In the ever-evolving digital landscape, choosing the right form builder is crucial for businesses, educators, and individuals alike. Jotform has been a top player in this space for years, offering robust tools for creating forms, surveys, and more. However, as 2024 unfolds, it’s clear that there are several top alternatives to Jotform worth considering. These alternatives not only match Jotform in functionality but also offer unique features, improved usability, and competitive pricing.

While Jotform remains a solid choice, there are numerous reasons why you might be looking for an alternative. Whether it’s for better integration with your current tools, more customization options, or a simpler interface, the top Jotform alternatives in 2024 have something to offer for everyone. Let’s dive into the details and explore these top alternatives, so you can make an informed decision about which form builder is the best fit for your needs.

Why Consider Jotform Alternatives?

Jotform has built a reputation as one of the top form builders available today. However, as with any tool, it has its limitations. Some users may find Jotform’s interface too complex, or perhaps its pricing structure doesn’t fit within their budget. Others might be seeking specific features that Jotform lacks. This is where exploring alternatives becomes essential.

The top Jotform alternatives offer a variety of benefits, such as more intuitive interfaces, advanced customization options, and unique features that can cater to niche needs. Whether you’re a small business owner, an educator, or someone managing large-scale data collection, there’s likely an alternative that better suits your specific requirements. Let’s take a closer look at some of the top options available in 2024.

Top Jotform Alternatives in 2024

1. Google Forms — A Simple Yet Powerful Alternative

Google Forms continues to be one of the top alternatives to Jotform, especially for users who need simplicity and seamless integration with Google Workspace. Google Forms is a free, user-friendly tool that allows you to create forms quickly and easily. Although it may not offer as many advanced features as Jotform, it’s an excellent choice for straightforward surveys, questionnaires, and event registrations.

Google Forms also benefits from being part of the larger Google ecosystem, meaning it integrates seamlessly with Google Sheets, Google Drive, and other Google services. This makes it a top choice for those who are already embedded in the Google Workspace environment. For more information on Google Forms, click here.

2. Typeform — A Top Choice for Interactive Forms

Typeform is another top alternative to Jotform, known for its ability to create highly engaging and interactive forms. Unlike traditional form builders, Typeform offers a conversational approach to data collection, which can significantly enhance user experience. Forms created with Typeform are visually appealing and designed to keep respondents engaged, making it a top pick for marketers and educators who want to stand out.

Typeform’s unique design makes it easy to create forms that feel more like a natural conversation than a static list of questions. This can lead to higher completion rates and more accurate data collection. To learn more about Typeform and its features, visit their website.

3. Wufoo — A Reliable Alternative with Strong Customization

Wufoo has been a reliable alternative to Jotform for many years, offering strong customization options and an easy-to-use interface. Wufoo provides a wide range of templates that can be easily customized to suit your specific needs. Its drag-and-drop interface is intuitive, making it accessible even for those who are not tech-savvy. Wufoo also integrates with various platforms, enhancing its versatility.

One of the top reasons to consider Wufoo is its robust reporting and analytics features. These tools allow you to dig deep into the data you collect, making it a great choice for businesses and organizations that need detailed insights. For more about Wufoo, check out their site.

4. Formstack — A Top Enterprise-Level Jotform Alternative

Formstack is a top alternative to Jotform, particularly for larger organizations and enterprises that require more advanced features. Formstack offers tools like automated workflows, electronic signatures, and HIPAA compliance, making it a powerful option for businesses in regulated industries. It also integrates with numerous other business tools, helping to streamline operations and improve efficiency.

For those who need more than just a basic form builder, Formstack is a top choice. Its ability to handle complex forms and processes makes it ideal for businesses that need a robust solution. To explore Formstack’s features, click here.

5. Microsoft Forms — A Top Alternative for Office 365 Users

Microsoft Forms is an excellent alternative to Jotform, especially for users who are already within the Microsoft ecosystem. It integrates seamlessly with other Office 365 tools, making it easy to create surveys, quizzes, and polls within an environment that is familiar to many users. Microsoft Forms offers a simple interface that is easy to navigate, making it accessible to a wide range of users.

Although it may not offer the same level of advanced features as Jotform, Microsoft Forms is a top choice for those who prioritize ease of use and integration with Microsoft Office products. It’s particularly well-suited for educators and businesses that rely heavily on Office 365. For more details on Microsoft Forms, click here.

6. Cognito Forms — A Feature-Rich Jotform Alternative

Cognito Forms is a feature-rich alternative to Jotform that offers powerful tools for building complex forms. Whether you need to create forms with calculations, conditional logic, or payment integrations, Cognito Forms provides the flexibility you need. It’s a top choice for businesses and organizations that require detailed, multi-step forms.

Cognito Forms also supports advanced data encryption and compliance features, making it suitable for organizations that need to collect sensitive information securely. To learn more about Cognito Forms, visit their site.

7. Paperform — A Flexible and Aesthetic Jotform Alternative

Paperform is another top alternative to Jotform, offering a unique blend of form creation and web design tools. With Paperform, you can create forms that look like landing pages, complete with custom branding, images, and video. This makes it a great choice for businesses that want to create aesthetically pleasing forms that align with their brand identity.

Paperform’s flexibility also extends to its wide range of integrations and payment gateways, making it suitable for e-commerce businesses and service providers. For more information on Paperform, click here.

Conclusion

As we move through 2024, the form-building landscape continues to evolve, with several top Jotform alternatives offering compelling reasons to explore new options. Whether you’re looking for a tool that offers better integration, more advanced features, or simply a different user experience, there is an alternative that can meet your needs.

From Google Forms’ simplicity to Typeform’s engaging designs, and from Wufoo’s customization to Formstack’s enterprise-level capabilities, each of these top alternatives provides unique advantages. As you consider your options, think about what aspects of form building are most important to you, and choose a tool that aligns with those priorities.

Jotform remains a strong contender in the market, but the alternatives listed here show that there is no shortage of innovation in the world of form building. By exploring these top Jotform alternatives, you can find the perfect tool to meet your specific needs in 2024 and beyond.

1. K Health

K Health is a robust alternative to Summer Health, providing personalized healthcare through an AI-powered platform. It offers 24/7 access to doctors, with a unique symptom checker that uses AI to compare your symptoms with millions of similar cases. This helps in providing accurate and efficient medical advice. K Health covers a wide range of medical conditions, from everyday illnesses to chronic diseases, making it suitable for individuals of all ages.

In addition to pediatric care, K Health also offers mental health services, primary care, and men’s and women’s health services. The app is affordable and transparent about its pricing, with options for both one-time visits and subscriptions. The convenience of text-based communication with doctors makes it a great choice for busy parents.

2. Teladoc

Teladoc is another excellent alternative, known for its comprehensive telehealth services. With Teladoc, you can speak to a licensed doctor via video, phone, or app, and get advice, prescriptions, and even referrals if needed. Teladoc is one of the most established telemedicine providers, offering services in multiple languages and across a wide range of medical specialties.

Teladoc is especially useful for parents seeking pediatric care, as it provides 24/7 access to pediatricians. It also covers mental health, dermatology, sexual health, and more. Teladoc is compatible with various insurance plans, which can reduce out-of-pocket costs for users.

3. Amwell

Amwell is another major player in the telemedicine field, offering a wide range of services that make it a strong alternative to Summer Health. Amwell provides access to board-certified doctors, including pediatricians, who can assist with everything from minor illnesses to chronic conditions.

One of Amwell’s standout features is its user-friendly interface, which makes it easy to schedule and conduct appointments. It also offers specialty care services, including behavioral health, nutritional counseling, and therapy. Amwell is available in all 50 states, and it partners with many insurance providers, making it accessible to a broad audience.

4. Doctor on Demand

Doctor on Demand is a highly rated telemedicine platform that provides comprehensive healthcare services, including pediatric care. It allows users to consult with doctors, psychiatrists, and psychologists via video calls. This platform is known for its high-quality video consultations, which can be more effective in some situations compared to text-based communication.

Doctor on Demand covers a wide array of services, including urgent care, mental health, preventive health, and chronic condition management. The platform also provides access to lab work and prescriptions, which can be directly sent to your local pharmacy. Its pricing is competitive, with options for one-time visits or membership plans.

5. PlushCare

PlushCare offers personalized healthcare services through virtual appointments with top-rated doctors. Like Summer Health, PlushCare provides 24/7 access to healthcare, but it also goes beyond pediatrics to offer primary care, urgent care, and mental health services for all ages.

PlushCare is notable for its comprehensive approach to healthcare, allowing patients to build a relationship with a dedicated primary care physician. This continuity of care can be particularly beneficial for managing chronic conditions or ongoing health concerns. The platform is compatible with most insurance plans, making it a cost-effective choice for many users.

6. HealthTap

HealthTap is a telehealth service that provides on-demand virtual consultations with U.S.-licensed doctors. It offers a broad range of healthcare services, including pediatric care, primary care, mental health, and more. HealthTap’s AI-powered symptom checker is a useful tool that helps users understand potential health issues before consulting with a doctor.

HealthTap offers an affordable subscription model, which includes unlimited text-based consultations and a reduced fee for video consultations. This makes it an attractive option for families looking for continuous access to healthcare professionals without breaking the bank.

7. MDLIVE

MDLIVE is another well-established telemedicine provider that offers a range of healthcare services, including pediatric care, mental health services, and urgent care. It provides 24/7 access to board-certified doctors who can assist with diagnosing and treating common illnesses, prescribing medications, and providing expert advice.

MDLIVE’s platform is user-friendly and offers multiple ways to connect with doctors, including video, phone, and app-based communication. It’s particularly well-regarded for its mental health services, which include therapy and psychiatric consultations. MDLIVE also partners with many insurance providers, making it a cost-effective choice for many families.

Conclusion

While Summer Health is a valuable resource for pediatric care, there are many other telehealth platforms that offer a wider range of services and cater to different needs. Whether you’re looking for comprehensive family care, specialized mental health services, or simply a more affordable option, the alternatives listed above provide excellent options. It’s worth exploring these platforms to find the one that best fits your family’s healthcare needs.

Remember to consider factors such as the types of services offered, ease of use, cost, and whether the platform is covered by your insurance when making your choice. With the right telehealth service, you can ensure that your family has access to quality healthcare whenever and wherever it’s needed.

1. Synthesia

Synthesia has rapidly become one of the most popular alternatives to Pika, especially for those looking to create professional-looking videos with AI avatars. The platform allows users to create videos in over 50 languages using AI-generated presenters. This can be particularly useful for global businesses looking to create content that appeals to diverse audiences.

Key Features

• AI Avatars: Choose from a wide range of AI-generated avatars.
• Multilingual Support: Create videos in multiple languages.
• Ease of Use: User-friendly interface with drag-and-drop functionality.

My Experience

I found Synthesia to be incredibly intuitive. The process of creating a video was straightforward, and the quality of the AI avatars was impressive. However, the platform does have some limitations in terms of customization. For instance, while the avatars are highly realistic, you might feel a bit restricted if you’re looking for more creative control.

“Synthesia’s AI avatars are a game-changer, but I wish I had more control over their appearance and expressions.”

2. Lumen5

Lumen5 is another excellent alternative, particularly if you’re focused on creating videos from existing text content. The platform uses AI to turn blog posts, articles, and other written content into engaging videos. Lumen5’s drag-and-drop interface makes it easy for users with no prior video editing experience to produce high-quality videos.

Key Features

• Text-to-Video: Converts text content into videos.
• Customizable Templates: Choose from a wide range of templates.
• AI-Driven: The platform automatically suggests visuals and music based on the text.

My Experience

Lumen5 shines when it comes to repurposing written content. I used it to convert several blog posts into videos, and the results were fantastic. The AI did a great job of matching visuals to the text, though I sometimes had to tweak the suggestions to better fit the content’s tone.

“Lumen5 made transforming my blogs into videos a breeze, though a bit more control over visual selection would be appreciated.”

3. InVideo

InVideo is a versatile video creation platform that offers a mix of AI-driven and manual editing tools. Whether you’re creating a social media post, a promotional video, or a tutorial, InVideo provides a vast array of templates and customization options. It’s a fantastic alternative to Pika for users who want both automation and creative control.

Key Features

• Template Library: Access to over 4,000 templates.
• Text-to-Speech: Convert text to voiceovers in multiple languages.
• Advanced Editing: Offers more manual control compared to other AI-driven platforms.

My Experience

InVideo stood out to me because of its flexibility. While it offers AI-driven features like text-to-speech, you can also dive deep into the editing process if you want to fine-tune your video. I particularly liked the range of templates available, which made it easy to start a project and then customize it to my needs.

“InVideo offers the best of both worlds: powerful AI features and the ability to take full control when you need it.”

4. Animoto

Animoto has long been a staple in the video creation world, and it remains a solid alternative to Pika. The platform is geared towards creating slideshows and short videos, making it a favorite among social media marketers. Animoto’s user-friendly interface and vast music library make it easy to create engaging videos quickly.

Key Features

• Drag-and-Drop Builder: Easy to use, even for beginners.
• Music Library: Access to a vast collection of licensed music tracks.
• Brand Customization: Add logos, colors, and fonts to match your brand.

My Experience

Animoto is perfect for creating quick, eye-catching videos, especially for social media. I found the drag-and-drop builder incredibly easy to use, and the music library provided plenty of options to set the right mood. However, it’s not the best choice for longer or more complex videos.

“Animoto is my go-to for social media videos, but for more intricate projects, I’d look elsewhere.”

5. Magisto

Magisto, powered by Vimeo, is an AI-driven video editor designed to make video creation effortless. It analyzes your footage and automatically edits your video, choosing the best parts and adding transitions and music. This makes Magisto an ideal alternative to Pika for those who want a hands-off approach to video creation.

Key Features

• Automatic Editing: AI-driven editing process that requires minimal input.
• Smart Storyboard: Helps in structuring your video’s narrative.
• Music Integration: Automatically adds music to fit the video’s mood.

My Experience

Magisto is all about simplicity. I uploaded a few clips, and the AI did the rest. The results were surprisingly good, though the lack of control might not be for everyone. If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to create videos without getting bogged down in the details, Magisto is worth a try.

“Magisto does the heavy lifting, making video creation as simple as uploading your clips and hitting ‘create’.”

6. WeVideo

WeVideo is a cloud-based video editor that offers a range of tools for both beginners and advanced users. It provides AI-driven features like auto-editing, but also allows for manual editing, making it a versatile alternative to Pika. Whether you’re working on a school project, a marketing video, or a personal vlog, WeVideo has you covered.

Key Features

• Cloud-Based: Access your projects from anywhere.
• Multi-Track Editing: Advanced users can take advantage of multiple video and audio tracks.
• Stock Media: Access to a library of stock footage, images, and music.

My Experience

WeVideo’s cloud-based platform was a major selling point for me, as it allowed me to work on my projects from multiple devices. The multi-track editing was also a highlight, providing the flexibility to create more complex videos. The only downside I noticed was a slight decrease in performance when working with very large files, but this was manageable.

“WeVideo’s cloud accessibility and multi-track editing make it a top choice, though it can struggle with large projects.”

Instead of having to learn all the basics of form building, you can just use these top-notch form builders to design, customize, and manage your forms effortlessly.

I tested the best form builders so you don’t have to. Here’s a complete list.

Disclaimer: This post has affiliate links at no cost to you. I may earn a small commission, though.

1. Typeform

Typeform is a user-friendly platform offering a wide array of form building and survey creation capabilities with numerous customization options for creativity and functionality. It’s particularly renowned for its engaging and conversational form design.

**Features**

Typeform is not just a form builder; there are many more features in the mix:

- Conversational Forms: Create forms that feel like conversations to engage users better.
- Conditional Logic: Show specific questions based on previous answers to personalize the form experience.
- Integrations: Connect with over 500+ apps including Google Sheets, Slack, and Mailchimp.
- Custom Design: Fully customizable themes and layouts to match your brand.
- Analytics: In-depth analytics to track form performance and user responses.

**My Experience**

I tried Typeform. Instantly, I noticed this tool is a full-on form builder, not just a basic one.

First, I created a new form and chose from the various templates available. Then I navigated to the “Logic” section where the conditional features are.

I tried the “Conditional Logic” feature. It took about 10 seconds for the form to adapt to the logic I set:

The next feature I wanted to test was the integration with Google Sheets. The process was smooth, and data flowed seamlessly.

Here’s the result of integrating Typeform with Google Sheets:

Wow! That looks pretty awesome, doesn’t it? Here’s the original form for reference.

Epic!

Let’s do one more. This time, let’s create a survey form using one of the templates provided.

Of course, I could create a survey from scratch, but using a template saves time and ensures all essential elements are included:

Here’s the result:

Awesome!

Nobody could tell that the form was created using a template because of the customization options.

Next, let’s try the collaboration feature.

To use it, I invited a colleague to edit the form with me. The real-time collaboration was seamless.

Here’s the result:

Haha, that’s quite cool! It was like we were working on a Google Doc, but for forms.

Overall, I was really happy with this tool. Especially the conversational form and integration features worked out nicely.

**Pros**

- User-Friendly Interface: Intuitive and easy to navigate, suitable for users of all skill levels. Also, super easy to use. The only issue was finding the features because there were so many of those.
- Diverse Form Options: Wide range of form creation and customization options.
- Integration Capabilities: Seamless integrations with popular apps for extended functionality.
- Analytics and Insights: Detailed analytics to monitor form performance and user engagement.

**Cons**

- Limited Free Version: Some advanced features are not accessible in the free plan. Also, you get limited responses with the free plan.
- Performance Issues: Occasional lags and slowdowns reported by users. I didn’t face these, though.

**Bottom Line**

Typeform was the only form builder that truly worked well for all my needs. You can create engaging, conversational forms, integrate with numerous apps, and get detailed analytics. Because this one also offers a free plan, I highly recommend giving it a shot!

2. JotForm

JotForm is an advanced form builder that offers a range of features for creating and managing forms effortlessly.

**Features**

- Drag and Drop Builder: Create forms easily with a drag-and-drop interface.
- Extensive Template Library: Access hundreds of pre-designed templates for various uses.
- Payment Integrations: Connect with payment gateways like PayPal, Stripe, and Square.
- Conditional Logic: Add logic to show or hide questions based on user responses.
- Collaboration Tools: Work with your team in real-time to build forms.

**My Experience**

I gave JotForm a try. First, you need to sign up and create an account, which is straightforward.

The first thing I tried was to build a form from scratch using the drag-and-drop builder. The process was intuitive and quick.

Next, I wanted to test the payment integration feature. I set up a form to accept payments via PayPal. The integration was seamless and easy to configure.

Here’s the result:

Next, I tried to use conditional logic to show specific questions based on user responses. The feature worked perfectly and made the form interactive.

Overall, the form looked professional and was easy to create.

**Pros**

- User-Friendly Interface: Ensures easy navigation and use. Just sign up and start creating.
- Versatile Toolset: Accommodates a wide range of form creation purposes.
- Extensive Templates: A large variety of templates to choose from.
- Payment Integrations: Easy to set up and use with popular payment gateways.

**Cons**

- Limited Free Features: The free version of JotForm is quite restrictive.
- Performance Issues: Occasional lags and slowdowns.

**Bottom Line**

JotForm is a powerful form builder with a range of features that work well for various form creation needs. It’s free to start with, so why not give it a try?

3. Google Forms

Google Forms is a simple yet powerful form builder that’s part of the Google Workspace suite. It’s known for its ease of use and seamless integration with other Google services.

**Features**

- Seamless Integration: Works flawlessly with other Google Workspace apps like Google Sheets and Google Drive.
- Real-Time Collaboration: Collaborate with others in real-time while building forms.
- Customizable Themes: Choose from various themes and customize them to match your brand.
- Conditional Logic: Add sections and logic to your forms to improve user experience.
- Response Validation: Set rules for response validation to ensure data accuracy.

**My Experience**

I tried Google Forms. Getting started is simple; you only need a Google account.

The first thing I did was create a survey form. The interface is straightforward and user-friendly.

Next, I tested the real-time collaboration feature. I invited a colleague to work on the form with me, and the collaboration was seamless.

I also tried integrating the form with Google Sheets. The integration was instant, and responses were collected in real-time.

**Pros**

- User-Friendly Interface: Easy for beginners to start using — for free!
- Seamless Integration: Works well with other Google apps.
- Real-Time Collaboration: Allows multiple users to work on the form simultaneously.

**Cons**

- Limited Customization: Compared to other form builders, Google Forms offers fewer customization options.
- Basic Features: Lacks some advanced features like payment integrations and extensive templates.

**Bottom Line**

Google Forms is an excellent choice for simple form creation, especially if you are already using Google Workspace. It’s free and easy to use, making it a great tool for basic form needs.

4. Wufoo

Wufoo is a versatile form builder that offers a range of features for creating and managing forms, surveys, and event registrations.

**Features**

- Drag and Drop Builder: Easily create forms with a drag-and-drop interface.
- Custom Branding: Customize forms to match your brand with logos, colors, and themes.
- Payment Integrations: Accept payments directly through forms with integrations like PayPal and Stripe.
- Reporting and Analytics: Get insights into form performance with built-in reporting tools.
- Conditional Logic: Create dynamic forms with logic to show or hide fields based on user responses.

**My Experience**

I gave Wufoo a try. The sign-up process was simple, and I quickly got started with building a form.

I used the drag-and-drop builder to create an event registration form. The interface was intuitive, and the process was smooth.

Next, I tested the payment integration by setting up a form to accept payments via Stripe. The setup was easy, and the integration worked perfectly.

Here’s the result:

Overall, the form looked professional and was easy to create.

**Pros**

- User-Friendly Interface: Easy to navigate and use.
- Versatile Toolset: Offers a range of form creation and customization options.
- Custom Branding: Allows you to customize forms to match your brand.
- Payment Integrations: Easy to set up and use with popular payment gateways.

**Cons**

- Limited Free Version: The free version of Wufoo has limited features and form submissions.
- Occasional Performance Issues: Some users report lags and slowdowns.

**Bottom Line**

Wufoo is a versatile and powerful form builder with a range of features that work well for various form creation needs. It’s free to start with, so give it a try.

5. Formstack

Formstack is an advanced form builder designed for businesses and organizations to create and manage forms, surveys, and workflows efficiently.

**Features**

- Drag and Drop Builder: Create forms with an easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface.
- Advanced Security: Features like encryption and HIPAA compliance for secure data collection.
- Workflow Automation: Automate workflows and approvals with advanced logic and integrations.
- Conditional Logic: Show or hide fields based on user responses to create dynamic forms.
- Integrations: Connect with popular apps like Salesforce, Google Sheets, and Mailchimp.

**My Experience**

I tried Formstack. The sign-up process was quick, and I started building a form immediately.

I used the drag-and-drop builder to create a customer feedback form. The interface was user-friendly, and the process was smooth.

Next, I tested the workflow automation feature. I set up an approval workflow for the feedback form, and it worked seamlessly.

Here’s the result:

Overall, the form looked professional, and the workflow automation feature was impressive.

**Pros**

- User-Friendly Interface: Easy to navigate and use.
- Advanced Security: Ensures secure data

collection.
- Workflow Automation: Automates workflows and approvals.
- Versatile Toolset: Offers a range of form creation and customization options.

**Cons**

- Limited Free Version: The free version of Formstack has limited features and form submissions.
- Occasional Performance Issues: Some users report lags and slowdowns.

**Bottom Line**

Formstack is a powerful form builder with advanced features for businesses and organizations. It’s free to start with, so give it a try.

**Conclusion**

There you have it — 5 of the best form builders of 2024. Whether you need to create simple surveys or complex workflows, these tools offer a range of features to meet your needs. Give them a try and see which one works best for you!

What is Mobile Advertising

Mobile advertising is type of advertising that appears on mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets that have wireless connections. As a subset of mobile marketing, mobile advertising can take place as text ads via SMS, or banner advertisements that appear embedded in mobile web site, in downloaded apps or in mobile games. Mobile technology used by companies such as Google and Facebook tailor mobile advertisements based on individual’s web browsing history, geographic location, and with data collected by shopping habits. Because mobile devices typically have smaller screens than computers or laptops, this form of digital advertising is usually optimized for small displays by being concise.

Breaking Down Mobile Advertising

As mobile devices outnumber television sets now by almost 3 to 1, the chances of a potential customer seeing a mobile ad are greater than that of most other forms of advertising today. One of the popular models in mobile advertising is known as cost per install (CPI), where payment is based on the user installing an app on their mobile device. CPI mobile advertising networks work either as incent or non-incent. In the incent model the user is given virtual points or rewards to install the game or app.

Mobile Advertising History

The earliest form of mobile advertising took place via SMS test messages, but has quickly evolved to mobile web and in-app advertisements. Many apps offer a free version that can be downloaded at no cost, but which is paid for by placement of advertisements within the app. Such advertisements can be removed by purchasing a full or premium version of the app. Mobile versions of websites also have advertisements which have been optimized for the smaller mobile displays than would appear on the full version of the same website.

Mobile Adverting Platforms

Mobile advertising also works hand in hand with mobile marketing, which uses personal data collected and technology such as location services to personalize ads based on user preference, habits, or location. Some mobile advertisements may appear only when a mobile user is in close proximity to a certain store or service provider. Mobile ad placement works by way of a programmatic bidding process for ad placement, in which advertisers bid in real time for the right to place an ad on a mobile device. The infrastructure that allows for this process is known as a demand-side platform (DSP). Use of such platforms allows advertisers to optimize their performance as based on a number of key performance indicators (KPI), such as effective cost per click (eCPC) and effective cost per action (eCPA).

Electronic commerce or ecommerce is a term for any type of business, or commercial transaction, that involves the transfer of information across the Internet. It covers a range of different types of businesses, from consumer based retail sites, through auction or music sites, to business exchanges trading goods and services between corporations. It is currently one of the most important aspects of the Internet to emerge.

Ecommerce allows consumers to electronically exchange goods and services with no barriers of time or distance. Electronic commerce has expanded rapidly over the past five years and is predicted to continue at this rate, or even accelerate. In the near future the boundaries between “conventional” and “electronic” commerce will become increasingly blurred as more and more businesses move sections of their operations onto the Internet.

Business to Business or B2B refers to electronic commerce between businesses rather than between a business and a consumer. B2B businesses often deal with hundreds or even thousands of other businesses, either as customers or suppliers. Carrying out these transactions electronically provides vast competitive advantages over traditional methods. When implemented properly, ecommerce is often faster, cheaper and more convenient than the traditional methods of bartering goods and services.

Electronic transactions have been around for quite some time in the form of Electronic Data Interchange or EDI. EDI requires each supplier and customer to set up a dedicated data link (between them), where ecommerce provides a cost-effective method for companies to set up multiple, ad-hoc links. Electronic commerce has also led to the development of electronic marketplaces where suppliers and potential customers are brought together to conduct mutually beneficial trade.

The road to creating a successful online store can be a difficult if unaware of ecommerce principles and what ecommerce is supposed to do for your online business. Researching and understanding the guidelines required to properly implement an e-business plan is a crucial part to becoming successful with online store building.

What do you need to have an online store and what exactly is a shopping cart?

Shopping cart software is an operating system used to allow consumers to purchase goods and or services, track customers, and tie together all aspects of ecommerce into one cohesive whole.

While there are many types of software that you can use, customizable, turnkey solutions are proven to be a cost effective method to build, edit and maintain an online store. How do online shopping carts differ from those found in a grocery store? The image is one of an invisible shopping cart. You enter an online store, see a product that fulfills your demand and you place it into your virtual shopping basket. When you are through browsing, you click checkout and complete the transaction by providing payment information.

To start an online business it is best to find a niche product that consumers have difficulty finding in malls or department stores. Also take shipping into consideration. Pets.com found out the hard way: dog food is expensive to ship FedEx! Then you need an ecommerce enabled website. This can either be a new site developed from scratch, or an existing site to which you can add ecommerce shopping cart capabilities.

The next step, you need a means of accepting online payments. This usually entails obtaining a merchant account and accepting credit cards through an online payment gateway (some smaller sites stick with simpler methods of accepting payments such as PayPal).

Lastly, you need a marketing strategy for driving targeted traffic to your site and a means of enticing repeat customers. If you are new to ecommerce keep things simple- know your limitations.

Ecommerce can be a very rewarding venture, but you cannot make money overnight. It is important to do a lot of research, ask questions, work hard and make on business decisions on facts learned from researching ecommerce. Don’t rely on “gut” feelings. We hope our online ecommerce tutorial has helped your business make a better decision in choosing an online shopping cart for your ecommerce store. 1

For many entrepreneurs, launching a Shopify dropshipping store is an awesome way to break into ecommerce. We know that spending time and money on managing your inventory is a deal breaker. That’s why creating an ecommerce store that uses a dropshipping business model is such a great option, as you’ll never need to carry any inventory. You’ll be free to focus your valuable time and resources on growing your online store, and making more sales.

Dropshipping is a flexible way to run your business, and it’s supported by the majority of the largest ecommerce platforms — including the biggest ecommerce platform, Shopify. We believe in making life easier for ecommerce entrepreneurs, so we’ve created this ultimate Shopify dropshipping guide to help you start your own successful Shopify dropshipping business. Use it as your dropshipping for dummies guide to getting started. And once you’re ready to start dropshipping, watch this video to follow a step-by step guide to setting up your Oberlo account, finding a great product to sell online, and building a Shopify store. It’s super easy to follow, and in less than 50 minutes you’ll have a Shopify dropshipping store ready to make sales!

Post Contents [show]

What is Dropshipping?
Dropshipping is a business model in which ecommerce entrepreneurs sell products without having to carry any inventory. When a store owner receives an order from a customer, they simply contact the supplier, who will then ship the products directly to the customer’s door. Dropshipping apps like Oberlo let you add products from various suppliers into your shop to fuel your product offering.

Dropshipping is the perfect business model for new ecommerce entrepreneurs. It’s simple to set up and manage, and it doesn’t require a large up-front investment. You can also run your dropshipping business in your spare time — you don’t need to quit your job to start a successful store.

Dropshipping for Dummies Guide
What is Shopify?
Shopify is the leading ecommerce platform and it enables entrepreneurs to start their own online stores. Shopify is simple to use, especially a Shopify dropshipping store, so you’ll be able to build your own store even if you don’t have any technical experience. It’s perfect for entrepreneurs who want to launch their own ecommerce store without any hassle. Plus, using Shopify will give you access to the wealth of Shopify themes and apps that are available on their platform.

Why Use Shopify?
Shopify is the most popular ecommerce platform on the planet. Over half a million entrepreneurs already use Shopify to run their businesses, which is likely because it’s flush with features that’ll enable entrepreneurs to succeed with their online stores. And, of course, if you’re looking for any features which aren’t innately available on Shopify, you can find an app from the Shopify app store to supplement your stores needs. Trust is also huge for Shopify — plenty of entrepreneurs are looking for an ecommerce platform that will stay up, even on the biggest shopping holidays, and that’s exactly what Shopify offers.

How Does Shopify Work?
Now that we’ve answered the question: “what is Shopify, and why should you use it?” it’s time to give some insights about how it actually works. Essentially, Shopify works as the foundation for your ecommerce business. It’s an ecommerce platform that provides entrepreneurs with the skeleton that they need to start and design their store, and it’s backend lets you run your business without any hosting fees. You’ll need to pay Shopify’s fairly priced monthly fees, and then your ecommerce store will run without any hitches — you can know rely on Shopify to keep your store up and running while you focus on making sales and scaling your business. All of this is totally true for Shopify dropshipping stores too — they’ll follow the same rules as your average Shopify store, but you’ll just need to install the Oberlo app to source products.

Why Would I Start Dropshipping on Shopify?
Dropshipping is the perfect business model for entrepreneurs who are looking to set up their own business with little up-front investment, and Shopify is the simplest platform you can use to create and run your store.

When you dropship on Shopify, you’ll never need to worry about excess inventory, as you’ll only ever order the necessary amount of products to meet the demand from your customers. This system is unlike a typical ecommerce business, which involves either manufacturing products or purchasing products from a wholesaler in bulk.

If you’re dropshipping using Shopify with Oberlo, you’ll be able to control your inventory with just a few clicks — just another reason why Shopify dropshipping is so simple.

How Can This Dropshipping for Dummies Guide Help Me?
Our dropshipping guide will help you to understand just how easy it is to start your very own store. Sometimes it is hard to start something that seems very complex, but this dropshipping for dummies guide breaks the project into easy to follow steps so you can be successful from the very beginning. Our dropshipping guide is thorough and covers every step you need to take to open a dropshipping store on Shopify with Oberlo. Remember — the Oberlo app has a forever free plan that you can always use to run your Shopify dropshipping store.

7 Steps to Start Dropshipping on Shopify
In this section of our Shopify dropshipping for dummies guide, we’ll walk you through all the steps that you’ll need to take to create your own ecommerce store. We’ll show you our best tips for each stage you go through, and at the end of this you’ll have a fully functional Shopify dropshipping store that can start making money today. Here are the steps you need to take to open a dropshipping store with Shopify.

How to Dropship
1. Naming Your Shopify Dropshipping Store
This is the first step that you’ll take towards opening your Shopify dropshipping store. Here are some top tips for coming up with a name for your online store:

Keep it simple.
Be creative.
Make it memorable.
Oberlo has gone a step further to make it easy for you to pick your Shopify dropshipping store name. All you have to do is use Oberlo’s online Business name generator, enter any word that you would like your business name to include, and click on “Generate names”. You’ll be presented with a list of business names from which you can pick your favorite to be your Shopify dropshipping store name. Not only will it save you a lot of time, but it’s also completely free to use.

Once you’ve come up with some ideas for the name of your Shopify dropshipping store, you’ll need to check what’s available. If you’ve come up with a name like “American Clothing Store,” it’s likely already in use. You can check this by using Google search, and also searching if there is a .com domain which is already being used.

2. Creating a Shopify Account
Creating an account for your Shopify dropshipping store is a simple and quick process. To start, you’ll need to visit Shopify’s homepage. Once you’ve loaded the page you’ll see an empty field at the top of the screen where you’ll need to enter your email address.

Shopify Dropshiping Guide

Enter your email address into this field. You’ll then be asked to create a password for your account and enter the name which you’ve decided on for your Shopify dropshipping store. Next you’ll need to fill out a couple of questions about your experience with ecommerce, along with a few personal details.

Shopify Dropshiping Guide

Once you’ve completed this, your Shopify account will be up and running. Next we’ll need to configure the settings to launch your Shopify dropshipping account.

3. Optimizing the Settings for Your Shopify Account
At this point in our Shopify dropshipping guide, we’re going to go through the settings of your newly created Shopify account. This step is essential so you can receive money from your customers, create your store policies, and establish your shipping rates.

Payment Information

The first thing you’ll need to do is add a payment option to your Shopify dropshipping store. This is a vital step, as you won’t be able to receive money from customers if you don’t add a payment option.

To add payment information you’ll need to access Shopify’s “Settings” page. From here, simply select the “Payments” tab on the left and add your payment information.

shopify dropshippingWe’d recommend that you add a PayPal account here. If you don’t have an account you can sign up for one in just a few minutes — it’s a simple process, even if you’re not technically proficient. You can also check out our article on PayPal and other payment gateways here.

Store Policies

When you’re launching your own Shopify dropshipping store, you’ll need to make sure that you have created the necessary store policies. Shopify has created a helpful tool that automatically generates a standardized privacy policy, refund policy, and terms and conditions for your store.

You can access this tool from Shopify’s settings. Click on the “Checkout” tab and scroll down to the bottom to find the fields which were mentioned.

dropshipping with Shopify

Click on the “Generate” button and you’re good to go.

Shipping Rates

It’s critical that your Shopify dropshipping store has clear shipping rates. We’d recommend that you always offer free shipping, as this is the easiest option. If you offer separate shipping rates for various regions it can become confusing, so simply incorporate your shipping fees into the price of your products and make shipping free. For example, if you’re planning to sell a T-shirt for $20, raise the price to $25 and offer free shipping. Using FREE SHIPPING! as part of your Shopify dropshipping store’s marketing will help you sell your products.

You can set free shipping on your store by accessing the “Shipping” tab in your Shopify settings.

Shipping zones
Delete all of the domestic shipping zones and add “Free International Shipping” into the “Rest of World” section. Then you’ll need to select “Rate: Free Shipping Rate” and you’re good to go.

4. Launching Your Shopify Dropshipping Store
You’ve now added all the necessary information that you’ll need to launch your Shopify dropshipping store.

To launch your store, simply access the “Sales Channels” option on your Shopify settings. From here select the “add an online store” option.

The dummies guide to dropshipping

Once you’ve finished this set you’ll have an online store which is up and running!

5. Designing Your Shopify Dropshipping Store
In this section of our Shopify dropshipping guide, we’ll go over the importance of design for your ecommerce store, and we’ll talk about some key points for you to consider. The design of your Shopify dropshipping store is going to hold great importance, as it will be how you’re presenting your store and your brand.

Having an aesthetically pleasing ecommerce store is just as important as a brick and mortar store having an enticing shop window. It’s a user’s first impression of your business, and first impressions count. Don’t forget to take a look at these easy ecommerce store design tricks that will help your sales to skyrocket.

When it comes to design, there are two main aspects that you’ll need to take into consideration when you’re designing your Shopify dropshipping store — your theme, and your logo.

Picking a Theme on Shopify

Shopify Website Themes

Shopify has a built-in theme store that you’ll be able to use to source a wide variety of themes. You will find both free options and premium options. Take a look around and decide on the best theme for your store based on your financial resources — if you’re starting your store with a tight budget we’d advise choosing a free theme.

We understand that it can be tricky to decide which theme you should finally go for. To make it easier for you, we’ve got a post here that will meet your needs specific to themes, and help you decide which theme is best for your Shopify dropshipping store. This post covers topics such as what you should consider before selecting a theme, details about free Shopify themes, how to customize Shopify themes, and many more related topics.

Creating a Logo for Your Store

The logo for your Shopify dropshipping store will help customers remember your brand. Take some time to consider how you want your logo to look, and how it will fit in with the rest of your store’s design.

Creating a logo might sound like a tough and time-consuming task. But with Oberlo’s free online Logo Maker you’ll be able to generate your preferred logo in under a few minutes. All you have to do is experiment with fonts, colors, icons, and positioning for you to develop the perfect logo for your brand. You can check out other logo maker tools here.

If you’re interested in creating your own logo then you can use graphic design software, like Photoshop or Canva. You can also outsource high-quality graphic designs from freelance platforms, like Upwork or Fiverr, at an affordable price point.

Once you’ve got your theme and logo figured out, your store will start getting into shape. If you’re looking for further inspiration you can check out the amazing designs of these ecommerce websites that we’ve prepared for you.

6. Dropshipping on Shopify With Oberlo
shopify dummies guide to dropshippingOnce you’ve sorted out the design of your Shopify dropshipping store, you’ll need to start adding products, so you can start generating revenue. To add products that you can dropship, you’ll need to install the Oberlo app, which is the leading platform for ecommerce entrepreneurs who want to import dropshipped products to their Shopify dropshipping store. Oberlo and Shopify are seamlessly integrated, so you’ll be able to start importing and offering products from Day 1.

When you’ve installed Oberlo with Shopify, you’ll need to add a category onto your Shopify store. Name this category after the type of products which you’ll be selling. If you’re thinking about starting an online T-shirt business, then simply name this category “T-shirts.”

If you’re looking for product ideas, check out our list of unique dropshipping products. And, if you’re interested in understanding how to choose products to sell, be sure to check that out too.

shopify dropshipping for dummies guide
With the Oberlo-Shopify integration complete, you can use the Oberlo app to search for products that you’re interested in selling. Click the import button on any products that you’d like to sell and they’ll be imported directly into your Shopify dropshipping store.

7. Making Your First Sale
dropshipping on shopify for dummies guide

Now it’s time to start generating revenue and making sales with your Shopify dropshipping store. It’s unlikely that you’ll be generating a huge volume of traffic from simply launching your store, so we recommend that you use marketing campaigns to draw potential customers to your store.

Take a look through the various marketing channels which are available, and do some research to find out which one will work best to drive traffic to your Shopify dropshipping store. If you think that you’ll excel with Facebook advertising, then test out some campaigns. If you want to try your hand at Instagram, go for it. The most important thing is to keep testing, and you’ll soon find out which marketing strategies work best for your ecommerce business.

Helping others start an ecommerce business is something I’ve always loved doing.

Years before I got my internet marketing MBA, I marketed large corporate retail brands. Marketing an established ecommerce brand vs starting a new one is a different game. I’ve helped online entrepreneurs since 2008 and I discovered all the pitfalls new businesses face.

Tired of watching small business owners struggle to get started, I put together this guide to ensure you a smooth ride for your ecommerce business. It’s taken me years to learn everything included in this page. Use the information here to set up your ecommerce store, protect yourself legally, get your finances in order, market and sell your product, and start building your store.

There’s nothing more rewarding starting a business from nothing and watching it grow. You build it up and no one can take it from you.

Ecommerce Market Growth

Online retail is a booming business. But I’ve seen too many ecommerce businesses struggle to get traction. Running an online store can get complicated fast, which is why I’m a big fan of launching single branded product line + affiliate site combo.

This ecommerce model is very different from the typical online stores that rely on product sales.

Starts with a niche & persona, NOT product
Highest profit margin
One product to worry about shipping
Use sales off of affiliate marketing to reinvest
Figure out what else is selling and launch new lines
Natural growth projection
Building an ecommerce business takes more than choosing a brand name, writing product listings, and starting to sell products online. Even the best business ideas can flop if you aren’t driving enough traffic to your site.

How To Start An Ecommerce Business

How To Start An Ecommerce Business
Research The Basics Of Ecommerce Business
Start Ecommerce Niche Research
Personas and Product Selection
Establish Your Brand & Ecommerce Business
Create Your Online Store
Attracting Customers to Your Ecommerce Store
Marketing Your Products Online
Ready To Start Your Online Business?
Research The Basics Of Ecommerce Business
Beginning your research is the first critical step. Don’t operate off of a hunch. Growing any online business is an investment. Treat it as such.

There isn’t a single business structure that works for everyone. Service-based business, software, digital product sales, and physical products are just the tip of the iceberg.

Before you can decide on what to sell online, you need to understand the different business models available.

Learn the types of ecommerce business models

It’s not rocket science, but it does impact your business structure.

My focus is on physical products, but that doesn’t imply a need for you to invest heavily or fill your garage with products. How will you source products and inventory management?

If you want to turn a profit without touching your product or investing heavily at the start, dropshipping is a smart choice.

If you like the idea of having your own warehouse full of goodies, you’re investing more up front and working with a wholesaling or warehousing model. Have a business idea for the perfect product idea or a favorite product you wish you could sell under your brand? Look into white labeling and manufacturing.

And then there are subscriptions, where you carefully curate a set of products or a single product to be delivered at regular intervals to your customers.

The ecommerce business model that attracts me the most is a single product category that you supplement with affiliate marketing. You can control the content marketing and branding on a focused product and focus the rest of your energy on driving sales by monetizing traffic.

Ecommerce Business Models Must Read
Types Of Ecommerce: Ready to start your successful ecommerce business? Learn more about the process of selling products online and other types of online business models here.

Additional resources:

How To Start a Clothing Line (Tips From 13 Fashion Pros)
Pros and Cons of Selling on Your Own Site vs. Amazon, Etsy
How to Break Free from Your Ecommerce Marketplace
Why niche markets are eCommerce winners
The Beginner’s Guide To Selling Print On Demand Products
How To Calculate Your Break Even Point For Selling Products Online
Start Ecommerce Niche Research
It pains me when people email me their ecommerce site and it’s filled with hundreds of products, dozens of categories, and no real focus.

Unless you have a massive budget, you can’t be the next Best Buy or Amazon. You have to niche down to run a profitable ecommerce store.

Ecommerce Niche Selection
Choosing your niche is the most important step in opening your online business. Start this process by identifying successful companies already working in this space.

Make sure that the area is competitive — an absence of competition usually indicates that there’s no market, either.

Don’t pick an overly crowded niche, however, and skip anything dominated by major brands. If you’re having trouble with this, drill down further on what you want to do — the more specific you are, the less competition you are likely to face.

Niche-ing down also gives you the benefit of having a lot of “shoulder” niches, related to what you do, but not identical. You can work together with business owners in those niches to cross-promote, become (or acquire) an affiliate, and grow your customer base.

Pick a product category with a minimum of 1000 keywords and focus on a niche that does well in social media, where publishers in the area are affiliates on Amazon. If you can nab a few affiliate marketing opportunities, you won’t have to worry about shipping as much product, but you can still make a profit.

Must Read for Niche Selection:
21 Product Research Tips To Uncover Legit Ecommerce Market Opportunities
Additional resources

15 Niche Ecommerce Business Ideas You Can Bank On
How to Find Your Ecommerce Niche
Personas And Product Selection
Now that you’ve identified a niche and business model, you might be tempted to start hunting for products to sell.

Don’t. Before you think about product ideas, think about personas. You can’t expect people to buy your product if you don’t know who you’re selling to.

Personas and Product Selection
Who are you? What does the store represent? Who are your ideal customers? You need to project a consistent brand image (a journey that starts with your brand name). An organic seed company that started selling conventional fertilizer wouldn’t last very long. [clickToTweet tweet=”Your store persona has to match the expectation of your customers & the products you sell.” quote=”The persona of your store has to match the expectation of your customers and the products you choose to carry.”]

Once you’ve identified the image you want to project and the customer you are catering to, it’s time to come up with product ideas. I suggest starting with one — you’ll invest less at the start, and if you want to offer more you can test the waters with affiliate marketing.

In the example of an organic seed company, you could find popular organic products on Amazon and create content to send traffic to those affiliate products. If something catches fire, you can consider making your own brand of that product. If you’re not 100% sure what to sell, you can use affiliate marketing to validate your idea.

Before you invest in the product, though, evaluate it carefully. Even if you choose a dropshipping model, you want to test it carefully and get a feel for the product yourself so you can identify any potential problems and prepare customer service scripts to answer common questions.

Product Selection Must Read
What To Sell Online: How To Sell More Products With Personas: Think you’re ready to tackle persona and products? Read this first.
Additional resources:

How to Start a Content-First eCommerce Site
What to Sell Online: Digital or physical products?
What To Sell On Amazon: 11 Simple Ways To Find Products That Sell
How to Create Your Customer Avatar
10 Strategies to Find the Best Product to Sell Online
The Complete Guide To Finding The Best Private Label Manufacturers
29 Private Label Product Ideas to Kickstart a $100K+ Brand
How to Start An Amazon FBA Private Label Brand (From Any Country)
Establish Your Brand & Ecommerce Business
If you want to start a successful business, you need a brand that connects with your persona. Identifying your persona makes building an ecommerce brand easier. You might avoid girlie colors and images if you are selling products to corporate businesswomen interested in living a sustainable life.

Start Online Store Selling Stuff
But before you set up your store and get into the nitty gritty of building a brand — there are some basic steps you’ll need to take.

Step 1: Register Your Business.
Choose a business name and register your company. There are legal protections and tax benefits for incorporating, so don’t skip it.

Step 2: Pick Your Store’s Name
The name of your site and the legal name of your business don’t need to be identical, but keeping them consistent has its benefits. Make sure whatever you choose fits your niche — you don’t want to pick a brand name at the last minute.

Step 3: Get Your Business Licenses
If you’re not familiar with this process, the Small Business Association has plenty of resources to help you get started, including a mentor-protege network and courses on small business basics. Look actively for mentors — their advice can be priceless, even for little things like acquiring business licenses. One of the smartest decisions I ever made was finding someone who could show me the ropes.

Step 4: Get Your Employer Identification Number
You’ll need an Employer Identification Number (EIN) to open a business bank account and file your business taxes next April, even if you don’t plan on having any employees. Your EIN is a bit like your business’ social security number: it’s a unique number that identifies your business and helps you file important paperwork.

Step 5: Apply For Business Licenses And Permits
Operating an online store does not exclude you from needing certain business licenses and permits. Check with your city, county, and state to see what sorts of sales tax licenses or home business licenses you need, and get those approved before you start operating.

Step 6: Find The Right Vendors
You’ll have a lot of competition selling products online, so it’s in your best interest to find the best quality and best prices for the products you sell or materials you use to create your products. Shop around until you find a vendor you want to do business with long-term — this includes your ecommerce software (your “shopping cart”). Think scalable from the start.

Step 7: Logo Creation
Don’t fret over it too much, but do make sure that it is not in use by another company in your niche. Logo design doesn’t have to be terribly original, however (and really shouldn’t).

Step 8: Get Visual
Consider the colors of your brand, the imagery you’ll use, and the typeface or fonts you’ll employ carefully. If you’ve got the budget, you might want to hire a marketing firm to create a design brief for your company. If not, you can create your own. Just keep it consistent and read marketing tips designed to help boost your brand.

Ecommerce Business Must Read
How to Write a Business Plan For Ecommerce: Need help writing your business plan? This beginners guide has you covered.
Additional resources:

Do I Need a Business License to Sell Online
Ecommerce Branding: 11 examples and 27 expert tips to help you build your brand online
Branding for Niche Marketers: Step-by Step Guide To Building a Powerful Online Brand Image
The Simplest Way to Choose Your Brand Colors
Creating a Brand for Your Ecommerce Store
Finding small business loans
Create Your Online Store
Once you’ve legally registered your business and started thinking about design, you need to register your domain name and any redirect URLs that might be relevant. You’re going to need the design info you settled on in the last step now, when you finally build your store.

Which Platform will You Use?
Whatever design you chose needs to be compatible with your ecommerce software, too.

There are literally hundreds of ecommerce shopping cart platforms. Choosing the right ecommerce software is not easy. You need to carefully evaluate things like loading speed, features, compatibility with different payment gateways, compatibility with your business structure, your web developer skills, SEO-friendly features, and more. I’m putting together reviews and comparisons to help you pick the right one.

Once you decide on your ecommerce solution, don’t hire a “CRO Expert” or expensive development company. Just use a theme. You might need to pay a small fee of $100 or so to get a good template, depending on the shopping cart you choose and what they offer.

Theres lots of themes for BigCommerce, Shopify and WooCommerce.

If you don’t want to worry about taking credit card payments, you can sell products online on a marketplace like Amazon.

Love the idea of your own digital real estate? Make sure your ecommerce platform can scale with you and integrate with popular ecommerce marketplaces to increase your exposure.

Setting up your online store is much more than adding your products and content. You need to get your email marketing and automation set up as well.

This is important to set up BEFORE you get traffic. Email marketing is essential for driving conversions. Make sure you set up coupons, thank you emails, and upsells so you can turn visitors into shoppers. You also have to think about customer support.

Ecommerce Website Must Read
What Is The Best Ecommerce Platform For Startups: If you don’t have a lot of dev skills and want to get an ecommerce site up quickly this guide is for you.
Here are some resources to help you get started:

35+ Best Ecommerce Tools For Emerging Startups
How to Create a WordPress Ecommerce Website: The definitive guide
19 Open Source Ecommerce Solutions for Your Store
12 steps to Build a Successful Ecommerce Website in 12 Months
How The Best Ecommerce Sites Win at Web Design [23 Examples]
Attracting Customers To Your Ecommerce Store
Apologies to any Field of Dreams fans, but if you build it there’s no guarantee they’ll come. You need to market your store.

When you chose your cart, I told you to think about search engine friendly features. They are NOT all the same.

Ecommerce Marketing
The keyword-stuffing days of the early 2000s are long gone, but SEO is alive and well. You need to keep keywords and search terms in mind on each page of your site, in your URLS, and in your ad campaigns. You also need to think about driving traffic to your site.

The best ecommerce sites invest heavily in online marketing. If you don’t have the funds, you better have the elbow grease. Subscribe to marketing newsletters or listen to digital marketing podcasts to keep a pulse on the digital marketing industry and get your fill of marketing tips.

Will you use sponsored content, social media, pay-per-click ads, or a combination of strategies? How will you monitor what campaigns are driving traffic to your store? If marketing your site seems overwhelming, will you hire help?

Ecommerce Marketing Must Read
10 Proven Ecommerce Marketing Strategies To Surge GrowthRead battle-tested, step-by-step ecommerce marketing strategies that work.

Additional resources for marketing your ecommerce store:

10 Proven Ecommerce Marketing Strategies to Surge Growth
How to Create an Effective Ecommerce Marketing Strategy
15 Instagram Marketing Tips to Spread Your Ecommerce Brand Like Wildfire [INFOGRAPHIC]
Top Ecommerce Trends to Inform Your 2017 Marketing Strategy

Marketing Your Products Online
Your site isn’t the only thing you need to drive traffic to. The product(s) you choose also need to be included in your marketing budget.

Your mission is to sell products, not drive traffic. To sell products, you have to think beyond your site and look for expansion areas.

product marketing
No matter what and how you decide to sell, the first step is to create an email list. Place an opt-in freebie on your website, launch a social media campaign to gain subscribers, or host a giveaway where the entry ‘fee’ is your customer’s email address.

Running a giveaway is my go-to marketing tactic to get traffic and subscribers quickly. Giveaways have the added benefit of increasing your brand presence and product visibility. Building an email list gives you a group of warm leads to work with, making the sales process much easier.

Providing consumers with coupons and content via email helps to keep your brand on their mind, boost sales, and establish credibility. Keep your emails interesting — ask for your customers’ input often, including reviews. Respond quickly to customer service and product quality issues, and work on building relationships. No sales interaction is about the first sale; focus on the next one always.

On your site, look at how and where traffic flows. Are your product pages targeted to your persona? Are you losing would-be customers in the same place? If you’re driving traffic to your store but nothing is selling, fix the leaks in your sales funnel by carefully optimizing each page and taking a close look at your product listings. Use analytics to help with this task. There are tools that can help you monitor and optimize every step of the sales process. Make use of them.

Look into partner and affiliate marketing to boost your brand presence by offering affiliate marketing options and partnering with retailers in your shoulder niches. If you’re nervous about approaching other retailers, look into options like JVZoo (www.jvzoo.com), ClickBank (www.clickbank.com), and Amazon Associates.

You can also offer bloggers in your niche a free sample of your product in exchange for reviews. If you’re selling products on Amazon, one easy way to gain consumer respect and confidence (and reviews) is to ask for feedback. Include a card with each product that asks for an honest review and provides contact information for your company (email is enough, unless you have a dedicated customer service phone line).

Do you have your social media marketing strategy squared away for 2019?

If not, we don’t blame you.

Because 2018 was a whirlwind year for social marketing to say the least.

Facebook was shrouded in controversy due to its algorithm changes and privacy concerns. Instagram finally came into its own by rolling out a whole slew of business features while also passing the one-billion user mark.

All the while brands got bolder, launching conscious and seemingly controversial campaigns as customers want to see brands get real.

And that doesn’t even scratch the surface.

Last year’s happenings combined with this year’s emerging trends have left marketers with a sense of analysis paralysis. Where do you go from here?

Perhaps what matters most is that you have a strategy at all. To keep your brand from sitting on the sidelines, we’ve broken down the steps to developing a social media marketing plan to carry you through 2019 with a sense of purpose.

1. Set goals that address your biggest challenges
First things first: you need to figure out what you want out of social media at large.

Maybe it’s more social-savvy customers. Perhaps it’s a larger share of voice in your industry.

Either way, remember that social media planning is a marathon, not a sprint.

Brands should strive to set goals that are actually attainable. For example, shooting for a million new Instagram followers in 2019 isn’t going to happen. By tackling smaller, realistic goals, you can scale your social efforts in a way that’s both reasonable and affordable.

And on a related note, your goals will influence everything from your budget to which social networks you’ll tackle.

Sample Social Media Goals for 2019
Below are some actionable goals that brands of all shapes and sizes can divide and conquer.

Increase brand awareness. To create authentic and lasting brand awareness, avoid solely publishing promotional messages. Instead, focus on content that emphasizes your personality and puts your followers ahead of the hard sell.

Achieve a higher quality of sales. Digging through your social channels is nearly impossible without monitoring or listening to specific keywords, phrases or hashtags. Through more efficient social media targeting, you reach your core audience much faster.

Effortlessly uncover great content with Sprout

Looking to break from branded social content but don’t have the time?

Easily find relevant content to share with your audience using just one of the many tools within Sprout’s Publishing suite.

Explore new content opportunities and unlock inspiration when you begin your free trial today.

Drive in-person sales. Many brick-and-mortar businesses are on the hunt for a social media marketing strategy that drives in-store sales. Is your brand promoting enough on social to entice folks to come see you? Are you about alerting customers to what’s going on in your stores, including promotions and action shots of your store?

Improve ROI. Positive social media ROI doesn’t happen by accident. Taking the time to audit your social channels can help keep the cost of labor, ads and creatives down. The end-result is squeezing way more out of your social spending.

Create a loyal fanbase. Does your brand promote user-generated content? Do your followers react positively without any sort of initiation? Your customers can be your best cheerleaders and sources of fresh content, but only if you’re encouraging them to post on your behalf.

Better pulse on the industry. What are your competitors doing that seems to be working? What strategies are they using to drive engagement or sales? Such analysis can help you better understand how to position your own brand both on social media and off.

Any combination of these explicit goals is fair game and can help you better understand which networks to tackle, too. When in doubt, keep your social media marketing strategy simple rather than muddling it with too many objectives that’ll ultimately distract you.

2. Research your audience
Making assumptions is a dangerous game for marketers.

And thanks to the sheer wealth of demographic data and social media analytics tools out there, you really don’t have to anymore.

So much of what you need to know about your audience to influence your social media marketing strategy is already out in the open.

Take today’s social media demographics for example. Here’s a quick snapshot of data points from 2018 that are worth noting for today’s social networks:

This demographic data isn’t fluff, either. These numbers speak directly to which networks your brand should approach and what types of content to publish. Here are some takeaways:

Facebook and YouTube are both prime places for ads, perhaps due in part to their high-earning user bases
The majority of Instagram’s users are under the age of 30, signaling the strength of bold, eye-popping content that oozes with personality
Women vastly outnumber men on Pinterest, which is noted to boast the highest average order value for social shoppers
LinkedIn’s user base is well-educated, making it a hub for in-depth, industry-specific content that might be more complicated than what you see on Facebook or Twitter
See how that works?

And although the demographics data above gives you insight into each channel, what about your own customers? Further analysis needs to be done before you can truly know your customer demographics on social media.

That’s why many brands use a social media dashboard which can provide an overview of who’s following you and how they interact with you on each channel. Most brands today are using at least some sort of dashboard.

However, does your dashboard tie in your specific goals? Brands should be where their target audience is hanging out: that’s a no-brainer. A robust dashboard like the one Sprout offers can help you double-check that you’re spending time targeting the proper channels.

Whether you’re an agency providing insights for your clients or an enterprise company discovering your own demographics, an all-in-one dashboard solution is critical.

3. Establish your most important metrics
No matter what you’re selling, your social media marketing strategy should be data-driven.

That means focusing on the social media metrics that matter.

Because while “likes” and shares are nice to have, they amount to little more than vanity metrics if they aren’t resulting in meaningful engagement or sales. What good are your millions of followers if you can’t do anything with ’em?

Engagement metrics are essential to building meaningful, lasting relationships with your followers. Large audiences and likable content is great, but here are some additional metrics to keep an eye on in 2019:

Reach. Post reach is the number of unique users who saw your post. How far is your content spreading across social? Is it actually reaching user’s feeds? In the face of ever-changing organic algorithms, tracking reach is arguably more important than ever.
Clicks. This is the number of clicks on your content, company name or logo. Link clicks are critical toward understanding how users move through your marketing funnel. Tracking clicks per campaign is essential to understand what drives curiosity or encourages people to buy.
Engagement. The total number of social interactions divided by the number of impressions. For engagement, it’s about seeing who interacted and if it was a good ratio out of your total reach. This sheds light on how well your audience perceives you and their willingness to interact.
Hashtag performance. What were your most used hashtags on your own side? Which hashtags were most associated with your brand? Or what hashtags created the most engagement?

Organic and paid likes: More than just standard Likes, these likes are defined from paid or organic content. For channels like Facebook, organic engagement is much harder to gain traction, which is why many brands turn to Facebook Ads. However, earning organic likes on Instagram isn’t quite as difficult.
Sentiment. This is the measurement of how users reacted to your content, brand or hashtag. Did customers find your recent campaign offensive? What type of sentiment are people associating with your campaign hashtag? It’s always better to dig deeper and find what people are saying.

An effective social media marketing strategy is rooted in numbers. That said, those numbers need to be put into a context that circles back around to your original goals.

4. Dig into what your competitors are doing
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7-step guide to creating a Facebook marketing strategy
Before you start creating content, you should have a good idea of what your competitors are up to.

Doing so involves might just require some surface-level analysis. Some brands might also look into third-party competitor analysis tools to dig deeper into their competitors’ numbers.

Looking at your competition’s presence will directly inform your own social media marketing strategy. The goal here isn’t to copycat or steal your competitors’ ideas. Instead, it’s to determine what’s working for them and how you can adapt your own campaigns accordingly.

Same industry, different strategies
For example, let’s take a glance at how two brands in the same space can take two totally different approaches to their social media marketing strategy.

In this case, we’ll dip in the world of ice cream.

Halo Top Cream prioritizes their own eye-popping visuals and clever captions to show off their treats. Their posts score tons of engagement on a consistent basis.

On the flip side, Ben & Jerry’s takes a totally different approach to social.

In addition to their own in-house promotional photos, the brand pushes a lot of user-generated content. Perhaps most notable is the fact that Ben & Jerry’s does not shy away from activism and politically-charged posts. Some might argue that politics and ice cream don’t mix, but the brand has generated plenty of buzz by putting their values front-and-center.

The takeaway here is that brands have so much room to set themselves apart from their competitors in terms of content and voice.

Of course, you need to know who your competitors are before you start stressing over content creation.

How to spot your social competitors
The simplest way to find competitors is through a simple Google search. Look up your most valuable keywords, phrases and industry terms to see who shows up.

For example, if you sold various soaps, “handmade natural soaps” would be a great keyword to investigate. Excluding major retailers like Amazon and Bath & Body Works, take a look at who’s popping up in your space both organically and via ads.

Then, you’ll want to take a look at who’s active on social media. In this particular case, Wild Soap is a smaller operation with an active, thriving social presence. This means they’re a great candidate to track.

After gathering a handful of industry competitors, it’s smart to use a social media competitive analysis tool like Sprout Social to track Facebook and Instagram content. This can clue you in on what tags they’re using and likewise what content they’re posting. Once you analyze an array of competitors, you’ll have a better idea of what your own audience wants.

5. Create and curate engaging social content
Your social media marketing strategy is obviously centered around content.

At this point, you should have a pretty good idea of what to publish based on your goal and brand identity. Similarly, you probably feel confident in which networks to cover.

Still overwhelmed by the specifics of what you should be posting?

Hey, we get it.

From picking the right creatives and captions to finding the balance between promotion and personality, there’s a lot to mull over. The pressure is certainly on brands in an era where 46% of users say they’ll unfollow a brand that’s overly promotional. Additionally, 41% of users say they’d unfollow a brand that shared too much irrelevant content.

To help narrow down the specifics of what you should be publishing, let’s start with 2019’s social trends and best practices. Consider any combination of the following as you put together the content piece of your social media marketing plan.

Video Content or Bust
The need for brands to produce video is greater than ever.

Across all networks, social video content is among the most viewed and shared hands-down. Facebook and Instagram, in particular, are pushing video hard right now which is notable given how their respective algorithms will continue to evolve in 2019.

Live? Long-form? Short looping video? There’s no shortage of options for brands to play the role of producer these days regardless of your budget.

User-generated content
Again, we can’t stress enough the importance of curating user-generated content from branded hashtags. Customers today absolutely love authentic content that doesn’t always have that sort of professional, polished touch. If nothing else, curating UGC means less work on your plate and less pressure to constantly be thinking of new ideas.

Build Content Themes
One of the toughest challenges to visual content is creating it on a day-to-day basis. A Venngage infographic showed 36.7% of marketers said their top struggle with creating visual content was doing so consistently.

This shows how important highly-visual content is to marketers and the people they want to reach. That’s why building content themes is a great approach to sectioning out your content. Instagram is one your premier channels to work off visual themes.

For example, Anthropologie does an amazing job at keeping their Instagram feed consistent, colorful and eye-popping.

Anthropologie content theme
Check out how Profetic uses collage-style content to tie their feed together for something totally different.

profitec content theme
If consistency is a problem with your social media marketing strategy, think about how a theme can help.

6. Make timeliness a top priority
Timeliness is a two-way street.

Not only do customers expect speedier responses from brands in 2019, but also meaningful conversations on a regular basis.

Let’s start with the first point. Social media channels are built as networks. You know, a place to converse and share content.

Your brand can’t forget these core elements of “networking.” It takes effort to ensure conversations or engagement opportunities aren’t left unattended.

Through social media, you gain respect as a brand by just being present and talking to your audience. That’s why social customer care is so important to brands wanting to increase audience awareness. It’s all about engagement.

For example, Seamless does a wonderful job of not only responding but showing customer care is a high priority.

Seamless serviceThrough the right social media monitoring tools, you can find instances across all your channels to interact, respond and gauge customer service inquiries.
Sprout KW monitoring

Designating teams to specific tasks can help your staff run like a well-oiled social media team, whether you’re a group of one or 100.

Post at the Best Times to Engage
When is your brand available to engage and interact with customers?

You might see some recommending times to post late in the evening, for example. But if your brand isn’t there to communicate, what’s the point of posting at the “preferred” time?

Instead, try to ensure your social media or community managers are available and ready to answer any product questions or concerns when you tweet or post. It’s smart to learn the best times to post on social media, but it’s just as critical to engage after posting.

sprout index timing
According to our Index, a brand’s average response time is around 10 hours. But did you know that most users believe brands should respond to social media messages within four hours?

With all the updated algorithms, organic content has a tough time reaching the majority of your audience. The last thing you want to do is ignore those who engage and lose out on sending more down your marketing funnel.

7. Assess what’s working, what isn’t and how you can improve
By now you should have a big picture understanding of your social marketing strategy for 2019.

However, it’s important that you’re able to adapt your strategy as you progress through the year.

Without continuously analyzing your efforts, you’ll never know how one campaign did over another. Having a bird’s eye view of your social media activity helps put things into perspective. This means looking at your top-performing content and fine-tuning your campaigns accordingly.

Sprout Social Instagram top content report
There’s no denying that a lot of social media is a matter of trial-and-error. Monitoring the metrics behind your campaigns in real-time allows you to make small tweaks to your social media marketing strategy rather than sweeping, time-consuming changes. This dynamic approach to marketing makes perfect sense in a day and age where social media is constantly evolving.

And with that, we wrap up your social media marketing plan checklist for 2019!

Is your social media marketing strategy up to snuff?
Hopefully this breakdown served as some much-needed inspiration and guidance for reaching your social goals for this year.

We also wanted to give our readers a few resources to use moving forward. Check out our social media campaign plan template and editable reporting template to help put your ideas into action ASAP.

Good luck and happy 2019!

SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” It’s the practice of increasing both the quality and quantity of website traffic, as well as exposure to your brand, through non-paid (also known as “organic”) search engine results.

Despite the acronym, SEO is as much about people as it is about search engines themselves. It’s about understanding what people are searching for online, the answers they are seeking, the words they’re using, and the type of content they wish to consume. Knowing the answers to these questions will allow you to connect to the people who are searching online for the solutions you offer.

If knowing your audience’s intent is one side of the SEO coin, delivering it in a way search engine crawlers can find and understand is the other. In this guide, expect to learn how to do both.

What’s that word mean?
If you’re having trouble with any of the definitions in this chapter, be sure to open up our SEO glossary for reference!

Check out the SEO glossary
Search engine basics
Search engines are answer machines. They scour billions of pieces of content and evaluate thousands of factors to determine which content is most likely to answer your query.

Search engines do all of this by discovering and cataloguing all available content on the Internet (web pages, PDFs, images, videos, etc.) via a process known as “crawling and indexing,” and then ordering it by how well it matches the query in a process we refer to as “ranking.” We’ll cover crawling, indexing, and ranking in more detail in Chapter 2.

Which search results are “organic”?
As we said earlier, organic search results are the ones that are earned through effective SEO, not paid for (i.e. not advertising). These used to be easy to spot — the ads were clearly labeled as such and the remaining results typically took the form of “10 blue links” listed below them. But with the way search has changed, how can we spot organic results today?

Today, search engine results pages — often referred to as “SERPs” — are filled with both more advertising and more dynamic organic results formats (called “SERP features”) than we’ve ever seen before. Some examples of SERP features are featured snippets (or answer boxes), People Also Ask boxes, image carousels, etc. New SERP features continue to emerge, driven largely by what people are seeking.

For example, if you search for “Denver weather,” you’ll see a weather forecast for the city of Denver directly in the SERP instead of a link to a site that might have that forecast. And, if you search for “pizza Denver,” you’ll see a “local pack” result made up of Denver pizza places. Convenient, right?

It’s important to remember that search engines make money from advertising. Their goal is to better solve searcher’s queries (within SERPs), to keep searchers coming back, and to keep them on the SERPs longer.

Some SERP features on Google are organic and can be influenced by SEO. These include featured snippets (a promoted organic result that displays an answer inside a box) and related questions (a.k.a. “People Also Ask” boxes).

It’s worth noting that there are many other search features that, even though they aren’t paid advertising, can’t typically be influenced by SEO. These features often have data acquired from proprietary data sources, such as Wikipedia, WebMD, and IMDb.

Why SEO is important
While paid advertising, social media, and other online platforms can generate traffic to websites, the majority of online traffic is driven by search engines.

Organic search results cover more digital real estate, appear more credible to savvy searchers, and receive way more clicks than paid advertisements. For example, of all US searches, only ~2.8% of people click on paid advertisements.

In a nutshell: SEO has ~20X more traffic opportunity than PPC on both mobile and desktop.

SEO is also one of the only online marketing channels that, when set up correctly, can continue to pay dividends over time. If you provide a solid piece of content that deserves to rank for the right keywords, your traffic can snowball over time, whereas advertising needs continuous funding to send traffic to your site.

Search engines are getting smarter, but they still need our help.

Optimizing your site will help deliver better information to search engines so that your content can be properly indexed and displayed within search results.

Should I hire an SEO professional, consultant, or agency?
Depending on your bandwidth, willingness to learn, and the complexity of your website(s), you could perform some basic SEO yourself. Or, you might discover that you would prefer the help of an expert. Either way is okay!

If you end up looking for expert help, it’s important to know that many agencies and consultants “provide SEO services,” but can vary widely in quality. Knowing how to choose a good SEO company can save you a lot of time and money, as the wrong SEO techniques can actually harm your site more than they will help.

White hat vs black hat SEO
“White hat SEO” refers to SEO techniques, best practices, and strategies that abide by search engine rule, its primary focus to provide more value to people.

“Black hat SEO” refers to techniques and strategies that attempt to spam/fool search engines. While black hat SEO can work, it puts websites at tremendous risk of being penalized and/or de-indexed (removed from search results) and has ethical implications.

Penalized websites have bankrupted businesses. It’s just another reason to be very careful when choosing an SEO expert or agency.

Search engines share similar goals with the SEO industry
Search engines want to help you succeed. In fact, Google even has a Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide, much like the Beginner’s Guide! They’re also quite supportive of efforts by the SEO community. Digital marketing conferences — such as Unbounce, MNsearch, SearchLove, and Moz’s own MozCon — regularly attract engineers and representatives from major search engines.

Google assists webmasters and SEOs through their Webmaster Central Help Forum and by hosting live office hour hangouts. (Bing, unfortunately, shut down their Webmaster Forums in 2014.)

While webmaster guidelines vary from search engine to search engine, the underlying principles stay the same: Don’t try to trick search engines. Instead, provide your visitors with a great online experience. To do that, follow search engine guidelines and fulfill user intent.

Google Webmaster Guidelines
Basic principles:
Make pages primarily for users, not search engines.
Don’t deceive your users.
Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you’d feel comfortable explaining what you’ve done to a website to a Google employee. Another useful test is to ask, “Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?”
Think about what makes your website unique, valuable, or engaging.
Things to avoid:
Automatically generated content
Participating in link schemes
Creating pages with little or no original content (i.e. copied from somewhere else)
Cloaking — the practice of showing search engine crawlers different content than visitors.
Hidden text and links
Doorway pages — pages created to rank well for specific searches to funnel traffic to your website.
It’s good to be very familiar with Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. Make time to get to know them.

See the full Google Webmaster Guidelines here
Bing Webmaster Guidelines
Basic principles:
Provide clear, deep, engaging, and easy-to-find content on your site.
Keep page titles clear and relevant.
Links are regarded as a signal of popularity and Bing rewards links that have grown organically.
Social influence and social shares are positive signals and can have an impact on how you rank organically in the long run.
Page speed is important, along with a positive, useful user experience.
Use alt attributes to describe images, so that Bing can better understand the content.
Things to avoid:
Thin content, pages showing mostly ads or affiliate links, or that otherwise redirect visitors away to other sites will not rank well.
Abusive link tactics that aim to inflate the number and nature of inbound links such as buying links, participating in link schemes, can lead to de-indexing.
Ensure clean, concise, keyword-inclusive URL structures are in place. Dynamic parameters can dirty up your URLs and cause duplicate content issues.
Make your URLs descriptive, short, keyword rich when possible, and avoid non-letter characters.
Burying links in Javascript/Flash/Silverlight; keep content out of these as well.
Duplicate content
Keyword stuffing
Cloaking — the practice of showing search engine crawlers different content than visitors.
Guidelines for representing your local business on Google
If the business for which you perform SEO work operates locally, either out of a storefront or drives to customers’ locations to perform service, it qualifies for a Google My Business listing. For local businesses like these, Google has guidelines that govern what you should and shouldn’t do in creating and managing these listings.

Basic principles:
Be sure you’re eligible for inclusion in the Google My Business index; you must have a physical address, even if it’s your home address, and you must serve customers face-to-face, either at your location (like a retail store) or at theirs (like a plumber)
Honestly and accurately represent all aspects of your local business data, including its name, address, phone number, website address, business categories, hours of operation, and other features.
Things to avoid
Creation of Google My Business listings for entities that aren’t eligible
Misrepresentation of any of your core business information, including “stuffing” your business name with geographic or service keywords, or creating listings for fake addresses
Use of PO boxes or virtual offices instead of authentic street addresses
Abuse of the review portion of the Google My Business listing, via fake positive reviews of your business or fake negative ones of your competitors
Costly, novice mistakes stemming from failure to read the fine details of Google’s guidelines
If you’ll be focusing on ranking in the Bing search engine, get to know their guidelines, as well. It’s only polite (and good sense!)

See the full Bing Webmaster Guidelines here
Local, national, or international SEO?
Local businesses will often want to rank for local-intent keywords such as “[service] + [near me]” or “[service] + [city]” in order to capture potential customers searching for products or services in the specific locale in which they offer them. However, not all businesses operate locally. Many websites do not represent a location-based business, but instead target audiences on a national or even an international level. Be on the lookout for more on the topic of local, national, and international SEO in Chapter 4!

Fulfilling user intent
Instead of violating these guidelines in an attempt to trick search engines into ranking you higher, focus on understanding and fulfilling user intent. When a person searches for something, they have a desired outcome. Whether it’s an answer, concert tickets, or a cat photo, that desired content is their “user intent.”

If a person performs a search for “bands,” is their intent to find musical bands, wedding bands, band saws, or something else?

Your job as an SEO is to quickly provide users with the content they desire in the format in which they desire it.

Common user intent types:

Informational: Searching for information. Example: “What is the best type of laptop for photography?”
Navigational: Searching for a specific website. Example: “Apple”
Transactional: Searching to buy something. Example: “good deals on MacBook Pros”
You can get a glimpse of user intent by Googling your desired keyword(s) and evaluating the current SERP. For example, if there’s a photo carousel, it’s very likely that people searching for that keyword search for photos.

Also evaluate what content your top-ranking competitors are providing that you currently aren’t. How can you provide 10X the value on your website?

Providing relevant, high-quality content on your website will help you rank higher in search results, and more importantly, it will establish credibility and trust with your online audience.

Before you do any of that, you have to first understand your website’s goals to execute a strategic SEO plan.

Know your website/client’s goals
Every website is different, so take the time to really understand a specific site’s business goals. This will not only help you determine which areas of SEO you should focus on, where to track conversions, and how to set benchmarks, but it will also help you create talking points for negotiating SEO projects with clients, bosses, etc.

What will your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) be to measure the return on SEO investment? More simply, what is your barometer to measure the success of your organic search efforts? You’ll want to have it documented, even if it’s this simple:

For the website ____________, my primary SEO KPI is ____________.
Here are a few common KPIs to get you started:

Sales
Downloads
Email signups
Contact form submissions
Phone calls
And if your business has a local component, you’ll want to define KPIs for your Google My Business listings, as well. These might include:

Clicks-to-call
Clicks-to-website
Clicks-for-driving-directions
You may have noticed that things like “ranking” and “traffic” weren’t on the KPIs list, and that’s intentional.

“But wait a minute!” You say. “I came here to learn about SEO because I heard it could help me rank and get traffic, and you’re telling me those aren’t important goals?”

Not at all! You’ve heard correctly. SEO can help your website rank higher in search results and consequently drive more traffic to your website, it’s just that ranking and traffic are a means to an end. There’s little use in ranking if no one is clicking through to your site, and there’s little use in increasing your traffic if that traffic isn’t accomplishing a larger business objective.

For example, if you run a lead generation site, would you rather have:

1,000 monthly visitors and 3 people fill out a contact form? Or…
300 monthly visitors and 40 people fill out a contact form?
If you’re using SEO to drive traffic to your site for the purpose of conversions, we hope you’d pick the latter! Before embarking on SEO, make sure you’ve laid out your business goals, then use SEO to help you accomplish them — not the other way around.

SEO accomplishes so much more than vanity metrics. When done well, it helps real businesses achieve real goals for their success.