The digital scope of the world is changing with time and the industries world-wide are moving their business to the digital landscape. Moving the marketing campaigns online implies that you should have great landing pages to provide value to your consumers.

A landing page is an essential part of the conversion funnel and helps drive the traffic towards the next steps of the conversion funnel. A purpose-built landing page is necessary to entice the visitors who are visiting your website. In this article, we will talk about 5 tips for designing a landing page that converts. By convert, we mean a landing page that helps you achieve your objectives, whether it is sales or getting a visitor sign up on your email.

Provide Valuable & Discreet Content

The content on your landing page should be curated in a way that it provides value to the visitors as well as portrays your unique value proposition in the best possible way. The content that you curate on your landing page depends on the type of product or service that you are promoting.

An average user spends about 8 seconds on a page so bear in mind that you have just 8 seconds to make a lasting impression on your visitor so the content has to be curated in a highly effective way.

The heading of your content is the first thing that the customers see on your landing page. The heading should include what the visitors expect to get out of the landing page. This should be followed up by a sub-heading that further explains the value offered in the heading. The sub-heading should always compliment the heading in a way that it adds to the value offered by the heading on your landing page.

The sub-heading should be followed up by an effective call to action! One of our favorite landing pages is by Netflix which follows the tips that we have provided above. The call to action is unique and offers incentive to the visitor to sign up.

Use Visual Content

Visual content, including pictures, and videos, is an essential element of any landing page. Our brain is designed to process images 60,000 times faster than text. It is a no-brainer to include visuals in your landing page design as the visitors will be influenced by the visual content that you have displayed on your landing page.

When you’re placing visual content on your landing page, make sure that the quality of the content should be exceptional. It should be relevant to your product or service. If you are selling a physical product, make sure that you include pictures/videos of the product itself. If you’re selling a service, putting up an explainer video about the service is a great way to grab your audience’s attention.

A great implementation of the above mentioned tips is executed by Home Chef. The landing page design is sleek and it includes the right content to grab the visitor attention. It also includes a video that explains what the business is about. This is an amazing way to gain your audience’s attention and retain them on your website. Many people would form the image of your brand through your landing page and it seems only right to create the landing page in the best way possible by following the tips that we are providing.

We’re not done yet! Keep scrolling, there are more tips to come.

Create A Sleek & Appealing Design

A good landing page has to be designed in an appealing way. Remember when we said that you have just 8 seconds to grab your customer’s attention? The first thing they would notice about your landing page is the design.

The landing pages are going to create an impression of your brand or business and you’d want it to represent your business in the best possible way. Avoid distracting your visitors by adding redundant visual elements. Include plenty of white space that keeps your visitor’s attention focused on your product/service and the call to action.

Creating a good design is essential but you have to keep a track of whether or not the design increases your site load time.

Another thing that you should consider while designing your landing page is the eye movement of the user. The visitor’s eye should move in such a manner that is leads to achieving your desired results from the landing page.
Blue Apron does it perfectly. There is plenty of white space, the design is clutter free and the content including the CTA is clear and attractive.

Remove The Navigations

Although this is not practiced very commonly and is a little unorthodox but your landing page should have minimum options for the visitor to navigate away from it. Placing a top menu or a navigation bar makes sense but it gives the opportunity to the visitors to move away from the your landing page.

The presence of the usual navigation also creates a visual distraction for the visitor and this is certainly not what you want for them. The Farmer’s Dog does it the best and provides a great conversion centric landing page design.

Notice how the removal of the usual boring navigation makes the landing page much more attractive.

Use Contrasting Colours

When you’re creating a landing page, the foremost thing on your mind is that your call to action button should really pop out! Whether you’re encouraging the visitors to sign up to your email list or trying to get them to visit your shop, the call to action button should be designed and placed in a way that the visitors can easily access it and take action on it. This is the primary reason why the call to action buttons should be in contrasting colors.

Take a look at the following landing page as an example. The page is designed in grey and white hues but the call to action button is in a bright pink. This immediately brings your attention to the call to action button and increases the chances of the user taking the desired action. The time is short when we talk about grabbing the user’s attention and this is one of the best ways to do it.

Wrapping It Up

We hope that you’ve enjoyed reading our tips for designing a landing page that converts and these tips would surely help you out in creating the landing pages for your business.

Do let us know your thoughts in the comments.

There are almost EIGHT billion people in the world. More than FIVE billion of them are on social media, as per Smart Insights. Now, I am not saying all five billion of them are your consumers – unless you’re selling air, then they all need that – it is safe to estimate that millions or at least some hundred thousand of them are within your reach only if you could come up with a social media branding strategy.

Here, we must take a pause and focus on the word ‘strategy’.

For all the vast reaches of social media and all the postings, you could do literally with two clicks, you still need a solid plan to hold your neck above the swamp of competition on these platforms. If you don’t do that, you’ll drown.

The need for a plan

You won’t venture into an unknown territory without Google Maps, right?

There are several social media branding examples to show how campaigns fail when they either choose the wrong platform or focus on the incorrect audience demographic, etc. All this is because they lack a well-thought-out plan to achieve their goals.

Why do you need to have a social media strategy in place before launching any campaign? Basically, for three main reasons:

Focus

The unimaginable reaches of social media often lure people into setting unrealistic goals. For them, anything they post has to go viral. But does it happen? No! A social media strategy helps you set realistic goals based on brand awareness, target audience, and other metrics. An outline with specific objectives ensures the focus and direction of the campaign.

Content Creation

With a strategy, you can plan a content calendar that lines up with your business goals and target audience. This will save you from posting on Wednesday afternoons when most of your audience is busy with their work or not posting on Sundays when they are on a scrolling spree throughout the day.

Measurement and Improvement

An effective strategy establishes key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics to measure success, like reach, engagement, follower growth, and conversion rate. This allows you to see what’s working and what’s not and helps refine your approach by making informed decisions.

Social Media Branding and Social Media Marketing

Source

Social media marketing and branding are closely related, but they focus on different aspects of your online presence.

You can think of social media branding as the foundation or overall identity you build on online platforms. It’s about who you are as a brand and involves defining your brand voice, personality, visual style, and storytelling. It’s the consistent look and feel that makes people recognize you across platforms. For example, the red of Adobe on their social media channels is their branding, helping their customers identify the brand with that color.

Social media marketing emphasises promoting products, services, or specific campaigns to achieve measurable business goals. It’s all about driving traffic, conversions, and revenue. It includes content creation, paid advertising, lead generation, tracking analytics, and metrics. Adobe running an ad campaign to promote a discount on Acrobat Pro subscription is social media marketing.

In short, social media marketing is tactical and for immediate results, while social media branding is strategic, focusing on long-term brand perception and loyalty. Now that we have established what is social media branding let’s see how you could come up with a solid plan to assert your brand on social media.

How to Devise a Social Media Branding Strategy

When it comes to creating a brand and making it successful, it takes a lot more than just a good logo and a sleek designed website. Let me quote the famous author and salesman Zig Zigler here.

“If people like you, they’ll listen to you, but if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.”

How do you build this trust? Through branding.

It is a strategy to etch your brand into people’s minds by crafting a unique image that reflects your values, mission, and what makes you different. Branding encompasses things like your logo, colors, fonts, brand voice, and overall messaging.

Let’s get started with a plan.

1.  Select your platform

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In 2024, the first thing you need to decide for a branding plan is what social media platforms you want to be present at. According to Semrush, there are 28 top social media platforms, if you try to be on all of them, your entire marketing budget will vanish before you can even spell branding. If you’re not on the right platform where your possible audience is, well then what is the purpose of all this?

So, identify which social media platforms are most relevant to your target audience. These could be the established ones like Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, and TikTok, as well as emerging platforms like Threads and Clubhouse.

Data from GWI (formerly GlobalWebIndex), an audience research company, reveals that a typical user browses or visits an average of 6.7 different social media platforms each month.

Here’s your checklist to nail down the platforms:

• Know your brand and audience
• Analyze platform demographics
• Consider content types
• Evaluate engagement potential
• Platform trends

2.  Audience Analysis

The most important of all social media branding tips is to know who you’re trying to woo. Imagine using technical jargon to explain a recipe to a child or explaining the functions of an inverter to an old man using Gen Z slang. It wouldn’t work, right? Audience analysis helps you understand the language your ideal customer speaks (literally and figuratively). You can then craft messages that are clear, relevant, and resonate with them on a deeper level.

Here’s what you should find out in your analysis:

Demographics

Start by collecting basic demographic information about your audience, such as age, gender, location, income level, education level, and occupation. This provides a foundational understanding of who your audience is.

Psychographics

Dive deeper into your audience’s psychographics, which include their interests, values, attitudes, lifestyles, and personality traits. This helps you understand their motivations, preferences, and purchasing behavior.

Behavioral data

Analyze your audience’s online behavior, including their browsing habits, social media usage patterns, content consumption preferences, and purchasing history. This data can be collected from website analytics, social media insights, and third-party research tools.

Feedback and surveys

Collect feedback from your audience via surveys, polls, focus groups, and social media listening. Ask questions about their needs, challenges, preferences, and perceptions of your brand to gain valuable insights.

Competitor analysis

Look at your competitors’ audience demographics, engagement metrics, and content strategies to identify overlaps and differences with your audience. This can help you enhance your targeting and positioning strategies.

Monitoring and iteration

Audience analysis is an ongoing process. Keep monitoring changes in your audience’s demographics, preferences, and behaviors over time, and adjust your strategies accordingly. Stay agile and be willing to iterate based on new insights and market trends.

3.  Define your Brand Goals

Having predefined goals ensures all your social media activities work towards achieving specific objectives. It saves from random posting. These goals are easy to track and help you allocate resources (time, budget) efficiently to the tactics that matter most.

Now, how do you actually set these goals? Here are some key factors to consider:

SMART goals

Make sure the goals of your business are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Don’t just say, “increase brand awareness.” Define what “awareness” means to you (website traffic, follower growth) and set a measurable target within a specific timeframe.

Alignment with overall business goals

Your social media goals shouldn’t exist in a vacuum. Connect them to your broader business objectives (increased sales, lead generation, brand reputation).

Consider the platform

Not all platforms are created equal. Tailor your goals to the strengths of each platform. For example, building brand awareness might be a primary goal on Instagram, while lead generation might be more important on LinkedIn.

4.  Content Strategy

Devise a content strategy that focuses on providing value to your audience while also showcasing your brand personality. Branding templates for social media platforms differ, based on what type of content works there and what is the user demographic.

Here’s what a comprehensive content strategy might entail:

Content mix

Diversify your content mix to cater to different formats and preferences. This could include a combination of text, images, videos, GIFs, polls, quizzes, live streams, stories, and interactive elements like AR filters or stickers.

Short-form video content

Embrace the popularity of short-form video content, which continues to dominate social media platforms. Create engaging and entertaining videos optimized for platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels, or YouTube Shorts. Experiment with trends, challenges, and storytelling techniques to capture attention quickly.

Immersive experiences

Leverage emerging technologies like AR and VR to create immersive brand experiences. Develop AR filters, lenses, or gamified experiences that encourage user interaction and engagement. VR experiences can transport users to virtual environments for product demonstrations, virtual events, or storytelling. Explore the potential of AI-powered content creation tools. Use them to personalize content, generate ideas, or analyze audience data.

User-generated content (UGC) and storytelling

Encourage your audience to craft and share content related to your brand. UGC not only provides authentic social proof but also fosters a sense of community and belonging. Weave UGC with storytelling to humanize your brand and link with your audience on a deeper level. Share compelling narratives, behind-the-scenes glimpses, customer testimonials, and success stories.

While doing all this, maintain a cohesive visual identity across all platforms, including consistent colors, fonts, imagery, and branding features. This helps to strengthen brand recognition and recall.

5.  KPIs, Analytics and Measurement

Monitor KPIs to track the success of your social media branding efforts. Analyze metrics such as engagement rate, reach, impressions, click-through rate, and conversion rate and constantly use this data to improve your strategy and make informed decisions moving forward. Here are some well-defined KPIs to consider as you go along:

Engagement rate

This determines the level of interaction your content receives, including likes, comments, shares, and clicks. A high engagement rate shows that your audience is keenly engaging with your content, which can lead to improved brand awareness and loyalty.

Conversion rate

Conversion rate calculates the fraction of users who take a desired action, such as making a purchase decision, signing up for a newsletter, or downloading a resource after interacting with your social media content. Tracking conversion rate helps you assess the efficiency of your social media marketing in driving tangible business results.

Brand mentions and sentiment

Observing brand mentions and sentiment on social media platforms helps you gauge the overall perception of your brand among your audience. Positive sentiment and an increase in brand mentions indicate a strong brand presence and favorable reputation.

Share of voice

Share of voice compares your brand’s presence on social media relative to your competitors. By analyzing the volume and sentiment of conversations related to your brand versus competitors, you can identify opportunities to strengthen your brand positioning and competitive advantage.

Conclusion

Social media branding is nothing but a meticulous plan to keep your brand relevant in a positive spotlight. It might feel like madness, but it is the one with a lot of methods attached to it. The success or failure of your branding efforts could be determined even before the campaign’s launch because going into it without a plan is a certain doom. So, brainstorm before you start, ensuring you don’t end up with nothing.

We hope this blog will have offered you all the social media branding solutions you were looking for. Share with us how you started your branding journey and how you successfully achieved all your goals.

According to a recent survey, 64% of the consumers said their purchase decisions were influenced by watching marketing videos on Facebook.

When you’re creating a video with the objective of building your brand identity, you want to be able to make sure that you’re representing the core brand values in the best way possible in that video.

The brand video has to resonate with your target audience so rushing it is NOT an option. We’ve compiled a list of tips and tricks for you all to create a brand video that is surely going to appeal to your targeted audience.

1- Understand Why You Are Creating The Video

The best brand videos always come up with an objective. You have to be very clear about what you want to achieve out of the video. Successful videos are well-thought out; they are a representation of the brand and should have the capability to connect with the target audience of the brand.

Ask yourself a few questions before you set out to produce the video:

Are you looking to spread awareness about the brand or business? Sharing a factual or informational video about the industry would be a great way to go about it. When you completely understand what you are trying to accomplish and who would be watching your house fitness video, you can customize it to fit the marketing platforms.

Once you have determined the reason why you are creating the video, search for relevant stock footage from sites like Videvo, which provides free footage for commercial use.

2- Understand Your Audience

The next thing that you have to do is to understand and think about your audience. The content that you are producing is for them. Understanding the people that you are trying to reach to would help you in creating the content that they would be interested in.

The easiest way to do it is to sit down and put yourself in your target customer’s shoe.

Ask yourself the questions that your customer would ask!

If you’re reaching out to new customer base, you’d like to start off with explainer videos that focus on the basics. If you are reaching out to your existing customers, adding value to your video content beyond what the customers already know is the right way to go about it.

Keep the following demographics in mind when you are trying to understand the audience:
•  Age
•  Location
•  Gender
•  Language
•  Interests & hobbies
•  Existing customers or potential customers
•  Customer platforms

3- Gather Data But Don’t Rely Too Heavily On The Scripts

Video scripts are one of the most amazing tools to keep you on track while you are creating video content. But relying too heavily on them can make your content robotic in nature and hurt the authenticity of your brand.

Innovate and be as creative as possible. Gather all the data you have on your brand or business including pictures and videos. The continuity in the brand image is essential. Use your script for key points but do not rely too heavily on them.

4- Speak In Your Brand’s Voice

When we say that you should speak in your brand’s voice we do not mean it in literal terms. Your videos are an extension of your brand image and they should revolve around the tone set by your brand.

A good approach would be to take copy off your website and use it in your video. Incorporate customer testimonials using the brand language to add more authenticity to your brand video.

When it comes to incorporating text in the videos, there are no hard rules about it. You can approach the text in your video in any way that you deem suitable. Just double check the typos before the video goes live.

5- Trust The Human Element

People want to hear from the sources they can relate to. A brand video revolving around an average Joe would appeal much more to the general audience than a brand video that revolves around the brand and its products.

Your customers would want to see someone like them speaking about the product or service and its benefits. The digital world is full of ratings and reviews but what the people still trust the most are the elements that they can relate too.

Adding a human element to your brand video is a great way of gaining customer trust and adding credibility. Everything in the video does not have to revolve around your product or service. The content can be unscripted but should revolve around the narrative.

Including behind the scene footages is another great way to gain customer trust and engagement.

6- Consistency Across The Video

Consistency and quality can never be compromised when it comes to creating a brand video. Best brand videos across the globe have these two common elements amongst them.

Without quality, you would lose the engagement that has to be generated among your customers and without being consistent, you would lose the chance to create a long term relationship with your clients.

Earlier we mentioned the inclusion of text in this article. Text is a great way of portraying consistency across the brand not only in terms of the language being used but also the colors and typography that your brand has chosen.

It would create an aura of multi-channel consistency and the brand would be able to flourish accordingly. Including your logo in the videos is also essential.

7- Be Strategic

You’ve understood the fact that your videos have to be authentic and engaging but it does not mean that you shouldn’t have a clear strategy in place. Every member of your team should be engaged in the creation of the video and it should be on the top of their heads.

The platforms that the video needs to be sent out to, the message and the goals should be set in a strategic way. If you have to create a series of videos, the content strategy should be in place; the frequency of how often the videos would come out should be set and you should have an estimate of how long would it take for you to reach your desired goals.

Wrapping It Up

As long as the message being sent out in the video is clear, you’re all set to produce a great brand video for your business. These tips will help you create a perfect brand video for your brand and would envision everything that your brand represents!

When you hear the name of a famous brand, you suddenly associate certain colors with the brand. One of the 4 C’s of Marketing is for Creating, and creating a great logo acts as a great beginning for your business.
McDonalds yellow and red, the multi-colored Google, and the orange and white Soundcloud, for example.

Colors have a very powerful effect on our brains and the colors that you choose for your brand are going to be the key for your brand image a very long time. Color psychology plays a huge role in how humans perceive ideas and things, which makes it one of the most interesting and controversial aspects of marketing.

For example, the color red is often perceived as the color for excitement, boldness and youth in the marketing field. Brands like Coca Cola, Lays and Cannon have opted for their logos to be in these colors. The color gray gives out a peaceful and balanced vibe, and brands like Apple and Honda have their logos in these tones.
Choosing the colors for your brand or business can be a tricky task considering the color psychology behind every color and every color combination. Designers from across the world get their inspirations from various things including natural color palettes. However, mixing up too many colors to create a logo can be confusing. Most big brands across the world stick to one color.

Nobody knows your business better than you, so you should be the one in-charge of setting the logo color schemes. Knowing the tone of your business and maintaining it can go a long way in the creation of your business logo. In this article, we’ve picked out 10 best logo color combinations for you to see
and learn from:

1- Yellow & Red

This bold color combination draws the viewer’s attention to the center of the logo design. The colors help create a sense of energy and playfulness.

DHL and Shell are two of the many companies that stick to these colors when it comes to their business logo. Yellow is one of the colors that are most often used by the automotive and food industries. Both of the above companies are connected to automotive and transport industries, so yellow is a perfect color choice along with red here.

2- Black & Yellow

If you take a look below, the bright yellow smiling monkey emits vibes of energy and fun. The black color is often used as the symbol of authority and mystery. This color combination is great for the entertainment industry, as it portrays excitement and mystery at the same time.

Another variation of these colors is implemented by Caterpillar. Caterpillar is a manufacturer of industrial
machinery and equipment along with the accessories required for industrial operators including shoes and clothes.

Source: https://logojoy.com/blog/logo-color-combinations/

3- Blue and Pink

Baskin Robins uses soft tones of blue and pink in their logo design. The brand is best known for its 31 flavors that it serves to its consumers. The logo is meant to convey fun and energy of the brand as well as the iconic number 31. The number represents the brand’s belief that the customers should be able to have a different flavor for every day of the month.

4-Blue & Green

These colors are perfect for establishing trust and putting the viewers at ease. These colors are majorly used across banking and financial sectors. The internationally renowned chain of banks, Standard Chartered, use the same colors across their brand. The color blue is used to represent stability and the color green represents tranquility. This goes very well with the financial sector that needs to establish customer trust.

Source: https://www.webpagefx.com/logo-colors/

5 – Orange & Purple

FedEx is the first name that comes to your mind when you hear the colors orange and purple. The colors are unique and send out a message of royalty and success. The purple color is associated with wealth and luxury as it was the color that was often donned by the kings and Monarchs. FedEx embodies the same elements as a brand:

6- Purple & Yellow

Where purple represents wealth and success and yellow brings excitement and warmth to the table, these logo colors are of the best combinations that can be used for your logo design. We think one of the best examples of the usage of these colors is done by the logo of the NBA basketball team Los Angeles Lakers.

7-Black & Red

This fierce logo color combination instills a feeling of power and energy among consumers. KFC has successfully used this color combination among their logo design. The red offers excitement as the color is often used in the food industry and the color black adds authority. This goes really well along the brand’s identity of providing quality food.

8- Blue & Turquoise

If you are trying to instill confidence and trust among your customers, these are the colors that you should go after when you’re creating a logo for your business or brand. PayPal uses the same colors in their logo and it goes along with the company values of creating a safe and secure means for transactions.

9- Orange and Blue

The color orange is associated with happiness and creativity. It also inspires enthusiasm. The color blue adds trust. If your brand is fun and exciting and you want to create a trustworthy environment of doing business, these are the colors that you should go for. Fanta uses these colors in their logo as the drink is exciting and is targeted towards the youth.

10- Blue & White

These colors are surely crowd pleasers and establish tranquility and trust among the customers. Volkswagen uses these colors in their logo design, after replacing the black and white logo that the company used in the past.

Wrapping it up

We understand that ‘it depends’ is not the answer you’re looking for when it comes to the logo design for your business. The fact of the matter is that it really depends on multiple factors when you are creating a business logo.
To help you out, we’ve presented the best logo color combinations above that we feel that can be used as good, inspirational examples when time comes for you to create your own.

best color combinations

Just as errors occur in our lives, they also tend to happen on the websites. The 404 page is a page with an error code which means the web page your visitor is trying to get to can no longer be found. There can be multiple reasons for the occurrence of this error; this could be because of a broken link on the website, or the type in website address.
Having a fun 404 error page is just as important as having good CTAs on your website. A friendly 404 error page has basically two components: the 404 server header status required to manage the indexation part on various search engines, and the user friendly design that is required in protecting the user’s experience and preventing bounce outs.

(Source: www.pixabay.com)

404 pages are one of the most overlooked facets of any website design, and once they are overlooked, then the tendency is to create some fun— in mere hope and anticipation that a touch of humor will facilitate in reduction of visitor’s anger and irritation at the missing information.

Importance of 404 pages

There has been a lot of discussion in recent times regarding the handling of 404 errors, and the significant impact they can have on SEO. The thing which needs to be understood is these errors are quire inevitable. It is a common practice to simply redirect all 404 errors to the homepage or another relevant page, which is a wrong idea, as it is exactly the opposite of what should be done. It is a wrong idea as it creates a bad user experience for the following reasons:
• Users can be in a state of confusion as to how they wound up on the homepage when they have clicked a link to a different page.

• Users will not be getting access to the information they were committed, and will not be aware of the reason.

• There can be a high probability of your users ending up on a page that could be completely irrelevant to the information they are looking for.
The use of 301 or 302 for redirecting to your homepage is also considered to be a bad and unprofessional SEO practice. Such habits portray a negative image of the company. It has been observed that few website owners and SEOs are doing this to preserve any link juice acquired by the removed content.

404 Pages for Good

Although, the 404 pages can be a real source of frustration and annoyance, but the trick of the trade is to turn the potential negative user experience of encountering an error into a positive one. The fundamental tactic in this is the extensive and effective use of links.
Links present on the 404 page are of utmost significance, because they prove to be instrumental in giving users a way out of the error page. The user can be facilitated in search of helpful and potential relevant resources on another page, instead of closing the window and navigating away from the site to a new destination.
Below are some of the links you can add to your 404 pages:
• Your most popular blog pages
• Most renowned product pages
• An HTML Sitemap

Tips and Ideas to Create an Inspiring 404 Error Page

It is highly advisable to invest time and optimize your 404 page text and to craft an on board design that can significantly reduce the bounce rate and help in boosting conversions.
Following are some of the examples that can inspire and help you in formulating your own custom 404 page.

1. Lego- Page Not Found Error

The way Lego displays its error is quite interesting. It’s also fun and easy to understand. The good part is the page is extremely simple and understanding. There is no technical wording and no reference to a 404 error.
This helps in broadcasting an image of your brand. A good image is quite crucial to the company’s existence. All your visitor needs to know is that they didn’t get the page they were initially looking for, and they are only interested in the solution of it. An easy going page can help them understand it and move on to the other relevant site.

(Source: optinmonster.com)

2. Magnt

The firm uses the help of a Venn Diagram to broadcast their error page. Their first error page with just the Venn Diagram went viral, and which prompted them to redesign it keeps the concept intact. The use of text on this page is quite on the higher side which is being compensated by the bountiful set of information provided.

(Source: www.uxplanet.org)

3. Jamie Huskisson

Their 404 page is quite unique in the way that it has come up with a good blend of creativity and functionality. The colorful image grabs your attention, the text is full of humor, and then you are served up with a search box. The page also has a link to Jamie’s post archives.

(Source: www.managewp.com)

4. EmailCenterUK.com

The firm has been credited by the experts on its error page. As soon as you land on the main page of the website, you can smoothly navigate to the other sections of the site. This helps in creating a great way to encourage user engagement on their websites.

(Source: www. uxplanet.org)

5. List25

The error page of list25 is quite famous these days. A good User Experience design practice is to come up with an explanation of what went wrong when delivering an error message. They have a search bar at the top so that the visitors don’t have to scroll all the way through the list.

(Source: www.optinmonster.com)

Wrapping Up

Every once in a while your visitors may face a 404 error page while surfing your website. There are countless reasons for the occurrence of these errors and majority of them are out of your control. Regular occurrences of these errors tends to increase the frustration levels among your visitors.
The traditional error pages are a snooze fest and creative designs for these pages are the need of the hour. It doesn’t take long to come up with a fun, useful 404 page that, with the passage of time, can turn potential bouncers into regular visitors.

In the rapidly advancing online environment, there may be a lot of potential points of interest for the engineers, the writers and the enthusiasts but for the investors and the purely business-focused teams, it’s only about one clear and distinguishing factor: the popularity of the platform or the number of visitors accessing that platform. With this core strategy in mind, there remains two primary means of generating revenue and both are quite different in what they present and how they perform. Today, we take a look at the much asked question in recent times, ‘what’s the difference between Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Pay-Per Click (PPC)?’

Though most might be expecting a clear winner but that’s not the case here. There are a lot of variables that are taken into account and at the end of the day; it depends on how you really want the business to function or what your plans or objectives might be right from the start. In other words, there’s no good or bad as long as you’re using either strategy sufficiently and the results reflect in how well your business performs.

The key here is obviously the awareness of the target audience, their liking and demand, coupled with what works best for the company within those limits of the viewer’s demands. Below, we’ll take a look at what are the most essential differences between the two digital search systems and how each can be utilized suitably for the promotion of the desired platform.

What exactly are SEO and PPC?

First let’s take a look at what those two acronyms represent in the sense of their larger meaning in the digital business. SEO is a score attached to every article you write, every post that you publish and every report that is sent out from your website. The score determines the viability of your content and how ‘optimised’ the piece of writing is in order to show up higher when you feed Google the related keywords in its search bar.

The SEO score depends on the clarity of your writing, the accessibility and readability of the text and if the content matches closely with the title and the solution the users maybe expecting. There are also other various aspects including the useful links embedded in the article, how organized things are including headings and subheadings, and lastly a lot of images for reference since books without illustrations are boring and not only kids think like that anymore.

The popular search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing makes use of this technique to sort out the results and provide the user with the most authentic and precise content available across the World Wide Web.

Looking at the other branch of the digital promotion tree, we’ve got PPC. This marketing strategy is much easier to explain as this is what the guys over at the advertisement department are used to. Though less organic than its counterpart, PPC is when you basically pay these search engines to secure a place on the results page, mostly taking the upper half of the page above the SEO results. Of course, there is still some SEO aspects involved between these ads themselves to decide which one secures the top spot but chances are you will definitely get the word out if you pay the top dollar.

So whenever the typed keywords have some sort of relation to the ads, they show up with a rectangular ‘Ad’ tag next to the respective URL to help visualize them differently from the SEO results.

Now that we’ve talked about the two in their elementary sense, let’s delve into what factors set them apart and what impact will those differences have on your strategy of advertising and promoting your platform.

What makes PPC different from SEO?

First and foremost difference is how PPC can help companies utilize the space they paid for however they want to.
This includes anything you would expect in a typical advertisement along the lines of illustrations, contact details, quick-links and pricing information. All of this complements the subtext or the snippet below the URL. This is only exclusive to PPC results and that, coupled with the fact that the results always appear on the top portion of the page adds at least some prominence to them.

PPC can also be highly effective for targeting specific geographic areas. By focusing on Local PPC, businesses can ensure their ads are shown only to potential customers within a designated location, increasing the chances of conversion and maximizing ROI.

Furthermore, unlike SEO results which depend on long-term progress and feedback of the users, PPC are much faster to produce and bring up high enough on the charts of the results due to their different procedure. Though it may appear, from the above facts, that a loss is imminent for SEO results but that’s not the case when you analyse SEO’s potential in detail.

As many internet studies have shown, most of us are subconsciously ignoring paid search results whenever our eye meets the ‘Ad’ tag. Though it’s still unclear why that might be the case even after images being introduced in PPC results, but what’s apparent is apparent and there’s evidence to back that fact. Moreover, when talking about costs, the PPC strategy is based around the whole idea of paying. The more you can invest in your ad campaign, the longer you can keep those results up and high. Things get especially worse when fierce competition lies within the field and there’s always this race to stay on top.

Thankfully, those utilizing SEO don’t have to worry about investing too much in their promotion game. As long as the content is backed on by the support of the community and the content itself follows the guidelines of SEO closely, there’s a good chance the audience will notice your platform among some few others. Moreover, competition still exists but it can only be won fairly without having to invest huge sums of money. Keep producing those articles just the way the audience likes it and you’re all good to go. With that said, it’s a high priority among many platforms and businesses to hire an expert on SEO guidelines who can highlight and educate other employees on how to maintain a good SEO score in their content.

This is where SEO really shines because it feels like a platform by the audience FOR the audience. What trust and credibility can create, no sum of money can even attempt to do so. Even when the platform pivots into new directions and introduces new products and ideas, there’s always a good portion of the community that’s willing to at least give it a try. This dedication and dependence on the user feedback leads to both a higher percentage of click-through rate (CTR) and ROI when your business is really up and running.

So who wins the race?

In spite of weighing the various pros and cons of both the strategies, the victory of either is still not clear cut. For smaller, more focused and specialized businesses, or platforms looking to try out something new before actually delving into it, SEO strategy seems to be the ideal option. With low costs involved and focus being on quality of content, even a person starting out his business venture can find a footing. As for those big businesses and industries which have been in the field for a long time now and can’t see their competitors rise above, PPC is the way to go. PPC also works if you’re looking to rush things a little and plan on building and developing your business gradually with the head-start you get.

Proceed with the strategy that has principles that relate and apply to your business plan. If done with credence and a firm, relentless dedication, the cons won’t hurt as much and if you’re still unsure or you don’t asses your marketing plan correctly enough, even some major pros will appear insignificant.

Marketing used to be centered around the four P’s . They’ve been taught across various marketing and business schools: Product, Price, Place & Promotion. Slowly and gradually as the world has evolved and with the uprising of the digital channels in the recent years, these have become almost obsolete and have been replaced by the four C’s of the social media: Connecting, conversing, collaborating and creating.

The recent boom of smart phones has had a great impact on how marketing is being done now. The marketers have the power to show their product or service to the users right on their mobile screens. The internet and the web, as a whole, have become a hub for company reviews, product purchases aka ecommerce, restaurant reviews etc. How companies engage with their customers online is now more relevant than ever before. Customers like to interact with the company before they make a purchase to judge how the customer service is.

Creating a social media marketing strategy for your business can be an overwhelming experience. Whether you are a large organization or a start-up, using the social media channels to reach out to your potential customers and share your work/content is a must-do technique in the modern digital world. Without having well maintained social media accounts, you may seem untrustworthy to your potential customers.

Here are the four C’s that of social media that will help make your website a conversion hub:

Connecting

Engagement is the part of creating a connection with your customer base. Another thing to consider here is that with the evolving social media age, connecting with your clients through social media has also become a norm. To understand engagement completely, the business can look into what channels are best for social media connecting and conversation.

With the right analytical tools, you can figure out whether it is Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest that is the best solution for your business. There are several social media outlets but the focus should be towards a few of them instead of all of them.

According to a study, every follower that you gain on Instagram engages 58 times more than the fans that you acquire on Facebook. With 93% of the marketers using Facebook as their primary marketing platform, the market has become very saturated for businesses.

On the contrary, only 36% of the marketers use Instagram to market their products. If Instagram is the right fit for your business, you should definitely consider connecting with your customers through the platform. Making a long lasting impression on your valuable customers is very important for any business and Instagram can be a great way to make that impression.

Conversing

Conversation drives everything on social media. If you are putting your customers at the top of your priority list, it is important to understand their behavior and the type of content they like. This can only be done by engaging in conversation with them. A thorough social media marketing analysis would provide you with the insights on how the customers are responding to your content.

The conversation has to be two-way across social media. There are many brands that have successfully been able to capture the customer attention through their conversations. There are several tweets on the internet from the brands that have gone viral. Not only does it add meaning to the customer, but it also manages to enhance customer loyalty.

A risky but fun conversation technique, for example, is applied by Wendy’s, where they engage in hilarious conversations with the customers. This earns them hundreds of thousands of social signals and makes the content go ‘viral’.

If you’re engaging in conversation with your customers on social media, why does it have to be dry? Wendy’s keeps it ‘LIT’ and engages the millennials well. The friendly ‘banter’ done by the brand encourages more customers to engage with them.

Source: Wendy’s Twitter Account

You have to engage your community with great content but the better the conversation, the more loyalty it inspires. The conversations have to be transparent, helpful, truthful, caring and accepting. Not to forget, it’ll be great if they are out of the box, too. Businesses should understand how emotional psychology comes into play.

Collaborating

Collaboration is what the savvy brands are totally into in the current market scenario. Take a look at AirBnb for example, they are taking user generated content and using it across their social media. The photos are often accompanied by the customer story. This is currently the finest form of collaboration on social media.

Source: airbnb instagram

There’s a lot of hard work to be put into this before you get into community building and start having in-depth conversations. Airbnb is one of the leading brands that collaborates regularly with its customers through various channels. Even their blogs and city guides include user generated content and reviews.)

Social media collaboration is on a rise and people are constantly looking up to influencers and social media activists to form opinions and make purchases. Collaborations portray that the brand listens to what you have to say and then respond accordingly. It shows that you care about your customers.

Arclights cinema chose an interesting way to collaborate with its audience by showing the movies that they would like to see. This level of collective engagement and collaboration makes the fans and followers across social media feel more appreciated and special. Giving them the freedom to vote and choose the movies that they would like to see.

source: acrlight cinemas facebook

Creating

Sharing and using valuable content for your audience is an adhesive for your fans and followers on social media. According to a research done by UBM Technology Group, 59% of the technology professionals use social media to stay updated on the recent developments and news around the globe. They effectively use social media to learn about new products and services. 45% use social media to learn about new companies and brands.

While creating content for your audience, keep in mind the trends of the market and capitalize on what is popular at the current moment. Creating regular engaging content for your audience might glue them to your social media outlets and engage them in positive conversations. You can use these digital marketing tip for small businesses to gain access to an audience that may otherwise be unaware of the existence for your enterprise.

Wrapping It Up

The 4 C’s of social media marketing have become essential in managing and expanding your online presence. In today’s world, these elements are not preferable to use, they have become rather essential to use. Share your thoughts in the comments below about the best practices that you deploy for the 4 C’s discussed above.

What are call to action buttons? They are actually digital canvases. You can create your art on them. There is a very simple reason for this analogy. What is art? It is someone’s skill put together to create such an appeal that invokes emotions. We all feel something when we see good art, don’t we? Now, what’s the purpose of a CTA? It’s a small box that you need to fill with as much creativity as possible so that it makes people feel things and they take action – precisely, the action you want them to take. So, CTA is indeed a canvas.

CTA’s are very self-explanatory anyway. I mean, what can you explain in a three-word call to Action which is, quite literally, a call to take action?

CTA buttons are those little ‘Buy Now’, ‘Add to Cart’, ‘Register Now’, and ‘Download Now’ buttons that you use on your website. Even those little Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp buttons that allow you to share with just one click are CTAs.

Yes, they are everywhere.

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They guide visitors towards conversion – they are the actions a brand needs the viewers to take so that it helps them achieve their goals. These buttons are very goal-oriented, and the goal is to make the user click and then complete the conversion. The conversion may be in the form of a purchase, email capture, or signup.

CTAs are mostly part of the landing pages, but they can be placed anywhere you like.

If you send out newsletters, add a CTA to them for people to subscribe. If email marketing is your thing, people will readily signup for more if there’s a CTA. You are placing an ad on social media? Well, guess what, place a CTA so people land directly on the product. Not only these, but a CTA finds its usage in blogs, and on websites, people even go as far as saying hyperlinks are CTA as they redirect you to a new website which is exactly why they were placed in the first place.

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This is the most effective of all call to action button examples. I know most of us don’t see this screen because our Netflix accounts are always signed up on our phones or laptops. But this is Netflix’s CTA for new users. See how simple it is? Smack in the middle of the page, an overlay of popping red with white prominent text – the deadliest text and color duo – on a faded background. New users cannot miss it even if they open the Netflix app with their eyes closed. This is the power of a strong CTA.

Crafting a strong call to action button

Let’s go back to that analogy of a CTA button being a digital canvas. When painting something on a canvas, you have to be mindful of several things like colors, brushes, strokes, shades, etc. Similarly, the art of crafting the best CTA buttons needs a careful eye for color scheme, words, fonts, size, and placement.

Use action-packed words

You would never see a CTA saying, ‘Click if you like’. No! They always have a sense of urgency, as if your life depends on it. ‘Click here’, ‘Buy Now’, and ‘Download Now’ are the terms used on a CTA.

If you’re running an e-commerce website, your CTA buttons should include words like “SHOP”, “BUY” or “ORDER”. This gives out specific instructions to the visitor about the result of the action that they take on that button. If you want your visitors to sign up for your newsletter, your CTA buttons should start with words like “DOWNLOAD” or “SUBSCRIBE”. If you want your visitors to get more information about your brand or business, the CTA buttons should include words like “FILL OUT THIS FORM” or “FIND OUT HOW”.

Using such words or phrases to give out specific instructions to your visitors is a must. The call to action should be direct and encourage the user to perform the action. For example, if you want your users to sign up for your newsletter, using the words “Our latest newspaper is available” would not be as effective as “Subscribe to our newsletter today”.

The second wordplay puts out a strong and direct message to the user. A good call to action button example would include something like this from OfficeVibe. Simple, effective, and offering an incentive.

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Size, shapes, and colors

A CTA is all about a good color that catches the eye, a good shape that doesn’t look ugly, and an ideal size that fits perfectly on the screen.

Every CTA has a background and a foreground. The background is the color, and the foreground is the text. You have to contrast those colors for an eye-popping CTA.

Also, CTAs need to stand out. So, their surrounding should be a light color with plenty of space so that it accentuates the CTA’s colors.

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Blaise Pascal, the French mathematician, once said, “I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter.”

People think writing long essays is laborious, well, they never tried shortening it. It’s a test of your skills. So, what about when you have a box barely two inches long, and that’s all you have to convince people to click and purchase your product?

Now, you have to be vicious with your words, choosing only the most essential ones. Your words need to give them an incentive. For example, with a Buy Now CTA, add, avail 50% discount, or with a ‘Subscribe Now’ for your sales newsletter, you can write ‘Join 500,000 who are growing their sales with our exclusive marketing insights’.

Invoke Fomo

Fear of missing out, aka FOMO, is one of the important elements of human psychology. When people think that they might lose the opportunity and that it might not come around later, they are more likely to hop on the bandwagon.

A key tactic in this would be to offer an instant discount or a sale that wouldn’t come around too often. Most of us receive marketing emails with discount or sale offers for a limited time, and they’re hard to ignore. When there’s a limited-time opportunity or a sale, it prompts the audience to take action right away. As a result, the store gets more visits and conversions.

A great implementation of the above is being done by River Island. They have up to 60% sales on their store, and they have placed the sale banner on top of the fold. See the size of that red banner? This creates an urgency among people that if they don’t buy anything while the sale is on, they’ll miss out on something huge, and hence are compelled to click the CTA buttons associated with their offerings.

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Optimize for Devices

Creating an amazing CTA is important, but for more mobile internet users than ever before, your CTA must be optimized for handheld devices.

Desktop and mobile users have different user behaviors, and mobile searches are more inclined towards user intent instead of direct search terms. Users searching on mobile devices are usually looking for instant fulfillment and are highly likely to take action within the next few hours. Phone call-centric CTA buttons for mobile devices can be the key to generating more leads and sales.

But crafting a CTA for mobile is a vast difference than making one for desktop. See, people scroll on a computer or a laptop using a cursor, so the entire screen is within their reach. On mobile, they are holding the device in one hand and scrolling with the thumb. It means that they can click on anything that’s within their thumb’s reach.

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Research shows that the right hand is the dominant hand in holding mobile phones. Around 67% of users have their right thumb on the screen, while only 33% place the left one.

So, taking the right thumb as our benchmark, the size of an average thumb is around 2.6 inches. Compare this with our giant smartphones, whose screen size is 5.8 to 6.2 inches on average. It means most of the screen is out of range for the user’s thumb.

The ideal placement of a CTA is at the bottom fold or a 60-40 ratio, with 40% distance from the bottom and 60% from the top.

A/B testing

No matter what design, color, or text you use for CTA or wherever you place them on the website, if the users are not clicking them, they are useless.

It is better to test with a number of options and placements before putting a CTA on your website. A/B testing tells what color is catching users’ attention, what font is getting the most clicks, or what is the ideal placement for your CTA.

A/B or split testing is not frequently deployed as it is a complex endeavor, and it takes time to give results. But research has shown that A/B testing boosts conversions by as much as 25%. So the benefit clearly outweighs the complication.

For A/B testing, you must give each CTA iteration ample time on your website. Use two to three colors with varying fonts. Place them at separate locations and then give each one considerable time to see if they are getting clicked. Say you have three options, place each one of them at a particular location for three weeks. This will tell you which is the most hit CTA and where it should be displayed for maximum conversions.

Final Words

A call to action button is the smallest but most effective cog in the whole sales machine. If crafted carefully, this button of a few inches in length can turbocharge your sales and give a boost to your conversion. Implement these CTA best practices and see the magic unfold.

Hewlett-Packard, Apple, Google; do you know what is common among these companies? All of them started with just a garage for their entire operations! As we know, now these companies have grown and evolved into industry behemoths and dominate their respective industries.

We all know the value and importance of the small business industry. In the United States, small businesses make up 46% of private-sector output and 43% of high-tech employment. Especially in the digital industry, if not for startups, the industry wouldn’t be as evolved as it is today.

PNC Logos’ Startup Empowerment Program

PNC Logos specializes in design, development and ecommerce solutions; primarily a tech entity. Fully understanding the plight of up and coming entrepreneurs who have brilliant ideas for a startup but insufficient resources to do so successfully, we have launched a startup empowerment program that gives startups the tools required to set up a digital brand identity.

The main purpose for launching this program was to foster a spirit of innovation and show support to startups and small businesses. Obviously, this program is selective in nature and only the 10 best startups will be selected based on the potential of their respective business ideas.

A Plethora of Branding Services

Coming to the details of PNC Logos’ startup empowerment program, the aforementioned ten winners will benefit from PNC Logos’ design prowess. The design team will assist with the following components of brand identity:

1) Corporate Logo

A logo is the face of a brand as well as its most recognizable element. PNC Logos has years of experience creating logos for businesses from a myriad of different industries. Premium logo designs can cost a company a pretty penny and startups will definitely appreciate this cost saving.

2) Business Cards

Business cards are probably one of the most exchanged forms of marketing collateral. Business branding is simply incomplete without a business card design. The design team at PNC Logos has years of experience of branding and business card designs.

3) Package Design

For a company with tangible products, packaging has a big impact on how you communicate with your target audience. A unique and recognizable packaging design will make businesses stand out from competitors.

4) Letterhead Design

Business letterheads are used in both internal and external communication. Established companies spend quite a lot on branded letterhead designs as it has an impact on brand identity.

5) Envelope Design

Similar to letterheads, business envelopes have the same impact brand identity. If branded the right way, envelope design could communicate a lot about the way a company brands itself.

6) Social Media Cover

Social media platforms are a very popular marketing platform. Design and branding has a huge role to play on highly visual platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. PNC Logos will design branded social media covers for selected startups.

Giving Back to the Community

Starting off from humble beginnings, the team at PNC Logos believes that it should support small businesses and startups so that they have the chance to make it big as well. This in turn helps the overall industry grow and increase its pool of groundbreaking ideas. Unlike venture capitalists, PNC Logos’ startup empowerment program equips startups with the right digital tools to launch their business to the next level.

The details of PNC Logos’ startup empowerment can be found here. Entrepreneurs are encouraged to provide their business ideas in the most detailed way possible so as to stand a better chance of getting selected as one of the winners and receiving free branding services courtesy of PNC Logos.