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The online marketing space is brimming with energy and competition, which at every point provokes web designers and online retailers to employ creative ideas and social media strategies to bring the traffic on board.

This constant need for flexing the creative muscle is no different in holiday season which is the high time for driving sales. A family reunion, in conjunction with the harsh weather outdoors, makes for the ideal opportunity for individuals to shop online and for retailers to capitalize on that.

Below we share some useful creative ideas that will always keep you one step ahead of your competitors when it comes to the race of attracting newcomers and retaining the existing users during the holiday season 2018 and beyond.

Respect the festival

In light of the special occasion of Christmas or general winter holiday season, people need to see how true your website design remains in respecting the cultural traditions. For this it’s favourable to redesign certain Call-to-Actions (CTAs), the homepage of your web and the colour or styles of certain sections of the platform to reflect that of the Christmas theme and colours.

A good example is the promotional banner above on Joules US’s website.

We’re thinking white-and-red mostly; perhaps snowflakes for the borders and Christmas tree lights in the background. Shopify has a great list of brands who’ve attempted such fun promotional ideas.

Utilize the social media channels

No one can deny the imposing presence of social networking giants like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and what they mean to the marketing game.

As of 2018, 3.2 billion users have registered to such sites. Shaking up the formula a little bit, your website can use it not only to hype up incoming new arrivals or discounted deals, but to put up a live stream that gives your fans something to talk about.

Podcasts have seen a lot of success for promotion of products, especially if it’s hosted by a popular personality or on a well-known platform. Midroll reported that 60% of all podcast listeners purchased the advertised product. Reserving up a spot or time-frame during any point of the podcast seems to be a viable strategy to bring in some users during holiday season.

Prioritize discounts, vouchers and trials

We know the main reason for consumers resorting to digital stores for their shopping is due to discounted limited time deals, so that’s what your marketing strategy should focus on: a lot of voucher codes and special deals.
Create urgency by including countdown timers or displaying the amount of stocks left. Maybe even go up a notch by introducing free trials or subscriptions like that which HBO attempted. Free gifts or additional items awarded for a certain value of purchase made is sure to make consumers feel special and keep returning for more purchase in the future.
Another example is of HnM. Their banner creates a sense of urgency by encouraging customers to order before a certain date, otherwise their orders may get late:

Market via emails

Marketing by email channels and newsletters mark a 3800 % in ROI, which is a lot. With regards to holiday season, your brand can send out exclusive vouchers to your email-list members since personalize vouchers feel more special.

Do make sure to include CTAs like ‘Buy now’ or ‘Join now’ to redirect users to the web before they start having second thoughts. Include original, interesting and visually striking images to catch the viewer’s attention. Some brands have brought this idea on board and our friends at Mailer Lite have compiled some interesting examples.

Put heart into your ads

Weeping and laughing together only makes us come even closer, especially in a season where we ARE together. Therefore video or illustrative ads which can portray such feelings work all the time. Have music, have charisma, have clever puns and touch at least one aspect of the human heart in whichever way you choose to tell people about your brand.

A celebrity endorsement will also help when it comes to resonating with the audience better. Independent recently compiled a list of the best Christmas advertisements of 2018, check it out to get a sense and feel of the impact of ads.

Give back to the community

For kids, Santa Claus is the popular fictional character, but for the young-adults and working class, it’s their favourite brands granting their wishes. To increase user-engagement and value the customer’s loyalty to the brand, have giveaways, lucky draws and festive competitions.

Revolving around the Christmas season, maybe even have a trivia about the festival and associate prizes with it accordingly. Again, social media channels here will be your go-to- platform so make use of that. This will prove valuable to many metrics including web traffic and social media conversations about the brand.

Create a relevant hashtag

Yes, yet another utility of the social media channels. As per a survey, inclusion of a single hashtag on an average Instagram post led to a 12.6% increase in engagement rate. Your holiday season marketing campaign needs a relevant hashtag which basically includes your brand’s name followed by the ‘Christmas2018’.

Of course you can make it crispier along the lines of ‘Xmas18’ or include various hashtags as well, but make sure they’re getting the message across without becoming too distracting. ReturnOnNow has some good practices your marketing team can follow.

Blogging for awareness

If you don’t have a blog section on your website, now is as good of time as any to create one. Blog posts keep your users updated about the latest trends and innovations related to the products your brand specializes in and thus promotes a more engaged audience.

According to HubSpot, 53% of marketers claimed that blogging was at the forefront of their marketing plans. Blogs also indirectly favour your SEO score by letting people stay longer on your website and getting redirected to your platform thanks to the keywords you incorporate in the articles.

Push notifications

Mobile channels seem to be one of the rising channels for marketing with 83% of marketers claiming it the channel to be viable for their content marketing.

Since mobile users make up about 5.1 billion in population globally, push notifications are a good way of alerting them of new additions to your catalogue especially if you’re an e-retailer. Being holiday season, most individuals will browse through their handheld devices in their leisure time.

It’s best to keep these notifications short, informative and catchy which calls for urgent action. A personalized touch like the use of ‘you’ and ‘us’ also helps with the click-through rates.

Deliver products with love

Going the extra mile, why not wrap the purchased items with decorative, Christmas-themed wrapping paper and then deliver it to your dear customer? You can also include something witty, like ‘See you next time’ or ‘Happy to serve you’ since it is these little details and touches that add to the strength of the business-customer relationship to ensure long-term customer loyalty.

Conclusion

Christmas season is always a busy one for retailers and business owners that operate primarily from the digital landscape.

To get users to eagerly participate in their holiday season marketing campaign and sales, you’ll occasionally need to get out of your comfort zone, walk the plank and venture into unfamiliar territory to remain alive in the overcrowded and competitive marketing world of today.

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.

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. The ability to maintain a visually pleasing and consistent brand image across your social media presence is a tough task, but during the current digital scope of the marketing world, it has become essential. Social media has become a gateway into brand building.

According to a recent survey by Sprout Social, 7 out of 10 respondents said that they follow a certain brand/business on social media because they are interested in their products or services.

Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube and Snapchat are not just mere channels for your social media marketing needs but they have become the first step of your sales funnel. The feeds of these social media platforms are a medium for sales pitches.
In order to win at social media branding, not only do you have to be present on social media but also learn to polish your profiles to make a lasting impression on whoever is visiting them.
We’ve gathered some tips that would definitely help you to create branded content that would help you win at social media branding:

BE CONSISTENT WITH THE MAJOR BRANDING FACTORS

The profile picture and the handle of the social media account are one of the major branding factors that help create consistency across the brand.
Find a username for your social media accounts that is available across all social media channels. This would help your customers find you across different social media platforms easily and create a consistent image of the brand.
Your profile pictures across different social media platforms should be the same. This would help your visitors recognize your brand from the profile picture. Not only the profile picture has to be the same but it has to be optimized for different social media channels. For example, Facebook and Instagram use different dimensions for the profile picture and it has to be optimized.

As shown above, Sophie and Trey apply this perfectly on their Instagram account and the logo of the company fits perfectly as the profile picture. They have the consistency across all their social media channels that helps create a strong brand personality and image.

Event with the Facebook profile picture, the consistent tones of branding are used that help create a strong social media branding image.

USE A CONSISTENT COLOR PALETTE & FONTS

Consistency is essential if you want your brand to be easily identified. The brand consistency goes beyond the consistency of the logo usage but it also extends to the colors that the brand uses across their social media.
The brands should have a consistent color scheme across all of their social media platforms to the point where the people can easily recognize their brand by those colors with or without the brand logo being present.
Sticking to a consistent color scheme and fonts for your brand is crucial if you are aiming to win at social media branding. The colors of the logo are the anchor for setting your color palette. You can use the shades or colors that complement the colors of your logo and set the aesthetic tone for your brand.

White duck outdoors sticks to the consistent background of white behind their logo and creates a great aesthetically pleasing look.

If you notice their Twitter account, the consistency is followed their as well and the logo colour of green is used as a font accent.

DEVELOP A SOCIAL MEDIA VOICE

The personality of the brand should be represented by the voice and the tones being used in its social media posts. The way that you brand communicates with the audience in the Tweets, Posts or Snaps should have the brand’s distinct elements. This should revolve around three elements:

The company culture:

The culture at your company is what you stand for, what the company is about and what makes your company stand out from the rest of the crowd.

The audience:

The way you communicate should also revolve around who your audience is. If your business is catering to a younger audience, your company should be aware of what the popular lingo is across that age group and apply that in your social media presence.

Authenticity:

Whatever your company represents should be made clear across the language used in your social media. Trying to fit in usually backfires and creates an aura of mistrust as you are misrepresenting yourself on social media.
A mixture of these three elements helps develop a social media voice for your brand.

BE CONSISTENT WITH YOUR CONTENT

Enough has been said and written about the importance of content curation. As a brand, you do not have to just create content and put it out there for your audience. The content you create has to offer value to your audience and it has to resonate with them. Curating content can certainly help you build a strong brand image.
If you are a clothing store owner, your content should revolve around the clothing industry. You can develop content based on your most popular products and tips and tricks about what to wear and what not to wear according to the occasions and the weather.
There are numerous possibilities to curate content that revolves around what your brand offers to the consumers and there are several examples of such brands.
So Worth Loving’s social media is full of such examples and the content that they produce resonates with their audience:

The brand revolves around uplifting other people and telling them that they are worth loving. So the content is curated around the values that the brand represents.

POST FREQUENTLY

Posting frequently is another important aspect of building your brand. Staying in touch with your consumers and customers is vital in the social media world. Whether it is the company news that you are sharing or a product post or a random event related post, posting frequently on social media is required in these times.
The frequency of posting content varies from platform to platform but you don’t necessarily have to be present across all available social media platforms.

WRAPPING IT UP

There are various myths surrounding the social media branding and you should not pay heed to them.
Opinions like social media can make you popular overnight should not be paid attention to. Use social media as a tool to build your audience instead of trying to go ‘viral’ overnight. It would hurt your brand more than it would do well.
Secondly, you don’t have to present on every single social media platform. Choose the best platforms according to your business needs and the audience that the platform is popular with. Social media branding doesn’t have to start with hundreds of thousands of followers. You have to be consistent and brand right from the start.
The size or the quantity of the following you have does not matter as long as you are building a loyal audience. We hope that the tips provided above help you win at social media branding!

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.

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:

(Image source: Pixabay)

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.

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.

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.

Call to Action or CTA buttons are the buttons that you use on your website to guide the visitor towards your goal conversion. Call to action buttons are the part of the landing pages that the users need to click in order for them to take a certain action. Most CTA buttons are very goal oriented and the goal is to make the user click and then complete the conversion. The conversion may or may not be in the form of a purchase, email capture or a sign up.

Most commonly used call to action buttons are:

1- Add to cart buttons
2- Free trial sign up buttons
3- Download buttons
4- Email capture buttons

The best call to action buttons often come with a combination of various factors including word-play, the device on which the CTA is being displayed, fear of missing out and the reason why your website visitor should take the desired action.

Let’s get right to the tips that would help you in creating effective call-to-action buttons:

USE STRONG COMMAND VERBS

The type of language that you use plays a very important role in the call to action buttons. You have to be clear and concise with your CTA for the reason that there isn’t a ton of space available in the buttons. You have to let your audience know what action you want them to take and there’s no messing around with that.

If you’re running an ecommerce 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 to 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/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 to your newsletter using the words “Our latest newspaper is available” would not be as effective as “Subscribe to our newsletter today”.

The second word-play puts out a strong and direct message to the user. Good Call to action button examples would include something like this from OfficeVibe. Simple, effective and offering an incentive.

Source: officevibe

PROVOKE EMOTION/ENTHUSIASM

When you’re putting a CTA button out there, you want to invoke a strong response in your audience/visitors. If your CTA is enthusiastic, your audience will be, too. An example would be “ORDER NOW AND GET 50% OFF!”

Not only are you offering a huge discount to your visitors but also provoking them to make a purchase. This excites the visitor with the notion of getting a discount while shopping.

A great example of this is by Aquaspresso. The CTA says “SEND ME SPECIALS NOW!”

The immediate customer reaction after reading this would be “I want the specials!”

GIVE THE AUDIENCE A REASON TO TAKE THE DESIRED ACTION

If you take a look at your website from a visitor’s perspective, why would you engage with a specific CTA button?

Creating a unique selling point and a call to action combination is a perfect way to engage your visitors into taking the desired action. For example, for a website that offers medical consultations, “CALL NOW FOR A FREE CONSULTATION” would be a perfect CTA button. You’ve stated your desire to be called now and have offered a free consultation to the visitor too.

Another great example of a good call to action is implemented by Netflix on their website: “JOIN FREE FOR A MONTH”. They state their desire to make you join their service but also incentivize it by offering free service for a month.

INVOKE FOMO

Fear of missing out aka FOMO is one of 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 the 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 offer 5% discount to the people upon redeeming the offer. These offers are usually followed by an email with the promo code and nothing else.

OPTIMIZE FOR DEVICES

Creating an amazing CTA is important, but with recent trends shifting in the favor of mobile users, more work needs to be put in.

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

One of the examples is used by Buzzfeed for their social sharing CTA buttons. The buttons stick to the page while the reader scrolls through the website. If the reader likes the article, he can easily share the article across their social media profiles and give the website social signals. This would help boost the page rankings.

BE CREATIVE

It doesn’t hurt to be a little creative sometimes. Test out your CTAs and check which CTA buttons give you a better CTR and which ones are ignored by your website visitors. There’s this thing about marketing; you never really know what would work unless you try and test it out. So get your creative juices flowing and pour in ideas and word play.

Your audience may not respond well with what you think is a sure-fire CTA button but they might respond to something that you were not so sure about.

Something out of the box that has been implemented by Huemor is shown below. The CTA button reads “DO NOT PRESS”.

Human reverse psychology comes into play as soon as you read this text and it would most definitely make you want to press the button and see what it does. Isn’t it why we are all here? You all know the Adam and the forbidden fruit story.

DESIGN THE BUTTONS

The way your CTA buttons are designed is also extremely important for making your website a conversion hub. There are numerous factors that come into play when you’re designing your CTA buttons. The buttons should be above the fold, as it makes sense to place the most important buttons above the fold. Surround the CTA buttons with white space as it brings the user concentration to the button itself and creates more chances for the user to take an action.

The colors of the CTA button are also important. Lighter backgrounds should have a darker CTA button and vice versa. You should always surround your CTA button with a border or a frame to make sure that it doesn’t blend in the background.

A great implementation of the above is done by Full Bundle:

WRAPPING IT UP

Test and trial are the most important factors when it comes to your website or the landing page. Call to action buttons are an important element of your website, and play a significant role in the way your website will perform in terms of conversion. You can try implementing what you’ve learned in this post on your websites and see what works the best for you. Remember: be creative, be innovative, and be direct.