End of Life (EOL) Meaning

If you are currently on Drupal 7, you may ask what this means for you. Firstly, the End of Life of this version of the Drupal CMS means that if you are still using D7 after November 1, 2023, you will not be getting community-based and security updates. The Drupal community officially stops supporting D7 after the said date. Therefore, you are bound to be faced with threats that frustrate your efforts to meet the needs of your customers if you’re still using D7 by then.

The EOL of D7 doesn’t mean that it will cease to exist altogether. As explained, it means that it will stop getting official support from the Drupal community and the focus will be shifted to the newer version made. This is bound to affect the maintenance of your website.

Is upgrading to Drupal 9 a difficult task?

Because Drupal 9 is a huge upgrade, the migration process is rather difficult. It necessitates a lengthy process, much research, and specialized knowledge.
Nevertheless, D9 has a ton of features integrated into its core that make it appealing.

To make the upgrading process easier, you can migrate to Drupal 8 first, then to Drupal 9. However, Drupal 8 reached the end of its life cycle in 2021. Because of the large number of sites currently using Drupal 7, the Drupal community agreed to extend the deadline for Drupal 7. That being said, migrating to Drupal 8 before 9 is not necessary. Drupal 9 is mainly a continuation of D8 features and it still maintains backward compatibility.

As mentioned above, this is a major upgrade. Drupal’s underlying technology and architecture were significantly upgraded to produce a more powerful and future-proof platform.

This opens up tremendous opportunities for both businesses and their end-users, but it does not necessitate a major investment of time and resources. New technologies and processes must be learned, modules and themes must be rebuilt, the material must be audited, and objectives must be redefined.

The good thing is, this will only happen once. Drupal’s approach to the version releases was redesigned in tandem with its architecture. Upgrading to a new major version in the future will be more like keeping up with minor updates, and it will not necessitate a substantial change.

Benefit/features of Drupal 9 when compared to 7

For developers and editors, Drupal 9 is extremely similar to Drupal 8.9 except for deprecated code. Drupal 9 includes several features that will be updated twice a year to allow businesses to keep up with the market.

• Drupal 9 provides Backward compatibility, which means it can work with CMS versions 8 and higher. It will be able to access data, configurations, and modules generated on the same website as Drupal 8, preserving the performance of the system. Drupal 10 will also be completely compatible with Drupal 9 and so on, in a similar way.

• With Drupal 9, you won’t have to deal with a million configurations because media handling is included in the core. Furthermore, the media library allows you to manage and reuse media like a pro.

• Faster and better performance is guaranteed with Drupal 9. Dries Buyteart, the Drupal founder, recently stated that upgrades from Drupal 9.1 forward will allow for faster and improved website performance. D9 also offers superior scalability and speed, as well as faster page loading, thanks to in-built Bigpipe support.

• Drupal 9 has also done a step further in its support for presenting responsive pictures that are tailored for different user devices. Responsive photos transmit less data than fluid full-size images because they load the smallest device-size image first and then gradually improve the quality. As a result, your Drupal 9 sites’ pages will be better load optimized.

• Drupal 9 features a well-structured codebase. In Drupal 8, the use of deprecated codes has been discontinued. Hence, Drupal 9 will ensure that the drupal environment no longer supports the deprecated code. The purpose is to make D8 modules compatible with D9 by making it a simpler and cleaner version.

Switching to another CMS

It is expected that upgrading from Drupal 7 to 9 will be a major project. Switching platforms totally, on the other hand, might be more costly and disruptive, but can be the best approach and a painless process if handled by a professional website design agency in Nigeria.

If you leave Drupal, you will have to rebuild your website’s architecture, capabilities, and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) features, as well as its integration. Implementing new technology and product ecosystems come at a price. This begs the question, are you willing to pay the price? Would you rather bear the cost of switching platforms completely or accept the challenge of upgrading to Drupal 9?

More importantly, by switching to a CMS platform like WordPress, you will also benefit from similar advantages that Drupal has to offer, which are flexibility and security, accessibility and content editor experience improvements, and data portability.

Unfortunately, agro business owners have not taken full advantage of the opportunities provided by digital marketing. In order to succeed in the agro-industry, you need customers, and in order to get customers, you need to reach out to those who are interested in your products and services. This is where digital marketing comes in. Digital marketing will help you reach out to the right audience wherever they are in Nigeria and abroad, and help convert these people into customers.

In the next paragraphs, we’ll discuss proven ways to improve agricultural businesses through digital marketing strategies in Nigeria.

1. ECOMMERCE WEBSITE

You can boost sales in your agro business by displaying your products online for prospective customers to see. The days of going to a physical market is gradually phasing out and so many people have started taking advantage of ecommerce – selling of products and services online. This can be very lucrative for agricultural businesses as there are presently very few agro businesses with ecommerce websites in Nigeria. Anyone who wants a long term business would start tapping into this opportunity, and become an industry leader.

The benefits of an e-commerce platform to agricultural businesses include reaching a wider audience, new customers, new lead, and higher profitability in the long run. The good thing about having an ecommerce website is that everyone with access to the internet in Nigeria, and the rest of the world can buy from you without moving an inch from where they are.

Having identified the huge benefits of having an ecommerce website to showcase your agro products and services, setting up an ecommerce website can be very tricky and overwhelming, hence the need for a professional ecommerce website developer who can turn your ideas into a multi-million Naira business.

2. SOCIAL MEDIA

Thanks to the invention of social media, millions of people can now be easily reached at the same time and in the same place. This is one means through which agro-business owners can further enlighten the society about what agriculture is all about and give the society a glimpse of the passion and pride every farmer has about their livelihood. Such messages will have a positive impact in the society and encourage more individuals to get involved in it, which will help grow the agricultural sector.

The social media can also be used to market your agricultural produce and provides the platform to interact with both existing and prospective customers.

Any good social marketing agency in Nigeria can help you to set-up and manage a professional social media presence, whilst maximizing it potential.

3. PAID ADVERTISING (PAY PER CLICK – PPC)

The competition to be visible in major search engines is tense. Once you take your business online, the next line of action should be how to make people find you, and buy from you. While there are several other digital marketing strategies to help promote your business online, paid advertising is the only option that gives immediate results which can also be measured against your goal. Another benefit of paid advertising is that it brings you highly targeted audience, thereby increasing your chances of converting to a sale.

Once you have set-up an ecommerce store for your agricultural produce, investing in the paid advertising through social media, search engines, or third party websites will help get visitors to your store faster than you can imagine. Google AdWords, Bin Ads, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn are only few of platforms where you can benefit from paid advertising. There are qualified and certified paid advertising experts who can help run your PPC campaigns to ensure you achieve a high return on investment. With this strategy, you can be on a level playing ground with the big shots and even win over their customers if it is done properly.

4. CORPORATE PHOTOGRAPHY

Pictures speak a thousand words! Humans are naturally attracted to things that are pleasant to the eyes. Deciding to introduce ecommerce into your agricultural business is just the first step to grow your business. After driving traffic to your ecommerce website using any of the aforementioned digital marketing strategies, it is now left for you to capture the hearts of your audience in order to convert them to customers. This is where corporate photography comes in.

Hire a professional corporate photographer to take eye catching photos of your products. Even if your website visitors weren’t planning on making a purchase, they’ll be pushed to do so because of how attractive the products look. This will sure lead to a boost in your business and give you high return on investment.

Now that you have the tools to take your agro-business online, it is very important that you choose the best strategies that would work for your area of agro-business. If you are still unsure of where to start from, or need further assistance in getting off the ground with a tailored digital marketing strategy, please contact us for a free advice. Ignoring these strategies will mean losing out on the numerous benefits which it has to offer. Don’t take the back seat, act now!

Having a professionally designed logo plays a vital role in digitally marketing small businesses. It helps attract new customers because when people see a cool and eye-catching logo, it leaves a lasting impression in their minds, and most times, people would always remember seeing a cool logo of a brand that offers the services they need. So you will probably be the first they will contact when that need arises. That is how much a professional logo design can help market your brand or business.

When carrying out brand auditing for your business and you notice a decrease in engagement or interaction, a sure way to turn things around is to give your company a new look and makeover by getting a professional logo design. This new look will arouse the curiosity of potential customers thereby creating awareness and putting your business back in front of their faces. This way, you can also win back your lost clients.

Another reason why you need a professional logo design is to build the trust with potential customers. If they see a logo that is amateur or naively designed, they will doubt the competence of your business and would likely not entrust their needs in your hands. Such consumers will subconsciously question how well your company will be able to professionally deliver its products or services. This doubt is immediately overturned when you hire a professional company to design your logo. A professionally designed logo will put a potential customer’s mind at ease and push them to make a buying decision quickly.

In summary, your logo is the major identity of your business. It is how your business is recognized, and it also reflects its core values and principles. It is undoubtedly the most effective marketing tool – so take your time to invest greatly in developing a professional logo design and in no time, your business will reap the rewards.

Your boss is accustomed to traditional marketing and is not familiar with digital marketing strategies, despite the fact that your company has a website and a few social media pages. How would you convince your boss to adopt and invest in a new marketing concept that looks abstract and non-traditional?

Of course, your boss uses Google search engine and other social media networks, and has seen countless online promotions, but might not have thought of them as prolific digital marketing channels. So the big task is to explain digital marketing to your boss using common knowledge and prove to him/her how your company would benefit from it.

This post is meant to help you with the big task, as it will show you how to convince your boss to invest in digital marketing, by giving you points needed in presenting your case and the things you need to do to make it a successful outcome.

How to Convince Your Boss to Invest in Digital Marketing in 2019

1. Money Spent on Traditional Marketing Versus the Value Earned

You would start the conversation by comparing the money spent on traditional marketing in previous years with the projected sales that will follow. It is likely that the marketing budget spent outweighed the sales accrued, as traditional marketing is very costly.

Therefore, you can now introduce digital marketing as a better alternative that is cheaper, result-driven, and gives room for measuring return on investment in real time. You can also decide to put more budget on digital marketing channels that yield more returns and either fine-tune or decrease budget on channels that yield the least results. This is more like doing more of what works and less of what doesn’t work – it’s that simple!

Read Also: How to Generate New Business Leads with Social Media

2. Granular Audience Targeting

To make the first point more convincing, it also worth mentioning that digital marketing involves using audience targeting, in which the demography, interest, age, gender, income and location of customers can be targeted. Google Ads, Facebook Ads and other social networks allow you to target people that might be interested in a particular product or service at a particular time rather than targeting everyone every time.

Restate the fact that, since audience targeting facilitates showcasing marketing messages to the right audience, there is a higher chance of conversion. This makes digital marketing better than the traditional marketing that speaks to every Tom, Dick and Harry – both the right and wrong audience at the right and wrong time.

3. Competitors are Dominating Search Engine Result Pages

Truth be told, your competitors are already investing time and money to dominate the digital space, it will be at your company’s detriment if they don’t explore the opportunity. To further strengthen your statement, show your boss how the websites of your competitors are dominating search engines for your targeted keywords, and how the competitors are receiving better engagements with customers on social media. At least seeing is believing!

If your company’s website is poorly ranked on Google for your targeted keywords, as it’s most likely the case, then you can further buttress your point with readily available statistics online. Chitika Insights, a credible online advertising network analysed the value of result positioning for websites on Google’s results page, and discovered through a survey that for a particular keyword, the website ranking 1^st gets 32.5% of the traffic, while the 2^nd gets 17.6%, 3^rd gets 11.4%, 4^th gets 8.1%, 5^th gets 6.1%, and the 6^th – 15^th shares the rest.

You should use this statistic to explain to your boss that if your competitors’ websites dominate the position 1 – 10 on Google, they get all the organic traffic, leaving nothing for your company.

Read Also: Top SEO Tips that actually Ranks your Business Higher in Nigeria

4. Analytics Tools can Measure Marketing Efforts in Real Time

Imagine running a marketing campaign online, and you are able to see how the campaigns are performing in real time. Available analytics tools allow you to see how your targeted audience engage and respond to your marketing campaigns – this lets you know what works and what doesn’t in a timely fashion.

Unlike the traditional marketing platforms that blast out messages and no one knows how many people see or get the messages, digital marketing platforms have numerous mechanisms for tracking engagement and conversion. For example, for a post published on social media, you can see engagement trackers like impression, reach, likes, retweets, clicks, sessions, follows, page views and many more.

5. Back Up your Findings with a Market/Client Survey

A well researched and reported market survey will go a long way in serving as a proof of concept. Issue an online or offline consumer-behaviour questionnaire to your company’s current clients. In the questionnaire, you can ask questions such as:

• How did you get to know about our company?
• Do you perform online research before buying a product or subscribing to a service?
• How often do you shop online?
• How often do you listen to the radio and watch television?
• How much time do you spend on the internet, social media, and mobile phone daily?

In Conclusion

Without any doubt, you would find out that most of your clients do basic web browsing, and a few of them would undergo online research on products and services. With the result of the market survey, you can then present a convincing proposal to your boss to highlight your findings alongside the benefits of digital marketing, as mentioned earlier.

Furthermore, the differences in the results obtained from the questionnaire on how often your potential clients listen to the radio and watch television, and how much time they spend on internet, social media and mobile phone, can be used to emphasize how costly, wasteful and ineffective traditional marketing is. This is down to the fact that your potential clients spend more time on the internet and social media, and less time watching TV and listening to the radio.

Finally, there is more to gain than to lose when digital marketing is executed correctly. The end result is very rewarding and your boss will constantly praise you for introducing a marketing solution that is measurable and actually works.

Every business, regardless of whether it is an online or offline business, can benefit largely from digital marketing. This is even more beneficial to offline businesses as they will always be ahead of their competitors who have no idea of digital marketing, or who are yet to leverage on digital marketing. Most restaurant and bar owners are comfortable with doing everything traditionally and might not buy the idea of digital marketing. If you are a restaurant & bar owner and you fall into this category, please take a few minutes to read this article and see how digital marketing can be beneficial to your business.

In more developed countries like the United Kingdom where TopYouGo Digital Marketing Agency also has a presence, many restaurants and bars get more customers through companies like Uber Eat, Hungry House, Just Eat and many more. These intermediary companies have invested heavily in digital marketing, which makes it easy for your customers to find you and your competitors through their marketplace. As an intermediary company, they will charge you fees and commissions for listing your restaurant and bar on their platform and for getting you sales. So, the question is why can’t you also put in some effort to get the sales yourself without paying extortionate fees and commissions that is eating deep into your profit margin?

Restaurants and bars are scattered across Nigeria. So you have to do something to make yours stand out from the crowd especially if you are the “new kid on the block”. You can take advantage of the numerous opportunities the digital world has to offer by being open to new ideas and doing your marketing differently; doing more of what works.

In this article, we will introduce you to some digital marketing strategies that are beneficial to restaurants and bars in Nigeria, and why you need them.

How Restaurants and Bars in Nigeria Can Benefit From Digital Marketing Strategies

1. Branding

I know you won’t expect this, but the truth is if your brand is cheap and confusing, you either lose your potential clients or attract the wrong audience. This digital marketing strategy will help your restaurant and bar stand out from the rest. Create a unique identity for your restaurant that will leave a lasting impression on the minds of your prospective customers. Your branding will be evident on your signboards, doors, windows, signage, menu, apron, t-shirts, business cards, websites, letterheads, invoices, social media and more.

Branding helps you to maintain the identity of your restaurant and bar, and shows professionalism on your part. This will not only maintain your brand’s credibility but also attract more customers. Most digital marketing agencies in Nigeria offer branding as a service. You can contact any competent creative designer in Nigeria to carry out your branding project effectively. If you have already gone past this hurdle of branding, you can also perform a brand auditing to ensure brand consistency and effectiveness.

2. Website Design

If you are running a restaurant in this modern day without a website, then you are not ready to take your restaurant and customer experience to the next level. Honestly, you will always be outclassed by your competitors who already have a web presence – website.

We are in the era where people research and read reviews about restaurants and bars online before setting out to patronise them. The absence of a website means you have lost out completely on the majority of prospective customers continually searching for restaurants and bars online. Your website should contain much information about your culture, menus, special offers, reviews, testimonials and tips on healthy living. You can also have a booking form and online payment functionality, where your customers can check for table availability, choose and pay for their food and drinks even before turning up at your restaurant or bar. That helps your business to handle less cash and makes your more prepared before your customers arrive. This will improve the overall customer experience and feedback.

Nothing good comes easy, so you should also be wary of amateur web developers as they will cause more harm than good. Always look for a reliable and professional website developer with experience in your industry and niche to help achieve even better results.

3. Social Media

The social media is one of the best things that have happened to this generation. It has made running a business easier and more fun. When most people go out to restaurants & bars, they take photos, upload them on social media instantly and say nice things about the place or the food. Having social media pages mean your customers can tag your business when uploading images taking in your restaurant, follow your pages and even leave reviews on platforms like Facebook. This is a FREE advertisement and will result in more popularity for your restaurants and bars.

The social media has also offered a platform for restaurants & bars to post lovely photos of their mouth-watering menu and friendly environment that will leave people with no other option than to check you out. You can also attract customers by frequently posting about promotions and offers. Social media is perfect for lead generation and getting customer feedback.

Deciding on what social media to use for restaurants and bars can be quite tricky as there are many options to be considered. So if you ever need help to decide on the best one for you or how to go about your social media branding, optimisation, integration with website, and management, feel free to contact us as we will be happy to help.

4. Local SEO

Millions of prospective customers are on the internet daily searching for restaurants and bars in different locations. Having local SEO done for your restaurant means internet users will be able to find and contact you with ease at your local area. People are no longer interested in burning fuel and wasting precious time driving around town trying to locate restaurants and bars when they can easily get all the required information by searching on the internet using their phones and laptops.

Local SEO is a ‘must do’ for restaurants and bars that are serious about gaining more customers online. The idea is to make sure your business comes top when potential customers are looking for restaurants and bars in your location. Imagine a restaurant on Isaac John Street in Ikeja, and someone is searching online for “restaurants in Ikeja”, “restaurants on Isaac John” or “restaurant near Maryland”, if the restaurant owner has strengthened his or her local SEO, his or her restaurant should be listed amongst the option, if not at the top of the list.

Local SEO can only be done efficiently by certified SEO experts, so don’t settle for less. Local SEO will also take into consideration directory listings, NAP consistency and many more strategies that can help achieve the best results.

5. Email Marketing

Email marketing helps you to know your existing and potential customers better. As people patronise your restaurant or contact you online via your social media pages or website, it is a good step to keep their contact details (name, telephone number and email address) as this can be used for sending marketing email newsletter, requesting for feedback and sending offers and discounts later down the funnel.

To get the best from email marketing services, you need to employ an avid and experienced email marketer who can engage in positive communication with your customers at the right time. They will take care of email segmentation, email design, mobile responsiveness, email copy, email sending, email tracking and more.

Emails have its way of connecting with people more intimately, hence, the reason why it is a good digital marketing strategy for restaurants and bars.

Now that you have the necessary information to get started with adopting digital marketing strategies for your restaurant & bar business, what will you do with it? A smart move will be to act now or contact us on +234 809 063 7632 to help you get started.

The internet is not so big that you cannot channel your efforts to a particular region or town. If your town is on the map, then you can create local buzz online to attract potential customers.

We have put together a few points, so do you have note-taking materials? Let’s go there!

• List on Local Directories

This is the first thing you should consider to optimise your business’s local visibility online. List your business on Yelp, Google My Business and the likes. Their unique features help the local audience find you easily, and the listing processes are quite straightforward.

However, if you find the listing processes tasking, you can contact SEO professionals for help; besides, SEO professionals would help you optimise it better as they are more experienced in listing businesses on local directories.

• Social Media

How well is your social media optimised for your local scene? Can your local audience find you? Ensure that you include all relevant information on your social media accounts to lead people to your local business.

We already assume here that you have active social media accounts on relevant platforms. If you do not already have, you know where to start then.

• Local SEO

Optimising your business for local visibility requires a collection of different strategies and all of these together are termed Local Search Engine Optimisation. Investing in Local SEO will put you ahead of local competitors and create all the buzz you need for your business.

The catch is that you have to do it right, by employing the right SEO consultants, who are experts in local SEO.

• Local Networking Events

Local events are great for promoting word of your business. By participating in such events via your online presence, you can do a lot for your business. For instance, you could provide information on such an invent on your social media and invite opinions and discussion from your followers about the event.

When you attend the events, you should meet influencers and point them at your online platforms.

• Blogging

Have you thought about setting up a blog for your business? Blogging can be an effortless way to establish authority and create local buzz. Posts like “How to Cater Your Events in Ikeja” would help to establish your business in that niche for ‘Ikeja.’

Consistently posting relevant and targeted contents on the blog would help to create that online buzz around your business.

• Guest Posts

Like blogging, guest posts are an excellent way to make a name for your local business online in your locality. It’s only better because it takes your business further than your blog and reaches the audience of the host platform. Ensure that you add backlinks and mention your business and locality a lot.

The tips above are a summary of all the strategies you can employ to make sure that “enough noise” of your business goes around your locality. However, the greater part of the work is in the details.

Moreover, while it is possible for you to handle the details on your own, the process of learning, experimenting and relearning the specifics can greatly distract you from facing your major business. This is why professionals exist.

They have learnt, experimented, relearnt and mastered Local Search Engine Optimization – and Digital Marketing as a whole – and can help you attain that local glory that attracts the local customers your business needs to excel.

If you need further assistance on bespoke digital marketing strategies or require help on implementing the tips provided here, do contact us and one of our experts will be in contact.

In Nigeria, people do not tap into the potentials offered by mobile apps for their ideas, products and services. Maybe they could not find capable app developers to help transform their needs into viable and efficient applications. However, if you have been able to get your app developed and uploaded to PlayStore and Apple Store, we congratulate you once again.

However, before we start with tips to increase your app download in Nigeria, you have to be sure that your app works. Efficient delivery of what your app promises is vital if you want to ensure that these tips we are about to give you translate to increased app download.

Now, let’s look at six things you should do to increase the download rate of your apps, especially in the Nigerian market.

Effective Tips on How to Increase App Downloads in Nigeria

1. Package on App Store

Optimising your application on the mobile app store to boost download is very important if you do not want to keep seeing poor numbers. First, start with the name. Research before picking a name for your app. Consider things like appeal, catchiness, relevance, and whether the name already exists.

Also, write a very detailed description of your app and strategically include relevant keywords. You should not just stuff your description with keywords – this is why we say strategically. Also, do include an enticing image as your app icon. Include crispy and engaging screenshots that show your app in action and depicts what it actually does.

You should also include a professionally made video of your app with instructions and illustrations.

Finally, make sure that you are transparent in your description by including the permissions required and monetisation strategies.

2. Advertise

Getting many downloads is what will put you at the top of search result lists on app stores in the first place. Being at the top of the list will in turn increase downloads for your app. How do you get many people to download your app in the first place? Through advertising!

If your app is well optimised on the app store, the next thing you should consider is advertising the app. We recommend Cost-Per-Install. That is, you pay the advertiser per installation of your app. While this might be expensive and weigh heavily on your budget, you get pushed to the top of the search result list and more people see your app, and then even more downloads.

3. Promos

If your app is one that people have to pay for, try giving massive discounts or making it entirely free for a frame of time to boost download and thereby increase visibility. Also, if you sell a product or service, give out freebies and discounts for those who patronise you through the app. This will draw more attention to the application.

You can also give incentives for people who download the app. For instance, you can give people who use your app access to your premium services, which they would have ordinarily paid for.

4. Get Word Out

Doing an official launch and making much noise while at it will help you get the word out about your app.  Have a press release and send to blogs and various news channels in your niche.

Try to vary the content of your press release on the different platforms you send it, to prevent duplication. Also, share news of your app and features widely on your social media. Creating a buzz around your app on social media is key to spreading the news and improving download rates.

5. Analytics

Measuring user behaviour is also very important if you want to increase your app download. It is better that you understand what and why people are doing with your app so that you will know exactly where to put in efforts. For instance, if analytics show that people delete your app shortly after they download, you know that this will eventually affect download rate and you need to find out what the app is not doing right.

Focusing on the user, by measuring their activities about your app, will help you know what issues to tackle and where to direct your energies. Google’s Universal Analytics is one of such tools that you can use to monitor stats on your app.

6. Reviews

Encourage reviews from users. Positive reviews help to improve download rate. Ask people to review your app both on the app store and on their blogs, forums and social media profiles. Also, encourage backlinks to your app.

Keep people talking about your app in good light on various platforms and see a rapid increase in download rate.

In conclusion, whether your app is new or you have built it for some time now, employing the above tips would increase download of your app within a very short time.

If you need further assistance on bespoke digital marketing strategies or require help on implementing the tips provided here, do contact us and one of our experts will be in contact.

Social Media Optimization (SMO) techniques are not new in digital marketing; however, the name is not as popular as Search Engine Optimisation.

To define it, Social Media Optimization refers to all the tactics (and strategies) used in ensuring social media accounts of a business generate enough buzz that could sell its products and services and also bring traffic to its website.

Here are the five Social Media Optimization techniques that would put you ahead of your competitors and increase your brand awareness and sales.

1. Integrate Social Icons into Your Website

It is not uncommon that some well-designed business websites do not have social media icons integrated; some have the icons integrated, but the icons point to invalid social media profiles or wrong social media profiles. This is not a good practice, and if your business website does not have social media integrated, you are missing a lot.

First, you are not providing an avenue whereby people that love your business can follow keenly. Second, you are missing the backlinks from these social networks. By putting social icons on your website and putting your website URL on your social media profiles, you would earn no-follow backlinks, which indirectly impact your website’s ranking on Google.

Moreover, if your social media account is well optimised, they would pop out on Google when people search for your brand name.  Another side of social media optimisation technique that is related to integrating social icon into your website is adding social media sharing buttons to your blog page. Doing this would allow people easily share your posts and that would likely bring in more traffic to your website.

2. Complete Your Social Media Profile with Constituent Information and Images

The more the information you provide about your business on social media, the more people get to know what your business does. So it is good you do not leave any stone unturned in completing your social media account profiles. You should provide all the necessary information in the profile of each of the social media account you registered on, and ensure the information is consistent throughout all the social media accounts.

As for the profile photo, it is recommended you use the logo of your business; if you do not currently have a logo, it’s high time you hired a good logo designer as that’s one of the branding techniques that would make you stand out among your competitors. The cover photo of your social media account should be of high resolution and professionally portray your products and services.

Most importantly, you should follow the recommended resolution for each social network’s profile picture and cover photo.

3. Develop and Implement a Posting Schedule

Besides having social media accounts with filled profile and good images, the Social Media Optimisation technique that would put you ahead of your competitors is developing and implementing a posting schedule. The posting schedule allows you to consistently share relevant contents with your followers and engage them with your products and services.

It builds your relationship with them, shows them you are good at what you do, makes them visit your website, and makes them patronise your business.

4. Use Relevant Hashtags

Hashtags are a way of categorising related posts on social networks. Lots of social media users use hashtags to find what they are interested in. So by researching trending hashtags in your industry and using them when sharing posts on social networks, you increase the chance of making people who are not following your accounts see your posts.

The caution about hashtags is that you should not go overboard by stuffing your posts with too many hashtags – as too many hashtags would overshadow the texts carrying the message in your posts. You should use only the very relevant hashtags – especially on Twitter and Instagram. Hashtags are not so effective on Facebook.

You should also create personalised hashtags for your brand, too. Your followers would soon come to identify with the hashtags and might start using them while sharing posts about your products and services. That gives way to user-generated content.

5. Track and analyse

The time a post is shared impacts its impression, reach, and engagement. Imagine sharing a post at 3 AM, when everybody is sleeping; only a few people would see the post. So one Social Media Optimisation technique you should try is experimenting with different posting time and see the time your posts have the highest impression, reach, and engagement.

The prime time that most people are online on social media is from 6 PM to 10 PM when they would have come back from work and school. However, depending on your followers, the prime time might be different; so experimenting with different posting time – or using paid social media management software that could analyse when followers are online – would help you determine the best time to post.

In-built analytical tools like Facebook Page Insight, Twitter Analytics, etc., also provide some insight into the best time to posts.

Apart from finding the best time to post, you should also use tools like Google Analytics UTM codes and URL shorteners to determine which social media sharing channel is bringing the highest traffic to your website.

Conclusion

Well-optimised social media accounts not only give your business a strong online presence that translates into awareness and sales but also helps you build a formidable brand that’s ahead of your competitors. By following the above tested-and-trusted Social Media Optimization techniques, you can get to the level of being formidable and having a strong online presence in no time.

If you need further assistance on bespoke digital marketing strategies or require help on implementing the tips provided here, do contact us and one of our experts will be in contact.

Before we start with the tips, it would be good for you to understand what a domain name is.

So What is a Domain Name?

A domain name is the given name to a website on the Internet. It is usually made of letters, but sometimes, numbers and symbols are combined with letters to form a domain name. Before you can use a domain name for your business website, you have to buy it from a domain name registrar. Also, two persons or businesses cannot own the same domain name at the same time.

The motive behind the use of domain names to name websites is to facilitate easy remembrance of websites names by humans. At the operational level of websites, information transfer between the browsers and the web servers is through numerical IP addresses.

In essence, domain names are the human-friendly version of numerical web IP addresses.

Now let’s go through the tips on how to choose a domain name for your business website in Nigeria.

1. Go for “.com” domain extension: While we now have lots of domain extensions such as “.com.ng,” “.org,” “.shop,” “.biz” , it is advisable you should stick with .com domain extension. This is because .com is the most popular top-level domain; when people type a domain name in their browser, they only want to end it with .com as that’s what they are most familiar with.

Therefore, going with domain extensions like “.com.ng,” “.ng,” or “.biz” may not be helpful to your business.

Besides lots of people now browse using their phones, and the auto-complete domain extension provided in most smartphone browsers, after typing the domain name, is .com. If your business website ends in “.com.ng” or “.ng,” you are making these people do extract typing. Don’t forget we are all lazy.

2. Make it stand out: An outstanding domain name is catchy, unique, and memorable. To make your domain name stand out, you should check out the domain names of competitors in your industry, and think of how to make yours different from theirs.

Researching your competitors’ domain names would also save you from picking a domain name close to your competitors’, which saves you from a possible allegation of misbranding and trying to use your competitors’ trademark name.

4. Don’t make it too long: The maximum allowed characters for a domain name is 253 characters – but of course, you don’t want to use all the characters. The recommended number of characters for a domain name is 15. Shorter domain names are easy to remember and reduce the possibility of people making typo errors while typing your domain name into the address bar.
5. Make it easy to spell and easy to pronounce: Domain names that are easy to spell and pronounce are easy to remember. So when choosing a domain name for your business, you should make it simple and pronounceable.

Also, you should avoid the use of symbols (such as hyphens, underscores, etc.) and numbers in your domain name.

People are comfortable with domain names written all together, without symbols or numbers separating the letters or words forming the domain name. For example, people are more comfortable with “www.topyougo.com” than “www.top-you-go.com”.

Making your business domain name easy to spell, easy to pronounce, and free of symbols and numbers would make people easily remember it.

5. Add keywords: Although search engines would use the meta-description of your website to know what the website is all about, adding keywords to your domain name would make search engines understand your website In a similar vein, if you run a local business, adding the city or town where you operate to your domain name would make people instantly know your business is in their location.

For example, a domain name like www.pizzalagos.com tells people that the business specialises in pizza and serves people that reside in Lagos.

6. Consider buying mistyped domain name and other domain extensions: People are likely to mistype your domain name or use a different domain extension with your domain name; to prevent losing traffic from this, you should consider buying the possible mistyped domain names and extensions of your website.

Using the www.pizzalagos.com example, you can buy mistyped variation and domain extension like www.pizalagos.com (one Z is missing from PIZZA) and www.pizzalagos.com.ng. After buying the mistyped variations and the other domain extensions, you can then 301 redirect them to your main website, and you would never lose traffic from mistyped domain names and extensions again.

Now that you have the tips on how to choose a domain name for your business website, the next thing is brainstorming on the perfect name. You then need to hire a good web designer that would translate your business philosophy into a stunning website.

If you need help in coming up with a good domain name and designing and hosting your website, don’t hesitate to talk to our expert.

As a hotel business owner, to outweigh your competitors, you need to attract more customers using digital marketing. Digital marketing will make your service standout on the internet where most potential customers visit daily.

Here are some strategies to improve your hotel business using digital marketing.

1. RESPONSIVE WEBSITE

You need to have a responsive website that will have information about your hotel. People usually check the internet first for hotel websites especially when visiting a new location, and having a website will ensure new customers know your hotel.

The website gives information like contact number, location, room types and prices and other services you offer. The website should be responsive so it can be easily accessed on mobile devices as almost 90% of internet users use a mobile device.

To enjoy the benefits of having a website, there is a need for it to be developed by a professional responsive website developer.

2. SOCIAL MEDIA

The use of social media is multiplying for personal and business purposes. Social media helps you inform large audience both within and outside the country about your hotel business.

Promoting your hotel brand, informing people about any promotional offers in your business, and increasing traffic to your website are few of the many advantages of social media. The impact of social media cannot be overemphasised hence the need for an excellent social media agency to create and manage your social media platforms while your business grows.

3. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) helps to put your business at the forefront of search engines like Google to ensure people looking for your business find you. Using the hotel business as an instance, when a potential customer searches the internet for hotels in a specific location, with the aid of SEO your hotel is displayed among the top hotels but without SEO the new customer may only see your competitors’ hotel.

To optimise the benefits of SEO to enhance your business visibility, you need the services of an expert SEO company. This will enable your website to attain top ranking on Google search engine.

4. PAY PER CLICK (PPC)

Pay per Click (PPC) is paid advertising that puts your hotel information on websites and search engines for internet users looking for hotel service to quickly locate you. It is a digital version of advertising similar to advertising on billboards. It exposes your business to new potential customers that will grow your business.

Setting up profitable PPC involves keyword search, developing attractive advertisement and much more but you can ease the stress by engaging the services of a profitable Pay per Click management service provider.

5. EMAIL MARKETING

About one-third of the world’s population make use of email, and using email to promote the hotel business will take your business to many potential customers. Email marketing helps you to communicate with your customers in a more personal way.

It helps you reach new customers through an email list and also maintain a relationship with existing customers even after they have lodged out of the hotel. Email marketing is cost effective and can help you deliver right messages to your customers.

With the help of a reliable email marketing service provider, you will be assisted to compose the write messages and delivered to potential and existing customers.

“You may never know what results come of your actions, but if you do nothing, there will be no results”- Mahatma Gandhi. Digital marketing is one of the most effective ways of promoting and growing your hotel business. Act now and enjoy your business grow. You can contact us for free advice on digital marketing.