Content Marketing

7 ways to establish online credibility for your brand

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How to establish online credibility for business

If you have some sort of online presence your brand is exposed every day to new audiences, which means there’s an opportunity to make a good first impression among them. In this post I’ll tell you how to establish online credibility for your business, by implementing 7 actions.

How to establish online credibility for your business

1. HAVE A WEBSITE

Having a website helps building your online credibility
A website is a permanent place where people can learn about you anytime, anywhere.

When people search on Google to discover new products or services, they will want to learn as much as possible about the company they’ll choose to buy from.

Probably the first place people will find out about you, will be through your Facebook page, which is a good start.

However, having a website that showcases the personality of the company, and your products or services, will give people signals of the authenticity of your business.

In addition, it is strongly recommended to register your own domain name with a .com extension, and getting a SSL Certificate as a seal of trust for your website.

2. BE ACCESSIBLE.

Place your contact info, working hours, social media accounts, and contact form in a visible place across your website. Also, create an “about” page for yourself and/or the team members of your company.

Additionally, have a personalized email address with your own domain name and avoid using free email services.

3. BUILD A CONSISTENT BRAND.

Choose a professional logo and a set of colors and fonts for your brand. Implementing a consistent image for your business will help you build memorability. As a result of this, every time you share a post on your blog or social media, people will start to associate it with your brand.

4. HAVE A SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE.

How to rpomote a blog post after publishing it

Ask yourself where your ideal audience is gathering and focus on using one social platform regularly. Adding social media to your marketing strategy, will allow you to develop a relationship with your audience using a more relaxed tone of voice.

The following quote illustrates the style to use on social:

“For businesses, communication through social media requires to abandon the marketing speech and using a more authentic tone of voice. A company that uses a corporate speech on social media, runs the risk of being perceived as someone who during a social event, talks to her friends as though she was a walking brochure.”

Brunet, Lessard, Ducas – Les Médias Sociaux en Entreprise

5. CREATE USEFUL AND ORIGINAL CONTENT.

Why start a blog for your business, what it is and who blogs and how to create an effective blog post
Build authority and create trust through a blog.

Writing regularly (or blogging) about your product or service is a great opportunity to build authority in your niche. For instance, you can create content inspired on the questions customers frequently ask about your products or service. As a result, you’ll start establishing yourself as an expert on your industry, and furthermore, gaining your audience’s trust.

Recommended: How to create an effective blog post

6. CARE FOR YOUR AUDIENCE.

Care for your customers whether you're online or offline to build credibility for business.
Care for your customers whether you’re online or offline.

If someone takes the time to reach you out by email, or on your blog or social media to ask a question, to make a thoughtful comment or giving a review (good or bad), please take immediate action and respond as soon as possible. This will be key to not only create a good impression, but also a good reputation.

7. ASK FOR REVIEWS AND TESTIMONIALS.

When browsing on Google, people will make a quick scan of the results and will naturally choose those businesses that have the best reputation. Therefore, take care of your customer service (online an offline), so people will be willing to recommend your brand to others. Also, ask satisfied customers to leave a review on your website or social media platform.

CONCLUSION

Taking the actions mentioned above will allow you to make a good first impression online. Moreover, showing authentic care for the people that takes the time to interact with your business online or offline, will build a more valuable asset for your business: credibility.

What other actions do you think can be taken to build online credibility? Share your thoughts on the comment section below.

Thank you for reading!

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How to establish online credibility for business with 7 actions
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How to create viral content?

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How to create viral content Stella Web Studio

Getting content to go viral is every online business or digital marketer’s ultimate achievement. Just imagine, having thousands of people re-sharing that awesome video or post you created, within their social network. Basically, setting your content on autopilot.

Well frankly, who wouldn’t want that for their online business?. There have been times when the subject has came up during meetings with my clients, where they’ve mentioned the idea of creating a viral content, to which I politely nod and suggest to discuss further later on.

“Asking for viral content would be like demanding a movie producer to win an Oscar”.

Michelle Blanc, Les Médias Sociaux en Entreprise.
I imagine this is the feeling you get when your content goes viral.

Given that this is a frequently asked question by people who have an online presence, I decided to investigate more about this subject and get some answers. Here’s a summary of the most important aspects to consider.

How to create viral content for your business?

As the phenomenal quote above says in a few words, there is no magical recipe to create viral content. There are however, three basic factors you can work on, to hopefully succeed in this area of online marketing.*

1. Create content that will reflect positively on the sharers within their social network.

How to rpomote a blog post after publishing it
“We share because we want to project a certain image of ourselves out to the world,” Emerson Spartz. Photo: Unsplash

Generate in people the need to express themselves through your content, by sharing it within their social network.

Create content that for instance will make people look smart, trendy, funny or positive in social media if they share it. Emerson Spartz, CEO of Dose, a digital media company told Forbes Magazine the following remark:

“People will be more likely to share your content if it will reflect well on them.”

Emerson Spartz

Additionally, he suggests that this content doesn’t necessarily need to be original. You can use existing content -like funny articles, cute animal videos, nostalgic or informative content- as long as it reflects positively on the sharers within their social network.

2. Make sure your content is easy to share in social media.

Nordwood Themes

People’s time is limited, don’t over complicate things for them, asking them to take a bunch of steps to share your content. Additionally, don’t forget to add a call to action to your post or video. For instance, ask people to share it. As obvious as it sounds, a reminder of what to do next, is an absolute must!.

3. Set a strategic plan to launch your content

Be strategic about creating viral content for your business. Photo: Unsplash

A viral post is rarely a spontaneous event. Firstly, you need to carefully set a strategy on how, when and where your content will be launched. In order to do this, you have to coordinate the efforts with your marketing team and even contact the right influencers, bloggers, radio speakers. Additionally, paying ads may also have to be considered.

That being said, most of the operations that have gone viral, took off AFTER being strategically shared through different channels. In other words, you have to have a launch plan and avoid hoping that everything is going to take off all by itself.

CONCLUSION

So let’s recap: create content that will reflect well on sharers within their social network, that is easily shared and set a strategic plan to launch it.

Here is a graphic that sums up the elements mentioned above. Pin it or save it for your reference.

Three aspects to cover if you want your content to go viral.

Do you have content that has gone viral? What actions do you think are needed to succeed in this area of online marketing?

Thank you so much for reading!

Please subscribe to my newsletter to receive online marketing tips by email. And of course, share this post. 😉

SOURCE:

  • Social Media for Business, (Les Médias Sociaux en Entreprise), Brunet, Lessard, Ducas. Infopresse, 2012
  • The Secrets of Viral Content and how to create it, Mark Hunkler for Forbes Magazine, 2017

How to create an effective blog post on WordPress

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How to create an effective blog post in WordPress 2019

In 2019 more and more people come to the Internet searching for solutions to their problems. Whether these problems are health, family, relationships or work related, people want immediate solutions. This represents an opportunity to show up if you have an expertise!

Creating valuable content and sharing it through a blog, is a really great way to start. However, the key is to create useful content for people, which is properly optimized for search engines.

That being said, I’ll tell you how to create effective blog posts on WordPress with 10 steps that go from choosing a topic to publishing your post.

Step by step process for creating an effective blog post.

Following this process will help your blog post increase its chances of ranking well in search engines. Although there is no guarantee that your post will appear in the 1st place of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP), you can still stand out among the competition.

How to create an effective blog post on WordPress and rank well in search engines

HOW TO CREATE AN EFFECTIVE BLOG POST ON WORDPRESS

  • GENERATE AN IDEA
    • Firstly, ask yourself what problem will you help your readers to solve, what value you’re creating for them. Take this post for instance, I will help my readers to learn how to create an effective blog post.
  • DO A KEYWORD RESEARCH
    • Make a research about the idea or topic you came up with. Then, evaluate the level of competition for that topic and decide a specific keyword. This keyword can be a phrase or a “long-tailed keyword”, something that addresses a specific situation. * This is the time to be as authentic as possible.
    • Continuing with the example above, I’ll specify it even more “how to create an effective blog post in WordPress.”
  • START WRITING
    • After you chose your topic and your keyword, write down your ideas around it. Use a word processor, a mobile application in your cell phone or a home assistant. For example, I use the Evernote app in my phone or my Google home assistant to save my ideas and work on them later.
  • FORMAT YOUR POST
    • The key to create a comprehensive blog post is to make your text READABLE. Use short phrases, big large headings and subheadings, and bulleted or numbered lists. TIP: Somehow list posts tend to be more shareable, given that people find them easy to read.
  • INCLUDE HIGH QUALITY IMAGES
    • Emphasize your message with gorgeous, high quality images. If you can produce them yourself, the better, but if not, you can use stock free images from sites like Unsplash or Pixabay. Just remember to never use unauthorized images, as this practice would bring you legal consequences.
    • For photos, I prefer to take my own pictures with my DSLR Canon Digital Camera and my Pixel phone. In addition, I use free stock images from the websites I mentioned in the paragraph above.
    • For graphics, I recommend the Canva or PicMonkey apps. You’ll find tons of designs, fonts and templates for your brand’s needs.
    • Finally, mind the size of your images, as you don’t want to bloat up your website and slow it down. *Page speed is another ranking factor.
  • USE A CALL-TO-ACTION
    • Invite your readers to take an action within your post such as: sharing it, subscribing to your newsletter, read another article from your blog, leave a comment, follow you on social media, etc.
  • LINK IT WITHIN YOUR WEBSITE
    • If somehow your post relates to another post (or several) from your website, link them to it. This is a great opportunity to let your readers navigate better through your website. At the same time, you’ll be making your post available to crawl for search engines. This practice is called Internal linking, which is another ranking factor to consider.
  • REFINE YOUR POST
    • Make sure your post makes sense and works well. Read it two more times or ask someone else to do so, do a spell check, and make sure every link works. In addition, test it in a mobile device and desktop. Finally, fix the issues that may come up before hitting the publish button.
  • PUBLISH
    • Once you are sure your post makes sense, is free of spelling mistakes, and works well in mobile and desktop, you’re ready to go!. Personally, I ask myself if it impresses me, if it does, it’s ready to be published! 🙂

Certainly, this process is not a one day task, however, you can set daily goals to complete each task.

WHAT TO DO AFTER PUBLISHING A BLOG POST?

Right after you hit the “Publish” button, you have to promote your post in order to get as many people as possible to read it, by:

  1. Telling search engines to crawl your web page.
  2. Getting readers from social media.
  3. Notifying subscribers about your new post.
  4. Leaving useful comments in other blogs relevant to your niche.
  5. Responding to comments on your post.

Visit my next post where you can learn:

How to promote your post

TO SUM UP

Create content that brings value to your readers and is properly optimized for search engines. In addition, add your own dash of creativity to the mix to create an authentic blog post.

Let’s keep in touch!

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Also, if you have any questions please send me an email, or leave a comment in the form below.

What’s a Blog And How Can It Help to Grow Your Business

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What is a Blog How can it help to grow my business with 5 benefits

Nowadays it seems like everybody has a blog and you’re probably wondering if you should start one too. Either for personal or business purposes, blogging is a great way to share your expertise with the world and make money with it.

In this post I’ll explain what’s a blog, how can it help to grow your business, and where to start one. By the end of it, you can take my free quiz “Should I Start a Blog?” to find out it is right for you.

So, get yourself comfortable and let’s get started!

What is a blog and how does it work?

A blog is a frequently updated online journal where you can share with hundreds or thousands of readers your knowledge in a topic. It’s used to publish any form of content online to establish credibility, build rapport, and expand an audience.

It’s also known as content marketing and can take the form of written blog posts, videos, podcasts, social media, and email

In short, you can promote yourself, your passion or your business by blogging.

Who blogs?

Any person who wants to share her passion, thoughts, experiences or knowledge. Whereas a business uses a blog to create content related to their product or service. For example:

  • If you’re a person who is best known for being an expert in a topic (like cooking, fitness, or natural skincare), then blogging is a good way to work on that passion and monetize it.
  • If you own a business, then a blog can help to grow it and even create new sources of revenue.

That said, I’ll focus my next recommendations on those readers who want to blog for business.

Should I Start a Blog for My Business in 2020?

Absolutely! There has never been a better time to start an online business through a blog. Because of the deep changes the world is undergoing now, new needs and opportunities are emerging online.

By harnessing the power of content marketing, you can grow your current business or start a new one. As one of my favorite authors points out:

How Can a Blog Help to Grow Your Business (5 Benefits)

1) Be found by new targeted customers.

Every day millions of users look for answers online. And search engines like Google will prioritize those websites that provide useful and relevant information. So, the more useful content you create, the more pages from your blog will be indexed in a search engine.

In other words, by blogging regularly your business will show up more often in search results, increasing the chances of getting seen by your ideal clients.

2) Create authenticity

A blog is a platform where you can use your voice and unique perspective in a topic. It’s a space where your readers can connect with you in a more intimate way. They can see who you are, your brand’s voice, and how well you master a topic.

In short, a blog is a solid foundation for building trust and authority for your business.

3) Support your social media presence.

If you use social media, then you can lead your followers to your blog (hosted on a website) where they can learn more about you without the distraction of the competition.

Once your followers are on your blog, they can subscribe to it through an Email Marketing System and become potential clients.

4) Create authority.

By providing solutions to your customer’s problems through your content, they’ll see you as the subject expert in your industry.

6) Create new sources of income.

Besides supporting your current business, a blog can generate new sources of revenue from selling digital or physical products or services. And although some work is needed to set up a transactional website, it’s a long-term benefit worth the effort.

Where Can You Start a Blog?

If you want to start a blog for business and reap the benefits listed above, it’s best to set it up on a self-hosted website. My recommendation is to use WordPress.org as it’s the most flexible platform to grow and customize your site.

And if you want to blog as a hobby, you can quickly launch one for free either on social media (microblogging) or on WordPress.com. Just be sure that you don’t intend to monetize it in the future. Migrating your blog into a more robust platform is a complex task that may require help from a specialist.

Final recommendations

Check out these useful resources written by yours truly and other respected online experts.

I hope you found this article helpful. If you have any questions, you can send me an email. I’ll be happy to helpl