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Online Marketing vs. Offline Advertising: Where to Invest

April 9, 2018 • Featured, SEO 101 • 66

No matter what the size of your marketing budget, you are always looking to get the most from it. You may have a small tight budget or a much bigger one. Regardless, one thing is key for both – understanding and analysing marketing efforts to see what works best.

Another important area of consideration for marketers is digital or print advertising. Both options have their pros and cons. But for companies working on a tight budget, in particular, digital can offer a lower cost than print. But does that mean you should only consider investing in digital?

Print vs digital

When you talk about print advertising, this is talking about magazines and billboards. Digital marketing refers to the use of search engine ads, social media and also email marketing. Most marketers look at the cost of an impression as opposed to a click or an actual lead to compare.

Virtually everyone company has an online presence now and digital marketing is widely used because it is easy to get involved with. The entry barrier for digital marketing is seen as lower than for print advertising. This is appealing to companies with limited budgets and digital can create a great foundation for marketing while print can do a low more for branding perspectives.

Print Ads

This means if you want to invest in print, print ads can be very beneficial if they are done correctly, with the right targeting and consistency. It is rarely something you do once, with one big name magazine. Instead, you look at different options and consider the costs. A full-page ad can cost £20,000 to £300,000 where the CPM can be £140 to £1300.

Remember that magazine numbers don’t always equal people seeing your ad. Not every magazine produced is purchased. Some issues are left on the stand when the new issue arrives.

Digital Ads

If you want to start with digital ads, the CPM can be £2-12. With search campaigns, you can customise to specific target audiences and also easily make changes. If you see a positive or negative outcome from an ad, you can easily adjust or alter the targeting.

In some cases, the CPM can be zero. Google display ads, for example, charge at CPC rather than CPM. This can be a great option if you have a limited budget.

Analysing the outcome

If you have a budget that can incorporate a print element, there are clear advantages to it. It is a great form of branding as well. For companies with a smaller budget, digital marketing can be a great starting place.

They can also look to advertise in smaller publications where the cost is much lower than with big ones. The key is to consider the target audience and where you will find them. And the ability to customise the ads to catch that audience is also a big draw for digital marketing.

The best answer for most companies is a balance of the two. Low-cost digital marketing with a periodical print ad alongside it.

So, a strong online presence and the ability to invest in print to supplement it in the real work. This can lead, to the most successful marketing campaigns.
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10 Customer Acquisition Strategies to Help You Win New Customers

March 29, 2018 • Featured, SEO 101 • 171

One of the most important aspects of business is building a solid customer base, and for that, you need to have a h2 customer acquisition strategy. Here are some tips on how to get new customers.

Maintain your business portal

Whether you conduct your business via social media, portfolio websites or your own website immaculate maintenance of your business portal is of utmost importance. It is the first impression that you give your prospective clients and hence it has to be absolutely impeccable. Regular maintenance, updates and necessary edits are of major importance.

Specific marketing

Gone are the days when you could simply opt for a generalized marketing, and that would be all. In order to stay ahead of the competition, you need to invest some effort into creating personal marketing campaigns which are to be created using client specific data and trends.

Tapping the audiovisual media

Audiovisual marketing in the form of video campaigns live postings and even miniature videos such as Vine, Boomerangs are ruling the world of marketing. So, sit down and create some video ideas today. For a long-term strategy open a vlog on YouTube or a similar medium and your posts will help you build an audience.

Engaging in tie-ups

Believe it or not, a professional tie-up could be of immense help to build yourself a customer base. If you can manage to set up a tie-up with a fellow vlogger or some other business which can be related to your profession, it can help you expand your clientele with less effort. The right tie-up can also help in improving the quality of the services that you offer.

Influencer marketing

If you want to reach out to a maximum number of people influencer marketing is the way to go. Social media influencers have managed to reach out to people like never before. They have a wider reach and yet, are not as expensive as celebrities. Find yourself a suitable influencer to promote your business to get a stable flow of customers.

Promotions and offers

Nothing is more tempting to people than a discount! Offer your customers discounts, promo codes for discounts, free gifts etc. In order to increase your flow of traffic, and increase customer base,

Referral Programmes

Help reach your customer goals faster by implementing a referral programme for your existing customers, offering them incentives for every successful via their referral.

Guest Posting

Guest posting helps you improve your website or blog’s SEO immensely. With the help of guest posting, you can reach out to the readers of other blogs as well as hold on to yours. You can actively engage with more client base, and you can also make use of effective backlinking to your own portal which can be crucial in increasing your search.

Using the right keywords

According to Over the Top SEO, It is important to make sure that you are making use of the right keywords to ensure that your website link comes up whenever a potential customer searches for a particular string of words on a search engine. It needs a lot of study and some hard work. Your website can rank on page 1 of Google and other search engines if you master the art of right keywords and SEO.

Create meaningful content

Content is the key to creating a viable customer base. It is what you use to reach out to your potential clients. Therefore, you have to ensure that you generate only meaningful content which is pertinent to your business.

With the help of the right steps, you can create a viable customer base.
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Google Introduces Breadcrumb SERPs

March 3, 2018 • Featured, SEO 101 • 342

Google Introduces Breadcrumb SERPs

In their latest changes, Google has now started to add breadcrumbs to the top of the page. These breadcrumbs are triggered by search queries and have an image with them. It also results in a very different result to a search query than previously and is another step towards Mobile First.

Redefining the index

Google has been working towards Mobile First for some time and this means that the company will favour those sites that render well in mobile devices. This has brought a new way of displaying the results of what people search that is suitable for mobile devices. And the new breadcrumbs appear to be part of this transition.

So far Google hasn’t issued an official announcement about the change to incorporate breadcrumbs in search results. But as they are displaying for people when they search, there’s a good chance this is no test.

Mobile First interface

This change in how those search results are one of the indications that Google is taking a major step away from how its search results are currently displayed. And is a strong indicator that it is moving towards the Mobile First approach that it has been talking about for some time.

Of course, the full definition of what Google means by mobile first is still a little uncertain. But it does seem to focus on how information will be displayed on a mobile device and how it will rank results based on this.

Search results already have a big emphasis on their optimisation for mobile devices. For example, when searching for certain types of information, Google will show results in a format that is best suited to someone on a mobile device.

Google is also taking advantage of user interactions specific to smartphones – swiping is one example. More images also prove popular with mobile users, so Google is incorporating more of them in the results page. But this doesn’t mean that things will stop working on desktop computers. Instead, the Mobile First Search Results will be different to the previous mobile first search index.

The mobile first search index concentrated on showing sites that were optimised for mobile or ‘mobile friendly’ whereas the new search results are a complete rethinking of the entire SERPs.

Breadcrumbs in action

You can quickly and easily see breadcrumbs in action. Let’s say you search for ‘queens of England’ on Google. You will see a series of small blocks, each featuring a picture of the queen and dates for their reign beneath them. Along the top of the pictures is a list of keywords – Monarch > England > Female.

When you click on any one of them, you are taken to another search page. This contains links relevant to that person. So, for Elizabeth I, we have a Wikipedia entry, a couple of articles from the BBC and a royal biography website. The link along the top of the search has now added > Elizabeth I of England to the chain.

The idea of the breadcrumb is that users can navigate away from the search results and explore without needing to type anything – they can simply swipe along the carousel of queens to find more information on the right person. So you can find the one you are looking for within no time.

Search results are also getting cleverer. If you search for ‘top football teams’ you will see results that refer to football, rather than American football. When the search is done from the Google UK search engine. And again, there will be a breadcrumb for each team that allows you to drill down further and access more information without typing in the team’s name.

Optimising for breadcrumbs

The biggest problem at the moment with optimising for breadcrumbs is that we aren’t wholly certain how Google chooses them. Images are obviously important because these are a prominent feature of every breadcrumb. Logos, pictures of a person or place are all key. Schema markup may also be useful, but it is unclear if it is essential.

Ranking for phrases may also not lead to an increase in sales. Most of the research done into breadcrumbs so far shows they are more informational results rather than advertising. This may show they are not always useful for lead generation or even sales.

Conclusion

There are three main points to consider with breadcrumbs. One – these queries do not (currently) seem to conflict with queries that show adverts. Two – they have limited use for generating leads or sales. And three – they are a key indicator of the switch to Mobile First that Google has been discussing for some time.

While more search is clearly needed to better understand breadcrumbs and their place in the new SERPs, it is for most businesses more of a curiosity at this stage. However, if you find an opportunity to optimise for a breadcrumb that might help your business, it may well be worth doing this as you create the content.
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6 Strategies to Level up Your Affiliate Marketing in 2018

February 28, 2018 • Content Marketing, Digital Marketing • 223
Whether you are a beginner or a seasoned affiliate marketer, you know that the concept itself is simple. Using any number of strategies, you market/recommend products or services of other companies with links to those companies’ sales pages on your own site or blog. You will then receive payment for consumers who visit those sites, and especially if they should make a purchase. While many think of this as “passive” income, the strategies you must use to make good money as an affiliate are anything but passive.

Affiliate marketing can be lucrative, but it is competitive and takes work and continued experimenting with new tactics. Low quality content and setting up websites that do little more than attempt to link visitors to the products of others are not going to get traffic and are not given value by search engines. You need to have a quality site or blog, attract traffic, and use proven tactics to motivate your visitors/followers to click those links.

Here are some of the latest strategies that could boost your affiliate income in 2018.
1. Be More Discerning
The biggest mistake anyone can make is to become an affiliate for low-quality products/services or for products or services that do not relate to your own niche. It’s time to drop those companies that are not worthy of your recommendation and seek out those that your followers will appreciate. Re-evaluation should occur regularly – after all, your reputation is at stake too.

Most worthwhile companies that allow affiliate marketing will evaluate your site or blog before allowing you to become an affiliate, so focus on your own quality first.
1. Take a Lesson from Groupon
Groupon is probably the most extreme example of an affiliate marketing site. People flock to it because there are coupons for virtually every type of product or service. Visitors can search by specific niches, and they continue to come back to check on any new deals.

You may not be a Groupon, but if you have established yourself as an affiliate to any company, ask for coupons that you can post on your site or blog. Everyone ones to get a good deal, and if you offer quality coupons, they will come back for more. What’s more, they should be able to sign up for emails of new coupons – you build your own email list while increasing your chances for those commissions.
1. Sell Private Label Rights (PLR) Products
You may want to dive into affiliate marketing full blast. This is especially lucrative for individuals who do not have their own products to sell, but are skilled in writing engaging marketing content. There are a number of PLR websites, such as InDigitalWorks, at which you can pick from any number of products, and then market and sell them under your own brand name. You get to keep the bulk of the profits. This will be a continually growing industry in 2018. Your work is to set up a great website, write stunning content for the products, accumulate email addresses for future marketing efforts, and continually evaluate sales numbers from each of the products. You can add, modify, or delete at will.

And the best part? You are totally in charge. You can offer discounts, and encourage your customers to get involved by providing feedback on products they buy and sharing their good feelings about your site on social media.
1. Increase Your Use of PPC
This is a great way to leverage search engines to drive very specific traffic. Your ads show up when searches are conducted by keywords/phrases, and you only pay per click. You can drive traffic to your website or directly to the vendor’s website.

This is not a tactic you can just dive into. You need to do a bit of studying on PPC advertising. For one thing, search engines do evaluate the ad quality and response, and place the better ones in more favorable positions. You need to get creative with those ads.
1. Create an Affiliate Blog and Write Reviews
If you are a beginner, this is a great strategy. Consider this: how many products or services have you purchased just within the past year – products that you really like? Contact the website administrators/owners and ask about affiliate marketing. It is unlikely that they will turn down someone who can write compelling content and who has a blog that is already recommending quality products and services. You can create “how-to” or explainer videos and drive traffic to your blog through social media and other blogs to which you become a contributor.

This too will take a bit of study and practice. You can check out the basics of writing and publishing affiliate reviews here. It’s a worthwhile read. You are basically becoming a brands ambassador, and are more trusted because these are products you actually use.

This is not an overnight strategy. You have to write genuinely valuable content about the product; you have to speak to its value; and you have to place the link to the vendor appropriately. And it takes time to develop organic traffic through keyword research and SEO.

You can also engage in product and services reviews without your own blog. If you are a skilled writer, you can post on other blogs, link to the vendors, and collect your commissions.
1. Using Webinars – It’s Pretty Hot Right Now
Webinars are, first and foremost, visual – and visual trumps text anytime. Consider this: if you are in the process of looking to buy an expensive or sophisticated product, you have two options:
- You can read about the product directly from the vendor; you can read reviews of the product.
- You can view a webinar in which the product is actually displayed, and the use instructions are visually demonstrated. You get to ask questions and have them answered in real time by a real product expert.
You would probably take the second option, because you can actually see the product in use.

If you should decide to add webinars to your bag of strategies, you have some work to do. You have to practice being a host; you have to outline the important points you intend to make. And you have to promote your webinar with everyone on your email list, on social media, and often offer an incentive for others to market that webinar too.

And once the livestreaming is over, you can save that webinar on your site or blog and promote/replay it in the future.

Whether you are a beginner or someone who is just not realizing the income you want from affiliate marketing, these six strategies are a good start point. As you become more sophisticated, you will develop more important strategies, such as A/B testing, etc. There are successful affiliate marketers who do write about their strategies, and you should read these to see what takeaways there are for you.
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Local SEO – February 2018 Hangout Recap

February 28, 2018 • #SEMPOchat, Local Search, SEO 101 • 268

Hangout Date: 2/27/18

Participants/Panel:

Duane Forrester, VP of Industry Insights, Yext

Gyi Tsakalakis, Founder, AttorneySync and EPL Digital

Andrew Shotland, Founder and CEO, localseoguide.com

Moderator:

Andrew Beckman, Founder and Chairman, Location3

Top Takeaways:

There are a lot of ranking factors for local listings, but one particularly important ranking factor is local links.

Search engines are using every bit of data they can to determine a consumers’ patterns of behavior, which affects how they behave when interacting with local businesses, even when the data they’re gathering doesn’t seem like it affects local SEO.

Consider tactics like encouraging users to leave positive reviews with valuable keywords in the reviews.

Once your local listings are up-to-date and consistent (name, address, phone number, etc.) move on to more valuable tactics like local link building. To find potentially valuable local links, look for businesses near you on Google Maps.

Directories are still valuable, but be sure to pursue links from industry-specific directories as opposed to a broad set of unrelated directories. This provides search engines with more context.

Listen to how customers talk about your products, for example, looking at voice search data. Do they use local neighborhood names? Use these keywords to optimize your local SEO.

Business reviews are an area that’s still inundated with spam. While it’s tempting to fight fire-with-fire, bad actors trying to game the system will most assuredly not last for the long-term.

SEMPO Google Hangouts:

SEMPO Chats with Industry Experts are developed by SEMPO’s Education Committee to help industry professionals learn about topics and ask questions in an informal setting. Chats are interactive discussions in Q&A format, conducted as a Google Hangout on Air. All hangouts are streamed LIVE on Google+ or on YouTube (pick your preferred site). Please make sure to add SEMPO to your Google+ Circles so that you can be one of our on-camera participants and receive notifications as Chats are planned. We also encourage you to take the conversation on Twitter at #SEMPOchat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3onAy_bFy94

Presented by the SEMPO Education Committee and Industry Experts, SEMPO Chats cover topics in an open question-and-answer format live on YouTube. This month the theme is Voice Search. Our committee members and guest speakers will tell us about themselves, dive into the details of the monthly topic, and encourage questions from the audience throughout. If you’re not camera shy, you can join on-air through YouTube during the live event.
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