Google Ads Archives

June 12, 2019 JM Online Website and SEO Tips

How We Think About Marketing at JM

Updated October 2019

What comes to mind when you hear “multi-dimensional and always evolving”? If you said technology, you’re right. A less common answer, but also correct, is marketing! Technology and marketing evolve together. Technology is in the driver seat transporting civilization forward, and marketing is always a half step behind doing its best to keep pace. At JM we think about marketing on multiple levels, but it all starts with your website.

Your Website is Still #1

When it comes to your business image, your website gives you the most control. It’s the only “place” on the internet where you have full control of how customers view you and interact with your business. When you look at the development of online platforms and how people are using them the math tells us Google and Facebook will not be around forever. To have your entire online business presence built on a platform you can’t control, and one that will likely go away or dramatically change is risky. And, some of the most effective online advertising still requires a landing page hosted on your own domain.

Building Your Website is Only the First Step

If you built a 5-star resort in Hawaii would you rely on word of mouth advertising for people to find it? Probably not. Your website has a lot more competition compared to your 5-star Hawaiian resort. There are over 1.6 billion websites online. If you build the best website in the world nobody will know it exists without the proper promotion. In order for customers and prospects to find your website and care, you must actively promote it in a variety of ways.

How Will They Find You?

Google is the number one website on the Web when it comes to traffic volume. For over 90% of people who discover your business online, their first touchpoint is on the Google search result page – not your website. Google has its own priorities and driving people to your website isn’t on the top of their list. More and more Google is building features to keep users on the search result pages rather than clicking on organic links.

Google My Business & Local Pack
Featured Snippets
People Also Ask

It’s great that people can find your business website using Google but increasingly, search users are getting their information without ever clicking through to a website. You need a strategy for engaging those users through the new features Google continues to introduce.

Paid Ads on Google

You want to put your advertising dollars in the highest traffic areas. Right now, that’s Google. There are a number of different types of paid ad campaigns you can use on Google to better help customers find you.

Search – A “Search Network” campaign will show text-based ads above Google search results, and other sites in the network, when a person searches for terms that are relevant to your ad’s keywords. For example, say you run a local barbershop school. Your Search ads will be shown to high-potential customers at the moment they are searching for “barbershop schools” and above all the search results (called organic results).

Example of where Google Ads are placed in search results

Display – The Google Display Network helps you find your audience. It helps you reach people while they’re browsing favorite websites, watching YouTube, checking their Gmail account, or using mobile devices and apps.

Video – Video campaigns allow you to show video ads on their own, or within streaming video content on YouTube and across the Google Display Network.

Shopping – More than a Search ad, Shopping ads show searchers a photo of your product, title, price, name of your store, and a link to purchase. All this is placed above other types of search results and sometimes on the right side of the search result page.

Social Networks

The social networks can’t be ignored if you’re aiming to maximize the potential for customers to find your website. If you’re thinking there are too many social networks and not all of my customers are using them or only using a few – you’re right. You only need to engage through the social networks your customers are using.

Broad-Reach: YouTube, Facebook, Instagram

Specific Targeted Audiences: Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Twitch

We help businesses determine what social networks their customers are using, and value-added strategies they can use to engage them. Give-aways is one effective way to get your customers to engage on these platforms.

The Near Future (1-2 years)

Image Search

Over the past several months, Google representatives have said they are focusing on Image Search. They followed through on that by announcing several new features at their recent I/O conference. These features include using high resolution images and 3D objects to use in Augmented Reality (Like this chair? Open the camera app and see this chair in your living room!). Knowing Google, their long-term interest is in how to best sell ads on the Image Search results page. Nonetheless, all the changes and new features offer new opportunities for your business to attract new attention.

The Question for You: How is your audience using Image Search in their everyday life?

Voice Search

Currently, 25% of people are saying voice is their first choice for searches. Personal voice assistants like Siri on Apple’s products and Amazon’s Alexa are becoming more and more popular among users. Voice presents new and interesting problems that haven’t yet been solved. But as Artificial Intelligence helps develop new capabilities, user adoption of voice technologies are expected to grow over the next several years.

Voice searches are more conversational and specific. Keywords people use for their voice searches are often a string of 5 words or more.

Example: “Backlinko found an example in Google Home results for the query: Are figs good for you?

When you’re optimizing your content to answer questions in voice search, answer the specific question directly as possible. Studies show that 29 words are ideal.

Example: “Figs are high in fiber and a good source of several essential minerals, including magnesium, manganese, calcium, copper, and potassium as well as vitamins, principally K and B6.”

Further Future (next 10 years)

What is in store for us 10 years down the road? Will Google and Facebook still be here? If they are, will they be used in the same way?

The truth is we don’t know what’s coming, but we can forecast with confidence that whatever is coming will be something few can imagine today. With the current rate of innovation and the way artificial intelligence algorithms are advancing, automation and immersive user experiences are some of the biggest breakthroughs we’re likely to see.

In the coming years the issue of user control will only get more intense. We can’t predict the future, but we can prepare for it to the best of our ability. With everything that’s in our future, the best way to secure your online presence and image is with:

A website built to be flexible enough to adapt to rapid technological change
A strategy that takes advantage of the digital platforms best suited for your brand and your customers.

Take the First Steps

It’s time to get to work. There’s so much and can feel overwhelming. Where do you start?

You start putting one foot in front of another.

To help place your first steps, we’ve outlined 5 simple things that you can do on your website to improve your business online.

November 21, 2018 JM Online Website and SEO Tips

Local SEO, Paid Ads, Website SEO: Why all Three Matter

Updated October 2019

A business providing services to a local market should not underestimate the importance of local SEO services. Local SEO efforts often produce more website traffic and more leads. Higher conversions result when your local listings are optimized to accurately reflect your business information, products and services.

Our Omaha SEO team can tell you over and over about why local search engine optimization is important, but how about I just SHOW you. But before I do… let me tell you one more time.

GMB, Apple Maps and Yelp are all big players in local SEO

An optimized Google My Business (GMB) listing will help you pull up in Google for relevant searches – as this information pulls into the local map-pack (see graphic below), which has high visibility. If you haven’t yet setup your Google My Business account, start there. You can use our Step-By-Step Guide to help get you started.

Apple Maps listing helps your business rank well for Siri voice command searches. And with over 700 million iPhones currently being used worldwide, many users are using Siri search on their Apple devices. And, Yelp provides Apple with access to some of its business page information, including reviews. So, optimizing your information and managing reviews for Yelp could not only assist you in organic rankings, but can also help with visibility in Apple Maps.

To help you visualize

Here’s an example Google search for Dentist Omaha.

Paid Ads, Map Pack and Organic Search Results Illustration

You will see the paid ads appear at the top of the page, then the map pack, then organic results. Then at the bottom of the page are more paid ads.

What does this mean?

This image shows us two things. First, it shows us the importance of having a local SEO strategy. The map pack pulls in GMB pages organically based on the search query, matching the GMB listing with the keyword(s) being searched. And, the first organic result is from Yelp. While that isn’t the case for every search result for every product or service, Yelp still ranks well for local product and service queries.

Second, this image shows the need for a holistic approach to your search marketing strategy. A Google Ads strategy partnered with local search optimization AND website search engine optimization efforts will help your business appear in all three sections.

October 10, 2018 JM Online Website and SEO Tips

Online Videos Changing Consumer Habits and Marketer Strategies

Remember when the only way to watch your favorite TV show was to sit on the couch at the exact time the show was set to air? Oh… and you could only use the bathroom or grab a snack during the commercial break. How did we even SURVIVE this inconvenience? Needless to say, the way we consume TV content has changed.

More than half of 18-to 49-year-olds watch very little TV or do not subscribe to TV, according to Google, and the number of households without a traditional TV subscription rises each year. I probably don’t need to tell you this, but traditional cable and satellite providers are struggling, having lost about 415,000 subscribers in the second quarter of this year alone.

And while the struggle is real for cable providers, traditional TV content is not dead (and won’t be for the foreseeable future). Many factors, including video streaming services, digital ad spending and mobile user growth factor into the shift in TV entertainment. Social media growth, particularly that of YouTube, is among the top reasons why TV entertainment is a changing landscape.

illustration of man watching a show on tv

Why should you consider YouTube?

As of September 2018, the total number of monthly active YouTube users was 1.9 billion. People are not just watching YouTube on their mobile devices and they’re not just watching cute cat videos. In fact, people are spending twice as much time watching official TV channels on YouTube as they did two years ago, and they are watching it ON their TV.

YouTube is the second fastest growing search engine and the second most trafficked site, the first being Google. Owned by Google, YouTube applies the same principles of enhanced user experience and user-focused algorithms as the traditional Google search engine. And just as Ads on Google search offers affordable and targeted opportunities for web marketing, YouTube also offers targeted, affordable and effective marketing opportunities. In fact, more than half of marketers are advertising on YouTube, reporting that they see YouTube content driving views, engagement and purchases.

Launch a YouTube Campaign

What does this mean for your marketing dollars?

If your marketing goals and dollars are conducive to producing YouTube content and running ads, it could be worthy of your time. The data and projections can be compelling. Google estimates that by 2025, half of viewer under the age of 32 will not subscribe to a paid TV service. And it’s not because they’re not watching… it’s because they’re watching online video content instead.

Users view more than 500 million hours of video each day on YouTube. And if your customers are among them, targeting them on YouTube and re targeting them can increase click-through rate and conversion rates.

Get Started on YouTube

June 25, 2018 JM Online Website and SEO Tips

Pay-Per-Click, SEO or Both?

In an ideal world, you would be focusing efforts on both SEO and paid advertising to increase website traffic and increase sales. Both can serve you more traffic and increased qualified leads. Maybe you’re not sold on Pay-Per-Click, or SEO is not going to give you the instant results you need, OR you just straight-up don’t have the budget to do everything. We get it.

So, this begs the question – which should you choose?

SEO and PPC are both efforts to place your website in front of quality customers above your competition, but through different means. So, before you have your mind made up about what’s best for your business, let our web marketing and SEO team give you some basics.

Search Engine Optimization

SEO is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of visitors to your website through organic search engine results. So not only do you seek MORE traffic through SEO, but also users who are interested in your company/product. Organic results are results served without paying Google.

We recently wrote a post on quality website content that details how Google search works. Every search engine has a crawler that gathers information across the internet, brings back information and builds an index. This index goes through an algorithm that matches a search query with data.

There are many factors that play into SEO, and because of endless algorithm updates from Google and other search engines the factors are always changing. And while I won’t get into all the factors we consider when dealing with an SEO client, here are a few things you’ll want to consider about SEO to see if it’s a good fit for your business:

Long-term strategy: SEO is a long-term strategy. To gain a significant increase in traffic and quality leads can take up to a year or more. Depending on the equity your website already has in the search engines, you may be a tiny ant climbing up a huge mountain. The task is not impossible, but it will take time and money.

It’s not one-size-fits all: SEO strategies, and service costs, vary depending on where you are, where you want to be and how fast you want to get there.

Website design: To execute an SEO strategy your website needs to be optimized. This can be a large investment, but it includes a robust CMS, optimal site structure, valuable content, mobile friendly design and usability, among MANY other things. Without a solid foundation you cannot expect to see success in the search engines.

Build credibility: SEO strategies are often partnered with regular, valuable content. Investing in quality, relevant and consistent content as part of your SEO strategy not only builds credibility with the search engines, but with your customers and the community you’re serving. It’s also about about making yourself a valuable resource for the community your potential new customers come from.

Pay-Per-Click

PPC marketing through Google Ads offers advertisers two ways to reach people: 1. through Google Search Network and 2. through Google Display Network. Both use a PPC auction system, where advertisers bid to have their ads shown to matched audiences.

Google Search Network, or “search ads”, appear above organic results. The Google Search Network allows you to show your ads to users who are actively searching for the keywords that you’ve selected. So if you own a contractor business, for example, you bid to have this texted-based ad show up every time a user types in Windows Omaha.

Google Display Network shows ads to users who are searching for your product or service. These “display ads” are placed on websites you think your target will be on. These image-based ads work well for re-engagement campaigns, showing ads to visitors who have already been to your website, in hopes they will come back and purchase/convert. This is often called remarketing or retargeting. For instance, we purchased something from Williams Sonoma six months ago… and they are still retargeting us.

These Google search and display ads are a great opportunity to capture quality leads and is an excellent way to reach your target audience. So here are a few things you might want to consider about PPC advertising:

Long-term strategy: PPC, like SEO, is a long-term strategy. You’ll want to run ads and refine your reach/budget based on the data. These ads may bring much quicker results than trying to gain traction in organic rankings.

Cost: The cost is mostly dependent on your Google budget. If you’re in a highly competitive industry it can get pretty pricey. If your AdWords campaigns are well-targeted, optimized correctly and have an appropriate CPC bid, you’ll be able to show your ads to a responsive audience, nearly guaranteeing a positive ROI. Many businesses can run successful AdWords campaigns for a reasonable cost relative to the amount of money you make with each conversion.

Remarketing: While retargeting is great for most businesses, it’s especially useful for eCommerce websites. You can create and target audiences of users who have already visited your website with tailored banner ads, including image and video ads. Through these dynamic ads, a product from your store can follow a prospect until they pull the trigger!

Target niche terms: PPC can provide an affordable way to advertise for a niche phrase. Often more specific keyword phrases can run much less expensive than a short keyword. So, for instance, instead of ‘tires’ consider ‘winter truck tires.’

Either/Or, or Both: You can choose to do text ads, or banner ads, or both. If you have little traffic to your website, you’ll want to consider text ads to drive quality traffic to your website. If you have a lot of traffic, but want to reengage that traffic, you’ll want to consider banner ads.

Assessing Your Marketing Goals

Your decision to invest in SEO and/or PPC Google AdWords should be based on your company’s marketing strategy. By assessing your long and short-term goals, your budget and your competition you should have a starting place for which service you should invest in.

Also, looking at the data can be difficult. Assessing where you are and where you want to be can be easier with the guidance of an experienced SEO and web marketing team. Let us know if we can help answer your questions, if you want to explore an SEO or PPC campaign for your business, or need help assessing your current SEO or PPC situation. We’re happy to help!