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Digital Marketing Freelancer in Kannur Should a New Business Focus on Organic Growth or Paid Advertising? Starting up a new business can be very exciting, however it can often be very challenging to get people to take note of your business. Even if your product is amazing, your service is incredible, and you have a website up and running, you may struggle to get customers coming into your business. Many business owners will ask themselves what is the best option? Will they invest in marketing and advertising, or grow organically via socials and free methods? Both can be effective, however it will depend on how far along your business is, how well known your brand is and how much money you are willing to spend. Often with a new business with a small budget, it is sensible to start with growing organically. This will allow you to learn about your audience, build trust and establish a solid online presence. Let’s take a look at how you can do this, Start by Building Your Social Media Presence When you’re starting out, you will likely have very little awareness amongst your potential customers. They simply won’t know who you are or what you do. Your first priority should be to build up your social media presence. You will want to look at which platforms your potential customers are using. Instagram can be great for clothing stores, restaurants, beauty services and local brands. Whereas LinkedIn may be more beneficial for professional services. But you’ll need to give a reason for people to follow your page. Post helpful content, explain your products/services, show how your business works and answer common queries. Ensure your business details, profile picture, contact details and bio are clear. Imagine if someone was to come across your business. Would they be able to tell what you offer in a few seconds? If not then you’ll want to improve your profile before looking to gain more followers. Use Reels and Short Videos to Reach New People Once you’ve got your social media profile set up you can start to post some content to introduce your business. Using reels and short videos will help people find your content even if they aren’t following you. Let’s say you’re starting a small bakery business. Instead of just posting cake photos you could post short videos showing how the cakes are made, how an order is packaged or why a certain product is unique. This will give people a better insight into what you offer but most importantly will help potential customers get to know your brand. You won’t need any expensive kit or professional videos. Often you can start with just your phone, good lighting and some clear ideas. Try different content styles, such as: Types of Social Media Content for Businesses Educational content ↗ Share useful tips related to your products or services. Behind-the-scenes videos ↗ Show how your business operates. Product demonstrations ↗ Explain how your products work or what customers can expect. Customer questions ↗ Answer common questions through short videos. Business updates ↗ Introduce new products, offers, or services. However, make sure that you aren’t posting random videos. Every post should provide some value, interest or be related to your business. Keep Your Content Consistent If you post a couple of reels and then go quiet for a few weeks it won’t help you build up a strong social media presence. You want to consistently be showing your audience your brand. You don’t have to post daily but make sure that you have a realistic content plan. For example, you could start with: Weekly Social Media Content Schedule 3 reels per week. 2 informative or product-related posts per week. Regular Instagram stories to share updates and interact with followers. This is just a starting point and will depend on what type of business you have, how much time you have etc. Also be sure to reply to comments, answer DMs, answer customer queries and engage with those who engage with your posts. Social media is a great way to build relationships with potential customers. Help People Understand Why They Should Choose Your Business Whilst getting more views and followers is great, they won’t necessarily turn into customers. They could watch 3 reels from your clothing brand, love the designs but don’t know what your prices are, how you deliver, what quality your products are or how to order. So they would move onto another brand. To increase your visibility but also help people understand your products, make sure your content helps them understand your products and feel comfortable working with you. If you offer web design services, don’t just share pretty images of websites. Explain how having a great website can help small businesses, what features you can offer and answer any questions. If you have any genuine reviews, share them. Make sure your contact details are easy to find. Add a clear link to your WhatsApp, button to message you or link to your website. The easier you make it for people to purchase, the less likely they will leave. Give Your Business More Visibility on Google Whilst using social media will help you get more people to your business, not everyone will find you via Instagram or Facebook. Some people will know exactly what they need and will search you on Google. For example, they may search for the best bakery in the area or an affordable website designer in Kannur. If you don’t appear in the right searches people are searching for, you could miss out on potential customers. This is where local SEO can help. Create a Google Business Profile (if you are eligible). Make sure all your details are accurate. Add your services, images, opening times and contact details. Ask your genuine customers to leave a review. This can help other people see what people are saying about your products/services. If you have a website, make sure it is properly optimized for SEO. Add …

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Digital Marketing Freelancer in Kannur How Can Remove Negative Search Results About Business in Google? It can be frustrating to find negative information on Google. Imagine your brand being mentioned by someone on social media and they go onto Google to check out your brand. Instead of finding your website with your services and great reviews, they find a negative review, old complaint or article. Even if your business has improved, this could affect how people think about your brand. What Can I Do? The good news is there are ways to help manage these negative search results. Unfortunately, it won’t always be as simple as clicking a button. Depending on where the information came from, whether it’s true and if it goes against Googles policies, you may have to do some work. Why Are Negative Results Coming Up? Before you can try to remove any negative information you should understand why it is appearing. Google pulls together information from websites across the internet and shows the most relevant pages based on what you are searching for. Negative results can show up for a few reasons. For example: Weekly Social Media Content Schedule Someone has left a negative review about your business. Someone has left a complaint about your products/services. An article from a while ago has mentioned your brand in a negative way. A website has given incorrect or misleading information. There is a discussion on a public forum which is affecting your brand reputation. Not all negative results will be bad or incorrect. Sometimes it will be genuine feedback from a customer showing that your business can improve. You should understand the cause of the issue first. Identify Where the Negative Information is Coming From Search your brand name on Google.Look at the first few pages and identify what the negative results are. Look at what website the information is coming from, when it was published and what the content says. For example, if you run a clothes store and there is an old review about late delivery when people search for your store name. However, you have since improved your delivery processes.Whilst this isn’t necessarily untrue, it could be affecting potential customers.However, if there is untrue information about your business on a website, then you may have justification to ask for this to be changed. Once you know where the information is coming from, you can decide on the correct step to take. Request Removal from Google When the Content Violates Its Policies There are methods you can use to ask Google to remove specific content. However, this does not mean you can ask to have all negative reviews, complaints or articles removed.You may be able to ask to have the content removed if it breaches certain policies such as sensitive personal information, doxxing, non-consensual explicit images and more. For example, if there is a website that has published your personal contact information without consent, and it meets the criteria for removal from Google then you can ask for it to be removed. You can start here: Google’s content removal tool: https://support.google.com/websearch/troubleshooter/3111061 Give an explanation about the issue and the URLs required. Follow the steps. Note that this will only remove it from Google Search and may not remove it from the actual website. Contact the Website Owner to Remove Incorrect Information Sometimes contacting the website that has published the negative content online is the best option. Especially if the information is out of date, incorrect or lacks appropriate context. For example, if a blog has posted an article stating that your business is no longer trading. However, you are still trading and providing services. Rather than asking to have it removed from Google, contact the Website Owner and explain the situation. You can respectfully ask them to: Weekly Social Media Content Schedule Correct any incorrect information. Update outdated details. Remove any information that breaches their guidelines for publishing. Add your response or clarification to the article. If the Website Owner agrees to make changes to the page, eventually this may be reflected on Google. However, if they refuse and the content is truly untrue or defamatory then consider seeking legal advice. Deal With Negative Google Reviews Professionally One of the most common reputation issues will be negative reviews. A customer who has had a bad experience with your business can leave a review. As Google reviews show up on Google Search and Google Maps, this can cause prospective customers to see them before they go onto your website. However,If they have given genuine feedback then it is a good idea to reply professionally. You can respond with something like, “Thank you for sharing your feedback. We’re sorry your experience didn’t meet your expectations. We appreciate you bringing this to our attention and would like an opportunity to understand the issue better.” This shows prospective customers that you actually care about the feedback given. What If The Review Is Not Genuine? If someone leaves spam or fake engagement, or anything that goes against Googles review guidelines then you can report this in your Google Business Profile. You can learn more here: https://support.google.com/business/answer/4596773 Any reviews you report to Google for removal will be reviewed against Googles guidelines. Just because you don’t agree with the review doesn’t mean that Google will remove it. Use the Outdated Content Removal Tool Sometimes negative content will have been removed from a website but Google are still showing the outdated version. This is because Google aren’t always immediately updating their search results. Imagine a website has published an inaccurate article about your company. You contact them and they agree to remove the article. However, when someone searches for your brand name, the outdated page still appears on Google. In this case you could use Googles Outdated Content tool. You can enter the URL of the outdated page to request that Google updates their search results. You can find this here, https://search.google.com/search-console/remove-outdated-content Bear in mind that this tool is for Outdated Content and cannot be …

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Digital Marketing Freelancer in Kannur How Can a New Website Rank on Google Quickly? Starting a new website can be exciting. However, you may find yourself frustrated when you search for your business on Google and cannot see anything. Many new website owners will often have this issue. We can put time into making the site look good and providing helpful content but still struggle to get it to rank. So how can we get our new website to start ranking on Google? Firstly you need to understand that Google will need time to find, understand and assess your website. Whilst there are ways to speed up the process there is no quick way to guarantee you’ll get your website to rank on the first page. Why Is Your New Website Struggling to Rank on Google? Many times it is because Google hasn’t found all of your website pages. Search Engines use automated tools (known as crawlers) to find pages and understand the content. If your website pages have not been crawled and indexed by Google they won’t show in the search results. Even if your website has been indexed you’ll still need to think about having relevant content, a good user experience and enough authority to compete with others. For example, if you open a new Bakery in your town and there are already a few well-established bakeries you may not see many customers straight away. The same applies when starting a new website. Help Google Discover Your Website To begin with ensure that Google can find your website. Google Search Console can be used to help you understand how your website performs in Google Search. It is free to use. Once you have verified your website, go to the Sitemaps section and add your XML Sitemap. A sitemap contains information about your important pages so Google can find them. You can also use the URL Inspection tool to check whether individual pages are indexed. If your important pages aren’t indexed you can request them to be. Whilst requesting pages to be indexed won’t guarantee they will be found immediately, it will help you identify any technical issues and give Google the chance to find your content. Choose Keywords Your Customers Actually Search For A common mistake many new website owners make is focussing on what they want to say rather than using keywords that people would actually search for. Think about what a customer would type in. If someone needs a website designer they may search for “affordable website designer in Kannur”. Whilst both are related to the same service the first will give a clearer understanding as to what they’re looking for. Find the Right Keywords for Your Business Before writing any page or blog take time to think about how your potential customers search on Google. What words do they use? Are they looking for information or a certain service? Are they searching for something specific to their location? You can use tools such as Google Keyword Planner, Google Search Console and other keyword research tools to find out what keywords people are searching for. Don’t focus on using high volume keywords. Whilst they may receive thousands of searches they may not give you the right visitors. Focus on using keywords that relate to your content. If you are providing exactly what people are searching for you have a greater chance of attracting the right visitors and increasing your organic visibility. Write Content People Actually Find Useful Having the right keywords won’t be enough. You’ll need to provide helpful content. Consider what questions your potential customers may have. Are they wanting to know about pricing? Are they comparing options? Do they want to know how something works? Or are they looking for solutions? Write blog posts and service pages that can answer these questions. If you offer website design you could write blog posts about pricing, common mistakes and what to look for when choosing a website designer for your small business. Avoid writing multiple articles that all explain the same thing. Ensure your pages have a clear purpose and provide helpful information. This will help your website provide information around your business whilst also giving people a reason to look further into your website. Improve Your Website’s Technical Performance Sometimes the issue may be with your website. If your website takes too long to load, has broken links, isn’t mobile friendly or has unclear navigation this can cause issues. Focus on a few key areas: Types of Social Media Content for Businesses Page Speed ↗ Ensure your pages are fast to load, especially on mobile devices. Mobile Friendly ↗ Ensure your website works on different screen sizes. URLs ↗ Keep your URLs short and descriptive. Internal Links ↗ Link to relevant pages so people and search engines can find more information. Title Tags and Meta Descriptions ↗ Use meaningful titles and descriptions. HTTPS ↗ Ensure you’re using a secure connection. Also ensure there are no duplicate pages, broken links and your website isn’t accidentally set to noindex important pages. You don’t need to fix everything at once. Focus on the issues that are stopping Google finding your website and causing issues for people. Build Trust and Credibility for Your Website Another issue with new websites is building up their authority. Google will look at a number of factors to decide which pages should rank. One thing to focus on is building up quality backlinks. This means getting other websites to link to yours. For example, a local business may be mentioned in local business directories, industry websites, local publications and trusted business blogs.  Whilst we don’t want hundreds of random backlinks, a few relevant and real backlinks can be more valuable. Ensure your business information is consistent on relevant websites. If you have local customers a Google Business Profile can be set up and maintained to improve your local visibility. How Long Does It Take for a Website to Rank on Google? There is …