Local SEO is a potent way to drive people to your physical business location. It also helps ensure that your business appears real, legitimate, and authoritative within the Google search results of nearby potential customers.

Consider these 5 things when optimizing your website for Local SEO in 2022:

Local SEO Thing #1: Optimize For Voice Search

No one thinks that customers always and only search for things with their voice (although 41% of users now search using their voice once per day). However, we strongly suspect that the way your customers search for your product or services is closer to the way they speak; people tend to search with natural language (phrases or meaningful sentence fragments) more so than with the keyword-only searches typical in the past.

When someone is out on the town and feeling hungry for pizza, they do not typically Google “Pizza.”

Instead, they will look for ‘Pizza Near Me’ or ‘Best Pizza In [CITY NAME].’

Optimizing your site and content for the way people actually look for things online will help you rank better for these localized searches. It will also futureproof your site for the continual growth of voice assistants.

For more talk on voice search, check out How to Optimize for Voice Search.

Local SEO Thing #2: Be Consistently Consistent

The little details matter when it comes to Local SEO. Presenting your business information consistently—especially the physical address—is crucial because Google assesses your legitimacy through such consistency.

It may sound like nitpicking, but if your business is located at 123 North Christmas Ave, then you should always refer to it as such—and never 123 N. Christmas Ave. Be consistent with your location information because it helps reduce issues with local listings, and it shows the bots you care about your local business data.

Local SEO Thing #3: Actually, this is Hyperlocal SEO

You don’t just live in your city, you live in a neighborhood. So do your customers.

When optimizing your content for hyperlocal SEO, make sure you include the neighborhood you are located in and also the locations your customers may live, work, or shop in. This helps drive local searches including those specific keywords, as the algorithms will understand the local nature of your content and deliver it to local searchers.

If you have a business in Bushwick, Brooklyn, your business is located THERE—not just the more general New York City. Optimizing for all three—Bushwick, Brooklyn, and New York City—will net you the best possible ranking potential.

Thing #4: Own Your Listing

Your Google Business Profile listing is one of the most important tools in driving local traffic online. Make full use of it.

If you haven’t already claimed your listing, do so. If you have, then optimize! Here are five easy to complete areas you can use to improve your Google Business Profile listing.

1. Flesh out your business description to include language that will drive a user to want to engage with your business.
2. Showcase your products directly within your listing.
3. Add photos. Photos help boost engagement on your local listings.
4. Use the Posts functionality of Google Business Profile; it’s like a micro-blog for your local listing page that gives information to users directly within the search results and allows you to promote sales and products to local searchers.
5. When it comes to your Primary Category within GMB make sure you choose wisely. If you are a pizza place, make sure you choose the category Pizza Restaurant and not just Restaurant. This attention to detail is necessary for Google to understand when to show your business over another location.

The more you put care into your business information online, the better it will likely perform in search.

Thing #5: Show Authority

It’s not enough just to rank locally. If potential customers have doubts that you are a reputable business, they are not likely to spend their money on your goods or services. To satisfy the need for credibility, you need a local review strategy.

Encourage your customers to leave 5-star reviews when they are satisfied with your business. Whether this is via a card you hand out to a customer or through a follow-up email, reviews are a major factor in convincing a local customer to make a purchase. They will have a big impact on your local performance.

Once you have reviews, show them off. Use plugins to feature the reviews on your website, and share every good review you get on social media. Respond to the reviews you get from customers on Google and Facebook. It is this attention to detail and care that may sway another customer to your side. And it shows local searchers that you are to be trusted.

When it comes to local SEO, no one of these tactics alone will bring your business success within the search engines; rather, a finely optimized and cultivated combination of the 5 areas above can help drive traffic with higher buyer intent.

At DOM, we’re local SEO wizards and more than ready to get you optimized for local traffic. Feel free to reach out today and let’s put together a plan that works for your SEO needs.

The post How to Do Local SEO in 2024 appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.

Below you will find a nice even dozen of our favorite holiday marketing ideas for 2022. Consider these our free gifts to you in an effort to make this wonderful time of the year the most successful for your business.

Offer Some Limited Time Holiday Deals (Even If You’re In B2B)

Although Black Friday is looking less and less like the insane rugby scrum of years past, it is still “a thing” after the world of retail essentially canceled it in 2020 at the height of the global pandemic.

If there’s one thing we associate with Black Friday, it’s getting those amazing deals.

You might think this kind of strategy only makes sense with retail, but it can work for B2B marketing, too. Don’t forget that even though your office may be closed for the holidays, there are many companies that are open during the holidays because they are serving those who are traveling or taking time off. Aside from traditional consumer retail, other industries that regularly operate during holiday time periods include:

• Convenience Stores
• Emergency Healthcare
• Entertainment Venues (think movie theaters, sports arenas, etc.)
• Hospitals
• Hospitality
• Pharmacies
• Restaurants
• Travel and Transportation

For a few standout holiday marketing ideas, you could offer a discounted rate for one of the services you offer tailored to these specific industries. Or a coupon code that accomplishes the same thing. Just remember to make these offers redemptive. Instead of simply giving the deal away, offer it in exchange for completing a contact form, or gate it off with a form to capture some basic information.

If you identify these markets as high relevance for your products and services, prospective clients working during holidays will likely interested in your discounted services.

That’s what we call some “solid leads,” what about you?

Need to DOMinate Black Friday?
Watch This Webinar On-Demand.
Achieve Your Goals!

Setup A Google Performance Max Campaign

If you have an e-commerce site, there is no reason not to run Google Shopping ads. As far as holiday marketing ideas go, Google Shopping should be your bread and butter if you rely on digital channels to generate direct response sales.

However, in today’s modern digital advertising landscape, there is only one way to get your ads showing in Google Shopping… setup a Performance Max ad campaign in Google.

One of the things we’ve always liked the most about Google Shopping is that the ads are a combination of text search and visual ads. The user sees a picture of the item and also relevant information pulled from your feed by Google.

When it comes to setting up a Performance Max campaign so that your ads can be seen in Google Shopping, we are taking a more cautious approach. Instead of telling you to go all in on Performance Max, we strongly suggest running it with a “test and see” mindset.

If this is the first time you are hearing about Performance Max, or simply want to learn more about the basics of Performance Max campaigns before deciding to go all-in on them for your 2022 holiday campaigns, learn more by pressing play on the video below.

Like we said above, you should be taking a “test and see” approach to Performance Max campaigns. So, while you can still have some type of manual control over where your products are being shown, we recommend you continue to use it.

Along with that, if your feed is optimized, Google will be able to automatically pull information such as free shipping and place it in your Product Ads.

During the holiday shopping season, it is more important than ever to keep your feed as updated as possible. What do you think happens if someone clicks on an ad for a product, only to find out that you are sold out? They go somewhere else.

Don’t miss out on sales because of Google’s machine learning putting your products in front of the wrong buyers or because you have overlooked your feed management.

If you have doubts that your Performance Max campaign is ready for the holiday season – mind if we take a look with a complimentary PPC consultation?

Submit Your Product Feed For Free Clicks

At the beginning of the pandemic, we shared an important update Google made to it’s Shopping platform – online retailers could sell products for free through the platform.

Fast forward more than two years later… and those free to sell options are still available on the platform.

If you haven’t submitted your product feed to Google so that your products can be listed in free “Popular Products” search results like the one shown above – what are you waiting for?

Sure, we know these search results look awfully similar to the Google Shopping ads shown above, so how can you tell the difference?

Simple… shopping listings that are supported with advertising will always be labeled with “Sponsored” or “Ad” in the heading before the actual listing.

If you already use Google Merchant Center or Performance Max, you do not have to change a thing to receive these unpaid clicks. While the amount of impressions your products will receive for unpaid clicks will not be as high as if you were paying per click in Performance Max, this can still be a revenue generating strategy for the holiday shopping season.

Want to review your Merchant Center to see your unpaid clicks?
Learn How Here.

Change Up Your Ad Text

Customers are so used to seeing “50% Off. Order Now!” or “Great Deals!” Instead, show them what they want to see… specifically what it is you can offer them this holiday season.

So, be creative with your marketing campaigns!

If you sell gloves, use some copy that reads, “Baby, it’s Cold Outside! Warm Up with a New Pair of Gloves.”

If you sell products that are irrelevant to the cold season, no worries. You can still find ways to use the season to your advantage and inject a little “holiday spirit” in your campaigns.

Dynamic Search + Shopping = Re$ult$.
Learn How This Online Retailer
Improved Sales 115% During Busy Season.

Embrace Retargeting

When done right, retargeting can take your accounts to the next level when it comes to low-cost conversions.

This is the nice thing about retargeting: based on how your audiences are built, you can segment customers by intent.

If you have an audience for an informational page such as About Us, you know that there is some interest, but the customer is probably not ready to buy yet. You can tailor ads specifically for that audience with messaging to entice them to come back and learn more.

Along with that, if you have an audience for cart abandoners, you know there was intent to buy there – but something changed that. If you create ads that give the customer a reason to come back, you can create conversions from missed opportunities.

Learn more about our retargeting services if this isn’t already a part of your digital advertising plans for the holidays.

Lean On Email, Social, And Automation

Your messaging doesn’t need to slow down too much while you’re sipping eggnog, spinning the dreidel, lighting the candles, prepping for a fast, or ordering Chinese food with your dog.

And you don’t have to be on the stick (or at the keyboard, if you’re not a pilot) prepared to make a correction.

Most people aren’t going to be sitting in front of their computers or visiting their favorite websites for new content during the holidays. Rather, this is a perfect time to engage them where they are: on their phones, scrolling social media, and reading email.

The great news about those avenues is that you can write your social media and email marketing messages early, and then schedule them to roll out at predetermined times.

Just make sure nothing newsworthy happens that might make your subject lines or messaging seem tone-deaf.

Learn more about our social media advertising services if you may need a performance boost in these areas for the holidays.

List Holiday Sales Prominently

No one can participate in your sale if they don’t know it exists. To help boost your 2022 holiday sales, make sure your biggest promotions are front and center.

One of the best ways to do this is by incorporating your sale into your branded color design, using a holiday themed banner or other top-of-page display. This immediately makes the connection between your holiday promotions and the holiday shopping rush. Add a call to action and a link to your perfect gift products, or gift cards, and you’ll be ready to go.

Discounts should also be displayed prominently, especially around top selling products. In addition to displaying discounts on product cards and pages, special Black Friday deals, holiday specials, and gift guide call outs can be displayed both on your product pages and other holiday campaign landing pages.

Make It Easy To Convert

This is a year-round tip, but it’s especially important during the peak of the holiday shopping season.

Make sure each product on your landing page is designed with a clear purchasing path, which can be used on both desktop and mobile devices.

In the simplest instances, you can create a button that adds the product directly to the shopper’s cart. You can also display a sidebar with the current cart contents, allowing customers to see what they’ve chosen, and seamlessly check out when they’re ready.

For all your sales processes, the key is to minimize the steps it takes to purchase. The easier the conversion path, the fewer abandoned carts you’ll see all year.

Optimize Your Pages For Mobile Devices

According to Forbes, holiday spending on mobile reached $88 billion dollars last year. While the pandemic brought a lot of us in front of our bigger screens, mobile sales still increased as the calendar flipped closer to the big holidays.

Suffice it to say if your holiday landing pages aren’t optimized for mobile, you’re losing out on a huge consumer opportunity.

To optimize your seasonal landing pages for mobile:

• Make sure that the buttons are large enough to be seen and interacted with on smaller screens.
• Format holiday banners for mobile devices, keeping text size in mind.
• Don’t overload your mobile landing pages with too much text.
• Ensure that getting from products to checkout is simple, minimizing the number of “touches” between your product and cart pages.

Don’t Forget About Microsoft

Think Google is your only option when it comes to search engine advertising for your holiday marketing campaign? Think again. Microsoft can be one of those great holiday marketing ideas because it is an easy to deploy, high volume secondary platform to use to reach your target audience. Why would you want to pass up 20% of the search market?

Microsoft does not have the reach Google has, but it has an audience that has spending power. Microsoft’s search advertising solutions on Bing and across their entire network are great for reaching those that are not as tech-savvy (*cough* parents and grandparents *cough*) because they are less likely to use a browser, or a search engine, other than what Windows devices provide as the default.

Learn more about our Microsoft Ads account management services if this isn’t already a part of your digital advertising plans for the holidays.

Create A Sense Of Urgency

This is true for all product pages, all the time, but the holiday season is a fantastic time for retail sites because the urgency is already built-in!

What you can do is emphasize the timeliness of your sales on your site, reminding your customers that they need to act now if they want to surprise their special someone on time.

One of the best ways to do this is with the popular holiday countdown timer. You’ll see Amazon do this with their Cyber Monday deals, counting down the hours until each product special is gone forever—and it works.

Display your timer above the fold or along a sidebar, where your customers can easily see how much time they have left, and prepare to watch this be one of those holiday marketing ideas that will automatically push your holiday sails up!

Finally, Don’t Forget To Be Sincere

Your employees love each other, even if they fight like siblings sometimes. Your clients think you’re doing a great job, and you’re thankful for the ability to provide them with goods or services this time of year.

The holidays are also about love, acceptance, and gratitude. Don’t be afraid to show that side of yourself to the people who matter to you. We could all use a little more joy these days.

Don’t shy away from incorporating some of these timeless feelings and emotions that well up in the people who will consume the content you create for your holiday marketing strategy.

You might be surprised how far a little “I appreciate you” or “We understand what you’re going through” messaging can go in spreading more of that holiday cheer.

As the calendar year draws to a close, do you find yourself behind pace with your lead generation or sales goals? Even though the holidays are drawing close, there’s still time to meet, achieve, or exceed your goals. Contact us for a free consultation to learn how our digital marketing services can help you accomplish your best  year yet! 

The post 12 Profitable Holiday Marketing Ideas To Make This Your Best Year Yet appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.

That said, there are several options for getting performance grades on how fast your website content gets delivered to your visitors. You may use something like GTMetrix, YSlow, or Uptrends – and we can’t blame you for that.

However, one thing that can’t be debated is that Google recently included page speed in its updated focus on core web vitals, and that was for a good reason:

if your page is slow, people won’t want to visit it.

Considering that’s exactly the opposite of what we want as SEO professionals, we use a couple of important tools to speed. We wanted to know and maybe you want to know, too: which is better, PageSpeed Insights vs Pingdom?

One Good Tool Is Good, More Is Better

We use both tools as part of our SEO site audit processes. The most common implementation is to use Google’s insights tool as the default with the backup use of Pingdom if a page doesn’t have a lot of traffic. Both have their benefits.

Google PageSpeed Insights

If there’s an official tool by Google, we’re going to use it. After all, their search engine is the one we want to rank for.

And we don’t need to cite data here to prove that it’s the top search engine in the world—okay, fine, here you go: according to statista.com, Google has 86% of the search engine market share.

Google’s tools are always going to give us the most accurate data as it relates to metrics that are important to Google. If the metrics matter to Google, then that means the metrics are important to us. Contentful paints, input delays, layout shifts, all of them.

As long as it has so much of the search volume, supplying a gargantuan share of the organic traffic on the internet, then we would be silly to ignore it.

Pingdom Page Speed Test

You might be wondering why we would use anything other than Google PageSpeed Insights, if the results we get from it are so valuable. We don’t do anything without data, and that’s where Pingdom helps us—it provides good data, sure, but it also has a bonus feature that Google doesn’t: transparency.

The primary measurement of page speed is called ping time, which is another term for latency, or how long it takes for the data to go from your device to the page you’re visiting, and then back to your device.

We don’t know the actual source of Google’s site speed measurements, whereas Pingdom, on the other hand, tells us exactly where its servers are.

That’s good because, even in this age of fast-as-light data transfers, distance still matters. A page that is hosted in a location thousands of miles from a person visiting it is prone to higher latency, or ping time. After all, we haven’t invented a technology that can move faster than light.

Not only does Pingdom tell you where the servers are, it lets you choose which server to use in your latency tests. That’s something Google doesn’t offer, and it can be really useful when your website’s traffic tends to come from one specific place. You can also use Pingdom to find out whether the site speed differences you might be seeing are geographic.

Pingdom, of course, is just one of a “comprehensive set of turnkey infrastructure integrations” from Solarwinds. Without getting too promotional for this solution, Pingdom also has additional products to do transaction monitoring, alerting, and more.

Pingdom’s Onload Time vs. Google Page Speed’s Time to Interactive

Onload Time (a Pingdom page speed metric) factors in that some elements on the page may not load before the browser requests it—like a JavaScript-based image carousel. While things like browser caching and lazy loading of images are great, this setup can create a false sense of security for marketers because Pingdom will often report faster page load times than what a user actually experiences.

This is especially true on sites with high mobile device usage and sites with a global reach to areas reliant on 3G or slower connections for internet access.

Time to Interactive (Google’s metric) is the amount of time it takes the page to fully load every element and function. You have more extreme timings in these reports, but you also have a more honest look at how long it can take for a user to gain access to the complete site experience on a device.

Instead of Google’s Time to Interactive metric, a better comparison for Pingdom’s Onload Time metric is Google’s Speed Index metric.

Here’s a comparison of those two for a random page on the internet.

1. Pingdom Load Time: 3.69 seconds
2. Google PageSpeed Mobile Page Speed Index: 16.2 seconds
3. Google PageSpeed Desktop Speed Index: 5 seconds

Clearly, the desktop results from both Google and Pingdom are much closer to each other. But we’re also seeing a pretty wide gap between the desktop experience and the mobile experience.

How does that happen?

Emulation

The leading theory, and one that seems to match the data, is that Pingdom likely uses a real world browser simulation to do its speed testing and page evaluation. While Google Page Speed uses an emulated browser in situations where there is no field data or lab data collected in Google Chrome.

That emulation can cause a discrepancy that is important to keep in mind.

The Conclusion: Which One is Better?

The answer… is both! We told you from the top: we use Google Page Speed Insights most of the time, and Pingdom page speed is great for filling in the cracks that can appear.

Of course, there are other options out there in the market for page speed testing. We would be short sighted to not acknowledge tools like GTMetrix, YSlow, Uptrends, and a variety of other proprietary and open source solutions.

As with so many measurements, you’re almost always better off relying on more than one source for your web performance data.

Of course, neither of these free to use tools are a replacement for getting real user insights in real time. But both can be a great place to start if you want some easy pointers on improving page performance and the timings of delivery for your site.

To get more information on the topic of website speed, we have multiple resources for you to check out.

• Are Your Site Pages Up To (Google) Speed?
• Core Web Vitals Update: It’s Coming (Eventually)
• How To Tell If Your Website Load Times Are Hurting Your Business
• How To Crush Your Unminified JavaScript And CSS Issues In Site Audits

Or, if you’d rather just speak to someone about how to make your mobile and desktop pages faster, you’re welcome to contact us today for a free consultation.

Not quite ready to speak to us? No problem, you may want to start out by learning more about our status as a Google Premier Partner and what that means for you.

The post Which Site Speed Tool is Better? Google PageSpeed Insights vs Pingdom (Updated 2022) appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.

Mobile is simply too important to ignore anymore. Just think about how often you use your phone to find information—whether it’s shopping on Amazon, looking for movie times, or just learning new information on Wikipedia.

Now think about your potential customers. They’re doing the same thing, and perhaps looking for a service you provide. Are you going to show up in their searches? If you do show up, is your site mobile-friendly? If not, you’re probably missing out on that user’s business.

People want things to be easy. If your site is not mobile-friendly, they just won’t bother.

How Can I Become More Mobile-Friendly?

A solid first step is using Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test. This will let you know whether Google considers your site mobile-friendly. If it doesn’t, Google will outline how to optimize your site for mobile traffic.

Obviously, these recommendations won’t be the same for everyone. To improve user experience, some companies will only need to make small changes; others will need a complete overhaul.

Here is some of DOM’s most recent mobile-specific content:

• What You Need to Know About Google Discovery Ads
• Are Google and Apple’s Upcoming Updates Going to Destroy the Ad Industry?
• Location Targeting and Best Practices for Paid Search Advertising
• Google Discover SEO Optimization (A Complete Marketing Guide)
• How Local Service Ads Can Help You Connect

The post Grow with Google: Get Found on Mobile! (Updated August 2020) appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.

The Basics

Local Service Ads (LSAs) are designed to help connect local companies with people who search on Google, looking for a specific service.

Examples of some of the industries eligible to run LSAs include locksmiths, HVAC, plumbers and electricians, roofers, water damage restoration, house cleaners, pest control, and window contractors. Google is continuing to expand the eligible industries, so if your company is not yet included, keep checking back.

The ads only show up for customers in your service area. Keywords relevant to the specific service will typically trigger the ads, which appear at the top of the search results. The main ad format displays the company name, city, phone number, hours of operation, and review rating.

How to Make an Ad

Start with creating an account. Tell Google where you’re located, what services you offer, and set a budget. Google will run a background check to ensure all licensing and insurance requirements are met, and you will be Google Guaranteed!

Some benefits of Google Guaranteed:

• If a customer is not satisfied with your work quality and they came to your business through Google, Google may refund the amount paid for the service.
• The Google Guarantee covers claims up to the amount on the job invoice up to the $2,000 lifetime cap for coverage.

Now, customers can see your local listing, and if they choose, schedule an appointment, or contact you directly through the ad. From there, you can choose which jobs to accept and track appointments.

Notable Differences

While there are some similarities to Google Ads and Google My Business, Local Service Ads are completely independently operated. Unlike the Google platform, these ads are on a pay-per-lead instead of a pay-per-click basis, so you only pay if a customer contacts you directly through the ad.

Also note, businesses are not able to designate targeted keywords. Simply pick your job types, and Google takes over, deciding which keywords are relevant for your business.

What’s New?

Users are now able to book appointments directly from clicking on a Local Service Ad, making it easier for the client to book, and the business to accept.

Before this update, users could only call or send a message to the business for service requests or quote information. A new customer could now be just a click away.

Google continues to impress us with their ability to bring the right businesses to the right audience. These trying times make it even more important to support local businesses and Local Service Ads could help make your service-based business easily-identifiable to users in your area.

To get more information on this topic, contact us today for a free consultation or learn more about our status as a Google Premier Partner before you reach out.

The post How Local Service Ads Can Help You Connect appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.

The Google knowledge panel gets clicks and attention – it’s usually the first thing you see when you search for a business, brand, or noteworthy person online.

If you work for a brand that has an unclaimed knowledge panel created by Google, or you represent a public figure with an unclaimed Knowledge Panel, you really have two options:

1. Cross your fingers and hope Google showcases the information you want.
2. Claim it and cut to the chase by telling Google what the web needs to know.

After all, if Google can find you and has collected enough data about you to create a knowledge panel, potential clients and customers are reading it to learn about you, too.

Often before they’ve ever visited your website or social media accounts.

Below, we break down everything you need to know about Google knowledge panels. Whether you are a brand or public figure, you will learn how to claim your panel and optimize it to put your best presentation forward on the web’s go-to destination for discovery.

What Is The Google Knowledge Panel?

You might not know what it’s called, but you’ve definitely used it. When you search for something on Google, you often see a block of text to the right of the regular search results. On mobile, the panel appears part way down the list of results.

If you were searching for information about, say, a little company called Microsoft, you would see a panel of information telling you what Google thinks you’re looking for. Since Microsoft is a large, well-known brand, you’ll see a whole lot of helpful information pulled from a mysterious database called the Knowledge Graph.

There can be only one

If you asked around, through Google or your SEO-minded friends and colleagues, you would have heard that there are two kinds of Google Knowledge Panels, one for local business and one for a brand. While this was the case, it is no longer true. 

There is only one kind of knowledge panel: the brand panel. Google provides a service for local businesses called Google My Business, which displays to searchers as a panel-like block next to the search results. You can do so many different things as a local business that simply does not apply to brands or people that Google has siloed them into two completely different concepts. While they might look the same, they most definitely aren’t. We will feature the Google Business Profile in a future blog post, but until then, read on about this valuable digital asset.

We’re going to focus on the only official knowledge panel type, which focuses on people, places, and things.

Google’s mission is to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” and this is exemplified in the Knowledge Graph, which is where Google keeps all of the information it collects – and it collects a lot.

Only Google knows exactly what’s in the Knowledge Graph, but it’s possible to help it along and get some of that knowledge working for you.

But before we get to that, how do you know if you have one? Easy, just do a Google search for your name or your brand. If you don’t have a knowledge panel, there are steps you can take to get one, but none of them are guaranteed.

How Do I Get A Google Knowledge Panel?

First Things First: Guide To Claiming a Knowledge Panel

This is a vital, time-saving tip for claiming a knowledge panel: verified owner status in Google Search Console through an email address on the domain name associated with the panel.

Assuming you have this level of access with an account that matches the website associated with the brand or person you’re claiming, all you have to do is:

1. Click the “Claim this knowledge panel” button under your knowledge panel
2. When the Google Search Console verification screen loads, click “Confirm”
3. You will then be redirected to the Google search engine results page to suggest edits to your listing.

How do you know you’re a verified owner in Google Search Console?

The process to determine if you are a verified owner of a Google Search Console is pretty straightforward.

1. Login to Google Search Console
2. Click “Settings” on the bottom left of the screen
3. Review the Property Settings. You should see a green checkmark and the statement “You are a verified owner” immediately to the left of the checkmark.

If you currently only have “Delegated Owner” status or lower (“Full” or “Restricted” access), then Google will provide you with a variety of options to elevate your access level to verified. While we prefer the option of verification through Google Analytics or Google Tag Manager because it’s the easiest method, Google may only present you with HTML tag or DNS verification methods. Consult with your webmaster to determine which option is best for your organization for increasing your access level.

As of this writing, verified owners in Google Search Console with an email account on a company domain are the only users able to take this step of claiming a panel.

Are you an agency professional who represents a company or celebrity, media personality, or other public figure? Unless you have an email account on the same website domain as the one Google associates with the panel you are trying to claim, you will need to follow the steps below for verifying your identity.

Once the panel is claimed, you will have the ability to add other delegated owners who do not have a direct affiliation with your company, like agency representation (screenshot below). You can also continue to claim and gain access to knowledge panels for suggesting edits that may be loosely affiliated with your company.

How do I claim a knowledge panel without a Google Search Console account?

Step 1: Make sure you have a Google Account. It’s free and you’ll need one to get the most out of what Google can offer.

Step 2: Click the Get Verified link: https://posts.google.com/claim/?mid=/g/1hcp5gdf2

Step 3: Select either “I represent another person, organization or entity (sports team, musical group, film, etc.) that is not myself” or “I am a person with a knowledge panel”

Step 4: Fill the form out to the best of your knowledge and with the most up-to-date information you have available.

What information will I need to verify myself in Google Knowledge Panel?

Google wants to know that you are you, or that you are a legitimate representative of your organization. This is as important for you as it is for Google – they want to have the most correct information, and you want to be able to have a say in what Google displays about you.

In support of that, you’ll need to prove to Google that you are who you say you are. You will need to provide a name, even if you are claiming the knowledge panel for your business. You will also submit web pages that belong to you or your company. Your company’s homepage is a good start. Google also accepts social media profiles.

The way Google wants you to prove you have access to those social accounts and web page edits is surprisingly low-tech – you log in to those accounts and take screenshots of your successful sign-in. You can attach those screenshots to the verification form. You will also need to provide an official document that reassures Google that you are the right person to claim the knowledge panel. This “business verification” can take the form of any official document that outlines your role in promoting the company, from a document of incorporation with your name on it to an official social media partnership agreement, also with your name on it.

The last item that you’ll need is a photo of you holding some form of photo ID, with any sensitive information covered up or blacked out. Your driver’s license should be fine, but you can also use a passport or other government-issued ID card.

Once this process is complete, it may take a few days for Google to let you know, via your Google Account’s email address, that you have access. Congratulations!

Okay, I have my knowledge panel. What can I do with it?

This is where the real fun begins! You are now free to supply Google – and anybody searching for you or your company – the most accurate data possible. This is your opportunity to contextualize the parts of your business that are most valuable to people searching for you. These are your future or current customers, searching for your company or your name – they already know who you are, now they want to know what you can do for them.

Stuff to Check

Is the name of your business within Google Knowledge Panel correct?

This might seem like a simple one, but it’s important enough to warrant a mention straight at the top. Is the name spelled correctly? Even if you tend to use a common initialism or acronym for your brand, you’ll want to spell it out for this listing.

If this is a person’s knowledge panel, you’ll want to include the correct suffixes. They earned that MD or Ph.D., so why not put it next to their name?

Are those social media profies in your Google Knowledge Panel right?

Google’s Knowledge Graph will pull what it thinks are your brand’s social media profiles, but you can edit that block to make sure the correct ones are being displayed. This is a great opportunity to focus audience attention exactly where you want them to see your most recent social media updates.

Add A Website Button To Google Knowledge Panel

This is possibly the most important element on this page, and the one you absolutely need to make sure is correct – users will click that button to visit your page. That’s what Google’s all about, after all.

If you found this article helpful, you might want to check out one of these helpful posts on getting the most out of Google Search Console for your SEO efforts.

Other Articles About Google Knowledge Panel

• How and Why to Link Google Search Console in Google Ads
• Set Your Course In Google Search Console With International Targeting
• What are Core Web Vitals and What Should I Do About Them?

To get more information on this topic, contact us today for a free consultation or learn more about our status as a Google Premier Partner before you reach out.

The post How To Claim Your Google Knowledge Panel appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.

You may be wondering if and to what extent you will be affected by this rollout. There are a few things website owners can do to determine whether their site is mobile-friendly, understand the extent of potential repercussions, and then prioritize any needed changes. Here’s our breakdown of the different ways to tell if your website will survive the continued roll-out of Google’s mobile-first index.

Steps to Analyze your Site’s Mobile Usability

The entire reason behind Google’s push for this change to search is because Google has been a pioneer in the realm of making the Internet a friendlier place for users on mobile devices. Mobile traffic doesn’t seem to be tapering off anytime soon, so site owners need to prepare for the worst if their site is not designed to satisfy mobile users in addition to traffic from desktops.

Many websites have already been acknowledging their need to be mobile-friendly, but some still have yet to catch up. When it comes to judging whether or not a website will be negatively impacted by the new mobile-first index, the most important place to start is by understanding a site’s relative mobile usability. These steps will go a long in way in helping you analyze your site:

1. Open your website on a mobile device

This may seem obvious, but you’d be surprised how many barriers to customer conversion on mobile sites can be discovered by simply opening your phone and clicking around a bit.

2. Analyze mobile vs. desktop traffic

First things first — if you don’t have Google Analytics or another website analytics solution integrated with your site, you need to get that done ASAP. If you’re worried about what that involves or don’t feel equipped to do it yourself, let us know and we’d be pleased to talk with you to help figure out your options.  

If you already have traffic data at your disposal, then you’ll want to take note of what traffic to your website looks like. Desktop traffic from search that is significantly higher than mobile traffic from search can sometimes be a signal for issues with the mobile version of your site. Note: Latent independent variables can have strong effects in some verticals, so this does not always hold true. For example, you could see desktop conversions and acquisition metrics to be skewed toward mobile on B2C ecommerce sites where average order value is over $150.

You can dive slightly deeper by viewing organic search acquisition by device by following this path:

•        Analytics > Mobile > Overview  
•        Select Medium from the secondary dimension dropdown.

3. Test for responsive design

Test whether your website has a responsive design by opening your site in Google Chrome and pressing Control+Shift+J (Command+Option+J for Mac users) to bring up the Chrome Developer Tools console panel. Then click CTRL+SHIFT+M to toggle the device toolbar. You will see a toolbar appear at the top of your chrome window that looks like this:

This toolbar allows you to see your website as it would appear on various devices. You can also select responsive from the dropdown and enter a custom width and height.

4. Check mobile usability in Google Search Console

Open Google Search Console and go to the mobile usability section. Here you will see mobile usability errors that have been detected by Googlebot. What Google tells Search Console users:

“Websites with mobile usability issues may not rank as well in mobile search results.”

This is a very useful tool for testing whether a page on your website is mobile-friendly according to Google’s own metrics. You may also find it helpful to view Google’s developer documentation/guidelines for mobile site creation.

Barriers to Enhanced Mobile Usability

The following is a list of the most frequent errors that we find during the initial screening process for our new clients.

Rendering flash

This technology is rarely supported/leveraged by mobile browsers and should generally be avoided if possible. From an SEO perspective, this is an antiquated technology.

Small font size

We often see small font sizes in cases where sites have taken the time to define a default viewport width but have not implemented dynamic content scaling based on device size. Defining a viewport allows your website to define the outer limits of your page design. Without conveying this information through the meta viewport tag you are risking having content that displays off-screen.

Element padding

Some people have small phones and fat fingers! Keep these people in mind when designing your website and be sure to include adequate spacing between touch elements.

Fixed width viewport

One of the most important concepts for making a site mobile-friendly is responsive design. Users are going to access your website via a number of devices that will have varying screen sizes. When a site has correctly implemented responsive design, content will be dynamically scaled using a viewport width scale where necessary.

Off-screen content

It’s no secret that the dimensions of mobile device screens are smaller than desktop monitors. If your code does not account for this variation in screen pixel variability by using dynamic sizing, users may not be able to view some content because it is located outside of their viewport.

Subdomain configuration

While Google has declared it has no preference for mobile subdomains versus primary domains in the rankings, we have seen a large number of sites penalized for incorrectly implementing this method of mobile optimization. We recommend staying away from mobile subdomains where possible. In cases where there is no getting around a mobile subdomain for the mobile version of your site, it’s important to remember to:

1. Use the <link> tag with rel=”canonical” or rel=”alternate”
2. Detect user agent strings and redirect them correctly

Moving Forward with Mobile Users in Mind

Most Google searches are now being done through mobile devices and the future is looking like traffic from mobile devices will only continue to increase. According to internal statistics released on Google’s developer guide for mobile sites, 94% of smartphone users use their phones to search for local business information and 77% of all mobile searches are conducted during the workday.

The mobile version of your website continues to play an ever increasingly important role in your business growth. Following the steps outlined above should give you a good idea of the barriers that your users are encountering over mobile and the technical issues that Google sees when crawling your site.

Implementing fixes which can either help analyze or improve your site’s mobile usability may or may not be a challenge to you depending on your resources and technical knowledge. If you think you have the in-house technical capability to implement Google’s recommended changes, you should refer to the official mobile friendly best practices document and mobile SEO configuration guidelines. To ensure that these changes are necessary and will provide an ROI to your company, we suggest contacting a trusted digital marketing expert like DOM.

To get more information on this topic, contact us today for a free consultation or learn more about our status as a Google Premier Partner before you reach out.

The post Here is How to Tell if Google’s New Mobile-First Index Will Crush You appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.

Hello, you digital darlings, and welcome to the next installment of Ask Andy!

This week we’re going mobile with Florida Virtual School, a fully accredited, online school that is designed for personalized learning.

So, buckle up, and get ready for a wild ride into the mobile world of digital marketing.

Hi, Andy,

I was speaking with some of my staff the other day about some of the things we can do to optimize our website so that we show up higher in search results. Is it important to have a mobile version of our website? People can still access our website from their phone, but how important is it that it’s a mobile version? What would be your number one tip on how to optimize for mobile?

 Kris Johnson

Hi, Kris!

I’m glad you asked about this, especially considering the huge impact mobile is having on marketing strategies.

I’ll go ahead and address your first statement before we get into the nitty-gritty details of mobile optimization for your site.

If your site is not optimized for mobile, it will only negatively affect your rankings on mobile search. Desktop and tablet search will not receive any SEO backlash from a site that isn’t optimized for mobile.

Now, having said that, anyone who is not currently optimizing their site for mobile search needs to hop on the bandwagon immediately. Why? According to a study conducted recently by Smart Insights, 80% of internet users own a smartphone. And thanks to that huge number of smartphone users, mobile media time in the US has exceeded desktop, at 51% vs. 42%.

Now that I have gotten those staggering statistics off my chest, let’s jump into your questions.

Mobile Version vs. Responsive Design

While making sure your website is accessible via mobile, it is not necessary to have a mobile version of the site. Quite frankly, managing two separate sites is pretty labor intensive and a gigantic pain in the behind. Aside from the separate-site-management-pain, there are several additional disadvantages:

• • A mobile site can dilute organic traffic to your site. According to my pal Google, “maintaining a single shared site preserves a canonical URL, avoiding any complicated redirects, and simplifies the sharing of web addresses.”

• • Link equity will suffer, affecting rankings for the mobile site. See the link above, where ‘Google’ is in blue? Those are your friends. When one site links to your site, it’s basically claiming “Hey! I trust this guy! They have great stuff on their site, you should check them out!” And search engines totally dig trust. Since a mobile site will have a different domain name (ex: flvs.net instead of flvs.net) your link equity will be weakened.

• • It’s taking on more work than absolutely necessary. Updating two websites, making sure they are reflective of each other, and the content and user experience is cohesive across platforms is exhausting.

I checked out your site on both desktop and mobile, and you guys have done a really wonderful job of implementing responsive design. I also ran your site through Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test, which you passed with flying colors.

In summation: a mobile version of your site is not necessary. Having a separate mobile site will not help you rank higher on mobile search. Responsive design may be a bit more expensive, but renders the same experience, keeps your domain game strong, and cuts down on website management time.

The Elusive Number 1 Tip for Mobile Optimization

Number 1 tips are elusive in the same way unicorns are: they don’t exist… or they are INSANELY good at hiding. For the sake of my next statement, let’s go ahead and assume number 1 tips and unicorns are elusive due to non-existence, not superior stealth skills.

The reason I say this is because there is no one magic way to optimize; if it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a ton of variables to be successful on mobile. However, I am happy to share what I think the top factors are for mobile optimization, in general.

1. 1. 1. A Good Host Goes a Long Way: Make sure you have a quality hosting provider. A slow-loading mobile website is judged most harshly by users and Google alike; in fact, 51% of online shoppers say a slow load is the reason the conversion doesn’t happen.
      2. Not All Devices Are Created Equal: Have a lead generation form on your site? If so, make sure that you take into consideration that users on desktop are more likely to fill out a long form than users on mobile. Customizing the forms can increase mobile prospects. HubSpot successfully did this, you can read about it here.
      3. Make Sure Your Content Is Optimized for Mobile Queries: Mobile users will search for things on the fly, as they see them (because, why not?). We’ve all Googled something completely random based on what’s happening in the world around us. Optimize your content to capture these ‘micro-moments’. Easiest way to do so? Make sure your content on your site provides an answer to a problem that one of your buyer personas would have. 91% of people look up information on their smartphones while in the middle of a task. Why? Because they need help. Phrase your content to be helpful (this can also increase your chances of appearing in a Google Knowledge Box).

Follow up thought… if you want to read more about micro moments, we’ve got you covered with either of these three posts!

• What Are Micro-Moments To Google (And How Should B2Bs Leverage Them?)
• Cashing In On Micro-Moments
• Cashing in on Micro-Moments Part 2: Google Shopping Becomes Mobile Friendly

It May Be The End, But That Doesn’t Mean It’s Over…

Kris, I hope that these suggestions provided some insight and inspiration. If they didn’t, please let me know and I am happy to elaborate further (talking shop is one of my favorite things).

That’s all for today kids. If you have a digital marketing itch that you can’t quite scratch, shoot me an email at AskAndy@directom.com, and I’ll see you again next week!

The post Ask Andy: Mobile Marketing in a Digital World appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.

Halloween is the time of year to celebrate things that go bump in the night. So, I’m going to share some of the pay-per-click (PPC) things that make digital marketers sleep with the light on.

I See Dead Keywords

You’ve spent hours and hours setting up the perfect campaigns to drive traffic to your website. You’ve experienced the thrill of hitting Launch and then watching your hard work pay off. Yes!

Fast forward to the present. Have you checked your account today? Last week? Last month? If you are guilty of setting and forgetting, there are keywords in your account not generating traffic. Or worse, there are active keywords generating click costs, but not conversions.

Banish these budget-sucking keywords by keeping an eye on the terms that are converting at a price that gives you a positive return on your ad spend. Don’t be afraid to kill the keywords that aren’t converting or keywords with low-quality scores. Seriously, put a wooden stake in them and walk away.

Walking DeAD Copy

“Character limits are restrictive” is an ad writing excuse similar to “the dog ate my homework.” (Cue our best teacher eye-roll.)

I did a search for “Halloween decorations” and 7 of the 9 ads had “Halloween Decorations” as a headline. Nothing stood out. Nothing drew my attention.

This kind of unimaginative ad writing often results from relying too much on keyword insertion. It usually only takes a few extra minutes to craft a catchy headline, or at least include a call-to-action. Try, “Buy Halloween Decorations.”

Don’t be a scaredy cat. Make sure your ads are striking, include a call-to-action, and highlight any sales or specials that might entice a user to visit your site.

Landing Page Ding-Dong-Ditch

Where you send the traffic from your pay-per-click ads is extremely important. You click on an ad because it offers a product or service of interest to you. However, it then lands you in the Twilight Zone of a brand’s home page. No specific call-to-action. No direct link to the advertised product or service.

Yikes!

Don’t let your interested leads wander around your website like zombies in an endless search for brainssss. Create landing pages tailored to your keywords and offer a clear path to conversion.

If you have ads that send searchers to a completely unrelated page on your website, you will suddenly become the house that hands out toothbrushes for Halloween. People will go out of their way to avoid you next year.

Dawn of the Mobile Searcher

As we mentioned earlier: in 2014, mobile search grew by 47%.
Mobile is growing at an exponential rate and not optimizing your campaigns to reach these users is like taking the last pumpkin Reese cup from the candy bowl and never eating it.

Just.
Not.
Cool.

There are several ways to make sure your ads are visible on mobile devices. We’ve gone into detail about them before, but here’s the quick checklist.

1. Ads formatted for mobile users. When creating a new ad, check the box for mobile device preference to get a preview of your ad on mobile devices.
2. Mobile bid adjustments. The top ad position on mobile gets 75% of the clicks, so go to your campaign settings and the devices tab to check your average position for mobile devices. Then use bid adjustments to increase or decrease your bids as needed.
3. Call extensions allow you to include your phone number in ads and allow users to call with one click. Plus, Google released call-only ads this year to help make calling businesses even easier for mobile users.

Long story short—don’t ignore mobile traffic. You could be killing your campaign slowly.

Search Partners: Trick or Treat?

If you’re running search campaigns with all features enabled, you’re automatically running on the search partners network. This includes non-Google search sites like AOL, Google Maps, and YouTube. Friendly reminder, this is only for search text ads and not display banner ads.

While this provides extra exposure for your campaign, it could also be increasing your cost-per-click and conversion cost.

Jump to your campaign, ad group, or keyword tab and add the Network (with search partners) segmentation. Now you’ll be able to see a breakout of costs for Google Search Network vs. search partners.

So, there you have it. The top 5 campaign nightmares for PPC marketers.

Bats All Folks!

The post Online Marketing Tales from the Crypt: PPC Horror Stories appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.

Sorry to say it, but those businesses are wrong. If you are not preparing for the holiday shopping blitz now, you are falling behind.

I Don’t Even Know Where to Begin!

Don’t worry about not knowing where to begin when it comes to preparing for the holiday shopping season. That’s what this guide is here for!

There are ways to avoid this kid’s terrible (but hilarious) fate. The first is to know your target audience. For example, did you know that more than 70% of Bing’s audience is over 34 years old and a third of their audience makes over $100,000 a year?

In other words, if you are targeting a younger audience, Bing may not be a priority. Knowing your audience is such an important part of having online success and it is mind-blowing how many companies miss out on this.

The second step is figuring out where your product or service is going to have the most success. Are you an e-commerce website using Google Shopping Campaigns? Are you a b2b business? Don’t feel left out, the holidays can work in your favor, too!

Like I said above, don’t worry if you don’t know where to begin. The following 8 tips are the perfect starting point to making sure you have a successful holiday season!

Shopping

If you have an e-commerce site, there is no reason to not run Google Shopping ads. Shopping should be your bread and butter this holiday season.

One of the things I like the most about Shopping is that the ads are a combination of Search and visual ads. The user sees a picture of the item and also relevant information pulled from your feed by Google.

This brings me to the most important thing you can do when running a Google Shopping campaign: Optimize your feed! Without feed optimization, Google will not be able to show your product for the right searches. Along with that, if your feed is optimized, Google will be able to automatically pull information such as free shipping and place it in your Product Ads.

I recently wrote about the mobile-friendly changes to Google Shopping, be sure to check out my blog post for more details.

During the holiday shopping season, it is more important than ever to keep your feed as updated as possible. What do you think happens if someone clicks on an ad for a product, only to find out that you are sold out? They go somewhere else. Don’t miss out on sales because of poor feed management.

Along with feed optimization, it is important to make sure that your Shopping campaigns are completely optimized.

One trend that we have recently noticed is that bidding lower than what you think would work can actually give your campaigns a huge boost.

For example, we have drastically cut bids in one of our client’s Shopping campaigns over the last two months and we have seen the number of conversions double between August and October, with October looking like it will be the highest amount of conversions from Shopping the account has ever recorded.

Like I mentioned before, Shopping should be your bread and butter this holiday season. Make sure both the feed and campaigns are optimized to their fullest potential and you will have a great start to holiday shopping success.

Retargeting

Ever feel like some ads are following you around like some kind of creepy stalker? More than likely, you’ve been to that company’s site and they are targeting you based on the pages you went to, how long you were on the site, or even if you placed something in your cart and then did not check out.

When done right, retargeting is far from creepy. It can actually take your accounts to the next level when it comes to low-cost conversions. This is the nice thing about retargeting: based on how your audiences are built, you can segment customers by intent.

If you have an audience for an informational page such as About Us, you know that there is some interest, but the customer is probably not ready to buy yet. You can tailor ads specifically for that audience with messaging to entice them to come back and learn more.

Along with that, if you have an audience for cart abandoners, you know there was intent to buy there but something changed that. If you create ads that give the customer a reason to come back, you can create conversions from missed opportunities. Below are the two types of retargeting that you should be using this holiday season:

RLSA (Retargeting Lists for Search Ads)

This is retargeting through the Search network instead of the traditional method over the Display network (we’ll get into this below.) What’s great about RLSA is the ability to target people who have already been to your site and then deliver a different message to them, which sounds tailor-made for the holiday season, right?

People clicking on Search ads show much more intent than those that click on Display ads. If you can find a way to change the messaging in your ads for those that have already been to your site, do you think they would be more likely to convert? I do.

People love to feel like something is being personalized for them. If they put something in their cart, you have a chance to tell them why they should come back and finish their order. Don’t miss out on being able to draw them back in.

Site Retargeting

This should be your go-to on the Display Network. I’ve yet to find a good reason why a company should not be running retargeting ads. This is the easiest way to reach people who have already been to your site.

You will not find the same level of intent using Display ads as you would using RLSAs, but since they have already been to your site, they are already familiar with what you offer, making them more likely to click and convert.

Like RLSAs, tailoring the message of the ad to their level of intent is a great way to bring customers back to your site. Each step in your purchasing funnel can have a different type of message, all with the purpose of bringing the customer back to the site to convert.

Like I said earlier, some users find ads following them around to be a bit creepy. This is why it is important to put a cap on the amount of impressions a retargeting ad can make to a user in one day. We all know that people become blind to ads they have seen over and over again, so it is important to make sure you are not hammering potential customers with ads.

Like Shopping, retargeting is too important to ignore this holiday season. Reaching new customers is great and should always be an area of emphasis, but what about those that have been to your site and already have an idea about what you offer? Don’t miss out on those customers.

Bing

Think Google is your only option when it comes to search engine advertising? Think again. Bing can be a great secondary platform to use to reach your target audience. Why would you want to pass up 20% of the search market?

Bing does not have the reach Google has, but it has an audience that has spending power. Bing is great for reaching those that are not as tech-savvy (*cough* parents and grandparents *cough*) because they are less likely to use a browser other than Internet Explorer.

With Bing, you are more likely to pay less per click and have a higher click-through rate. For one of my clients in a more expensive industry, their average cost per click in AdWords is around $10 with a click-through rate of around 2%. In Bing, the average CPC is around $3 with a CTR of around 7%. That’s a huge difference! Yes, there is less traffic in Bing, but to semi-quote the modern day quasi-philosopher Rasheed Wallace “Stats Don’t Lie.”

Bing has a very exciting new option for this holiday season. You can finally use retargeting in Bing!

To use this feature, you must place Bing’s new Universal Event Tracking code on your site and build audiences in Bing’s Shared Library, much like Google. Bing’s ads even work like Google’s RLSAs. This is a great opportunity to reach customers that have visited your site but do not use Google.

Mobile Optimization

I’ve written about mobile before and I am still a Guru according to Google, so I won’t babble on in this section.

The most important thing I hope to have you walk away with from this section is to make sure mobile customers can use your site! Why make mobile specific ads if the experience on your site for a mobile user is terrible?

Even if your site is not mobile-friendly, there are ways around this. Using a landing page creation service, which we will cover below, is a great way to make sure that your user experience for mobile visitors is a good one.

If your site is mobile-friendly, make sure users know that ordering on mobile is simple and efficient. Since you can create mobile-specific ads, call that out!

The last thing to keep in mind is your ad’s position on mobile. According to Google, the top position on mobile gets 75% of clicks. While Google has been experimenting with three mobile ads, there are usually only two. If you are not in one of those positions, your ad is not going to get clicked on.

Mobile usage has been exploding over the last few years and will continue to trend in the upward direction. Make sure you are doing all you can to create a simple and efficient mobile experience for your customers.

Social Ads

Did you know people spend almost two hours a day on social media? That number represents about 28 percent of all online activity. Your customers are using social media, so why aren’t you advertising there?

Almost all of the major social networks offer some sort of advertising. Facebook’s advertising features continue to become more robust, with new features for ecommerce and mobile advertisers being released almost weekly it seems.

Just in time for the holidays, Pinterest has rolled out Buyable Pins for stores using specific ecommerce platforms. If your store uses Bigcommerce, Demandware, IBM Commerce, Magento, or Shopify, you are eligible to use Buyable Pins.

This is looked at as a game-changer for social advertising because of how easy it is for customers to buy from Pinterest pins. Instead of having to go to another site to find what they were looking at on Pinterest, customers can now buy straight from the Pinterest app. This eliminates several steps for customers, making them more likely to convert because of how simple the process is.

The biggest challenge of social advertising is knowing your audience and where they are. Obviously, the same people will be spread across many of the platforms, but there are instances where messaging should be much different.

Your messaging between Facebook and Twitter may be similar, but it should not be the same as LinkedIn. Know your audience and where they are spending most of their time.

There are so many people on social media that not using the platforms’ advertising features, especially during the holiday season, is a major mistake. You can reach new and returning customers within the apps and websites where they are spending the most time. Don’t overlook the importance of social when creating your holiday advertising strategies!

Landing Pages

You can write the most compelling ad of all time, but if your landing page experience is bad, you have almost no chance of having a high amount of conversions. It is hard enough to get customers to your site, don’t make things more difficult by having a poor landing page.

Your landing page should be specific to the product or service you are advertising for. The more tailored the landing page is, the better.

The great thing about the holiday season is that you can have some fun with landing pages. Spruce them up with some holiday theming. Also, this is the perfect time to entice users with a sale or some sort of offer that you would not use year-round.

This isn’t possible for all websites for many reasons. Maybe you don’t have the coding skills required or maybe you don’t have the most cooperative developer. Don’t worry, there are ways around this.

The easiest thing to do is use a landing page creation service such as our favorite, Unbounce. These services make creating landing pages simple for any user, regardless of technical skill. Even though these pages are being created off of your site, you can make it look like they are a part of your site.

When creating a landing page, whether on your own or through a service, the most important thing you can do is make sure that the conversion process is easy. If you are using a simple form, the less information you ask for, the better. The entire point is to get the customer into your funnel. Once they’re in, then you can ask for more information. Making the form short and to the point makes converting easy, which makes it more likely to happen.

One final suggestion for landing pages is to always, always, always test new ideas on the landing page, even if it is as simple as the color of a button. I built two exact landing pages in Unbounce for a client with the only difference being one page had a green button and one page had an orange button and split the traffic being sent to the pages 50/50 and the page with the orange button converted almost three times more than the page with the green button.

Even the smallest detail can make all the difference in a landing page. Always test and don’t be afraid to get a little outside the box with your ideas!

Ads

Now, you may be thinking, “I’ve read so much great information here, but what about ads?”

Well, this section is for you. Since I’ve covered a lot of different options for ad types, I’m going to focus on the different types of Search ads that Google offers and why you should be using them to reach your customers.

Dynamic Search Ads

If you have thousands of products on your site, Dynamic Search Ads may be for you. DSAs can act as a catch-all for products that people are searching for, without actually having to build a campaign focusing on each product you offer.

Instead of using keyword targeting, DSAs use the information within certain pages of your site to decide what is relevant to users and then shows ads with a dynamically generated headline to those users.

There is an issue with DSAs being triggered by search queries that have nothing to do with anything you offer, so negative keywords have to be used and updated almost daily for these ads to be successful. With that negative comes a positive though, as the broader search terms that are converting can be used in new campaigns to control costs by bidding.

Ad Customizers

Having a sale? You can add a countdown to your ads to give customers a sense of urgency. Want to let customers know in which of your stores they can find certain products? Yeah, you can do that too.

AdWords offers many customization options to advertisers that let them tailor ads to give customers a sense of urgency or give them information that they may need.

Instead of having separate ads that you have to pause and activate for each day of a sale, ad customizers allow you to create an ad with a countdown that is dynamically updated each time a search query triggers it.

Call-Only Ads

Are calls more important to your business than anything else? If so, these ads could be the best thing that has ever happened to you.

Instead of showing a regular text ad on mobile, the headline of these ads is replaced by your phone number and instead of taking the customer to a landing page, they call your business straight from the ad. These shouldn’t be confused with Call Extensions, which will be covered below.

Ad Extensions

While these aren’t exactly ads, they are important parts of ads that should be included almost all of the time.

The first type is Location Extensions. These allow customers to see where you are located and are very important for mobile users. If you have a physical store, these should be turned on for all ads.

The next type of ad extension is Call Extensions. These show your phone number in ads. On mobile, it is possible to call straight from an ad, much like a call only ad. The only difference is the number is showing up with a full text ad when Call Extensions are turned on.

There are other Ad Extensions, but for the holiday season, those two are the most important. They allows customers to be able to find you and also contact you easily. In the right situation, both should be active at all times.

There are many more options for ads, but those will be the most important this holiday season. The great thing about all of the options is that you can mix and match the different types in different campaigns to find exactly what works for you!

Display

The Display network can be great just because of its massive reach – over 2 million sites according to Google—but at the same time, it can do more harm than good unless you know how to control where your ads are showing up.

The one thing to always remember is that if you are using the Display Network for basic banner ads, you are more than likely not going to see many conversions. The basic ads that the Display Network can run are great for awareness and we see great results conversion-wise when combined with other tactics both on the Search and Display networks.

If you’re looking to create awareness for your product or service, this can be your bread and butter. Regular Display ads are great for creating awareness, but more than likely will not convert as much as a search or retargeting ad. Display ads can spend a lot of money in a short amount of time, so it is important to keep a close eye on your budget and bid lower than you would in a search campaign.

Gmail Sponsored Promotions

This is a new type of ad that was in beta but is now available to all advertisers through AdWords. Google released this ad type just in time for the holidays, allowing you to target people based on keywords in their email. Google says that they are not reading your email, which is probably the best joke I’ve ever heard from them. There are multiple targeting methods and ad types available to allow you to reach your target audience. With this being so new, there will not be as much competition so click costs could be lower. Jump on the bandwagon now before competition and prices go up!

If you are interested in learning more about Gmail Sponsored Promotions, be sure to check out this blog post from Shannon covering everything you need to know about the new ad type!

And there you have it! Everything you will need for a successful holiday season. I know, there is a lot of information in this blog post. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments or don’t hesitate to reach out to me on Twitter @LelandReed! Thanks for reading!

To get more information on this topic, contact us today for a free consultation or learn more about our status as a Google Premier Partner before you reach out.

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