editor, Author at Mediastreet

In News

The Death Of Mobile?

May 28, 2019 No Comments

Mobile is absolutely the centerpiece for a consumer media experience, but its future is in question if it continues to be the primary means of junk, spam and general frustration in our lives. We may be witnessing the death of mobile before our very eyes.

OK, maybe that’s an exaggeration. Your mobile phone is supposed to be a tool that gives you access to people and information, and has become the primary screen for accessing video. All that’s great, but there’s a parallel set of negative issues as well.

My phone rings as much as 10 times a day, but 75% of the calls are robocalls and spam. I get text messages that are unsolicited. I access email on my phone and the majority of that email is spam. I get alerts and notifications all day and most of them are abused by the publisher or platform that I opted into.

Case in point: If I get more than five notifications a day from the same news app telling me there’s “breaking news,” how is any of it considered important?

My phone is a way to access the world, but it has also become a way for the world to access me. I’m relatively in control of the technology on my device, but my number is a direct line int to me and an invasion of my attention span. It’s desensitizing me and making me question the usefulness of the phone that I carry around everywhere I go.

I don’t really pay attention to notifications in the moment. I rarely answer the phone unless I know exactly who it is. I get annoyed when too many text messages are sitting there awaiting my response.

The carriers need to become more involved in protecting their customers from unwanted intrusions. I read recently that they are starting to wade into the waters and test some new tools, but they really need to dive in and help us. Call Protect is a great step in the right direction and I use it every day, but there needs to be more to block unsolicited robocalls and help clean up the piping for texts and emails.

Spam by itself is probably tolerable and companies like Google have taken steps to help here, so now it’s time for AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile to take a leadership position on this issue.

The cellphone manufacturers could probably help here, too. Apple and Google, along with Samsung and any other companies, should work together to remind consumers about settings for notifications and ensure that app developers don’t overdo the notifications systems. When your phone is buzzing 40 or 50 times a day with new notifications, but you only access a small percentage of the apps on your phone, they could determine if there is a correlation there and help consumers turn off notifications from apps they don’t use.

It’s not about censoring or stopping the apps from being there. It’s about ensuring that the notifications are truly valuable to the user. If they had some tools in place that alerted users regularly and suggested updates to their setting, then users could be more in control of the experience.

Mobile is certainly not going away any time soon, but it does have issues if it continues to decline into a frustrating user experience.

I hope the carriers, the manufacturers and the operating system companies can figure this out. Otherwise, I might be digging out the Treo and the Razr for reintegration into my life!

By Cory Treffiletti

Sourced from MediaPost

In News

What is display advertising?

May 27, 2019 No Comments

By Poppy Mortiboys-Harrison

Many successful marketing strategies are built on banner advertising – but why? Find out the secret to banner ads, and how they work, in our dedicated guide.

Display advertising is everywhere you look. Splashed across social media, bordering that blog you like sat atop the headlines on the Sky News website – it’s the paid, digital marketing tactic used by most businesses, without you even knowing it.

That said, we’re so used to seeing adverts that we habitually flick the anti-ad switch in our brain. In fact, approximately 200 million internet users have installed ad blocking software for this very reason.

The modern marketer is now faced with a new kind of challenge: make a display ad campaign that both stands out from the crowd, and sticks in the mind – which, considering the competition, is easier said than done.

Read on to learn what display advertising actually is, how it works, and for examples of display ads designed for a variety of online platforms.

On this page, we’ll cover:

What is display advertising?

A visual form of advertising that incorporates both text and graphics, display advertising appears on specifically designated areas of a website or social media platform in the form of a banner ad.

The internet’s answer to billboard advertising, display adverts (otherwise known as banner ads) are designed to increase the click-through rate to a landing page. This is done by cleverly combining striking imagery, attention-grabbing copy, animation, and even video content – using more than just words to create a stand-out, snapshot ad.

Display advertising is most commonly used to increase brand awareness, and to re-engage with customers who have previously paid your site a visit. It can also be used, to generate new customers by leading them to a landing page via a click-through path. The point of a display ad is to engage the potential buyer, and develop their interest in your product or service before going in with the hard sell.

If you’re thinking of making a display ad yourself, be sure to consider the format. JPEG, JPG, PNG, and GIF images are all accepted by any network, but not all networks accept HTML5. Animated banners come with their own technical specifications, while image banners only need to be under 150kb in size – and of course, be compliant with regulations set by the ASA.

Top-performing display ad sizes include:

Ad size (measured in pixels):	Description:
300×250	The medium rectangle ad – at it’s best when embedded within text, or at the bottom of an article.
336×280	The large rectangle ad – also performs well when embedded within a block of text.7
728×90	The leaderboard ad – does well when placed at the top of content and is a popular choice on forum sites.
300×600	The half page ad – more space means more content, but it also means more money. Highly appealing visually, and highly clickable.
320×100	The mobile banner ad – can be used as an alternative to the medium/large rectangle ad, and provide twice the height of the standard mobile leaderboard size.

Types of display advertising

Display advertising can be separated into three broad categories:

1. Retargeting

Delivers highly relevant ads to your audience based on specific user behaviour and interactions.

For example, creating specific adverts targeting users who have reached your pricing page, but do not complete their order is an example of retargeted display advertising. This works by using the data generated from their visit to your site to then direct adverts containing similar, or same-category products. This can be done automatically using dynamic remarketing display adverts, which are popular on e-commerce sites.

Dynamic remarketing works by pooling information from the data feed regarding the product or service that the customer has been viewing. This information is then used to automatically create a customer-specific banner ad based on a premade template.

To do this yourself:

Link your Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords) account with your Google Analytics account.
You’ll then need to add a small bit of code (provided by AdWords) across all pages of your site
Next, create remarketing lists. These are specific website visitors to be targeted on account of their previous interactions with your website, ie: those who have seen a particular category collection.
Finally, within AdWords, make a remarketing campaign with different ads targeting different customers based on their interest in the product or service.
All done! Now, when your customers visit your website then leave again, they’ll still have visibility of your brand via online marketing. This recurrent visibility will help to build trust with your audience, as brand familiarity increases brand trust.

2. Acquisition

This type of campaign focuses on driving direct sales and acquiring new customers, doing so via in-market audiences, affinity audiences, and interest targeting.

In-market audiences are those looking to make an immediate purchase. Google will be able to know who these people are based on search history.

For example, someone reading mattress reviews, searching for local bed shops, and looking at different supplier sites is probably on the hunt for a new mattress (and maybe some funky new pyjamas too).

Affinity audiences are a little harder to pin down. This term might refer to those who aren’t in ‘research mode’, but might – in light of their online profile – still be in the mood to buy. These people are categorised as ‘long term interest’ prospects by Google.

The affinity marketing audiences in Google Ads are split into the following ‘long term interest’ categories:

Banking
Beauty
Food and dining
Home and garden
Lifestyle and hobbies
Media and entertainment
News and politics
Shoppers (bargain)
Shoppers (value)
Shoppers (luxury)
Sports and fitness
Technology
Travel
Vehicles and transport

Once the affinity audience member has been categorised, streamlined display adverts will appear on the sites they visit that support display adverts.

To illustrate: someone who avidly reads the interior design blogs they subscribe to, and regularly listens to a ‘how to decorate’ podcast, would be categorised into the ‘home and garden’ affinity marketing group (available in Google Ads).

3. Brand Awareness

Focussing on reach rather than conversion, an awareness campaign requires careful planning. In order to be effective, it will also need to run for quite a long time, which is costly in both time and resource.

The aim of the awareness game is to reach as many people as possible whilst sticking to your budget. Likes and shares will help to further your reach, but securing these in the first place can be tricky. Some businesses will even pay for more visibility and followers, but this can be obvious to the reader, so we recommend sticking to organic, SEO-driven methods.

Whilst a brand awareness campaign won’t have the same clear ROI as one that focuses on acquisitions, it will have possibly unseen benefits in the long run. Brand familiarity can do wonders for your business, as the more the customers see the brand, the more they’re likely to they are to trust it.

How do display ads work?

Using the same basic principles as print advertising, display ads are designed to inform, engage, notify, and increase awareness. They work by generating traffic to your website from an external source.

The point of a display ad is to encourage the customer to click on it. Simple. To increase the chances of being clicked, display advertising targets people with specific internet habits that are linked to the product or service being advertised.

Rather than just appearing in the customer’s search results, , display ads differ from normal ads in that they appear on different websites in a variety of forms. They can be static or animated, contain text, an image or both, and can appear on social media platforms in the form of Facebook banners, Snapchat geofilters, or Instagram sponsored ads.

Banner ads also appear on regular websites in the reserved advertisement space, ie at the top, bottom, or down the sides of a page.

Display ads work by targeting customers who have already expressed an interest in your product or service, which is detectable through their previous site visits or browser habits. This increases the ad’s chance of being clicked, and your chances of getting a conversion.

Don’t worry, though – it’s not all left to Google guesswork. You can have a say when it comes to the placement of your Google ads, and can opt for either automatic or managed placements.

Automatic Placements
Google will determine the placement of your ads based on the sites it deems relevant to your business.

Managed Placements
You can decide on the placement of your ads based on customer search trends and business relevancy.

Of course, the way to gain complete control over who sees your advert is to buy advertising space on a specific website. That way, you’ll already know the tone of the site and the type of audience likely to see the advert.

Display advertising examples

To properly describe what different display ads might look like would take quite some time. So, as pictures speak a thousand words, we’ve put together some display ad examples to show what display advertising really means.

Example one:

LinkedIn banner ad – This is an example of brand awareness display advertising that is specifically designed for LinkedIn, and made to get the brand name ‘out there’. The reference to ‘work’ in the slogan makes it clear that the ad is designed for LinkedIn – the pun is intriguing, but there’s no hard sell here. An ad like this would feature in LinkedIn’s paid advertising space.

Note: LinkedIn banner ads are: 1400×245 px.

Example two:

A medium-rectangle ad, designed to be an acquisition display advert on a search-appropriate website, such as an interior design blog. This captures the user intent – interior design – and subtly displays an advert that is in-line with that intent. This display advert would appear in a paid ad slot.

Example three:

Large-rectangle ad – designed as a retargeting display advert to be used on any site the targeted prospect is likely to use, ie: social media. The discount offer and code are larger than the brand name, as prior brand familiarity is assumed.

The same background image as other display adverts is used for consistency. However, the slogans have been replaced with an enticing offer, which encourages the customer to click through to the website and use the promotional code.

All three of the above display ads are marketing the same company, using the same principle, but targeting different customers at various stages of the user journey.

The time and placement of the adverts is determined by the audience’s search habits. If they’ve never searched for ‘beds to buy’ on Google, they’re likely to see example one (the brand awareness ad); if they have Googled ‘beds to buy’ but never visited the Start-up Bed Co’s site, then Google will assume they’re interested in buying a bed, and will show them example two (the acquisition ad); and, if they’ve previously visited the Start-up Bed Co’s site but didn’t purchase a new bed, then Google will show them example three (the retargeting ad) to lure them back with an exciting offer they can’t refuse.

Overall

Display advertising is a type of paid marketing that grants access to a variety of online platforms, and targets customers and prospects according to their search intent.

An efficient and effective method of digital marketing, display advertising gets your business’ name out there and keeps it in the mind of the buyer. Using social media ad space, as well as related websites and organic searches, display advertising is everywhere – and now you’ve read this article, you probably won’t be able to stop spotting display ads in your day-to-day online activity.

For properly targeted social media campaigns, a social media management system can streamline your approach – maximising efficiency and your profits. Keen to find out more? Pop to the top of the page, and we’ll put you in touch with reputable suppliers.

By Poppy Mortiboys-Harrison

Sourced from Startups

In News

How To Use Instagram To Power Your Business Blogging

May 27, 2019 No Comments

By Dave Schneider

You might have heard it already…

Instagram has recently surpassed 1 billion users and has taken the social media industry by storm.

For the blogging community, it works as a gateway to find new followers and like-minded people in their niche. It has become one of the top social media marketing platforms not only for many influential bloggers but also for many major businesses.

In this post, you’ll learn why Instagram is important and how you can use it for your business to complement your blogging strategy.

There was a misconception about Instagram’s importance being limited to businesses like retailers, restaurants, or travel companies.

Not anymore!

Now, it’s increasingly important for all kinds of businesses looking to build their brands online. Despite the surprising fact that it’s been underutilized by many, Instagram is one of the best ways to use visual marketing for your business.

Industry bloggers are consistently leveraging the power of Instagram marketing to promote their brands and grow their business on a large scale.

Why?

Because Instagram is all about visual content, and visual content makes it easier to grab their audience’s attention.

After all, 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual!

Image Source: Kissmetrics Blog

Why You Need Instagram For Your Business

Think about this for a moment, bloggers are always using Instagram to connect with peers and colleagues, influencers and readers.

How do you think it affects their brand and their business?

It’s simple.

Their network evolves and grows, their brand is exposed to millions of followers, all thanks to the influencers they network with.

According to Brandwatch, “48.8% of brands are on Instagram and by 2017 this number is likely to rise to 70.7%.”

Surely, you don’t want to be left behind, do you?

There are many reasons why you should consider Instagram for business. One of the main reasons is the level of user engagement you get.

The number one goal of your social media marketing strategy is to be where your target audience is engaging and spending their time.

Research suggests that the engagement on Instagram is 10 times higher than Facebook, 54 times better than Pinterest, and 84 times greater than Twitter.

So if your business is not active on Instagram, you are missing out…big time!

How To Use Instagram For Your Business

Using Instagram to promote your business is pretty straight forward, but you need a solid strategy to get your desired results.

Remember:

Like any other social media platform, you must have a strategic plan for marketing on Instagram to gain traffic, get leads, and generate sales.

Instagram Marketing Strategy

First, you need to establish your marketing goals.

Do you want to increase your product sales?
Do you want to increase traffic to your website?
Do you want to increase your brand awareness?

Each social media network has its own features and advantages. You have to determine which of Instagram’s features match best with your marketing goals.

Next, you should be asking yourself –

Who is my target audience?
Having a well-defined target audience is critical. You cannot say that your target audience is “anyone who is interested in my products or services”!
Your target audience should be a specific market that is more likely to engage and buy from you. For example, single moms over 30 who speak English as their first language. This is a more effective and efficient way to reach your potential clients.Check out this detailed guide by Neil Patel to understand how to define and reach your target audience.
Which part of my audience is most active on Instagram?
After you have a clear idea of who your target audience is, next you need to find out which part of your audience is most active on Instagram; men and women of different age groups, college students with different taste and styles – who is actively using Instagram?
What kind of content do they love to engage with?
Find out what kind of content your target audience is mostly sharing, liking, and commenting on. This will help you create content they’ll love to engage with.

As you can see, doing market research is an important part of your Instagram marketing strategy.

You need data to find out what other brands, businesses, and competitors in your niche are doing on Instagram.

Use this data to evaluate what is working for them, and to find things they are missing out on, as well as things you can implement better than them.

High engaging visual content is the key for Instagram marketing so your goals and strategy should reflect that.

Your Instagram marketing strategy should involve –

Strategizing what you should post on your Instagram.
Finding out how often you should post.
Creating a well-maintained content calendar.
A strategy to get more engaged followers.

Instagram Marketing Tips

Tools: You can use tools like Hootsuite, Later, ScheduGram to schedule your Instagram posts in advance. Schedule your posts at your audience’s most active times.
Hashtags: They play a very vital role these days in social media. It’s the same with Instagram too! Using hashtags the right way will allow your target audience to discover your content easily. So choose them wisely!
Tagging people: This is a powerful technique and can play a huge part in your Instagram marketing strategy. Tag influencers, brands, or businesses featured in your posts and it will show up in their profiles.
Following influencers on Instagram: This will keep you updated on the latest industry trends. You can also find interesting, engaging and inspirational content ideas for your own posts.
Monitor and Analyze: Monitor and analyze your marketing strategies and see what is working and what is not. Adopt new tactics when necessary.

Image source: Social Media Examiner

Use tools like Iconosquare to measure your performance and optimize your strategy. Some other tools similar to Iconosquare are Dash Hudson, Simply Measured, and Sprout Social.

When you are setting up your Instagram marketing campaigns, pay very close attention to your target audience and what they are interested in.

Make sure you are engaging with them by liking, commenting, replying to their mentions and direct messages in a timely fashion.

Eventually, you will find what types of content and strategies are working for your business.

By Dave Schneider

Dave Schneider is an expert on Blogging. Dave is the cofounder of NinjaOutreach, an innovative new blogger outreach software for marketers based in Boston, Massachusetts. He writes about blogging for businesses, entrepreneurship, and has a love for travel, having visited over 40 countries. Dave can be found at lesschurn.io and daveschneider.me.

Sourced from Neal Schaffer

In News

3 Blogging Best Practices for Business

May 24, 2019 No Comments

By Laura Hill

An essential part of an effective content marketing program, blogging is a great way to accomplish several of your marketing goals at once.

Need fresh content for your website? Post a blog. Want to establish yourself as a subject matter expert? Write a blog that demonstrates your mastery. Need high-quality content for social media that drives traffic to your website? What about writing you can repurpose for email marketing? Yep. Blogs.

Aren’t there already a ton of blogs out there? Well, yes. But that doesn’t mean you’re too late to start leveraging this very effective tool. Here are some helpful guidelines, so the time you spend on your blog will return the highest return on your investment!

Our top 3 tips for business blogging

1. Provide value

Give prospective customers a real reason to make the jump to your content on the website. Write about topics that are relevant to your audience, whether they are timely or evergreen. A good place to start is with questions you are frequently asked about your services or products. These are questions people will be using on search engines, using keywords that relate directly to your business, making it even more likely you will be found online!

2. Keep it interesting

Make the text easily scannable by breaking up large blocks of text with attractive white space, and adding pictures, videos, and links. Need quality sources for free or low cost images? Create your own using graphic design tools or try free photo sites that provide a natural range of people in current and realistic settings.

3. Connect your blog to your website

Hopefully, by sharing links to your blog through social media and email marketing, and by being found during online search, you will be driving traffic directly to your blog. HubSpot recommends making sure your blog is directly connected to your business website, either as a subdomain (blog.yourdomain.com) or as a page (yourdomain.com/blog) so visitors can easily access additional information about your company.

Reviving a blogging program or starting a new one?

Beginning a blogging program (or restarting a dormant one) can be intimidating and overwhelming. Listen to your customers and clients to learn what topics they are interested in, and follow these best practices to make the time you spend blogging more rewarding and effective.

By Laura Hill

Sourced from BreezyHill

In News

The Key to Profitable Blogging Is to Find a Niche

May 24, 2019 No Comments

Sourced from Inc.

Approach it the right way, and your blog can be a revenue centre.

Blogging offers an amazing opportunity to build authority and earn income. You can create a blog about anything you know or in which you have experience. The key is to choose a niche–serving a specific audience is better than writing about a jumble of topics.

Whether you want to focus on a business topic like growth marketing or a personal passion like a sport, choose a vertical and dive in. With effort and time, your blog can generate income and position you as an authority in your space. It may even help you make a profit.

You can use your blog to position yourself as an expert in any field. Take Facebook marketing, for example. Facebook Messenger marketing and Messenger chatbots are on the rise, and the marketing possibilities are endless.

If you’re a digital marketing or social media consultant, leverage the buzz surrounding Facebook chatbots, and create a blog that’s all about using Facebook Messenger chatbots for businesses. Potential topics could include things like why chatbots are great for business, how to set up a chatbot, how to use it to capture leads, the lower cost for click-to-messenger ads, etc.

Over time, you can use your blog to build authority as a Facebook chatbot expert. With a blog as your base, you can successfully add a chatbot consultancy to your business.

Feature Image Credit: CREDIT: Getty Images

Sourced from Inc.

In News

How do I get my Website on the First Page of Google Search

May 24, 2019 No Comments

By Richard James

There is no denying the power of Google. The search engine has become so popular that the term “Googling” has become synonymous with the very idea of looking something up. The only problem is that while people look to Google for answers, they do not look very hard.

Most people never look past the first page of results. This means that falling to the second page is almost as bad as being on the tenth page. Given that the vast majority of people begin online by using a search engine, this is not something any successful website can afford.

Search Engine Optimisation (or SEO) is the key to landing a prime position on the front page. However, competing with big businesses who have monopolised all the most popular words and phrases can be more than a little intimidating. That is not even mentioning all the other businesses and blogs out there who are fighting for the same position.

Not to worry though! There are several relatively simple tips and tricks that can give anyone the edge they need. The reason why everyone is not taking advantage of these techniques is that they are not the most intuitive since it involves working with the inherent disadvantages rather than trying to get rid of them.

The Disadvantages

In order to turn these so-called weaknesses into strengths, the first step is to understand what they are. To begin with, no-one is going to be able to compete with big industry names when it comes to popular phrases from the start.

Websites have a domain authority score rated out of 100. This score is heavily influenced by how many external links there are to that particular site. The big-name popular sites will have tens of thousands of links meaning that their domain score is often 70+.

So competing directly is very hard. Achieving that kind of domain score would require years of work and a huge monetary investment. Fortunately, there are other ways to make it on to Google’s front page. All that is required is a little creative thinking.

Long-Tail Keywords

Since no-one can fight the big names for popular phrases, the next best thing will have to be used instead. Long-tail keywords are longer and more precise phrases used to search for items.

Take this guide for example. The popular “head” keyword would be “ First Page of Google “. A long-tail search might look something like “ How do I get my Website on the First Page of Google Search “. The thing is, that the majority of Internet users search with phrases that are long-tail keywords. People want answers to their specific problems. So, if these searches can be predicted then there is no need to fight over head keywords. It is like casting ten smaller but more accurate nets instead of one larger one.

The great thing about this strategy is that when a relevant website appears when someone has searched for a long-tail keyword, people are more likely to stick around. This is because they asked for something specific and got a result so they believe the thing they are looking for must be somewhere within the site.

While it is true that head keywords are searched more often than any long-tailed keyword the difference does not matter that much. Long-tailed keywords have a much higher conversion rate which is the truly desirable result. It is better to have 20,000 users with an 80% conversion rate than it is to have 60,000 users with 20% conversions.

Write More Posts

The problem with utilising a strategy focused on long-tail keywords is that it requires a lot of content to back it up. A good blog post will feature a couple of keywords at the most. To capitalise on all the different keywords that will bring a website to the front page require a lot of different posts to catch a lot of different search terms.

So how many posts is enough? The industry standard is to write at least 16 posts per month, probably a little more. This means that the competition is averaging a new post slightly more often than every second day.

These are not low-quality, short-form posts either. Most posts that turn up on Google’s front page are over 2,000 words in length. Write guides with lots of useful details to help people fix their specific problems. Again, being specific is better since it allows for more long-tail keywords to be spread out across multiple posts. It is also harder to run out of things to talk about if the topic is not exhausted quickly.

Still, a brand new 2,000-word article every 2 days in 3 is a lot of content. At that point, it may be worth finding a dedicated content creator. Fortunately, content marketing is the cheapest form marketing available right now and it generates the most leads.

As well as being informative, the content needs to generate the highest CTR possible. This means optimising both the headline and the meta description. Then, as CTR increases the search engine ranking also increases.

One common trick is to figure out a headline that is the opposite of common wisdom. For example, if someone is searching “How to do X” and they see a headline saying “Learning How to do X is a Bad Idea!” they are going to stop and read a little more. Subverting expectations is a great way to stand out from the competition.

Become Featured Elsewhere

Generating all that content is a lot of work so it’s time to supplement it with something that requires far less effort. As mentioned before, all of the competition, including the big names, rely on content generation. This can be turned into an advantage.

A lot of these sites write content round-ups and features about other sites and blogs. All that is required is to be featured in their work. It is like advertising, except without the fees attached. Both sides win since one needs content to feature and the other needs to be featured. The result is essentially free advertising.

The thing about sites dedicated to ranking other sites and services is that people trust them. Customers believe that their work has been done for them and so they are free to choose the site from the ranking that suits them the best. For anyone who makes it on to these lists, it means competing with 4 to 9 other websites instead of hundreds.

This method requires very little time or effort. All that is needed is to reach out to the site ranking hosts with a pitch. It does not cost anything at all and there are huge returns for every successful attempt.

The key factors to ranking in Google are;

Quality and depth of your content

You need to cover your subject in an in-depth way and provide users with quality content and answers to their search queries.

Quality and number of inbound links

You need to get other quality website to link to your website, which can be done by content distribution to other high-quality website from within your niche. Always focus on quality and not quantity.

Fast Loading

Make sure your website load quickly for users, as nobody likes to wait for slow loading websites. You can test your website speed with Google. Click here

Mobile friendly

With the majority of users now using mobile devices it is imperative that your website is optimised for mobile use, and they can find the content they require quickly.

Domain Authority

You need to build the authority of your website using both content you publish on your website and by having external links to your website from high authority and related websites.

Security

You should ensure your website is free from any viruses or malware, and make sure it is hosted on a secure server and is accessible from https and make use of a SSL certificate.

Paid Advertisements

Paying for AdWords is probably not the first thing that comes to mind for anyone thinking about trying to reach Google’s front page. There is a strategy here and as always, it is about building an advantage from an unusual angle.

Results from AdWords are typically irrelevant to most searches. This is because the people who pay for it are not interested in being part of the organic search. Conversely, most people who want to be part of the organic search are not thinking about the ads that everyone has to scroll past to reach their search results.

Take a search for “best car insurance” for example. Someone entering this term is likely looking for a list comparing different insurance providers so that they can make an informed decision. There is no way any insurance provider is going to appear in these search results. Still, the insurance providers want a chance to capture some customers who are searching for this term and so they pay for AdWords.

A well-positioned advert that is actually relevant to the searcher’s intent is going to generate traffic. Also, because the adverts appear before the organic search results it is a little like skipping the line to be top of the list. So long as the advert is built to look like one of the results the user is actually looking for it is going to work. The more focused your ads is and the landing page you send them to the better results you will get. For example if you users was searching for “bmw 5 series car insurance, and your ads says “Best price BMW 5 Series car insurance” the users is much more likely to click on the ad and if the landing page is about BMW 5 series car insurance the user is much more likely to convert into a customer or enquiry.

Summary

No-one is going to make it on to Google’s first page of results immediately. A lot of the best keywords have long since been eaten up by the biggest names. These companies have long reputations that make competing directly extremely difficult.

There are ways to get around the limitations and still make it with enough time and hard work. First, use long-tail keywords. Finding the right ones takes some research but it is well worth the effort since they boast a much higher conversion rate than shorter phrases anyway.

Next is content. Content provides the platform for the keywords to come into play. Make sure to produce constantly and make sure that the posts are detailed with a narrow focus. Once enough has been produced it can be submitted to review sites. Making it onto a top 5 or a top 10 list is always going to generate a lot of attention.

Finally, it is always possible to utilise ads. AdWords results that look enough like organic search results will generate extra traffic. It is simply a matter of being creative and doing the proper research beforehand to make sure the advert has the correct look and feel.

These tips are not conclusive but they are a good place to start. The thing they have all have in common is creative thinking and with enough imagination, it is possible to go much further. Any site can sit right beside the biggest names with the right approach.

By Richard James

Has worked for many Internet marketing companies over the years, and has contributed to many online publications. If there is a story, he will find it.

Sourced from The Tribune World

In Uncategorized

What is PPC?

May 24, 2019 No Comments

By Poppy Mortiboys-Harrison

PPC is the advertising hack that makes sure your ads are in the right place at the right time. Learn how it works, and how to implement it, with our dedicated guide

PPC (Pay Per Click) is a type of online advertising that requires advertisers to pay each time a user clicks on one of their online ads.

The most common type of PPC advertising is the paid search ad. These ads appear when people use a search engine like Google to perform commercial searches, meaning that they’re specifically looking for something to buy.

The following goes into more detail about what PPC actually is, how it works, and the steps you can take to get your own PPC campaign up and running today.

On this page, we’ll cover:

What is PPC?

PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising means that each time a customer clicks on the PPC advert, the advertiser pays a fee to the search engine displaying it.

A good advert will generate a lot of interest, encouraging customers to click-through and hopefully make a purchase. The business running the advert will then be charged for this ‘click through’ process.

Sometimes referred to as Cost Per Click (CPC), PPC comes in a variety of forms – the most common of which is the paid search ad. Paid search advertising presents customers with adverts that the search engine operator deems most relevant to their search.

For example, someone searching for ‘beachwear’ will see adverts for bikinis and flip flops – rather than bobble hats and ski goggles – because the search engine has already filtered out the content that’s irrelevant to their search.

But it’s not just a case of “throw money at it, and the ad will appear” – oh no. Search engines are nifty, and will place adverts into what’s known as the ‘Ad Auction’.

This rather exciting-sounding process is used by Google and other search engine operators to determine the relevance of ads, and automatically assesses an advert’s applicability in relation to the customer’s original search.

If, after the Ad Auction, an advert is deemed ‘relevant’ by the search engine, then it will appear in the SERP (Search Engine Results Page).

How does the Ad Auction work?

You may or may not be surprised to hear that there is some bidding involved. Not in the ‘flog-it’ sense complete with block, gavel and auctioneer, but digitally.

Advertisers will bid on keywords that they want to prompt the display of their advert. Keywords shouldn’t be confused with search queries: the keyword links to the advertised product, whereas the search query is what the customer puts into Google.

For example, if a customer types the search query ‘pizza near me’ into Google, the keyword here is pizza. Therefore, Google will show ads for local pizza shops (as the query was ‘near me’, showing local intent).

The auction is automated and runs off a set of predetermined metrics, taking into account your budget, target market, and the keywords you’ve decided to bid on. Those keywords should be relevant to your product, and be search-engine friendly – if you’re looking for some helpful tools to carry out your keyword research, take a look at this list.

The bidder’s position, known as the Ad Rank, is determined by combining the PPC bid and the quality score of the advert itself. Low quality ads are not looked at favourably, so the winner isn’t necessarily the highest bidder.

Now, if your advert has won the bid – and is judged to be a suitable fit with the search intent of the customer – your PPC advert will appear at the top of the search page. If the customer clicks on your ad, you will then pay a fee determined by how much you bid on that keyword.

What is Google AdWords PPC?

The most popular form of PPC advertising, Google Ads (formerly known as Google AdWords) is a platform that allows businesses to create ads which appear and rank on Google.

Google Ads operates on a Pay-Per-Click model. Every time a search term is entered into Google, Google then dips into its bank of ads relevant to that search, and selects some to appear in the ad space on its search results page.

This selection process is based on:

The relevance of the advertiser’s chosen keywords
The quality of the ad itself
The size of the keyword bid

These factors combine to form what’s known as the advert’s Ad Rank (calculated by multiplying the PPC bid and the ad’s quality score).

The Ad Rank is designed to keep advertisers within their budget, as the system itself operates on a Pay Per Click basis. This allows the winning ad to reach the right customer at a cost that fits their budget.

But, how much will it cost?

That’s entirely dependent on how much you want to spend. In Google’s own words, “you’ll never pay more than the monthly cap you set”.

Google allows you to set a monthly budget cap, and there’s no minimum spend! Google will give you advice based on how much other businesses similar to yours spend on their PPC ads, and what the estimated results from that figure might be.

It takes around a month to start seeing results from a Google Ad, so there’s no need to panic. If you do feel that you’re really not getting the desired ROI, then you can readjust your budget at any time, with no strings attached.

What you choose to spend will depend on the value of the keywords themselves, as well as your own budget. But we can offer you the wise words of James Munro, PPC advertising expert at digital marketing agency, MVF: “A bid should always be what a click is worth to you.”

How to do PPC

PPC can be implemented in lots of ways, but the simplest, most popular method is to use Google Ads. It’s free to use, and relatively simple to get yourself started.

The steps it’ll take you through are detailed below, so you know what you’re getting yourself into before you get stuck in.

Step 1
Google Ads will ask you to set your goal

You can set your Google Ad account to have a certain focus, and Google will then help you achieve your targets. Your goal will have one of three focuses:

Calls – get customers on the phone to book appointments or close a deal.
Store visits – if you business relies on foot traffic.
Website action – if you want people to use your online shop, join your mailing list, or fill out a form.

Step 2
Decide where to advertise

Global or local. You decide where you’d like to show your ads, and Google will put them in front of the right people at the right time.

Step 3
Your ad’s reach

Finding the right audience is key to your ad’s performance. With Google Ads, you can choose the location of your ad’s appearance, from encompassing a certain radius of your shop to covering entire counties or countries.

Other variable metrics include:

Demographic (based on gender, age etc)
Device (mobile, tablet, PC)
Time (am/pm – working hours or weekends)
Location (local or global)
Audience (based on interest)

Step 4
Create your message

Use some compelling copy to get customers excited about your business, or create exciting banner ads by adding images. Pop to our helpful guide on display advertising for more banner ad information.

Step 5
Set your budget cap

With no minimum spend and no commitment, the Google Ads budget cap allows you to spend within your means on advertising. You’ll never pay more than the monthly cap you set, while Google will also show you the estimated results for your budget, helping you make an informed decision.

Step 6
Go live

Google will display your ads when your product or service is relevant to a search. Your ads can appear on Google Search, Google Maps, and a network of partner sites. You’ll pay for results when people click on your ad, call your business via Google, go to your landing page via the ad, or get directions to your shop.

Step 7
Keep track of your progress

Google Ads will help you audit your performance by providing reports, insights, and ongoing tips on how to make your ads even more successful.

Choosing your keywords

Keywords allow you to target your advertising based on what people are searching for. You can judge the intent of the customer based on their search query – for example, someone searching ‘where is my nearest coffee shop’ probably wants a cup of coffee immediately.

If you’re keen to do some of your own keyword research, then here are some helpful sites and plugins that’ll make optimising your keywords a breeze:

Google Ads also has an inbuilt keyword planner to help you figure out the value of each word you want to bid on. This helps inform your bid budget, and shows the value of each individual keyword.

In a nutshell

PPC is a process that sees users bid on keywords and pay for each click on their advertisements. Favoured over traditional advertising methods due to its measurability, accountability and flexibility, PPC is perfect for a small business looking to create a targeted ad campaign on a budget.

Giving you the freedom to choose how much you’re willing to spend at any one time, PPC is adjustable to any budget or requirements, providing useful metrics for you to constantly streamline your approach.

If PPC sounds like something your business could benefit from, but you don’t have the manpower to run such a campaign, there are marketing specialists who can help. To be put in touch with a marketing specialist who’s just right for your business, pop to the top of the page, fill in the online form, and we’ll help you find the answers to all your PPC needs.

By Poppy Mortiboys-Harrison

Sourced from startups

In News

Boots puts a spin on glossy summer ads as it commits to championing body confidence

May 23, 2019 No Comments

By Rebecca Stewart

As summer looms so too does a deluge of ‘summer ready’ and ‘beach body’ ads targeted at women. But Boots’ latest ad from Ogilvy has turned the trope on its head.

Part of a wider commitment from the retailer to focus on body confidence in its marketing, Boots has launched an integrated summer campaign it hopes will “give women the confidence to be whoever they want to be.”

Based on its own insight that 76% of women in the UK have avoided summer activities – like going to the beach or attending music festival – because they feel self-conscious, the TV spot at the heart of ‘Summer Ready’ follows the story of two women embarking on a summer trip.

As they head into shop in Boots, they see a Protein World-esque ad which asks, ‘Are you summer ready?’. The pair are shown laughing it off, before heading to their destination. Boots products feature in the ad as the duo get ready to head to the beach.

The spot is set to a custom version of the Diana Ross classic, ‘I’m Coming Out’.

Helen Normoyle, marketing director for Boots UK and Ireland, said that amid a shift in the conversation around confidence the brand “had a role to play” in ensuring the discussion wasn’t about shape or size but about women having the confidence to be whoever they want to be.

“The statistic [we uncovered] is really shocking and as the brand that stands for championing everyone’s right to feel good, we wanted to take action.”

She added: “That’s why we’re celebrating women who aren’t driven by a need to be someone else’s definition of ‘summer ready’. In doing so, we hope to inspire the rest of the nation to stop worrying about what others think and just start feeling great about themselves.”

The TV ad marks the beginning of a summer-long campaign with activations set to take place throughout the season which will run across ATL TV, print, PR & influencer marketing, loyalty and more.

The play from Boots builds on other commitments it has made to championing body confidence, including its sponsorship of all the national women’s football teams in the UK.

“This is not just about summer. Our partnership with women’s football has given us the opportunity to talk to our customers in new ways, supporting a much bigger social conversation to help improve the confidence and wellbeing of others,” explained. Normoyle.

Boots Health & Beauty print magazine has been leading the charge on this too, having banned image re-touching from its their cover seven years ago.

Boots has been heavily focusing on beauty in its marketing. Its 2018 Christmas ad from Ogilvy married its brand purpose with its beauty proposition, telling the story of a mother and daughter to showcase how giving the gift of beauty can make someone feel.

Earlier this year, it announced it was upping investment in its beauty proposition, overhauling its bricks-and-mortar stores and bringing fresh brands into the fold as it looks to keep is grip on the burgeoning market.

By Rebecca Stewart

Sourced from The Drum

In News

Our Favorite Keyword Research Tools (17 Tools Every SEO Needs)

May 23, 2019 No Comments

Sourced from DIGITAL MARKETER

Whether you’re trying to drive traffic or conversions, your campaigns need to start with strategic keyword research. Which tools should you rely on to give you the best keywords?

We asked ourselves the same question—and after researching dozens of tools, we settled on 17 keyword research tools that can give you good insight, regardless of your budget.

Why We Consider These the Best Keyword Research Tools

The best keyword research tools give you enough data to make good decisions—things like search volume, keyword difficulty, and click rate. They should also suggest keywords to help you find good variants and related keywords.

Beyond that, the keyword research tool that’s best is the one that’s best for you. It’s within your budget, has related tools that help you with all your SEO needs, or supports the type of projects you do most.

To help you find your best tool, we’ve taken all our favorites and ranked them according to price and features.

Here they are: the 17 best keyword research tools every SEO needs.

Ahrefs Keyword Explorer

Paid | $$$

keyword research tool Ahrefs Keyword Explorer

Ahref’s Keyword Explorer is one of the best keyword research tools on the market. Their database contains more than 33 billion keywords, updated with fresh data every month, so you get up-to-date search volume numbers, as well as the advanced metrics you need to make smart decisions: keyword difficulty, return rate, clicks per search, % of clicks, and more.

Finding the right keywords for your project is easy with this tool. You can generate keyword ideas in one of 4 ways:

Phrase match
Having same terms
Also rank for
Search suggestions

Rank Tracker from SEO PowerSuite

Paid | $$$

Keyword Research Tool Rank Tracker from SEO PowerSuite

Rank Tracker is part of SEO PowerSuite’s collection of tools. It gives you accurate ranking data to track your SEO campaigns, and 18 keyword-suggestion tools to help you find the best keyword variants.

With this tool, you get all the keyword data you need:

KEI (keyword efficiency index)
Competition
Search volume
And more

As part of this tool, you’ll also get ranking reports, scheduled tasks, and search safety features such as proxy rotation, human emulation, and user agents.

Moz Keyword Explorer

Free to Paid | $$$

Keyword Research Tool Moz Keyword Explorer

You can get 10 free queries per month with Moz’s Keyword Explorer. But to find your best keywords, you’ll want to upgrade to their paid version.

This tool is easy to use and gives you the data you need:

Search volume
Keyword difficulty
Organic click-through rate
Priority

It also gives you a score, telling you how valuable this keyword would be for your campaign.

SEMrush

Paid | $$

keyword research tool SEMrush

SEMrush gives you all the information you need on the keywords you’re researching. The overview gives you data on organic vs. paid search, CPC distribution, and search trends.

Their Keyword Magic Tool was recently named the Best Digital Tool in PubCon’s 2019 Interactive Marketing Awards. It gives you the keywords you need to build your most profitable campaign.

SEMrush winning an award

LongTailPro

Paid | $

keyword research tool LongTailPro

With LongTailPro, you enter the seed keyword and get hundreds of long-tail suggestions—less competitive keywords that you have a real chance of ranking for. You can also run keyword and competitor analysis, identify the keyword difficulty of your keywords, and track your rankings.

KWFinder by Mangools

Paid | $

KWFinder gives you many of the same features you get with the top-of-the-line keyword research tools, but at a price that fits into any budget. You’ll get:

Keyword difficulty
The keywords your competitors are missing
Search volume for variant keywords
Local keywords

You also get the full SEO suite of tools, including SERP analysis, rank tracking, backlink analysis, and website analysis.

(NOTE: Need a helping hand with your digital marketing efforts? Or maybe you just want proven, actionable marketing tools, tactics, and templates to implement in your business? Check out the latest deal from DigitalMarketer, and you will be on your way to helping your business grow.)

SpyFu

Paid | $

keyword research tool SpyFu

For competitor research, SpyFu is your go-to tool. With this one, you get every resource you need to spy on your competitor’s Adwords and SEO campaigns:

Adwords competitor keywords
Competitor Adwords campaign and ad test history
And SpyFu’s Adwords advisor

In case you’re uncomfortable with spying on your competitors, be aware, it’s a useful (and common) approach to SEO strategy. If you know what your competitors are doing, you can learn what’s working for them, which means you can boost traffic and generate leads with less guesswork. The key, of course, is to use your powers for good, not evil.

Jaaxy

Paid | $

keyword research tool Jaaxy

Developed by affiliate marketers for affiliate marketers, Jaaxy helps you manage all aspects of keyword, website, competition, and market research. Data is pulled from Google, Bing, and Yahoo, giving you 99.7% search engine coverage.

We’re not sure you need to be an affiliate marketer to get value from this tool. Keyword research is keyword research, after all.

Market Samurai

Paid | $

keyword research tool Market Samurai

Market Samurai is a simple, intuitive keyword research tool that fits into any budget. Simply type in your seed keyword and click “Generate.” You’ll get a list of keywords that have high traffic, high profit potential, and suitable phrase match competition.

We like this tool because once you have your keywords chosen, it will help you do competitive research, publish high-quality content that drives traffic, and monetize your traffic. An all-in-one package at a reasonable price.

Keyword Snatcher

Paid | $

keyword research tool Keyword Snatcher

Keyword Snatcher generates thousands of keywords for your campaigns by pulling data from Google, Yahoo, Bing, Amazon, eBay, and YouTube. Users love how easy it is, and they appreciate having such a comprehensive list of keywords to target in their content.

With this tool, you’re just getting keyword suggestions. There’s no data about search volume or keyword difficulty. But for a comprehensive list of keywords you could be targeting in your content, this is the tool of choice.

SERPStat

Paid | $

keyword research tool SERPStat

With SERPstat, you can find long-tail keywords and keyword variations while exploring trends and keyword suggestions. You’ll also get performance indicators, such as search volume, cost-per-click, and competition level. All plans give you access to 230 Google and 9 Yandex databases.

Ubersuggest

Free

keyword research tool Ubersuggest

Getting started with Ubersuggest is easy. Just type in a domain or seed keyword to get started. You’ll get a domain overview, top SEO pages, keyword suggestions, content ideas, and backlink data—similar to a paid tool, but completely free. This one is definitely worth checking out.

Answer the Public

Free

keyword research tool Answer the Public

As part of your keyword research, you need to figure out what people are asking when searching for your keyword. Answer the Public doesn’t just list the questions people are typing into search engines, it organizes them by the type of question.

The results will give you a good understanding of the search intent related to your keyword, and the information you need to include on your pages to rank well for that intent.

FAQfox

Free

keyword research tool FAQfox

Like Answer the Public, FAQfox helps you get a better handle on user intent, so it’s easier to find your best keywords. This tool does that by identifying your customers’ core wants and needs, so you can choose the keywords that are most likely to resonate with them.

Google Keyword Planner

Free

keyword research tool Google Keyword Planner

Google’s Keyword Planner is the original keyword research tool. It helps you discover new keywords, figure out how often keywords are searched, and how those searches have changed over time. That helps you identify the keywords that are most likely to give you the best traffic and conversions.

Seed Keywords

Free

keyword research tool Seed Keywords

Seed Keywords helps you find keyword ideas when you’re just starting a campaign, trying to figure out which search terms to optimize for. It lets you create a scenario, such as “When looking for the best pizza in your town, what do you search for?” Seed Keywords then gives you a link you can send to your friends, so you can get their input.

The concept is simple: to discover what real people are searching for, ask real people.

Soovle

Free

keyword research tool Soovle

Soovle pulls data from a wide range of search engines to tell you what people are searching for related to your keyword. Just type it into the search bar, and “Soovle it.” The results aren’t pretty, but for free research, it’s a good option.

Back to You

Effective SEO depends on strategic keyword research. The best tools are often the most expensive, but as you can see, there are plenty of keyword research tools available for every budget and need.

Whether you’re trying to understand what your market is searching for, find the keywords that are the easiest to rank for, or identify your most profitable keywords, there’s a tool that’s right for you.

Sourced from DIGITAL MARKETER

In News

UK marketing spending rises despite Brexit, uncertainty clouds forecast: survey

May 23, 2019 No Comments

Sourced from Investing.com

(Reuters) – British companies spent more on marketing in the opening quarter of 2019 despite uncertainty around Brexit, but their budgets for the rest of the year could be the most subdued since after the financial crisis, a survey showed.

The IPA Bellwether survey, conducted by IHS Markit, showed on Wednesday that 21.6 percent of marketing executives raised their budgets during the quarter, while just under 12.8 percent of executives who took part in the survey cut their marketing budgets.

“This sharp increase following Q4 2018’s flatlining signals that UK marketing budgets have received a much-needed kiss of life in an economy gripped by Brexit uncertainty,” IPA Director General Paul Bainsfair said.

Bainsfair, however, added that the forecast for the year ahead was uncertain given the seemingly endless negotiations around Britain’s exit from the European Union.

The report showed that cautious undertones were still apparent in budget plans for the current financial year, with panelists providing only modest growth expectations in available marketing spend.

Brexit was postponed by a late-night agreement in Brussels last week that gave Prime Minister Theresa May until Oct. 31 to persuade parliament to approve the terms of the country’s departure.

“A return to growth in marketing budgets during the opening quarter of 2019 may come as a surprise given that the uncertainty that shrouds the UK political and economic climate has only built further,” said Joe Hayes, economist at IHS Markit.

A six-year run of marketing spending growth at British companies ended in the final quarter of 2018 as uncertainty over Brexit led companies to clamp down on costs.

While Brexit uncertainty continued to prompt belt tightening and a delay in decision-making, some companies pushed resources into their brands in the first quarter, the report showed.

The survey found that the best performing category was internet with its net balance seen at a growth of 17.2 percent in the quarter.

The rise in marketing spend was supported by demand for big ticket advertising campaigns such as those on TV and radio. The survey also flagged that marketing executives expect further growth in traditional media advertising through the year.

Around 300 UK marketing professionals, primarily from Britain’s top 1,000 companies and across all key business sectors, were interviewed for the survey.

Sourced from Investing.com