January 2022 - Custom Development & IT Staff Augmentation Company

How to Start Your Local Business?

10 Tips On How To Start Your Local Business

Your planning process plays a key role in determining whether your business will last long or not. If your planning is correct your local business is bound to get success. Let’s discuss some best business tips on how to start your local business.

1. Conduct market research

Conducting market research is the first step toward starting a new business. Market research is critical to help you determine whether your business idea is really practical or not. Market research should include understanding customer behavior, economic trends, product demand, demographic data, market size, location appeal, and pricing. You can gather all this information through existing resources or by conducting surveys and meeting potential customers. After successful market research, you will be able to figure out who your target customer is and how to develop products and services that will sell comfortably.

Conduct market research

2. Write a business plan

Writing a business plan is never too early for starting your local business. A good business plan serves as a guide for every aspect of your new business. Whenever you are thinking of how to start a small business, a business plan is a must. Prepare a business plan to define your business, products, and services, and outline your goal, operating procedures, and competition. Make sure that your plan includes a marketing approach, so people are aware of what you are selling and how to find you.

Write a business plan

3. Create a budget

Your business plan will give you an estimate of how much money would be needed to start your business. Try to maintain a spreadsheet to estimate every expense you anticipate, including costs for overhead, production, and marketing. If you don’t have the required fund, you will need to either raise or borrow the capital.

Create a budget

4. Pick your Business Location

Selecting a business location is one of the most important decisions you will make. You’ll need to find the ideal physical location for your enterprise. This is where you’ll register your business, obtain the required permits and pay the taxes. One of the best business ideas is to pick a business location that is economically cheaper and can attract more people.

Pick your business Location

5. Choose a business structure

Choose a business structure that will suit your preferences. There are different business structures like a sole proprietorship, partnership, limited liability company (LLC), and corporation. It’s very important to choose a suitable business structure for you because it can impact taxes, personal liability, funding liability, and much more. You can consult an attorney or accountant if you are confused about making any decision.

Choose a business structure

6. Choose a name and register your business

Naming your business is one of the most challenging parts of becoming an entrepreneur. Your business name should be one that reflects your brand and captures your spirit. Have a brainstorming session where you can note down every name that comes to mind, then test your favorites with trusted mentors, friends, and colleagues to gauge their reactions and feedback. Take some time to decide your final name and go with it. After finalizing the name, it’s time to make it legal. Register your business with the concerned authorities to get benefits like liability protection, and legal and tax benefits.

Choose a name and register your business

7. Apply for licenses and permits

A legally compliant business will surely run smoothly. The licenses and permits you need for your business will vary by industry type, state, location, and other factors. The requirement and fees will depend on your business size and also the agency issuing the license or permit. Federal and state governments have different charge amounts for licenses and permits.

Apply for licenses and permits

8. Open a business bank account

You must open a business bank account for your small business. Also, it is very important to separate business finances from personal ones. Contact your bank about requirements prior to opening a business account. Having a business bank account is mandatory today because you can’t keep cash all the time and it’s very beneficial when it comes to the safety of your funds.

Open a business bank account

9. Get your business insured

One of the good business ideas is to get your business insured. Insurance protects your financial investment from unforeseen circumstances such as theft, customer lawsuit, or property damage. A general liability policy is sufficient for a small business but if your business is big and you have a good number of employees you should also opt for worker’s compensation insurance.

Get your business insured

10. Create an online presence

If you can afford to, try to have a website for your business. You can also promote your business online by using social media platforms. Your online presence will definitely help you gain some popularity and promotion.

Create an online presence

Conversion Rate Optimization in B2B LinkedIn Marketing

Leave a Comment / Digital Marketing / By Alice Walker

In the past years, LinkedIn has changed a lot. Earlier LinkedIn was known as just a job portal website but now it has grown as a social media platform for professionals. You can use LinkedIn to find the right job or internship, connect and strengthen professional relationships, and learn the skills you need to excel in your career. You will also get to know conversion rate optimization. You can also use LinkedIn to organize offline events, join groups, write articles, and post photos and videos. LinkedIn has become so feature-rich that now it’s also a big platform for marketing especially Business to Business (B2B) marketing.

This article focuses on conversion rate optimization in B2B LinkedIn marketing. In fact, 80% of B2B social media leads come from LinkedIn. If you are a B2B business house looking to reach more leads, it’s time to start optimizing your ad campaigns to improve your LinkedIn conversion rate.

Why choose LinkedIn?

Do you know that the average conversion rate for LinkedIn ads is much higher than on other social media platforms? Let’s have a look at conversion rates of different social media platforms:

PLATFORM	CONVERSION RATE
LinkedIn	6.1 %
Facebook	4.7 %
Instagram	3.1%
Pinterest	2.9%
Twitter	0.9%

platform and conversion rate

As you can see, LinkedIn contains the potential for you to earn more conversions if you do the right advertising. By looking at the conversion rate for LinkedIn advertisements, you will get to know what you can expect and achieve.

LinkedIn conversion types

It’s not that only conversion on LinkedIn is all about sales. Many businesses will use different types of conversion for their LinkedIn ads. On LinkedIn, you can earn different types of conversions like:

Completing forms
Downloading content
Registering for events
Making sales

How to do Conversion Rate Optimization in B2B LinkedIn Marketing?

Let us discuss in detail LinkedIn marketing strategy. For a better conversion rate in LinkedIn marketing, you need to have an effective strategy in order to successfully generate tons of warm leads and convert them into new business. Below are some points to consider:

Target the right people

Target the right people

To get more people engaged with your ad, you have to target the right people. It’s not very difficult to understand that people will click your ad only if they feel it is relevant to their profession or interest. Targeting the right audience is the best practice in B2B LinkedIn marketing strategy. Many businesses make the mistake of targeting the wrong people with their advertisements. As a result, LinkedIn shows their ads less.

Hence it leads to fewer conversions and higher costs per lead. To avoid this you should target people based on demographic information, career and professional interests, and more. Setting up the right audience will help you reach more people interested in your products, which will deliver a better conversion rate for your LinkedIn ads.

Create professional and creative ads

Create professional and creative ads

Creating professional and creative ads is a must in your LinkedIn marketing strategy once you have established your target audience. Advertisements and sponsored content appear in the LinkedIn newsfeed just like other posts. If you want to get people to stop scrolling and check out your ad, you need creative and compelling ad copy. The LinkedIn audience expects to see content, like industry news and posts about professional topics in their feed. The context of your LinkedIn ad plays a fundamental role in determining whether your audience engages with your ad. You can make your ad more attractive by using video or eye-catching graphics in it.

Test your ad copy

Test your ad copy

It’s always a good practice to test your ad copy first. If you are not testing your ad copy you might not get the best results for your business. Test your ads to get the most out of your LinkedIn advertising campaign. Create multiple versions of your ad and deliver them to different people. Monitor how your audience engages with the different ad types to see which one gathers the most engagement. That will help you to find out which version of your ad is best and will be your final lead generation ad.

Create landing pages that are informative

Create landing pages

Creating informative and relevant landing pages helps in improving LinkedIn conversion rates. A creative ad with a weak landing page won’t get people to convert. You need to keep the momentum going by creating an excellent landing page to go with your ad. Keep your landing page simple, clean, and easy to follow. Include all the essential details on your landing page to ensure your audience feels informed.

Ad content should be posted organically

post Ad content organically

If you are new to advertising on LinkedIn then you can try testing your ad copy as an organic post first. It will help you to see whether your ad copy connects with your targeted audiences or not. This LinkedIn marketing strategy can help you to determine if you should run a paid campaign with the same information or not. If you see higher responses to a post, you can promote that content and turn it into an ad. This strategy will be helpful for you in two ways. First, you can manage your ad budget efficiently, and second, you will have a real insight into the type of content that will get leads and engagement.

How To Improve The SEO Of Your Website On Google Search?

What is SEO and Why is it important?

SEO can be understood as a set of rules for optimizing your website so that it can achieve higher rankings in search engine organic results. Website SEO is the process to follow to increase the visibility of your website in search engines and get more traffic.

SEO is important for online business because it can keep you at a higher place on Google search, it improves the usability of a website, it helps in increasing your website’s trust among users, and it also helps to put you ahead of your competitors. If you have a website, blog, or online store, SEO can help you get free targeted traffic from search engines.

What is SEO and Why is it important?

Tips to improve the SEO of your website

Follow these suggestions to improve your SEO or improve your Google search ranking for your website:

1. Understand the Google ranking algorithm

To improve Google search ranking it is very important to know the Google algorithm. Google is a platform that constantly changes its algorithm and most of these changes aren’t publicly announced. Google usually shares major update announcements but the exact inner workings of the algorithm are still unknown.

The best knowledge we have of Google’s algorithm comes in the form of major updates like the content should be relevant and not copied, mobile compatible websites will get priority, websites should not use unnatural links to boost their rankings, etc.

Understand the Google ranking algorithm

2. Know your current search ranking

To improve your Google ranking, you should first need to know where you stand. There are many tools like Semrush which help to assess your rank. You can compare your SEO keyword ranking with your competitors here and find out where you have to improve your website’s Google ranking.

3. Improve your page loading speed

Page loading time plays an important role in website SEO tactics. If your website load speed is low your ranking will get harmed as Google will recognize it very quickly. A slow website will also impact the way your website visitors engage with your pages. The latest research shows that 40% of visitors will abandon websites if the page takes longer than 3 seconds to load. So, it is extremely important to optimize both your page speed and server response time.

page loading speed

4. Create your content around a Primary keyword and relevant Secondary keywords

Understanding what keywords are best for your target audience and content type can help you build a strong content strategy to boost SEO. Your content should be written in such a way that it flows naturally. Primary and secondary keywords should naturally come up in your content so that you don’t have to stuff your content forcefully.

Create your content around a Primary keyword and relevant Secondary keywords

5. Improve site navigation

Search engines reward sites that provide a positive user experience. If site visitors cannot find what they are looking for, they will most likely leave your site. This will impact your bounce rate, time that visitors spend on your website, number of pages they view, and ultimately it impacts your search engine rankings.

To avoid this, keep your website easy to navigate. Developing a clear navigational structure will help visitors find what they are looking for in your site. The rule of thumb for navigation is to never make a page more than 3 clicks away.

Improve site navigation

6. Optimize your website for mobile devices

One of the important SEO tips is to optimize your website for mobile devices. That’s because over 60% of Google searches are coming from mobile devices. Google recognizes this aspect and ranks websites accordingly. If your site isn’t optimized for mobile devices, it’ll hinder the user experience, adversely affecting your Google ranking.

Optimize your website for mobile devices

7. Expand your Backlink portfolio

A big part of SEO strategy deals with backlinks and whether you are generating backlinks from high-authority sites. Backlinks increase the credibility of your website. All of your data claims should be linked to trustworthy and authoritative sources. A diverse backlink portfolio tells Google that your site is an authoritative source and that you are generating links in a natural way.

8. Use effective header tags

Using effective header tags helps search engines understand your content better. Headers let search engines know what your content is about, and if you insert proper keywords into headers, the search engines will have an even better understanding of your content.

If your site is just a wall of text, it’s going to discourage people from spending a long time on it. Headers make everything look more appealing, which is always beneficial. By using effective header tags in your content people will love to read your content and spend more time on it, and subsequently, your SEO ranking will rise.

Use effective header tags

9. Optimize images

Optimizing images on your website is a good SEO strategy. Huge images can slow down your page loading time and will ultimately hurt your ranking. Resize or compress your images to optimize them. Image optimization helps your content rank higher on Google image search while also improving your site’s visibility.

Optimize images

10. Use clean URLs and Meta descriptions

Your URLs should be clean, focused, and optimized to get most of the search engine ranking results. Your URL should also include the keyword or keywords you are targeting. Meta descriptions must also be optimized to improve the SEO of your website. Keep them concise, clear, and unique.

Use clean URLs and Meta descriptions

How To Build Your Social Media Presence For Engaging New Customers

Leave a Comment / social media marketing / By John Steinbeck

Social media presence can be understood as a full accounting of an individual’s or company’s activity across all social media platforms. Social media presence includes posts, replies, or other interactions on all platforms by any person or company. Most companies have dedicated staff for social media tasks. In this article, we will discuss the importance of social media presence and how to build your social media presence for engaging new customers.

Why is a social media presence important?

As we all know that people nowadays are spending so much of their time on social media platforms, so advertising on these platforms will be very beneficial. A successful social media presence is very important for businesses because it allows communication with consumers directly. The popularity of social media is an efficient way to connect and get your message about your products or services to customers quickly and directly. Other benefits to build a social media presence for your company are as follows:

It establishes your company’s brand

Every company needs a strong brand identity and social media can help with it. A company’s social media presence will help it to be in minds of customers.
It grows your customer base

Social media presence expands the reach of your company to potential customers who did not know about you previously. Hence your customer base increases tremendously.
Helps in new product marketing

Social media is a great platform to introduce and market new products. Your social media presence is an opportunity to increase anticipation for your product among consumers who have already shown interest in it.
Builds customer loyalty

By interacting with customers on social media, you can work to increase their loyalty and create a positive impression of your company.

How to build your social media presence?

To get maximum benefits from social media platforms, you have to grow your reach among customers. Given below are some steps to follow to increase your social media presence:

1. Make sure you use the right platform for you

Depending upon your type of business choose the right social media platform for you. Trying to get famous on every platform is not necessary. Choose the right social media which will help to promote your business . This is a very important aspect of social media management. If you are stuck as to where to start, then put your focus on Facebook and Instagram as both platforms are the most used in the world.

2. Set your social media goals

You should set goals that are specific, measurable, relevant, and time-bounded. Set a goal of your choice. They may be long-term goals as well as short-term goals. For example, you can set a long-term goal of growing your Instagram followers count by 50% in three months or you can set a short-term goal of increasing your follower count by 10% every month.

3. Be Human

Gone are those days when brands promoted their products and services in a very boring and inhuman manner. In the modern age of transparency, people want to get to know your company on a more personal level. Many brands today crack jokes and talk to their followers in a very frank manner. The idea is to connect with your customers in a very human manner.

4. Focus on your content

Producing quality content is one of the important keys to growing your social media profile. If your content is good the conversion rates get higher, which means each new viewer is more likely to become a follower and a user of your products.

5. Create an editorial schedule

Creating an editorial schedule is a good practice in social media management. Maintaining a schedule helps to post your advertisement or any social media post in a proper and timely manner.

6. Keep it fresh

Don’t be that person who posts the same link over and over again. Audiences like to see fresh and exciting content that cuts through the competition. Try to create content that is bespoke to you and your business. The content should be fresh, and exciting and it should stop a reader from scrolling down and let them engage with you.

7. Respond to your followers

Respond to users who reply to your posts. It will increase your interactions as well as it will help in building loyalty. This is a part of social media management in which followers develop an attachment to your company’s products and services and promote your business for free.

8. Keep an eye on algorithms and updates

Most social media platforms are using some level of algorithm. If you can follow these algorithms and updates your social media presence will enhance drastically. For example, some platforms like Facebook give priority to visually engaging content over less visual content. You just have to follow the algorithm in such a way that your posts are most liked by customers and followers.

9. Always be with the trend

Always be up to date and be with the current trend. Brands always have something new to post or advertise if they keep an eye on current affairs, trending hashtags, or any latest meme.

10. Use tools to monitor your activity

There are many tools available online which can help you in identifying your top-performing content, performance trends, and many more. These tools will help you in determining whether you are heading in the right direction or not. The data analyzed through this type of tool can help you treat social media less like a guessing game and more like a science.

How To Promote Your Small Business In 14 Steps

Leave a Comment / Digital Marketing / By Alice Walker

Every business owner wants to put their products or services in front of their potential customers. And to get customers every business owner needs to promote his/her business. In this article, we will get to know how to promote your small business in 14 steps. For business owners, the ways that you can promote your business and attract customers have changed dramatically in the past decade. Earlier, this was a matter of deciding between a flyer, a brochure, a postcard, or an ad in the local newspaper. But in today’s digital era, the possibilities are endless.

14 Tips To Promote Your Small Business

Actually, more than half of all spending on advertising has now moved to online mediums. We are going to look at 14 incredibly simple yet highly effective ways to promote your small business in 2022. You can implement all of these without needing special expertise or significant investment.

1. Create a Website

Every business needs a website, no matter how old-fashioned your business or clients may be. A user-friendly and informative website can help you establish your business and ensure consumers can learn more about your product and services. You should optimize your website for both computers and mobile phones to make it easy for customers to find the information they need regardless of the device they use. Depending on the type of your business, you should have the following information available on your website:

- - Store operating hours
  - Location
  - Range of products and services
  - Contact number and email id
  - Customer contact form
  - Mission and values
  - History and background
  - Employee’s information

Create a Website

2. Create a Business Blog

Writing blogs will expand your website and enable you to connect directly with your customers. Blogs can also help to increase your search engine rankings. You can regularly write about business topics that relate to your product and services and encourage customers to leave comments or contact you for more details.

Create a Business Blog

3. Develop Social Media Presence

Nowadays almost everyone is active on at least one social media platform. Promoting your brand on social media is very effective if you continually create posts, which helps you regularly connect with consumers and gather more followers. Try to post something which includes information about discounts and offers, updates about new products, and fun and quiz content. This is known as social media marketing in which you can promote your business at a very low cost or budget.

4. Connect with Your Community

Connecting with your community can help a lot because many communities help small businesses to grow up. These communities offer a low-cost way to spread information about your business like they can offer a strong customer base, spread your brand by word of mouth, and much more.

Connect with Your Community

5. Build relations with your vendors

Developing relationships with your vendors can provide several benefits. Your vendors can help you get some business partnerships because these local vendors have strong connections with other local businesses. If you have very good relations with your vendors they can help in your hard times also.

Build relations with your vendors

6. Get your business listed

To increase your ranking on search engines, get your business listed on major listing services. Listing on major listing services will help consumers find your business when they search for a specific term.

Get your business listed

7. Email Marketing

Depending on your market, sending emails to consumers is still a good option. Email campaigns can help to keep your products and services top of mind for your consumers.

Email Marketing

8. Press Releases

Whenever your business does something newsworthy, it is a very good practice to send it out for a press release to your local and regional news outlets. The press release is a powerful media tool to use to help generate publicity. You can also use websites for press releases such as PRLog and 24/7 Press Releases.

Press Releases

9. Influencer Marketing

Influencers are people who have a large follower base on social media like Instagram and also on YouTube. You can collaborate with these influencers to promote your business digitally. Influencer marketing can help to both grow your brand reach and offer sales incentives.

Influencer Marketing

10. Advertise on YouTube

Advertising on YouTube is a paid strategy that you can follow to promote your business. YouTube advertising can be an investment that pays off if it’s done in a proper way. You can advertise on YouTube by creating video ads that play before videos in relevant categories.

Advertise on YouTube

11. Form Partnerships

Partnering with a non-competitive business that serves the same clients can be a great way to promote your small business in your local area or network. Once you have established a relationship you can help each other to grow your respective businesses.

Form Partnerships

12. Sponsor Local Events

Even in today’s era of digital promotions, hosting or sponsoring events in your community is a great way to promote your business. Sponsoring or hosting local events will strengthen your connection with local customers.

Sponsor Local Events

13. Advertise Locally and Offline

You can also advertise on traditional platforms such as newspapers, magazines, radio, and television to promote your business if your budget is good enough.

Advertise Locally and Offline

14. Exhibit at Trade Shows

Trade fairs attract a mass group of buyers and sellers from every particular industry. If you can afford to get a slot in trade shows, go for it. It will showcase you in front of many industry leaders and will also help you get your business promoted to a large number of quality customers.

Exhibit at Trade Shows

Month: January 2022

10 Tips On How To Start Your Local Business

1. Conduct market research

2. Write a business plan

3. Create a budget

4. Pick your Business Location

5. Choose a business structure

6. Choose a name and register your business

7. Apply for licenses and permits

8. Open a business bank account

9. Get your business insured

10. Create an online presence

Why choose LinkedIn?

LinkedIn conversion types

How to do Conversion Rate Optimization in B2B LinkedIn Marketing?

Target the right people

Create professional and creative ads

Test your ad copy

Create landing pages that are informative

Ad content should be posted organically

What is SEO and Why is it important?

Tips to improve the SEO of your website

1. Understand the Google ranking algorithm

2. Know your current search ranking

3. Improve your page loading speed

4. Create your content around a Primary keyword and relevant Secondary keywords

5. Improve site navigation

6. Optimize your website for mobile devices

7. Expand your Backlink portfolio

8. Use effective header tags

9. Optimize images

10. Use clean URLs and Meta descriptions

Why is a social media presence important?

It establishes your company’s brand

It grows your customer base

Helps in new product marketing

Builds customer loyalty

How to build your social media presence?

1. Make sure you use the right platform for you

2. Set your social media goals

3. Be Human

4. Focus on your content

5. Create an editorial schedule

6. Keep it fresh

7. Respond to your followers

8. Keep an eye on algorithms and updates

9. Always be with the trend

10. Use tools to monitor your activity

14 Tips To Promote Your Small Business

1. Create a Website

2. Create a Business Blog

3. Develop Social Media Presence

4. Connect with Your Community

5. Build relations with your vendors

6. Get your business listed

7. Email Marketing

8. Press Releases

9. Influencer Marketing

10. Advertise on YouTube

11. Form Partnerships

12. Sponsor Local Events

13. Advertise Locally and Offline

14. Exhibit at Trade Shows