What’s Your Life Calling?

The hero’s journey starts with the call.

And we all want to be the warrior, the princess or the emperor.

Or have you forgotten your childhood dreams?

To be “the hero”.

Win battles.

Sail to distant lands.

Joseph Campbell called it “follow your bliss”

Or “the call”

It is choosing happiness.

Every day.

It is a place where….

We forget time.

We find flow.

Just “Be”.

It is a place where we discover the reason we are here.

And act.

Step into the gap.

Of possibility.

Cloaked in the fear of impossibility.

The problem

We live in a world that buries us in busyness.

But ideas and creation come from the silence.

The stopping.

That’s the paradox.

And the problem?

We are afraid to stop and hear the call.

We hide.

All of us are called but many of us aren’t listening.

We are…

Too busy to hear it.

Too afraid to start it.

Or….

Signed up to someone else’s call.

Your journey?

There are only three options that follow the call to “start” the hero’s journey. And we will find.

• You accept the call and depart on the journey. Never looking back.
• You receive the call and and refuse. But later you decide to sign on and plunge into the unknown.
• You refuse and turn back. Never to start.

We were never designed to be ordinary.

To be mundane.

To live with the pain.

Of regret.

Of not starting.

So what’s your call?

Have you stopped and listened to the still small voice.

The whisper.

The call.

For you.

Do you have the courage to start?

The post What’s Your Life Calling? appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.

source https://www.jeffbullas.com/life-calling/

7 Ways to Make Your Instagram Profile and Content Pop

Once upon a time, the concept of social media was just a way for people to share their interests and become virtual friends online. Jump forward to today, and it’s a multi-billion dollar industry that is a requirement for pretty much every business and brand in the world.

With more social media platforms than ever before, it’s important to make sure you are focusing the right amount of time, money, and effort on each – but also making sure to spend the most of your time on the bigger networks.

This is especially true with Instagram, as it’s one of the most heavily used platforms on both desktop and mobile devices around the world. And when you factor into the equation that it’s run and owned by Facebook, there’s a really good chance that it will be around for quite a while.

With all of this in mind, no matter what you are using Instagram for, it’s important to make sure your profile is always working for you, and your content is grabbing the attention of new audiences daily.

To make sure all of your efforts are getting the best ROI possible, be sure to run through our list of seven great ways to make your Instagram profile and content pop!

1. Bring static photos to life with amazing animation

You know how the saying goes… “a picture is worth a thousand words” — but what if you could make that same picture worth millions of words and even more interactive and engaging than most of the other visual content being added to IG every second?

That’s exactly what is possible with Lightricks’s Motionleap app (formerly known as Pixaloop), which uses AI to bring images to life in a matter of seconds.

It’s one thing to tell you about how something works, and it’s another to see it in action. In fact, I’m sure we didn’t even need to highlight what’s possible through the power of this application, and the visual below would likely grab your attention right away.

Image Source

The power of this application lies in its amazing customization and settings. Pick one of your favorite still photos, then bring it to life by selecting different areas to freeze or add motion to, while also having full control over speed, looping, and more.

2. Everyone loves a good quote

When’s the last time you went on Instagram and scrolled through your content and didn’t see motivational and inspirational quotes being liked and shared by your friends and family?

Quotes work extremely well on social media, but especially well on Insta. This is mostly due to the fact that everyone likes to ‘like’ a good quote, and if you place it over a celebrity picture (of whoever said it) or with a nice stock photo, people are going to like it even more.

Another important thing to mention is that quotes don’t need to be from famous athletes and well-known entrepreneurs. They can also be just random quotes that you or anyone comes up with… and when you add them to the perfect IG photo update, then it becomes even more powerful.

Finding the perfect photo is one thing. Having the perfect quote to go with it is another. To help in this process, Shutterfly has a list of great quotes that can be used for any type of photo, update, product, or service you can think of.

No matter what you are using IG for, be sure to mix things up in your social feed by adding some fun and inspirational quotes to your posts. And when you do, don’t forget to write the quote in your text area, while also using some quote-related hashtags.

3. Take advantage of trending hashtags

This one might seem like a no-brainer, but hashtags are still one of the most important factors when trying to go viral or increasing your reach on Instagram.

Any while top trending hashtags might seem like a good idea to go after super generic and popular trending hashtags like “motivation”, “hustle” or “blessed”, it’s the lower and middle range hashtags that are more relevant.

The reason for this is that they are less saturated, more targeted to specific audiences, and it’s a lot easier to rank and trend for these hashtags versus any of the main ones that will likely get buried in the hashtag search results.

Also, don’t forget to mix things up. Change what hashtags you are using and try to mix in some of the latest trending topics and small niche markets that might be more focused on your brand or whatever you might be offering.

4. Leverage social media marketing and influencers

We’ve already touched on the importance of using great visuals, hashtags, and quotes within your content. Now, let’s also discuss the power of influencer marketing and how to leverage it within your own social media efforts.

A perfect example of this can be seen with Gary Vaynerchuk. His content is pretty much everywhere – but it’s also being recreated and shared by others as well. This is especially true for anyone that got to take a picture with Gary, interview him, or even get interviewed on his own show or podcast.

Image Source

A perfect example of this can be seen with @ReezyResells, who did an interview (and video) with Gary Vee. As a result of this, Reezy can continually reference, tag, and share this content all the time — while likely reaching new fans and followers of @GaryVee each and every time — thus, also growing his own brand and social following.

The good news is, there are millions of influencers out there, in a wide range of large and small niche markets. And if you’d like to start tapping into such opportunities like these, just take a look at some of the many IG influencers you can start tagging and creating content around.

5. Run an Instagram audit and clean up your follower count

With more than a billion active users on Instagram, it’s important to know what your real follower counts and engagement numbers are. After all, are all of those celebrities with millions upon millions of followers really as impactful as we think? Probably not…

One way to get a better idea of the status and health of your IG profile and account is to run an Instagram Audit. By doing so, you can discover the real stats of your social profile, while also getting a much clearer picture of your account impressions, follower quality, and more.

Best of all, it’s free to use and you can also search on random celebrities or your brand competitors!

And if you are wondering if an IG audit is worth your time, just check out the screenshot above. Notice how the @TheRock has over 215M million followers, but only has .035% engagement.

This is a quick way to see how many of your followers might be real, bots or simply not interested in the type of content you are posting. The more you know about your audience, the better the content you can create.

6. Schedule your visual content like a pro

One of the biggest hurdles when trying to find success with social media, is trying to come up with all of the time it requires to post content, engage and grow your brand.

Thankfully, more and more social media scheduling tools are coming out all the time. And even more exciting, is that they aren’t just for Instagram. You can start scheduling out your content on the likes of Twitter and Facebook as well (depending on what solution you end up using).

The benefit here is that you can spend more time focusing on your content creation efforts, and then scheduling out your pictures and posts for several days, weeks, and months in advance.

Many of these scheduling solutions can also provide detailed reports on impressions, clicks, and engagement – which further helps in the understanding of what type of content works best, and when it’s best to post new content to your accounts.

7. Create a visually pleasing landing page for your IG profile

Let’s face it, one of the most precious components of Instagram is that one single link that can be posted to your profile account. It’s really the only area on your profile where someone can click to be led away from the IG platform.

This means, whatever you are linking too… it better be worth it!

While most users on Instagram won’t know the basics of marketing or what a landing page is, it is quite simple for them to set one up through the use of linktr.ee.

The way it works is quite simple. You can sign up for a free account with linktree, and then you will be given a URL for your profile page. From here, you can then create links to other outbound site properties all from one simple landing page.

The benefit here is that you can have your IG profile link now display an attractive landing page to all of your followers without the need to create a site of your own. There is also a premium version of the application, which allows for improved link tracking stats and landing page customization.

How to get the most out of your Instagram efforts

At any given time, millions of people are actively scrolling through billions of status updates, images, short videos, and more. How many of them are actually getting the attention they deserve? How many are getting likes and shared amongst others?

With so many users on one platform, it’s all about knowing how to create the best content for your audience, and delivering it in a way that makes people stop scrolling. By implementing each of the winning examples, solutions and recommendations above, you should see much better engagement numbers from your Instagram content creation and marketing efforts.

Guest author: Zac Johnson is a world-renowned blogger and entrepreneur with nearly 20 years of experience in the online marketing space and has helped his readers generate millions of dollars online. He shares his story and guidance at ZacJohnson.com

The post 7 Ways to Make Your Instagram Profile and Content Pop appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.

source https://www.jeffbullas.com/instagram-profile-content/

The 3 Non-Negotiables of a Successful Growth Marketer

Fast growth…

It’s that elusive mirage that we’re all chasing.

From startups to Fortune 500 companies, there’s nothing more attractive to investors, shareholders, and business owners than the thought of 5 or 10x-ing key business metrics in a matter of days.

It’s no surprise, then, that the term Growth “Hacking” (coined by Sean Ellis in 2010) or Growth “Marketing” as it has evolved to today, has gained so much traction.

What is Growth Marketing?

I’m assuming that you’re familiar with the concept of growth marketing seeing you’ve navigated to this article, but here’s a quick overview…

In many ways, growth marketing and traditional brand building are polar opposites. Building a brand is about playing the long-game, setting and forgetting, and automating processes. Growth marketing is about experimenting with tactics and unearthing shortcuts that will accelerate your journey.

It’s an approach to marketing that requires constant monitoring, changes, and adaptation. Yes, many of the tactics are the same, but the way you approach the implementation of those tactics is very different.

BONUS: Up-skill on growth marketing with CXL’s Growth Marketing Minidegree.

What do Growth Marketers need to succeed?

Successful growth marketers combine qualitative skills, such as psychology, copywriting, and user feedback, with quantitative skills, such as data analysis and multivariate testing.

But if you want to specialize in this field, or take the next step from novice to advanced growth marketer, there are three key areas you need to focus on. Let’s take a look at them now.

#1. Mindset

Fast growth requires a different mindset from traditional marketing.

One of the biggest challenges aspiring growth marketers face is breaking down learned biases and preconceptions about what will (or won’t) work.

Without the right mindset, it’s impossible to be successful at growth marketing – even with all the best practice technical skills and tools available.

There are five principles that form the foundation of a growth mindset:

• Trust the process. Despite what may look like a haphazard approach from the outside, growth marketing is methodical – it’s a process. Growth is both planned and structured at every level.
• Embed growth in everything. Growth marketing can’t be an afterthought while half your brain is tinkering with slow-moving techniques. In other words, you can’t hedge your bets! It’s an all-in approach.
• Obsess over data. Simply put, fast growth won’t happen without data. You need to track anything and everything that contributes to the acceleration of key business metrics so that you can test and optimize on the run.
• Fail fast. You need to be prepared to test every component of a campaign and fail as quickly as possible. That’s really what growth marketing is all about, failing so many times that you “stumble” across something that explodes.
• Start narrow. To begin with, the experiments you run need to have a narrow channel focus until your tests prove a tactic worthy of further investment. Then you can create new experiments for other channels, and roll the process out.

In summary, growth marketers need a strong and unwavering mindset that is willing to fail, detail-oriented, and believes in the process of experimentation.

Want to develop your growth mindset? Check out CXL’s Growth Marketing Minidegree.

#2. Optimization

As I alluded to in the last section, data is the crux of all growth marketing campaigns.

Effective growth marketers not only understand the technical nuts and bolts of data analysis, such as data capture (Google Analytics), spreadsheet manipulation, and multi-channel attribution, but they also have a knack for interpreting that data.

Data interpretation takes shape in the form of conversion rate and process optimization at speed. Essentially, you can make changes in real-time based on the numbers in front of you.

So what skills are required to be a great “optimizer”? Here are the essentials for advanced growth marketing:

• Google Analytics – Knowing how to track micro-conversions (clicks and pageviews) and attribute macro-conversions (sales and leads) across multiple channels.
• Spreadsheets – Excel does far more than most people realize. The best growth marketers unearth opportunities by maximizing the power of the spreadsheet to manipulate data.
• Landing Pages – Best practice landing page optimization involves a deep understanding of user psychology, copywriting, and multi-variate testing.
• Processes – Optimization goes beyond the data crunching and testing components of a campaign. Expert growth marketers take an organization-wide view of growth and adapt communication, hiring, and training processes to get the best results.

Want to up-skill your growth marketing optimization skills? Check out CXL’s Growth Marketing Minidegree.

#3. Leadership

Good growth marketers are fearless operators who dive deep into the numbers and act fast on analytical trends. But GREAT growth marketers are more than just individual practitioners – they’re leaders.

Growth marketing isn’t just a one-off campaign or “hack” that 10x’s your business overnight. It’s a mindset and a way of thinking within an organization. Instead of looking at growth as a tactic, it should be identified as a priority at the organizational level that combines cross-functional teams in structured experiments.

A growth-centric organization requires the right team, software tools, strategy, and project management frameworks to develop an engine of recurring growth in the business.

Leaders of high-growth organizations not only have the mindset and technical skills of a growth marketer, but they’re also excellent people managers.

Wrapping up

Are you looking to advance your skills as a growth marketer or lead a high-growth organization?

The appetite for fast business growth isn’t going away any time soon. In a digital world that moves at a rapid pace, technology and tactics that are effective one day are not the next.

Funnily enough, a concept that was born from the idea of “hacking” your way to success and skipping the queue, has become something far more meaningful. In reality, growth marketing is a survival technique. If you aren’t willing to fail fast, test, optimize, and change tactics on the run, your business could become obsolete quicker than you think.

If you don’t up-skill as a growth marketer today, you’ll inevitably fall behind your colleagues and competitors in the near future.

CXL’s Growth Marketing Minidegree is the perfect place to start. It shares the methodologies used by top growth experts at companies such as Lyft and InVision in an easy-to-understand format.

Across six tracks you’ll learn and implement all the skills you need to adopt a growth mindset, optimize your campaigns, and lead a team of growth marketers.

1. Growth marketing foundations
2. Running growth experiments
3. Data and analytics
4. Conversion
5. Channel-specific growth skills
6. Growth program management
7. Management

Try CXL’s Growth Marketing Minidegree Now!

The post The 3 Non-Negotiables of a Successful Growth Marketer appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.

source https://www.jeffbullas.com/successful-growth-marketer/

How to Do an In-Depth SEO Competitor Analysis in 6 Steps

Knowing how to do an in-depth SEO competitor analysis is crucial to your search engine optimization strategy.

Sadly, not many do it. And those doing it do it haphazardly.

But knowing your competitors is essential to helping you create a roadmap for SEO activities that will help you have the edge over your competition.

What is an SEO competitor analysis (And why is it important)?

SEO competitor analysis is the practice of looking into your competitor’s SEO strategy, especially those who are doing better than you. Conducting an SEO competitor analysis is important as it will help you discover a lot of insights you can use to boost your own strategy.

You’ll be surprised at how much you can learn by simply looking under the hood of your competitor’s SEO strategy.

Some of the things you can discover are:

• SEO strategies that are working for your competitors
• What they’re doing, that you aren’t
• How difficult it is to rank for important keywords
• The traffic potential in your niche

However, the most important reason for conducting an SEO competitor analysis is to gain insight into what you can do to create an effective SEO strategy.

Before we dive into the six steps that you should take to analyze your SEO competition properly, you need to gather the right SEO tools to help you mine your competitors’ data. You’ll also need to create a spreadsheet that you’ll use to gather the data you collect.

And because there’s so much work involved, you’re better off hiring a freelance SEO or a full-time one if your organization is large enough.

With that out of the way, let’s get started.

1. Start with keyword research

Keyword research is one of the pillars of SEO.

That’s why when you conduct your competitor analysis, you must start by identifying all your important keywords. More than that, you must understand the intent behind those keywords when your audience uses them in their search queries.

The keywords you want to focus on must be powered by informational, commercial, and transactional intent.

That’s because those are usually the money keywords that result in visitors eventually going down your sales funnel.

But more on that as we discuss competitor keyword analysis.

Knowing which keywords you’re creating content around and trying to rank will play a huge role in later aspects of competitor analysis. So, the most important thing you need right now is a list of your primary keywords. We won’t go into great detail on how you can get them, but if you’re interested, check out this article on how to discover relevant keywords.

2. Identify your real competitors

While it may seem obvious, one of the first steps to conducting a competitor analysis is identifying your real SEO competitors.

Sure, you may think you know who they are, but until you dig deep into the data, you’ll be working on assumptions.

So how do you identify your real SEO competitors?

First of all, be clear on who is not your competitor. Some websites may rank for keywords that are important to you but are not in your same vertical. An example is Wikipedia. They rank for millions of terms but have no intention of monetizing any of them.

Secondly, make a distinction between your primary and secondary competitors. Primary competitors sell the exact products and services you offer and target the same audience as you. Secondary competitors are those interested in ranking for the same keywords as you (thereby creating similar content) but don’t offer the same products or services.

To get a clear picture of who your competitors really are, there are a few strategies and tools you can use. Here are some of them:

Use the SERPs

Google is always your best friend when it comes to anything SEO. Simply type in your main keywords and note which of your primary and secondary competitors rank for those keywords.

Alternatively, you can search for your product and its alternatives. The search results will give you a good picture of who your real SEO competitors are.

Use Competitor Analysis Tools

Another way to discover your real SEO competitors is to use competitor analysis tools. These will help you better understand who your real competitors are and give you the data to back it up. Examples of such tools include Ahrefs Site Explorer and SEMrush’s Competitive Research Toolkit.

To find your competitors, simply enter your domain name into your SEO tool of choice and navigate to the competing domains. You can sort the results using the common keywords tab to get a clearer picture of your closest competitors.

Once you’ve identified your real SEO competitors, it’s time to move on to the next step of your SEO competitor analysis… 

3. Benchmark competitor SEO performance

Once you’ve identified your real SEO competitors, you need to gather data and metrics about their SEO performance. The reason for that is so you can have top-level data to use to benchmark with.

Some data you should use to benchmark includes:

Domain Rating and Domain Authority

Two important metrics that you must consider two critical metrics in your competitor analysis: domain rating (DR) and domain authority (DA).

Domain Rating

DR is a metric developed by Ahrefs to show the strength of a website’s backlink profile. It uses a logarithmic scale that goes from 0 to 100. This metric is vital because backlinks play a major role in the way search engines rank websites.

When conducting your competitor analysis, compare your DR to your competitors’. If it’s lower, you will have to build more backlinks to improve your rankings. Note that you’ll probably have to work harder at building more backlinks for competitive pages.  

As you look at DR, Ahrefs will show you the backlink profiles of each of your competitors. Make sure to note the websites that you can include in your link building campaigns.

Domain Authority

Domain authority is a Moz metric developed to predict the likelihood of a website ranking on search engines. The algorithm takes into consideration many factors that search engines use to rank websites and calculates the outcome on a scale of 0 to 100.

Again, you can use your competitors’ DA scores to benchmark your own. If yours is lower, you must design a robust SEO strategy to help you catch up and overtake them.

Both DR and DA are good indicators of your starting point in improving your SEO. We’ll touch on how to improve on them later in the post as we look at other aspects of competitor analysis. For the moment, you just need a list of:

• Your real SEO competitors
• Their DR and DA scores
• Your keywords
• Potential backlink targets

Armed with this information, you can now proceed to collect more data on your competitors.

Number of Indexed Pages

Another crucial piece of data you’ll need as you conduct an SEO competitor analysis is the number of indexed pages your competitors have. To rank pages, search engines first need to find and index them.

You can use Google to easily check how many indexed pages your competitors have by searching for “site:domain”.

For example, if the Jeff Bullas blog is one of your competitors, here are the results you’ll get:

From the above screenshot, your competitor has 3,500 indexed pages. Do this for all your competitors and put the data in a spreadsheet. You can then compare the number of your indexed pages to those your competitors have.

Again, if you have fewer indexed pages than your competitors, you’ll have to create and index more content to catch up. But of course, the aim is not to catch up but to overtake your competitors. This means you’ll have to create more SEO-optimized content than them to give you a better chance of taking the top spot.

Keyword Rankings

Your competitors’ keyword rankings are another aspect of competitor analysis you must consider. You want to consider whether they’re increasing in the number of organic keywords ranking in the top 10 positions.

Again, you can use SEO tools to get this data.

Competitors who have enjoyed consistent growth in this area over the past 6-12 months are the ones you should focus on. This growth is a sign that they’re consistently creating content and working on improving their rankings.

Traffic Trends

The primary function of SEO is to drive organic traffic to your website.

That’s why checking your competitors’ traffic trends is crucial to your SEO competitor analysis. Here’s an example of PandaDoc’s traffic comparison to their competitors:

As you can see, this electronic signature software company has a lot of work to do to catch up to the prominent players on the market. So what kind of traffic metrics should they focus on as they conduct their SEO competitor analysis?

Monthly Organic Traffic

Identify competitors that are getting the most organic traffic. You can take this to a  more granular level by analyzing their traffic at the domain, subfolder, subdomain, and URL levels. This will help you identify the best traffic opportunities.

Organic Traffic Growth

Still on traffic trends, you also need to analyze your competitors’ organic traffic growth. Note whether your competitors’ traffic is:

• Growing
• Declining
• Plateauing

You’ll want to pay attention to those competitors whose traffic has been consistently growing over the past 12 months.

Traffic Value

Your competitor’s traffic value shows how their SEO strategy helps them scale traffic across commercial intent keywords. While this metric is based on traffic brought in by paid ads, it’s a valuable indicator of the revenue your competitors are getting from their traffic. 

Backlink Growth/Referring Domains

Trends in referring domains are crucial to helping you develop a backlinking strategy. Growth in this area shows that your competitors are actively building backlinks to their content.

Again, focus on competitors whose referring domain numbers are growing as it shows their link building strategy is working.

Social Media Performance

Social media plays a significant role in SEO.

For one, social signals are an indicator that content is relevant and helpful. Secondly, social media is a good vehicle for getting your content in front of the right audience. It helps drive the right traffic to your assets. Finally, a social media analysis will help you know which types of content gets the most engagement.

Analyze which social media platforms work best for your competitors and which audiences they target there. This will help you design your social media strategy around tactics that work.

Benchmarking your SEO competitors’ performance is one of the essential parts of your SEO competitor analysis. You must take your time and gather as much data as possible at this stage as it will help you create a roadmap for your SEO success.

4. Analyze your competitors’ technical SEO

Each website has its own unique digital makeup. Understanding how your competitors’ boost their SEO through their website’s technical makeup is another essential component of your SEO competitor analysis. That’s why you must make sure to use the right platform to build your website. You must also invest in good web hosting.

Let’s look at some of the crucial technical aspects you must consider in your analysis.

Site Structure

The way a website is structured is essential to SEO for two main reasons:

• Determines whether a website is easy to crawl or not
• Impacts user experience (UX)

A good site structure makes a website easy to crawl. Search engines reward this with better rankings. Things to note here include how subfolders and subdomains are structured.

UX also impacts rankings as search engines reward websites that offer a positive UX. Besides, good UX results in increased dwell time, one of the known ranking factors.

Analyzing your competitors’ website structure and navigation will help you see any structural changes you may need to make on your website to help improve its performance.

Navigation

Your navigation, especially the top-level navigation (TLN), is also an important part of your site structure. As such, it has a bearing on your SEO. A few things to consider when analyzing your competitors’ TLN include:

• Do they link to their main pages from the TLN?
• Do they use optimized anchors?
• Can users get to important pages within the prescribed minimum of 1-3 clicks?

The insights you get from your competitors’ navigation can help you design optimized menus.

Content Silos

Content silos refer to a technical SEO strategy that involves grouping together topically-related pages. This is usually done by creating a strategic internal linking strategy.

Image Source

Content silos are a great way of making it easy for search engines to crawl your website and understand your main topic. They’re also great for UX and keeping visitors on site. All these are contributing factors to how websites rank.

Analyze how your competitors’ structure their content and use the insights to optimize your site structure.

Site Speed

Site speed has been a major ranking factor for years. And will continue to be one of the elements of every technical SEO strategy. The reasons for this are that fast sites:

• Are easier to crawl
• Offer a better UX
• Have better conversion rates and fewer bounce rates

Analyzing your competitors’ site speeds will help you gain insight into how they optimize for speed. You’ll have an idea of the changes you can make to your site to make it faster.

Mobile-friendliness

It may be a song that has been sung to death, but yes, mobile-friendliness is still an important design and SEO issue.

With Google’s mobile-first indexing policy, no serious business can ignore the need to have a mobile-friendly website.

Again, checking for mobile-friendliness is easy as you can use Google’s free Mobile-Friendly Test to check if your competitors’ websites are mobile-friendly.

But mobile-friendliness is not just for the sake of making search engines happy. Statistics show that mobile accounts for about 56% of all organic traffic in the US. This means even customers expect to have good mobile experiences websites.

With all this data on your competitors’ technical SEO, you’ll have a clear picture of their strengths and weaknesses. Most importantly, you’ll have an idea of opportunities to capitalize on to give yourself an edge.

5. On-page competitor SEO analysis

Another step you must take in your SEO competitor analysis is to check your competitors’ on-page SEO strategy and performance. This will include elements such as:

Competitor Keyword Research

Competitor keyword research is the practice of analyzing your competitors’ keywords. The point is to identify keywords that your competitors’ are ranking for, but you are not. Take particular note of keywords that are valuable and that you can rank for. You should also pay attention to keywords you’re ranking for, yet you’re still lagging behind your competitors.

Besides primary keywords, you must also look into your competitors’ secondary keywords. These are keywords that add more context to your primary keywords and are usually related to search intent. Search intent refers to one of the four reasons a user is using that particular keyword in their search query:

• Navigational intent. This is when users want to go to a particular website or page. An example of navigational intent is “online course platform Teachable.”
• Informational intent. When a user wants to know more about a certain product, service, or topic. For example, “online course platforms.”
• Commercial intent. This is when a user intends to buy a product/service soon but are still researching their purchase. For example, “What is the best SEO Tool?” Here is a live example.
• Transactional intent. People searching with transactional intent are ready to make a purchase. A good example would be “Thinkific online course platform subscription.”

To create web pages and content that meet your business needs, you must leverage keywords and search intent together. Check how your competitors’ are doing this and get some tips from their keyword strategy.

Top-performing Content

Content plays a crucial role in SEO.

That’s why you must analyze your competitors’ top-performing content. Top-performing content simply means content that drives traffic as well as converts well. When analyzing your competitors top-performing content, look for attributes like:

Content Type

Of your competitors’ top-performing content, check which content types work best. Is it:

• Long-form vs. short-form articles
• Listicles
• Reviews
• Informational content
• How-to guides
• eBooks
• “Best of” or comparison articles
• Product pages

Content Format

Apart from content type, you must also investigate the content formats that work best for your competitors. Common content formats include:

• Written content
• Video content
• Audio content
• Visual content (like infographics)

Content Length

Average content length also plays an important role in rankings. Search engines want to serve users content that’s as comprehensive as possible. When analyzing your competitors’ top-performing content, take note of the average length. To create content that ranks, apply Brian Dean’s skyscraper technique and create longer, in-depth, and higher quality content.

The purpose of this step of your SEO competitor analysis is not just to copy the content your competitors are creating. The objective is to know what kind of content you should be creating — then create better content than your competitors.

Internal Linking

Internal links are part of a successful on-page SEO strategy. Building internal links has three important SEO benefits:

• Help users navigate a website
• Define the information architecture and hierarchy of a website
• Help distributes link equity throughout the site

Despite popular belief, you don’t build internal links randomly. There must be a well-defined strategy if you’re to reap the full SEO benefits of your internal links. That’s why it’s a good idea to analyze your competitors’ websites to see how they create their internal links.

With your on-page competitor analysis done, you can now move on to the next step of your SEO competitor analysis — off-page competitor analysis.

6. Off-page competitor SEO analysis

Off-page SEO refers to all activities away from your site that help improve a website’s search rankings. The most common are link building and other promotion strategies that help drive traffic to your website. However, link building is still one of the most significant off-page activities that websites rely on to boost rankings.

And that’s why you must conduct a thorough competitor backlink analysis as part of your SEO competitor analysis.

Let’s face it. Ranking without backlinks is almost impossible.

And obtaining relevant quality backlinks can be quite a daunting task if you don’t know where to get them.

And that’s where SEO competitor analysis comes to the rescue.

Looking into your competitors’ backlink profile will help you know:

• Websites that could potentially link your content
• The type of content and pages that work best as link “magnets”
• Identify link building strategies that work
• Gauge how many links you need to build and the timeframe you need to build them in to be competitive

One observation that will help boost your link acquisition is websites that link multiple times to your competitors. It’s a sign that they create content related to your niche and are always on the lookout for resources to link to.

Don’t be intimidated if you find some of your competitors get thousands of links from the same domains or networks. It simply shows they use risky link building tactics like PBNs. Don’t try the same tactics as search engines frown on such tactics.

Looking into your competitors’ backlink profile can’t be done manually, of course. But a good SEO tool can give you all the data you need in a matter of minutes. And once you have the data, you can use it to build your link building strategy.

SEO competitor analysis – Putting it all together

All the data you’ve gathered from your SEO competitor analysis is not the end of the journey. It’s simply a means to an end. Your results and data collected are simply the foundation for the next phase of your task – mapping out your SEO strategy.

Armed with data on your competitors’ strengths, weaknesses, and industry SEO best practices, you can now devise an SEO strategy that’s bound to help you beat your competitors.  

But remember, an SEO competitor analysis is never a once-off project. You must conduct them regularly to help you stay ahead of your competition.

Guest author: Hanson Cheng is the founder of Freedom to Ascend. He empowers online entrepreneurs and business owners to 10x their business and become financially independent. You can connect with him here.

The post How to Do an In-Depth SEO Competitor Analysis in 6 Steps appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.

source https://www.jeffbullas.com/seo-competitor-analysis/

The Best Sites to Buy Instagram Followers (Instant, Cheap, and Real)

The world wide web has developed over the last few decades to open up so many opportunities and networks that would have otherwise been untapped. Social media has taken those possibilities and expanded them tenfold.

Instagram allows brands, businesses, creators, influencers, public figures, and more to maximize the potential that the internet gives and connect with 2 billion monthly active users on a global scale.

Whether you’re looking to connect with more potential clients, sponsors, fans, or users, you definitely have that chance through the use of Instagram and the development of a successful and reputable profile.

In fact, most people on the internet these days use Instagram as a way to check someone’s validity and authority in a particular field, which is why it’s no surprise that people are actively looking to gain more real Instagram followers.

If you’ve been on Instagram for a while, however, you know that this is no easy task, and doing it yourself can take a huge amount of time, effort, and dedication. A lot of people don’t have time to wait, seeking alternative methods and tools to help them grow their follower count.

Buying Instagram followers isn’t something new, and it is still a viable option to help supercharge your Instagram when done correctly. It can be tough to figure out where to start and how to work it into your strategy, but that’s why we’re bringing you this article today.

After you read our comprehensive Instagram follower guide, you’ll understand:

• Why people buy Instagram followers
• Why Instagram follower quality matters
• Organic growth vs packaged followers
• 12 top sites to buy Instagram followers from
• 10 pro tips for an Instagram follower growth strategy
• How to choose the right Instagram growth company
• FAQs about buying Instagram followers

There are a lot of things to consider when making the choice to buy followers for Instagram, and we’re sure that once you finish reading our guide that you’ll know exactly what steps you need to take to get more Instagram followers as quickly as possible.

Let’s get started!

Why do people buy Instagram followers?

Since Instagram became popular, follower count has been one of the top indicators of popularity on the platform. For this reason, it’s no surprise that people are constantly looking for the best way to gain more Instagram followers and get their content seen by more people.

Buying Instagram followers became popular pretty soon after Instagram blew up as a heavy-hitting social media platform, but it then dropped off and became kind of taboo.

For years companies have been improving their offering in terms of Instagram growth and have been finding better ways to help users gain more Instagram followers. Now is one of the best times to buy Instagram followers and see your numbers increase.

One reason that people buy Instagram followers is that they simply don’t have time to engage with users on the platform. It would be great to spend hours a day engaging with users in your target audience and trying to build more visibility for your profile, but with this huge time commitment, it’s no surprise that people are opting for a third party to take care of it for them.

Another reason is that some users are just starting out on Instagram and they want to create a solid foundation from which to grow. It’s a lot harder to attract more followers when you only have 10, to begin with as opposed to starting out with a solid 1,000.

Finally, people buy Instagram followers because it helps them to break through the plateau that they may have hit and start getting their content seen by more people, helping to increase their overall business performance.

If you are an influencer, you may also buy followers so that you can appear to be more popular and have a large audience that will bring your sponsors or brand partners better results.

No matter the reason, buying Instagram followers is still very much a widely-used practice, and when done right, you can see great results from it.

Not all Instagram followers are created equal, however, and the key is to find a company that can provide you with real, active Instagram followers.

Why follower quality matters

If follower count is just a number, why does Instagram follower quality matter, anyway? There are a couple of key reasons that you’ll want to keep in mind, so don’t just buy any random Instagram followers. Fake followers can actually hurt your account.

Always buy from companies who provide high-quality Instagram followers and you’ll be good to go.

Here are some of the top reasons why you need real Instagram followers:

• Real people bring real results: If you have real Instagram followers, it can help your profile’s reputation increase. If you have a bunch of fake followers with no profile pic and weird usernames, your account will look sketchy and your reputation will actually suffer. The more real followers you have, the more real followers you’re likely to attract.
• Instagram removes fake followers: Instagram protects the integrity of their platform by cleaning it out on a regular basis; if they identify users as fakes or bots, they’ll remove them from the platform. So, you need to buy high-quality ones that aren’t going to disappear.
• More engagement: The true indicator of Instagram success is actually engagement, and if you don’t have enough to match up to your follower count, your reputation will be on shaky ground. You need a healthy follower-to-engagement ratio, and having more real followers will help you have better engagement levels.

When you have real followers who care about your content and see it in their feed, your account will remain healthy and will continually grow over time – this is the goal.

Let’s talk a bit more about Instagram followers and how the Instagram algorithm works.

Defining the Instagram algorithm

The Instagram algorithm used to work based on follower count, meaning that the more followers you had, the more popular you were. However, since Instagram realized how easy it was to fortify follower count with fakes and bots, they changed up their algorithm.

It makes total sense – if your photo gets a lot of likes and comments, it’s clearly well-liked by the community, and thus it’s seen as valuable and popular. When you have high engagement, it will be shown to more users, and could even be featured on the “explore” page or on hashtag feeds.

What’s more, when your followers engage with your content on a regular basis, it will be shown to these followers more often, getting you more consistent levels of engagement and increasing the chances that users will share your content.

Engagement is key to having good performance against the Instagram algorithm, and if you only buy low-quality Instagram followers and don’t successfully build your audience and engagement, you’re going to struggle to perpetuate real growth.

You can buy Instagram followers from some companies and see great results, and others are really pretty marginal. Make the right choice when buying Instagram followers and keep your account healthy.

In terms of Instagram followers, there are two main company models that you can choose from – organic Instagram growth services and follower packages. We’ll discuss each one below so you can choose the best option for you.

Organic growth vs. packaged followers

When deciding what type of Instagram followers you want to buy, you’ll have to first choose between organic growth services and packaged followers. Let’s explore them each in more detail.

Packaged Instagram Followers

This was the first type of Instagram follower made available for purchase and is still available today in varying quality. Instagram companies offer set numbers of Instagram followers with a simple one-time checkout process and then deliver the quantity you ordered.

You’ll normally find them in packages of hundreds to thousands of followers and the quality is anywhere from very fake, to high-quality and real. You’ll have to make sure that you review the company and see what type of followers they offer and what you can expect when you buy from them.

Organic Instagram Growth

Organic Instagram growth is a much better way to grow your real follower count. Think of it as if you were engaging with users in your target audience and using real and human ways to get more Instagram followers.

This is exactly what the company will do for you, so it’s basically like outsourcing your Instagram growth, saving you time and allowing you to focus on your content and other elements of Instagram.

It’s a more long-term strategy that takes a bit longer but also brings better results since these services will reach out to real users in your target audience to get you more followers that will actually care about your content.

Which to Choose?

Both are viable options for Instagram growth, but if you’re looking for a service that will be a more long-term solution for Instagram follower growth, organic methods are much better.

Packaged followers can be a good way to get an infusion now and then and get your growth moving, but it’s not typically a strategy that can last over time and may get you into a vicious cycle of buying followers and engagements and followers and engagements.

You can find companies that excel in both organic Instagram services as well as selling packaged followers, you just have to choose the right one. We’re bringing you the top 12 companies to buy Instagram followers from below, so you’ll have a much better idea of what will work for you.

Top 12 sites to buy Instagram followers 

Choosing the right company to buy Instagram followers from is the key to your success. The companies below provide you with options that include organic Instagram growth services, engagement services, as well as bulk follower and engagement packages.

All of these companies are reputable and have been around for years, so you can check them out with confidence and know that they can all help you with growing your Instagram followers.

We’ll give you a snapshot of each company with some key features and what you can expect when you use their services.

1. Growthoid

The top organic Instagram growth service on the market, Growthoid has helped countless clients to get Instagram followers in their target audience. They have changed the way companies think about Instagram growth.

Growthoid uses engagement techniques just like you would do on your own and they delegate all of your Instagram growth to their dedicated account managers. When you sign up, you provide your account manager with your advanced targets and they’ll get to work diligently identifying the best potential followers for you.

You’ll gain more real Instagram followers through Growthoid that will actually engage with your content, allowing you to reach your goals through Instagram and grow your business, creative endeavors, or brand partnerships.

Growthoid works in all niches, has flexible monthly plan options, and even backs its service up with a 14-day money-back guarantee. Their service team and account managers are the top in the industry. You can’t go wrong with Growthoid and their testimonials prove it!

2. MoreLikes

When you’re looking to grow both your real Instagram followers as well as your likes, MoreLikes is the top choice and offers you the best options for auto-likes on the market. Their unique and straightforward service definitely sets them apart.

You can buy Instagram followers ranging from numbers such as 100 all the way up to 25k. They are real users with real accounts so you don’t have to worry about any fakes or bots.

What’s even better is that they have an awesome auto-likes service that allows your posts to gain more notoriety from the very beginning with a set amount of likes from real users after you post it. You can choose the speed and they’ll even apply 5-10% more likes once in a while to keep your account looking natural.

MoreLikes has a great website with really a really simple sign-up process. They can no doubt get your Instagram performance up to par and help you compete with other users in your niche! 

3. Growthsilo

Looking for more real followers that are interested in your niche’s content? Growthsilo can help you grow your real follower count with their fully-managed service for Instagram.

They don’t sell simple packages of followers – Growthsilo’s account managers will follow your targeting instructions to engage with users that are most like people you want to follow your account. Using some of the most advanced targeting options on the market, Growthsilo will get you the results you need to grow your Instagram.

They have a really straightforward and transparent service that is easy to use and budget-friendly; they also have a money-back guarantee if you’re not satisfied, so you can use their service with peace of mind that you’ll be taken care of.

4. UseViral

UseViral is a great option for those who like to be protected because all of their orders are backed by a lifetime warranty, which means if you lose any followers, they’ll help you replace them.

You have a lot of freedom in choosing exactly how many Instagram followers you want to buy with their selection slider too, fitting pretty much any need for any account. You’ll be able to get between 100 to 100k followers through UseViral.

UseViral has great ratings and offers a variety of different other social media services, so you can get valuable and well-rounded growth for a variety of Instagram elements as well as other social media platforms.

5. SidesMedia

With packages for Instagram followers, likes, views, and comments, SidesMedia can offer you a variety of quantities of Instagram followers at reasonable prices. They claim to offer real and stable followers for your Instagram account.

These are worldwide followers, so you won’t be able to target them by country, but if your endeavor isn’t affected by that, you shouldn’t have a problem. You also have the ability to chat with their support team right on the website if you have questions when purchasing.

6. Task Ant

Hashtags are very important for Instagram, and if you want to gain more real Instagram followers, you’re going to need a solid hashtag strategy.

Task Ant allows you to generate the hashtags that are most effective for your niche and will help you get more real followers through their highly accurate and verified service. You can organize your hashtags, create hashtag sets, filter your searches, and much more.

There is no hashtag generator out there that can beat the functionality and features of Task Ant, and with a variety of affordable monthly options, you don’t want to find yourself without their service! Hashtag follower growth has literally never been easier.

7. StormLikes 

StormLikes is an Instagram-exclusive growth service that has no other options for platforms other than Instagram. With their Instagram growth packages, you can get Instagram followers, likes, and views.

When you boost all of these together your account looks a lot more powerful, so it can be a good idea to do a few packages at once so your overall performance is stronger.

You can choose between 100 followers to 25,000 followers, so pretty much any need can be satisfied, and you can also choose from high-quality or premium followers. 

8. Likes.io

Need more Instagram followers and likes? Likes.io never disappoints! You can buy Instagram followers, likes, as well as auto-likes through their company at great prices with reliable service delivery.

Likes.io makes the checkout process really easy and straightforward, and you can have your followers on your way in just a short while. You can get up to 25,000 followers through Likes.io and they have only real followers from real people.

Your options for delivery include both instant as well as gradual.

9. Social Viral

If you’re just looking to start with a few followers to test the waters, Social Viral is a great option because their smallest package starts at just 50 followers. They cater to bigger needs as well and can offer you as many as 5,000 Instagram followers.

This is a balanced way to get more Instagram followers; they’re all high quality and Social Viral never requires your password so you’ll stay completely safe when you use their service.

10. Media Mister

One of the oldest companies in the Instagram follower game, Media Mister offers a multitude of growth options for Instagram, including follower packages that you can buy with a bunch of different ways to customize them.

You can choose anywhere from $2 to $200, and you can buy normal followers, ad followers, or country-targeted followers (not all countries available). They have pretty much any other engagement that you can imagine for Instagram as well.

If you need to grow multiple social media networks at once, Media Mister doesn’t disappoint. They offer high-quality services at a good price with safe delivery timeframes and never require your password. 

11. Nitreo  

A reliable option that has been around for quite some time, Nitreo is a service that allows you to input your target options and connect with more followers that may be interested in your content. Their service doesn’t go based on packages but is rather an organic growth service.

Nitreo engages with accounts to get you more attention on your profile and get more users following you. They’ve had a lot of happy clients in the past and have helped many users reach their Instagram goals.

12. GrabLikes

Our final company for buying Instagram followers is one that provides reliable growth for both Instagram followers as well as Instagram likes – GrabLikes. GrabLikes has been around for quite a while and has built up its reputation.

Their service is simple and straightforward; you can buy anywhere from 500-10,000 Instagram followers on their site. They offer safe drip delivery of their premium followers and they spread it out over days so that you are protected. They have 24/7 support for their service if you have any questions.

10 Pro tips to get more real Instagram followers

Using an Instagram growth service to help you gain more real followers is definitely one of the best things you can do to amp up your growth, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only thing that you should do if you really want to be successful.

Implementing your own Instagram strategies should always be a priority one so that you can optimize your results and build something that will stand the test of time and continue to grow.

It’s all too common for Instagrammers who are looking for a shortcut to use an Instagram growth service and then stop putting time and effort into their account. Not surprisingly they don’t see great results and then blame the growth service for what they’re lacking.

If you are gaining more views from real users but your content doesn’t keep them hooked and interested in your account, you aren’t going to gain more followers and even if you do, they won’t stick around.

Don’t get complacent and don’t give up on your Instagram strategy – growth service or not, it’s really important that you’re always putting your best foot forward and using a variety of tactics to stay competitive.

For that reason, we’ve included the top 10 pro Instagram tips to get more real followers on Instagram and give yourself a leg up on your competition. Use a growth service and combine it with the tips below, and you’ll be unstoppable!

1. Bio Optimization

When a user lands on your Instagram profile, the first thing they’re going to see is your bio. This includes your profile picture and all of the information that you can find below it.

In order to gain more followers, you absolutely must have a well-created and attractive Instagram bio. This is what tells users who you are, what you’re about, and whether or not they’ll gain something valuable from your account.

They’ll check out your bio and then take a quick look at your profile imagery and aesthetic, so the better you can coordinate the two, the more organized and professional your Instagram will look.

You should first set your profile to a business or creator profile so that way you’ll have access to a couple of additional features, such as contact information and call-to-action buttons that regular users don’t have.

Once you’ve done that, you should choose an Instagram photo that is high-quality and clearly represents your brand, business, or image. That way, people will visually see what you represent and how they can identify with you.

In addition, you should write something witty, interesting, and/or informational about you or your business so that people know what you’re about and what to expect from your page.

If you have any external links that you want to funnel people to, place it in your bio because that’s the only place you can have a clickable link on Instagram. If you have multiple, use a tool like Linktree, AllMyLinks, Later, or another service that can help you with an attractive way to store all of your links for Instagram in one place.

Finally, don’t forget to take advantage of Instagram story highlights and pin relevant Instagram stories to your profile with on-brand album covers for an even more professional aesthetic.

2. Engage in the Community

One of the most important qualities for a successful Instagram account is authenticity, and you can help to build this while reaching more people through engaging with users on Instagram in your community.

One thing you can do is to comment on your followers’ posts, respond to their comments, and always engage them in your stories and Instagram live broadcasts.

You can also visit profiles in your niche and participate in conversations, leave comments on posts from other accounts, and get your name out there. When you do that, not only are you engaging with users in your community but you’re also boosting visibility for your profile.

You should avoid using overly general comments; really comment something interesting and substantial so that people see that you’re real and that you’re available and engaged on Instagram.

This will boost your authenticity and credibility, prompting more people to check out your profile and hopefully follow you. 

3. Focus on Your Content 

As much as people would like a quick answer to gaining more Instagram followers, the true potential of your Instagram lies in your content, plain and simple.

Instagram started as a way to share photos with friends and family, and while the network is a lot bigger now, it’s ultimately still about sharing and offering a window into our lives and into our personal images, businesses, brands, art, and more.

For that reason, your content is the defining factor in your Instagram success. If your content is low-quality, random, or lackluster, you’re not likely to gain more followers. What’s more, if you become spammy or annoying, you’re likely to lose followers.

This happens commonly with meme accounts – people follow because the memes are really funny and entertaining, but then all of a sudden they’ll start to see a bunch of annoying posts advertising some off-the-wall product that they have absolutely no interest in seeing.

This is when they check out what profile is posting this, and then unfollow. You don’t want this to happen – always know what your audience wants and what’s going to keep them around. That’s not to say you can’t advertise, and if you’re an affiliate marketer, you’ll have to, but you need to find ways that won’t push your followers to leave you in the dust.

You should always define your content pillars so that people can look at your content and know what to expect. Also, use a variety of different Instagram content types such as regular photos, carousel posts, IGTV, videos, reels, and stories. Be innovative and professional with your content.

Finally, you may want to consider creating a content shooting schedule so that you’ll get all of your shooting done during one time, and then you can edit it and plan it out so it all looks best as you release it. The better you can stay organized the more success you’ll have in ensuring you put out high-quality content.

You can consider using a visual scheduler like Later or Sprout Social to help you check out how everything will look before you post it.

4. Use Instagram Stories 

Instagram stories are the most popular feature on Instagram, and without them, your profile looks dull and inactive. Users have increased their time on the platform by an average of 28 minutes through the use of Instagram stories, so you have no reason not to participate.

Instagram stories allow you to give users a more personal connection to you and your brand, and you can even promote more engagement with users and followers because Instagram stories offer you a variety of engaging features that make it easy for users to engage with your content.

There are features such as polls, questions, ranking sliders, and quizzes to get your followers to interact with your content. You can use this to your advantage and do your own market research to find out what your followers want to see more of.

The potential that Instagram stories hold is huge – don’t miss out on this feature. When you have an active story a colored ring will appear around your profile pic, giving users another reason to check out your profile.

In addition, all of your past stories can be pinned to your main profile page as Instagram story highlights, giving you more content and more visuals for your profile page. Awesome.

5. Hashtag Strategy 

Hashtags were first used on Twitter in 2007 and now they are the official symbol of content discoverability across all social media networks, including Instagram. Using hashtags on Instagram can help to get your content out to more people.

When you use a hashtag on Instagram it will put your post into a feed of posts that use that hashtag; users who follow that hashtag or search that hashtag will come across your post, thus gaining your content more reach and visibility.

Tip: Keep your profile set to public so that you can get as much reach as possible; if it’s not set to public, you won’t appear in hashtag feeds to anyone who doesn’t already follow you.

The best thing you can do for your hashtag strategy is to use a hashtag generator like Task Ant to help you choose the right tags that will get your content noticed by users who actually care about your content.

Avoid using overly general hashtags like #love or #instagood because these hashtags are basically a waste; too many posts are uploaded every minute to get your content noticed, and they’re used across so many different niches that you’re not going to get many targeted users that are specific to your own niche.

Hashtags hold a lot of potential in gaining more followers, so take advantage of them. You can place them in your caption, below your caption, or even in the first comment, and you can use up to 30; it’s generally agreed that anywhere between 4-11 hashtags brings optimal reach and won’t spam your posts with hashtags.

6. Host a Giveaway

You should aim to host a giveaway every now and then because using this tool can help you to gain a healthy infusion of followers and also boost your engagement, getting your content more natural reach.

You’ll need to choose a prize that is valuable to your niche – don’t choose something that nobody really cares much about, but don’t choose something that pretty much anyone would want because then you’ll get a lot of followers that may never care about your content again.

Choosing a prize directed at your own target audience is the best thing to do. Then, set some rules for people to gain entry to the giveaway. Common qualifications include following you, liking the post, and tagging a friend or two.

You can also do collaborative giveaways between one or two other accounts; this helps you all to take advantage of each other’s audiences and gain more followers even still.

While you can’t do a giveaway all the time, doing them now and then can drastically help your account and give it a welcome infusion of engagement and new followers.

7. Do Collabs 

As with the collaborative giveaway, doing collabs for your content, stories, IG live broadcasts, and post sharing can help you reach more people in your target audience.

If you use credible collab partners, you’ll also gain more reputation for yourself and people will give you more authority in your niche. Always network with people and competitors in your niche so you can find who you click with and both of you can benefit from the audience of each other. 

8. Cross-Promote Your Instagram

The average internet user has roughly 8 social media profiles these days, so you need to take advantage of other networks to promote your Instagram content.

Not only will you be able to reach more people and get new users directed over to your Instagram, you can also further solidify your reputation and presence in your niche. When you have many well-developed social media platforms, your credibility grows.

In addition to promoting your content across different platforms, you should also include your handle or click-through icons on your website as well as any email communication. 

9. Create Authentic Captions

When you use well-written and thoughtful captions, you allow your followers and IG users to connect with your content and see what your content means and where you stand on a variety of different topics.

Social media is about connection, so when you can get people to connect with your posts both through the visuals as well as the text, you will never be hurting for followers.

Another tip for captions is to use a call-to-action. Ask your followers a question and tell them to respond in the comments, or ask them to tag a friend. There are endless options for being creative and getting your users excited about your content and responding to you in the comments.

10. Stay on Top of Trends  

As with any other social network, trends are what drives the content and conversations, so it’s only logical that you stay current with news, topics, and trending challenges or content types. That way you can stay relevant and also show your take on social issues or relevant topics.

More and more consumers are supporting businesses that not only have great products but align with their beliefs, so giving insight to where you stand on issues can help you to identify with your followers even more.

Just remember Instagram doesn’t allow bullying or hate speech of any kind, so always stay professional and inclusive.

How to buy Instagram followers

Now that you’ve got the 10 pro tips under your belt, hopefully, you’ve decided on which site will work best for your Instagram follower growth.

If you’re still not sure or are considering a company that you didn’t find on this list, or you want to verify the legitimacy of the ones that we mentioned, the following criteria can help you do just that.

It’s always a good idea to be diligent in doing your research and get a first hand view of what companies offer you so that you know exactly what you’re paying for and have a clear idea of how the service is going to work for you.

In order to evaluate a company before you buy Instagram followers, you should look for the six elements below which can help you determine if it’s a worthy investment or if the company is likely out for their own benefit and nothing more.

High-Quality Instagram Followers

One of the most important things that you need to look for when choosing a company to buy Instagram followers from is the quality of the followers they’re offering.

There are a variety of different qualities out there, and some companies even offer a choice between high-quality and premium followers.

You want to avoid companies that send out a bunch of fake followers because Instagram will remove those over time; Instagram frequently clears out accounts that aren’t real, so you’ll end up losing those followers.

Not only that you won’t see any real Instagram growth when you buy low-quality, fake followers because they will never engage with your content and they won’t promote any real growth. Users can tell when you have a bunch of fake followers and this doesn’t help you look reputable at all.

Using an Instagram growth service can help you avoid this problem because they will help to get your account noticed by real Instagram users, so they are often a more sustainable method of growth.

If you do buy packaged followers, keep in mind that these followers should at least look real so that they won’t be flagged by Instagram as fake and later removed. Even better if the company has a network of real users that will follow you.

There are a lot of options out there so just make sure you choose one that will get you real or high-quality followers that won’t disappear or damage the quality of your account over time.

Delivery Time

Another important factor when choosing a company, delivery time will affect your account health as well as how quickly your account begins to grow.

When you buy packaged followers, you usually have two different types of delivery – instant and drip. They are both different and have different implications for your account.

Instant delivery is basically exactly as it sounds. You’ll complete your order and your followers will be delivered shortly thereafter. While this seems really great and can be pretty exciting, it’s not necessarily the best for your account.

If the quantity is small, it can be alright, but if you’re ordering larger packages, you should look for companies that protect your account safety through drip delivery. This means that depending on the size of your order your follower delivery will be spread out over a period of time so that things are more natural and you won’t flag any of the Instagram indicators.

If you are buying from an Instagram growth service, you won’t see any followers delivered to your account in one fell swoop as these types of services work over a period of time naturally. They are organic, so you won’t see any specific time frames, but you won’t have to worry about it because these followers are real and that means your account will always remain healthy.

Detailed Website and FAQ Section

The more information you have about a company and its operation, the better. It’s not uncommon for companies to try to fill up their website with a bunch of attractive phrases and buzzwords and try to pull the wool over people’s eyes.

You should always look for real, substantial information that gives you an insight into the quality of the service, how the service is provided, and what you can expect when you use the service. If there isn’t much information or are left with questions, the company is not a good option.

Even if you are left with questions after looking at a website, you should still look to see if they have a FAQ section; any good Instagram growth service will have a FAQ that can answer the most common questions about their service and help to give additional details.

If a company doesn’t have a thorough FAQ, it’s a really bad sign that their service doesn’t work right and they have little to no support for their clients in the event that something isn’t working right.

You should also see what information they have available about their refund policies as well as service policies so that you’re well aware of how things work and aren’t left surprised later.

Secure Website

The last thing you want is to put you or your data at risk, and while most companies abide by security best practices, there are some out there that don’t, and those are ones you want to avoid at all cost.

When you visit a website that is secure, you’ll see a lock in the top left corner in front of the web address. You should always look for that lock. If the website doesn’t have that lock or alerts you that the website is not secure, always navigate away.

If you decide to continue to the website, your data and your device can be vulnerable to attack or invasion and that’s something you definitely don’t want. Since these services often need your payment information and some basic data, they should be secure.

Also check out their payment gateways and make sure they’re reputable and secure as well; you don’t want your payment information being compromised.

Ultimately the security of a website speaks to the quality of the service – if the company couldn’t even secure its website, what are the chances that the services and Instagram followers are actually something valuable for your account?

Real Client Testimonials

It’s all too common to see websites with a bunch of fake reviews, and sometimes you can even see them so blatantly fake that it’s insulting!

We’ve seen websites that have the same photo for every single review user, and they go through 3 different people and repeat over and over again. This is not only terrible, it’s lazy and quite frankly pretty pathetic.

Of course you should always take reviews with a grain of salt on any website (after all, who is going to highlight their negative publicity?), but always browse through the reviews and see what you can find.

Are they really clearly fake? Are they overly generic? What type of things do the reviews say about the company? It can still be a great way to get a general idea of what kind of results you can expect and whether or not the company is a good choice.

You can also take a look at other review articles online to see about the reputation of a company, and perhaps different forums or discussion boards that review the services.

No Bots or Automation

One thing you definitely want to avoid is using Instagram bots or automation services to get more real followers. There is some automation for Instagram, such as post scheduling, analytics, hashtag generation, as well as auto-like services, but for engaging with users such as follow/unfollow, liking and commenting, and sending DMs, it’s strictly prohibited.

Don’t use bots to do these types of actions and don’t buy followers from companies that send you fakes or bots. This will jeopardize your account credibility, turn off potential new followers, as well as get you in trouble with Instagram itself. Don’t risk it – there are still companies out there that will try to sell you on it, but it’s best avoided for Instagram follower growth.

Pros and cons of buying Instagram followers

Buying Instagram followers is something that anyone who is trying to gain more notoriety for their profile has likely considered; even still, it can be a difficult decision to make. Is it right for you?

As with anything in life, buying Instagram followers has pros and cons. We’re going to break down some of those pros and cons so that you can get a clear snapshot of what buying Instagram followers can do for you and whether or not it’s something that may be beneficial.

If you’re really trying to gain more Instagram followers and boost your performance, using companies that can help you attract more people is always a good idea. Let’s take a look at the benefits and downsides.

Pros

• Speed up Instagram growth: when you buy Instagram followers, it’s no surprise that it will help you speed up Instagram growth. Obviously you’ll be getting an influx of followers, but it’s not just that— when you buy followers you can increase the speed of your growth in general because you will have more social proof and you will start to perform better against the Instagram algorithm, getting you better reach.
• More followers bring more followers: it’s a strange phenomenon, but one that is based around the idea of social cred. When you have more followers, you’ll gain more followers— people want to be part of a successful and well-liked community, and when you have a lot of followers, people will be more likely to hit that follow button. It may be the deciding factor as to whether or not they decide to follow you.
• Engagement: If you have more real followers, you’ll also gain more engagement, which will help you perform well against the Instagram algorithm. If you have a lot of followers that engage with and look at your post, it will appear higher on their Instagram feed, getting it seen by more people and encouraging engagement. This will help your performance overall so it’s a great benefit.
• Recommendations and shares: the more followers you have, the more shares you can possibly gain. If people love what you’re posting, connect with your message, love your products, or want to show someone what you’re about, they’ll share it, so having more followers increases this possibility.
• Build more authority: having more Instagram followers helps your profile to look more credible and ultimately gets you more authority in your niche. If you have a lot of people who follow you and value your content, you’ll start to carve out a reputation for yourself on Instagram and can then become a top competitor in your niche.

Cons

• Many fake companies out there: it’s no easy task to sift through all of the different companies out there and see which ones might actually be a benefit to you. Not only that, it’s unfortunate that some companies target Instagram users who are genuinely looking for help and they get taken advantage of by companies who don’t provide anything of value. While this shouldn’t prevent you from buying Instagram followers, you should always be skeptical and critical when making a decision on what company to partner with.
• Can become a cycle: too often people want an overnight secret to Instagram fame and expect to just buy followers and then gain the popularity they want. This can be a big downside for those who get stuck in the cycle of buying followers. Avoid this by doing it only as a means to an end; it shouldn’t be your only strategy and really not even your principal one.

Overall, buying Instagram followers or using an Instagram growth service is almost always a good idea as long as you use a critical eye when choosing the company and keep implementing your own strategies for content, captions, and hashtags.

FAQs about buying Instagram followers

We’re sure by now you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed with information and are super motivated to get more Instagram followers, but perhaps still have a few questions.

Before we let you go, we’re going to answer the top 5 questions that people have in regard to buying Instagram followers. Since your Instagram is a really important factor in your business or brand reputation, we totally get that you want to be thorough in your understanding of buying followers.

And that’s a good thing – the more information you have when making a decision about buying Instagram followers, the better. You should always understand the process exactly and know-how companies will work (or not) to get you more real IG followers.

Let’s check out the five top questions.

Do All Companies Sell the Same Instagram Followers?

If only it were that simple! Then you wouldn’t have to spend so much time and energy looking through company websites and trying to figure out which companies will actually help your Instagram.

All of the companies we listed in this article have been around for quite a while and have a good reputation from clients on the web, but there’s no doubt that some companies out there want to sell you something that they actually can’t provide.

Unfortunately when you see companies out there that offer really low prices or seem to be providing a service that promises more for less in comparison to other companies’ similar packages, they are likely going to leave you disappointed and pollute your account with fake followers.

It’s a big problem when you have a lot of fake followers because it damages your reputation, can make you look spammy and desperate, and will also throw off your follower to engagement ratio.

Also, if bots make their way onto your profile, it will not only bring a bunch of bots that lower the quality of your account but it can even lose you followers; these bots may also cause other users to be turned off by your profile and leave your account, ultimately doing much more harm than good.

It’s so important to make sure that you buy from a company that can provide you with real and valuable high-quality Instagram followers so that your account isn’t damaged, you can perpetuate more real growth over time, and you won’t find yourself in any hot water with Instagram.

Does Buying Instagram Followers Work?

Yes, buying Instagram followers can be an excellent supplement to your Instagram growth! It definitely works and you just have to be intelligent when choosing the company to work with.

Instagram growth services like Growthoid, More Likes, and Growthsilo are great options because they focus on bringing you more natural reach and getting more real users in your niche looking at your content.

This is really valuable because while they’re not going to deliver a set number of Instagram followers, you’ll know that you’re gaining real attention for your profile and will bring you more valuable results in the end.

Buying packages of followers can also be a viable option but this should be used sparingly and should only be used to encourage more growth and get people noticing you; never should you stop working on your Instagram strategy.

People who make it big on Instagram and reach their goals aren’t those who simply buy followers and call it quits – buying Instagram followers is a great way to get more growth, but it shouldn’t be your only plan.

Is it Safe to Buy Instagram Followers?

Again, a lot of this really depends on what company you decide to go with, but usually it’s totally safe to buy Instagram followers because companies know how strict Instagram can be.

If companies don’t comply with the rules set forth by Instagram, they’ll be forced to shut down, so most companies will do what they can to keep your account safe. This goes for the companies that we listed here in our guide.

You should still always check to make sure that companies work to keep your account secure and Instagram compliant. Make sure that they aren’t using any bots or fake follower engagement strategies.

What’s more, you should always ensure that packaged Instagram followers are delivered at a drip rate, which means not immediately. This ensures that you don’t get flagged by Instagram; if you buy 5000 followers and they’re all delivered at once, this can seem suspicious.

In order to keep your account safe, it’s better to go with a slower, more natural delivery rate. If you aren’t sure what you want or you have smaller orders, you can check for a company that allows you to choose between instant or drip delivery.

In any case, just double-check that the company has a proper protocol for Instagram compliance as well as SSL encryption to keep your account secure.

Where Should I Buy Instagram Followers?

As you know, there are plenty of options for buying Instagram followers. While it can be a difficult and time-consuming venture to review and go through all of them, it can be worth it because you will find which company works best for your Instagram.

The top companies in Instagram growth, such as the ones on this list, can work with any niche and any type of profile. Some of the best options will use your targeting options to get more real followers looking at your account.

This is the best-case scenario because you ultimately want to see real, tangible results from your Instagram, such as an increase in engagement, more partnerships, as well as higher conversion rates for businesses.

Definitely check out all of the options that we’ve mentioned above and if you have another company in mind, use our guide to decide whether or not they can be a good option to bring you high-quality Instagram followers.

Will I Get Banned if I Buy Instagram Followers?

Getting banned is one of the biggest concerns of many users and is one of the reasons why people avoid buying Instagram followers. While it has happened in the past, if you use the right company and do things correctly, you definitely won’t get banned.

If the companies above had a lot of users get banned from Instagram, they wouldn’t even be in business anymore, and most of the companies on our list have years of experience providing users with Instagram followers.

For that reason, you don’t have to be worried about getting banned when you work with a reputable Instagram growth provider. These companies know that you take your Instagram profile very seriously and that losing it would be detrimental to your business or venture.

Top companies want you to be successful, so they’re not going to provide you services that can get you banned.

If you use bot services or use services that go directly against Instagram’s terms of use, you do run the risk of being banned, which is why most people avoid automation services these days. Instagram cracked down hard on services that engage with users in bulk through bots, and this type of service can still put you at risk.

The companies we listed above don’t partake in those kinds of activities, so you’ll be safe if you choose to use one of them. If you want to go with another company, just do your research and you’ll be fine.

Final thoughts – The best sites to buy Instagram followers

Everyone wants to increase their popularity and reputation on Instagram, and doing so on your own can take too much time and disrupt your workflow in other areas of your business or Instagram strategy.

Buying Instagram followers is a great way to supplement your Instagram follower growth and get things moving in the right direction. When you buy from the right company you don’t just get an influx of followers, but you keep your Instagram growing for a long time to come.

Make sure you follow our 10 pro tips in conjunction with buying Instagram followers for the best results, and if you’re looking at companies to buy from, follow our step-by-step guide when doing your research. Good luck with your Instagram follower growth; happy buying!

Guest author: Johnny Pulling is a serial tech entrepreneur who has been living in Serbia for the past 12 years. Passions are crypto and growth hacking to help companies succeed online.

The post The Best Sites to Buy Instagram Followers (Instant, Cheap, and Real) appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.

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