INSIGHTS &EXPERTISE

Stay ahead of the curve with our latest thoughts on digital marketing, design, and brand strategy

9 posts found

6 Things We Need To Know Before Designing Your Website
Articles
Jul 6, 2022
3 min read

6 Things We Need To Know Before Designing Your Website

  Hey! Are you thinking about having a professional website for your business? Or an upgrade? Having a website is essential, but getting it right is more important. The type of website that works for business A mustn’t work for business B because every business is unique. Moreover, so many firms are thriving today thanks to their excellent individual websites. Before providing you with a website to fly like a Raven, you need to think through a few things, and then we can have a Macaw chit-chat. Who do you want to Visit your Website? Without a second thought, this is the first thing to consider before thinking about anything related to creating a website. You must know your business or organisation’s target audience for us to hit the nail of creating a successful website perfectly. Understanding your audience or customers will significantly affect every step of creating and updating your website. What will They Do on Your Website? After understanding your audience well, the next thing to consider is “what should they do on your website?” For example, are they visiting your website to only read and know more about your business and products, or is it an e-commerce website where you want them to purchase your products? This will assist in knowing the type of information your website will contain, planning how many pages the website will have and the placement of all prominent features.  Knowing all the necessary navigations will also make it easy for us to create a user-friendly website for your audience. This will also have an impact on achieving the goals of your website. Have You Heard about Search Engine Optimisation? If you haven’t, know that it is a vital feature of a successful website. Having a nice-looking website with all the essential features doesn’t automatically mean people will find you from nowhere; it doesn’t work that way. After creating a website, SEO boosts or improves its traffic and ranks it among other corresponding websites. So, it is as essential as creating the website to optimise its SEO. Do you wonder how? Think no more; we can also assist you with that. How About Contents? Text, images, logo, and tagline. Define your brand identity and provide your audience with all the necessary information. So, sit essentially to think clearly and make good decisions about the contents before creating a website. This will give us more of what your ideas look like and assist in making your website a perfect match. What Is Special about Your Business? What will make other people like your business or products? Think about it; If your business or products are the same as corresponding companies, few or no people will pay attention to your website. Therefore, knowing how to make your business unique is essential and will play a huge role in designing your website. Moreover, every business is supposed to have some unique features. Look at the delivery methods, nature of business, supplemental services, and more. Make yours different from others. Have you thought about your Future Goals? A website goes beyond what you want just for now. You will need more than just the current features to achieve more goals. Your future goals are pretty important. Think about what you see your business becoming in the nearest future. And there you go, easy-peasy. So think through these and let Raven and Macaw do the rest for you. Contact us now!

Raven & Macaw Team
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Building Brand Awareness
Articles
Jun 29, 2022
5 min read

Building Brand Awareness

What is Brand Awareness? Brand awareness is the familiarity of consumers with a particular product or service. Brand awareness is valuable when it comes to marketing or promoting a business, especially if it’s in its early stages. Whether you own a start-up or a well-established business, your brand needs to be out there, and people need to be familiar with your brand name. That awareness or familiarity is fundamental to your business, especially in these times when we shop more online than in stores. No need to go to a store to purchase goods or services. A consumer can easily find or discover new products when going through an aisle at a supermarket; that way, a product is identified and made known to most people who go to the supermarket. However, it isn’t the same when trying to purchase a product online, as people only search for a specific brand name.  Creating awareness to make your brand a popular household name would be best. There is just so much competition online. It would help if you made your way to the top. However, if you like to gauge with numbers, to know the statistics, brand awareness isn’t measured in standard numerals. It is what you could call a vague concept. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have any value. On the contrary, it has much significance, like search engine optimisation or content marketing. For your business to grow, you need all the possible available tools to help you market your brand.  Trust and Loyalty – Why Brand Awareness Is Important The business world is now where consumers strongly depend on research and other consumers’ opinions on a product before making purchases. Their findings will eventually build trust, which is everything. That trust, once established, builds loyalty. So your customers keep coming to you without second thoughts. Once you’ve established that trust, give your brand a personality, tell a story behind it, and make it fit for business and worth patronising. What It Does Brand awareness associates actions and products with particular brands. For instance, when buying sneakers, you say that you are a Nike person or an Adidas person. See what happened there; you associated your sneakers’ purchase action with a brand name. Another example, which is common in Nigeria, is calling any brand or kind of mayonnaise ‘Bama’ because of the famous brand, ‘Bama’ or all brands of toothpaste called ‘Macleans’ because of the renowned brand. We often do it subconsciously because that awareness and familiarity have been established already. You can do that to your brand as well. Make it so popular it becomes a ritual for people to call your brand. That awareness becomes your marketing tool. It creates brand equity. Brand equity describes a brand’s value determined by consumer experiences and overall brand perceptions. It is then your job to create positive experiences to get positive notions. Positive brand equity leads to Higher prices due to higher perceived value. Higher stock price The ability to expand the business through product or service line extensions More significant social impact due to brand name value Brand awareness creates recognition by a customer without assistance, leading to a product or service purchase, and that customer begins to prefer similar brands. It also establishes loyalty that a customer recommends your products or services to family and friends. Now, To Build Brand Awareness To build a brand awareness that will have a long-lasting impact on your customers: Be a person, not a company. You should define it as more than just a company that sells things. Let your brand show traits that will determine your success. To become famous, you should promote even things that aren’t related to your brand. You’ve got social media to do that. Interact with the audience, comment, post, and ask questions. Operate your page like it wasn’t meant for business. Show yourself more on social platforms. Research shows that over 50% of brand reputation comes from online interactions. Being social leads to greater awareness and being known. Tell a narrative. Creating a story around your brand gives something for the audience to relate to. It connects you and your brand with why the market should choose it.  It’s a good marketing strategy.  Here is a short read on Social Media Marketing. If you ever need someone to create your brand stories, we at Raven and Macaw will create those stories and even market your brand for you. Whatever product you are offering, make sharing your products easy for your customers. Whether blog posts, videos, sponsored content or social media posts, make them shareable for your audience.  Word–of–mouth marketing is a very effective way to establish trust and familiarity among customers. Very sure this applies to you too. When someone sees a family, a friend, or even a trusted person sharing and recommending your products, services, or brand, they will likely try you. It creates a chain-like market. One shares clips with another, and it grows longer. Imagine how far a ‘click to share’ can take your brand. Let it be your aim in business to make an impact. How you impact your customers’ lives will determine how far you want to go in a part of their lives, gaining their loyalty.  Here are some Brand Awareness strategies to help you: First, try to co-market with another brand to build an audience and, along the way, use the other brand’s audience to market. Advertise everywhere possible. create a presence that will not let you disappear Hire a face or a mascot for the company. If you can afford a celebrity’s face, it’s ok. Go ahead. Choose an image or symbol that represents you Create a short, catchy slogan Now you can build your brand and start creating awareness for your brand. Let people know that you are open for business. Click here to learn about Digital Marketing, its types, and its benefits to your business.

Raven & Macaw Team
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Easy Writing Steps For The Web
Articles
Jun 29, 2022
5 min read

Easy Writing Steps For The Web

Websites require a unique style of writing. When you write on your website, you should hold on to the attention of the reader or user with the words you use. To do this, you have to be precise and captivating at the same time.  Remember, you are passing information and, importantly, trying to drive traffic to your web page, whether you are doing it for business, fun, or even sharing information you feel is essential for people to know.  When writing for the web, know that you are not the most important person involved. People don’t read through websites; they skim through. Most times, only about 20 per cent of the words are usually read. That is why you must make your website easy for users to digest. Read Content marketing strategies to learn about comprehensive and narrow content. Here are simple steps or rules to follow so you can make your webpage more readable and drive more traffic: Know your audience Understanding your audience is essential when writing for the web. First, of course, your already existing audience is your primary audience. Then there is the broader group; the secondary audience extends to every other person who may visit your website through your primary audience. Know what kind of audience you target; in that way, you focus on writing what will arouse interest. Be concise As a website writer, you have to be succinct when writing for the web. Whatever you can say in 30 words shouldn’t be in 55 or 75 in 115. Be concise. Write short, simple sentences. Do not go overboard when you write. Instead, write short, simple sentences and focus on nouns and verbs because they carry your content.  The Inverted Pyramid The Inverted Pyramid is a model that every website writer should follow. First, write from the most important to the least. In writing for the web, start from the most important to the more specific, then end with supporting information.  Describe your products or services Show your users your products, don’t just tell them about them. Instead, describe your products in a way that will convince purchases. Make what you offer so arousing that your customers will keep coming—more traffic.  Nix the jargon Remember that your website can be accessible to even those who are not experts in your field. Therefore, stay away from terms or words that only your colleagues will understand. Avoid insider language, spell out acronyms and provide hyperlinks to other articles where users can get more information. Mix up your word choices Variety is key. Have a glossary of words to use in your writing. This is where synonyms come into play; instead of repeating one word, find its representatives, words that still carry the information you’re conveying.   Make text scannable, avoid marketingese. As we established earlier, people don’t read; they skim through texts on the web. Therefore, making your writing difficult to digest will only discourage and send your website’s visitors away.  Instead of heavy paragraphs, use bullets or number listings and highlight only when necessary. Use proper case; use the upper and lower case appropriately, and use blood to emphasise. Don’t put all your points into one paragraph; break them down, each paragraph for each issue. Also, divide content into sections with descriptions and subheaders. You can put every category into a subtopic format so users can search for information faster.  You can always include “white space”. Space that surrounds paragraphs, images and other elements on your webpage is known as ” white space”. It may seem like a lot of wasted space, but it is vital. White space around text makes it more legible and enjoyable to read. Incorporate multimedia Research shows that most of the human brain is visual; people process visual information faster than text. Easy-to-read charts or graphs are better at explaining complex topics than text alone. So, adding graphics, pictures or images make your page easier to read. Layer website content Help readers find great content by hyperlinking certain words or phrases to other relevant resources, especially those on your website. It will help people stay engaged with your content and move through your site. For example, if you have this sentence on fashion or clothing appearing on your website: ‘Cashmere Sweaters go well with a pair of jeans’. Then, you could hyperlink “Cashmere sweaters” to a page with other blog posts on winter clothing, fashion or anything related.  It helps your Search Engine Optimisation when you build those internal links within your site but keep in mind that links should always be relevant and helpful. So don’t overload your text with links; keep to a reasonable number. Leave them wanting more Leave your audience, primary and secondary, wanting more of what you give them.  If you want to count your website among good websites, end each page with a strong call-to-action or CTA for short. There should be a contact or connection that could link your readers to more information about your content. For example, an exciting video to watch, a report they could download or even a related blog post they can read.  This helps direct readers to other areas of your website and encourages them to promote to friends and family. So use those CTA and start them with verbs like “Download, Share, Join, Sign-up or Learn more”. Make sure to include a link to fulfil the action you like your readers to take.  Writing is fun and hard work, but if you put in the work and purpose, it gets easy and satisfying.  Read also: A Simple Bit about Content Marketing.

Raven & Macaw Team
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Content Marketing Strategies: Comprehensive or Narrow?
Articles
Jun 27, 2022
4 min read

Content Marketing Strategies: Comprehensive or Narrow?

There are many ways to build a content marketing strategy. For example, you could focus on written content, videos, or podcasts. You can target a small audience or expand your marketing wings. Whatever content you decide will determine your brand’s success and search rank.    Comprehensive content includes pieces marketed as ultimate guides. It covers a topic in extreme depth, offering a thousand words at a minimum to evaluate readers on that particular topic. For example, a written piece on “Finding your way with SEM” can be considered a broad topic since it discusses SEM, its benefits, importance, and strategies. On the other hand, a topic such as “SEM to generate traffic” is undoubtedly not broad as it will focus on just one element or two of Search Engine Marketing. On the other hand, Narrow content is much shorter and focused on a specific niche topic. When building a content marketing strategy, which should you focus on more? Narrow or comprehensive? Comprehensive If you write an extensive piece, it will help you: Build a ‘Go to’ type of resource. Writing one singular, comprehensive and detailed piece on a given topic gives you the possibility of becoming the dominant, highly relevant resource on that topic. It can also boost your reputation. You become a leading authority.  Earn more and better links with helpful content. Links are valuable for increasing your search rankings—a non-negligible advantage.  Provide permanent value, which you earn with a dominant resource site. Narrow As said earlier, Narrow content on a specific topic which several writers would think won’t get them to the top of the web search list has its advantages. If you decide to write narrow content, you get to : Thin the competition- many writers target more search visibility for broad and familiar topics, so there won’t be competitors for specific niche topics. Not every web writer would write on topics like ‘Comprehensive or Narrow Marketing Content’ when they’re all looking towards getting more visibility with ‘Guides to SEO’ or others like it. Writing a limited topic also limits your competition, bringing you more attention from users. Seize quick wins that could apply for two reasons. First, narrow content allows you to capitalise on long-tail keywords; a shortcut to earn number one rankings in search engines. Second, it is faster and easier to write. So you spend fewer resources creating.  Minimise risk with low stakes- narrow pieces are designed to be affordable to lose. It is devastating when your writing becomes irrelevant or stale. However, when it is a thin piece, one you spent less time and resources to create. You can easily let go with minimal losses and no devastating blow to your content strategy. Utilise adaptability that affords your strategy more flexibility. For example, you can cover news topics faster than your competitors.  Comprehensive and Narrow Contents However, whichever you choose, know that you can adopt both types of content to make your website more relevant and increase your search visibility. Both contents will help you: Identify potentially evergreen topics that could both work for comprehensive or narrow content. And they stay fresh or can be renewed anytime to suit your strategy. Build quality and quantity independently. Re-evaluate and regroup your keywords, topics and even strategy. You can also see how much traffic you drive to your site and your search ranking. Comprehensive, Narrow or both, make sure whatever you write is valuable and attractive to your audience. For fantastic, traffic generating, higher search ranking content, our team of content creators and digital marketers are at your service with just a click! Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn for updates on what we do and how we can help you.

Raven & Macaw Team
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 A Simple Bit about Content Marketing
Articles
Jun 24, 2022
5 min read

 A Simple Bit about Content Marketing

Content marketing is a strategic approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent Content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience and ultimately drive profitable customer action.  If you are reading this, you are a digital marketer with marketing needs, or maybe you need a re-education on content development and marketing. Uncountable times we hear “content is king” and “content is what makes your business more relevant”.  As cliché as that might sound for those of us already in the e-commerce world, it is essential and crucial to any online business. For example, 59% of marketers say their content marketing ROI is excellent or very good, helping them increase leads, conversions and brand loyalty.  Instead of selling or offering your products or services, your Content is what will define that which you are giving. Content represents what type of business you are into and what kind of products or services you offer customers. Content tells your brand story, and that’s why you must do whatever it takes to make it relevant, valuable and worth selling.  Even Leading Brands Use Content Marketing Don’t think that you must keep trying hard to get there because your business is not on the top list of leading companies. Brands like Microsoft, Cisco Systems, Pepsi, Airtel, Piggy Bank and many other top brands use content marketing to boost their products and services.  Why Use Content Marketing for Your Business Content marketing is cost-saving. It saves you all the extra money and funds you may initially spend on marketing.  It increases sales. Of course, it does! More Content equals more visibility on Search Engine Result Pages and users’ social media pages. More popularity will lead to an increase in the purchase of your goods and loyal customers. The more they like your products, the more they stay loyal and even refer more customers to you. Then the most basic of all primary reasons for marketing is profit. Content is a profit centre. More sales, higher purchases and increased customers all lead to profit.  These are just fundamental reasons to use content marketing.  Types of Content Marketing There are many different types of content marketing, including: Blogging Video Podcasting Infographics Email Visual Content EBooks Lead magnets Whitepapers Slide share presentations Quizzes/tools Checklists Courses Webinars Slide decks Free apps Social media posts And many more to use in marketing your business. What you’re reading right now is content marketing. The key is that the Content provides information or entertainment, usually for free, in support of a business goal.  Yes, we have a goal. Utilizing Different Types of Content Marketing/Platforms Now, let’s talk about why you need to use different types of Content Marketing. The first thing most people would think of when it comes to content marketing is Blogging, which is excellent. But there’s no disagreement that other means of marketing content also work wonderfully. For instance, podcasts have become widely popular, with episodes and listeners growing to millions. Likewise, YouTube has made its mark in the social media world, growing even better with billions of viewers. Writing an excellent piece for your blog is good and will have many reads and views plus likes but add your Content to another platform. Having your Content on multiple platforms builds your big kingdom of audiences, and publishing many different things allows you to be everywhere your audience is present online. For example, someone may not see your article but could be listening to your podcast on his way home. a young lady may find it easier to understand how to create logos by watching a “how to create Logos” video on YouTube than actually reading a 16 pages guideline on how to do that while someone would prefer to read the “details”. Also, some things fit better in specific formats. So, understand the different benefits of the other platforms and learn how to use them. Finally, don’t stick to just one type of content marketing.  Utilizing the many available content marketing types or platforms will also require you to decide on your content type. Then, find the appropriate format for your Content. For instance, you cannot teach pottery on a podcast. It has to be on video. Likewise, you cannot teach mathematics in just theory; there must be examples with workings and solutions. Use platforms that your audience already consumes.  By now, you’re thinking of what kind of Content to create. That is why you need to play around with your strengths! Know what your strengths are, know what you can give your best when developing, give your consumers the best Content they can consume and even come back for more. Then, when you see that what you are doing is going great, you can branch out SLOWLY. Do not make the mistake of venturing to other platforms abruptly because you feel you can do great; instead, slowly, slowlyly, see how it works for you and your audience, check out consumer experiences, analyze and if it works, continue. Finally, don’t forget about consistency! Always start what you can continue. Don’t chicken out or lazy out midway, especially if your Content is selling.  Start Marketing Content or Just Carry On Now that you have read through and understood what Content Marketing is, you can start creating great, irresistible Content and market them to the fantastic world of digital marketing. We would like you to know that marketing your business online doesn’t have to be so difficult becaue tat is what we do. So why don’t you consult with our digital marketing experts at Raven and Macaw for a long term gains without the pains.

Raven & Macaw Team
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Generating Traffic With A Successful SEM Campaign
Articles
Jun 22, 2022
6 min read

Generating Traffic With A Successful SEM Campaign

  Is your business page not driving enough traffic as it should?  Here is a read on using Search Engines to market your products or services to increase your visibility on Search Engine Result Pages and SERPs. Search Engine Marketing, SEM, is a marketing strategy to improve a website’s online visibility in SERPs. Like Search Engine Optimization, SEM can include techniques like rewriting a website’s content to achieve higher rankings. However, SEM refers to paid search or PPC.  While there are many ways to attract new visitors to your website, Search Engine Marketing differs and may be the best for a business. A business can advertise on a search engine page when specific keywords are used in an online inquiry. Advertisers commonly bid on industry-specific phrases and word sets or highly relevant to a particular product or service. In that way, businesses have their ads placed in front of users alongside searches for queries.   Businesses should focus on selecting a proper keyword strategy. You may think Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing are the same, but they differ. Using SEM gives you more control over your digital marketing efforts. SEO is suitable for a highly targeted optimization effort. SEM focuses on a larger tray of keywords while ensuring similar visibility is a success.  A strength of SEM is that it gives you the opportunity as an advertiser to put your ads in front of motivated customers at the right time they want to make a purchase. It is a guarantee that SEM is a powerful way to drive traffic to your website, especially for a starting business. In addition, SEM tends to draw many first-time visitors to your pages. There is no other way to do this than Search Engine Marketing, which makes SEM a very effective way to promote your business. You pay a search engine to advertise for you. Very easy. The Groundwork of Search Engine Marketing     Know Your Target Audience The first key to success is knowing the people you are targeting. Understanding your audience can produce more effective ads for the right people. The easiest way to do that? Well, your current potential customers can always be your starting point. But, first, create a survey or questionnaire to know what they like and dislike about the products, habits and even locations. It will be hard to know everything about them, but understanding a little about them through those survey sheets will give you more understanding of the people to target and how to launch a successful set of ads. Keywords! Keywords form the basis of search Engine Marketing, which should not be much of a surprise. First, you must conduct comprehensive keyword searches as the number one keyword management strategy. Then, identify keywords relevant to your business and likely to be used by customers when searching for products or services. A thorough keyword search will help you discover your business’s right keywords and identify negative ones. Negative terms aren’t harmful, but they are irrelevant to whatever you are offering.  For example, if you sell ‘clay pots’, you might want to use keywords like; “Ways to use a clay pot”; avoid keywords like “the best type of clay for a DIY vase” unless you’re also selling ‘clay’. You definitely won’t drive customers with the latter keyword term. Comprehensive keywords will make your ad appear on people’s screens. Go for less but specific keywords for your products. This will give you the best traffic. Uncommon keywords are superlative in maximizing the value of every click. Ad Auctions To grow your business, be ready to invest in SEM, and once you are prepared, you will need to participate in ad auctions. We will look at ad auctions in Google Ads. Every paid ad on Google’s SERPs had to go through an auction. To enter an ad auction, you must identify the keywords you want to bid on and clarify how much you are willing to spend per click of each keyword because, of course, you’re dealing with a pay-per-click system. Google then determines if your keywords are obtainable or within a user’s search query, and then you are entered into the ad auction. However, not every ad will appear on every search related to that keyword. Some keywords don’t have much or no commercial intent to allow them to include ads on the page. For instance, typing ‘Content Creation’ into Google will not show any ads on your screen. Even if your keyword is a good fit for an ad, it may not necessarily mean you will win the bidding. This is because the ad auction considers two main factors to determine if your ad is worthy of being on the SERP – your maximum bid and your ad quality score. Remember, the more relevant your ad is to a user and how likely will a user click on your ad and enjoy it all add to your Quality Score. Once you’re set to use SEM, research relevant and commercial intent keywords, enter Ad Auctions and pay for your ads to appear on the SERPs. All these and adopting an SEM strategy that requires you to optimize paid search ads with a specific goal in mind. You must understand how paid ad platforms work and effectively manage variables that affect performances, such as keywords, budget and copy. Maximize the Strategy for CPC Targets Cost Per Click is the actual price you are prepared to pay for every click. You may need to consider a few things before deciding on a deserved CPC. Think about the proposed bid, the role of digital in your general ads budget, the campaign aim and how competitive it is. Cost Per Click is significant because it is the number that will determine how financially successful your paid search campaigns are and how much Google Ads will cost for you. Customize Your Landing Pages Landing pages are essential to the success of SEM. It is where every individual would be directed

Raven & Macaw Team
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9 Youtube SEO Tricks For a Succesful Channel
Articles
Jun 15, 2022
5 min read

9 Youtube SEO Tricks For a Succesful Channel

Youtube SEO involves optimising your channel, descriptions, videos and metadata to improve your rankings in search results. You can grow your channel on YouTube just like every other succeeding channel with massive likes and views and achieve that which you desire by optimising your videos for search within and outside of Youtube.  Search engine bots cannot watch videos. They rely on text data to index them appropriately. Therefore, a vital element of a Youtube strategy is to put your video text in the form of transcripts, closed captions and subtitles, which can impact, positively, user experience, watch time and even viewership.  To achieve these, here are 9 simple tricks to help you build a channel you will be happy with whether you’ve been using YouTube for a while or are thinking of how to start. The Perfect Keyword is Key Many videos on YouTube do not have the crucial potential to bid for the top rank. Many videos may have the potential, but people are not using the best keyword. Before boosting Youtube SEO, you must select the right keywords or phrases so that when users type these words or phrases, your page or channel comes up in their Search Result Page. Making research on the exact keywords to go for is the first brick to building the success of your video on YouTube. Keyword research tools like Google keyword planner, Google Search, Moz or Semrush are excellent for finding the perfect keywords. Thanks to the geniuses behind these tools for making things easy. Chip in your Keyword in the Video Title By understanding why you are making a specific YouTube video and who your exact target audience is, you are more likely to reach those target audiences by adding the keyword to the video title. As a result, your video appears more often in the audience’s search results. For example, if you make a video displaying a new product review, try and input the product’s name in both the video title and description. Getting this step wrong has led so many good videos to have low clicks and lower rankings on YouTube search results which are not excellent for a good video. Add Keywords to the Video File This factor will make your videos obtain high rankings in search results. When uploading any video, YouTube uses the file name to ensure its relevance. So ensure that the file name contains the target keyword for a better chance of top appearances and more clicks. Use Google’s Key Moments for Longer Videos This feature makes it stress-free and faster for your audience or viewers to jump to a particular juncture in your video. For example, if you make a “How-to” video, you can easily include timestamps to indicate the different parts of your video. When adding timestamps, list them in sequential order (from 0 minutes to last), make sure every timestamp is on a different line and specify the label on the same line. Optimise your Video Description A full description is essential for YouTube SEO ranking. YouTube re-examines a video anytime an update or change is made to its segments. Changing the description, subtitles, and thumbnails could improve your video or probably the opposite. You should not make a mistake the first time. Include your primary keywords in the first few sentences of the description, and note that the entire description does not exceed 200 words. So make it short but detailed. The overview should be in a language that can be understood. Select 2 words that best describe the video and use them in the description and video title. Include Hashtags for Better YouTube Search Results Hashtags are among the best features of social media. A lot of individuals search for content on social media through hashtags. Therefore, counting hashtags in your video description will make viewers glimpse your video whenever they explore that specific hashtag. Hashtags are fun; they boost trends and make them more visible. As for YouTube, the best place to add hashtags is in the description. Once added, the hashtags will be displayed right above the video title, and they can be clicked like a hyperlink. Categorise your Videos Categorising your videos uplifts your ranking. Google uses categories to display videos that match the search purpose, and users can see your YouTube video when they choose the type or a similar class. There are numerous choices to select from; sure, you should be able to find one that fits your video. So, when uploading any video, it is essential to categorise it for a better opportunity for more clicks by users. Thumbnail Images Matters With a glimpse at a thumbnail image, a viewer may decide to click your video or go, “Nah… never mind”. Thumbnail images are among the first steps in grabbing viewers’ attention in search results. So, they can lead to more watch time and the opposite. Consider what your video is all about; pick a thumbnail image that will inspire every viewer to click your video without second thoughts. Moreover, a custom thumbnail is a perfect option to appear more professional. A customised thumbnail displays what the video is all about or what viewers will gain from watching your video. Chip in Closed Captions and Subtitles Another excellent option for the success of a YouTube video. Not all of your words may be clear to your viewers due to accent and other video language reasons, but with a good caption, they can read through your video. Others may be even deaf or might not be able to hear the audio, but with a closed caption, your video will be friendly to them. Closed captions and subtitles are like transcripts, which are highly useful because they could act as a blog to search engines. There you have it, 9 simple tricks to becoming a YouTube master.

Raven & Macaw Team
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Benefits of SEO to Your Business
Articles
Jun 14, 2022
8 min read

Benefits of SEO to Your Business

What Is SEO? Wondering what SEO is? The acronym stands for Search Engine Optimisation. Easily understood as the process of improving your site to increase visibility on search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, and others when people search for services or products that are related to your business.  It also simply means you are garnishing your online business pages to create a presence in the internet world, popping up on a user’s screen whenever they search for anything related to your business. As a result, your business gets a better and higher ranking while your website’s relevance and usability increase, creating more traffic. How SEO Works Search engines use many factors to generate results. For example, Google uses more than 200 hundred factors. SEO optimises your site for these factors while getting your site crawled and indexed.  Search engine companies use those factors to determine whether the content is relevant. So if your website content is appropriate, you go on the list; if it isn’t, then sorry, maybe next time. Try harder. More so, search engines will have to crawl and index your content. Linking and backlinking is essential to SEO. Crawlers, also known as spiders, use links to discover and re-discover existing pages and content on the web. Search engines index to store web content and deliver it through search results. Once crawling has been done, your content can be indexed but be careful not to fall under the category of blocked, spam, or duplicate pages, or your chances of getting indexed will be rare or none. Once you’ve passed this level, a search engine will analyse your pages against its factors which are about 200 and even more; for example: Content creation Keyword usage Mobile-friendliness Backlinking profile A good search engine optimisation requires identifying relevant keywords with good search traffic potential, creating high-quality, helpful content, optimising it for search engines and users, including relevant links from high-quality sites, and measuring the results.  Do these, and your site will draw dense traffic, which means more popularity. Who doesn’t want that kind of internet presence?  Now that you know what Search Engine Optimisation and SEO are, let’s talk about SEO on Google. How Does Google Work? Search engines like Google follow links from one webpage to another. It has a crawler, index, and algorithm. This search engine crawls through contents on the web, indexes them and makes them visible on search results. This it does, 24 hours, 7 days a week, saving HTML versions of pages on a vast database which is the index and updates anytime new content appears as it crawls back to that web page.  The new version of your page is saved, depending on the traffic your page generates. For Google to find your site, there has to be a link from another site already on the index. Once a crawler follows that link to your site, it gets saved on the index. Once your website is saved, it gets to appear on Google search results.  However, Google has a specific algorithm that decides which sites appear on search results and in which manner, that is after getting indexed. The way these algorithm works is only known to Google. The algorithms are not static; they are updated often, and we don’t know which factors are more important to follow than others.  Although, we can experiment with many factors like the use of keywords, relevant content, etc. Doing this will give us an experience of what is important or more important to always appear on top of the search result’s list. Bear in mind that there are organic search results and paid search results. Paid search results will appear on top of the SERP, with organic coming immediately. However, paid or organic target different categories of users depending on the search. So organic search results may reach a broader range of people than paid, depending on the kind of searches.   Links Have Value The more links a site has, the more important search engines see. Those links are pointers to your page. Internal links (coming from your site) and external links (from other sites) help rank a web page on Google, but some links are more important than others.  Webpages with many incoming links are more important than small sites with fewer links. So gather or build up enough valuable links and be careful about collecting links from shady sites, or Google will punish you.  Links have value. The kind you collect and connect with your site determines your relevance to search engines and whether your content is worth being on the search results.  With that all laid on the table, you can adopt some techniques that could promote your business while benefitting from Search Engine Optimisation.  The Benefit of SEO to Your Business SEO is a highly beneficial tool for your business. Whether it’s a start-up or already an established company, what keeps your business going is consistent marketing, advertising, and content creation that tells your customers what your brand is all about.  When your customers have a positive experience with your business, you get more web clicks, increasing traffic and your SEO, thereby increasing your rank on the Search Engine Result Page (SERP).  User experience includes how well your customers can navigate your site, find products they search for and get the required results. In addition, they will give you their trust because they know you will always come through for them.  SEO is a platform for visibility. Therefore, knowing what people are looking for by conducting thorough SEO research is vital. This is where knowing your audience and their needs are significant. That is also known as Local SEO. Local SEO uses the geographical location of your business in search results. Therefore, your location can contribute to your online visibility. When a potential customer searches for a question followed by “near me” or within your geographical proximity, you want your business to come up first. Increasing Local SEO will increase your online visibility, leading

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The Overview of Digital Marketing
Articles
Jun 7, 2022
23 min read

The Overview of Digital Marketing

With the popularity and accessibility of internet services, there are so many people online every day. The number keeps going up daily as more and more people are becoming tech-savvy.  It is a fact that the continuous internet usage has also increased by 7 per cent among adults, within the past three years based on the Pew research reports. Consumers’ behavior has changed rapidly which means that a lot of offline marketing activities are no more effective than they have been in the past.   The general idea of marketing is connecting with the right audience and pitching your business at the appropriate time. Presently, marketing means getting to know why your target audience is how much time they spend on the internet and how best to reach out to them.  Digital marketing in its simple terms means marketing online to the general audience. Here at Raven and Macaw, we believe that inbound marketing is an effective way to engage online users and market your product and services to the users. It is also a way to delight the customers of your business in cyberspace. With that being said, a lot of people have questions about the details surrounding digital marketing and what it entails. In this piece, we have decided to answer all questions relating to digital marketing and how it’s being carried out in the present age.  What is Digital Marketing? Digital marketing is the process of designing, executing, and measuring marketing campaigns that use digital technologies to reach and engage consumers. It has become an essential part of the marketing mix for businesses of all sizes, as it enables them to connect with their customers where they are spending the majority of their time: online. Digital marketing encompasses a variety of channels, including email, social media, search engines, and websites. Digital marketing encompasses a variety of activities, including search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, email marketing, paid advertising, and more. The goal of digital marketing is to create an interactive relationship with customers and prospects through electronic channels. How Does a Business Define Digital Marketing? At this point, it is crucial for every business to build their brand awareness on the internet. Every brand has invested in building a website that shows what its activities as a business are.  There are many different ways to execute a digital marketing strategy. Some businesses focus on website optimization, others on email marketing, and still others on social media campaigns. The most important thing is to identify which channels your customers are using and to tailor your marketing efforts to those channels. Digital content and marketing is an essential way for engaging consumers. Customers now expect and rely on your website and digital marketing efforts to learn about brands. Since digital marketing has so many options and strategies associated with it, you can get creative and experiment with a variety of marketing tactics on a budget. Why is Digital Marketing Important? Digital marketing is important because it allows businesses to reach a larger audience more efficiently than traditional marketing methods. With digital marketing, businesses can target specific customers based on their interests and needs, which leads to a higher ROI for the company. Additionally, digital marketing is a cost-effective way to reach a large number of people. Major Benefits Of Digital Marketing Digital marketing is one of the most efficient and effective ways to reach out to customers and promote your business. It has a number of advantages over traditional marketing methods: 1. Reach: Digital marketing enables businesses to reach a large number of people in a short amount of time. 2. Cost: Digital marketing is much more cost-effective than traditional marketing methods. 3. Efficiency: Digital marketing is more efficient than traditional marketing methods, as it allows businesses to target specific customers with customized messages. 4. Flexibility: Digital marketing is highly flexible, allowing businesses to adjust their campaigns according to their audience needs. 5. Increased reach: With digital marketing, you can reach a wider audience than ever before. 6. Greater engagement: Digital marketing allows you to engage with your audience in a more interactive way. Reach: Digital marketing enables businesses to reach a large number of people in a short amount of time. With digital marketing, businesses are able to communicate with a large number of people in a short period of time. This is done by targeting a specific audience and using various digital channels to deliver the marketing message. For example, businesses can use social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, to reach a large number of people. Additionally, businesses can use search engine optimization (SEO) to improve their website’s ranking on search engine results pages, which will result in more people visiting their website. Cost: Digital marketing is much more cost-effective than traditional marketing methods Digital marketing is much more cost-effective than traditional marketing methods. With traditional marketing, you have to print materials, purchase airtime or billboard space, and hire people to distribute your materials. With digital marketing, you can reach a much larger audience for a fraction of the cost. You can also track your results more accurately with digital marketing. You can see how many people clicked on your ad, what they did when they got to your website, and how many sales resulted from your campaign. This information allows you to make changes and improve your campaigns for future iterations. Efficiency: Digital marketing is more efficient than traditional marketing methods, as it allows businesses to target specific customers with customized messages. Digital marketing is more efficient than traditional marketing methods for a variety of reasons. One reason is that it allows businesses to specifically target their audience. With digital marketing, businesses can target people based on their interests, demographics, and even their past behaviours. This level of specificity is not possible with traditional marketing methods. Another reason that digital marketing is more efficient is that it is less expensive than traditional marketing methods. Digital marketing strategies are often less expensive to execute

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