digital marketing Archives - Ramy Ayoub https://ramyayoub.com/tag/digital-marketing/ Is a Marketing Professional, Entrepreneur, and Digital Transformation Expert Tue, 27 Jun 2023 16:03:54 +0000 en hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.3.4 https://ramyayoub.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/cropped-Ramy-Ayoub-Marketing-Expert-modified-32x32.png digital marketing Archives - Ramy Ayoub https://ramyayoub.com/tag/digital-marketing/ 32 32 218339335 Best Free SERP Checker & Tracker Tools in 2021 https://ramyayoub.com/best-free-serp-checker-tracker-tools-in-2021/ https://ramyayoub.com/best-free-serp-checker-tracker-tools-in-2021/#respond Thu, 16 Sep 2021 02:36:04 +0000 https://ramyayoub.com/?p=87233 Best Free SERP Checker & Tracker Tools in 2021

The post Best Free SERP Checker & Tracker Tools in 2021 appeared first on Ramy Ayoub.

]]>

If you want to rank higher and get more organic traffic to your website, free SERP checker tools are the great ones to help your rankings in the search engines. Let’s look at what a SERP is and why a SERP checker tool is vital for your business.

SERP checker tools are essential to get an insight which websites are ranking at search engine results and Google rankings for the keyword you targeted. This crucial data you acquired is not only learning the positions you targeted, but also for the strategy that you will follow to rank higher.

Ranking higher is quietly equivalent to getting more leads to your website. With the help of the keyword rank checker, you will be closer as a strategy to converting the leads into sales.

Whether you are an agency or a small business, the online ranking & presence is an indispensable optimization for all levels of business you are carrying out.

With the free SERP checker & tracker tools, you just need to type the keywords you want to follow whether desktop or mobile. Once you analyze them, integrate the SEO tools to your website in order to audit your website according to the data you acquired from the SERP results.

Top 5 Free SERP Checker & Tracker Tools for analyzing your targeted keywords 

Here we gathered the free SERP checker & tracker tools to help you to see search results from any country in real-time. With these free tools, you will learn more about the ranking difficulty, organic traffic, and position history. Then, you will have a chance to change your selected keywords with low difficult keywords, such as more long-tail keywords.

Let’s now compare 5 free SERP checker & tracker tools to find the best fitted for your business:

  • Ahrefs
  • Whatsmyserp
  • SpySERP
  • AccuRanker
  • SerpWatch

Ahrefs

Ahrefs offers a limited free version to analyze the SERP and website rankings for the keyword you targeted, there will be an opportunity to see the first three ranked websites as free.

Unlike other tools, Ahrefs has plenty of free SEO tools that you can use and test your website performance easily. If you would like to see the whole results for your search, you can sign up for a 7-day free trial or paid versions to improve your SEO in an organized way. However, there is no multiple keyword ranker entries in their tracker, you can just search for one keyword ranking.

 

ahrefs-serp-checker-tool

Whatsmyserp

Another keyword rank checker alternative is Whatsmyserp. With the tool, you will track your keywords for unlimited domains for your targeted keywords as free.

 

whatsmyserp-tool

 

With this rank checker, you will be able to track your keywords unlimited way without signing up. Whatsmyserp offers an exclusive opportunity as an unlimited way compared to the other tools to track SERP features and your site & competition.

SpySERP

With SpySERP, it will be so easy to check the SERP results whether for Google, Bing, Yandex and Yahoo, you can select your specific browser you would like to see in the results.

By selecting the device, you will see the differences between the desktop and mobile versions in terms of ranking of the website as location. SpySERP provides a double report for you as desktop and mobile.  If there is any different ranking position for your website at mobile, the tool will give you an insight into it and you will take quick action to optimize it.

 

spyserp-serpchecker

Also, the rank checker tool gives you an opportunity to search for user language, the report reflects the differences for it and it gives advanced reports for your platform.

AccuRanker

If you are looking for basic SERP tracker software, AccuRanker offers you top search results as Google appearance. You will be able to see the results as exactly how Google shows you.

This rank checker tool is extremely useful as it’s free version. AccuRanker shows you ads, local and search results with up to 5 times free searches every day. With the help of this tool, you can check the differences between mobile and desktop separately.

 

accuranker-serp-tracker

SerpWatch

SerpWatch is an advanced rank tracker tool with deep rank tracking insights and workflow optimization. It differentiates with other rank tracker tools in terms of sophisticated image-recognition systems. Also, they particularly show you the exact ranking position of your website domain for the keywords you entered to their checker.

There is a limitation for the keywords you would like to check on SerpWatch, a maximum of 5 words you can analyze every day as a free for your website and see the rankings. You must sign up for further details about the tool provided for the SERP results.

Conclusion

It is so obvious that the right keywords improve your organic CTRs and ranking at the search engines and your website will be more visible at SERP. These rank checker tools help you to narrow your keyword gap with your competitors and rank higher at the browser you selected for your business.

Through the effective usage of those tools, there will be no obstacle in converting your website traffic to potential sales.

 

Ramy Ayoub

The post Best Free SERP Checker & Tracker Tools in 2021 appeared first on Ramy Ayoub.

]]>
https://ramyayoub.com/best-free-serp-checker-tracker-tools-in-2021/feed/ 0 87233
Best Keyword Research Tools for SEO in 2021 https://ramyayoub.com/best-keyword-research-tools-for-seo-in-2021/ https://ramyayoub.com/best-keyword-research-tools-for-seo-in-2021/#respond Thu, 24 Jun 2021 04:06:06 +0000 https://ramyayoub.com/?p=87253 Best Keyword Research Tools for SEO in 2021Best Keyword Research Tools for SEO in 2021 Best Keyword Research Tools for SEO in 2021 Best Keyword Research Tools […]

The post Best Keyword Research Tools for SEO in 2021 appeared first on Ramy Ayoub.

]]>

Keyword research is essential to increase organic search traffic if you want to develop targeted traffic streams to your website. Keyword research is basically the process of discovering the right keywords and phrases your target audiences are using to get any product or service. 

Mostly finding the keywords is not enough to benefit from the results of search engine optimization. You also need to check them against which keywords are commonly used among your target audience. Therefore, there are a great number of keyword research tools providing both suggestions on keyword search data and analytics to give you an idea about traffic volumes related to search results.

Keyword research tools and SEO tools are helpful for data marketers and businesses to gather essential data that can be used to obtain a better fit between your prospects and services. It is a great way to audit your services and website traffic most effectively.

If you desire higher rankings in search engines and more traffic to your website, you need to know how to choose the right keywords and how to benefit from the best keyword research tools.

Discover How Being Insights Driven Can Leverage Growth

Our leading industry experts will be discussing what you really need to know to future-proof your organizational success, using the valuable business insights at your fingertips.

Top 5 Keyword Research Tools for Best SEO Practices

Here we guide you about the keyword research tools with best practices in 2021. Read this article carefully to get general information about what features they are offer and how to choose the most effective one to meet your business needs for increasing traffic and sales on your website.

Traffic growth on a website depends on an expert keyword research tool offering well-organized SEO, intelligent strategies, and on-site optimization.

Google Keyword Planner

Keyword Planner offered by Google helps businesses and advertisers research keywords for search campaigns. It also helps them see estimates on the number of searches a keyword gets and the average cost for the ad to target them.

Unlike other paid options, Google Keyword Planner runs free and it only requires an account on Google Ads. After completing the account setup, you can discover new keywords or upload existing keywords to get search volume and performance forecast.

It is also possible to customize your plan by narrowing your target audience according to the location or grouping the keywords. This tool regularly updates its database based on the current market conditions and its performance estimates are refreshed accordingly. Tap into Google’s extensive keyword database to lead more traffic and sales on your website.

Best Keyword Research Tools for SEO in 2021

Ahrefs

With Ahrefs, you do not need to be an SEO expert to increase your traffic and get higher rankings on search results. Its Keyword Explorer tool helps you discover lots of effective keyword ideas, analyze their ranking, and estimate their traffic potential.

ahrefs keyword research

Through a massive database of more than 7 billion keywords, Ahrefs can be a great option for you to get intended results on keyword research. This tool gives you detailed information on each keyword, search volume, and how many backlinks you need to rank higher on various platforms. When you type a keyword in the search box, Ahrefs also gives you a list of keyword suggestions and ideas.

Ahrefs offer several plans with various features and pricing. You can check out them to choose the most effective and useful plan to meet your keyword research needs.

Serpstat

Another excellent keyword research tool is Serpstat which is a growth hacking tool for SEO and keyword analysis. You can use this tool to expand your online presence by benefiting from its massive keyword database for SEO and PPC campaigns.

The most favorable feature offered by Serpstat is its Competitor Graph that visualizes your competitors’ experience in attracting leads with organic or paid search. It means that you can track what your competitors do to improve their content and increase leads to their website.

Serpstat allows you to determine the value of keywords and enrich your content with ads including the top-performing keywords. You can compare any keyword to various performance indicators such as cost-per-click, number of search results, or search volume.

Serpstat is an all-in-one SEO platform providing its clients with a number of distinctive features to fulfill their keyword research needs and desires. There are several plans offered by Serpstat for both SEO-individuals and industry leaders.

SEMrush

When you search for an experienced keyword research tool, it is impossible not to see SEMrush on the lists. It is another all-in-one marketing toolkit for digital marketing professionals. If you are looking for a complete SEO tool to improve your SEO rankings and increase leads, SEMrush is a perfect option with various effective services.

Through its user-friendly interface, it is quite fast and simple to get an overview of everything you need to know about a keyword. You can check out monthly search volume, trend keywords, and similar keywords you might want to use.

Along with its analytics on organic search results, you can also see your competitors’ keyword data and organic traffic metrics. SEMrush introduces the keywords that your competitors rank for. This is a great opportunity to compare your content with your competitors to see which keywords are trend and bring more leads. You can also read Semrush vs. Ahrefs article to choose the right tool for you.

AnswerThePublic

If you are just getting started with keyword research and SEO, AnswerThePublic is a great choice with its innovative solutions to take action faster. You do not even have to register to use this tool. You can just type a keyword and see what you need to know.

AnswerThePublic is a practical keyword research tool showing what content is ranking for any keyword and keyword suggestions to enhance the relevance of your SEO campaigns. If you want to use this tool on a regular basis, you need to create an account to upgrade your plan.

Conclusion

Through an effective keyword research tool, you can figure out what topics people are searching for and what keywords are top-performing to increase leads.

There are several tools offering keyword research and SEO to discover the most trending and relevant keywords to develop your business through enhancing your content.

By using those tools, you can also have an opportunity to compare your content with your competitors and understand how to organize your campaigns to attract more people.

 

Ramy Ayoub

The post Best Keyword Research Tools for SEO in 2021 appeared first on Ramy Ayoub.

]]>
https://ramyayoub.com/best-keyword-research-tools-for-seo-in-2021/feed/ 0 87253
How to Use Tiktok for Business in 2021: A Complete Guide https://ramyayoub.com/how-to-use-tiktok-for-business-in-2021-a-complete-guide/ https://ramyayoub.com/how-to-use-tiktok-for-business-in-2021-a-complete-guide/#respond Wed, 24 Mar 2021 03:39:16 +0000 https://ramyayoub.com/?p=87247 asdsadasd text How to Use Tiktok for Business in 2021: A Complete Guide How to Use Tiktok for Business in […]

The post How to Use Tiktok for Business in 2021: A Complete Guide appeared first on Ramy Ayoub.

]]>

How to Use Tiktok for Business in 2021: A Complete Guide How to Use Tiktok for Business in 2021: A Complete Guide How to Use Tiktok for Business in 2021: A Complete Guide How to Use Tiktok for Business in 2021: A Complete Guide

RAMY AYOUB
GOOGLE

If you are looking to expand on your business reach and grow your social following, stepping into the TikTok world could be beneficial if it happens to be done right. We have created the ultimate guide in utilizing the platform for your business…

What Tiktok Is…

TikTok is a fairly new social media app where we see short snippets of videos from users everywhere, making it a user-generated platform. You can continuously scroll through endless short videos with no limits and can even tailor your feed to what you prefer to see. Anyone can post a video with an account and grow followers; exchange likes and share videos on different platforms with their friends.

Usually, users tend to enjoy less-serious and fun videos, but everyone has a different preference. With many modern trends being birthed on this platform, TikTok provides a large amount of entertainment for a social media platform.

Is It Relevant to Your Business?

There is a big misconception that only younger people use this platform. Even though the biggest majority are young adults, the truth is, there are many people of a variety of ages who use TikTok now.

Discover How Being Insights Driven Can Leverage Growth

Our leading industry experts will be discussing what you really need to know to future-proof your organizational success, using the valuable business insights at your fingertips.

People use TikTok to seek enjoyment and follow the latest trends. This very reason is how you can determine whether it is relevant to your business, understanding that you have to keep up and be able to incorporate the business into the latest trends and fun advertising methods.

If your business does aim to promote itself, even if it is seen as a very serious brand, there could still be an audience on TikTok to market to as so many people use it nowadays. It is a case of being exposed to the right people, but as you are probably aware this could be a smaller portion of potential customers compared to the more creative and entertainment side of TikTok. Therefore, it is your business decision to determine whether it is worth the time, money, and effort.

How Brands Can Utilize the Platform to Increase CRO?

Different types of advertising are available on TikTok as it has turned into such a big platform. Leaving your brand with an array of options to choose from!

Advertising

Native advertising in TikTok allows a brand’s promotional videos to be included in the feed of a user who is scrolling, commonly known as the for-you page. Normally containing links through to the business website at the bottom, users know when they are seeing an advertisement. With this option, a brand can bid on the ads just as in Google and specifically narrow down who they can target.

If a brand can target the right people, native advertising could lead to more interest and conversions for your business. Knowing who to target on TikTok and researching to find the appropriate audience as well as creating an interesting video ad will see you be successful on the platform.

Another method of advertising is known as a takeover. As soon as a user opens the app, the first thing they will see is a full display of an ad you have chosen to run. Users will only see one of these per day as, putting yourself in a viewer’s shoes, seeing many ads when you just want to scroll for entertainment can be annoying. Due to this, the cost to run these types of advertisements is very expensive. This is something to take into consideration when evaluating whether you think it will be a reasonable spend for the company to invest in this form of advertising. As effective it may be, you only really get one shot to tempt someone to go through to your website or app download page.

Sponsored hashtags are a form of advertisement on TikTok where brands create a challenge using a creative hashtag name and encourage people to take part in the challenge. This is a really good form of advertisement because it increases reach by seeing many different people take part. When someone clicks on a hashtag that is sponsored, they will be taken to a page containing the description of the challenge, a brand logo, the most popular videos for that challenge, and most likely a link through to a website or other conversion type.

To further get your sponsored hashtag, you will need to pay quite an expensive cost to show on the discovery banner within TikTok. There is another way that hashtags can be used similarly to this, with just less of the cost but still as effective with the concept behind hashtag challenges remaining the same.

tiktok-advertising-example

Hashtag Challenges

These are very similar to the explanation above; however, you don’t pay the huge cost. You do lose some of the benefits like ranking high with the sponsored hashtag and having a full landing page dedicated to your brand as well as a discovery banner. If these are important to your brand and it isn’t very well known, the above option could be more beneficial to get your name out there if you have the budget.

Creating a hashtag challenge is a way to encourage user-generated content and this could benefit your brand. If a user takes part in your challenge, the challenge and your brand can spread to more people. More people make it more likely that they will turn into key conversions for your brand.

Influencer Promotion

Influencer promotion is where brands pay popular influencers to promote your product or service in their videos on TikTok. This usually consists of some type of hashtag challenge too, as it promotes user-generated content.

Influencer promotion might have not been the first of your marketing ideas when bringing your business to TikTok. You may want to reconsider influencer promotion in your marketing strategy, especially on this platform. On TikTok, there is a large pool of popular influencers with big followings who have fans that are crazy over them. They’re seen as a lot of people’s idols and enabling an influencer to promote your brand could turn their fans into your new customers.

It can’t hurt your brand to do some research on popular influencers who may fit your purpose and reach out to them. Too many businesses make the mistake of using an influencer to promote them without actually researching whether the audience is the correct fit. Another downside to this is that influencers are human. They make mistakes, but we all know in this modern day it can affect their reputation and yours if you are paying for their promotion.

If you consider influencer promotion, be cautious about the influencers you consider and do your research on their background and online presence.

instagram-influencer-product

Branded Lenses

Branded lenses are customized stickers, filters, and lenses that individuals can use which contain your branding on it. Another type of advertisement with the possibility of user-generated content! We love it! Involving a community in your brand is the best thing on TikTok that you can do for your business.

Using good, branded lenses will increase engagement, which equals more conversions. The personalization options allow your brand to show who they are through custom stickers, filters, and lenses. Making this option a creative form of advertisement for your business.

Engagement

Placing your brand on this platform means you can’t just follow the same approach you take to other social media such as Twitter or Instagram. TikTok is very different, it requires you to show content with fun value and taking on the latest trends.

Engaging on TikTok means taking advantage of hashtags and tagging similar accounts in your industry to your content. Communicating with others is also very important, being able to make conversation will make someone feel a lot more valued by your brand.

social-media-engagement

It isn’t easy when you are new to TikTok, so we don’t want you to feel as though you have been thrown in the deep end. The amount of people using TikTok for enjoyment is way more than most other platforms, taking your business to it could be just what you need to grow and thrive.

 

Ramy Ayoub

The post How to Use Tiktok for Business in 2021: A Complete Guide appeared first on Ramy Ayoub.

]]>
https://ramyayoub.com/how-to-use-tiktok-for-business-in-2021-a-complete-guide/feed/ 0 87247
The Complete Guide to SEO Services for Your Business https://ramyayoub.com/the-complete-guide-to-seo-services-for-your-business/ https://ramyayoub.com/the-complete-guide-to-seo-services-for-your-business/#respond Thu, 04 Feb 2021 09:24:37 +0000 https://ramyayoub.com/?p=87225 The Complete Guide to SEO Services for Your BusinessThe Complete Guide to SEO Services for Your Business The Complete Guide to SEO Services for Your Business The Complete […]

The post The Complete Guide to SEO Services for Your Business appeared first on Ramy Ayoub.

]]>

Why is search engine optimization (SEO) important? Many business owners ask this question before deciding to invest in SEO services. Despite being one of the most widely used digital marketing services, some people are hesitant to use SEO for their business.

In reality, SEO is important because it benefits all businesses. Whether you are managing a small establishment or a large enterprise, you can use SEO to improve your web visibility and attract more customers. As more people visit your website, you can use this chance to earn their trust and convert them into customers.

Furthermore, research shows that approximately 93% of online experiences start with search engines like Google and Bing. Whenever someone wants to know more about a particular topic, they can use a search engine and type in a query.

If your website ranks high on SERPs, more people could discover your business, which is only possible with SEO. In that case, perhaps you should consider hiring a third-party SEO agency in Singapore to help you improve your search engine rankings and web visibility.

The Different Types of SEO

 

One thing you should consider is that SEO comes in many forms. To improve your site’s performance and rankings, you need to use all sorts of SEO techniques so you can gain the upper hand over your competitors.

First, you should be aware of two different kinds of SEO: white hat and black hat. The difference between white hat and black hat SEO is that the latter utilizes ill-advised tactics to rank higher than your competitors.

For example, white hat SEO follows search engine guidelines. The rules are laid out in the open, and all you need to do is follow them.

On the other hand, black hat SEO is the exact opposite. You will go against search engine guidelines and use unethical strategies, such as keyword stuffing and cloaking, to boost your rankings quickly.

Avoid using black hat tactics, as it will only put your website at risk of getting a demoted ranking. Google can give you a penalty and make it harder for you to rank higher on SERPs. Instead, only follow white hat strategies. It is the correct way to succeed in improving your online presence.

Besides white hat and black hat SEO, there are many other types of SEO. Here’s a list of the different types of search engine optimization below.

1. On-Page SEO

On-page SEO focuses on optimizing individual web pages for search engines. Anything that affects your page’s rankings is a vital part of on-page optimization. You have to make sure each element of your website is well-optimized.

Elements of on-page SEO that affect your site’s rankings include:

  • Web content
  • Title tags
  • Meta descriptions
  • Images
  • Keywords
  • Website speed

On-page optimization is all about creating and optimizing content for search engines and users. You can learn more about the importance of relevant content here in one of Google’s reports.

When crawlers find a webpage, our systems render the content of the page, just as a browser does. We take note of key signals — from keywords to website freshness — and we keep track of it all in the Search index,” Google states on their website. But what exactly does this statement mean?

Google explains how its crawlers examine each vital element of a website, including keywords and relevant data. Because of this, it is essential to optimize your website by using relevant keywords when creating web content. You have to make sure that your keywords correlate with their corresponding contents.

2. Off-Page SEO

Off-page optimization is the opposite of on-page optimization, in which it focuses on activities outside your website affecting your rankings. External website factors, such as social media posts and linking sites, are part of off-page SEO.

Link building is one of the most widely used off-page optimization strategies by marketers. The objective is to acquire backlinks from other websites. This circumstance is possible if someone mentions your website in their web content, thus increasing your number of backlinks.

Other off-page SEO strategies include social sharing, which may not directly impact your rankings, but you can improve your online presence and raise brand awareness. Social sharing is also an effective way to direct organic traffic to your website.

Lastly, you have guest posting, another effective off-page SEO strategy that focuses on creating blog posts for other websites. In doing so, you can increase the number of backlinks to your website and grow an audience of readers.

3. Technical SEO

Technical SEO is a bit similar to on-page SEO. It aims to improve every technical aspect of your website, including its site structure, XML sitemap, mobile-friendliness, speed, and security. All of these play a role in your site’s rankings, which is why technical SEO is essential.

Without technical optimization, your website would not rank higher, even if it contains high-quality content. Think of technical SEO as a way to help search engine crawlers navigate through your website with ease.

Moreover, one vital aspect of technical SEO is ensuring that your website is free from any technical issues. Malware and 404 error pages are just a few of the factors that could negatively affect your search engine rankings. Make sure your cybersecurity measures are up and running, and inspect your website for dead links. Doing both of these should benefit your site’s rankings significantly.

4. Local SEO

For small businesses, perhaps local SEO is the perfect digital marketing strategy. Local search engine optimization is the process of improving your online presence locally.

With local search engine optimization, your goal is to create website content to target regional audiences in many ways.

For instance, one brilliant local SEO strategy is to use Google My Business (GMB), one of the most prominent digital marketing tools available. It is free to use and can help you increase your online presence on Google Search and Google Maps. With GMB, you can display essential business information, including your address, email, contact details, and website.

Local-SEO

5. Organic SEO

If you want to reach both regional and international customers, organic SEO services are perfect for your business. This type of SEO aims to drive organic traffic to your website, improving your overall online presence.

Examples of organic optimization strategies include content marketing, keyword research, and web design and development. These digital marketing strategies will help improve the quality and quantity of organic traffic to your website.

Organic SEO is ideal for gaining online exposure in the long term. It may take some time, but the results are worth the wait.

How to Hire the Right SEO Agency?

how-to-hire-the-right-seo-agency-oom-singapore

All of the mentioned SEO services can benefit your business in many ways. However, choosing the right type of SEO should depend on your goals, objectives, and direction.

For example, before choosing a type of SEO, you have to consider the size and demographics of your target audience. For local customers within proximity to your business, local search engine optimization might be your best choice. On the other hand, if you want to maintain your website for search engines, consider choosing technical SEO.

In the end, when it comes to the right SEO service for your business, what matters the most is hiring the perfect SEO agency in Singapore. With the expertise and experience of a digital marketing agency, you can manage your SEO campaign more effectively and learn more about search engine optimization.

Which SEO agency is the perfect fit for your business, anyway? Here are some of the things you need to consider before hiring an SEO agency.

1. Find Out if the Agency Is Credible

All digital marketing have unique sets of skills depending on their respective fields. However, not all of them may be credible enough to deliver their promises. That is why whenever you plan to outsource your SEO or digital marketing services in Singapore, you must find out if your preferred agency is trustworthy.

Some of the factors that make an agency credible are its milestones or accomplishments. If the agency you wish to hire has won many awards, you could probably count on them to deliver positive results at the end of your campaign.

Also, to learn more about an agency’s credibility, you can try reading some reviews from its clients. Most agencies have a testimonials page where you can check on several statements from existing or previous clients.

2. Check the Range of Services

Outsourcing your SEO services is an excellent way to expand your horizons and experiment with other digital marketing strategies. Besides search engine optimization, you can also hire an agency for its wide range of services, including content marketing, social media marketing, search engine marketing, and many more.

The good news is that most digital agencies specialize in digital marketing in general, not just SEO. Consider hiring an agency with a wide range of digital marketing services to invest in long-term marketing strategies. That way, you have better chances of succeeding in boosting your online presence.

3. Be Mindful Of Guarantees

The main challenge of SEO services is to meet your expectations and goals. While you can expect most agencies to say that they can provide you with positive results, you should also be mindful of those that give a 100% guarantee.

In the digital marketing industry, there is no such thing as a 100% guaranteed outcome. Search engine algorithms are constantly changing (for the better), and it can be extremely challenging to adapt to these changes. Because of this, it is almost impossible to predict a 100% outcome.

4. Create a Budget Plan

Search engine optimization is a long-term investment. You need to know how much money you can spend on your campaign. It could cost hundreds or thousands of dollars, and the outcome of your SEO strategy might appear months later. For that reason, try to create a budget plan early.

5. Know Your Goals

Most importantly, you have to be clear about your goals. Let the agency know what you want to achieve so they can help you succeed. The worst thing that could happen is hiring an agency that delivers the exact opposite of your goals, so communicate well and discuss your direction and objectives.

Conclusion

SEO is something you should add to your business. Your long-term marketing strategy will pay off in the end once you gain enough traffic to your website.

Think of it as growing a garden. At first, your project may not look promising. Flowers are yet to bloom, and the ground of soil is almost blankless. But soon, you will notice your hard work come to fruition. This situation applies to SEO, where your efforts will most likely result in success, especially if you have a digital agency to help you.

If you want to know more about digital marketing, get in touch with us.

 

Ramy Ayoub

The post The Complete Guide to SEO Services for Your Business appeared first on Ramy Ayoub.

]]>
https://ramyayoub.com/the-complete-guide-to-seo-services-for-your-business/feed/ 0 87225
Things to Consider When Using Royalty-Free Music and Stock Music Sites https://ramyayoub.com/things-to-consider-when-using-royalty-free-music-and-stock-music-sites/ https://ramyayoub.com/things-to-consider-when-using-royalty-free-music-and-stock-music-sites/#respond Sun, 06 Sep 2020 08:20:14 +0000 https://ramyayoub.com/?p=87244 Things to Consider When Using Royalty-Free Music and Stock Music SitesThings to Consider When Using Royalty-Free Music and Stock Music Sites Things to Consider When Using Royalty-Free Music and Stock […]

The post Things to Consider When Using Royalty-Free Music and Stock Music Sites appeared first on Ramy Ayoub.

]]>

Whether you’re a professional video producer, TV producer, film creator, video game producer or a home/hobby creator of content for social media, sooner rather than later you’re going to want to add music to your productions.

The music has an important role in enriching the emotional impact of any video, and there is always going to be a trade-off between how perfectly the music conveys the mood and message of your production, versus how much time and – perhaps most importantly – how much time you’re willing to invest in finding that perfect music.

Most producers go to online Stock Music libraries, often referred to as royalty-free music sites, to find music and there is no doubt a huge amount of music out there to choose from, but when you’re literally trying to find gems among tens of millions of music tracks, how can you do this with the least amount of hassle, and with the best possible outcome?

Quality Curated vs Self-uploading Mass Content

When choosing your source for royalty-free music I recommend that you quickly establish whether a site operates with a curated collection of stock music tracks, or whether they practice a «free for all» mass uploading by anybody who wants to contribute.

If the site represents the latter category, you should be aware that anybody who considers themselves a bit of a musician can just create an account and start uploading – and this content will go more or less unfiltered straight out to the users. This means that you will be sifting through thousands of music tracks of highly varying artistic and technical quality. There will be some good music in there, no doubt. Unfortunately, there will be a lot of very mediocre (or worse) music and you will just have to find your way. How much time are you willing to spend on this?

bass-guitar

On the other hand, if you choose a stock music site with a smaller roster of artists who are vetted, guided, properly contracted and hired to produce a smaller amount of music, but to a higher quality – such as Shockwave-Sound, — you will be browsing only music tracks that have been curated by a team of professionals, so you’ll probably save yourself a lot of time and frustration. Maybe you’ll pay a few bucks more for a track, but ultimately, the time and frustration you save yourself could be worth it. I guess it depends on your budget and how much you value your time.

When to Use the Underscore Track Rather than the Full Track

A mistake I often hear being made in video productions is the failure to choose the underscore mix of a royalty-free music track, rather than the full, melodic mix. The «underscore» is usually a slightly different, alternative mix-down of a music track, where the main, outstanding and melody-leading instruments or vocals have been removed from the mix, making the music interfere with the voices in your video to a much lesser degree. This is sometimes also referred to as a «bed track».

As a video producer, getting the volume balance between the background music and the foreground vocals / dialogue / instructions etc. is difficult and if your music has loud, outstanding or busy lead melodies, it will compete against the vocal track of your film.

If you are going to mix music and a vocal/dialogue track, be sure to use a royalty-free music library where tracks are also available in an underscore version, such as that at Shockwave-Sound, where nearly all tracks have the option of choosing the underscore / background music mix; Here is just one example: The delicate, flowing and romantic royalty-free music River of Life is available as a full track, an underscore version without the main melody and in this case also a «No drums or bass» version which can also be suitable in some settings.

undercore-version-of-musix-track-1

Selection of Royalty-free Classical Music

violins-2021

There may be cases when you are looking for a particular piece of classical music for your project; in these cases you probably already know exactly which piece you want to use, so your job is not so much looking for the right composition, but rather looking for the right recording – and, as with royalty-free music in general, also here there is a wide range of different quality grades.

From the lowest, somebody having downloaded a piece of music as a General MIDI track and applied some samples to it, then exported it and are offering it for sale as royalty free music (it may surprise you, but there is a lot of this out there), to more reputable companies actually hiring professional musicians to play the music by hand and have it recorded in real recording studios. It goes without saying that it costs a lot more to get 5 professional string players to play a Mozart piece and have it recorded in studio, than it does for somebody to download the same piece as a MIDI file and put it out on a royalty-free music file; which explains why you can pick up the same piece of music for $4 or even less in some places, but you are asked to pay $40 to license a single piece of music from another place. But which recording would you rather have in your production, and what is that worth to you? Here is an article about royalty-free classical music and some of the work that goes into it, if you’re interested in learning more.

Availability of Stem Files

If you’re of the type who likes to dig a bit deeper, take your productions up a notch and really go in-depth into the use of music in your production, how it interacts with your video or your story, perhaps have the music weave in and out of your production and have it match your content more precisely, perhaps you’d like to choose stock music / royalty-free music content that offers stem files.

stem-files-in-adobe-audition

«Stem files» is a way to describe a music recording where the different layers, instruments, or main instrument groups are supplied in separate audio files. This enables you to individually control the different elements and layers within the music, and even have the mix between them, or the inclusion or exclusion of the different layers, to change as your timeline progresses, bringing different sounds and parts of the music in/out of the total sound mix, as your film or video content progresses. Having this deeper control over how the music is made part of your total audio mix, with some clever work and a bit of time and effort, you can make the music sound more like it was created especially for your film, like a bespoke, custom made soundtrack.

In this YouTube video I show an example of working with stem files in Adobe Audition, but the same methods apply also to any multi-track video editing software environment. If you are interested in «going deep» with applying ready-made production music tracks to your media, be sure to choose a royalty free music site with stem files.

Option to Clear YouTube Use at Purchase Stage

If you’re a YouTuber and regularly produce videos for publishing at YouTube, you will no doubt already be familiar with the somewhat annoying copyright claim on YouTube videos. A copyright claim is automatically generated for your video, if YouTube’s automated content detection system («Content-ID») detects music or video content in your video which is copyrighted to somebody.

Also Royalty-free music / stock music is copyrighted to somebody – usually the creator. Remember that when you buy a royalty free music track from a site, the music is still under copyright. You get permission to use the music, but you don’t «own» it. The creator still owns it.

If a copyright claim is generated for a video that you’ve uploaded, even if you’ve paid to download the music from a royalty-free music site, firstly, take a breath, this may be a bit annoying, but it’s not dramatic. Remember that the «copyright claim» is not the same as a «Copyright complaint» or «Copyright infringement notice». A copyright claim is a much softer and less dramatic message which, rightly, stops you from monetizing your video, but it does not have any negative effect on your YouTube account standing, and it does not cause your video to be blocked or muted.

Usually, it’s just a question of a little bit of administration to get the copyright claim lifted from your video, so you can monetize it. You may need to provide some license information, or to contact the site where you bought the music and ask them to release the copyright claim on your video.

A new and better way to handle this has been implemented on a few, forward-thinking royalty free music sites, such as Shockwave-Sound. When you place an order here, during the checkout process you are invited to input the link to your YouTube channel. The music is then allow-listed for use on your channel. This process typically takes 4-12 hours typically.

So unless you are very quick to upload your video to YouTube after licensing the music, by the time you upload your video, the music you licensed will already have been allow-listed for your channel – avoiding the copyright claim altogether.

 

Ramy Ayoub

The post Things to Consider When Using Royalty-Free Music and Stock Music Sites appeared first on Ramy Ayoub.

]]>
https://ramyayoub.com/things-to-consider-when-using-royalty-free-music-and-stock-music-sites/feed/ 0 87244