Category Archives: Marketing Tips

Why Now Is the Time to Hire a Local SEO Services Company?

A professional and well-established SEO company delivers results no matter its location. But, the question of local SEO vs. national or remote SEO comes into the picture as soon as you consider the audience you want to target. When your business relies heavily on local clientele in Houston, it becomes important to hire someone who understands their mindset, buying behavior, preferences, and the like. Hence the need to choose a local SEO company Houston. Here is how they help and why you need to hire them right away.

They speak the same language

A prime reason to choose a local SEO company in Houston is that they speak the same language as your business, which also happens to be that of your customers. This is extremely important when creating content for SEO purposes. Web page copies with the same spelling, dialects, and other keywords that are specific to your locality or area connect better with the audience, especially when you are focusing on improving search engine rankings for your local business.

They have better local knowledge

When you choose to work with a local SEO company, you can be guaranteed of a better working knowledge of the area they cater to. For instance, if you are a travel company that is looking to sell local attractions, a local company will have a better idea about the places that people like to visit. This can help them integrate search terms into the webpage content without borrowing information off obsolete websites or typical result pages.

They have a better understanding of local culture and audiences

Local SEO companies in Houston have a better understanding of the local culture than one with a national presence. They know what’s acceptable and what isn’t. Also, what clicks with people, be it keywords, search terms, images, and so on. Local SEO companies typically know the general demographics surrounding your business including what interests them and how they can be reached effectively. This is especially helpful when you want to market your business to the local crowd. These service providers also tend to have similar work cultures and find it easier to work in tandem with your team than some faraway company with people from a different background.

They understand local competitors

Because they function in the same region that your business is in, local SEO companies tend to know a great deal about your partners and potential ones. They also figure out competitors more easily, and probably also know how the latter work on their search engine optimization tasks. When you need references, these service providers are more likely to direct you to someone in the same area than a company that’s far away and hard to reach.

They help comply with local laws and regulations

Search engine optimization may be about your website, but it also requires complying with local laws and regulations when they are present. One of the biggest advantages of hiring a local SEO expert or agency in Houston is that they have a good knowledge of what’s okay and what’s not ok with the authorities. Unlike a remote SEO service who may have a limited idea about local compliances, and who could potentially land you in trouble.

They allow for in-person communication

You may have more options when you choose to work with a national or a remote SEO company, but there are benefits of in-person communication that you can have only with a local SEO provider. Having a face-to-face meeting helps develop better rapport. It also gives you the opportunity to discuss concerns, clear doubts, and gain a better understanding of everything to do with your search engine optimization project. Being in the same locality, these service providers are also more reachable and approachable.

They have a fine grasp on local SEO

Local SEO is increasingly becoming a specialized field and there isn’t a better choice than an SEO company in Houston to get this job done for you. Optimizing your website to show up on local search results requires listing your business online with many local directories, something that a local search engine optimization company tends to know better than a service provider miles away.

Does SEO Help You Grow Your Business?

Search engine optimization impacts your business in many ways. Unless your Woodlands business webpage shows up on the search results page, there is hardly any chance that you will gather clicks or customers for that matter. This is where SEO companies in The Woodlands come into play. In addition to getting you to top on the search engine results page, they can help create an indirect positive impact that allows growing your business. Here is a look at how it is possible.

Increase inbound traffic

Generating leads is always a difficult part of any business. Outbound marketing practices are usually the go-to method but cold calls, emails, and other techniques can actually prove to be costly in the long run, especially if you are just getting your business started off the ground. Search engine optimization, on the other hand, helps augment your sales and marketing efforts by drawing quality inbound traffic. There is also the upside of making this happen in a cost-effective manner. With regular efforts, SEO can give you targeted results, which grow over time.

Build credibility

Getting visitors or potential customers to trust your brand is something that takes a long while especially when done through old-school means like word of mouth referrals. In an era where search engine results have the same credibility, thanks to reviews or feedback, ranking on top can make a drastic impact on how people perceive your brand. The Woodlands can help you get there faster while sustaining your place through ongoing efforts. Including the right keywords and structuring your website in a manner that appeals to search engines can help build your trust and credibility in their eyes, which in turn can get you more qualified traffic.

Get visitors to take action

Drawing visitors or potential customers to your business website is only one part of the game. The true benefit comes when these people convert into paying customers. The Woodlands SEO does more than insert keywords into your web content. It optimizes the site for the right keywords that matter to your business while also making the site more user-friendly and easily discoverable. This helps immensely by letting your website be seen by the right people at the right place and at the right time. SEO gives you the advantage of getting the right customers and not just random visitors who are there to waste time. These potential buyers land on your website because they are searching for those keywords linked to your product or service. This, combined with a website that caters to their needs, gets them to convert into a buyer.

Websites aren’t always about sales. Your goal may be to get customers to join your mailing list or take part in a survey. When you are a local business, the goal may event be to share contact information or details about your services, so that they can follow up later. The Woodlands SEO companies can help with all of that.

Deliver long-lasting results

Using traditional methods of marketing or advertising has limitations in terms of the duration. You can drive results only as long as they are running. Chances of conversion or recall, once the ads have been pulled down, are pretty rare. SEO, on the other hand, lets you reap benefits in a sustained manner and stay on top of search engine results for a long time. This is made possible through ongoing efforts. While it may not give you immediate results like a PPC ad, SEO can still give you an advantage over your competition by making your business more visible in the long run.

Give better returns on investment

When compared to traditional methods of offline advertising and newer ones through digital means, search engine optimization gives you better ROI and at lower costs. This is typical because it helps you connect with the right target audience – people who genuinely take interest in or search for your product or service. Also, SEO is not on-the-face like a PPC or social media ad. There is no hard selling and your business website shows up on the results only when people search for related keywords, thus giving them an impression that you are doing things right.

Need to Promote Your Business? Go for These SEO Strategies

Why SEO?

Time has changed a lot, and in tune with this shift, the strategies that control the marketing processes have also changed considerably. Online presence has become an essential factor, and devoid of a handy online portal, businesses cannot thrive in our time. However, creating a website is not enough. One will have to make the site visible for the targeted audience. Thousands and thousands of websites are cropping up every day. Only when your website pops up in front of the person who is searching for the product or service you sell, there will be a probable transaction. For making this situation possible, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is imperative. Strictly speaking, the site must be made precisely in line with the requisites of the search engines. The site must match the algorithms of the leading search engines.

Need to Promote Your Business? Go for These SEO Strategies

• Proper SEO is essential to influence and win over the algorithms of various search engines so that the related website floats in the first layers of the SERP (Search Engine Result Page). However, it is not just adopting any unscrupulous, sneaky methods for making the site visible in the ocean of websites. You must get the assistance of an expert SEO company for making your online presence beneficial.

• The company must be familiar with the handling of the local SEO works. In other words, the SEO manager must be capable of addressing the targeted audience effectively. Only by the identification of the actual market conditions and the existing, as well as the probable direct and indirect competitions, one can initiate the right SEO tasks.

• Of late, there is a shift in the SEO tactics, as the major search engines like Google underscores the importance of giving useful and informative, and entertainment content for the users. Valuable content creation, which will be practically useful for the readers, is a must, besides the usual link building. However, obtaining backlinks is an important attribute as far as the winning nature of the SEO is concerned. Acquiring reliable backlinks is a proven way of making the SEO successful.

• The keyword research is a must for making sure about the success of the content promotion. Care should be taken to incorporate proper keywords into the content. Here, care should be taken not to make the content fluffy. By conducting the proper research, you can find out the words that are generally used by people for finding the related products or services. The SEO Company with whom you plan to have a professional tie-up must be capable of doing the keyword research in a professional manner. They must be able to find out the appropriate keywords or key phrases, which will make the website contents easily reachable.

• Social media is highly active in our time, and hence, you must manage these different platforms as it should be. Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram, Twitter, etc., are par for the course of modern-day life. The SEO Company must be able to handle these social media platforms successfully. Each of these platforms has different functional nature, and hence, the promotional activities must match the corresponding practical requirement.

• PPC (Pay-Per-Click) is another result-oriented SEO method. Here, the advertisers will have to pay an agreed fee every time a viewer clicks the advertisement link. This method practically means the purchasing of site visits.

How to find an Efficient SEO Company?

The practical experience of the company is the prime thing that you must consider while selecting an SEO agency. It is a must that the company must have a proven track record of assisting companies to come in the first slots of the SERP (Search Engine Result Page). The company must have its own verified programs for performing perfect SEO works. It must use only authentic methods for SEO works. Besides, the pricing must be economical.

You must consider the above factors while selecting an El Paso SEO agency. El Paso is a populous city, and to reach every segment of the population, you must hire the professional services of a professionally capable El Paso SEO company.

WeChat Marketing – Top Strategies Revealed

Simply put, you cannot ignore digital marketing on WeChat. WeChat has successfully built a mobile lifestyle that touches different aspects of users lives with 60% of the users opening the app more than 12 times every day and  40% looking for information through official groups and accounts. The social media platform is expanding its ecosystem and achieved milestones with the launch of Mini Programs and WeChat Work. A planned advertising and marketing campaign by WeChat marketing agency will help in serving the needs of any organization as well increase the demand for the service or product they offer. The current trends show it is difficult to get success by not using WeChat advertisement and here we have compiled some solid strategies for getting success in 2019.

WeChat Search Results

Social search engines help in providing brands with a powerful word-of-mouth effect and WeChat has strong potential with its integrated Sogou search feature. An important feature is the brand zone search which is active on “brand zone” where a brand has to fulfill three criteria: verification by WeChat, activation of WeChat Pay and receiving trademark protection. The brand zone is a nice opportunity for taking full control of the internal search function and offers a quick passage into the WeChat ecosystem considering that it is the main source of how brands obtain followers.

Marketing Automation

One of the exciting opportunities that businesses miss out is the 2-day window from when a new customer follows their account. Just like email marketing in western countries, brands can able to send up to 5 messages to new followers during that period. If you want to maximize the value and reach of your official account, then you need to understand your followers and how you can connect with them. This is the best opportunity for your business for showcasing and engaging the benefits of users becoming associated with your brand. You must offer tailored messages to each follower and utilize order history data for customizing your responses. Highlight different user benefits like VIP services, O2O, and loyalty programs. Other features like grouping and automatic tagging are also effective for breaking up your target audience based on specific incentives you are offering.

Mini Programs

These are sub-applications within WeChat and helps in transforming how brands are marketing in China. Currently, WeChat has over one million mini-programs and businesses are enjoying high conversion rate at an affordable rate while keeping users engaged at the same time. These programs have more than 60 entry points that make them sticky and easily discoverable. They can be linked to WeChat articles and subscription accounts thereby providing your brand to develop several touch points for deepening your relationship with users. WeChat marketing agency can incorporate mini-games for players for winning vouchers and group deals to provide them a personalized experience with your product or service.

Connecting with Global Travelers

China boasts of having one of the globe’s largest travel markets and international Chinese tourism continues to rise. The change in demography provides a new type of Chinese tourism with the rise in rich independent travelers which consists of the younger tech-savvy females. In 2017, Chinese tourists have spent 115 billion dollars on overseas and that number will likely to escalate. Most of these travelers use WeChat for payments, booking and other travel related work. Since a lot of western apps is banned in this country and the usage rate is low, global travelers tend to utilize this platform when they come to China. This provides a great opportunity for brands to tap WeChat advertising and attract the attention of global travelers. It will be easy for your brand to attracting travelers to your online and offline stores by providing attractive offers and special discounts.

All About Search Engine Marketing on Baidu

The internet population in China has achieved a milestone with over 800 million users who are actively using the net and over 80 percent of the country’s population are search engine users. Over 60 to 65% of the users perform extensive research before buying a service or product with most of the research done on Baidu. As one of the crucial practices of digital marketing, search engine marketing is vital for an organization’s success in China’s online marketplace. Baidu dominates the search engine space and globally it is the second most used search engine. By total revenue, Baidu has over 80% of the market share in search engine market space. As with every digital platform in China, most of the revenue for Baidu comes through search engine marketing. This demonstrates the potential of Baidu SEM and why it is important for your business.

Definition of Baidu

Baidu consists of an index that has millions of web pages with billions of searches on its search engine portal every month. Its main function is internet searching but also hosts Baidu Music (music service), Baidu Map, Baidu Space (a social network platform), Baidu Baike (an online encyclopedia) and  Qunar (a booking service).

Baidu Analytics

The best technique to collect accurate analytics from a campaign is adding the Baidu Analytics web statistics tracking system to your site. It allows you to see the number of users visiting your website, at what time they are visiting and their entry point. This helps in providing an insight into the advertisements that drive the most people to your website. 

Baidu SERP

This is similar to the world’s most popular search engine. The layout consists of two columns with structured data on the right and search results on the left. The search results have various paid advertising items where users need to scroll down for finding more organic results. With this format, paid advertisements have more traction for Baidu SEM.

Baidu has its own news, video search, and documents tab as well as own maps service. The most popular services offered by Baidu are Baike, Tieba, and Zhidao. By using these services you will run a successful Baidu campaign and provide your users with tailored content for their needs. This also leads to the growth of your brand visibility thereby driving organic traffic to your site.

Baidu Zhishu

Basically, Zhishu has an index where it provides insight into the volume of searches for specific keywords on Baidu. Enter any term in the query box and you will be provided with a wealth of search trends, historical data and other important factors that will be required for your online marketing.

Baidu Keyword Planner

A tool that helps the marketers for purchasing search ads on Baidu but can be very effective for SEO keyword research. It displays the search volumes for a particular keyword at a specific period of time.

Baidu’s Search Tools

After passing through the application process, you are ready for starting your campaign. Now you have the options for targeting your customers. Search tools are crucial for any Baidu SEM strategy and Baidu boasts of some incredible tools that will help you target potential users.

The Importance of SEO for Internet marketing

If you are a business owner or involved with any aspect of business promotion, you have likely heard of SEO. You might have even employed SEO techniques for marketing your products or services. But if you haven’t or are still not convinced about SEO for your business then you might be missing out on the best way to promote your products on the Internet.

Here’s more information on the importance and the necessity of SEO for Internet marketing.

SEO – The Necessary Good

SEO is not something that you don’t want but ‘can’t do without’ kind of necessary evil. It can help you market your business in an affordable manner and actually guarantee solid ROI or return on investment.

Yes, SEO can bring you solid returns on your valuable investment. If you implement proper SEO practices for your business, you can actually see tangible results in terms of growth factors such as brand awareness, more sales, valuable leads, and customer engagement.

SEO is a technique or rather a number of practices that can help people looking for specific businesses find them through search engines. With the right SEO techniques, you can ensure top rankings for your business on search engine pages.

Now, why is this important?

When was the last time you went beyond the top search results when looking for something online? The likely answer is probably a long time ago or never.

Consumers now look for the things they want on the Internet. Even if you only have a physical store, you need to have a presence online so that your prospective customers can find you. For instance, good El Paso SEO can help people looking for something in your business category in your town find you online and then reach out to you in your brick-and-mortar establishment.

So, to put it very simply – if you do not employ SEO for your business, you might be losing out on getting new customers.

SEO – the Implementation

Of course, as a business owner, you are not likely to have the time to do the SEO work by yourself. You might not even have the necessary know-how for SEO. But you don’t need to do away with SEO just because you don’t have the right technical expertise for it. For SEO to show real results, it is best to hire specialists for it.

For example, let’s say you run a business in El Paso. In that case, local SEO in El Paso offered by a specialist team can do wonders for your business.

Local SEO practices can help you reach anyone looking for the products or services you offer in or around El Paso. If someone is visiting El Paso and looking for a nice boutique for baby gifts, they are likely to first look online rather than just meandering through the town looking for the right store. Local SEO can simply put a business at the forefront of prospective customers looking for specific products or services.

SEO involves a number of practices that include research, planning, content creation, marketing, analysis, and more to build a cohesive plan to promote a business. For instance, the research can be about finding the right keywords that your prospects are likely to use to find products or services for your business category. The content creation can be for making a website user-friendly and to help it reach the top of SERPs or search engine result pages. The analysis part is to review the work and the corresponding results in order to tweak or change SEO strategies if needed.

So, with the right team of specialists to help the SEO work for your business, you can promote your business in remarkable ways.

SEO work can be very affordable. You don’t need to spend a fortune to hire a team or an agency for your business’s SEO requirements. Even small businesses can afford to implement SEO with the help of the right experts. You can opt for SEO services as per your budget by discussing it with the right local agency to serve your requirements.

SEO actually works. You will be able to see real results by using analytic tools and measure the success of your SEO plan.

Social Media Marketing Guide for Beginners

Despite the censorship and government regulations, popular social platforms like Facebook and Twitter are not available in China. However, China has its own social media platforms to cater to its huge population.

If you are planning to run a social media marketing in China, you need to understand the basic differences between Chinese social media platforms and Western counterparts. Here is some important information about Social Media Marketing in China.

Popular Social Media Platforms in China

China has its own local social media platforms. While Weibo and Wechat are the most popular ones, there are others too such as:

  • Qzone
  • QQ
  • Renren
  • Youku Tudou

Here is some important information about Weibo and Wechat that would help you develop effective social media marketing strategies.

Wechat – It started as a messenger app with Newsfeed features. However, it has grown to offer a multitude of utilities useful for marketing. For example, it includes a Moment page which is more like a Facebook wall where you can update status, post images, videos, and text.

Sina Weibo – Weibo means “Microblog” in Chinese. It is a hybrid of Facebook and Twitter which is used by more than 22% of Chinese people. Just like Twitter, the content on Sina Weibo spreads faster but you can still find the most discussed topics on the platform and use them for marketing purposes.

Users can post long articles with images, short posts, videos, and hyperlinks. Also, users can repost, search, comment, and send messages on trending topics.

Facts About Chinese Social Media Audience

Social Media platforms are popular in China and Chinese people spend around 25 hours on Social Media every week. China has around 900 million Internet users and around 91% of Internet users have social media accounts.

In China, social media users follow an average of eight brands. Also, 30% of Netizens in China make online purchases based on recommendations they find on social media. Here are some tips for effective Social Media Marketing in China.

Tip #1- Use Accurate Advertising to Target Customers

Unlike Western social media platforms, the Chines social media platforms offer various types of advertising and marketing tools to engage Chines audience. For example, Wechat offers three types of advertising – Mini Program ads, Official account ads, and Moment ads.

The target group is generally divided into six categories and you need to choose the right target group to achieve your social media marketing goals. The names of categories of target groups are

  • Interest
  • Mobile devices
  • Re-marketing
  • Media types
  • Regions
  • Population attributes

On the other hand, Weibo has a product named “Follower Express” that allows businesses to target users according to defined parameters.

Tip #2- Use Key Opinion Leaders to Market Your Brand

Chinese audience is heavily influenced by brand ambassadors also known as Key Opinion Leaders. KOLs are ones who have more than 10,000 followers. You can recruit Key Opinion Leaders popular in your business niche for promotional purposes.

Influencer marketing trend is popular on Chinese social media platforms. The influencer economy was expected to cross $15.5 billion by the end of 2018. According to social media experts, influencer marketing is no longer an option but has become a necessity to build your brand in China.

Tip #3- Post Creative Content

The more creative and innovative content you post, the more people will get interested in your brand. Content plays an important role in attracting Chinese audience. Chinese consumers appreciate brand material in the form of strong visuals, pictures, and videos.

Incorporating H5 pages into the post and the official account is helpful in enhancing the user experience or Wechat users.

Tip #4 – Use Wechat Mini Programs

Mini programs are sub-applications within Wechat ecosystem. Users can access web-apps from their browser by performing a direct search or scanning a QR code. The apps have several advanced features like task management, coupons, bus time checkers, e-commerce, mobile bike locking, and unlocking.

The above guide on Social Media Marketing in China will help you focus on the right marketing elements and drive traffic through popular Chinese social media platforms. It will help you build an active community that is critical for brand development.

Do you’ve any questions? Please feel free to comment.

Baidu Pay Per Click Seven Tips for a Successful Campaign

With more than 400 million users, Baidu is the most popular search engine in China. If you are considering entering the Chinese market, you need to consider paid search marketing. Here are seven tips for a successful Baidu PPC campaign.

1. Don’t Mirror Google Ads Campaigns

One of the common mistakes Western companies do is simply translate the marketing material used in Google Ads campaign for Baidu marketing campaigns. Chinese audience is not the same as the audience in Western countries. Though the desires are identical, you might end up using obscure and uncommon words that are not popular with the Chinese audience.

To achieve success on Baidu, companies need to tailor messages for the Baidu paid campaigns to align them with Chinese culture, aspiration, and desires. In simple words, you need to choose the right Chinese keywords for the marketing campaign.

2. Focus on Localization

The Chinese market is highly competitive and Chinese consumers are accustomed to companies doing things their way. One of the basic things you need to do is ensure the Ads are in Chinese.

Besides using the Chinese language for Ads, you also need to focus on the localization of the content. If you are planning to enter the Chinese market, you need to adjust your business to China and also develop products tailored to Chinese audience needs.

When it comes to localizing Baidu PPC campaigns, you need to conduct fresh research on competitors and the keywords used in the campaign.

3. Offer Real-Time Support

If you visit Chinese websites, you will see chat boxes. Chinese people love human interactions and they expect to interact with a human on new websites they visit. When you are launching a new product campaign on Baidu, make sure your campaign has real-time chat support. This will help increase conversion by 3 to 4 times.

4. Have a Clear Strategy for People Who Show Interest

A click on your advert is a sign of interest. You need to have a clear strategy for people who show interest in your product and services. It is necessary to hold the attention of such people and provide them all the information needed to make a purchase decision. For example, if a person clicks on real estate advert, you need to send the link of the page having information about plots available for sale.

According to Baidu PPC experts, landing pages are useful to grab the attention of the target audience to maximize the chances of conversion.

5. Go for Maximum Level of Exposure

In PPC campaigns the more you spend, the more exposure your products and services get. While a modest PPC budget can get you good results on Baidu, highest bids for targeted keywords gets you prime spots in search listings. Before you decide a PPC budget for Baidu paid campaigns, calculate the returns you will get on the investment.

6. Create Ads Relevant to Your Campaign Objective

User behavior is an important aspect that needs to be considered while creating ads. According to PPC experts, there are four main search patterns – Information, Value, Solution, and Access. While creating ads for the PPC campaign you need to decide which user behaviors you will be targeting through PPC campaigns.

Based on the PPC campaign objective you need to select relevant keywords. For example, are you proposing your product as an alternative to other products (Value) or are you trying to build brand awareness (Information) through PPC campaigns?

7. Use the Brand Zone Option for Higher Conversion Rate

The Baidu Brand Zone feature enables you to dominate search results for selected keywords with images, videos, and text about your brand. The Brand Zone can cover 1/3rd part of the search results page that includes a short description of your company, link to your website, and site links to service/product pages with multiple images.

With Brand Zone, you can also have a scrolling tab that contains special offers for different users. The Brand Zone feature is expensive but it offers high conversion rates.

Now that you know the tips to build a successful Baidu PPC campaign, go ahead and seize the selling opportunities on the most popular search engine platform in China.

Do you’ve any questions? Please feel free to leave your comments below.

The Ultimate Guide to Marketing Job Interview Questions

In order to find the right marketing professionals for your company, it is important to ask them the right questions during the interviews.

Here is the ultimate guide to marketing job interview questions for your benefit.

The marketing job interview questions must range from anything about the candidates’ career (past and current status), their interest in the field, skill levels required for the job, and their future plans.

Question 1 – Why did you decide to pursue a career in marketing?

Answer – Assess if in response to this question, the candidates tell you about their passion for marketing. Do they mention special skills that make them an excellent marketing professional?

Question 2 – Can you tell us about three successful campaigns you have run in the past?

Answer – Do the candidates talk about the campaigns using specifics? They should clearly mention numbers and use data to support their claims.

For instance, the ideal candidate will tell you about the increase in sales by mentioning a percentage figure. They won’t hold back on mentioning the metrics that can showcase to you their talent and success supported by actual numbers.

Question 3 – Can you talk about a campaign you managed that wasn’t successful?

Answer – Through this question, you can assess if the candidates can handle setbacks and if they can learn from their failures.

See if the candidates hesitate or not to mention what worked and what didn’t in a campaign they executed. The ideal talent will know that not every marketing campaign can be a success. So, see if they choose one example and elaborate on the reasons for its failure.

Question 4 – Did you ever need to handle a campaign on a strict budget?

Answer – It is likely that the candidates would have handled one or many marketing campaigns in their career with budget restrictions. Check to see if they talk about how they handled it and how they decided to allocate budgets for each task of the campaign. Do they mention about the challenges of a particular campaign and the way they overcame them?

Question 5 – Can you talk about any challenges that you have faced when managing teams?

Answer – Through this question you can check if the candidates respond honestly about any conflicts they had to manage while supervising a team and how they handled the situation.

Question 6 – What are your favorite marketing blogs and/or books?

Answer – Through this question, you can know if a candidate keeps abreast with industry news and how. So, ask them about one or two blogs/books that they read regularly and why they like them.

Ask follow-up questions to ensure that a candidate has mentioned only those blogs that they actually follow and the book/s they have actually read.

Question 7 – How do you keep up-to-date with current software/technology to do a better job?

Answer – With this question, you can know if a candidate is proactive with their own training and career growth.

The ideal response should contain specific examples. See if the candidates talk about the time they registered for online courses related to marketing software and successfully completed their training. Do they mention about the resources they utilize to keep pace with the dynamic and competitive field of marketing?

Question 8 – How do you create strategies for digital marketing initiatives of a campaign?

Answer – The ideal response must contain an example or two to illustrate how they create strategies for content marketing, SEO activities, and other online marketing tasks.

Question 9 – Why do you want to work for our company?

Answer – Check if the candidates answer this question by stating how their skills and talents can contribute towards marketing your services or products. Do they mention the things they admire about the company such as its steady growth, successful products, or culture?

Question 10 – What is your favorite thing about your current marketing role?

Answer – There is no ideal response here. The candidates might mention that they love coming up with solutions to marketing challenges and make the campaigns successful. You need to see if their response makes sense to you as the interviewer.

How Can Weibo be Used for Marketing?

Weibo, the microblogging site, is one such platform that is extensively used by brands to reach out to the Chinese audience. One reason for this is many social media platforms used commonly across the globe are banned in China. But this particular platform, Weibo, gives as much, if not better, reach as the popular ones. If you are a brand looking to test waters in the Chinese soil and want to know how the platform can be used for marketing, read on.

Begin by choosing the right kind of account

To be able to connect with your target audience, you need to first begin by choosing an appropriate account type. Weibo has personal accounts that are for individuals, which also includes celebrities. The other type is the official account for brands. For the latter, you need to complete a verification process that includes submission of documents that prove that you’re a registered entity performing only legal businesses. Once you are through registration and verification, you can begin your social media marketing just as with other platforms.

Create and manage your community well

Anything that you publish needs to have good viewers and a large number of them. For this reason, build a community of people who are enthusiastic about what you have to offer. To begin, reach out to friends, family, and employees. To gain more organic followers, you could add the Weibo icon and link to the social media bar on your website. Using the QR code of your Weibo account on promotional material like brochures, pamphlets, flyers, and business cards is yet another way to give potential clients quick access to your Weibo homepage. Growing a community is one part and managing the other. It’s important to keep interacting with the community by engaging with them regularly and answering queries or responding to feedback that they have.

Post interesting content

Content is king in social media and it’s the same on Weibo and in China. Posting good quality content from time to time is essential to keep up brand recognition and recall. It’s also the way in which you can communicate about new launches, special promos, etc. to the follower base. Pictures, texts, and videos that strike a chord with existing and potential customers can give you qualified leads, improve conversions, and boost your business like no other.

Run campaigns

Chinese netizens love online campaigns and often take to them as a place to socialize and interact with one another. Campaigns give followers a chance to win prizes or incentives, which adds to the connection that these people have with your brand. Campaigns are a great way to add followers and through giveaways, great means to get people to test your product or service and give feedback on the same.

Tap into the power of KOLs

KOLs, or key opinion leaders, are to China what influencers are to the rest of the world. These personalities have the power to expand the reach of a brand to a vast number of users thanks to the fan base that they have on their personal accounts. Because Chinese people place a great deal of trust in word of mouth marketing, KOLs are capable of creating a buzz on social media and influencing buying decisions in their followers. They can be engaged with your brand to conduct promotional activities like product trials, lucky draws, promo code distribution, or even offline events.

Use paid ads

Weibo marketing provides different options for paid advertising. These can be used as display ads on Weibo home pages, promote specific posts by means of Fan Headlines, or promote a Weibo page or account by means of Fan Tunnel. The ads are customizable, meaning you get to choose your target audience and their characteristics for efficient delivery of the campaign.

Take to live to stream

Live streaming, a recent feature, is yet another powerful tool in Weibo marketing. It allows brands to connect with customers in real time and is often employed to bring in celebrities, KOLs, or feature exciting launches to create a buzz in a short time. Weibo marketing can make a huge impact on any business trying to establish itself in China. The above-mentioned tips can help you crack the right marketing strategy to grow your brand in the country through Weibo.

Search Engine Marketing Services – A Way to Online Marketing Success

Search engine marketing services are now essential for businesses. It involves search engine optimization (SEO) and related activities required for the work.

You are likely missing out on an excellent way to market your business if you haven’t yet utilized the benefits of search engine marketing.

The Significance of SEO

SEO or search engine optimization helps businesses gain more visibility on the crowded online space. Irrespective of the nature of your business, SEO can help your business website land the top spot on the search engine result pages (SERPs). The idea is to show up on the first page of any online search related to your business category even if not the very top spot. It can be only achieved with the right SEO strategy and experts to formulate it.

So, you will need the right experts like Houston search engine marketing, if your business is based in the city and mostly serves local customers. If the specialist you have hired doesn’t have the capabilities to perform local SEO then your money is most likely wasted.

SEO needs to be done right to get the desired results.

More about Search Engine Marketing Services

Houston search engine marketing can help businesses improve their sales. SEO activities help a brand or business become more visible to their target customers. When your prospective customers can find you easily then you are likely to sell more goods or services.

SEO comprises of many activities such as keyword research, content creation, writing meta descriptions, and link building. You will need to deal with content distribution as well. Reviewing the results of SEO work is also an important aspect of the job. Analyzing the results and then tweaking the strategy helps to keep the SEO work on track without wasting precious time.

How it works –

A lot goes into SEO work beginning with keywords. Now, keywords really help the customers find the things/services/products they are looking for online. SEO experts identify the right keywords for businesses and then the content is created based on them.

For instance, search engine marketing in Houston for a local plumbing business will likely identify keywords such as ‘plumbers in Houston’, ‘best plumbers in Houston’, ‘Plumbers near me’, or something else. Now, keywords alone don’t make any sense for SEO work. They need to be integrated into relevant content for search engines to find them.

Only useful content is relevant in this regard as it helps the search engines to establish your website as an expert or authority in your business category. Gibberish or irrelevant content doesn’t work on search engines anymore. Search engine algorithms have developed over the years to recognize informative content based on specific keywords. Unlike the early days of search engine marketing, you can’t perform SEO work with useless content anymore.

So, search engine marketing will require blogs and another form of content, distributing the content, and helping people find your business website through it.

You will also need proper link building activities and the right optimization of texts and images for the SEO to work well.

When search engine marketing is done well, it can be the most cost-effective way to promote a business. You don’t need to have a huge marketing budget for SEO. Even if you are a small business owner, you can still invest in SEO as per your budget and get the desired results.

Hiring experts –

With the amount of technical work that goes into it, the search engine marketing work is better left to the experts.

Not everyone can be a content expert. Not everyone can perform technical work of SEO. Not everyone can create the right SEO strategies for the desired results.

So, if you need SEO for your local business, choose experts with experience in this area. Local SEO strategies differ from global or national SEO in many aspects. For instance, if you need search engine marketing in Houston then it is best to hire local SEO experts for your business. Choose a reputed SEO company in your city with experience in helping local businesses find greater online visibility. The right SEO experts can create an optimal strategy for the greater online marketing success of your business.

Five Reasons to Use Baidu for SEM

If you are new to the Chinese digital landscape, you might not be aware of the potential of Baidu SEM, but it is as good as Google SEM. When you get to know about Baidu SEM, you understand why it is almost mandatory for a foreign business to invest in it.

If you are skeptical about the effectiveness of Baidu SEM or if you want to know why to use Baidu for SEM, here are the five reasons for you to use Baidu for SEM:

Majority of the market share

Business always follows the places of concentration of people. And Baidu is one such platform where millions of people come every day to discover new things and find answers for their queries. Baidu has over 70% of market share in China, and in the first quarter of 2018, it reached 80%. Undoubtedly, Baidu is the king of the Chinese search engine market. So there is no point of investing in marketing on other search engines especially in the beginning. Once your campaign gets some momentum, you can look for advertising on other search engines like 360, Sogou, and Shenma.

Chinese trust Baidu

You cannot imagine your life without Google, Google Maps, Gmail, Google Drive, and Wikipedia. Similarly Chinese cannot imagine there life without Baidu, Baidu Maps, Baidu Knows, Baidu Tieba, and Baidu Baike. As Google has launched different services and products, Baidu has also launched its different products. Google and its other services are banned in China, so people rely on the Baidu and its services. People in China trust Baidu and consider it as a credible and reliable source of information. So if you follow your marketing strategy right, there are high chances that you will be able to find feet in the Chinese market.

People don’t mind Baidu ads

Well, in the western world, SEO is the most effective marketing strategy because people don’t trust paid results and Google ads. They tend to ignore paid advertising. Whereas in China, you can rely on Baidu SEM. Chinese netizens interact more with Baidu display ads, and Baidu PPC also has a good conversion rate. Baidu display network boasts more than 600,000 websites. You can get a huge exposure through Baidu display ads. According to experts, Baidu PPC if done right is more effective than Baidu SEO. You can get massive exposure in a short time with Baidu advertising.

Extensive reach to the Chinese population

Baidu receives 6 billion search queries per day. Isn’t it seemed like a bit unrealistic number? The whole world uses Google, and it also receives nearly the same number of search queries in a day. Well, this is the power of Baidu. All thanks to the massive population of China. So, by looking at the stats, you can get an idea about the Baidu’s reach. Baidu has the largest reach in China. You can choose your target audience based on demographics and reach almost every corner of China. No other platform has such a vast reach in China.

A great platform for advertising

Marketers love Google for its ease of advertising and great tools of advertising. Well, as compared to Google, Baidu is still a little difficult platform for advertisers, but in the Chinese digital landscape, there is no other better platform of advertising than Baidu. Baidu has its own analytics tool and keyword planner. You can easily track your results, measure the campaign and analyze the reports. You have an alternative of almost all the advertising tools Google offers. People often recognize Baidu as the ‘Chinese Google’ because it is identical to Google.

So these are the five key reasons why you should use for Baidu for SEM.

Are you ready to kick start your Baidu SEM campaign?