: This tool does a comprehensive link analysis of your website. You may need to know that this tool has a free and paid version. The free version shows the most 50-100 backlinks to any website or URL. It also displays the total number of backlinks and referring links from unique sites. One exciting thing you can do with this SEO tool is, you can find link opportunities just by pasting a competitor’s website. 4. Ubersuggest: This is a free keyword and tracking SEO tool. This is unarguably the best SEO tool online when it comes to generating keyword ideas and curating thought-provoking blog post ideas. With Ubersuggest’s free keyword tool, you can get insight into digital marketing strategies that are working for others in your niche, so you can adopt, tweak and gain more. 5. Google Trends: This is a free SEO Marketing tool that displays data and trends for a query or keyword. This is a very useful tool for uncovering seasonal differences in search popularity amongst comparing multiple terms to see the relative popularity. With the digital age in place, this is a very easy to use tool that also includes media coverage of any topic. 6. LinkMiner: This tool helps to find broken links on any web page LinkMiner is a simple Chrome extension that checks the status of all HTTP links on your web page. All (404) broken links are displayed in red. A great tool for discovering broken link building avenues. 7. SEMrush: This is an advanced SEO tool that performs a free SEO analysis of any blog or website. It tracks your keyword strategy used by your competitors, it looks for backlinks opportunities and lots more. It is currently used by a lot of big and small businesses. 8. Moz Link Explorer: This is an SEO tool that show all the important data about any domain. The free version of Link Explorer provides a brief look of a range of link analysis, including a display of the most impactful links coming to your site and your most linked-to pages. Other Free resources: There are hundreds of free SEO tools that we’ve found highly valuable, some of which you may use via the web in seconds, to get immediate insights. To get started, here are a few places you can check: 60 Best Free SEO Tools (100& Free) – Created by Cyrus Shephard of Moz.com The TOP SEO Tools your should be using – By Jon Clark of Search Engine Journal Analyze your website with these Free SEO tools – A comprehensive list by Ryan Stewart of Webris.org
Four Reasons why Digital Marketing Matters
Why does digital marketing matter so much that everyone has it on blogs, social media, online stores, online ads, emails and more? The truth is consumers are turning ever more to the online marketplace. Below are four important reasons you should digitally promote your small business. When it comes to making decisions for your business or services, customers now use online research to aid their choices. Did you know 75% of consumers now research businesses online? Five out of every ten will depend on social media or review sites to conduct their research. When prospective clients are looking for you online and your business is not visible, they won’t see you; however, they will see your competitors the possibility of your customers going for your competitors could be high. So endeavor to create a very strong online presence for your business. Creating SEO related contents is one important tactic that you can adopt for your business. It needs a more flexible approach that can adapt to the constant landscape change, while ensuring that your business methods are data driven and targeted to your key audience. Over 62% of small businesses use digital marketing, which means that you may be in the minority if you do not have a digital marketing strategy for your business. As long as you are not visible to potential customers, they are finding out about your competition, giving them sales instead of you, which becomes a challenge for you by the time you start to notice this. More than ever before, people now have more access to the online world. Online search is already a big part of the customer experience. It looks unlikely that it is going to change; but in fact, it is almost certain the importance of the online market is going to continue to increase tremendously. In summary, any business that doesn’t tap into the digital marketing space is going to end up losing out on all the awareness, branding and potential return.
