Google rolled out its latest Panda update to the search engine's algorithm. It is designed to push sites with bad content down the rankings. SEJ has published a list of those most negatively effected. Thank heavens ask.com got drilled, that site is the most unhelpful site on the planet. Check out eBay. Headed in the wrong direction.
Having a website is a great way to provide information to your customers, but if you want to maintain a dialogue with your customers, you should make sure to include social media in a way that complements the rest of the content on your website. People love sharing ideas with each other and with the businesses they support, and social media serves this exact purpose. Here are some ways to boost social engagement for your website.
Embed a Twitter Feed
If you have a Twitter for your business, it is a great idea to embed your Twitter feed right onto the side panel of your website so that customers will see frequent and real-time updates from you, which will make them feel more connected to your business. Tweet at peak times of customer activity so your Twitter will get as much exposure as possible.
Include Social Media Widgets
You have a website, but your customers may not know that you have an active presence online in other places like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram or SlideShare. Embed widgets onto your site in a place where your customers can see them and easily click on them to be directed to your other social media platforms in a new tab. Customers will then return to your website again and again, because it will provide them with access to all of your social media platforms in one convenient place.
Maintain a Blog
When you keep a blog on your website, it gives customers a chance to read about who you and your employees are. A blog is a great way to give customers a behind-the-scenes look at the workings of your business, including pictures and videos, and let them know about company events you will be hosting or attending. Customers like to feel included in the operation of your business, since they are investing their money and energy to buy and use your product to support your business. Encouraging readers to leave comments will assure them that their voices are being heard, especially when you reply to those comments directly or address them in future posts.
Make Sure Your Website is Optimized for Use with Mobile Devices
People use their smartphones and tablets constantly, both at home and on the go. If your website is designed to be compatible with mobile usage, your social engagement will increase, because people will be accessing your website more often, accessing your social media through the website, then engaging with that social media. No one wants to scroll up, down, left, and right, or zoom in to tap tiny links, just to navigate a website on their tiny cell phone screen. If you make it as easy as possible for customers to use your website on their computer, smartphone or tablet, they will feel more comfortable engaging with your content and will also respect you for being technologically savvy.
Make the Most of Your Online Presence
There are so many ways to share information with your customers and give them a chance to provide feedback or share ideas with each other. Let your website shine as the main hub for all social engagement opportunities, and your online presence will bring you customer loyalty as well as profit for your business.
"During these tests we noted that the vast majority of the customers (81/100) clicked on Google Adwords rather than the natural search results.
When we asked participants what they thought the Adwords were (and why they were appearing at the top of their search results) typical responses included:
“…the first 3 that meet my search criteria, presumably the best.”
“…best match for what you have put in the search. They have got the words that you have put in or are the most popular.”
“…the most searched I guess.”
SOURCE: Behavioural Research Consultancy Bunnyfoot
A 2013 study by eMarketer found that a larger percentage of sales managers rate telephone calls as “excellent” or “good” – more than any other PPC lead type. It’s why phone calls are the very conversion marketers most need to track to accurately measure ROI from paid search. We use a transcription based system with real time text/email alerts for our clients.
A new study by Facebook Strategic Preferred Marketing Developer Marin Software shows that search campaigns actually perform better when they are done in concert with a Facebook campaign.
Great new research from Ipsos MediaCT which shows how consumers conduct local searches.
Snapchat, Instagram, Whatsap, kik.. they may be media darlings and teen favs, but Facebook is the king of revenue. I think as more advertisers get introduced to Facebook's superior targeting capabilities Facebook's income will continue to grow exponentially.
Still think mobile is a fad? Check out these new statistics from Cisco. Smart companies are getting ahead of this revolution.
Good article on how to convince your boss to invest in Social Media Marketing. He was more diplomatic than me. I'd simply say "eat or be eaten."
http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/ridiculous-arguments-against-social-media-list
I love, love, love Facebook Advertising. It is one of the best buys any business can make. However fixing the right rail is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
http://adage.com/article/digital/facebook-s-unloved-rail-desktop-ads-a-facelift/292566/
Are you tired of running into the same problems with your PPC campaign, and looking for a little expertise to help you make your next one shine? Well, you’ve come to the right place. Here are the top 7 tips for running a PPC campaign in 2014. Each of these guidelines will help you fine-tune your paid search campaign to help you get better and quicker results.
If you’re not seeing the results from your PPC campaign that you know are possible, one reason may be that you are not utilizing all of the tools currently available.
Many advertisers use basic sitelink extensions to increase conversions, but there are so many more ad extension opportunities you can utilize in order to get your target audience to click through to your landing page. Consider the following ad extensions that are all available in Google AdWords.
- Social Extensions – Google+ is becoming a huge leader in social media these days, and you can use that to your advantage. If you have a large following on your Google+ page, with a lot of +1s and good reviews, add a social extension to your AdWords ad.
- Image Ad Extensions – People respond extremely well to images, and it’s true that “an image is worth a thousand words.” If you own great images that really tell your brand’s story, consider adding them to your ad. This may work especially well for a travel destination, hotel chain, car company, or any other industry that thrives on visuals.
- Ratings Extensions – Seller rating extensions show a star rating from Google Product Search right on your ad. If you have great reviews from customers, then use it to your advantage. People want to purchase products that have good ratings. If you have good ratings, tell people about it in your ad.
- Newsletter Extensions – Did you know you are able to ask someone to subscribe to your newsletter right on your Google AdWords ad? Not only is this a great way to advertise, but also it’s an exceptional way to acquire more direct leads.
- Live Chat – Maybe you have a complicated product and people are often utilizing your customer service lines and live chat technology. If you feel like a live chat box would benefit your target audience, ad a live chat box to your PPC ad.
These are just a few examples of ad extensions. Of course the extensions you use will need to be well researched, thought out, and tested, but ad extensions are a great way to capture the attention of more potential customers.
One of the truly best ways to refine your PPC campaign is to make sure that your ads are not showing up for keywords that are often paired with your target keywords, but really have nothing to do with your advertisement. For example, you may sell shower parts, and you don’t want your ad to show up for someone who is looking to throw a bridal shower or a baby shower for their best friend.
The more you are able to discover negative keywords and eliminate them from your potential search impressions, the more relevant your paid search ads will be. This is good for a couple reasons. First, it improves your quality score, and second, it gets your ad in front of the right people.
Here are a few tools that may help you with negative keyword discovery and expansion.
- WordStream’s negative keyword suggestion tool will help streamline the process, so you don’t have to try and think of every negative keyword yourself.
- A tool like AdWords Editor or http://www.jumbokeyword.com/ will help you make bulk changes, instead of having to make them one-by-one. AdWords Editor is awesome, because it allows you to make these changes offline, save them for later, and upload them when you’re ready.
Be honest. When is the last time you went in and actually looked at the data surrounding your keywords? While you may have keywords that were performing well during 2013, the beginning of 2014, or even the beginning of this month, and you have started to experience a slump, it may be time to take a gander at the data again.
Consider using these tools to help you with your research.
- Competitive research tools – Are you constantly getting beaten out by one of your competitors and you can’t figure out why? Well, now is a good time to figure out exactly what it is that they are doing. The good news is with tools offered by iSpionage.com, SpyFu.com, SEMrush.com, and KeywordSpy, you can find out what your competitors are doing, and adjust your strategy accordingly. Take the time to do your research, but keep in mind spying only works to gather data and make inferences. What works for one company may not work for yours.
- Generate new keywords – You never know when a new industry buzzword may appear, or your campaign may have simply just been missing a popular keyword. Consider checking out a keyword generation tool in order to get more ideas.
I mentioned before that one of the best ways to get a new customer is to leverage positive reviews. If you get enough positive reviews on Google, then Google often will automatically add this information to your ad. However, keep in mind that Google is not the only place on the Internet where people go to review products.
In order to produce more reviews, consider signing up for a free customer review site that take measures to only allow for genuine user feedback. If you are confident that your customers like you, then this can only work in your favor, especially if you can use those seller ratings in your paid search ads. Trust factor goes a long way in the advertising world. Use it.
Before mobile devices and tablets were a big deal, you could get away with just monitoring your ads that show up on computers. Now, there tends to be a great deal of variation depending on whether someone is searching on a mobile phone, tablet, or computer. This means in order to get the most from your advertising spend, you will want to segment your keywords by device type as well. You never know when you can spend a lot less for a keyword that shows on a mobile device, or on the other hand, when you may need to spend more on a keyword that shows on mobile device. Adjust your bids accordingly.
It’s possible that geo and targeting are two of my favorite words in the wonderful world of online marketing. Geo targeting is brilliant and should be used in every campaign. Just like you don’t want your ad impression spent on keywords that aren’t semantically related to what you offer, you also don’t want your ads showing up in locations where it doesn’t make sense.
On a small scale, you can simply run your ad to target searchers from a certain location. For example, if you are a dentist in McLean, VA, you can target your ad to only be visible to people searching within a geographical location that makes sense to you. You’ll save a lot of money and get the right customers by geo targeting locally.
On a larger scale, if you have a much larger, national clientele, you can refine your targeting to set more competitive bids for areas that produce a higher ROI for you, and set lower bids for areas that typically don’t perform as well for you. Just make sure that you audit your geo targeted results daily in case there are any huge shifts in the data.
Making sure your ads show up at the right time is another spectacular way to make sure you are getting the most out of your PPC campaign. There really is no one size fits all solution to when the best time to run an ad is. This means it’s important to do some industry research, demographic research, and also testing in order to see what times your ads will perform the best.
The good news is you can view all of this information in a tracking platform like Google Analytics. You can sort all of your data by day and time and then see the amount of impressions, the amount of clicks, the click through rate, the average CPC and more.
Once you have gathered all the relevant information, you can schedule out your ads in Google AdWords.
These are just a few suggestions to really help you refine your paid search campaigns. If you additional need help, consider hiring someone to help manage your paid search campaigns for you.
Guest Author Ashley R. Cummings
I agree with this blogger. I believe Twitter Ads can give you great bang for your buck. They are extremely targeted and efficient.
http://www.automotivedigitalmarketing.com/m/discussion?id=1970539%3ATopic%3A529345
40% of consumers don't know that Google Adwords are paid ads. Check out this recent study of people who bought insurance online.
http://www.bunnyfoot.com/blog/2013/02/40-of-customers-dont-know-that-google-adwords-are-adverts/
