Businesses that want to expand their reach beyond their local communities must first have a website to let their target customers find them online. But the site is not enough, and business owners must follow it up with an active Search Engine Optimization campaign.
Some business owners might be shocked when they see an SEO campaign’s price, and they decide to stick to traditional outbound marketing techniques to advertise their services. Traditional advertising techniques are far cheaper than SEO but yield far lower results than the costlier option. Companies can use both traditional marketing and SEO to improve traffic to their sites, especially since ads are still useful.
Because many consumers now rely on the internet to look for the services and products they need, businesses must ensure that their websites are discoverable. SEO campaigns seek to place websites on the first pages of the search engine results pages, allowing potential customers to locate their site even if few people have heard of the brand’s name.
SEO is labour-intensive and can take up significant time and resources that businesses can’t afford to spare. Outsourcing SEO is still costly, but it allows companies to focus on their processes while reaping the campaign’s benefits.
Being discoverable online is likely enough to convince companies that SEO is worth the expense. If they need more confirmation on this, they can view Landau Consulting’s infographic to see the benefits of SEO.
The conversion rate of an e-commerce site is a very
important element, it makes possible to calculate the ratio between the number
of visitors and the number of customers transformed from online commerce.
More than 85% of Internet users carry
out research before buying anything. It is
during this phase that everything is done to remove the consumer’s
uncertainties and not let him go to a competing site. Today, converting and
satisfying your client means improving your entire experience from arrival on
the site, to receipt of the order.
First, you should know what factors are holding back your conversion?
In other words, fail to convert your
visitors into customers? There can be many factors: having an unattractive site
despite good SEO or vice versa, SEO based on poorly adapted keywords, external
links that link to your site from blogs or other inappropriate sites (hypertext
links used excessively or insignificant domain of authority), etc.
Elements of crucial importance if you
sell online and which can cause that only a limited quantity of the traffic of
your website does not turn into customers. Some of these reasons can be
uncontrollable, others are controllable with the help of actions which will
allow you to put the odds on your side and to increase your sales via your
e-commerce site.
The path that your Internet users
cross is similar to a funnel: from the state of visitors to that of buyers or
even loyal buyers, through different types of filters; and all those who visit
your site do not become loyal buyers: the very principle of a funnel.
How can you easily convert your visitors into
customers? Here are the key points to building your conversion strategy.
Attraction
The introductory phase that of the first glance, which
makes the visitor knock on the door of the store. Interested in your offer,
visitors or passers-by must be able to fall born in front of your window and be
seduced by it. These two phenomena imply good SEO and therefore the support of
effective marketing tools (professional blog, SEO / SEM positioning, social
networks, etc.) then a pleasant and fun design and layout.
Maximize the presentation of your products and their description
The quality of product photos
has a huge influence on consumer decision-making. Also refine the descriptions
of your products, asking yourself: what information does my prospect need to
buy?
Develop and use your reputation to increase your sales
Internet users are very
vigilant with online reviews and comments. To take advantage of it and differentiate
yourself from your competitors, consider your reputation as part of your
overall strategy.
Attract and reassure thanks to your delivery times
After the product price and
the delivery price, the delivery time is the third element that can change the
purchasing decision. After optimizing your delivery times, make sure to put
this information forward on your site.
Expand your offer to gain legitimacy
By increasing the number of
products for sale on your site, you give a more professional and engaging
image. At the same time, you meet the needs of a wider audience.
Use the pickup location for delivery closer to your customer
This is one of the reassuring
elements of your strategy. Personalize the customer experience by offering
numerous collection points: Drop-off points, post office, home or even lockers.
Highlight your return policy to encourage impulse buying
It is difficult to reduce all
the uncertainty of online shoppers, which is why a good return policy is an
effective alternative to encourage the act of buying.
Take care of the post-purchase customer relationship
It is important to know that
a satisfied customer will speak to an average of 3 people about their purchase,
while a dissatisfied customer will speak to an average of 11 people. These
experiences must, therefore, be anticipated and controlled by the company so
that it derives a benefit.
Use your logistical flexibility as a selling point
Delivery times and options
are a source of frustration for online shoppers. You will see your sales
increase by improving your delivery conditions and adding more options.
Adopt an effective online marketing strategy
As we know, this
is a branch of marketing and it too is difficult to quantify. Don’t skimp on
this resource. A good online marketing service will allow you to attract a
large number of customers and gain visibility on the Internet.
Social networks can give you the opportunity to create a community
You will bring
together a group of individuals who share a common interest, which will allow
you to have quick feedback and gain proximity with your potential and current
customers. If this relationship is well managed and balanced, trust can be
established and therefore, a significant likelihood of loyalty.
Opt for an interactive website
What is the point of trying to be visible and attract new customers if what makes them flee is a lack of originality, updates or even an unclear message transmitted? Make sure you have an intuitive and quality e-commerce site. Don’t overlook the content of interest through a blog or your news. Finally, the choice of colours and shapes must be considered. The details will save you places against your competitors in the minds of your internet users.
Bet on a regular newsletter
Share the themes
of the month, the events related to your activity, your punctual offers, etc.
This marketing action will help retain your customers who will be fond of news
from you. Beware not to fall into abuse! Do not take the risk of becoming spam
and regulate your newsletters well so as not to give the impression of
bombarding your customers.
This transformation process from visitors to loyal customers is far from simple. Competition is extremely fierce and the phenomenon of globalization and the unlimited network of Internet brutally worsen the situation. In e-commerce, the consumption pattern is different from the traditional pattern. To convert your visitors into buyers, focus on all the elements that aim to reassure them and improve their experience.
Author Bio: Raunak is a Mechanical Engineer by qualification &
Marketer by passion. He is the founder of Maiden Stride, a leading digital marketing company that provides world-class search engine marketing services and website & application development.
After carrying out numerous free PPC account audits for small businesses currently running PPC advertising, I have come across all kinds of PPC accounts. From large and modest budgets to simple and complex account structures. Ecommerce or lead generation. I’ve seen them all.
There is rarely a ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to creating a winning PPC account and strategy. However, after reviewing so many small business PPC accounts, I’ve noticed that there some basic PPC advertising mistakes that are made by small businesses.
Below is a list of my top seven basic PPC mistakes that are often made by small business PPC advertisers.
Poor Keyword Choices
One of the most basic elements of PPC advertising is choosing the right keywords. Despite being a basic element of PPC marketing, it is one of the most important. Choosing the wrong keywords can reduce your clickthrough rate and conversion rate, resulting in your advertising budget being wasted.
It is common for PPC advertisers to put together a list of keywords that appear relevant on the surface, but they are not likely to perform well. This is because the PPC advertiser didn’t take time to really get to know the business.
For example, I took over a PPC account where the advertiser, who sells wheelie bins, had been spending a lot of money on the keyword ‘wheelie bins’. While this keyword sounds relevant, it is far too generic and is likely to be searched for by someone who is very early in their sales journey. There are also many sizes, types, and colors when it comes to wheelie bins and some of these products, the client doesn’t stock. We don’t know whether someone searching for ‘wheelie bins’ needs a product variant that my client stocks or not.
No Audience/Age/Gender/Location Targeting Strategy
As PPC becomes more competitive, just choosing the right kind of keywords may not be enough. Most advertisers will understand the importance of choosing the right keywords because it increases the chances of their ads being shown to people who will be interested in their product. But advertisers shouldn’t stop there. In 2020, Google Ads offers so many more ways to segment your targeting so that you can bid on the users that are most likely to purchase your product.
Audiences, age group, gender and location are just a few of the ways that Google Ads allows advertisers to segment their targeting. Some of the targeting options offered won’t be relevant to some businesses. However, it is important to be aware of what is available so that you can tailor-make a targeting strategy that is right for your business.
For example, customers looking to hire a skip care about how far the skip is from their location. This means that a skip hire company based in Leeds should be targeting the Leeds and surrounding areas. It should not be targeting the whole of the UK. Similarly, if a cosmetic surgery clinic knows that most of their customers are younger women, then to put their advertising budget to better use, they may decide to only target younger women. Or they may decide to target all age groups and genders but to put more of their budget behind younger women. Once you know what targeting features are available to you, then you can match these features up with your advertising strategy.
Still Using Last-click Attribution
In 2020, advertisers really shouldn’t be using the default last-click attribution model. They should instead be exploring a multi-touch attribution model. An attribution model will decide which click to give the credit to if more than one click happened before a conversion.
The problem with the last click is that it ignores all the work done by the upper funnel keywords that generated the interest and gives all the credit to the last click. As an example, consider a customer who speaks to three different salespeople about which Television to purchase on three different days. On the fourth day, the customer goes to the till and tells the person at the checkout that they would like to purchase a Television. In this scenario, a last-click attribution model is comparable to giving all the credit to the person at the checkout. However, we know that the sale could not have happened if the other salespeople hadn’t spoken to the customer beforehand. Similarly, we shouldn’t be assigning all the credit for a conversion to the last click.
No Negative Keywords
Google’s research shows that 16% of searches every day are new and have never been searched before. Therefore, advertisers must check their search query reports regularly and block out any irrelevant traffic that may be coming through. Blocking out irrelevant traffic will reduce the amount of budget that is wasted. It also means that you have more budget to put towards buying higher-quality traffic that is likely to help you achieve your advertising goals.
For example, if you’re bidding on the keyword +mens +large + jumper as a broad match modifier, then your ad could show for ‘mens used large jumpers’ or ‘designer mens large jumpers’. If you don’t sell used or designer clothing, then you should block these search terms from your account. Regularly reviewing your search query report can help you find searches to block out and improve the efficiency of your PPC account.
Neglecting the Landing Page
The fifth common mistake that I see is advertisers putting in a lot of thought on their Google Ads advertising but then neglecting the landing page. Your landing page is arguably one of the most important aspects of a PPC advertising campaign. Even if you put in all the hard work to make the right audience click your ads, if the landing page is poor, then your audience is not going to complete your conversion action.
As a starting point, try to send your customers to the right page depending on what they have searched for, instead of sending them to your homepage. For example, if your customer has searched for ‘children’s tweed’, then you should send them to your ‘children’s tweed coats’ page and not the home page. If you don’t have a specific tweed coats page for children and there is enough volume for searches relating to children’s tweed coats, then you could consider creating a separate page for this.
Little thought Put into Bid Management
It is quite common for PPC advertisers to be bidding on several keywords and assign the same level of bids to them. Each of your keywords is going to perform differently and are therefore not worth the same to your business. You should be looking at the historical performance of your keywords, bidding more aggressively on the better performing keywords and less aggressively on the poorer performing keywords. Before you can do this, you’ll need to make sure that conversion tracking is installed so that you can see which keywords are completing your conversion action.
As a starting point, you can use some formulas to decide on how much to bid once you have a cost per acquisition or a return on ad spend target. Cost per acquisition looks at how much cost is accrued before you typically achieve a conversion. If you decide to work towards a cost per acquisition, then you can use the below formula to help you to decide how much to bid for each keyword.
CPA bid: CVR* CPA Target
A ROAS target looks at how many times greater the revenue is to the media spend. If you decide to work towards a ROAS target, then you can use the below formula as a starting point to help to decide how much to bid for each keyword.
ROAS bid = (CVR * AOV) / ROAS target
Not Understanding Some of the Setting Options
Understanding the settings within Google Ads is very important as they can greatly change the performance of your account.
One of the more common issues that I’ve seen is PPC advertisers not using the location targeting settings. By default, your location targeting settings will be set to target ‘People in, or who show interested in, your targeted locations (recommended)’. This means that your PPC ads can show to people who are in the locations that you’re targeting. They can also show to people who have shown an interest in the locations that you’re targeting perhaps by including the location that you’re targeting on their search term. For a lot of advertisers, this will probably be the best option for them, but I’ve often improved the performance of an account by being more granular with my location targeting.
Another common mistake is accidentally setting the Audience targeting settings to ‘Targeting’ and then being confused as to why there is a loss of traffic. When setting Audience targeting, you can choose to only target people who have searched for your keyword and are part of the audience that you’ve chosen. You can do this by selecting the ‘Targeting’ option when adding an Audience list. A second option is to target everyone who has searched for one of your keywords but to target people in your Audience lists differently. You can do this by selecting the ‘Observation (Recommended) option when adding your Audience lists.
Wrapping up
So, these are the seven basic PPC mistakes to avoid that I often see on small PPC accounts. If you’re not seeing the level of performance that you had hoped for in your PPC account, then check to see you haven’t made any of the above seven basic PPC mistakes. Once you’ve ticked off the above mistakes, then you can start looking at more advanced PPC optimisation tactics.
Author Bio: With over eight years in digital marketing, Rashed is passionate about all things digital marketing and PPC advertising. Rashed is currently the PPC Director at Pepper PPC Agency - a UK based PPC agency using a profit over traffic approach to PPC advertising.
Jane has finished a 1,879
words long article on debating best practices for her blog.
Now, it is time for her to
implement her SEO strategy
so that her blog post ranks on the second page of the SERP!
Why the second page?
Well, she has read in a
report that 9 out
of 10 web pages fail to rank on the first page of
Google within 12 months of being published. So there is very little chance that
her article would rank.
You must have concluded
that Jane is crazy! And you would be right to do so! Who goes to the second
page of a SERP anyways!
Unlike Jane, your target is
to have your website or blog to rank on the first page of Google.
Thus you are looking for
SEO best practices that would keep pumping gas in your site so that it can
climb the search pages months and years after page goes live.
That is exactly what we are
going to discuss in this article!
Whether you do your site’s search engine optimisation yourself or you have an SEO services provider on payroll, these 5 SEO long-term best practices would be useful to you for years to come.
What is SEO?
SEO, which stands for
search engine optimisation, is the process of having a website rank higher in
the search results for a query. This process includes many tactics which-when
properly implemented-would give a signal to search engines that your website is
relevant and useful to the searchers.
Now that we have made it
crystal clear what SEO is, let us talk about SEO best practices you need to
implement for better site performance in SERPs in the long run.
1. Performing regular keyword research
If you are not able to
target and rank for the right terms, your visitors will not be able to find
you. So, keyword research is the most essential SEO approach /tactic.
Since there is no telling what search phrases people may be using to look for your website, it would pay to stay informed and updated on this matter.
From your list of keywords, select some which are likely to be consistent with your site. Then sprinkle synonyms of these around your website in a relevant manner.
The next best practice is
2. Setting up proper
internal link structure
Internal linking means the
practice of placing internal links which connects one page to another relevant
page on the same website.
Internal linking is crucial
for both search engine crawlers and your
site visitors!
Why?
Well, internal linking
makes all the pages on your site visible to Google, which would definitely help
your SERP ranking. It would also make all the helpful resources on your page to
be accessible to your users.
An added benefit: it also helps you to establish the hierarchy on your website!
3. Following technical SEO best practices
Here are
some of the best practices you can follow in terms of
Technical SEO:
Increase Site speed
If you want to keep your
site under the blessings of search engines, you need to make your site load
faster. In case you didn’t know, site load speed is a ranking factor for Google.
Studies have found that a
1s rise in page load time slashes your site conversion by 7%! Meaning this is
something that should one of your top priorities for your site!
Acquire an SSL certificate for your site
It has been observed that 1 out of every 2 websites on the first page of Google SERP has “https”, i.e. SSL certificate. In case you are not familiar with SSL certificates, it is a certificate that certifies your site to be secure.
In our opinion, people are
so used to seeing the “https” on the websites they visit every day that is a
common practice. So it is not something you can relegate to your backburner!
Duplicate content
Having duplicate or similar pages means traffic is split between these two pages. If you merge such pages into one, then not only does it enhance the authority of that one page but it also cuts down your effort to maintain multiple pages!
4. Being active in social media
It is a fact that social
media engagement is considered a ranking factor for Google!
It means what you think it means!
The more your website or
blog posts are shared on social
media, the more relevant and authoritative it
appears to Google crawlers! And that is worth a considerable SEO boost!
5. Publishing guest posts
in relevant sites
Besides producing high-quality content for your site, you need to think of publishing more guest posts on your niche. Through publishing posts to other sites, you could acquire more backlinks.
It would pay to know that backlinks have
always been a ranking signal for Google. Since it can’t know how authoritative
your site or post is, it relies on backlinks pointing to your page.
The more quality backlinks you can manage
through guest posts, the more relevant you appear to Google! And Google always
rewards the relevant ones!
Conclusion
Since there are about 200
ranking factors that Google considers, there is no limit to the number of ways
you can make your site appear as a rich resource!
If you follow top SEO
blogs, you would have a clear idea about the diverse tactics people are coming
up with to optimise their own or client sites for search engines!
At this point, we are going
to say something you have probably heard many times in many other articles.
That it pays to stay
updated on any and every SEO practice that you can get your hands on. In fact,
this is one of the most surefire tactics when it comes to SEO long term best
practices!
The advent of websites has given small businesses the key to the world and an open cheque to operate like a big company despite their relatively small sizes. This indeed is a digital tool for those who know exactly how to improve organic visitors. But it’s quite unfortunate that not every business can because they often don’t know how to go about it.
Having a small business website doesn’t just stop at its exquisite designs or functionality. It has to be in line with SEO, which is the driving factor that helps boost organic traffic. Have you been looking for the best way to take your search marketing campaigns to the next level? Right here, we will be sharing 10 tips that can help bring more traffic to your small business website.
1. Cover The Optimization Of Every Page On Website
People often make the mistake of optimizing the homepage of their website in line with SEO leaving other pages untouched. This kills your website from the inside without you even noticing. Improving organic visitors to a website is not all about getting the homepage optimized.
Each page on your website needs this as well because visitors won’t just be taking a look at only your homepage alone. They will definitely want to go through what you have in there and if it is not satisfying enough or doesn’t offer what they are after, they will definitely take there leave. You can optimize the pages of your website by going through the basics of SEO.
2. Develop A New Search Marketing Culture In Your Website
If you want the best for your small business website, then you need to understand the fact that SEO isn’t just a job for one or two marketing professionals. All hands must be on deck to improve the organic visitors to your website. Want to know why? Corey Morris explains that better in this Search Engine Journal post.
3. Make Use Of The Right Content Distribution Channels
When it comes to improving organic visitors, it’s not just about the content but the channel through which the content will be distributed. Moss Clement goes through these distribution strategies in detail right here in this post on Neal Schaffer’s blog. With this, you will be able to learn the best strategies with which you can generate more traffic by distributing the right way.
4. Integrate The Use Of Free SEO Tools
Using expensive SEO tools doesn’t guarantee the fact that you will be able to improve organic visitors, thereby getting more traffic. Why waste your hard-earned money when there are several effective SEO tools on the internet with free access. To streamline your search for the best, Neil Patel has prepared a list of the best and most effective SEO tools that you can make use of right here.
5. Your Content Holds The Key, Make Them Work Harder For You
The goal of every content on your website should be to improve organic visitors. If yours is not serving that purpose, then you need to optimize them. Andrew Schulkind has the perfect answer to this and he shares them all on Target Marketing post.
As the use of websites is taking over the business world,
brands are getting to know or assume they know the importance of SEO for
business. But in the actual sense, the little they seem to know about SEO is
just the tip of the iceberg.
The general knowledge brands often have about SEO is its
potential ability to improve the visibility and searchability of websites
online. But is that all you think SEO has to offer your brand? Right here, we
will be sharing 5 importance of SEO for business and why it is key to any brand
success.
1. SEO Helps Generating Organic Search Traffic
The success of a business website is based on its ability to
generate organic traffic. And Google been the predominant force in the industry
with a market share of about 75% compared to other platforms like Baidu, Bing,
Yahoo and others, your business has access to enough resources that can help
generate organic traffic if quality SEO is in place.
2. SEO Helps Developing Credibility & Trust
As you must have known by now, trust and credibility are the
souls of every business. With quality SEO, your brand gets this with time. In
addition to the great user experience, and features that are easy to discover
on search engines, this is another importance of SEO for a business that’s
quite amusing.
With SEO, brands get to have access to elements such as, Positive user behaviour, Quality backlink profiles, optimized contents and features which all have a way of fostering the trust and credibility of a brand.
3. Quality SEO offers Good User Experience
The primary purpose of having a website is to help maximize
online visibility and rankings. SEO offers this if done the right way. Over the
years, Google has been able to develop in line with what the users want and
this has helped the success of websites in several ways.
With user experience, Google has been able to provide direct
answers to what users want by developing SERPs (search engine results pages)
which take account of the most sought-after data. This provides relevant
answers to exactly what users request. So If your website has a good user
experience, your website will always be on the suggested list with relevant
answers.
4. SEO Improves Users Engagement, Conversions & Traffic
Getting quality SEO for your website isn’t just about the
visibility and searchability. SEO also allows you to localize your traffic
within a vicinity, target specific customers, and incorporate the social media
profile of the brand. This feature puts you in the right position for your
potential customers to transact with your brand.
5. SEO Enhances the Buying Cycle Of Your Brand
When it comes to considering the importance of SEO for
business, what we are about to share now is quite amusing. Ideally, the primary
aim of every website is to promote a business or a particular brand. SEO has
just the best tactics to help achieve this.
The advent of the internet has allowed customers to carry out a detailed research about whatever goods or services they wish to get. If your product or service isn’t of so much importance to them, there is no way you will be getting more customers.
With quality SEO, you get to change that in your brand. This special tool has tactics that help project exactly what potential customers need to know about your business. Having this in place puts your brand exactly where it needs to be and allows your business to make use of all its resources effectively.
SEO holds the key to the survival of your business online and
with the five importance of SEO in business, you should understand that by now.
To be at the top of your game and outshine your competitors, your website needs
to be SEO optimized.
