The Small Business Strategy Guide to Google AdWords

The Small Business Strategy Guide to Google AdWords

Google Ads, also known as Google AdWords, allows small businesses to compete in a crowded and highly competitive market, even on a tight budget. It may seem next to impossible to effectively promote your products or services when there are industry giants that dominate the market. However, effective marketing and advertising gives everyone an equal fighting chance. For small businesses, Google AdWords can be the way to reach out to their potential customers and gain the necessary exposure in the online world that will help them succeed. 

Running an AdWords campaign is not easy, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. The fact of the matter is that Google Ads requires a lot of planning and effort before they start yielding viable results, which is why you need a good strategy. With that in mind, here is a small business strategy guide to Google AdWords.

What is Google AdWords?

Google AdWords is a type of PPC (Pay-Per-Click) marketing strategy. The way it works is that you bid for relevant keywords so that your clickable ads will appear in Google’s search results. 

In other words, you’re paying for every click on your ad. If done properly, the gains can easily outweigh the costs by boosting conversion rates for your small business, among other things. 

The cost-per-click depends on how popular or competitive a keyword you’re bidding for is. That said, you don’t have to opt for the most competitive keywords or spend a ton of money bidding on them to have a successful advertising campaign.

Step 1 – Conducting some research

The first thing you should do is take the time to conduct some research. What you’re aiming for is basically an insight into which keywords you should bid on. 

Therefore, you must have a closer look at your target audience so that you can determine how they search for similar products or services online and which search queries they use to conduct their search. This will give you information on which keywords are most commonly used by your potential customers. 

Aside from researching your audience, you should also conduct a competitive analysis. You want to know how your main competitors run their Google Ads campaigns so that you can find ways to outrun them and gain a competitive advantage.

Step 2 – Simplify your account

You might think that if you bid on more keywords, you increase your chances of success. However, that’s a common misconception that may lead you to waste time and money by overreaching. Your keyword account should be small and simple at first. 

Over time, you can bid for more keywords if there’s a need to do so. The key is to bid for the right keywords, not for a lot of keywords if you want an effective campaign and more relevant ads. Therefore, start with something basic and general, like the keywords you discovered through research. After that, you can bid on more specific keywords so that you can reach the right audience.

Step 3 – Manage your campaign

Once you start your campaign, you will have to monitor it effectively and regularly. Furthermore, Google Ads isn’t a campaign that you have to run 24/7. You can always pause it or halt it completely if the business is going great, as well as start it up again if you need more customers. 

However, one thing that you should constantly keep an eye on is how your campaign is performing while it’s running. Oftentimes, you have to tweak your approach and monitor relevant analytics to make the best out of your advertisement campaign. 

If you don’t have the time to commit to it or you don’t know how, you can always find a reliable agency to conduct your AdWords management for you. In any event, the key is to measure the results of your efforts so that you don’t end up wasting money in the end. That’s why it’s vital to manage your campaign whenever possible.

Step 4 – Always plan your budget

It’s no secret that Google AdWords can get pretty expensive. After all, this is where the majority of Google’s revenue comes from. That said, you might want to reach the top of the search result, but you don’t really have to. 

Overpaying doesn’t mean better results. That’s why it’s of vital importance to plan and set a constant AdWords budget so that you don’t end up overreaching. 

For example, it’s advisable to set a monthly budget for your AdWords campaign and stick to it. That way, you’ll know exactly how much you have to spend so that you can allocate enough funds whenever your small business needs to run ads. 

Moreover, if you change the budget often, it may cause your account to underperform. The main reason is that every time you change the budget, Google has to recalibrate the way they show your ads in their search results.

PPC and Google AdWords is a great way to target a specific audience at the right time and in the right place. With enough creativity and unique offers, you can easily convert your leads into customers and manage to succeed in the online market despite how strong or well-funded your competitors may be.

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SEVEN COMMON SEO CHALLENGES AND HOW TO OVERCOME THEM

SEVEN COMMON SEO CHALLENGES AND HOW TO OVERCOME THEM

Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/Tumisu-148124/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=896175">Tumisu</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=896175">Pixabay</a>

You may come up with the most remarkable product or service. However, if prospective clients cannot find you on the search engine’s top results, you won’t ever be able to make it big!

Whenever we search for something on Google, all of us prefer clicking on the top-ranked webpages. The higher ranking of any webpage is a result of SEO, the ultimate web marketing strategy. 

SEO optimizes a website so that it performs better. In simple terms, the path through which a search engine receives every search query and answers the user with relevant results is led by SEO.  

SEO is the radical stimulus for fostering brand awareness, expanding its reach, and promotion of its products and services. 

Beginners in the digital marketing arena wonder why use such technicalities when the same work can be done via ads? 

Because, according to the 99 Firms, $35 billion of digital ad spend will be lost in the year 2020 due to the use of ‘ad blockers’ by internet users. Hence, it is about time to dedicate your efforts towards SEO and increase your business reach organically! 

As reported by Safari Digital, Businesses with a marketing strategy allot an average of 41% of their budget to SEO.

SEO CHALLENGES AND THEIR SOLUTIONS

Your potential customers can only find you if you appear in the top results of a search query related to your business. 

Every SEO marketer wishes to ace that. But, often, the process is hindered by challenges that seem hard to overcome. 

If left unattended, these challenges can potentially halt the entire SEO campaign, sending previous efforts down the drain.

Identifying and troubleshooting these issues is what we will be discussing in this post today. 

So, without further ado, let us dive into the common SEO challenges and how to resolve them.

1. KEEPING UP WITH THE ALGORITHM UPDATES

Dynamic is the word best suited to Google’s algorithms. They are the criteria through which the search engine determines the quality of a webpage. Many of these have a profound impact on a website. 

Ever-changing algorithms are what makes SEO a process that calls for coming on strong with efficient strategies. Amidst trying to expand your company’s reach, marketers find every algorithm update very challenging. 

Defeat the challenge:

Don’t frustrate. Understand that a change in algorithm is due to the change in people’s behavior, so keeping up with it is worth it. As it is the people who you are serving, new ranking factors are actually making the marketing process easy for you.

Get the latest information on any such updates through authentic sources such as the Moz Blog, and don’t hesitate in taking help from SEO tools with good reviews. 

The right tools can make your keyword research and tracking performance a lot easier. 

2. OPTIMIZING THE SITE SPEED

A website that loads at a sluggish speed doesn’t give users a pleasant experience. Perhaps that is why HubSpot, in 2020, reported that page speed optimization is the top SEO strategy used to improve site performance.

If you notice a sudden plunge in your website traffic, slow loading speed can be the culprit behind it. Probably caused by uploading too many large image files, it negatively impacts SEO. This is a fact backed by Moz, which states that site speed affects search rankings.

Defeat the challenge:

Firstly, refrain from redirecting URLs that may cause slow loading speed. Also, use the images in JPEG format. Use an image compression tool to keep your images under 100kbs. 

Though these practices should pretty much solve the speed issue, if they don’t, try removing the plugins from your web design that are unused.

3. OVERLOOKING LOCAL SEO

According to Search Engine Land, 82% of mobile users conduct ‘near me’ searches for shopping. 

Disregarding this crucial aspect will subsequently hurt SEO. Verifying and then optimizing your Google My Business listing using SEO may be challenging, but it will give you a higher ranking on local queries.

Defeat the challenge:

Provide accurate, detailed, and relevant information regarding your location, business type, and other essential things to Google. Plus, points for any business that is already flourishing offline, as your ranking will increase due to mentions on other blogs and social platforms.

Add high definition images of your products to appeal to the customers. Decor NYC, a home goods store in Newyork, has several tempting photos of their store interiors, which assists them in staying on top of the local search results. 

Along with images, high-quality backlinks can also improve your ranking. You can successfully get these by creating content related to local events and news.

4. COMBINING SEO EFFORTS WITH SOCIAL MEDIA

Statista’s 2019 report notifies that 2.77 billion people use social media, therefore ignoring it in your SEO campaign is not a wise thing to do. 

Facebook alone reports that currently, the number of its monthly active users has surpassed 2.38 billion. 

An energetic, meaningful presence across social platforms is a tedious task indeed. Yet, many brands have gained massive success through their social media pages that ranked even above their website on Google. Read further to know how they manage to do that. 

Defeat the challenge:

Identify which platforms your target audience is present in higher numbers. Stay active on those networks by sharing your blog posts and other relevant content like events, sales, and customer feedback. Very soon, you will have an increased following and an improved lead generation.

Take Domino’s genius social media strategies like ‘pizza legends campaign’ that lets you create your own pizza, or the famous ‘pizza turnaround’ where they won back unsatisfied customers. In 2017, their unique social media content led them to surpass sales of another leading pizza brand. 

Now, you must be thinking, in this time of the global pandemic, will the strategy work? Well, it will, but you have to play smartly here. Many businesses are hanging in the garden of uncertainty regarding whether to spend on Fb ads or not. 

You already know that Facebook has immense data. Even in this time of uncertainty, you can use it to generate sales. 

Talk of which, I came across a blog published by SEtalks –SEO company. In that blog, they have explained how to run FB ads during the pandemic. The primary concept is to show relevant ads, aware users, yet market your product. I call it a smart approach.

5. OBTAINING LINKS WITH OPTIMIZED ANCHOR TEXT

Organic link building can help an entirely unknown business to grow a strong presence among the target audience, yet it is a complicated task. You can be unsuccessful at it if you haven’t conducted thorough research.  

Defeat the challenge:

By conducting advanced research on competitor backlinks and suitable high-authority websites, an efficient link building strategy can be devised. 

After that, anchor text linking back to your website can be assembled into guest posts on those high-authority websites.

Most of the SEO experts generate high-quality links for their client’s websites via long-tail keywords in guest posts. The strategy works well because Organic SERP clickthrough rates are 3 to 5% higher for long-tail keywords than generic keywords (as per statistics posted by HubSpot).

6. CREATING CONTENT THAT ADDS REAL VALUE

The original content of prime quality is one of the best ways to boost SEO for the long term. It is the best strategy to maintain your website’s authority. But what to do if you find it challenging to generate unique content continually?

Defeat the challenge:

User-generated content is a highly effective way to maintain authority as it gives original insights. Rotten Tomatoes, the movie reviewing website, accumulates Critic’s Reviews in which famous words and phrases are used.

Determine your high-value pages and put most of your SEO efforts on these for better rankings.

7. BEATING STRONGER COMPETITORS

Outrunning competitors that are ahead of you is both a dream and a challenge for SEOs. 

Defeat the challenge:

Instead of trying to rank higher on the same keyword as them, try alternate keywords as both of you have the same target audience.

Also, try to ace better on social platforms, content creation, and brand building, as they will potentially help you stay ahead in the game. 

TAKEAWAY

Even after the campaign is completed, SEO works round the clock like a salesperson to promote your brand. 

Getting to the first page may be full of challenges, but you need to stay persistent. Instead of backing off, keep up with the SERP analytics and adopt proper SEO best practices to keep on top of the game.

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E-commerce Marketing

E-commerce Marketing: Make customers your centre of attraction

The face of e-commerce marketing has taken leaps due to the advent of online marketing. It certainly has made it easier for the customers to shop online rather than peddling around the stores. Almost everything is taking a quantum leap on earth by going online. Why would you be far behind? If you own a physical store and still not earning maximum conversions out of it.

It’s time to shift your physical store to an online one. It gives you ample opportunities for sales growth. Also, if you strive harder, you can generate better traffic to your e-commerce online store.

Every marketer looks for achieving maximum results out of low-cost strategies. You can surely take on some cost-effective e-commerce marketing strategies to drive sales and conversions. But before discussing that, we must see what challenges you can face in e-commerce marketing:

What are the challenges of e-commerce marketing

1. Creating awareness

Evoking interests and creating awareness amongst your target audience is the prominent step one needs to take as an e-commerce marketer.

Enhancing the visibility for your products becomes essential for it.

2. Building brand trust

Building trust amongst customers is yet another challenge you might face while marketing your brand. Consumers usually muddle with questions such as the quality of the product, price rates, or originality.

3. Advertising budget

The main thread of e-commerce marketing is advertising. It’s the primary thing to create awareness and build trust amongst your customers.

These are some of the key challenges you can face. Now arises the question of the ways to drive sales in e-commerce marketing:

Traditional marketing was all about sellers and buyers. But when it comes to online marketing, driving sales refers to generating website traffic and achieving conversions.

  • Generate traffic : The main objective of e-commerce marketing is to generate website traffic and grow visitors.
  • Conversion :  Traffic is the number of visitors arriving at your website while conversions mean how many of them are converting out of it. It is not as simple as you do it in offline marketing but if you have marketing gabs you can surely go through it easily.

How to drive traffic to your e-commerce marketing website

When you are driving traffic to your website, remember that every potential visitor is different from the other. But like every problem, there is a solution to this one too. Below are some effective ways to reach your potential customers and generate traffic to your online store :

1. Create a sales campaign 

Creating a sales campaign is easy but making it catchy is a different thing altogether. Your potential customers must find it worthwhile to go ahead. You can start with a banner advertising campaign along with a catchy deal.

Let us look at some of the catchy campaign ideas:

  • Offer free rewards : The best way to catch people’s attention is to give them free rewards. But when you mean reward, you can ask the visitors to sign up for your mailing list. If they do that, they will get a reward on their first purchase.
  • Create urgency : Another key to generate traffic is to offer them a reward for a limited period of time. Creating urgency excites the customer and triggers him psychologically. Many e-commerce websites such as myntra creates a countdown or a timer to buzz the people out about the limited editions.
  • Create coupons : Coupons have always been a catchy tactic to offer discounts and offers on products. People adore them completely. Remember to restrict your coupon offers on your website only so as to generate more traffic

However, these steps would be incomplete if you do not have an exact promotional plan. Along with it, you require other power-packed promotional strategies .

2. Run facebook ads 

Create a Facebook page. Put out your website link, contact details, and other customer support details. You can share content via posts or blogs describing the unique features of your brand and why customer’s search must end at you. Put a link on your content so that people can click on it while reading the content. Sometimes catchy words drift the users’ minds immediately to look at the website. 

You can also take the advantages of pay per click advertisements. The major benefit is to reach through a larger audience.

3. Instagram stories

It’s 2020 and if you’re still not using Instagram to promote your brands. It’s high time to awaken yourself to some of the enchanting features of Instagram. Put out the new offers in your Instagram stories.

You can put links or add videos as well from where your potential customers can navigate to your sites. Add products and their descriptions to your Instagram feed. It enables customers to buy directly from Instagram.

4. Email campaigns

Email marketing has been and will always remain an integral part of your e-commerce marketing automation. It is a great way to generate traffic. There are some key elements in your email campaigns which you must not forget:

  •  Subject-line – The subject line of your email must depict your offer clearly, then only people will consider opening your emails.
  • Call-to-action : Add  CTA to your email content. In case you are sharing any images or videos in your emails, put a link of your website. So that your visitors can navigate at your website by all means.
  • Content :  Write a catchy content to nudge visitors to click on the CTA button immediately. Make sure to add visuals of your products so that people may have a look of what you are offering.

5. Start a blog

Start a blog to attract your potential customers instantly. If you do blogging with most searched keywords, it will not only enhance your website’s rankings. It will attract potential customers who are looking for a similar product or product you are offering. The best way to write a blog is not to exaggerate what you are selling but to show some of the essential features which lie around it. For example – You are selling 

Kids wear. You can create topics such as “ten tips for busy moms for keeping kids stylish”.

These were some of the ways to generate traffic to your e-commerce website. Let’s see how to turn your visitors into paying customers and optimize your conversion rate :

What are the best e-commerce marketing practices to deploy in 2020

Every marketer aims for raising their sales and conversions but what differentiates one from the other is their top-notch customer experience.

Here are some of the best practices to keep your customers happy and satisfied:

1. Are you a well-established brand

Online means have enhanced on one hand, but on the other hand fraudulent practices are also increasing. To avoid all of this and building trust between customers and you are to have some tangible features:

  • Authenticity : Many instagram and facebook accounts now have “ blue tick signs” to ensure that a real person is handling it. It assures people that they are communicating with the right one and not a fraudulent one.
  • Press coverage : Many brands promote their brands through media. Also, any unique thing captures the media’s attention promptly. Make sure you have that uniqueness to surpass people’s expectations.
  • Reviews : Many e-commerce sites have a section of reviews and testimonials just below the products section. You must have noticed while buying the product. You can read the reviews for the same product below.  Good reviews satisfy customers quickly and add a boost to their purchasing capacity.

2. Eye catching images

An e-commerce website separates itself from the normal website in its functionalities. You have to be very careful about the images you are loading as people are going to buy on the basis of the same. Sometimes people buy a product and get the product of lower quality. This way you are lowering your standards. So, make sure you can only build trust when you deliver good quality products in all senses.

3. Create FAQs on your website

Delivering a product means a customer must be aware of each and every minute detail of the product. Right from the shipping dates to the delivery dates. Along with it, post your return policies and frequently asked questions so that people could be crystal clear while buying any of your products.

4. Solve their queries

When a customer decides to buy a product, he has a list of questions in his head. Many are related to price, quality, and return of the product. Create live chat support over the website so that customers won’t feel neglected by you.

5. Create urgency and scarcity

We have already discussed above that people take quick decisions when they see that the offer might slip away from their hands. For example- Covid -19 has banned almost all the vendors and vegetable sellers around the market.

The situation has enabled e-commerce sites to take advantage of such situations. They are showing products in limited quantities and people are pulling towards the offers even at higher prices because they have to buy the necessities and essentials.

6. Great product descriptions

Write SEO optimized product descriptions so that people can search for your products easily. Many times brands just copy-paste the descriptions rather than making them stand out from the competitors. This is your perfect chance to capture customer’s attention by aligning the images and descriptions of the products perfectly.

Examples of e-commerce marketing companies

1. Flipkart

It is one of the most trending e-commerce websites in India. It is famous for offering books, electronic gadgets, and clothes at discounted prices. What distinguishes it from other sites is its huge collection of products and filtering options.

These options enable customers to search for the products quickly. It has an online music store. You can download music by paying some subscription amount.

2. Ebay

It is one of the biggest brands in the international market. You can find everything right from electronic gadgets to household items. Whatever you are searching for is right there in front of you. It also has an option of Global easy buy which enables you to buy international products in your local currency.

3. Home shop 18

It is the only e-commerce site which has a t.v. channel too. You can find a wide variety of home appliances and gadgets at reasonable prices. These appliances have already made a mark in millions of homes with their fast and effective solutions. Each and every category on the page has a unique featured deal.

Conclusion

These were the examples of some power packed e-commerce websites who have already established their names in the market. Follow the above tips to be one of them and avoid E-commerce marketing mistakes!

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What Makes Facebook a Valuable Marketing Tool

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What Makes Facebook a Valuable Marketing Tool?

Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/geralt-9301/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=1553789">Gerd Altmann</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=1553789">Pixabay</a>

Every business needs a good marketing strategy to be at the top of the game in the ever-evolving world of digital marketing. With strategy comes the proper tools and channels to execute the plan. One of the most popular tools for digital marketing today is Facebook, so let’s see why this social media platform has become so widely used. 

Launched in February 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg and his co-founders, Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes, and Eduardo Saverin, Facebook is a stroke of genius that has fast become a must-have in today’s digital world. It’s designed to appeal to every generation, and let’s face it—everyone’s on Facebook. 

The social media platform is available in 109 languages. It has more than 2.5 billion active users per month, more than any other social media platform. Due to the huge potential to reach a lot of people, it comes as no surprise that many businesses opt for Facebook to market their products or services. 

It’s no secret that many consumers surf the internet before making a decision to purchase anything. And with Facebook’s billions of users, the massive opportunity to acquire potential customers should be taken into account by every company out there. 

Unlike traditional advertising methods, running ads on Facebook doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. A business with a proper marketing strategy in place can make it work and expect to reap the rewards. Every minute, 400 users sign up on the platform. That’s like finding a gold mine if Facebook marketing is done properly.

Businesses can utilize demographic targeting, offering products and services through the Custom Audience feature. It works like magic, narrowing down the field, and weeding out those who do not fit. This is one aspect that gives digital marketing the edge over traditional advertising like television and radio—the ability to customize and personalize the customer experience.

Facebook is good for brand awareness

Facebook is good for brand awareness as it provides businesses with maximum visibility at a minimum cost. Ad campaigns can set a goal, depending on if a company wants to attract a certain target audience to like the page or direct them to a website or a landing page. It’s also a valuable tool to increase engagement and form a lasting relationship with customers. A business can address a problem and provide solutions right away when a customer leaves a review or a comment or sends a direct message.

Many brands have taken the lead like Samsung, for example, amassing 160 million page likes. Coca-Cola, Disney, Redbull, KFC, and even Microsoft Windows jumped on the bandwagon as well.

Facebook as a marketing tool

More and more marketers believe in the importance of Facebook as a marketing tool. More precisely, 67% of them refer to it as the most important social media platform. It is something that will not be changing anytime soon. Since 70% of consumers search for products they need to buy on Instagram and Facebook, we’d have to agree social commerce optimization is inevitable.

So if you’re already running a business or you’re planning to launch a business, it’s vital that you take these amazing facts about Facebook into account and use them to your advantage.

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