Did you know there is now 1 website for every 4 people in the world? This is a crazy statistic, but it also explains why businesses are continuously having to review their marketing strategies – if they don’t, they run the risk of becoming invisible.

One way to increase the visibility of your website is through Search Engine Optimization (SEO). However, even SEO is becoming much more difficult as people strive to rank higher in the Search Engine Result Pages (SERP). Additionally, we have to take into account the fact that search engine factors are becoming more advanced and Google is releasing more algorithm updates than ever before.

Google plays a huge role in increasing the reach of businesses all over the world – it ensures that businesses get the exposure they deserve so that they can grow their clientele. Therefore, in an effort to improve SEO, Google regularly updates its algorithms to meet the needs of the everchanging market. So, if a business wants to remain afloat, it has to evolve with the times. One of the trends taking the SEO sector by storm at the moment is contextual content.

What is contextual content?

A few years back, to rank highly in SERPs, all people did was stuff keywords into their content. Therefore, it was a common phenomenon to find that the top-ranking websites contained nothing more than a confused bundle of keywords with very little valuable content. To find content that was relevant to their needs, users had to scroll through the results pages.

Context, however, is now leading the way. Contextual content is authoritative, timely and relevant content that has been optimized to appear where and when a user might need it, largely based on their search history. And this is the direction Google is currently heading down.

After its introduction, many people thought contextual content would affect Search Engine Optimization. However, this hasn’t been the case. If businesses want to rank highly in the SERPs, they need to make room for this new approach. For content marketers, contextual content has presented an opportunity to become more visible. Most content marketers already have the content that users need; all they need to do now is learn how to make themselves seen.

How Google changed its search strategy

Google now recognizes long-form content as a mark of quality, as it allows businesses to provide more value to their audience. The aim of long-form posts is not to provide content that reaches a certain word count just for the sake of it but to deliver more informative content no matter how many words this requires. This approach is a good thing and does not necessarily make SEO experts obsolete, as the most effective techniques in SEO, such as keyword inclusion, are still valuable.

How does contextual content work?

Google wants to understand the user’s intent when they’re searching in order to provide the best possible answer to their query. To do this, they need to not only understand the content of the query but also the context. For example, somebody organizing a party in New York is unlikely to perform just one search on one day. Instead, they will perform a number of searches over a period of time, with each one linking to the context of planning the party.

For example, they might search for ‘caterers in New York’, ‘party dresses’ and ‘DJs in New York’. Separately, we might not spot the connection, but when the indirect meaning of the searches is interpreted, we can see they are all steps in planning a party. Moving forward, Google hopes to make search results predictive – so they’ll know what you’re searching for before you’ve even thought of it!

Ultimately, the benefit of contextual content is helping the user get more accurate and faster results based on their query.

So, now that you know context is king, how do you search engine optimize your content to get the best results?

1. Decide on the keywords to use

The first thing that marketers and content writers should do is decide on the keywords that are most valuable to them and their goals. Thankfully, there are several tools on the market which can help you do this. The most popular one is the Google AdWords Keyword Planner. This tool is easily accessible as long as you have an AdWords account, and the concept behind it is simple: determine which keyword is essential to your business, and then type this keyword into the tool. Google will then generate a list of words which are similar to your keyword that people generally search for.

This is a handy tool for content writers since you not only get a list of valuable keywords, but you also get a better understanding of what your audience typically searches for. Once you do this, you can then go on to add the most relevant keywords to your Keyword Planner – remember to look for contextual keywords that can be applied to specific events, activities, holidays, seasons or occasions. Exercise caution when doing this, as some keywords may be almost exactly alike, so adding both of them would be unnecessary.

This process aims to come up with a substantial list of keywords that connects you to your niche market or audience via Google. After doing this, AdWords has an export function that allows you to export the list as an Excel file.

2. Determine where you rank in the SERPs

Keywords help you rank better on Google, so after determining your main keywords, the next step is to use a tool that can help you monitor your ranking. Various tools in the market can help you do this, such as Positionly, Moz, and RavenTools. For beginners, the best tool is Positionly, as it is more straightforward. With Positionly, you can keep track of changes every day, and see how your competitors are performing. On top of this, Positionly also offers services such as:

• Website optimization grading
• White labeling
• Automated reports
• Competitor analysis

However, one of the cons of using Positionly is the frequency of data. There are days where you might log in and discover that your rankings on various keywords have dropped without any logical explanation, although this is not as dire as it appears.

3. Make sure you get the content type right by considering user intent

One of the essential points to remember in content creation is that you should never generate any content without identifying user intent first. This is an excellent practice to adopt, as it will help you to match context with content and identify some possible content ideas.

For example, your keywords might include bathroom remodeling, bathroom sinks, bathroom toilets etc. Now, think about these words as they relate to the user’s intent. Who is the target audience? What do they want? What is the intent of their search? More specifically, you need to ask:

• Where do they live?
• What do they want from you?
• Do they want a quote or decorating tips?
• When are they looking for your services?
• Is their bathroom in total disrepair or does it just need a facelift?

When you consider all these questions, your content will need to be either transactional (intended to drive a sale), promotional (giving something for free, like an eBook, in exchange for a commitment from them), or educational (articles and blog posts relating to the what, why, when and where of their initial search). However, it can be a combination of all three.

4. Include your content ideas and keywords in your editorial calendar

Once you have determined what your content type should be, you can proceed to include your keywords within any copy you produce. One strategy that you can adopt to accomplish this is concentrating on one keyword every week and adding it to your content. To remind yourself, you should make a note of this on your editorial calendar, which will help you plan accordingly. This is great for seasonal keywords, and once you add them to your schedule, your editorial team can make use of certain keywords once the time comes – this is a big tick for contextual content!

Preplanning your keywords beforehand makes you more organized, and enhances the efficiency of your content marketing. Once you have come up with your keyword goals, it is essential that you keep referring back to Positionly to ensure that your keywords are still performing well. It will also point out where you need to improve.

5. Optimize your content to suit your keywords

Once you have selected and scheduled your keywords, the next step is to ensure that your content correctly matches your keywords. Several tools can assist you with this. They include the Scribe plugin by Copyblogger and WordPress SEO, developed by Yoast. If you have budget constraints, then Yoast is the best alternative for you as it is a free plugin, and allows you to do 90% of the work without having to pay a cent. Moreover, it is also easy to use.

Both plugins work the same way. At the start of your content generation, you first have to declare the keyword phrase that you intend to use. Once you have generated your content, the plugin will then tell you how well your content matches your keywords. The plugin assesses your post using the following factors:

1. Article headline: It will check to see if the keyword phrase is in the title of your post.

2. Page title: Your page title is the small amount of text that appears in the browser tab. It is essential to include the exact keyword phrase in full in the page title.

3. Page URL: The slug of your URL should include your keyword. WordPress allows you to customize the URL before you even post your content.

4. Content: Both tools require that you include the keyword in the main body of your content, but you shouldn’t stuff them. You can also include keywords in the various subheadings that you have outlined in your content to get additional recognition.

6. Ensure that your site works well using SEO friendly plugins

Even though most of the tricks that were previously used for SEO no longer work, there are still several of them that you can adopt. The reason behind this is the fact that most SEO is handled within the page itself. Therefore, if you do not structure and optimize your website effectively, improving your ranking will be much harder than it should be. With the help of Positionly, you can quickly determine how your site performs. Additionally, there are several plugins that you can use to help you properly maintain your website.

WP Rocket

This is a plugin for WordPress that can impact the speed with which your site operates. Unlike other plugins, it does not affect the functionality of your website.

In-depth article generator

This plugin adds metadata to your page to better your ranking on the SERPs. Furthermore, it also has the added advantage of being simplistic in design and is easy to use.

The future of SEO: Getting contextual with your content

Many people think that with the rise in contextual content, SEO is dead. But it has simply changed, and content creators have to evolve with the times. By combining contextual content with several SEO techniques, you can significantly increase your visibility in the market.

Perhaps the biggest challenge with search engine optimization is to get a tangible sense of how your efforts are paying off – particularly if you’ve just started the process of optimizing your site.

It could take anywhere between three to six months before new content starts to drive organic traffic to your site. The speed it takes can depend heavily on the existing domain authority of your site too – so it’s important to not get too downhearted if you don’t witness an immediate leap in search engine rankings. At the same time, you’ll be undoubtedly eager to know whether your strategy is working without having to wait half a year – and you’ll likely be wondering how to measure things in the interim.

There are four key performance indicators to any content-based strategy for SEO:

1) Content velocity: this is how frequently you are publishing new/updated articles or other content.
2) Ranking: how your site is ranking for keywords you’re targeting.
3) Traffic: how much organic traffic (traffic from natural searches) your chosen keywords are bringing to your site.
4) Conversions: how your articles are helping to convert prospective customers, resulting in sales or other leads.

It’s worth noting that while each of these KPIs is incredibly useful, it might not be pertinent to focus on traffic straight away. Most SEO experts will use each of these metrics at different points in the lifecycle of a website. Here’s a detailed rundown of why each of them is important:

Content velocity: an essential

Content velocity is a relatively simple metric. It’s the measure of how quickly (and how consistently) content is added to a site. While it might not be considered a “result” metric, it’s by far the easiest way to measure how your site is tracking against the result that you’re aiming for – and here’s how:

Let’s say you compare two websites. Each site intends on creating/uploading three articles per week – although one is approving/publishing them on time, while the other is slightly more lackadaisical to its approach to uploading content.

The site that is publishing on time will easily maintain its target of “three articles per week” and within three months it should have nearly 40 unique articles online. However, the site that is taking longer to approve/upload content will be at least one month behind in real terms, with as little as 25 articles online.

This means that the first site is one month ahead, despite both projects having been on the go for the same amount of time. There are approximately fifteen extra articles on the leading site that are ranking for target keywords. In addition to this, the site with more articles is more likely to be rewarded with rankings (which means extra traffic) in less time, because more is being published on a regular basis. Search engines recognise this and award rankings accordingly.

This is the main reason content creators like to manage the publishing of content on behalf of clients, where possible. By operating on a defined publishing schedule, your content creator can guarantee a healthy content velocity, and your project won’t be bottlenecked by an erratic publishing schedule.

Content velocity is one of the most common reasons why new sites fail to execute a content plan. While it might not seem like a “real” Key Performance Indicator in comparison to traffic or conversions, it’s an essential measurement for any content-based marketing plan.

The importance of ranking

After content/article velocity, you’ll want to focus on ranking changes. You might not notice traffic hitting your site for a particular keyword until your site ranks in the top 10 for that keyword, but you can notice a keyword moving in the right direction before it begins to bring in noticeable traffic.

Let’s imagine a new site – for the first few months, it gets approximately 35 visitors each day. That’s not impressive, but with the right keyword targeting via content velocity, the analytics show that the site starts to rank for certain keywords.

It can take upwards of two months before traffic catches up with keyword rankings. A leap from the top 100 into the top 10 for a particular keyword ranking can bring with it a tenfold increase in visitors – so that’s 350 organic visitors per day in just two months’ time.

This is proof that it’s important never to underestimate rankings – and to use the right tools to measure them.

Keeping an eye on traffic

Traffic is arguably the most obvious metric. It’s the last one that SEO experts will use to track new sites, as it’s the one that takes longest to materialize. Nonetheless, it’s still one of the most important metrics to aim for.

There’s a lot less to say about traffic in comparison to other KPIs, because it’s pretty much self-explanatory. However, it’s worth pointing out that its usually more beneficial to concentrate on organic traffic on a weekly/monthly basis, instead of focusing on daily trends.

This is because daily changes in traffic can be substantial for lots of reasons. For example, people might be less likely to search for a particular keyword depending on the day of the week. It can be disheartening to look at a couple of days’ worth of traffic and worry that things are taking a downturn, when in reality that’s just the nature of your business model.

For example, a restaurant might expect to be busier during the weekend in comparison to a Monday or Tuesday night. By focusing on daily traffic reports, we’d see a large dip at the beginning of the week. Zoom out, however, and the picture becomes clearer – particularly when looking at things on a month-by-month basis. By focusing on monthly metrics, you’ll have a much more lucid idea of the direction in which your organic traffic is going.

Understanding conversion

When your site begins to receive a decent amount of organic traffic, there will usually be at least one conversion KPI that you’ll want to track. However, this can vary depending on your site, your industry, your business model and what your buyer journey entails.

For an affiliate site, things are easy – simply track the clicks on your affiliate links. Sites that offer information on products usually involve a clear funnel along the lines of “read blog post -> signup to email list -> purchase product”. In this case, focusing on the email signup conversion rate would make more sense.

If you’ve got an ecommerce store or offer Software as a Service, conversion tracking can be a little bit trickier. This is mainly because it can be difficult to convert “cold” search traffic directly into sales. In this case, it makes the most sense to focus on an intermediate part of the conversion funnel, such as an email signup, request of a demo or a visit to a product page.

Intermediate metrics like these are usually more informative in the beginning stages of a site as opposed to recording direct purchases – even when multistep attribution is considered. Sites that are at the earliest stages of their content marketing strategy can simply be measured with the keywords you are targeting, and the pages you are publishing to bring in traffic.

For a site that is already achieving a reasonable amount of traffic, it may be time to consider multistep attribution, per-page revenue estimates and other conversion metrics along these lines. However, it is not worthwhile jumping to these steps until you’ve managed to regularly bring in a decent amount of traffic.

Which metrics to focus on – and why

Right now, you may be wondering which of these KPIs are the most important when it comes to measuring the success of your SEO-based content marketing. While there are no set rules, your choice of Key Performance Indicators will vary dependent on the level of traffic you’re receiving.

If you’ve just launched your site and are achieving less than 100 visitors each day, you should continue to focus on content/article velocity (and perhaps look at the amount of links you’re acquiring if link building is part of your strategy).

After a short while, you should notice a steady incline in visitors. Once you start hitting the range of 50-250 visitors per day, you can start concentrating on keywords. Consider which keywords are ranking best to provide you with an indication of what type of content might be useful for bringing in more traffic.

Once you’ve landed solidly in the 2,000 visitors per week range, you’ll likely want to start focusing on conversion metrics. Remember to start off with something simple, such as email signups. While there are more intricate conversion tracking KPIs available, you’ll probably want to save these for when your site is achieving 10,000 views or more per day. As your site grows, you’re going to need lots of data points to get access to good data when your conversion funnel becomes increasingly more intricate.

There are lots of ways to track data on your site, and many tools are available for you to use straight away, for free. Some of the most powerful tools include Google Analytics (an essential for all sites), Ahrefs and Accuranker. You might also want to consider other third-party SEO tools as well, depending on how successful your site currently is.

Is my bounce rate important?

Bounce rate is a KPI which measures when a user loads a page on your site before immediately exiting without performing another action. It’s calculated by dividing the number of non-interactive (bounce) sessions by the total number of site visits.

It’s important in the respect that search engines want their algorithms to satisfy each user that makes a search query. When a user bounces back to the search results, it indicates to the search engine that your page might not be relevant, could be frustrating to navigate or could otherwise be untrustworthy. While navigation is more of an issue for designers and developers, content plays a large role in your bounce rate, too. If your content is poorly written, contains factual errors or spelling/grammar mistakes, potential converts are likely to treat you as an untrustworthy source and end up pressing the “back” button, before checking out one of your competitors.

Pages on your site which appear to have a high bounce rate should be subject to A/B testing with several different approaches until you can find a way for the bounce rate to improve.

However, if your page has a relatively high bounce rate, don’t despair just yet. It’s worth remembering that most sites have an average bounce rate of 40-60% – if you’re in this ballpark, you’re doing just fine. Any higher and you might want to take action.

What’s next

If you are yet to track at least one of these metrics for your content marketing, it’s time to start measuring. The sooner you begin monitoring these KPIs, the sooner you’ll gain a clearer understanding of what’s working for you – and crucially, what isn’t.

Of course, not all businesses have the people power, time and resources to put Key Performance Indicators in place. If your team is already busy chasing sales and concentrating on administrative tasks, you might struggle to find time during the working week to implement the sort of measurements you’d like.

If this sounds familiar, a better option might be to outsource your analytics. These means you’ll get all the benefits of professionally managing the progress of your site across the four main Key Performance Indicators without having to sacrifice time spent on other important tasks.

When you focus on the KPIs and put in the effort to increase your site performance on a monthly, quarterly and annual basis, you’ll notice a correlation between the following corresponding business KPIs too:

• Customers
• Return on Investment
• Profit

Ultimately, transforming your site into a success starts with the right content. It may be a long journey, but the payoffs are worth it in the end, and the satisfaction of watching your site grow from an outsider to a top ranker on all major search engines is perhaps the one metric that is immeasurable.

Your company needs as much visibility as it can get, which means you need to know how to properly promote your company on the web. In order to have an effective digital marketing strategy, you need to create a site that ranks well with search engines, which will draw plenty of high-quality traffic to your site.

However, the strategies that you need to follow in order for your SEO efforts to be successful change over time due to updates that are made to the algorithms used by search engines. This article explores the importance of SEO and how you can rank well in 2020.

What is search engine optimization and how does it work?

Search rankings are the position that a website has in the search results. As soon as you type anything into Google, Bing, Yahoo, or any other search engine, you’ll quickly notice that each site has a different position in the list of results. A website’s place in those results is its search ranking, which means that the highest-ranking website is the one at the top of the results page and, in theory, should be the most relevant source targeted to the searcher’s query.

However, it’s unlikely that you’ll end up on the first page if you don’t implement search engine optimization (SEO) strategies, which refers to anything that’s intended to improve the search ranking of your website. Keywords are the words and phrases that people type into search engines, and you can optimize your site’s content with them to ensure you’re getting featured when potential customers browse for your products or services.

Because you likely won’t be the only business using these terms, search engines analyze a variety of factors to determine where each website will rank, such as the quality of the content, the specific number of times the keyword is mentioned within the content, the backlinks that your site has, and numerous other factors.

Generally, this ranking is done automatically with computerized algorithms. The algorithms that are used by search engines change frequently, which means that it’s important to remain up to date on the latest information about what goes into determining your search ranking.

How can SEO help your company?

If you have a solid SEO strategy, it can lead to greater organic traffic and conversions, helping to boost your sales simply through the increased visibility that’s offered by high search rankings. Furthermore, prospective customers will see your website as much more credible the higher it ranks on search engines, which could mean they are more inclined to buy your products or services once they click on your link. As a result, your conversion rate could increase considerably, leading to a significant increase in your sales, which may lead to finding a larger number of loyal customers and a substantial increase in the profits of your company.

What types of SEO are there?

In addition to general web content SEO, some of the most important types of SEO to consider nowadays are local SEO, social media SEO, and e-commerce SEO. In order to have an effective marketing strategy, it’s essential to consider all of these aspects of search engine optimization, which can help to ensure that you create a highly effective digital marketing strategy.

What is general SEO?

General SEO involves making sure that your website ranks well on major search engines, such as Google and Bing. Generally, SEO requires improving your rankings on these major search engines by using targeted keywords in your web pages, blog posts, and cornerstone content, as well as your meta data. It’s not just about ranking for the standard keywords, but for long-tail, more refined keywords too, and that you have a robust linking strategy and ensure that you keep your content up to date.

What is local SEO?

Local search engine optimization is the process of creating content around geographic search terms so that your pages will rank well when people in your target area search for your service or products. One key aspect of doing this is including the name of your local region in your keyword phrases, such as your city’s name and your chief services, e.g. ‘plumbing in Denver, CO’.

What is social media SEO?

Using the principles of SEO in your social media marketing can be an excellent way to improve your ranking and visibility because the content on these platforms gets indexed just like webpages, but much faster and more frequently. The other plus side is that social media gives you the chance to cement your credibility and engage directly with consumers to build meaningful connections and authority. An example of social media SEO would be including keywords on a LinkedIn business page to improve its search rankings on both Google and the site’s internal search engine.

What is e-commerce SEO?

It’s important to make sure that the products that you offer on e-commerce sites, such as Amazon, are visible to as many people as possible. One part of making that happen is ensuring that your listing ranks as well as possible with the e-commerce site’s search engine. There are several strategies that you need to include in order to do this.

As with search engine optimization for the web at large, you need to make sure that you pick the right keywords which relate to the specifics of your products, such as size, color and product name. If you’re selling your products on Amazon, it’s also important to ensure that you consider how customers will search for your products via voice search, which will improve your Amazon voice search rankings.

How to rank well in 2020

Prioritize the emotional connection

The quality of content on your page will continue to become more important, which will have a major impact on your search rankings. In order to ensure that your content is well written, you need to go one step further and consider the emotional connection that your audience has with your copy. Understand their pain points and how your product can overcome them. For instance, if you are selling a white noise machine that helps people to get a better night’s sleep, you could expect your audience to be feeling frustrated and tired. Tap into those emotions with an opener like, “If you’re frustrated, sluggish, or stressed because of a lack of sleep, you’re not alone.”

Next, clearly highlight the benefits and show them through the emotional intelligence of your copy: “Our white noise generator could finally allow you to enjoy a good night’s sleep and put a stop to your feelings of fatigue-induced stress.” Using this technique will mark your content out as useful, which is now more important than ever as a result of Google’s Panda update.

Optimize your content for voice search

With more and more people using voice-activated search via their Alexa, Google Home or simply their smartphone, it’s important to also consider the nuances of voice queries as opposed to typing. For instance, when typing, you can expect search terms to be refined to the basics, e.g. ‘plumber Denver’. But when speaking, customers are more likely to phrase their query as a question or a sentence, e.g. ‘where is my nearest plumber?’ Optimize your content for both these types of search queries and give clear answers to questions and you’re more likely to be featured in Google’s rich snippets.

Use keywords properly

One thing that’s still exceptionally important is keyword density. That means your page should be made up of 1-3% keywords, which will allow you to rank as well as possible with search engines without the risk of having your page being pulled from the results. In addition, it’s a good idea to put keywords in the headers of your content if possible.

The keywords that you choose should always include a mix of more specific long-tail and catch-all shorter keywords, which should be tailored to fit well with the type of business that you have. Keywords should always be related to your company, your products, or the unique needs of your specific audience.

Fortunately, choosing which keywords to use has gotten a lot easier thanks to a variety of tools, such as SEM Rush, Ahrefs, and Google Keyword Planner. These tools will help you to pick keywords that will be exceptionally effective for your site. In addition, it’s likely that there will be new and even more effective tools for this in the future.

While stuffing your page with keywords has never been the best strategy, it’s more important now than ever to avoid doing this. That’s because Google’s Panda update examines the quality of writing much more heavily, and keyword stuffing detracts from the overall quality of your content considerably. Also, keyword stuffing can result in your site being de-indexed, which is a serious setback for any business owner.

Make use of visual media effectively

Choosing images and video that your customers can identify with is key as a picture speaks a thousand words. However, whenever you use an image, make sure you optimize your alt tags with relevant keywords as a subtle way to boost your rankings. Keywords should also be included in image descriptions and image titles. It’s important to make sure that all of your images are the right size to improve the appearance, load time and flow of your site and help boost your rankings.

Including videos on your site is just as important as more customers than ever are looking for an easy and engaging way to get to know a company. However, it’s essential to make sure that the videos you post are designed to be as useful to customers as possible. Some examples of ways to do this are creating explainer videos about your business, tutorials for your products, or buying guides that discuss differences between your products.

Use your meta descriptions to promote your page

The 160-word meta description of each of your pages is one of its most important aspects. This is what people will see displayed in the search results before they click. Pages with a more effective meta description that includes the focus keyword will rank much better with search engines, which means that you need to make this content engaging, effective as a description of what’s on your page, and well-written.

Make your content actionable

Google’s Panda update means that content which is most likely to be useful to readers will rank highest with search engines, which means that you need to carefully consider the demographics of who you are marketing to and appeal to their unique needs. One example of making content more actionable would be providing information about common uses for your product and including clear calls to action throughout your content with relevant links to follow.

You need a fast server

The load time of your website has a substantial impact on your search rankings, and with 5G just around the corner, this means that you need to choose a hosting provider known for negligible downtime and exceptionally fast speeds. Not only does this impact your search rankings, but having a slow website is likely to make people far less likely to spend time on your site.

Being mobile friendly is more important than ever

Currently, more than half of all the traffic on the world wide web comes from some form of mobile device, and the use of these products is likely to become even more common in 2020 and beyond. As a result, search engines are ranking mobile friendly content much higher than content that isn’t. In order to create mobile friendly content, you need to make sure that what you write will display properly on a small screen and ensure that any scripts used for videos on your site are mobile friendly. Ensure your web design can adjust to different devices well, and keep paragraphs short with plenty of white space.

Implement an effective backlink strategy

Inbound links have always been important for SEO, which is not likely to change in 2020. While many business owners make the mistake of having inbound links from any site they can get one on, it’s extremely important to ensure that backlinks exclusively come from sites that are relevant to what you offer and of a reputable, high quality. These websites could be forums on topics that your audience will be interested in, social media groups on topics that are likely to interest your audience, company websites for businesses that offer products that could complement what you offer, and numerous other types of sites.

It’s also important to continue to pay close attention to the websites that you have backlinks on, because sites can change drastically over time. If a website where one of your backlinks is posted becomes less reputable, this could end up damaging your ranking and could result in a substantial loss of traffic. Luckily, Google has a feature called “disavow link”, which allows you to prevent these changes from harming your position in the SERPs.

Where will your SEO take you in 2020?

The importance of SEO shows no signs of abating in 2020, but if you keep your finger on the pulse, you can reap the rewards. To find more insight on how to improve your content marketing, take a look at our other articles on The Collective today.

Sources:

https://www.augustash.com/our-blog/mobile-friendly-websites-2019

Importance of Page Load Time in SEO

The Importance of Engaging Content

https://denverseoservice.net/seo-trends-2020/

You’re probably on the lookout for anything that could harm your website’s search rankings, but you might not be aware of all the reasons why your search rankings could drop. These seven tips can help you to keep your company from losing its position in the search results.

1. Keep an eye on your backlinks

The quality of the websites that your backlinks are on has an impact on your search rankings, which means that backlinks from low-quality sites can be extremely damaging to your rankings. Luckily, it’s possible to easily mitigate any potential damage to your search rankings by using the “disavow link” feature that Google offers.

How often do you need to check on the websites that your backlinks come from?

Ideally, you should check them at least every couple of weeks. Websites can change quickly, and while some of these changes could improve your rankings, some of them could have the opposite effect as well and cause serious damage to your search rankings.

What are some signs that a site has changed for the worse?

If you notice that a website you have a backlink on has begun selling questionable or controversial products or services, it has probably changed for the worse in a manner that could harm your search rankings on Google, Bing, and Yahoo. As a result, it’s important to act immediately to disavow the link through Google. It isn’t just websites with a poor reputation that you need to be concerned about, which is because sites that offer irrelevant information or products can be harmful to your rankings as well.

2. Zombie pages can wreck your search rankings

A zombie page is any page that is not getting a significant amount of traffic, which means that it contributes nothing to your site and only harms your rankings. In most cases, these pages should simply be deleted.

What are some common types of zombie pages?

In some cases, zombie pages are simply parts of your website that haven’t happened to resonate as well with your audience as you hoped they would. However, another common example of a zombie page would be a page that advertises services that you no longer offer. Not only would the latter be an example of a zombie page that could be damaging to your search rankings, but people who come across the page could become interested in the services that you no longer offer, which could result in a very disappointed customer.

What can you do about zombie pages?

In most cases, zombie pages should be deleted. However, if the page discusses a topic or service that your customers are simply not very aware of, it may be possible to keep the page and provide your customers with more information about the service on your home page.

3. Always ensure that your website has SSL

SSL is important for securing your website, which gives customers confidence that your site is safe to use. As a result, search engines will be more likely to give your site a high ranking. Luckily, getting an SSL certificate is easy since many hosting providers offer them for an affordable price.

What exactly is SSL?

SSL is also known as secure sockets layer, which means that it protects communications between your server and your customers. As a result, it’s harder for hackers to intercept the data, which can significantly improve your site’s security and trustworthiness.

SSL will improve your conversion rate

SSL makes your site appear much more trustworthy in the eyes of consumers, which means that more people who visit your site will be inclined to make a purchase. The combination of a higher conversion rate and higher search rankings can be very beneficial for your company.

4. Take steps to solve issues with links and images

If you have broken links or images that don’t load, your rankings could suffer and customers could get frustrated. Not only does this include broken backlinks, but it also includes outbound links. In order to prevent broken links and images, it’s essential to make sure that you use the proper HTML. If you do not use the correct HTML for images and links, they will not work properly. Luckily, many hosting providers offer templates that include the necessary code, which can make it much easier to put links and images on your website that work properly.

Make your content mobile friendly

As a result of the popularity of mobile devices, ensuring that your images and videos show up properly on mobile devices is crucial, which is likely to be increasingly important in 2020. One issue to consider is that the screens on mobile devices are extremely small, which means that an image that’s too large can easily fill the entire screen of a smartphone. This results in a less than ideal experience for your site’s visitors. Also, certain types of scripts for video playing don’t tend to work right on mobile devices, such as JavaScript, which means that you should limit your use of these scripts if possible.

Use the right tags in your images

Not only is it important to use the right HTML code for the image itself, but it’s a good idea to include alt tags in your imagery as well. This can give your rankings a bit of a boost, which can be significant in some cases.

Ensure that outbound links are going to an active site

It’s not uncommon for websites to go offline at some point either temporarily or permanently, which means that you could have links on your website that will simply result in a 404 error if people click on them. This can be quite detrimental to your rankings, which means that you need to regularly check all of your outbound links to ensure that the sites they lead to are still active.

5. Keep an eye on your blog’s comment section

Moderating the content on your blog is crucial. If the blog section of your site isn’t well-moderated, the overall tone of the comments could potentially descend into incivility and inappropriate or off-topic remarks. This could damage your search rankings and reduce your conversion rate considerably. In order to effectively moderate your blog, you need to set rules for posters.

What should be the rules for posts on your blog?

It’s important to ensure that all comments that are posted on your blog are respectful of other commenters. Promptly remove any argumentative comments, harassing content, or troll posts. In addition, it’s important to ensure there isn’t any irrelevant material or spam. In some cases, spammers could even post links for products that are offered by a competitor, which could not only reduce your conversion rate but increase sales of the competition’s products. In addition, it’s important to have rules that forbid posters from uploading any content of an inappropriate nature.

What will happen if you don’t moderate your blog?

It’s impossible to predict what will happen, and that’s because you really never know what other people could choose to write. One or two bad comments could quickly lead to extensive arguments between posters, which could drive people away from your website and damage your rankings. In some cases, it could be very difficult to recover from the damage caused by bad comments that remained on your blog. Therefore, it’s essential to make sure that you look over the comments on your blog multiple times every day. Not only should you remove bad comments, but you should also block posts from individuals that have a history of posting offensive content.

6. Problems with your meta content can wreak havoc on your search rankings

The meta description for your page is exceptionally important, which is because it’s literally the first thing that potential customers will see on your site! In fact, people will see this information in the search results when they are looking for information about your company. However, keep in mind that the meta description has to be short, which is because only 135-160 characters of your content will show up in the meta description.

What makes a meta description poorly written?

Meta descriptions that are inaccurate will have an especially severe impact on your search rankings, which is because the content will be less useful if it isn’t what readers are looking for. Also, meta descriptions need to be engaging, and the content will be considered to be of low quality if it does not adequately attract and retain the attention of readers who may be interested in your products.

7. Issues with writing on your website

It’s important to make sure that you always try to be as engaging as possible when it comes to the writing on your website. If you hire a digital marketing expert, they’ll work hard to ensure that your content is just right for your audience, which will allow you to gain a significant amount of traffic with a high conversion rate.

What happens if you have low-quality content on your site?

Low-quality content will be seen as less useful by search engines, which will mean that your rankings will be reduced. This is more important than ever due to an update to Google’s algorithms called Google Panda, which has dramatically changed the way that Google ranks content.

What is considered low-quality content?

There are many reasons why content can be considered to be of low quality, but one common reason for this is keyword stuffing, which is putting an excessive number of keywords on your site in an attempt to boost your rankings. In general, a site is considered to be stuffed with keywords if more than 3% of its content is some form of keyword, which could even cause a search engine to remove your website from the search results.

However, sites can be deemed to be using keyword stuffing even if they do not have a keyword density that is this high, which could happen if the keywords do not fit into the content well. If the keywords tend to stand out a lot compared to the rest of the text, the material is likely to be deemed stuffed with keywords, which could be quite damaging to your search rankings. Therefore, it’s essential to make sure that the keywords fit into the content as smoothly as possible.

Another serious problem when it comes to the content on your site is bad grammar. Bad grammar can cause people to see your website as less reputable, which could negatively impact the image of your brand. Furthermore, issues with grammar can cause search engines to rank your website much lower. Problems with the organization of your content can be equally serious, which means that it’s essential to ensure that your website is as well-organized as possible.

How can you improve your content?

Not only can you take steps to improve the usefulness and quality of the content on your website yourself by making edits to the content, but there are several different types of professionals that can alter your content in order to ensure that it doesn’t detract from your rankings. Talented copywriters can ensure that the content you create is designed to sell, which will increase both your conversion rate and search rankings. In addition, experts on SEO can help you to effectively work keywords into the content, write content that’s specially designed to rank well on major search engines and make use of other SEO strategies, which can greatly boost your rankings. Also, graphic designers can improve the quality of the imagery on your website, which can help to boost your rankings.

The Collective Writers have just what you’re looking for

If you’re looking for information on digital marketing, The Collective Writers has exactly what you need to grow your business! In fact, our talented writers frequently create new content on the topic, which can provide information that allows you to boost your search rankings considerably and sell more products or get more clients. Subscribe to our website today and learn more excellent digital marketing techniques!

References

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487?hl=en

https://whitespark.ca/blog/how-to-destroy-the-zombie-pages-that-are-creeping-on-your-website/

The Importance of Content Moderation

https://moz.com/learn/seo/google-panda

When it comes to marketing, especially for smaller businesses, Google Ads are one of the most overlooked forms of getting the word out. When, in fact, this specific form of advertising can be a highly profitable option for many business owners, granting access to a broader audience and a higher volume of potential customers. If you know that Google Ads are essential, then you’re already on your way to promoting your business more effectively. But beyond being willing to invest in advertising, there’s more to know to achieve as much success for your money as possible.

Your choice of size for Google advertisements and banner advertisements can make more difference than you might think when it comes to promoting your business as effectively as possible. Choosing the wrong size can lead to you miss out on some great sales and even leave you with less presence than your competition. If you want to make a splash, you want to pick the right ad size from the start.

Want to know more about how to determine the type of banner ad sizes that are the perfect fit for your business marketing strategy? We’ve got all you need to know right here. Read on to discover more about Google advertising, and find out why size does matter when it comes to the promotions you take on:

Key essentials of an ad

Understanding the essentials for Google advertisement is the best place to start when it comes to making a success of that upcoming campaign. The first thing to note is that this form of advertising continues to be one of the most successful, achieving the most conversions in comparison to any other form of marketing if done correctly. With Google, adverts can be as specific as you want them to be; allowing you to promote your products or services directly to your target market without paying for uninterested parties to see your work.

Here are just a few of the things you need to know to advertise on Google successfully and to understand all the facts before you start to invest:

Online advertising is bigger than ever

Since 2013, online advertising has been on the rise – and it shows no signs of slowing. 19% of online ad dollars are now directly apportioned to Google Ads, making it one of the most profitable and most notable ways to advertise businesses online. Not to mention, that when it comes to local business, Google has introduced all kinds of enhancements and functionalities to help make advertising via Google more effective, accurate, and high-quality than ever before. If you’re not investing in digital advertising, then you’re likely missing out on significant opportunities for your brand and business.

Pre-campaign must-haves

Before you even consider jumping into the world of purchasing advertising on Google, it’s vital to understand the basics to help you target your chosen audience, and potential customers, that bit better. For many businesses, this means putting in the time for research, especially when it comes to what your competition is already doing successfully. Before you even consider investing in a campaign, understanding your market niche and the profile of your client can make or break the success of your advertisement; so don’t scrimp on that information if at all possible.

Beyond demographics, it’s essential to understand what you want to achieve from your campaign. If the goal is to improve sales, then knowing realistic target goals for your budget is an excellent place to start. For a brand-based activity that focuses on enhancing awareness, understanding the different banner sizes can help you to understand precisely how much of a message you can get out there with your advert. Medium adverts, for example, are very popular for this reason; allowing for the accommodation of brand messaging and improve impressions as a result. Thinking long and hard about your goals, your likely outcomes, and what you want your ad to do are all pre-campaign must-haves, and they can shape what that advertisement ends up looking like as a result.

The importance of ad size

Now we’ve covered the basics of why Google advertising is important, and what you should consider pre-campaign, it’s time to take a closer look at the ads themselves. It may not be evident at first glance, but the size of a banner or advertisement can change the effectiveness of a campaign as a whole. Choosing to advertise in a particular shape or size of an advert that doesn’t fit your end goal can actually lead to wasted money, and less profitable ad results as a whole.

Here are just some ways that ad size is linked directly to the success of your promotions, and why exactly you need to take a closer look at what that means for your next upcoming campaign:

The factors that determine the effectiveness of ads and banners

There are many different elements of ad and banner campaigns that can determine their effectiveness when you use them to promote your business. The first factor to consider is the characteristics of the consumer you’re trying to connect with. Your audience can make a vast difference in the form of advertising that correlates best with them. As mentioned in our pre-campaign must-haves above, knowing your audience is key to success in any kind of marketing. If you have a good understanding of what your target audience’s habits are like, then you’re far more likely to strike a chord with them than if you simply target your advertising to a more general audience.

The second factor to consider that can directly influence the effectiveness of ads is the execution of your campaign. While certain size ads may accommodate essential information, that doesn’t always make them the right choice for your brand. If you’re trying to make a simple, impactful statement, choosing something that fits that execution is far better than simply thinking bigger is best. In contrast, an advertisement with messaging and more intricate details will need more space than one with less; otherwise, all that additional information gets lost. Suiting your advertising to your campaign, instead of the other way around is the best way to succeed.

Finally, the characteristics of the banner itself can directly make a difference in whether an ad is effective. Researching and understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each form of advertising in banner form is the best way to overcome this hurdle, and ensure you’re making the right choice for your business. Realistically, the best way to success with any advertising campaign is to be thorough in your prep-work, and have a good understanding of what you want to do and how you want to do it. Preparation is vital when it comes to marketing, and Google ads and banners are no exception to that rule.

The technical details and the audience they attract

Once you’ve got a handle on exactly what makes banners and Google ads successful, it’s time to start creating your content with that specific audience in mind. But to give you a head start, here are just a few of the most preferred banner ad sizes for small businesses, marketers, and designers in general:

• Medium rectangle (300 x 250)
• Leaderboard (728 x 90)
• Large rectangle (336 x 280)

Each of these ad sizes is perfectly tailored for professional marketing content, making them favorites for promotional material in countless industries. While this means they are far more likely to be successful, it also means there’s greater competition for those coveted slots; something to consider in your budget if you want to make the most out of your promotions.

Other Google ad sizes

Beyond the most popular Google ad sizes, there are plenty of other shapes, forms, and sizes to pick from, all of which offer their own unique challenges and advantages. The complete list of different typical banner sizes for Google ads are as follows, in order of popularity:

• Medium rectangle (300 x 250)
• Leaderboard (728 x 90)
• Wide skyscraper (160 x 600)
• Half page (300 x 600)
• Billboard (970 x 250)
• Large rectangle (336 x 280)
• Banner (468 x 60)
• Half banner (234 x 60)
• Skyscraper (120 x 600)
• Vertical banner (120 x 240)
• Portait (300 x 1050)
• Large leaderboard (970 x 90)
• Square (250 x 250)
• Small square (200 x 200)
• Small rectangle (180 x 150)
• Button (125 x 125)

In addition to the wide range of different Google ads banners that are available for desktop use, mobile banners are increasing in popularity as an alternative. With more consumers than ever browsing and shopping via mobile, it’s no surprise that these reactive forms of advertising are improving in popularity, even if less variability is available as a whole. In order of popularity, banners available for mobile are as follows:

• Mobile leaderboard (320 x 50)
• Mobile full page flex (320 x 320)
• Lage mobile banner (320 x 100)
• Square (250 x 250)
• Small square (200 x 200)

What does this full list mean? It means for businesses looking to advertise their services or products; there’s a world of choice out there. But if you’re looking to really make an impact, and get the impressions that you’re hoping to achieve, opting for one of the more popular options is the ideal choice. For example, for businesses looking to be more visible on mobile, investing a mobile leaderboard ad campaign might be the perfect fit. Combined with a medium rectangle add for desktop, it’s much more likely that the campaign will be seen; resulting in better click-through rates and sales that less popular banners wouldn’t be able to provide.

Types of static ad

When it comes to Google ad banners, only three forms of static ad will do. The fast-loading but lower-res GIF, the high-quality JPG, and the transparency-enabled PNG. The choice of format is up to you, but experimenting with which option fits your marketing plan best can make all the difference when it comes to how the final result looks.

The one thing to remember about banner sizes for Google advertising is that you should pick the format that works best for you and the message you’re trying to get across. While creating content precisely to fit advertising requirements can be profitable, ensuring your brand and style of advertising isn’t compromised is just as essential to ensure you’re achieving excellent brand awareness along the way.

Key takeaways

With this guide, your business will be in a far better position to make the right choices when it comes to the shape, size, and format of a banner used for your next campaign. Understanding what’s best for your particular industry will take a little work and research up-front, but it’s more than worth the time investment to help you achieve greater things with that next promotion of brand awareness campaign. Once you’ve grasped the benefit of different ad sizes, you’re off to an excellent start.

From that point, you’re in a far better position to advertise persuasively, using digital marketing principles to create adverts that are both technically correct and emotionally effective. While marketing can certainly seem like an art, there’s a science to what makes advertising successful that’s definitely worth taking a closer look at. While it can be tempting to ignore more technical things like ad size and banner shapes, taking note of those additional factors can be the difference between a successful ad and a failed campaign. While it’s not the only thing to consider, it’s undoubtedly a great place to begin when it comes to differentiating your advertising from your competition.

Discover more about marketing with The Collective Writers

If you like this guide, and you’d love to learn a little more about the world of digital marketing, then keep coming back to discover even more handy tips and tricks to help transform your advertising from dull to dazzling. Or drop us a line today to discuss how we can help take your banner and Google ads to the next level. We’re always happy to help.

You need to make sure that your marketing campaign is effective, and one of the most important aspects of that is to ensure that you use the right audience targeting strategies. In fact, the effective use of audience targeting techniques can lead to a 30% increase in user engagement. This can increase your conversion rate and lead to a substantial increase in leads!

1. Initial market research categorizes clients’ interests

In order to create an effective market research strategy, it’s important to make sure that you’re getting all important categories of information from your audience. It’s essential to have an understanding of the lifestyle, interests, income level, age, and gender of your typical customer, which will help you to develop advertisements that are able to effectively reach your customers with audience targeting. These are some of the most important market segmentation examples:

Lifestyle

There are a variety of aspects of your typical customers’ lifestyle that you should be familiar with, such as the typical hobbies and activities that they enjoy. The lifestyle of your customers will also play an important role in where you advertise your products and services, which is because one’s lifestyle has a major influence on what websites an individual is likely to use.

Gender

In many cases, your customers will primarily be one gender or the other. While some products appear to be something that would be used by men and women equally, you may be surprised to find that there is somewhat of a trend with regard to the gender of your customers. However, in these cases, you wouldn’t find this out until you do a survey.

Interests

The specific interests of your customers are important in order to create products that are going to appeal to them, and this should include not only identifying the hobbies of your customers but also interests that they have as a result of their employment. For instance, people who work in the financing industry may be more inclined to learn about products related to investing than the general population.

Income

Not only does the income level of your customers play a role in the type of marketing campaign that you should use, but it also plays a role in the price that you should set for your products. Not only is the income of your customers important if you’re marketing to the general public, but it’s also important if your company primarily does business to business (B2B) marketing.

If your customers tend to have a limited amount of disposable income, certain types of products are best avoided, such as luxury items. However, individuals who have a limited amount of income are likely to be especially motivated by sales, discounts, and low prices. In addition, people who do not have much disposable income may be especially motivated by financing programs that allow them to pay for merchandise or services over time.

People in middle-income brackets can be motivated by factors that are similar to those with a more limited disposable income, such as the availability of financing programs. However, individuals with a mid-range income are more likely to be able to pay a bit more for a high-quality product.

A difference between marketing to people with high levels of income, as opposed to individuals with low or mid-range incomes, is that people with a large amount of disposable income may be much more inclined to value quality over a low price. However, many people with a high level of income tend to be somewhat frugal, which means that offering an affordable price is still important if you’re marketing to a higher income demographic. Furthermore, many people who have a larger amount of income have high levels of brand loyalty.

Age

In addition to being important when it comes to the type of language that you use in your ads, the typical age of your customers influences where you should promote your products. For example, older demographics of people may be less inclined to use social media than a younger demographic of customers.

You can use audience targeting to show your ads to customers who are likely to buy

Audience targeting will ensure that your ads are shown only to people who are likely to be interested in your products, and artificial intelligence is increasingly being utilized in order to make this happen. This technology is expected to become increasingly sophisticated as time passes. In fact, the majority of consumers want ads customized to their own unique needs.

Using a persona template can help you engage with customers more effectively

A user persona template can help you have better interactions with your customers and put yourself in their shoes, which can play a major role in the promotion of your brand. Persona templates can act as a starting point for you to create a hypothetical customer that you’re marketing to. These templates will include a variety of aspects of your typical customer’s personality, which can allow you to develop strategies geared towards this fictional individual. They’re becoming more popular too. In fact, 44% of companies that have B2B (business to business) marketing campaigns have begun to use them.

A persona list includes the relevant information that can be used to relate to your client

In order to create an effective persona template, it’s important to create an effective persona list. A persona list is a list of all the essential aspects of your customers that you have discovered via market research. A great way to come up with a persona list is to offer marketing surveys to get information about your customers, and a persona list is considered to be one of the most important market segmentation examples. Your persona list should give information about how you can relate to your customers using demographic information, information about your company, unique goals and challenges of your customers, the principles of your company, and the messages you send in your marketing.

Provide key company information

In order to effectively market your company, you need to include key information about your business. There are a variety of things that this includes, such as your company’s address, phone number, website, and email address. However, you should strive to provide more information than just the basics.

Know your audience demographics

Demographic information about your audience includes many important characteristics of your customers. For instance, it describes their age, income level, and gender. However, demographics also includes information about where your customers are located, which can help you to create products that appeal to your audience.

Focus on goals and challenges

Everyone has their unique goals and challenges, which tends to have an influence on the products and services that they are interested in. Therefore, it’s important to have an understanding of the goals and challenges that are common among your customer base, which will help you to create products and services that address the unique needs of your customers.

Your company needs strong principles

Customers will remember that your company implements important principles, which can make you stand out against the competition. For instance, customers are drawn to companies that have strong principles of honesty and integrity.

Your marketing message is important

In order to effectively promote your products or services, it’s essential to send consistent messages in your marketing. While this does not mean that the content your advertising should not change over time, it’s important to make sure that you don’t contradict yourself on essential messages for the promotion of your brand.

2. Introducing new parameters of customization is essential for every marketing strategy

New customers can be shown introductory promotional offer

One great way to increase your sales is to feature an introductory promotional offer that includes a significant discount. The specific percentage of the discount that you should offer depends on the price and type of product that you’re offering, and it’s important to consider the information that you’ve found via market research when you’re determining how much of a discount to offer.

Returning customers should be shown ads that are related to the longevity of your business

If you have been in business for a considerable period of time, it’s essential that your customers are made aware of this. Many customers will prefer a brand that has been offered for a considerable period of time as opposed to a new one.

Customers using mobile devices are shown ads for sites that have a quick mobile checkout

If you offer an e-commerce site, it’s essential that you offer a quick mobile checkout for smartphone users. Not only is this likely to result in an increase in the number of customers that you get, but it can improve brand loyalty as well.

3. Audience targeting improves clients’ understanding of your brand

Targeting your unique audience is likely to allow clients to understand the brand that your company offers better, which can allow you to significantly increase your sales and more effectively gather leads. In fact, audience targeting is likely to improve your conversion rate.

Understand client browsing

It’s important to understand how clients tend to find your website on the internet. This can help you to figure out which aspects of your marketing strategy are most effective at attracting clients, which can allow you to focus on these strategies more and make your company more successful.

Create an app

Apps can be an effective way to ensure that customers are able to have convenient access to what your business offers, which can allow your customers to easily learn more about your business and make purchases. Furthermore, it’s possible to create apps that are highly sophisticated nowadays, which is because smartphones and other mobile devices are becoming increasingly advanced.

Like photos and posts from customers

In order to run an effective social media marketing campaign, it’s important to like posts and photos that are posted by your customers. This is especially true if people post photos and posts about having a positive experience with your products or services.

Using dynamic prospecting attracts new customers

Dynamic prospecting can be a great way to run a marketing campaign with pay per click ads, and it’s easy to do this with Google. The default setting for Google ads is to show your advertisements to a broad audience as opposed to a unique demographic of people based on your company. However, you can quickly change this by simply going to settings, and then clicking on additional settings. After you are there, click the box that says “use a data feed for personalized ads” and choose the data feed that you want to use. Then, you can save your results, and you’ll be effectively using dynamic prospecting.

There are different types of campaigns

There are different types of campaigns that you can choose from in order to market your business, which can allow you to promote your company to your unique audience. For instance, some business owners may focus more on email marketing whereas others will focus more heavily on pay per click ads. However, all marketing campaigns will feature a wide range of strategies.

Put a search feature on your site

Not only is it important to make sure that your website ranks well with search engines, but it’s a good idea to offer a search feature on your own website if it has a lot of information. This will help customers to find exactly what they’re looking for.

Display your content properly

It’s essential to make sure that you display your content to show up well on any kind of device. For example, it’s important to make sure that your website is as mobile-friendly as possible, which is especially important because it’s estimated that as much as 50% of all internet traffic comes from mobile devices!

Use videos to promote your company

It’s important to integrate video ads into your advertising strategies, which means that you should include videos of your products and services in action. In order to make sure that the videos you create are effective, it’s important to make sure that they’re properly lit and filmed with a high-quality camera. Furthermore, it’s essential to use scripts that are compatible with mobile devices.

Check out our other articles!

Did you like the article? If you did, check out other articles on digital marketing right here at The Collective. If you subscribe, you’ll have access to even more up-to-date advice on how to promote your company on the web. In fact, the things that you learn here could improve your company in many ways!

References

https://buffer.com/library/marketing-personas-beginners-guide
https://learn.g2.com/market-segmentation
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/new-google-adwords-functions-allow-greater-ad-customization/184802/

As a business owner, you know just how important your advertising strategy is for you. The effectiveness of your marketing campaign is the primary factor that determines the success of your business or lack thereof. Nowadays, digital advertising is one of the most important pieces of your entire marketing campaign, which means that you need to take some time to carefully consider which advertising strategies will promote your business most effectively on the web.

What digital advertising strategies are used in marketing?

While there are many specific advertising techniques that you can implement, all of them fall into one of the 44 main categories of marketing. These strategies are the ones that are used most often:

Retail advertising

Retail advertising is designed to increase the number of people who visit your store, which is likely to result in immediate increased sales. These strategies can be used to increase the number of people who visit a store that’s located offline or an e-commerce website.

Image advertising

You’ve probably heard that a picture speaks a thousand words. This couldn’t be any truer when it comes to online advertising, which means that you need to locate images that effectively promote your brand. Not only do you need to use images in your advertisement strategy, but it’s also important to incorporate the use of video ads as well.

Direct response

There are many different types of direct response marketing, which are all designed to elicit a response from customers immediately. One example of direct response marketing would be creating an email that has a call to action urging customers to buy immediately or informing them of a sale that’s currently going on.

Ad tracking

Ad tracking is the process of determining which advertisements and other marketing strategies are succeeding and which ones aren’t. Ad tracking can also allow you to integrate more effective marketing techniques into the ones that aren’t, which can improve underperforming advertisement campaigns.

Attribution marketing

Attribution theory assumes that most people base their decisions about what product to buy based on their past experiences. Therefore, it’s essential to continue offering products that people tend to buy multiple times, which is a great way to build brand loyalty.

Behavioral targeting

It’s important to be able to be familiar with the behaviors of individuals who are likely to be interested in your products and/or services. This will allow you to develop a more effective marketing campaign, which can increase your conversion rate considerably. For instance, if there are certain questions that people who buy your products tend to ask, it’s a good idea to come up with answers to these questions that are likely to be especially effective in terms of increasing sales.

Brand awareness

Promoting awareness of your brand is often the most important aspect of your online marketing strategy. Promoting brand awareness can be done in a wide range of ways, which include online marketing techniques in addition to offline ones. In addition to promoting brand awareness via marketing, it’s essential that your brand is easily recognized by potential customers and stand out against the competition.

Testimonials

In order to improve the reviews that you get, it’s important to satisfy your customers and encourage them to write reviews. However, it’s also important to take steps to minimize the impact that negative reviews have on your business. In fact, a single negative review can have a seriously detrimental effect on the amount of business that you get, which is more than 20% in many cases.

Reverse placement

Often, products that have become known to the public as a result of a television show would be quite popular among the general public if they were available. If these products are created in real life, business owners often end up with an untapped market!

Advertising has become an increasingly important part of company budgets

The advertising that today’s business owners need to do is more complicated than what was required of business owners in the past, which is partly due to changes in digital marketing as a result of improvements in computer technology. In addition, the fact that today’s business owners tend to spend more on advertising means that you’ll need to spend more to keep up with the competition.

Why is digital advertising considered to be the best form of marketing?

Due to the fact that many people find companies by searching the web, digital marketing has a profound influence on how well your company is likely to do. As a result, it’s likely to be the most important form of marketing that you utilize. In addition, it can provide an avenue for sales in some cases since e-commerce has become a common way for customers to acquire many different types of products.

Not only has online advertising become more important in recent years, but it also has become much more complex. New technologies have made it important to incorporate a wider range of digital marketing techniques, such as ensuring that your content is mobile-friendly and optimizing your page with voice search in mind.

If you own a start-up and are just getting your company up and running, it may be okay if you’re the only person who knows your company’s marketing plan. However, if you are the owner of a larger organization, it’s essential that your upper-level employees are familiar with the strategy as well.

Search engine optimization is crucial for your company’s success

Your website is your home base on the web, and in order to get access to prime real estate online, ensuring that you rank highly with search engines is crucial. It’s essential that your keyword density is around 1-3%, but it should not be any more than that. Otherwise, your website could end up getting removed from search results, which could have a substantial negative impact on the visibility that your company gets.

While it’s important to focus on all search engines, you need to pay especially close attention to your Google rankings and remain up to date on the latest algorithms. That’s because Google is the most widely used search engine on the web, and it’s far ahead of any others, such as Bing or Yahoo. Furthermore, it’s essential to make sure that you optimize your Google rankings with the needs of mobile device users and voice assistants in mind.

How does digital advertising contribute to the viewership of a business’ content in social media?

Social media offers you the opportunity to have a unique level of interaction with potential customers. As a result, you will have more opportunities to sell your products than you would with most other marketing strategies. An effective social media marketing strategy will include the development of content, use of effective imagery, and also social media SEO to ensure that your page ranks well with the search engines on social media sites.

Ensuring that you have an effective social media page will be likely to increase the amount of traffic to your website considerably, and effective social media marketing could contribute to an increase of your company’s overall visibility by 10% or more! In addition, digital advertising is an exceptionally cost-efficient way to promote your company, which is because it allows you to reach an exceptionally large number of people for a relatively low price in many cases.

Email marketing is still extremely important

Email marketing is certainly not dead, but it has changed a lot from its beginnings. In fact, it’s now important to ensure that your emails are as direct as possible, artificial intelligence has made it possible for emails to speak directly to the needs of users. However, it’s essential to ensure that the emails are only sent to people who are potentially interested in them. In fact, promotional emails should exclusively be sent to people who are on your list of subscribers.

What is the difference between an advertising strategy and a marketing strategy?

Marketing is often thought of as the same as advertising, but this is somewhat inaccurate. While advertising is a form of marketing, it’s not the only type of marketing that there is. Marketing is anything that includes one or more of the four Ps, which are price, product, promotion, and place. In addition, a marketing strategy involves having continued contact and engagement with your audience.

Advertising is any form of promotional activity that focuses on a broad audience. For instance, advertisements can be displayed on television, radio stations, newspapers, on high-traffic websites, or virtually anywhere else where a large number of people will see them. However, marketing also includes the process of reaching out to specific individuals on social media or in-person.

Your advertising strategy will focus on mass media

If you want to create an effective advertising strategy for your company, the use of mass media will always be a defining feature of your advertisements. However, mass media isn’t just television, radio, and newspapers, which means that high-traffic websites are becoming an increasingly important form of mass media to utilize. Therefore, many business owners will benefit from featuring pay per click ads, promotional comments, and other forms of advertising on high-traffic websites that are related to what they offer.

Marketing is any type of connection between a user and a product

The one thing that all marketing strategies have in common is that they’re a way for business owners to connect with customers, which is true of everything from pay per click ads to email marketing. As a result, the single most important part of forming this connection is knowing who your advertisements are geared towards.

Marketing uses a business’ product, price, place and promotion to communicate with the consumer

It’s important to touch on all of the advantages of your product when you’re advertising, which includes the nature of the product itself, its affordability, that it’s convenient for customers to access, and other information that’s likely to be appealing to customers. Furthermore, you need to ensure that you discuss what makes your product stand out from others, which will help you to have a place in the market where what you offer is likely to sell. In addition, the prices that you set don’t have to be lower than your competitors if you’re able to offer something that the competition doesn’t, which will make your business much more profitable and more likely to stand out against the competition.

The digital advertising strategy that’s right for you depends on your clientele

In order to create effective advertisements, it’s essential to put yourself in the customer’s shoes to determine where and how to advertise, which market research will allow you to do. It’s important that you advertise in the right places online to reach your audience effectively. For instance, if you sell investment-related services, posting comments on Facebook groups about finances could be a wise digital marketing strategy. However, posting in groups with an unrelated audience or more broadly on social media probably will not be as effective, which means that your digital marketing strategies should be as direct as possible.

Not only will you want to make sure that you’re marketing in the right places to reach your audience, but it’s essential to make sure that you’re using the right type of language to resonate well with the demographic you’re marketing to. Keep in mind that not all strategies of advertising are right for all business owners, which means that you’re likely to find that some strategies that you hear about aren’t applicable to your company.

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References

https://digitalagencynetwork.com/best-online-advertising-strategies-that-work-well/

https://www.universalclass.com/articles/business/marketing-strategies-promotion-advertising-and-public-relations.htm

https://medium.com/inkbot-design/marketing-and-advertising-strategies-45242269f5ee

https://simplicable.com/new/advertising-strategy

https://www.webfx.com/internet-marketing/best-online-advertising-strategies.html

https://smallbusiness.chron.com/examples-advertising-strategies-10853.html

Your start-up needs extensive visibility, and a great way to get it is by buying a social media package and hiring a talented social media consultant. If you pick the right package and are working with a skilled consultant, you could be able to increase your user interaction by up to 50% and your profits could grow considerably!

1. Defining the distinct qualities of a strategic social media consultant

A skilled social media consultant is experienced and familiar with the latest trends in social media marketing, which means that they know what sells. In addition, they generally operate within a certain niche, which means that it’s important to hire a consultant who has experience with promoting companies in your industry.

A well-studied business brand can communicate a consistent and secure message for those willing to invest in it

If your brand is well-studied, you’re likely to have a good investment that’s likely to be highly profitable well into the future. Having a well-studied brand will ensure that you’re sending a message on social media that’s consistent, which helps ensure that what your company offers remains marketable over time.

A social media consultant is an expert who is aware of how a business brand is engaging clients on social media sites

Social media consultants are familiar with all the aspects of how your brand engages people through social media, which includes replies to comments, creating posts, using imagery, and your search rankings on social media websites. This will ensure that you effectively bring all these aspects of promoting your company on social media together.

Social media consultants are aware of your audience

It’s effectively impossible to promote your company on social media without being aware of your audience. However, in order to have this awareness, it’s necessary to do market research. It’s important to conduct surveys on the demographics of people who are visiting your page, which will be able to determine what demographics of people are most likely to actually buy your products. Being aware of your audience will allow you to join groups on social media that this demographic of people is most likely to be active on. Social media consultants will ensure that you do this.

It’s important for a social media consultant to be an expert on social media trends

What worked on social media two years ago is not necessarily going to work today. Due to the fact that social media trends are constantly changing, it’s essential for your consultant to constantly keep their ear to the ground for the latest trends in order to keep up. Not only do the strategies that you need to implement change, but the popularity of specific social media websites changes over time. Furthermore, new social media websites are being created, which often means that it’s important to start marketing your company on them as soon as they become available.

It’s essential that your consultant uses effective communication

Not only does your consultant need to know your audience, but it’s essential to ensure that they always know how to communicate as effectively and as professionally as possible. Luckily, this is the case with most social media consultants.

They will help you boost audience response and brand reputation

Not only do you need to take steps to actively improve the reputation of your brand on social media, but it’s essential to also make sure that you have an audience that’s as large as possible. Furthermore, you need to monitor your social media page to ensure that you’re creating content that people are responding to via likes, comments, and shares.

Different types of media consulting services

If you get a social media marketing package, there are several different aspects of the package that you need to be familiar with. Most social media packages include social listening, an effective overall social media strategy, content creation, and the development of an overall social media campaign.

What is social listening?

Social listening is the process of a marketing agency paying close attention to social media in order to observe trends and patterns of behavior, which can help companies to be able to better promote themselves. Different social media consultants will use somewhat different strategies for their social listening.

Your social media strategy is essential

The social media strategy that’s best is different for every business owner. However, there are some elements that are likely to play an important role in just about any social media marketing strategy, which includes creating quality content, interacting with customers, and improving your search rankings on social media sites.

Content strategy

The content strategy that you use is likely to be among the most important parts of your entire social media marketing campaign. In order to create effective content for social media, it’s essential to make sure that the content you post is designed to produce directed attention. Doing that means that you should not only post content, but it’s essential to ensure that your business responds to comments on your social media pages.

This will keep people engaged, which is likely to lead to more comments and questions in response to your company’s posts. As people find more information as a result of this, you’re likely to find that your social media marketing campaign has a conversion rate that is quite high, and an effective social media consultant will be able to ensure that this is the case.

The social media campaign

Your social media campaign is not all about your content, and that’s because you need great images that illustrate exactly what your company can do for your customers. You should include a mixture of written content, imagery, and videos. In addition, a skilled social media consultant is likely to use software tools, such as Google Analytics, Sprout Social, and BuzzSumo. These tools will help to ensure that your social media marketing campaign is able to conduct effective marketing research that will boost your social media strategy.

2. Social media optimization connects with social media consulting

As a business owner, it’s important to realize that all of your marketing strategies are related to one another in some fashion, which certainly applies to your own social media optimization strategies and what your social media consultant does to help. Your social media consultant will be able to examine the things that you’ve done to boost your presence on social media and determine what needs to be done in order to improve your strategy, which means that the steps that you’ve already taken will have an impact on what your social media consultant will need to do.

Social media does not affect the search ranking of a business

Improving your social media marketing strategy will not directly improve your rankings with search engines, such as Google and Bing. However, it does give your company an additional platform to gain visibility, which can be just as important. Even though social media marketing does not directly impact search rankings, the increases in traffic to your website as a result of increased attention to your business may indirectly lead to better rankings. Also, there is a relationship between SEO marketing and social media marketing.

Social media marketing tends to generate interest in your business, which means that high search rankings are important to ensure that potential clients are able to quickly locate your business in the search results. In addition, social media marketing can have an impact on your local SEO strategy.

Not only can social media help you reach out to clients, but it can connect you with business associates

Brand content will reach both members of the general public and individuals who could become future business partners. As a result, social media marketing is not only a great promotional opportunity, but it could serve as a means of networking as well. This is especially true for B2B marketers who use platforms that are geared towards professionals, such as LinkedIn.

Social media also increases traffic to your business websites

You’re likely to find that you get more traffic on your company’s main website if you purchase a social media package that’s effective. In fact, many experts believe that you could increase your company’s entire visibility by around 10% by implementing an effective social media marketing strategy.

If you get a lot of traffic on social media, you’re likely to get more clients

Not only does social media traffic give your company visibility, but the traffic that you get on social media can have a very high conversion rate compared to other channels of marketing. The reason for this is the fact that social media allows for extensive interaction between clients and business owners, which gives you plenty of opportunities to interact with potential clients.

3. Consultants offer suitable social media packages for your start-up!

Picking the right social media consultant is one of the most important decisions that you’re likely to make when it comes to your marketing strategy. Luckily, there are numerous options for consultants that you can choose from, which means that you’ll be able to pick one that’s great for your company.

Social media promotion has now become an elaborate form of marketing

Due to the fact that social media marketing has become quite elaborate, it’s important to make sure that you’re getting everything that your company needs when you choose a social media package, which will ensure that your social media marketing strategy is wide-reaching enough and effective. Furthermore, you cannot just expect to set up a social media page and simply let it sit there, which means you need to regularly upload content to it. A social media consultant will make sure that you do.

Furthermore, they’ll ensure that all of the tabs on your pages are filled with information that will gather leads and increase your conversion rate. Also, a good social media consulting agency will use a combination of imagery and written content.

In addition, the strategy and type of consultant that you’ll need will depend on your business. If your products tend to be used by business owners (e.g. B2B marketing), your social media strategy should be very logic-oriented as opposed to simply focusing on appealing to emotions. However, B2C (business to customer) marketing tends to be far more emotion-based, which means that your approach is likely to be a bit more sales focused.

How will you know if the social media consultant that you’re considering will cover all the bases?

The best way to do this is to look at examples of their previous work. Any reputable social media marketing consultant will give examples of their previous work to you for you to look at. In addition, many consultants will actually do a free assessment of your current social media strategy, which will allow you to determine if the agency is likely to cover all the bases.

Social media packages range from a single to multiple platforms and content strategy with SEO

Nowadays, social media packages typically include marketing on all of the major platforms, which include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. However, it is still possible to get a social media package for just one platform from a social media consultant if you want to.

The specific mix of platforms that works best varies from one company to another. For instance, websites that make products that require extensive imagery to be successfully promoted should focus their efforts on Instagram. However, companies that need to provide potential customers with lots of written information would probably do best on Facebook since it doesn’t have a character limit.

Not only do social media marketing packages include promotional posting on social media websites, but it also often includes social media SEO. This can help to ensure that your business page ranks as well as possible on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram search. In order to make the most of this strategy, it’s important to have already done a significant amount of your own market research.

In addition, social media packages vary considerably in price and depend on not only the consultant that you pick but what’s offered in the package. Therefore, it’s essential to accurately do a cost-benefit analysis and look at your budget to determine which package is right for you. In general, you can get basic and fairly generic posts on a regular basis for around $50 a month, but this typically does not include links to your site. If you are able to spend between $100-$200 per month, you’ll be able to have custom content posted on your social media page that includes links to your site, and fairly high-quality social media marketing services are available for $200-$500 per month. If you are able to afford $600 a month or more, you’ll be able to implement a highly sophisticated social media marketing campaign that truly covers all the bases and can generate a substantial amount of leads.

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The Collective is an excellent source for up-to-date information on digital marketing, and our experienced and highly knowledgeable writers regularly add new information. You can access our archives, which means that you’ll be able to all the content that has ever been posted on the site! Therefore, there’s lots of information that you’re likely to find useful, and feel free to share our articles on social media if you know anyone else who might be interested!

References

https://streambankmedia.com/guide-social-media-management-pricing-packages/

Does Social Media Affect SEO? Yes – Here’s How

https://www.thebalancesmb.com/social-media-consulting-2951502

https://www.shopify.com/partners/blog/81557894-6-social-media-services-you-can-offer-to-your-clients

Social Media Consulting Services

For a modern business, getting the most out of search engine rankings is vital to success. Organic methods and options, such as SEO practices and quality content, can play a large part in improving your rankings and making your brand more visible. But it’s possible to create a more targeted advertising strategy to better connect with potential customers, and maximize the number of visitors to your website. Using bidding techniques for platforms such as Google Ads can significantly improve your chances of your business being seen, and offers a more consistent way to get a high return on your investment from your advertising budget.

So when it comes to using bidding to promote your business, how can businesses differentiate themselves from their competition? To differentiate ads from those of competitors, advertisers should take a closer look at the messaging they are trying to get across, and the audience they are trying to connect to. Using bidding strategies is one way to achieve this and is more than worth investing in for many businesses.

Want to learn more about the different bidding strategies out there, and discover how you can differentiate your business from that of your competitors? Perhaps you’re wondering what bidding strategy should you use to maximize the number for visitors to your website? To discover all that and more, read on to get all the details:

What does Target Search Page Location mean?

First and foremost, it’s essential to understand what target search page location bidding means when it comes to the world of online business advertising. This particular strategy is designed for the specific purpose of helping a brand to maintain a particular spot in their rankings, offering automation for specific campaigns to ensure that your ad appears within the first page of Google search results, for example. This technique is also known as a portfolio bid strategy and offers businesses a way to maintain their number-one spot without the level of intervention required for more traditional bidding strategies.

There are many layered strategies within the target search page location relating to the use of keywords. For example, negative keywords can help advertisers better target their ads by providing an alternative way to reach an audience. Most vitally, the use of this bidding strategy can save businesses money and reduce overall costs when it comes to running Adwords campaigns and acquiring specific positions within rankings for advertising.

Automated bidding and SERPs

SERPs, also known as Search Engine Results Pages, are the target of Adwords campaigns, allowing brand’s advertising to be displayed alongside relevant search results and information based on keywords and even demographics. As an automatic bidding strategy, target search page location allows businesses to remain in that top position and highly visible to potential customers. Which, in turn, leads to the potential for increased clicks, views, and even sales over time.

What are the advantages of using Target Search Page Location?

Once you understand the basics of target search page location, it’s easy to see why this unique automated bidding strategy is a top choice for many businesses. The most basic, and distinct, advantage of this form of targeted advertising is that it makes a beeline directly for the customers you’re hoping to reach. The optimal way to get seen is by having your ad in the top position on Google, and target search page location strategies can provide that even in the most changeable or rapidly-expanding industries.

For businesses, this strategy is a way to not only gain immediate access to new customers but also make the brand more visible to the public in the long-term. Here are just a few of the advantages of investing in a target search page location strategy:

Better visibility for business ads

Using this form of bidding produces excellent results that you can see. Unlike traditional advertising, digital advertising platforms such as Google Ads allow you to see the success of an ad in real-time. Based on robust statistics such as views and click-throughs to your website. For businesses looking to improve the visibility of their ads, this strategy is a healthy choice that often achieves excellent results. This is especially true thanks to the longevity of positioning in an automated approach, allowing regular viewers to become familiar with your brand over time. When you’re using target search page location bidding, you know it’s working because you can see your ad right there at the top of the page. That means your chosen audience can see it too.

Confirmation of your business’ credibility

Because Google uses its own tools and bots to assess the credibility of a business before the use of target search bids, companies can ensure their offering is of high quality, and valuable to the customers they are trying to reach. This vetting process not only benefits businesses by determining their overall credibility to a broad audience but also benefits the audience itself. The more stringent Google is about the ads it places, the more likely search engine users are going to have trust in the adverts they view. Credibility is vital to the success of businesses, and by validating that it’s possible to reach a far larger audience than your competition may not be able to match.

Improved CTR

CTR, or click-through rate, is one of the most effective forms of measurement that Google uses to determine the success of a campaign. For businesses, this number represents the number of individuals that have accessed your website via an existing advert or overall campaign. For Adwords, the CTR also determines the cost of advertising, should you choose to stay with cost-per-click billing methods. An improved CTR indicates improved visibility of your website and often correlates strongly with improved sales or more qualified leads.

What is Target Cost Per Acquisition Bidding?

An alternative to cost-per-click, or CPC, advertising, target cost per acquisition bidding is another smart bidding strategy that allows businesses to get as many conversions as possible thanks to direct optimization and automation processes. If your competitors are sticking to more traditional CPC bidding, then their budget isn’t likely to stretch as far or have such a great return on investment. This automated bidding strategy takes advantage of machine learning and can be used for single campaigns or across multiple campaigns as a portfolio strategy. In contrast, target search page location is generally only used cross-portfolio, making it slightly less pinpoint accurate.

Investment for better output

While CPA bidding may have more of a cost up-front to cover the strategy part of this bidding method, it more than makes up for that additional budget requirement thanks to the ability to improve conversions and reduce waste in the process of advertising. These kinds of strategies measure the market performance of a business, and as such can be highly valuable for both small-scale and large-scale campaigns, especially for those that need expert targeting and optimization to get the most out of your budget. You can use cost-per-acquisition (CPA) bidding to help test the markets for innovations, or as a way to get out ahead of the competition.

Aligning with your business objectives

One of the significant advantages of this method of bidding strategy is it works for you, rather than the other way around. CPA bidding can be tailored to fit into the exact objectives and plans for your business, allowing you to identify niche markets and target specific demographics with ease. The automation part of this strategy further makes it easier to be flexible with new trends and to evolve existing campaigns, making your business advertising more versatile overall.

4 ways to make Target Bidding work for your business

Once you have a solid understanding of what precisely target bidding is, it’s time to take a closer look at how this form of strategy can be an excellent addition to your marketing plans for your business. Target bidding is increasingly popular in many different industries, so for brands looking to differentiate themselves from their competition, investing in automation and more high-end strategies is a must to get ahead and above others in their specific industry.

Not to mention, target bidding is a crucial aspect of advertising across multiple online platforms, including search engines like Google and Yahoo as well as social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. If you’re failing to invest in a digital marketing strategy, then you might not be doing enough to stand out in an increasingly crowded industry. Search rankings and social media are two of the areas most primed for effective advertising, so investing in those areas is an excellent way to spend marketing budget.

If you’re wondering how to make target bidding work specifically for the needs of your brand, then there are plenty of options out there to suit your particular business. It’s all about choosing what works best for you and allowing for some adjustment time if you’re starting. Here’s a recap of the options available to help you make target bidding work for your business:

Manual bidding

The most traditional, and arguably most accessible, form of bidding is manual bidding. As the name suggests, in this format, advertisers bid manually on keywords, and the bid does not change unless it is altered by the advertiser directly. Despite this method often leading to more time investment than results, it’s an excellent choice for those just starting out or attempting to understand Adwords for the first time. As no automation is included with this strategy, everything is exactly as you leave it; which is a benefit to some businesses, where time is available to make amends and changes as and when needed, but a disadvantage to those with little time to manage a manual bidding strategy.

Enhanced CPC bidding

A similar option to manual bidding with a few key differences, enhanced CPC is still cost-per-click, but a little automation is included to reduce the input required by businesses. In this case, Google Ads can make defined adjustments to bids on keywords to achieve optimal results. This change in bid can be limited to any percentage, allowing for greater freedom or more stringent guidelines to achieve the best possible results. For businesses looking for a system that still gives them control, but does a little more for itself, then an enhanced CPC strategy is the best next step.

Maximized conversions

A completely automated bidding strategy designed by Google, maximized conversions has the goal of providing businesses with the best possible number of conversions from a specific campaign. In this strategy, the advertiser isn’t required to decide upon keyword bids manually. Instead, Google makes the bid decisions for the business, staying within a set daily budget to achieve the highest possible results. This smart form of strategy is more hands-off and infinitely more practical for brands that prefer to leave advertising to run itself, as opposed to managing every little detail. Having conversion tracking active is a must for Google to be able to use this strategy correctly, so this is a factor to consider before jumping in head-first.

Target Cost Per Acquisition

Another entirely automated option that’s increasingly popular for businesses, target CPA turns Adwords on its head by allowing advertisers to put a cost per conversion, from which Google alters bids in an attempt to achieve that conversion goal as effectively as possible. You can use target cost-per-acquisition (CPA) bidding to help your business to do more, with less input required. Conversion tracking is a must for this strategy to function, and companies considering investing in this process should understand that high-quality data is needed from the start to ensure the best possible outcome. The less existing conversion data, the less Google can learn from in an attempt to achieve your business goals.

Key takeaways

If you want to differentiate your business ads from those created by your competitors, being smart about your advertising is the best place to start. By tailoring your advertising strategies to something suited to your business, to achieve your existing goals, it’s possible to easily surpass your competition in terms of rankings, conversions, and even sales in the long-term. You can win a higher ad position in the auction with a lower cost-per-click bid by investing in more automated strategies, for example. Digital advertising is vital for the success of modern businesses, so ensure you’re doing it right the first time for the best possible chance of achieving all you need to.

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This guide and all other digital marketing guides provided on our site are designed to offer our readers with all the valuable information they could possibly need for their business. If you’re considering investing in Adwords or similar bidding advertising, then working with a professional digital marketing team is the best place to start. Drop us a line to find out more about what we do and keep an eye out for brand-new content and interesting articles each week.