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agency,PPC,search engine optimization,SEM

What to look for in a search marketing agency

Jess
ON
November 30, 2018

A blurred photo of people in an office, overlapped by a hand drawing a black line chart.

Search marketing combines all the elements you can use to improve your presence on search engines. It builds a complete strategy with the ultimate goal of making your website more visible so that a larger audience can reach you and purchase your products or services. At times a complicated assortment of details, having a search marketing strategy is so important in today’s digital landscape. According to Payfirma, over 50% of mobile searches lead to a purchase, so it’s absolutely essential your website comes up on the first page of relevant search results, as close to the top as possible.

So, does it? If you feel as if your current place online isn’t what it should be, it may be time to consider hiring a search marketing agency. Not only can they help you navigate the details of flushing out a complete search marketing strategy, they can also take the stress off you in managing this ongoing and intricate process.

Before you hire an agency, know what search marketing is

Search marketing includes both the paid and unpaid efforts a business utilizes to drive traffic to their site. These methods increase your site’s visibility and improve your search engine ranking.

Unpaid Search Engine Optimization (SEO): This includes features involved with SEO; those which help improve your ranking on search engines. It also helps drive organic traffic to your site. The focus within unpaid search marketing tactics includes optimizing site content, utilizing relevant keywords, and reviewing the overall structure and links of your site.

Paid Search Engine Marketing (SEM): Also known as pay-per-click (PPC) marketing, paid search centers on text-based ads that appear at the top or side of any search engine results. These are closely aligned with key search words or phrases to ensure they appear when the right types of queries are entered into a search engine.

Finding the right balance of the two search marketing strategies for your business is just what the best search marketing agencies will help you do.

Why you should consider search marketing support

Hiring a search marketing company to help with your strategy addresses many common pain points your business may be suffering as you work to maximize the return of your online presence. Digital marketing is still a relatively new aspect of an overall marketing plan, and with constant changes in social media rules, online advertising best practices, and search engine algorithms, it can be difficult to keep up. Bringing in the expertise found within a search marketing agency can not only enhance your knowledge about the functioning of your own website, but keep you up-to-date with relevant changes to search marketing in order to take advantage of the latest developments.

Working with an agency also helps you stay on top of the minute details of search marketing without spending time doing all the research yourself. Especially at agencies like Brain Bytes Creative, where each team member brings their expertise on a specific area of digital marketing to the larger team, you get an in-depth understanding of the whole process broken down into digestible pieces. You’ll also have the confidence that enough time is being spent delving into best practices in all areas since there’s not just a single person handling everything.

A partnership for the long haul

Improving your standing in search engine results often takes longer than most people expect. Typically, when you implement changes in the way you market your business, you expect quick results. With search marketing, results can take time to be fully realized. “Search doesn’t happen in three months,” says Jason Sirotin, Chief Creative Officer at Brain Bytes Creative, “it happens over years,” which is why it’s important to think both short and long term when working on your search marketing strategy. Building a plan that demonstrates a positive return on your investment will trickle in for years to come, so it’s necessary you manage expectations in a way that doesn’t diminish the rewards of your hard work. A search marketing agency partners with you throughout the whole process, totally in it for the long haul. They should connect the dots for you over time, explaining how the work you’re implementing will affect traffic to your site for a long time to come.

What to look for in a search marketing agency

Once you’re ready to start exploring options for the ideal search marketing agency to partner with, it’s important to consider whether or not they exhibit certain qualities that can help make them a good fit, including:

Inquisitiveness

A good agency will continually ask questions to get to know your business and understand your marketing goals. Without this information, they can’t set meaningful strategies for you that will yield the right results. Make sure they’re curious about you and your business and are genuine in their interest.

Experience

Research past clients and check each potential agency’s website for feedback. Ensure that the work they’ve done in the past aligns with what you’ll need them to do for you. Additionally, it’s good to do a little research on the individuals at the agency themselves. Make sure they have the right skill sets for the work you will need done, and that the overall company boasts a variety of talent in different areas. You should also check that they’re up-to-date on all relevant information for SEO, including Google’s latest algorithm, as well as any new criteria for PPC ads. A good team should have a deep understanding of marketing principles as they relate to a digital audience.

Communicative

This is a multi-faceted quality a good search marketing agency should have. You want to know not only how often they check in with you, but whether or not they clearly communicate reports and data back to you in way that’s helpful. You need the ability to take the information they share and pass it along to your own internal stakeholders, so a proper agency should do more than just send you Google charts and graphs.

Integrity

Any agency you work with should put you first. There should be a willingness to partner with you at all levels of service in order to do good work. Your agency team should strive to deliver the best results and let actions speak louder than words.

Finding the right fit

The team at Brain Bytes is dedicated to this process. Putting the customer first, they work tirelessly to get to know you as they establish a partnership whose primary goal is to improve the functionality of your online presence. Prioritizing transparency, communication, and service, Brain Bytes looks forward to learning more about your search marketing needs. Contact us today to get the conversation started.

search engine optimization

Understanding search marketing

Jess
ON
November 12, 2018

What is search marketing?

When was the last time you used a search engine to help you solve a problem? Whether it was looking for a new restaurant, checking elections results, or starting your Christmas shopping early, I’d dare to say you’ve used a search engine recently. Google processes 40,000 search queries every second on average, so you aren’t the only one looking for answers. With so many searches taking place all of the time, wouldn’t you want your business to show up?

That’s where search marketing comes in. Search marketing refers to both the paid and unpaid efforts used to drive traffic to sites and increase their visibility. Search marketing is comprised of both search engine optimization (SEO) & search engine marketing (SEM) strategies.

What is SEO?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the unpaid side of search marketing. SEO is used to increase a sites ranking on search engines and drive organic traffic. SEO helps to improve your search engine ranking by focusing on relevant keywords, optimizing site content and technical structure, and making sure your site is easy for search engines to crawl and index.

When people search for something, search engines want to make sure the top results they see are the most relevant sites that will provide the information visitors need. And if people are looking for something your business offers, you definitely want your website showing up since 33% of total clicks go to the first search result, 18% to the second, and the rest 11% or under.

What is SEM?

Search engine marketing (SEM) is the paid side of search marketing. It’s often also referred to as paid search or PPC (pay per click). These are the text-based ads that appear on the top or alongside search results when you enter a search query.

Each search engine has its own SEM platform. Google has AdWords, Bing has Bing Ads, etc. They work by allowing you to bid on how much you’ll pay for clicks, like an auction. Paid search gives you more control over who is seeing your ad and how often since you set the search terms you want to bid on and the budget you’re willing to spend. SEM helps to increase brand recognition by getting your name out there to your audience and drive traffic to your site by showing the ad to people who are currently looking for your products or services.

What is the difference between SEO and SEM?

It’s a fairly common misconception that SEO and SEM refer to the same thing. Though they look similar and are both are important aspects of any search marketing campaign, there are some major differences. SEO is unpaid, so if you are ranking well for your keywords its because search engines find your site relevant to searchers and you’ve optimized your site well. SEM is paying for your ad to be shown above the organic search results. For this reason, people often find organic results more trustworthy. But don’t let that turn you off from SEM. While SEO boosts your organic ranking, it can take a lot of time and effort to see significant results. SEM is a great way to get your ad in front of people and start making impressions faster. Moral of the story, using SEO and SEM together is the best way to get your site noticed, build brand reputation, and gain trust.

Tracking your search marketing campaigns

Whether you’re focusing on your long term SEO strategy, gaining some quick wins with SEM, or finding that perfect mix of both, the question remains: how do you know if your search marketing efforts are working? You decide on the key performance indicators (KPIs) that are most important to your business, and you track them!

Tracking KPIs is the best way to know if the strategies you’re applying are having the desired results. There’s no specific set of KPIs you should always track no matter what. It’s going to depend on your business needs and the goal you’re trying to achieve. But here are some examples of helpful KPIs to consider when deciding on your SEM or SEO strategies:

SEM KPIs:

Impressions: Impressions are how many times your paid ad was visible on a screen (whether its clicked on or not). If your biggest priority is building brand recognition, this is a good thing to monitor to see how many people your ad was in front of.
Clicks: This is how many people actually clicked on your ad once they saw it. Pretty straight forward. If you’re trying to increase traffic, keep an eye on clicks.
Click-through rate (CTR): CTR is measured by dividing the total number of clicks your campaign got by its total impressions. If this percentage is low, it means even though people are seeing your ad they aren’t clicking it. It’s a good sign you should reevaluate and make some changes to appeal to your audience.
Conversion rate (CVR): CVR is going to tell you how many people that clicked on your ad actually converted, meaning they took the action you wanted them to. This could be making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, etc. A high percentage here means your ad is doing its job.

SEO KPIs:

Organic traffic: Tracking your organic traffic is a great way to see if your SEO efforts are bringing people to your site. You’ll want to look at overall organic traffic and by landing page to see what specific pages still need improvement.
Organic conversions: Getting people to your site is great, but are they converting? Tracking your organic conversions helps determine if your messaging is convincing visitors to follow through with the actions you want them to take.
Bounce rate: This metric shows how many people left your site after viewing just one page. Maybe they found what they needed and left, or maybe you didn’t answer their question at all. Either way, a high bounce rate indicates that your site isn’t enticing visitors to stick around and explore more.
Exit pages: Exit pages show you where people are leaving your site from, and it helps you find where people are losing interest and which pages you can improve.

The importance of keywords

Keywords are the foundation for search marketing and play important roles in both SEO & SEM. All search marketing campaigns should start with thorough keyword research to find the most valuable opportunities for your business. A keyword opportunity analysis will help you discover what to focus on by comparing search volume, competition, CPC, and potential value of ranking for certain keywords.

Keywords and SEO

Knowing what keywords to focus on is essential for an effective SEO strategy. Each page of your site should have a focus keyword or keyword group. These will come into play in your content, URL structure, links, and more to help search engines understand what your site is about. Without a keyword focus search engines are going to struggle indexing and ranking your site, and your SEO efforts are going to fall short.

Keywords and SEM

Since you’re bidding on your terms, you want to make sure you’ve done your homework before you start spending money. Having the highest bid doesn’t mean your ad will be shown. Your quality score is also factored in, which is based on your CTR and the relevancy of your ad text, landing page, and keywords. The keywords you bid on should tie in with both your ad copy and your landing page copy.

How do I get started with search marketing?

There’s a lot that goes into strategizing a strong search marketing campaign, which can make it seem like a daunting task. Do you start with SEO or SEM? How do you set up an SEM campaign? Have you picked valuable keywords? Luckily, there are tons of resources to help you get started with search marketing basics. Google’s Academy for Ads and Moz’s Beginners Guide to SEO can get you off to a great start if you have the time and inclination to coach yourself to search marketing greatness. Need the results but don’t have the time? You may want to consider working with a search marketing agency.

Why work with a search marketing agency?

There are plenty of benefits to partnering with an agency for your search marketing needs. For one, it saves you having to do hours of research trying to learn all the ins and outs of both SEO and SEM. Although it still might be a good idea to have a handle on the basics, now you’ll have a whole team of experts on your side to take care of the heavy lifting. But wouldn’t it be cheaper to hire a search marketing expert in-house? Maybe. This will depend on your needs. But again, you’re relying on one brain here. If you partner with a good agency, they will have experts specialized in each area of search marketing to help you ask the right questions, set meaningful goals, and build strategies that help you grow.

When I want to learn something quickly, one of the first things I do is try to restate what I’ve learned in a simple one-page – often handwritten – document. I’ve found that if I can get around to formatting these one-pagers for general consumption, they can be quite useful to others interested in the same topic. So here’s a my paid search optimization one-pager from when I was learning the basics of pay-per-click search advertising.

Brain Bytes Creative is an Atlanta-based digital marketing agency with a passion for search engine marketing. Want to learn more? Get in touch.

PPC,search engine optimization,SEM

Should I focus on SEO or PPC?

Belle
ON
November 8, 2018

Photo looking down at someone's black boots. Two white arrows point in either direction.

Site traffic is the name of the game, so what’s the best way to make it happen? The choice is simple: Focus on SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and go after organic search; or go the PPC (Pay Per Click) route and make sure your ads are being seen.

Let’s do a quick breakdown of both options before I get to the answer.

The benefits of SEO

The benefits of great SEO should be clear. 2017 studies showed that 18% of organic search clicks on Google went to the first position, 10% to the second, and 7% to the third (Slingshot SEO). Not only that, but leads from SEO have a relatively high conversion rate compared to other forms of lead generation. Being at the top of organic search is so important for so many reasons.

- Your site gets noticed. This is just obvious. It’s true for PPC, too. Getting noticed is the reason we even bother with content. When your site answers questions and helps users, you gain domain authority. That’s what you want.

- It builds trust.This is what separates SEO and PPC. PPC is great for getting to the top, but if you get there purely based on the merits of your site, then users are more likely to click on your link. Do you click on the paid ads at the top of search? Chances are you scroll down, looking for a site that you know is relevant to your needs.

- It reflects good work. If you’re near the top of organic search, it means Google rates your site highly based on the keywords people are looking for. You’re doing your job, you just need to keep doing it.

So what’s the question here? SEO is great, we should focus on that and leave the untrustworthy PPC stuff alone.

But here’s the thing; having great SEO is freaking hard. Getting good domain authority takes a while. You have to pay constant attention to UI/UX, and search trends, and always be putting out more quality content. The upside is that when you do those things well over time, you’re rewarded.

The benefits of PPC

Pay Per Click has evolved. It used to just mean Google AdWords, now it’s social as well. There are definite pluses to putting targeted ads in front of the right audience. As far as Google searches are concerned, PPC is a double-edged sword. On one hand, your ad, your site, is just there. Everyone sees it. All it cost you was money.

On the other hand, people don’t really trust PPC ads. They’re way more likely to pass them over and click on the first, second, or third organic link. What’s more, even if you get people to your site, they won’t stay unless your UI/UX is on point.

Still, your name is out there. For an agency without the power of reputation in their favor, sometimes that’s the most important thing.

SO, JASON, WHAT SHOULD I DO?

There are benefits to SEO and PPC. You may have guessed that I’m going to take the coward’s way out and avoid the choice. You’re half right. The answer to the question I posed in this article is, of course, you need to focus on both. SEO and PPC are a brother and sister pair and your agency won’t reach its maximum potential without them together.

But, I put a question to you. Is that the way of a coward? I say the coward chooses one option and neglects the other. Why? Because doing both is more work, that’s why.

SEO is a long game. Yes, people are more likely to trust your site when they see it in organic search. But if you only invest in organic search, it might be awhile before you are recognized as a domain authority. How long can you afford to wait?

Afford, you say. Isn’t that the point of SEO? I don’t want to spend money on PPC. Well, tough shit. Guess what happens when people see your company’s name at the top of the page by PPC and organic search? They feed off each other. It increases the trust clients have in your brand even more.

And, by doing both, you actually save money on PPC. Google charges less money in the PPC arena to sites that have good SEO, too. If you neglect SEO and invest only in PPC, you’re paying more to Google for that top spot, AND people will still leave your site the second they don’t find the content they’re looking for. You’re throwing money away.

To be successful at PPC, it helps to do well in organic. To achieve a high rank in organic search, you need to get your name out there and be trusted and paid can help you get there.

Ready to transform your digital presence? Check out the wide variety of digital marketing services we offer, including SEO, PPC and more. Then contact us to get the conversation started!

search engine optimization

Mobile-first indexing: impacts on SEO (and what to do next)

Jess
ON
October 15, 2018

Having an optimized mobile site is a great way to improve traffic and conversions, and it is now more important than ever with Google’s switch to mobile-first indexing. Previously, Google prioritized the desktop version of websites to index content, but now Google will use the mobile version of sites to build their index. This rollout was officially announced back in March of 2018, and sites have been slowly switched over to these new indexing standards.

Google’s implementation of mobile-first indexing is intended to help improve the mobile search experience. Mobile searching has surpassed desktop and is continuing to rise. This indexing change will help ensure that SERPs are giving users the most relevant content in the most easily accessible format. Before mobile-first indexing, a site with well-optimized desktop content could be the first result for a user’s query even if their mobile site didn’t contain the same information, causing frustration for mobile searchers. The new indexing standards incentivize optimizing the mobile user experience.

How does mobile-first indexing affect my site?

Many questions have risen due to this change. You may be asking yourself…

How will mobile-first indexing affect my rank?

It’s important to remember that indexing and ranking are not interchangeable. Indexing is the process in which Google crawls pages and stores that data. Ranking is the process of evaluating all of the information in the index to match a search query. This latest Google change to mobile-first indexing will affect just that, indexing, and not necessarily ranking. The changes to ranking come from the fact that they will now be determined by different content. You may see a change now that the primary content used for ranking will be coming from your mobile site instead of desktop. If you already have a well-optimized mobile site, you’re in the clear and may even see a boost in ranking with this shift. If you’ve been ranking well on desktop but you don’t have a strong mobile site, it’s likely you’ll see your rank drop.

What if my mobile site and desktop site don’t match?

If your desktop and mobile content aren’t the same, things get more tricky. Often when mobile and desktop don’t match, it’s because the mobile version has been scaled back. Content or videos are removed for the sake of readability or page speed. In this case, rank could be affected since Google will be using the limited mobile content provided instead of the fully-optimized desktop version.

What if I don’t have a mobile site at all?

Don’t panic too much just yet. This is mobile-first indexing, not mobile only. If you do not have any mobile site available, Google will still switch over to crawl your desktop version. But if Google is prioritizing mobile-first, shouldn’t you be too? Mobile traffic has already surpassed desktop traffic, and by neglecting to optimize for the mobile experience, you may be missing out on visitors and conversions. If you’ve been putting it off, now’s the time to get moving on mobile.

Evaluating your website’s mobile experience

Yes, being optimized for mobile is extremely important. So, how do you do it? First, you’re going to want to evaluate your current website. The extent of changes needed to optimize for mobile will depend on whether you’re using a responsive design or if you have a separate mobile site.

Responsive web design

Are you already using responsive web design? Then things just got easier! Responsive web design allows the site to adapt to whatever size screen it’s being displayed on so that you don’t need separate mobile, tablet, and PC versions of your site. If you’ve already implemented this on your site, Googlebot will still be able to crawl and index all of your content using mobile-first indexing. Using responsive design is highly recommended, as it simplifies the process of optimizing your site and reduces the risk of running into duplicate content issues.

Unresponsive sites

If you haven’t started using responsive web design and are using a separate mobile site, you’ll need to do a little more work to make sure you’re optimizing the mobile user experience. According to MOZ, “the lack of a mobile-friendly experience could impact negatively on the rankings of that site, and a site with a better mobile experience would potentially receive a rankings boost even for searchers on a desktop.” In an unresponsive site, you’ll need to manually make changes to ensure your mobile site is optimized as well (if not better!) than your desktop version.

What does a well-optimized mobile site look like?

There are a lot of things to keep in mind when optimizing your site for mobile, and getting started with mobile SEO can seem overwhelming. Don’t overthink it! User experience plays a huge role in being successful. In today’s fast-paced environment with so much information at their fingertips, users aren’t willing to wait around for your site to load or struggle with content they can’t read. Any troublesome factors like this are going to cause frustration, resulting in a higher bounce rate and missed conversions. Keeping these key mobile best practices in mind can help you stay focused and make sure you’re looking at areas that really matter to mobile users.

Fast load time. Users don’t want to wait more than 3 seconds for your site to load. Every additional second of load time is going to raise that bounce rate.
Fits their screen. Whether they’re searching from a phone or a tablet, users want your site to look good. If they have to zoom in and scroll around trying to view your whole site from their device, chances are they won’t be sticking around long.
Easily viewable content. If your text is too small to be easily read on a phone, it won’t be. If your images are too big to be easily viewed, they won’t be. You get the idea.
Concise content. You still want to include all of the important stuff. However, keep the small screen in mind. Clear headings, short paragraphs, bullet points, and lists are all great ways to simplify mobile content.

Mobile SEO checklist

Use this handy checklist to evaluate your sites mobile experience and find optimization opportunities.

Mobile-friendliness test
Google offers a mobile-friendliness test to ensure your mobile UX is adequate. This is a great place to start when looking for mobile optimization opportunities and current areas of weakness on your mobile site.
Page speed
Page speed has a direct impact on user experience. The longer your site takes to load, the higher your bounce rate is going to be because no one wants to waste time waiting on slow pages. Use Google’s Page Speed Insights tool to start your page speed evaluation.
Optimizing images
Compelling images are a must to supplement your content, but it’s crucial to check that they are optimized correctly for mobile. You’ll want to make sure they’re formatted in a way that makes them easy to see on mobile devices, make sure you’ve updated relevant Alt text, and consider compressing them so they aren’t slowing down your site and causing visitors trouble.
Simple navigation
Your mobile site navigation should be easy to use. Keep it simple! Make sure your search option works, have your most important pages first, and remember to design for touch. Designing for mobile means keeping in mind the small screen and scrolling motion. You don’t want your navigation to cause accidental clicks and frustrate visitors.
Mobile-friendly content
Readability is key. Keep sentences short and paragraphs compact. Choose an easily visible font and make sure its large enough to read on small devices. Don’t underestimate the power of whitespace. Keeping things clean, uncluttered, and easily viewable will improve your mobile UX.

Winning with mobile-first

With the ever-increasing amount of site visitors searching from various devices, the importance of mobile optimization only continues to grow. As Google changes to mobile-first indexing, you risk missing out on traffic and potential conversions by failing to optimize for mobile. If you haven’t already made your mobile site a priority, now is the time to do so. By focusing on providing visitors with easily accessible, viewable, and navigable content while eliminating technical frustrations, you put yourself on the right path to be successful in a mobile-first world.

musings,search engine optimization

Driving traffic to your website is key to your success

Belle
ON
March 10, 2018

At Brain Bytes Creative we talk a lot about that dreaded “billboard in the middle of the desert.” Cue creepy music. This concept (that you want to avoid) is pretty simple. It doesn’t matter how beautiful, bright, colorful, or well-intentioned that billboard is. If it isn’t drawing in viewers or catching people’s attention, it isn’t doing its job. Driving traffic to your website is all that matters. Driving the RIGHT traffic matters even more. No one cares about a billboard in the middle of the desert!

Stop being a billboard in the desert

Let me ask you a simple question: Which of the following would you be more inclined to spend marketing budget dollars on… A billboard sitting on the roadside of route 66 in the middle of the New Mexico desert or a billboard in Times Square that can be seen on Good Morning America and is viewed by thousands, if not millions of people everyday? Clearly they don’t come with the same price tag. But one of these will actually have an ROI. The other is a complete waste.

We see websites all the time that may look great but just aren’t being seen. No one is visiting them. Therefore they aren’t as useful as they should be. We have had prospects turn down our full service, revenue generating approach only to sign with a company that constructs a low budget website that no-one will ever see, except maybe existing clients. They just flushed money down the toilet. Shouldn’t the goal of any marketing venture be to obtain more clients and grow revenue? Yes! So, if you intend on spending money on a website you need to do it in the right way and invest in something that will in turn, work for you. Driving traffic to your website needs to be a priority.

How to avoid being the billboard in the desert

Digital marketing of course! More and more marketing spend is going towards digital every year. In fact, projections show that digital marketing will soon outspend TV advertising. That’s pretty incredible to think about.

Here are 4 simple reasons digital marketing is so effective:

It’s much more measurable
It provides you with greater insights into your customers
It has an ever increasing market
Digital marketing just plain works!

In using digital marketing you can follow your customers and prospects through their entire sales journey.

Digital Marketing encompasses several areas. It’s goal, and all the aspects it encompasses, is driving traffic to your website. This is a SUPER high level list. So don’t send me any notes about how much I missed or how basic this is. There is much, much more to it than the below. Clearly, if it were as easy as what I am about to describe everyone would be on top. But, then again, not everyone can be on top! So, it isn’t simple! This isn’t meant to be a tutorial on how to conduct top-notch digital marketing. It’s just a simple outline and the beginning of making it happen.

Social Media – Social media channels should be used and used often. Use Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter and SnapChat. Each social media channel has a different focus. So learn the focus and how to use it to maximize the results you get. The ultimate goal of using so much social media is driving traffic to your website and to get your products and company name, values, and benefits out there. Post often and have fun with it!

What would you say if I told you I could help you increase clicks on a button on your website 71.2% simply by editing the copy? Or increase clicks on a link 24.93% by changing the formatting of the text? Better yet, what if I told you I could increase conversions by 46.95%, making the page 19.99% more valuable?

Digital Marketing Delivers

Keyword use – Your content should be rich with keywords that are relevant to your company. This means that if your company sells beer, the word ‘beer” should appear often on your website. Also use other words that are relevant to your subject matter. In this case, “hops”, “barley”, and the types of beer your company sells might be other things to think about.

Site architecture – Google and other search engines read and study your website in a very specific method. Designing and setting your site up to succeed with these rules is very important. If your site is set up improperly, search engines can miss key information that it contains. Therefore, it wouldn’t really matter if the information is there or not. Google might just miss it. Properly set up your website with intentional, smart site architecture.

Paid search – When keywords are very competitive a PPC campaign can be a great way to get your company’s website to the top of the list. These campaigns charge a certain dollar amount each time your URL is clicked, based on the keyword search the user submits. For instance: “Company A” sells athletic shoes. They have started a PPC campaign in which they agree to pay $X each time someone types in the phrase “running shoe” and then clicks on their company page. A potential customer runs a Google search for ‘running shoes”, Clicks on “Company A’s” site. Google charges $X for the click.

Organic search – All sites are ranked in search based on specific algorithms. This is the best use for long tail keywords and keywords in which less competition exists. This basically comes together when the above are all working together. So, The better your site architecture, the better your organic search results will be. The better your content is, the better your organic search results will be. The more a searched keyword appears on your page, the better your organic search results will be.

Driving website traffic is very important

Again, the above list is overly simplistic. One article couldn’t even come close to encompassing everything one needs to know in the world of digital marketing. This certainly doesn’t cover it all. But, it is a good start. So, the key here is to do whatever you can to get the word out about your company, and get as many eyes on your company, its products, and your site as possible. When all of the aspects of digital marketing come together you will be on your way toward achieving your goals and raising your revenue. Don’t be a billboard in the middle of the desert!

search engine optimization

Basic strategy guide for paid search

Belle
ON
April 27, 2017

PPC goals, metrics, and tactics

Goal: Increased awareness

Metrics:

Ad impressions
Ad position
Social interactions

Tactics:

Create impressions via content and display ads.
Bid more (increase Max CPC) on both branded and non-branded search terms to improve position (visibility) and increase impressions.
Make ad copy more brand-heavy and buzz worthy.

Goal: Increase traffic volume

Metrics:

Clicks
Click-through rate (CTR)
Visits
Visitors
Page views

Tactics:

Keyword expansion
Increase bids
Loosen match types (e.g. go from exact to phrase match or from phrase to broad match).
Ad copy testing for best CTR
Adjust campaign organization to eliminate potential bidding conflicts

Goal: Improve click-through rate (CTR)

Metrics:

Impressions: click ratio

Tactics:

Expand negative matching on high-impression, low CTR ads
Ad copy testing for best CTR
Optimize position (visibility) by adjusting bid (remember: #1 is not always best)

Goal: Increase conversion volume

Metrics:

Conversions (sales, leads, downloads, shares, etc.)
Impression:Conversion ratio
Conversion rate (click : conversion ratio)

Tactics:

Creative testing on landing page(s)
Increase traffic volume
Ad copy testing for best conversion rate
Re-target spend to best performing ads

Goal: Improve traffic quality

Metrics:

Cost per acquisition (CPA)
Cost per click (CPC)
Click-through rate (CTR)

Tactics:

Optimize based on CPA
If exceeding target CPA, reduce spend
If beating target CPA, increase spend
Temporarily increase volume to identify opportunity

Goal: Increase return on investment (ROI)

Metrics:

Return on ad spend
Return on investment

Tactics:

All of the above!

search engine optimization

A simple Google Analytics checklist

Belle
ON
August 16, 2016

Google Analytics is easy to set up, but there are a lot of features that are often underutilized or not used at all. This is the Google Analytics checklist we use to make sure that analytics is not only set up properly, but also set up optimally with the right profiles, event tracking, and segments for the business I am supporting.

Google Analytics checklist items	Done?
Add a Privacy Policy Confirm the website has a privacy policy and add one if it doesn’t. The Google Analytics terms of service requires that your website has a privacy policy. Having a privacy policy also helps improve your Quality Score in AdWords. PrivacyPolicies.com is a nice, free privacy policy generator.
Set up goals Define the website’s goals and configure them in Google Analytics. Think beyond just the primary goals (“I want visitors to buy something”) to potential secondary and tertiary goals. Examples may include: Downloading a brochure Asking a question Leaving a comment Be sure to assign a value to every goal. Even though it’s not “real money,” assigning relative values to each goal will help to evaluate your digital marketing programs through the Page Value metric.
Create Custom Views Define views to help focus specific digital marketing efforts. The following views are a good place to start, but each business is different so be sure the views in Google Analytics meet your business’s needs. All Data. You need a view with everything, just in case you misconfigure something – this is your backup. Main View. This view shows only the traffic you care about analyzing. Typically, you’ll want to filter out known spammers, your office’s IP address, and the IP addresses of your marketing agency and other partners. Test. Have a test view to test configuration changes you plan on making to existing views. You can’t “undo” data collection in Google Analytics, so having a test view is crucial for getting the configuration right on the first try. We tend to create just a few views, rather than many. Too many views can quickly over complicate your setup and further refinements are better accomplished using custom segments.
Create Custom Segments Understand visitor behavior through segmentation. Segments, like views, are frequently very business- or website-specific. Here is a quick list of segments to consider. Hopefully they can get your creative juices flowing. Shopping cart abandons. Visitors that added something to their shopping cart, but never purchased. What changed their mind? Frequent shoppers. Visitors that frequently shop on your website. What keeps them coming back? Researchers. Visitors with high time-on-site and page views. What are they trying to find? High-tech. Visitors with high-resolution screens and fast internet connections. Low-tech. Visitors with low-resolution screens and slow internet connections. Social Sharers. Visitors that share your content on social media. Some of these require custom event tracking, which leads us to the next item on our to-do list.
Set up Event Tracking Track events to understand on-page behavior. Just as page views help you to understand how visitors are using your website, events can help you to understand how visitors are using individual pages and the features on them. Every site is different, but here are a few events to consider: Form interactions. Tracking form interactions can help determine the point at which people tend to abandon. Video interaction. Tracking events like play, pause, fast-forward, and rewind can help you understand which video segments are resonating with viewers. LunaMetrics has a great guide to tracking YouTube video interaction. Text highlighting and copying. If someone is highlighting and/or copying text from your page, chances are they’re well engaged. Scrolling. If you’ve written a long article (like this one!), it’s good to know how far down visitors get before clicking away. Downloads. You can track file downloads with some simple JavaScript. You might also consider using virtual page views, especially for documents such as Word or PDF files.
Create Alerts Create alerts to catch problems and seize opportunities. Sudden or unexpected changes in behavior can mean life or death for your business, so why not have Google Analytics proactively email you when something important happens, instead of potentially waiting until it’s too late? Here are some ideas to get you started: Sudden increase or decrease in traffic. An unexpected increase in traffic can be great news – if your site can handle it! On the other hand, an unexpected drop in traffic could mean a serious issue with your website such as browser compatibility problems, a broken analytics installation, or an SEO issue, etc.. Change in Average Page Views per Visit. Changes in how visitors are engaging with your website can help understand what’s working and what’s not, as well as how external trends are impacting your website (for example, more mobile visitors often means fewer page views per visit).
Set up Report Emails Have important reports emailed to yourself automatically. Even if you check Google Analytics every day, email reports can come in handy especially when they go beyond the dashboard reports. Here are a few I like to have emailed: Browser & OS. This is how we spotted mobile trends with customers, long before clients knew it was coming. This report is also handy for spotting browser compatibility issues that could be affecting usability. All Referrals. Knowing where traffic is coming from (or not!) is a great way to know how to allocate the time and resources you spend promoting your website.

There you have it, our Google Analytics checklist. What’s on your checklist?

Before you hire an agency, know what search marketing is

Why you should consider search marketing support

A partnership for the long haul

What to look for in a search marketing agency

Finding the right fit

What is search marketing?

What is SEO?

What is SEM?

What is the difference between SEO and SEM?

Tracking your search marketing campaigns

SEM KPIs:

SEO KPIs:

The importance of keywords

Keywords and SEO

Keywords and SEM

How do I get started with search marketing?

Why work with a search marketing agency?

The benefits of SEO

The benefits of PPC

SO, JASON, WHAT SHOULD I DO?

How does mobile-first indexing affect my site?

How will mobile-first indexing affect my rank?

What if my mobile site and desktop site don’t match?

What if I don’t have a mobile site at all?

Evaluating your website’s mobile experience

Responsive web design

Unresponsive sites

What does a well-optimized mobile site look like?

Mobile SEO checklist

Winning with mobile-first

Stop being a billboard in the desert

How to avoid being the billboard in the desert

Digital Marketing Delivers

Driving website traffic is very important

PPC goals, metrics, and tactics

Goal: Increased awareness

Goal: Increase traffic volume

Goal: Improve click-through rate (CTR)

Goal: Increase conversion volume

Goal: Improve traffic quality

Goal: Increase return on investment (ROI)

Google Analytics checklist items

Done?

Set up goals

Create Custom Views

Create Custom Segments

Set up Event Tracking

Create Alerts

Set up Report Emails