5 Steps to Improve your Google Adwords PPC campaign

5 Steps to Improve your Google Adwords PPC campaign

Google was launched in the late nineteen nineties to help internet users navigate this wonderful, yet daunting, phenomenon called the world wide web (www). However, from its simple humble beginnings, Google has now grown to become the world’s largest and dare I say most important advertising platform. In 2015 a staggering 97% of Google’s $73 billion sales revenue came from the Adwords Pay-Per-Click (PPC) service.

Using Google’s PPC service can help your organisation boost your online presence, increase brand awareness, generate more leads and ultimately close more sales. CPC costs can vary significantly from a few cents per click to over $40 depending on the popularity of the word or words required. As the costs of your CPC keywords greatly increases, you could end up with quite a sizeable bill adding to the overall revenues of Google’s Platinum Towers.

To make sure that you get the most from your Google PPC campaign, The Marketing Centre recommends you take the following steps:

Conduct In-Depth Keyword Research

Keyword research is the cornerstone of any PPC campaign, and finding the best performing keywords is essential to winning clicks and conversions. Too many businesses start piling money behind the name of their business or the industry they’re in, only to find a crowded market and money wasted. Consider a business selling cupcake boxes to bakeries. It may be tempting to include the phrases ‘bakery consumables’, ‘cake boxes’ or even ‘cupcakes’ in their campaign. But these are imprecise keywords that are both very general and very popular, with huge bids required for the business to appear on the first page of Google for each search, let alone position one. Instead, by building a campaign around the phrase ‘cupcake boxes’, only customers with that specific need are going to see the ad. Adding further precise terms such as ‘windowed cupcake boxes’ or ‘pink cupcake boxes’ is going to pick up very specific needs, with the ads generating fewer wasted clicks and facing less competition from more generic rivals.

Have a well designed Landing Page for Google Adwords PPC

It’s possible to design the most beautiful sign for a shop, but if customers get inside and it’s full of knock off brands and second-hand shoes, they’re going to be disappointed. So it goes with PPC. The ad will drive traffic your way, but what the visitor does when they get there is solely down to you. And so much of that comes down to the landing page. The most insidious enemy of any PPC campaign is a high bounce rate. In simple terms, a ‘bounce’ is a visitor who lands on a website (possibly from a PPC ad) and leaves within seconds, without interacting with the website or its content. What makes bounces such a drain on PPC budgets is that while a business has paid for the user’s click, they’ve got nothing to show for it. If a customer arrives at a landing and sees that it doesn’t contain the content they expected, they will quickly move on. The only reason you wouldn’t focus on bounce rate is if your call to action in on the landing page itself.

Have a compelling Call To Action (CTA)

The key is to have a call to action which inspires engagement; a reason for your ad. If you have an ebook to peddle or an enticing sale, PPC will get eyes on your offering. A ‘contact us’ form is not a compelling call to action. If your landing page contains an e-commerce element, or a contact form or some other kind of direct call to action, then the bounce rate point becomes moot; you should instead look at goal completions as a key metric. This is the number of visits for which all points of a defined goal were completed.

Go for Instant Results not Long Term Leads

Unlike many marketing tools, PPC has a very short lead time. With the right keywords and landing page, it’s possible to have a PPC campaign up within hours, following Google’s approval. After that, campaigns can be changed within minutes. And while we would not suggest jumping straight into Adwords without some prior research, this agility means that you’ll see results immediately unlike, say, content marketing, which is a much longer marketing play. PPC’s speed is also beneficial once a campaign has been set up. New products can be launched quickly while allowing opportunities for keyword research in the run-up. By monitoring the analytics for keywords related to a new product before its introduction, it’s possible to ensure that a campaign is on-point at launch, while also capturing interest in the lead-up. The point is, if you need to see results immediately, PPC will make sure you appear on Google’s front page—a magnet for clicks—and you’ll see an immediate uplift in traffic to the site. Of course, you need to know what they’re doing when they get there.

Prepare for Voice Search

Although still in its infancy, voice activated search is growing strong. According to Search Engine Journal, one in five mobile searches in 2017 were made by voice. To be prepared for voice searches, marketers should consider the following:
• Voice search queries are typically longer, usually with a minimum of 5 to 6 words used.
• Voice searches are usually in the form of a question, How, What, Why, When?
• Voice searches have high local worth, e.g. ‘What restaurants/pubs/cafes are near me?’

Done right PPC delivers, but it is not a stand-alone tool. To get the most from your PPC campaigns it must work alongside and often in conjunction with your other marketing channels.

Blockchain Marketing – Get Paid to Perform a Search!

Blockchain Marketing – Get Paid to Perform a Search!

Blockchain Marketing

Blockchain described here in a previous post is a data base or ledger that allows information to be stored and distributed, but not to be changed or copied. It is decentralized and is the sole system of record for any given transaction or set of agreed transactions.

Blockchain marketing, though yet in its infancy, has the potential to disrupt the search engine and online advertising industry (PPC, SEM, Banner Ads, etc..) because it will remove the need for third party platforms such as Google or Facebook. Currently businesses use these platforms to place ads and target potential customers. These platforms gain a great amount of personal data from the customer (person who performs the search) plus a huge revenue stream from the businesses that advertise. However, this may all be about to change. Blockchain marketing companies are focusing their efforts on search-data privacy, giving users full control over their data.

Get Paid to Search!

When users perform a search using blockchain marketing technology, they can select the amount of data they want to be released to advertisers. Then, unlike what happens with other digital marketing services, users can be compensated for their data. So, instead of a third party selling your data to advertisers, you’re selling it to them directly – yourself, and being rewarded with cryptocurrency or tokens.

According to Entrepreneur Magazine one such emerging blockchain marketing company is Bitclave. BitClave’s search engine uses Ethereum blockchain technology and eliminates the need for third party online advertising platforms, creating a direct connection between potential customers and businesses. This is the hallmark of blockchain technology, i.e. it eliminates the need for third parties in all transactions.

100% Data Accuracy for Marketer

Another benefit to the marketer/advertiser is that blockchain can verify that every user is genuine with 100 percent accuracy and therefore the advertiser is only charged for genuine clicks through to their site. Blockchain potentially presents a big threat to Google and Facebook’s future advertising revenues.

For help with your marketing or online advertising requirements contact RML Marketing & Business Development Solutions today.

What does Social Media bring to the B2B Marketers Table?

What does Social Media bring to the B2B Marketers Table?

With 93% of B2B Marketers stating that Social Media is their number 1 tool for content creation and distribution, we take a look at what it offers the astute B2B Marketer. Here is a list of some of the benefits that we believe Social Media platforms bring to B2B Marketing:

Content Distribution

Platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, etc., are wonderful tools to highlight and promote your organizations products and services through case studies, customer success stories, webinars, white papers, upcoming shows and events.

Engage with Customers and Prospects

You can use tools such as Twitter to engage with customers and prospects and even offer customer support. Setting up User Groups on LinkedIn is another great way to grow an active, loyal following for your brand. It is essential that these accounts are constantly monitored and responded to in a timely manner.

Social Media can Improve your Website’s SEO

According to Kissimetrics social media profiles will influence the content of your search results and, in fact, social media profiles are often amongst the top results in search listings for brand names.

Use Video as a Lead Generation Tool

Developing product overview and customer testimonial videos can help drive leads and enquiries to your organization.

Keep an eye on the Marketplace and your Competitors

Hootsuite suggests that you can use Social Media very effectively to keep an eye on your competitors. Known as social listening, your organization can see what your competitors are offering, what is being said about them and any big industry news that may just have been announced.

Drive Traffic to your Website

Make sure to list your homepage URL on all your social sites, this can drive traffic back to your full site from the social media platform that your organization has been found on.

Tradeshows and Events

Using the recognized Tradeshow and Event hashtag (#show2017) can help highlight your organizations participation and drive traffic to your booth or speaking engagement.

If you would like help with planning a Social Media Campaign to help your organizations B2B Marketing activities please contact us today.

5 DIY Tips to Help Improve your Website’s SEO

5 DIY Tips to Help Improve your Website’s SEO

As you are probably aware, the minefield that is known as SEO (Search Engine Optimization), can bamboozle even the most tech astute digital marketer. According to Searchengineland.com SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” It is the process of getting traffic from the “free,” “organic,” “editorial” or “natural” search results on search engines.  All major search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo have primary search results, where web pages and other content such as videos or local listings are shown and ranked based on what the search engine considers most relevant to users. Payment isn’t involved, as it is with paid search ads. (What Is SEO / Search Engine Optimization?, n.d.)

To get your website listed highly for relevant search words or terms on a search engine is a very daunting task, with many, many permutations and combinations. It is a task that I would seriously recommend outsourcing to an expert, however, here are five quick website SEO improvement tips that you can implement on your own today:

5 DIY SEO Improvement Tips

  1. Submit Your Website to Search Engines: You can improve your business visibility by submitting your website pages to search engines such as Yahoo, Bing and Google. Get your free business listing on Google by clicking on www.google.com/business and filling in the form.
  2. Create Social Media Sites to Help Boost SEO: Create your organization’s own social media pages on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Google+, etc. to get more organic search traffic.
  3. Optimize Images and Use Alt Text for Keyword Optimization: Use image optimizer sites such as www.imageoptimizer.net to improve the quality of your images. Also, add Alt Text where possible. Alt Text (alternative text) is a word or phrase that can be inserted to tell website viewers the content.
  4. Hyphenate: When setting URL page titles and tags use hyphens (-) between words to improve readability. Do not use underscore (_).
  5. Update Website Content Frequently: Updating your website’s content on a frequent basis attracts search engine spiders to index your website pages more frequently.

For help with improving your website’s SEO, layout and user experience please visit www.rml-marketing.com or contact us today.

The Simple Hashtag (#) – The 21st Century’s Most Important Communications and PR Tool?

The Simple Hashtag (#) – The 21st Century’s Most Important Communications and PR Tool?

As the hashtag (#) celebrates it’s 10th year anniversary as a modern communication tool, we examine its popularity and use, particularly in social media. The hashtag, sometimes called the pound sign in North America, was often used in information technology to highlight a special meaning. In 1970 the pound sign was used to denote immediate address mode in the assembly language of the PDP-11 when placed next to a symbol or a number.

The pound sign or hashtag then appeared and was used within IRC networks (internet relay chat) to label groups and topics. The use of the pound sign in IRC inspired Chris Messina to propose a similar system to be used on Twitter to tag topics of interest on the then microblogging network. He posted the first hashtag on Twitter ten years ago in August 23rd 2007:

It was after a series of forest fires in San Diego in 2007 that the use of the hashtag in Twitter first, and then other social media platforms, became popular. According to Messina the intention behind the hashtag was to make it easy for users to search for content and find specific updates that are relevant without the technological knowledge to navigate the site. Therefore, the hashtag was created organically by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages

Ten years later the hashtag is no longer just the prevail of Twitter users, but has also become highly popular on other social media sites such as Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Google+, giving a new lease of life to audience engagement on popular TV shows #GameOfThrones, live events #SuperBowlLI, politics #POTUS and a whole host of news and worldwide happenings.

Simply by pacing the hashtag # symbol in front of a word or key phrase, the author can highlight the key points of his or her communication. Likewise, the reader can use the hashtag # symbol for research and up to date feeds on any particular topic that may be of interest.

The quantity of hashtags used in a post or tweet is just as important as the types of hashtags used. It is currently considered acceptable to tag a post once when contributing to a specific conversation. Two hashtags are considered acceptable when adding a location to the conversation. Three hashtags are seen by some as the ‘absolute maximum’, and any contribution exceeding this risks raising the ire of other users.

So, besides search-ability and speed of information, what additional benefits does the hashtag offer the 21st century marketer and PR guru? Here is a list of some of the more popular advantages of using hashtags in modern communications:

·               Improve brand awareness by using hashtags related to service or product to enlist and grow a                                  large following and sense of community.

·               Use trending hashtags where relevant to drive additional traffic to your site.

·               Encourage interaction with customers, prospects and partners.

·               Create a brand hashtag that is unique to your business and use as a signature tag.

·               Unique hashtags are ideal for new campaign or product launches.

·               Hashtags are search engine friendly

If you would like to know how to improve your social media communications and improve your brand awareness with modern tools, email RML Marketing and Business Development Solutions today at info@rml-marketing.com

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