Tag: api

content_marketing_strategy

What is Content Marketing & Why Do I Need It?

Posted on | by devops
Expert Tips For What is Content Marketing & Why Do I Need It?

As we move further into the digital age, content marketing is becoming increasingly more important. In order to stay ahead of the competition, you need to have a content marketing strategy plan that’s up-to-date, innovative, and compelling for your customers and prospects, setting you apart from the rest. In this blog post, we’ll explore what content marketing is, the benefits of content marketing, and how to build a content marketing strategy to grow your business.

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant. Consistent content (audio, visual, and/or written) to appeal to and keep a clear target audience, which in turn drives profit and achieves business goals. A successful content strategy should attract your audience at every step, keeping them engaged after their purchase.

Why Do I Need Content Marketing?

A common misconception new business owners may have is that a content marketing strategy is nice to have, but not a necessity early on. Let’s debunk that. Producing high-quality, compelling content can be invaluable in establishing trust with new target audiences and contribute to long-term business success. Content marketing helps businesses prepare and plan for consistent and reliable, cost-effective sources of new leads and website traffic. If you can develop a single blog post that gets a solid amount of traffic, an embedded link or fee tool will continue to generate leads for you over time, long after the post date. This reliable traffic and lead source from your evergreen content can give you the flexibility to try out other marketing tactics to build revenue, like sponsored content, social media ads, and distributed content. Apart from attracting leads, impactful content educates your prospective customers and generates brand awareness.

Why is Content Marketing So Important?

Content marketing opens a conversation with your audience and keeps those conversations fresh, helpful, and engaging over time. Great content marketing leads to engagement and builds relationships and trust amongst your target audience. A recent study states that marketers who prioritize blogging are 13x more likely to see increased ROI than companies that don’t. Content marketing captures 7.8x more organic traffic and generates 3x the leads, and costs less than other digital marketing channels. Lastly, content marketing is a welcoming extension for the user rather than an interruption from their activity.

What Are the Steps to Building a Content Marketing Strategy?

  1. Define your goal: knowing why you want to create content and your aim for developing a content marketing plan is essential to determining what’s best for your strategy.
  2. Conduct research: clearly defining your target audience is the key to developing a successful content marketing strategy. By understanding your target audience, you can produce relevant and impactful content that will keep them engaged and wanting to learn more. 
  3. Run content audit: most brands usually start with blog posts. If you’re looking to expand into different formats, you can run a content audit to evaluate your highest and lowest performing content. Then use that information to determine your next steps. 
  4. Decide on a content management system: some critical parts of content management are content creation, publication, and analytics. You’ll want to invest in a content management system to keep track of your content in a way that’s easy to read and sustainable. 
  5. Determine what type of content works best for your business: you can choose whichever media you think resonates best with your audience, from written blog posts to audio content like podcasts and more. 
  6. Generate ideas for content: it’s brainstorming time! Start coming up with ideas for what you want your content to be about. There are many tools you can use to surface relevant keywords or google SEO analytics to gain the most exposure and generate leads for your brand. 
  7. Publish and manage content: your content marketing strategy should include more than just the type of content you’ll create – it should also include how you’ll organize your content. A content calendar will help you publish a well-balanced and diverse content library for your website and work in conjunction with other marketing channels like social media marketing.

In conclusion, building a content marketing strategy tailored to your business and target audience is the key to establishing trust and an impactful relationship with your customers. Great content marketing is educational and keeps your audience engaged, leading to higher conversion rates and lead generation that, in turn, helps your bottom line. If you’re ready to start developing lucrative and powerful content marketing strategies to accelerate and grow your business, contact Agency Partner Interactive today to schedule a consultation. The experts at API have all the tools and resources needed to create outstanding content that’s helpful for your audience while keeping the conversation fresh and engaging.

nfts_digital_marketing

NFTs and Digital Marketing: What You Need to Know

Posted on | by devops
Expert Tips For NFTs and Digital Marketing: What You Need to Know

As the world of blockchain continues to grow and the metaverse gains more traction, so too does the use of NFTs. These unique digital assets are popping up in a variety of industries, and one area where they are seeing particular success is in digital marketing. This blog post will explore how NFTs are being used in digital marketing strategies and how to promote your NFT. Read on for more!

What is an NFT?

NFTs are non-fungible tokens that are 100% unique. Think of them as certificates of ownership that exist on the blockchain. They’re created when a digital file is minted, such as an image, video, or GIF. This means that these digital assets have a certificate of ownership, and originality is generated by cryptocurrency and sold or granted to a new owner.

What Are the Benefits of NFTs?

Since digital media is easily replicated, it’s often a victim of brand theft. Providing ownership of an NFT transaction in the blockchain is undeniable proof that you own this piece of media and that it cannot be replicated. These digital assets offer a number of advantages that make them perfect for use in digital marketing strategies. For one, NFTs are unique and can’t be duplicated, making them ideal for marketers to create powerful brand identities and engage with customers. Additionally, the location of all data in the blockchain is recorded in a decentralized, public ledger, offering full transparency for customers to see how their data is being used and shared. Sharing data via blockchain is a way for brands to build trust with customers who are afraid of their data being exploited in other transactions and lengthy permission agreements.

NFTs and the Metaverse?

For brands, NFTs can generate brand value and loyalty in several ways, like using them as virtual souvenirs and making them more personally significant to the customer. Digital marketers will start exploring branding opportunities in the metaverse as an exciting new way to engage with customers. This is a chance to rethink virtual experiences and find better ways to do what we’ve been trying to do in the real world, such as building a community among customers, experiencing physical goods in a virtual space, understanding consumer behavior, and enhancing personalized services. When promoting an NFT, It’s important to have a clear marketing strategy. Since there are a million directions brands could go, those that enhance the total experience of the metaverse and know the differences of how traditional marketing in the physical world may not translate into the virtual one will be able to pull ahead. Virtual marketing strategies must be interconnected with physical ones to create the most impact.

How to Promote Your NFT

It’s all about generating value when thinking about how to market your NFT. The best way to do this is by offering something truly unique, such as a one-of-a-kind digital experience or access to exclusive content that can’t be found anywhere else. You can also create an NFT community where customers can connect with one another and share their love for your brand. This is a great way to build brand loyalty and create lasting relationships that turn your customers into life-long clients. As another way to promote an NFT, digital marketers will start exploring the branding opportunities within the metaverse as another way to deliver an engaging, less invasive experience than the current marketing landscape to gain the greatest impact.

Are you ready to jump into the exciting world of NFT marketing? If so, get in touch with our team of digital marketing experts at Agency Partner Interactive today. We’ll personalize our approach to best benefit your unique brand and help you create a powerful NFT marketing strategy that will help you engage with customers and promote your brand like never before. API is the premier digital marketing agency that produces real results. Contact us now, and let’s get started!

social_media_management

10 Signs It’s Time to Finally Hire a Social Media Manager

Posted on | by devops
Expert Tips For 10 Signs It’s Time to Finally Hire a Social Media Manager

If you’re a small business owner, an entrepreneur, or a CEO of a start-up, you might have limitations for human resources and funds. As a result, one person may have to deal with a range of tasks in multiple departments while also implementing creative solutions to fit your budget. Regardless of the size of your business, a critical aspect of running a successful company is establishing a robust online presence. In this blog post, we’ll highlight 10 signs telling you it’s time to hire an expert to take over your social media marketing.

What is a Social Media Manager?

A social media manager manages an organization’s online presence by developing strategies, producing great content, analyzing user data, facilitating customer service, and managing projects and campaigns. They are dedicated to your business’s social media marketing and establishing an online presence that’s focused on the goals of your company. They will ensure you’re getting consistent, authentic exposure on your social media channels while driving traffic, leads, and conversion. If some of the reasons listed below apply to you, it’s time to consider hiring a social media manager.

10 Reasons Why You Should Hire a Social Media Manager You’re Busy

Running an organization isn’t easy! There are countless things that require your attention and it’s hard to dedicate time for anything new. The key to running a successful and sustainable business is task delegation. Having an expert devoted to a crucial part of your workload allows you both to do what you do best while sharing a common goal. By hiring a social media manager, you can shave off a few hours from your schedule each week without breaking the bank.

You Lack the Right Tools

The tools for an effective social media marketing campaign require more than just a smartphone with a camera and some rudimentary editing software. Simply posting content on your social media channel gives you the most basic level of online presence, but if you’re looking to increase your follower base and cultivate engagement and interaction, then you need to kick things up a notch. A great social media manager has tools like social media monitoring software to help you understand the success and performance of your content while surfacing ways to improve. They’ll offer metrics of success so you can keep things fresh and tweak your strategy to be as effective as possible.

Little To No Progress

All marketing campaigns are designed to achieve certain goals. Goals for a brand awareness campaign could be getting 30% more followers and increasing engagement by 5%. It’s the same for social media marketing. If you’re investing resources to creating impactful content, the goal would be to attract more followers and have them engage with your brand on your homepage. It’s pretty easy to see whether you’re hitting these goals and if you aren’t, it’s time to hire a social media manager.

No Updates in Real-Time

If you’re managing your social media campaign on your own, using a tool that lets you schedule posts a week or more in advance could save you time. However, this method isn’t as sustainable. A successful channel needs real-time posts and direct engagement with followers. Posting in real-time shows your followers that your brand is relatable, relevant, and open to communication.

Other Revenue Sources Are Being Neglected

Focusing on social media management on top of all of your other responsibilities takes away from effectively running your business. You could miss out on new sources of revenue and if you’re just starting out on social media, it can be challenging to tackle it on your own.

You Aren’t Sure Which Social Media Channel Works Best for You

Facebook, Twitter, Tik Tok, Instagram, and LinkedIn are indeed major platforms for social media marketing, but they’re not the only ones that matter. The list of emerging social media channels that can be useful for small businesses grows and changes with each year. If you’re just starting out, you can run the risk of spreading your resources too thin by targeting several channels. It’s more cost-effective to focus on a few key channels, but knowing which ones work best for your business can be difficult. If you lack the experience or time to assess social media channels and decide which would be the most relevant and impactful for your business, you should consider hiring a social media manager.

You’re Looking to Keep Up with Trends

As seen with Tik Tok’s immense success happening overnight, staying up to date with trends both content and platform-wise keeps your brand relevant to your target audience. If you lack the expertise or time to implement social media marketing strategies in real-time you could miss valuable opportunities.

You Aren’t Able to Commit to Consistency for Each Channel

How often you should post on social media depends on the channel. For Twitter, it’s recommended that you tweet about three times a day, while on Instagram, brands usually post once or twice a day. Frequency is something to keep in mind, but more than anything else, successful social media marketing requires consistency. If you post several times a day, then transition to a few times per week, you will start to lose followers and generate lower engagement per post. To achieve consistency, you must have a clear plan and allocate time to put it into action.

Low Engagement

Communication is one of the main reasons why consumers love interacting with their favorite brands on social media. They’re able to chat, DM, or comment with brand ambassadors to ask questions or learn more about the company’s culture. If you’re busy managing other tasks and don’t have the time to reply to messages, you could be losing customers. You need someone who can be present and engaging to keep the conversation going.

You Want to Create a Community Around Your Brand

A robust community gives modern brands an edge that can’t be replicated. Anyone can repost content from a competitor, and guarantee expedited shipping, or drop-ship products, but true social media fandom is unique. Creating a community doesn’t happen by just posting on your social media channel, it’s about engagement, social awareness, and having an open dialogue with your customers. Building a community takes dedication and you need an expert to cultivate it.

Conclusion

Although a new investment can be daunting at first, hiring a dedicated professional to manage your social media marketing and create effective and engaging content will save you time and money, while growing your business exponentially in the long term. If you’re ready to reach global audiences, create lasting relationships with your customers, and develop a loyal fan base, start a conversation with the experts at Agency Partner Interactive today! API offers an array of affordable marketing services, and we’ll customize your social media marketing strategy to accelerate the growth of your business and deliver actual results.

crm_system

Why Your CRM System is Costing You Time and Money

Posted on | by devops
Expert Tips For Why Your CRM System is Costing You Time and Money

A CRM system is a vital part of any small business. It helps you keep track of your customers and their interactions with your company. However, CRMs are complex tools and can be expensive to maintain. If you’re not sure exactly how much you’re spending on CRM maintenance and how cost-effective your system is, we’ll break down some of the fees associated with CRM software and how to choose a CRM system that works best for your company.

What is a CRM System?

CRM is short for customer relationship management. It’s a software system that helps business owners easily track all communications and build relationships with their leads and customers. CRMs replace a multitude of spreadsheets, databases, and apps that most businesses patch together to track customer data and they connect your sales leads with your customers all in one place. They also consolidate all communications (forms, calls, emails, text messages, and meetings). With so many benefits, you may be asking: why shouldn’t I implement a CRM system? The answer: you should, but there are several things to know to streamline your CRM implementation so that it’s doing the most work for you and that you’re not paying for extra features that go unused.

Common Faults of Your CRM system

Most CRMs are set up with reporting, contacts, accounts, opportunities, and leads all under one dashboard. This is too complex and makes it hard to efficiently view and track the information you and your employees need to know. Complexity also means more money. A simple CRM system is much more versatile, and versatility is one of the biggest assets a small team can have.

How Much Does a CRM Cost?

If you’ve ever asked, “how much is this CRM going to cost me?” you probably have never gotten a straightforward answer. This is because they almost never cost face value. The true cost of a CRM implementation is difficult to understand when the process begins. CRM system pricing varies depending on the features and complexity you need, and many CRM platforms charge per user. Enterprise CRMs can cost up to $160 per month. More affordable CRMs can cost $12 per month per user, while still having hidden implementation fees. Although there isn’t a set amount for the total implementation and maintenance of your CRM, we’ll outline some of the transparent fees you’ll be paying at the beginning to give you a more accurate estimate.

Transparent Costs

Subscription costs: the price you pay to have system access. There are a few types of CRM subscriptions, and you will have to decide between cloud CRM and on-premise CRM. Cloud CRM systems are replacing on-premise CRMs because they take less upfront investment and offer more subscription options. If you’re managing sensitive data or need total control over the system, on-premise CRMs might be a better option for you.

Service level costs: your service level cost is determined by 3 factors: plan level (service package you buy from the vendor), volume (number of records, contacts, or data points you can store for a specific price), and add-ons (premium features, integrations, or capabilities you can add).

Cost per user: CRM plans or service levels may only allow for a set number of users per month while other vendors will let you add individual users for a set amount more each month.

Implementation fees: once you’ve decided on your vendor and plan level, it’s time for your CRM roll-out! Vendors offer setup and implementation services and these range in costs depending on the scope of the implementation. This could include building customized dashboards, template creation, consulting services, data migration, contact import, and workflow export/import, to name a few. Doing all of this could cost you a lot of money. Vendors usually don’t tell you how much each of these services costs, making this stage a bit of a grey area. Some range from $1,200 to $5,000, while others come with no fees for services like implementation and migration.

Transparent time: discovery, selection, data preparation, implementation, and training. These time investments correspond to the five stages of the CRM implementation process.

What Do You Need Out of Your CRM System?

Take some time to evaluate exactly what you need your CRM system to do and which features would be most beneficial for your business. The five aspects of CRM discovery are:

List of feature requirements: make a list of what you need to have, what would be nice to have, and what you need each feature to do.

Business requirements: what are some of your problems? Which process feels unorganized and chaotic? Who needs to communicate and what information is being lost?

Non-functional requirements: how fast are you growing? What would a system outage mean for your current system? How sensitive is your customer data?

Functional requirements: what specific things do you need for your business process? What are the use cases? What does your sales and onboarding process look like? Think about these questions from the viewpoint of each team who will be using this tool.

System design: what will different teams need from different dashboards? What information will be shown on each dashboard? How will users interact with it?

The most important part of choosing a CRM system is to ask how much each feature, implementation step, monthly subscription, and cost per user is going to be. If you don’t ask these critical questions, vendors usually won’t tell you. Empower your decision by knowing as much as you can about how much you’ll be spending initially and each month so you can avoid incurring unnecessary costs as much as possible.

Where to Begin?

With so many things to consider, you may need an expert to guide you through what your business needs out of a CRM system and how it should be structured. To speak with a professional, contact Agency Partner Interactive and schedule a consultation today. Our team is dedicated to accelerating the growth of small businesses and we’ll help set you up for success and streamline and manage your CRM system processes so that you can get the most of out your investment.

facebook_marketing

Is Facebook Marketing Still Relevant in 2022?

Posted on | by devops
Expert Tips For Is Facebook Marketing Still Relevant in 2022?

There’s no doubt that Facebook has been one of the most important marketing channels over the last decade. But with changes to the algorithm and increasing competition from other social media networks, is Facebook still as relevant in 2022 as it was in 2012? In this blog post, we’ll discuss whether Facebook is still a valuable marketing tool, its competitors with respect to marketing viability, and how these platforms can help you reach your target audience.

What Happened to Facebook?

In the era of its conception, Facebook was THE social media channel for advertising. With the acquisition of mainstream platforms like Instagram and WhatsApp, it was almost impossible to find someone who wasn’t a part of the Facebook ecosystem. Then came the onslaught of scandal after scandal, privacy leaks, and government intervention. This along with site updates that made it harder for businesses to connect with consumers created a massive shockwave of negative exposure for Facebook and continues to degrade the company’s reputation and popularity. Despite the negative publicity and uprising of contemporary competitors, Facebook remains in some ways a great marketing platform for businesses to reach a specific target audience. Below, we’ll outline some of the pros and cons of Facebook marketing so you can determine whether it’s worth your investment.

What Are the Pros of Facebook Business Marketing?

  • Demographic: Facebook is still wildly popular for users over the age of 30. There hasn’t been a significant decrease in users of this age group after the waves of bad publicity and Facebook still generates roughly 2.9 billion users daily. If your target audience is over the age of 30, Facebook ads for marketing are still extremely relevant.

 

  • Flexible and Cost-Effective: Facebook has a robust online advertising tool integrated into the platform itself. You can tailor your ads by demographic and interest more so than on other social media outlets. Facebook marketing also offers more freedom in terms of budget constraints. You can run an ad campaign with a low budget and still expect to see results from it. There is also more flexibility to adjust and redefine your ads to generate optimal returns by exposing them to the exact target audience that will most likely take action.

What Are the Cons of Facebook Business Marketing?

  • Demographic: If your target audience falls below the 30+ age group, Facebook marketing is no longer relevant for your ad campaigns. It wouldn’t be worth investing in Facebook business marketing since this user demographic has been significantly declining in recent years. Marketing on other platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Twitch will give you more exposure and be the most relevant platform for marketing your business.

 

  • Exposure: In 2022, it’s extremely difficult for non-paid content to gain exposure. This is mostly because of algorithm restructuring and frequent platform updates. The result is that business marketing pages have an exceedingly hard time showing up on users’ feeds, even if they are following you and are actively engaging with your posts. This puts pressure on businesses looking to grow reach and engagement to use boosted posts. Boosted posts are paid tools to increase the likelihood that your posts are showing up on users’ feeds. Even if you’re regularly posting compelling content with high user engagement, you’ll have to spend money on the backend just so that they’ll reach your target audience.

Conclusion

There isn’t a straightforward answer to the question: is Facebook marketing still relevant in 2022? When developing your marketing strategy, it’s important to clearly define your target audience/demographic, know what type of content you want to create, and keep in mind your ad spend budget. This is the key to generating brand exposure and engaging with your audience in the most impactful and relevant way. For more information on how Facebook marketing or other forms of social media marketing would work best for your business, contact Agency Partner Interactive and schedule a consultation. Our expert social media marketing team will help you develop a powerful marketing strategy to expand your reach and engage with your target audience to help accelerate your business growth.

amazon_ads_optimization

10 Tips for Amazon Ads Optimization: How to Get the Most Out of Your PPC Campaigns

Posted on | by devops
Expert Tips For 10 Tips for Amazon Ads Optimization: How to Get the Most Out of Your PPC Campaigns

If you’re running Amazon ads, it’s important to make sure you’re doing everything possible to optimize your PPC campaigns and get the most out of your ad spend. Today, we’ll outline 10 ad optimization techniques to organize and scale your Amazon ad campaigns to help you achieve real results. With these Amazon PPC tips, you’ll be able to improve your click-through rate, conversion rate, and overall ROI from your Amazon ads campaigns. Let’s get started! 

  1. Campaign Structure

Your PPC campaigns serve as a general outline for all of your ad activities. A campaign structure provides a set of traits following patterns like the product category, brand, and top sellers. However you decide to organize your campaigns, the most critical thing is to be consistent. If you create one campaign by product and another by brand, you could have the same products appearing in multiple campaigns, meaning that they might be in competition. 

  1. Identify Relevant Keywords

If you’re just starting out as a seller or launching a new product, it’s important to start your PPC journey with long-tail keywords. After you’ve mastered these keywords, you can go after the most-searched, generic keywords. If you target highly searched keywords from the beginning, you’ll run into tough competition from established sellers and will likely spend a lot of money without getting exposure for your brands, along with traffic and conversion. It’s recommended to run an Amazon automatic campaign and a manual campaign simultaneously with the same products. Allow the automatic campaign to run for a couple of weeks, then examine which search terms generate the most sales. Next, transfer these search terms into your manual campaigns. This is how to make the most out of Amazon’s capabilities while building up your own campaign to improve PPC optimization. 

  1. Rank Optimization

The larger your selection of products, the larger your number of keywords with different levels of specificity should be. For example, if you’re selling a variety of shoes, the keyword “shoe” is relevant for all of them. For some shoes, the keyword “women’s shoes” is relevant. For some women’s shoes the keyword “women’s sneakers” is relevant. If the keyword “women’s shoes” were to be placed in all ad groups for women’s sneakers, heels, or boots, you could easily lose track of which ads are shown for which keyword bids. The concept here is to have three different sets of ad campaigns with mids and budgets varying significantly across each of these sets. The bids and budget assigned to a keyword depend on the search rank of the listing in Amazon’s search results for that query.  

Ad group 1: “women’s shoes” for general keywords of that product category (“shoes for women,” women’s shoes,” and top sellers. 

Ad group 2: “women’s sneakers” for specific keywords “sneakers for women,” “women’s trainers,” “women’s tennis shoes,” and corresponding products. 

Ad group 3: “women’s boots” for specific keywords, “women’s boots”, “hiking boots for women,” and corresponding products. 

  1. Group Variations Together

If you have multiple variations of the same product, grouping them together is a great way to create more brand awareness and visibility. Running an ad campaign for multiple different products may not be the most cost-effective and they might end up competing among themselves for ads. This is considered product cannibalization and you should avoid it at all costs when it comes to PPC campaign optimization. A technique to prevent this problem is to group individual variations into one single package, then sell it on Amazon under a unique Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN). 

  1. Optimize Listings

Amazon likes to be sure that the ads being shown are relevant to the consumer. This is why ads can only be shown for keywords that are also contained in product listings and text like title, description, search terms, etc. Check to make sure you’re not utilizing keywords that make no impression in the text of your product listing. 

  1. Get Rid of Unwanted Search Queries

Amazon ads don’t always show the exact search terms you’ve bid on as a seller. Search queries can depend on the keywords you’ve entered according to match type. There are two techniques that can prevent you from incurring unnecessary costs: set keyword match types and set negative keywords. 

  1. Track PPC Ad Spend Based on Performance

Usually, there are many different products in one ad group sharing the same keyword. As you run your campaigns, it will be clearer over time which products sell best within the given ad group. Your goal for Amazon PPC optimization should be targeting the max number of sales with that ad group by removing products with poor performance from that ad group. This will help you concentrate impressions and clicks on those products which effectively converts clicks into purchases. It also avoids spending more money on products with low conversion rates and optimizes your ad spend. 

  1. Define Target Ad Cost of Sales 

Your Target Ad Cost of Sales (ACoS) is calculated as ad spend divided by ad sales. It should at least have a rough outline and can differ depending on the purpose of your campaign. If you’re chasing profit, then your target figure will be based on your profit margin. Target figures for ACoS are generally between 5% to 15%. 

  1. Track and Optimize Bids

The best target bid depends on the keyword. This is why every bid can be controlled separately for every keyword in manual campaigns. Know that a good amount of data is needed as a base for evaluating bids. A few general principles for bid optimization are:  

  • If the ACoS for a keyword is above the target value, you should lower the bid to test whether ad spend and sales can be brought to a cost-effective ratio 
  • If the ACoS is below the target value, test the ad’s reach and sales can be expanded by raising the bid price. 
  • If keywords aren’t generating any sales or impressions, test whether a higher bid price can make revitalize them. Higher bids can result in higher placement, leading to more clicks and impressions. 
  1. Bid on New Keywords at Higher Prices

If you’re adding a new keyword, you should set a higher initial bid price, usually at least 0.75$ depending on the category. In order to get a new keyword started and have it generate some clicks and impressions, a higher bid price must be attributed to it. As soon as some click history builds up, the bid price of this keyword can often be lowered to successfully find an optimal price for the bid.

If you’re ready to revamp your Amazon ads optimization strategy, let Agency Partner Interactive do the heavy lifting. API is growth-focused, helping over 500 businesses dominate their markets and achieve real results they can count on. Our expert team specializes in PPC campaign optimization and we’ll make sure you’re getting the most out of your ad spend. Ready to get started? Contact us today!

clutch_reviews

Agency Partner Interactive is Making Waves in Digital Marketing in Dallas/Fort Worth

Posted on | by devops
API Making Waves in Digital Marketing

For over ten years, Agency Partner Interactive has been at the forefront of leveraging technology to drive revenue for businesses. We give ourselves the goal of changing all our clients for the better.

But we need to prove that, which is why we created our Clutch profile to begin gathering reviews from our clients and partners. After two years of letting the results come in organically, we are happy to say that we are getting an overall positive reception from our clients and partners.

We have so far collected thirty-nine reviews. Our average score through all of them has been five stars. This is an excerpt from the latest one that was published recently.

clutch_review 

We appreciate these reviews and the effects they’re causing for two important reasons. First, they inform the market of the services we offer and the quality they can expect if they choose us as their project partner. Second, they inform our team of our strengths and the areas that require adjustments to further improve our processes.

These kinds of reviews and feedback operate as good barometers for the quality and temperament of any vendor. They come from unbiased sources that have direct experience with how the service provider operates. But that’s not all they have to offer.

This website has areas that showcase leading firms from every industry on their directory based on the scores they get from reviews. It acts much like a top scoreboard except for companies, and the criteria is customer service.

We are happy to say that Agency Partner Interactive is in the top five best digital marketing agencies in Fort Worth according to that list. It quickly communicates that not only are we providing the best services in our field. But that we are causing real positive change to our clients.

This improvement is important because we want our potential clients to know we are a top digital marketing and web design/development agency. Using agencies is a cost-effective way to gain an edge for your business.

We endeavor to spread awareness on the viability of this business strategy because the benefits are too substantial to ignore. Explore our website to learn more about the services we offer and what we can do to improve your operations. Contact us today and get an expert opinion on how we can grow together.

digital_marketing_tools

Top Tools to Help You Dominate Digital Marketing

Posted on | by devops
Expert Tips For Top Tools to Help You Dominate Digital Marketing

If you’re looking to dominate digital marketing, you need the right tools. With so many different platforms and channels to consider, it can be difficult to know where to start. That’s where we come in! In this blog post, we will share 21 of our favorite tools for digital marketing. Whether you’re looking for a tool to help with SEO, social media, or paid advertising, we’ve got you covered. So what are you waiting for? Check out our list and get started today! 

What is Digital Marketing? 

Digital marketing is the process of using technology to promote your products or services. This can be done through a variety of channels, including search engines, social media, email, and paid advertising. With so many different options available, it’s important to choose the right channels for your business. 

What are the Best SEO Tools 

Now that you know what digital marketing is and why it’s important. Let’s talk about the best SEO tools that you can use! 

SEMRush  

SEMRush is a powerful tool that can help you with keyword research, website audits, and more. SEMRush can help you find what your competitors are doing, including advertising! Take a look at your backlinks and find new ways to get to your target audience. 

AHREFS 

AHREFS is great for competitor analysis and link building. View your current SERP (Search Engine Results Page) and find new opportunities to improve your website ranking. 

Moz 

Moz is a well-known tool that offers a variety of features to help with digital marketing. Use Moz to track your keywords, create custom reports, and more. 

SpyFu 

SpyFu is another great tool for competitor analysis. See what keywords your competitors are targeting and find new opportunities to improve your website ranking. 

Google Analytics 

Google Analytics is a free tool that can help you track your website traffic. This is important because it allows you to see what’s working and what’s not. 

What are the Best Email Marketing Tools? 

Email marketing is a great way to stay in touch with your customers and promote your products or services. But what are the best email marketing tools? 

MailChimp 

MailChimp is a popular tool that allows you to create beautiful email newsletters. You can also use MailChimp to automate your emails, making it easier to get the right message out at the right time. 

Active Campaign 

Active Campaign is a powerful email marketing tool that can help you automate your email marketing. You can also use Active Campaign to create custom reports, segment your list, and more. 

CampaignMonitor 

CampaignMonitor is an email marketing tool that’s great for bloggers and online businesses. CampaignMonitor makes it easy to create beautiful emails without knowing how to code. 

What are the Best Social Media Tools? 

Social media is a great way to connect with your customers and promote your products or services. But what are the best social media tools? 

Hootsuite

Hootsuite is a popular tool that allows you to manage all of your social media in one place. You can also use Hootsuite to schedule your posts, track who’s engaging, and monitor what people are saying about your business – even if they don’t tag you!

Buffer

Buffer is another great tool for managing your social media. With Buffer, you can schedule your posts, track your analytics, and more.

Sprout Social

Sprout Social is a powerful tool that allows you to manage all of your social media in one place. You can also use Sprout to create custom reports, monitor what people are saying, and more.

What are the Best Advertising Tools?

Advertising is a great way to reach your target audience and promote your products or services. But what are the best advertising tools?

Google Ads

Google Ads is a popular tool that allows you to create and manage your Google Ad campaigns. You can also use Google Ads to track your campaign performance.

StackAdapt

StackAdapt is a great tool if you’re looking to get into programmatic advertising. Unlike other DSPs, StackAdapt has a low starting cost and offers great audience segments.

Bing Ads

Bing Ads is another great tool for creating and managing your online advertising. You can also use Bing Ads to track your campaign performance and find new opportunities to reach your target audience.

What are the Best Analytics Tools?

Analytics are important because they allow you to see what’s working and what’s not. But what are the best analytics tools to use?

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a free tool that can help you track your website traffic. This is important because it allows you to see what’s working and what’s not.

KISSmetrics

KISSmetrics is a powerful tool that allows you to track your website visitors. You can also use KISSmetrics to create custom reports, segment your list, and more.

Mixpanel

Mixpanel is another great tool for tracking your website traffic. You can also use Mixpanel to create custom reports, segment your list, and more.

How Can I Get Started with Digital Marketing?

If you’re looking to get started with Digital Marketing, the tools above are a great place to start! Our marketing experts at Agency Partner Interactive can help get you set up with a great plan built just for you!

In_Demand_Digital_Skills

2022’s Most In-Demand Digital Skills: What You Need to Know

Posted on | by devops

As we move further into the 21st century, the world of digital marketing is only going to become more and more important. If you want to stay ahead of the curve, it’s important to stay up-to-date on the latest digital skills. In this blog post, we will take a look at some of the most in-demand digital skills for 2022. Whether you’re a business owner or an employee, these skills will help you thrive in the years to come!

What are digital skills?

Digital skills are the abilities and knowledge needed to succeed in the digital world. This includes everything from social media marketing to web design to data analysis. As the world becomes more and more digital, these skills are becoming more and more important.

As business owners and employees, it’s important that we keep our digital skills up-to-date. So we stay ahead of the curve in competitive markets.

Why are digital skills important?

Digital skills are important because they can help you succeed in any number of industries. Whether you’re looking to start your own business or get ahead in your current career, digital skills will give you the tools you need to succeed.

Are All Digital Skills Coding?

No! You don’t need to be able to code to have digital skills. While coding is a valuable skill in the digital world, it’s only one aspect of many. There are plenty of other digital skills that don’t involve codings, such as social media marketing, web design, and data analysis.

What are the most in-demand digital skills for 2022?

In 2022 the digital realm has expanded beyond what we could have ever imagined. With technology changing and advancing at breakneck speeds, it can be hard to keep up with the latest trends. Luckily, we’ve compiled a list of the most in-demand digital skills for 2022 so you can stay ahead of the curve.

Digital Marketing Skills

Digital marketing is the process of using digital channels to promote or market products and services. This can include everything from social media marketing to email marketing to search engine optimization (SEO). As the world becomes more and more digitized, businesses are realizing the importance of a strong digital marketing strategy.

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is one of the most in-demand skills of 2022. As the world becomes more and more connected, businesses are looking for ways to reach their target audiences through social media. If you’re interested in a career in digital marketing, social media marketing is a great place to start.

Email Marketing

Email marketing continues to be strong in the world of digital marketing. In 2022, businesses will be looking for ways to connect with their customers and clients through email. If you’re interested in a career in digital marketing, email marketing is a great place to start.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is the process of optimizing a website for Google search. In other words, it’s the process of making a website more visible in Google search results. In 2022, businesses will be looking for ways to improve their SEO in order to reach more customers and clients. If you’re interested in a career in digital marketing, SEO is a great place to start.

Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC)

PPC is a type of digital marketing where businesses pay to have their ads displayed in Google search results. In 2022, businesses will be looking for ways to improve their PPC campaigns in order to reach more customers and clients. If you’re interested in a career in digital marketing, PPC is a great place to start.

Web Design

Another in-demand skill for 2022 is web design. As businesses move more of their operations online, they need websites that are user-friendly and visually appealing. If you have a knack for design, web design is a great career to consider.

Data Analysis

Data analysis is another skill set that will be in high demand in 2022. As businesses collect more and more data, they need people who can help them make sense of it all. If you’re detail-oriented and good with numbers, data analysis could be the perfect career for you.

Software and Technical Skills

While some software skills may seem basic, they will become increasingly important in the next few years.

WordPress

WordPress is a content management system that helps you create and manage a website. While it’s not as popular as it once was, WordPress is still a valuable skill to have. Many websites are built on the WordPress platform, and even having a basic understanding of how it works is very valuable.

Microsoft Office

Microsoft Office has been a staple of the business industries for decades now. With no sign of going away anytime soon, Microsoft Office is a great digital skill to have in your playbook.

Google Suite

Google Suite, or GSuite, is an important part of daily business for many companies. Being able to work within digital workspaces and docs, as Google offers, is an important digital skill.

Adobe Suite

Adobe has built some of the most powerful image and video editing software that exists. Being able to work and utilize their software, including Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, etc, is a great way to step up your digital skills!

Project Management

As businesses take on more projects, they’ll need people who can help manage them. If you’re good at keeping track of deadlines and details, project management is a great digital skill to have.

Marketing Automation

As businesses automate more of their marketing processes, they’ll need people who know how to use the software. Marketing automation is a complex but important digital skill that will be in high demand in 2022.

These are just a few of the most in-demand digital skills for 2022. If you’re looking to get ahead in your career, start by learning one or more of these skills. With the right skill set, you’ll be well on your way to success! If you’re interested in learning more digital skills, keep an eye on our blog! And if you want help to start your own digital projects using digital experts, contact us today!

google_ads_remarketing

The Best Remarketing Strategies for Google Ads

Posted on | by devops

Google Ads remarketing can be a great way to keep your business in front of potential customers, but using the right strategies is key. In this blog post, we’ll share some of Agency Partner’s favorite simple tips for getting the most out of your Google Ads remarketing campaign. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to optimize your current strategy, we’ve got you covered!

Apply A/B Testing

We love a good A/B test for how much you can learn from such a simple process. Find out what works best for your company, your industry, and your audience by optimizing with all the data an A/B test can gather for you.

Try Dynamic Remarketing

While standard remarketing puts your ads in front of internet users who have already recently visited your site, dynamic remarketing makes it possible for those ads to be automatically tailored even more to what your previous visitors are most likely to respond best to. This can be anything from customizing layouts to optimizing timing.

Expand Your Targeted Segments

Maybe your ‘customer needs’ focus is too narrow. Expand the range of who your ads are reaching by targeting new user segments with different ads. Consider the users of your mobile app, too, and what their needs are versus those who access your site on a desktop. Never underestimate the impact on conversion of user experience.

Change Up Your Max Bids for CPC

If you prefer the control with setting manual bids instead of relying on automatic bids, take another look at what you’ve set as your maximum amount per CPC or cost per click. It may be worth upping the budget so that you increase your chances of having your ad top the high search volume pages.

Leverage Cart Abandonment Opportunities

Cart abandonment has gotten a lot of attention from marketing departments lately, and for good reason. A visitor who already went so far as to click or press ‘Add to Cart’ shows much higher purchase intent than a visitor who just took a lingering glance at a product page.

Savvy remarketing to these easy converts may mean offering a small discount to help get them through the finish line of making the purchase. They’re certainly a segment worth a higher CPC bid in our opinion.

Make the Most of Remarketing Time Limits

Capitalize on the modern short attention span and set your automations to reach out to your remarketing targets quickly before they lose interest or completely forget about why they initially were interested in your product or service. If you have multiple remarketing ads running, you can customize different durations for each of them!

Note: It’s recommended to start with a duration of 30 days, meaning your ad reaches visitors who didn’t take further action on your site in the previous 30 calendar days. Adjust from there to find the best time limits for your particular audience’s response.

Set Up Responsive Ads

Similar to dynamic remarketing, this option helps automatically adjust your ads to the best dimensions for whatever space it appears in. It’s a big time-saver for sure!

Reassess Your Frequency Cap

What’s one of the worst things you can do as a marketer? Annoy your audience to the point it creates a negative brand perception. When making these settings and planning your remarketing campaigns, think about your real motivation with them – you’re not bombarding visitors with your brand or client’s existence; you’re just gently reminding a visitor of that item they may want to revisit.

Keep this in mind, especially when figuring out how often an ad is shown to a user, and it may have to be trial and error as there is no set universal number. How much is too much for your specific audience?

Avoid Negative Brand Associations

Maybe there are particular brands or publications you don’t want your own brand to associate with and advertise on. Google Ads allows you to set specific sites and their categories you want excluded from your remarketing campaign displays.

Widen Your Target Location and Language Settings

Unless you’re a local business and want to keep it that way, consider expanding the locations you reach and the languages your site can be translated into. It’s such a simple switch that can help make sure you’re maximizing audience potential.

Remarketing can be an extremely effective way to reach out to customers who have already shown interest in your product. By using the strategies we’ve outlined in this post, you should be able to create a remarketing campaign that drives traffic back to your site and increases conversions. Need help getting started? Contact our team of experts at Agency Partner. We’d be happy to help you get the most out of Google Ads and increase ROI for your business.

social-media-trends

9 Social Media Trends You Need to Know for 2022

Posted on | by devops
Expert Tips For 9 Social Media Trends You Need to Know for 2022

If you’re like most small business owners, you’re probably trying to keep up with the latest social media trends. But keeping up with social media changes can be hard – especially if you don’t know what to expect in the future.

But don’t worry, we’ve got you covered! In this blog post, we’ll take a look at some of the top social media trends that are expected to dominate in 2022. So, whether you’re just starting out on social media or looking to evolve your strategy, read on for some valuable insights! 

  1. Social Retailing

It’s not enough to post and ghost anymore (if it ever was), and users are all about social commerce this year. Brands need to create a full experience around their product or service – livestreams, shoppable buttons, influencer campaigns. It’s not exactly new, but it definitely will be taken up another notch in 2022.

  1. Customer Service Goes Social Again

For many, customer service has taken a back seat to a lot of the fun and flash of social media. Use 2022 to get back to authentically connecting with your customers when they have an issue or when they just need a little communication with a brand. Don’t forget that social servicing is how many brands built their following in the first place back when social media was still a wild, wild west!

  1. 3. Hiring from Social Platforms

It’s a Gen-Z world now, and even recruiting is turning to social platforms. Finding your new team members through avenues like TikTok marketing will depend on you being upfront about your mission, values, company culture, and the human element of your brand. Whether B2B or B2C, take the opportunity to solidify your branding and appeal to the next generation of the workforce.

  1. Brands Showcasing Their Human Side

Consumers today prefer looking at brands holistically to make sure they align with more than just the great products. Offer a human side to your company by showcasing the personality and points of view that your company values.

  1. Accountability

Brands are being taken to task more and more for the promises they’ve made – environmental, social, cultural – and those same brands better be backing them up with their actions. Consumers vote every single day with their dollars. So, make sure you’re listening and responding to the conversations around your brand on social platforms with sincerity when they come at you with those receipts.

  1. Brand Authenticity

If it isn’t clear yet from this roundup, authenticity is the new way of the future. Consumers are far more attuned to when they’re being sold to, and fake connections just won’t cut it anymore. Meet users’ skepticism with transparency about your company and its values. Empathize with their heightened awareness of social issues and use social media to show them you’re aware, too.

  1. User-Generated TikTok Vids

UGC or User Generated Content is still the pinnacle of social content, and TikTok is the place with the most social currency. Use it to build brand awareness and support the sense of authenticity and accountability around your company culture through shortform videos on the platform. Run contests, repost and share, and just generally show appreciation for your customers who participate in creating content around your brand.

  1. LinkedIn has it’s Influencer moment

It seems each platform has its own distinct slice of the social influencer pie, and LinkedIn is the next spot to get the highlight! In 2022, LinkedIn has begun focusing on creators, especially with the rise of Work from Home culture. This will be the spot for developing your personal professional brand through thought leadership and engagement potential.

  1. #NoFilter

“Perfect” can be so boring. Posting social content without first curating filters and effects has been slowly growing over the last few years, and we think it’s time for the shift to go mainstream. In-the-moment authenticity is the key to engaging a modern audience in a way that will prioritize genuine connections over “perfection”. 

That’s it for our roundup of the top social media trends to keep an eye on for 2022. Of course, things are always changing in the world of social media, so don’t be surprised if some of these predictions change by the time next year rolls around. But as of right now, these are the trends we think will be most important to watch.  If you want help staying ahead of the curve and ensuring your company’s social media is on-trend, contact Agency Partner today. We have years of experience helping businesses just like yours make the most out of social media and stay ahead of changes in this ever-evolving industry.

target-audience-for-small-businesses

How to Identify Your Target Audience for Small Businesses

Posted on | by devops
Expert Tips For How to Identify Your Target Audience for Small Businesses

As a small business owner, you know that one of the keys to success is identifying and targeting your ideal customer. But what if you’re not sure who that is? In this post, we’ll give you some tips for finding and understanding your target audience. By the end of this, you should have a good idea of who your digital marketing is trying to reach with your product or service. Let’s get started!

What Is a Target Audience?

A target audience is a particular group of people that fit certain criteria to mean they most likely will buy your product or hire your service. These are exactly the people you want your ad campaigns to be placed in front of. We’ll get to the specific categories of criteria a little later in the post!

Advantages of Targeting in Marketing

Knowing exactly who your product or service is aimed at reaching can be critical in maximizing your digital marketing budget. Sharpen your marketing strategies, develop deeper customer loyalty and better brand awareness, attract higher quality leads, and focus on who will most likely give you the biggest ROI. Niche targeting has never been more powerful!

What Are the Types of Target Audiences?

Market categorizing or ‘segmenting’ can break down into 6 basic types: demographic, geographic, psychographic, behavioral, needs-based, and transactional.

Demographic – The most popular type of segmentation, this type defines the more literal aspects of who the audience is, depending on a B2C (age, gender, ethnicity, profession, education) or B2B (industry, company size, and position, job tenure) context.

Geographic – Sometimes where someone lives can affect their purchasing choices. It probably wouldn’t be very useful to run Google Ads for surfboards in Scandinavia, right? This could be as general as a continent or all the way down to a specific district or zip code.

Psychographic – Interests, values, hobbies, attitudes, lifestyle. Apple is well known for marketing the idea of minimalism and attainable luxury for the modern, forward-thinking consumer. That’s psychographics!

Behavioral – How has your audience previously interacted with your brand? What is their awareness of your brand? Have they made any purchases from your company already? What about their product knowledge?

Needs-based – This one’s pretty straightforward and also breaks down further into 4 sub-categories: problem-solving (low-carb products for diabetics), emotional (anti-aging skincare products), functional (ride-sharing apps), and value-based needs (products for vegans). 

Transactional – You know those offers for free shipping on orders over a certain amount? Or those ‘We miss you – here are 15% off your next order’ emails you get after not shopping at a particular store for a long while? Yep, that’s transactional segmentation.

7 Tips for Identifying Your Target Audience

Now, how to actually figure out who fits into those targeting types…

Audit Your Current Customer Base

Look at who all has already bought your product or service. What do they all have in common, or maybe what’s different among them? Are they all of similar ages or from similar regions? Why did they decide on using your company? Use your social media or send out customer surveys to get started!

Research The Market

Research your market as a whole to find what may be missing. Is there a particular untapped crowd that your company can speak to? Focus there to refine your unique product value messaging.

Study Your Competitors

Who are your competitors targeting? There could be a lot of opportunities to learn from what works and doesn’t work for them. Maybe your competitors are overlooking, again, an untapped crowd or marketing channel.

Dive Into Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a savvy marketer’s secret weapon for all the insights you can gain into your site visitors’ habits and interests, how they’re discovering you, and what they’re engaging with most.

Build Personas

This step is for after you’ve done your initial segmentation work. Take all that great data you gathered and use it to create identities for your customers. Maybe base them around familiarity with your product crossed with the general demographics of your audience to then target how you speak to their more specific needs. We at Agency Partner Interactive recommend crafting 3 to 5 different personas.

Rethink the idea of “Everyone”

It’s impossible to actually appeal to every single person – not even puppies or pizza can do that – but the idea can still lead you to a useful mindset! “Everyone” really can just mean you have multiple audiences and may need to approach each with a different type of marketing. Odds are there will be lots of overlap, too!

Evolve Evolve Evolve

Understand that this is a never-ending process. People change, markets change, needs change, your company will probably also change. Be ready to refine and optimize and re-refine and re-optimize your audience targeting so long as you’re in business. 

It’s clear that knowing your target audience is essential for small businesses. By understanding who your ideal customer is, you can create a more effective marketing strategy that reaches them where they are. You can also tailor your products and services to better meet their needs. If you’re not sure how to identify and segment your target audience or need help reaching them, contact our team of experts at Agency Partner. We’d be happy to help you develop a plan that targets the right customers and helps your business grow!

remarketing-campaign

Is A Remarketing Campaign Worth It?

Posted on | by devops
Expert Tips For Is A Remarketing Campaign Worth It

The user saw your ad – they didn’t click – they moved on. So should you…right?! 

With an average of only 2% of potential online customers that make a purchase after their first visit to an online store, that missed opportunity could be massive. A remarketing campaign can be a great way to reach those potential customers who maybe weren’t ready to convert the first time they viewed your product or service – but now they are! 

What Is Remarketing?

In the world of digital marketing, remarketing is the process of delivering ads to users around the internet who have previously visited your site. The process relies on that thing with a funny name you’ve heard of called “cookies” – a “cookie” is placed on your device when you visit a site that uses them and you also meet their criteria for activation. This could mean that you visited a specific URL for a product or service and left without buying.

Types of Remarketing

  • Display remarketing – the most popular type, these ads are paid to appear on a third-party page thanks to cookie tracking.
  • Search remarketing – as the name suggests, this uses paid ads that track users all the way back to a search engine results page (SERP) like Google.
  • Dynamic remarketing – this type will look different to each unique viewer, as the specific ad deployed depends on a combination of actions to result in a dynamic ad – this option is much more personalized to the viewer.
  • Video remarketing – create a short ad to place in front of YouTube videos, for example, to remind viewers of your product or service
  • Email remarketing – make use of your email marketing lists and send out abandoned cart reminders or newsletters with targeted discounts
  • Social Media remarketing – this tactic focuses on mainly in-feed ads, often based on users’ visiting habits of a business’ social channels

How to Create a Remarketing List in Google Ads

  1. In the Tools & Settings of your Google Ads account, go to Audience Manager under Shared Library to find all your selected audiences.
  2. Create a new audience by clicking the top left blue button.
  3. To make a Remarketing Audience, select Website Visitors.
  4. Give this new audience a name.
  5. From there, determine based on the provided list what sort of remarketing campaign you want to run.
  6. If you’ve chosen a campaign targeted to visitors of a particular URL, next you’ll specify what those URLs and associated keywords are.
  7. Then tell Google to populate the list with visitors from the past 30 days or to start a whole new list.
  8. Choose the length of time those visitors will remain on the remarketing list.
  9. It’s a good idea here to add some details in the description of the audience to help you stay organized.
  10. Finally, press “Create Audience” and wait for the approval from Google Ads – it can take as many as 24 hours.

Remarketing and Retargeting – Are They the Same?

The two terms are commonly used as having the same meaning, but there is some technical nuance you may want to consider.

  • Remarketing is really about reminding and upselling specifically through email with prior customers
  • Retargeting is officially about paid ads to encourage re-engagement with new potential customers

Psst!…Take a look at Agency Partner Interactive’s Guide to E-commerce PPC for some deeper-dive tips on how to get started with paid ads!

Is It Worth Investing in Remarketing?

Here it is – the whole reason you clicked through to this post – Is a remarketing campaign worth it?

YES!

With benefits like these, how could the answer be anything else?!

  • Boosted CTR

No more important a reason, the average Click Through Rate increase alone makes the effort worthwhile. No other type of ad has a better ROI thanks to the inherent fact that the viewer had some interest in your business from the start – they’re already warmed up for the customer journey!

  • The reach of new customers

Remarketing doesn’t just reach people who directly interacted with your site. You can also manage your campaign to reach those who were simply looking at similar items or services.

  • Positive user experience

A lot of users simply get distracted when in the middle of trying to make or decide on an online purchase. Remarketing to them can be a very useful and positive experience with your brand.

So, is re-marketing worth it? The answer is absolutely and unequivocally yes. It’s been shown to increase ROI for businesses of all sizes and industries and can be a major boon to your bottom line when done correctly. That said, it’s not something you should just dive into without some planning – there are different types of retargeting, after all, and not everyone will be appropriate for your business. But our team at Agency Partner knows how to make re-marketing work for you – so contact us today to get started!

SEO-on-a-budget

10 Ways to Do SEO on A Budget

Posted on | by devops
Expert Tips For 10 Ways to Do SEO on A Budget

As a business owner, you’re always looking for ways to save money. But did you know that you can do SEO on a budget? In this blog post, we’ll share 10 ways to get the most out of your SEO efforts without breaking the bank. So, whether you’re just starting out or you’re looking for ways to optimize your current campaigns, we’ve got the tips that will help you achieve results no matter your SEO budget.

For a deeper dive into how much you should spend on SEO, check out Agency Partner Interactive’s guide to How Much to Budget for SEO.

SEO Audits Are Your Friend

To make things better, you have to first understand where it is you’re going wrong. Your first step should be to run an SEO audit to check for…

  • any broken pages
  • error alerts
  • content duplicates
  • domain and page-level factors
  • and more

There are both free and paid tools for doing this SEO audit plus outsourcing options, depending on what your budget allows.

Agency Partner is always available for a consultation to help you figure out what options will work best for your needs!

Get Bigger by Starting Small and Local

Start with where you are. Target your local keywords first. Optimize your searchability in local directories. Naturally, build up your review history in your area. And don’t forget to register your listing on Google My Business with your location in the title tag.

What Have You got That Your Competitors Don’t?

Something clearly works for your competitor, but that doesn’t mean they have the entire range of the marketing edge covered.

Pay attention to their content and social strategizing. Read the comment feedback from their audience for ideas on where to capitalize that they are missing. Conduct a content gap analysis to guide your marketing where you have the best opportunities for breakthrough.

Guest Blogging Is Still a Thing That Still Works

Once you’ve done the analysis and written those freshly tailored blogs, reach out to related content scopes. Begin by building a relationship with the admin through engaging with their content as you would like them to engage with yours. Then approach with your proposal. This is a chance to reach a brand new audience and position your brand as an industry thought leader.

Remember: Guest blogging needs to be mutually beneficial in some way when you approach another digital platform to write for.

DO NOT Keep It Short and Sweet

When you’re on a budget, don’t waste your limited resources by trying to compete with the big guys and their short-tail keyword domination. You won’t win… not yet, at least.

Do your keyword research and figure out what phrases people find you at with all the niche details – but not so detailed and niche-y that you end up with no one being able to find you.

For example, you’re not just a shoe retailer – you specialize in women’s ballroom and salsa dance heels. Use all that balanced info to your advantage when strategizing your SEO.

Rev Your Load Time

This tip does mean you need to first check your analytics to know where you’re starting from. If the current load time is longer than 3 seconds, then this approach is critical for you for sure – anything longer than 3 seconds is inherently damaging to your UX conversions, statistically speaking, and Google definitely doesn’t like that.

Look into…

  • simplifying your HTML and CSS code
  • allowing compression
  • avoiding redirects
  • optimizing images, and
  • upgrading your server response time

This may require a larger portion of your available budget (especially if you’re not super code-savvy yourself), but we can promise the results will be worth the expense.

Use ‘Fetch as Google’ to Re-Optimize Your Pages for SEO

 Google finally made fetch happen. (Yes, a Millennial wrote this.)

It’s a tool that lets users test if Googlebot can ‘fetch’ a URL and show how it’s rendered. If it works, then you can request Google re-crawl your site for better SEO and maybe even re-index it. This can make a massive difference in your SERP ranking at no cost at all.

Identify Any Orphan Pages

You may have some pages that lack internal links directing users to them, known as orphan pages. This can be a problem dragging down your site’s effectiveness, as those OPs don’t benefit from the associated authority of your homepage. From there, you can choose to either remove it entirely or revise your sitemap.

U Got a Bad URL?

It may seem insignificant to you, but that URL of yours that looks more like a scrambled coding language may be part of what’s holding back your SEO efforts. Your URL has to be simple enough for search engines to understand and obvious enough to the user what the page is about. You want people to confidently click through to your link, not worry if they’re about to fall for a phishing scam.

Links on Links on Links

Work smarter, not harder. You’ve already put in the work with initially creating your blog content; now get the most out of them by linking internally in later relevant blogs. If you do it smartly, it’s a great traffic driver and can be a nice boost in both your Average Time on Page analytic AND how easily Google can crawl and index your site.

Just don’t overdo it, okay? Google doesn’t like that either.

Is SEO Optimization Worth It?

As long as you’ve got an effective strategy, SEO optimization couldn’t be a wiser investment. It’s estimated that about 92% of online activity starts with a search engine. Add in a partner like the team at Agency Partner to help you maximize that strategy, you’ll be set for a very successful return on any sized investment! 

Send us a message here to get your site and SEO perfected for Search Engine Success ASAP!

graphic-design-vs-web-design

Graphic Design vs Web Design: Which One Is Right for You?

Posted on | by devops
Expert Tips For Graphic Design vs Web Design: Which One Is Right for You?

When it comes to graphic design and web design, there is a lot of overlap. However, there are also some key differences between the two specialties. Let’s explore those differences that can help you decide which type of design is right for your business or career path. 

Keep in mind there is no wrong answer – both graphic and web design can be effective tools for marketing a business. But it’s important to understand the unique strengths of each field so you can make the most informed decision possible.

The TL;DR Digest

The two terms often get mixed up, but one style of design is not inherently like the other. 

While graphic design centers on artistry and creativity, web design zeros in on how each component of a website operates and behaves simultaneously. 

Web design is action-oriented. A user opens a navigational menu, scrolls through the product listings, or maybe watches an informational video on one of the product pages they’ve clicked through to.

Graphic design, however, is stationary. A user can see it or tap it etc., but there is no responsive action in return like with web design. 

Graphic Design Is…

Graphic design combines art and tech to create a cohesive visual message via the 7 basic elements:

  • line
  • shape
  • type
  • texture
  • image
  • space, and
  • color

This can be used in both digital and print.

Web Design Is…

Web design similarly combines art and tech (hence the confusion between the two) to affect the user experience of website planning and creation. This is focused on the 5 basic web design principles:

  • aesthetics
  • interaction
  • content
  • visibility, and
  • usability

Graphic Designers Use…

  • Typography

Text is a visual tool used to help communicate the who and the what of a brand identity. From the serif and typeface to color and hierarchy, typography must cohesively support the tone, grab attention, and establish brand recognition with every dotting of an i and crossing of a t. 

  • Images

Connecting text to images can be a powerful device to express messaging and directives. Consider also how the placement and context of these images can affect the idea or message the image conveys.

  • Layout

Layouts in graphic design means the arrangement of elements to make sure the messaging is clear, accurate, and coherent in its intent.

  • Color

The strategy of color psychology can be a highly influential device for affecting how an observer feels about and interprets the graphic and its message. If a designer is creating a graphic for a wellness and relaxation company, colors associated with serenity and calmness like sage green and cerulean blue will be a much wiser choice than fire-engine red in order to visually support the brand identity, let alone how color also contributes to establishing brand recognition and, yes, brand voice.

…to name just a few of the elements needed to create designs that are used in print and digital media.

Web Designers Use…

  • Content Management Systems or CMS

A content management system is a type of software used for designing, organizing, and modifying website projects. It’s especially helpful for those that are more novice or are not especially skilled and knowledgeable in writing programming code.

  • Programming Languages

For those web designers that prefer to have the ability to truly customize every element of their design, they use HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python, SQL, PHP, and so many other coding languages to help design the visuals for their websites. Generally speaking, each has its own particular design purpose and strength. Knowledge of and experience with these tools is in very high demand for those considering a career in web design.

  • Design Software

Think Photoshop or Sketch. This software is the perfect place for drafting prototypes and guides for how the finished website should look. If not left up to a specific UX designer, they can also help web designers plan and create wireframes for the very structure of the site.

…among many more tools to produce websites that can be viewed on any device.

Check Out a Few of Agency Partner’s Related Posts on Graphic and Web Design

What Does a Graphic Designer Do?

How to Design a Website

Dazzling by Design: The Web Design Process

Top 10 Mistakes in Web Design

A Webbed World: Design vs Development

7 Things to Consider When Choosing a Web Designer

To Wrap It Up

So, what’s the difference between the graphic and web design?

  • Graphic designers focus on creativity – how a design looks and feels. That might use typography, color theory, or illustration to create an eye-catching piece of art.
  • Web designers, on the other hand, are more concerned with how all the parts of a design function together as a system. They need to make sure that everything works well together and that all the elements (text, images, navigation bars, etc.) are easy for users to find and interact with.

If you need some help creating beautiful graphics or designing an effective website, contact our team of experts at Agency Partner to get started on your project today!

 

UX-writing

All About UX Writing: The Complete Guide

Posted on | by devops
Expert Tips For All About UX Writing: The Complete Guide

User Experience writing is a little-known but very important aspect of web design. If users can’t easily find what they’re looking for or don’t understand how to navigate your site, they’ll leave – and you’ll risk losing potential customers.

Despite its importance, many small business owners are unsure of what user experience writing is or how to go about incorporating it into their website. This comprehensive guide will introduce you to the basics of UX writing and show you how to apply it to your own website. With just a few simple changes, you’ll be able to create engaging and user-friendly interfaces that keep your customers coming back for more!

What is UX Writing?

Let’s start off really simple.

  • Fundamentally, UX stands for User Experience and is the crux of the whole UX design process.
  • UX design is all about the creation and, well, design of a great user experience with a digital product – UX writing serves the same purpose, but instead achieves it with words!
  • A UX writer is in charge of planning and composing microcopy for sites, apps, and other digital interfaces to help direct users through the product and have a great time doing it.

The two elements, writing, and design depend on collaboration with each other to achieve their goal of, you guessed it, a great user experience.

What is Microcopy?

The term “microcopy” refers to the bite-sized bits of writing you see all around sites and apps and products. They help a user understand how to navigate an interface, provide information on a situation, direct a user on what to do next, speak to potential user issues, and help express and convey the overall identity of who your brand is, what the product is, and how you do business.

What does a UX Writer do?

A UX writer writes the copy for a product’s interface to guide users on how to use that product. Commonly, UX writers are in charge of writing almost any interaction a user has with the product, such as:

  • Navigation buttons
  • Push notifications
  • Instructions
  • Error messages
  • Onboarding processes
  • Form fields

In some situations, a UX writer is also referred to as a content strategist, though a content strategist is not necessarily a UX writer. While content strategists typically focus on more overarching layouts of information and UX writing is all about concise details, there is an impressive amount of overlap in the skills both require to do the respective job well.

Why does good UX writing matter?

The growth of UX writing has been begun exploding in the past couple of years thanks to recent hard evidence from studies proving how remarkably effective it can be.

A popular example is of a study showing a hotel booking site changing its microcopy from “Book a room” (too decided-sounding and like a commitment, users explained) to “Check availability” (much more approachable and less committed). The site’s engagement jumped by a full 17% with just this one simple change in UX language.

What makes good UX writing?

Good UX writing follows some simple but distinct principles.

  • Use simple, familiar terms
  • Write in an active voice
  • Keep text and characters minimal
  • Be clear, direct, and concise
  • Speak the user’s language (if your audience is of a particular nationality or of a certain generational demographic, speak in a way that that particular audience will understand)
  • Maintain consistent terminology
  • Always prioritize empathy for your users 

Funnily enough, the less a user notices UX writing, the better the UX was written.

Is UX writing the same as copywriting?

Well, not quite. Simplistically, the biggest difference between the two is marketing: copywriting is marketing while UX writing is anything but marketing. Yes, UX writers write copy, but the purpose of their copy is to help users use a product rather than to sell that product to the user.

What skills do you need as a UX writer?

Effective UX writers tend to put these skills to use most in their job

  • Web Design
  • Content Planning and Management
  • Consumer Psychology
  • Project Management
  • Brand and Product Development 

Is UX writing creative?

Considering the bulk of the task is based on verbal problem solving, we’d say it’s definitely creative. if you know how to do it well! It might not call for flowery language, but imagining user scenarios and journeys and how you might help solve the problem before it’s an actual problem for a real user AND solving it all with just language? A role like UX writer is definitely all about creating ways to make a product interface simple and joyous to use! 

UX writing can be a tricky and highly nuanced skill, but with some time and effort, you can be writing engaging copy to help improve your users’ experience with your digital product. Short on time or effort? Let the team at Agency Partner take over the task for you! Contact us today to get started.

api-vulnerabilities

API Vulnerabilities and How to Protect Them Part 1

Posted on | by devops
Expert Tips For API Vulnerabilities and How to Protect Them Part 1

Cybersecurity has never been more critical. In the last several years, APIs have taken center stage for modern stakeholders dependent upon qualities like productivity, reliability, and programming among others. So many of these things modestly exist under the radar of attention-grabbing, leaving them prone to at risk for attack by bad actors. To help you gain a better understanding of what to look for in keeping your site’s APIs protected, here’s a breakdown of the most common types of attacks and what you can do to prevent them.

What Is An API

API stands for Application Programming Interface, a collection of tools used by web developers and programmers to build new ‘middle man’ software that sends information for a task between a site or app and its user. A site or app’s API(s) is like a car’s engine. APIs can also act as layers of security, too, which we’ll be focusing on here.

Why APIs Are A Big Concern

Why does API security matter so much? Well, sometimes that information transfer includes sensitive data, especially when dealing with business APIs, about the customer, user, or even the business itself. Thus keeping the APIs safe and secure helps prevent those interfaces from becoming compromised in any way. 

Typical API Security Risks

The biggest causes for concern when it comes to the risk of API security are

  • sensitive data exposure
  • misconfigured security
  • inadequate monitoring
  • broken authentication
  • rate-limiting and lack of resources

The implications of these and other risks are huge.

Exposure to DDoS Attacks

This type of attack, a Distributed Denial of Service, generally is led by a network of bots to overload a target with artificial traffic. This prevents genuine users from accessing the site, rendering the site inoperable, and so it typically results in damaged brand reputation and loss of customers and sales.

Parameters Attacks

A parameters attack focuses on the URL field, manipulating the site target without the user’s knowledge or consent. This can involve data like a user’s credentials, product information, etc. Because URLs often follow a pattern, they are popular aims for attackers. 

Broken Object-Level Authorization

broken object-level authorization or BOLA means the application did not actually verify the user has the necessary approval to access an asset of another user. Nearly every single company has an API at risk of BOLA.

Insufficient Monitoring and Logging

When lacking information logs or lacking the right context, format, storage, etc, a company’s APIs can therefore also lack the resources to detect a break in security. If these logs aren’t backed up, intruders can erase the logs, essentially covering up both their tracks and their identities. This is especially dangerous for the financial and medical sectors.

How to Protect Against API Security Issues

Identify Vulnerabilities

In order to know the “how”, you first have to know the “what” – What API vulnerabilities are you or your company most prone to? No easy question to answer, especially as a company grows and integrates more and more APIs. A good first step is using an Extended Detection and Response (XDR). It’s specially designed to check for security flaws and support proper authentication.

Use Access Tokens

Using tokens is always a good idea when it comes to securing APIs. They allow sharing of information without necessarily having to share credentials, too. The tokens are always confidential.

Data Encryption

This is the foundation of securing APIs from attacks. Agency Partner recommends you use TLS or Transport Layer Security to scramble any and all data, especially the uniquely identifying kind. It’s also important that valid identifications be required so that only approved handlers have access to said critical data.

IP Whitelisting

Consider this your VIP list. Only specific IP addresses are granted access to the network. This is very helpful in preventing any unauthorized entry that can affect APIs within a particular private network. Whitelisting tends to work best in centrally administered locations that typically deal with a steady task load. This system can take effect in as little as 24 hours, and If any attack does happen, you can be sure that it came from within. 

API security issues are a real and present danger to businesses of all sizes. By understanding the vulnerabilities that exist and taking steps to mitigate them, you can protect your business and its data. Agency Partner is here to help you do just that. We have the expertise and tools necessary to secure your site or app APIs against attack, so contact us today for a consultation!

 

 

increase-website-traffic

22 Ways to Increase Website Traffic

Posted on | by devops
Expert Tips For 22 Ways to Increase Website Traffic

It’s totally normal for web traffic to be down during the holidays, but maybe you’ve noticed traffic to your site hasn’t picked up again yet as we get further into the start of the new year. Perhaps it’s time to shake things up a little! We here at Agency Partner have put together our top 22 ways and strategies to increase website traffic to get your analytics back on track for 2022!  

1. Leverage on-page SEO 

  • It’s never too late to optimize for SEO. This is a great way to increase site traffic without spending a dime. Meta tags, internal links, alt texts, descriptions, readability – all simple opportunities for higher ranking on SERPs to boost traffic  

2. Cross-promote across social media account channels 

  • Your business has at least one social media channel, right? (…right??) Why not use it to promote the latest blog post on your site to naturally drive traffic? Do the same with your email newsletters? Draw attention by featuring an element of your site as a teaser on your socials that pays off for the user when they follow the link for the full article or freebie exclusively found on your site!  

3. Long-tail keywords 

  • Another facet of SEO, long-tail keywords are the more specific phrases (keywords of 3 or more words) users use as they narrow down what they’re searching for. They account for a big chunk of web searches, so it’s highly useful to know how to wield their highly targeted power.  

4. Influencer marketing 

  • Influencer marketing used to be all about the accounts with hundreds of thousands if not millions of followers. Now we’re seeing the power of micro-and nano-influencers and their hyper-targeted audience. Use that to your advantage with partnerships of features, promotions, and networking. 

5. Guest post on blogs 

  • Help establish you and your brand’s site as an authority by guest posting on other sites about your particular area of expertise. Pitch your content ideas for a feature to both drive free referral traffic and strengthen your position in the market! 

6. Clear out non-performing content 

  • Audit your own site for content that may now be out of date or from early on where your quality or style was still in development. Take the chance to update and revamp it. What’s old is new (and improved) again! 

7. Consider PPC 

  • No shame in Pay Per Click advertising! It’s the fastest route to results, and, exactly as the name suggests, you only pay for the ad whenever a user clicks on it! 

8. Have guests post on your blog 

  • What a great opportunity for some more cross-promotion on this two-way street with creators in similar niches or with audiences relevant to you both! 

9. Email blasts 

  • Email marketing has been around for decades already, and it’s still as powerful as ever to direct traffic to your site with mailing list blasts and automated newsletters about new services or products or blog content features. Just be careful not to overdo it. 

10. Build up your online reviews 

  • Social proof is more powerful than you probably think. Give casual users every reason to click on links to products and services on your site by building up online reviews! 

11. Sign up for Google Trends (aka stay relevant!) 

  • Focusing your content on what’s being talked about Right. Now. is such a simple, efficient tactic to reach audiences. If you’ve done the work for optimizing SEO already, too, a traffic increase is all but guaranteed. 

12. Look at competitors 

  • Get inspiration by seeing what’s working for your competitors – then put your own spin on it! 

13. Link build internally 

  • The longer you can keep your users on your site, the more useful you are to your users and the more SEO will naturally favor you. Look for opportunities in your content to reference your past relevant content via internal links. 

14. Ensure device responsiveness 

  • With mobile device access only continuing to trend upward over desktop access, do not make the mistake of devaluing the responsiveness of your site across all devices. Doing so is essentially telling your users to go elsewhere. 

15. Listen to your analytics data 

  • It’s one thing to know what analytics categories are and that they’re important; it’s another to know how to interpret them. Analytics telling you you have a load time of 4.3 seconds can tell you that your site needs streamlining and that it’s probably too slow a speed to satisfy your visitors’ patience. High bounce rate? Look more critically at your content quality. That’s a ton of valuable info about possible traffic drivers right there! 

16. Write how people read 

  • Speaking of high bounce rates, always remember that people typically don’t read on the internet – they skim. If your content is full of big blocks of text, you likely won’t reach your user in a productive way. Keep your site easily readable.  

17. Use push notifications 

  • Especially useful if you’re a business with a product or service to sell, look into setting up push notifications for your site whenever you have a new feature or sale. Just like with email marketing, though, keep aware of how much is too much for your users. 

18. Don’t forget about Pinterest 

  • People don’t intuitively think of Pinterest as a search engine, but that’s exactly what it is at heart! Do your keyword research for how to caption your pins and create interesting boards featuring your unique content. If your audience demographic is there, you should be there, too. 

19. Appreciate the power of H1 tags 

  • If your content tends to run on the long side, H1 tags are your best friend. They help make your site easier for search engine crawlers to understand the focus of your content, thus helping to boost your SERP ranking and making it easier for your site to be found in searches! 

20. Add social share buttons to your site 

  • Include social share buttons wherever they naturally fit under products or at the top or bottom of blog posts etc. The easier it is for your content to be shared, the more likely the user will help to drive traffic for you. 

21. Retargeting ads 

  • Remind the user of the items they left in their cart on your site as they navigate around the internet. Maybe they just need a gentle reminder to come back for them! 

22. Create a content schedule 

  • It’s so much easier to drive organic traffic when your audience knows when to expect a reason to revisit. Set a realistic content schedule for your output and stick to it!

These ideas will certainly help but know that success takes patience. The change will happen as you implement it wisely and stay consistent with it. It can feel like an overwhelming process as a business owner, and API’s digital marketing and development teams are here to help manage the load for you. Contact us today for a consultation! 

 

ui-ux-design

What is UI design? What is UX design? UI vs UX: What’s the difference

Posted on | by devops
Expert Tips For What is UI design? What is UX design? UI vs UX: What’s the difference

As a small business, it’s important to stay up to date on the latest trends in design for your company app and website. But what’s the difference between UI and UX design? What do these terms even mean? Let’s take a look at the details of each term and how they can benefit your business!  

First things first…

What is UI Design? 

User interface (UI) design is the methods and elements with which designers construct interfaces. It is all about the looks, style, and function of a product’s display. This focus on aesthetics includes the interaction between the user and icons, typography, buttons, colors, and beyond.

Examples:

  • Spotify’s pulldown animation
  • Starbucks’ color scheme usage
  • Domino’s’ order progress tracker
  • Duolingo’s consistent dashboard 

What is UX Design?

User experience (UX) is all about what it’s like for the user when they interact with a product’s interface. The experience design is the method of designing how a product is integrated including respects to usability, branding, and function in a meaningful way.

Examples:

  • Marriott’s booking experience.
  • YouTube’s autoplay features.
  • Target’s password guidance.
  • Grammarly’s onboarding

How Are UI and UX Related?

UI and UX are two symbiotic terms, and UI designers and UX designers are used almost interchangeably for how closely related they are. 

Both UI and UX are highly related design approaches but with very distinct nuances. UI design focuses on the visual and graphic aspects of design and the overall induced feeling. But UI design without consideration for complementary UX design and vice versa, however, will result in nothing but a bad experience for the user. 

All UX designers know that the user’s experience is king and focus on the technical aspects. The ironic part? The most telltale sign of good UX design is that the good UX design goes completely unnoticed by the user. A conducive partnership between the two practices is what wins a user’s trust and engagement.

What’s the Difference Between UI and UX?

Here is where all the nuance we mentioned earlier comes into play.

At the heart of it, UI is a single piece of the user’s process, while UX is anything that affects the user’s process.

UI encompasses all the details that allow a user to engage with a site or app’s interface, while UX is the ultimate experience that user has with said site or app’s interface.

UI is the aesthetic and look, while UX is the feel.

How Does Good UI/UX Benefit Businesses?

The ultimate objective of every business is to make sales and grow the business. Strong UI/UX design can affect a business’ online presence and thus impact the success of the business itself in reaching those objectives. 

  • Engagement

Improve your layout, menus, and navigation to harmoniously encourage ease of engagement with your site or app. A smooth flow of interaction will help support conversion rates which leads to increased revenue.

  • Brand Reputation

Understand what features are important to your users and what they dislike. A UI/UX design experience that matches a user’s expectations and preferences will inherently help establish a positive association with your brand in their mind.

  • Customer Satisfaction

Good UI/UX easily attracts customers and supports their retention, meaning the business stays both competitive and lucrative. A satisfied user leads to a satisfied customer!

Achieving good UI/UX can be tricky – it’s a balance of art and science that takes into account user feedback as well as analytical data. That’s why it’s so important to partner with an experienced web design agency like Agency Partner Interactive who understands the ins and outs of the entire development process for your business’ next design project!

landing-page-design-1

What Is a Landing Page? Landing Pages Explained

Posted on | by devops
Expert Tips For What Is a Landing Page? Landing Pages Explained

Whether it’s brand-spankin’ new, redone, overhauled, or just touched up, every page of your website development has to have a clear purpose. The About page, the Homepage, the Search, and the Contact page- all pretty straightforward in their function. But what about a Landing page?

What Is a Landing Page?

A landing page also called a “lead capture page,” is a single web page that appears online when someone clicks your link. That link may appear in a banner ad, a marketing email, a SERPs result, or a social media post, to name just a few. It’s designed to collect digital information from website visitors, such as email addresses and other personal information, or to help convert site visitors into leads. Landing pages help you build an online following, a contact list, and even greater sales—positively vital for any modern business.

Why Do I Need a Landing Page?

In the marketing funnel, the conversion happens once that link is clicked within the ad or email. Maybe it’s where the visitor decides to download that eBook they saw advertised or sign up for a free trial! A landing page should feature these elements:

  • One value proposition
  • A primary, clear message
  • One simple call to action, or CTA

It’s all centered around promoting one singular macro conversion and communicating the benefits of following the CTA. This hyper-focus should keep your objective clear and your visitor, well, focused on following through with that objective.

Can Any Page Be a Landing Page?

The answer is yes and no. There are two primary types of landing pages: referential and transactional.

  • Referential

Referential is all about giving relevant information to the visitor. The goal here is to keep the visitor as focused as possible on the specific message by conveniently providing all necessary info to convert that visitor into following your CTA.

  • Transactional

This is a page where the visitor must first fill out an info form (like e-mail capture for a mailing list, for example) to receive a discount code or access to download that e-book. Capture as much information about the visitor as possible, but be cognizant of how much is too much to your visitors!

While any page on your website can technically act as a landing page, it depends on how singularly concentrated the content, and the CTA of that page is. Often but certainly not always, a landing page offers no further website navigation. It can be very convenient and cost-effective to customize a single page rather than invest in building out an entire website. (Psst…Agency Partner can help with both!)

A landing page can arguably also still have some supplementary content. For example, your main navigation could house several subpages that are highly relevant to the primary topic of the landing page. This would require the user to stay on this single URL for extended periods to access all related content. However, make sure these subpages contain information only relevant to that value proposition, primary message, and simple CTA!

What Does a Landing Page Look Like?

Landing pages, be it referential or transactional, typically include some combination of the following:

  • A headline: This is all about your offer’s top-selling point – make sure it grabs attention!
  • A subheading: Add a bit of extra supporting information below your headline.
  • Copy: Tell your visitor all the details about what you’re offering and why they need it. Keep this information easily digestible – bullet point lists are a great option to include here!
  • A lead form: Key to the transactional landing page, this form collects contact information from your visitors.
  • CTA: Make it clear what you want your visitor to do next – “Buy Now,” “Read More.”
  • Permission checkbox: While not required everywhere, it’s a safe assumption that any contact sent to your visitors who fill out the lead form (think marketing emails) will require their indicated permission. Always get consent first!

Other features to consider

  • Comparisons: Need to convey what makes your product or offer different? Create comparison tables to highlight the exact features you have over your competitors.
  • Testimonials: Stats prove that testimonials rank around 90% in content effectiveness. Let your customers share their stories with you to help build trust and credibility.
  • Video: Video is the most engaging format these days. If suitable for reaching your target customer, embed a native video onto your page.

Look out for an upcoming post on how to optimize your landing pages! We’ll see you there!

Need some more detailed help now with your current landing pages or a new, custom landing page made to promote your offer? Head over to our Contact Us page, and let’s see what we can do for you!

mobile-app-development

Your Ultimate Guide to Mobile App Development in 2022

Posted on | by Agency Partner
Expert Tips For Your Ultimate Guide to Mobile App Development in 2022

Mobile app development is no longer just for the big players. It’s time to stop thinking of mobile apps as a luxury and start thinking of them as integral to your business strategy. If you’re reading this blog post, it means that you are probably starting to think about mobile app development. 

You should be!

This article will provide you with some insights on what trends we see coming in 2022, so you can plan accordingly.

What is Mobile App Development

Mobile app development is developing mobile applications for smart devices, such as smartphones and tablets. Mobile apps are designed to run on your smartphone or tablet device. They are usually developed with a specific end-user in mind, focusing on what makes them unique compared to other platforms.

The most common mobile app stores are the Apple App Store and the Google Play store. Apps are built using different programming languages, including Java, Swift, Dart, C#, and HTML 5.

Why is Mobile App Development Important?

Mobile app development is important because it allows businesses to create custom mobile applications to help them achieve their specific goals. For example, a business might want to develop a mobile app that helps customers make purchases or access information about their accounts.

Mobile apps can also be used to collect customer data, which can improve marketing efforts and create a more personalized experience for customers. Mobile apps are projected to generate $693 billion in revenue for 2021 from app stores, in-app purchases, and in-app advertising.

What is a Mobile App?

A mobile app is a software application that runs on your smartphone or tablet device, allowing you to easily access information from various services right in front of you, no matter where you are. This means that it can be used for business and personal use case scenarios. An average smartphone user spends 35 hours per month using mobile apps. Apps like TikTok are set to have a revenue of over $2.3 billion dollars in 2021.

What’s New?

This article looks at the latest mobile app development trends in 2022. Here are some of the things you can expect for your business to have an advantage over others:

Blockchain Technology

While blockchain used to be synonymous with cryptocurrency and anonymous transactions, it can be used for decentralized data storage. Each record has a timestamp and unique hash value that cannot be altered without changing all subsequent blocks.

This can be helpful when protecting user data and preventing data breaches. Apps backed by blockchain technology are end-to-end encrypted, meaning no one can access them without having specific encryption keys. With the rise of NFTs (non-fungible tokens), we expect blockchain to be a big player in 2022.

Touchless UI

Apps that utilize other input methods, such as voice and gesture control, are becoming more popular. We predict that there will be a surge in the use of touchless user interfaces (UI), which allow users to interact with apps using natural gestures and speech.

There is a strong use case for voice applications, especially with Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa becoming more popular than ever before. This is great news if you own an Alexa or Google Home.

Augmented Reality

While augmented reality, AR, has been around for some time, it is now being used in apps at an increased rate. This trend will continue to increase over the next few years as AR becomes more mainstream and better integrated into mobile devices. Sellers, for example, can utilize AR to show how their products will look on a customer or in a customer’s home. We expect AR to become more popular in 2022, offering users a more personalized experience.

Machine Learning / AI

As AI technology continues to improve, machine learning will become a more significant part of daily life for many people worldwide. Machine learning helps computers learn and adapt to new information, while AI can complete tasks without requiring any instructions. Both machine learning and AI can be used in mobile apps for a variety of use cases such as:

  • recommending content based on your interests, likes, and dislikes
  • understanding user behavior better than ever before so brands can offer them more personalized experiences
  • facial recognition for added protection in mobile apps

5G

We expect the rollout of fifth-generation, or “5G,” wireless technology, also known as “the internet of things,” to impact mobile app development in 2022 significantly. This is because it will allow for faster download and upload speeds, which means that more data can be processed quickly without any lag time.

Wearables

Wearables, such as the Apple Watch and Fitbit, are becoming more popular each year. This presents a unique opportunity for mobile app developers to create apps that can be used on these devices. In 2022, we predict that even more wearable devices will be released on the market, so it’s essential to think about how your app will integrate and work with this kind of tech.

VR

With Facebook’s announcement of the Metaverse, we expect VR or virtual reality to play a significant role in 2022. VR allows users to experience digital environments and interact with them as if they were there. This can be used for a variety of purposes, such as:

  • education: giving students the ability to explore different parts of the world without leaving their classroom 
  • entertainment: immersing users in new and exciting worlds
  • business: training employees in new scenarios
  • medicine: allowing doctors to practice difficult procedures before ever touching a real patient

VR can be used for entertainment, but it is also the next computing platform. There are many ways that VR will benefit mobile app development in 2022 and beyond.

Are You Ready for 2022?

Here at Agency Partner Interactive, we are excited for what the future holds. We know that mobile app development is constantly changing, and we want to help you reach your business goals in 2022 and beyond!

If you’re thinking about developing an app but aren’t sure where to start, contact us today.We are one of the top mobile app development company by TopDevelopers.co

topic_cluster_content_model_for_seo

Basics of The Topic – Cluster Content Model for SEO

Posted on | by devops
Adopt a Topic Cluster Model to Get Found Online
Tips From Digital Marketing Experts

We can all agree that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the key to getting found online. Writers spend hours researching the best long-tail keywords and getting high-quality back-links. You are publishing well researched, relevant articles and doing everything right and yet; the views aren’t rolling in. Adopting a topic cluster model on your website is imperative to positioning yourself as an expert in your field and increases your chances of getting found online. 

What is a Topic Cluster Model?

Websites with hundreds of thousands of monthly views have cracked the newest trend in SEO: topic clusters. But what is a topic cluster?

A topic cluster involves a “pillar” or cornerstone of content. This is content that is written for a fairly high-level keyword. This pillar content is equipped with additional supporting articles that expand on and link to this main topic as well as any other relevant or supporting pages. Just as in architecture, your cornerstone should be substantial and able to stand alone. The cluster content is published to surround the cornerstone and establish your brand as an authority on a topic of your choosing. Below is an example where the keyword, “workout routines,” is the pillar content. The pillar is supported by topic clusters which are more specific breakdowns that expand on keywords that are related to workout routines. In this example, keywords such as “workout routines to lose fat” and “workout routines to get abs,” among the others, are examples of cluster content. In aggregate, the supporting topics create a topic cluster of conversation that all support the pillar content page of “workout routines.”
Topic Cluster Model Example

How Can a Topic Cluster Improve my SEO Efforts?

A search engine’s main job is to deliver results that are relevant to the search query. When a website offers a cluster of related content, search engines use Latent Semantic Indexing to understand the web of interrelated and supportive content. Along with domain authority, high-quality backlinks and long-tail keywords, developing a topic cluster demonstrates your authority to the search engine, boosting your rankings in the SERP (search engine results pages). 

Practical Steps to Create Your First Topic Cluster

Creating a topic cluster may seem like a daunting task, but it’s a methodical process that has the potential to yield great results. Follow these six steps to create your first topic cluster.

Choose a Pillar or Cornerstone Topic

Assess your brand and the goals of your organization. Your pillar or cornerstone content should be a topic on which you already have some level of expertise. Use a keyword research tool like “Keysearch” to determine which long-tail keywords you’ll target in your pillar article.

Brainstorm and Research Keywords to Support the Pillar

Once you’ve decided on your pillar theme, it’s time to brainstorm supporting topics that can easily link to the pillar article on your website. It’s important to research your chosen keywords to ensure that people are searching for them and that high ranking is attainable for those keywords. 

Update Old Articles

Start with the low hanging fruit. You may already have articles on your website suitable as cluster content. Update those articles to optimize for SEO and to support the pillar article. 

Write the Pillar and New Cluster Content

Using the keywords you researched, it’s time to create the pillar and start your Topic Cluster Model content. A pillar article should be broad and long-form, ranging from 2,000 to 10,000 words in length. The cluster content should be shorter posts that give detailed explanations on the subtopics in your pillar article.

Build Your Web by Linking Cluster Content to the Pillar and Other Supporting Articles

You can boost your results on SERPs by increasing the number of relevant internal links in your content. Search engines view links as a relationship, and linking related articles shows those search engines that you are an authority on your pillar content. When linking, use your keyword as the anchor text to further boost your authority on the topic. 

Publish and Promote

While Google crawls your website soon after a new post’s publication, it may take three to six months to see results for your SEO efforts. Use Social Media Marketing and Newsletters to give your articles an initial boost in traffic while waiting for your content to rank on search engines. 

Understanding how to leverage a topic cluster model to boost your content is imperative if you want to be found online. Now that you know how to build a topic cluster, the next step is to research your keywords, write and optimize your content and watch the traffic that is sure to come your way. 

Hiring a Specialist Consultant or Agency is the most efficient and effective way of handling your Website Content. Agency Partner can help because we have professionals who can establish your brand as an authority on a topic of your choosing to drive Targeted and Potential Clients. Call Agency Partner Interactive Today to discuss your project in greater detail.

Not big on reading? That’s okay. Watch “Basics of The Topic – Cluster Content Model for SEO” instead.

Using the power of Artificial Intelligence, we turned this blog into a video for you. Check it out below!

leads_on_linkedIn

Leads on LinkedIn

Posted on | by devops
LinkedIn Lead Generation: 6 Tips for More B2B Leads
Tips From Digital Marketing Experts

More than 255 million adults are living in the United States. Of those, 163 million have a Profile on LinkedIn. Worldwide, professionals join the platform at a rate of two per second for a total of 645 million members in 200 countries and regions. In addition to personal member profiles, there are 30 million companies represented on the platform.

The big question is: “Do LinkedIn members use the platform for buying decisions?” The answer is a resounding “yes!” A LinkedIn survey showed that up to 63% of B2B Buyers used LinkedIn to support their Purchase process in the past year, and 80% B2B Leads are Generated through LinkedIn. If you have a business, it is imperative to have a LinkedIn lead generation strategy. This article will explain the best practices for using your personal and company LinkedIn profiles to capture more leads. 

Start with all the Facts

Before you can begin finding LinkedIn leads, it’s important to build a strong foundation – that’s your personal profile. Take the time to completely fill out your profile with employment history, skills, accolades, and education.

This step is so vital, yet it is the most often overlooked. LinkedIn members with complete profiles are 40 Times more likely to Receive an Opportunity through LinkedIn than members with an incomplete profile. 

Just like Google, LinkedIn utilizes keywords to show your profile to relevant individuals. Optimize your profile by researching appropriate and specific phrases – for example, a search for “accountant” yields over 6 million results.

Conversely, using the phrase “Certified Public Accountant in the non-profit industry in Dallas, TX” yields only 89 results. Be as specific as possible  to get found by the right leads. 

Ask for Endorsements and Recommendations

Once you have a complete profile, ask current and past colleagues and clients for their endorsements and recommendations. Before you connect with potential leads, you’ll want to show that you are trusted and competent in your field of expertise.

Build a Company Page

While some LinkedIn lead generation strategies must be completed through personal pages, others require a free company profile through LinkedIn Pages.

Once you have a page for your organization, you can share your employees’ posts and client posts about your company as well as using customize-able call-to-action buttons to encourage participation in specific campaigns. 

Be sure to share your company page with employees and current clients through newsletters and other social media platforms to spark the initial growth of your page.

Join LinkedIn Groups

LinkedIn groups are a gold mine for building connections and finding leads. At this time, though, only individuals can participate in groups. (That’s why your completed personal profile with links to your company page is so essential.) 

Get creative when joining groups. Join local industry groups, but also research where potential clients are spending their time online and join those groups too. While it’s imperative to join the conversation and position yourself as a thought-leader within the community, it’s also important to refrain from overly self-promotional posts. You may even consider founding a group to position your company as an authority in your industry and capture even more B2B leads. 

Set up Laser-Focused Ads 

Are you ready to make some connections with prospective leads who aren’t in shared groups or your current network? Utilize LinkedIn’s powerful advertising platform to reach targeted leads through your company page. 

Text Ads

Text Ads offer a budget-friendly solution with Pay Per Click (PPC) and cost per impression (CPM) pricing options with no contracts or commitments. With this kind of advertising, you’re only paying for the ads that work. Text ads appear on the right-hand sidebar of the desktop version of LinkedIn to prospects in your niche. Fine-tune your audience by utilizing LinkedIn’s targeting options. 

Sponsored Content

Sponsored content and direct sponsored content are native ads which employ single image ads, video ads, and carousel ads which appear directly in a prospect’s news-feed. The difference between sponsored content and direct sponsored content is that sponsored content promotes an update that’s been previously posted on your company page – giving it reach beyond your current audience. Any new campaigns must start in your company news feed. Direct sponsored content is an ad created for a specific target group. The creative can be produced and modified without cluttering your company news-feed. 

Whether you’re using text ads or sponsored content, track your conversions in LinkedIn’s analytics, or Integrate their Tracking with your own Website. 

Use InMail for LinkedIn Lead Generation

InMail is LinkedIn’s messaging service. With their free account, you can only message people with whom you are currently connected. However, for as little as $47.99 per Month, you can utilize InMail to message prospective leads through a robust targeting system. There’s a cap on the number of Sponsored InMail a member can receive, so leads are more likely to be receptive to this type of targeted InMail – especially if you’re offering a product or service that’s relevant to them. When crafting your InMail, be sure to avoid sales-heavy verbiage and offer something of value to the lead. 

InMail allows you to personalize pitches, offer a clickable call-to-action, and only delivers when members are active – so you’re more likely to reach LinkedIn leads that will actually see your advertisement. 

Do you want to tap into the incredible power and potential of LinkedIn? Agency Partner Interactive can help! Let us assist you in building a loyal following of targeted, potential clients. Learn more about our LinkedIn Lead Generation Service and set up a time to talk through your business needs today.

Not big on reading? That’s okay. Watch “Leads on LinkedIn” instead.

Using the power of Artificial Intelligence, we turned this blog into a video for you. Check it out below!

 

 

 

ppc_marketing_work_for_attorneys

Does PPC Marketing Work for Attorneys

Posted on | by devops
PPC for Lawyers － Does it Work?
Tips From Digital Marketing Experts

Finding clients as an attorney can be one of the most daunting tasks. You’ve made your checklist －chose a specific area of law, check; went one step further and chose a niche, check; created a website, check. You’ve done the networking, making lists of prospective clients and referrals, you’ve even put up free resources on your website. All of these things are great, but they haven’t really generated much in the way of people calling for your services.

The answer is rather simple to use Online Marketing Strategies, such as Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Marketing. PPC is one of the best ways to get your name out to potential clients. The place to start is with Google Ad Words and Microsoft Ads (formerly Bing Ads, part of the Bing Search Engine Platform). While there are numerous PPC Platforms, these two are the Most Commonly Used by the clients you are seeking.  

Navigating PPC marketing can be tricky, but with the right knowledge, you can achieve high visibility on Google or Bing Searches, display effective Ad Campaigns, overcome the challenges and be on your way to an increased client base.

What is PPC for Lawyers?

Pay Per Click (PPC)  is Online Advertising that you pay for each time your ad is clicked. The amount you pay per click is determined by bidding in an ad auction with Google Adwords or Microsoft Ads. Basically, you are bidding against other law firms for the use of relevant keywords in your ads. When a search is performed using your keywords, your ad is shown first. It is one of the most effective digital marketing aids to generate clients in a very competitive legal market. 

There are several factors to consider other than just paying for clicks and bidding on keywords, in the determination of where your ad will rank. First, you need to conduct research to establish what your keywords are going to be, based on the law you practice and what keywords your competitors are using. Your ad also needs to be relevant to the search queries that your clients are seeking. Keep in mind that the Landing Page is where the advertisement sends the client. The headline needs to be highly specific and relevant to the client’s search, and your landing page needs to have a call-to-action that is clear and also relevant to your client’s search. If your landing page is not applicable and another firm’s is, you could lose that potential client.

Why You Should Choose PPC for Your Law Firm

Marketing for a law firm is not the same as Marketing for other Businesses. PPC ads can significantly help boost a law firm’s client base. Here are three reasons why you should make PPC a key marketing strategy for your practice.

  •  PPC Ads Have High Visibility on Google or Bing Searches

When someone uses Google or Bing to search for an attorney, the top three to four listings are PPC ads from Google’s Adwords or Microsoft Ads. There is a much higher click-through rate for these top ads. Having a PPC ad gives you an advantage and an opportunity for higher visibility by a wider audience.

  • Your Competitors are Using Them

With so many law firms out there, just having a website isn’t enough. Every time a potential client goes online to search for an attorney in your specialty, they will pull up one of your competitors who has a PPC ad, instead of you.

You need to make sure you show up in their search by using keywords that make you stand out from your competitors. 

  • You Have Control of the Keywords

Keyword control makes PPC ads a core marketing tool for your firm. You chose the keywords and phrases to put in your ads, you have control over your PPC Optimization, and therefore, you determine how you target your clients.

Research and select Keywords, with the help of Google and Microsoft to identify what the right keyword phrases are for you. A few words can make or break a PPC Ad Campaign. If you take time during your ad planning process to figure out what you have to offer and who your target clients are, you can adjust your keywords accordingly.

Knowing your clients makes it easier to implement a PPC Strategy.

Best Type of PPC Ads for Attorneys

There are three types of PPC ads proven to have the best results for attorneys:

  • Display Ad Campaigns

Google Display Network and Microsoft Advertising Network partner with reputable websites to help you reach a much larger target audience. Being part of a Display Network can also put you in front of clients before they start searching for your skillset. Some ad types work better when you are linked to a Google Display or Microsoft Advertising Network, such as responsive display ads, uploaded images ads, Gmail ads and engagement ads.

  •  Search Ad Campaign

Search ad campaigns appear when a potential client searches for the services you offer. Your ad will appear directly above or below the top-ranking Google and Bing search results. You only pay for this ad when people click it.

  • Re-Marketing Ad Campaigns

Re-Marketing ad campaigns let you tailor your ads to people who have visited your website at least once before.

Overcoming Challenges with PPC Ads for Law Firms

The one deterrent to PPC marketing is the cost. The ads can be quite expensive. Some of the more specialized legal industry keyword bids can cost over $100 USD per click, costing you thousands of dollars per month. However, because you are only paying per click, the benefits of the higher conversion rate could outweigh the cost for you. The conversion rate for the legal industry on Google can be as high as 6.98%. The bottom line is that PPC ads have been a proven marketing tool to get clients. 

PPC marketing is very competitive, and Google and Bing are continually adjusting their search engine algorithms.

The best way to ensure that you are not wasting your time and money is to hire Agency Partner Interactive to do it for you. API has experience in managing PPC accounts. Call Agency Partner Today and let them help you generate the PPC Marketing Strategy you need to grow the client base you want for your law firm.

Not big on reading? That’s okay. Watch “Does PPC Marketing Work for Attorneys” instead.

Using the power of Artificial Intelligence, we turned this blog into a video for you. Check it out below!

 

 

top_healthcare_marketing_tips - agency_partner_Interactive

Top Healthcare Marketing Tips

Posted on | by devops
Increase Conversions on your Healthcare Website
SEO Tips for Healthcare Marketing

There are several Healthcare Marketing Trends in 2019 which can bolster success and drive conversion for your company. In recent years, advances in technology have caused a shift in marketing methods, which make it necessary to step up your outreach strategy.

Tried and True – Healthcare Marketing That Works

Just because you need to keep up with the times doesn’t mean you need to throw classic marketing out the window. There are many methods that have lasted the test of time and should be maintained as you evolve your marketing techniques. 

Old School Marketing Evaluation

Start with an audit of your services and products. This will give you a well-rounded picture of your business, and also help refine your target audience. It’s important to review your business regularly to ensure that you’re on track with your goals. From here you can grow a “patient persona,” which reflects your target audience. This will be a core dimension of your marketing strategy. 

Next, answer these questions: What makes my target audience choose my practice to solve their health problems?

How does my website reflect that I am the best choice to address their issues? 

These two questions can help focus the messaging and original content on your website. Remember, no matter the original intent of your practice or its goals, you will only gain conversion and clients if they feel like you’ve gone the extra mile to take their Personal needs into Consideration.

People in pain want to know who you are, what you offer, and how you’re going to help them, specifically, right at the Onset of Visiting your site. When trying to find a dentist or a doctor they want to visit or type a question about their specific pain into a search engine, they want a specific answer with clear, concise information. 

New World Order – Healthcare Content Marketing

Today, when most everyone has a smartphone – and yes, there are now more Phones than People in the World – it is absolutely necessary to have a focused digital marketing and content strategy. Ads are a thing of the past with Millennials, a generation that utilizes ad blockers and would rather source content for free. They want to believe that real worth is communicated and vouched-for, i.e., reviewed. 

Healthcare Marketing for the Web Browser

Long-Tailed Keywords are going to have the greatest search engine optimization (SEO) impact. Consider content that includes whole sentences or phrases like: the bone in my ring finger hurts or doctor, specialist for holistic acne treatment. You get the picture. When you consider what your healthcare practice is providing, consider specific questions patients have asked in the past; that’s what your target audience is going to google. You want the sequence of words that is going to attract the highest volume response.

Healthcare Marketing for Mobile Phones

Speaking of phones, your website probably needs to be Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) compatible. AMP takes that fancy website you’ve just had us Build and converts it to being smartphone friendly. Websites will not automatically translate what looks great on a desktop.

It may not look the same, or it may be a very basic version for handheld devices. The thing you’ve got to keep in mind is that mobile devices are king. A detailed Study by Google reminds us that roughly 40% of people make searches solely with their smartphones.

The Full Picture – What to Include in Healthcare Marketing

Once you’ve got a sense for your target audience and how you’re going to attract them to your website, you’ve got to keep them there. There are a few things you can do to truly engage your patient base to drive conversion.

Video Marketing 

A short 2-10 minute video by a doctor or dentist is a great way to advertise your bedside manner with future patients.

This gives the viewer a chance to draw their own conclusions about the kind of person you are and builds trust that you were willing to put something of yourself out there.

Customer Touch Points and Online Reputation

How a customer or patient interacts with your website is huge. This includes referral sites, back lines, and reviews.

Patients can find services through more than just search engines. It’s important for you to communicate through multiple platforms, like Facebook or Twitter, to keep your name fresh. Your Online Reputation, including links to verified sources, will help improve the validity of your content, which will drive your SEO and search engine results. 

Location-Based SEO

Location-relative content is going to be an important driver. It’s not useful if your search results come up on an India-based Google search when your hospital or practice is located in Dallas. Your content needs to be location-specific with language which is understandable to local readers. 

Healthcare Call to Action!

Any which way you go, a Call to Action (CTA) is going to be a necessary part of your marketing strategy. At Agency Partner Interactive, we can help improve your website, leveraging modern trends, and help you build a marketing strategy that will include mobile device outreach and long-tailed sentence search results. Give Agency Partner Interactive A Call and let us improve your patient outreach today!

Not big on reading? That’s okay. Watch “Top Healthcare Marketing Tips” instead.

Using the power of Artificial Intelligence, we turned this blog into a video for you. Check it out below!

 

ceo's_5_minute_guide_to_seo - agency_partner_interactive

CEO’s 5-Minute Guide to SEO

Posted on | by devops
Tips From Digital Marketing Experts

There’s no point selling the best products in town if your storefront is down a back alley and in a basement. Likewise, the website that showcases your services needs to be easily discovered by those looking for them. With 63,000 Searches Happening per Second, Google is the equivalent of the busy shopping mall location that will be seen by your perfect customers. But to get into that sought-after position among the rest, you’re going to need a great SEO Strategy.

This guide to SEO will give you an overview of what that means.

How Important is Google Really?

Whatever you’re selling, people are Googling it. More than half of them will click on the top three search results, and a whopping 92 percent of all people will click a link on the first page. If you’re not on the first page of Google’s SERP, you’re in that basement down the back alley. Investing in a good Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Strategy is one of the smartest things you can do for your business.

Pay per Click (PPC) vs. Organic Optimization

You could pay for a Google Ads campaign for instant exposure, but it will cost you every time someone clicks through – and will stop working the moment you stop paying. Ranking organically is harder to do but it’s a superior long-term strategy. Once you’re up there, the clicks won’t cost you anything, you’ll reap a higher ROI, and those rewards will last a long time. You can either throw money at a quick fix or invest in a long-term strategy that offers higher conversion rates and lower ongoing costs.

Where do People Click?

The average search engine user is getting smarter about how Pay-Per-Click (PPC) works, and most scroll past the ads, knowing that they represent companies who paid for their positioning rather than leading the industry through quality content. Our eyes are becoming trained to simply ignore PPC results along with banner ads and pop-ups.

Highly ranked organic results suggest you’re an influential player in your field; they receive more clicks and result in more traffic and more sales, more of the time.

Prove It!

Another advantage of SEO is that every aspect of it is measurable. There is a plethora of Easy-To-Use Tools that will help you evaluate where your customers are taking action. Data and statistics obtained from the web mean you can continually evaluate and adapt your approach for optimal results.

What are the Elements of Good SEO?

While ever-changing, Google uses over 200 factors in their ranking algorithms, with varying levels of influence. For simplicity, we’ll divide these into on-page and off-page SEO.

On-page SEO is the easiest to manipulate. The factors that improve your position here include:

Off-page SEO can be a little more complicated to manage and deals largely with the “perceived authority” and trustworthiness of your site. It is influenced by:

  • The number and quality of links to your website;
  • The diversity, relevance, and authority of linking sites;
  • User reviews and site reputation;
  • The age and history of your website; and
  •  Mentions of your brand elsewhere on the internet.

Your Digital Marketing Team

Developing optimal SEO requires Team Collaboration. An SEO team might consist of five or six different specialists working on a single project, and could include a web developer, a web designer, a graphic designer, a marketing manager, content writers and editors, guest blogger outreach managers, data analysts, and a project manager. Everyone needs to be current with recent developments in this field, and working together cohesively.

Sounds Complicated!

Unless this is your area of expertise, it probably is complicated! This is one area where you don’t want to make mistakes, take shortcuts, or hire a cheap SEO rookie that leaves your website damaged from a Google penalty. One bad choice or attempt to cheat the algorithm could send your website’s SEO value plummeting and, like your high school GPA, it can take a lot of time and investment to recover your position once this has happened. SEO costs can vary greatly and there is such a thing as affordable SEO, but don’t fall victim to cheap SEO! 

Hiring a specialist consultant or agency is the most efficient and effective way of handling your company’s SEO. If you’re serious about improving your company’s Google standing, contact the digital marketing experts at Agency Partner Interactive to discuss your needs today.

Not big on reading? That’s okay. Watch “CEO’s 5 Minute Guide to SEO” instead.

Using the power of Artificial Intelligence, we turned this blog into a video for you. Check it out below!

 

 

 

the_costs_of_custom_mobile_app_development

The Costs of Custom Mobile App Development

Posted on | by devops
Tips from Top Mobile Developers

This article discusses the most important factors in custom mobile business app development,  to help you understand the process, and get it all right in the first stage of your project.

Let’s jump right in by setting reasonable expectations to budget your apps’ development costs, because believe it or not, globally, more people own a mobile ‘phone than a toothbrush. While this might be a sign that we need more toothbrushes, it’s definitely a huge opportunity for custom mobile app development for businesses.

A lot of numbers get thrown around regarding the costs of custom mobile business app development costs, the price of building an app, and getting it to market on the Windows, Android or Apple platforms. The question of how much you should invest in building a custom mobile app provokes more questions at the initial stage. Industry surveys point to nearly nothing, over the low six-figures to over 1 million dollars.

The price for developing an app from idea-to-market correlates with functional features and demands of the client.

The ballpark figure that is accepted by the industry at large is between $100,000 and $500,000 USD, but small apps with few features can cost between $10,000 and $50,000. 

The cost of keeping your app running each year will equate to 20% of the cost of making the app. This is without factoring changes in trends, new innovative technologies, or major infrastructure issues that could impede the normal running of your app.

This is the Formula to Calculate the cost of making a custom mobile business app:

(App Features∗Time)∗HourlyRate=Cost

This simple, yet realistic formula, can be used to structure your budget: App features can be separated in different complexity levels as we will see later on in this article. Time stands for the time needed to code the features described in the app’s functional scope. The hourly rate stands for the pricing of your developer, developer team or agency.

Another way to understand and manage costs is to break down the level of complexity of the app. Factors would include features from simple, moderate to complex; the costs estimate per hour would fall in the range of $50 and $100/hour –prices vary in terms of technical expertise, experience level and geographical location of the app developers appointed to your project.

For instance, experienced iOS app developers in the US can charge on average $120 – $140/hour, whereas junior developers in Eastern Europe can charge a rate of $40 – $60/hour.

This table from Think Mobiles gives you some estimates on mobile app costs based on varying complexity levels:

Complexity Features Time, hrs Cost $50/hr Cost $100/hr
Simple No API integration, no back-end, standard UI components, simple features like email subscription, login, calendar, etc. 400 20,000 40,000
Moderate Custom UI features, payment features, API integration, headsets and tablets adaptation, back-end server 500-800 40,000 80,000
Complex Multi-language support, 3rd-party integrations, custom animations, complicated back-end, professional design, real-time features, etc. 800-1500 75,000 150,000

A good way to understand development costs is to look at examples of well-known, popular mobile apps in the world today. If we look at your favorite apps and name three prominent examples the estimated development costs of Whats-app are for instance 750-1000 hours at a realistic hourly rate of $130/hour the costs for building the app in the US are $150,000-200,000.

For Instagram, the estimate is somewhere between 800 and 1200 hours, which adds up to $100,000-150,000 app development costs. Uber is a little more complex as it requires different features for the passenger’s interface than for the drivers` interface with an estimated development time of around 950-1200 hours the total cost results in around $120,000-150,000.

You can play with various app cost calculators on the internet, or get real and sit down with an experienced developer team to find a neat estimate for your budget and future app development costs that reflect your projects aspirations realistically. If you work with an experienced developer team it will help you to look at factors like geography, the newness of the technology, complexity and application size which will factor into the final price. 

The Internet is full of articles about freeware and building your mobile app at no cost by choosing ready-made modules. These platforms are usually staffed with ads and are not to be taken seriously when it comes to custom business app development. Projecting a professional and refined image would require you to discard this strategy as an option.

Although there are few inspiring success stories of self-made app developers that turned into huge success stories. Brian Wong founded Kiip in 2010, with his colleagues Courtney Guertin and Amadeus Demarzi. Kiip, is a mobile app rewards platform that lets stores or businesses give real-world rewards for in-game achievements. And Robert Nay developed his first gaming app at the age of 14, a physics puzzle game that has had more than 16 million Downloads, to date.

Although you might have the next supernova business app idea and are on the lookout for investors to cover development costs fully, you need to set your budget first. According to the Code-Mentor your budget is determined by the scope and design of your project. The scope gathers functions, features and the main value proposition that make your app unique, while the design covers Wire Framing, user flow, and prototyping.

Another important factor is the market you choose, either Windows, iOs or Android. Custom business app development costs come with many variables as you will have come to realize at this point.

Going from idea to product, you might want to consider hiring professional assistance who understands the field of app development to make sure that misunderstandings between you and the developer, or developer team, will not become a big cost factor. 

And don`t forget good freelancers are usually fully booked at least a few weeks in advance, don`t expect immediate availability or just plan in some weeks in advance on your development timeline. Same is true for the price range of good developers or as Benjamin Franklin put it: “The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of a low price is forgotten.”

So, you are all set, safe and sound, when it comes to estimating the costs of your app project…

…Ok, sorry if we overwhelmed you here with knowledge in this article, the different variables of bringing your idea to product can be complex. You might want to consider talking to us directly.

Our experienced development team and project strategists can make themselves available to discuss your project in greater detail. To learn more about what makes sense for your business, Contact Us Here.

Not big on reading? That’s okay. Watch “The Costs of Custom Mobile App Development” instead.

Using the power of Artificial Intelligence, we turned this blog into a video for you. Check it out below!

 

what_ios _13_and_the_new_ipados_means_for_business?

What iOS 13 and the New iPadOS Means for Business?

Posted on | by devops
Tips from Technology Experts

Apple is one of the largest tech companies in the world. When they announce new products, it is a two-hour production and the world takes notice, because everything you know about Apple can change in those two hours. Apple unveiled a new version of its iOS operating system in June, and the future of iOS just got better.

Alongside the update to iOS 13, they are also giving iPad its own operating system, iPadOS. That’s right; the future iPad will no longer be iOS. This new operating system is exclusively designed for the iPad tablet. Proving that not only does Apple set trends, but it also chases them. iOS 13 is a huge overhaul to iOS, and it is packed with features making it faster and more efficient than ever before. These new features will make it more convenient to do business.

When the new iOS 13 and iPadOS are released this fall, what will that mean for your business practices?

Key Performance Features for Your Business

iOS 13 and iPadOS have much to offer businesses. These features – detailed below – are the key performance features for your business.

Privacy and Security Features

Most apps and services today require users to create a profile or log in with a social ID. Apple’s new privacy and security features protect user’s data and connectivity usage. These include background tracking notification, weak password warnings, and a new sign-in feature that protects your employee’s personal information in a convenient and data safe way.

The privacy feature called “Sign-In With Apple” allows you to sign in to apps and websites with your Apple ID or a unique random ID via the click of a button. Your Apple ID will confirm your identity via Touch or Face ID and quickly log you in. When apps require your name, any personal information or an email address, Apple won’t provide it unless you give it permission. It then takes this security measure one step further. You will have the option of how you want your email address shared with an app, site, or service developer. Apple can now generate a unique, randomized email address which will forward messages to your real email address. 

What makes this feature even more attractive to your business is that companies can create and manage employee’s Apple IDs separately from their personal IDs. This is especially useful for companies with BYOD (bring your own device) policies. This helps to separate personal and business data, eliminating data privacy issues when it comes to mobile device management concerns.

Improve Workflow and Hands-Free Operations with Siri

Siri gets improvements across the board. Siri shortcuts are now built into the device and will suggest personalized shortcuts for simple tasks, instead of having to download them in a separate app. This same feature will also make it easier to set up custom routines and interact with third-party apps.

The new voice system smoothes out complex words and sounds more natural. Also, new to Apple AirPods, Siri can now read messages as soon as they come in and you can reply immediately without having to stop what you’re doing.

This will help improve business workflow. These new Siri improvements make it easier to communicate via your devices with clients and staff. 

Better Battery Life

Apple is finally bringing its popular Dark Mode to Apple’s iOS mobile devices. Not only will this give you new dark backgrounds and notifications across all your Apple apps, but this feature will increase battery life and offers battery management options – your apps will download faster than ever before. It is a definite plus if you have remote and field-service employees.

Faster App Updates

iOS’ performance boost features 30-percent faster unlocking with Face ID, a 50-percent smaller app download, and a 60-percent smaller app update – all working to remove the hassle of keeping business devices up-to-date.

iPadOS Features Increase Productivity

The iPad gets all the same changes you will have on iOS 13, plus additional features just for the iPad. Surprise, iOS 13 turns your iPad into a laptop replacement. By pinning a few widgets to your home screen, you get some pretty helpful new additions to your iPad.

iPadOS will give you better file management capabilities by using external hard drives. Your business will get SMB support. Not only will you be able to share iCloud folders, but you can also share files, folders, and printers used by other systems besides Apple. 

You will have the capability to zip files into a folder, making it easier to send them via email. Uncompressing the content of zip files into an expanding folder with access to the files just got easier too. These file management features will make remote working on an iPad a breeze.

Using Mac apps in side-by-side views gets a huge improvement, with Slide Over and Split View features. Now your iPad is performing like a desktop. Need to see multiple screens? No problem. You can also drag content from one app into another and still easily slide between apps. These iPadOS features are another plus for multitasking.

Along with the major features we’ve listed, here is a list of other features that will exponentially improve your business practices:

  • Safari now shows desktop browser views.
  • The Apple Pencil latency has been cut in half.
  • You can download fonts directly from the App Store onto your mobile device.
  • There are new gestures for navigating and manipulating text. 
  • When calling a business that offers business chat, your device will offer to start a business chat so you can interact from a text message instead of through a phone call.
  • You can add attachments, like documents, to events you have scheduled in the calendar app.
  • Apple’s Smart Lists will group your reminders in a schedule so they are ready when you need them.

Supported Devices 

Not sure if these iOS updates will work on your device? Here is the full list of supported devices for iOS 13 and iPadOS.

Apple did not announce an exact release date for iOS 13 or iPadOS. But a mid-September release, just ahead of the year’s new iPhone is predicted. There may also be additional features as Apple is known to hold out on releasing the details of some key features until the next iPhone launches. 

As always, Apple is focused on performance improvements and enhancements of its products for consumers, alongside improving productivity and workflow for businesses.

Not big on reading? That’s okay. Watch “What iOS 13 and the new iPadOS means for business” instead.

Using the power of Artificial Intelligence, we turned this blog into a video for you. Check it out below!

build_seo_pillar_content

Building SEO Pillar Content

Posted on | by devops
Tips from SEO Experts

When creating a business website, your pillar content is going to be the main, broad topic of your website. The topic can be anything: real estate, shoes, perhaps software. The pillar is the businesses underlying sales objective. 

Creating a successful website requires a strategy. At the foundation, your pillar is your SEO keyword or keywords. It is the topic your customers will use when performing a search–a search that should lead directly to you.

Pick a Content Topic

Pick a topic which is relevant to the consumer. Try not to be too specific or too broad at this stage. You should consider how much your audience cares about the topic, if it ties to your services, and if it has a good search volume.

Your main topic can have with sub- or “specific” topics branching off from this central theme and are relevant to your pillar content. 

Create a Pillar Strategy

Once you’ve identified your topic and subtopics, you need to create a table of contents – a list of all relevant information regarding your SEO content. This is the place to identify your overall objectives and goals.

Consider who the audience is, why are they looking for this, and what they need to know. How is your information going to serve them better than what they can find elsewhere? 

Content Outline

You need to create website building steps so that you have a process. Your outline is effectively going to be your to-do list. Your outline should, roughly, include landing page, menu with subtopics, subtopics pages, payment platform, contact page, and customer service pages. Next, add to that list your editing process steps.

Edit your Content

It’s important to build this time into your to-do-list, as this is the refinement that elevates your content from decent to great. Editing steps should include narrative flow, format, editorial style, and grammar and spelling. That means you should edit your entire web content four separate times, focusing on each editing method separately, to ensure your content is perfect.

Content Deadlines and Communication

Set deadlines for each step of your outline. This will give you a structure and a timeline to follow. It’s important to keep in mind that during the content creation stage that the content does not have to be perfect. It just needs to be created. You’ll refine that content during the editing stage. Where that may seem like doing double the work, the truth is that focusing on one thing at a time will keep your mind clear and your deadlines approachable and attainable. 

You’ll likely be communicating with a team of designers and content writers at this point and it’s important to remember that communication is key. Whether it’s questions or obstacles, you should establish a respectful and approachable rapport with your teams. They need to feel that you are available and willing to talk about the process. 

Content Design

Lastly, you’ll want your team to implement the design, such as images, video, color, and font – all the additions that make a website engaging and friendly. This will improve your dwell time with customers and help improve engagement and conversions. Agency Partner has 10 years experience creating and implementing pillar strategy and will provide you with the expertise to get your website launched successfully.

Not big on reading? That’s okay. Watch “Building SEO Pillar Content” instead.

Using the power of Artificial Intelligence, we turned this blog into a video for you. Check it out below!