Developing a strategy around your brand and learning how to market it are pivotal to the success of not just your brand, but your business as well. And that’s exactly what we’re discussing in today’s blog post. 

If you’d like to learn more about what a brand is and the different elements that comprise it, check out part one of our Guide to Branding, “What is Branding?” here. 

What is Brand Strategy and Marketing?

A strong brand strategy helps you present a unified, consistent brand identity in market: Ranging from your site design, to your social media profiles, and even to how you communicate with customers. 

Consistency is pivotal to branding because it helps set expectations with your audience, and a consistently good experience with your brand increases brand loyalty. Without a brand strategy to drive that consistency, your business will suffer. 

Crafting a brand strategy isn’t difficult, but it does take time and effort. 

A good brand strategy helps you understand your business values and directs your brand to grow in manners beneficial to both your business and customers. It’ll help you communicate with your audience clearly and effectively, attract the right customers, and positions your brand in a way that helps you grow your market share. 

Why is Brand Strategy Important?

Without a good, consistent brand strategy your business will suffer. 

Crafting a brand strategy helps you understand who you are and what matters to your business, like your values and mission. Those are vitally important to understand when making marketing and business decisions. 

When you have an inconsistent brand, your marketing and communications take a hit, and if you can’t clearly communicate your brand and values to your customers, you’ve lost them. 

So let’s look into how to create a brand strategy and what you can do to succeed against the competition. 

How to Create a Brand Strategy

Before sitting down to create your brand strategy, it’s good to have the following information at hand:

• Who’s your target audience?
  • Who are you trying to reach? Do you know what your ideal customer looks like? To craft an effective brand strategy you must know who you’re talking to and what their needs are so you can offer the appropriate solution. If you know your audience, you can speak to them more effectively.
• Who’s your competition?
  • What other businesses and brands are competing for the same customers and audience? This information is vital to know. If you understand your competition, you can figure out how to position yourself in the marketplace to stand out from them and attract customers. 

Once you have that information handy, it’s time to start strategizing. So, let’s do it. To build your brand strategy, follow the steps below. 

Understanding the Core of Your Brand

Your business holds a set of core beliefs that drives and influences every aspect of your brand. You can think of these beliefs as your business values or your mission. 

When your brand and core business beliefs are aligned, it’s a powerful thing. When they’re not, well, you’re facing some issues. 

If you understand what drives your business, what drives your brand, then you can successfully communicate that to your customers both verbally and visually. It allows you to grow your business in a way that successfully sets you apart from competitors and engenders you to your audience. 

Without a set of guiding beliefs, your messaging will be erratic, employees may feel directionless, and overall, your business will suffer. 

To help you determine your core values and beliefs, ask yourself the following questions:

• Who am I? Why does this business exist?
  • These questions help you understand the purpose of your business. 
• What does the future of my business look like? What does success look like and how do I create it?
  • These questions help you understand your business’s vision and mission, and help you determine what needs to be done to support them. 

It’s essential that you start your brand strategy by diving into the heart of your brand and determining your values. These values and your core brand can then be shared with your audience and in market through messaging and visual representations. 

Define Your Brand Voice and Messaging

Now that you understand what makes your brand tick, it’s time to figure out how to communicate that to your customers and in the market. You can think of this as an exercise in brand messaging. 

Brand messaging is the practice of talking about who you are. Like with any practice, the more you hone and refine your messaging, the better it gets. Defining your brand messaging helps your brand communicate honestly and effectively. 

It’s important to spend time figuring out your brand messaging before jumping into the more visual aspects of your brand. That’s because your brand’s visual assets are largely an extension of your messaging and how you represent yourself online and in market. 

For example, when developing Domain.com’s brand strategy, we determined that our messaging needs to be authentic, interesting, and straightforward. Cleverness is okay, but we’re not cutesy and we won’t pander. We try to be honest and transparent while speaking clearly and simply — no “fluff.”

In turn, this helped us craft our visual identity — bold, strong, and energetic. Our approach with images and the more flexible creative elements of our brand is to find clean, clear imagery for complicated concepts. Our minimal illustration style is designed much like our messaging, again, no “fluff.”

To craft the best brand messaging, you’ll need to understand three things:

• Your brand’s personality. 
  • Long gone are the days when businesses were entirely formal and focused on transactions alone. Now, your brand needs to have some personality. What characteristics and human attributes does your brand express? Are you fun and cheerful or serious and direct? Determining what attributes to highlight in your messaging helps you build relationships with the right audience. 
• What voice to use. 
  • Your brand voice is unique. A car dealership doesn’t have the same voice as a non-profit, and for good reason. Your brand’s voice is your brand’s personality put into words and articulated in your customer-facing messaging. 
• What tone to take. 
  • A good way to determine your tone is to think about how you want your messaging to make people feel. Your voice won’t change, but your tone can depending on the context of your message or who you’re talking to. Just because your voice is clever, doesn’t mean you can’t have a serious tone when necessary. 

Once you’ve defined your brand messaging, it’ll be so much easier to communicate effectively and talk about who you are in market. Your brand messaging and voice should be used when sharing your brand story, making a pitch, or making a promise to your customers. 

Define Your Brand’s Visual Identity

Usually, when someone hears the word “brand” they immediately jump to thinking of colors and logos. However, we chose to include visual identity as the third step in your brand strategy because it’s a continuation of your brand messaging. 

Your brand expresses itself through colors, images, and icons just as much as it does with words. When crafting your visual identity keep in mind that you’re designing not just for your immediate needs, but for your brand’s future, too. 

With that said, your visual identity needs to be clear and intuitive so that the different elements, like colors and logos, work together. There needs to be an element of flexibility so that you can adapt and grow as your business does and as you introduce new products or services. And it needs to be comprehensive. Detail your color palette and what your imagery is meant to convey so that your employees or contractors understand and can apply your visual identity to their tasks and responsibilities. 

Translating Your Brand Strategy into Brand Guidelines

Now that you’ve gone through the exercise of determining your brand strategy it’s time to finalize it. 

Translating your brand strategy into a tangible document that contains your brand guidelines is an essential step in achieving business success. Having this information documented not only keeps you accountable, but it makes it easy to share with whomever needs the information, whether that be employees or an outside contractor. 

We recommend using a cloud-based tool, like Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, to track this information. Both tools make it easy to work from wherever you’re located and you can access your files across various devices. They also make it easy to collaborate with others and stay on top of tasks. 

Your brand guidelines should detail the following information:

• Mission
• Vision
• Voice & Tone
• Color Palette
• Logos, Taglines, and Icons
• Typography and font
• Visual Language and Identity
• Media kit 
  • Your media kit should include downloadable files of any logos or design elements that your employees or contractors may need to support your brand. 

Putting Your Brand into Market

Ready to take your business and brand into the market? Congrats!

Now that you’ve established your brand strategy, you’ve set yourself up for success. 

You can use your brand strategy and guidelines to talk your customers online and off — in email, via social media, and face-to-face. And you should absolutely use and refer to your brand guidelines when designing your website, the core of your digital identity. 

If you don’t have a website, we can help. With Domain.com’s WebsiteBuilder, you can get online quickly and easily. And while our AI-powered site builder helps make life a little easier by getting your site design started, you retain full control over customizing your site to support your brand identity. 

So what are you waiting for? Get started today. 

Do you want to make the most out of your website — increase your conversion rate, improve your SEO, and have the most engaging content? Because to do so you’ll need to audit your site on a regular basis.

In this post, we’re covering ways you can perform a review of your site so you know what’s working and what needs improvement.

How to Perform a Website Audit

Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?

In order to successfully audit your site, you need to know three things:

1. What a website audit entails.
2. Who your ideal audience is.
3. What your goals are.

The first because, well, how can you perform an audit without knowing what it is? And the second because your site should be designed with your ideal audience in mind. Any improvements you make to your site based on your audit should make life easier for them, not harder. Finally, you need to have identified your website goals. The improvements you make to your site should support your goals (e.g. – increase conversions by 5% month over month.)

Many people and online resources will tell you that a website audit has everything to do with SEO. While that is a large part of it, your site is more than just an SEO machine and we have to look at the bigger picture.

We appreciate BluLeadz’s definition of a website audit. They say that “a good website audit takes into account all the factors that can influence your website’s success: From your perspective, your customer’s, and Google’s.” Considering Google held 88.47 percent of the search engine market as of 2019, their perspective and opinion of your site is absolutely crucial to your success. Your customers’ perspective is essential, so part of your audit will revolve around reviewing the user experience of your website. And of course, your perspective is vital. Who knows your goals and motivations better than yourself? Now is the time to make sure your website is aligned to support them.

Website Review and Audit Tools

It’s difficult to determine where you should begin working on your site if you don’t have a solid understanding of how it’s currently performing. It’s best to first perform your audit and then plan your improvements based on the results.   

A good thing to do at the beginning of every website audit is use a tool built for that specific purpose. You can find both free and paid website audit tools by doing a quick Internet search. Many free tools require that you provide an email address in exchange for their services (it’s called lead generation), or you can pay for a tool to provide a more in-depth review of your site.  

Website Grader

HubSpot created a popular tool, Website Grader, that provides information on your site’s performance, mobile-friendliness, security, SEO, and more. Check out Domain.com’s grade below.

What isn’t pictured here is the plethora of information you’ll receive by starting your website audit with this beginner-friendly tool. You can use the insights from the audit to hone in on the areas where your site needs the most or immediate work. In fact, the last section, titled “What Should I Do Next?” lays it out for you.

Google’s Site Audit Tools

Google offers multiple tools to help you review and understand your website. Here are three of their resources that can best assist you with your audit.

PageSpeed Insights

The name, “PageSpeed Insights,” is pretty telling isn’t it? It’s a tool that “reports on the performance of a page on both mobile and desktop devices, and provides suggestions on how that page may be improved.”

Insights ranks your webpages using a numeric grade — 90+ is a fast page, 50-90 is middling, and anything below 50 is without a doubt a slow webpage.

Note that this tool only reviews the webpage URL that you supply, not your entire website at once. Depending on the size and complexity of your site, it may not be feasible to enter the unique URL for each and every one of your webpages.

Maximize the efficacy of this tool by identifying the most important pages on your site and reviewing those first. You can figure out what pages are most important and receive the most traffic by using heatmapping tools, or by utilizing the next Google tool in this list.

Google Analytics

Analytics provides an incredible amount of information and insight into your website. If you’ve never used it before, here’s a great beginner’s guide to Google Analytics to help you get started.

Now, some of you might be wondering why we’re focusing on this tool since it provides in-depth information on your site visitors’ behavior. But think about it: Your site visitors’ behavior, in large part, correlates to the quality and efficacy of your website and its content.

Have a slow loading site? You’re going to see some big bounce rates and small dwell times. People won’t hang around waiting for the page to load; instead, they’ll leave and find another faster loading website that suits their needs.

Google Analytics helps you identify your most popular and well-trafficked landing pages. These could be the pages that people are landing on from search results, other sites, etc. most often. Consider running these pages through the PageSpeed Insights tool to make them as good as can be before moving on to less trafficked pages.

Google Search Console

Once upon a time, Google Search Console was known as Google Webmaster Tools. We like the newer name, because it speaks to this tool’s purpose: to help you “…monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot your site’s presence in Google Search results.”

If you have a website, you can benefit from Search Console. It’ll tell you things like:

• How often your site appears in Google search results.
• What terms and queries people search by that lead to your site in the results.
• Indicate any issues you may be experiencing with indexing.
• And more!

Google provides instruction on getting started with Search Console here. The information and insights you gather from this tool will be instrumental in improving your website’s SEO and overall success.

Questions to Ask During a Website Audit

Going into things blindly isn’t a great plan. This is especially true for your website audit.

Before spending a lot of time with the resources we mentioned in the last section, make sure you know what questions they’re supposed to be helping you answer.

Auditing Your Website for the User Experience

Your website’s user experience is integral to its success.

When you create a user-friendly website, you’re really inviting those users to stay longer, interact more, and hopefully, convert (that just means they take the action you want for them to take — purchase, sign up for email, etc.) on your site.

To audit your site for user experience, ask yourself the questions below. (Bonus: Many of the improvements you’ll end up making for user experience will directly improve your SEO!)

• Do I know my target audience?
• Are my CTAs (call-to-actions) and content geared toward my audience?
  • Good CTAs are effective. They are clear and deliberate in telling someone what action to take.
• Is my marketing funnel optimized for these users?
• Is my site’s load time too slow or experiencing any issues? (If so, it could mean the answer to the following question is “Yes.”)
• Are my site visitors bouncing?
  • Follow up by looking into their dwell time.  
• Is my site mobile responsive?
  • If your site doesn’t display well on mobile devices, you’re missing out. As of the end of 2019 mobile devices drove the most website traffic, coming in at 52.6%.
  • This is also important for SEO because Google uses mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal.
• Does your site navigation make sense?
  • Once someone lands on your site, will they be able to easily find what they’re looking for and move around?
  • Here’s an (admittedly extreme) example of a site with terrible navigation.

• Is your website design up to par?
  • If your site looks like it walked straight out of the 90s then you’re in trouble.
• Do you have a lot of broken links?
  • It’s a bad look, and your visitors won’t think of your site as reliable.
• Is your contact information easy to find?
  • We recommend making it available on every page, even if at the footer.
• Do you have any intrusive pop-up ads or is your site cluttered in ads?
  • Use a browser in incognito or private mode to get a sense of the ad experience for your visitors. 

Audit Your Website for Technical Issues

A technical audit helps get down to the nuts and bolts of your website: Are the systems and technologies working, or are they not?

• Is my website secure?
  • SSL is integral to the security of the information exchanged on your site.
    • Without SSL, information passed from an end-user (site visitor) to unsecure sites (like during a purchase or email sign up) and vice versa isn’t encrypted. This means it can be intercepted by lots of bad actors out there on the Internet.
  • Secure websites are favored by Google in search results.
  • Browsers display whether a site is secure or not, and that can make all the difference in a visitor’s trust (remember, they’re your potential customers.)
    • Below are examples of sites with and without SSL.

• Is your personal information protected from the Internet’s prying eyes with Domain Privacy + Protection?
  • Keep your site safe from both hackers and human error.
• How does your site display across the most popular browsers?
  • Test your site across all the major browsers so there are no surprises or bad experiences for your visitors. Make any necessary changes to improve how your site renders on these browsers.
  • Don’t forget to test the mobile versions of these browsers!
• Are you using a CMS (content management system) like WordPress?
  • If yes, are you using the most up-to-date and secure version?
  • Audit any plugins to make sure they’re running the newest versions and don’t pose security issues. Remove any no longer needed or used.  
• Is your site backed up?
  • Before making any big changes to your site, you should create a backup. Wouldn’t it be terrible if something went wrong while making updates to your site? Without a backup created of your site, that can equal lots of heartache, time, and lost revenue. 

Audit Your Website for SEO.

An SEO audit helps you optimize your website so that it performs well and ranks higher in SERPs, search engine result pages.

• Do you have a sitemap created so that Google and other search engines can easily crawl and index your site?
• Is your robots.txt file accurate?
• Are all the pages on your site optimized according to the various SEO ranking factors?
  • Moz provides a run-down of different On-Page SEO ranking factors here.
• Are you using appropriate and relevant SEO keywords across your site and content?
• Do all your pages have title tags and meta descriptions?
  • Title tags and meta descriptions are HTML elements that appear in the header on a web page. When a page shows as a search result, its title tag and meta description normally display right along with it on the SERP (search engine results page.) This is important because it can influence whether someone clicks through to your site from the SERPs.
• Is your website accessible?
  • Do your images have alt text?
• Do you have any broken or misdirected links?
  • Domain.com’s resident SEO expert, Mike, thinks SEO Minion, a free 3^rd party SEO tool, is good for checking broken links. Please note, this is not a Domain.com product or resource.
• How many backlinks do you have?
  • Backlinks are links created when one website links to another. You may also hear them referred to as “inbound links.”
  • Are they quality backlinks?
  • Moz created Link Explorer, a free tool to help you identify your backlinks and provide other link metrics, but it does require that you sign up for a free Moz account.
  • SEOquake is another 3^rd party tool (free plugin) that offers great insights into your SEO.
• Is your URL structure optimized?
  • URL structure matters to both search engines and the people visiting your site.
  • Here’s Search Engine Journal’s guide to an SEO-friendly URL structure.

Wrapping up Your Website Audit

Auditing your website can seem overwhelming at first. If that’s the case, break it out into smaller sections and complete them one by one. It could take a few days or a few weeks, but either way, audits are necessary for the success of your site.

You should plan on auditing your website at least a couple of times each year. For more complex websites, consider auditing them more frequently.

Reviewing and auditing your site will give you a leg up with search engines, your customers, and your competitors.

Did you have any other tips or recommendations for auditing sites? Let us know in the comments!

No matter how beautiful and functional your site is, you can’t gain traction and build a successful business if no one knows about it. Sure, you can craft a few social media posts and create some flyers, but those ad hoc efforts won’t result in much if they aren’t part of a larger, strategic business marketing plan.

If you’re not a trained marketer, the idea of creating a marketing plan for your business can seem intimidating. Where do you begin and what’s included?

Rest assured, you can write a great marketing plan, and we’re going to help.

In this post, we’ll start by defining what a marketing plan is, then we’ll discuss the different elements that make up a marketing plan, and finally, we’ll provide tips so you can craft the best plan possible.

Creating a Business Marketing Plan

What is a business marketing plan? It’s a strategic document that outlines how you’ll communicate your products and services to your audience. It details what you’re setting out to accomplish, why you’re doing it, how you’ll get there, and in what time frame.

Marketing plans aren’t static documents, they are actionable guides that can and should be edited and reworked when necessary.  

Your plan helps take the guesswork out of connecting with prospective customers — it serves as a roadmap for your marketing efforts and ensures you aren’t throwing money away on random tactics. Unless you have plenty of disposable income (and who does?), you want to know that the money you invest in marketing is well-spent.

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”

-Benjamin Franklin

Keep in mind that no two marketing plans are exactly alike. Depending on your business and specific needs, you may end up with a more simple or complex plan. But regardless of its length and complexity, your plan should always be backed by research and data.

Let’s look at what you need to have prepared in order to write a business marketing plan. 

Preparing to write your business marketing plan

Before you sit down to write your marketing plan, you should have an idea of what data supports and informs it. Take a look at the following list and make sure to have this information handy as it will help guide the shape your plan takes.   

Your business’s mission statement

A mission statement sets the tone for your business. It’s a short, and to-the-point statement that describes the purpose of your business and it informs your business decisions.   

Ideal customer persona

Your ideal customer persona, also called a buyer persona, is like an archetype of your perfect customer. Creating a customer persona gives you a better understanding of their needs and how to address them.

This persona should include actionable information, like:

• Their demographics (age, income, location, etc.).
• Goals and challenges.
• Their interests.
• Any relevant behavioral traits.

Your customer persona should give insight into how you can better communicate with your prospective customers — from where you can find them to share your message (i.e. on social media) to what language you should use (for example, avoiding jargon and buzzwords.)

Target market information

Identifying your target market is a lot like identifying your ideal customer persona; however, there are a few key differences.

While they both involve demographics and psychographics, your target market deals with a broader group of potential and prospective customers. Your target market could be people in a certain age or income bracket, whereas your ideal customer represents a more segmented piece of that market. 

General market information

When we talk about knowing your general marketing information, we’re talking about your customers, competitors, suppliers, along with industry news and trends.

Look at your competitors, the businesses offering products and services similar to yours, and try to identify the following things:

• What are they doing well?
• What are they doing poorly?
• Do you know what their customers look like?
• What differentiates you from them?
• What marketing materials do they use?
• Where do they share their message?

Knowing these things helps you understand what works and prevents you from making their mistakes.

Have you taken the time to know your suppliers? What’s available to you and when? This helps you plan your inventory and can help as your business picks up and demand grows.

Keeping your finger on the pulse of your industry is always a good idea. It helps to know when there are new trends you can capitalize on, and it can provide insight into your own products and processes.

Your business goals

Your business marketing plan exists to support your business goals. It’s never a bad idea to restate your goals and come back to them often. This keeps them front-of-mind and helps you craft a marketing plan that ultimately supports your goals.

“A goal without a plan is just a wish.”

– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 

Business marketing plan elements

Now that you’ve prepared, it’s time to work on drafting your marketing plan.

Not all marketing plans look exactly the same — you can create email marketing plans, social media marketing plans, and various others. Below, we’ll provide a basic framework you can use to create a general business marketing plan, but feel free to customize or tweak it for more specialized marketing plans.  

1. Description of your business and goals.
2. Describe your target market and ideal buyer persona.
3. Defining SMART goals.
4. Marketing tactics.
5. Measuring success.
6. Roles and responsibilities.

1. Description of your business and goals

The first step in writing any business marketing plan is to lay the groundwork.

Your mission statement helps direct your business, and it helps direct your marketing plan, too. Don’t use your general mission statement in your plan; instead, adapt it so that you have a similar statement to set the tone for your marketing plan.

For example, HomeChef’s mission statement is “to make cooking fresh food at home as easy as possible.” That could be turned into a marketing mission statement by editing it so that it reads, “to engage an audience of amateur and time-starved home cooks, educate them on the joys of cooking, and turn them into subscribers of our service.”

In one fell swoop, you’ve both set out your mission statement and created a goal that the rest of your plan will help support. 

2. Describe your target market and ideal buyer persona

There are people out there who need and want your services, but they don’t know about you yet: Who are they?

Let’s continue with the example we used above — in that statement, we’ve identified that we’re looking to market to an audience of “amateur and time-starved home cooks.”

This section should address that market: Where do you find these people? What are their worries and how can your product or service answer their needs? What do they “look like” (demographics, income, etc.)?

This is also a good time to think about your competition. How do you stand out in your target market? Do you have a unique selling proposition (USP) that differentiates you from other similar businesses? If you don’t know what sets you apart then it’s going to be difficult to target your market and make sales.

All of this information helps you think of, discover, and revise your marketing strategies and tactics, which we’ll get into shortly. 

3. Define your S.M.A.R.T. goals

Smart goals are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely. They make you think practically and realistically, breaking down lofty ideas into achievable goals.

Your marketing mission statement is a great starting place when drafting your specific goals. In our example, we said that our mission is “to engage an audience of amateur and time-starved home cooks, educate them on the joys and techniques of cooking, and turn them into subscribers of our service.”

Now, it’s your job to think of how that can be turned into more specific, actionable goals. We’ll share an example to give you an idea of how it’s done.

We know our target audience cooks at home, but they’re often at a loss for time and might not know all the proper cooking techniques. In researching their behaviors, we discovered that they use certain social media channels for meal ideas. With this information, we can create the following smart goal:

• Set aside one hour each week to create short videos that illustrate our simple, delicious recipes, and share those on social media to create interest in our service.

That goal shows you understand your need to create brand awareness and are sensitive to your ideal customer’s time and abilities, and that you know where to find them online. It also gives you a concrete, achievable goal that you can easily put into practice. 

4. Marketing tactics

Fundamentally, your marketing strategy is designed to promote your products and services so that you can convert customers.  

Your marketing tactics are the specific things you do to support your overall strategy and plan, and can be made up of many different activities, like the following:

• Public relations
• Online marketing
  • Social Media
  • Email
  • Website
• Sales and promotions
• Other marketing materials

You can use this section of your plan to detail the tactics and channels you’ll use to communicate your marketing messages in support of your smart goals. 

5. Measuring success

As a small business owner, you don’t have the time or energy to invest in wasted marketing efforts. Implementing KPIs, or key performance indicators is a great way to measure the efficacy of your marketing and helps you understand what’s working and what isn’t.

If one of your goals is to increase brand awareness through the use of social media, then you might want to consider social share of voice as a KPI. Social share of voice (SSoV) helps you understand how much people are talking about you versus others in your industry. If your SSoV increases on platforms where you share your marketing messages, you can assume that your strategy and tactics are working.

If you’re running a seasonal promotion on certain products, you can look to your click-through rates and conversion rates to see if they drove any increase in traffic and sales on your site. Google Analytics is a great, free tool that can help you understand your website performance. 

6. Roles and responsibilities

Do you require others to help support and implement your marketing plan? Use this final section to define what everyone’s responsibilities are so there’s no question or debate.

Implement your business marketing plan

And there you go! Using this guide, you should be able to craft a business marketing plan that helps direct your efforts so you can achieve your goals.  

Do you have any tips and tricks to share with other entrepreneurs as they craft their marketing plans? If so, share them in the comments below and let us know what’s worked for you.

You’ve developed your stellar business idea, worked on your plan, but wait… what’s this? You still need funding?

You have a plethora of options when it comes to small business or startup funding: Traditional lenders, alternative lenders, grants, and then there’s another thoroughly modern way of getting funds — online crowdfunding.

As some loans are becoming harder and harder to acquire, crowdfunding sites are seeing an increase in usage and funding.

So, what is crowdfunding? How can it help you launch your small business? That’s what we’ll discuss in this blog post. Stick around to learn about crowdfunding, tips for crowdfunding success, and the top ten crowdfunding sites for small businesses and startups. 

Crowdfunding your small business

Crowdfunding “is the use of small amounts of capital from a large number of individuals to finance a new business venture.” A big issue with traditional lending methods is that it can be incredibly hard to receive the capital you need to succeed. Unless you have proven success in business, positive cash flow, and great credit history, banks aren’t likely to approve your loan requests.

Crowdfunding is a great answer to this problem as it allows you to get backing from friends, family, established investors, and complete strangers who believe in your business. Crowdfunding has really democratized the world of small business and startup funding.

Before starting a crowdfunding campaign, it’s important to note that on many sites (but not all), if you don’t meet your crowdfunding goal you won’t receive the funding. That said, here’s how you can boost your chances of meeting your crowdfunding campaign goal. 

Tips for crowdfunding success

A great business idea alone won’t help you get the crowdfunding results you’re seeking. We’ve put together the following tips to increase your chances of running a successful crowdfunding campaign so you can fund your business. 

Preparation and planning

Crowdfunding isn’t a shortcut to launching a business, and people are wary of investing in half-cooked business ideas as they’re too risky.

If you haven’t already, now is the time to develop and vet your business idea and create a small business plan. 

Review successful crowdfunding campaigns

Time is money, don’t waste yours by reinventing the wheel. Instead of striking out alone, look to other crowdfunding campaigns to find what worked and what hasn’t, focusing on campaigns in an industry similar to yours.

Can you find any similar traits among successful campaigns? Perhaps they offered equity stakes in their small business or offered big rewards to initial investors. How did they present their campaign? Did they use lots of images and videos to convey their message and appeal? After reviewing these campaigns, you should start to notice common themes and elements. 

Familiarize yourself with the Terms & Conditions

It’s your responsibility and in your best interest to review different crowdfunding sites’ terms before utilizing them for your campaigns. Each site has its own billing policies or ways of collecting revenue, some sites may prohibit certain industries, and others may have certain age requirements in order to use their services. As you review, you may find one site’s terms more agreeable than another’s.

Be your own PR person

When it comes to crowdfunding, you are your biggest advocate. If people don’t know about your business and crowdfunding campaign, how are they going to invest in it? Here are a few ways you can work on your business and brand awareness:

• Create a website.
  • Where should people turn if they need more information about your business? Creating a website establishes your digital presence and not having a site is pretty inexcusable these days. If you don’t have a product or service to sell yet, focus on your “About” and “Contact us” pages. If you’re really serious, create a “Press” page that offers images and information that journalists and others can use in their features.  
• Your domain name should be relevant. 
  • Help motivate people to visit your site by making your domain name short, memorable, and relevant. If the .com you want isn’t available, don’t panic — there are multitudes of available TLDs for all sorts of industries. Can’t find the .com you want for your new yoga studio? Try the .yoga TLD. Is the domain you chose for your e-commerce store unavailable? Try .store or .online.
• Leverage the power of social media.
  • Social media is a form of social proof and helps you build your brand while keeping you in touch with potential investors and customers.
  • Encourage your friends, family, and followers to share news and posts about your business. It’s called social media for a reason — networking is essential!

You want people to know about your business so it can gain traction and get funding, so don’t be shy in promoting it and your crowdfunding campaign. 

Back your campaign before it goes online

Being the first person to do something can be nerve-wracking, and that includes being the first person to back your crowdfunding campaign. However, it’s easier to justify doing something when you see that others are doing it, too. Use this to your advantage by having some investors already lined up before your crowdfunding campaign goes live.

You don’t need professional angel investors — having some friends and family willing to donate at the beginning of your campaign works just as well to lend credibility to your business idea. 

Add a little character

Every good campaign uses facts to help support the appeal, but the great ones know that emotions matter, too. When a person finds your crowdfunding campaign, what do you want them to feel? What emotions should your campaign elicit? Excitement? Desire for your product? Write your crowdfunding appeal to influence the emotions you want someone to feel when reading it.

Show the people behind the scenes making it happen. Your investors want to know about the team that’s turning ideas into reality just as much as they want to know about your business. Ideas are great, but it’s the people that make them happen. 

What are the different types of crowdfunding campaigns?

Crowdfunding campaigns can be broken out into four main categories:

• Donation – when people donate money to your crowdfunding appeal and are promised nothing in return.
• Debt – any money pledged by your supporters is paid back (usually with interest) by a certain deadline. This is a lot like a traditional loan.
•  Rewards – in this scenario, you promise a certain reward based on the amount of money someone pledges to your crowdfunding campaign. You can offer services or products as rewards to entice people to donate funds. Consider offering different reward tiers with corresponding pledge tiers. For example, you can offer one reward to people who pledge between $10 – $100, a better reward for people who pledge $101 – $500, and so on.
• Equity – this is exactly what it sounds like. When you perform an equity crowdfunding campaign, you’re giving an investor a percentage of ownership in your business in return for funding. 

Top Crowdfunding Sites

GoFundMe

Since launching in 2010, GoFundMe is one of the most widely-used crowdfunding platforms. They describe themselves as the “world’s largest, free social fundraising platform.” However, one thing to note is that the platform is only free for campaigns in certain currencies and countries. Also, they apply standard transaction fees to debit and credit card transactions.

Unlike some other platforms that return funds to donors if you don’t meet your goal, GoFundMe allows you to keep whatever amount you raise. With “over $9 billion raised from more than 120 million donations,” you should take the time to review the platform to see if it’s a good fit for your needs. 

Kickstarter

Do you have an innovative product or service that you know will make a difference in your industry? Kickstarter is a crowdfunding platform that helps “make ideas into reality.” Their mission is to “help bring creative projects to life.” This crowdfunding platform launched in 2009 and since then $5.3 billion has been raised for different projects with 188,101 of them being successful.

Kickstarter is all-or-nothing. If you don’t meet the funding goal for your project then your financial backers won’t be charged for their pledges and you do not receive any funds. Kickstarter charges a flat 5% fee from the funds your campaign collects, but only if it’s successful. If a project doesn’t reach its goal then no fees are charged. Also, they charge a standard payment processing fee of about 3%-5%. 

Indiegogo

According to their website, “Indiegogo is where early adopters and innovation seekers find lively, imaginative tech before it hits the mainstream.”

Indiegogo is both a crowdfunding platform and a marketplace. They help small businesses and entrepreneurs take their ideas from concepts to reality and even help you ship your products. They provide services and resources, including access to key partners for the duration of your project. Unlike some other crowdfunding sites, Indiegogo is there to support you for the lifecycle of your campaign and project. Since its launch in 2008 Indiegogo has successfully helped entrepreneurs bring over 800,000 ideas to life.

They charge a 5% platform fee, and that amount is based on the amount of funding you raise, not your ultimate project goal. They also charge a standard payment processing fee that’s dependent upon your location and currency, though it appears to hover around 3% for many currencies. 

Crowd Supply

Crowd Supply’s mission is to “bring original, useful, respectful hardware to life.” Like Indiegogo, Crowd Supply is dedicated to helping entrepreneurs from funding to delivery, and 100% of funded projects have been delivered to backers. They’ve got a great success rate, too — 70% of launched projects have achieved funding.

When you bring an idea or product to Crowd Supply for backing, you’ll see two “Launch Plan” options: Basic and Standard. Here’s how they differ:

Patreon

Patreon exists to “change the way art is valued.” Over 200,000 creators use Patreon to allow their “most passionate fans [to] support [their] creative work via monthly membership.”

To use Patreon you establish a monthly subscription rate (you can create tiers) for your fans and followers. When that amount is paid, they receive exclusive access to your content. Your supporters join a community that supports you and receive a behind-the-scenes look into your creative process. Patreon allows you to make recurring income — it’s not a one time backing or funding for your creative pursuits.

Like Crowd Supply, Patreon has different pricing based upon the plan you choose:

Crowdfunder

Crowdfunder is a place “where entrepreneurs and investors meet.” When you choose to use Crowdfunder you’re joining a community of over 200,000 members and 15,000 accredited investors.

This site is based around equity crowdfunding, meaning that you’ll need to offer an equity stake in your business in order to receive funding. Like most other crowdfunding sites, Crowdfunder offers resources to help you create the perfect crowdfunding appeal.

They also offer a few plans at different price points:

CircleUp

CircleUp allows you to create two types of crowdfunding campaigns: equity and credit. They are selective about the businesses they work with, but if you make it through their approval process then you’ll find an array of services available to you.

CircleUp focuses on helping small businesses find the right investor. Many traditional funding and loan opportunities aren’t made available to small businesses, and so they seek to fill the gap, primarily focusing on consumer brands.

Before you can start using their services, you have to apply here. 

Fundable

Fundable is designed around business crowdfunding, and they’re “dedicated exclusively to helping companies raise capital.”

The team at Fundable takes a hands-on approach to help customers, “from profile creation to marketing, [they’re] there at each step.” To date, people have committed $615 million in funding on their platform.  

It’s free to set up a company profile on Fundable, and a flat fee of $179 USD per month to fundraise. If you choose to run a rewards-type campaign on their platform then there’s a standard credit card processing fee charged by WePay, their payment processor. 

Republic

Republic recognizes that “many startups’ success depends on their ability to get funded.” They built Republic to address that, and their “funding portal and broker dealer are SEC-registered and members of FINRA.” And they support diversity. “25% of investments on Republic have gone to companies with underrepresented founders of color and 44% have gone to companies with a female founder.” The industry average is 1% and 13%, respectively.

As an SEC-registered business, their cost and pricing structure is a bit different from other crowdfunding sites. Find out more about how much it costs to raise money on Republic here.   

Wefunder

Wefunder has helped fund 451 startups and raised over $164.5 million. They’re the self-described “Kickstarter for investing,” the difference being that Wefunder lets people invest in your company with small ownership stakes whereas Kickstarter allows you to sell products. Right now, Wefunder is only available to businesses and startups located in the United States.

They don’t charge any up-front fees and offer to price match if you find a better offer elsewhere. Wefunder collects 7.5% of your total fundraised amount if your campaign is successful.

Ready to crowdfund your small business funding?

Crowdfunding is a great and thoroughly modern way to find and raise capital for your small business. 

There are a multitude of crowdfunding sites, many of which cater to specific industries and products, so don’t despair if you didn’t find a perfect solution in the list above. 

If you’ve run crowdfunding campaigns before, share your best practices with us in the comments below!

As you plan for and start your business, it’ll be your job to figure out how to realize that potential. Many times, small business owners discover that in order to make their business dreams come true, they need to seek external funding and financing.

If you’ve never done that before, don’t worry, you’re not alone. As of 2019, there were 30.7 small businesses in the United States, making up 99.9% of all US businesses. Many of these small businesses sought or are seeking funding to help start and run their business.

In this post, we’re discussing why a small business might seek funding and the different types of small business funding options available to you. With this information, we hope you can make an informed choice in the future of the business.

Small Business Funding

Small business owners don’t have small dreams. Across the nation and world, small businesses are addressing vital issues and problems and coming up with solutions for them. Despite having big dreams and big goals, most small business owners don’t have access to big accounts with unlimited resources. Let’s look at some of the reasons why you might want to seek funding for your business.

Reasons to Seek Small Business Funding

Here are five reasons why your small business may seek funding.

• Startup Costs

Starting a business isn’t free — to do so, you need money to cover a variety of expenses. You’ll need funds to pay for your incorporation fees, insurance costs, office or retail space, taxes, website, and a variety of other common business startup costs.  

• Working Capital

Capital is another way of saying financial assets. Working capital, as defined by Investopedia, “is the difference between a company’s current assets, such as cash, accounts receivable (customers’ unpaid bills) and inventories of raw materials and finished goods, and its current liabilities, such as accounts payable.” If you have more in liabilities than assets, then you don’t have a positive working capital, which means it can be tough for you to pay back any existing loans and you can even risk bankruptcy.

• Business Growth

After you’ve started and established your business, you’ll want to grow it.  Maybe you’re looking to serve a new market, are buying assets, want to increase your sales, or hire additional help. Whatever your needs, growing a business costs money.

• Products and Services

From ideation to execution, product and service development cost money. You’ll need to validate the idea for your new product which could involve market testing, then cover the costs of production, inventory, and shipping. There’s nothing worse than identifying the perfect product or service for your market and not being able to fund it.

• Debt Consolidation and Restructuring

It may seem counterintuitive to receive funds or take out a loan to pay off your debts, but loan consolidation often helps to make your finances more manageable. Loan consolidation can increase your working capital by reducing the number and amount of your monthly payments.

Types of Small Business Funding

Just as everyone’s need for funding is different, so too are your financing and funding options. What may be a great fit for one business isn’t necessarily the solution for yours. Luckily, there are many types of funding to serve a variety of needs and types of business. But before you apply for funds, make sure you know how much funding you need.

Traditionally, there have been two main kinds of small business funding: debt financing and equity financing. Debt financing means that you’re funding your business by borrowing money, whether it be in the form of a traditional bank loan or borrowing from friends and family. Equity financing is a way to gain funds by selling stock or ownership in your company. This type of financing often means you establish a long-lasting relationship with the lender who may also serve as a business mentor.

Let’s explore different types of small business funding so that you can make the best decisions for your business.

Bootstrapping

When you decide to bootstrap your business, you’re not turning to external sources for help. Instead, you’re acting as your own investor. If you have a 401(k) or savings that you can tap into, and you want to maintain complete control over your business and finances, then bootstrapping may be the best fit for you.

Unfortunately, not everyone has money saved and invested, and that can be due to a variety of reasons outside of their control. If bootstrapping isn’t an option for you, don’t worry, that doesn’t mean you can’t start a small business.

Traditional Business Loans

What are traditional business loans? They’re bank loans, plain and simple. There are different types of bank loans and the terms of your financing can vary greatly depending on the lending institution.  

Before accepting any loans, you’ll want to review two things: The loan terms and what collateral you’ll need to obtain it. Oftentimes, banks won’t issue loans for small amounts of funding, so you need to consider the longevity of your business and accept that you may be paying back your loan for a long time to come.

Here are some ways that banks traditionally lend money to businesses:

Revolving Loans

A revolving loan usually takes the form of a line of credit or business credit card. Instead of a fixed-term installment loan that starts on a specific date and must be paid back by a specific date, revolving loans give you access to funds as you need them. With a line of credit or credit card, you can access money up to a predetermined limit (your credit limit.) As you borrow and pay back the funds, that money again becomes available for use.  

Installment Loans

When you think of traditional business loans, installment loans are what first come to mind. In most cases, installment loans are secured, meaning that the lender requires some form of security, i.e. collateral, before they’re willing to lend funds. However, if you’re taking out a traditional installment loan for the purchase of a specific asset (like a company vehicle or building), that asset often acts as the collateral.

Installment loans have specific terms that are covered in something called an installment agreement and can include things like a repayment amount and schedule. Installment loans often take the form of commercial loans or equipment financing, and they fall into the category of debt financing.

Traditional lenders usually require that you have good credit before issuing any type of business loan. If that isn’t the case for you, you may want to seek alternate funding.

Alternative Loans and Lenders

Alternative lending is an umbrella term that describes loans and funding options outside of your traditional bank loans. We’ll list some common forms of alternative lending below.

Friend and Family Loans

There are pros and cons to borrowing money from friends and family, just as there are with every type of funding.

Borrowing money from your familiars can be a great way to save on interest and you already have an established relationship with your lender. However, keep in mind that the success of your business can greatly affect these relationships. If your business does well and your friends and family see a return on their investment then all is well. But what happens if your business is stagnant or fails? That can lead to a relationship turning sour, no matter your original relation to the lender.

Grants

A grant is money given to a person or business from the government, a private business, or a corporation. Unlike traditional loans, grants do not need to be paid back. Contrary to popular belief, the U.S. government doesn’t give grants to individuals looking to start a business. Instead, you can turn to private corporations or an entity like the Small Business Administration (SBA) to help with seeking a grant.

Business Cash Advance

A Business cash advance, also known as a merchant cash advance or an account receivables factoring, is when you receive a lump sum of money and in return, you promise the lender a percentage of your future revenue or sales.

Business cash advances are like the “payday loans” of the business world — they’re easy to come by, but the terms are often steep so stay alert and always review the terms and conditions. If you have bad credit but good sales projections, this may be a great solution to your small business funding needs.

Small Business Administration Loan

With a name like SBA Loan, you might think that the SBA lends money directly to businesses, but that’s not quite how it works.

Instead of lending money directly, the SBA has a network of lending partners that they work with to provide loans to small businesses. These partners include “community development organizations and micro-lending institutions.”

Depending on the SBA loan you qualify for, you may also receive education and support to run your business and benefits like lower down payments and no collateral. SBA loans can range anywhere from $500 USD to $5.5 million USD.

You must meet certain eligibility requirements to apply for and receive an SBA loan, so take a look here to get matched with a lender and see if an SBA loan is right for you.  

Private Investors

According to Biz2Credit’s July 2020 Small Business Lending Index, only 13.8% of small business loan applications were approved at big banks. That’s not a particularly comforting success rate, and if you can’t get a traditional bank loan, you may want to look for a private investor.

Private investors can be anyone — friends and family fall into this category, along with your professional network and business capital brokers. If you’re looking for a local private business investor, try speaking to your Chamber of Commerce or any relevant trade associations as they may be able to point you in the right direction.

Oftentimes, private investors (you may hear them referred to as angel investors) will give you a lump sum of money (known as venture capital) to invest in your business in return for ownership equity. Private investor terms vary from investor to investor, so do your homework and contact multiple investors to make sure you’re getting the best terms.

Invoice Financing

Invoice financing can be a great small business funding option for those already open and in business. It’s a way of improving your cash flow (so you can pay employees and stay on top of other expenditures) by borrowing against your open customer invoices.

Depending on your small business structure, you may find that you’re selling goods and services based on credit (invoicing your customers) instead of receiving the money up-front. In this situation, your client is given an invoice that tells them the total amount due and the due date. If you have unpaid invoices, you can approach an invoice financing lender and borrow against those open invoices. In this situation, your open invoices act as the collateral for the funding.

Crowdfunding

As you’ve perused social media you’ve no doubt seen people crowdfunding money to pay for surprise expenses, like medical bills or funeral costs. But have you ever given serious consideration to crowdfunding your business?

Crowdfunding is exactly what it sounds like — raising funds from a crowd. Instead of having one or two large investors, anyone can contribute a small (or large) amount to a crowdfunding campaign, thereby helping you raise the money you need to launch and maintain your small business.  

Crowdfunding campaigns fall into four main categories:

• Donation – when people donate money to your crowdfunding appeal and are promised nothing in return.
• Debt – any money pledged by your supporters is paid back (usually with interest) by a certain deadline. This is a lot like a traditional loan.
• Rewards – in this scenario, you promise a certain reward based on the amount of money someone pledges to your crowdfunding campaign. You can offer services or products as rewards to entice people to donate funds.
• Equity – this is exactly what it sounds like. When you perform an equity crowdfunding campaign, you’re pledging a percentage of ownership in your business in return for funding.

There are many different crowdfunding sites, all with different terms of use, so do your research before deciding on the best crowdfunding platform to raise your small business funds.  

Ready to fund and launch your small business?

We hope this post has helped you understand the different types of funding your small business can leverage. If you have any questions or comments, post them below!

As you prepare to launch your small business, don’t neglect your digital presence. Your customers are online and you should be, too. Your online presence starts with your domain name and website, and we offer the perfect solutions for both. 

Get started today at Domain.com.

Despite whatever careful planning you may have done, we’re betting COVID-19 has thrown a bit of a wrench in things. 

Since early this year, many businesses have had to close their physical locations in accordance with local regulations. However, many places are now starting to open up and relax restrictions — hooray! 

In this post, we’re going to discuss ways you can communicate and instill faith in your customer base. Many people are still hesitant about venturing outside and resuming their normal activities, so we’ll discuss what you can do to assuage their fears and increase foot traffic to your business. 

Reopening your business after COVID-19.

Tips to communicate your business reopening. 

Communication is key — that old adage holds true for both relationships and business. (And for building business relationships with customers.)

As you reopen, you’ll face people who are ready to go back out and resume their normal lives, and some who, despite wanting to shop with you, are scared of being in an enclosed area with strangers. 

Fear is a big motivator, and it might just keep them at home, unless you…

Provide clear and descriptive safety protocols. 

The big concern about gathering in public spaces or stores is COVID-19. No one wants to catch it and get sick or risk communicating a potentially lethal virus to others. However, there are ways to mitigate the risk of catching the virus, and these strategies are what you need to know and communicate to your customers. 

• Will you be capping the number of people who can be in your store at any given time? 
• Is everyone in the store required to wear a mask and/or gloves? 
• Are you taking your employees’ temperature before they enter the building? 
• Will you provide contactless payment options?

Announcing your handling of these issues in a clear, concise manner will help address your customers’ fears and build their confidence in your business. Customers are looking for a perception of safety, so do what you can to give it to them. 

Be honest about the state of your business. 

Supporting small businesses and shopping locally are important to many. It’s a shock to scroll through social media or turn on the news and see the numbers of businesses who’ve closed their doors for good.

Use the story of your business, including the challenges you’ve faced during COVID-19, to power your communication and marketing. You don’t have to be ashamed if you’re struggling — now is the time to ask for help. If you aren’t flexible enough to ask, people might think you’re doing better than you are, which could keep them from venturing out and patronizing your store. 

Ways to communicate your reopening. 

Reopening won’t help your business if people don’t know about it. With so many folks staying indoors, sticking a sign out front isn’t going to cut it. Here’s what you can do to announce your reopening. 

Update your online business profiles. 

Where do people turn to get information? The Internet. 

So when you reopen your business, make sure that information is reflected online. This includes on your Google My Business Profile, website, Yelp, or any other listings site where your business has a presence. You can also update your business hours on your social media profiles, like on Facebook.

Leverage the power of social media. 

Does your business use social media? It’s a great tool to communicate with your customers. 

Make sure your new business hours and any changes to how you operate are mentioned on your social profiles. What kind of information should be shared? If you require masks, have created special check-out or pick-up processes, and anything else that may have changed since the last time your customers were in your store. You can pin or stick these posts to the top of your profile on both Twitter and Facebook so they’re easily accessible. 

You can use social media to create excitement about your reopening, too. Consider running a countdown to the big day and offering discounts to those who visit. It doesn’t have to be anything huge — perhaps just an offer of 5 to 10% off for the first 20 customers. 

Once you have reopened your business, use live video to showcase your store and your efforts to keep it safe. Show off your social distancing prowess, and include your safe, masked employees. Once people (literally) see how you’re mindful of safety, they may feel more comfortable visiting your store. 

Use email marketing. 

Do you know where your customers are every day?

Their inboxes. 

Email is a great tool to communicate with your customers, so don’t ignore it. According to research done by the Direct Marketing Association, “Email has an average ROI of $38 for each $1 spent.”

Before you reopen, create an email campaign to drum up excitement with your customers. Your email should include the same type of information you’re conveying via social media — detail any changes to your business and explain your safety protocols. 

Email is a great way to share offers, too. If you plan on enticing your customers back to your store with a coupon, include it in your email!

And make sure that your email address matches your domain name. Your customers have had months to familiarize themselves with your website domain name and they know your business, so when they see an email with a matching name, they’ll immediately recognize it. That kind of recognition and trust will save you from landing in their Spam folder. 

Are you ready to reopen your business?

We wish you the best of luck and we hope you find the tips we’ve covered above to be useful! With proper planning and communication, we’re confident that you can reopen safely and attract foot traffic to your business. 

Ultimately, protecting the safety of your employees and customers during reopening is your main goal, so stay on top of your local rules and regulations to know what’s required in your area. 

Seems like just yesterday we were toasting one another while wishing everyone a Happy New Year. And yet here we are, nearing the end of the year’s first quarter. If you’re looking to increase your sales before the month is out, you’re in luck — this is the blog post for you.

March is a festive month. You can’t deny the popularity of celebrating St. Patrick’s Day. It’s a day where people “claim” Irish heritage, wear green, attend parades, eat corned beef and cabbage, and perhaps even drink a Guinness or two.

According to the National Retail Federation’s Annual St. Patrick’s Day Spending Survey, 56% of Americans plan on celebrating this year, and that jumps to 73% in the 18-34 year old demographic. If that age group is part of your target audience, don’t skip this holiday.

We’re not going to focus on how to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day as we’re pretty sure you’ve got that covered. Instead, we’re exploring St. Paddy’s day marketing tips and ideas to help your business do more business.

This year, consumers are expected to spend a total of $6.16 billion for St. Patrick’s Day, so let’s make sure you get some of that pot of gold.

5 St. Patrick’s Day Marketing Tips and Ideas for Your Website and Business

1 – Dress Yourself and Your Site Appropriately

The most popular way to celebrate St. Patty’s day, by far, is to wear green. In fact, it’s how 79% percent of people surveyed said they’d celebrate this year.

Consider adding some green elements to your website to get into the spirit. You can accomplish this by temporarily updating your color scheme (many website builders offer the ability to toggle between different colors and themes) or adding some St. Paddy’s-centric images to your site.

If you can’t afford to splurge on expensive stock imagery for a seasonal holiday promotion, don’t worry! Check out these free image resources where you’re sure to find what you need. (Bonus: these aren’t just for St. Paddy’s day materials; you can refer to these resources whenever your site needs a refresh.)

Do you have a brick-and-mortar business? Encourage your employees to get in on the St. Paddy’s Day spirit. They can help decorate your store or restaurant with St. Paddy’s Day decorations and wear green to celebrate the festivities.

Make your location a place where someone would want to celebrate the holiday, or if you’re in retail, make it apparent that you sell the holiday-related materials and supplies they need.

2 – Help Your Customers Save Some Green

Saving money feels good. Saving the planet feels better. Help your customers do one, or both, this March.

Encourage your customers to start “thinking green” as a way to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. Consider offering to donate a certain percentage of your profits that day to a “green-friendly” organization, like The Nature Conservancy, or run a promotion on environmentally friendly items, like reusable straws and bags.

In doing so, you’re keeping to a green theme that’s in line with St. Patrick’s Day, and giving your customers a reason to feel good about themselves and the impact they’re making on the environment (and their pocketbook.)

3 – Make the Most of Email Marketing

 Are you using email marketing on your website?

If not, now’s the time. Email helps you stay top-of-mind with your customers and subscribers, and can bring people to your site when they aren’t otherwise thinking of you. 

Make the St. Patrick’s day theme immediately apparent in your customer’s inbox by paying attention to your subject line. Your subject lines should be short and to the point, like “Save some green this St. Patrick’s Day ☘️” or “Feeling lucky? Today’s your day to save. 🌈☘️” Using emojis is a great way to attract attention, but as with everything, don’t overdo it.

Your themed email can include special offers, links to St. Patrick’s day goods for sale, recipes, trivia, and more. Make it worth your reader’s while, but be mindful not to overwhelm them with content. You can include “Read More” links back to your website from your email, thereby bringing them back to your site where they can transact.

Pro-tip: When your email address matches your domain name, it creates trust in the inbox. 

4 – The Luck of the Draw

Who doesn’t like winning?

Incentivize your customers, email subscribers, and social media followers to interact with your business by running a sweepstakes or giveaway.

St. Patrick’s Day lends itself well to sweepstakes and giveaways because we often associate luck with leprechauns and the Emerald Isle. Create a sense of excitement around your business with a giveaway, and leave one lucky winner (or more, depending on how you decide to structure your sweepstakes) feeling sweet on your business.

5 – Be Respectful

Why do we celebrate holidays?

Holidays and days of festivity are commonplace the world over. They’re intended as days to celebrate what’s important to us, and many places take their holidays seriously.

Above all else, when celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, be respectful of Irish tradition and culture. A simple example is knowing the difference between a shamrock and four-leaf clover, as only one of them is actually a symbol of Ireland. And make sure to avoid any negative Irish stereotypes in all of your marketing materials.  

Being respectful and mindful of different cultures will help you celebrate St. Paddy’s Day, and will help ensure that your marketing isn’t tone deaf and falling flat.

March is your lucky month.

If you want to see a little extra gold this month, consider joining in on the St. Patrick’s Day celebrations both online and off.

Consumers are poised to spend a record-breaking $6 billion USD this year on St. Patrick’s Day supplies, like clothing and entertaining goods, and celebrations, like going out for food and drink.

How will you be celebrating St. Patrick’s Day? Do you have any marketing ideas for the holiday? We’d love to know, so leave a note in the comments.

Why start a blog in the first place?

Bloggers we’ve talked to have described them as their passion. Blogging allows them to connect with people nearby or across the world who have similar interests; it’s a way of supporting their lifestyles (hello, travel bloggers!). Some folks use blogs for their side-hustles to make extra money and others depend on their blogs as a primary source of income.

Face it: You and your blog are in a relationship. Just as with any relationship, it’ll thrive with a little TLC.

Ways to Improve Your Blog  

Use these 10 tips to better your blog and show that you’re ready to commit.

1- Update old blog posts, content, and links.

Many people put all their focus on “new” — new blog posts, new infographics, new videos. The thinking behind that is that new content will increase your site traffic. And to an extent, that’s true. But that doesn’t mean brand new is always better. (Tell that to your ex, amirite?) We’ll explain.

Google, the leading search engine, loves new content. However, in this case “new content” is expanded to include updated content. And older content already has other benefits like URL authority and traffic.

Bots and spiders crawl your site looking for different things. Among those things are indicators of fresh content. They’ll make note of your updates and it can lead to your content seeing a bump in SERPs.  

Added bonus: People are less likely to bounce off webpages that aren’t full of outdated links and information.

2- Create a content calendar.  

As mentioned previously, Google is smitten with new content. Creating a calendar helps you stay on top of future posts and plan your updates.

There are a variety of tools at your disposal for creating content calendars. A quick Internet search shows many free options, or you can use the calendar features in trusted online tools such as G Suite or Office 365 (along with a host of other familiar and user-friendly features that they offer!).

Added bonus: Using a cloud-based calendar allows you to plan with other content collaborators no matter where they’re located.

3- Verify that your blog (and website) is truly mobile responsive.

News flash: It’s 2020! If your visitors want to catch up on your blog from their mobile devices, like a phone or tablet, make sure it’s a pleasant experience for them. No one wants to drag their finger across their screen to get from one end of a sentence to another. And no one will take the time to do that either. Instead, they’ll bounce.

When designing and working on your blog, keep responsive design in mind.

WebFX defines responsive design as, “…a way to put together a website [or blog] so that it automatically scales its content and elements to match the screen size on which it is viewed.”

You don’t need to be a coding wizard to create a mobile responsive site, so relax. Any good Website Builder includes a mobile optimization feature.

Added bonus: Making sure your blog is optimized for mobile devices also improves your SEO! Mobile optimization is a contributing factor in Google’s search ranking, so don’t overlook it.

4- Check the speed of your blog.

You know what else will drive away your visitors? A super slow-loading blog. Why should they stick around when there are approximately 784028495868 bazillion other web pages in existence that they could be browsing (and that could have loaded in the same time frame)?

Let’s face it: A slow-loading blog takes all the fire and excitement out of the relationship. Use a free resource, like Google’s PageSpeed Insights, to get a better understanding of your site’s loading time.

If your loading time is abysmal, poor, or even mediocre, try doing these things:

• Optimize your images.
• Reduce the number of blog posts featured on your homepage.
• Go easy on the ads.
• Make sure you’re using the right plugins (fastest and newest versions.)

5- Audit your plugins.

Even if you get a high score on your PageSpeed Insights review, you should still take stock of all the plugins you’re using.

No relationship needs a third wheel (or multiple third wheels) dragging them down, so get rid of any plugins you no longer use or need on your blog.

We can’t stress this enough — backup your blog before making any changes to your plugins or any big changes to your blog in general! If something bad should happen (and while it’s highly unlikely, it is possible) you’ll be happy you have that backup.

Do you use WordPress for your blog? Here’s a great article by Mediavine on how to audit your WordPress plugins.

6- Add an email signup form to your blog.

You’ve heard us say it before and we’re saying it again for the people in the back.

It’s high time you introduced your blog to email marketing. They make for the perfect pair.

Adding an email signup to your blog is one of the easiest ways to promote and increase repeat readership of your blog. If you’re like most of us, you probably check your email every day. Stay top of mind with your readers by meeting them where they’re likely to be, in their inbox.  

7- Network with other bloggers

Starting and maintaining a blog can seem intimidating at times. It’s a relationship, remember? And all good relationships require work and effort. But here’s the thing — you’re not in it alone.

We’re betting you probably have a friend or two that you turn to for relationship or romantic advice. Well, why shouldn’t you have other bloggers you can turn to when you have questions about your blog or blogging in general? Odds are good that they’ve experienced what you’re experiencing and can help guide you through it.

And that’s not all networking with other bloggers is good for. Once you get to know other bloggers you can try:

• Guest posting on each others’ blogs.
• Boosting your backlinks by sharing each others’ content.
  • Do this as appropriate. Spamming each others’ blogs with irrelevant links looks bad to both your readers and search engines.
• Contributing to supplementary content together, like podcasts, webinars, or giveaways.

8- Get social from behind the computer screen.

It is your responsibility as a blogger to engender trust in your readers. If you want your visitors and readers to value your content and share it with others, they need to know the source behind it is trustworthy. It’s all part of something called social proof.

SproutSocial defines social proof as, “the concept that people will follow the actions of the masses. The idea is that since so many other people behave in a certain way, it must be the correct behavior.”

The thinking goes that if many people trust and share your content, then it must make sense for them (any other people) to do the same thing.

Show who you are and that you’re trustworthy by:

• Connecting with your readers in the comments.
• Creating social media groups (like Facebook groups) where your readers can connect and converse with you.
• Posting testimonials from those who’ve worked with you in the past or have tried your products.

9- Go beyond the written word on your blog.

Did you know that the word “blog” is a shortened version of web log?

Since blogs started as online journals, it makes sense that they’re heavily reliant on the written (or typed) word. That dependency on written content won’t change, but it doesn’t mean you can’t spice it things a bit.

A little variety never hurt anyone, so consider adding any of the following types of content into the mix:

• Video
• Gifs
• Photos or images
• Infographics
• Graphs or charts
• Webinars
• Q&A with readers or guests

Added bonus: Multimedia content increases the amount of time people spend on your site.

10- Implement Google Analytics on your blog.

Your blog can be your biggest ally in forging new connections and creating financial independence. But to get the most out of your blog it needs review, maintenance, and optimization. Luckily, Google yet again provides us with a free tool that helps you understand your blog’s performance and where it can be improved.

Have you heard of Google Analytics? It’s a great resource that helps you analyze your site. You can learn where your visitors come from, how long they’re spending on your site, where they’re bouncing, and so much more from the Google Analytics platform. These insights can then be applied in different ways so as to optimize your blog and increase the revenue you can make from it.

Neil Patel writes a great piece titled, “7 Google Analytics Reports That Show How Your Blog is Really Performing” that we really think you should check out.

Optimizing your blog doesn’t have to be difficult.

Take these tips to heart when working on your blog, but don’t feel as though you have to tackle them all in one day.

Managing your blog should be an enjoyable experience, so go ahead and plan out what improvements and optimizations you’ll start with, and set goals to accomplish them. Once those are checked off your list, move on to the next blog improvement tip and knock that one out, too.

What other blog improvement tips do you have? Let us know in the comments.

If so, you need to learn a thing or two about SEO, or search engine optimization. SEO is made up of various strategies and best practices that exist to improve your position in search engine results.

Google, the dominant search engine, relies on different SEO ranking signals to determine what websites or pages are the best results for different search queries. These ranking signals consist of things like: a secure website (SSL enabled), appropriate keywords, a site’s mobile friendliness, and quality of links. When your site is optimized for SEO, you have a better chance of ranking higher in SERPs, or search engine result pages. This is vitally important considering “75% of people never scroll past the first page of search engines.”

There are two kinds of SEO: On-page and Off-page, though we’ll mostly focus on the former in this post. So without further ado, let’s look at some SEO strategies that can help boost your business in search results.

SEO Strategies for Your Business

We asked our resident SEO expert, Mike, what strategies and tactics he recommends as the most impactful that you should implement ASAP. He’s developed successful SEO plans for small businesses, agencies, and large corporations, so he’s well-versed in what helps a website rank higher in search results.

Here’s what he had to say.

Understand Users and Their Intent

Remember when typing three keywords into Google would still give you decent, relevant results? That doesn’t cut it anymore. Now, people are searching the Internet using more complex, natural speech patterns. Considering how voice search is on the rise, this trend doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere. To make the most of it, you need to know a thing or two about your users.

How well do you know your audience and user base? Understanding them will give you a leg up in search results.

Are you wondering how that’s possible?

Search engines value content and sites that users themselves find valuable. So how does Google know what content and sites users find valuable? They use information like bounce rates and dwell time to determine whether someone is staying on your page, consuming relevant content, or bouncing away because your site doesn’t meet their needs or answer their query.

You can use Google Analytics to help you understand who your users are. You can figure out how they’re reaching your site, where they’re landing, and more information to help you refine the user experience of your site.

Google BERT (one of Google’s newer search algorithms released in October 2019) supports your need for a user-focused site. BERT, “is Google’s neural network-based technique for natural language processing (NLP)…” and “in short, BERT can help computers understand language a bit more like humans do.”

Optimizing Page Titles and Meta Descriptions

Page titles and meta descriptions are some of the first things users and search engines see and they influence how your page is understood.  

Page titles are the clickable titles that display in SERPs, like you see in the example below, circled in red. Depending on the browser you’re using, you may also see page titles in your tabs.

Meta descriptions are little snippets of HTML content that describe the content on a page. Optimizing them for SEO is crucial. You can see Domain.com’s homepage meta description circled in blue below.

Page Title Optimization

Your page title is one of the most important on-page SEO ranking factors. To make the most of it, keep these tips in mind:

• It should be no more than 65 characters in length (including spaces.)
• Your most important keyword should feature in your page title.
  • Don’t stuff it full of keywords. That’s ineffective and search engines see right through it.

Meta Description Optimization

Meta descriptions are brief snippets created to describe a page or site. Good meta descriptions increase the click-through rate from search results to your site. Create effective meta descriptions by:

• Including a CTA (call-to-action) in your meta description.
• Keeping your description between 50-160 characters, including spaces.
  • While you can write longer meta descriptions, Google tends to truncate them if they’re too wordy.
• Including keywords is important, but don’t keyword-stuff for the sake of keyword-stuffing.  

Create and Write Longer, Better Content  

Articles and pages that appear on the first page of Google search results tend to average ~1890 words. If you’re still writing 500-word fluff and puff pieces, your SEO is in trouble.

Let’s hearken back to the first SEO strategy Mike suggested, understanding your audience. If you can find out why people are coming to your site, you can cater your content to them.

Writing good content takes time, but it’s worth it because the quality of your content matters. Good content is:

• Engaging. It keeps people on your site longer.
• Shareable. If your content is good and trustworthy, others are more likely to share it and that gains you backlinks (a form of Off-page SEO.)
• Editable. Good content needs to be tweaked. Google likes “fresh” content, so be sure to revise your content to include updated keywords, newer facts, or reflect changes in user-behavior.

Remember, search engines want to display the best results for search queries. If your page has the best, most comprehensive content that answers a question, naturally, it’ll rank higher over time.

Secure Pages

Having a secure website is essential to your success. You might think you can get away without SSL if you’re not running an e–commerce website or asking for user’s personal information (like via an email sign up form), but you’d be mistaken.

SSL isn’t just vital for site security; it also matters for appearances’ sake — never discount the power of perception. We’ll explain below.

Since Google introduced security as a ranking signal in 2014, SSL has been a must-have. SSL stands for “Secure Sockets Layer” and it protects and encrypts the information passed between an end user (site visitor) and your site, and vice versa. It keeps information safe ranging from credit card details to email addresses. Without SSL, hackers and bad guys can intercept, read, and alter that information.

Remember how we said perception matters? Consider this: Sites with SSL enabled have a visual indicator in the URL bar that signals the site as safe and secure.

Sites without SSL, or not secure sites, show up with an ugly indicator, like you see below, that can cause site visitors to lose trust and confidence in you.

Don’t push your site visitors away before they’ve had a chance to peruse your pages. Enable SSL on your site and reap the benefits of increased customer trust and the secure exchange of information on your site.

Use Your SEO Tools

If you’re working on SEO, it makes sense to use SEO tools designed specifically to help! As an added bonus, many of them are free. Let’s look at two resources created by Google that are indispensable to your SEO efforts.

Google Analytics

Use this tool to understand basic KPIs (key performance indicators) and benchmark performance. With Analytics you can:

• Understand your audience.
• Gain insight into performance fluctuations.
• Visualize user behavior.
• Create reports.

Google Search Console

Google Search Console has one main purpose: to help you understand how GoogleBot has interacted with your site.

What’s GoogleBot? It’s Google’s Search Engine Bot that crawls webpages. It uses sitemaps and links to catalogue sites on the Internet. Google stores this information in their index, which is like a massive repository of sites that exist online.

GoogleBot crawls sites using different SEO ranking factors and looks for things like broken links or updated content. When it finds these things, it updates and makes note of them in the larger index.

When using Search Console, don’t forget to look at your Index Coverage Report (ICR). Your ICR:

• Lists both the pages you’ve submitted to Google (like via a sitemap) and all the pages Google has discovered on its own.
  • Each page displayed in the report will fall into one of the following four buckets.
    • Valid
    • Valid with warnings
    • Error
    • Excluded

Use the status of your pages to make any necessary changes to your site. For example, if you find a webpage that’s excluded from search results that shouldn’t be, you’ll need to correct it.

Search Console also lets you see the queries people made to find your site! Neat, right? This is incredibly insightful information that allows you to:

• Improve your keywords, and therefore, your content.
• Understand your most valuable organic keywords.
• Gauge and monitor keyword movement to see what you should be targeting.

Technical SEO

Have you ever completed a technical audit of your site? If not, now’s the time to start. As a best practice, you should audit your site at least once a year (more if you have a complex site.)

Technical site audits help you understand various things about your site, like:

Are You Searchable?

• When people make search queries, are your pages surfacing as results?
• Help you understand what “noindex” tags exist on your site that shouldn’t be there.
• Check the validity of your webpages (especially by using Google Search Console in your audit.)

Clean up Your Redirects

• When you click on a specific URL, but the page that loads has a different URL, it means you’ve encountered a redirect. Redirects are ways of getting people from one webpage to another.
  • Here’s an example of how it could work. Let’s say you used to sell tons of Product A because people just loved it. But you discovered Product B, something far superior, and stopped carrying the other one.  If someone has the old page for Product A bookmarked, you can use a redirect to get them to Product B’s page instead of seeing an error.  
• Over time, your redirect chains can get longer and longer and that can dilute your SEO equity.
  • This also adds load time to your pages.
• Check for temporary redirects and make sure they stay that way, temporary! They shouldn’t be used as long-term solutions.
• If you need a permanent redirect, make it a 301. We repeat, 301 redirects are permanent, but they transfer the SEO equity of your old page to your new one, unlike a temporary redirect.

Evaluate Site Traffic

• To evaluate your site traffic you’ll need to use either Google Analytics or Google Search Console.
  • For Google Analytics:
    • Click on Acquisitions > All Traffic > Channels > Organic Search (under default channel groupings) and select your time frame.
    • We recommend choosing a longer time frame to really get a sense of any patterns or issues.
    • Use this information to identify landing pages with irregular performances.
    • Evaluate these pages individually looking for potential errors.
  • For Google Search Console:
    • Navigate to Performance > Search Results > Change date to “Compare.”
    • Sort results by significant differences in your KPIs to identify and evaluate your site performance trends.
    • Seeing a big gap in click and impression data? Bridge them by identifying the keywords you’d like to strengthen and then focus on those terms within that page(s).

Update Your Robots.txt File

Robots.txt files are made to communicate with web crawling robots (like GoogleBot.) These files tell the bots what webpages they can and can’t access for crawling on your site. It’s a file that creates “rules” around your domain.  

• Robots.txt files
  • Make sure no important elements from your site are being blocked from crawlers and therefore, search engines.
  • Block elements of your site (of your choosing) from crawlers and search engines.
• You should always check your Robots.txt file.
  • You can view its real-time performance from within Google Search Console, just look for the Index Coverage Report we mentioned earlier.
  • For example, anything that results in “valid, but with warnings” means your Robots.txt file should’ve prevented those URLs from being crawled, but they’ve surfaced anyway. If this happens, make sure your Robots.txt file is set up appropriately.
  • You could also see things marked as “excluded.” This means those URLs are appropriately and correctly blocked from SERPs by the robots.txt file.
    • We recommend giving anything an “excluded” status a once-over to make sure you haven’t accidentally blocked any pages that should be crawlable.

Review Your 404 pages

• 404 errors surface across pages that have been removed, deleted, or are otherwise categorized as “Bad Requests.”
  • Do you have any 404 pages that have actually gained significant value for your site?
    • This could be because they’ve generated a lot of backlinks, have great keyword ranking, bring in decent traffic, revenue, or a variety of other reasons.
    • If yes, you should consider redirecting those pages (remember, 301 redirects maintain all the SEO equity that a page has built) or reconfiguring them so they’re still relevant.
• View your 404s with a web crawl or with Google Search Console.
  • In Search Console, go to your Index Coverage Report and then navigate to the “Errors” section. This will display all the 404 errors that came from your sitemap.xml file.
  • In that same report, navigate to the “Excluded” section.
  • This will report on any pages with a 404 crawl anomaly or any pages throwing soft 404 errors.

Implementing These SEO Strategies and Tips Will Boost Your Business

We want your business to succeed as much as you do. That’s why we’ve compiled these SEO strategies and hope that you implement them on your website.

SEO is crucial to surviving and thriving online, so don’t let your website and business get behind. If you’ve never worked on your SEO before, consider starting with this beginner’s guide to SEO.

If you have any questions, or other SEO strategies you’d like to suggest, let us know in the comments.

It’s pretty pervasive.

No matter where you look, someone is on their phone checking on their social media — updating friends, posting photos, or shopping via links businesses share.

If you’re a small business owner or entrepreneur and your business doesn’t have a social media presence, then it’s time to create one. Considering social media is one of the most cost-effective forms of digital marketing, you really don’t have anything to lose.

Just as with websites, people want to visit good-looking social media profiles, and that’s where this guide comes in handy.

Social Media Image Sizes

In our social media image size guide, we’ll be covering what you need to create to run ads on some of the biggest and most popular platforms.

Keep in mind that your business doesn’t need to be on each and every existing social media site. You only need to have a presence where your audience and customers are. It may take some trial and error to narrow down what platforms they’re on, but it’s worth the effort.

Facebook Social Media Image Sizes

Facebook is frequently updating its algorithms and making changes to its platforms. Often times this means tweaks to the way personal and business pages are displayed.

Facebook Cover Photo

• Your Facebook cover photo is only going to appear on your page. It won’t be seen throughout Facebook or in other locations.
• It will display differently on a desktop than it will on a smartphone as Facebook crops cover photos to best fit the devices they’re displayed on.
  • Due to this cropping, keep the focus of your cover photo towards the center of your cover image. Any important details or designs along the borders could risk getting cropped and not displaying on certain devices.
• 820 x 360 pixels (Facebook recommends 851 x 315 pixels but that’s the absolute minimum you should use. Any less and your photos risk looking distorted.)
• Cover photos should maintain a 16:9 proportion.

Facebook Event Cover Photo

• Will your business be creating events on Facebook? If so, make sure your event cover photos are sized at 1920 x 1080 pixels.

Facebook Profile Photo

• Your page’s profile photo displays at 170 x 170 pixels on desktop, 128 x 128 pixels on smartphones, and even smaller on feature phones.
• Your profile photo will appear cropped into a circle.
• We use a 400 x 400 pixel image for our profile photo and recommend you do the same.
• Instead of uploading a JPG try uploading a PNG for your photo. This ensures a better quality photo that won’t look pixelated or stretched.

Facebook Photos Shared in Posts

• Facebook posts with images get a 37% engagement rate on average whereas posts with only text receive about 27%.
• Sharing a link with a photo? That image should be 1200 x 630 pixels. (This size is also perfect for Twitter and LinkedIn!)

Facebook Stories

• Facebook Stories take up the entire display on mobile devices.
• Images should be maintain a 16×9 ratio.
• Images should be optimized for Stories at 1080 x 1920 pixels.

Twitter Social Media Image Sizes

Twitter updated most of its image sizes in 2017 and changed the aspect ratio of its header image (similar to Facebook’s cover photo, it’s the image at the top of your profile) in 2019.

Twitter Header Image Size

• Twitter recommends uploading a header image at 1500 x 500 pixels. 
• Uploading a vector-based or line art image? Use a GIF or PNG file.
• Uploading a photo? Use a JPG or PNG file (although we recommend always using PNG.)
• Although Twitter says that your header image will be cropped into a 2×1 aspect ratio on mobile devices, that no longer seems to be the case as of summer 2019. Now, images still display at a 3:1 ratio whether on mobile or desktop.

Twitter Profile Photo

• Your profile picture should be 400 x 400 pixels and it may be resized to fit.
• Profile photos display in a circular shape, so make sure to center your image on a larger background if you’re afraid of important details getting cropped out.

Twitter Images Shared in Posts

• When sharing posts or links with a single image or GIF, Twitter recommends that they are a minimum of 600 x 355 pixels. However, if you want your image to be optimized when people click on it for a larger view, and still look good in your feed, we recommend 1200 x 630 pixels.

Twitter Advertising Creative Specifications

• You can create and share a variety of types of tweets if you’re doing paid advertisements on Twitter.
• Here’s a link to their creative specifications page for advertisers so you can see your options and find the correct dimensions and specs for your images, GIFs, and videos.

Instagram Social Media Image Sizes

Instagram is a visual platform that’s great for connecting with your customers and followers. It was created as a photo-sharing app and was purchased by Facebook in 2012.

Instagram Profile Image Size

• Profile images on Instagram display at small sizes.
  • On desktop, they display at 152 pixels.
  • On mobile, they display at 110 pixels.
• We recommend uploading a larger image of 400 x 400 pixels to avoid any issues with quality and so you can ensure nothing important gets cropped out of your photo.

Instagram Shared Photo Size

• Instagram images aren’t restricted to squares anymore, but keep in mind that they will be cropped into squares when shown on your profile.
• Square images should have a 1:1 aspect ratio and be uploaded at 1080 x 1080 pixels.
• For horizontal, or landscape images, upload photos at 1080 x 566 pixels.
• For vertical, or portrait images, upload photos at 1080 x 1350 pixels.

Instagram Stories Photo Size

• Images and photos uploaded to your story should be 1080 x 1920 pixels.
• People using phones with larger mobile displays may see cropped images, in which case, try uploading them at 1080 x 2340 pixels.

Pinterest Social Media Image Sizes

Pinterest is an image based social media platform. It inspires people to try new things and get creative with their ideas. Many businesses see good results from sharing their products and services on Pinterest, and by using it to connect with their audience and customers.

Pinterest Profile Image Size

• Your Pinterest profile photo displays at 180 x 180 pixels. You can do that or go a little larger, like 400 x 400 pixels, to make sure it’s good quality and doesn’t get overly cropped.

Pinterest Board Cover Image Size

• Unlike most pins, board cover images are square. They should be at least 340 x 340 pixels, but we recommend going larger at 600 x 600 pixels.

Pinterest Shared Pins Image Size

• Pinterest recommends creating pins using images in one of three sizes:
  • 600 x 600 pixels, 1:1 aspect ratio.
  • 600 x 900 pixels, 1:1.5 aspect ratio (according to Pinterest, this is the optimal size.)
  • 600 x 1250 pixels, 1:2.1 aspect ratio.
• When someone clicks on your pin it’ll display no wider than 564 pixels.

Pinterest Profile Cover Image Size

• Some business profiles can now edit their Pinterest profile covers.
  • This feature hasn’t rolled out to everyone yet, but keep your eyes peeled for future updates.
• Cover images should fit the 16:9 aspect ratio, or 1920 x 1080 pixels.

LinkedIn Social Media Image Sizes

Once upon a time, businesses primarily used LinkedIn as an HR and recruiting tool. Nowadays, the platform has grown into so much more. You can use LinkedIn to build your personal and business brands, create and raise awareness, and leverage the power of your connections.

LinkedIn Personal Profile Image Size

• LinkedIn recommends uploading an image between 400 x 400 pixels and 7680 x 4320 pixels.
• Images cannot be greater than 8MB.
• You can adjust your photo after it’s been uploaded.

LinkedIn Personal Profile Background Image Size

• Background photos appear behind your profile photo. Don’t put any important details or design elements in the bottom left corner of your image as they’ll likely be covered by your profile picture.
• Recommended size is 1584 x 396 pixels.
• Files can’t be larger than 8 MB.

LinkedIn Company Page Logo Image Size

• If you’re uploading your logo to your business page, make sure it’s sized at 300 x 300 pixels.

LinkedIn Company Page Cover Image Size

• The minimum size that LinkedIn allows for a page’s cover photo is 1192 x 220 pixels, although they recommend uploading an image at 1536 x 768 pixels.

LinkedIn Shared Image Size

• If you’re only sharing an image(s) to your personal or company page, make sure it’s sized at 1104 x 736 pixels.

LinkedIn Shared Image with Link Size

• If you’re sharing a link with an attached image, then upload the image(s) at 1200 x 628 pixels.

Snapchat Social Media Image Sizes

Is a younger demographic part of your target audience? Hootsuite reports that as of 2018, around 71% of Snapchat users were under 34 years old. With around 188 million daily active users, Snapchat (rebranded as Snap in 2016) could be the perfect social media platform for you.

You’ll need to create a Business Account only if you plan on using Snap’s advertising features.

Snapchat Profile Image Size

• Unlike other social media platforms, Snapchat doesn’t allow you to upload your own profile picture. In the past you could upload a GIF, but now you must use Bitmoji.

Snapchat Shared Image Size

• Images shared on Snapchat should be 1080 x 1920 pixels.

YouTube Social Media Image Sizes

If you plan on doing any sort of video marketing for your business or side hustle, then YouTube is the place to be. 2 billion people across the globe use and log into YouTube on a monthly basis, and it’s the most popular social media platform in the United States. In fact, 73% of U.S. based adults use YouTube.

YouTube Channel Profile Image Size

• Although your channel’s profile picture only displays at 98 x 98 pixels, it should be uploaded much larger. We recommend using an 800 x 800 pixel image.
• Profile images display as circles, so the larger image means important details are less likely to be cropped out.
• You can upload JPG, GIF, BMP, or PNG files.

YouTube Channel Cover Image Size

• Since people can access YouTube from so many different devices it’s important that your photo be optimized to display as nicely as possible.
• The largest your cover image can display is on a desktop at 2560 x 423 pixels. However, the smallest it displays is on a mobile device at 1546 x 423 pixels. Keep the focus of your image within the 1546 x 423 pixel area so it isn’t cropped out on mobile devices. This is the “safe zone.”

YouTube Video Uploads Size

• Videos need to maintain a 16:9 aspect ratio when uploaded to YouTube.
• For your video to be considered HD it needs to be at least 1280 x 720 pixels.

Create and Optimize Your Business Social Media Profiles

Your audience is on social media, are you ready to find and connect with them?

When creating your social media profiles, try to keep your usernames the same or as close to your domain name as possible. This helps carry your branding and name recognition from your website to the rest of your digital presence.

We hope this guide for 2020 social media image sizes helps you optimize your social media profiles so your business is represented in the best light possible.

Are there any social media platforms that weren’t included in this list that you’d like to see? Let us know in the comments!