So in no particular order, here are the things we like to do on a daily/every other day or at least once a week…

• Check Google Analytics: Ensure there’s no unusual activity (which can be a good or bad thing!)
• Log into Google and Bing Webmaster Tools: Quick check to ensure there are no crawling errors, jumps in page load speeds, broken links etc
• Check any paid advertising campaigns (such as Google AdWords, Facebook/LinkedIn ads): Review the click through rates (CTR) of keywords and adverts (particularly any new adverts you may be testing), adjust any bids or budgets, add any new negative keywords you may have recently thought of
• Check your presence on social media sites – Twitter, Facebook, Linked, blogs: Review and reply to any mentions, comments etc, engage with other users, make a useful contribution
• Read through any new articles you have loaded in Google Reader: This is a great way to keep up to date on a range of blogs – just add any RSS feeds to Reader and go through it on a daily basis
• Browse through your competitor sites: Are they up to anything new/interesting. A good way to monitor this is to set up Google Alerts with their name, then any new activity from them can either be emailed to you, or added to your Google Reader account
• Have a quick check of the rankings of your major keywords you may be working on: Although rankings do fluctuate on a regular basis and you shouldn’t rely on a small number of keywords, but giving these a quick check can alert you to any issues early on (remember to turn off personalised search!)
• Have a bit of an explore around your website: Check that everything is working as it should, forms are working, links are working etc

Are there any other checks you do on a daily basis? Share your ideas in the comments below.

To some extent, Google PPC and Facebook Ads are polar opposites. Google AdWords gives businesses access to audiences with high commercial intent, and enables you to understand their moods and attitudes by trial and error (how often do we go on about the importance of testing, testing and more testing when it comes to Google AdWords?!). You bid for keyword searches that you think will capture consumers surfing around who might be interested in your product, and the Google AdWords interface provides you with the option to bid for different combinations of search terms as frequently as you like.

For example, imagine that you sell used cars in Hampshire. Ideally, you would be able to bid for the search terms: used cars Hampshire, and win the top slot. This is a a combination of keywords like that is likely to have a high asking price. The price of search terms are dictated by the bidding process. Whoever is willing to pay the most, will often win the top slot, and appear at the top of the search in the ‘Ads’ section (although there are other factors, including the relevance of your landing page, the quality and relationship of the other keywords you are bidding on, your click through rate, the quality and relevance of your adverts…)

We refer to users entering search terms like ‘used cars Hampshire,’ as being pretty, ‘far down the cone.’ That is – from the number of possible people in your audience at the top of the cone, where the cone is widest, to the bottom of the cone where it narrows to where people are actually buying your product–people who are entering search terms to search for your product are probably already thinking about buying it. On the other hand, you are only reaching people who are entering the search terms that you’ve bid for.

Facebook Ads, on the other hand, are the opposite of this. You can choose your demographic with incredible precision–based on their ‘likes’–but you’re not necessarily reaching people who are already in the mood for shopping. Does that matter though? The small percentage of people who click on your ad are the only people who matter, and the conversions that you get from that small-percentage can be elaborately fine-tuned as your ad campaign continues.

What is exciting about these marketing tools is the instant level of feedback and data that advertisers have access to. Instead of researching how you should target and launch your ad-campaign through focus-groups or just raw intuition, and then waiting for results with your fingers crossed, with Google AdWords or Facebook Ads, you know exactly how your market is responding straight away, and as such you have the ability to constantly tweak, recalibrate, respond. Advertising along these lines is an art… but it’s also a science. If you watch the campaign diligently and learn how to react to the results, you can hardly fail to make an impact. And by ‘impact,’ we mean, ‘sales.’

If Google AdWords has you in a puzzle, or if Facebook Ads has taken all the fun out of Facebook for you, get in touch! We love nothing more than creating ad campaigns and seeing the conversions (sales, enquiries etc) roll in! Email us on info@SMEketing.com for more information or to arrange a quick coffee to chat it over.

Following from our previous post last Thursday, here are the additional five mistakes that we see people make in their Google AdWord Campaigns:

6. Not targetting the right group of searchers: Is your product or services aimed towards a particular demographic or geographical location? Did you know that you can set your AdWord campaigns to target those demographics or locations? If you want to target women in their 30′s you can do that. You can also set very specific geographic locations to target – saving you money and increasing your success rates.

7. Only having one advert per AdGroup: It’s important to test, test, test in Google AdWords. Test everything! One of the key things to test is your ad copy. Ideally create one advert which you think will be effective – then create another 2 or so versions with slight tweaks. You’ll then be able to see which ones have the higher click through rate and most on site conversions. Take the winner of these ads, then create another 2 or so versions based on this one and test those… and continue the testing process. This is the only way to continually improve your adverts. If you’ve got two very different ads (remember to make sure they’re still relevant for that AdGroup though), test them together – see which one is more effective and then use that as a basis to start further tweaks and tests.

8. Letting Google show more popular ads most often: Google sets this as the default. You might think this sounds like a good idea – you’ve got 3 adverts in your AdGroup, one gets a lot more clicks than the others, so it makes sense for Google to show it most often right?? Wrong. Google wants to make money from you, so of course it’ll want to show the highest performing ads most often – you’ll get more clicks and they’ll get more ££. However, want you need to know is not what the highest performing ad is in terms of clicks – but in terms of conversions. If you have two ads with two different call to actions – one might get the most clicks, but only converts 1% of the time. The other gets fewer clicks but converts 5% of the time. You need to work out what generates a higher ROI – more clicks but less conversions, or less clicks but more conversions. You can only work this out by a) measuring it using your analytics (like Google Analytics) programme, and b) setting your ads to rotate evenly so you get an equal amount of results from which to measure.

9. Not having compelling adverts: You need to give people a reason to click on your ad. You’re competing against a number of other paid results and ten natural results. Why should people click on your link over another one? So use call to actions in your adverts. Tell people why they should click and what they can expect when they click.

10. Failing to track results: As I said earlier, it’s important to test everything in Google AdWords, and this means tracking and understanding the results. You can set up conversion tracking which means that Google understands that page you’re trying to get people to get to (which is commonly a ‘Thank you’ type page). Once you’ve told Google this, they can then tell you which Campaigns, AdGroups, Keywords and Ads resulted in conversions. If you know this you can put more focus (and budget) on the better performing areas and either eliminate or work on improving the poor performing areas. Make sure that you also link up your Google Analytics to your Google AdWords – this will give you a host of additional information. Data such as the bounce rates of landing pages, time on site and visitor paths can all help to improve you results.

So these are just some of the common mistakes. Google AdWords can have an enormous impact on your online success, but they must be managed and monitored in the right way.

Have you made any huge mistakes with Google AdWords? Share your story in the comments and help others from making those same blunders!

Google AdWords

Setting up a Google AdWord account is relatively straightforward. However there are some common mistakes that people make along the way. This list just features, in no particular order, ten of the biggest and most frequent errors people make:

1.  Not putting keywords in your adverts: Putting keywords in your advert will not only help increase the click through rate (CTR), but will also give you a higher ad position. The more relevant your ad is to the query the user typed in the search engine, the higher the position and the less you pay – it’s win win!

2. Not having enough relevant keywords: You may have an AdGroup focused on a particular term – you need to ensure that you cover as many different variations on this term as possible – think outside the box here and also make use of the Google Keywords Tool. However, you must also make sure that all the keywords in that AdGroup remain focused – don’t branch out too much otherwise you may end up with keywords which don’t closely relate to their dedicated adverts.

3. Having too many keywords in an AdGroup: On the other hand… Google really doesn’t like you to have hundreds of keywords in one group. It’s unlikely that they’ll all be tightly focused on the one subject. You’ll also end up having many keywords which don’t produce any impressions or clicks – and Google doesn’t like this either. They like nice tight, focused AdGroups, with a list of focused keywords which generate impressions and clicks. So make sure you have covered all your bases with your keyword list, but don’t go OTT.

4. Quitting too soon: Success with Google AdWords doesn’t always happen overnight. It takes time and lots of tweaks to get a successful campaign. Because there are so many variables (such as keywords, adverts, bidding, ad position, geographic targeting, timings etc… ) it’s almost impossible to get it right first time. But the great thing about Google AdWords is that everything is tracked and measured – meaning you’re able to instantly see what does and what doesn’t work. How many other advertising mediums give you as much statistical information as Google AdWords?

5. Not having dedicated landing pages: We’ve discussed this subject in blog posts before (Top Tips For Landing Pages and Do You Have Dedicated Landing Pages for Your PPC?). Having landing pages that have been create specifically for your Google AdWord campaigns can be a key factor in success. The focus of the landing pages should match the offer and focus on the adverts, which in turn match the focus of the keywords in that AdGroup. Everything should tie together in one focused path. This will not only help to increase your Google Ad Quality Score (which can mean you pay less for higher listings), but will also increase the number of conversions you have on-site.

So these are just some of the common mistakes. Google AdWords can have an enormous impact on your online success, but they must be managed and monitored in the right way.

Come back on Tuesday 31st for Part Two and the other 5 mistakes.

So imagine you have a new offer – promoting 50% of a particular product – what can you do to push this promotion online?

• Create special offer page
  • Explain what the offer is
  • What are the benefits?
  • What are exactly are you offering – what can your customers expect to receive?
  • What is the cost? (free, percentage off, pounds off etc)
  • How to order?
  • Include form on the page to register

Then promote this page using various online platforms:

• If you are using Google AdWords or any other form of pay per click advertising, create a special campaign with dedicated adverts pointing to your promotion web page.
• Create a press release about your offer
  • Upload it to online newswires
  • Might be worth paying £45 or so to put it on a paid newswire
  • Email it to industry journalists and publications (both online and physical)
• Promote on all social media sites
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
• Create a blog post about it
  • Link to the main landing page
• Create an article about it
  • The benefits of your offer and how it can help your customers
• Create an email about it and blast it out to your email marketing list
  • For previous prospects that maybe didn’t convert in the past, try writing a personalised sales letter to the contact and posting it (old school, but still a good-un!). Explain what the offer is and include a link to the page for people to register for it, and a paper form which they can fax/scan/email back.
• Add it to your email signature
• Maybe consider buying some banner ads on relevant event marketing websites
• When you sell one, try and get a customer testimonial which you can add to the promotional page (and other marketing materials)
• See if you can get existing customers to spread the word to their customers/partners etc

So you see, that with a bit of time and effort there really are very effective methods you can use to promote your latest offer.

If you need any help with any of these areas (creating landing pages, Google AdWords, press releases, blogging or article writing), get in touch with us today. We’re passionate about creating optimised content and have helped many of our customers get fantastic results using such methods.

Call 023 8083 7271 or email us on info@SMEketing.com

If created well, landing pages can be used to make a ‘hard sell’. Not in a hammy, used car salesman way, but in the sense that you have visitors where you want them. Show them what they need to see, present the information with a focused message and hit them with some strong call to actions – remember we talked about your goals in the previous post? Landing pages allow you to create a pre-planned funnel/path, pushing visitors to complete those goals.

How do you create good call to actions, and how do you get people to do what you want? Well there’s no secret recipe I’m afraid. It’s a case of trial and error – test your landing pages and constantly tweak and amend them based on the results you get.

Here are the main things you need to be aware of when creating landing pages:

• Colourful, big and bold buttons: Hit them with a call to action in a visually appealling way with good quality buttons that tell them to ‘Buy Now’, ‘Sign up for our newsletter’, ‘Take a Free Trial Today’, ‘Download Now’ etc.. Make these buttons stand out from your page through the use of colour and good quality design
• Limit the use of links and menu options on the landing page: The more links on your landing page, the more likely people will click off elsewhere, get distracted and never complete the action you want them to
• Clever content layout: People scan webpages, they don’t read them (this goes back to the ‘lazy, demanding and impatient’ bit I mentioned in the previous post!). So make it easy for them to get the key information – use bullet points, short paragraphs, bold text and colour
• Make it easy for visitors to complete the goal: If your goal is to have them contact you, make the contact form small and simple. Do you really need their full address, date of birth and favourite colour? Think about the minimum amount of information you need in order to follow up that lead and only request that. If you’re trying to get them to make a purchase, don’t make them go through hoops. Display your delivery details and return policy clearly to instill a feeling of trust, and make sure you let them know that your online payment process is secure. Don’t give them any reason to start clicking about off the path you’re directing them down
• Make sure the key information is above the fold: This goes back to newspapers – when they’re delivered or displayed in newsagents, you can see the top half of the front page – this is where they put all their major stories and headlines. The same goes for landing pages – make sure your most important information is towards the top of your landing page – above the fold. Anything people have to scroll down to view is below the fold. Remember that people have different monitor sizes too, so what may be above the fold for you, may not be above the fold for all your visitors. Why is this important? Again, people are lazy, demanding and impatient and can’t be bothered to scroll down the page to find the information they want! If they view the content above the fold and it looks relevant to their query, then they may make the effort to scroll. But if not… bang goes the back button!
• Remember that not everyone will convert: Not all visitors will be in the position to buy the item they’re searching for (or contact you for the service your offer). They could just be in the research stage of the purchase process. Do you have anything you can give them? If you can’t fulfil your primary goal of a sale, what secondary goals do you have. Can you get that visitor to sign up to your newsletter, or can they download a guide with advice on the purchasing process (possibly via a form to capture their details)? It’s important to try and make the most of each click, and understanding that not everyone will convert is important. Give people more than one option – so create more than one call to action on your landing page.

If you have any other landing page tips, leave them in the comments below. Have you tried something that had amazing results? Share it with us.

PPC advertising, especially Google AdWords are a fantastic way of increasing the volume of traffic to your site. Many types of websites and businesses will benefit from PPC:

• If you have a new site which is not yet ranking well in the search engines
• If you’re in a very competitive market and don’t really stand a chance for ranking on your key terms
• If you haven’t got any optimisation on your site, so probably won’t rank for your desired terms

PPC is a great way of getting traffic to your site, but that’s only half the battle. Once someone clicks on your advert and lands on your website, what happens then? You need to carefully think about what your goal is for that visitor:

• Signing up for your newsletter
• Making a purchase
• Registering for an event
• Making contact via your ‘Contact Us’ form

Once you know what your goal is, you then have to think about how you’ll achieve that goal. This is where landing pages come in. A landing page, simply put, is the page that visitors ‘land’ on when they first enter your site. With PPC you have control over this (whereas in natural search it’s most likely to be your homepage, however other pages will rank also, but unless you’ve optimised a particular page for a specific phrase, it’s unlikely you’ll have much control over this).

Anyway, back to PPC where you can specify the landing page you want your visitors to land on. So what is the best page on your site to direct them to? You may think that your homepage is the best page – let the visitor click about and go to the content they want to see. But that’s where you’re wrong. The Internet has made us all lazy, demanding and impatient! We don’t want to have to search your site for the information we’re looking for – we want it presented to us straight away!

For example, if you’re selling bikes and have an advert running for the keyphrase ‘Ladies red bike’, when a searcher enters that term into the search box, they’ll get a list of natural and paid results. If they click on your advert…

Ladies Red Bike
Wide Range Of Bikes For
Ladies Who Like To Ride
www.yoursite.com

…where will they land? Do they land on your page featuring all your ladies red bikes, or do they land on your homepage? What makes more sense to you? If they can’t see immediately what they’re looking for, they’ll hit that dreaded ‘back’ button and click on another advert, and you’ve just been charged for a click with no result.

So it’s important that you direct people to landing pages that are relative to their search query.

Come back on Monday to find out what our top tips are for creating landing pages with conversions in mind; getting people to take the action you want. The more conversions you get, the better return on investment you’ll get from your PPC campaign.

In the meantime, if you’ve had any success using landing pages in your PPC campaign, leave a note in the comments telling us abou it! And remember, SMEketing are dab hands at creating high quality landing pages. If you’d like us to overhaul your PPC campaign and help you get more conversions, get in touch with us on 023 8083 7271 or email us on info@SMEketing.com.

So if you’re running a small business, your website must be found on Google to have a chance of connecting these targeted, high quality visitors to your website.

There are two ways to get visitors from Google.

• Using Google Adwords
• Using Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

These two methods come under the term “Search Engine Marketing” or “Search Marketing.” Google Adwords is a way of sending high quality visitors to your website immediately, by paying for it. SEO will provide a stream of free, high quality visitors to your website but can take up to a while for the best results to come through.

Both types of search marketing can be used to ensure your website reaches the visitors that you want to connect with.

What is Google Adwords? Google Adwords allows you to place small text based advertisements of your website on Google. Here’s how it works: You create text ads and choose keywords you think your customers would use to find you. Those text ads are displayed when someone types in one of your keywords. You only pay when someone clicks on your ad’s link and visits your website.

What is SEO? SEO is a way of ensuring your website is accessible to Google and has the best chance to rank higher than other websites that offer similar products/services. The theory behind SEO is simple: Ensure your website follows the Google webmaster guidelines to make it accessible. Create a website that is the more relevant to what you are offering then your competitors. Think about the keywords your customers would use to find you and use those words in relevant places throughout your website. Make it a high quality website so that other websites will link to you. I recommend that if you have invested in SEO (and I always advise that you do) you should also run a Google Adwords campaign until your SEO results appear.

Ensuring that your website ranks high in the Google results is vital to receiving high quality and quantity leads. You need to make sure your small business website is working as hard for you, as you are for your small business.

Managing a SEO and PPC campaign takes time, patience and a thorough understanding of the process. If you want to take advantage of the benefits of these solutions, but just don’t have the time or skills, contact us at SMEketing. We have experience in running campaigns for a variety of organisation, all who are now reaping the rewards!