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Create Buyer persona to strengthen inbound marketing

Posted on October 31, 2017November 6, 2019 by admin

There are online businesses that run for several years but don’t know how to create a buyer persona or what exactly it means! However, it doesn’t imply that they are stabbing in the dark. Perhaps they are unknowingly following some strategy which is almost similar to concentrating on buyer persona.

A buyer persona is “a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers.” – HubSpot

However, if you know how to create a buyer persona and how to use it in your inbound marketing content strategy, your digital marketing campaigns would be far more balanced.

Inbound marketing is all about connecting with your customer base. A strong and successful inbound marketing content strategy starts with a fully developed buyer persona.

Buyer persona and inbound marketing content strategy

Most of the marketers struggle when they start creating buyer personas for their businesses. And, the most common complaint they raise is “All customers are different and unique in their own way”. Of course, their argument is true too!

Remember, a perfect inbound marketing strategy does much more than boost website traffic. Successful development and implementation of inbound strategy largely depend upon how well you have created your buyer persona. If you have not yet dealt with it for your online business, you should implement it NOW.

Tips to Create Buyer Persona for your Online BusinessCLICK TO TWEET

1. Identify your best customers

However, vast your business is or whatever ranges of services you cater too, somewhere you have to begin with creating a persona for your business.

You can start with identifying best customers from whom you can get the best margin and who are comparatively easy to win. Pen down their details: starting from their age group, gender, education level, purchasing power, interests, hobbies, etc.

These details form the outline of your buyer persona.

“Too often, Buyer Profiles are nothing more than an attractive way to display obvious or demographic data.” ― Adele Revella

2. Figure out general pain points of your customers

This is regarding how they finalize their buying decisions. This is the second step in creating personas. A pain point is a touchpoint in the customer that creates frustration for him/her while making the buying decision.

Based on the outline derived in the first step, figure out the pain points they might consider while making buying decisions. Do they focus on cost, quality, reputation, or any other parameter?

For all possible questions, ask yourself ‘WHY” and come up with the best-fit answer. Once you get these basic answers, you will get a pretty good basic awareness of their pain points and how to deal with it.

QL Tech Tip: Once you identify the entire customer negative touchpoints i.e. pain points, you can improve them with positive moments of truth.

3. Conduct interviews and dive into extensive research

This step largely depends on your availability of time and flexibility of budget. If you are not getting the perfect questions or their answers, you can opt for conducting interviews. It is indeed costly but worthy! In case, your budget is flexible, you can offer them some FREEbies or incentives so that they turn up for interviews.

In case there is a budget restriction or deficit time to conduct interviews, opt for surveys.

4. Walk in the shoes of your persona

When writing for a specific buyer persona, you need to approach industry to speak and jargon lightly.

Daniel Reed, Creative Director at Square 2 Marketing

After knowing the above details, generic features and pain points of your personas, you need to put your leg in their shoe. It means to try to get into the character of your prospective buyer. This will enable you to plan and craft a content that connects with them personally and professionally.

B2b Buyer Persona Elements

For a B2B buyer persona, Liz Smyth, Marketing Director EMEA, Marketo recommends the following elements:

Persona summary and basic details
Job details and their likes/dislikes
Sources where your persona does his or her research
Primary and secondary goals
Challenges and pain points
Preferred content medium
Quotes related to insights gathered during interviews
Anticipated objections during the sales process
Role and influence in the purchase process
A marketing message that speaks directly to this persona

Killer reasons why you need to create a buyer persona

Till now, we learned how to create a buyer persona for your business. Let us understand why it is imperative for your business:

1. Help you define your audience

A well-defined buyer persona helps a marketer to identify the needs and wants of a prospective buyer.

For example, when you go to a shop to buy a gift for your friend or spouse, it is very easy for you to visualize their needs and wants. Similarly, buyers’ personas help define your audience, their needs and wants.

Honest buyer personas improve your sales pitch, your customer service, and even your product development.

Raka, Director of Inbound Marketing, Brian DeKoning

2. Understanding of buying decisions and stage of the buyer journey

The biggest advantage you get by creating buyer personas is to obtain a thorough acquaintance of buying decisions. It helps you to connect with your customers. With the help of buyer personas for your business, you can provide a general platform for language and communication about buyers.

Through in-depth study and research, you can identify how they arrive at their buying decisions, what all factors they consider, etc. This relevant information will aid you to create relevant content for your target audience. If you know what they are looking for, you can tailor your content in line with their needs and buying patterns. It means selling your products/services without sounding like a salesperson.

3. Create more targeted content and thereby effective content marketing

Every bit of the content that you create as a content marketer is fundamentally based on the buyer persona. It gives you a clear picture of what to create, with whom to connect, and in front of whom to share your content. Rather than blindly creating content and then sharing it haywire, it is vital to define and consider your personas in detail.

Understanding the needs, wants, goals, challenges, etc. of your personas allows you to better understand what type of content will appeal to them. Since you know what is valuable to them, you can target your content towards those values and develop content that is relevant to them.QL Tech Tip: The entire content you develop should be targeted towards at least one of your buyer personas, if not all.

4. Segmentation of email lists

Email marketing is also an old but effective tactic to reach out existing as well as prospective customers. A buyer persona is crucial for creating personalized email marketing campaigns that convert

One study by MarketingSherpa showed a 7% conversion rate for a persona-based campaign.

Your buyer personas play a huge role in the segmentation of your email lists. Email lists that are segmented on the basis of personas help you create more effective and relevant email content.QL Tech Tip: When you ask your website visitor to fill out a form on your site, ensure that you ask their goal of visiting a website. If you know what persona they fit into, you can better segment email lists.

5. Generate better quality leads

Targeted email campaigns enable you to get better quality leads and build better lead nurturing programs targeted at different personas. It means you would be in a better position to cater your marketing to the right people in the right places.

Signing off…!!

To summarise, it can be said that precise research on the potential of buyer insights help to develop an accurate buyer persona. The more researched a buyer persona is, the more effective an organization can accomplish inbound content strategy goals. Buyer personas assist you to create the right content that will efficiently and effectively attract your ideal visitors, convert them into leads, and close them into customers.

If you would like to add anything to the buyer persona and its effectiveness, feel free to drop in your thoughts in the comments section. We’d love to hear from you!

Most commonly made terrible content marketing mistakes:

1. Ignorance of the content planning stage

Content marketing is a practice to create and promote engaging content that provides value and knowledge to your customers. And hence, your content marketing strategy should be more than perfect. Prior to executing your strategy, first of all, have a proper plan in place. Your plan should be in line with your vision and goal. Figure out your goal, set your priorities, and know your audience for better content planning.

Most of the marketers jump upon campaigns without foreseeing its probable pros and cons. If your campaign isn’t targeted to the right audience, hardly there are any chances of getting the desired success.

QL Tech Tip: Create a content back and ensure at least a blog database of three months in advance.

2. Complete ignorance to Buyer Persona

In digital marketing, initially, you don’t know who would be your actual customers. Hence, it may happen that the entire content you write goes in vain because it is not reaching to the audience who needs it. And this is also one of the most common content marketing mistakes done by start-ups. To avoid this pitfall, do audience analysis and prepare buyer persona for each of your products and services.

QL Tech Tip: For a successful content marketing, start with creating buyer persona. Define and develop a buyer persona for your products and services. Accordingly, create content and share in front of your target audience.

3. Incorrect mapping of content with the buyer’s journey

Is it you who creates a lot of relevant and engaging content, but each time fail at the point of conversion? Well, it’s not just you! There are many content marketers who create killer copies but still can’t convert. This happens when you fail to map your content with the buyer’s journey. According to HubSpot, a buyer’s journey is the process buyers go through to become aware of, evaluate, and purchase a new product or service.

You need to know under which stage of marketing funnel your prospective buyer falls. Accordingly, create content they want and dish it out in front of them.

Content-Marketing-Mistakes-You-Must-Avoid

4. Using content marketing as a tool to link building

A digital marketer often confuses content marketing with link building strategy. Of course, quality content builds backlinks. But, don’t just churn out tons of content so that it can be promoted haywire to generate backlinks. To be honest, it will never work.

Healthy link building is a costly and time-consuming process. Your content strategy is a two-edged sword. It can either make or break your entire SEO campaign. Rather than the quantity i.e. amount of backlinks, you need to work on acquiring quality backlinks. For this, your content should sound great and provide value without losing its uniqueness.

QL Tech Tip:

Ensure that your great content passes through below checkpoints:
– Original, unique, and actionable
– Provide value to visitors
– Focus on solutions to users’ problems
– Updated regularly to keep it fresh and relevant
– Cited from trusted sources

5. Lack of storytelling

According to some studies, brains are always hungry for good stories that can connect them emotionally to the context. Most of the content marketers are aware of the importance of storytelling. However, they fail when it comes to delivery. A prime content marketing mistake that is noticed consistently is lack of storytelling art.

According to Sophie Elizabeth Smith, 45% of a brand’s image can be attributed to what it says and how it says it.

A story is nothing but just a narrative constitution that describes either an event or sequence of events. It should involve a two-way interaction between you (as a storyteller) and your audience (as listeners).

QL Tech Tip: For effective storytelling, create a scenario having issues/concerns or problems in the start of your content and over the course of a narrative, end it with a logical and actionable solution.

6. Ignorance to quantity, consistency, and frequency

Content marketers are often unsure about the quantity, consistency, and frequency of content to be published and promoted. This ignorance leads them to commit a content marketing mistake.

If you get rigid about publishing timelines, you might lose focus on the overall quality of the content to be created. Further, it is not always right that the more pieces of content you produce, the more results you can achieve.

Rather than just producing content, its promotion is also important. Your valuable content should reach to the eyes of your prospects on a consistent and frequent basis.

Consistency is posting on a regular (aka consistent) schedule. Frequency, on the other hand, is posting repeatedly during a period of time.

Jake LeVoir

This difference matters a lot in content marketing. Posting (or publishing) on a consistent schedule sets expectations and hence it is a big deal. On the other hand, the frequency of posting (or promoting) content just ensures that it reaches all audiences, all time zones.

QL Tech Tip: Prepare a content calendar, preferably for posting schedules, that takes care of your consistency and frequency both.

7. Zero focus on Headlines

Imagine you have received an email in your Inbox with a subject line that sounds tacky and spammy, will you click on it? Probably not! The first thing a prospective reader notice is a headline. Craft a compelling headline; it is your very first prospect to mark a positive impression on your reader.

Basically, headlines aren’t only important in content marketing; they, in fact, rule the world of content marketing. According to David Lomas, your headlines, in effect, are your first real point of connection with your prospective customer, so you need to get them right.

Content marketers not paying attention to headlines greatly lose on the conversion opportunities. Your headlines should be interesting, relevant, creative, conversational, and insightful. Use a various headline analyzer online tools to check the score, readability, and sensitivity of your headline. According to a study published in The Guardian, headlines with 8 words do 21% better than average and using a hyphen or colon will add 9% to your CTR.

Popular Words - content marketing mistakes

QL Tech Tip: Create more than one headline for each of your content and share it with the different headlines at different timings on different social media network to generate high blog traffic.

8. Promotion in front of the wrong audience

Not promoting the right content, at the right time, in front of the right audience is another common content marketing mistake. As a rule of thumb, don’t promote all the content that you produce. Poor content hurts you more than good content benefits you. It will not only affect your conversion rate but also negatively impacts your brand credibility. According to CoSchedule, consumers don’t take action when you want them to take action; they take action when they are ready.

Therefore, it is imperative for you to promote your content in front of the right audience. Create a content to which your audience can relate too. Use the words your user use to search their answers and accordingly provide solutions to their queries through your content.

QL Tech Tip: Not just do content marketing, rather do actionable content marketing. It is the backbone of your SEO.

Signing off!

These are not the exhaustive list of content marketing mistakes. However, we have covered the most common slips done by most of the content marketers. Take an honest look at the content marketing mistakes you are presently making, and try to fix them. Once you fix the existing issues, you will start noticing a tremendous transformation in your conversions.

If you need assistance on fixing any of the content marketing mistakes or want to highlight anything here, feel free to drop in your words in the comments section. We’d love to hear from you!

Top 6 Types of Visuals to boost your visual content marketing

Posted on October 3, 2017November 6, 2019 by admin

Looking at the present scenario, online life has become more dynamic than ever before. News, articles, blogs go viral this moment and a few hours later fade away into oblivion. There is a big roar on social media sites about one news, and soon after that some other news comes up and breaks the echo of the previous one.

Well, all this traction is because of one thing, i.e. – CONTENT. Content is the core of all the buzz which is there on various social media sites. Nowadays, businesses give more emphasis on content to market their products or services. They consider quality-content as the important key in achieving digital marketing success. Therefore, digital marketers plan to invest more in their content marketing programs.

If you are also looking to embark upon a content marketing campaign, you must know what will stimulate your online growth. Text-based content is an integral part of marketing. But to bring a hustle in your efforts, try to add visuals to your content.

We would like to share with you the types of visual content that you can use in your content. This will give a boost to your visual content marketing campaign.

Types of visual content to Boost Visual Content Marketing

1. Images – Visualization of ideas

If you spice up your text with some appealing and relatable images, your overall content becomes more readable. It will increase the probability of your readers reading your content until the end.

As we know with the growing usage of mobile phones, the attention spans have become shorter over large chunks of content. Therefore, it is preferable to use images in order to seek the much-needed attention of your audience.

Further, it will be an add-on if you use original images or the ones taken by you; as this adds a personal touch to your campaign. Images that are captivating are either expensive or time-consuming to create. You can take help of resources such as Canva where you can create images for free. Also, there are excellent quality photos available on Flickr and Morguefile for free.

Adding quality images to your text content will enhance your visual content marketing efforts; also in the appropriate direction.

2. Videos- 3D visualization of ideas

Videos are the best way to present the whole idea in a fantastic way. If the video gets combined with audio, it adds value to the content. It gives a positive impression that you can also walk that extra mile for the quality. This will be an add-on to your basic visual content marketing strategy as it will put a better impact on your audience.

Also, videos prove to be very useful in describing the product and services that your brand offers. You can add any type of video to your content. For instance, you can add explainer videos, demonstrations, testimonials or how-to videos. Whatever be your choice, keep in mind that your videos are congruent with the ethos of your brand.

According to a study by Moz, posts with videos receive nearly 300% more inbound links.

3. Infographic- Information in the form of Graphics

Indubitably, infographics are a wonderful tool to represent your data in a visual format. It comprises of text in the image. In your infographic, you can include your promotional endeavours like your networks of key influencers, social media etc. an infographic can become an integral part of your visual content marketing strategy.

You have to keep in mind that your design and layout should be as impactful as it could be. Your data has to be conveyed in a design which is a combination of good shapes, colours, and fonts. Also, you should try to include accurate and relevant information. Many a time it happens that mundane statistics can be brought to life when conveyed as stunning visuals.

This will reap you quick and true rewards for your infographic.

4. Memes- visuals with a humorous caption

We all find memes really humorous and they are quite popular in the realm of digital media. Nobody has ever thought that memes would play a role in visual content marketing; when they first started to be used as a form of entertainment among college students. But now they represent a quirky form of visual content.

You can also create your own meme and set yourself apart from your competitors. But before creating, ensure the type of audience. Another plus point of using memes is that they give you the luxury of creating in-house jokes about your industry. This could benefit you in establishing a community around your brand.

5. Presentations- ideas Presented smartly

They serve the almost same function as an infographic but focus more on appealing designs, colour and lengthy content. Some-time before, presentations were restricted to only board rooms. But now, with the help of SlideShare, you can share your presentation with the world; thereby expanding your business reach. A good representation allows you to communicate with your audience irrespective of the device they are using.

How to create an appealing presentation? You can just take an idea from Rand Fishkin’s presentation on Content Marketing Mistakes. The presentation has complex information presented in a humorous, easily digestible manner. Keep in mind that you follow the consistency throughout your presentation. Proofread your content for spelling and grammar mistakes.

6. Screenshots- screen captured an image

With the help of screenshots, you can provide your audience with the actual working of your product or service. Along with screenshot, you can combine a marketing copy or a testimonial to boost your credibility. This will give a jolt to your visual content marketing, thereby increasing your profits.

Further, screenshots can be very useful in backing up the claims that you make in your sales content. You can also annotate your screenshots if you wish to draw attention to a particular part of the image.

Screenshots might not be that appealing to you but they can be hugely used as a trust-building tool for your audience. Capture customer reviews or testimonials that are there on industry forums or social media. Those screenshots can be used in infographics or SlideShare presentation as they will bring meaning to the stats or information you are presenting.

Skitch is a nice tool to create graphics and text on images. It’s free and simple to use.

Wrapping up

Visual content taps to the visceral psyche of your audience. That’s why it is very important to present high-quality visual content. It will truly resonate with people, subsequently skyrocketing your brand promotion.

Well, if your content is badly designed, you will end up doing more harm than good. Always try to consider the needs of your audience. With content the substance counts the most, but a good representation style is always appreciated.

We have tried our best to highlight the important points about each type of visual content. We hope those will help you in planning your “Visual Content Marketing” strategy to get the maximum gains. If you would like to add your smart ideas, feel free to comment below.

All you need to know about Social Media Marketing

Posted on September 27, 2017November 6, 2019 by admin

Social Media Marketing is the course of gaining website traffic or catching the attention of your target audience through social media sites. Social media is a powerful and influential place. If you follow the right tactics, you can not only earn engagement and increase followers but also generate leads and grow your revenue. If you devise your social media marketing strategy by keeping the social media trends in centric, you will surely come up with a winning strategy.

In this blog, we will take you through the most anticipated FIVE trends. Not only social media marketing trends but this blog also comprehensively covers social media marketing tips and tricks on how to succeed in your digital marketing campaigns. Social Media Marketing Trends and Tips

Lets us peep into the upcoming social media trends

More preference to personalization

Social media is a crowded place. A lot many users post their ads on a lot many social media advertising platforms. It is, hence, a challenge for marketers to get noticed prominently. Here, personalization acts as a saviour. Personalization helps to reach the correct audience and track their buying behaviour based on their search preferences.

You can use social media marketing tools which allow you to incorporate personalized targeting feature. Post your content on social media in front of your high potential customers. More attention to visual marketing

Approximately 64% of the consumers are more likely to buy a product after watching a video about it. Video content is on its peak and it is not going anywhere soon. It emphasizes the need and upcoming trend of visual marketing. On the other hand, live streaming versions are on spree. Be it Twitter Periscope, Facebook Live, Instagram Story, video sharing features of DubSmash and others, live feeds are getting way popular. Such videos can engage with your audience very well. All you need here is powerful graphics which can fascinate your viewers. More expansion of native Content Promotion

If you rely on a traditional way of social media advertising, your brand will hardly survive in the highly intensified competition. Audience nowadays is more intelligent and aware of what they want, and probably from where. Based on research, native ads are expected to reach more than $20 billion by 2018. Native advertising is a form of paid media where the ad experience follows the natural form and function of the user experience in which it is placed. Along with the growing importance of native ads, native content will also grow

More admiration of brand sponsorship by marketers

Brands are looking for various alternate means to reach their target markets. This is because traditional advertisements have reached their saturation level. This will shift the focus of marketers towards brand sponsorship, also known as advocate marketing. Popular brand advocacy tools are LinkedIn elevate, Klout, and Influitive.

Most B2B marketers (89%) agree that customer testimonials are among the most effective content marketing tactics, and 88% cite case studies as well.
www.marketingprofs.com

Brands will make efforts to activate micro-influencers such as employees, customers, partners, and others. More focus on Marketing Automation

If you are in digital marketing, to sustain the intense competition, marketing automation is a must for you. According to Marketo, 91% of users believe that marketing automation is “very important” to the overall success of their marketing across channels.

Marketing automation will see an upward trend in the year 2017. Automation tools can help you in lead management, conversions, retention and feedback as well as provide insights for evaluation and future planning. The main purpose of using these tools is to automate tasks that don’t require personal attention.

You need to formulate your social media marketing strategy by keeping these anticipated trends in the notice. If you are wondering how to do social media marketing, we have come up with social media tips and tricks. Adhere to these top 10 social media tips and tricks and maximize your success on social media

top 10 social media tips for business branding

Formulate social media marketing policy

For being an active and influential social media marketer, you need to formulate your social media marketing policy. Create a plan strategy document (PSD) for all possible media, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google Plus, and others. Your PSD should precisely sketch the way of how to accomplish your goals. You can incorporate your content plan, scheduling of posts, target audience, etc under this document. Utilize social media advertising system

Only PSD will not help to boost your social media marketing, all you need is discipline. Whether you use one social media channel or multiple, you should use a social media management system. This will help you schedule your posts, know your analytics, and manage your repetitive tasks in a timely manner.

Once you know your best time to post, you can then use a tool like Buffer, Post Planner or Sprout Social – both are excellent social media management tools. Usage of these tools can help you plan or schedule your posts at specific intervals. Such tools also help in spreading scheduled posts out to publish throughout the day and engagement time. Repost your posts

Most of the marketers make a mistake here.

Once they share their blog or update, they keep waiting for someone to “like”, “comment”, “share”, or “retweet”. Let’s be practical and accept that every person in the industry would be following a lot many people. Even after a refreshing feed for every five minutes, there are chances that your content gets lost and may not appear in the top of the feed. That’s why repost your posts. Schedule your posts wisely. You can try out varied versions of your titles for the same post. It really helps! Try A/B Testing for Ads

Facebook Ads A/B testing is the most effective way to successful campaigns. Its targeting options are robust. Facebook will display your ad to the right audience only. A perfect ad can magically boost your ROI and radically increase the reach of your posts. To increase the likelihoods of your social media success, analyze the performance of your ads. Concentrate on your social media content

Pay special attention to your social media content. It is the online face of your brand. Keep it authentic, non-plagiarized, relevant and updated. Your images, links, and titles should be fresh, engaging, and intriguing for your readers. A tool we found to be very nifty when it comes to posting evergreen content is Tailwind. Use visual content as much as possible. Approximately 64% of the consumers are more likely to buy a product after watching a video about it. Video content is at its peak and it is not going anywhere soon. Make your content bank

Creative content creation

Don’t just create content when it is time to post. Instead, prepare your social media content bank. Based on the recent trends and updates, you can make quality amendments in your content bank. Create your content bank now, if you haven’t yet. It should include blogs, articles, info graphs, tutorials, webinars, videos, eBooks, cheat sheets, templates, reports, case studies and others. Make the most use of visual content

Did you know 90% of the information transmitted to the brain is visual? It taps into the intuitive psyche of your audience and motivates them to discover more about your brand.

Visuals are processed 60,000X faster in the brain than the text.
3M Corporation

Visual content

Visual content has the ability to present complex information in a quick and clear manner. Images, info graphs, videos, memes, presentations, and screenshots are some of the types of visual content. Visual content is easy to understand and handy to share. Your visual content will get more shares as compared to your textual content. Explore the benefits of contests and promotions

People on social media love to interact. They enjoy participating in quizzes, contests and polls. Social media is a beautiful place for engagement. Try to get the attention by vote contest, photo contest, caption contest, and others to promote your brand. If you promote any special offer, include discounts for your audience. It is an exceptional way to offer value through your social media channels and award people an incentive to keep on following you. Keep an eye on your competitors

Sarcastic but true, competitors are real motivators. You should keep an eye on what and how they are doing on social media platforms. Notice their way of engagement, what they post, when they post, what is unique about them, etc. This will help you frame your marketing strategy in a much better and healthier way. Stay updated with the industry trends

Last but not the least;

stay updated with what’s going on in the industry you serve. Industry trends can significantly impact your business and marketing strategy. If you identify the market trends early enough then it is easier to plan for changes. You can grow your business successfully. The best way is to subscribe to social media blogs to keep you aware of recent news, amendments, and advancements.

Conclusion

Social media is gaining huge traction for digital marketing. All you need to know about powerful and effective social media marketing is wrapped up in this blog, including trends, tips, tricks and strategies for social media agencies. Keep the latest and upcoming social media trends into notice and accordingly devise your social media marketing strategy. Get started now to succeed at reaching and engaging your target market

5 Tips On How to Strengthen Personal Branding

Posted on September 21, 2017November 6, 2019 by admin

This post is by guest author, Niraj Ranjan. This article has been edited and published with the author’s permission.

What is your personal brand? Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos once said, “Your brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room.”

A personal brand is something that all of us who has at least one social media account have to worry about. Your digital and social footprint is more important than you would imagine.

A company that wants to hire you will certainly Google you before taking a final call; a research team will check out your online profile prior to granting you a fellowship; even your potential date will say yes to you only after running a quick search on you. So you see, it’s very important!

Mastering the art of personal branding can also help you become an influencer – quite a superpower in the digital age.

Here are some tips that can help you build a strong personal brand:

1. Always be authentic

Authenticity, be it in personal or professional life, is well-received and well appreciated by the people around you. A fake version of you or your brand can stand only for a while and is never the best strategy. Fake also involves being overly self-promotional. As a rule, for any brand, it is advisable to follow 1:5 policy when you produce content or market. It means offer 5 valuable points to the reader; in return, earn the right to talk about you once.

In addition, being fake involves a lot of non-required work. At last, you will end up looking inconsistent and untrustworthy. For example, if you are against the use of tech gadgets, don’t act otherwise so as to please people around you or your audience.

2. Communicate appropriately

The art of communication is the language of leadership – James Humes

The way you communicate has a major impact on your overall personal branding success.

It is important to have enough social intelligence on how to present yourself in a given situation. Here are some key tips:

Don’t address your senior executives as ‘guys’.
Be witty, light, and humorous while talking to a younger audience, but never sound an egoistic or arrogant.
Pay attention to what you say when you are trying to communicate your ideas and opinions. Being clear and crisp is the key to avoid misunderstanding.
Make sure that during one-to-one conversations your body language is in sync with your words. If you say that you are happy, your behaviour has to reflect that.
Ensure to respond as promptly as possible. For instance, use tools like email reminders to ensure that you don’t forget to reply back to an email.

3. Focus on relevant social media platforms

Social media marketing is cost-effective as well as smart medium to build your personal brand. However, it is important to choose and focus on the social media platforms that are relevant to you and your end goal.

A few examples:

If you want to attract recruiters and employers, a professional network such as LinkedIn is where you have to make a lot of noise.
If you are looking to build a brand amongst your friends and social circle, Instagram and Facebook would be your best bet.
If you are a critic and want to spread your reach, again Facebook and Twitter can come to your aid.

And so on…

It is important to identify your audience and figure out where they hang out the most- you can exercise this out by doing a little research online.

For instance, 67% of the internet users are on Facebook and the majority of them are women; so if you want to target women online, you should start with Facebook4. Be updated with the latest information

If I visit your Facebook page and see that your last update was months’ ago, I definitely would not be impressed enough to follow you. Being present and being up to date is crucial.

Everyone now has access to 3G and 4G networks. News and information travel like wildfire and so do feedbacks and opinions. If you want to build a personal brand, you need to stay with the flow or even better stay ahead of the flow.

For example,

if the purpose of your personal branding is to establish yourself as a thought leader, your audience expects you to have opinions and things to say about the latest events happening in your industry. In case a company that belongs to your industry is going bankrupt, they expect some reaction/response from you, as a thought leader.5. Avoid being the jack of all trades

The first thing you need to do before making any attempt at personal branding is to find your niche. What is so unique about you? Something, which only you can offer?

For example, if you are running a blog, do not overwhelm your audience with a wide range of topics and things to say. This sort of brand confusion will lead to a very weakly established brand.

Being all over the place, having multiple interests, and trying to have your foot in every door can signal a lack of expertise and credibility in any one area.

Here are some tips:

Have a central theme to everything you say. For example, if you are all about gender equality, making it the central theme of every story and every message.
Don’t make your message/key point a riddle. The gist of your message has to be clear, crisp, and apparently obvious.
Again presentation matters a lot. Tailor your message to match your audience.

Final thoughts

Back in good old days, your resume was enough to demonstrate your competence; however, it’s not the case anymore. Companies and teams want you only if you show more than a list of accomplishments on one page. They need to see who you are and what your attitude is towards life. This is what building your personal brand is all about. Just like you market a service/product to the world, you market your ability and competence through personal branding.

Top 11 Australian Digital Marketing Blogs to follow

Posted on September 12, 2017November 6, 2019 by admin

Blogging in a determined and forceful way with a search-oriented strategy is one of the most killer SEO tips. Whenever we visit any website, first of all, we normally tend to visit ‘about us’ page and ‘blog’ page to know more about the website, business, people that run the business, and read their minds through their blogging pattern.

The blog section is important for all businesses to drive organic traffic to your website. Live blog pages embark better impression and active presence of a business on visitors’ minds. And, if you are a digital marketing agency, how can you afford not doing blogging? This blog is an attempt to help all local digital marketing agencies to know about the most popular of Australia’s digital marketing blogs.

Here We Present Top 11 Australia’s Digital Marketing blogs to follow:

1. Arrow Internet

Arrow Digital (also known as Arrow Internet) is a digital marketing agency based in Melbourne, the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria.

Their core values are aimed at “inspiring and achieving outstanding outcomes for Australian businesses through best in class internet marketing method”.

Their blog categories cover all aspects and all elements of digital marketing. To name a few, categories include SEO, content marketing, conversions, Google algorithms, social media marketing, and website usability. Among all categories, the richest category, in our opinion, is social media marketing. It comprises of various news, updates, events, and ‘how to’ posts.

2. Blogger Sidekick

Blogger sidekick is also a digital marketing agency based in Sydney, the state capital of New South Wales and the most populous city in Australia and Oceania. Interestingly, their blog categories comprise case studies, promotional tactics, marketing strategies, and others. Among all, we found the “creation” section as the most interesting read. It focuses on all nuances of how to create ‘something’ that adds value to the user – be it content, blog, or keyword research.

3. Canva

Those who are in the field of content marketing and web designing would surely be aware of the tool called ‘Canva’. It is an awesome tool that is extensively used for its drag-and-drop interface, cool fonts, professional layouts, and many user-friendly features. Canva has its presence in Sydney, Australia.

Blogs published by Canva are not just restricted to graphics and designing methods. However, they also cover areas of social media marketing and content marketing. Furthermore, Canva also provides tutorials and webinars in their niche.

4. Digital Buzz Blog

Digital Buzz is ranked #15 in the AdAge Power150 bloggers list, for the most powerful marketing and advertising blogs, around the world.

As the name suggests, it is a fantastic blog that creates a buzz among readers. Once it was ranked as number 1 marketing blog that has its core focus on digital. Digital Buzz was founded by an editor, Aden Hepburn, who proficiently draws readers in with unique concepts and touchy intros.

To note, Digital Buzz is all about advertising and marketing online with creativity and efficiency. It has not only high authority but also good reliability. Digital Buzz Blog covers literally everything from the latest and trending digital campaigns to buzzing industry trends and the latest news. The topmost global web campaigns are shared in this portal on a daily basis which draws Australian as well as a global audience. Those who love case studies and stories over plain text blogs must visit and subscribe to Digital Buzz Blog.

5. Global Copywriting / Lush Digital Media

Global Copywriting, a content marketing agency based in beautiful Perth, Australia was acquired by Lush Digital Media in 2015.

The core functional areas of Lush Digital are content marketing and video production. If you want to excel your knowledge of content marketing and social media marketing, do peep in here for excellent training videos, webinars, infographics, and blogs. Even if you are a beginner in the field of content marketing, do explore the section “writing” of their blogs. Content marketing consultant Sarah Mitchell’s blogs are an awesome mine of fantastic tips, guidance, and views on copywriting that open new avenue to market your online presence.

6. Jeff Bullas

There is hardly anyone in the digital marketing industry that doesn’t know Jeff Bullas from Sydney, Australia. He is a blogger, consultant, mentor, instructor, and speaker who work with companies to optimize their online presence via exploring social media platforms and other technologies.

Also, his website receives over 5 million visitors a year. In addition. his blog topics cover a wide range of spectrum ranging from entrepreneurship, innovation, social media, digital marketing, and content to marketing automation. Even if you are a pro in digital marketing, do subscribe his blogs to read ‘personal growth’ section.

7. Mumbrella

Mumbrella is far more than just a blogging platform. In fact, it can be considered as an authentic media and marketing motivation on the overall Australian marketing view.

Mumbrella serves as industry journalism. Here, marketers rely upon a good story, authentic news, case studies, and any type of content that sounds most interesting. Hence, even if you do not want to surf for digital marketing blogs, this platform is good enough to entertain you with some of the best Australian marketing and media coverage.

8. ProBlogger

ProBlogger is way beyond a normal blogging platform. In addition, the platform has more than 8000 articles and tutorials. However, over and above, you will be able to surf for podcasts, eBooks, job boards, tips, and tools by Darren Rowse that help you build a better blog!

ProBlogger, more than sheer an Australian blog portal, is a globally recognized source of information. ProBlogger is all about useful and sensible content creation. Hence, if you are hunting for tips to improve your productivity and creativity in the content writing, end your search at ProBlogger. It will aid you to gain eyeballs for your writing.

9. SMPerth

SMPerth, i.e. Social Media Perth, is a community for businesses and brands who embrace social media in their marketing strategy to mingle to meet and exchange ideas. SMPerth is considered as a premier networking events platform.

Every month, it organizes a meet up for entrepreneurs, consultants, and businesses that apply and adore social media. Their resources section on the website is rich in the latest and trending digital marketing articles. Furthermore, it offers a number of up skilling opportunities in the field of digital marketing throughout the year.

10. PR Warriors

PR Warrior is owned by a passionate and knowledgeable keynote marketing speaker, Trevor Young. He stays in Melbourne, Australia. PR warrior, founded in 2007, is a useful hub of information for marketers. Here, you will be able to dig most useful articles, podcasts, live video streams, case studies, and slides that will be quite useful to a pioneering blogger, podcaster, or a social media analyst.

Those digital marketers who are looking for trending articles and observations on the latest trends, it’s the perfect place for them to visit. One can keep himself aware of the latest news pertaining to everything that is happening in the industry.

Be it long-form posts or reports, eBooks – PR Warrior is an absolute treasure. The posts of PR Warrior comprise whole and sole. Example, it starts with content creation to book recommendations, interviews with industry personalities, and others.

11. King Content Blog

When we talk about digital marketing blogs, how we can forget the blogs that cater to one of the most important aspects – i.e. content marketing. As you might be knowing, King content has a global presence including locations of Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Singapore, Hongkong, London, and New York. They are into social media marketing, content marketing, and native advertising. Their blog categories have a core focus on content marketing and social media.

However, the blog is not intently or internally focussed and instead offers fantastic resources for content marketers from Australia and beyond. Further, the most interesting read section which you can think of subscribing is ‘This Week in Content Marketing’ posts. These are regular flourishing pieces of advice that help digital marketers.

At last!!

Hope you enjoyed reading this piece and thinking of subscribing. Though we have tried to curate the list of Top 11 Australian digital marketing blogs to follow, feel free to add more in the comments box. We would love to hear from you.

Laravel – A Trending PHP Framework today

Posted on September 5, 2017November 6, 2019 by admin

This post is by guest author, Sunny Chawla. This article has been edited and published with the author’s permission.

The phrase of web development in the IT industry is changing day by day. This is not only for the hard work that is inputting by the developers but also for the performance of advanced frameworks. Especially, open-source applications that help web developers to do the great work in a minimum time frame, and Laravel is surely one of them. Laravel is an out-and-out FREE open-source PHP web-based framework, discovered by Taylor Otwell. The most trending PHP framework, Laravel, is intended for the purpose of development of web application that follows the model view controller (MVC) architectural pattern.

Laravel is the best and trending PHP framework to date. It is easier and quicker to use. Most of the developers these days are using Laravel to develop websites and develop web applications at the same time.

If you have not used it yet, you are advised to use it now.

Most Trending PHP Framework Web development

The utility of Laravel

Laravel normally attempts to take the pain out of the development or revamping of the web application. Laravel, a trending PHP framework, eases common works that are performed in the majority of the web projects. Such tasks comprise authentication, routing, minimum sessions as well as caching. Laravel, generally, aims to make the web development part a pleasing one for the developers without forfeiting the application functionality. And, this is the main function of Laravel.

Another reason why Laravel is a trending PHP framework is it offers multiple and endless functionalities. It is one of the easier and quicker PHP frameworks that have been preferred in almost all parts of the world. Millions of developers, these days, make use of the Laravel framework to enhance the speed and efficiency of web development.

Why is Laravel the best?

Along with Symfony2, Nette, CodeIgniter, Yii2 and other frameworks, Laravel is regarded as one of the most popular PHP frameworks.

It is a library that makes the life of the website developers easier and quicker. As an example, it has the ability to hide some of the difficulties of HTTP i.e. hypertext transport protocol by adjoining some of the most useful functions as well as objectives. If you are a web developer, you must be sure that Laravel among all other PHP frameworks is a fantastic way to accelerate your web development process.

Laravel has skyrocketed past the rivalry among all PHP Frameworks. This is because of its huge community of users, flexible and scalable architecture, and robust built-in templating and application management tools. Laravel has marked an impression among the web developers as the most hardcore and easier PHP frameworks

Laravel – the trending PHP Framework for Website Artisans

As discussed above, Laravel is a free and open-source as well as a widely used PHP web framework. Laravel is used in all sort of web application development – small, medium and large. There are certainly many different reasons for which Laravel is one of the most trending PHP frameworks now for the purpose of website development.

Now let us discuss the Laravel framework and its use in different types of website application development. Have a glance on the benefits of using this framework that generally most of the web developers do.

Laravel is one of the best PHP frameworks for web artisans. Developers who use this PHP framework know it very well. The enormous benefits of using Laravel make it the most trending PHP framework among all editors. Laravel is a simple authentication tool that can give you the tools you need to have for the purpose of the modern and maintainable PHP framework. If you need to taste the modern PHP framework that is quicker and easier to apply for all types of web application projects, then Laravel can be your choice for sure.

Benefits of Using Laravel

Some of the most trending things or the benefits of using Laravel, a trending PHP framework, for web development are:

It has expressive as well as beautiful codes that only Laravel kind of framework can give you.
Laravel can be a tailored PHP framework for your large team, easy to use and a quick one for sure.
If you are a solo web developer and your preference is value elegance, simplicity, and readability, Laravel can be your best choice.
Even you have a team of 20 or more developers, then also Laravel is for you.
Experts say Laravel is nothing but a breath of fresh air. You can easily and quickly keep everyone in sync using Laravel valuable database-agnostic migration as well as schema builder.
Laravel is one of the most reliable modern toolkits that is widely known as the pinch of magic.
It can give you amazing online reputation management.
It can give you a painless routing with a powerful as well as robust queue library.

Laravel can be your valet, mix, style, spark, lumen and strategic one for web application development. If you are looking for a handy PHP framework that is dependable and makes your development life easier, go for Laravel. It is certainly helpful in code maintenance for the purpose of development. It assists you in managing all of your assets in different files, such as routers and other things like configuration files.

Closing words

Laravel has a few high-calibre artisans command the availability that you can run prior to the deployment of the website. As a trusted and powerful open source, Laravel is available across the world. This is the most essential as well as trending PHP framework. Laravel helps to enhance the performance of your developers while revamping or development the fresh or existing web applications. However, a deep technical knowledge, as well as an adequate amount of time, is required from your end in a web development process.

Laravel is believed a great web development framework and for a web development framework should be enjoyable, creative and truly fulfilling. Laravel has all the things in one. It attempts to take the pain out of the web application development by easing the common jobs used in the great number of web application projects. If you use the Laravel PHP framework, you know the difference of using it.

7 eCommerce Website Design Features that increase your Conversion

Posted on August 29, 2017November 6, 2019 by admin

Do you have an eCommerce website that is visually appealing in design? In spite of aesthetic eCommerce website design, you are somehow struggling to get enough conversions? Well, do you know you can improve your conversions for your eCommerce store to a greater extent? Yes, you can do it by improving your eCommerce website design.

Here we present top 7 ‘must-have’ elements for your eCommerce website design that can skyrocket your conversions:

1. Keep your customer in mind before and during designing

According to Lindi Wheaton, when selecting an eCommerce cart to work with for online business, keep customer satisfaction at the front of your mind. This in return will reward you with customer loyalty.

Designing an eCommerce website that is usable and accessible often requires an investment. You need to invest in quality time and dedicated resources (consultants and Web designers). Of course, this investment pays-off good returns in the long run. In any circumstances, a customer-centric website leads to conversions over a website design that is not customer-centric. Great designs give great results since users feel welcome to your site and get inspirations to buy. Tip: Design your site in such a way that screen-readers can access it. Also, embrace screen-readable descriptions of the images displayed on the page to grab the attention of visually weaken visitors.

2. Double-check about website Security & Platform

Visitors who make a transaction on eCommerce websites are always concerned about the security of their personal and financial information. Just imagine, will you buy anything online from the site which people don’t trust? No, is it? The same way you should think of security concerns for your visitors. You need to let know your potential customers that their data isn’t going to fall into the wrong hands.

You can win the trust of your customers regarding their personal and financial information security by buying an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate. This is because customers are more likely to reach for payment option while purchasing online if a website is secure. On the other hand, SSL is an effortless way to secure your website. SSL relies on encryption to make the transactions private. Its encryption prevents any malicious intent that can be dangerous for your credit card information.

Tip: You can quickly verify for SSL certification of any website:

A URL with https:// instead of http://
A green “lock” icon in the address bar

3. A mobile-friendly design full of creativity

We have already emphasized the importance of responsive designs. It is one of the most important website designing trends for the year 2017. Mobile-friendly designs are inevitable since mobile devices have become an indispensable part of our daily routine. Hence, as an eCommerce store owner, your eCommerce website design should pass a check of mobile-friendliness.

According to Statista.com, in 2016, global e-retail sales amounted to 1.9 trillion U.S. dollars, and it is expected to reach 4.06 trillion U.S. dollars by 2020.

Mobile-friendly E-commerce Website Design

The above projections indicate how online shopping is one of the most popular online activities at a global level. And, impressive revenues are earned through mobile shopping.

As an eCommerce store owner, you need to ensure that your brand and online presence doesn’t reflect another business. Your first impression will be judged by your eCommerce website design during the first visit of browsers to your online store. Your design should be unique to visitors. They should find it worth buying from in it. Invest in custom website design for your shopping cart and enjoy conversions! Tip: If you have a traditional eCommerce website design, redesign it for handheld devices. Responsive designs will let you earn more traffic and revenue, and reach out to a much wider audience.

4. Website Hosting

Have you ever got switched to another website for shopping from your favourite one just because it did not load on time? Or, have you suffered irritation while doing online shopping because the website was too slow to load products or reach to check-out page?

A slow and unresponsive eCommerce website design is a significant restraint. This is because an average online user can only bear load time of up to 3 seconds.

Website_Hosting_E-commerce_Website_Design

From both perspectives, customer experience and search engine optimization, the loading speed of your website is crucial. Some hosting platforms provide dual advantages of native SEO traits as well as offer apps to strengthen their SEO efforts. Tip: eCommerce websites that load in less than 3 seconds have a lot of benefits over websites that take longer to load.

5. A strong and compelling Call-to-Action

A strong and compelling call-to-action (CTA) is a website element that encourages customers to take a particular action while navigating your website.

Do not miss out to create your CTA buttons captivating and intriguing. Such CTAs can attract users and capture their interest in your eCommerce website design. Your CTA content should invite them to follow through by clicking on the button. CTAs facilitate you the prospect to engage users and keep them moving further down the funnel towards a conversion. According to HubSpot, by creating a CTA with a quote from a treasured customer, you can kill two birds with one stone.

CTAs should be industry-specific and far from generic. Use enticing copy that truly encourages the user to click on the button because there is a clear value in doing so. In terms of the design, buttons should be prominent on your web pages and stand out vibrantly so that the user never has to actively look for the button. Make sure your visitors get the option to take multiple actions with the influence of strong and compelling CTA.Tip: Most prominent CTA buttons in an eCommerce website design are“buy now”, “shop now”, “add to the cart”, and others. However, you should experiment a few of these with a few variations of colours, image, and content, on your own store to see which performs best!

6. User-friendly navigation

Your website navigation can lead a user either to continue his journey for long or leave the website forever. You need to ensure that your eCommerce website design is properly structured. A proper structure and easy navigation help visitors to browse and search engines to understand. As far as possible, avoid drop-down menus since it encourages visitors to skip important web pages. According to Kissmetrics, put your most important items at the beginning of the navigation and the least important items in the middle. “Contact” should be the last item on the list, putting it at the far right in top-level horizontal navigation, a standard location.

The reason behind a neat structure of the website is to ensure that visitors should always be sure of where they are on your website. Your website navigation can have an impact on both traffic and conversion. If they are aware of what they want and where they are, a conversion will not be difficult to take place.

Tip: One of the best ways to boost website navigation experience is to append breadcrumb navigation and an HTML site map in the footer section.

7. Include Product Reviews

According to the study of CompUSA® and iPerceptions®, 63% of consumers indicate that they are more likely to purchase from a site if it has product ratings and reviews.

One of the highly important but quite underrated element to promote the reputation and evaluate an eCommerce store is Product Reviews. An eCommerce store has a good collection of consumer reviews on your products has the capability to widen its customer base. Brands like Samsung, Apple, Nike, Levis, and others have gained a significant market share in a short span on the basis of positive product reviews.

It’s safe and sound to stress the importance of customers’ reviews regardless of how well you promote your online stores and products. Customers’ reviews on your products will always have higher weight age and greater impact. They not only read online reviews but also compare positive reviews with negative reviews on the same product. According to Advances in Economics and Business, “85.57% of the participants stated that they read reviews often or very often before they purchase online.

Product reviews can either make or break the ultimate decision of the buyer to buy the product. Hence, in your eCommerce website design, choose a shopping cart that has a space for product ratings and reviews.

Tip: Suggestion on how to include ‘product reviews’ in your eCommerce store.

Incorporate a five-star rating or a 1-10 scaling system below every product.
Make it viewable and easy for the user to assign grades (with as few clicks as possible.
For your top reviews, create a separate landing page featuring testimonials written by registered customers.

At last!!

The ultimate goal of your eCommerce website is to sell your products and generate revenue. This end goal can be drilled down into smaller goals. These goals include email subscription, signing up, increasing social media followers, or sharing a piece of content. You can achieve all these goals with a proper eCommerce website design in a place. And, this is now possible if most of the above-mentioned traits can be taken care of. However, there are a number of tactics you can apply to help with eCommerce conversion optimization and convert your browsers into buyers.

Do you own an eCommerce store? How far your eCommerce website design is optimized for conversions? Do drop in your words in the comments section!

10 Skills Every Software Tester Should Master

Posted on August 22, 2017November 6, 2019 by admin

Software testing is a procedure performed by a software tester to execute either a computer program or application with an aim to find and fix the software bugs. Software testing can also be understood as the process that validates and verifies either of the software program, application or product.

Being software testing one of the most crucial things, it is very imperative that every software tester should possess specific technical skills and in some, they need to excel. What are those skills?

These are some of the most valuable 10 skills that every software tester should master

Testers don’t like to break things; they like to dispel the illusion that things work. — Kaner, Bach, Pettichord

1. Awareness of SDLC skills

Most of the project stakeholders possess a false impression that SDLC (software development life cycle) is a project management methodology. In fact, SDLC is a framework that defines tasks to be performed at each stage of software development process.

For software testers and quality analysts, it is advisable to learn product lifecycle management abilities. Such learning will enable them to comprehend the application improvement undertakings and plan testing cycles effectively. In-and-out information of SDLC will also help the quality analyst to suspect complexities in the application which can control in taking the correct measures in advance.

With this, software testers should also grasp a few development methodologies that pertain to SDLC. To name a few, those methodologies are Scrum, Agile, Waterfall, and V-shaped model among others.

2. Attentiveness to STLC skills

STLC is an abbreviation of software testing lifecycle. Software testers have an important role to perform in the Product Testing Life Cycle, which is also called STLC.

STLC is a grouping of exercises carried out by the team of software testers from the starting point of the project to the completion of the project. Programming Testing Life Cycle is a procedure to improve the overall quality of the product. STLC comprises of various steps such as analysis of requirement, in a grouping, test planning, developing test case, setting up an environment, executing tests, and closing test cycle. At each of the STLC stage, procedures are carried out in a planned and systematic manner to get done a decent quality product.

3. Knowledge of various Bug Reporting Tools (Testing Tools & Techniques)

Bug reporting being one of the core responsibilities, it is essential for every software tester to have knowledge and awareness of different testing techniques and application of testing tools. Testing is not responsible for the bugs inserted into software any more than the sun is responsible for creating dust in the air. — Dorothy Graham

Regardless of the domain and type of application, the acquaintance of various testing types likes white box testing, black box testing, security testing, system testing, unit testing, and others make testers versatile. Also, it helps them work on any sort of project. Moreover, a large number of bug reporting tools are available in the market such as bug tracking tools, test management tools, GUI testing tools, automation tools and similar others. Hence, it is also important for quality analysts to get the knack of these tools so that they can serve diverse requirements and complexities of the project.

4. Well-versed with Techniques of Automation

Automation does not do what testers used to do unless one ignores most things a tester really does. Automated testing is useful for extending the reach of the testers’ work, not to replace it. – James Bach

With the increasing complexities and integrations in the application, relying on manual testing alone cannot get the job done. For testing browser compatibility, performance, headless as well as database and integration layers, testers should learn automation skills since it imparts higher accuracy because of the business logic and technicalities it can serve. In addition, there are several test automation tools that dedicatedly support particular testing type and come with features to get the tasks done quickly and efficiently.

5. Excellent communication skills

Excellent communication skills are the key to succeed in any field, on any platform. A software tester is also not an exception here. Every tester should also possess good communication skills. Here, effective communication skills refer to good writing, speaking, listening, and reading skills. Quality analysts should communicate effectively with stakeholders at all stages, e.g. updating the status of the project to the clients, informing about requirements to the team, passing on issues to the developers, translating specification documents to test cases, and preparing reports for the management. Over and above, good communication helps to demonstrate a high degree of comprehension which further assists in conveying insights and providing feedback to both technical and non-technical people, logically and rationally.

6. Outstanding Logical and Analytical Thinking skills

Definitely, this is one of the essential requisites of a software tester. In most of the practical scenarios, software tester identifies a considerable amount of the bugs with rationales connected with the code. In such scenarios, analytical thinking ensures that you are capable of thinking out of the box. It should result in the creation of various test cases. Logical thinking helps you understand all Dos and Don’ts when you test as an end client and apply a broad range of prospects you can consider. Your analytical skills and logical thinking can create situations that help you rapidly make your product strong.

7. Top-notch Project Management skills

In any job, apart from core technical skills, one also needs to own time management and project management skills. Similarly, only possessing testing skills will not be sufficient for a software tester in the long run.

As a quality analyst, you should have great learning and thorough understanding of the business process and overall project details. Strong problem-solving skills and top-notch project management tactics will assist you when the going is tough. Besides, having in-depth programming talent will provide you with growth in testing at the code level. If you possess excellent knowledge of the code structure, your contribution to the development team will be significant. You will be able to come up with bugs that will be very useful for the overall software or product.

8. Updated with the latest Web & Mobile Technologies

If you are a software tester, apart from above skills, you should also get updated with the latest web and portable innovations. Then only you will be able to comprehend the sort of use, its built and scalability, and apply a suitable course of action for its testing.

Each and every software tester should keep a tab on both the web and mobile technology advancements. The technological advancements lead them to figure out the coding style and technical challenges to deliver effective QA solutions.

9. Sharp Decision-making skills

Perhaps, this is one of the most fundamental soft skills for any software tester. In most of the scenarios, a large portion of the bugs is identified with basis connected in the code. As ironic as it seems, the challenge of a tester is to test as little as possible. Test Less but Test Smarter – Federico Toledo

Analytical thinking and related decision-making skills ensure that you are capable of thinking out of the box. These skills will help break up a complex software system into smaller units to get a superior understanding and create test cases. Analytical skills and related decision-making talent of a software tester should result in the formation of different test cases.

Logical judgment plays a fundamental role when you test as an end-user and relate all sorts of probabilities you can think of. Creating situations which help in making the product strong can be done quicker by the software tester who possesses strong decision-making skills.

10. Self-explanatory and high-quality Reporting skills

Last, but not least! An ideal software tester must also own good reporting skills. High-quality reporting skills aid to provide the precise status of the test project and application under test to stakeholders. The practice of high-quality and self-explanatory reporting leads to overall better project test coordination.

In addition, it gives transparency to the top management regarding test cases executed; bug encountered; release timelines; and others that in due course lead to take the right decisions on time.

Closing thoughts

Being a software tester, the above-mentioned skills are desirable in you. Testing is a continuous process which runs throughout the product development lifecycle and even posts product development too. No doubt, there is always room for improvement in almost all products. However, if you possess the best qualities and top-notch skills of a software tester, you can for sure come up with the best possible product.