Author: photoadmin

Copyright and trademark infringement and social media

Have you posted things in social media that you’ve copied from the internet and not give proper source credit?

Sharing other’s information is part of the fun of social media sites like Facebook and Pinterest. But how often do the credits of those things you share not come along with the post?

Copyright and trademark infringement is something to watch out for, especially when you’re posting for your business. Plagiarism is rampant on the web too. Are you guilty of copy and paste?

It is important to create your own content to share on social media, to brand your content, and to credit sources for other content that you may share. When you create your own content, you are increasing the probability that your own brand is shared virally. Yes there a many other businesses across the country that do what you do, but you are unique and the content you share should reflect that.

No more stock photos! Yes stock photos are good in a pinch, but they are resold millions of times. How many times have you seen the same photo you purchased for your post card on other people’s marketing materials? You loved the photo, but guess what, so did thousands of business owners and marketing managers. That’s why it was on the top of the list on the stock photo site… it sells like hotcakes!

Take your own photos! Be resourceful. Everyone has a family member that is good at taking photos, or if you don’t, call up the local college/trade school and get a student to come out and take photos for you. Make sure you plan your shots well. Get local folks to be your models, or ask the student to bring some of their friends. Again, plan. Find similar photos online and discuss your shoot at length with the photographer so you can get exactly what you want. Then the next time you post content online, it is your own content. This is time and money well spent. Take the time to stage your brand exactly as you want it.

Write your own copy!!!! This can’t be stressed enough. The most common mistake people make online is “borrowing” their copy from someone else. On our own website, we’ve had problems with our competitors lifting our content word for word and placing it on their website. Not good for many reasons. Even if you are a franchise and have the right to use the corporate site’s content, it is not a good idea to copy and past directly. And on social media, you really need to be careful about not giving credit to its proper source.

The obvious reason of legal action is one reason to write your own copy. But the other reason is content syndication on the web and search engines. Google reads your content and if there is other content that is exactly the same, it could jeopardize your placement. Search engines are built with a form of intelligence that can figure out which sites are simply copies of other sites. The copies and then some times the original website can receive lower ranking because they are copies. Google doesn’t like cheaters, and copies are cheating it its algorithms.

Trademark infringement is something to watch out for as you’re sharing info on social media. Memes are extremely popular, but be careful with what you share. Things that denigrate someone’s trademark or brand, even if they’re funny, are dangerous ground. There is a permanent record of who shared what online and it could hurt your brand in the end. Another way to think of trademark infringement is to think like Hollywood producers looking at product placement in their movie. Could that company come back to you and say “remove my logo from your advertisement/social media post/content because you are not representing our brand…” Trademark infringement is complicated and its best to avoid it.

Ideally, social media followers share your content, so creating your own content that is staged exactly as you want it benefits your business more than sharing other people’s content. The greatest benefit is pointing all of your content back to you. Sending out great photos that have your logo or website branded in them points people back to you. So no matter where the content goes, people will always know its origin. Stage your brand at every moment, especially your social media content!

Paid Search Advertising – PPC (pay-per-click) SEM

Let’s discuss Pay-Per-Click, AdWords, Paid Search Advertising, and website SEO Inverness ND. Search engine optimization SEO and getting found online for a small market like Inverness might be easier than you think. Search engine optimization SEO isn’t really that difficult and is often considered the low-hanging fruit for local search. The problem we see is that businesses are investing in Pay-Per-Click advertising without fixing simple website SEO optimization and most businesses haven’t invested in a mobile-friendly website. This is like putting the buggy before the horse. It doesn’t make any sense to start online digital marketing or PPC campaigns without a good starting point – an up-to-date quality website.

When it comes to website marketing and online marketing just about any web marketing expert should be recommending website SEO search engine optimization and mobile optimization first. More about Pay-Per-Click (PPC) marketing.

How to write compelling content

Compelling content can be more important than the product itself. The copy of your website needs to bring urgency to purchasing now. Your story must romance the buyer into purchasing from you. Now.

Suite 171 believes that you know your business better than anyone else, but sometimes clients don’t quite have the ability to write it down effectively. This is where copy-writing and content development is crucial. You could have the best product on the market and still lose website leads/customers because of your lack-luster content.

Here are five tips to keep in mind for writing your website’s content.

1. Assume your visitor has never seen or heard of your product before.
2. Know what emotional trigger your product or service fulfills and use it in the copy.
3. Are you using all three learning styles to sell your product or service?
4. Grammar, spelling, punctuation!
5. CALL TO ACTION!!!!!

1. Assume your visitor has never seen or heard of your product before.
It is a common mistake for businesses to assume that visitors are familiar with their product or service and therefore not supply enough information on their website. Often the people searching for your product or service are doing some research to learn more about you or your product. If they don’t get their questions answered in the text of your site, often they will keep looking for the answer on some other businesses website. We have seen this often with well known industries that assume their visitors already know what it is and are just looking for a phone number to call. Wrong. You can’t afford to leave money on the table by not giving enough descriptions, question and answers, photos, charts, testimonials and more. If you believe that nobody reads the content on your site so why bother… you will pay the price for being wrong.

2. Know what emotional trigger your product or service fulfills and use it in the copy.
Consumers buy products and services for many different reasons from necessity to compulsion. However the reason they choose one brand over another, one company over another or one craftsperson over another is all based on an emotional trigger. “This is the company we have always used….” is based on security and doesn’t mean you can’t convince them to choose you instead. You simply need to find the emotional trigger that makes them want to choose you more. A great resource to help you find your product or services’ emotional trigger is a book by Sally Hogshead, “Fascinate: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation”.

3. Are you using all three learning styles to sell your product or service?
Every human on the planet has a learning style preference, whether they know it or not. Learning styles are broken into three different categories, auditory learners, visual learners, and kinesthetic learners (people who learn by doing). Integrating elements into the content that touch all three learning styles will increase the effectiveness of your message to more people.
Auditory Learners: Some people learn more efficiently or quickly by hearing the information. These learners are auditory learners. They are the people who could listen to a lecture in school and never have to open the book, or they repeat all the best lines in the movie as you are walking out of the theatre having only seen the movie once. Often the way to reach auditory learners is through the story. Auditory learners will hear the words they are reading in their head and if you make the story interesting as someone would read it aloud, you will catch these learners. Descriptive explanations of how your product works, what people will experience at your business, and success stories are examples of content that would be compelling to these learners.

Visual Learners: People who want to see what things look like, see the numbers, see the charts and graphs, see the process are visual learners. It is hard for visual learners to put the pieces together with wordy descriptions. Having photos, videos, charts, samples, before and after photos, design galleries, and other things for them to look at will make these learners happy. Visual learners will remember the words on the page too. Visual learners often are described as people with photographic memories. The learn what they see.

Kinesthetic Learner: These are the people who learn by doing. They need to touch things, feel the texture, do the work. You might think that a website would exclude this learning style because visitors are simply looking at a screen. Give these learners something to do on your site. Give them a test to help them pick out which of your products would fit them best. Offer free samples they can feel or touch. Give them directions to come down to your store to test out the product themselves. Show video or describe in detail what the product or service feels like. Create a demo that requires your visitor to click buttons, type words, choose options. The kinesthetic learner is the doer and the more they do on your site, the greater the chance they’ll choose you.

4. Grammar, spelling, punctuation!
Ain’t you gonna buy my produck?
Need we say more?

5. CALL TO ACTION!!!!!
Sales most basic principle is to ask for the sale. On your website you cannot forget this point. There are a number of ways to ask for the sale and you should include as many as possible. Redundancy is your best friend on the web. Come right out and say it – buy now, call now, email now, chat now and include the appropriate button or information for them to act upon. Include the reason to act now, limited time sale, % off for buying now, internet special, sign up now for free (insert incentive). People want to know they are getting a deal. Give them that in your call to action.

Anatomy Of An Optimized Website

The Perks Of An Optimized Website
Website SEO is important and you must optimize a web page completely so you can get the right leads. Here, we are going to talk about the different ways by which you can optimize your web page in a befitting manner.

If you are wondering as to what are the benefits of an optimized page will serve, here are some of the pros associated with website SEO.

Rank Higher in Google
In order to do well, it is important to rank higher on search engines like Google and Bing. When your web page has been optimized, it will allow you to rank higher and this will improve your traffic as well.

Social Media Presence
With the right content which has been aptly optimized, it will be a lot easier to develop the right kind of social media presence on the internet. This way, you will also be able to leverage the right amount of traffic from social networking sites.

Let’s take a look at the different parts of an optimized web page.
The URL
This is the link of your website and web pages. You should ensure that it contains the targeted keyword. It helps in identifying the file structure which has been used in your website. You should use hyphens in the URL for improving the readability but avoid using special characters or underscores.

The Tags
This is important for website SEO and mainly used for improving traffic.

• The title tag is the name of your web page and it should ideally contain the targeted keywords in it. You should place keywords at the beginning of the title and the ideal length is 55 characters max.
• The Meta description tag is the snippet which you see on search engines. It is an HTML attribute with length mostly between 140 to 156 characters.
• The header tags help in adding better readability as it can act as a submodule within your article. There are up to 6 levels as you can choose from H1 to H6 with H6 being the smallest. You should use H1 tag once in your article. Ideally, you shouldn’t jumble up the sequence of tags, unless absolutely necessary.

The Visual Elements
Mostly, it has been seen that images, videos, and illustration add to the interactive aspect and it helps in better optimization. When you are adding an image, make sure to add an alt text as an image attribute. This text is displayed when the image fails to loads up. Also, try and include the keyword in the filename of your visual elements.

The Article Copy
Finally, you need to be sure that your copy is compelling, engaging and worth a share. The more shares your article gets, the better it will be for you. So, work your way towards making a great article body with well-formulated paragraphs. Do not use overly technical words which might hamper reading. Bold and italicize the keywords for better search engine results.

This should help you get an optimized web page which will definitely work its charm for you. If you need more help from website SEO experts read more.