Jan 8, 2020 | social manager, social Marketing
https://www.pexels.com/photo/food-pizza-woman-beautiful-3326713/
Social media marketing is an investment no company can do without and it’s especially important for small and medium businesses, startups and entrepreneurs. Social media enables very simple and cost-effective two-way communication.
Using a smart digital marketing strategy, you can increase the audience reach of your posts. However, good design is what makes the audience stick around.
Social media platforms are still a necessary form of promotion and a great way to build your brand identity. With attractive social media ad design, your posts will be remembered, shared and liked.
Where do you start? How can you start redesigning your ad strategy in order to attract new followers and customers? In this article, we’re bringing you the 6 steps you can take to start to improve your SMM results instantly.
- Develop a Consistent Style Guide
Every major brand has a style guide. It’s a general brochure or a document that describes all major points and details related to design, such as logo, visual instructions, colors, font, etc.
Here is an example from L’oreal:
Image source: L’Oreal Brandbook
If you want to run an organized, successful social media campaign, you need to have consistent rules for posting content. The easiest way to achieve this is to develop an all-around design style guide and stick to it.
This will also help newcomers in your team. Instead of having a browse through hundreds of posts and question colleagues about the brand style, they can simply refer to the style guide and know exactly what to do.
Here are some of the most important sections that you should include in your design style guide:
- Font (typeface, color, size)
- Colors (with RGB code and a palette sample)
- Logo (attach a logo in all its possible forms, with explanations when to use which ones)
- Social media header images (for Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube)
- Profile pictures for social media pages
- Photography guide (where to acquire photos and how to attribute sources)
- Step-by-step social post (if you make your posts in an online tool or Illustrator, attach a template with step-by-step instructions for a generic SM post)
- Write High-Quality Ad Copy
When it comes to social media ads, visuals are extremely important, but that does not mean you should ignore the text.
Words have the power to influence behavior, trigger emotions, motivate and inspire, which makes them the perfect tool for social media ads. When you look at major corporations and brands, you will see that they pay very close attention to what kind of wording they use, especially with marketing-friendly buzzwords.
Here, you can find the best writing websites to help you hire professional writers for your ad copy. It’s always wise to hire or at least consult with a copywriting expert before posting something.
- Tailor Your Design to Your Audience
Does your audience respond to your visuals? Do you know what your customers and clients like?
As you probably know, each color, typeface, form and layout has a specific effect and every audience has its own preferences. For example, if you’re running B2B marketing campaigns where you’re targeting top executives, you would use black or blue with a clean and sleek design.
On the other hand, marketing to teenagers is a whole other pair of shoes. In order to reach them and be engaging in their colorful newsfeed, you need to pop. This means colorful visuals, high contrasts and “loud”, impactful fonts.
- Test and Experiment
This is one of the most important parts of your social media ad design strategy.
Many designers and marketers believe that perfect content nails it on the first try, and is a result of careful pre-thinking and preparation. Of course, even though every post should be well-thought-out and planned, you can only know so much before actually posting it.
One of the best ways to test your ad design is A/B testing or multivariate testing. Design two different ads and see which one performs better (you can easily track this with Ad Manager).
- Consider Rebranding (if necessary)
If your ad content is constantly underperforming on social media, maybe it’s time for a design overhaul.
Of course, this can be a tricky step and it will require alignment and consultation with your entire time, coupled with weeks of hard work.
Also, redesigns changes become harder the more audience you have and the bigger your brand is. Just remember the public outcry every time Facebook had a redesign! However, there’s a very good reason even some of the most popular brands go through design overhauls. If something is not working at its best, it’s better to turn a new leaf and start from scratch than to flog a dead horse.
After it’s all done, refer to chapter 4 again (testing and experimenting). Before launching any kind of design, try finding a focus group which will test how they like the new design compared to the old one.
- Be Unique and Surprise Your Audience
On social media, there are many posts that look alike nowadays. Marketers are using tried-out, famous methods for attracting customers, but the problem is that they are among millions of others who are doing the same thing!
When you’re coming up with a new campaign, try thinking outside of the box. Even though you should track industry advice, you don’t have to follow an exact formula for a successful ad. If you’re completely original and unique, it will speak volumes about the awesomeness of your brand.
An example of unique content would be an uncommon format. These days, we’re seeing a lot of promotional videos combined with emoji-stuffed captions. Yes, that works. But yes, that’s all over the place.
Instead of a video, try posting a gif. GIF animations are among the most beloved format for millennials, who make up the majority of Internet users.
Conclusion
Developing the optimal social media ad design doesn’t have to be a nuisance. With the help of experts from different teams (copywriters, designers, marketers), your next viral post is bound to happen!
Nov 22, 2019 | Web Designer Near Me
The one-page website has created quite a fuss in the world of web design. For some, it may have seemed absurd at first, but this trend has proved to be very effective. One-page websites are functional, simple, and attractive. We also can’t forget that they don’t need the connection of payment gateways or other advanced features and they are relatively cheap. What more can you ask from a website?
The challenging part of one-page websites is that they need to be unique and attention-grabbing. You only have one page to wow the users and retain their attention. If you want to know how to create an awesome one-page website that’ll get you on the map of the Internet and its users, check out these actionable tips.
1. Plan out the Content
Considering that one-page websites shouldn’t overwhelm the users with endless scrolling page, you need to determine the most important information.
Start your process by laying out the website’s elements. Think about which information is of real value for the users. Your initial plans might contain some extra information that you can omit so take a close look at what you need and what you can exclude.
Discuss with your team which content elements are a must and that should be your base. Keep in mind that the page mustn’t be too long because the users will get bored before they check out the whole website.
2. Have a Hierarchical Layout
The content on a one-page website is presented on one scrolling page. Unlike multiple-page websites where information is distributed based on categories, one-page websites have all the information laid out at once.
Because of that, you need to find a way to organize the information effectively. A hierarchical order should follow the relevancy of information. One of the potential ways of distributing the information is:
- About section
- Your offering (services and products)
- CTA
- Meet the team
- Testimonials
- FAQ section
- A photo gallery
- Contact information
Of course, the order of information should be adapted to your services and your target audience.
Prioritizing the order of the information is one of the key steps and it demands extra attention.
3. Choose a Template
Templates can really simplify the website creation. They will lead you through the creation process and make sure that you don’t omit any important element.
In the template, you’ll already have strips and columns, a header, a rich footer, a social bar, and everything else that you need.
Most templates are fully customizable so you’ll be able to adapt the one you choose to your needs. You will have some basic elements as a basis but you’ll still be able to express your creativity and make the website unique.
4. Divide the Content with Strips
Since you don’t have different pages to organize the content, you can use the strips to achieve the categorization effect.
The strips can be added or removed until you get the desired effect. Organize them in the order that presents your content in the best light.
You can add images or videos to a strip to make the content stand out.
If you work with a template you’ll have pre-designed strips so you’ll only need to customize them and adapt them to your content.
5. Stand out with a Great Design
There is one simple rule you just need to follow: your design needs to rock!
A boring, generic, and repetitive one-page website just doesn’t stand a chance. That means that you need to go all out and create something awesome.
“Unusual and unique design will definitely give you some bonus points with the users. You can experiment with different backgrounds, scrolling effects, impressive text, or anything that comes to your mind. Be daring and explore different possibilities,” advises Julia Harold, the head of the marketing department at WowGrade.
Rather than crowding your website with text, use effective design and visuals to emphasize the most important information. This is the moment when your creativity should take over.
6. Make the Navigation Clear
Website owners who opt for one-page websites often include links to external pages. For example, a singer can have a link to the Spotify profile.
The external links can lead the users to an external payment platform, a YouTube account, or a different website.
This step is completely understandable, but what you need to be careful about is letting the users know that they are being redirected.
The users have the right to know that they’ll be led to an external page. They should also know why that different platform is useful for them. In that way, you’ll avoid confusing and wrong assumptions.
7. Stick to the Point
One-page websites are the perfect choice for those who don’t have a ton of content. That means that you shouldn’t beat around the bush and add a lot of fluff to mask it.
Your aim should be to keep it straightforward and simple. Don’t add unnecessary information just to make the page longer.
Stick to the point and provide users with the most important information, that’s all that you should focus on. No empty words, no inventing, no irrelevant information. All you need is to be direct and keep it as simple as possible.
8. Experiment with Parallax Scrolling
Parallax scrolling is a web design trend that can bring your page to life.
As the user scrolls down your website the layers in the background and foreground will move at different paces. Achieve this parallax effect by adding subtle animations such as reveal, zoom in, and fade in your editor.
By adding this 3D illusion to your website you’ll make it more interesting to the users.
The one-page websites are one dimensional and can seem boring to some. A trick such as this one can retain their attention and encourage them to keep scrolling till the end of the page.
Final Thoughts
With intuitive scrolling, sleek design, and direct content, your one-page website can be a huge hit. The simplicity and high-quality content are the way to reach the users’ hearts. As long as you follow these tips you’ll have clear guidelines that will lead you to the website of your dreams. Just remember that the users should always come first so create each element with a user-centric approach.
Angela Baker is a self-driven specialist who is currently working as a freelance writer at SupremeDissertations and as an editor at PicktheWriter. She is always trying to improve herself and her blogging career. Angela is always seeking to discover new ways for personal and professional growth and is convinced that it’s always important to broaden horizons. That’s why Angela develops and improves her skills throughout the writing process to help to inspire people. Also, she writes for LiveInspiredMagazine, rounding out her professional writing career.
Nov 7, 2019 | Web Design
Top Banner Sizes: The 21 Most Effective Banners 2019
source: https://www.match2one.com/blog/standard-banner-sizes/
When creating banners for Display Advertising it’s important to consider which sizes to use. Choosing the right size of banner can greatly help you boost your advertising effectiveness.
To help you out we’ve collected data from 4.8 billion ad impressions on millions of sites to bring you the most up to date statistics on banner usage for 2018.
If you want to know which banners are the most commonly used across the web, this guide is for you.
The top Banner Sizes sorted by how frequently they’re used
Common Web Banner Sizes
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has created standardized guidelines on banner sizes, which work across all advertising networks, including the Google Display Network (GDN).
If you want to learn more about the different sizes and how common they are, you will find the 15 most important formats in a handy chart below – together with how common they are, to make it easier for you to plan your campaign.
Download PDF guide with images here:
Nov 4, 2019 | SEO Expert
To get more traffic to your website without spending a lot of money, and that is what any Internet business strives to accomplish. In this article, we will cover the basic knowledge, which will be followed by 4 basic tips to get traffic to your site.
Anonymous to many novice webmasters, there are some ways to attract more visitors to your website that do not require spending a large amount of cash. But consider the fact that it is not so simple and requires much more work on your part.
So, if you prefer to work to get more visits to your website, instead of paying for it, then here are some simple ways to achieve it, get even more tips to improve your website by visiting Glamy SEO service.
Article Directories
Uploading articles to article directories is perhaps one of the most valuable ways to direct more visits to your website. By writing and uploading articles with topics associated with your website, it is almost certain that you will get more visits to your website for an extended period. Further, while your articles are kept in the directories, people can find you and the chances of receiving more visits can be more substantial. Some of the sites, you should look for depending on the language of your blog and the language of the directory, search on Google use the word directory of articles and start with those that have the best ranking in Alexa because they have more visits and those in their categories topics, that are relevant to your website.
Choose article directories that allow you to place at least one link to your website and with a good biography. To use article directories, you must be able to write many original articles in a short time and upload them to as many directories as possible. It is one of the most recommended tactics, but the work involved is quite heavy. And only the long-term effects will be noticed and when you have many articles written in different directories.
SEO
Search Engine Optimization – SEO is a procedure, that you apply on the pages of your website to increase search engine rankings. The positioning in search engines is not difficult to learn and there is much software that helps you make good SEO work.
Sandy Rowley an SEO Expert conducted various testing methods in design, advertising techniques, and layouts in order to increase the rank of the website.
The first thing you should do is to determine the meta tags (HTML tags that define the keywords of your website and determine the theme of your site), although today some webmaster take away the importance, this factor should not yet be ignored. Here are a few factors to prepare your meta tags:
- a) Your domain should have keywords for your niche market
- b) The title tag of each page should include the keyword.
- c) Your keywords should be in the first paragraph of your page.
- d) The image on the label that says “alt” should include the keyword.
- e) The directories and file names of each page of your site should have your keywords.
Blogs
Create a blog that has links back (backlinks) to your website. Blogs like Blogger.com are quickly indexed by Google and other search engines.
Updating your blog, every time when you are putting new content, search engines will immediately use spiders to review it.
Putting your keywords in the content of your pages will help you increase search engine rankings.
Putting a link in your blog that directs your visitors to your website to be indexed and register your update more often.
Blogging is less painful and adds a lot of your web pages to your site in search engines.
Many places allow you to have unlimited blog accounts, some are free like Blogger.com, another popular blog application is WordPress.com.
Fora
Writing or posting in forums relevant to your topic will allow you to put links, towards your products and services in the signing of your posts, so that you have more visitors from the forum members and search engines, who follow your links.
Make sure the signature you post on the forums is memorable to magnetize readers and click on your related link to go to your website.
These 4 marketing tactics are simple and cheap to increase the traffic of more visitors to your blog. By implementing the mentioned strategies used regularly will ensure traffic flow.
Nov 1, 2019 | Web Design
Even the best products and services won’t reach their full potential without recognition. If you want to improve your e-commerce store, what you need to focus on is getting more leads. One of the ways that will help you achieve that goal is to employ an effective web design strategy.
Online advertisements simply aren’t enough for reaching the maximum potential. Your website design needs to be optimized for sales if you want to progress in the business. Check out the following design tips that will bring your e-commerce website more leads.
What Would the Users Like?
This is the question that you need to repeatedly ask yourself throughout the design process.
Users are the ones that you want to compel and whose attention you want to attract. Therefore, it is quite clear that their preferences should come first.
Find out more about what they like by checking the competition and the comments users leave, by asking questions on Quora, or by setting polls and surveys on social media.
The internet gives you a ton of opportunity to inquire about your target audience and make your decisions accordingly.
Start Your Own Blog
Just consider that companies who blog receive 97% more links to their website. You can experience that same improvement through this strategy.
Make the blog a part of your website. Let it be noticeable and easily manageable.
The reason why blogging is effective is that you’ll attract people through interesting topics but once they finish reading they will check out your website.
The key part is that you create content that is closely related to what you sell. For example, if you sell exercising equipment create content that revolves around a healthy lifestyle. That is the only way that the readers will stick around and browse through the website.
Simplicity All the Way
Crowded website design will distract the user from what’s really important – purchasing products. If you overwhelm them with numerous colors, fonts, images, or options they will give up.
That is why keeping it simple is the best choice. Incorporate your brand’s colors and logos and let the design revolve around that.
This strategy will work best since the leads will be able to manage through your website easily and get from your blog to your product catalog in no time.
“Simple web design is highly advisable for an e-commerce website. Those who love to live with the policy “the more the merrier” will need to adapt their preferences. The users need to be directed towards sharing your website and making purchases and that is the guideline that every web designer should follow,” says Thomas Byers, a web designer at Best Essay Education.
Use Images with ALT Tags
Attractive visuals are currently trending. Consequently, your website design needs to cater to the needs of users and feature beautiful imagery.
What can help you get more leads is if you use ALT tags. In that way, users can encounter your images in their Google search.
For example, let’s say that the user is searching for an anti-aging day cream with SPF 30 and she is browsing through Google Images. If your image contains the ALT tag, it will come up in the user’s search and lead her to your website.
Edit the Content to Perfection
Every aspect of your website, from the home page to product description needs to be written perfectly. That means, that there are no grammar or spelling mistakes.
Your website can be aesthetically appealing but mistakes in writing will distract the users. What is worse, such mistakes will present your business as unprofessional and careless.
If you do your own writing, get someone to proofread it for you. Or, if someone else is creating content for your website, you can check if everything is correct.
For some professional help for writing and editing, you can turn to the following services:
- Trust My Paper – Experts in writing and editing that work for this company will live up to your expectations for sure.
- Grammarly – Do a quick check through this online proofreading app to make sure that your content is ready for publishing.
- Readable – With this service, you’ll be able to see how comprehensible your content is and make some changes accordingly.
Make It Mobile-Friendly
Mobile phones have become something like our assistants. There has been an 80% increase in mobile searches for the “best” products and services. This shows that more and more people are turning to their smartphones or tablets when searching for products.
Optimize your website and make it mobile-friendly to attract those shoppers who prefer to shop from their phones.
Mobiles have become one of the main lead generators so you better make the most of it by using a responsive design.
Intertwine the Website with Social Media
Social media buttons must be an element in your website design. They will allow the customers to share your posts, products, and whatever they find interesting.
Research shows that 81% of American adults have a social media profile. The reality is that a large part of marketing is focused on social media platforms. This isn’t a surprising fact since people spend most of their time scrolling through Instagram or Facebook.
However, this works in your benefit. If you create quality content and provide your users with high-quality products or services, they will be eager to share their findings with their followers. That is why you should make social media buttons available and visible.
Some Final Thoughts
These are a few primary elements of your web design that you should focus on if you want to drive more leads. This simple yet effective strategic moves can turn your e-commerce site from average into highly successful. Nowadays, it all comes down to investing your time, money, and effort into hacks such as optimization, user-oriented design, and social media availability. Keep up with the world of business and get your e-commerce website the attention it deserves.
BIO:
Nicole D.Garrison is a content strategist, writer, and contributor at Studicus and a number of platforms for marketing specialists. She is a dedicated and experienced author who pays particular attention to quality research. At her free time, Nicole is a passionate runner and a curious beekeeper. Moreover, she runs her own blog LiveInspiredMagazine.
