Yearly Archives: 2021

How to Create a Successful Logo Design – 10 Tips & Tricks

Create a Successful Logo Design

Introduction

A brand without a logo! Well, that’s an impossible idea for brands that want to stand out and remain relevant. The most successful logo design examples show how those small graphical representations can be the face of your brand. In simpler words, a good company logo design will positively impact your existing and prospective customers. Ultimately, you are trying to win their confidence. Aren’t you?

But the question is how to create a successful logo design. Don’t lose your sleep over it. Some simple tricks and tips employed by an efficient designer can help you to get the best logo. So, without much ado, let’s highlight the tips and tricks.

  • 1. Let the Logo Resonate with Your Brand:

What is the purpose of a successful logo design? The purpose is to represent a brand and create its identity. So, while creating a logo using logo design software, make sure that it is an extension of your brand ethos. To explain further, it should be able to demonstrate your area of operations, products, and services within a brief scope.

  • 2. Gather Ideas

We all need the inspiration to create something beautiful and effective. Don’t we? So, it is important to check out the most successful logo design examples, such as Amazon that has an arrow starting from A and ending with Z to denote that this online store is the one-stop destination for all you need. These examples always help us to channelize our thoughts in the right direction before we pick any logo design software for the final creation.

Logo Design 4

Do you want to connect with your audience? Then, be the audience. Identify the words that describe your brand the best. Also, consider what is important to your target demographic. Finally, use a good combination of your brand ethos and audience requirements to create a successful logo design.

  • 4. Choose the Right Color

Choosing the right color is extremely important for effective logo designing. For example, a hospitality industry should have blue in its logo to evoke a sense of trustworthiness. On the other hand, a food and beverage company can easily make its voice heard by using yellow, orange, or red in its company logo design.

  • 5. Pick the Right Font

It’s great to be creative unless you are overdoing things. These days, there are trends for using vintage and retro fonts. However, you can afford to choose a sleeker style if it goes well with your brand. And one more thing! Don’t make it too flowery to understand. The fonts should be easily readable.

  • 6. Use White Space Effectively

Logo Design 5

Too much salt can make any dish bitter and inedible. Similarly, too many elements fighting for their places within a tiny logo can be disastrous. Look at timeless and successful logo design examples, such as Pepsi, to understand how blank spaces make a logo more comprehensible and easily identifiable.

  • 7. Make a Statement

Let the logo be something that your brand stands for. For example, if you want to follow environment-friendly practices or want to stop racism, these points should clearly come through your company logo design.

  • 8. Brainstorming Has No Substitute

There are many logo design software in the market, and they truly work. We are in no mood for questioning their efficacy. However, we do believe that brainstorming has no substitute, as ultimately, logo designing is a creative process. To create ideas based on brand values and audience requirements, designers and marketers really need to do brainstorming.

  • 9. Customize

Your brand is unique, and you cannot afford to let it be something run-of-the-mill. So, to stand tall, you need a customized logo.  A personalized logo will have all the elements of a good design, yet it should be able to strike a unique chord in the hearts of your prospective clients.

  • 10. Consider the Logos of your Competitors

Check out the logos of your competitors to know the elements they are using to attract their client base. Most importantly, try to find out the things they are missing out on in their designs. Capitalize on those for creating a successful logo design.

Conclusion:

Dream logo design is a reputable logo design company that has clientele across various industries. We have a highly skilled team and use the best logo design software to ensure a 100% satisfaction rate. So, choose us and let your brand be the talk of the town.

5 Design Hacks to Make a Small Memorable Business Logo

Memorable Business Logo

Introduction

The logo could be the most important visual connection between a brand and its customers. The logo identifies the company or organization and establishes the basic tone for interactions. A logo is more than just color and shape – it is also more than just words. Business logos can be overwhelming to create, but they are essential for any successful brand and personal identity. What you do and why you do it should be reflected in your logo.

5 Design Hacks to Make a Small Memorable Business Logo

How can a logo make itself memorable in a way that is simply unforgettable and sticks in everyone’s minds? Having this in mind, it is increasingly important to create a memorable logo today. Here are the top 5 design hacks to make a small memorable business logo:

Business Logo Design 3

1. Simple Sells

It’s important to have a logo that is classic, easy to understand, and simple to use. In most cases, they include the name of the company and a mark while creating a custom logo design. Take Apple or Google, or McDonald’s, for example, and check how each uses a simple image that can be identified worldwide. When users see the mark, they think of the company. An iconic logo captures that essence. Simple logos tend to work well for a variety of applications and uses. No matter where the brand is used, you recognize it every time.

2. Consider Who/What You Want to Be

Logos should accurately represent your company or product. What you do should be reflected in your logo. Think about the meanings of colors and shapes when creating the free logo design and how those associations influence users. Consider the logo design ideas in context with your overall industry and ask yourself:

  • Does the logo able to tell what you do or sell in your logo?
  • Is the imagery conveying the right message?
  • Is it capable of standing alone?

3. Use Color Wisely

There are two reasons why color is so important in logo design.

Business Logo Design 2

  • You can use color to draw users into your design and express something about your brand.
  • Whether it is a full-color logo or a single-color logo, a good logo will work well.

If you wish to keep the design of your logo simple, use only three colors for the logo’s color palette. Currently, flat logo design styles are in vogue.

4. Stay Away from Clip Art

Don’t use clip art. Not every logo will have a mark that’s immediately recognizable, like Apple’s apple. An effective logo must convey the company’s identity and what it does. Simply avoid using clipart. You can use Fiverr logo design to create the best logo design. You must make your logo special to make it memorable. The logo must be unique among competitors and stand out from all the rest.

5. Be Literal with Your Logo

Business Logo Design 1

Imagine your company is called Electricity Box Productions. What would happen if electricity is contained within a box? In some cases, things are just simple. You could make your company name in your logo if you think it’s a thing. You shouldn’t be afraid to take the obvious route. After all, Apple’s logo is an apple. In some cases, brands had to protect their trademarks for preventing competitors from infringing upon them because their logo was either not translated into local languages or depicted as something that was not translated.

Conclusion

You won’t be able to create a memorable logo overnight. The process can take time and many revisions. However, you should stick with it. There isn’t a guarantee that you’ll be as lucky as Carolyn Davidson, who created the Nike logo. Using typography, color, and design principles in an effective way can provide success, though.

Identity & Logo Design FAQ

Identity & Logo Design FAQ

Introduction

As a logo designing company, we often face many questions from clients. Therefore, we thought of addressing their pain points and explaining our process by answering some frequently asked questions. These answers will further help you to know why by choosing us, you can be sure about getting a well-designed logo. And a successful logo design will always be helpful in building a brand that is here to stay.

Identity & Logo Design FAQ

Here is a list of FAQs that our clients often ask about identity & logo design.

What kind of services do you provide?

Through 10 years of experience, we create modern and unique brand identities for customers all over the world, maximizing profits and transmitting the right values related to the business through a design process that is comprehensive and effective.

Your Brand

How much it costs to hire us?

Our prices are not predetermined, and we listen to what potential customers’ needs and create a unique proposal based on them. If you want branding identity & logo design explained for your company, please contact us. Please remember that we are not just designing logos, but helping your business grow.

How long will it take to deliver the final logo?

A strong goal-driven approach guides our work, and we will specify a delivery date during the drafting of the offer. We work on other projects as well, so the process takes about 3 weeks. It also depends on your response time at the final stage of delivery and how many changes you feel are necessary.

We’re not in the same city. Can we still work together?

Yes, without a doubt. We are comfortable completing projects on a long-distance basis because 95% of our clients are not local. During the design process, we’ll send all information via emails, and we can talk on the phone or via Skype to share screens. Also, we can share easy color samples, and other details online.

How many and what type of files will be provided?

You will receive as many variations of the logo as you may require once it has been finalized. Upon receipt, we will provide you with a brief explanation of the underlying concept.

logo-design

Preview of design

Here you will find all the variations of the original design, including various sketches of your corporate image, as well as your final logo design. With our new logo, we will determine your type of design, whether it will be a symbol, one with a slogan, black or white, and include a detailed description of the motivations, as well as our choice of logo designs.

CMYK Version

All printed materials comprise four colors; Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black (CMYK). You can print this version on any surface and in any format.

CMYK One Colours Version

It is possible to print a logo in 1 color instead of 4 using the CMYK process. Printing on specific materials and objects can save money by avoiding the cost of printing on paper.

White/Black (Pure) Variants

As the title suggests, we will also be supplying white and black single-color variants. When the logo is on a dark or clear background, these versions are best.

Colours RGB Version

Unlike the format for printing (CMYK), this format is used to display on the screen and the web. Files in PNG and JPG formats, optimized and compressed for the web, will be provided on a default background.

Brand Identity

Favicon

Favicon represents an icon that appears on the Internet as a 16 X 16-pixel icon associated with a browser. Furthermore, we can create apps for both Apple and Android devices according to their specific sizes and resolutions.

Logo Guideline

We create a user guide for each logo design project so you can get the most from it. Details about each format are provided, along with fonts, colors, and sizes.

Conclusion

Growth Marketing is all about defining your brand identity with impact. You will never be able to convey your brand’s true essence and character without a properly designed and maintained brand identity. Further, a good logo design by us will definitely be of great help in this process.

7 Tools You Need for Designing Graphics

7 Tools You Need for Designing Graphics

Introduction

You have come to the right place if you want to add some more essential tools to your graphic design toolbox. Listed below are the best hardware, software, and other tools for graphic designers at every level to make their work easier. No matter what you’re looking for, our recommendations can help you select the best option. It is possible to combine art and technology in surprising ways to create practical, useful, and beautiful things. As the industry evolves, more creative freedom and lucrative career opportunities are created.

Importance of Graphic Designing Tools

The most powerful tool of a graphic designer remains in his very own creative mind. In the case of graphic design, the computer and other software are just indispensable to achieve a quality design. A good graphic designer must know which tools to use and must also be adept at using them. An effective graphic designer can even use Microsoft Word to create a simple graphic design. In addition, the range of software or applications that a graphic design company has in its toolbox demonstrates its ability to come up with highly customized designs that are excellent and truly unique.

Components of an Ideal Graphic Design Toolbox

With the help of a Graphic Design Toolbox, you can easily create flyers, brochures, books, magazines, and more, even if you have less graphic design skills or no design skills. It is designed to assist designers with creating printable layouts & pages. In a basic graphic design toolbox, there should be at least:

  • an image editing software
  • a page layout software
  • a multi-media development software
  • an image development software like Adobe Photoshop

7 Tools You Need for Designing Graphics

When it comes to graphic design, you will find yourself using an array of tools and hardware to remain agile and flexible. For this reason, we have compiled a list of the 7 most important tools you need for designing graphics.

Notebooks

We all have a preference between softcover and hardcover between a small or a large-sized notebook. No matter what you prefer, you need a place where you can doodle, sketch, make notes and write down ideas. A paper of good quality needs to be able to handle the medium you will regularly use, while still being convenient to carry around to school, the coffee shop, or on a bus. Spend some time researching and investing in a quality notebook.

Creative Software

Sketching out ideas and designs in a notebook is an excellent method for coming up with new designs, but graphic designers should also consider software as an essential tool. It does not matter if you are a beginner or a seasoned designer, as having the right digital graphic design tools can make a noticeable impact on your finished product. Many programs, including easy-to-use and advanced ones, provide you a great level of creative control. Adobe Photoshop and Canva are probably on the top of your mind, but there are many others to consider before you choose one.

Large High Definition Monitor

Monitors with large and high-definition screens can seem more like a luxury than a necessity. Nevertheless, the monitor you use can have a significant impact on your work. Most people have no idea how to choose a monitor.  We understand how easy it is to get lost in the jargon. Whatever monitor you buy, pay attention to its resolution regardless of whether it is a 4K monitor. The majority of graphic designers prefer to work with UHD (3848×2160 pixels) or QHD resolution. It’s important to note that size does matter here, so designers typically advise between 27 and 32 inches.

Sketch

Photoshop used to be the ultimate tool for digital design. In a constantly evolving industry, graphic designers have to keep up with the latest technology. Although all of the new software has been promising, Sketch seems to stand out. Sketch is a vector graphics editor that combines a design toolkit with a logo editor to let you create unique logos, animated graphics, and layouts. Using Sketch is a pleasure due to its design and its cool features, which improve the user-accessibility.

External Hard Drive

Anyone who works with a lot of data, or whose work is dependent on many external files, needs a reliable external hard drive. The hard drive is a handy, portable storage device that can be used for large amounts of data. It is even more important to use them for backups, as they can vastly increase your computer’s storage capacity, which is especially valuable if you plan to create large animations, films, or other files on your computer. A graphic designer cannot function without an external hard drive, even though they are not specifically designed for it.

Monitor Calibrator

Monitor calibrators are another piece of graphic design hardware that often goes unmentioned but is so valuable. Regardless of how wonderful your photos or video may appear, you may suffer if you work on a monitor with warped colors. As a result, you can rarely see this kind of warping with your naked eye, and it is frequently difficult to adjust after the fact. You must also use a high-quality camera and lens, and your monitor must be able to display real-world images as well.

iMac Pro

You might think that the iMac Pro would be on the list because it’s one of the most popular graphic design tools. Is it not true? This is so widely used in the creative community that it has become the go-to hardware for design houses and ad agencies everywhere. Purchasing an iMac is well worth the investment whether you work as a freelancer, student, or for an agency. Graphic designers should not overlook this powerful tool, which is easily one of the most expensive all-in-one computer options available.

Conclusion

There are literally thousands of creative possibilities when it comes to graphic design. It is now possible to build a portfolio and a career that was not even possibly imagined 10 years ago. Investing in the right graphic design tools can be a great move in this context. Make sure you think about adding these gadgets to your list if you want to stay up-to-date on the latest technology and boost your creativity.

Motion Graphics: Trends & Hacks

Motion Graphics: Trends & Hacks

Introduction

Animation that creates the appearance of movement or rotation is called motion design or motion graphics. Some of the latest and most effective advertisements on Instagram have utilized designs in motion to a great extent. Motion graphics can include everything from a moving text bubble to an illustration of characters walking through an environment.

Main Objective of Motion Graphics

Motion graphics are great for:

  • Explaining a complex topic
  • Showcasing a new product or feature
  • Building brand awareness
  • Differentiating a company from its competitors
  • Storytelling or self-expression

5 Quick Motion Design Hacks

Motion design is not an easy task. These motion design hacks will help you get great results if you’re short on time. It is a real challenge to create awesome motion design sequences. The good news is that there are several simple things you can do to make the process easy. Here are 5 great motion design hacks that will provide the advantages of creating animated videos.

1. Depth of Field

The human eye and the camera both have a depth of field, so it makes sense that introducing some depth to your designs will enhance their visual appeal. Despite the fact that it can get out of control quickly, depth of field is a great way to quickly add visual interest to your scene.

2. Smooth Movements

You can make your designs more custom by easing your keyframes. The graph editor should be used instead of its built-in ease of interpolation. With the graph editor, you can specify how your keyframes work precisely. Disney animators Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas included smooth motion in their book The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation in 1981, which was a compilation of 12 principles for animators to follow.

3. Excellent Font Choice

It is really challenging to choose the right font for motion design. As opposed to still design, viewers of motion design will only be exposed to a font for a predetermined period of time. Consequently, you need to choose a font that is clear and easy to read yet intriguing enough to capture your audience’s attention.

4. Move the Camera

A still camera creates a static scene. Moving the camera around in 3D space, regardless of how simple it might be, will increase visual interest and provide greater depth to your scene. You just need to create a new design in Adobe After Effects and set the layers to 3D. Besides looking great, it is also fast and easy to do!

5. Pick a Color Palette

Motion design is incredibly dependent on color theory. If you want to pick great color palettes, rather than try to decide what looks good, there are lots of great online resources available. You can navigate through the color palette quickly with keyboard shortcuts and then export them as a PDF when you’re ready!

Some Trending Motion Graphics Animation

An animated visual presentation of your brand or product gives your audience an unforgettable experience. Whatever the video content may be, motion graphics usually take it to a whole new level by enhancing the message and making the video almost unforgettable. Your audience can be engaged in real-time with trending graphics, such as 3D animation techniques. Another benefit of incorporating motion graphics is that videos can generate 1200% more shares than text or images. Check out several animation trends of 2021.

Liquid Motion Graphic

The After-effects software has literally pushed motion animation to new heights, and we will reveal its secrets. There is nothing more creative than liquid motion animations. Moreover, the videos are well-presented, smooth, and colorful, which makes them extremely engaging. Apart from all of the other factors mentioned, the splashy shifts and transformational shapes are only enhancing the experience and bringing the viewer’s attention.

Isometric Design

Most brands commit the same mistake of including too much in just one motion graphic animation. There is a problem with this approach. By using too many images, facts, and figures, the audience feels overwhelmed, and, as a result, the idea of engaging them is compromised.

Bold Typography

The highlights of your business can be showcased by bold typography-based motion graphic videos. Clear and strong messages are delivered in these videos. Additionally, you get to emphasize the core message of your video using bold and large typography.

Virtual Reality

Virtual reality graphic animation is the one type of animation that just about everyone is familiar with. It is possible to give your customers a real-life virtual experience related to your brand, service, or product by taking advantage of this animation trend, which has been growing and evolving continuously over the past few years. Furthermore, virtual reality is highly focused on quality and creativity, so you may convert your viewers immediately.

Thin Lines Motion Graphic

How about creating a graphic animation that connects your brand’s different products and services in your video? Thin lines are a perfect choice if that is the case. A thin line reveals the person behind a brand to your audience. This motion graphics animation has sketchy vector lines that reflect hand-craftsmanship and in a subconscious manner, represent the people behind the brand.

Morphing Animation

Morphing animation is basically a graphical representation of your whole brand like GIF. The logo, images, and culture of your company can be represented with the help of this animation graphic. This animation will help the user to get engaged with your brand in the shortest amount of time. Animated transitions will play a large part in a variety of branding campaigns, as users spend 2.5 seconds on any internet content they access.

Website & Application Motion Graphics

Thanks to the modernization of the digital world, we have many opportunities to engage our audience. The average viewer skips your brand and hops on your competitors if it does not have an aesthetically pleasing website today. The same goes for apps. With motion graphics, you can retain your audience by integrating a video on your homepage or loading screen that is interesting and enticing and that allows them to interact with it.

Conclusion

A motion graphic is an increasingly popular way to communicate design ideas with style and ease. Animations are an effective way to engage and retain readers, plus they provide plenty of creative opportunities for animators. Always encourage new ideas and new approaches by keeping an eye on trends.

LinkedIn Ads Rules 101: A Guide to Creating the LinkedIn Perfect Ad

LinkedIn Ads Rules 101

Introduction

LinkedIn tops the list of popular social media marketing platforms in both the B2B and B2C segments, and it is a great resource for marketers of all sizes. It is also important not to ignore this platform. Although LinkedIn Ads can be quite costly in comparison to Facebook and Instagram, it allows brands to target specific individuals according to their job title, industry, education, and other criteria to reach people from the specific industries they are targeting, & it is worth the investment. Connecting with your target audience is possible If you are able to target the right audience at the right time and send the right message.

What are LinkedIn Ads?

With LinkedIn Ads, you can access LinkedIn social media platforms using various sponsored posts, as well as other marketing strategies. It is a great tool for online advertising, building leads, gaining online recognition, sharing content, and much more for B2B companies. LinkedIn Ads allow companies to promote their presence within the professional market through LinkedIn marketing. LinkedIn is a social networking platform popular with both professionals and businesses, with more than 660 million users in over 220 countries.

How to Create the LinkedIn Perfect Ad?

You can improve the success of your LinkedIn marketing strategy through the LinkedIn Ad Campaign. You will be able to get strong results when you advertise on this platform if you follow these steps.

Create a free LinkedIn Page

You can establish your brand on LinkedIn easily and for free by setting up a LinkedIn Page. A LinkedIn account and a valid email address are all you need to get started. If you want to run Sponsored Content and Sponsored Messaging on LinkedIn, you must have a LinkedIn Page. Additionally, posting high-quality content can improve your results in the bid auction. The LinkedIn relevance score rewards marketers who regularly publish content that generates clicks, likes, comments, and shares.

Determine Your Objective

In the new approach to advertising, you need to choose your advertising objectives first. Your campaign creation will be streamlined and customized based on your campaign objective. In advertising, an objective is what you want customers to do after seeing your advertisement.  From awareness-building to conversion, LinkedIn Ads support full-funnel objectives.

Know about the Different LinkedIn Ad Formats

It is possible to advertise on LinkedIn using a variety of different formats. In order to build a successful LinkedIn Ads campaign, you need to select the right ad format for each goal. The following LinkedIn ad formats can help companies to promote themselves.

Sponsored Content

LinkedIn’s sponsored content ads work like native ads, and ads appear in user’s feeds as promoted content. Similar to Facebook, sponsored content ads appear in user’s feeds as clearly marked promotions. Sponsored content is available on every device. Your ads will receive the most views when you use sponsored content. In order to build out your marketing campaign, sponsored content is where you should begin. You can choose either a carousel, or a video, or an image post for your sponsored content ads. In LinkedIn, long-form content is more popular since users are more inclined to consume it than short-form content.

LinkedIn Message Ads

LinkedIn’s Message Ads are private messages sent to the groups of users you want to target. Advertisements can appear on any placement or platform. The users receive Message Ads directly to their inbox, so the messages are more personalized. By personalizing ads, you increase interaction with them, and a great ad copy will result in a conversion or a click. Users receive a notification for message advertisements that can be useful for improving results.

LinkedIn Text Ads

LinkedIn’s text ads appear on the right side of the main feed and only appear for desktop users. Due to its hiding ability, it can have a negative impact on the performance of ads compared to other formats. Using text ads can enable you to reach a wider audience and boost conversion rates in a targeted and effective campaign.

LinkedIn Dynamic Ads

You can target your audience with dynamic ads on Linkedin that are automatically personalized. Your LinkedIn business page can increase subscribers by using dynamic ads, and your shared organic content on the platform can be viewed more by using dynamic ads. Dynamic ads can also be used to promote products and services like sponsored content posts to drive traffic to a landing page.

Create an Audience

Your next step will be to create an audience that you wish to target through the ad. You can target your potential customers using LinkedIn’s various attributes like employment history, company, profession, skills, and so on. A bunch of LinkedIn audiences is also listed according to their attributes. When you create your campaign for the first time, you can choose from the relevant audiences. Upon selecting your audience, LinkedIn automates the process of creating an audience by adding relevant characteristics such as job titles, group members, education, skills, etc., within the relevant sections.

Set the Campaign Budget

It is very important to set up a campaign budget to ensure that the budget stays within your control and does not exceed the pre-defined budget. There are two options after that: running the campaign continuously from the start date or scheduling the start and end dates. The campaign must be manually stopped if you elect to run it continuously.

Select a Bid Type

In this step, you have to decide how to allocate your ad budget. There are 3 types of bidding available on LinkedIn –

Automated Bid

By turning this on, LinkedIn can set the bid automatically for your campaigns based on history and member information.

Enhanced CPC Bid

Using this option, you’ll be in control of the bid and you’ll only be charged if someone clicks your ad. Your maximum bid amount can be set, and you will not be charged for anything more than that.

Maximum CPM Bid

In this type of bidding, your ads will appear 1000 times on the LinkedIn feed before being charged.

Set Up Conversion Tracking

By adding conversion tracking to your campaign, LinkedIn Ads allow you to track your audience’s actions after clicking or viewing your LinkedIn advertisement. While conversion tracking is an optional step in campaign setup, it can provide you with valuable insight into how visitors visit website following their click on the ad.

Create Ads for the Campaign

In this step, you need to add the ad to the campaign for which you can create an ad or sponsor existing posts on the page. Yes, it is so simple! Creating a new advertisement is as simple as clicking on “Create a new ad” and adding the title, the introduction text, the destination URL, the image, and the header.

Launch Your Ad Campaign

By clicking the “Create” button after completing all the sections, your ad will be live soon. Lastly, click the “Next” button and then “Launch” on the next page to get the campaign live. Your ad is now live, but do not expect it to start delivering immediately. LinkedIn will have to review according to the advertising policies and approve it before your target audience sees your ad. In Campaign Manager, if an ad’s creative status is listed as Ad Not approved or Rejected, it means that the LinkedIn team has reviewed your ad and it does not comply with their Advertising Policy.

Conclusion

Companies can improve their online marketing strategy by utilizing LinkedIn Ads. LinkedIn is a powerful tool in a number of ways for businesses that can fully take advantage of its potential.  You can reach every professional in your industry using LinkedIn ads, regardless of whether you’re looking for B2B leads or to reach out to targeted professionals.

10 Benefits of WordPress Hosting

10 Benefits of WordPress Hosting

Introduction

The WordPress website statistics indicate that 74 million websites and blogs are hosted by the platform. However, people are often confused by what hosting options are available for their WordPress site. Besides its powerful hosting features, it offers reduced loading times and speed along with enhanced search traffic options. It actually helps to create brand awareness and business goals and increase conversions rate, lead generation for your website. Some WordPress hosting providers offer 30-day free trials so that you can experience the service firsthand.

10 Benefits of WordPress Hosting

WordPress hosting offers extra benefits like automatic backups, security, regular updates, and more, which we will discuss in greater detail in the context of this article.

Support from WordPress Experts

While hosting companies often offer support, managed WordPress providers take advantage of a support team that knows WordPress inside and out. They will be able to assist you with optimized landing pages, plugin conflicts, relevant ads, tricky themes, paid search campaigns, and server issues. WordPress experts know exactly what settings a site needs to run at its best. They can offer reputable recommendations for WordPress-related questions as well. Since managed hosting providers specialize in a specific CMS, the people behind them are more knowledgeable in it and can help with a wide variety of WordPress questions.

The Strong WordPress Security Practices

No matter how safe your website is, you should always keep security in mind. Managed WordPress hosts certainly are not foolproof ways to protect your site, but you will benefit from built-in security enhancements. You can easily recover your site if something goes wrong, thanks to most managed hosting providers who offer nightly backups. Managed hosts not only provide backups but also optimize their servers for WordPress security, eliminating the need to worry about security plugins! Furthermore, it supports two-factor authentication, strong password enforcement, and limited login attempts.

Faster Sites and Better Performance

One of the biggest benefits of managed WordPress hosting is that their entire tech stack is built specifically for WordPress. The result of this will likely be better uptime, a faster loading time, and fewer interruptions. Having a managed WordPress host will provide you with major benefits because it knows how to optimize your server based on the themes and plugins you are running. The managed hosting provider will also be able to provide performance enhancements such as CDNs, servers in various countries, or even automatic scale-out technologies.

One-Click Staging Sites & Local Environments

In order to avoid a white screen of death, it is best to only make small changes in a staging environment. Are you wondering what the staging area of WordPress is? It is a development environment where you can safely experiment with changes before they are pushed into production. No matter whether you consider yourself to be a developer or not, it will benefit any website owner. A staging site is usually included in most managed WordPress hosting plans as an add-on. Setting one up and taking changes live only takes a few clicks. So, anybody can maintain a secure production site.

Features that Go Beyond Server Setups

Having fast and secure servers is essential for a high-performing website, but there are a lot of other things a managed WordPress host can do for your business that are equally valuable. You can use these tools to enhance workflows, collaborate with colleagues, and even learn. Managing a hosting company is much more than simply providing servers; it is like working with a partner. It is worth finding a managed WordPress host that supports your ideal workflow if you want to get the most value from them.

Features at a Glance

Features of WordPress host that will help you to:

  • Easily collaborate with your team, clients, or a one-time contributor
  • Develop themes and plugins templates
  • Demonstrate the site before it goes live
  • Transfer hosting bills to clients

It is Easy to Add SSL Certificates

Traditionally, you would have to communicate back and forth between your hosting provider and your certificate provider to install an SSL certificate.  An SSL certificate can be installed in a few clicks with a managed WordPress hosting provider. Hosting companies actually played a major part in making SSL certificate installation and accessibility easy for website owners. Many WordPress-managed hosts are now offering free SSL certificates as it is seen as an online best practice. A managed hosting provider can also assist you in obtaining an advanced SSL certificate.

The Ability to Resell Hosting

Approximately 30% of websites run on WordPress. It means there is a large market for hosting out there, making WordPress one of your best opportunities for reselling. There is no surprise that managed WordPress providers encourage reselling of their products. In many cases, reselling workflows are supported by referral programs, partner programs, and sometimes even add-ons of their own. As a result, managed WordPress hosts often make it easy for you to resell hosting, which improves your capacity to generate new revenue streams.

Easy Site Management

Managed WordPress hosts will allow you to organize all of your sites in one place. There is not any need to jump between providers or struggle with different setups; all your sites will be managed out of one place. You will spend less time spinning up new sites if you simplify your providers, especially if you are adding more clients or expanding your agency. By working with a managed host, you and your clients will enjoy a hassle-free setup.

Quick Access to Development Tools

You can access all the common developer tools right from the WordPress hosting application, no matter whether you are developing a new site or troubleshooting one already in place. While some use cPanel, others offer their own personal dashboard that makes the entire experience more appealing and intuitive. With a managed host, you will also have staging sites and local development environments at your disposal. This allows you to design and develop your site quickly and efficiently for any number of clients or sites you are working on.

Hosting by WordPress Lets You Focus on Your Business

Overall, managed WordPress hosting can be an excellent option for you since they will handle all of this for you – and you can focus on what you actually like to do. It is the purpose of managed providers to simplify the process of hosting WordPress sites so that you can work on developing your craft instead of learning the ins and outs of servers. The additional workflow tools will not only increase your business efficiency but will also help you collaborate better with your client and team members.

Conclusion

Fortunately, managed WordPress hosting offers an easy solution for those who run WordPress sites, especially if they are a business. Actually, nowadays, it can be used as an eMarketing or content marketing strategy. There are a lot of benefits offered by this kind of service, and it will undoubtedly save you time and eliminate the stress of manually setting up servers.

Website Development Trade Secrets and Hacks

Website Development Trade Secrets and Hacks

Website development is a diverse field presenting umpteen opportunities for improvisations. As a web developer grows his or her skills, the design process becomes easier, more organized, and further effective. It’s a dynamic field, constantly evolving, and a web developer ought to stay on top of the game.

Whether you are designing on WordPress, or by plain HTML coding, use design hacks to get the job done faster and more effectively. The tips mentioned below are aimed to optimize a website’s functionality for the best, whether in WP or any other platform.

Don’t use standard templates

Wordpress is open-source platform with a wide range of free templates.  The same is applicable for other platforms such as Wix. While using Wix templates or WP templates, is not necessarily a bad idea, keep in mind that they are often overused.  In the battle to get page views, the last thing you will want is a doppelganger website.

Free templates may contain bugs

As the old adage stands, you get what you pay for. As it is, standard templates may contain bugs. Besides, these drastically reduce the ability to customize themes since you would have to make do with limited features.  

Get custom templates designed

The best way to go about it is to develop custom themes. It will take some time to finalize the design, but it is always worth it. You can always take inspiration from the range of themes available, but at the end of the day, make sure it’s original. You can do it yourself or hire a web designer. Hiring a good service always pays off because you typically get free customer support and theme maintenance whenever required.

Experiment with CTAs

Call-To-Actions are critical in assuring a high conversion rate. While text-only CTAs are but traditional, you can improve upon the appeal by experimenting with this aspect. You guessed it, using button CTAs tend to work better than text-only ones.

Use Creative Wording

Level up your content game by becoming creative with CTAs. Although it would typically consist of only two to three words, it should reflect the visitor’s psychology aptly.

Use Animated CTAs

Using animated CTAs can also help you get the reader’s attention better. Just make sure not to use it when it is irrelevant. The site’s content should be peppy and vibrant to tally really with the appeal of an animated call to action.

A Case for Images

Enhancing the visual experience of design layouts goes a long way in increasing its acceptance among users. There’s a lot of scope for improvement with images. To start with, use high-quality visuals. Dig deep into those stock photos to grab the best images, ones that make strong statements concurrent with the rest of your content. Obviously, you can also hire a talented graphic designer or a photographer to produce unique images. Here are a few other tips on maximizing the potential of images on a website.

Use Alt-Tag for SEO

Alt tags or Alternative texts are brief textual representations that appear when an image fails to load. These have a vital role in retaining user interest. The most important benefit of Alt Tags is that search engine algorithms find them as credible parameters to rank your website.

Display an Error Message

Use a CSS snippet to display an error message if the image fails to load for some reason.

Use Title Tags

Although title tags are invisible to the end-user, they are instrumental in boosting your SEO.

Reduce Image Size

Don’t forget to reduce the image size to ensure that your site loads fast. You can put to use several image compression tools found online.

Use Images to Create Negative Space

Another use of images is to use it to break chunks of text and therefore create scope for negative space on your page.

Try Using Images of Different Shapes

Gone are those days when you needed to use only rectangular images. These days, tools like Bootstrap allow you to use images of different sizes.

Use Image Filters

You can also use the image filter attributes like grayscale or blur in CSS. These allow developers a subtle opportunity to get creative whenever it’s applicable.   

Improve Your Site’s Navigation

A site’s navigation is probably the most obvious aspect of it, but it can get overlooked. Remember that it has a crucial role in helping visitors to find what they need. Having well-organized navigation also helps with your site’s SEO. Here are a few design hacks that you can implement with the navigation of your web page.

Have Fewer Choices

Keep the navigation as uncluttered as you can. This has been shown to have a key role in improving visitor experience and reduce bounce rates.

Place it in the Header

Navigation bars placed in headers are shown to have a better effect than those placed on the side or in the footer. Use the hamburger menu only when you are making a responsive website.

Make Everything Click

Make all elements in the navigation clickable.

Use Simple Words

Use easy-to-understand wording in the navigation.

Use Mega Menus

It is always challenging to design navigation bars for e-commerce websites. Mega menus are ideal because they allow the display of many choices in a two-dimensional dropdown layout. Here are a few other tips while designing the navigation for e-commerce.

Include a Search Bar

Again, while coding the navigation for e-commerce websites, don’t forget to include a prominent search bar right in the header section.

Use the Hover Option

Consider using the hover option to introduce visitors to the sub-categories. This piques their interest and inspires people to look deeper.

Don’t Overload Your Site with Plugins

With so many plugin options on WP, developers are often tempted to go over the top with them. Remember to use your discretion. Use only those plugins that will make a positive difference to your site’s UX.

Conclusion

The key differences between a successful website and an unsuccessful one are that the former is both user-friendly and SEO friendly. Employing the above design hacks should definitely help your website deliver better performance. Besides these, you should also take note of web hosting best practices and always make sure that you are having a responsive website.

11 Benefits of Hashtags

11 Benefits of Hashtags

Introduction

Nowadays, the hashtag is much more than just the pound key on your phone; it has become an indispensable content marketing and eMarketing strategy and social media tool for categorizing posts and making content easily searchable. By using the right hashtags, your business can be more visible on social media and encourage audiences to join in on the conversation. Hashtags gained popularity over microblog sites first and were soon supported by many well-known social networking sites, including Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, Pinterest, and Google+.

11 Benefits of Hashtag

By using hashtags, small and large businesses alike can benefit from the popularity of these social media platforms. A hashtag can be incredibly valuable if it is used strategically. You can use them to expose your content to more people, raise brand awareness, target a specific group of people, boost your search traffic optimization tool, and use trending topics and hot topics to your advantage, among other things. The following list will show 11 benefits of using hashtags.

1. Hashtags are Great for Promoting Your Business

The use of hashtags allows your audience to take part in your conversations. Your social media followers will be able to follow what’s happening in real-time when you establish a hashtag for a promotion or event. To be effective with hashtags, you should use them moderately. In your posts and updates, you will not need to include them all. You should also avoid using long hashtags.

2. Hashtags Encourage Audience Engagement

By using hashtags, you can open up conversations for your audience depending on which social platform you are using. At the time of deciding which hashtags to use, you should keep in mind that hashtags are used differently on each platform. For example, hashtags that are used on Instagram are likely to describe the picture and video content more than anything else. Other social media platforms, such as Twitter, have hashtags that are focused on a certain topic or group of people that you want to engage.

Use Appropriate and Specific Hashtags for Each Platform

If you are using hashtags on different platforms, make sure you use them appropriately. In most cases, you will be given guidelines for picking and using the appropriate social media platform. When you use the most relevant and popular hashtags on each platform for your business and events, you will be able to reach more people. In addition, by using the paid search campaigns, you will target your audience better and improve the conversions rate of your social media account. Target audiences usually result in more engagement.

3. Hashtags Make Searching More Efficient

The use of hashtags can greatly simplify the process of finding relevant posts as well as specific posts. Search results will be constantly updated when hashtags are popular. Social media platforms and search engines make hashtags more visible when you optimize conversations, content, and updates. Using hashtags is an effective way to search for content and people who are speaking about specific topics.

4. Hashtags Make It Easier To Find You

You will be able to conduct more efficient searches with hashtags, as mentioned earlier. When someone searches for you or what you offer, they do the same. Your audience can use hashtags to search and discover what your business offers across multiple platforms. Twitter and Instagram both have hashtag search options. People who are interested in your services, as well as existing customers, can use hashtags to search for information and posts about you.

5. Hashtags Attract More Followers

The use of hashtags on some social networks, such as Instagram, will help you reach more people, and this will almost always lead to more followers. This can be used as a lead generation strategy for your social media account. Your business becomes more visible when you have more followers. The use of hashtags is more helpful on other platforms for representing the topic of a post and helping users to find related content more quickly.

6. Hashtags Help You to Establish Relationships with Followers

Establishing relationships with your followers can be done in a unique way by using hashtags. People love sharing important moments, events, and purchases through hashtags. They can help you make the most of these social media practices. This enables the opportunity for real customer engagement and more exposure for you. Creating relationships with your followers is possible since people enjoy posting, and you want your followers to be engaged.

7. Hashtags are Great for Cross Promotion

As soon as you understand which hashtags are best suited to your business or event, you are likely to use them across multiple platforms. These hashtags are consistently used across different platforms to create multiple conversations. You will gain more exposure and engage more customers with this.

8. Customers Can Easily Give Their Input

Customer feedback will have a tremendous impact on your reputation and business methods. By using social media platforms, you have direct access to the opinions and ideas of your customers. Additionally, they give you an idea of what is hot and trending on the social media platforms that you may have missed otherwise. Hashtags also help you to gather customer feedback and encourage customer engagement, as you can easily find the reaction of the customers about events, promotions, and properties by using hashtags.

9. Hashtags for Photo Content Description

A great photo is the best way of advertisement for selling any product or offering any service. It is important to reach as many people as possible when you post your photography on social media platforms. One of the main business goals of your social media accounts is to gain followers, likes, and appreciation from the viewers. You should use the best hashtags along with relevant ads to describe what you are selling or offering.

10. Hashtags Specify Your Niche

In most cases, buyers have a certain mindset. You can use the best hashtags to promote your properties that suit their requirements, regardless of whether they are looking for luxury homes, ranch-style properties, or vacation homes. For example, you may own an Italian restaurant in Mont-Royal. Using Hashtags like #italianrestaurant, #MontRoyalitalianrestaurant, #MontRoyalrestaurant, etc., you can specify the specific details of your niche, location, and specifics.  Recently, YouTube has launched an optimized landing page for users to discover niche content and videos.

11. Hashtags are a Powerful Marketing Tool

The most important thing is to make sure you know the hashtags that are most relevant to your business and clients in order to use them efficiently. The use of hashtags can help your business reach its full potential when using social media marketing online.

Conclusion

Increasingly, hashtags (#) are being used to facilitate digital interaction, bringing people from all over the world together under one idea. Though hashtags have cemented their popularity in the digital landscape, many people still do not understand what a hashtag is or how it can boost their business.

How to get the most of your ad budgets on social media?

How to get the most of your ad budgets on social media?

Introduction

If you want to reach new, targeted audiences fast, social media advertising is a must. Organic reach is becoming increasingly difficult, whether you like it or not. It may be impossible to go viral without a little boost in the future. Putting real money on the table can be scary, especially when you have an organic social strategy in place. It is therefore important to be aware of all your options. As an expert in social media advertising services, we will discuss how to maximize your spend on social media ads through various types of advertising.

Types of social media ads

Ads for social media are the direct way to reach your target audience. Your social media marketing efforts can be centered on acquiring new customers or retargeting existing ones. Social networking service offers different types of advertising options to all users. But that does not mean you should use them all.

Choose Your Network Wisely

According to the experts in social media marketing services, if you want to know which networks your target audience prefers, you should also know which networks they use. How do you engage, concentrate, and reach your target group? Check out which ads for social media marketing are performing well for your brand organically and providing better pay per click options for driving traffics to your website. Let’s look at how each network advertises.

Facebook ads

Objective

There are three broad types of Facebook ads:

  1. Awareness: Promote brand awareness and increase organic reach.
  2. Consideration: Encourage web traffic, app installations, video views, lead generation, or Facebook Messenger communication.
  3. Conversion: Drive more traffic through your online app, increase sales and leads through your site or app.
Audience considerations

With 2.45 billion monthly active users, Facebook is popular across many demographics. Almost all teenagers use Facebook, and seniors are quickly catching up. For anyone looking to start advertising on social media, Facebook is a great place to start. Users can be directed to your Facebook Page or website by your ads. In addition, you can send them to an Instant Experience customized to their needs. The Facebook mobile app features a full-screen informational or interactive destination page.

Facebook ad types

Facebook offers eight types of ads to help you meet your objectives, and they are:

  1. Photo ads
  2. Videos ad
  3. Stories ad
  4. Carousel ads
  5. Slideshow ads
  6. Collection ads
  7. Messenger ads
  8. Playable ads

Instagram ads

Objective

Instagram is owned by Facebook. Therefore, it is not surprising that Instagram ads share the same three broad goals as Facebook ads:

  1. Awareness
  2. Consideration
  3. Conversion
Audience considerations

Millennials are the most popular users of Instagram. The platform is also popular among Generations Z, and X. Advertising on the platform can be targeted to your ideal audience with custom targeting options just like on Facebook. Defining the behaviors, activities, interests, and demographics of your audiences will help you create lookalike audiences.

Instagram ad types

Instagram ad types are also similar to four of the Facebook ad types:

  1. Photo
  2. Video
  3. Carousel
  4. Collection

Twitter ads

Objective

Three different business objectives are served by Twitter ads:

  1. Awareness: Reach as many people as possible with your advertisement.
  2. Consideration: In this category, you will find ways to increase video views, pre-roll views, app installations, web traffic, engagement, and followers.
  3. Conversion: Encourage users to take action on your app or website.
Audience considerations

In Twitter Ads campaign, approximately two-thirds of addressable audiences are men. Advertisers on Twitter have two options for creating Twitter ads:

  1. Twitter Promote automatically promotes Tweets for you. (Please note that this service is no longer available to new users).
  2. Twitter Ads campaigns allow you to create your own marketing plan based on your objectives.

Snapchat ads

Objective

There are three types of marketing objectives you can achieve with Snapchat ads:

  1. Awareness: Increase brand awareness, promote products and services, and drive traffic to your website and app.
  2. Consideration: Engage your visitors, increase app downloads, video views, and lead generation with your website or app.
  3. Conversions: Increase conversions on your website or sales through your catalog.
Audience considerations

Snapchat has 220 million users younger than 25 years old, making it overwhelmingly popular with youths. The app is used by nearly three-quarters of 18- to 24-year-olds. In contrast, 25% of adults 30- to 49-years-old participate in those activities. Snapchat ads provide you with access to about 60% of the female audience.

Types of Snapchat ads

In order to help you reach your objectives, Snapchat offers six types of ads:

  1. Snap ads
  2. Story ads
  3. Collection ads
  4. Filters
  5. Lenses
  6. Commercials

LinkedIn ads

Objective

You can use LinkedIn ads for three types of marketing objectives:

  1. Awareness: Make your brand or company more well-known.
  2. Consideration: Engage website visitors, increase video views, or drive website traffic.
  3. Conversions: Convert website visitors into leads.
Audience considerations

Compared with the other social media networks in this post, LinkedIn is much more business-oriented. You can target people based on their professional qualifications, such as job title and seniority.

Types of LinkedIn ads

These are the four types of ads you can run on LinkedIn to accomplish your goals:

  1. Sponsored Content
  2. Sponsored InMail
  3. Text Ads
  4. Dynamic Ads

Pinterest ads

Objective

The following six business goals can be achieved by Pinterest ads:

  1. Build brand awareness
  2. Drive traffic to your website
  3. Drive app installs
  4. Drive traffic to specific products
  5. Encourage specific actions on your website
  6. Drive video impressions and increase your video reach
Audience considerations

The number of female users on Pinterest is significantly higher than that of male users.

Types of Pinterest ads

You have a couple of options for promoting your Pinterest ads.

  1. Pinterest Ads Manager
  2. Promote Button

YouTube ads

Objective

Ads on YouTube can help you accomplish the following business objectives:

  1. Collect leads
  2. Drive website traffic
  3. Increase product and improve brand consideration
  4. Build brand awareness and extend your reach
Audience considerations

The majority of YouTube users are male, and the users are well-distributed among age groups up to 65.

Types of YouTube ads

YouTube offers several different types of video ads. As YouTube is owned by Google, you will need a Google Ads account to create YouTube ads.

  1. Skippable in-stream ads
  2. Non-Skippable YouTube ads
  3. Video discovery ads
  4. Bumper Ads
  5. Outstream ads
  6. Masthead ads

Conclusion

Tools like Google Analytics and Hootsuite Impact allow you to measure results across multiple networks at the same time. An excellent way to track social media results and look for great content to promote with social ads is to create a social media report.

How to Create a Social Media Strategy for Your Business in 10 Steps

How to Create a Social Media Strategy

The executive chairman of Amazon.com, Jeff Bezos, has rightly said, ““If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell 6 friends. If you make customers unhappy on the Internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends.”

Bang on! What is a business going to do without a proper social media strategy? As an omnichannel data powerhouse, V12 says that 90% of the customers try to get associated with a brand or want to purchase its products or services through social media. Further, an effective marketing plan, including a powerful content strategy for social media, helps a business to:

  1. Achieve a sense of purpose
  2. Determine your business goal
  3. Define your target audience
  4. Achieve clarity regarding the key targets on a short-term basis

Yes, we know that the planning part is extensive. However, by following an easy step-by-step guide, and setting up some short-term measurable goals, you can propel your business towards success. So, read on as we discuss how to create a social media strategy or the document outlining the social media goals for your business in 10 steps.

1. Have you heard of S.M.A.R.T goals?

So, let’s start with the first step, and that is setting S.M.A.R.T social media goals that agree with the objectives of your business. How else are you going to measure the success/failure of your business and the return on investment?

Why you will use the S.M.A.R.T Goal Framework:

 By S.M.A.R.T goals, we refer to goals that are:

  1. Specific
  2. Measurable
  3. Attainable
  4. Relevant
  5. Time-bound

S.M.A.R.T goals will help you channelize your actions and yield visible business results. For example, many businesses collaborate with influencers and content creators on Instagram as a part of their social media content plan. Thus, they interact with the niche audience and attract the traffic they want.

2. Tracking Value Metrics:

 You can easily find and assess the quantitative metrics, such as the number of followers on social media. However, it is important to get an idea about the real values. These real values include engagement, click-through, and conversion rates. However, it is important to know which metrics are important for which network. For example, In the case of LinkedIn, one should go for click-through. On the other hand, you can use Instagram for brand awareness, and measure the success of a campaign on Facebook through cost-per-click.

3. Know Your Audience:

Do you know who your real audiences are? Unless you know them and have an idea about what they want to see, you will not be able to create an effective content plan for social media. In other words, if you know your audience, you can easily turn them into your customers. By knowing your customers, we mean having an idea about the following.

  1. Age
  2. Location/Geography
  3. Average income
  4. Job
  5. Interests and others

4. Gather Essential Data:

Social media marketing and social media content strategy cannot be based on assumptions. Those should be data-driven. You can use social media analytics and tools to find the relevant information you want. For, it is not wise to guess that users of a particular age group (say 18-35) are using a particular platform frequently. If you are planning to target that particular age group, you should have the data to focus on a definite social media platform.

5. Know who your competitors are and keep track of their social media activities:

It’s time for some competitive analysis. Well, this analysis can be performed using advanced tools to know who your competitors are. Besides, it will help you know where they are winning over you and where they are lagging behind. Further, it will help you explore various opportunities. For example, if your competitor has made its presence felt on Instagram, but absent on Facebook or Twitter, you can easily capitalize those channels to reach out to more consumers.

6. Go for Social Media Audit:

Have you been using social media for quite some time now? It’s time you measure and monitor your strategies/endeavors so far. You can ask yourself the questions, mentioned below.

  1. Which strategy is working, and which one is unable to yield any result?
  2. Are people engaging with you, and who are they?
  3. Which particular network is being used by your target audience?
  4. How is your social media presence doing in comparison to your competitors?

Once you have these required pieces of information, you can plan a further roadmap.

7. Find Inspiration:

We are not denying the fact that your brand is unique, and it needs to STAND OUT. However, it is also important to find inspirations, especially for creating copies for social media. In other words, you can always find ideas from other businesses that are doing great on social media. You can refer to case studies (easily found in Facebook), and the marketing strategies of your favorite brands on social media for your valuable insights.

8. Make a Social Media Content Calendar and Set Your Posting Schedule:

Create a social media calendar, mentioning the type of content and the date you will be posting it on any social medium. You can include all the content plans in your calendar, including blog posts, videos, links, images, and others. Along with your day-to-day posting plans, it should also include the social media campaigns of your business. Remember to space out the posts properly using a calendar to yield the maximum benefit.

9. Use the Right Content Mix:

While creating the social media content strategy, you should create the perfect mix of content you post on social media. There is a popular rule of thirds for creating the right content mix for your business. It says:

  1. 1/3rd of the content should inform and educate by sharing thoughts and ideas from industry experts and leaders
  2. 1/3rd of the content should promote your business
  3. And the remaining 1/3rd should be used for personal interactions.

10. Evaluate and Bring Changes if Needed:

However powerful your social media strategy may be, you cannot undermine the importance of evaluation. Be smart! Track the results and introduce changes in the areas that need improvement.

Conclusion:

In this article, we have discussed how to create a social media strategy for your business in 10 easy steps.  It’s time you explore those and see how you can devise the most effective social media marketing plan. It’s a wrap until we come back with some other cool ideas for making your business a success in social media.

The Top 10 Types of Social Media Content that You Can Create

The Top 10 Types of Social Media Content that You Can Create

Introduction

The success of your social media strategy depends entirely on the quality of the content you post on social media. However, producing high-quality, effective content is challenging for small businesses. This is a competitive, time-consuming process where you should aim to add value to your customer experience.  Content plan for social media usually includes a variety of content types in order to overcome these hurdles. By including different styles in your marketing strategy, you can create a more engaging experience for your audience.

The Top 10 Types of Social Media Content that You Can Create

Here, we have shortlisted the advantages of each style used by social media and content marketers as the content strategy for social media. Besides, we have discussed how to produce them, and the best social media platforms for them.

Written posts, blogs, articles, guides, and more

Advantages

Your company’s expertise and knowledge can be demonstrated in written posts or articles, which can help you to build your credibility.  This can be used as a social media content strategy.

How to produce

You may find it useful to research trending searches when developing this social media content plan. By doing so, you’ll gain insight into the questions people ask, giving you ideas about the articles you must write.

Best platforms

It is ideal for long-form articles, like those that are at least 1,500 words, to use LinkedIn and Facebook. You can post a whole piece, a short snippet, or a link to the piece. Twitter is also a good bet, but it has a limited character count, so you can only post links or quotes, which can still drive traffic to your site.

Electronic books (eBooks)

Advantages

A blog post doesn’t give as much detail as an eBook, so it helps showcase your expertise in your field. Additionally, ebooks are being produced by far fewer firms than blogs, so you don’t have to worry about heavy competition.

How to produce

Ebooks are basically collections of blog posts from the same category, compiled together as chapters. It is important to choose your best content or hire a professional writer who’s experienced with writing eBooks.

Best platforms

LinkedIn users join the site to network with colleagues and learn about their job or other interests, making it a good place to share eBooks. The second-best options are Facebook and Twitter.

Links to external content

Advantages

In the case of a writer not being available for a blog post or if your writer is on vacation, you could link to relevant articles, resources, and websites from other reliable sources. Leaders in your industry can also provide excellent content ideas.

How to produce

You can find similar content on different blogs using the keywords you used on your website. You should read every post and browse the site, too. If you follow this guideline, you will avoid sharing articles on social media accounts from sites that might portray your brand negatively.

Best platforms

Any type of content can be marketed using LinkedIn and Facebook, even just providing the link of the content. In addition to LinkedIn and Facebook, you can also use Twitter.

Images

Advantages

It is much easier for users to consume visual content than long-form blogs and articles. There are many apps that let you edit photos, add filters to them, and more on your smartphone, as the camera on these devices is highly advanced.

How to produce

Images and pictures are among the easiest types of content to create. You only need your smartphone or camera to take the picture.

Best platforms

The best platforms for sharing images are Instagram and Pinterest, both of which work well with images. You can also use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Snapchat as alternative options. You can also improve engagement and click-throughs by adding images to blog posts and creating copies for social media.

Videos

Advantages

Taking videos is easy and convenient, and they are more engaging than photographs. You can create videos that will drive traffic to your website and encourage sales with how-to guides, video tours, and product updates and demonstrations.

How to produce

 Producing video is difficult as well, just as it is with images. Depending on where you fall on that spectrum, you may need specialized skills and equipment.

Best platforms

Although YouTube is the king of video content, Facebook also has good performance in video content. Instagram is the best option for short videos, even above YouTube.

Video Stories

Advantages

There are thousands of stories on Instagram every day, but they last for 24 hours and then disappear. You can also find them on Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat. Keeping your users informed about upcoming events, special offers, or other announcements is a great way to keep them engaged. There are truly endless possibilities!

How to produce

In every app on the social network platform, you have the option of posting images or videos. A business can easily create them since high-quality production is not required.

Best platforms

Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook have popularized this content type and remain to be the most popular.

Live Videos

Advantages

The use of live videos allows audiences that cannot physically attend events to still view them. You can watch live streaming after they end, unlike stories, which are removed after 24 hours.

How to produce

 Live content is readily accessible and convenient to users through social media platforms supporting live content. The preview allows you to see what your audience will see before you go live, so you can be sure everything looks good.

Best platforms

The most popular live streaming social media network is Facebook Live. Other smaller platforms, such as Periscope, may not have as large an audience, but may still be viable.

Infographics

Advantages

Using visuals, infographics illustrate written concepts, explanations, and statistics. When communicating complex ideas, they are especially effective.

How to produce

To create your infographics, you should first create an outline. After completing the outline, your writer and designer can start creating the components and piecing them together.

Best platforms

Both Facebook and LinkedIn are excellent options for infographics while Twitter can be your alternative choice.

Testimonials and reviews

Advantages

Reviews and testimonials are incredibly valuable because people tend to trust other opinions of the customers more than companies own.

How to produce

Get in touch with past clients and ask for a testimonial. The practice of rewarding people for reviews is bad practice, however, since it can lead to dishonesty, and review sites such as Yelp may punish you for it.

Best platforms

Social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn are great places to post reviews and testimonials. On business pages, Facebook even provides star ratings.

Announcements

Advantages

By letting people know what’s new and noteworthy with your business, you can build hype and alert people to new products, projects, events, and live streams. Readers love getting the inside scoop on their favorite stores and brands!

How to produce

If possible, information should be slowly released. An announcement can be viewed as a series of teasers leading up to some big news.

Best platforms

Keeping in mind that each social network has its own best practices, announcements can be made on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, or even through social messaging tools.

Conclusion

To make your brand stand out, save time, and enhance your customer experience, use the features of the social media platforms to weave these content types together. Be creative with your ideas, and don’t be afraid to experiment. Your unique audience will help you determine what types of content to provide. There’s no way to know what works until you try it!

How to choose the right brand colors for your business?

How to choose the right brand colors for your business

Introduction

Colors can convey a lot of information, whether it’s the yellow helmet of a construction worker or a bride’s pristine gown. A color palette plays a crucial role in any business’s branding efforts because of its strength and immediate impact. From the look of your logo to the design of your website, you should choose the right color scheme for your brand. Using the same color consistently across all platforms allows you to create a unified look and feel for your company, making it memorable and recognizable.

What are brand colors?

Brand colors are defined as a group of five to ten colors that represent a certain organization. It is possible to increase brand awareness and recognition by applying brand colors consistently and strategically.  In addition to a company’s logo and website, brand colors are also used in social media channels, business cards, and print and digital advertisements. In brick-and-mortar businesses, the brand colors can also be applied to the design of the store, staff uniforms, product packaging, and more. Now, the question is how to pick the right brand colors for your business.

How to choose your brand colors?

Choosing the perfect brand colors is very much important for your business. This comprehensive guide will cover everything through a step-by-step process to choose the right color for your brand.

Establish your brand identity

Brand identity is reflected in your brand colors. Therefore, your color palette should match your values and the messaging you wish to convey. Identifying your brand identity will be the first step in this process. The best way to do this is to compose a list of adjectives that describe the character of your company just like you would describe a person. You should consider how you would like your brand to be perceived, and what makes it unique.

Explore the meaning of the colors

After identifying your brand personality, it’s time to choose the colors that will bring it to life. To understand the meaning of each color, it is important to look into the principles of color psychology. Combinations of colors also play an important role here, as they contribute to achieving a look that evokes specific feelings through their juxtaposition. For example, the color blue, when it is paired with gold, conjures up notions of royalty and luxury, whereas the same blue paired with pink seems much more playful.

List of Some Popular Brand Colors Used by Some Key Industries

Here, we have compiled a list of popular brand colors used by some key industries that will help you to pick a color palette that is appropriate for your business:

Food:

Colors such as red, orange, and yellow evoke appetite and attract attention for food and restaurant businesses. Some food brands use green to promote connection with nutrition and wellbeing, while others use blue and pink for sweets and desserts.

Health and wellness:

Blue is a popular color choice for health and wellness companies to signify cleanliness, trustworthiness, and responsibility. Other popular choices are green, which represents nature and wholesomeness, and orange, which is associated with vitality and energy.

Fashion and beauty:

Black has become a symbol of sophistication and glamor within the fashion and beauty industries, while warm colors such as red, orange, and pink convey passion, excitement, and confidence.

High-tech:

It is common for tech companies to use blue, a color symbolizing trust, intelligence, and efficiency. Other popular choices are orange, which represents friendship and optimism, and purple, which represents quality and creativity.

Search for inspiration

You should look around for color inspiration before you craft your brand colors. Also, try to understand how your competitors’ palettes work, and what it is that makes them successful. You should consider what you can learn from their color scheme, and how you might differentiate yourself from the competition. Now, the question is how to pick a color palette for your brand? Online color palette generators are also a great source of inspiration where you can find a variety of color pairings and fascinating shades.

Pick your primary color

The primary color of your brand is defined by the color that is mostly associated with your brand. Your primary color should represent your business best based on the meaning of colors. The color you choose can be blended in many different ways, from lush and dark, to soft and pastel, to bright neon, to find the perfect look.

Choose your secondary colors

After you choose your primary color, you can match two to four complementary colors to it. You can either display these colors independently or together next to your primary color.

Different color schemes of secondary color

The secondary colors of a brand can go in several different directions:

Analogous color scheme:

Your primary color is closely related to these colors. As a result, if your primary color is bright red, you can add other warm colors (such as oranges and yellows) to create a balanced color scheme. The appearance of analogous color schemes is usually harmonious and pleasant.

Monochromatic color scheme:

Each one of these is a different shade or tint of your primary color. For example, if your primary color is blue, you can use light blue and dark blue as your secondary colors. It is possible to strengthen and enhance your core color through monochromatic color schemes.

Contrasting color schemes:

Contrasting color schemes can either be complementary shades or a combination of colors with contrasting hues. You can use this color scheme to make your brand colors pop, and it usually conveys a fun, modern feel.

Select neutral colors

At the time of crafting your brand color, it is easy to focus on the main colors and overlook the neutrals. But neutral colors are important because they are responsible for the majority of your communication (such as the color of your written text) and appear in the background of most of your assets. White or black is the traditional neutral color, usually combined with gray shades.

test your brand colors

As soon as you’ve chosen your colors, put them all together and test them in a few different combinations to ensure that they complement one another and convey the message you’re trying to convey. If you want to make your website accessible, you should also make sure that the palettes are clearly legible together. Color contrast can be tested for accessibility through various online resources and browser plugins. The two tools we recommend are the Contrast Checker and the Colour Contrast Analyser.

Conclusion

If you’re starting your own business or launching an exciting new startup, understanding the impact of color on consumer behavior will make your business successful.  Colors evoke feelings as well as emotions, plus they also convey information. This enables customers to form an initial impression without knowing anything about your product. So, pick a palette that aligns with your business.

Creating a Brand Identity? 10 Questions to Consider

Creating a Brand Identity

Introduction

Whether your company is a brand new startup or an established one, creating or redefining your brand identity will be a big challenge. You must consider not only the obvious things like logo design and brand name but also your personality, culture, tone of voice, and your online and offline identities. Nowadays, brand identity is a key component of success. Many companies provide brand identity development services or work as an individual branding consultant or branding consultancy to teach you how to brand your company.

What is a Brand Identity, and Why do I Need One?

The brand identity you have is determined by how your audience perceives you. Your audience might not understand who you are if you do not have a comprehensive, well-defined brand identity. Without understanding who you are, they are unlikely to promote you.

Branding and Brand Identity are Different

There is a difference between brand identity and branding. It is a byproduct of effective branding. Although marketers sometimes mix up brand identity and visual identity, these two are not the same. Branding services provided by the brand designers will help you to stand out from the competition, target the right people, as well as communicate your message effectively.

Components of Brand Identity

The brand identity consists of:

  1. Visual Brand Identity
  2. Brand Voice
  3. Brand Values
  4. Brand Personality
  5. Brand Message

 Ten Questions to Consider

So, how can we get these five things right for brand identity designing services? You should ask yourself these ten questions.

Who is Your Ideal Customer?

A strong buyer persona profile or robust profiles of your ideal customer should be the first place to focus your efforts if your brand has not already done so. Almost every aspect of your brand identity should be shaped by buyer personas.

Point out what types of brands your buyer personas value

Determine what types of brands your buyer personas value. Do they want cost savings or the highest quality? Are they looking for deep relationships with their vendors or convenience? You can develop a relevant identity if you understand the pain points and priorities of the perfect buyer.

2. What Pain Points do You Solve?

Your customers do not search for your company because their lives are perfect. You probably provide a product or service that solves a certain problem. They might be worried about fines related to regulatory requirements since you provide compliance training. Your customers need you because they have a problem or a pain point.

3. What Kind of Personality Do You Have?

Brand personality can be defined as a set of characteristics that are associated with a brand. A brand with a strong, well-defined personality is immediately likable since customers can relate to it on a personal level.

4. What is Your Competition?

Competitive analysis can serve as a valuable starting point for any marketing strategy. The same is true for brand identity. Your competitors can teach you valuable branding lessons depending on your industry and level of competition.

What Will You Learn from Your Competitors?

Your competitors could be textbook examples of poorly defined brand identities. It is possible that their voice is inconsistent across digital mediums, or their logo is not original. Perhaps they have an excellent brand identity, one that is easily memorable, unique, and incredibly appealing. You should consider your competitors’ statuses as creative solutions for creating a brand identity that is objectively superior.

5. How Do You Make Your Clients Feel?

When your most satisfied new customers communicate with your sales team or account management team, what do they say? Your interactions with new, satisfied customers can reveal a wealth of information about how you make them feel. It is crucial to know which emotions your customers associate with your company when building a brand identity. You can use this emotion to select aspects of your visual identity, such as the optimal colors and fonts.

6. What Makes Your Company Different from Others?

What does your brand offer that your competitors cannot? But perhaps more importantly, how can your brand identity convey this?  It is important to keep in mind that simply being different is not sufficient. To create a difference, you need to actively carve a niche and focus on your strengths.

7. Why Do Your Clients Trust You?

By conducting customer interviews or talking to your sales team, you can learn why customers ultimately choose your company. Brand identity can be determined by the factors that lead to prospect trust and customer conversion rate. The unique trust factor of your company could be:

  1. Transparency
  2. Expertise
  3. Flexibility

You can use this trust factor to distinguish your brand from others and to build a memorable brand identity.

8. What is Your Story?

The brand story is one of the most important components of branding. Obviously, this includes both the literal history of your company, like when you were founded, and the role you play in your customers’ lives. Customer experience should make your brand’s story memorable. If you can make them more efficient at their work, their boss is sure to compliment them. They might benefit from your mortgage products if they intend to purchase a first home and begin a family. A story such as this can serve as an important basis for your brand identity and marketing content.

9. What are 5 Words that Describe Your Company?

In order to define your brand’s identity, you may develop a list of five adjectives that you think best to describe the personality, look, and voice of your company. Here are five words that might work:

  1. Quality
  2. Consistency
  3. Values
  4. Customer Service
  5. Commitment

 10. What is Wrong with Your Existing Brand Identity?

Your organization has an identity, regardless of whether or not it has defined one in the past. In some form, you have an identity, regardless of how cohesive or well-defined it is. If you are considering a rebranding or brand definition project for your organization, it is important to consider why you are starting this effort. Are you struggling to create a brand that can compete with your competitors? Do you consider it to be a poor fit for who you are? Has your work culture changed significantly since you hired a new leader or ownership team?

Importance of Brand identity Design Services

You can make significant improvements to your brand by discovering the reason why you need to define it. You can inspire the right change by applying this knowledge. Whether you need a logo design, sales brochure design, product catalog, or corporate presentation, brand identity design services will help you to increase your business reach among your target customers.

Conclusion

There is no “fluffy” exercise that produces little measurable results in defining brand identity. Establishing a strong brand identity is critical to building loyal customers and retaining them, which can be an advantage in the competition. A brand’s identity is essential to success these days since everyone is looking at the brand image.

How to Choose a Domain Name?

How to Choose a Domain Name?

Introduction

Your website’s success is heavily dependent on the choice of the domain name. If you pick the wrong domain name, later it will be difficult to switch them without harming your brand or search ranking. That’s why it’s critical that you choose the best domain name from the beginning of website designing.

A great domain name is important when you are just starting out to create a catchy business name. As an expert in website designing services, we’ll explain how to pick a creative domain name, as well as how to pick the perfect domain name and register your new domain for free.

Tips for Choosing the Best Domain Name

It can be stressful to choose a domain name when you start a blog because you don’t want to make a mistake. In order to help make the process easier, we have created a simple 10-step framework for choosing domains.

1. Stick with .com

There are dozens of new domain name extensions available today, from the original .com, .net and .org to niche extensions like .pizza, .photography, and even .blog. Choosing a domain name with a .com extension is always a good idea. Although new domain extensions may seem appealing, .com is still the most trustworthy and established website’s home address.

Build Credibility

We believe domain extensions such as .ninja, .photography, and other new extensions can lower the credibility of your business. Most people remember dot-com domains. Most users, from novice to tech-savvy, automatically type .com at the end of all domains without thinking about it.

2. Use Keywords in Your Domain Name Search

An important part of a domain is the use of keywords. By including keywords in your domain name, you tell the search engines what your website development is about. Keywords in your domain can assist you in ranking higher in Google if you provide quality content and good user experiences.  It’s hard to find a good domain with your target keywords that are not already taken. You should create your domain by combining keywords with other words to make it unique.

3. Keep Your Domain Name Short

Keywords are important but don’t go overboard with domain length. You should choose a domain name that is short and memorable. Our recommendation is that your domain name contains less than 15 characters. Your users may have difficulty remembering longer domains. In addition, longer domain names can also increase the likelihood of users entering typos, resulting in traffic losses. That’s why you should keep your domain length short.

4. Make Your Domain Name Easy to Pronounce and Spell

You should be able to easily share your domain name with others, whether you’re speaking or writing. You never know when someone will ask for your domain name. You should definitely create a domain name that is easy for anyone to understand and spell if you plan on using it for a business email address.

5. Keep it Unique and Brandable

The name of your blog should be unique so that you can stand out in the minds of your readers. You should find out what domain names other blogs in your niche are using and research them. It is not a good idea to accidentally misuse a trademark name or copy another blogger.

Recommendation

As an expert in website development services, we recommend you to pick a domain name that’s more easily brandable. A brandable domain name is unique, catchy, and memorable. For example, a name like “Amazon.com,” would be much more recognizable than “BuyBooksOnline.”

6. Avoid Hyphens in Domain Name

Hyphens should never be used in website domain names. The use of hyphens can be a sign of spam domains that you don’t want to be associated with. Similarly, hyphenated domains are prone to typos. Because the domain you want is already taken, if you choose a domain name with hyphens, your users are likely to end up at the competitor’s site if they forget to type in the hyphen.

7. Avoid Double Letters

You should avoid registering a domain name with doubled letters because this increases your chances of losing traffic to typos. As an example, a domain name like Presssetup.com is prone to typos and will result in lost traffic.  Your domain should be easier to type and more recognizable if you avoid doubled letters.

8. Leave Room to Expand

Your domain name should be related to your industry/niche because it gives users an idea of what your website is about. Nonetheless, there shouldn’t be too much restriction on your long-term prospects. For example, a florist might choose a domain name like orchidblog.com, but then decide to post blogs about other flowers besides orchids. It is possible that the domain might prevent attracting readers with an interest in other flowers. Changing the domain of your site can be frustrating, and it can also damage your search engine rankings if it isn’t done correctly. Therefore, picking a flexible domain name at the start of a project is crucial.

9. Research Your Domain Name

Do some researches before registering a domain name to ensure that there isn’t a business already using the same name. To find out if the same name or similar one has been trademarked, you need to do a trademark search. Additionally, you can perform a Google search to determine whether the name is available on top social media websites like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc.

It’s Important to Avoid Legal Hazards

There can be severe legal repercussions if your business name is similar or exactly the same as someone else’s, which may cost you a lot of money. When your website is running, you can learn how to trademark your website’s name and logo.

Use Domain Name Generators for Clever Ideas

Many people think all good domain names are already taken.  Domain name generators can help you find the perfect name quickly, and it will easier than manual research. You can use these free tools to discover hundreds of clever domain name ideas based on your defined keywords.

Challenging but Important

At first, deciding what domain name to use for your site may seem challenging. However, you will find that the process is surprisingly approachable if you do a little research and use the right tools.

Conclusion

All over the internet, domain names have a huge impact on click-through rate, from search engine results to social media results, to referring links, to type-in traffic, to brand-ability, and to offline advertising. It’s an undeniable fact that your domain name influences your brand and your marketing efforts. So you cannot ignore this.