Learn digital marketing for free – Top 5 resources

Digital marketing is the skill of the ages, and you can make a killing profession as a digital marketer once you understand its mechanics. But like all things, you must be committed and consistent if you must make it through.

In 2022, many digital marketing resources can hone you into being a skillful digital marketer. You can grow any business quickly by investing in yourself with these marketing resources.

Now that we got that pep-talk out of the way, here are the top 5 resources where you can learn digital marketing for free.

Google Digital Garage

You shouldn’t be surprised to see Google on the top list. After all, the giant platform has been at the forefront of the digital world since its inception in 1998. That is why Google garage is an excellent place for beginners and enthusiasts to learn extensive courses in digital marketing.

It offers over 30 classes, two of which come with a certificate upon completion. Which are:

Fundamentals of digital marketing
Prepare for the G Suite Certification Exam.

You can also explore the Google Skill Shop for product-specific courses and certificates.

MOZ Academy

When we talk about a leader in digital marketing, the list will be incomplete without MOZ. The company has recently made its paid courses free to support those impacted by COVID-19.

There are lots of digital marketing courses that you could learn from MOZ, such as Keyword Research, SEO fundamentals, and Site Audit Classes. These courses often range from $49 to $595 per class. However, they are now free for you to use.

Hubspot Courses and Certification

Hubspot is the master of inbound marketing, and they develop courses that focus primarily on inbound marketing tactics. In addition, they offer 15 certification tracks, including Inbound Marketing, Growth-Design, Frictionless Sales, Email Marketing, and more.

If you’re looking for a digital course that aligns with the buyer journey, a critical component for inbound campaigns, then you should consider taking one of Hubspot’s courses.

SEMRush’s Keyword Research Course

To become a guru in keyword research, you might need to consider SEMRush. Surprisingly, this free digital marketing course takes an hour to complete, and industry expert Greg Gifford teaches it.

Since Keyword research is an essential aspect of SEO, you simply can’t overlook it in your journey in digital marketing.

Facebook Blueprint

The social media giant offers a training program that allows you to go through different topics on marketing on Facebook and Instagram. This course includes creating ads and handling your Facebook and Instagram business accounts.

The fact is, there are lots of digital marketing resources that you can leverage for free. But sometimes, you might not have the luxury due to time constraints. That is why business owners use digital marketing experts instead.

Feel free to give us a call or perhaps fill out our contact form to book an appointment.

How Artificial Intelligence Will Transform Your Business

A few hours ago, according to an eye-opening tale in the Washington Post on Saturday, a Google engineer, Blake Lemoine, after hundreds of interactions with a cutting-edge unreleased AI system called LaMDA, believed the program had achieved a level of consciousness.

LaMDA, which stands for ‘Language Model for Dialog Applications,’ is one of several large AI systems trained on massive swaths of text and can answer questions and write in convincingly human ways.

In a statement, Google said that his team, including ethicists and technologists, reviewed Blake’s claims per AI principles and informed him that the evidence does not support his claim. However, while we may not have a sentient AI yet, it boggles our minds about the potential possibilities, especially as it concerns business.

Importance of AI in business

Who would have thought that decades later, we could communicate with someone at the other end of the globe? We could fly to where we want, even to the moon and now eyeing mars. With AI, the game gets tighters.

It might sound sci-fi, but imagine a world where your business is run by AI, with zero human input.

They tell you what to do, how to do it, who to hire, and who to fire. It eliminates the need to hire staff when you have AI systems that can do a better job without errors or fatigue. AI now helps find solutions to complex business problems, solving them in seconds, something that would have taken a week to complete.

AI is the most trending technological term in business today, with Google and Amazon at the forefront. By looking at how AI can serve your business, you can grow and scale your business efficiently.

AI Capabilities in Business

Many companies have resought to chatbots for virtual assistance, and it’s the first case proving how AI will revolutionize the business world. While many are not convinced about a customer talking to a machine, talking to one that is sophisticated and doesn’t break down can be a game changer.

Imagine waking up in the morning, and you’re like, “Siri, go ahead and publish the pending content on my blog.” And it gets done. It could help you book a flight, book a dental appointment, and even place a call on your behalf.

If you’re good with codes, you could delve into automation, where you get more by doing so little. You don’t need to know how to do this to use this in your business. All you need is an expert to help you automate aspects of your business using AI. Feel free to give us a call or use the contact form to book an appointment.

5 Smart Google SEO Tips for 2022

The SEO landscape takes a different shape every year, causing businesses and professionals to evaluate and refine their SEO strategies. In addition, since Google updates its algorithm a couple of times each year, investing in SEO becomes something you should never overlook.

The reason is simple: about 53% of website traffic comes from organic search. So not paying attention to your SEO is like throwing away opportunities. In that light, here are some smart Google SEO tips for 2022.

Invest in high-quality content

Content is king, and thus, Google wants to rank only pages that provide valuable and helpful content to its users. Therefore, to rank higher in Google SERP, you need to invest in content marketing.

When talking about quality, Google looks out for the following signals before ranking a page, and it includes:

Original reporting
Comprehensive and topically-rich copy
Relevant internal and external links
Strong relevance and search intent
Backlinks, etc.

Note that Google is getting smarter by the day, and keyword stuffing wouldn’t get you anywhere. While your competitors may have a high page authority, Google can better rank your content higher if it provides more value.

Invest in User Experience

The quality of your page is not enough, but how the page performs for users. Unlike before, a smooth user experience has become one of Google’s top criteria when ranking a page. To do this, Google measures the user experience of a web page in three primary areas: Core Web Vitals, Mobile-Usability, and Security.

If you have no idea how your page performs to these metrics, you can audit your page using PageSpeed Insights, Lighthouse, or Google search console. If there are any Core Web Vital issues on any of your pages, ranking may become difficult until they are resolved.

Target Long-tail and low-competition keywords

Unless you’ve built a massive domain authority, you will have to target low-tail keywords since they are often less competitive. On the other hand, you have a better chance of ranking on page 1 without backlinks with long-tail keywords.

Numerous tools help you fish out long-tail keywords that you can rank for, such as Google Keyword Planner, SEMRush, MOZ, and even Ubersuggest.

Integrate AI into your SEO strategy

AI solutions can help you up your SEO game without breaking the bank. They can be pretty helpful, especially in personalization, content creation, and analyzing a large amount of data.

With AI at your disposal, you create content faster and outrank your competitors in less time. Some of the AI tools you can consider are SearchAtlas, BrightLocal, and CopyAI.

Work with an expert

To improve your SEO and grow your business, you might need to work closely with an SEO expert who understands your industry and audience. That way, you focus on the more prominent aspect of running your business.

In that case, feel free to get in touch with us by calling or filling out our contact form, and we’ll ensure your website is SEO optimized, targeted, and ready to rank on the first page of Google.

Tom&Co. has been selected among the Top Web Design Companies In New York by Designrush

Signs That It Is Time for A Rebrand

Have you ever heard the famous saying that you should never judge a book by its cover? Unfortunately, it doesn’t apply to your branding, as numerous of your target audience will judge your business based on the logo, mission, vision, and other outward representation.

Sometimes, the best thing you can do is get a total makeover, a rebrand that reinforces what your business stands for. To help you determine if it’s time to rebrand, here are five signs you should consider:

Your company’s vision has changed

If your business has changed direction over the past few years, that’s a tale sign that it’s time for a rebrand. However, not rebranding when your business has shifted focus could become confusing, causing you to lose many prospects since they can’t understand your brand.

Look into your new purpose, mission, and vision, and think of a way to bring the future of your company into focus. Think about why your business exists, aside from the making money aspect. It will guide you to rebranding your business into something that your target can resonate with.

Targeting a new demographic

When your business grows, there’s bound to be a new or different demographic showing interest in your products and services. That is a great sign and means you need to carter for the new targets.

In that case, your brand will need some tweaks to attract your target demographics. First, you will need to analyze the demographics in question and create a buyer persona that tells you more about who they are.

Your customers don’t know you anymore

There will come a time when your customers might not know who you are anymore, nor what your brand stands for. So if you ask them, “Who are we?” and there’s a common theme in their question, it is a sign your brand needs a rebrand.

The reason is apparent: you need to remind them what your brand is and its purpose. But, according to Barb Jones, rebranding will help you control that burgeoning chaos and define that narrative.

Your brand no longer represents your current status

After many years in business, your status in the marketplace is bound to change. Start by running a competitive analysis to see where your brand stands compared to your competitors. When you understand where you stand, you can rebrand your brand to reflect the current status.

If that sounds like a lot of work, you’re not alone. Many brands prefer to work with experts to rebrand their brands. If that is the case, go ahead and give us a call or fill out our contact form.

Reasons Why You Need to Create More Content

Perhaps you’ve rationalized why you don’t need more content. Maybe you feel you have enough content already. After all, let the ones already written do their work. While it’s tempting to stop dishing out new content, it’s essential to know why you shouldn’t.

It’s been long said that ‘content is king.’ Who knows? Perhaps it’s something that must come like the sunset, or once in a while like an eclipse. Whichever route, it’s crucial you understand how it affects your business.

Your audience wants fresh content

If you run a business and wish to get your target audience engaged and anticipating, you need to create consistent content. You keep your audience engaged and focused on your brand through your content.

It’s a love story where you continually remind your audience that you care and cherish them. When you stop updating your website, blog, or social handles, it’s equivalent to when a lover stops texting.

To many, that’s a breakup!

Build an empire using content

When you create content, you’re having the best of both worlds. You’re attracting networks without having to struggle to build them. You would have established your brand as an authority through your content.

You wouldn’t need to worry about backlinks. Social shares. Or mentions. You will be getting tons of them daily when you stick to consistently dishing out content for your audience. There are downsides to creating content, which is minimal compared to the upsides. You’re cheating yourself by shying away from content creation.

Your content is your ticket

You never know where your content will take you. All it takes is one piece of content to change a life, your life. By consistently creating content, you open yourself to many unexpected opportunities it provides.

Whether you’re creating for your business, career, or perhaps your brand, outsourcing your content could be ideal. You wouldn’t have to worry about what to write next. We save you lots of time and a ton of headaches. Feel free to call us or fill out our contact form to book an appointment.

What Are The Most Critical Video Marketing Services?

Any business that wishes to grow and scale fast must never overlook a video marketing campaign. With YouTube amassing over a billion unique visitors per month, it makes sense to add video marketing to your marketing strategy for the best result.

That way, your target audience is more likely to engage with your brand, and even take desired actions like joining your mailing list or buying a product or service. However, this entails making sure that your videos don’t miss their mark, or you end up wasting money, time, and effort.

That is why most businesses work with a video marketing agency to help them create a successful campaign. Here are the most critical video marketing services that mustn’t be missing:

Pre-production

The purpose of your campaign could be to expose your brand, sell a new product or service, or perhaps drive social engagement. Whatever your goals are, it is important that the video marketing agency or expert you’re working with be involved months before filming.

Pre-production often comprises things like scriptwriting, where an experienced scriptwriter helps you keep your story focused and engaging. You also need to consider logistics, such as the best place to film and how to get it down as efficiently as possible.

Filming and editing your video

When it’s D day, your team should be experienced in things like on-site shooting. That includes having the proper lighting, camera angles, and the right equipment like stabilizers or a drone to get the shots you need.

Once you have all the shots you need, an experienced video editor will take a very basic video and turn it into something incredible. To move the story forward, you need to make graphics an important part of your video. Add color, and reiterate what’s been said by your experts.

After your video is finished

The job isn’t done after post-production. Here are a some of the video marketing services you’ll need once your video is ready:

Video SEO optimization – Someone in your team who specializes in demand generation, and can optimize a video for the best performance on search results.

Social Media – Your social media experts know the ins and outs of social media and know the ideal time and place to publish your videos for the best result.

Get in touch with an expert

You can’t do it alone, no matter how robust and self-sufficient you are. That is why most businesses and professionals prefer to work with an expert or agency. At the end of the day, the most critical video marketing services are ones that land you better leads, more sales, and happy customers. Feel free to give us a call or fill out our contact form to book an appointment.

The History Of Graphic Design

Before the emergence of photoshop and our dear illustrator, the history of graphic design dates way back, thousands of years ago, before the invention of the computer. If you were to jump in a time machine and travel two thousand years in the past, you’ll witness incredible cave illustrations with faint colors made from plants.

What is graphic design?

In this age, graphic design is often used to refer to the various disciplines of design, including web design, print, and digital designs. Traditional designs refer to designs like posters, advertisements, magazine layouts, book covers, including branding designs like logos.

What a graphic designer does is take visual content and combine it with topography to pass a message. The key to every design is communication, and this has evolved over the years from hand imprints in caves to incredible designs on screens and prints.

Before the printing press: Prehistory

Before the invention of the printing press in 1440, visual communication has always been in place, from symbols in ancient caves to abstract paintings. One thing is clear, humans have always had an inherent need to express themselves through visuals.

The earliest languages were logographic, symbols that represent words instead of phonetic sounds. It implies that humans have been using visual representation to communicate before the dawn of civilization.

In the middle ages, topography started taking off as we started to expand the aesthetic symbols into letters and words themselves.

The birth of graphic design

With the invention of the printing press in Europe, a whole new world opened as humanity begin recreating text, art, and design on magnificent scales. Soon, took notice of how visuals impact customers’ behavior and used them to increase profit, leading to the birth of graphic design.

Although the 19th century was more technologically focused, it paved way for creating graphic designs using these advancements. With prints and digital, artists and designers pushed the boundary of their creativity, exploring new styles and techniques for branding purposes and adverts.

It wasn’t until 1903 that the first graphic design agency emerged, known as The Wiener Werkstätte. It was the first of its kind, with artists, architects, including painters, and early graphic designers working together for businesses.

In 1922, the term ‘graphic design’ appeared for the first time. In an article, William Addison Dwiggins first used the term to describe his role in managing the visuals in book designs. From 1950, the digital era slowly crept in, and the mass adaptation of computers ushered in a new age of communication through visuals.

From cave paintings to visuals on screens and prints, they also discovered how to use human psychology to create designs that compel actions, an ultimate marketing strategy.

This is where we come in, as we’ve been creating amazing graphic designs for numerous of our clients, and the conversions are astounding. Get in touch with us by calling or filling out our contact form to begin.

Questions You Ask To Develop Your Brand Identity

Building a formidable brand that can stand the test of time is more than coming up with a logo and color palette. It is more than that, and getting it right ensures you forever rent a space in the mind of your target audience.

Think about it, you feel connected to people you identify with. The same is true with brands. It is that feeling that the brand ‘gets’ you, and you’re likely to interact, buy, and even become an ambassador.

To create such a brand, some questions will gear you toward the right path, and they include:

Who is my target market?

Before launching your brand, you’re expected to have developed a buyer persona or customer biodata. This is vital information about your ideal customers that will shape almost every aspect of your brand identity.

Knowing your target market goes beyond knowing their age, location, or income, but their pain points, things that bring them joy, happiness, and pride.

What’s your brand personality?

Your brand has to be relatable to your target market if you must drive them to take action. A brand with a strong personality will always score some like points to its target audience. Take a look at some household names and think about the personality associated with them. This will help you craft out a personality befitting for your business and target.

Who are your competitors?

Unless you’re a monopolist, there are going to be some players offering the same products and services. By knowing who your competitors are, you will come up with a good marketing strategy that converts.

Having competition isn’t a bad thing, as it will help you create an objectively better brand identity. That is because you can build on what they’ve already built, creating something better, new, and refreshing.

What’s your story?

Humans are naturally wired to love stories since it engages special areas of the brain. Stories help us to feel a greater sense of connection, letting the oxytocin flow, strengthening our connection.

Your brand story could be how or why you were founded, and how you play a role in the life of your customers. The aim, however, is to make your customers the heroes of your brand stories since it is all about them.

Why trust you?

There are hundreds if not thousands of similar brands out there. Why should your target audience trust you over others? Sometimes you might not know why your customers pick you, and interviews can be a great tool to learn why they trust you. Your brand’s unique trust factors could be transparency, flexibility, or expertise.

That is exactly why our clients choose us, due to our expertise in helping businesses develop a formidable brand identity. Feel free to get in touch with us by calling or fill our contact form to book an appointment.

How Data Breaches Affect Small Businesses

Despite the measures taken by small businesses against cyber-attacks, hackers are always getting inventive, discovering new loopholes to exploit. The impact is never funny for small businesses, leading many to close up involuntarily.

Unfortunately, the growing number of data breaches fails to correlate with an increase in businesses’ preparedness against cyberattacks, as most small businesses fail to implement even the most basic security measures to avoid an attack.

Here are some of the damaging ways data breaches affect small businesses.

Financial loss

The most hard-hitting impact that small businesses have to deal with in the event of a data breach is financial loss. A study by Ponemon Institute speculates the cost of data breach to average £3.2m globally.

Some of the costs could include compensation to affected customers, drafting out incident reports, investigation, and investing in new security measures. Legal fees are not excluded, not to mention the regulatory penalties imposed for non-compliance with the GDPR.

Business downtime

When there is a data breach, downtime is inevitable which will not only cost the business money but reputation as well. Operations will be halted, as investigations commence to uncover what or who caused the breach.

Depending on the severity of the data breach, investigation can take days, weeks, or even months, leading to loss of revenue for the small business,

Loss of sensitive data

Sensitive data can be lost when there is a data breach, and these could be sensitive data such as credit card details, customers’ names, addresses, email addresses, images, IP addresses, social security numbers, etc.

This could cause a serious uprising for small businesses, leading to a shutdown in extreme cases.

Loss of sales

Reputational damages can lead to loss of customers, which, no doubt, is the intrinsic part of every small business. Without customers, small businesses cannot operate anymore, leading to an abrupt shutdown.

The loss of trust data breach causes will lead customers to look elsewhere for their goods and services.

Avoiding Data Breaches

The fact is you can avoid data breaches by taking some security measures such as working with password management tools, formidable antiviruses while updating your software for security patches.

You cannot always do it yourself, and that is why working with a team to buff up the security of your business is always recommended. For a small business, this is not always feasible due to the cost of managing a cyber security team.

Sometimes, working with a professional seems more feasible. Taking into consideration the consequences that come with a data breach, it is never a bad choice to invest in the security of your small business. Ready to start buffing up security? Feel free to give us a call or fill out the contact form to book an appointment.

5 Easy Ways to Increase Cyber Security for Your Small Business

Many small business owners often make the mistake of overlooking business cybersecurity, thinking they are not at risk due to their relatively small size. However, reports from the Better Business Bureau shows that there is an annual loss of $80,000 due to negligence from business owner.

As a business owner, you’re just at risk of cyber attacks as giant businesses. Without proper security measures, you’re risking your customers’ data to attackers. These data could be credit cards information, names, and addresses.

It is important to tighten security irrespective of how small your business is. By making cybersecurity a top priority, you save yourself from the hassles that come with a security breach. So, here are some of the ways to improve your small business cybersecurity.

Change your passwords

You will be shocked to learn that your email accounts have been illegally accessed and released to the public domain. The least you can do to avert the worst from happening is to change your passwords.

Data breaches are rampant, and a simple thing such as changing your passwords could be all you need to protect your business.

Use a trusted password manager

To up your password game, you should consider using a password manager with a track record of trust. There are some tools you can consider, like Sticky Password, Dashland, and LastPass. With these tools, you don’t need to stress yourself when it comes to keeping track of your passwords.

They offer the same benefits of regularly changing your passwords, without having to make it hard for your employees. If you ever need someone to access your accounts, these tools can help you share passwords sets.

Turn on two-factor authentication

To add an extra layer of security to your accounts, you need to enable two-factor authentication. It isn’t a techy process since it is as easy as registering a new phone number or installing an app. With this feature, you make it pretty hard for attackers to gain access to your accounts.

Always update your software

Software updates sometimes come with security patches that help protect your small business from detected vulnerabilities. Attackers are always out to explore vulnerabilities, while your software companies are always on the lookout to detect and prevent you from being bugged.

Have a backup

In the event of an attack that might lead to data loss, having a backup can be what determine if you go out of business or not. With a reliable backup in place, viruses or other infections will not be the end of your business as you can always restore and be running in no time.

If this sounds like hard work, perhaps your best bet is to work with an expert who understands the needs of your business. Feel free to give us a call or fill our contact form.