Technically Easy

Category: Internet

All posts that are related to various aspects of the Internet can be found within this group.

5 Vital UX Tips to Optimize your eCommerce Store Conversion Rate

When it comes to running an online store, there are multiple considerations you need to take into account. SEO and advertising of various kinds are crucial for driving higher levels of quality traffic to your store but the question then is how to convert that traffic into sales.

One key aspect to this is the quality of user experience (UX) your site possesses. A website that takes UX seriously and takes steps to improve it, will always fare better than one that neglects it.

With that in mind, here’s how to improve the UX of your online store and boost your conversion rate.

1. Keep it simple

One of the most important things to remember is that a potential customer’s time is precious; if they can’t find what they’re looking for easily, they will simply go elsewhere.

Therefore, good UX web design is all about making the shopping experience as clear, simple, and hassle free as possible. For online stores, this involves carefully categorizing your catalog in order to make your products as easy to navigate and identify as possible.

Try adding filters to these category pages, so users can further narrow their search by criteria such as size, color, technical specifications (where applicable), and so on.

This way, your visitors will find it a breeze to browse your wares and find what they’re looking for.

2. Catch the eye

In exactly the same way as a brick and mortar store, digital ‘window dressing’ and product display is crucially important to encourage people to buy.

This starts with the design of your website, which is important not only to look attractive, but also to display your brand identity and convey an impression of your intended niche.

For example, if you sell street fashion, a stylishly designed site indicates your fashion credibility to your audience. If you’re not so technically savvy, this can still be achieved by utilizing eCommerce website packages like this one, most of which allow you to freely customize the appearance of your site.

3. Checkout

The checkout is an integral component of your eCommerce store. Shopping cart abandonment figures from Black Friday in 2016 show an overall rate of 63.8% on desktop and a staggering 78.1% on mobile.

To combat these odds, the first thing you’ll need is an SSL certificate to prove that users’ payment data is protected; without the padlock symbol in the address bar, shoppers won’t trust your service.

Second, make the process as fast as possible; this means on a technical level (using a reliable host for example), and in terms of structure. Ask yourself whether each step is necessary and streamline your checkout for speed.

Another useful tip is to quote the delivery cost upfront, where possible. If you can show the customer the total cost without them having to navigate too far through the checkout, they’re more likely to convert.

4. Functionality

It’s a major turnoff for potential customers when the nuts and bolts of your website don’t work properly. Why waste time on a buggy website when you can quite easily shop with a competitor instead?

Do everything you can to reduce your page loading time, for example, including compressing images or enlisting the help of plugins if you’re based on WordPress.

With constantly changing stock, online stores can also be susceptible to broken or misdirected links, so make sure to regularly check that all your navigation elements work.

Crucially, your eCommerce store must be mobile friendly, ideally with a responsive design to automatically adapt your website to any screen size. Your customers’ experience should be equally pleasant, no matter what device they visit on.

For a tutorial on how to do responsive design, see W3Schools.

5. Help

The key to this point is to provide your customer with all the assistance they could need, either to in-still confidence in a purchase or resolve any issue that may arise. Beyond detailed product descriptions, your first port of call should be a dedicated FAQ for your site to deal with common questions.

It’s extremely reassuring for a customer, and far easier to answer their question without having to pick up the phone or write an email.

Of course, sometimes direct communication is necessary, so incorporating live chat is well worth considering in addition to telephone, email, and social media.

So long as you have the people-power to manage it, live chat is a great way to quickly nip any potential issues in the bud.

This attitude towards customer service should also extend to after a purchase; always clearly state where you can be contacted so the customer doesn’t feel forgotten.

January 30, 2017
How to Save Vimeo Videos as MP3s Using Movavi Screen Capture
As one of the popular video sharing platforms, Vimeo definitely has quite a lot of great content published on it. However what often stands out about it compared to most of its rivals is the fact that unlike them it is possible to download and save videos – assuming you’re a subscriber and the video owner allows it.

That being said if you wanted to save a Vimeo video as an MP3 (i.e. audio only), then you’d have to download and then convert it into an audio file using a file converter.

Rather than having to sign up for an account, check the video’s privacy settings and then download and convert the video, it is actually a lot easier to just use Movavi Screen Capture to begin with as it will let you do all of that without half the hassle.

By using Movavi Screen Capture to grab the Vimeo video directly from your screen, you won’t need to sign up and can save any video you want as an MP3 directly. To save Vimeo to MP3 just:
1. Launch Movavi Screen Capture and select Record screen in the main menu.
2. Set the capture frame as and how you please (it doesn’t matter since you will be saving it in an audio-only format).
3. Check that the System Audio icon is highlighted (click it once if not) so that the audio from the Vimeo video is captured.
4. Click REC and play the video at the same time.
5. Click Stop when you want to stop the recording.
6. Click Save as and select MP3 from the list of formats available then click Save.
Of course if you want you could save the Vimeo video itself – just be sure that the capture frame is set up to record the area where it is playing, and select a video format (such as MP4) instead of MP3 when you’re saving it.

Alternatively you could use the presets to automatically set up the optimal video format and settings for a specific device or platform.

At the same time it would be worth your while to explore the other features in Movavi Screen Capture and use them to set the frame rate, capture keyboard and mouse actions, trim out unnecessary content, control the audio levels, and so on.

All said and done it should be clear just how much more convenient it is to be able to grab any videos off Vimeo and save them as MP3s using Movavi Screen Capture directly.

Once you try doing so for yourself, odds are you won’t want to use any other method because of how fast and easy it is.
January 10, 2017
Which Programming Languages are Best for an eCommerce Site?

There’s more than one way to build an eCommerce website. eCommerce websites are built on many different platforms, and through different programming languages on the backend.

The programming language you choose has to be able to handle all the functions and aspects of your growing eCommerce store.

If you are familiar with or interested in programming languages, you may wonder which language you should use to build your eCommerce website. There are many different languages to choose from, each with its own benefits and drawbacks.

Keep in mind, you don’t have to code your entire website yourself. You’ll soon see why many entrepreneurs who are not familiar with code use an eCommerce builder to create their website instead. It’s simpler, easier, and helps you get on with building your business faster.

However, if you have a dedicated programmer on staff, or aren’t too shabby writing code yourself, there are certainly benefits to programming your ecommerce website yourself; among them, ultimate customization and complete ownership of your process.

So if you do decide to take the programming reigns yourself, consider the following languages that can help you do so.

PHP

PHP, or hypertext preprocessor, is one of the simplest server-side programming languages in existence. It’s fairly easy to learn php 5 online to get started. Plus, it was designed specifically for web development.

WordPress is largely built with PHP, so you could definitely use it to create a blog, website, or eCommerce store.

Ruby

Ruby is a general purpose programming language. It’s concise, readable, and easy-to-learn. But don’t let its simplicity fool you! It’s a very powerful programming language.

Many hosted eCommerce platforms are built with Ruby.

Ruby on Rails is a popular web framework built using Ruby programming language. Ruby itself is most commonly used in Rails applications to create all kinds of things online.

Python

Python is a very popular general purpose programming language. You can create web pages, games, even a search engine using Python. Python is easy to read and easy-to-learn, especially for first-time coders.

You can express your ideas with fewer lines of code. Plus, Python is allowed to run on various systems with fewer limitations.

Django

The Django web framework is built using Python programming language. It’s a free and open-source web framework touted as “the web framework for perfectionists with deadlines.”

With Django, you can build better web apps quickly with less code. It could be a compromise for someone looking to code their own website, without having to reinvent the wheel.

Java

Java is used everywhere online. It’s a server-side programming language that powers large scale websites with a heavy traffic. It’s no wonder that Java is one of the top programming languages for eCommerce websites.

Java is versatile, compatible, and functional for so many different applications. You can use Java to code software, apps, and websites. Plus, it works across devices!

The easy way

Here’s the question: do you really want to code an entire eCommerce website? Are you looking for a challenge? Do you want to flex your coding muscles? Or are you looking to build an eCommerce business?

Some coders might enjoy the challenge of coding an eCommerce website, but for most business builders, there are easier ways to get an eCommerce store off the ground.

You can certainly use a programming language to customize your website, but starting with a framework instead of from scratch can save you a load of headaches.

Remember, there are no “best” programming languages. There are best programmers. Choose the programming language you know best or hire the best programmer you can.

That is, if you’d like to build from scratch at all.

However, the temptation to get down to business faster by opting for a hosted platform is always there.

In the end only you’ll know your immediate and long-term goals, and weighing whether to go hosted or self-hosted for your eCommerce undertaking depends on it!

January 5, 2017
33 Tips for Selling Items on eBay

eBay provides all the tools necessary to sell or auction of items for either an individual or a business. While it has been around for many years, eBay still remains near the top for selling items on the Web.

While it may seem like an item can sell pretty quickly on eBay, you will face some competition from others that may be selling the same or similar items. To help you sell your items quickly, and for the most money, here are 33 tips for selling items on eBay.

Listing the item

1. Follow eBay’s rules on listings. eBay has rules for listings that you will need to follow. If you don’t adhere to the rules your may find your item removed from eBay or even your account being revoked.

2. Use the right keywords in your listing. Keywords are the key to appearing in both eBay’s and the search engines’ search results. While you shouldn’t get too crazy with your listing title, ensure that you include the manufacturer, item type, size, and color in the description.

3. Don’t use very large words. When describing the item, try to write at an 8th grade level to allow anyone to understand the item. If you use large, complex words that some may not know, you may lose potential customers.

4. Do your reasearch. With the vast amount of information on the Internet it is important to understand exactly what your are selling and how much it is actually worth. While everyone wants to make money, but if you ask too much for an item then it may not sell. On the flip side, if you ask too little, then you are short-changing yourself.

5. Take it as constructive criticism. When listing items on eBay, you will receive feedback – both positive and negative. The key is to take any feedback as constructive as possible. When you reply, be courteous and try to read between the lines of all the negativity and make changes to your listings, if possible.

6. Be as honest as possible. While you may not enjoy adding details about any defects or flaws with your item, it is important to be as honest about the item to potential buyers. It may help to even include photos of the flaws to illustrate your point. This will help buyers understand exactly what they are buying, as well, as perhaps build up reputation for future purchases.

7. Make your listing look professional. Take the time to ensure your listing looks as good as possible. This includes a clear, well-written description, and good photos. Treat your listing as a business – especially if your business relies on selling items on eBay – and get people to trust you.

8. Choose optimal start and end times. According to statistics, most people will be buying on eBay in the evening hours, so it would be wise to start your auction at night. Also, ending your auction at night is also beneficial as that will be when most people will be bidding.

9. Don’t inflate the shipping costs. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen cheap items that cost huge amounts to ship. Don’t list your items for cheap and expect to cover the costs with shipping. This is dishonest, and will get people to distrust you very quickly.

10. Provide clear return policies. Regardless of the product, defects and issues will happen. Ensure that you clearly indicate any return policy, if applicable, in the listing so the bidder knows exactly what to expect if there is a problem with the product.

11. Practice good customer service. The more you list on eBay the more questions or issues could come up. It is important to respond to any question from bidders’ in a timely and courteous manner. Also, if issues in the product do come up, ensure you honor the return policy that you have communicated in your listing.

12. Accept PayPal as payment. While some people may be against using PayPal, when it comes to eBay almost everyone uses PayPal for sending and receiving money. PayPal adds more piece-of-mind to a buyer as they don’t need to worry about sending credit card information to the seller. Plus, using PayPal on eBay allows the buyer to pay for the item in only a few clicks.

13. Encourage feedback from the buyer. eBay is built on reputation and having buyers record positive feedback will go a long way to establishing your eBay account as trustworthy. Trust is everything when selling items on eBay.

Taking pictures of the item

14. Take the time for better photos. When taking photos of your items, don’t just pull out your smartphone and snap a photo. Take the time to properly display your item, and take the best photo possible. Buyers will usually view items that have better photos.

15. Use fill-flash when possible. If you take photos of an item with direct, harsh light, such as outside, then turn on the flash on your camera to fill in the shadow areas. This will reduce the dark shadows and provide more details to your item.

16. Use a digital camera. While smartphones have become popular cameras because of their convenience, a digital camera still provides the best way of taking photos. With digital cameras you can control pretty much all photograph settings, which gives you complete freedom over the final photo.

17. Use a tripod. For the best photos possible, always use a tripod when taking pictures of your objects. This will ensure that the item will be sharp in the photo, helping to create the best photo possible.

18. Use the lowest ISO setting. While a higher ISO setting allows you to take photos with less light, when it comes to the items you list on eBay, you want the best quality photo possible. A lower ISO setting will produce much less noise, better colors and sharper images. Since you should be using a tripod, using the lowest ISO setting on your camera is possible.

19 Take photos of items against a plain background. When taking photos of the items, don’t use a busy or distracting background. For many small items, a simple white or black piece of cardboard will work really well in keepin the focus on the item.

20. Zoom in on the item. If the item has intricate details, take close-up photos of the item to provide the buyer with a good view of the various detail. You may also want to take close-ups of any defects of the item to provide more information to the buyer so they have a better understanding of what you were describing in the listing.

21. Adjust the white balance. For items that are color-specific, don’t just use the auto white balance on the camera as the colors of the item may not be accurate. It would be better to understand how to set the custom white balance on your camera to get the colors as accurate as possible.

22. Learn how to take photos of your items. Tips can only go so far when it comes to taking photos, so learning and understanding how to take pictures is important. For those that are beginners, I recommend Scott Kelby’s Digital Photography Boxed Set. The books are written with beginner’s in mind so it is easy to understand and provides information on taking many different types of pictures.

Shipping the item

23. Ship the item quickly. It is important to reduce the amount of time for a bidder to receive the item. While you may not have total control over the item in transit, but you can ensure that you send the item out for delivery as quick as possible. Waiting a few days to ship an item can cause an item to be late for delivery if the bidder wants the item before a specific date.

24. Have shipping supplies on hand. One way to help ship the item quickly is to have the shipping supplies available before the item is even sold. This ensures that you can package the item as quickly as possible and have it sent out for shipping.

25. Take pride in your packaging. When packaging a product, ensure that you use good, strong packaging material to avoid anything from opening during transit. Package the item to ensure that it can’t easily move around and break while it is being shipped and then also provide a packing slip. You may want to even order custom shipping boxes to brand your boxes.

26. Print out the shipping labels from home. eBay provides a convenient way to print out the shipping labels from home. In addition to the shipping label, eBay also allows you to print out the custom forms right at home.

27 Provide insurance for valuable items. If the item you have sold is valuable, provide shipping insurance, if possible. This will give the buyer piece of mind that the item they just purchased is covered in case there is an issue during shipping.

28. Provide tracking information. If at all possible, provide tracking information to the bidder so they can find out where their package is located and the possible date of the package arrival.

29. Generate repeat business on eBay. Include a business card or a thank you note in the package to help remind the buyer where they bought the item and who shipped it quickly.

30. Use delivery confirmation on the package. While you don’t like to think buyers are unscrupulous, but the reality is that there will be some buyers that are like that. By using delivery confirmation, you can be sure that the buyer has received the package to avoid the buyer claiming that they didn’t receive the package.

31. Use signature confirmation for valuable items. For items that are more than $250 you should use signature confirmation, especially if the item was paid using PayPal. The reason for this is that the buyer can claim the item was never received and PayPal will reimburse the money to the buyer.

32. Reuse packaging material. If you are an occasional eBay seller, and don’t have a business on eBay, you should save packaging material (boxes, bubble wrap, etc.) from online orders you receive online. This will save you some money and possible time where you don’t have to go out and buy packaging material.

One final tip:

33. Have fun! You should keep a positive attitude about selling items on eBay and enjoy the process. If you have fun selling items, and hopefully making money too, then it will show in how you list your items and reply to bidders and buyers.

December 5, 2016
The Real-Time Penguin: Backlinking no Longer on Backburner

Google considers many signals when tailoring search results to a user’s query and Penguin refers to one of those signals. First rolled out in 2012, the Penguin update took into account the links pointing to your site. If those links came from sites that were spammy or had a low quality score, your site would likely drop in rank.

There have been a few updates to the update over the years, including one last September.

Link-related changes in rank now in real-time

Known as Penguin 4, the latest update is also called the Real-Time Penguin Update.

It used to be that changes you made to your site in regard to links – whether good or bad – would not take immediate effect. You had to wait for one of Google’s periodic “refreshes,” where the search engine would factor in changes made to the link profiles of sites across the web and hand out or remove penalties accordingly.

That changed in September. Refreshes will now happen constantly and changes in rank based on links – whether good or bad – will be gradual. No longer do you have to wait months to see changes based on your efforts. And in the event that your efforts prove unfruitful, no longer do you have to make additional changes and then twiddle your thumbs.

Penguin 4 and your SEO strategy

Before Penguin 4, if there was no refresh in the immediate future, your link profile might have been on the backburner. Now, every day you allow a spammy link to weigh you down, rather than remove or disavow it, is a missed opportunity; every quality link your competition acquires helps them eat into your lead or puts them ahead.

It’s a little daunting but it’s also enticing. Because link building is a time-consuming endeavor and its ramifications used to be manifested sporadically, it’s likely been a low priority for you. Fortunately, the same is likely true for your competition.

Now that you can utilize real-time Penguin refreshes to get ahead, it may be time to move link building to the forefront of your SEO strategy. And one quality link goes a long way toward establishing favorable rank.

Penguin 4 has brought about a few other changes as well, including rank adjustment that affects the page in question rather than the whole site. Get acquainted with them all so you can factor them into your link-building strategy, which is perhaps more important now than ever.

November 25, 2016
Best Practices for On-Page SEO that Every Business Needs

In online marketing, the goal of every marketer is to get as much traffic as possible. The more traffic a webpage has, the higher the chances of getting more paying buyers. All in all, getting the right traffic to your website is never easy. There are, however, a couple of things you can do in in-depth page optimization.

The purpose of this post is to focus on the best tips for on-page SEO.

Before you publish a page, it is important that you consider the on-page optimization factors. These are important to your overall search engine ranking. Start by understanding Google’s ranking factors.

Below are the key things you need to do to boost your overall ranking.

Fix the 404 errors

The HTTP 404 Not Found Error will cost you a lot of traffic and also impact your online reputation. This is an error that tells your visitors that the page they are trying to reach couldn’t be found on the server. It tells them that the page has either been moved or removed.

This error often happens when the URL was not changed properly when relocating your website.

Fixing 404 errors can help maintain your good ranking. If pages cannot be accessed and had already being indexed by search engines, your reputation with Google will be impacted.

Since Google will not be able to notice that a page has been deleted, the number of customers who click away from the 404 error page will be conceived as a high bounce rate. This is not good for SEO.

Ensuring that deleted or changed pages are properly changed will help prevent this error. You should also keep track of all your pages to ensure they are all working properly.

Picking an easy to type and remember domain name will keep customers from landing on the wrong websites.

Title tag

For better search engine ranking, you have to pay more attention to the title tags. Start by creating titles with keywords. A keywords planner will help you do a better keyword research to find the ones that rank well. Use the keywords at the beginning of the title tags.

Numeric digits are good for creating unique titles. Try using dates to make Google think yours is the latest content.

This is a good thing to do if you publish content on a daily basis. You should also update your sitemap as frequently.

In summary, when optimizing your title tags, do thorough keyword researches, place keywords at the beginning of the title, make use of numerical digits, and avoid unknown symbols. Last but not least, you need to keep up with the trends on title tag SEO.

Using permalink

Links are important in search engine optimization. They are what Google uses to determine the quality of your webpages.

However, to rip the benefits of this option, you have to keep the permalinks short. You should also only use keywords in the URL to boost ranking. Don’t use other words.

Meta tags

In on-page optimization, your pages will need Meta tags. This is the search result snippet that helps Internet users determine whether your page contains the information they need or not. The description needs to be short at no more than 156 characters else it will not be displayed in full.

Although this will not directly boost your ranking, it will surely compel people to open your website if the description grabs their attention.

The snippet you create should contain a relevant keyword and should also be relevant to the content or what your page is about.

External and internal links

The links that point to you and the ones that point to other websites will have an impact on your online reputation. If the websites you are linking to have a bad reputation, chances are your reputation will also be tarnished.

It is therefore important to be careful of whom you link with.

Learn how to make use of the no-follow Meta tags. These are rules you add to your website asking the search engine robots not to follow specific links. You can do this for the low-quality external links.

However, before adding this rule, confirm that the link is not as valuable.

Don’t forget to use internal links. These links signal the search engines that another page within your website is also equally important.

More quality links on your website will add more quality to your site and help it get better ranking.

Page content

One thing you can never ignore in in-depth on-page optimization is your web content. In addition to making sure that your content is of high quality and relevant to your audience, you should consider publishing lengthy content. Well defined topics are great for users.

This is one of the reasons Wikipedia pages rank first on search engine results. However, this does not mean you fill your content with unnecessary information. The idea here is to describe your topics as extensively as you can.

The titles need to be wrapped with H1 tags. These play a crucial role in SEO. In addition to that, you need to embed multimedia content. This includes videos and graphics.

They will help with your ranking.

Page speed

Last but not least, the speed of your page will determine how well you rank. If your pages take long to load up, there is a good chance visitors will click away.

This is perceived as bounce rate by Google and this will impact your ranking. The goal is to ensure that your page loads up within 5 seconds or less.

Reducing the number of elements on your page, optimizing image sizes and using ALT tags will boost the load speed of your website. You also need to think about leveraging on browser caching.

On-page optimization is important if you want to stay ahead of the competition. However, for this to happen, you need to keep up with the SEO trends and ensure you follow all the rules.

If you are not sure of what you are doing, don’t hesitate to hire professional help.

Author bio

Derek Iwasiuk runs a national digital search engine optimization firm headquartered in Minneapolis. He also spends a lot of his free time educating the minds of thousands of young SEO’s and top agencies. To gain from his in-depth SEO experience, you can check out his articles at Engage the Crowd.

October 6, 2016
The Grandparent’s Guide to the Internet [Infographic]

If you have grown-up children and they have made you proud grandparents, you will probably have noticed just how adept their kids are at using the internet and their tablet or smartphone, with many preschooler’s knowing their way around an iPad with amazing skill and dexterity.

Being a grandparent is great fun of course, but it also means that you are trying to catch up with the digital age and all that it has to offer.

Smartphones and iPad’s were not words that had been invented and neither had the internet for that matter, which means that you might just find everything associated with the internet and how to use it, a bit daunting.

The Grandparent’s Guide to the Internet is designed to get you up to speed and give you the confidence to explore what the web has to offer and how to harness its ability to make some of your daily tasks easier and more efficient.

The guide takes you through step-by-step, from explaining why you need a web browser, what a window is and how to navigate around a page, to sending emails, uploading or downloading pictures and videos, right through to how to get to grips with social media.

If you want to share your experiences and spend time catching up with what your grandchildren are doing and what they have been doing, the best way to do this these days is to learn how to use Facebook or Skype, so that you can communicate with your family and others in the only way that that really know how to these days.

September 30, 2016
7 Effective Tips to Win More Likes on Your Instagram Photos and Posts

It might have started as a brilliant platform to share captivating moments with family and friends, but Instagram today is now more than that. The numbers alone are staggering; as of June 2016 Instagram had 500 million monthly active users (MAUs), 300 million daily active users, 20% of internet users are on the social media network and it is experiencing a 16% monthly growth.

These are numbers that will make any marketer sit up and as a brand you need to take notice. However, you have to appreciate that while it is all easy to create an account and flood it with photos and images, it is the Instagram followers who like it and share who really matter. There are millions of Instagram accounts out there that don’t even have one like, yet they are fronted by brands.

In such cases, the objective is not achieved. To avoid this pitfall, it is important to find out how you can get more likes and followers on Instagram and how this can revolutionize your business.

The story behind the success

Why not start with a brief look at how this success story started? The photo sharing app was launched in 2001 and is the brainchild of Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. The tremendous growth of the app started immediately with over a million users subscribing in a month. The app was to go and win the prestigious iPhone App of the Year Award, which was a precursor of just how big it was going to become.

The mechanics behind Instagram

To get an idea why every other brand is trying to make a mark on Instagram, you just need to look at how it works. Simply, the photo sharing app allows you to share your photos on the platform and then on other social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp among others. Users can follow what others post or like your posts.

Why should your business invest in an Instagram campaign? A recent study by Forrest Research shows top brands that use the platform experienced a 4.21% increase in engagement rate, which is 58 times more than what they experienced on Facebook. The study named Instagram the King of social med and for a good reason, so if you are not on-board it is time to join the bandwagon.

The secret to more likes on Instagram posts and photos

Truth be told, making it on Instagram is not an easy task especially for businesses. If you already have an account and you are not realizing any benefits, it is highly likely you are doing it all wrong. Instagram is tight lipped on how to get more likes just like Google is not ready to help you with your search engine ranking. However, the gurus on the social media platform do share the tricks they use and here are some to get your campaign on its way:

1. Have a theme and stick to it

This is one of the biggest pitfalls especially for brands. It is important to craft a strategy before creating a profile and asking the team what your Instagram SHTICK should be. The most followed Instagram stars focus on specific themes and it is easy for your brand to pick your theme; for instance, if you are selling toys, why not post cute photos of babies trying out your toys? Better still, cats on the toys? Everyone loves cute babies and cats are social media superstars.

2. Amazing content and nothing less

So, your team was out for an event and you have a million photos? Next course of action, upload them all on your brand’s account, wrong move. It is more advisable to have few pictures that are awesome than posting anything random. People use visit social media to get away from boredom and if this is what you are still serving here, they will fly away without even noticing the like button. Look at the content and objectively ask yourself if it tickles you.

3. Leverage interesting hashtags

For your Instagram campaign to kick off, you must be creative with your hashtags. You have upto 30 hashtags for an image and you should go on and make good use of the same though not all. Hashtags are considered the holy grail of Instagram, but it is important to be creative with what you use. Always stick with those that can excite people and also make it easier to be found and liked.

4. Use captions

It is interesting how most brands just post a good picture and fail to maximize its potential through a caption. It is true you have edited your photo and it looks dashing, but don’t fall into this common trap and forget the caption. By giving some insight, you are not only getting viewers more interested but also sharing your expertise in whatever you do.

5. Use a follower and like service

Instamacro.com is an invaluable tool to help you manage your account and keep your account active as you focus on the core business. The software will automatically like, follow and unfollow. It is perfect if you are struggling to create a solid follower base on Instagram. It helps spread your brand while also earning you those elusive likes on your photos and posts.

6. Stick to a schedule

This is another great pitfall with Instagram users especially businesses. It is true your company might not have pictures to share every three hours, but then again you can’t wait for a week before posting the next image. There are many brands that have excited viewers only to lose the steam midway by failing to post and you must avoid this. Make sure you have a schedule to make it possible for followers to anticipate your next serving. This will increase the chances of another like.

7. Engage

This is a great way to reciprocate the love you are getting from your followers. Try checking some of their accounts and like what is really amazing. It might be a daunting task, but at least you are guaranteed they will feel honored and maintain contact with your account.

While all this might sound easy, anyone who has tried managing an Instagram account for a business will tell you different. It requires research and dedication. You have to be consistent, but with development of software to help in Instagram management, you will not find it easier. Go on and get the most out of your Instagram account.

Author bio

Evans Walsh is a marketing consultant focusing on digital media. He boasts over 18 years in the industry and has consulted for both public and private companies. He also writes on trends on social media marketing such as the emergence of instamacro.com.

August 29, 2016