If you are an entrepreneur or solopreneur and have your own site, it’s a matter of time till you hear that in order to rank in search engines you need SEO backlinks, if possible high-quality backlinks.
All good, but how do you get backlinks? And what are backlinks in SEO, more precisely?
These are links from external websites that point to your site, consider it a “recommendation”, a vote of trust, or a vote of confidence. Simply put they are hyperlinks back from other sites. The more you have the better.
SEO backlinks can also be referred to as inbound links or incoming links.
Why Are SEO Backlinks Important?
Recent studies have shown that SEOs consider backlinks as a significant ranking factor. So, backlinks can be looked at as pathways that represent a vote of confidence from one site to another. They’re essentially signals to search engines that other sites can vouch for your content and this means if you get many quality backlinks on your website then the search engines automatically conclude that your content is credible and therefore worthy of showing them on search engine results pages (SERP).
The most important thing to consider before starting the link-building process is that you must first have a strong and properly optimized website. This will ensure that your backlinks are very effective and drive the desired effect. However, if your website is not well-optimized, you lose out on valuable opportunities and waste your time and money.
How do you optimize your website?
Here is a quick checklist to go through.
1. Ensure that you have no UI or technical issues such as site loading speeds, mobile friendliness, or page duplication. Fix all external links by conducting a website audit. (This is crucial)
2. Create high-quality linkable content by generating content that will inform, educate or add value to your audience (and eventually to yourself). Remember, content is the reason the search began in the first place. It should be:
3. Create an intelligent site architecture. This simply means – avoiding acquiring backlinks to non-linkable pages and instead using a content-centric approach through a reverse silo to acquire content-rich pages with the goal of distributing link authority from your rich content to your sales-driven pages.
With the above 3 elements checked, you now have a foundation to set your SEO backlinks-building strategy. The strategy, as you may know, means your overall plan. What do you hope to achieve after the entire process? For the purpose of this article, your strategy here should be (as indicated above) credible content that’s worthy of linking. It’s really that simple. This is how to get quality backlinks for free. You must provide quality. The highest possible.
Let’s Make Your SEO & Content Work Better for Your Business
So, how are you going to proceed with this? Beyond your strategy, you should be and act tactically.
Without further ado, here are the smartest and most effective link-building tactics that will bring you SEO backlinks to strengthen your domain authority.
SEO Backlinks Tactic 1 – Grow Your Personal Brand
Your personal brand is the ultimate scorecard that measures your presence and worth either as a business or as a person. It showcases to the world what you stand for, your skills, and the solutions you’re bringing to the table.
So, much work goes into building a strong brand, but the benefits can be seen when people naturally link to your content, thus building links. This means your content earns you organic traffic.
So for this to work, you need consistent and frequent quality content to share with your audience. Blogging works very well here, improves your search engine rankings, and gains more organic traffic through frequent quality blogging.
SEO Backlinks Tactic 2 – Establish Your Content Pillars
Effective content requires a powerful sense of purpose. You should have identified your goal and target. And it’s on this foundation that you build a theme that will direct your articles, videos, or blogs. You can start with a few great in-depth articles or blogs that are going to act as the bedrock on which many other smaller articles can be linked back.
The key thing to remember here is that the pillar content shouldn’t be too specific; this will allow you to build the smaller articles on it while addressing the needs and values of your target consumer.
SEO Backlinks Tactic 3 – Syndication and Repurposing of Older Content
It’s possible to have an already existing compilation of great content but not sharable on some sites or platforms because of its format. So, instead of losing out on the opportunity to share this information, and be linked to other sites, you can repurpose it to other formats.
You can repurpose your content from text to videos or info-graphics then share it on other fitting platforms and increase your audience.
Syndicating your content to third-party sites is another way to build your links. Other sites can pick up your content alongside a link back or even publish the whole thing or an excerpt but with a link to your site.
SEO Backlinks Tactic 4 – Earn Editorial Links
One of the things that absolutely boosts your SEO is editorial links. And these are earned by writing quality, valuable and relevant content. Studies found that editorial links are the most sought-after links because they don’t cost you anything.
You see, you run a tiresome risk of getting penalized by Google if all your links are manually built, so instead of struggling to retain them, why not just fetch deeper in your creative juice jug and come up with relevant content that compels others to link you?
This means offering solutions that your target is actively seeking.
SEO Backlinks Tactic 5 – Guest Posts
Marketers are incorporating more blogs and more content each day; because it generates an average of 97% more inbound links meaning more traffic. And this is partly why guest blogging is an effective strategic approach to getting backlinks.
It is a win-win scenario that allows you to both earn high-quality backlinks free and also reach a new audience and gain new traffic. It’s just brilliant.
But the tactic that makes this a win situation is relevance and target. You need to know the sites where your content will be relevant to the respective audience. So, the next question is how do you find these sites?
There are a few ways you can do this. First, you can identify prospect sites and then pitch your content to them. You can achieve this with the help of Google Search Operators or “spy” on your competitors and check where they guest post. The important thing is to find a site that accepts guest posts, is connected with your niche, and has high authority and lots of traffic in order for you to maximize the chances of getting your content shared.
SEO Backlinks Tactic 6 – Use Social Media & Network with Peers in Your Niche
Link building is all about forming and cultivating relationships that boost links back to your site. One such place to start is through social media channels including YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and more. These platforms are where you first showcase your brand or business personality and start creating relationships.
Social media can improve your building links efforts through outreach, content ideation, or even content promotion. What you need to do is identify the specific group of people you want to connect with e.g. influencers who are able to offer you a valuable link back to your site.
SEO Backlinks Tactic 7 – Use Infographics
A picture is worth a thousand words.
In 2018, visual content registered the highest number of shares among social media platforms and blogs as well. This means greater opportunities to connect with the audience and to earn SEO backlinks because it’s clear and quick information.
It’s also important to note that infographics continue to drive more and more traffic even if the content is not very new, unlike standard text-based content. The key thing for your infographic to become a sharable asset is its uniqueness, appeal, and ease of understanding. You could, for example, use gifs instead of static images.
There are a couple of reasons why links can get broken:
They can either have been removed from the linking page or
The linked page was deleted and therefore no longer exists.
For this strategy to work though, you need to find out the reasons for either of the above situations before you jump into using them.
So, here the first step would be to identify a related site that you would like a backlink from then to check them out in a tool like Ahrefs to identify pages that have broken links. Broken link reclamation is a great way to build valuable links because it eases the crawling and indexing of websites by search engines and also improves user experience and confidence as a site, by getting rid of the 404 error message.
Once you have identified the broken links, you can offer the site owners a chance of replacing the broken link with a valid link with similar relevant content from your site.
It’s another win-win situation because the site owner will have fewer broken links while you get high-quality backlinks.
SEO Backlinks Tactic 9 – Stay On Top- Check Your Competitors
It’s important to know the tools that your competitors are using and replicate this to achieve their level of authority. This means doing an analysis of their link profile and gaining similar backlinks.
It’s however, important to note that there are 2 types of competitors:
a) Domain Level Competitor
This one competes with you in the SERPs entirely. This means they’re competing with you for many search terms across many pages.
b) Page Level Competitors
These compete with you on the page level for specific keywords or topics.
Your first step would be to do a Google search for important keywords. You could start by writing down URLs for the top ten websites that appear in relation to your search. Then ask yourself important questions like why they linked to your competitor and not you, you can quickly figure this out by looking at the anchor text, surrounding text, and even the page title.
Once you figure out why and where your competitors are getting mentioned, then copy their strategy.
SEO Backlinks Tactic 10 – Create a Link Rate Target
The markets are continually building new links with valuable content and so do your competitors. You, therefore, need to understand the number of links required to earn the first page rankings at one point and which is the earning rate of new links in order to stay on the first page. You can get this information by looking at the Ahrefs affiliate SERP overview.
The key thing here is to pay attention to the relevance and quality of the referring domains. It’s better to have little yet relevant and high-quality content that creates an impact than hundreds of pages of worthless information.
SEO Backlinks Tactic 11 – In Ego They Trust
Using ego as bait simply means creating content that’s intended to appeal to your target and getting a link in return. Your target here must have some authority in your industry else it won’t be of any help. The important thing here is to give them attention and get some back with a link.
This strategy can benefit you by increasing your traffic and also improving your site or post’s authority. Here are a few ways you can get free backlinks:
a) Expert Roundups
This is a quick and easy way to build free backlinks and improve site traffic. You can approach this by asking the experts and influencers in your niche for an opinion on a certain relevant topic, and then consolidate their opinions into a high-quality blog post and then let them know about it and possibly request them to share it.
b) Mentions
This is another sure way of getting the backlinks free. You can mention a top-notch influencer or expert by quoting something they’ve said, you could even add an image of them to boost and catch their attention. Then inform them because this way they will share your content with their followers and this is a win for you.
c) Interviews
Most big names in any industry love interviews, get a contact, approach them with your well-thought-out set of questions and once they respond, publish them and watch them share the interview on their platforms.
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SEO Backlinks Tactic 12 – Unlinked Mentions
Quite often, people will mention you and not link to you. But with this kind of mention, you’re halfway through to a link, which means you’re not a stranger to this business. So, it would be easy to convince this person to link to your site.
But how will you find such relevant mentions in the humongous World Wide Web? There are a few tools you can use including Ahrefs Content Explorer or Google Alerts. They search for mentions of your brand or any word or phrase related to a particular topic.
SEO Backlinks Tactic 13 – Create Evergreen Content
Evergreen content is content that remains fresh and relevant to its target audience and keeps giving value, remains informative, and retains its original quality years on. It’s simply timeless.
Such content includes lists, how-to tutorials, tips, best practices, etc. You can find a smart way to incorporate these kinds of things in your content by following these tips:
Make sure the keywords are evergreen as well.
Make your content visually attractive and the text easy to understand
Make sure it’s current and relevant with actionable tips
It gives satisfying solutions for the reader
SEO Backlinks Tactic 14 – Good Old PR
Online PR, just like traditional PR is an effective way of spreading the good word about your brand, only that this time it’s through online platforms such as blogs or social media. It’s essential because it helps you build relationships with people, and eventually influence them to give you their trust and this strengthens your authority and delivers organic backlinks.
And because all businesses are different, there is no one size fits all strategy for online PR, but here are a few basic principles that can guide you:
Understand what you want to gain from the online PR strategy
Identify who your target is and understand the market
What are you promoting primarily? Your Brand? Product? Your Authority or Reach?
Who are the influencers in your field and what kind of content do they respond to?
With these critical points noted, you can do some research and identify the opportunities you’re missing.
So, since Google revealed that quality backlinks are among the top 3 search ranking factors, you have more than enough strategies to get you high up in the SERP in the near future.
Get working and let me know which one worked the best for you.
It is fun spending some time on creative projects that you love. But what if you could make money while at it? There are many crafts to make and sell and there’s a growing market for them, after all, just like any other profession, creativity deserves a pay too.
The resistance movement against the sea of sameness continues to gain traction. People are increasingly looking for unique things to set them apart. Knowing an item has a unique story behind it brings a twist to the user’s experience.
The coronavirus crisis has brought out certain aspects of creativity in people and a few niches within the crafts industry are doing exceptionally well.
As the need for crafts increases, their market also grows and there are several online platforms specifically created for this. And can easily turn crafts creators into online shop owners. It’s also important to note that crafts are in myriads of categories and there’s a market for each and every one of them.
But before getting into the types of crafts to make and sell, here are some important things you need to know.
Let’s Make Your SEO & Content Work Better for Your Business
Just like any other business, the business of crafts requires some selling skills, irrespective of where you choose to sell them. Whether online, at the crafts fairs, or even at your local shop, you need to be visible. And there are a few more steps you need to take to have a sustainable crafts business.
Pick One Craft and Do It Well
When starting out, you may be filled with inspiration, and you may feel that if you have more craft products you’ll have more customers. Hence, the opposite is also true. You don’t need to have a myriad of products to sell well. You need one range of products to thrive better.
Focusing on one range will be easier when it comes to marketing to a specified target group. It will also show your customers that you know your craft and that you’re not just a Jack/Jane of all trades.
Being specific will also help you better sharpen your skills because it’ll mean you’re doing the same thing often. And next time you’ll be able to make it better than before.
Build a Strong Identity
This is all about branding. Your brand will be your identity, if you’re going to spend your time creating beautiful crafts to make and sell, then you might as well spend enough time branding your business. It is about understanding who you are and in the simplest way letting people know why what you create is special.
Your brand should go beyond your logo and color theme and be able to tell your story and your values. Use a name and images that show your style. And all this is easier when you pick a specific niche as stated above.
Get Your Pricing Right
How to price crafts and things you make to sell is a major concern especially when you’re starting. Finding that sweet balance between a good selling price that works and earns you a profit is crucial. This calls for some research on your part. Find out how much similar products are going for, incorporate all your costs, and include profits in order to get it right from the start.
Other things to factor in include materials and packaging. Also, consider if they’re seasonal products. You may want to consider if you can sell them wholesale or purely in retail.
Will you consider running promotions on your crafts? Then you have to avoid very slim margins and allow some wiggle room in order to be able to offer discounts (and still make profits).
Another factor to have in mind is where you want your crafts to be positioned in the market. Are you a luxury brand or are you a regular brand? All these factors will guide you on the best way to price your products.
Marketing Tips to Help You Sell Your Crafts
Target Customer Research
Before you get deep into crafts to make and sell, know who your ideal customer is. Are they males or females? What age are you targeting? Old or young? Are they urban or rural or suburban? Where are they likely to shop? On a physical store or on an online store?
If you get all these answers then you’ll be able to filter your marketing strategies in order to reach the exact customers that you need.
Peek at Your Competing Products
Understanding your niche is crucial. It can give you hints on how your competition sells its products. You’ll learn more about the media they use most for their marketing efforts. This will show you where your customers are likely to be found. Plus, it’ll give you a hint about the market price.
All this information will help you build a better and more informed marketing strategy.
Great photos for crafts to make and sell are really the first impression that you cannot afford to get wrong. Think about your target customers and what their interests are. What color themes will bring out the element you want to show? Your photos need to help your customers visualize themselves using the product.
Would it be useful to incorporate the tools of work in order to emphasize the handmade nature of your products? Or would you rather photograph it in the space that it might be used in?
All these are options that you can consider based on the nature of your product as well as your ideal target audience.
Market Your Crafts
After creating beautiful crafts, you need to get them out there in front of your potential customers if you want to sell. There are a number of options you can pick from. You have social media, for instance. Here you can pick Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, it’ll depend on where your target audience spends most of their time.
When using social media, be social. Interact and engage your followers or anyone that will reach out. The beauty of promoting your crafts on social media is that you can do it for free if you don’t intend to spend a dime on marketing. Make use of hashtags to connect to a larger audience.
Another method you may use to advertise or put the word out is through pamphlets, this is especially if you want to focus your sales only on your local areas. Whatever you do, you need to market your crafts in order to sell.
Use Catchy Titles and Clear Descriptions
How are you going to describe your crafted products to customers?
Write clear titles and easy-to-read descriptions with keywords that people might use when searching for your kind of product. Give as much detail as possible but ensure not to get too wordy. This is very important if you intend to sell online either through social media or through platforms such as Etsy or Amazon.
It’s all about making your brand easy to find.
Packaging Plus Posting
The packaging is the first real physical contact of your customers with your products. It’s the first real physical impression.
Therefore, you should never underestimate the power of great packaging. You can use your packaging to say more about yourself. For instance, you can convey that you care about nature when you use eco-friendly – recyclable packaging.
Your values can also be communicated through packaging branding. This includes your logo, the images you use, your selling statement, etc.
So, even though posting and packaging can mean extra costs for you, it can make a huge difference if you ensure to give your customers a good experience. This involves timely delivery and delivering your products in the best possible conditions. As such, you should include these costs in your pricing to avoid going at a loss.
Once you include all the packaging and postage in the product pricing, you can then deliver your products to your customers for free. Meaning they will have a motive in plus to purchase. However, if including shipment costs is not a good idea for your products, ensure great packaging and efficient posting.
So, with all this important information out of the way, what are some easy crafts to make and sell?
Most Profitable Crafts to Sell. What Are Some Good Crafts to Make and Sell?
Tip – You can easily get tutorials for all of these crafts on YouTube or Google.
Home Décor Crafts
Cinnamon Stick Candles
For this, you’ll need unscented candles, cinnamon sticks, sisal twine, and hot glue. You can add ribbon and lace for extra aesthetics.
Use any color of candle depending on your choice or occasion. For instance, you can use a red candle for Valentine’s or a purple candle for a birthday. You can pick any color of ribbon to make a beautiful bow tie. Just remember to blend the colors to create an attractive thing.
Rustic Wood Magnets
For this, you will need a ruler, acrylic paint, small paintbrushes, a magnet roll, wood stain, hot glue, and a hot glue gun. Measure your wood into desired sizes e.g. 3-5 inches long and then smoothen the edges.
Stain them and use stencils or paint on them to give them a pretty look. Once the paint is dry, glue the magnet back on the wooden piece and enjoy your rustic wooden magnets. They would look good on any fridge.
Flying Cups
These flying cups and saucers give such a beautiful optical illusion. You’ll need a coffee cup and saucer, fake flowers, a couple of cable wires, hot glue, scissors, and wire cutters.
Bend the wires in such a way that it touches the inner wall of the cup. Using enough glue, stick it inside the cup, then when it dries, bend the wire and glue it on the saucer while ensuring the cup is stable.
Then glue the fake flowers to make a beautiful composition, starting from the bottom of the cup downwards. These would make any space beautiful.
Tobacco Basket
Tobacco baskets have a rich history that dates back to the 1800s. Back then people created them to keep tobacco off the floor. But human beings being so dynamic, these baskets found their way into homes as part of décor.
These items to make and sell are great and versatile and can be used in open shelving, fireplace mantels can be placed against a neutral background, or even as a centerpiece.
Their open-weave nature allows them to be anything you can imagine in your home and make for great crafts to make for sale.
Christmas Stocking
The above would make for easy Christmas crafts to make and sell. They’re easy and fun to create, even though they may be seasonal. Such items can easily be hung on walls, windows, Christmas trees, or almost anywhere. Get creative and craft unique socks and see how they sell during Christmas.
Paper Covered Pots
What are good crafts to make and sell if they don’t include paper-covered pots? These are favorites of many and would definitely make for a quick sale thanks to the ability to play around with colors that would suit both outdoor and indoor spaces.
You can try it out with the waste stash of papers around your house. Another option is to use tissue paper for this and still get great results of a beautiful décor piece.
Transfer Images on Cushions or Pillows
This is another example of many easy things you can make to sell that can be offered as a gift or be used for home décor. The variety of images you can use can go with the different seasons, from Christmas, Easter, birthdays, wedding anniversaries, and so on.
Pillows can be customized if your customer wants specific images of his own, e.g. family images. You just need to really master your art and the orders will bring themselves to you.
Hoop Wreath
A hoop wreath is a modern glam idea that anyone can use for home décor. When done well, hoop wreaths can be used inside the home to spice up boring walls and give life to dull hallways. Besides home décor, hoop wreaths are great for weddings and parties as well.
Get creative with the easily available supplies and create cool hoops.
Mason Jar Candles
These are some of the fastest-moving crafts to make and sell on Etsy, Amazon, and Pinterest. They’re easy and cheap to make and they’re loved by many people simply because mason jars never go wrong. You can spice your candles by scenting them with different flavors, using different colors, etc. The ideas never end.
DIY Lace Bowl
Lace doily bowls are delicate but beautiful bowls meant to hold tiny light items such as keys, earrings, rings trinkets, and things like candy. They’re pretty easy stuff to make and sell easily too. All you need is a doily, something to act as a mold such as a balloon, and a fabric stiffener. Since they’re cheap to create, they’re also cheap to sell and so they move fast. You can add glitters or splash them with paint for that extra vibe.
Wall Art Crafts
The paintings are great. But there are other cultural crafts out there that can be used as wall arts and are easy to craft. You can create cultural art wall décor that’s unique and distinct in taste. People are using dry twigs and leaves for art. Just spray paint them with gold, silver, rustic, or any color that would trend, and voila! You have a wall art no one can replicate.
Best Things to Make and Sell. Functional Crafts
Erase Menu Board
These are cute boards that can be hung around your house, and they’re super functional, especially for those people that are not very organized. Menu boards can be used for menu planning, to-do lists, cute messages, or simply things to remember. They’re also easy to craft and the required supplies are quite easy to get.
Tote Bag
What are good crafts to make and sell? Well, anything that can double as functional and as a home décor accessory is a great craft to make and sell.
Tote bags are cheap and excellent for shopping, especially in cities or countries that banned the use of plastic bags. The materials needed to create them are easily available and it’s one of the easiest crafts to make and sell even for first-timers.
Besides, they are super easy to ship since they can fit even in an envelope. So, go ahead and try these tote bags.
Etched Wooden Chopping Boards
If you’re considering creative wooden Christmas crafts to make and sell, then this is one perfect idea. You can etch beautiful messages that can outlast the Christmas season or customize them for other occasions such as weddings or anniversaries. This is a top seller on most online crafts platforms. Besides this, it’s easy to make and the materials are not out of reach.
Kitchen Utensil Wooden Box
Still on unique wooden crafts to make and sell, here is another brilliant idea. This farmhouse-style idea brings that retro feel to any kitchen and is a favorite just like the wooden chopping board. They can be ideal as gifts for any occasion. The bamboo tree is popular for this craft because of its natural shine and requires minimal work. Try it.
Mason Jar Soap Dispenser
This is easy to craft and gives a fresh aesthetic to a kitchen or bathroom. It’s cheap to make and since it’s a mason jar, then it’s an automatic hit when it comes to selling. Besides its functionality, it’s also a decorative accessory and can be crafted to fit in any space as the colors can be altered to suit the user.
Tic-Tac-Toe Board Game
You can create a travel game bag that would make for an excellent gift for kids. The tic-tac-toe game bag has a game board on the outside and it can carry the game pieces while traveling. It’s easy to make, would be easy to ship, and would also offer great margins.
Fringed Fleece Blanket
You can embellish so many things with yarn and it would look great, you can use a yard of micro-fiber fleece with a nice color of yarn fringe to give you that unique no-sew soft blanket. The secret is in attractive color combinations, and you can turn any fleece blanket into a fine throw with just added fringe. This is another easy craft and takes such little time to make.
Baby Caps
Baby caps are beautiful just like the persons they’re made for. Use warm beautiful colors. You may choose to use recycled material, as it would boost incredibly your profit margins. If this is not possible, you can get cheap but good-quality supplies and try these crafts to make and sell.
Travel Jewelry Fabric Case
There’s always a holiday around the corner. Thus, it’s always a perfect time to craft something that would be ideal for a holiday such as a cushy travel jewelry case. It’s a necessity that helps in organized packing for ladies that are keen on keeping their items in organized manner. Such fabric cases are ideal for overnight camping or even long trips.
Aprons
These are great crafts to make and sell for men, women, and even children. You can craft beautiful all-season aprons for barbeques, or you can give them a twist and make them convertible harvest and produce aprons. This dual-purpose will be a great selling point that will leave your potential buyers with no choice but to want to buy it.
Adjustable aprons mean they are crafted in such a way that they can be worn by someone six feet tall or be readjusted to fit a five-foot person. This apron will draw both indoor and outdoor chefs as well as garden harvesters.
Pet Toys
There are an estimated 80 million dogs within America alone, and an estimated $60 billion is spent on the pet industry every year. People love their pets and do not mind spending money to keep them happy and healthy.
Such spending is a good indicator for you, it shows a ready market for creative crafts, especially the eco-friendly types that are not necessarily mass-produced by companies. Consequently, you can recycle material within your reach and craft clever pet toys that you can sell online or even within your local area. A Google search will give you endless ideas on pet toys that you can create from recycled eco-friendly material.
Handmade Soap
Today, most people are keen on the safety of the products they’re using. They want to incorporate organic products into their lives. You can tap into this need by creating organic-based soap. Create your soap from scratch. It requires minimal capital to start, you can get many ideas on how to create it and remember to give it a good scent and great branding that clearly states it’s organic.
This soap would be perfect for a gift idea.
Customized Dinner Napkins
Customized napkins are a good idea for crafts to make and sell. You can use easily available and low-cost materials in a creative way using color and patterns to craft unique dinner napkins that would match with hand towels to encourage the buyer to make the purchase. These table accents may require basic sewing skills, but once you make them, they will make for a good sale.
Coasters
Coasters are quick crafts to sell locally or online. They’re popular because there’s no limit to the kind of material you can use to craft them. You can use wood, broken colored pencils, glass, fabrics, or even plastic.
To make things better, you can customize them to fit special seasons or occasions such as anniversaries or corporate events. Coasters can also be customized for corporate purposes as a means of promoting an organization’s agenda. Just let your imagination do the work.
Cat Tent
These cute crafts to make and sell are unique and sell quite fast. The materials you’ll need to use are easily available at a low cost and don’t require special skills to craft. You can customize them for different seasons, e.g. Christmas-themed.
You can also create them in various colors in order to blend with a variety of spaces. And for that final nudge to make the customer buy, you can offer further customization of different sizes and bespoke pet names.
Baby Blankets
Every parent wants something new and unique for his newborn. How about crafting monthly milestone cute blankets for sale? The internet is full of many ideas you can incorporate to make yours even more unique. Go ahead and craft them, they’re ideal for baby shower gifts as well as newborn gift ideas.
Hanging Shelf
Are there ever enough shelves anywhere? Shelves are super versatile; they can be hung in the kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom in the hallway, literally anywhere. All you need for this piece of art is a piece of popular wood, a drill, and strong twine. You can paint it in various colors to give your customers a choice.
Circle mirror
Here is another functional craft to make and sell because why not? Mirrors are always a welcome addition. They are chic and easy to craft. You just need a round mirror, a rope, a piece of wood, and yarn. You can paint them golden, silver, or even rustic, the choice will be yours, and what you’ll see selling most.
Nesting Desk Organizer
This is one of the most useful crafts to make because who doesn’t need a neat workstation? It’s ideal for keeping small items such as paper clips, makeup, hairbrushes, and so on in order. You can create them with a wooden tray or recycled material such as stiff cardboard.
Endless possibilities open in front of your creativity you can paint them, cover them in fabric, spray them, or use nail polish. You’re spoilt for choice on the kind of texture and look you can give them to fit into different spaces.
No Sew Quilt
What are good crafts to make and sell if you don’t want to sew? Here is a craft you can make without a sewing machine. All you need are beautiful fabrics and your creativity. You can make beautiful baby quilts or multipurpose quilts using various fabric textures and colors in order to offer more than one type.
These easy handmade crafts are great for gifting babies as well as anyone who would want to spoil a loved one with a unique quilt.
Homemade Dog Biscuits
Remember the dog statistics above? They are still a motivator to keep tapping into this market with different crafts to make and sell, and this time you can bake homemade dog biscuits. In the same way people are concerned about their health, they care for the health of their pets too. You can use organic ingredients to make healthy dog food and this would boost your sales.
You can sell it in your local area shops and online.
Time Out Stool
With soda bottles, pieces of wood, and nails (and a few other options to pick from) you can easily create this functional, cute, and playful time-out stool that would be of great help to many parents out there. Adorned with an hourglass feature, it can also encourage timed disciplinary conversations adding to the functionality of the stool. This is one of the best ideas for crafts to make and sell, no doubt.
Seatbelt Pillow
This is another winner in the gallery of the best crafts to make and sell. Safety and comfort are what every parent desires for his children. When in the car, kids can easily get strained necks and shoulders due to discomfort caused by the seat belt. But you can offer the solution to this and make money.
These seatbelt pillows measure around 4’’ wide and 25’’ in length, you can stuff them with fiber and shredded foam, and you can then cover them in fleece fabric to keep them warm and soft even for the younger kids. You then can use Velcro tabs to tie them around the seat belt in order to avoid interfering with the functionality of the seat belt.
Crafts like these solving such problems sell very well, especially when marketed properly.
Pacifier Clips
These are excellent crafts to make and sell because they’re not only easy to make but also very useful to the users. Parents can get tired of having to look for where the pacifier fell, and with this clip, that won’t be a problem anymore. Thus, besides being super easy and cheap to craft, they sell quickly.
Cushy Tablet Cover with Zipper
Expensive electronic gadgets are popular with people nowadays. Some of them require one to spend extra cash to buy expensive cases to keep them safe. You can leverage this by crafting pretty, unique, and functional covers for gadgets such as tablets or the Kindle book reader and selling them cheaper than the manufactured options and making money.
You can use different fabrics with different colors; add some straps in some covers to give the user the option of hanging them around the neck or shoulder. It’s about your creativity. But the market sure is there.
Top Selling Crafts. Fashion & Self Care
Milk Bath
Baths have gone beyond bubbles only, there are oils and teas but the newest addition to this blend is the milk bath. It contains powdered milk, mineral salts, baking soda, and essential oils mainly. For something extra, you can throw in some dried flowers.
A milk bath is growing in popularity, but you need to remember that it requires waterproof packing, plus your branding needs to be spot on to be able to draw your customers’ attention and effectively give confidence about the content of your products. You need to indicate all the ingredients in your labeling. Keep it stylish, some of these products are purchased for gifting purposes and this means they need to have the necessary appeal.
Reversible Headband
These are great crafts to make and sell because they’re easy to craft, the materials needed are even easier to find and they can be sewn or not. The tutorials on how to make them are more than numerous.
Headbands are great for any time. You can create double-sided headbands with one side a holiday print while the other side something more calm and universal. This allows you to test with animal prints, polka-dotted fabrics, the use of shiny fabrics, and so on.
Eyeglass/ Sun Glass Case
This falls in the category of the simplest crafts to make and sell. They’re cute, really low cost, and easy to sell. If you have leftover fabrics or even clothes that you no longer wear but are made with beautiful fabrics, you can easily use them to craft these sunglass cases.
You can use fun printed colors or plain colors that you can embroider or add shiny stick-on faux diamonds and so on. It’s all about making them unique and irresistible.
Infinity Scarf
This is another fun craft to create, you can crotchet it or knit it or use fabrics to create one. You can use a single color, two, or even more, the possibilities are endless. Try this stylish accessory and make money from it.
Leather Bow Belt
This is an adjustable bow that can be used with nearly any belt. You just need to have a variety of sizes to fit more categories of belts. Leather is a popular option. But if you can’t get good affordable leather, you can use different fabrics to make pretty bows for belts.
Necklace Display Stand
This is a sought-after item, especially by people that sell necklaces. You can create them with these people as your target market. But if necklaces are the crafts you make and sell, then you’ll not need to buy a stand you can simply create yours and save up on costs. Also, these come in handy when selling scarves and you don’t want to use models, just hang them and sell them.
Bath Salts
With such busy lives, people are intentional about doing some good self-care. And bath salts are a key ingredient in most people’s self-care routine. Therefore homemade bath salts are such a hit in crafts to make and sell.
The reason homemade salts are preferred is that most people prefer the all-natural ingredients that most makers use. The Himalayan sea salt and different flavors such as grapefruit, lavender, or any other flavor variants are almost all you need for these crafts. The purpose of flavors is to give your customers a choice to pick from.
Bath salts are soothing and look good sitting in your bathroom. If you package them beautifully, they’ll easily sell as gifts, and you need this to boost your sales.
Sugar Body Scrubs
This is another easy craft that can earn you easy money. Just like natural bath salts, these sugar scrubs are all-natural and eco-friendly. How does sugar scrub work? Glycolic acid appears naturally in sugar and is an excellent skin cleanser as it does a great job of dissolving dead skin cells. At the same time, it’s gentle on the skin.
Sugar body scrubs are easy crafts to make and sell, all you need besides the granulated sugar is an oil base such as sweet almond oil, jojoba oil, avocado oil, and so on. You can create different variants using different oils since they all perform different functions on the skin.
Ruffled Scarves
Crafting with ribbon yarn or ruffle is easy and fun and you get quick results. You just need to identify the best ribbon yarn for scarves, and you’ll be on the way to earning money with these crafts to make and sell.
Ruffle scarves are also fun to wear, as they add a warm and soft aesthetic to the wearer. They’re an evergreen kind of trend, meaning they’re always trendy. Check out various tutorials on YouTube and pick the ones that you can start with, and you’ll only get better as you go. You can use various color combinations and patterns to make yours super unique.
Digital Crafts
What are some easy crafts to make and sell without too much hassle? Digital printable crafts to make and sell are quite many and are an excellent way to earn some dough without too much work. And one reason they’re great is that you create them once, but they can earn you money for months or years as you put your feet up.
You can craft digital products on just about any topic. However, there are some categories that are better than others especially if you’re doing this to make some money. Here are some of the most popular and year-round suggestions:
Profitable Crafts. Printable Crafts for Kids
Coloring Pages
These are great for all ages, you can create them according to age, for instance, smaller kids would enjoy coloring fruits or pets, older kids would enjoy coloring their favorite cartoon characters, and so on.
Flash Cards
These are excellent things to make to sell because they’re a fun way to get kids to learn new stuff. You can create numbers of cards, shape cards, alphabet cards, sight words, and alike.
Chore and Reward Chart
What better way to motivate kids to be responsible than through a weekly chore and reward chart? You can create this to help parents teach their kids routine and accountability.
Holiday Worksheets
These crafts to make and sell are meant to help kids remember what they’ve learned and can be extremely useful, especially during the summer holiday. It would be a useful tool to bridge that long gap. You can include counting, reading practice, or any relevant school content that would be useful for kids.
Wedding Printable Crafts
Bachelor/Bachelorette Party Games
You can create some really fun games that would be applicable to either a bachelor’s party or the bachelorette party. The more fun the better the potential for sales.
Labels for Wedding Favors
You can design some stickers or tags that can be used on candles, wine bottles, or any other wedding accessories. After all, weddings can be expensive and most people will look for ways to cut costs without compromising the wedding. These crafts to make and sell would save them on wedding favors.
Table Numbers
Wedding planners would like this a lot, it helps with guests’ seating arrangements. When done elegantly and with extra details such as thoughtful quotes, these table numbers would add fun to the celebration and money for you.
Planners
Household Planner
This can be helpful around the home to help everyone with their time management, to-do list e.g. chores for everyone, and so on.
Meal Planners
Everyone could use a meal planner to ease the hectic life that most people live daily. This printable meal planner can help people organize themselves better by planning ahead and it helps in creating shopping lists. So, go ahead and create a unique meal planner.
Finance Planner
Finance planners are another perfect digital craft to make and sell as they help people put all their financial data in a single place. You can include bill payment calendars, monthly budgets, savings logs, spending trackers, and so on.
Final Thoughts
You may have crafted something before or maybe feeding an inner desire to do something new that you have definitely never tried before. Wherever you are on this journey, the above list of crafts to make and sell is ideal for anyone, anywhere.
Some can be started immediately while others need a little low-cost investment in terms of supplies needed. The possibilities are endless, get inspired and try something today. Just remember to use all the tips for marketing your crafts and you’ll be on another inspirational journey.
The legacy of some of the most famous and most important marketers in history is a lesson for us all. Stop for a minute from the babbling roller-coaster called life and let yourself be inspired by the wisdom of memorable marketing quotes. Enjoy!
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“Content marketing is more than a buzzword. It is the hottest trend in marketing because it is the biggest gap between what buyers want and brands produce.”
— Michael Brenner
“As marketers, we should be changing the mantra from always be closing to always be helping.”
— Jonathan Lister
“Google only loves you when everyone else loves you first.”
— Wendy Piersall
“Marketing quote: Audiences everywhere are tough. They don’t have time to be bored or brow beaten by orthodox, old-fashioned advertising.”
— Craig Davis
“If you’re a good marketing person, you have to be a little crazy.”
— Jim Metcalf
“Making promises and keeping them is a great way to build a brand.”
YouTube presents such an enormous opportunity for businesses to dive into video marketing. And why won’t it? Statistics show that 54% of users prefer to see more video content and 87% of marketers use video as a marketing tool because it’s effective as far as ROI is concerned. It’s for such reasons that video marketing is on the rise and YouTube SEO ranking is a very important thing if you want to create an impact. If you are just starting YouTube SEO for beginners comes in handy.
And while the main social media platforms in an attempt to keep up with this new trend have incorporated video features in their platforms, none of them can beat YouTube because it’s the second largest search engine with over 2 billion users each month and over one billion hours spent on videos each day.
What this means is that every other person or business is doing something on this platform. So, for you to stand out, video SEO is the next monster you may have to fight with and conquer.
The good news is that it doesn’t have to be such an uphill task because it’s not too different from any content optimization you have been doing in the past.
YouTube search engine optimization may sound like some complex thing and may intimidate you quite a bit. But it’s not that complicated. All it requires is to catch up with the learning curve of all the new strategies and tactics that seem to be coming up every other day. To help this learning endeavor and make catching up easy, here are a few core fundamentals that you can start with.
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The main goal of optimizing your site is to help it rank higher in search engine results to improve your relevance and hence authority. Relevance can be appreciated as a measure of how suitable your content is in solving a certain problem and can be achieved through the use of a selected keyword combination. Authority is the measure of how much trust you’re worth.
b. Keyword Research
Specific keywords by themselves may not do most for you because Google search is driven by both semantic and contextual considerations. The important thing that will help you stand out is to be able to identify the lead or head keyword; this includes equally the short and high-volume keywords as well as the longer and more conversational but low-volume keywords.
c. Measurement plus Analysis
As with any work you do, unless you know how to measure and interpret your results, you may not get so far. One of the best tools you can use to measure and interpret is Google Analytics. It will help you (even if you’re a newbie) to experiment with various metrics to see the ones that perform best.
With these three core fundamentals of SEO, you’re in a better place at understanding why you need YouTube SEO tips for beginners and how to best approach it.
How YouTube’s Algorithm Works
Let’s speak some history.
In 2012 YouTube ranked videos according to view count. Between that time and 2016, it was all about the length of the views your videos got. In 2017 it was more about the quality of your video, just last year, in 2018, it was more about monetization.
But in 2019 they announced that they will not be recommending content that seemed to reach borderline to protect its viewers from being harmed or misinformed. With that said, they’re into assisting their viewers to locate the videos they want to watch while maximizing the length of time spent engaged on the platform.
So, the YouTube algorithm will rank your videos based on how appropriately your video’s title, keywords, or description (metadata) fits the user’s quest and how well it engages your users, i.e. comments or likes. In short, it’s all about the session time and engagement.
How then, can you ace the reach as well as the engagement time for your videos with more ease?
There are three main areas of YouTube video SEO that you should put your focus on in order to maximize your visibility. So, this article will look deeper into these three elements:
Keyword Search
Optimization of Content
Engagement
1. Keyword Research
Keyword research simply means looking for words and phrases that users use to search for different video content on YouTube. So, when you optimize your video content through the use of the right keywords, you have a better shot of getting a significant number of views as well as engagement.
So, how can you find the right keywords to boost your video SEO?
How to Search for Keywords for Your YouTube Content and YouTube SEO Tools
a. YouTube Autocomplete
Assuming you are a frequent YouTube user, you have perhaps noticed that when you search for an item on YouTube, you get suggestions that kind of complete your quest. This is called autocomplete. It’s a feature that suggests the most popular keywords that most other people use to find videos when they do a YouTube search.
What this means is that autocomplete gives you the most popular keywords that you can use to optimize your content. But it also goes beyond keywords; it often goes all the way to give you the key phrases that are most popular. This is one of the easiest ways to search for keywords.
b. Top Competitor Videos
It’s always a good idea to see what’s working for fellow YouTubers. How do you do this? Identify the channels in the same niche as you; find their most viewed videos and then check the video titles and descriptions.
c. Video Result Keywords from Google
It’s possible for your videos to not only rank on YouTube Top results, but also on Google. You need to be able to identify specific keywords that can make this happen since Google won’t show video results for just any keywords. These specific keywords that Google can pick are what are called Video Result Keywords.
So, before finalizing the keywords you’ll use for your YouTube SEO checklist, search for them on Google to see which one gets picked up, and then use it more.
d. Your YouTube Analytics
This is another keyword search goldmine since you get to see the very keywords that viewers use to find your content. You can get this by going to YouTube Studio, clicking on “analytics” then “reach viewers”. You may be surprised to find keywords other than the ones you’ve been using. And this will enrich your keywords list and eventually rank you even higher on YouTube search results.
So, besides using your keywords on titles or descriptions and tags, you can maximize your video SEO by mentioning these keywords throughout your speech. This is possible because YouTube transcribes (but you have to correct this) your videos and each time you mention a keyword you help it understand your content’s background relevance in relation to your keywords.
2. YouTube SEO for Beginners – Optimization of Your Content
The next important step to optimize is your content. There are several ways to improve the optimization, and here are the main ones.
i. Optimize the Title of Your Video
Ensure your video’s title includes the keywords you are targeting and at the same time the exact words that users choose when searching for your content.
ii. Optimize the Meta Description
The definite way to make your content visible encapsulates the use of optimized descriptions. The use of keywords in your description helps you get the searchers’ attention as well as YouTube’s rankings. A meta description will determine whether the searcher will want to click on your video result or not. A meta description is any additional text that appears in your search results that lets the reader know what the link is all about.
Your meta descriptions must:
Include the main keywords
Must be catchy with the use of verbs like “Check out”, “Discover” etc.
Must be relevant, as compelling as possible, matching the content on your video
Must be between 135 to 155 characters and no longer
Have unique meta descriptions
And because these descriptions are an introduction to what you’re about to talk about, they will woo the user to click for more information.
Do not forget to optimize the title of the video file, and the tags, make a thumbnail, and include closed captions.
iii. Transcripts
A transcript is simply a textual illustration of your spoken content in the video files. And because search engines are not able to watch your video, they instead will index the text, this is how transcripts enable them to take in your content and index it as required.
How does this help SEO? Well, content marketers get a lot of derivative data with the help of transcripts and this helps build an authoritative presence in the search results. Transcripts are also great for UX, remember as earlier indicated, YouTube is now more concerned about the user’s satisfaction, so transcripts are a reliable way to optimize the user experience and improve your page rank.
iv. Location
Targeting is everything. If you wish to tap only into your local area, then it’s ideal to include your location in your video. It will boost your video SEO within your target area and maximize visibility.
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3. YouTube SEO for Beginners – Boost Engagement
Video marketing SEO thrives on engagement. Gaining many views is no longer enough for your video SEO. Your viewers need to engage with your content because this is how search engines understand how useful your content is to your viewers and this is how YouTube SEO ranking occurs.
The metrics to put your finger on are:
Likes, shares, and comments – Tracking the number of likes, shares, and comments on your videos is a great guide as to whether your content is relevant or popular or not. The shares and comments especially can boost your engagement and views of your other videos. At this point, it’s important to say that it’s actually ok to encourage your viewers to comment and share your content. Just make it more natural and less salesy.
Click Through Rate – CTR is the clicks your video gets based on impressions. You can improve your CTR with a great title and a great thumbnail (read on for more on this).
Subscribers – If the number of your subscribers keeps going higher then it means you’re gaining popularity. This is a good sign of high engagement.
Audience Retention – this is the amount of time people spend watching your videos. The longer people keep watching your video (ideally to the end) the higher your video will be ranked by YouTube. Why? YouTube wants people to spend more time on their platform for the ads, and if you can help them achieve that, then they return the favor by ranking your content higher.
Here are a few ways to make high-retention videos:
Start with a summary of your content
Jump into the main content of your video without being too wordy
Use open loops – hint at what’s coming
Video length – longer videos tend to perform better, if you can, make it at least 20 minutes or more.
Thumbs up and thumbs down
As far as viewer engagement is concerned, always remember that you’re addressing people. Treat the whole conversation (including the ones in the comments) like you would a real-life conversation. This means making your points simple and very clear, emphasizing the key steps, and providing humor while at it, everyone needs a bit of that at some point. And is a sure way to keep your channel engaged and YouTube happy.
Source: Youtube
Bonus Tips on YouTube SEO Basics
Use Eye-catching Thumbnails
This is the first thing that a viewer will see when searching through YouTube. It’s the first impression that will tell the viewer what your video is all about. So, you need to arrest their attention and make them want to watch, or they’ll scroll on.
So, how do you create an impressionable thumbnail?
Use the right size- YouTube has guidelines for the dimensions. So, don’t make it too small.
Contrast – Pick a perfect contrast for your photo and your title.
A great thumbnail is not only good for your video SEO, but for branding purposes as well.
Embed Your Videos
Besides getting video SEO on the platform itself, it’s possible to achieve this by embedding your video on social media sites and the web in general. This is made easy by the fact that YouTube is very strong in hosting video content on these other platforms on the web.
The sharing and embedding buttons are already present in the default options so your work has pretty much been done. The advantage of embedding videos in other places is that it grows your engagement in great ways; in any case, someone who may not know about your channel on YouTube may be able to see your content on a blog or on social media. There is no end to the benefits of embedding videos because people generally love video content more.
Promote and Link Your Channel
Within the first week of posting your video, you’ll see it featured on YouTube’s new content. So, how do you promote it for maximum visibility?
The first thing is to know the best time to post the video. You can identify the peak periods by checking your real-time reports.
You can also promote your video by linking it to your email or embedding it as indicated earlier, in your newsletter, blog, or wherever your existing audience may be spending their time.
Stellar Content
While this is a YouTube SEO tutorial, no matter how brilliant video SEO will not guarantee success without quality content because the quality of your content is what carries the day. The degree of optimization is important of course, but people will not try to find you again unless you give them a reason to.
Keep it relevant, useful, and engaging. Build it around authenticity and it will sell itself. As far as SEO is concerned, be specific as much as possible with your keywords and the intent of the topic.
Be consistent and frequent with your content to keep the viewers engaged and for you to stay relevant in their lives.
In Summary
YouTube SEO is more than just keywords, it is a combination of various YouTube SEO tools put together for effective results. It’s about ranking your video search results to improve your relevance and your authority by understanding how the algorithm values session time as well as engagement and knowing how to leverage these two requirements through optimization.
Other factors of great importance include the delivery of quality and relevant content on a regular basis to build a relationship with your viewers and consequently build lasting engagement. Video SEO has improved due to the availability of measurable metrics that help keep track of the work in progress. And YouTube SEO basics are rather digestible. Plus, there are tools and features on YouTube to help. So, don’t stop trying until you master this art while keeping yourself updated with the ever-changing ranking algorithm of YouTube.
As 2023 gains momentum, new technologies are coming out while existing ones are getting smarter. The targeted customers are not being left behind either; they’re getting savvier even as they get bombarded with more marketing each day. And as these changes continue, the goal of a digital marketing strategy framework remains the same, to continue gaining and keeping the audience’s attention.
It’s for these reasons that businesses are considering new competitive advantages and ways to keep the audience connected by strengthening their digital marketing campaign efforts. This not only involves improved ways of creating ads but now also involves creating an impact on the way people buy products, by reaching where your consumers are, having in mind that this doesn’t necessarily mean a physical place.
So, What’s a Digital Marketing Strategy?
A digital marketing strategy is a sequence of activities aimed at supporting your company’s goals through carefully selected relevant marketing channels. These activities are guided by the fact that nowadays people trust other consumers more than they trust advertised brands, they prefer buying items that are not necessarily displayed as products. So, companies must strategize new ways of making people feel like they need their products.
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Research conducted by ODM Group found that over 70% of consumers consult social media before making a purchase, in order to get reviews of what others are saying. It’s no longer just about ads.
According to a Smart Insights research “Managing Digital marketing research report,” no less than 45% of companies have no coherent, detailed planned digital marketing strategy to respond to these new challenges.
Why Is It Compulsory to Have a Digital Marketing Strategy Framework?
In order to remain relevant, you must have a clear understanding of what you’re doing and where this positions you in terms of achieving your goals. It also gives you a picture of what you require to do next.
Here are a few reasons why you should put in place a digital marketing strategy right away:
a. It gives you a sense of direction and focus
You need a proper strategy to achieve your goals. It guides you to know whether you’re headed in the right direction and whether you’re executing your goals in a timely manner.
b. You get to understand your customers better
You’re able to track your customers’ behavior and sentiments by measuring all your qualitative and quantitative data. This allows you to address all their pain points while allowing you to know them better, eventually; you can discover insights that allow you to make better decisions.
c. You stand out from the crowd
You gain better online standing compared to your competition when you differentiate yourself. How do you do this? Encouraging interaction with both your new visitors and returning customers that keeps them interested guarantees more click-through rates.
d. Better budget planning
You may have all the resources you require, but without proper planning, you may fail flat. A digital marketing strategy framework enables you to outline all your activities along with the required or available budgets. It ensures each vision is aligned with each department, offering clarity and focus. This way, you can develop the governance needed to pilot new technologies, share important data across the organization and manage all other processes.
e. Continuous optimization
A well-outlined digital marketing strategy gives your brand a sense of direction through its constant optimization and therefore creates a continuous environment for improvement. It’s critical to constantly track the new efforts you’re implementing.
f. You win on ROI
As said above, when you’re able to measure each of your digital marketing actions, you’re guaranteed cost-effectiveness. This means you can create the possibility to boost other digital marketing operations. When done correctly, you will without doubt obtain your ROI.
Challenges in Creating a Successful Digital Marketing Strategy Framework
i. Defining Success
It may be difficult to know if your brand’s digital marketing strategies are working. So, what’s the solution to this? First, take time to identify and determine your goals then secondly identify your key performance indicators that will drive these goals.
Establishing these two factors before starting the day-to-day activities of implementing the strategies will be essential in defining your success.
ii. Tight Budget and Resources
You may experience financial scale back and may be required to work with a very small budget. What most companies fail to understand is that marketing is a means of profit for an organization. So, what you may do in this regard is find creative ways to use what you have.
Digital marketing achieves more when you’re focused on adding value to your customers, by offering them solutions to their problems. Create strategic content that will offer these solutions to them while positioning you at the top of search engines and social media trending topics.
Resources here may mean manpower or staff to come up with a strategy. In this case, you can incorporate influencers to boost the credibility of your already existing content.
This way you’ll earn trust and capture the attention at a budget.
iii. Time
If you haven’t figured out a way to add more hours into your 24-hour day, don’t worry, no one has. Struggling to create enough time and resources to feed into your marketing activities is a common problem for most marketers.
One solution for this is finding someone else to run this entire project for you if budget is not one of your problems. The outsourced party must be very well-versed in your brand and your goals. On the other hand, if outsourcing is not tenable, then you may have to break down your targets into stages of smaller responsibilities and allocate each task a specific achievable time. This will definitely help.
iv. Innovation
Every other day, brands come up with new excellent ideas that seem to create a buzz all over the internet. If you’re not in this group you can get quite frustrated and may feel stuck. In such a situation, search for your own inspiration by thinking of all ideas and writing them down, even the ones that feel outside the norm, and listing them all.
Sometimes the crazy ideas are the ones that turn out to be the most effective. Be different, but with a clear message of what you want your customers to know.
So, while you may not be able to be in control of each and every situation that you may encounter, it’s important to know challenges will come, and watching for them as you progress with your strategy is the best approach.
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Steps to Drafting a Powerful Digital Marketing Strategy Framework
1. Identify Your Buyer Personas
The very first step should be to get a solid understanding of who your ideal customer is. This is very important because it will direct you on which marketing platforms you can find them on, how they interact, and their expectations from you as a brand.
Through conducting interviews, research, and surveys from your target audience as well as prospects, you can get real data that will enable you to create your buyer personas.
The typical type of information that you should collect will largely vary depending on your business. However, here is a couple of basic information that you will need:
The demographic information such as location, age, and income of your customers or prospective customers.
Qualitative or psychographic information such as the customers’ objectives that they hope to achieve, their hobbies and interests, and the challenges they face.
The digital sales funnel involves several different steps that buyers move through before they finally get to the purchase stage. And because businesses are different, these stages may vary, that said here are the general steps that they may move through:
Discovery – This is when they hear about your brand and product for the first time.
Consideration/Exploration – The potential customer is looking into your product to learn more about it and possibly check out the market to see similar products.
Purchase – They are convinced and do make the purchase now.
Loyalty/Brand Advocacy – Satisfied, they become loyal and may recommend your brand to others.
What you must understand about the digital funnel is that the customers at each level don’t respond the same way. The one at the discovery stage will respond differently from the one at the purchase or loyalty stage. This means that your digital marketing strategy needs to be tailored in such a way that it will cater to customers individually at each level.
3. Set Your Objectives
It’s always difficult to chart a course if you haven’t chosen your destination, having objectives is only half the battle, yet very important. You should be able to define your strategy objectives, which should be pegged to your brand’s mission and overall goal.
You will need to measure your key performance indicators by identifying the figures you plan to achieve. The best approach here is to look at your previous digital marketing targets and achievements; you can base your current KPIs on these previous efforts to guide you on realistic targets.
4. Establish Your Digital Avenues
What avenues are you currently using? Do you dispose of your own media or do you currently pay for it? It’s important to have in perspective your current and possible future avenues for your digital marketing.
Owned media means that you own your digital assets (content stored digitally in the form of images, videos, spreadsheets, etc.) either on your website, blog content, social media profiles, or other such platforms.
Paid media on the other hand means just that. You have to pay for your visibility through various types of channels such as Google AdWords, Facebook ads, native advertising, or paid social media posts.
Earned media refers to visibility or exposure you have earned. It could come through customer reviews from successful deliveries, content you may have shared on other websites through guest posting or backlinks, or social media shares among other channels.
Depending on your business, it’s possible to successfully incorporate all the above in your digital marketing strategy framework. This is also a good time to perform an audit of your current digital channels and decide whether you will outsource specific sections of your digital marketing campaign and whether you’ll have to have a budget to hire manpower.
5. Asses Your Budget, Realistically
Having established your objectives, personas, and avenues aren’t going to take you anywhere until you ascertain your budget. This is what is actually going to guide your marketing strategy plan because it will dictate how much you are going to allocate to what.
You can look at your previous data to see what worked before and consider allocating more to it, at the same time if certain elements of your current strategy are not performing as anticipated, you can re-invest the allocated budgets to the elements that are performing well.
This is not meant to restrict you though, simply because whichever way you choose to look at it, digital marketing will always be cheaper than the old conventional ways. This means your kick-ass content can gain much more for you if distributed in a smart and strategic manner.
6. Execute and Launch Your Digital Marketing Plan
Implementation of your strategy may take days or even weeks to properly launch. You must ensure that each of your digital assets goes live at the most appropriate time in regard to your target audience’s peak time, the platform you’re using, and the mode (image, video, etc.)
Be keen and realistic about the time needed to set up the whole campaign launch and about the mechanism you’ll need to have in place to deal with the calls, emails, or inquiries that may come up as a result of the campaign.
During this time, get as much feedback as possible from your new and existing customers, incorporating surveys in your digital assets can also contribute largely to measuring the effectiveness of your campaign.
7. Measure Using Data from Analytics, Identify Any Loop Holes
How to do digital marketing successfully goes beyond launching, you need to follow that with constant measures to check for any weak links as well as see how successful it is rolling out. This is done through the data from web analytics.
Many good digital marketing strategy examples that exist today have gone through tens of small changes and optimizations that have contributed to their success. Measure the evolution of your campaign by having a dedicated and constant evaluation of your data and adjusting the plan where necessary. Google Analytics comes in very handy, it can show you how your customer leads are interacting with your campaign efforts and how that is translating into your ultimate goal.
Bonus Tips
In order to be more effective in your campaign, here are a few bonus tips that you should include in your strategy to really capture your audience’s interest:
a. Tell stories
Sharing experiences or real-life scenarios that are interesting, extraordinary, or emotionally captivating is a great way to create engagement with your customers, the best example of this is Nike. Therefore when creating your digital marketing strategy framework, incorporate empowering stories that will boost your brand’s emotional connection with your audience.
b. Leverage on Your Reviews
A survey conducted by BrightLocal in 2018 showed that 85% of consumers trust online reviews as much as they do personal recommendations. This tells you how important a role, reviews can play. You should therefore establish a channel for reviews on your social media platforms or blogs, this authenticity is what consumers are constantly looking for. And it explains why influencers are quite popular right now.
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Quick Tips on the Digital Marketing Trends That Will Matter in 2023
For good measure, here are the main trends to look out for as you prepare your B2C or B2B digital marketing strategy.
Live Videos Refined More for SEO
As search engines are constantly updating to ensure that user-friendly sites are being shown to users first, businesses will have to adopt the ever-changing algorithms to keep rankings high. According to a survey, 72% of businesses say that videos have increased their conversion rates. It’s therefore obvious that businesses will be more focused on optimizing video content to boost SEO rankings. This will include optimizing keywords on video titles, descriptions, and URLs’. Therefore optimize your videos accordingly.
With that said, there is still something greater than video content marketing, and that is live video. If you were a customer, what would you yearn to experience from your brand? Well here is where behind-the-scenes tours of your company come to play. Other live video ideas include product demos, live product releases, Q&As, etc.
There are several platforms you can use for live videos including Facebook Live, YouTube Live, Instagram Live, or Periscope.
Social Media Will Get More Conversational
It’s 2023, and by now you must have noticed that social media posts are no longer one-way conversations. This is the best place for brands to engage with their audience and find out what their needs are. Social media will help your brand know what type of content is performing best and this will only work if you develop a personal relationship with the audience. How can you achieve this?
By answering all their questions, creating relevant content that they can respond to, and responding to their queries within 24 hours. This will boost brand awareness and strengthen loyalty.
Artificial Intelligence
Before you start thinking about robots, here is a brief explanation of how AI can boost your digital marketing strategy. Consider a bunch of computers that can quickly analyze your data to get a better understanding of your customers’ behaviors and patterns.
This is how AI can help you. It can assist you in finding prospects that have the same characteristics as your existing customers while giving you real-time Intel on relevant conversations going on about your brand.
Finally, after it’s all said and done, the role of digital marketing is to help you bring more and better clients to like and use your products. Not once, but repeatedly. Understanding the steps to build a great digital marketing strategy includes being prepared for any possible challenges and forging ways to work around them.
You must make informed decisions based on your past results to be able to identify the best possible route to take. Keep measuring your efforts to know what’s working and change what’s not.
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