Is Your Website a Profit Generating Machine?

Is your business website an active tool to bring custom and revenue in to your business? Is it the best sales tool your company has? Or was it something that was built because you thought you needed a website and infrequently thought about?

Never has there been a better time for online or "bricks and mortar" businesses to get more customers from the internet. Mobile phone and mobile device searches are higher than ever and search engines, like Google, are keen to promote local businesses in their search results. However, running a business in your field of expertise does not necessarily lend itself to being an expert in online marketing.

Your company website should be the best way for potential customers to find your services or products, choose you as the supplier and convert potential customers in to paying customers. Your website should be the best Salesperson in your organisation. Your website should be a "profit generating machine" for your organisation.

How to Make Your Website in to a Profit Generating Machine

There are 3 steps to ensuring your website generates revenue and profit.

Be Found

The structure and layout of your website should be such that search engines, like Google, can easily understand what products or services you are offering and in which geographical locations. This involves adding "behind the scenes" data that Google can read to fully understand the messages your website is trying to convey and which geographical locations you would like custom from. This information should be unique and relevant on EVERY page and image on your website.

Keeping your content "fresh" by adding news articles or blog posts will also benefit your website being found in the search results. If you care about your website and keep it relevant and interesting, Google will care more about your website. This activity is the start of "Search Engine Optimisation" or SEO.

To get your website found instantly you can invest budget in to Google AdWords. This is a "pay per click" service or PPC, where you only pay when a potential customer clicks on your advert and visits your website. The budget needed to be successful at PPC varies from industry to industry, but be warned unless you REALLY know what you are doing or using a professional PPC management service, simple mistakes can be costly.

Be Chosen

If your company is found in the search results or the paid adverts it should be structured in a way that will convert the customer. Each page of the website and each PPC advert should have text which directly relates to the search made.

If a search is made for "red shoes size 7 in Bristol" the page or product on your website should be structured to be found in the search engine results AND give reasons for the person to select your website.

For example, if a page on a Solicitors website is aimed at "Employment Law" and they would like customers from the Bristol area, the meta data (the two lines of text on the Google search results page) should say something like "Looking for employment law Solicitors in Bristol? Smith Solicitors offer a free initial consultation. Call today on 0117 123 456". Keyword and location specific, with an enticing reason to call. This approach will bring potential customers, ready to buy, to your website.

Convert

Once the potential customer has found your website for the relevant search, believe it or not, the hard work is done.

Converting the customer is as simple as adding wording or a video to the page that empathises with the problems they may be experiencing, offer the simple solution to solve the problem and why they should choose you to provide that solution.

An example for a plumber could be - do you have radiators that have cold spots, or rooms that never quite get warm enough? Having to wear a jumper in the house? Worried that your central heating is not functioning at its full potential or it not running economically? You likely have radiators that need 'bleeding' or your central heating system needs a 'power flush'. This is a simple task that can be done in an hour or so. Smith Plumbing can provide this service at an affordable rate. We do not charge a call out fee and offer a same day service.

The page confirms the issues the customer is experiencing or feeling, offers a simple solution that build trust and authority that you understand the issues, and provides genuine reasons why you are the company to call to resolve the issues.

Where the conversion rate of a website sky rockets is when 're-targeting' is used.

Regardless if the visitors to your website found what they were looking for on the first page they landed or they viewed multiple pages - on average only 2% of website visitors will interact with your business in making contact or visiting a store. 98% will leave your website and you have likely lost them as a potential customer.

Re-targeting is the process of advertising to the 98% that visited your website and didn't buy.

These are adverts on Google and Facebook that follow visitors to your website, around the internet as a constant reminder of your services or products. Highly cost effective and lucrative. If they have already bought from you - it re-enforces your authority. If they have not yet bought from you, it reminds them you are there when they are ready to buy. Have you ever been on the internet and thought "Wow, this company are advertising everywhere!" - they are not advertising everywhere, they are advertising to you wherever you go - they are re-targeting you. This is a tactic used by most large retailers in the UK including Marks & Spencer and John Lewis - it is equally effective for local businesses.

How to Choose a Digital Marketing Agency to Work With?

To ensure your website is a profit generating machine you need to work with the correct digital marketing agency.

They should offer SEO, PPC, re-targeting, video creation and social media management to ensure a consistent message across all solutions and to tie all of your online presence together.

They should only work with one company, in one industry, in one location - otherwise they are competing with themselves and you can only get one company to the top of Google!

Martyn Lenthall is a recognised expert in 'digital marketing' in the UK. Owner of digital marketing agency "SEO Company Bristol", author of "Online Marketing Secrets For UK Local Businesses", Public Speaker and corporate website consultant. 0117 325 1099

Increase Facebook Engagement in These Easy Steps

If you use Facebook extensively for your business, here are 10 simple ways of increasing your Facebook business page engagement. With these, you can improve your news feed exposure, connect to new people, let people interact with your Facebook posts and share your posts with a larger audience.

• Content plays a major role in any business page, be it a website, blog page or a Facebook page. Creating highly shareable content needs you to add relevant articles and topics to your Facebook post. This will compel people to like, comment and eventually share your content with their contacts, thus making your posts shareable. Whether it is business news, educational news, entertainment or hilarious content, the content should be unique and readable. Use multiple and instructional graphics, colorful images, carousel posts etc. to enhance your posts
• Just as sharing content is important, it is equally important to add a 'call to action' button for your readers or page visitors. This will ask people to engage with your Facebook page by inviting others to read your post, make a purchase etc.
• With Facebook introducing the 'live' button, it has now become easier to increase page engagement Go live and incorporate more videos on your page. As per studies, people react more to videos than mere text. Before broadcasting a live session, inform about the time and date beforehand.
• Make your Facebook page fun and interesting so that visitors can always learn from what they see. Create a content mix wherein you put text along with videos at least three times a week. Since many businesses are not doing videos, this will make you stand out and increase your visibility.
• Videos need not necessarily have sound. You can make videos on Facebook without sound too, just make them understandable without audio too. Using tools that allow you to ad text such as lower thirds is a great idea for videos without sound.
• If you are consistent with your posting but not getting enough positive results, try changing your posting time. People tend to browse the web more on holidays and weekends. You can also repurpose content and post them even if they have been posted earlier. Just republish it as a fresh post. Remember to check whether the reported content is still relevant. You can try posting once a day.
• Configure Facebook Instant Articles and get more positive feedback. Since instant articles load 10 times faster than the usual content, people get instant gratification instead of waiting to read the whole article. Though it does require time and effort to set up, try using it with some of your flagship content.
• You can also increase your page engagement by driving traffic from other sources. You can add the URL of some other social networking site to your Facebook page. This way some of your followers from another social networking site would follow you on Facebook too. Alternatively, you can also initiate a discussion about any topic in your newsletter.
• You can monitor Facebook pages of other business from the same industry as well as from other industries. Just go to Facebook insight and set the Page to Watch. This way you will get the information about popular pages. If it engages you, it is likely to engage others too. Apply the learned tactics to your Facebook page.
• You can embed posts and videos into your blog. Go to the timestamp and select embed; this way, you will get the embed code and will be able to embed a full video with information in your blog, thus creating more engagement.

These simple ways of increasing engagement in your business will give you impacting results.

If you need more advice on how we can help you with your Social Media Strategy and Campaigns then contact us today.

Facebook Ads and Google AdWords - What's The Difference?

As a small business owner with a limited marketing budget, how can you get the best results for your online ad campaign?

Google and Facebook are the largest advertising platforms on the Internet, both allowing you to target customers and spread your brand message.

The most important difference between using Facebook ads & Google Ads is the way your audience will encounter your ad. While Facebook chooses ads to display based on a user's stated interests and demographics, a Google ad is targeted based on the user's search terms. The difference is similar to browsing (Facebook) vs. going straight to what you know you want (Google). Both approaches can be useful for reaching potential customers. Facebook is an effective tool for generating brand awareness, while Google works best as for pull marketing.

This article looks at the similarities and differences between the two and when you might choose one approach over the other.

Google AdWords

AdWords lets you bid on a certain keyword or phrase to have your ad show up when a user searches on that term. The key to making the most of this approach is to carefully research keywords and know what language your customers are using. Your main goal when using Google pay per click (PPC) ads is to make sure that your advertising copy and landing page match up well with a user's search term.

If the user is looking for a certain product or type of item, you'll get a higher click through rate (CTR) when your content matches their needs.

Facebook advertising platform

Facebook offers a broader marketing approach, where you are able to market to people who fit certain demographics or psychographics but who aren't necessarily searching for your product. This lets you educate potential consumers about the value you provide. Facebook restructured it's advertising platform earlier this year to make its target marketing approach more powerful. You can target customers by location, demographics, or connections.

The connections option lets you reach friends of those who like your page, for instance. You can also target people based on stated interests and the Facebook groups they've joined, as well as based on their past shopping behaviour. If you are trying to build brand awareness a loose targeting approach is a good strategy. This lets you cast the net wide and reach a large group of potential customers. The opposite tactic is to tightly target your ads and run multiple short campaigns to see what combination of factors gives the best ROI.

Relative costs

Even though the approaches of the two platforms are complementary rather than identical, it's fair to consider the cost per click (CPC) amount for each approach. Facebook advertising tends to be cheaper than an AdWords campaign, with a CPC charge of $0.25 on the low end. In contrast, if you want to rank highly for very competitive search terms on Google, the cost can be $100 per click or higher. Obviously that isn't always the case, but in general a Facebook campaign will cost less. But cheaper isn't always better, so it is more important to compare the results. For this, the number we want to look at is cost per acquisition (CPA), not CPC. For example, lets assume that the CPC for a Facebook campaign is $1.00, while an AdWords campaign is five times more expensive with a CPC of $5.00. But because the Google campaign is very effectively matched with the right search terms, it has a 10 per cent conversion rate compared to Facebook's 1 per cent. For this example, we'd say that the CPA for the Facebook ad is $100 while the Google ad has an acquisition cost of only $50.

The key to making the most of your marketing budget on these platforms is to carefully measure ad performance. Fortunately, Facebook ads & Google ads both offer powerful analytics to track traffic and conversion rates.

Choosing a platform

While Google ads often have a somewhat lower cost per acquisition because it is so focused on customer search terms, this approach has its limitations. Facebook ads allow you to reach a wider audience, including people who may not have realised they wanted or needed your product. Both types of advertising can pay off if you have the right data to run an effective campaign. For Google ads you'll need the keywords that your customers are searching on and for Facebook ads you'll need to experiment with targeting different markets. Your best bet may be to try a mix of both advertising channels and track the number and types of leads you get from each service.

Should you bring in a pro? One way to get the most out of your marketing budget is to work with an online advertising agency, also known as a social media agency, mobile marketing agency, or digital marketing agency.

A social media agency offers many benefits, including marketing expertise, and outsider's view, and knowledge of the latest tools and trends. The largest benefit is that you'll instantly acquire expertise and access to professional tools. Online marketing is always changing, and it takes time and effort to keep up with trends and make the best decisions. You'll also get access to the best analytics tools so you can track customer response metrics easily and effectively. Some of these tools can costs hundreds of dollars per month to license, but with a digital marketing agency you'll have access to all the data you need to make the most of your budget. Whether you work with a team or handle everything yourself, the best bet for online marketing success is to spread your marketing budget across both platforms. The percentage you spend on each depends on your current goals. Are you aiming for broader brand awareness (Facebook) or hoping for a more immediate ROI (Google).

Companies are reporting good results for both types of advertising so experiment a bit and find out what works for your business.

A professional with over 7 years experience working within the advertising and marketing communications industry. Practical knowledge, understanding and experience for a wide range of business disciplines including the financial services, legal, commercial services, retail, online, charitable and civil service sectors.