Does Influencer Marketing Really Work? Here's What You Should Know

Companies have to fight tooth and nail to get their message across these days. And while content marketing still has its place, influencer marketing is the new trend, particularly with the ubiquitousness of social media.
The site Relevance likened influencer marketing to “celebrity endorsement advertising,” when Nicole Kidman could plug Chanel #5 or Leonardo di Caprio could extol the virtues of just about any product in commercials and magazines. Influencer marketing is basically the same thing, except that these days, you use “influencers” and social media.

How Does Influencer Marketing Work?

Influencer marketing basically boils down to three things – get in touch with someone with influence, like a popular blogger, get that person to promote your company in some form, and boost your exposure on social media.
Let's say there's a lifestyle maven named Party Pat with about 5,000 people following her on her blog and Instagram. You were able to convince Pat to help promote your online bookstore among her followers. She first blogs about her favorite books and mentions your store as her go-to place for ordering books. She later tweets or posts a photo of the latest book that she acquired and mentions how she easily ordered it from your shop and that it arrived in just one day. Her casual mentioning of your store and her experience could prompt her followers to check out your site as well.

The example might sound simple but it's actually not. It entails a lot of hard work and preparation. First, you have to find an influencer who's a good fit for your brand, whether they're bloggers, YouTubers, writers with regular contributions to popular online sites, or industry experts. Next, you have to reach out and build a rapport with said influencer. Some do this by following the influencer and interacting with him or her while others do it the relatively old-fashioned way and send an email.
If the influencer does respond, you still have to find a way to convince them to promote you. Maybe you can send a sample product or offer to be a guest blogger. Offer compensation is possible but could also be tricky. You have to convince and prove to the influencer that it's good for them to help you out. This means that if you're going to guest post, your content should be impeccable. If you're going to send a sample product, it should be high quality.

3 Tips for Using Influencers

If you are convinced that influencer marketing will help you and your brand, consider the following tips:

1. Know that the relationship between the brand, the influencer, and the audience must be real.

Influencers have a strong following on social media because they capture their audience's interest; they have established a relationship with them. Maybe they're the same age as their audience, have the same interests, or have undergone the same life experiences. This strong relationship with their followers means influencers will only work with a company or brand that they and their audience believe in. For example, an influencer known for her quirky and affordable style of clothes won't suddenly start campaigning for a high-end shoe brand.

2. Be ready to play long-term.

Don't go into influencer marketing thinking that one sponsored post will shore up your business. While a one-time mention by a mega-influencer can make a big difference, it's a rare, and very expensive, situation. Most of the time, influencer marketing should be looked at as a long-term approach, as you have to slowly build trust among the influencer's followers.  Followers might have to see his favorite influencer trying or mentioning your product several times before they become curious enough to explore and give your brand a try.

3. Give creative control over to the influencer.

You might have complete control over your marketing strategy when it comes to traditional advertising, but influencer marketing is far from conventional. The goal is for your brand to have a quality engagement with the influencer's audience. To achieve that, you have to relinquish creative control to the influencer, as they know their audience. They understand the best way to introduce your brand and make their followers receptive to it.

Does Influencer Marketing Work?

There's some controversy on whether or not influencer marketing really works. Data from a 2016 marketing survey has shown that 94% of those who used this marketing strategy believed it works. However, what the ROI is of influencer marketing is still something of a challenge this year. But there's no question that this strategy has wide reach, especially with Facebook and Instagram being key platforms for influencer marketing.
Influencer marketing might not be for every company, but there's no doubting its influence on today's social media savvy consumers.  


Reference:http://www.webpronews.com/influencer-marketing-really-work-heres-know-2017-08/

7 Ways to Increase Facebook Engagement in 2017

There's no question about the hold Facebook has in our lives, as more than 2 billion people use it monthly. Businesses had successfully used this social media giant to boost the public's engagement with their brand. Unfortunately, that all changed around two years ago when Facebook changed its algorithm so that only content relevant to the user will appear in their News Feed.
User engagement is one of the factors that determine whether your brand or content will show up in a user's News Feed. This means that the more likes, comments, and shares a post gets, the more likely it will be seen by a larger audience. The trick now is to know how to get your audience engaged.
Luckily, there are some tips and tricks you can do to increase Facebook engagement. Here are 7 of them:

1. Post When the Timing is Right

The enormous amount of posts being published on Facebook means there's a lot of competition. The trick is to know the right time to post. Surprisingly, this doesn't mean the time when most people are logged in to the site. Studies have shown that it's more effective to post content sometime between 10pm and midnight (local time) as this receives the most engagement.

Posting at 11 am is also a good, but engagement during this time is minimal, as people are just skimming through their News Feed. This is in direct contrast to night time, when fewer posts are made but users have more time to really go through each post.

2. Share Content Your Audience Wants, Not What You Want

To get people engaged with your post, share content that they want. Most of the time, businesses think that since they're in a certain niche, that all their content should be related to that field. For example, an online book shop might post content about their book prices, company news, and best sellers. But that's not what audiences want to keep reading about daily. To keep things interesting, expand the type of content that you share. In our example, the bookshop could post recipes on how to recreate dishes that were mentioned in a popular book series or share a beloved writer's top 10 favorite characters. Some tips on writing or reading would also be appreciated. The trick is to post something different, but not so different that it would seem out of place.

3. Use Real and Personal Photos

Pictures are undoubtedly one of the most engaging content that a business can share, especially when they're real and not just some generic photo. Users would rather see original and personal photos than stock images. This is why we keep looking at photos of what our friends ate than those sleek images a famous burger brand might put out.

4. Reply to Your Audience and Build Relationships

Since you're making a lot of effort to get people engaged with your post, it makes sense that you should also take the time to reply to their comments. Don't just post content and forget. Check the comments and reply as soon as you can. Engage your audience in a conversation. Yes, you need to deal with the usual troll but remember that people who leave comments did so because the post connected with them. Reply and make them feel appreciated. They will be more inclined to engage with your other posts as well.

5. Make Blog Posts That Fits Facebook Perfectly

Links will go a long way to keep your audience engaged on Facebook. To ensure this happens, create a company blog and start making content that's tailored specifically to Facebook. List posts and content that tickles people's curiosity are the ones that perform well on the social media site. You can even look at content that you previously shared and create similar content or search for keywords that are engaging and interesting.

6. Make Your Posts Sweet and Short

Blog posts are well and good, but remember that your Facebook page is not the company blog. People on Facebook are not there to read long content. Posts that are between 1 to 50 characters long garnered the most engagement. The more characters or words used in the post, the less engaged the audience is. So take out the unnecessary details and just treat your posts like headlines that will pull people in and get them to click on your link.

7. Ask the Audience to Get Engaged

If you want your audience to be engaged, then give them clear instructions on what you want them to do. A Call to Action is something that a lot of businesses or marketers forget but it's what consumers respond to. Do you want your audience to share your post or to comment? Give them instructions on what they should do next. After all, if they took the time to read the whole post, they're already interested in the content and are willing to take the next step.
Facebook's billions of monthly users give you billions of opportunities to reach out to them. Plan your strategy well and make sure you have the right management tools to increase your Facebook engagement.  

Reference:http://www.webpronews.com/7-ways-increase-facebook-engagement-2017-2017-08/

Can You Guess How Many People Around the World Use Social Media in 2017?

The world is indeed getting more connected whether you like it or not. Latest data show that almost half of the world’s population are actively logging into the social media platform of their choice.  Users are updating whatever it is they want the world to know while becoming targets for annoying notifications and the occasional online troll in the process. 
The modern day phenomenon known as social media continues to lure in new users to the digital world every day. In fact, there are now 3.028 billion people actively logging into a social network platform these days according to Mashable. That’s a pretty big number considering that the world only contains roughly around 7.5 billion people, which means that around 2 out of every 5 people on the planet are busy at least at one point during the day posting something to the web, though a considerable portion of these posts could just be selfies that friends are obliged to like.
As expected, Facebook and its subsidiaries maintain a substantial lead over their competitors. The Menlo Park-based social media giant has around 2.047 billion active users, according to The Next Web. Subsidiaries WhatsApp and Messenger also breached the billion active users mark as the two platforms have around 1.2 billion users each. Meanwhile, YouTube has around 1.5 billion active users, Instagram has around 700 million monthly active users (MAU), Tumbler has 357 million and Twitter has 328 million MAU.
As a whole, the number of social media users continues to grow. The report states that social media users grew by 4 percent quarterly or around 121 million new users since April of 2017. Obviously, these users are not Twitter fans as the company posted zero growth in its user base.
Interestingly, penetration rate varies greatly between regions. North America leads in usage with 66 percent of its population using social media according to The Market Mogul. South America ranks second with 59 percent while East Asia is ranked third with a penetration of 57 percent. Meanwhile, the bottom three regions are South Asia at 15 percent, Africa at 14 percent and Central Asia at 7 percent.

Reference:http://www.webpronews.com/can-guess-many-people-around-world-use-social-media-2017-2017-08/

3 SEO Experiments You Should Try Out Now

SEO is commonly defined as a methodology of strategies and tactics used to increase a website’s organic visibility on the web.

One word you don’t often see when looking at its definition is “experimentation.”
Why is that?
Experimentation is at the forefront of SEO. Experimentation is what drives the industry forward.
Without SEO experiments, everyone would all still be changing title tags and keyword stuffing content.
The industry has evolved because Google has evolved.
We, as SEO professionals, should continuously test different hypotheses to figure out what is most important to Google and our clients. That’s our job!
Every website is unique, and each faces unique challenges.
The following three SEO experiments could deliver dramatic gains for your specific site – test these out to find out for sure!

Experiment 1: Content Pruning

Every SEO has heard the old adage “content is king”. Unfortunately, the meaning of this phrase often isn’t fully understood. Too many people believe this means “let’s create more content.”
As an agency, we work with many clients that have thousands to even millions of pages indexed. While there might be instances where more content is needed, our first objective is to analyze the content that isn’t needed.
That’s right, we want to try to find pages that should be removed.
How can that help?
Well, in short, Google scores each page on a website, all of which contributes to your overall domain authority. If you have a lot of pages that are of little value, that could devalue the overall SEO strength of your website.
How to do it:

Get a List of Your URLs

Use a tool like Screaming Frog or even Google Search Console to get a list of all of your indexed URLs.

Examine Your Link Metrics

Once you have your list of URLs, it’s suggested to download URL Profiler. This will dramatically reduce the time it takes to analyze the data.
Import the URLs into URL Profiler, and connect Google Analytics and Ahrefs, Majestic, or Moz for link metrics and run the profiler.
NOTE: Be sure to choose at least a 90-day timeframe if not longer.

Analyze Your Data

Once completed, download the results in a spreadsheet and sort. You now should be able to see a list of all pages with corresponding traffic metrics and link metrics.

Deal With Your Low-Value Pages

Identify the pages on your website that have resulted in zero to very little traffic. In most cases, the pages listed here that haven’t received much traffic in the past 90 days (or longer) are probably not offering much value to users otherwise they would likely have traffic.
Before de-indexing those, make sure those pages don’t have a lot of links pointing to them. If they have little traffic and few links, it is probably safe to assume you can deindex those pages.
(Just use common sense here. You should know at this point how important this page is for you. For example, if it’s a seasonal page that might be why you don’t have traffic.)

Experiment 2: User Experience Optimization

User experience (UX) has always been an important consideration but more than ever, it should be integrated into your SEO strategy as a never-ending experiment.
As Google’s algorithms have evolved, they are now able to better understand whether a searcher had a positive experience with a website. The more you are able to understand your searchers intent you can improve your site to better match that, thus engaging them.
How to do it:

Survey Your Audience

A “Voice of the Customer Study” allows you to ask the visitors coming to your website whether you helped them reach their goal and if they were satisfied. This can be done by using feedback polls or surveys on your website as they convert or abandon the site altogether. A tool like Hotjar makes this very easy.
Oftentimes, website owners feel like they know what’s best for their customers. But unless you take the time to listen to them, how do you know for sure?

Ask the Right Questions

Ask the right types of questions on your surveys, otherwise the data won’t be useful. Here are some examples:

• What was your first impression when you came to the website?
• What was the one thing that almost stopped you from buying?
• Is there anything on this page that was missing that could have helped with your decision?
• Why did you choose us over the competition?
• Why did you leave the website?

Watch How People Navigate Your Website

To truly understand how your visitors interact with your website you should also start by incorporating visitor recordings (Hotjar helps with this as well). This will allow you to watch back to see what if any usability issues exist on your site. It’s great to get feedback but it also helps to see the session replay as a user navigates your website.

Test & Track Your Results

Now that you have data, the key is to determine where optimization opportunities exist and what changes we believe will improve the experience of our user base. Because it’s free and has a seamless integration with GA, I like to recommend Google Optimize.
Set up is simple and, because it’s part of the GA suite of products, it allows you to determine what the goal is of your experiment based on your GA goals.

Once you have the Chrome extension enabled, you can edit or add any elements you want to test and compare it to the original version to see how your tests are performing.
Without the data provided by surveys and visitor recordings, you wouldn’t have been able to accurately identify the potential gaps on your website to test against.

Experiment 3: Boosting Internal Linking

SEOs are always focused on acquiring new links for their websites, but many often forget how impactful internal linking can be. It’s not about stuffing our pages with off-topic links, but more with highly relevant internal links.
How to do it:

Pick Your Page

Choose the webpage you want to rank higher. This might be an important page that currently isn’t ranking as highly as you hoped or expected.

Examine Your Keyword Usage

Decide which terms you are wanting to rank higher for. Next, go to Google and search your website for that term to determine which pages they feel are the most valuable for that term.

Find & Add Links to Your Target Page

Look at the results from your search and see if you have linked to your target page on any of these results. If not, add a link to your target page.

Track Your Ranking Progress

Once you add the link to those pages, got to Search Console and recrawl those specific pages.
Wait 2-4 weeks while tracking that pages progress.

Analyze Your Results

Did this improve your page’s ranking? If so, repeat this process for other pages on your site.

Conclusion

While there are many other SEO experiments one can test, my agency has seen these three SEO experiments deliver dramatic gains for our clients on a consistent basis.
As SEO professionals, we shouldn’t expect big gains if we’re only doing the bare minimum. Ongoing experimentation is the key to continued growth. As Google evolves, so must we.

Reference:https://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-experiments/211128/?ver=211128X2

Facebook Promotes eBay Daily Deals— Will it Help Sellers?

It looks like Facebook is testing out a new way to get its more than 2 billion spend money via its platform. Though not yet publicly announced, the tech giant has recently partnered with eBay bringing the online retailer’s Daily Deals to the FB Marketplace.
Currently in the testing phase, the new Daily Deals feature is only available to a small portion of FB users in the U.S. and displays 100 discounted products available on eBay, showing both the percentage discounted from its price as well as a countdown on how long the deal for a particular item is available. To see the actual price, however, you'll have to click on the deal to be transported eBay’s site for check out.
Until now, Facebook Marketplace has always been about peer-to-peer transactions. Relaunched last fall, it aggregates postings from various “buy and sell” groups and, with its integration to Messenger, allows both buyers and sellers a means to communicate and seal their deals, reports Tech Crunch.
With FB Marketplace setting up an online space for buyers and sellers to meet, the feature was seen as a competitor for Craigslist and eBay, according to TheVerge. Thus, it is a bit surprising that Facebook has now teamed up with a third-party site for deals promotion and with eBay at that.
However, it looks like Facebook offering eBay’s Daily Deals is the social media giant’s tentative step in looking for new ways to monetize its more than 2 billion active user base. As stated by  Akash Anand, Facebook Production Manager, “We’re conducting a test to determine if people are interested in shopping for discounted products when they visit Marketplace.” The bottom line is that Daily Deals is still in its testing phase; the feature may not even reach mainstream users as it could be dropped depending on user reception.
In a way, Facebook’s partnership with eBay could be the company’s response to Spark. Last month, Amazon entered the social media scene by creating its own platform – Spark – which is basically a network where consumers can compare notes on the various products being sold by Amazon.
In Facebook’s case, it will be the reverse of what Amazon did with Spark since the social media giant will now be venturing into eCommerce. Though Facebook is not asking for a share from eBay in the revenue from the Daily Deals feature at the moment, it is easy to see how such an arrangement could be worked out in the future.
But there is one reason why Facebook could be hesitant in going all out on eCommerce. Unlike Amazon whose revenue is mainly sourced from online sales, Facebook’s cash cow is advertising. The deal with eBay, however, might turn off some sellers/advertisers as they might see it as competition to their brand’s visibility unless their product is included in eBay’s Daily Deals of course.
It is interesting to note that Facebook's deal with eBay is not exclusive. This opens up the possibility that the company could enter into an agreement with other third-party sellers in the future for them to post their own daily deals.
Just like Facebook, advertisers need to follow how FB’s deal with eBay pans out. Don’t worry, we’ll keep you posted on the latest developments.

Reference:http://www.webpronews.com/facebook-promotes-ebay-daily-deals-will-help-sellers-2017-08/

9 Quick Restaurant SEO Tips to Boost Your Google Search Visibility

Regardless of how your restaurant website has performed in Google to date, there are always opportunities to improve your search engine optimization (SEO) and increase your Google rankings.
Improving your search visibility will drive more hungry customers into your restaurant or place online to-go orders.
Investing in SEO is a must for restaurants today. You can use locality, structured data, customer sentiment, and more to your advantage and boost the rankings for your single or multi-location restaurant chain.
Below are nine quick tips for where to focus your time to boost your website in the search results via SEO.

1. Define Your SEO & Content Strategies

Before jumping into a myriad of tools, platforms, and engagement channels, define your SEO strategy. This will help greatly narrow your competition and give you a quicker road to driving quality traffic to your website.
Start by defining the geographic area you want to own (where must of your customers will come from because they either live or work nearby or are visiting). This will help shape your SEO and content strategies.
Next, research what keyword terms and phrases your audience uses through Google Keyword Planner or a third-party keyword research tool. (For more on how to do keyword research, read SEJ’s keyword research guide.)
There are a few distinct groupings of terms that you want to group and classify properly that all have different levels of competition.

• High-level restaurant terms: Terms like “restaurants” and “Kansas City restaurants” are some of the most generic variations a searcher might use. In the Google Keyword Planner or other third-party keyword research tools, you can set your geographic focus to the area you identified and use both the generic term by itself (“restaurants”) and with the geographic modifier (“Kansas City restaurants”) as well as other general variations related to what your restaurant is about.
• Niche-specific terms: The next level down of terms relates to the specific categories your restaurant would fall into that might be searched. Examples include “Mexican restaurants”, “pizza”, “romantic restaurants” and other unique features. If you’re struggling with what specific categories or wording you should use, take a look at Google Maps, Yelp, and TripAdvisor and use their filtering criteria in your area to see the general categories they utilize.
• Brand terms: Don’t take it for granted and assume you’ll automatically rise to the top on brand searches. Know how many people are searching for your restaurant by name and compare that to the high-level and niche-specific search volume. You’ll want to ensure your site does enough to outrank the directory and social sites in your space for your restaurant as the value of people coming to your site is higher and trackable.

Once you’re armed with search terms and volume data, you can narrow your focus to the specific terms that fit your restaurant at high, category-specific, and brand levels. Covering this spectrum helps you focus on what to measure and define your content.

2. Dominate in Local Search

Start by claiming, standardizing data, and optimizing listings for your restaurant across all of the major and relevant local search properties. This includes a mix of search engine directories, social media sites, and industry-specific directory sites.
Moz Local and Yext are two tools that can help you understand what directories and external data sources are out there and then you can ensure they are updated.
Accurate NAP (name, address, phone) data that is consistent across all data sources is a critical foundational element of local SEO.
Beyond that, you can then work on optimizing the fields of information like the business description and business categories to align with your focus terms identified in your keyword research.
Put your focus on the directories that matter. Start with Google My Business then branch out to Yelp, TripAdvisor, Foursquare, CitySearch, various yellow pages, and other emerging niche review websites.
All of this will work together to grow your online visibility.

3. Engage with Customers on Social Media

Even though social media’s direct impact on SEO has long been debated, we know that social media engagement can drive users to your site.
Social media can be a powerful touchpoint of the customer journey, showcasing what customers can expect to experience at your restaurant. A strong social presence often correlates with a strong organic search presence as content, engagement, and popularity align with the important SEO pillars of relevance and authority.
Develop a social media strategy and follow through with implementation. Make sure to engage with followers and reply to inquiries promptly. How you communicate online sets a perception of your overall customer service and approach.
Find your audience, engage them, and get them to influence others on your behalf.
Ultimately, through engagement with fans and promoting content on social media that funnels visitors to your main website, you will see an increase in visits from social networks. This will then correlate with the benefits from the rest of your SEO efforts.

4. Encourage Reviews & Testimonials

It’s nearly impossible to do a search for a restaurant and not see review and rating scores in the search results. That’s because people click on higher star ratings.
Reviews are often considered as part of a social media strategy and are an engagement tactic, but have a broader impact on traffic to your site through search results pages as well.
Through the use of structured data markup, you can have your star ratings appear in search results and provide another compelling reason for a user to click to your site versus your competitor’s site.
If you have online ratings that don’t reflect the quality of your restaurant, come up with a review strategy now to get as many reviews as possible to help bring up your score prior to implementing the code that will pull the ratings into the SERPs.
A higher star rating likely means a higher click-through rate to your site – and more foot traffic.

5. Create Unique Content

If you have a single location, your job is a lot easier than the multi-location local or national chain. However, you have to stand out from the competition by ensuring you have enough unique content on your website.
Having a wealth of engaging and helpful content on your site will serve you well if it is valuable to your prospects and customers. Building a strong brand will translate to better rankings, higher brand recall, and greater brand affinity.
Keep in mind that content doesn’t all have to be copy and you have an opportunity to feature unique content through the ways you present your menus, through video, photography, and graphics. The search engines are focused on context and not just wording on your site. By identifying and regularly generating new content, you also can keep the pipeline full of engaging material and ways to stand out from your competition.
For example, if you have a niche restaurant, embrace that and set yourself apart from the generic chain down the street.
Share information about the founders, the culture, and most importantly – the product. Give details about your menu including sourcing of ingredients, how you developed recipes, and the compelling reason your chicken marsala is the best in town.

6. Consider Content Localization

Again, single location restaurants have an easier road here. Based on decisions you’ve made about your market area, make sure you provide enough cues and context to users and the search engines as to where your restaurant is and what area it serves.
Sometimes the search engines and out of town visitors don’t fully understand the unofficial names of neighborhoods and areas. By providing content that is tied into the community and doesn’t simply assume that everyone knows where you’re located, you can help everyone out.
A way that I helped a 100-location chain tackle this in the past was through starting small with a single paragraph for each location that was written in a way that was tailored to the store, local history, neighborhood, and community engagement. From there we were able to then find other areas to scale after we took that quick initial step and it worked well to differentiate stores from each other.

7. Apply Basic On-Page SEO Best Practices

Without going into the details of all on-page and indexing optimization techniques, I want to encourage you to not skip or ignore the best practices of on-page SEO. You need indexing to ensure the search engines know you exist and on-page to ensure proper classification of your content. You can spend a lot of time on a full SEO strategy, but I recommend putting the rest aside and starting with these two areas.
To ensure your site is indexed properly now and into the future, check your robots.txt and XML sitemap and set up Google Search Console to look for errors.
When it comes to on-page, ensure that you have unique and keyword-specific page URLs, title tags, meta description tags, headings, page copy, and image alt attributes. This sounds like a lot, but start with your most important pages like your home, menu, about and contact pages and go from there as time permits.

8. Think Mobile

Mobile accounts for a high percentage of visits to restaurant websites. July benchmark data from Google Analytics shows nearly two-thirds of all traffic is from mobile or tablet devices.
Additionally, the search engines have been moving toward a mobile-first experience for users including a rankings bonus for having a mobile-friendly website and the eventual rollout of the mobile-first index.
Hopefully, you’ve already created a responsive website.
But that’s just the beginning when it comes to mobile. It’s also critical to think about page load speed, proper rendering, and providing a great mobile user experience.

9. Implement Schema “Restaurants” Markup

Another area where we can build context for the search engines and gain exposure to more users in the search results is by using structured data.
In the restaurant industry, implementing the Schema.org library for restaurants is a must.
This task requires a developer or a website platform or content management system with the right plugins or built-in options.

Summary

If you want to make sure your restaurant is full day in and day out, people need to be able to find you online. Once they find you, you need to quickly win them over with a great website experience and drive them to your location. These nine tips will help you accomplish both of those goals.
Once those customers get to the restaurant, it’s all up to the staff. Remember, no amount of SEO can save a restaurant that consistently leaves a bad taste in the mouths of its customers.

Reference:https://www.searchenginejournal.com/restaurant-seo-tips/208644/

Google Introducing Autoplaying Video Previews in Search Results

Google announced it has begun rolling out autoplaying video previews in search results.
No, not the same autoplaying videos that were the subject of much controversy last month. These are are different and arguably less obtrusive.
They will appear in the place of static images that would usually be displayed when a video carousel is surfaced at the top of a search results page.
You can see an example in the GIF provided by Google below:

”…you now have access to video previews directly in search results, giving you a better idea of what you’re about to watch before you tap.”

In an effort to be data-friendly, video previews will only play when connected to wi-fi.
If you really want to enable this feature on mobile networks, you can do so within the settings menu of the Google app or Chrome app.
Conversely, you can also opt-out of this feature within the same settings menu.
Autoplaying video previews are currently only available in the Google Search and Chrome apps for Android. They will be rolled out gradually over the coming week.

Reference: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-introducing-autoplaying-video-previews-search-results/211078/

AdWords app-install campaigns to sunset as Universal App Campaigns take over

Google says Universal App Campaigns are now delivering 50% of app downloads across its network.

Google launched Universal App Campaigns (UAC) roughly two years ago to help developers drive app downloads. UAC has co-existed with AdWords app-install campaigns since that time.

Now the company is moving all app-install ads under the umbrella of UAC. Google said that as of October 16, all app-install campaigns will run as UAC ads. All current app-install campaigns will stop running on November 15; so developers and publishers need to convert their campaigns accordingly. (Google’s blog post has instructions on how to do this.)

The two types of mobile-app campaigns offered different features and capabilities, with some distribution overlap. AdWords app-install ads offered more direct control over placements (single channel, multichannel) and bidding (CPC, CPI and so on) but were also more complex to create and manage.

UAC ads are automatically distributed across multiple Google channels (search, GDN, YouTube, AdMob and Google Play) and use a CPA model. UAC radically simplifies ad creation and optimization with automation and machine learning. From Google’s discussion of how UAC works:

[Y]ou don’t design individual ads for universal app campaigns. Instead, we’ll use your ad text ideas and assets from your app’s store listing to design a variety of ads across several formats and networks. All you need to do is provide some text, a starting bid and budget, and let us know the languages and locations for your ads. Our systems will test different combinations and show ads that are performing the best more often, with no extra work needed from you.

Google said that 50 percent of all app downloads across its network are now being driven by UAC. One factor behind UAC’s performance is the ability to bid and optimize against a range of goals: CPI, CPA or ROAS and set up automated Smart Bidding based on those goals.
Google is also seeing a shift from pure install-driven campaigns (download) to those that focus on engagement or specific in-app actions (hotel booking, first ride and so on). The company said that marketers who “optimize for in-app actions with UAC, on average, drive 140 percent more conversions per dollar than other Google app promotion products.” This is at least in part because ad creatives and CTAs are likely more compelling than plain-vanilla download campaigns.
Google indicated that one in four mobile-app-related ad dollars is now focused on promoting in-app events/conversions. The company has 2 billion active Android users globally, and Google Play is live in 190 countries.

Beyond the migration itself, what’s also significant about the shift to UAC is what it represents about the future of Google’s ad business. It shows that the company plans to infuse more automation, goal-based bidding, machine learning and auto-optimization across its various channels to simplify ad creation and improve performance — for advertisers and itself.

Postscript: 
Google offered Zynga as a case study of success with UAC ads. The latter delivered the following from Kimberly Corbett, VP of User Acquisition. I’ve slightly edited her longer statement, provided in email:

UAC campaigns have allowed us to trim down time spent optimizing while increasing our time advancing our media buying strategies by focusing on larger growth opportunities. We have titles where we’ve run large numbers of stand-alone campaigns without notable traction for scale and performance, but by transitioning to UAC event optimization, we’ve been able to increase performance with event optimization by 97% in one month.
Initially, we ran a UAC Target ROAS alpha campaign with Google, where we gave the campaign a revenue goal to hit. After running the campaign for about a month, we noticed that not only were goals being hit, but some were exceeded by as much as 54%. As a result, we expanded UAC Target ROAS to more games in our portfolio to achieve increased scale and performance.

Reference:http://searchengineland.com/google-universal-app-campaigns-now-delivering-50-downloads-across-network-280675

5 SEO Trends Digital Marketers Should Not Ignore in 2017

Anyone who has worked in the SEO field for a while would surely know that there is no fixed rule in the game. To consistently outperform your rival, it is necessary to master the trends as they come or be swept away into oblivion.
For 2017, here are the top 5 trends in SEO that will give your brand more visibility online:

Smarter AIs Could Change Algorithms

One of the major factors that could affect SEO in 2017 is, of course, the latest advancements in artificial intelligence technology. Everyone should expect the way search engines work to change as smarter AIs join the game.
Google users should expect changes on how the popular search engine does the work for them. In late 2016, Google RankBrain was unleashed, paving the way for the search engine to learn how people use the facility.
The latest Hummingbird extension boasts of an algorithmic machine learning technology with the end goal of improving the search experience for users. According to Forbes, RankBrain enabled Google to learn how people use phrases in their queries and, with the information, update the search engine’s algorithm accordingly. Of course, this means that content providers must relearn things if necessary and adapt to the changing search landscape. The previous update left many webmasters grumbling when they found out that their articles hardly make it to the coveted “Top Stories” section anymore.
The rising popularity of digital assistants, such as Siri and Cortana, is also changing the way people make searches online. This means that with the increasing use of these intelligent digital assistants, advanced forms of conversational queries will increase, opening up another segment that companies could target.

AMP Gets Amped

While desktop computing won’t exactly disappear, search engine use is projected to see the most growth in the mobile segment. The Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project protocol anticipates this trend and is in place to make content optimized for mobile browsing.
Pages running on AMP get loaded on mobiles devices four times faster than regular ones. In fact, Google favors AMP content. Since last February, Google has been marking AMP sites with a lightning bolt icon and featuring them more prominently in search results.
Going AMP would also benefit users in the long run. Pages load faster because it uses 8 times less data compared to a regular page. And of course, everyone knows that loading speed is a big factor in viewer retention.

Branding Goes Personal

Some industry watchers predict that personal branding is the way to go to be successful with your online campaign. Of course, that is not saying that you should do away with the corporate brand, but there are advantages when people within an organization tell their own stories. Think of personal branding as a way to complement a company’s SEO efforts and how it reaches out to its online customers.
Nowadays, corporations have to deal with being perceived by consumers as manipulative and greedy. Therefore, engaging consumers on a personal level is seen as the solution to diffuse this consumer wariness. By providing a personal identity that corporations naturally lack, personal branding makes it easier for consumers to trust the brand.
In addition, posting on a personal level amplifies the reach of a company. For instance, if a CEO of a company has three personal accounts on social media for this purpose, he is multiplying his corporate exposure as all of these accounts can grow their own follower base independently. In addition, these separate accounts can be used to target different segments of the market, which could result in a more customized posting that could potentially increase engagement.

UEO Meets SEO

Another important trend to watch out for is the rising importance of UEO in SEO. In fact, there are indications that user experience optimization (UEO) is going to become more important in SEO rankings.
Google is now giving hints that it may give more weight to user experience in its search result. One such hint is that the search engine giant seems to favor pages that load quickly with its preference for AMP content.
If the trend continues, the next step would be for Google to favor pages that offer a more enjoyable user experience. One metric that could come into play is the length of time a visitor stays on a page– staying a long time usually means that the visitor enjoys the content. While user experience has been an important metric in ranking pages for some time now, it looks like it's going to become even more important in future versions of the search algorithm. The bottom line is that webmasters should post quality content in well-designed sites that most people will enjoy.

Content Gets Denser

Speaking of content, there is another trend that experts are predicting– the rise of denser content. According to Smart Insights, there was a time when tons of brief but “fluffy” content-wise posts sufficed, which was eventually replaced by lengthy, seemingly complicated content to rank in SEO. However, those two extremes are now being replaced by what is referred to as Dense Content.
Simply put, Dense Content is when one offers tons of information using the smallest space possible. Of course, this presents an entirely new challenge which would definitely involve some spark of creativity and the flair for creating stunning visuals. But of course, the challenge is what makes SEO very interesting.

Reference:http://www.webpronews.com/5-seo-trends-digital-marketers-not-ignore-2017-2017-08/

5 Social Media Mistakes Every Marketer Should Avoid Making

Over the past decade, social media usage has increased exponentially, making it a segment that marketers can no longer ignore. In fact, the number of people actively using some form of social media grew by 121 million since April of this year, adding to a worldwide total of over three billion people.
That massive number of social media users means that more than forty percent of the world’s population is within reach of anyone trying to sell something via the internet. For a marketer, social media can be a gateway to a vast world of opportunities. To guide you in your quest for online domination, here are five social media mistakes every marketer should avoid making:

1. Talking About Your Brand Too Much

In the real world, people who constantly talk about themselves can quickly become a bore. The same holds true in the virtual world, especially on social media platforms where there is no shortage of attention seekers.
Of course, most marketers are on social media to promote their brand and be in the spotlight. However, 60 Second Marketer cautions that always talking about yourself or your brand might turn some people off because that’s just not how healthy relationships work, even the virtual relationship between you and your online followers.
As a marketer, it's better to “listen in a virtual way.” This may be achieved by occasionally “shining the spotlight elsewhere” so to speak. Followers are more likely to trust you and your brand if they feel that you are a genuinely concerned member of the online community rather than someone out to make a quick buck. This explains why even big corporations occasionally post content on trending topics; topics that they know resonate with their target audience. And this leads us to the next mistake.

2. Trending Topic and Hashtag Overuse

As previously explained, there are merits to making posts on the latest online trends and using the hottest hashtags. By doing so you can create a positive perception of your brand and keep your online presence relevant. However, it's not advisable to post on a topic just because it's trending, especially if the topic has no connection to your brand or leaves your post too open for misinterpretation.
Even big corporations occasionally make this type of social media blunder which can be embarrassing and also create unwanted controversy. For instance, in an attempt to honor singer Prince shortly after his death was announced, Cheerios angered fans when it tweeted the message “Rest in Peace” punctuating the “I” with a Cheerio. The tweet ignited a firestorm of criticism from fans who accused the company of exploiting the tragedy with a cheap marketing ploy in order to be part of the conversation.

While it may be useful to jump onto the trending hashtags bandwagon every once in a while, it's best to do it sparingly. Marketers should also be selective about the topics they want to tackle in their postings, limiting to those that they are familiar with and help their brand message.

3. Neglecting What Your Target Audience Wants

One of the biggest mistakes that social media marketers can make is misunderstanding what their target audience really wants. While they may have crafted the perfect post to load to their social media accounts, the post will ultimately fail to deliver the intended level of engagement if the content does not resonate with the needs and wants of their target audience.
As such, the extra effort made in determining the desires of their target audience will eventually pay off in the long run. A better understanding of their target audience will enable them to make a more targeted social media campaign by fine-tuning their posts or selecting the right social media platform to be engaged at.

4. Selecting the Wrong Social Media Platform

This mistake is related to the previous in that it also requires an understanding of your target audience. Simply put, no two platforms are the same and people use different platforms depending on what they want to accomplish.
For instance, a job-related post would be suitable for Linkedin but may appear out of place on Instagram. In fact, your social media marketing efforts might bear more fruit if you concentrate on a couple of platforms most relevant to your brand and try to master the intricacies of these chosen platforms to get the best results out of them.

5. Ignoring the Numbers

Ultimately, all social media marketing efforts must produce some form of engagement from their intended audience. This means a marketer’s work is not yet done even after the content is out on the chosen platforms – effort has to be made to measure how people react to the post.
Since today’s marketing is heavily data-driven, marketers need to collect data on how their posts are received. From there, they can make some tweaks for their efforts to become even more effective. These could include the type of content that sells, the most productive time to post and other factors. Fortunately, there are numerous analytics tools available online to help you gather these metrics.

Reference:http://www.webpronews.com/5-social-media-mistakes-every-marketer-avoid-making-2017-08/

3 Reasons SEO Is Incredibly Valuable to Your Company

1. SEO Improves User Experience

Being a successful SEO professional requires knowing more than ever before.
People who choose to work in the search industry are constantly adjusting their strategies to changes Google makes on a daily basis.
We don’t always know or completely understand every change Google makes to its algorithm. But we use the information Google shares with us to better position our websites to perform in organic search.
We understand that Google’s algorithm has many ranking signals. They have made noticeable efforts the past few years to emphasize the signals related to engagement.
Metrics like dwell time, time on site, pages viewed per session, and page load speed all been emphasized as having greater importance for Google to rank websites.
SEO is more than just looking for high volume keywords and link building. SEO professionals must understand and dive deeper into internal discussions about how to improve the overall user experience using new technologies that Google wants webmasters to adapt.
What are some of these new technologies?

• The push toward mobile responsive design, with the impending mobile-first index.
• The creation and introduction of Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP).
• The introduction of Progressive Web Apps (PWA).
• The creation of Schema and rich snippet enhancements.

Google is constantly evolving to align better with user behavior. As Google changes their approach, it forces those of us who work in this space to also change and adapt.
This is where SEO offers immense value to any organization. SEO professionals are always aware of the latest technologies and trends.
SEOs offer insights and ideas on how to take advantage and implement these new technologies to rank better in search results. Having an SEO means you have a person who is always thinking about how to improve the user experience of the site to meet the expectations of today’s consumers.
Technical SEO also helps support your UX, development, and engineering teams.
SEOs understand that in order to have sustainable success in organic search they must work with developers, designers, and engineers to create a solid foundation for the website before they can even think about creating content. This means putting more emphasis on site performance in page speed, advocating for a mobile responsive experience, and figuring out how to structure all the data on their web pages.

2. SEO Helps Build a Stronger Brand

In addition to helping with the technical side, SEO is also a marketing channel. Most of our efforts are focused on building authority for our domains.
Having success in the organic search channel requires a strong understanding of how Google’s algorithms work to understand the content on a website.
SEOs must both understand their target audience and create content that helps distinguish them from every other brand. This is actually a tall order considering that every website right now produces content, and only a handful of websites will get traffic for any query.
Having someone on your team who knows how to pull in visitors from the most visited site in the world – Google – is a valuable asset. SEO professionals understand what content is being searched for and – with the right tools – knows exactly where to focus their effort based on keyword research.
Creating a content strategy based on keywords focused on a businesses’ specific vertical allows the business to appear as an industry expert. When a business appears enough times in person’s search results it will be seen as a trustworthy source of information and that enhances the brand image creating loyal customers.
Searchers are looking for answers to their queries, and many of these searchers will be people who are getting introduced to a new vertical (new users). The importance of being the first point of exposure, getting the first opportunity to answer a potential customer’s questions is incredibly valuable.
If the searcher enjoyed the experience of your website and enjoyed the content you were able to deliver from the first interaction, it is more likely they will look to your website again to consume more content. The repeat visits will also affect the user’s personalized search results.

3. SEO Offers Long-Term Success

SEOs understand the difficulty and the joy of ranking number 1 for any query.
Ranking high for any keyword with known search volume will generate consistent traffic for as long as it can retain that position.
Actually ranking for these keywords is hard, however. It requires a lot of work.
That’s why it’s important to focus on long-tail keywords. You can find opportunities others have missed to deliver a steady stream of traffic to your clients for a longer period of time while dealing with less competition.
Targeting long-tail keywords require a solid understanding of how to create engaging content.
Organic search is an interesting channel because the search results are based on an algorithm’s interpretation of the most relevant results.
You can’t pay Google to rank your page higher in organic search, so success isn’t based on the amount of money you put in. Also, people tend to trust the organic results more than paid ad results.
So, being able to have success requires a person who possesses a lot of skill and understanding on how to communicate with Google’s algorithm. There is a big learning curve for SEO and as Google changes it seems that whoever is first to adapt will also be the person who will help their business gain new customers before anyone else.

Closing Thoughts

SEO offers every organization immense value because it requires a complete understanding of that organization’s business vertical, their customers, and the organization’s internal teams. SEO professionals can attach ROI to new technology initiatives proposed by development teams.
Organic search can be the first point of contact for a customer and a brand. This first point of contact can ignite further engagement for other channels such as following a social media channel or signing up for an email newsletter.
A channel that is constantly changing means a channel that is also constantly offering new opportunities to succeed before anyone else. This constant influx of change requires constant attention and a knowledgeable person to retain and to grow the existing organic search channel.

 Reference:https://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-value/209540/209540/

Buying Backlinks for SEO: Yes, This is Still a Thing

Paid link building is taboo in most SEO circles.

It’s talked about in hushed tones (if it’s talked about at all). Most SEOs won’t admit to doing it.
Reputable SEOs outright condemn paid link building, and with good reason – Google’s stance is crystal clear:
Buying or selling links is a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and will result in a penalty if you’re caught.
For these reasons, this post is not intended to promote paid link building, nor do I personally endorse buying links. Whether or not you choose to buy links is ultimately your decision, but be warned: paid links attract a high level of scrutiny and the risk to reward ratio is almost never worth it.
Given my stance, you can imagine my surprise when my colleagues and I polled 628 different businesses and discovered:

• 22 percent still pay for links without disclosure.
• 37 percent pay for legitimate links (e.g. paid reviews with disclosure, official sponsorships, etc.)

Naturally, these results prompted me to dig deeper into paid link building. I wanted to know:

• Why do SEOs and other business owners still buy links?
• What do they consider to be effective paid link building strategies?
• Do paid links actually work?

Read on to learn what I discovered.

What Is & Isn’t a Paid Link?

Before we begin, let’s address the elephant in the room:
What exactly is a paid link?
When I start talking about paid link building, this is by far the most common question I get asked.
In this article, I’ll be sticking to Google’s definition of a paid link, which is “exchanging money for links, or posts that contain links; exchanging goods or services for links; or sending someone a ‘free’ product in exchange for them writing about it and including a link.”
In other words, even sponsored guest posts and paid reviews are considered paid links.
As you read this article, you should be aware that even “safer” paid link building strategies risk being considered part of a link scheme and violate Google’s terms and conditions.

Why Do Some Professionals Still Buy Links?

In the early 2000s, buying and selling links wasn’t just in vogue – it was considered good business. Directories that let you pay for reviews and service companies that allowed you to buy or “rent” links sprung up like dandelions on a lawn.
Then Google brought out the weed whacker – enabling users to report paid links – which forced link buyers and sellers to get sneakier or change tactics.
Over the past decade, buying links has become increasingly risky because Google’s ability to seek and destroy the SEO value of paid links has become uncannily accurate.
That said, it isn’t foolproof. Some companies still resort to paid link building because it’s easier, it’s all they know, or it’s standard practice in their industry.
Today, the rise of organic link building and content marketing has more or less nullified the need for buying links in the SEO industry at large.
SEO PowerSuite’s link building survey, and the follow-up replies by several leading SEO experts, clearly show that creating valuable content worth linking to is considered to be the best way to earn links.
That said, 40 percent of respondents were unanimous regarding their most efficient link building method: creating data- and research-based content.

How to & How Not to Buy Links

Good link buying practices take time and patience. You need to begin with the same content you would use to launch an organic link building campaign — content that is highly relevant to your niche, high quality, and appealing to your target audience.
You should also have a well-grounded link profile before you consider buying links, which means cultivating high-quality organic backlinks first.
Once your assets are in place:

• Vet websites carefully before buying links. Carefully vet each domain for anything that seems off, such as domain history, PageRank, and too many spammy outbound links.
• Create a purposeful link building strategy. Buy links slowly and intentionally, beginning with up to five and gradually increasing over the next few months. Your link profile should never exceed 10 to 25 percent paid links.
• Keep your anchor text diverse across each domain. Anchor text diversity is a must.

Bad link buying practices include anything Google’s been working diligently to stamp out over the past few decades. These include link farms and private blog networks (PBNs). If your paid links are yielding a large volume of low-quality links, watch out, you’re at serious risk of receiving a penalty.
A few recommendations:

• Never buy sitewide links. Sitewide links (e.g. links in the sidebar, footer, navigation, etc.) scream “spam” to Google.
• Avoid link selling services and anyone selling “backlink packages.” Paying someone on Fiverr for a backlink package, and contracting a link selling service (e.g., Sape) are good ways to earn yourself a Google penalty. And if a site openly advertises that they sell links? Run!
• Avoid “red flag” websites. Websites that have been previously penalized, repurposed into link/article farms, and generally rely on ad-heavy, content-thin pages should all set your internal alarm blaring.

Of course, whether you’re buying links or building them organically, it’s always important that you monitor the health of your backlink profile. Use link tracking software to measure your links’ impact, and prune low-quality links that might have a negative impact on your site.
Be especially diligent if you’ve purchased links – double check page quality, authority, etc. regularly, and make sure your link’s anchor text hasn’t changed and that it hasn’t been switched to nofollow.

Do Paid Links Work?

The effectiveness of paid links is still hotly contested. It certainly seems like some businesses are managing to blend link buying strategies with organic link building strategies to great effect.
We discovered that 78 percent of businesses who buy legitimate paid links consider them to be efficient backlink building opportunities. Similarly, 69 percent of businesses using paid link buying considered their campaigns to be efficient, according to our poll.
Though the reported success rate is surprisingly high, the threat of a Google penalty is significant and quite real. If you’re considering buying links, just make sure you understand the risks and consider the potential impact on your long-term SEO before purchasing.

Reference:https://www.searchenginejournal.com/buying-backlinks-for-seo/207510/

How to Target Multiple Cities Without Hurting Your SEO

City Pages: Good or Bad for SEO?

Google became critical of pages that do not add additional value to a customer a few years ago. They initially rolled this out algorithmically as the Panda algorithm, which penalized sites for using what Google considered poor content techniques. This was initially targeted at doorway pages, article spinning, and various other nefarious methods.
However, a more common (and generally more legitimate) type of content was caught in this algorithm as well: the city page. The Panda algorithm worked so well that Google integrated it into their main algorithm, and it now evaluates sites in real time.
For nearly a decade, local business owners have created pages around individual cities that they service, in hopes of catching someone looking for items in a particular town, borough, or neighborhood.
So, on the surface, what you’re proposing isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The tricky part is making sure that each page provides some unique value to the visitor.
And you have to be honest with yourself as to whether you’re providing value. The search engines know if all you change is one or two words here and there. They still consider that duplicate content.
If the content is almost completely identical except for unusual terms like “arms-on” instead of “hands-on” and it’s pretty clear that it was written by a machine, Google will flag it. Pages like that are what will trigger the Panda part of the algorithm.

Make Your Most Important City Pages Unique

My recommendation is to focus only on those pages that are most important to you – don’t make a page for every small town in the North Georgia mountains. If you want to list out all the cities in a region, just list them on the page – you don’t need an individual page for each city to rank in most cases.
In terms of making the pages different, write original content for each area or city. Focus on what makes that city unique or different, but give it value beyond what you can get in a census listing.
Too often, I see city pages that have just restated population data that they could have gotten anywhere else.

• If you offer services in real estate, talk about the way the community in that area differs.
• If you offer plumbing, mention that a common problem in that area is hard water.
• If you’re a florist, talk about the climate, or how you source or grow plants in the area.

Find ways to make it different and unique so that you’ll actually add some information for the potential customer. In addition to making Google like the page better, it also gives the consumer confidence that you know the area and can really address their needs.
And finally, these listed locations should appear on all versions of the website – a common problem is that site owners will only have these links appear on a desktop site, but if you access the site on tablet or mobile, the links go away.

Summary

Because Google will be moving to a mobile-first algorithm, not having those links on the mobile site may make them drop out of the index. At worst, it could make it look like you’re trying to hide these pages; that they don’t add value.
Done right, city pages can be an integral part of a local SEO strategy.
Done poorly, city pages can get you penalized – or worse.


Reference:https://www.searchenginejournal.com/city-pages-local-seo/209084/

5 Ways to Build Customer Loyalty for Your eCommerce Business

A decade or so ago, most businesses develop relationships and loyalty with their customers based on one-on-one and personalized interactions between the company owner or the staff. These days, most transactions occur online. However, customer loyalty remains a key component to the success of any business.
As the Beeketing blog explained, it's more expensive to gain new customers than to retain current ones. A company has to spend a lot of time, effort and resources to find new clients. It's far easier and more profitable to just keep existing customers satisfied, happy and loyal. As a matter of fact, keeping customers happy and returning can boost profitability by up to 75%.
But how does one build customer loyalty? Here are five tactics an eCommerce business can use:

1. Sell Good Quality Products

You can't expect to garner customer loyalty if the customer's first experience with a purchased product is one of disappointment. This is why it's imperative that you sell good quality products. If the item, software, or downloadable content you're selling is poorly made, your customers will not come back. They might also hurt the business further by leaving bad reviews. Conversely, delivering a well-made product will ensure repeat business and develop loyal customers.

2. Provide Great Customer Service

Aside from offering high-quality products, providing good customer service is another vital way for an eCommerce business to develop and encourage customer loyalty. A 2011 survey conducted by American Express revealed that 8 out of 10 customers would not patronize a business anymore after one bad customer service experience.
Providing good customer service isn't necessarily hard or expensive. There are also several options open to companies, like incorporating a live chat to make it easier for customers to reach someone. Self-service options can also make it simpler for clients to troubleshoot common problems or find answers to frequently asked question. Interacting on social media and offering flexible return and exchange plans can also keep clients returning.

3. Be a Logistics Master

Much like the two previous examples, fast and reliable shipping service also strengthens customer loyalty. This is particularly true for eCommerce businesses as they have to master logistics like shipping packages safely, quickly and cheaply to their customers. This also means having a clear concept of how to pack products properly, finding the best courier and service for a specific shipment, and setting realistic expectations with the client. Remember, good products bought at fair prices that arrive promptly or when they're expected will go a long way to earning customer loyalty.

4. Develop a Fun and Relevant Rewards or Loyalty Program

Loyalty programs are an effective but surprising underutilized marketing tactic. Make your customers feel important and valued by offering rewards for their continued engagement. This can be in form of major discounts, free gifts, or instant or early access to exclusive sales. Personalizing the promotions you give loyal customers will also make them feel important and give the impression that the company is taking care of them.
More and more companies are also opting for fun and gamified rewards programs that allow the customers to participate. For instance, a coupon app can give customers access to special deals and promotions while encouraging them to earn badges by looking for deals on particular products. Aside from making it more fun, it also creates interest for the product and could even tap into the customer's social media network.

5. Offer Useful and Entertaining Content

Another way to boost customer value and loyalty is via content marketing. Studies indicate that retail sites that made use of content marketing could have six times better conversion rates than those sites that do not. However, the trick is to make sure that the content, copy, and marketing actions are informative, entertaining, and engaging. One prime example is the weekly digital magazine of fashion house, Mr. Porter. The articles are often about the company's products but they also include topics that deal with health, fashion, food and the arts.
Think about the various ways your customers interact with your company. Make sure they have a positive experience every step of the way and they will keep coming back for more. More importantly, your loyal customers might even tell their friends about your business.

Reference:http://www.webpronews.com/5-ways-build-customer-loyalty-ecommerce-business-2017-08/