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Online Marketing RFP Template With Sample Questions

August 28, 2020 by Maggi Pier

It doesn’t matter if this is your first online marketing request for proposal (RFP) or your 50th — digital marketing RFPs can be complicated, time-consuming, and — depending on your company’s status — a bit precarious, too.

On top of that, improving your understanding of online marketing while looking for online firms to help bring your company to the next level is just as complicated and costly. That’s part of the reason why we’ve put together both a guide to online marketing RFPs and a digital marketing RFP template, the latter of which is available for free download.

Download Now: Free Online Marketing RFP Template

If you are vetting online marketing agencies and need an RFP template that can be customized to your needs, simply enter your email and we will instantly send you the template.

What Is an Online Marketing RFP Exactly?

While an RFP is simply an outline of criteria that a company gives to firms to respond to, an online marketing RFP is tailored to — you guessed it — online marketing.

A digital marketing RFP will help you achieve your business goals. With an RFP, you’ll be able to offer a clear-cut proposal that prospective agencies can visualize and understand better, which is helpful for both parties. It’ll also allow you to discuss what you’re looking for within your company internally, so you can skip the “multiple revisions” stage that comes with weak RFPs.

Relying on the RFP process will also make sure the firms have a written set of criteria so they can come back with solutions that fit the selection criteria you’re looking for.

A digital marketing RFP is perfect for those looking for an outside entity — specifically a digital marketing agency — to help you bring your company to the next level through social media, Google Analytics, or other technological solutions.

Why Use an Online Marketing RFP Template?

Searching for a digital agency that aligns with your aspirations and values can be a tricky process. In fact, the online marketing RFP writing process itself is challenging.

It can be extremely time-consuming. Unless you have hours and hours of free time, it can be challenging to carve out time during the day to work on an online marketing RFP.

Sometimes, as an RFP writer, it can be hard to know precisely what you desire from a firm. A digital marketing RFP template will lay that out for you nicely so you can pinpoint exactly what you want from the agency.

Finally, writing a digital marketing RFP is risky. Imagine spending hours and hours writing what seems to be the perfect proposal only for it to go nowhere.

We’re no strangers to online marketing RFPs — we’ve seen some truly impressive proposals and a handful of laughable RFPs. But our digital marketing RFP template makes it easier for both parties: Not only will it be easier to write and organize, but that’ll make it easy for the company to review it as well.

Digital marketing RFPs don’t have to be an enigma. Our template should guide you through every part of the process. We’ll also share some helpful tips and tricks that might make the process even easier for you.

What’s Usually Included in an Online Marketing RFP

The beautiful thing about digital marketing RFPs is that they can be very versatile, depending on the company or person writing them.

Although your RFP can be whatever you envision, we’re going to cover some common areas that online marketing RFPs usually include. That being said, not all of these topics will apply to you, and even if they do, you might choose to omit some aspects — that’s all to be expected.

Your company

One of the best places to start is who you are. Unless your company already has a robust digital presence, chances are, the firms you contact won’t be familiar with your company, and that’s OK.

Here, you’ll want to share information about your company’s background, where it is now, where you’re looking to go, and any core values and missions that you’d like to include. How many employees do you have? Is there more than one location?

This might also be an appropriate place to briefly explain why you’re interested in digital marketing. You can also end with a concise summary of what you’re looking for in an agency partner. For example, you might want agencies that have years of experience in a particular area.

Your current digital presence

You’ll want to be as honest and accurate as possible in this section. Here, you’ll be describing your current digital presence and what that looks like.

I’d suggest detailing the current online marketing strategies your company uses, including what’s working, what isn’t, and what you wish could work better.

Within this sphere, you can also discuss any and all marketing challenges that come to mind when you think of your digital presence. For example, maybe you’re struggling with low retention rates, or perhaps the in-house content you have isn’t up to par for your audience.

Even if it’s painful to recall your shortcomings and what’s not working for you, this will be the best way for potential firms to know how to develop a personalized marketing strategy for you and your business. Everyone faces marketing program challenges, and you shouldn’t be ashamed of them.

Who your competitors are

Identifying at least three competitors (and their websites) will help potential firms see who you’re up against. Agencies can then know what you’re doing well compared to companies that might already be doing it better.

You might also consider sharing any of the competitors’ social media accounts and advertising campaigns that impress you, so the potential agencies can tailor their solution to hitting some of those marketing goals.

Your target audience

When you think of your ideal customer, what do they look like? In other words, who’s your target audience? When thinking of your target audience, you’ll want to include both demographic and even psychographic information to provide firms with a visual to the audience you’re attracting.

It would be worthwhile to create a few personas to show these agencies and help them better visualize the customer.

Your overall goal

This is an excellent place to introduce your specific goals concisely. I wouldn’t advise writing a lengthy goal that’s bogged down with many details, since we’ll get into the meat of your digital marketing RFP later. Pick one to three outcomes that you’d like the online marketing firm to do for you.

Your business goals

Your business goals will probably be similar to your overall goal, but we’ll dive a little deeper into this section. What do you want your future online marketing strategy to do, exactly? What would be a successful marketing strategy in your eyes?

Make sure they’re both realistic and achievable. For example, maybe you just want to increase your revenue for the next fiscal year. That’s an entirely reasonable business goal.

In this section (or in a new section), you can include the scope of the work you need, even if it’s an estimate. For example, what are your specific needs per digital channel? To make it easier, you can also include a list of deliverables that you have in mind.

Your objectives

In order to achieve your business goals, you’ve got to have objectives — written plans that will help you get to the next level. This will help visualize the project overview, too.

Although you might already know what your objectives are, you should be very granular on the exact scope of work based on what marketing services you want or think you need:

Improved search engine optimization (SEO) for your website
Effective PPC campaign
A social media strategy or campaign
An email marketing strategy

Your time frame

Some companies don’t have a specific timeline, but if you do, include it here. How soon do you want to see results? This section will also help you avoid firms that don’t have the bandwidth to finish this project based on your provided time frame.

Your budget

This section is essential. How much are you willing to pay these agencies to assist with a successful digital marketing strategy? This section, in particular, will help you steer clear of agencies that aren’t willing to meet you in the middle.

Even if you don’t have a budget, you should still include a range so the firm will have some idea of what the costs will be.

Selection timeline and requirements

To better help you stick to a rigid timeline, outline some critical dates that will affect your selection process. For example, you could include:

When the proposals are due
A timeline of the question and answer period
When you’ll select an agency
What date the project will start

On the first day, you’ll send out the digital marketing RFP, and a few days later, you might choose to cut off anyone who doesn’t RSVP. You’ll probably schedule a few calls with viable firms for about a week and answer any questions they might have. A week after that, it might be time for the firms to submit their proposals. Although this is an example, the actual timeline is entirely up to you.

In this section, you can also detail how you’ll choose an agency partner. Will you use a scoring system? What selection criteria will you include?

Standard Master Services Agreement

Your company’s legal team might suggest you use a standard Master Services Agreement, also called an MSA. If this is the case, a potential firm or agency might also include their own terms and conditions.

What you expect in return

What information would you like from potential firms? If you clearly state what sort of information you expect, the likely agencies can better cater to providing it. You might prefer to know the history of the agency, examples of case studies, what qualifications and experience it has, account management process, and pricing, among other pieces of intel.

Contact and questions

You should provide a point of contact for agencies to reach out to, whether it’s your public relations director or another trusted key stakeholder. You should include their:

Full legal name
Job title
Mailing address
Email and phone number

That way, you can direct any specific questions that might come up during the proposal period to one single contact to make it easier.

Why It’s Important to Nail Your RFP

So, you’ve got an idea of how to write an online marketing RFP — but why is it so important to get it right?

A proposal is essentially your one change to vet firms before you listen to their pitch. It’ll help you steer clear of firms that won’t be a good fit and, in turn, will prevent you from wasting time. That’s why it’s so critical to be as detailed as possible when you’re creating a digital marketing RFP.

Final Thoughts

An online marketing RFP is what you make it. There’s lots of room to be creative and have fun with it during the RFP process. Staying positive is key, as this proposal is going to be what effectively drives your digital marketing strategy and what determines which agency you might partner with within the next few weeks.

That’s where our digital marketing RFP template comes in. It’ll provide you with a meaningful way to organize your proposal so as to make it clear to both parties. With this template, the digital marketing possibilities are virtually endless. Take the first step to getting your company up to par with the rest of the digital ecosystem.

Download Now: Free Online Marketing RFP Template

If you are vetting online marketing agencies and need an RFP template that can be customized to your needs, simply enter your email and we will instantly send you the template.

The post Online Marketing RFP Template With Sample Questions appeared first on HigherVisibility.

The Marketer’s Guide to Using Pinterest to Grow a Business

August 28, 2020August 25, 2020 by Maggi Pier

I’m not the only one who goes to Pinterest when I need new ideas. In fact, more than 200 billion pins have been saved on Pinterest. And 90% of weekly Pinners make purchase decisions on Pinterest.

That’s why it’s important for businesses and marketers to be active on the platform.

Below, let’s learn how you can use Pinterest to meet your business and marketing goals.

How to Use Pinterest for Business

If you’re new to Pinterest, then you’ll need to create a business account to get started. Don’t worry, this is a pretty simple process as outlined below.

Create a business profile. Instead of using a personal page, you’ll need to get set up with a business account. With this account you’ll get access to analytics and ad services.
Claim and link to your business website. This is an important step in verifying your business page.
Connect your social media accounts. This is helpful so you can cross-share content and refer people to your other pages.
Edit your profile. Add engaging profile and cover images and write a catchy (yet, optimized) bio.

Once your profile is set up, it’s time to start diving into the strategy of how you’re going to use your page to grow your business.

Let’s review some of our top ideas below.

1. Determine the type of content you want to post.

As with any social media site, it’s important to understand your target audience. What type of content do they want to see on Pinterest?

More importantly, think about the type of content that they’ll engage with. Is it infographics, tips and tricks, or perhaps blog posts? To find this out, do some research into the type of content they currently pin on their pages.

Additionally, make sure that you don’t sell yourself with every pin. You should share relevant and helpful information on your page as well.

When you have a good idea of what your audience wants or needs to see, creating pins will be easier.

2. Consider your design.

Now that you know what you want to post, it’s important to consider what your images look like.

Your designs should be pleasing to the eye and stand out in a sea of images on your audience’s page.

Additionally, your images need to follow your brand guidelines. If you don’t have a designer on hand, you can utilize tools like Canva to get started.

3. Optimize your pins.

When you’re ready to start posting on Pinterest, remember to optimize your pins. You might be wondering, “How do I optimize my pins?”

Use the following checklist to get started:

Include a URL (could be a link to a blog post)
Use keywords in titles, descriptions, and image file names
Create boards that are aligned with your keywords
Arrange your boards and choose a board cover image
Use hashtags
Add a call to action
Add a Pinterest widget to your site
Respond to follower comments
Follow popular boards and comment
Create a board dedicated to your blog posts

These tactics will help you grow your business with Pinterest and help your posts be discovered.

4. Learn about categories.

On Pinterest, you can assign each board to one of 36 categories. These categories help your pins become discovered.

For example, since I was interested in finding wedding ideas when I was engaged, most of the pins that showed up on my feed were pins that were tagged in the wedding category.

You can scroll through the categories and see which ones are related to your business. This could even help you come up with board ideas.

Once you’ve thought about this strategy, it’s time to create your boards. If you blog, think about blog topics and create boards surrounding those topics.

Let’s dive a little deeper into how to use Pinterest for your blog.

1. Create infographics.

A great way to use Pinterest to promote your blog is through infographics. If you have blog posts centered around an infographic, post it on Pinterest.

Additionally, you can repurpose old blog posts into infographics.

Pinterest is a great place to repurpose content and reach a new audience that might not have read your post.

2. Choose the best blogs to post.

You don’t need to promote every single blog post on your Pinterest. Instead, just choose the ones that make the most sense for the platform.

For example, choose blogs that have engaging images, great downloadable offers, or have an infographic.

Additionally, think about your board topics. You should promote blogs that relate to your boards.

3. Customize your images.

When you create a pin, it’s important to use engaging, custom images. To promote a blog, you can use your featured image and include customized text.

For instance, many pins that promote blog posts include the title of the blog on the custom image. The title is a great way to draw people in and get them interested in your blog post.

4. Write an optimized pin description.

When you write the description for a pin promoting a blog post, it’s important to tell people what to expect in the post.

While you want to leave some mystery and pique their interest without giving away too much, they need to know what it’s about.

Additionally, you should include the appropriate search terms and keywords in your pin description.

When it comes to marketing your business, capitalize on Pinterest. Inspire your audience to use your products and services in their lives, or just inspire them in general.

If you use Pinterest correctly, it could be your products and services that users are pinning – and purchasing.

The post The Marketer’s Guide to Using Pinterest to Grow a Business appeared first on Local SEO Resources.

When Can Google Maps / GMB Content Cause Google Ads Disapprovals?

August 24, 2020 by Maggi Pier

Any restricted terms that find their way into your website’s source code can cause Google to disapprove your Google Ads (AdWords) ad – even if you didn’t personally add that content to your site. That’s the short answer.

“Banned” terms that show up on your Google My Business page (like in your description) or on Google Maps (in the form of Google reviews) won’t prompt Google to pull your ads, as long as that content stays on your GMB page(s) or in your reviews. You run into trouble only if a person or piece of software puts even one of those restricted terms onto your site.

By the way, I find it tiresome to call them “restricted terms” or “disallowed content” or whatever constitutes Google’s huge no-fly list of search terms in AdWords. So from now on I’ll just refer to them as BAdWords.

Beware review widgets – at least the kind that “streams” online reviews (like Google Maps reviews) and sticks them onto your site in any way. That was the toe-popper one of my clients and I stepped on recently. The widget automatically embedded the content of my client’s patients’ Google Maps and Facebook reviews onto his site. The content of the reviews wasn’t visible ON his site, but the widget would update the star rating and review count as patients wrote new reviews. I never cared much for the functionality of that widget, but it didn’t seem to do harm, so we kept it around on the site.

This particular review widget wasn’t a problem for several years, until a patient mentioned a certain medical procedure by name in his (5-star) Google review of my client. The BAdWord in this case was the name of a therapy that everyone has heard of, but that some people have held objections to for many years, and that some shady characters have given a bad name in recent years. Places like the Mayo Clinic (what do they know?) offer the procedure, but that didn’t matter to Google. Soon after the patient wrote the Google review, the widget picked it up, the BAdWord showed up in the site’s source code, Google detected a BAdWord in the source code, and 11 of our ads went to nap time.

The solution was to remove the review widget. If you run into the issue I described, that’s probably the solution for you, too.

Also beware the difference between what’s indexed in Google and what’s in your site’s source code. A “site:” search operator won’t necessarily turn up the phrase(s) over which Google has pulled your ads. The source code can contain a BAdWord that isn’t in Google’s cache, but that the Ads department knows about anyway. I found that out when a site:exampleclientssite.com search didn’t turn up the BAdWord that caused our ads to be pulled. It was only when I viewed the source code that I found the term in the review widget that pulled in the Google reviews. So if you’re a “local” business that just got hit with an AdWords ad disapproval you can’t figure out, and you’re checking your site for BAdWords, don’t assume a site:yoursite.com search will turn them up. You’ll need to scour your Google Maps reviews, too.

By the way, this isn’t too related to GMB or Google Maps, but also beware your outbound links. One of the BAdWords that caused Google to disapprove my client’s ads was in the URL slug of a site my client linked TO. In other words, Google didn’t like the name of a page on a site we linked out to. For Google, everything in your site’s source code is fair game, and one BAdWord anywhere can trigger a disapproval.

If you’re corresponding with a Google Ads support rep (as I imagine you are), be sure to ask for the specific pages on your site where restricted terms supposedly lurk. Then view the source code of those pages. From there, finding the culprit should be pretty easy.

Once we got rid of the review widget that pulled the BAdWord into the site, and we removed that one pesky outbound link, Google reinstated our ads (after some back-and-forth, of course). Didn’t change a thing on the Google My Business side.

The link between GMB / Google Maps content and Ads disapprovals is your site. Any GMB / Maps content that doesn’t find it’s way onto your site (destination URL) won’t result in an Ads slap. I can tell you first-hand that including restricted terms in your Google My business description and “services” section doesn’t trigger a disapproval. I assume that is also true of GMB “products” and posts, though I haven’t tempted the gods by testing out either of those. BAdWords in Google Maps reviews also don’t trigger ad disapprovals – again, as long as those reviews don’t make it onto the website you use for Ads.

What about location extensions? Enabling those can get your GMB page into the “paid 3-pack,” courtesy of Google Ads. In that way, you’re pretty clearly associating your GMB page, Google reviews, website, and ads with each other. You’d think location extensions would instantly trigger an ad disapproval, but they don’t. At least in my experience so far. So even if your GMB page or Google reviews mention Ads-disapproved terms, you don’t have to turn off your location extensions in Ads. Again, Google only cares what’s on your site and in your ad text.

Last but not least, a Google Ads disapproval won’t cause a Google My Business suspension or other penalty. Of course, it’s always possible to do something that’s against both Ads and GMB policy (like promoting an illegal product or service), in which case maybe you can manage to get yourself in trouble in both places. But a Google Ads slap by itself won’t provoke a GMB slap.

As Google continues to smoosh pay-per-click and GMB together and push more “local” businesses into advertising, I expect more business owners to run into infuriating problems like this one, where you’re in the odd position of being able to promote a service or product on GMB but not in Ads, or vice versa. On the plus side, I’ve long found the Ads support staff generally helpful , whereas GMB “support” ranges from useless to nonexistent.

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Have you run into any Google Ads problems that seem to tie in with GMB, or vice versa? Leave a comment!

The post When Can Google Maps / GMB Content Cause Google Ads Disapprovals? appeared first on Local SEO Resources.

7 Tips to Grow Your Regional Business Nationally

August 22, 2020 by Maggi Pier

You decided to go into business for yourself a few years back and it was the best decision you ever made. Your business took off and today, you’re going strong. Congratulations! What’s next?

Have you ever thought about expanding to another location? How about one in another state? Many small business owners picture expansion as another location across town or in the next county over—somewhere close enough to visit, but far enough to attract new business. What they don’t always realize is that national expansion offers some amazing opportunities.

National expansion for small business is very similar to the original startup. You’re opening a new business in a new place for the very first time, working hard to attract customers and develop a reputation. If you started in Arlington, VA and expand to Anaheim, CA, you’ve got a whole new market and a whole new opportunity to grow your business in that market. You just need to make the leap.

How do you go from one or two local locations to businesses dotted across the map of the U.S.? There are a few tried and true strategies—and we’ve got some tips that can help.

Proven strategies for national expansion

First, consider how you’re going to expand. While your first instinct might be to open another location and build the business like you originally did, realize that this isn’t your only option. There are several unique strategies for expansion:

Open a new location. The most straightforward way to grow your business from a local one into a national brand is by opening another location. Then another. Then another. You’ve done it once and you can do it again, and the more times you do it, the more routine the process will become. Before you know it, you’ve got 2, 20 or even 200 locations across the map! Open them in strategic locations, in markets with the right business climate, and you’ll soon have a budding empire across the state, region and union.
Franchise new locations. You’re familiar with the likes of Dunkin’ Donuts, McDonalds and other ubiquitous big box names. Do you know why there are so many of these locations spread far and wide? Franchising. A significant number of chains choose to franchise, allowing independent owners to operate under the support of the brand umbrella. It’s an effective method of expansion because it enables entrepreneurs to find their own success under a proven brand name. Don’t believe us? At the end of 2020, there will be 744,437 franchise establishments in the United States.
Partner and grow. No industry has mastered the ‘partner and grow’ strategy quite like microbreweries. The idea is simple: align your product or service with an already-established business in the area you’re expanding to, to get traction before you officially launch. Microbreweries serve their beer in local taverns and sell at local liquor marts before setting up distribution in the region. Sometimes called a ‘soft launch,’ it’s one of the best ways to develop a following before you need to rely on digital marketing to grow your footprint.

What’s the right approach to national expansion for your business? That depends on the product or service you’re selling, what region you’ve got your eye on, and what your approach to business management looks like. Consider them all before taking the leap!

Franchise Business

7 marketing tips to grow your business nationally

Once you decide how you’re going to expand, make sure you’re covering your bases. Think ahead to what’s required to get your next location up and running, as well as what obstacles stand between you and success. The biggest will inevitably be attracting customers in a new market.

There are some excellent digital strategies available to expanding brands that can help them own new markets. Here are seven of them:

Partner locally. If you’re following a ‘partner and grow’ strategy, this is a cornerstone to the success of that strategy. Collaborate with local brands and form partnerships, then leverage joint messaging through digital marketing channels to quickly gain a following.
Run Google Ads. PPC ads with geo-focus are like rocket fuel for an expanding business. Run ads for your grand opening, inaugural specials, and other timely campaigns to drive new business to a new location and establish a local presence.
Alert the press. Small business media loves a success story. If you’ve grown your brand from a single location to several or are making the leap from regional to national, send out a press release and contact media. Someone will want to tell your story!
Establish GMB pages. Start your local SEO campaigns by establishing Google MyBusiness pages for each new location you open. This becomes essential as you develop nationally, to ensure local searchers find the nearest location to them.
Segment marketing. More locations means more email marketing lists. You can’t send specials to a customer in Toledo, OH if they’re only valid at your Tulsa, OK location! Keep email marketing lists segmented and clean for a unified marketing approach.
Create targeted content. Each of your locations needs unique content—not only for local SEO, but to capture the local audience. A blog post topic like winter weather conditions means entirely different content from Milwaukee, WI to Phoenix, AZ!
Social segments. Create social profiles for each location, in addition to a central one for the core brand. Customers will interact with area-specific pages, which can all be managed uniformly under the same standards without losing their local feel.

There’s even more you can (and should) do to bolster traction as your business expands. Remember, getting traction on a national stage doesn’t necessarily mean appealing to everyone from sea to shining sea—it means winning all those little local markets in between.

Marketing is the most important driver of growth

Opening new businesses in new cities is only the start. You need to fuel the growth and success of those locations, which means a major emphasis on digital marketing. It’s cost-efficient, robust and highly effective at bringing new business to your new locations when you’re trying to get your national brand off the ground.

Look at examples like microbreweries to see how powerful branding, marketing and advertising are when it comes to stretching a local brand into a national powerhouse. Leverage the above tips to give your expanding brand the traction it needs to win local markets and continue growing its footprint.

The post 7 Tips to Grow Your Regional Business Nationally appeared first on BizIQ.

The post 7 Tips to Grow Your Regional Business Nationally appeared first on Local SEO Resources.

Bringing Universities and HubSpot Clients Together: An Experiment in Applied Learning

August 20, 2020 by Maggi Pier

This post is a part of Made @ HubSpot, an internal thought leadership series through which we extract lessons from experiments conducted by our very own HubSpotters.

At the end of 2019, the Education Partner Program team at HubSpot had the challenging opportunity of deciding our priorities for the coming year.

The HubSpot Education Partner Program — or EPP — is a community of educators who teach at colleges and universities worldwide that receive free software and support from HubSpot to train the next generation of marketing, sales, and service professionals.

hubspot experiment in applied learning hubspot academy tools knowledge Supporting and empowering these students and professors is crucial in maintaining a healthy HubSpot ecosystem of future clients and users.

Like most teams at HubSpot, we focus maniacally on how to create a positive experience for those who rely on our program – in this case, university professors. To ensure that we were creating such experiences, we first had to identify what novel problems and pain points this audience faces.

Click here to learn more about the Education Partner Program and how you can join.

Identifying Our Audience’s Pain Points

The EPP’s focus is on college students who need to enter the working world with the tools and methodologies they need to help a business grow. We care deeply, and invest heavily in, business education.

g2 grid online course providers hubspot

Although HubSpot Academy serves thousands of learners across the world, the EPP focuses on education within college and universities. Our team would be remiss if we didn’t acknowledge and adapt to the educational inequity that pervades higher education in the US.

Specifically, we wanted to address the problems below that these issues bring to light:

1. Students need to have experience applying the skills they learn in class to find employment after graduation.

Often, this means they pursue (sometimes unpaid) internships in expensive cities, which can add financial strain to an already expensive college experience.

If HubSpot could find a way that would allow students to contribute virtually to helping solve a real business challenge in their course – all with the added safety net of their instructor being there to answer questions – we prime them for success. Subsequently, if they put this work on their resume, these students demonstrate a work experience that they might have otherwise been unable to find.

2. Educators have a mandate to prepare their students for real business challenges, but this can introduce so many unwelcome variables in the classroom.

Educations only have so many businesses in their rolodex that are open to working with students in their personal or professional network. On top of that, awkward conversations about expectations and due dates on deliverables can turn professors off from the experience completely.

At HubSpot, we have over 78,000 customers, all of whom are hoping to grow their business using our software and many of which could use some help and fresh eyes when approaching new projects. However, we recognized that it wasn’t enough to simply offer our customers; we needed a way for both our customers and our professors to hold themselves accountable to creating fruitful relationships and learning experiences for the students they work with.

3. HubSpot customers don’t always have the bandwidth to complete their many projects.

Although the visible impact of the Education Partner Program is the support we lend professors, we also intend to embedding ourselves deeper into the company and work across the many teams at HubSpot that want their best for our users. As a small team of three, it’s important for us to make a large splash where we can. Working with other teams – and specifically, our Customer Success Team – to help HubSpot customers is mutually beneficial. We wanted to find a solution for our educators while also finding one for our customers. We needed to create safeguards that made sure that business didn’t exploit students’ free labor while making it easy (and pleasant) for a Customer to work with an Educator, and vice versa.

And so, in 2020, we decided to focus on …. applied learning.

Providing a Solution Through Applied Learning

Applied learning is the practice of alternating classroom learning with pre-approved practical, meaningful, and creative contributions of labor in a community or external organization, in a field related to a student’s academic and career goals. Has a HubSpot Customer not updated their lead-generation workflow since the early 2010s? Perhaps some students could come in and provide some suggestions. Does a HubSpot Customer not have the bandwidth to create engaging blog articles to promote their product or service? Have students in a Digital Marketing class provide some articles as their capstone assignment!

As higher education shifted to virtual or hybrid models in 2020, we had a unique value proposition to provide our educators with the opportunity to enhance their students’ employable skills while also providing free work for our customers — many of whom were adapting to the challenges of conducting business almost entirely online and could use the help.

Here’s how we did it.

1. We partnered with the best-in-class software for creating new applied opportunities in the classroom, Riipen.

We first explored what providers already had a foothold in this space. Riipen, a technology platform that facilitates micro-experiential learning opportunities by connecting students with industry partners through in-course assignments or competitions designed by instructors, came far ahead of any other options.

2. We tested, and then tested some more.

Shortly after we decided to work with Riipen, we enlisted some of our most engaged Education Partners and customers to test out the marketplace to see if this was something we could expand to the hundreds more professors in our network.

After a bit of research and conversation, we partnered with (and are eternally grateful for) Tim Marshall at Baldwin Wallace College and Elaine Young and Champlain College. These two educators’ students worked with six diverse HubSpot customers (three each), with much success.

CAPA The Global Education Network (Boston, MA, USA): Students worked to develop lead-nurturing workflows to promote and encourage study abroad to freshmen college students.
The Woods (Norway, ME, USA): Students worked to boost online ads and an ecommerce platform for a luxury treehouse in Maine.
Run Away Travel (Miami, FL, USA): Students created marketing collateral and content for an all-inclusive travel agency.
Cosmic Booth (Orlando, FL, USA): Students created marketing collateral and content for a commercial photo booth rental business.
ETTCH (Dublin, Ireland): Students created marketing collateral and content for an educational company that design tools for children coping with anxiety and low self-confidence.
AirWorks (Boston, MA, USA): Students doubled the amount of pillar pages for an AI start-up.

My colleagues and I attended final presentations that students made to their employers and were impressed with the level of preparation and professionalism from everyone involved.

The Woods saw tremendous growth (500%) in their apparel sales. Run Away Travel and ETTCH in particular had some great feedback on the maturity of the students and the innovative content they provided their businesses.

Given the success of the pilot program, we decided to continue our partnership with Riipen and create even more connections between our customers and educators.

3. We promoted our program internally and collaborated with other teams.

There were several considerations we took into account as we planned to launch our partnership with Riipen at scale.

We needed to make sure that our educators weren’t left without a HubSpot customer to pair with — and vice versa. This meant that our biggest obstacle was going both too fast or too slow in rolling this out. We needed to make sure we were recruiting at an even pace on both sides of the marketplace. For example, if we pressed the gas on recruiting educators to join, we could end up with more educators than we have customers. The opposite also applied. Since we could control the stream of educators who knew about and could sign up for this program, we also had to do the same for our customers.

Enter the Customer Success team at HubSpot. We relied on the Customer Success Managers, or CSMs, to hand-pick “good fit” businesses for this opportunity. We shared the “what” and “why” of our applied learning program through an internal “Applied Learning Resource Center” with small, actionable steps for CSMs that wanted their customers to participate in the program. CSMs then introduced me personally to businesses they considered a good match. We also built out public-facing pages for educators and customers that outlined the goals and responsibilities of each should they participate in the program.

Applied Learning in Times of Uncertainty

While we at HubSpot have always been excited about the prospect of matching customers with educators so that students can gain job-ready skills, these times of economic uncertainty have brought a new sense of urgency. When we experience fundamental changes to how we work and learn, we have to question how we can better prepare ourselves and others to respond to new challenges. The practice of remote-friendly learning has become the new normal for most colleges and universities worldwide, opening the horizons of what virtual leadership and project management looks like when it happens from your kitchen or bedroom desk.

The project-based learnings students undertake with Riipen are always completely virtual experiences. Thus, they’re more flexible and obtainable to a new group of students who could never commit to the tradition 9-5, in-office internship experience.

We have a long way to go to scale this from the highly-personalized, one-on-one outreach we have now to a more automated, self-identifying, opt-in process for customers and educators. Fall 2020 will present some interesting challenges as we prepare to launch this to our Education Partner Community during a time when many are questioning the ability to offer virtual learning — much less virtual applied learning opportunities.

We seek to create 15 more matches between Educators and our Customers (and even more in the Spring) and are confident that we can hit this number. Ultimately, we want to create opportunities for students to graduate with the skills and experiences they need to feel confident in interviews and at their workplaces.

Our partnership with Riipen is a major step in empowering these students and in building a customer base that appreciates the perspectives that these students bring.

Click here to learn more about the Education Partner Program and how you can join.

The post Bringing Universities and HubSpot Clients Together: An Experiment in Applied Learning appeared first on Local SEO Resources.

What is PPC Management and Do I Need to Run Paid Ads?

August 16, 2020 by Maggi Pier

Your online presence is vital to your business success. Search engine optimization is one way to get traffic to your website. Users go to a search engine and look for certain products and services. If your website matches their query, they have the option of clicking on the link. This is called organic, or unpaid, traffic. Another way to drive traffic to your site is through advertising. Let’s take a look at pay-per-click (PPC) advertising and how it goes hand-in-hand with your SEO strategy. Then, we’ll discuss the pros and cons of hiring an agency or someone in-house to take care of your PPC campaigns.

Ppc Graphic

What is PPC?

PPC is a way of placing ads on a platform, usually a search engine, such as Google or Bing. You only pay when a customer clicks on the ad to go to your site. The goal is to get traffic to your site so that you convert the user to a sale or other valuable action, like joining your newsletter or downloading a white paper. These campaigns are very popular when you have sale items or want to drive traffic for a particular reason. SEO often takes a few weeks to get results, but Pay Per Click has a quicker turnaround time.

Payment Online
The foundation of Pay Per Click is keywords. You select the keywords that you want to target in search. When a user types in that selection of words, your ad comes up. The nice part is that you only pay for your ad if the customer actually clicks on the link. Unfortunately, some keyword selections may cost more than others. The ad platform sets pricing based on relevance and competition. You can set your budget and bids to your needs so that you don’t spend more than you planned on advertising.

A campaign doesn’t operate in a vacuum. You can’t just select the keywords you want to target and drive customers to your site. Your ad must have the information a user is looking for, such as a headline and description. Once the user clicks on the link, your website needs to provide the information they’re looking for. These campaigns have to be well-thought-out to drive the right users to your site and into your pipeline.

What is PPC Management?

PPC is a powerful advertising tool when used correctly. You can’t just give Google or Bing your list of keywords and hope that the platform gets you the best leads. management is the oversight of your budget, strategy, and campaigns. Many businesses outsource this management to an external agency with a team of marketing and media experts, but management can also be handled in-house.

PPC management consists of:

Keyword research: targeting the keywords that customers are looking for
Channel research: determining which platforms to run your campaign on, social media, Google Ads, Bing Ads, or other networks
Monitoring: using data to analyze each campaign for ROI and effectiveness
Analyzing competition: using data from competitors to find ways to reach out to customers
Testing: examining landing pages and new ads to see which ones are the most effective
Optimization: putting your marketing budget behind the keywords that bring in the most business

Billboard Pay Per Click

Elements of an Effective Pay Per Click Campaign

Pay Per Click management involves many factors. For that reason, many businesses hire a management agency that knows the ins and outs of delivering the highest ROI. Whether you hire an agency or plan to do Pay Per Click in house, you should understand what goes into creating a strategy.

Know your goals before you get started.
Before you invest in Pay Per Click, you should have goals and metrics in place. Your goals give you something to achieve, while your metrics tell you if you’re reaching your goals. When you get started, you’ll want to be realistic with your goals. Don’t expect a huge return in the first month. Although a campaign drives traffic quicker than SEO, you may need to tweak your approach to find the best methods for your goals.
Don’t follow Google (or another computer-based program) Blindly
There are programs that will manage your campaign, but you need to control your campaigns. Google will make some good suggestions, but you need to choose which keywords fit your goals and business needs.
Create Landing Pages for Each PPC Campaign
The landing page bridges the gap between the searcher and your business. If a user is searching for something specific, you want to make sure your landing page is relevant. Otherwise, you pay for a click that doesn’t reap any benefits. You can’t just hope the searcher digs through your website to find what he or she is looking for.
Cast a Wide Net Early – Learn From Your Data
You may need to put more money into your early ads to find out what works and what doesn’t. By monitoring the results closely, you can then funnel your marketing dollars into what is working most effectively. Look for the top-performing keywords that generate sales. Watch for negative words that you might want to exclude from search. For example, if you sell used vacuums, but don’t make repairs, you may want to exclude the word “repair” from search queries.
Analyze Your Data Regularly
Test new keywords to see how they perform. Test different ad copy to see what performs best. Watch the analytics to make sure your campaigns are generating the ROI you expect. Don’t just put your campaigns on autopilot and hope for the best.

Why Not Let Google Manage Your PPC Campaign?

Google Adwords Express is a computerized service that delivers some Pay Per Click management, but can’t always make adjustments like a real team of people would. Many businesses don’t see a high ROI using Adwords Express because it can’t always assess your goals and the customer’s goals together. Google can provide a lot of insight for your strategy, but shouldn’t be what manages your campaign.

Do I Need PPC Management?

Pay Per Click management isn’t cheap, whether you hire an agency or hire someone in-house. The question is which is more effective. Here are a few things to consider:

Hiring a PPC Agency

Working with an agency can seem expensive on paper but remember that you’re not going to be responsible for the salary of an in-house person, along with benefits, training, and overhead. Agencies have experts whose sole focus is PPC – learning what works and doesn’t, not only on your account but on other accounts. Although the agency team may need to learn the specifics about your business, they don’t need to learn the ins and outs of advertising platforms and software. When you work with an agency you start out with knowledge and experience.

Hiring an In-House Person for Pay Per Click

One big advantage of hiring someone in-house is communication. Your campaign manager is always there to reach out to when you have questions or want an update. One disadvantage of having an in-house person is that their time may be spread across different items. Your Pay Per Click person may also be responsible for website management and SEO. If you decide to halt your campaign, you’re still responsible for their salary while the campaign is on hold. An in-house person may not have the same resources as an agency, but you will have more access to them to check up on your campaign.

Which One Works Better?

A well-thought-out campaign can really boost your business, but one with a poor strategy will only cost money. You have to look at your own business and find the right approach. Generally, a business can manage their own campaigns, but they may not have the same success when working with an agency. If you are a small business owner trying to focus on your business and marketing approach, you may be trying to spread yourself too thin, which is when an agency would make even more sense. If you do go with an agency, you still must be involved to make some decisions and to understand what your business needs to do to support the campaigns.

When choosing an agency, look for results-driven services with a dedicated project manager for your organization. You want professionals who not only understand the marketing industry, but who are dedicated to presenting your brand with ethics and best practices. Work with an agency that offers flexibility in finding solutions for your business. You should also choose an agency that communicates well with your team.

Billboard Contact Us

Get Your PPC Campaign Started on the Right Foot

If you’re spending marketing dollars, get the most for your money by working with experienced professionals. BizIQ offers multiple Pay Per Click packages designed for small to medium businesses who want effective PPC management from a company with excellent customer service and ratings in the industry. Contact us today to see how you can get started with solutions that work for you.

The post What is PPC Management and Do I Need to Run Paid Ads? appeared first on BizIQ.

The post What is PPC Management and Do I Need to Run Paid Ads? appeared first on Local SEO Resources.

The Basics of Backlinks: How to Get Started

August 15, 2020 by Maggi Pier

Listen to this episode on your favorite listening app:

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Some marketers focus the majority of their efforts on keyword research and content creation. And while those are certainly important pieces to the content marketing puzzle, they’re not the entire puzzle.

You can write post after post of perfectly optimized content, but unless other sources are leading people to that content, your site won’t succeed the way you want it to. That’s why a backlink strategy is so important. Backlinks get eyes on your content and improve your website’s performance in Google search results.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’re not alone! That’s why in this episode I’ve put together a simple explanation of what backlinks are, why they’re important, and how you can start to build yours. You’re going to love it.

Links Mentioned in this episode:

Ubersuggests: https://neilpatel.com/ubersuggest/

HARO: https://www.helpareporter.com/

Google Alerts: https://www.google.com/alerts

General Info:

Would you like to listen via YouTube? Go here and subscribe to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC97CxzX4YnOazsF39DOe34A

If you want to get a hold of us, or you would like to be a guest on our show simply click here: https://www.lbmsllc.com/contact-us/

Is there a topic you would like us to cover? Send an email to [email protected] or simply call 888-416-7752

Want a free evaluation of your digital marketing presence? Simply click here: https://www.lbmsllc.com/marketing-consultation/
and we’ll connect with you as soon as possible.

For a free copy of my book, 7 Steps to Recession-Proofing Your Business, click this link: https://www.lbmsllc.com/book

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Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

The post The Basics of Backlinks: How to Get Started appeared first on Local Business Marketing Solutions.

The post The Basics of Backlinks: How to Get Started appeared first on Local SEO Resources.

What is a Shared Hosting Account? Entry Level Website Hosting 101

August 14, 2020 by Maggi Pier

So, you really are just starting to think of creating a website and want to know; “What is a Shared Hosting Account“? To answer such a question and be sure you will be able to understand our answer we decided to write this article as tuition in entry-level website hosting. Such training is often called a “101” according to US college tradition in numbering their first courses for new students – hence our title!

What You Need to Get a Website Online
Getting Started With Your First Web Hosting Account is a Milestone
Best Blog & WordPress Hosting
What is Shared Hosting?
How Shared Hosting Works
What Shared Hosting Is Used For
What To Look for in Shared Hosting
Shared Hosting vs. Dedicated Hosting
Shared Hosting vs. Cloud Hosting
How Do Our Shared Web Hosting Plans Stack Up? †
Free With Each Hosting Plan
Sign up for web hosting today!

What You Need to Get a Website Online

Before we discuss the main subject of this article, we provide a basic introduction to what anyone needs to have their own website under their own full control online. There are other methods, but few if any give you complete freedom to alter, develop and move your site as much as this.

At the most basic level, whenever a browser needs a file that is hosted on a web server, the browser requests the file via HTTP. When the request reaches the correct (hardware) web server, the (software) HTTP server accepts the request, finds the requested document, and sends it back to the browser, also through HTTP.

To publish a website, you need either a static or a dynamic web server.

In short, web hosting is a service that makes it possible to publish your site live on the Internet. A web host, also called a hosting provider, is a company that provides the tools you need to accomplish this.

Most notably, that includes a server. Servers store website files, and Internet browsers can communicate with them to deliver your site’s pages to visitors. This is what makes hosting such a key element of setting up a website – without it, you have no way to make your site public.

Web hosting is the most fundamental requirement to run a website. Shared hosting has long been the most popular form of web hosting, considering it is so cost-effective. With shared hosting, your website is on a server that is being used by a number of other websites.

This is perfectly fine, as long as you are not expecting a lot of traffic or performing high bandwidth tasks on your website. It’s the place where you centralize all of your business information and marketing messages. It is where potential customers can go to learn about your business. And, it’s where all of your other marketing efforts should drive interested customers.

To get maximum SEO benefit, your blog should be listed under your domain (something like www.yourcompany/blog) instead of off-site through a service like Blogger.com. A blog can help your business in so many ways that you may be crazy if you’re not considering a blog for your business.

Getting Started With Your First Web Hosting Account

What is a Shared Hosting Account is shown here as concept by showing a server with multiple site pages. Although it’s possible for you to operate your own server and host your own website, doing so requires a ton of expertise and patience as you work through the numerous headaches that are bound to pop up. For example, why spend years learning how to make the perfect tortilla from scratch when you could simply go to your favourite Mexican restaurant on a whim? The vast majority of website owners will purchase hosting services from a reputable company, much like opting for a nice dinner out with friends.

Although it’s possible for you to operate your own server and host your own website, doing so requires a ton of expertise and patience as you work through the numerous headaches that are bound to pop up. If you want more information, now that you know a little about what is a shared hosting account, do continue reading.

Web hosting accounts are made available by hosts, companies specialized in providing individually assigned access to server resources. These companies ensure server environment access by offering variously sized hosting packages that match their particular customers’ online demands.

Once you find the right host, you will need to select a hosting package that matches your particular online demands. Since each host has its own specific hosting plan configurations, to get started with your first web hosting account to get in touch with your chosen host’s sales department and ask for advice as to which of their package would serve your particular web presence in the best way. Once you have their recommendation, go ahead, get started, sign up and pay for the first period of your site’s subscription, select and buy your domain from your hosting company follow the instructions and get your first website up and running.

Best Blog & WordPress Hosting

Running a self-hosted WordPress blog is fun, as we need to take care of everything. The moment you start a self-hosted blog, you are almost running a business. That means you need to take care of everything around your blog. One of the major concern with self-hosted blogger is web-hosting. Till the time your current hosting is not giving any issues, you don’t need to worry about anything, but the moment your WordPress blog gets old, or some buggy plugin or codes starts playing hide and seek, the web hosting company can give you a hard time. They have to in order to protect the other shared users from making their sites load slowly if your site is using old versions of the software. Worse still would be if by using your old outdated software version hackers go into the server.

Hosting companies usually offer both Windows and Linux hosting services. Which one you need will depend on what you want to do with your site, the format and type of website you are building, like whether you want to create a shopping cart, host a podcast, or add a blog. If you’re not sure if you need Windows or Linux, you can always call the host’s website support center. Another way to find out is to ask your webmaster or web designer the type of web hosting he/she will need for your website. If you know that you’re building your website using WordPress or PHP, then you’ll need Linux. If you’re building your website using active server pages (asp), then you’ll need Windows.

Shared hosts are so popular not only because they are the best cheap web hosting option but also because such a solution easily powers a massive variety of sites. It is easily the best web hosting for blogs as it handles WordPress with ease and holds its ground even when the monthly visitors reach triple digits. Many shared hosts put special effort to provide the best web hosting for eCommerce by delivering free SSLS, advanced support, and many 1-click installers of the most popular eCommerce solutions. Now you will know a little about what is a shared hosting account.

What is Shared Hosting in More Detail?

This graphic compares What is a Shared Hosting Account with VPS and Dedicated Hosting. The “shared” in shared hosting is an industry-standard term referring to common server infrastructure being shared by multiple users. It’s a bit like having an apartment. The main infrastructure is used by multiple people and maintained for you, but every tenant still gets a private and secure place to call their own.

Shared hosting is a website hosting product that shares server resources across several hosting accounts. Shared hosting is used as an affordable, straightforward hosting solution for the majority of websites. Shared hosting allows multiple websites to utilize a single server. Depending on the hardware used by the server, a shared hosting service can host thousands of websites. Shared hosting is usually the cheapest option and prices and packages vary greatly, however, the cheap price comes with some disadvantages. Not to worry though as you can always upgrade your account when your website grows and fund the upgrade with earnings from your website.

What if I decide to cancel a shared hosting plan and don’t still want my site online, after creating a website? Most shared hosts provide a simple process in the panel to entirely close an account when a shared hosting plan is active. Other steps can be applied if your website account has VPS services and/or dedicated services.

How Shared Hosting Works

Shared hosting, sometimes called shared services or virtual hosting is simply when multiple web sites share the same server, thus reducing the cost for everyone. With a shared hosting account, your site will usually be on a server with hundreds of other web sites. That may sound like a lot, but it usually works out extremely well because most sites don’t generate enough traffic or use enough resources for it to become a problem. Shared hosting is suitable for personal sites, small businesses, and even medium-sized businesses if their hosting needs fit within the parameters of a small business.

What Shared Hosting Is Used For

Whether you’re a blogger, a small business owner or a CEO in need of web hosting, you might be wondering whether you should choose VPS hosting or shared hosting. There are several advantages to each that we’ll walk you through.

Shared web hosting is simply when one server hosts multiple customers. This is the most common and cost-effective option for web hosting when you are just starting out. Shared web hosting servers are configured for maximum security and performance relative to the number of customers, and types of websites that are hosted. In other words, there’s no need to give any thought to the other websites on the same server as you the hosting service will get all that handled. Build your shared hosting platform on a state-of-the-art cloud platform at EZi-Gold Hosting. Get the ultimate reliability only the cloud can offer.

What To Look for in Shared Hosting

Email is the hub of almost every business, and your own email addresses for your own domain come free with shared hosting. Email is the easiest way to communicate, both internally and externally. It’s where you get your most important notifications. And it gives you storage space for archiving critical information and shared files. While it might be tempting to pick your email provider based on brand familiarity, it’s important to review your options before committing to a service that will become your team’s most-used service. Buying a domain name for your business or personal site and getting it set up on a shared hosting server will not only let you reliably send and receive an email for your own domain, but it will often also offer additional tools, such as shared contacts and calendars for your company.

Malware infections have grown over the past few years. There are steps that can be taken to clean a site and protect it from malware. Generally speaking within a shared hosting environment the most common cause of malware is out of date software within the hosting account. For example, the most common is a theme or plugin within a third party PHP script like WordPress which has security issues. The best way to ensure this doesn’t happen is to use plugins that are from the WordPress admin section, so auto-updates are available and keeping them up to date. By default WordPress, the core will update automatically unless disabled, and it is a bad idea to turn off updates for WordPress. For themes, use a theme that will also auto-update, otherwise, you are left to manually update the theme for security issues and it is a boring task to have to attend to every few weeks.

Shared Hosting vs. Dedicated Hosting

We are confident you will be happy if you buy hosting with good support. Look for 24/7 phone, live chat and helpdesk support by friendly support agents as a minimum. If you are not completely satisfied with our services within the first 45 days of your service, apply for a full refund of the contract amount. This may only be available for shared, reseller, cloud, business email and vps hosting packages. It does not necessarily apply to dedicated servers, WordPress hosting, Codeguard, Sitelock, Digital Certificates, administrative fees, install fees for custom software, nor does this apply to domain name purchases.

If your website ever outgrows shared hosting, you’ll have the option of not having to jump to a different boat, as Siteground also offers VPS hosting and dedicated servers. Their cloud hosting plans feature scalable server resources and the flexibility doesn’t even come at the cost of having to reboot the server instance every time you decide to upgrade or downgrade cpu, ram, or storage. These are fully managed, as well, so you won’t need to be a web developer (or hire one) to make sure everything runs smoothly. They also come with their premium 24×7 support that guarantees always-available phone and live chat support alongside less than 10 minutes ticket responses.

VPS hosting starting at $5/mo. Dedicated servers starting at $169/mo. If you’ve ever been worried about the tremendous amount of power large data centres consume, you might want to sign up with green geeks. The “green” in the company’s name reflects the green geeks’ commitment to the environment. It purchases three times the energy it actually uses in wind energy credits, essentially putting energy back into the economy. The company does this through a form of renewable energy certificates, which, while a bit complicated, means that it’s not just energy neutral, i’s actually helping fuel the green energy economy.

Shared Hosting vs. Cloud Hosting

Basic packages, these are the smallest and cheapest shared hosting packages you can buy. These can indeed be good packages which are feature-rich and some may cost only $2. 95/month for 3 years package with this special sign-up link. This package allows you to host one website, and this is one reason we often recommend our readers opt for plus package, as they allow you to host multiple websites. Basic EZi-Gold Hosting package offers 2 Gigs SSD Disk Space and Unlimited Bandwidth where competitors such as Bluehost only offer 50gb bandwidth/month in their basic offer. Even 50gb that is more than enough for you to run your website on shared hosting, but EZi-Gold Hosting is so much better because they allow a second add-on domain as well! Starter packages on both hosts come with the Cloudflare CDN offered, but if not offered on any hosting you can always directly signup for Cloudflare and integrate their free CDN.

Cloud hosting describes a method of configuring servers in a flexible way to allow for the most affordable, scalable, and reliable web infrastructure. Cloud servers scale with incredible speed. You can expand or reduce servers in seconds to ensure that the server keeps up with demand without wasting money on unnecessary resources. Shared hosting may rely on a single server, but cloud hosting utilizes a “cloud” of servers that seamlessly work together to securely store your site’s data and files. Cloud hosting is more secure and efficient than other more traditional hosting methods. Since it pools together the resources of several servers from various locations into a single virtual network, cloud hosting is better able to protect your website from cyber-attacks.

With shared hosting, your resources are limited and shared. If you need to scale your web application, you’re going to have a tough time. This problem isn’t a thing with VPS hosting but even knowing a little about what is a shared hosting account this fact should be kept in mind. If you want more resources, you can request them in your web hosting administration portal. Since you’re on a virtual machine, your hosting provider only needs to change some numbers to increase your resources. If you’re on a cloud VPS, you don’t even need to wait for your provider. Make sure you read more about how you can use a VPS to scale your application.

How Do Our Shared Web Hosting Plans Stack Up? †

Well, while shared hosting of the “dorm room” variety is fine for a single business, shared website hosting plans can be quite risky for a web design business. It takes less than 3 minutes for a hacker to hack or delete the contents of every website sharing the same shared hosting account files space. If this is not a risk you wish to take with your business then a reseller type hosting plan is your more secure option. A reseller hosting plan is one in which you may set up separate FTP username and passwords for each client, such that no accounts share the same files space. Cpanel WHM (web hosting manager) is currently the best and easiest to use reseller control panel. To locate a secure Cpanel WHM web host type this into Google,. We are not covering that any further because this article is limited to letting you know a little about what is a shared hosting account.

With the basic personal shared web hosting plans, you can usually only host only 1 website/domain. However, on the business and pro plans you can host multiple websites/domains according to the plan you choose.

Free With Each Hosting Plan

Let’s face it — we all love free stuff. Free tacos, free beer, or even a free t-shirt we know we’ll never wear. When people hear the word “free,” we just can’t help ourselves. So why should free web hosting be any different? While there are certainly times you should use paid hosting plans, sometimes you just want to throw your latest project up quickly and be done with it — at no cost to you. If that sounds like your situation, you’re in luck go for any one of the top free (and nearly free) web hosts on the market.

Bluehost hosting plans provide free SSL certificates one way or the other (e. g. via Let’s Encrypt). But if you are still looking for one, Bluehost proposes several alternatives to SSL your domain name. These are really pricey. Again, you can find cheaper alternatives at providers like Namecheap. A piece of advice though Bluehost is one of the pushiest (not to say money-grabbing) providers I’ve ever tried. So if you open an account with them, be ready to receive endless upgrades and upsells pitches. You have been warned!

Free domain registration is for qualified plans only, is often only free for one year and renews at the regular rate at the end of your term. With most hosting providers if you register a free domain through and wish to cancel your account, there is a nonrefundable $15. 00 domain fee if you would like to keep your domain. This not only covers their costs but ensures that you won’t lose your domain name. Regardless of the status of your hosting service, you’ll be free to manage it, transfer it after any required lock periods, or simply point it elsewhere at your convenience. You retain ownership of your domain until the end of its registration period unless you elect to extend it.

Sign up for web hosting today!

Today’s internet-connected world faces an increasing number of security threats. Our priority is to keep your hosting account secure at all times. To make this possible at EZi.gold, we are performing constant security auditing in our systems. We only gather the minimum amount of data regarding our customers and we store it encrypted. You are always connected through secure 256-bit SSL when accessing billing information, the file manager or webmail.

Make sure before you buy that your shared hosting servers are protected with advanced DDOS protection system and spam filtering software.

Now you know a little bit more about what is a shared hosting account, and how shared hosting servers work. Even though you share a server’s resources with other users, you can still tap into many of its resources. Established web hosting companies maintain policies that divvy up the resources so all users have a fair amount of access to the server’s tools and resources. Shared hosting makes it easy and affordable to obtain the tools businesses need. It’s great for smaller businesses such as startups, personal websites, blogs, or local business websites that aren’t that large in scale.

The post What is a Shared Hosting Account? Entry Level Website Hosting 101 appeared first on GQ Central.

What is a Business Plan? Definition, Tips, and Templates

August 14, 2020 by Maggi Pier

The business plan is an undeniably critical component to getting any company off the ground. It’s key to securing financing, documenting your business model, outlining your financial projections, and turning that nugget of a business idea into a reality.

In an era where more than 50% of small enterprises fail in their first year, having a clear, defined, and well thought-out business plan is a crucial first step for setting up a business for long-term success.

Business plans are a required tool for all entrepreneurs, business owners, business acquirers, and even business school students. But … what exactly is a business plan?

In this post, we’ll explain what a business plan is, list the reasons why you’d need one, and identify different types of business plans.

What is a Business Plan?

A business plan is a documented strategy for a business that highlights its goals and its plans for achieving them.

Business plans outline a company’s go-to-market strategy, financial projections, market research, business purpose, and mission. The business plan is also a prominent tool used to secure investors and financing for a business.

Business Plan Template

bpt-cover-gif-1 Working on your business plan? Try using our Business Plan Template. Pre-filled with the sections a great business plan needs, the template will give aspiring entrepreneurs a feel for what a business plan is, what should be in it, and how it can be used to establish and grow a business from the ground up.

Purposes of a Business Plan

Chances are, someone drafting a business plan will be doing so for one or more of the following reasons:

1. Securing financing from investors.

Since its contents revolve around how businesses succeed, break even, and turn a profit, a business plan is primarily used as a tool for sourcing capital. This document is an entrepreneur’s way of showing potential investors and/or loaners how their capital will be put to work and how it will help a business thrive.

All banks, investors, and venture capital firms will want to see a business plan before handing over their money, and investors typically want a 20-25% ROI from the capital they invest in a business.

Therefore, these investors need to know if – and when – they’ll be making their money back (and then some). Additionally, they’ll want to read about the process and strategy for how the business will reach those financial goals, which is where the context provided by sales, marketing, and operations plans come into play.

2. Documenting a company’s strategy and goals.

A business plan should leave no stone unturned.

Business plans can span dozens or even hundreds of pages, affording their drafters the opportunity to explain what a business’s goals are and how the business will achieve them.

To show potential investors that they’ve addressed every question and thought through every possible scenario, entrepreneurs should thoroughly explain their marketing, sales, and operations strategies – from acquiring a physical location for the business to explaining a tactical approach for marketing penetration.

These explanations should ultimately lead to a business’s break even point supported by a sales forecast and financial projections, with the business plan writer being able to speak to the why behind anything outlined in the plan.

3. Legitimizing a business idea.

Everyone’s got a great idea for a company – until they put pen to paper and realize that it’s not exactly feasible.

The business plan is an aspiring entrepreneur’s way to prove that a business idea is actually worth pursuing.

As entrepreneurs document their go-to-market process, capital needs, and expected return on investment, entrepreneurs likely come across a few hiccups that will make them second guess their strategies and metrics – and that’s exactly what the business plan is for.

It ensures an entrepreneur’s ducks are in a row before bring their business idea to the world and reassures the plan’s readers that whoever wrote the plan is serious about the idea, having put hours into thinking of the business idea, fleshing out growth tactics, and calculating financial projections.

4. Getting an A in your Business class.

Speaking from personal experience, there’s a chance you’re here to get business plan ideas for your Business 101 class project.

If that’s the case, might we suggest checking out this post on How to Write a Business Plan – providing a section-by-section guide on creating your plan?

Types of Business Plans

1. Startup Business Plan

Arguably the most common type of business plan, a startup business plan is used for brand new business ideas. This plan is used to take a business concept and lay the foundation for its eventual success.

The biggest challenge with the startup business plan is that it requires its writer to completely start from scratch. Startup business plans start with a blank word document, and before they are finished, need to reference existing industry data and explain unique business strategies and go-to-market plans.

2. Business Acquisition Plan

Investors will still want to see a business plan to acquire funding to purchase an existing business in order to see how its new owner will run the business.

What will change and what will stay the same under new ownership, and why? Additionally, the business plan should speak to what the current state of the to-be-acquired business is, and why it’s up for sale.

For example, if someone is purchasing a failing business, the business plan should explain why the business is being purchased and what the new owner will do to turn the business around, referencing previous business metrics, sales projections after the acquisition, and a justification for those projections.

3. Business Repositioning Plan

When a business wants to save itself, reposition its brand, or try something new, some CEOs or owners will want to develop a business repositioning plan.

This plan should:

Acknowledge the current state of the company.
State a vision for the future of the company.
Explain why the business should (or must) be repositioned.
Outline a process for how the company will adjust.

Companies planning for a business reposition do so – proactively or retroactively – due to a shift in market trends and customer needs. For example, Pizza Hut announced a plan to drastically overhaul its brand last year, as it sees the need to shift from dine-in to delivery – a decision resulting from observing years of industry and company trends and acknowledging the need to reposition itself for the future of its sector.

4. Expansion Business Plan

Building onto a successful business venture with another location typically requires its own business plan, as the project may require a new location, focus on a new target market, and demand more capital.

Fortunately, an expansion business plan allows its writers to reference sales, revenue, and successes from any previous location(s). However, as great as a reference as these points can be, it’s important to not be too reliant on them, since it’s still a new business that could succeed or fail for a myriad of reasons.

Getting Started With Your Business Plan

At the end of the day, a business plan is simply an explanation of a business idea and why it will be successful. The more detail and thought you put into it, the more successful your plan – and the business it outlines – will be.

If you need help starting your business plan, download Download HubSpot’s Free Business Plan Template and fill out the sections to meet your business idea’s concept.

The post What is a Business Plan? Definition, Tips, and Templates appeared first on Local SEO Resources.

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What is a Business Plan?

Business Plan Template

Purposes of a Business Plan

1. Securing financing from investors.

2. Documenting a company’s strategy and goals.

3. Legitimizing a business idea.

4. Getting an A in your Business class.

Types of Business Plans

1. Startup Business Plan

2. Business Acquisition Plan

3. Business Repositioning Plan

4. Expansion Business Plan

Getting Started With Your Business Plan