Marketing

The goal of any marketing effort is to achieve a measurable result—and for many that goal to is often focused on moving your audience to take action. This may sound like an overwhelming task, but with the right approach in place, it does not have to be difficult to develop marketing campaigns that drive impact and achieve great results.  Following are some simple steps that you can follow to help craft powerful marketing campaigns.

1) Think about the audience you’re trying to reach

Start by thinking about your ideal customer. Who are they? What are they interested in? What problems can you help them solve? Relevance is one of the most important factors of any successful marketing campaign. The goal of your marketing should be to create something that customers and potential customers will appreciate. That’s the type of experience people are going to pay attention to, and it’s also the best way to bring customers back.  (more…)

How do you know if your site is working? And by working, I don’t mean actually landing on your home page when you type the URL in your preferred browser. I mean working – the type of effort that produces results; and what result is more important than visitors actually finding your website?

Enter the mysterious world of search engine optimization (SEO), where keywords and relevant content affect whether or not your website is ranked higher on search engines like Google®. SEO content writers know exactly which phrase to tweak and which keyword to repeat in order to boost a site’s rankings. Problem is, we all aren’t practiced SEO writers, so where do we begin?

Keywords, keywords, keywords

It sounds simple enough – you’ve been a business owner in your market for quite some time now, and who better to know what words define your industry than you? If you aren’t sure what words and phrases are making or breaking your website, simply ask yourself, “If I were to search for my product on a search engine, what would I type into the search bar?” Then, determine if these phrases are present in your Web content. Still not too sure? Use a tool like Google AdWords™ Keyword Planner to discover keywords people might be using to find websites like yours.  (more…)

Lesson Highlight: Find out if online ads are right for your business

One of the most frequent questions we get at Google is whether it makes sense to  advertise a small, local business with a limited budget. The short answer is yes, but it’s helpful to understand how advertising on Google works.

Coco Pannell, an AdWords Community Lead, provides a great introduction to online advertising, explaining how it differs from traditional advertising. She talks about how advertising works on Google, including some of the targeting capabilities.

A few highlights from this lesson:

• Online advertising delivers ads to people browsing through websites or searching online.

• You, the advertiser, control where ads can appear. You can target ads to searches related to the products or services you sell and show ads to people who are your most likely customers.  (more…)

If you are like many small businesses, then you’ve already begun to integrate social media activities into your marketing efforts. But marketing on social media and driving results through social media do not necessarily go hand-in-hand. It’s entirely possible to grow an active following online- with lots of Facebook fans, Twitter followers, email subscribers, and even good reviews on Yelp- without seeing an increase in your businesses’ profits. When this happens, I often advise businesses to take a step back to make sure they are adhering to the most important elements turning social engagement into action:

Focus your messages

You may offer a lot of products and services, but if you focus on your differentiation you’ll be able to demonstrate your expertise and dominate a market segment. For example, a retailer specializing in tennis gear can show customers how to use the latest equipment, offer tennis classes, and write about topics such as “what to look for when buying new tennis sneakers.” These actions will draw in customers looking for specific equipment and, while they’re shopping, they’ll discover other products and services offered by the retailer.  (more…)