When markets are new they are unproven, thus they often have limited investment targeting them.
That in turn means it can be easy to win in new markets just by virtue of existing.
It wouldn't be hard to rank well creating a blog today about the evolution of the 3D printing industry, or a how to site focused on Arduino or Raspberry Pi devices.
Couple a bit of passion with significant effort & limited competition and winning is quite easy.
Likewise in a small niche geographic market one can easily win with a generic, because the location acts as a market filter which limits competition.
But as markets age and become more proven, capital rushes in, which pushes out most of the generic unbranded players.
Back in 2011 I wrote about how Google had effectively killed the concept of category killer domains through the combination of ad displacement, vertical search & the algorithmic ranking shift moving away from relevancy toward awareness. 2 months before I wrote that post Walgreen Co. acquired Drugstore.com for about $429 million. At the time Drugstore.com was one of the top 10 biggest ecommerce pure plays.
The company is still trying to fine tune its e-commerce strategy but clearly wants to focus more of its resources on one main site. “They want to make sure they can invest more of the equity in Walgreens.com,” said Brian Owens, a director at the consultancy Kantar Retail. “Drugstore.com and Beauty.com are distractions.”
Big brands can sometimes get coverage of "meh" content by virtue of being associated with a big brand, but when they buy out pure-play secondary e-commerce sites those often fail to gain traction and get shuttered:
Other retailers have picked up pure-play e-commerce sites, only to shut them down shortly thereafter. Target Corp. last year shuttered ChefsCatalog.com and Cooking.com, less than three years after buying them.
The lack of publishing savvy among most large retailers mean there will be a water cycle of opportunity which keeps re-appearing, however as the web gets more saturated many of these opportunities are going to become increasingly niche options riding new market trends.
If you invest in zero-sum markets there needs to be some point of differentiation to drive switching. There might be opportunity for a cooking.com or a drugstore.com targeting emerging and frontier markets where brands are under-represented online (much like launching Drugstore.com in the US back in 1999), but it is unlikely pure-play ecommerce sites will be able to win in established markets if they use generically descriptive domains which make building brand awareness and perceived differentiation next to impossible.
Target not only shut down cooking.com, but they didn't even bother redirecting the domain name to an associated part of their website.
It is now listed for sale.
Many short & generic domain names are guaranteed to remain in a purgatory status.
The price point is typically far too high for a passionate hobbyist to buy them & attempt to turn them into something differentiated.
The names are too generic for a bigger company to do much with them as a secondary option
the search relevancy & social discovery algorithms are moving away from generic toward brand
retailers have to save their best ideas for their main branded site
the rise of cross-device tracking + ad retargeting further incentivize them to focus exclusively on a single bigger site)
There’s no shortage of top-notch online content aimed at optimizing your landing pages. Ultimate Guides, Best Practices, and Perfect Anatomies abound.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of that amazing content ignores what happens immediately after your visitor converts. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is where landing pages go to die.
In other words, unless you have a plan for what happens after someone signs up or says “Yes,” all the conversion momentum you bled to create — not to mention the ripest opportunity you have to engage — might be for nothing.
This means crafting an authentic, engaging autoresponder — whether that’s a confirmation email, download link, or even just a friendly “Thanks for signing up” — in a way that bonds you to your prospects right from the jump.
To do that, let’s take a look at four proven tactics guaranteed to keep your landing page alive — after a lead opts in.
1. Give ‘Em What They Asked For
Here’s the brutal truth: people don’t sign up to your list because they like you nor because they want to hear more about you and your company’s awesome products.
No, they sign up because they want something you’re offering… to them, for them, to benefit them. That offer can run the gamut from an ebook to an industry report to a free coaching session to a simple e-commerce discount.
Whatever your offer is, the worst thing you can do after someone signs up is get in the way of letting them have it.
That sounds obvious, but even enterprise-level organizations can make an absolute train wreck of the confirmation process.
Take, for example, investment platform Seeking Alpha.
I tore through the first two pages of the transcript. But when I tried to move ahead to page three this pop-up appeared:
Naturally, I’d already invested myself in the first two pages of the article, so I filled out the form and hit “Register.”
And that’s when the nightmare began.
First, Seeking Alpha served up this pretty standard “Thank You” page:
Thinking that I’d already created an account by giving them my email and a password, I clicked “log in,” was redirect to the “Member sign in page” and filled out the fields.
To my surprise — despite using the same email and password I just entered — this error message appeared:
A bit discouraged but still hungry for page three; I jumped over to my inbox where this confirmation email waiting for me:
“Good,” I thought, “Just need to confirm my registration and then, page three here I come.”
Instead, when I clicked “Confirm Your Registration,” I was sent to an additional three-step form:
After being forced to answer a series of segmentation questions, opt-in to an additional list and supply four or more stocks to continue, I was sure clicking “Save & Continue” would finally send me to page three.
But once again, nope.
In lieu of page three, a previously-unannounced fourth step appeared that now required me to enter my phone number to “Get the App,” something I had shown zero interest in during my previous responses. I wasn’t even on a mobile device at the time:
But oh! How I wanted page three. So I plugged in my phone number, clicked “Text me a link” earnestly hoping that finally I’d be given what I’d asked for.
Tragically — and you probably saw this coming — what I got next was…nothing.
No redirect, no thank you page, no article, no link, no page three. Nothing. Just a dead end screen with nowhere to go next. To ultimately reach page three, I had to go back to the login page and walk through the entire search process.
All told, it took ten separate screens to go from page two to page three of the piece I’d originally asked for.
What’s the moral of the story?
People value one thing above all others: time. What’s more, people respect people who respect their time. When someone signs up for your email list, all they want is to get what they asked for.
You can do this in one of two ways.
Include a Direct Link to Your Initial Autoresponder
For instance, whenever someone signs up for my Ultimate Content Creating Checklist, I use GetResponse’ autoresponder workflow to send them a simple, stripped-down email with just one link to the resource itself:
If a new lead doesn’t click that link within 24 hours, they get an even more stripped down email with a friendly reminder:
Create a Redirect or Popup After Your Form Page
That’s how Unbounce and Onboardly’s new ebook The Growth Marketer’s Guide to Landing Page Optimization does it. Immediately after completing the form comes this popup:
Boom — just like that, I’m in.
Bottom line?
Do not waste your prospects’ valuable time with useless emails, additional questions, or by making them jump through hoops.
Just give ‘em what they asked for.
2. Start a Conversation
Just like the first tactic, our second tactic should be obvious.
Sadly, it isn’t.
Often confirmation emails and autoresponders are brutally humdrum. If someone takes the time to customize their autoresponder at all, the conversations are blatantly one-sided. Why? Because we’ve forgotten that behind every computer screen is a real, live human being.
As a result, you and I can differentiate a personal email from an autoresponder a thousand miles away.
That, however, shouldn’t be the case. Done right, you can not only make someone feel like they’re talking to another person… you can even get them to respond.
Think that’s impossible? It’s not.
In fact, that’s exactly what happened to Oli Gardner when he signed up for Sujan Patel’s ebook.
Two days ago I downloaded an ebook by Sujan Patel. … And that’s when the trickery began, because I got an email, an automated email that was so well crafted that I thought it was real.
He made it sound like he recognized me.
So I responded.
And then I was like, ‘Mother [expletive]!’ I looked at it again and realized, ‘He didn’t write this to me. He put it as an autoresponder.’
Sujan’s autoresponder is the living proof that you can start a conversation from the jump:
On top of that, starting these real human conversations drives bottom-line results. In my own massive Landing Page Optimization Guide, I asked Sujan about how well his conversational approach works:
First, of the people who subscribe to the blog, 6.6% click on a link to one of my two software products — Narrow.io or ContentMarketer.io — or on one of my two books. And 39% of those clicks eventually convert into either a product trial or a book purchase.
Second, of those who preview my ebook, 12% purchase the full book and an additional 3% start a trial of either Narrow.io or ContentMarketer.io.
Third, of the people who buy my ebook, 1.9% end up buying the other book and another 15% start a trial of Narrow.io or ContentMarketer.io.
Bear in mind; those big numbers are all generated by simple and conversational emails like the one above.
To start your own real human conversations, keep these two principles in mind.
Write the Way You Talk
Don’t make the mistake of trying to impress your new contact by using jargon-heavy language, formal introductions, or corporate mumbo-jumbo.
Simply read your emails out loud to yourself and if they don’t sound like one human talking to another, go back to the drawing board until they do.
Most notably, use short words, short sentences, short paragraphs and (of course) short emails.
Deep personalization — especially for e-commerce — includes a host of advanced segmentation features, customer and lead tagging, product-offer coordination, upselling, cart-abandonment emails and even off-site strategies like retargeting. All that can easily make your head spin.
For your first email, don’t over think it.
While it’s not technically a confirmation email, Inbound.org nails truly human personalization. By keeping the format plain, adding an *FName* field, and by only sending emails on topics their users have already shown interest in, I’m constantly tempted to write back to Ed directly:
3. Ask a Question
Do not underestimate the power of a good question.
Why?
Because the human brain is hardwired to automatically engage with a question.
Neurologically speaking, this is called “The Zeigarnik Effect,” named for the Russian psychologist who discovered it.
The power of a good question lies in its ability to entice, seduce, and above all demand a response. That’s why some of the most successful advertisements in history start with a question.
John Caples’ uber-classic Tested Advertising Methods lists “Have your headline ask a question” as one of the proven methods for writing “headlines and direct mail teasers.”
Of course, the theory and that example are more than a generation old. So do questions still work?
Absolutely.
Late last year, Retention Science reported that “punctuation [in an email subject line] impacts email open rates” significantly:
The presence of any type of punctuation mark increased open rates by 9 percent.
And can you guess the most conversion-generating piece of punctuation?
Question marks:
Question marks are particularly effective at engaging recipients. In fact, the study found subject lines with question marks have open rates 44 percent greater than those with exclamation points.
The application of this principle to your autoresponder should be clear: add a question.
Of course, you can easily scatter questions — rhetorical or otherwise — within your emails. For instance, Neil Patel of Quick Sprout asks two questions and encourages you to reply:
However, a better application of this tactic is to build your very first email around a single, driving question that matters to your audience…not you.
This is precisely what Ann Handley does. Sign up for Ann’s list and here’s the very first email you’ll receive:
At the risk of getting a bit meta, I replied to that question email with a question of my own:
And do you know what Ann did?
She actually wrote back:
When I first launched AnnHandley.com’s email subscription option, I used to thank new signups, as I do now. But the question was different: I used to ask them to share with me the most innovative or interesting bit of content they’d seen lately. I was looking for something that engaged them… or that they found surprising. Because, I explained, I was always looking for stellar content examples.
About 10% of those who subscribed actually responded with a content example.
Over time I realized that the response rate was pitifully low, especially given my approachable vibe and voice.
It dawned on me that maybe that was because my note was essentially about ME — tell me what you like, because I am always looking for good example. It was not about the subscriber. It was not about what I could do for them.
So I rewrote the Welcome email to be about the subscriber and not about me.
I asked very basic questions: What are you doing here? What do you hope to learn?
Now, roughly 60% of those who subscribe actually write me back. And when they do respond… I always try to respond BACK. (I may have missed a few here or there…but I try not to.) I don’t write a book — but I do acknowledge their response. People always appreciate that I’m actually monitoring responses. I get a lot of ‘wow I can’t believe you wrote back….’
It’s funny how a little time and care goes a long way.
Yep, it sure is. And it all starts with a question.
4. Provide Unexpected Value
Admit it. You love surprises. After all, who doesn’t?
Surprise parties, unexpected gifts, out-of-the-blue good news. We all love that feeling of getting extra value in our lives, especially when we don’t see it coming.
The great Tony Robbins enshrined this bed-rock principle in his recent book MONEY: Master the Game:
Money is nothing more than a reflection of your creativity, your capacity to focus and your ability to add value and receive back.
If you can find a way to create value — that is, add value for a massive number of people — you will have an opportunity to have a massive amount of economic abundance in your life.
What’s true for the world at large is also true of your subscribers.
This fourth tactic — provide unexpected value — increases the loyalty of your new leads, builds rapport and trust and leans hard on the persuasive principle of reciprocity all by exceeding their expectations.
For instance, if people signed up to download a free SEO report, you could easily offer a free one-page checklist or website audit as a way of showing your gratitude.
On the other hand, if they signed up to learn more about your nutrition coaching business, you could surprise them by giving away a detailed list of easy recipes to help them lose weight.
The point is: they didn’t expect those things and because of that element of surprise, what might otherwise be just another lead magnetprovides far more value.
For example, when you sign up for one of the Robbie Richard’s case studies, he surprises you by giving away an extra case study:
Likewise, Derek Halpern – author of Social Triggers – applies the same principle. After you sign up to download one of his worksheets, he gives you a “surprise gift”:
Remember Sujan Patel’s conversational emails? After signing up for his blog, he provides readers with “a few of my best posts while you wait for my next newsletter”:
Even Blog Tyrant Ramsay Taplin uses this tactic. Notice that not only does he provide an unexpected resource, he also offers a conversational tip and an invitation to connect with him directly:
What do all these first-contact autoresponders have in common?
They all provide unexpected value. And you should do the same.
Don’t Let Your Landing Page Die
Sure, Ultimate Guides, Best Practices, and Perfect Anatomies abound. And it’s wise to optimize your on-page elements for maximum conversions.
But, that doesn’t mean you can overlook what’s next: after the page.
To ensure that your landing pages live on, follow these four proven tactics:
Give ‘em what they asked for
Start a conversation
Ask a question
Provide unexpected value
Got a favorite autoresponder tip? Be sure to share it in the comments… especially if it tricked you into writing back.
This post originally appeared on Unbounce, and re-published with permission.
This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Bing Network. All opinions are 100% mine.
SEM is considered one of the most powerful marketing channels. But does SEM really help drive traffic to your site?
It’s a question many search marketers have heard from clients 🙋, especially since SEM is taking up a large chunk of marketing budgets.
With so much of our time being spent optimizing for user experience and so much of our work measured on conversions, SEM has become a major part of our marketing roadmap — a new way to optimize your brand without leaving your desk.
Understanding the success of your search campaigns is a must for any business looking to drive traffic to their website. To better understand the effectiveness of SEM, let’s look at the research.
In An Overcrowded Space, SEM Finds Your Niche
SEM’s effectiveness is dependent on how strategic you are in your roadmap.
When your tasks and goals are clearly defined, and you have a little wiggle room for experimentation, SEM will be a consistent lead generation for your business.
“Search engine marketing and search engine optimization are critically important to online businesses. You can spend every penny you have on a website, but it will all be for nothing if nobody knows your site is there.” — Marc Ostrofsky, Author of Get Rich Quick
Take a look at these case studies to investigate how SEM can be a lead generator.
Teri Merrit discusses how Marriott International used SEM and SEO to drive demand and customer engagement to book group meetings. By setting growth metrics and tracking the analytics, they exceeded their total booking revenue, received a high conversion rate of 14%, and increased online submissions by 84%.
In 2015, Seer Interactive had 76,587 incremental conversions on Bing Ads for all their clients. One of their clients generated $461,159 in revenue from just Bing Ads! I’m not surprised because Bing has seen a massive 35% click growth year over year.
No, this isn’t magic. It’s the work of a great SEM strategy. Some industry experts would argue that it isn’t SEM itself, but rather improvements from the business as a whole. As you can see from above, the proof is in the numbers.
Search Ads Drive In-Store Sales
For businesses who want to see in-store sales, search ads seem to work the best.
Consider case studies like this one from Century Novelty. Utilizing Bing Shopping Campaigns Century, Novelty saw an increase in revenue by 1237% and return on investment grew by 20%. This isn’t shocking, as 25% of clicks on Bing Network are queried only through Bing.
Or, look at this study from Pinterest and Oracle Data Cloud. Together, they measured in-store sales of 26 different Promoted Pin categories. The results? Promoted Pins drove five times more incremental in-store sales per impression.
And, of course, Facebook recently launched several new local advertising options. French retailer E.Leclerc tested a Local Awareness campaign, and they saw 12% of clicks on their Facebook ads were then followed by an in-store visit within a week.
Chobani even saw a 9% increase in sales by utilizing SEM and SEO on multiple search engines.
As you can see above, research has proven that a strategic approach to search ads can not only build awareness but improve your bottom line.
SEO + PPC Create SEM Harmony
It is beneficial for a business to combine the powerful forces of SEO and PPC together if you need to produce results at a faster rate.
The reason is that new SEO tactics take time; since you don’t know what to expect from your competitors or the SERPs, you are inclined to create an SEO strategy for long-term growth.
With a PPC strategy, you know what lies ahead. Growth and lead generation require less time.
The combined efforts of SEM creates benefits in other ways too; it’s best to start with an idea and experiment to see what works best in your niche.
Let’s take a look at a few case studies:
Maryland Tub & Tile partnered with G3 Group to restructure their PPC campaigns and overhaul their SEO strategy. The combination of paid search and organic resulted in 325% increase in traffic.
Hedges & Company saw a 30% increase in sales from organic traffic and a 68% increase in PPC traffic with an automotive client.
Through targeting more relevant keyword terms, A/B testing, and creating content that attracts links, Digital Third Coast increased organic conversions by 49.4% and gained 851 view-through remarketing conversions for Olivet Nazarene University.
The SEM strategy you create impacts the overall goals of the business. When deciding what tactics will fill your marketing calendar, be specific; test until you discover what is most effective for your brand.
Last year, the number of emails sent and received totaled over 205 billion.
The world is, without a doubt, addicted to our inboxes. And because of that, despite what the clickbait-generating marketing “gurus” want you to believe, no, email marketing is not dead.
Nor will it be dead in the foreseeable future.
In fact, one McKinsey study suggests that email marketing is 40 times more effective at acquiring new customers than Twitter and Facebook combined.
So, if email is here to stay, then it makes sense for marketers to understand it as well as possible. And a big part of that is clearing up the many dangerous myths that have been repeated so often that they’ve somehow become “facts.”
Today, we’ll look at the six worst offenders.
1. Tuesday is the Best Day to Send Marketing Emails
You’ve almost certainly heard this one.
And if you haven’t, just play the scene out in your head: imagine that someone asks you to guess the very best day to send a marketing email?
“Ok,” you think. “Well, let’s see…
It wouldn’t be Monday, because people are getting in and catching up. It wouldn’t be Friday, because people are getting ready for the weekend.Wednesday and Thursday, people are already in full swing and probably focused on work.
So, it must be Tuesday.”
And just like that, you’ll have reached the same conclusion as thousands of other email marketers, who accept as fact that Tuesday is, without question, the most effective day to do email marketing.
Except that, well…it’s not. Not for everyone, at least.
In HubSpot’s Science of Email report, they took a look at the impact that the day of the week had on email open rates. For all but the largest lists, Tuesday was actually the worst day to send marketing emails!
My hunch is that those Tuesday emails get lost in the noise of those other email marketers diligently obeying the “best practices.”
In fact, Thursdays, Fridays and even weekends outperformed the rest of the week.
Ultimately, every list is different and you’ll need to test for yourself.
But don’t get caught in the Tuesday trap.
2. You can Only Send a Particular Email Once
You spend hours writing a marketing email that you hope will help your business. It’s clear, punchy and will bring a ton of value to your readers.
You need to get this email in front of them.
And so you send the email, and get an open rate of around 30%.
While it’s great that 30% of your list saw the email you toiled over, that means that 70% of your list never got to read it.
But it’s not that simple. The truth is that it all depends.
When I read Joanna Wiebe’s excellent advice on landing page copy, I punched the air in agreement (yes, it looked ridiculous, and yes, it made me happy to work from home with nobody around):
Like everything, the length of your page depends on your visitors and prospects. It’s not about picking one length or style of page out of a hat and simply shoving your messages into that. And it’s not about copying Crazy Egg, Flow, Groove, Dropbox, Uber, or any other sites out there!
You can apply this same framework to email marketing.
What do your visitors and prospects care about? And how much are they willing to read about it?
Don’t worry about cutting your message short just because you want to stuff your email into an arbitrary word count. Yes, you should write economically, but don’t be scared of testing long-form emails!
4. Keep Your Subject Lines Short
As soon as smartphones began to take off, article after article popped up about testing your subject lines to make sure that they fit on Blackberry screens.
Chalk that up as another one of those assumptions that might sound valid, but isn’t necessarily that important.
Return Path looked at more than 9 million marketing emails sent in February 2015 to see how subject line length affected the average read rate. While most marketers stuck to 21-50 characters, actual read rates didn’t really drop off significantly for longer subject lines until they started to get really long.
5. Unsubscribes are Bad!
Some email marketers love to brag about their low unsubscribe rates.
But really, that’s not any different from bragging about Facebook likes. It’s a nice metric, but it means absolutely nothing for your business’ bottom line.
But bragging about not having many unsubscribes is even worse, because unsubscribes are actually awesome:they remove people from your list who are unlikely to buy from you, which in turn saves you money with your email software provider (almost all of them charge based on the size of your list).
In fact, savvy email marketers strategically try to get unqualified leads to unsubscribe from their list on purpose to maximize the ROI of their email marketing efforts.
6. Marketing Emails Should be Branded and Polished
Do marketing emails need to look nice?
Not always. In our own testing at Groove, for some of our email drips — especially in customer onboarding — plain text emails with no logos or colors at all convert the best.
In fact, this is the highest-converting email in our entire onboarding drip, performing about 35% better than the same copy in a branded template:
For comparison, here’s the “branded” version of the exact same email:
We’re not the only ones to have had plain text emails win. HubSpot tested the claim that HTML emails performed better than plain text ones.
Again, it all depends on your audience, who might prefer the conversational, personal feel of a “regular” looking email over a well-designed one.
When it doubt, test.
Don’t Buy the Email Marketing Myths
Email marketing is incredibly valuable. It’s powerful, cheap and easy to implement.
But there’s a lot of bad advice out there out there.
I hope that this post convinced you to not take any of these common myths at face value.
As with any kind of marketing, test to see what works best for your unique audience: what works on them is all that matters.
This post originally appeared in Unbounce, and is re-published with permission.
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. The post SearchCap: AdWords reports, CTR data & Google Maps ads appeared first on Search Engine Land.
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
Merkle has released early results on click-through rates of expanded text ads relative to standard text ads in its Q2 Digital Marketing Report. The agency began participating in the expanded text ads beta in April and analyzed the longer ad format’s impact on click-through rate (CTR) across thousands of ad groups.
When Google first announced that expanded text ads (ETAs) were coming, the company touted as much as a 20 percent lift in click-through rates on expanded text ads. Merkle looked at ad performance for non-brand traffic and brand traffic.
For non-brand queries, early results showed expanded text ads drove a 16 percent lift for the median site and ad group on desktop. Mobile phones, however, saw just a 4 percent bump in CTR and tablets an 8 percent increase overall. Merkle added that individual results did vary widely, with several advertisers seeing lower CTRs from expanded texts on non-brand traffic from some devices.
Source: Merkle
On brand traffic, expanded text ad click-through rates were nearly in line with, or slightly worse than, standard text ads. ETA click-through rates were 4 percent lower than standard text ads on mobile phones, flat on tablet and off one percent on desktop.
Source: Merkle
Merkle points out a few caveats when looking at this data. Little is known about the auction conditions for ETAs, such as how many expanded text ads display on a results page, how often product listing ads showed with expanded text ads and whether there is a difference in the queries that trigger ETAs versus standard ads during this period when both ad formats are running simultaneously. Another thing to note is the frequency and mix of extensions that show with ads can vary significantly with each impression.
ETAs were receiving 47 percent of total impressions in the ad groups in which they were included, Merkle reported. Merkle’s client base skews large retailer.
These are early results, and more analysis will be forthcoming as ETAs are now available to all advertisers, but they raise questions about both the testing environment advertisers are supposed to be making decisions in over the next couple of months, as well as the long-term upside of ETAs. Google has said the key impetus for the new longer format was the idea that giving mobile users more information upfront will give them more confidence to click. With that it’s surprising to see these phone CTR results, and to see desktop outperform phone.
It’s also worth pointing out that distinct mobile (preferred) ad copy is not supported with expanded text ads, meaning the same messaging is served across all devices.
The full Digital Marketing Report includes more on paid and organic search, comparison shopping engines, and display and is available for download (with registration).
About The Author
As Third Door Media's paid media reporter, Ginny Marvin writes about paid online marketing topics including paid search, paid social, display and retargeting for Search Engine Land and Marketing Land. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, Ginny has held both in-house and agency management positions. She provides search marketing and demand generation advice for ecommerce companies and can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.
On Wednesday, July 27th, SEJ Thinktank was joined by Patrick Hutchison of Marin Software for a sponsored webinar on how to use retargeting and other cross-platform strategies to turn online browsers into buyers.
Patrick’s 25-minute presentation was followed up by an informative Q&A session, led by Kelsey Jones, the Executive Editor of Search Engine Journal. The Q&A session gave audience member the opportunity to ask Patrick for tips in real time!
If you are looking for ways to improve online purchases, you will want to watch this recap!
A few key points from Patrick’s presentation:
With 3 million advertisers on Google and 50 million on Facebook, competition in paid ads is fierce. Which means we are all competing for the same finite amount of consumer attention.
To stand out, we need to get creative.
One way to stand out is to look for market imbalances—which are usually areas of low competition.
The winners in today’s online marketing field have to outsmart their competition by: outsourcing manual tasks where possible, utilizing search-to-search retargeting, integrating Facebook and Google campaigns, and using cross-device retargeting.
Watch the Full Recap of Patrick’s Presentation Here
Join Us for Our Next Webinar!
Join our next webinar by Brent Csutoras, SEJ’s Chief Social Media Strategist titled “Is Your Brand Missing Out on Reddit?” on August 10th, 1pm EST to learn from recent examples of big brand successes on this hyper-engaged social platform, and run through ideas for your own brand’s Reddit strategy.
As an avid Google Maps user on both a personal and business level, I’ve often wished for a more interactive and all-inclusive experience. For instance, wouldn’t it be great to get suggestions for options like the closest coffee shop or lunch spot while I’m driving from Point A to Point B? Sure, I could pull over, open up Google and search for these things separately, but who wouldn’t welcome a truly responsive and local experience within Google Maps?
If you’re like me, then Google’s recent announcements for local businesses are good reason to celebrate. These revamped Maps ads are primarily focused on helping local businesses drive more traffic to their physical locations. According to Google, its new Maps ads will help businesses increase their visibility at times when consumers are specifically searching for somewhere to shop or eat.
As a consumer, marketing professional or business owner, why should you be excited about these new Google Maps ads? Because they’re valuable to both consumers and business owners: The new ads will not only help consumers find the businesses they’re looking for, they’ll also get additional information about each business. The ads are designed to give local businesses additional opportunities to feature their brands with the goal of increasing traffic, particularly when consumers are searching on a mobile device.
For example, if a consumer is driving on the freeway following a Google Maps route and desperately needs a caffeine fix, they could look for a “coffee shop near me” in the Google Maps app search bar. A coffee shop that paid to have an ad appear would come up first in the search results list, and its logo would appear on the map in its physical location.
These company logos, also called promoted pins, are one of the most exciting new features. If this isn’t enough to make you jump for joy, please take a few moments to explore in greater detail the following four reasons why Google’s new Maps ads will thrill you.
1. New local search ads
Google’s new local search ads are currently available to advertisers using location extensions in AdWords. These ads will appear on Google Maps for desktop and the Google Maps mobile app. For those of us who work in the marketing world, this is extra exciting, as the Google Maps app alone has over one billion downloads and thus reaches vast numbers of potential consumers.
When users search on Google Maps for desktop, they will see Google Maps ads in the Local Finder above all other map results, this time with purple ad labels. The map also will note these locations with purple pins.
Similarly, users with the Google Maps mobile app installed will see the purple ad labels and map pins for businesses using local search ads. Like the organic listings, these local ads may include “Call” and “Directions” buttons.
This can be extremely impactful for small businesses that are looking to rank locally for relevant searches but have not been successful in trying to rank organically in local maps results.
2. Promoted Pins
In a recent blog post, Google explained that the primary goal of its Maps changes is to help marketers bring together the digital and physical universes, particularly because location searches on mobile devices have grown an astounding 50 percent more quickly than all other types of mobile searches.
This next part is where you should really get excited. Google is completely optimizing the entire Google Maps adventure with promoted pins, or more simply, company logos that will indicate physical locations on Google Maps for companies that buy ad space. Users will see these pins when they have a Google Map pulled up, when getting directions, and even during navigation while they’re driving. The pins will be designed to be simple and unobtrusive to avoid distracting drivers behind the wheel.
In the app, ads will show up with distinctive purple ad labels and will be prominently featured in the first spot above organic search results. If you’re searching within Google Maps, no more than two ads with purple ad labels will make it to the top of the results, so getting that top placement is significant.
3. In-store promotions
Now that I’ve established why I’m so excited about promoted pins, let’s take it a step further so you can learn about another user-friendly feature for in-store promotions. With promoted pins, businesses are able to feature specials that are happening right now at that location, displaying the in-store promotion below the logo on the map itself.
For example, the logo for Starbucks could come up while you’re driving, following your on-screen directions, displaying a $1-off coupon. Thinking about how tired you are, you tap on the logo and the business page will come up on the bottom of your screen, displaying coupons, specials or in-store promotions happening right now at that location. The potential to bring in new customers thanks to this feature is unlimited, as the right promotion could easily propel more store visits.
4. Customizable business pages with local inventory
Even better, for advertisers using promoted pins, local business pages can be customized with the same goal to increase physical visits to stores. Consider the potential of having the flexibility to highlight offers towards customers who are in your area and looking for exactly what you sell. Local business pages will still include essential business information such as operating hours, address and phone number, but now they can feature the in-store promotions previously mentioned.
Customizable business pages will also highlight searchable local inventory. Google’s research found one out of every four people will avoid visiting stores when they don’t know if the product they’re looking for is in stock, which propelled them to add this useful feature. So now customized business pages can be set up to allow users to search for items in a store’s inventory. How does this work? Businesses will provide Google with their inventory feed, and customers will be able to do searches of that inventory to determine what is in stock.
Since in-store traffic is the goal of these local maps ads, Google is working to enhance accuracy of tracking store visits conversions using beacons. While currently only available to select businesses (There are certain requirements), they are hoping to be able to allow all advertisers to attribute ad dollars to offline metrics to better determine ROI of online efforts.
So what can you do now while the excitement builds for these changes? If you haven’t already, claim your business page on Google My Business and ensure the information is accurate and complete. Inaccurate information will make it much more difficult for people to act on their shopping instincts and visit a physical location.
Then, set up location extensions for your Google AdWords search campaigns so your ads will be eligible to appear on all Maps results. Until store visit metrics are available for all businesses, the information provided about your location extensions, such as clicks on the “Get Directions” link, can be an indicator of how well your ads are working to drive traffic to your store.
What do you think about the new Google Maps ads? Let me know on social media.
Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.
, a national online marketing firm focused on small and medium-sized businesses, and white label online marketing products for publishers and media partners who serve them. Search Influence is the largest online marketing company on the Gulf Coast and New Orleans’ only Inc. 500 honoree in 2011.
SEO is a complicated discipline. There are many components to it, and best practices change from time to time. Add to that the fact that Google updates its algorithm frequently, causing ranking shifts that are known to make digital marketers lose sleep.
Additionally, Google often releases new technologies that offer alternative ways to rank. That makes the lives of SEOs even more complicated, as they have to overcome a learning curve to properly serve their clients.
One day, it might be easier to become a doctor than an SEO — kidding! (But not really… )
Even now, though, there’s a lot of misinformation (and missing information) about what it takes to rank a page in organic search results. Here are nine things most people don’t understand about SEO.
1. Bigger really is better, in most cases, for big terms
In some niches, Google favors larger sites.
If you’re launching an e-commerce site that sells men’s jeans, it’s not likely that you’re going to rank at the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs) for the search phrase, “men’s jeans.”
Disregard the sponsored ads, and you’ll notice names like Macy’s, Nordstrom, American Eagle, Levi, and Kohl’s. Do you really think you have the SEO power to knock any of those brands out of their position?
Spoiler: You don’t.
Google will generally favor brands that are household names over new startups when it comes to ranking. That’s because the search giant wants to provide the best possible experience for its users.
So does that mean all hope is lost if you’re running a new company that wants to sell men’s jeans online? Not at all.
First of all, you can optimize for your own brand name. That way, once you’ve got some reputation in your space, people can still find your site by searching for your name.
Also, you can run paid ads. They can put you at the top of the SERPs, but keep in mind that advertising can be costly. As of this writing, the suggested bid for “men’s jeans” is $2.09 per click, according to Keyword Planner, so your margins had better be spectacular.
You should also look for alternative keywords that you can use to promote your brand. You might come across some golden opportunities that even your biggest competitors haven’t noticed.
For example, you might be offering a specific style/color combination of men’s jeans. Optimize your site for a search term that includes that style and color.
2. Websites are broken up into segments
The reality is that you’re not trying to rank a site. You’re trying to rank pages within a site.
Unless you have a site that’s a just a single landing page, then ranking a page and a site aren’t the same thing. It’s more likely that you have various segments on your website, including a home page, a contact form, a blog, a categories page, a price table, an FAQ and possibly other parts. For example, if you take a look at the Levi’s website, they have a structure that breaks the site up into sections for Men, Women, Kids and so on.
Some of those segments are more valuable than others. For example, you’re probably not interested in ranking your contact form. However, you certainly want to rank the content on your blog. Focus on ranking pages that will reel in potential customers from the SERPs. Then, use your favorite method to capture their contact information and add them to your email list.
3. You might just need to rank for a few terms
You might think that to be successful in SEO, you have to rank for dozens of search terms in the top three positions. That’s not necessarily the case.
If you’re in a micro-niche or your target market is very narrow, it’s likely that you can get away with just ranking for one or two terms. For example, if you’re selling “disc profiles,” you are going to make most of your revenue from a few core terms.
The main point here is that for some sites, ranking for lots of terms makes sense. For others, you can make great money just targeting a few core terms.
4. Content marketing is very competitive
You’ve probably heard “content is king.” Unfortunately, so has everybody else in your niche.
That’s why you need to be at the top of your game when it comes to inbound marketing. Invest the right amount of time and money into keyword research, hire the best writers, update your blog consistently, and pull out all the stops to create attention-grabbing headlines with amazing content.
I recommend using BuzzSumo and Moz Content. Both allow you to analyze a site’s content, uncover their strategies, track the new content they create and search the most popular content. Both create some pretty nice reports, too.
Take a look at your competition — then make a better page for your site.
5. Early adoption pays off
As we’ve seen, Google is known to release new technologies from time to time. Some of those technologies can help you rank in the SERPs.
That’s why you should be an early adopter.
For starters, take a look at accelerated mobile pages (AMP). That’s an open-source project backed by Google that enables webpages to load lightning-fast on a mobile platform. AMP pages can appear at the very top of mobile search results in carousel format. You can see a visual of this in the video below:
Speaking of mobile, make sure that your site is fully mobile-friendly. Google uses mobile-friendliness as a ranking factor for mobile search results, so if you expect your site to rank there, it had better behave well for a mobile audience.
Finally, be an early adopter when it comes to using HTTPS on your website instead of HTTP. Even though Google announced back in 2014 that it was giving secure sites a ranking boost, a lot of sites have still stubbornly refused to make the switch. If you want to potentially have an edge on your competition, use HTTPS.
When it comes to SEO, you need to be the first to market with new technology. These are just a few examples. It takes time to plan, develop and execute, so it is always a good idea to start when the news of new tech breaks.
6. SEO can be used to target different global markets
Did you know that you can rank your site in different countries? If your product or service is something that can be appreciated by people outside the United States, you should optimize your site for an international audience.
One way to do that is by offering a country-specific domain — for example, if you’re targeting people in France, you can use the country-code top-level domain (ccTLD) of .fr. You can also host separate content for each different country on a directory or a subdomain.
When targeting other markets, don’t forget to translate your content into the appropriate foreign languages. After all, you can’t expect your content marketing efforts to be successful if people in foreign countries can’t read your articles in their native language.
You should also register your business in foreign countries, list your business in web directories specific to those countries, and even have your site hosted in those regions.
Here is a client we recently pushed into 27 different countries and languages. Check out this growth in Italy alone.
7. There are lots of ways to be visible in Google results
You might be under the impression that the only way to rank in Google is by building backlinks and using on-site SEO so that a page ends up as high in the SERPs as possible. However, there are other ways to gain visibility and visitors from the SERPs.
For example, if you can get into Google’s Knowledge Graph, your brand can potentially earn a prominent spot at the top of the SERP, to the right of organic listings. It’s quite an effort to get a Knowledge Graph entry, but once you do, you could give your brand a big boost.
You can also stand out from the crowd by using structured data markup to display rich snippets, which are visual enhancements to a SERP listing. Structured data markup is added to your website code to provide Google with more information about the content on your site.
If you Google “best pancake recipe” right now, you’ll see results that include aggregate ratings in the form of stars. You’ll also see calorie counts. Those are rich snippets, and they make the listing in the SERPs stand out.
By the way, you’ll also see that there’s a direct answer at the very top of many search engine results pages. That’s another way that you can achieve search visibility: by establishing your site as an authority in your space and producing content that Google determines to be a quick answer to a user’s query.
If you have a brick-and-mortar business, you can also rank within the local 3-pack. If you Google the name of your city plus the word “plumber,” you’ll see a map below the paid ads at the top. Just below that map, you’ll see three listings in your area. (To get started with local SEO, check out Marcus Miller’s “The big picture guide to local SEO: ranking in 2016 & beyond.”)
As discussed above, publishers can rank by appearing at the top of the mobile SERPs when they implement accelerated mobile pages (AMP).
Here is a list of common result types that appear in Google’s blended search results pages:
Organic listings
Knowledge Graph cards
The local 3-pack
Instant answers (also known as “featured snippets”)
AMP carousel
Google Images
Google Videos
Google News
SEMrush and many of the other SEO ranking tools actually report on these varying result types now, which is great.
The main point is, there’s more than one way to win.
8. There are many different specialties in SEO
Search engine optimization is a broad online marketing channel that includes a handful of niche disciplines. There are SEO practitioners who specialize in technical SEO, link building, content marketing, local SEO, international SEO and more.
And guess what? Each requires a different skill set.
Bottom line: You need to determine first how you want to rank a site and then select the appropriate campaign strategy.
9. There are other search engines besides Google
Sure, Google is the undisputed leader in web searches. That doesn’t mean that other search engines don’t exist and that people in your target market don’t use them.
The most obvious competitor to Google is Bing. That’s Microsoft’s search engine, and as of this writing, its share of search traffic is growing faster than Google’s.
Of course, there’s also Amazon. You might think of Amazon as more of an e-commerce giant than a search engine. However, it’s the starting point for 44 percent of consumers searching for products.
When you’re optimizing your content assets, make sure that you take into account the broad spectrum of search engines that exist online. Where you choose to focus your optimization efforts will depend on your goals online.
There is a lot to know
What you don’t know can hurt you when it comes to SEO. Going forward, it’s important that you also keep up with the latest changes in SEO best practices — otherwise, your future optimization efforts might fall flat.
Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.
. Throughout his career, Lincoln has worked with hundreds of websites, ranging from start-ups to household names, and has won awards in SEO, CRO, analytics and Social Media. In the media, Lincoln has been featured on sites such as Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, Inc. Magazine, CIO magazine and more.
In this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have and more.
