Getting people to patronize a certain company’s product or service is not an easy thing to do. The competition among other businesses on the same industry is high and cutthroat. The marketing department is sure to experience different levels of stress just to make their brand name above every other competitor. Together with the evolution of technology, marketing strategies have also taken a step further in reaching their target customers – digital marketing. Though digital marketing has been popular and proven effective, there is still a number of companies which still utilize the traditional marketing strategy. 

source: Mystech Dynamics


How is Traditional Marketing different from Digital Marketing?


Traditional marketing is the old school strategy in promoting a particular brand name, product or service. Different kinds of media are included to raise awareness among the public. First, there is the print media where a company advertises through magazines and newspaper ads. This is still effective as most magazines nowadays are bombarded with different ads from different brand names. Another is broadcast media. This is done through TV commercials and radio ads that are played in a certain number of times in a day. Companies usually hire actors or models to influence viewers and listeners in buying their brand. Also a part of traditional marketing is telemarketing where people phone homes and offices introducing their product with an aim to sell their brand. The success rate in using traditional marketing has been proven high and effective. This is still practiced since the public is already used to it and they can easily understand the existing media.


On the other hand, we have the new age marketing or the digital marketing. What made this kind of advertising appealing to many companies and businesses is the fact that it utilizes the World Wide Web and most people nowadays have their own smartphones and tablets. Entrepreneurs opt to choose digital marketing because of the age of electronic devices. Digital marketing includes launching of websites, links through social media pages, content marketing, banner ads, and video marketing. These are known to be very effective in reaching target audience since most are always online. Further, the usage of digital marketing is cheaper compared to traditional marketing where a huge budget on ads is to be invested. It allows direct response from the target audience making it easier to understand the needs of the public.


Do companies benefit more if both marketing strategies are applied?


What companies need to know is do what they think would be most effective for them.

  • First, consider the money you will be spending on both marketing strategies.
  • Choose the one which you can save more money but will not compromise the return of investment to your company.
  • Also, choose one that can easily reach your target market.
  • Finally, consider the strategy that can generate direct response from your target market.

Understand what your business needs before taking a particular marketing strategy. Study the whole market well, know your competitors, and choose a strategy that will work best and gain more returns for your company.


Check out a better comparison of traditional & digital marketing at http://mystechdynamics.com/traditional-marketing-versus-digital-marketing/.
As a new business trying to survive the harsh environment of the market, it is best to learn a lot of strategies to keep your business alive. The market is very competitive, and competitors are always creating new ways to make their businesses better. Entrepreneurs should know how to sell their brands to make their business stand out among the rest.

source


To start building a good brand, entrepreneurs must know what their customers want. Identifying the target market and what these people are interested in should be made a priority. Once these are set, entrepreneurs have to find ways on how they can assure to deliver quality service to their market. Consistency is an important aspect. There should be consistency with your service and to your contact information that the customers have.



Your brand represents your business. Your business gets its success not only because of what you offer but also to the promise your brand gives. For example, you sell cakes for your business, but employees are impolite and do not show any enthusiasm while attending to your customers. It will just be natural that the business will lose its customers since the people working for the company does not stand by its brand name of being a cake shop – sweet and happy.



Businesses must have good working contact. This should include the following: 

(a) the business name
(b) logo
(c) contact information such as telephone numbers, mobile numbers, company website, and company social media pages accounts. This contact information must be employed in all kinds of advertisements such as online ads and even on flyers and brochures.



What could possibly happen when your contact information is inconsistent?


Serious damages on your business are possible from having inconsistent contact information. First, customers get confused on how to reach your business. For example, having a different mobile phone number on your website and flyers will cause doubt to a customer who might want to place an order. Also, customers who want to file a complaint might find it upsetting if the contact information given is not working or both are not connected to your business. Customers depend on the promises that your brand has, and once they are not fulfilled, they are sure to leave and not come back.


Since your brand sells your company, it is essential to build it properly and successfully. Here are some tips how:



· Identify what customers need and see to it that you will be able to give what your customers need.


· Trust your brand. You will find it difficult for customers to trust your brand if you yourself do not build your own confidence to it.


· Your brand sells the values of your business. Keep it simple and realistic.


· If you have people working for you, help them understand your brand. Make them foster what your brand says about your company.


· Market your brand in different media. Start by paid ads on the newspaper or invest on printing flyers for your business. Online marketing has been very popular so it is a good thing to invest on putting up a website


· Manage the brand effectively. Always look into details on what should be improved and changed with your brand.



Entrepreneurs should understand the value of their brand as it affects their business – it can give great success or a hard break for the business. 

Meanwhile, check out some of the best tips on online branding below:



Thanks Mystech Dynamics for these online branding tips!

What makes a website ranked first on search engines is that amount of people visiting that website. Without people clicking or checking a particular website, it will surely drown in the huge ocean of webpages that continues to increase yearly. This visits or what we call “traffic” feeds the website to be ranked in search engine pages. These rankings are based on how relevant and rich the content of the website to a user’s search. Because of these, search engine optimization (SEO) specialists create valuable content that attracts and keeps more visits coming to a website. 


 
With the huge competition on the Internet, getting a lot of website visits can be pretty challenging. Also, once the website gets that traffic, it has to maintain it and keep its rank on a particular search engine’s page. For those websites that are still starting and needs a little push with their traffic, here are some tips to improve your website visits

· Optimize. To boost your popularity among search engines like Google, invest on making content-rich search words in your website. The website should make use on simple on-page SEO techniques through relevant keywords and powerful titles. Also, SEO specialists have to keep content updated to increase the website’s presence.

· Know your community. It will be easier to reach out to your target clients when you know them. Make content that will suit on your client’s age, gender, and even cultural background. This will spark their interest in checking in to your ad.

· When writing your content, use catchy titles and descriptions. Boring titles do not attract customers on reading on it. They will just past browse you and look for something worth reading. Focus on what ticks your target client. Use this to your advantage to come up with ideas that will make them read your content. For example, if you are selling makeups, it will be nice to write content on how to put on makeup on particular occasions through the use of your own brand. You are not only giving knowledge on makeup skills but also advertising your product line.

· Build a strong image through social media pages. Almost every Internet user has an account on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest. These social media sites have gained popularity through the years as information is easily shared to other users. To increase your visits, create a page on these social media networks. Become active in the community of your target customers. Upload photos and videos to your page and get comments from the people. Always have something interesting to post on your account. Customers like to be intrigued on what product or service they can indulge on. The links you build connecting to your website can surely boost your ranking in no time.

· If you are someone who wants immediate results, be sure to have a budget for PPC or pay-per-click. On PPC strategies, your ads are ranked first on search pages making it very visible to the user. It is called PPC as you pay the advertiser every time a user clicks or visits your ad. It can be a good option; however, it is recommended to study your target market first before deciding to go for a PPC strategy.

Websites live because of user visits. Without these, websites will remain unknown and buried deep down the World Wide Web. Boost traffic by providing relevant and useful content that users look for.
Setting up your own website or blogs before posed a great challenge. There was just too much work involved just to have your own webpage. Today, content management systems (CMS) have made it possible to have your own website. In just a matter of a few minutes, one can easily upload his or her own content and have it shared to everybody online.

source: hpsoftech
Depending on what your particular need is, there is a content management system that will best work on you. For those who are not familiar what a CMS is, a CMS is a web application that lets people easily create their own websites without the need to memorize those codes. This is a very helpful tool for those individuals who want to invest on uploading their own websites or blogs and make money out of it.

There are literally a lot of CMS available online. Here are some to help you choose what’s best for you. Some may be too complicated to understand while others are very easy to manage.

· WordPress

Easy to install and with a variety of themes to choose from, WordPress is by far the most popular CMS. It is great for those people who are still trying to understand how to build their own webpages. With a friendly dashboard and free plugins, one can easily have their own website without breaking a sweat with WordPRess.

· Drupal

Once you install Drupal, modules on how to make your soon-to-be website has been made available. It has a good and active community support as well. Further, Drupal has a quite a good number of companies offering commercial support.

· Joomla

A lot of websites online run under Joomla because of its simple yet powerful features. It has a wide menu of templates, content blocks and even management tools. Businesses, big or small, use Joomla because of its easy customizable features.

· TextPattern
It is considered one of the most flexible CMS. Using Textile, anybody, even those with no technical knowledge, can navigate through TextPattern. It is user-friendly with a fairly good number of themes and plugins.

· SilverStripe

This is good for those people who have know-how and comfortable in using codes. They also have designed tutorials to those who are still beginning to use SilverStripe. It has basic functions and web developers can freely use HTML or CSS if they want to.

Launching your own website may take quite some time. Though it looks easy to create one, web developers spend hours thinking of designs and customizations that will work best with your brand. Choosing a CMS platform also is a huge consideration to make. CMS platform should suit depending on the client’s needs.

These CMS platforms may difficult to be understood at first; however, it is beneficial for one to learn a few tricks in using them. Web developers, web designers, and SEO or search engine optimization specialists know what their responsibilities are in creating a website, yet as the website’s owner, having a little background on what they are doing is helpful so as to understand every step they do prior to launching your website.
Internet marketing has been one of the greatest tools to make a business known to the public. According to statistics, the number of people using the Internet nowadays has soared every year. Thus, many business owners bring their marketing strategies into the World Wide Web. Almost any kind of business has their own webpages online; however, not everyone makes it to the top searches on a specific search engine. This is where search engine optimization comes into the picture.

Is it importance for a website to be on search results? A website will lose its purpose – of getting online audience – if it is not ranked on search engines. This is exactly what SEOs do. SEO specialists make websites visible on search engines.

Once a user key searches for information on search engines, crawlers look for relevant information on the web. What these crawlers look for is information that is user-friendly, well-organized and has rich content for the user to use. Crawlers follow certain algorithms to make their search easier. Simply say, websites need SEO in order for their website to be searched online. Without SEO techniques, a website will never get the traffic it needs, burying it deep into the World Wide Web.

What are some ways to optimize one’s website?

· Choose common and logical keywords

Always stick with keywords that are commonly used by your target audience. It helps a lot for your website to have content rich in these keywords. What will help boost your online presence is putting into your keywords your area. It will be easier for search engine crawlers to find your website and suggest it to the user.

· Use blogs

Blogs are like online diaries. A lot of people have blogs where they can write almost about anything. Some write about their travels, their food adventures and even anything about their daily lives. People usually use WordPress to host their blogs. It is very easy to customize, and it is for free. With blogs, it will essentially increase the traffic blog. Creating blogs and linking them to your website helps increase traffic. You can feature reviews and testimonials about the product you are offering or simply write a detailed marketing pitch to attract more customers to read your blog.

· Create links

Use social media pages to increase your traffic. Facebook and Twitter have been great mediums to reach target audience with the use of hash tags on every post or tweet. Further, you can immediately reach your target audience with the use of social media pages as more and more people are making accounts to these mentioned pages. It will also be nice to create blogs and have them linked to your website. The blog may feature write-ups or testimonials about your business.

Optimizing your website means creating traffic for it. Once your website gains a lot of traffic, search engines find it easier to spot in you on the web. Moreover, it will be best for websites to have their own pages to be mobile-friendly. Since most people are stuck in using their mobile phones, smartphones and tablets, a mobile-friendly website is more convenient for them to use. Websites should take this into consideration as Google’s crawlers are strictly designed to find webpages that are mobile-friendly and has rich content designed for mobile users.
Words are very powerful. They can either bring success or failure.

The popularity of a website on search results depends on the powerful content it has. With the right description and words to illustrate a product or service, it becomes more searchable on the Internet resulting to its popularity online.

There is a common misconception of having your own website: a website of your own is enough to let a lot of people know that your company exists. Indeed, a website is a tool in introducing your company to the World Wide Web; however, it needs to be on search results pages of search engines such as Google or Yahoo to be made popular. This is possible with the right use of SEO or search engine optimization
 


 
With SEO, it is possible to place your website on higher ranks online as it creates high traffic to your website. The greater the traffic is, the higher rank the website gets. To be able to be “searchable” online, a website should have a content that is relevant to the keywords being searched. This is the part where an SEO specialist is needed.

An SEO specialist task is to make original content through good keywords and phrases to increase traffic to a particular website. They have to analyze the trend of the keywords being used by people online. These keywords will help your website to be searched online; thus, creating a good content is important. However, writing quality content is no joke. It takes a lot of time and thinking to come up with the best content for a website.

Looking for a good SEO specialist is easy if you look for the following skills:

1. Knowledgeable to SEO jargons

Some words used in SEO are title tags and meta tags. A good SEO specialist has a know-how on these words; hence, increasing his or her efficiency to have a job done in no time. Being savvy on such technical terms may seem unimportant, but it is just the basic for a SEO specialist skill.

2. Know-how in Marketing
SEO specialists sell the content of a website. It is not just simple essay writing with a theme to consider. They have to think of marketing strategies that they can utilize through the words they use in the content they are making.

3. Writing Skills

Grammar, vocabulary, and sentence construction play an important role in this skill. One can come up with a good content if it is grammatically correct. As an SEO specialist, it is expected of them to be good at this.

4. Creativity

Coming up with ideas in a matter of minutes is draining and quite impossible. SEO specialists have special skills on drawing ideas out of their creative minds. Catchy keywords, easy to understand content, and simple vocabulary that are effective and meaningful are some elements in writing the SEO specialist should show creativity.

5. Analytical
The market is changing. A good SEO specialist knows how to understand the market’s demands. He or she should be good at analyzing changes on search keywords and look through errors on failed campaigns.

6. Good at research

He or she should not always rely on his or her prior knowledge. A good SEO specialist digs on stories, news, and blogs to come up with relevant writing.

7. Social Media savvy
As he or she works in the development or increase in traffic for a website, it is important to consider different social media platforms to help boost this need. He or she should know how to utilize social media platforms to his or her advantage.

8. Open to new ideas

Since the trends change, a good SEO specialist can easily be taught or trained to these varying changes. One should be able to write a content that might not be familiar to his or her.

9. Flexible

The algorithms can change as often as possible. One needs to be flexible and adjust to these changes. One should be able to learn how to make changes and learn new something from them from time to time.

10. Good communication skills

It is important for one to be good at communicating with other people to get information. This will create a good relationship to other people online, most especially to those who are subject for research.

To sum it up, a good SEO specialist knows what he or she is doing in creating a good and effective content for a website.
Some may find web development and web design to be the same. However, these two should not be interchanged for they are totally different from each other. How are these two different?

For starters, both are important elements in a website building process. Any person who has skills on both can be an advantage; however, some get different people to work as such to avoid complications on the job.

 
Try hitting a webpage online. You admire the website’s design to be attractive and appealing to the eyes. This is exactly how web design works. The people behind web designs, web designers, prioritize the aesthetic look of the website. They are concerned with the look of the website. They spend hours in front of their work desks deciding which layout will look more interesting for customers or target market. Choosing the design, font styles, and icons are only the few things a web designer has to be burdened with when creating a website. Further, web designers are also particular with the usability of the website. It is their job to make a design that customers will find easy to use.

On the other hand, web development is particular with the programming and interactions happening to a website. Primarily, their job is to make sure that the web site works fine. They use different codes and languages that will make the website run and load on different platforms available. When a customer clicks on an icon, it is their responsibility to have this icon functional that will direct the user to the page he or she wants through the icon. In sum, they have to make sure that the web site is running properly.

Can these two work together?

Of course! Web developers and web designers are the secret tool in creating a good website. Web designers make sure that they are creating designs and layout with the perfect color and fonts for the website. Making sure that these will fit best for the website, they work together with the web developers to show their plans. Once these plans or designs are finalized, web developers start their codes incorporating them to the design made by web developers. They have to make sure that the page will be loaded nicely and smoothly. Together with the web designer, both of them have to check that the website can attract customers and functional once they are launched. Both also are needed in maintaining the website. There could be changes made on the website that both the web designer and web developer have to work on together.

Can a web developer and web designer be the same person?

If you are skillful, then it is not surprising to be good at both. However, it is best to specialize on developing or designing websites to have your full attention and focus on the work given. Organization is crucial in creating a website; hence, everything has to work according to the plans made.

Both web developers and web designers understand the importance of each task they do for a website. The website’s success totally depends on the productivity and efficiency of both the web developer and designer.
With a good marketing, a business surely gets more customers and more profits. Being an entrepreneur, you have to understand a lot about your clients – what they need, what they look for, what makes them stay. It is difficult and will include a lot of trick on your sleeves. For most entrepreneurs, one great marketing strategy is creating a website.



Creating a website is indeed a powerful marketing strategy; however, it loses its magic once it is not taken care of or managed properly. Websites should be constantly updated with a layout that attracts customers or clients but shows professionalism and integrity. One thing that entrepreneurs have to remember is to make their websites constantly visible in the web. To do this, one should know about PPC or pay per click and SEO or search engine optimization.

PPC and SEO are two weapons that will increase traffic to your website. Traffic or web traffic is the amount of people visiting your website. High traffic means you are being searched all the time. There are a lot of people who knows that your company exists. The traffic will determine how successful your website is on the internet. To get hold of high amount of traffic on your website, PPC and SEO are used. What are these two and how are they different from each other?

Pay Per Click - PPC
 
For starters, PPC or pay per click is buying ads on search engines with a primary aim of increasing your website traffic. It makes the website visible on the search results page when the right key words are used by the visitor. Businesses which use PPC are able to put their ads on search engines as Google and Yahoo above their search results. Since it is pay per click, charge for this happens when the visitor clicks on the bought ad. If you are someone with a good budget for Internet marketing, using PPC will be a great advantage. In addition, you have to remember that these ads come up once you have the keywords being search by the visitor.

Search Engine Optimization - SEO
 
On the other hand, SEO or search engine optimization is free of charge. SEO is a process of getting the traffic you need for your website in a “natural” way on different search engines. You do not have to pay to be on top searches. In other words, with PPC you have paid search traffic while in SEO it is the organic search traffic. All the website needs to have is to bear the right keywords on the right places once a visitor uses such keywords on different search engines. Further, a good network of links should be connected to your website. This will make it easier for your website to get a high ranking on the search results; hence, it will increase your web traffic. This process may take a huge a lot of time and effort but the results are very promising.

So the question now is: which is better for your website – a PPC or SEO? It depends upon your willingness to allot money for paid internet marketing or to stick on something free yet would take quite some time. However, whatever you choose, remember to have a good content on your website and that keywords can be found on it. Ranking and traffic are very important; thus, asking help from any webmaster or SEO expert is a good choice.