SEO Hosting Blog

When visitors arrive at your website, they have questions. They didn’t land on your website by accident. There’s a reason they’re on your website, and it’s your job to anticipate the questions your visitors have and to address them so you can keep visitors from bouncing.

While there are lots of different questions visitors may have depending upon the type of website you have and the specific situation the visitor is in, these are the 4 questions most business websites need to focus on answering.

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Still trying to figure out if Instagram could be useful for your business? Consider these statistics:

• More than 80 million people use Instagram
• Over 4 billion photos have been uploaded
• 5 million+ photos are uploaded each day
• 575 likes per second
• 81 comments per second

Needless to say, this unique photo sharing social media platform has built quite the following, and savvy marketers understand that Instagram represents yet another way to connect with customers and build meaningful relationships with them.

But how exactly can a company use Instagram? Here are just a few ways you can get started using Instagram to market your business.

• Show your products in action—Rather than just taking bland, boring photos of your products that look like a blatant advertisement, get photos of your products in action. Let’s say you run a burger restaurant. You could upload photos of families in your restaurant enjoying some burgers. Or maybe take a picture of the burger being made on the grill. In other words, you want to take pictures that tell a story.
• Take followers behind the scenes—Give your followers a glimpse behind the curtain at your company. Maybe you’re in the middle of filming a commercial for your company; take a picture on the set of the shoot. Or maybe you’re getting a new line of products packaged up and ready to be sent to the stores; shoot a photo of it.
• Show people what you can do—This is especially effective for service-based businesses. Let’s say you’re a landscaper. You could shoot before and after photos of your jobs to show how incredible your work is. This side-by-side comparison tells a story, wows your followers, and can actually help you make sales.
• Highlight your employees—Give your team some love and add a face/personality to your company by getting some photos of your employees in action. You want to take photos that capture what it’s like to work at your company. This allows you to show off your unique company culture and brand personality.

Of course, these are just a few of the different ways you can use Instagram for your business. The possibilities are truly endless. Be creative, have fun, and never stop looking for new ways to engage your customers.

A Few Final Tips for Success

No matter what kind of photos you decide to take with Instagram, there are a few things you should always keep in mind when using Instagram to market your business:

• Don’t treat Instagram like a traditional advertising medium. Blatant ads don’t work. Tell stories.
• Pay attention to the types of photos your fan base uploads and likes.
• Don’t update too often. A few times each day is more than enough.
• Use hashtags to help your photos get discovered.
• Share your photos out to Facebook and Twitter.

Do you use Instagram for your business? Tell us about it by commenting below.

As a marketer or business owner, there are many different reasons you should be building relationships with bloggers. Maybe guest blogging is part of your link building and brand building strategy; if you want to get lots of guest blogging opportunities, you should focus on building quality relationships with bloggers. Or maybe you want to get your products reviewed so more people can learn about them; again, connect with bloggers so you can get them to review your products.

The point is that before you ask a blogger to do something for you (e.g. review your product, let you submit a guest post, help you promote an event, etc.) you should ideally already have some sort of relationship in place with them. If a blogger feels like they know you, they’ll be likelier to help you out.

With that in mind, here are a few easy ways you can start building relationships with bloggers.

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Whenever the conversation focuses on guest blogging, we typically discuss its benefits and how you can get the most guest blogging opportunities. But one important thing that needs to be discussed is what to do after your guest post is accepted and published. I’ll tell you what you don’t do—You don’t act like a drive-by guest blogger.

What’s a drive-by guest blogger? It’s someone who disappears once their guest post is published. Typically, drive-by guest bloggers are consumed with getting as many guest blogging opportunities as they can so they can get more backlinks and more recognition. So, they don’t put much time into managing relationships with bloggers, and they don’t really have great guest blogger etiquette.

So, how can you make sure you’re not acting like a drive-by guest blogger?

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While this blog primarily focuses on SEO and internet marketing, I think it’s important to point out that public relations should be a part of every company’s overall promotional strategy. Getting your company out there in the news is a great way to increase visibility, boost your credibility, establish yourself as the leader in a niche, drive traffic, increase sales, and so much more.

A big part of public relations involves dealing with the media—reporters, editors, bloggers, etc. How well you manage these relationships will play a big role in determining how much media coverage you’re able to get.

Of course, there are many mistakes you need to avoid when dealing with the media. Here are some of the top ones:

1. Pitching the wrong person—Make sure you know who you’re pitching. Take a few moments to read their past work, and make sure they actually cover your industry. Pitching the wrong person makes you look like an amateur who hasn’t done his homework.
2. Spamming them—There’s nothing reporters hate more than when they receive nonstop press releases and pitches from the same person on a frequent basis. Spray and pray PR is spammy and unprofessional. Personalize your pitches, and only pitch when you have something of value to offer.
3. Missing deadlines—Reporters are on tight deadlines with their stories. If you promise them that you’re going to get something to them or be available to them on a certain date, you’d better live up to that promise. If you don’t, you might as well kiss that relationship goodbye because it’s one strike and you’re out.
4. Disappearing—Relationships require regular communication and management. You can’t drop off the face of the earth, show up when you need media coverage, and expect to see positive results. You have to stay visible to reporters. Even when you don’t have something to pitch, interact with them. Compliment them on a story they wrote, or hook them up with good sources other than yourself.
5. Not saying thank you—Look, I’m not saying you have to kiss a reporter’s read end every time they use you as a source or give your company a mention in a story. However, being appreciative goes a long way in any type of relationship. So, whenever you get media coverage or a media member does something else for you, just take a moment to say thank you. You’ll be glad you did.

Have you ever made these media relations mistakes? Discuss your experiences by commenting below.