Growth Hacking is a great option for anyone looking to grow their business fast! For anyone unfamiliar with the term, growth hacking refers to a series of techniques used to add social media followers rapidly and with minimum investment on your part. As growth hacking’s popularity grows, people are coming with more and more ways to draw followers to their brand. The tricky part is usually finding out which technique works best for you. Don’t worry, we’re here to help! 

So, in no particular order, here is a list of 17 of our favourite growth hacking tactics! 

1 – Smart Social Media Monitoring 

In 2020, having a social media presence is absolutely necessary. The disheartening part of being a new company on social media is the fact that every account starts with no followers. So how can you kickstart a social media following? One answer is with strategic social media monitoring.  

This is often overlooked but it’s the easiest and most effective tactic for organic growth! Develop an understanding of your target audience’s online presence and find out who they are currently supporting. Once you find this out: interact with your target audience and interact with competitors. 

Important: Be polite; don’t take it as an opportunity to attack other companies in the same industry. One ethos of the web: “collaborate and compete.” This is doubly true interacting in the same spaces as your competition. Be informative. Be helpful. Create meaningful interactions with the pages and avoid any direct solicitation of your products and services! You’ll have better results creating a meaningful interaction (eg. “this makes sense of X”) rather than a generic comment like “nice picture” or “you might like our page, check it out”. 

2 – A/B Testing with Measured Conversion 

Knowing your customer’s behavioural patterns at the beginning of your venture can be difficult. Your landing page, wording or design elements could be the thing that’s driving potential customers away and you might not even know it. With A/B testing with measured conversion, you can determine your target audience’s behavioural patterns to quantify which test versions are more effective. 

A/B testing can be as basic as changing one word, changing the colour scheme of your CTA buttons or trying out a new blog title. The key lies in tracking it, so you can see whether any given change affects conversion or not. 

3 – Guest Posting & Tools like HARO 

Guest posting is the act of writing blog posts or articles for a website that isn’t your own. Though can take time, it’s a great tool for increasing brand awareness. 

Looking to get started with guest posting? Reach out to credible websites and see if they are interested in including one of your blog posts. If they aren’t accepting guest blog posts, then try a guest blogging platform such as myblogguest.com or place yourself as a potential source for journalists on helpareporter.com. 

If you’re thinking about guest posting, keep in mind. 

• Write blog posts for websites or people that have a similar (or same) audience to your target audience
• Be informative! Apply personal experience and research to the topic.
• Don’t be afraid to work with an old topic. Use juxtaposition to contrast an old idea with something new in the field. 
• Be positive. Try to add new knowledge and insight through your work. Don’t just re-hash established data.
• Include a call to action or a minor pitch at the end to entice people to visit your page. 

4 – Leverage Referral Programs

A great way to grow your business is with a referral program! Referrals allow existing customers to vouch for your business and act as a trusted voice to people in their network. This system is cyclical as it then opens the opportunity for new members to act as the trusted voice to their network and so forth. 

When implementing a referral program, the most important element will be to offer an incentive program with it. Dropbox is a great example of this; the company allowed both its users and their referrals to add an extra 500 MB upon successfully referring new members. This referral program increased signup conversion by 60%.

5 – Become a Leader on New Platforms 

Social media is an ocean of opportunity, but popular platforms like Instagram and Facebook have plenty of boats. Becoming a leading fashion brand on crowded platforms such as Instagram or Facebook takes much more effort. Incorporating your brand on a new social media platform or a platform that does not have leaders in your industry on there, gives you the opportunity to become the leader. Keep in mind, for this to work, you need to know which social media platforms your target audience uses! 

6 – Add Value with ‘a Freebie’

Similar to food samples at Costco, offering your customers a “Freebie” is a great way to give your customer a taste of what you have to offer before they are required to commit. If your business doesn’t allow for a customer to “try before they buy”, offering a gift to add value is also an option. 

A “freebie” can be a trial period of your service, a sample of a product to try, or a specialty gift to act as a “thank you” for choosing your company. 

7 – Add Personality 

Personality is another great way to increase brand loyalty and viral potential. There are two ways to add personality: Creating or emphasizing a social media style and tone for your brand, or putting a human face to your organization. 

One example of this is Chris Hughes from A Nerd’s World; a web developer and SEO professional in Toronto. Chris has a captivating personal presence and highlights this through his successful YouTube channel. Creating a trusted personality linked to his brand’s name has given him a large social media presence (over 20K subscribers) and growth for A Nerd’s World. 

8 – Run a Contest 

People love a chance to win free stuff! Running a contest is a sure way of generating brand awareness and growth on social media. The key to running a social media contest is to make sure your prize fits with the company’s brand. This helps you attract people who will continue to follow and support your brand after the contest is over. 

Don’t forget to be purposeful with your contests. Have a goal in mind and make sure that the reward, the rules, and the contest structure are aligned with those goals. 

9 – Create Tiers and “Freemium” options 

“Freemium” is a portmanteau of the words “free” and “premium;” it’s a business model that involves offering customers both complimentary and extra-cost services”. 

This strategy attracts people who are interested in the product as well as those who love to see the word FREE! 

10 – Partner with Influential People  

There’s no denying, the word “influencer” has been exhausted after the last few years but that doesn’t mean they aren’t effective! Similar to defining your target audience, targeting the right influencer for your brand and product is the key for amazing results. 

Influencers have spent time cultivating trust from an audience of like-minded people. Their referral can increase conversions and generate sales immediately. Sounds great, right? Well there’s more! Influencers are also skilled at creating great interactive content that can be shared to your platform later. 

11 – Create FOMO  

FOMO is the fear of missing out; the state of anxiety caused by the thought of missing out on something great. Done right, it entices purchase to purchase a product or service to avoid that anxiety. 

Create FOMO by creating urgency; give them an offer they can’t refuse! This is typically done with online contests, special sales and offers, and limited-time promotions to name a few. Another tactic is creating exclusive offers. For example: 25% off select merchandise for those on the mailing list. 

12 – Building Online Communities

A social media presence should be a priority for all businesses. It isn’t just a cost-effective marketing platform; it’s also a way to build a customer-facing online community. Building your online community will involve a few detailed decisions: deciding on a target audience, picking your niche, developing content strategy and creating valuable content. 

There’s no denying that building an online community takes time, especially if you’re starting from scratch, but the results are growth in brand awareness, brand loyalty and trust, direct product/service feedback, and more!

13 – Gamification Strategies (Competitions, Rewards) 

Gamification is the process of adding gaming elements to non gaming environments, such as your online community. Gamification can be any form of loyalty program that creates competition to receive the most incentives. 

The best example of this: Starbucks’ Summer Drink game. This summer exclusive game allows customers to connect their Starbucks account to a board game. Players earn moves with every Starbucks purchase made over a certain period of time, which allows them to move across the board to reveal prizes.

Strategies like the Starbucks Summer Game create engagement in the community and provide instant gratification for consumers, while simultaneously generating more sales for the company. 

14 – Build Your Email List Pre-Launch 

An email list of engaged users who are excited about your brand or product release is a great asset to your business. The question is, how can you generate an email list of users interested in your brand before launch date?

One technique to generate an email list before you launch is by using the calls to action in your guest blog posts to direct readers to your email signup page. This page should be designed to attract visitors to convert and add themselves into your mailing list. 

Another great means of adding people to your email list is to offer them something in exchange. Find something of value to your target audience, and offer it to them in exchange for joining your email list. 

15 – Repurpose Content

Repurposing content is a great way to be consistent online when you’ve hit a creative slump. You do have to remember that not all content can be repurposed. Anything topical, that’s tied into a specific time, trend, or event shouldn’t be repurposed. It’s better to repurpose things like general concepts, facts, or marketing tactics that are still up to date. 

Recyclable content goes beyond pictures, infographics and videos. It also includes blog posts or other articles that you may have written in the past. Just tweak them a little to bring them up to date.

16 – Content Promotion Strategy 

Creating content is one step, but the real priority is getting it seen. Start by promoting it on all appropriate platforms. Not all posts are built the same, so if you’re looking to share a post across all social platforms, make sure it is edited to work for all platforms. (Ex: adjusting image size, rewording language, adjusting calls to action) 

If you’re a newer brand, share your blog posts and content in your newsletter. Not only are you getting your content seen, but you could be reaching new potential followers.

17 – Website Pop-Ups

Pop-ups are an effective strategy markets use to garner conversion rates higher than 40%. Depending on how much content you have on the page, passive viewers may not scroll down to where you can convert them. A pop-up puts important information like  announcements or your email list sign up right in front of their eyes. 

But aren’t pop-ups annoying? Not when they’ve been strategically set at the 30% mark of the page! This allows engaged readers to scroll through the site as normal, only giving them the pop-up at the point where they expect to be hooked. This way they’re more likely to convert to the CTA you just put in front of them.  

About Us 

Web321’s Web Design Subscription Plan makes it possible for small businesses to get a professionally designed, lovingly maintained website for just $321 a month. This done-for-you service includes absolutely everything a small business needs to have a compelling, safe and secure website and online presence.

For more information, check out our website https://web321.co or @web321co on all social media channels. 

The post 17 Ways To Win at Growth Hacking  appeared first on Therapist Web Design.

With every change to the algorithm, if not detected immediately, can lead to severe impacts on your website performance and discovery. In some instances, small businesses have had their websites penalized and others have recovered from past penalizations.  

How your business can be affected by updates of the Google algorithm:  

•       Website traffic (these changes can be drastic!) 
•       Search visibility and Google page rankings, or lack thereof 
•       A reach to new consumers – this sounds great in theory, but the effects of this are new user behaviour towards your products and services

How to stay strong despite Google Algorithm changes:

Content Makeover  

The first question to ask yourself is: do I have enough content on my website? The Google Algorithm had affected websites that had minimal content in relation to their number of links. 

Creating new, fresh, and informative content regularly on your website will increase the amount of organic traffic that is directed your way. The longer and more credible your information is, the more exposure it will have. By the way, taking inspiration from other websites is okay to do! Cite your sources or give examples with links to your external sources and watch Google do its magic! 

Tip: When creating content for your website, answer the questions up front and give your viewers the answers at the first opportunity in an article. The further down your information is– the more buried it is– the more likely it is to get lost in the search results. 

Lean on Metadata

Metadata is information about information. When you look at a file, the contents are accompanied by things like the filename, when the file was created, when it was modified, its file size. Photos get accompanied by “EXIF” data that covered dimensions, device, composition details, sometimes even the lat/long of where the photo was taken. 

HTML has metadata too. All of a web page is made up of HTML tags. They look like this: 

<a href=”https://web321 title=”Best on the Web”>Web321</a>

There are critical pieces: the tag itself (a hyperlink, a bold tag, etc.) and the content wrapping the text in use. There is other data in the HTML that can get read in by search engines. Search engines use metadata to give something context. 

The title element can be added to HTML to give it more context. Beyond catering to search engines, the title tag is read in by non-visual web browsers used by the visually impaired. It can be handy for describing your element in a way that suits a search engine that may be too long-winded or awkward were it to appear visibly on the page. 

The alt element can be added to images. 

<img src=”/images/picture100.jpg” alt=”A yellow rose as photographed by Jane Smith in August of 2019”/>

It can describe the image both to non-visual screen readers and search engines. Search engines are getting really good at interpreting images for their content, but it’s still hard work and it can be wrong. Adding the alt tags spoon-feeds the information to the search engines.  More on images: https://moz.com/learn/seo/alt-text 

 Nofollow Links 

Using nofollow links is beneficial to implement because they boost your domain authority and ultimately drive traffic to your website. If you look at the HTML source code for a hyperlink, it looks like this:

<a href=”https://counsellorwebdesign.ca/”>

When Google indexes a website, it follows the links that are present. If they lead away to another website, Google will merrily turn its attention to that other website. There is a way to say to Google, “Hey! Don’t look over there!”

<a href=”https://yahoo.com/ rel=”nofollow”>

The rel=”nofollow” is read by Google and Google will not index the content on the other site. This can also be used internally if there is a compelling reason to show users content that you want Google to discount. 

There’s another factor to nofollow: if you share links on other sites through a backlinking exercise, the sites that do not use nofollow are more valuable than those that allow Google to follow links. This is best seen in social media. Social media is a frenzy of activity and link sharing. Why doesn’t that create love from Google? Almost all of the links in social media (Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, etc.) get the rel=”nofollow” added. Google reads the phrase used in the hyperlink but doesn’t give authority to the linked site. The social media site becomes the magnet for those searches moreso than the details page on the linked site. Google appears to be factoring that into the search algorithm and you will seldom find social media links in Google search results. 

Hint: Sharing your new blog post through social media is a nofollow as well.

Responsive Websites 

Have a responsive website without loading pages. The Google algorithm doesn’t favour websites with loading pages and more often than not, will not show your webpage. Beyond the algorithm not favouring your website, the responsiveness of your website will directly correlate how much traffic will come to, or stay on your website. 

Beyond favouring responsive websites, the algorithm has been updated for mobile websites as well as desktop websites. As more than 50% of website traffic is done with a mobile device, the importance of a responsive mobile website has increased. 

The Google algorithm for mobile websites accounts for relevance and timeliness more than actual content! Though this sounds like it may be counterproductive the purpose is to keep the user experience high. 

Google Search Console Insights 

The Google Search Console allows you to keep in check with the new content that you’re putting on to your website. Keep track of your content performance through metrics depicting the views, how long people stayed on the page to interact with the content and who is sharing the content to their social media platforms. 

Whether you love or hate Google and its tracking of your website, it does it anyway. Google Search Console lets you peek at some of the metrics they uncover. 

 Having access to the Google Search Console allows you to track regularity patterns of your page views and content interactivity. By viewing these metrics, it makes it more noticeable when changes happen and helps to pinpoint the cause for these changes. 

Google Analytics

While Google Search Console gives your site a health check-up on its search opportunities, Google Analytics gives you hard data on who comes to the site. Why, when and where: important questions to understand online success. 

Why: Understanding why a user comes on to your website reveals the basic questions of what is the user’s need and what is their intention? Looking at this information will allow you to see what products are being looked at, how long they’re looked at, if there was an abandoned cart or follow through to purchase. This information is key for acknowledging where website issues are and if changes to the page need to be made. 

Other information that comes from Google Analytics is the comparison of “clicks” versus “impressions”. Clicks are the number of visits from a Google search while impressions are the viewership of links from a Google search with no clickthrough. If your impressions are higher than your clicks, the question then shifts from why to why not? 

When: Looking at when people are viewing your website may reveal just as much information as to why people are on your website. Your products may have more of a draw during holidays; when there are promotions being advertised; or when world events are happening. 

Or, more simply, your website may have more traffic during the workday between Monday and Friday than on the weekends. This year has changed user habits but it hasn’t turned them on their heads. Google Analytics and Google Search Console will reveal pattern changes and how a business may need to adapt in response.

For example, if you sell coffee creamers, pumpkin spice flavoured creamer will be viewed more during the months of September-October than it may in December!

Where: Exploring where your views are coming from can be impacted by Local SEO. Local SEO is a strategy that directly benefits your business by being more visible in search results and creating more online leads. With this in mind, if you are experiencing viewership from other regions of the city, this information allows you to acknowledge new markets to tap in to! 

In short, Google harnesses results based on location, so results that you may experience at work can be very different from the results you get at home! 

How Web321 Can Help 

1. A Managed Web Presence 

 We understand that you have a business to run and keeping track of Google analytics is another task that would be added to your list. Or, maybe you are new to tracking Google analytics and aren’t sure what insights are out of the ordinary. That’s where we come in! Web321 manages your website’s analytics and creates monthly reports for you to assure everything is on track.

In addition to tracking your analytics and search results our managed web presence provides your website with optimal response times and unlimited content updates. 

2. Booster Packs – Content Creation 

Web 321 offers various Booster Packs to our clients with the aim of boosting the performance of your website. A notable Booster Pack that we offer is our content creation package. This package is designed to refresh your online presence with specially curated infographics, relevant photos optimized for your website, blogs and articles that boost your online authority. 

Web 321 is your go-to hub of website management tools to help improve your business with a monthly subscription model. Our signature plan is $321/month with add-on booster packs available to maximize your web presence. 

To see if this service is right for you, visit our website at https://web321.co to book a free demo or email us at contact@web321.co for more information. 

The post Keeping Up With Google Algorithms appeared first on Therapist Web Design.

When it comes to web design, there are many designers and packages available. Various players in the web industry have tried to differentiate themselves with new features and buzzwords – but how many of these “premium features” are actually standard? In many cases, your provider may be artificially throttling a feature they get for free, or in unlimited supply, just to turn around and sell it to you as something special.

When looking for your next website design, make sure that you are not paying a premium for the following features: 

1. WordPress Website

WordPress websites are fast, powerful, and secure – but they are built using open-source software which, on its own, is free. Web developers may use WordPress as a foundation to build great websites, but they aren’t paying anything for the tool they’re using. Granted, it does take a small amount of effort for a developer to install WordPress and connect it to a database, but that’s true of any website content management system. WordPress should be marketed as a feature – because it’s definitely one of the better platforms out there – but if a package charges you a premium for WordPress, look out!

2. Mobile-Ready

In a time where almost everything is digitally driven, 45-55% of website audiences are viewing sites using mobile devices. In fact, having a mobile-ready (“responsive”) website is more important than ever! 57% of users visiting a non-responsive website on their mobile device won’t recommend that business.   A good web designer should make every site they build responsive by default, without a premium charge. If your designer is trying to tack on extra fees for this “feature”, look elsewhere!

3. 99% Uptime 

Website uptime is the time that a website or web service is available to the users (“up”) over a given period. Optimal website uptime is 99.9%, which guarantees your website is up and running with only 43 minutes of downtime out of the 720 hours in a month. 

If your website has an uptime of 99%, out of the 720 hours in a month, your website will have a downtime of 7.2 hours per month. That difference is huge!

A 99% uptime guarantee is nothing special and falls far short of the minimum 99.9% uptime you should be looking for. If you’re being charged a premium for 99% uptime, in our opinion, you’re getting fleeced.

4. Unlimited Email Addresses 

Hearing “unlimited” always sounds like a win and mentally justifies a premium price. However, you may not know that most hosting comes with unlimited email addresses for your domain – all your web designer has to do is activate them for you. What’s actually limited is the drive space available on the server – and most providers will cap the size of each email account to prevent hitting the drive space limit. Essentially, if your web designer is charging you extra for more email addresses, they are charging you a premium for something they get for free.

To put this in perspective, imagine a pizza parlour offering you a pizza that has 20 slices. This sounds like a great deal, however, is the pizza really any bigger than if they cut the same pizza into 10 slices? Be careful you aren’t paying more money for the same thing just because there’s a more impressive number attached.

5. Unlimited Blogging 

Here’s another example of how packages use the word “unlimited” to create the illusion of a juicy deal. The space available on your server, or server farm will reach a cap at some point. However, this cap is usually very large and isn’t a problem for most businesses (unless you’re an extremely large firm such as Facebook).  

When it comes to blogging, you shouldn’t have a limit to how much you can publish. Blogging as a tool on your platform helps create viewership on your website and demonstrates your thought leadership. It gives you the opportunity to drive search traffic, generates leads, and acts as content for email newsletters. 

If you’re given a limit of how many blogs you can post on your website, your provider is artificially throttling your growth simply so they can ask you for more money. The only limit on how much you blog isn’t server space – it’s subject matter and time. (We can actually help with that, too.)

6. Unlimited Form Submissions

Forms on your website allow your future clients to contact you about purchasing your services, request quotes, or inquire about your company. Form submissions are the key to successful conversion on your website. 

Some providers are stingy with their bandwidth, and will actually throttle the number of form submissions you’re allowed – even though their capacity to handle form submissions is huge! This means that at some point, you’ll reach a limit of form submissions for a given time frame. If you want more, you’ll have to shell out extra money for this “feature”. Not cool.

7. Content Editors 

As your business grows, you’ll probably look towards hiring talent to contribute or edit the content on your website. A hidden element of some packages is artificial “limits” to how many content editors you are allowed on your website. On WordPress websites, for example, there are no practical limits to how many editors you can add to the site – unless your web developer imposes one.

When it comes to your website, you may want to limit the number of content contributors for administrative or tracking purposes, but your web provider should never impose a technical limit on this number. If they do, they’re likely looking to make an extra buck off you.

Web321 is Different

At Web321, we know you don’t have money to waste. You shouldn’t need to bribe your web design, web management or hosting company for features that should come standard. Our pricing structure is simple – $321 for everything you need, no artificial limits imposed. That means if we don’t pay for it, neither do you.

So if you want an all-in-one web design, hosting, and management experience that includes standard in every build:

• WordPress website platform
• mobile responsiveness for every screen size
• free premium plugins
• 99.9% uptime guarantee
• unlimited email addresses
• unlimited blogging
• unlimited form submissions
• unlimited content editors
• unlimited done-for-you content updates
• and a lot more…

…visit our website at https://web321.co or email us at contact@web321.co for info.

The post It’s 2022: These Are Seven “Features” That Shouldn’t Cost Extra appeared first on Therapist Web Design.