It's been on the horizon for months, looming for years, but now it's finally time - Google+ is no more. Google announced a few months ago that its struggling social network would finally be retired, but a recently-revealed security breach moved their final days from August 2019 to April 2019. Here is everything you need to know and do now that
Google+
The Best Times to Post on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Google+ [Infographic]
Social media is one of the most cost-effective - and just plain effective - ways to reach your audience. But between all the various platforms and demographics, it's hard to know when exactly to post. The ideal time for you to post will depend on your audience and what your analytics show you. However, there are tried-and-true posting times that
How to Update Your Google My Business Listing
We've talked ad nauseam about how frustrating it is to use Google My Business, so forgive us if you're sick of hearing about it. But between Google+ and Google My Business, we get a lot of questions from our customers. And understandably! Google My Business is notoriously confusing and hard to use (sorry Google!). You might not even know what
How NOT to Respond to Negative Reviews
It's no secret how important online reviews are to businesses - 88% of customers rely on them to decide whether or not to do business with a local company. But many business owners are so laser-focused on getting reviews that they don't consider responding to reviews. It's inevitable - if you're actively soliciting reviews, you're going to get a
Do I Need a Google+ Business Page?
So, Google. We need to talk. I appreciate everything you do for me - answering my stupid questions, giving me direction, helping me solve "who's that actor" arguments...but changing things and not telling anyone? That has got to stop. If you've dabbled in digital marketing, you've probably heard of Google+ or Google My Business. If not, you've
How You’re Annoying Your Customers (Without Realizing It)
For the first 16 years of his life, my younger brother's name was "STOPJON!." STOPJON! blew raspberries, jumped on the couch, yanked ponytails, trudged mud through the house and threw water balloons. STOPJON! never heard his name unless it was shouted in annoyance. Eventually, STOPJON! matured and graduated to "Jon," but not before leaving a legacy
2017 Social Media Image Size Guide [Infographic]
New year, new selfies. 2017 is here and social media isn't going anywhere. Considering that 90% of the information transmitted to the brain is visual, social media is more important than ever. Start this year off right by making sure all your social media images are primed to pop. Below is our 2017 social media size guide. Remember to save this
How to Get Reviews
You can't afford to ignore online reviews - your customers sure don't. 88% of consumers read reviews to determine the quality of a local business. Before ever picking up the phone, your customers will be searching for your online reviews. If you don't have any, they may not buy. But getting online reviews is a struggle many business owners face.
How to Create Gorgeous Social Media Pictures in Seconds
We've said it before and we'll say it again: images are the bread and butter of social media. On Facebook, posts with pictures on average see 37% more engagement than text posts alone. Instagram and Pinterest are almost exclusively photo content, with very little text. To compete with the big boys, your social profiles need high-quality images. But
5 Social Media Tips for the Trades
Show of hands: who set up their social media, posted a couple of times and then never returned?Don't worry - we get it. You're trying to run your business. And you may be thinking: "What do I even talk about?" It's easy to look to big brands with their flashy videos and professional photos and get discouraged. But here's the thing: you
The Ultimate Social Media Image Size Guide [Infographic]
A picture is worth a thousand retweets. When Facebook and Twitter first launched, they were text-only and word-heavy. Now, virtually every social network has become more and more streamlined and picture-friendly. Pictures dominate social networks and consistently see more engagement.We’ll say it straight out: if your images aren’t optimized for
What and How Often Should You Post on Social Media? [Infographic]
by Azure Collier, Constant ContactWhen I’m hosting Constant Contact’s social media webinars, I get a lot of questions from small businesses and nonprofits on social media best practices.One of the things I hear most often is “What should I post on social media and when should I post it?”That’s why we created this cheat sheet.In this cheat sheet,
5 Ideas to Make This Your Most Profitable Holiday Season Yet
Ryan Pinkham, Constant ContactIf the holidays are a busy time for your small business, you know how important the next few months will be.Consumers are expected to spend big this holiday season. If you want them to shop small, you need to plan ahead.Luckily, there are simple steps you can take to set your business up for success.Here are five
The Best Time to Send Black Friday Special Offers
Black Friday is one of the most profitable shopping holidays, and retailers are busy planning their social media and email strategy. To help retailers make informed decisions about last-minute social media and email campaigns, Yesmail analyzed the performance of 50 top retailers’ email and social promotions in the week leading up to Black
Make Google Work For You With These 4 Videos
Oh Google, my Google. What would the internet be without that trusted blue G? Since its launch, Google has moved beyond its impressive title as the most frequently-used search engine to a suite of applications, marketing tools and social networks. Plain and simple: pleasing Google is good for business. If your potential customers can't find you
Making Sense of Google Analytics: 10 Tips for Small Businesses
by Jeremy Taylor, Constant ContactGoogle Analytics offers a truly extensive range of actionable data. It will show you who’s browsing your website, how they’re using it and how they found you. Without analytics, you rely on guesswork (and guesswork is a terrible business model).The problem is that it can be tricky to identify the metrics that
Can Your Customers Trust Your Website?
We're hearing more and more frequently about hackers breaking into a company's back end systems and stealing customer information. As a business owner, it is your responsibility to protect and secure customer information and keep hackers at bay. How confident are you that your business's website is protecting your most important asset - your
What’s The Big Deal About a Little Mobile ‘Buy’ Button?
Google recently debuted a new mobile feature called "Purchases on Google," which makes buying products directly from mobile search advertisements easier for consumers. Consumers turning to Google for search on their mobile devices now see a "buy" button in select promoted results. When consumers click on the button, it takes them to a page where
Top Four SEO Trends for 2015
Google is now better able to reward high-quality Web content that is relevant to a search query, and less dependent on traditional signals, such as keywords, according to a recent report from Searchmetrics and detailed in this article by MarketingProf's Ayaz Nanji.Below are four key search engine optimization (SEO) lessons from the report, as
Increase Your Web Traffic with SEO for Your Images
by Jeremy Taylor, Constant ContactThree billion — give or take. That’s how many searches Google runs every single day. 40 percent of those return images.And with image searches becoming more commonplace, optimizing your images for search has become an essential tool for getting your business in front of new people.While it’s particularly crucial
4 Videos To Kickstart Your Social Media Strategy
"Are you on Facebook?" is now a rhetorical question. If you don't have a presence on social media, potential customers will pass you by. But it's not enough just to have social media accounts – you also need to know how to leverage them for your business. We frequently talk about social media in our weekly BizzyWebinars, and we've rounded up 4
How to Get Found Online
Miranda Paquet, Constant Contact Questions about Social, Search, and Online Listings Search and SEO1. How can I use keywords to get more people to visit my website?Start by making a list of terms (shoot for about 25) that are relevant to your business’s products or services. Think about the words a potential customer might use to find your
A Beginner’s Guide to Google Analytics
Natalie Denyse, Constant ContactYou invested time, money, and other resources into setting up a website for your business.It looks great and you’re excited about having a place for people to learn more about your business.But now that it’s setup, are you able to answer these important questions?How many people are visiting your website?What pages
The Ultimate Guide to Growing a Massive Email List
Ryan Pinkham, Constant Contact How many of the people who visit your website or come into your store on a daily basis actually end up joining your email list?What if you could double, triple, or even quadruple that number?What would that mean for your business?Growing a massive email list may seem like a lofty goal, but remember: you already have
9 Expert Ways to Grow Your Email List with Facebook
Miranda Paquet, Constant Contact “We’re finding Facebook to be less and less of interest to us because of the way they changed their algorithms for how our posts work…we found out that without paying for their marketing program, it doesn’t work for us.” Like many small business owners, Chris Iousa is wondering if it’s time to call it
4 Tips for Click-Worthy Emails
Email marketing remains one of the most effective methods of marketing to customers and prospects. In fact, recent studies show that more than 82 billion consumer emails are sent every day! So what can a business owner do to stand out in this virtual tsunami of messages? This recent MarketingProfs article by Emily Konouchi looks at ways to increase
Optimize “Old” Blog Posts to Maximize Search Results
This week we are sharing a unique tactic for increasing blog traffic to your website: optimizing the older blog content on your website. The following information is excerpted from a recent article by Pamela Vaughan, published on HubSpot Blogs. Click here to read the full article. * * * The Blogging Tactic No One Is Talking About: Optimizing the
Cyberbullying: Protect Yourself, Your Family and Your Business
What You Should Know About Cyberbullying Online, safety is key. You browse the internet with anti-virus programs, avoid suspicious email attachments and guard your personal information. But a quick click away or a program can’t protect you from the greatest online threat: cyberbullying. But what should you do when you encounter it? Here are a few
4 Simple Steps to Creating Landing Pages that Convert
It is easy to get dazzled by latest marketing tools and techniques. You stay current on all the latest innovations from the marketing world and attempt to implement everything you’ve learned on your landing pages at once. This is a huge mistake. Using new techniques is good, but you shouldn’t blindly follow every new trend that surfaces. A recent
10 Simple SEO Mistakes to Avoid
by Jeremy Taylor, Constant Contact You have a website and you want people to see it. The trouble is, you have an awful lot of competition. If the world wide web is a beach, the websites on it are grains of sand. So how do you make sure your grain is the one your target audience finds? Avoiding these ten SEO mistakes is a great start… 1. Focusing
12 Changes That Will Impact Your SEO Strategy
Written by Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), published on HubSpot Blogs SEO is a moving target that can really affect your business. This means that as a startup founder, you need to be prepared to make your strategy work no matter what Google enforces. We asked 12 entrepreneurs what trends they have noticed in the past year and how they have
Is Your Blog Getting Lonely? Eight Tips To Rekindle The Love!
by Susan Solovic for Constant Contact Are you and your blog having relationship problems? I’ve seen it so many times. Here are the common troubles I’ve witnessed: You know you should have a blog, but just haven’t gotten around to it yet, You started a blog, but have lost your motivation and are letting it slip, and You want to love your blog, but
6 Simple and Inexpensive Ways to Use Online Marketing to Reach New Customers
by Ali Hyatt, Constant Contact As a small business, online marketing often provides the most cost-effective methods for attracting new customers. But any form of marketing — whether it’s online, print, television, or direct mail — usually costs something and it can be hard to find the resources needed to spread the word about your
Understanding The SEO Journey – Old vs New SEO
As an online marketing agency, SEO is a common topic of discussion around the BizzyWeb office. This recent blog post published on Webbiquity.com by guest author Jack Dawson is an informative and easy-to-understand explanation of old versus new SEO. * * * by Jack Dawson Everyone implementing SEO usually has the same question – how long before I rank
SEO Strategies to Boost Your Business
With continuous updates to mysterious and complicated algorithms, SEO has changed significantly over the years. It's no longer enough to load up a page with a bunch of keywords and wait for your page rank to climb. That just doesn't work anymore. Check out this handy infographic created by digital marketing guru Neil Patel for a quick breakdown of
Will 2015 Be the Year of Hashtag Marketing?
As we’ve been perusing all the 2015 prediction articles, it’s become apparent that industry leaders believe hashtag marketing will surge this year. While hashtags started as a means to categorize and search for content, they have evolved and are less about search and more about context. Hashtags have become a marketing mainstay, taking over Twitter