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Google has hundreds of rules they use in ranking search results, they update the rules regularly, and it is daunting to know them all. Nine out of 10 people use Google on a daily basis to find sites, products, and services. Therefore, you must research how to streamline your SEO Perth activities to ensure that your website and blog appear high on the search engine results pages (SERPs).

The anatomy of a Google search listing goes deeper than having industry-specific keywords. Lucky for you, we monitor the changes Google is making to the anatomy of their search listing. You can use the following components to get you ahead of the competition by ranking higher on the SERPs.

Site and Page Titles

Page and site titles heavily impact your readers, and Google includes the title tag on the results pages. Google lists pages with shorter and descriptive titles relevant to the user search queries first. While developing content for your pages, keep the title tag as short as possible and straight to the point. The ideal is 70 characters for desktop and 78 characters for mobile. Longer titles are truncated with an ellipsis, and this will turn off many users.

URL

Truncation does not stop with titles; you will note that Google often truncates the URL by removing the middle sections. Ensure that you use short and descriptive URLs. This action is one of the ways you can rank higher on Google’s SERPs. The best way to create your URL is by using the breadcrumb semantic markup, and Google will display the internal hierarchical linking structure from the main URL up to the page with the desired content.

Time Stamps

This is a common SEO practice, and it aims to bring to the attention of the user the freshness of their content. The timestamps are displayed immediately after the URL. It includes when you uploaded or updated and the date and year. You only need to add a timestamp to your page’s copy and provide Google with the specific times you uploaded the content by integrating commenting tags to your tags with the W3 Total Cache plugin for WordPress sites. You can also use an HTML structured data markup.

Cached Links

This is a fail-safe link just in case your website is unavailable. Google takes a snapshot of each page on your site and adds them to its cache. It will also serve as a backup when your site is deleted or will not load. The cached links are in a green down arrow next to the main URL. However, areas that have not been indexed will not have a cached link from Google, and you can also opt not to have your site cached.

Failure to cache your site could be for a wide variety of reasons, but areas with paid content opt out of this option. It will not affect the overall ranking, but they will miss the opportunity to allow users access to their sites when their site is down and fails to load.

Snippet

This is the description of the page appearing under the title, and Google sources the snippet from contextual information on the page or the page’s Meta description tag. The keywords influence the snippet, and Google will display the keyword in bold. The snippet length limit is 156 characters for each search result, and more extended snippets are truncated with an ellipsis. For this, paying attention to your page’s content and Meta description is essential by incorporating popular and relevant keywords related to your industry.

Conclusion

These components are simple; you can do them yourself without hiring a professional. Use them to create a strategy that will help you develop a result that will captivate and entice your target audience and increase your click-through rate to your site. Follow this post to stay updated on the changes Google is making to the anatomy of its search listings.

 

An effective digital marketing strategy is one of the guaranteed ways of ensuring your business achieves its sales objectives. You can use many strategies to accomplish this goal, but if you do not take the time to create the right one, you will primarily be wasting your money and time.

Today, we will look at five ground rules to follow when creating an effective digital marketing strategy.

Have a List of Objectives

What do you want to achieve? Do you want to get more customers, more exposure on social media, and reach out to customers who have done business with you before? The objectives will help you choose the right strategy and cushion you from spending money on the wrong tactics.

For instance, if you want to retarget customers who have purchased your product before, you can use email marketing to send them information about your new products and be sure to give them a discount to motivate them to visit your site and make the purchase.

Learn From Past Mistakes

When it comes to digital marketing, no business is immune to mistakes. You probably made a wrong decision when you were starting and lost thousands of dollars. That is water under the bridge now and should not hinder you from setting up a new digital marketing strategy. When creating this new plan, the most important thing to remember is to look at your past mistakes and learn from them.

For example, if you hired an influencer with a million followers on Instagram but are not keen on your niche, don’t repeat that mistake. Look for influencers in your niche who have a substantial number of followers whom they can interact with whenever they post images of your products on their profiles.

Budget

Allocate enough money to the digital marketing campaign to ensure everything runs smoothly. If you intend to run paid ads on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, put into consideration the cost of publishing one post. If you plan to hire an influencer, conduct extensive research to find a list of potential influencers you can use for this purpose. Then, go the extra step to compare and contrast their fees to find what best suits your budget.

As you budget, make sure that you do not take too many shortcuts to avoid compromising the entire strategy.

Customer Focus

Keep in mind the needs and expectations of the target customers throughout the digital marketing strategy creation process. Ideally, you should use a digital marketing channel that the target audience is familiar with. For example, if you are targeting the young generation, social media, and email marketing are ideal for your brand.

Align the Strategy with Your Business Goals

As mentioned earlier, it is essential to have a set of objectives you want to achieve from the campaign. The next step you need to take is to ensure that the strategy aligns with your business goals. Concisely, the digital marketing strategy should be in harmony with the objectives and the overall business goals.

Final Thoughts

Take time to consider each of these factors to avoid making costly mistakes. You could delegate this task to a team of experts in your company to free up your itinerary for other equally essential obligations in your business. Also, carry out A/B tests to know if you are headed in the right direction.

Establishing brand loyalty is very important for businesses.  There are more businesses in the world than ever, geographical competition is faster than ever before, and all of these changes make it much more challenging for companies to capture and keep the hearts of their customers.

The smartphone age is once again changing the game when it comes to establishing brand loyalty with customers.  These mobile devices might seem small, but they significantly impact how business and marketing are done, and smartphones are even changing how brand loyalty works.

The smartphone is the perfect device to stay in touch with your audience and encourage purchases or boost customer relationships because this little companion is always with your customer.  The smartphone is always on, in your back pocket or within arm’s reach, and mobile internet connections are skyrocketing.

Just how many people are connecting via smartphone?

In 2016 smartphones officially overtook the internet because it was found that 51% of website visits were made from a mobile device like a smartphone or tab.  Since 2016, these figures have dramatically increased. 71% of adults now use smartphones to access the internet for various activities.

So how does this affect your brand loyalty?

Just because a client is using a different device for online shopping doesn’t mean that he or she will love your brand any less, right?  Think again! Smartphones have a significant impact on brand loyalty. Today customers want instant access to everything. They want to be able to shop instantly, get help instantly, learn more about your products, and much more.  The ability to be responsive has a tremendous effect on your brand and can significantly affect brand loyalty. Switching over to a different brand only takes a few clicks of a button. Suppose your customer is unsatisfied with how your digital presence functions on a smart device. In that case, you can bet that he or she is going to look for a company that offers better online information, which might just result in a complete brand switch.

Maintaining brand loyalty is about much more than just your website

If you think that it is just your website that needs to be optimized for mobile devices, then you are wrong yet again.  Businesses and well-established brands have much more than just a website to correspond with customers. They use several platforms, including the following;

Apps – Apps like shopping apps make it much easier for customers to browse available products, add them to the chart, and even check them out.  Apps also significantly boost brand loyalty because customers cannot simply switch to a different e-commerce store when viewing products through an app. They have to download and install another company’s app, dramatically improving brand loyalty.  The fact that 90% of online mobile traffic connects through apps instead of web browsers is also an excellent example of why apps affect brand loyalty.

Social mediaSocial media can be tricky because it can go both ways.  Customers can complement or shame your company on your social page. But this is still a critical interface for brand loyalty because customers feel they can reach your business much more accessible.  It is also estimated that 34% of customer complaints are removed from social media the moment the customer feels that his problem has been dealt with.

Smartphones have a significant impact on brand loyalty. If your company wants to stay ahead of competitors and maintain the loyalty of your audience, then you need to get on board with these devices.

With the ever-changing dynamics in the internet environment, more solutions are available for businesses. One such solution is maximizing your company’s sales through lead generation. This article will offers perspective in this respect.

Using Prompts and Teasers as Leads Generators

It is agreeable that live videos have proven to be successful in marketing. It thus makes it all the more important to use prompts and teasers to attract potential leads to your video. Come up with catchy phrases and ideal topics for your videos and see traffic build on your site and social media space. Now that you have an audience ensure that your video is interactive and enticing enough to make your audience stay to the tail end. You can then pitch your product or service at the video’s end. You should also incorporate qualifying prompts at the end of the video to allow viewers to respond. In doing so, your sales team will be in a position to identify strong leads to follow up on. The more interactive your video is, the more likely people will be interested in your product or service.

The Power of Discounts and Promotions

As with any sales initiative, promotions and discounts instantly attract consumers, potential or otherwise. At the tail end of your video or when you are engaging your potential clients, remind them of the offers you have in place. You could go further by giving freebies in the video. This way, you get to entice more individuals to your product.

Pitch Your Products in the Live Demonstration

Remember, the video should be captivating and not pushy. Therefore, when pitching your product, keep it simple. Make the video catchy too. Do not use a significant portion of the video to pitch your product. In doing so, you risk being pushy, which may lead to losing potential clients. The best approach would be to demonstrate the product on separate videos and then share the links to the videos with the viewers.

Record and Sell Your Live Video

A recording of your live video is beneficial to you and your viewers. Your viewers get to see what your product is about if they miss out on the live show. As the product owner, you get to reach out to more potential clients while generating revenue from the sale of your recording. Ensure that the packaging of the videos is suitable for you to maximize on this avenue.

Occasionally Hold and Charge For Access to Live Events

Holding several live events helps your company remain relevant to your loyal clients, and it helps generate more new leads. These events also present an opportunity to create more income. Creating a sign-up option on your site or any streaming services allows you to charge a sum and earn revenue from it. Remember, access to these live events is only granted to ticket holders, and this is good news for your firm.

Your Live Video Seeking Sponsorships for Live Videos

Once you generate sizeable traffic, approach sponsors for your live videos. This way, you introduce a new income avenue. It is good to mention your sponsors at the beginning of your live videos as well as at the tail end. Viewers do not always mind. However, let your viewers know that you would want to tell them more about your sponsors. It is equally important to disclose any affiliate links. This way, they appreciate your content.

Continuously work on your live videos, improve on them, and respond to the feedback you get from your potential leads. This will help earn you more while marketing your product.

 

When you are developing your digital marketing strategy you will come across plenty of complex activities that play a crucial role in developing an effective marketing campaign.  Audience segmentation is one of these activities that are incredibly important for developing a successful online marketing strategy. If you are not sure what audience segmentation is, then you can read on because we are going to reveal the what, why and how of audience segmentation right now.

What is Audience Segmentation?

Audience segmentation is a key part of your audience analysis.  When you are identifying your target audience you also divide the audience into smaller groups or you segment your audience.  Businesses divide their audiences or customers based on their needs, preferences, values, age, gender, race, characteristics and more. When you segment your audience correctly you will quickly note that different segments will react differently to your marketing content.  This is because these categories or segments share the same basic compassion and interest with regard to certain products or services.

Why is Audience Segmentation Important for Your Business and Marketing Strategies?

Digital marketing isn’t cheap anymore.  Every social media platform, every website, and every blog you use will charge a certain amount for hosting and boosting your advertisements, posts, and blogs.  With expensive digital marketing fees, you must ensure that every position you choose to boost and every blog article you decide to promote appeals as much to a specific audience segment as possible.  For example, a shampoo for color-treated hair will be advertised to a female audience between the ages of 25 to 50 because this is the segment that is most likely to click-throughs to the cosmetics website.  Audience segmentation makes it easy to see which customers are most likely to invest in your product, and it makes it much easier to design marketing content that will capture the attention of that specific segment of people.

How Audience Segmentation Can Be Done

You should do your audience segmentation while you are analyzing your target audience.  This task can be completed in a few hours. Here’s how to get started;

Step 1 – Review the information you have on your most valued audiences.  Your team should study how each audience is affected by the need for your product, demographics, the size of your audience, behaviors of your audience, psychographics of your audience, and other information that might help narrow down your specific audiences.

Step 2 – Segmentation isn’t always necessary.  You only need to do audience segmentation if your audience is not likely to see your available marketing content or your budget is extremely tight.

Step 3 – Next, you need to identify your segmentation criteria.  Criteria might include your audience’s social demographic, geographical location, behavioral habits, or psychographic values.

Step 4 – When you have your segmentation criteria, you can start segmenting your target audience.  When your audience has been segmented into different standards, you can easily design or create content that suits a specific segment group perfectly.  You can market based on socio-demographic differences such as age or religion. You can choose to target an audience based on location. Choose to target an audience based on their behavioral traits and habits or approach audiences with a specific psychographic approach that appeals most to their core vision.

Audience segmentation isn’t the easiest of tasks. Still, this activity is essential to save a lot of money on marketing, get more conversions from your adverts and boost your business revenue.

In the past, Google has refined how it displays results to users, and the notable change has been the featured snippet boxes it displays before the search results. A featured snippet box appears when users input a question-based query in the search bar. The snippet displays content from one of the pages ranking high on the SERP that directly gives answers to the question-based question without the user having to visit the page. The featured snippet box appears before the results on the SERPs, and a section of the people call them answer boxes.

While many SEO Sydney specialists complain that featured snippet boxes may have a negative impact on site traffic since fewer people click on the pages with the content. However, this could is further from the truth. Statistics show that it increases the click-through rate.

How to Optimize Content for Google’s Featured Snippet Box

Featured snippet boxes are the forte of sites that rank on page one; read our post for tips on how to optimize your content to rank higher on SERPs.

You can optimize your content for Google’s featured snippet box in five proven ways.

Answer Common Queries Asked By Your Target Audience

You might have some of the most valuable content, but if it fails to answer the questions asked by your target audience, your content will not be included in the featured snippet box. Get a focus group, brainstorm the common questions your potential site visitors will ask, and have them in your post. Ensure to form words and phrases such as ‘uses of’ or benefits, which statistics show that they help content feature in the snippet boxes.

Do not forget about keyword density, which increases the chances of drawing more traffic and is considered for a place in the featured snippet boxes. Make use of forum threads in your areas of specialization to get ideas of what your target audience will ask.

Make the Search Query Part of Your Header

While creating your content, optimize it for Google’s featured snippet box by ensuring that the query is under heading tags, that is <h1><h2><h3> et al. The answer to the search query must be directly under a paragraph <p> tag following the header. Google sometimes pulls the sub-headings as an answer to a search query.

Give Logical Answers

Content creators have the difficult choice of creating logical arguments in their posts. Ensure that you make the answers as rational as possible, having researched the trend that users answer the questions. The answers must be easy to understand and avoid industrial jargon. Lengthy introductions will reduce your chances of ranking in position zero (featured snippet box). Include tables, lists, or steps when possible.

Attend To the Number of Words

Google also considers the word count when including a post in the featured snippet box, according to a study involving 1.4 million featured snippets. The results of the study found that the optimal length of a featured snippet ought to be a maximum of 97 characters, around 40-50 words. The number of steps ought to be a minimum of 4 to 5 items and a maximum of 8 steps, with 3-4 rows for a table.

Study Your Competitors Already Ranked In a Featured Snippet Box

The ultimate way to optimize your content for Google’s featured snippet is to learn from competitors in your industry. Make a list of the search results that your content ranks between position 1 to 10 and not in the snippet box, and use the above tips. However, you can still make notes on the strategies used by your competitors and then apply them wisely in your content.

In conclusion, Google’s featured snippet box is an equalizer, and it gives small sites and low authority domains to rank above the big industry players. Most of the content in the featured snippet boxes is from sites ranked in position 5 and below. Follow these tips; they will help you rank higher than the high authority domains, increasing your CTR.

 

Market your Website. Remarket your Customers.

Business owners should never fret if they see an increase in online traffic to their site but not the high conversions they want. As experts in online marketing, Search Marketing Group® has the strategy and the creative team to convert those first-time users into consistent customers. This term is known as remarketing, and with years of experience in online marketing, we have the experience and knowledge for it.

Focusing on collecting information from users, we utilize that information to deliver and reconnect with them on a more personal level through critically targeted emails. We understand the importance of reestablishing connections with users on a more vital level to ensure they feel valued and appreciated.

Through a thorough examination of your website and by crafting a tailored campaign around your desired objectives, we will aim to ensure that your remarketing campaign brings in increased profits, a higher ROI, and a more concise conversion rate. You do not have to worry about your users getting away from you; we will return them to you as converted paying and loyal customers.

Target the Customers. Retarget more Success.

Many businesses feel disappointed that they missed out on potential customers when users visit their site but do not take decisive action. Yet, they should not give up. With Search Marketing Group® as a partner, we can focus and create a solid retargeting campaign that will bring those users back and convert them into loyal customers.

Retargeting is a form of advertisement where users who visit your site are targeted with online ads that entice them to return to your website and make a conversion. It aims to convert the “users” into “returning and consistent” customers. An effective strategy, retargeting, works as it focuses on your advertising campaign on individuals already familiar with your website, brand, services, or products. Businesses that use it see a higher ROI than others who fail to reconnect with these users.

Understanding the finer details might be a struggle for business owners, but it is what we are here for. When collaborating with us, we will research your online structure and plan out a concise strategy in which we ensure that those interested users become household customers for you. Detailed, precise, and focused, watch as your business sees an upturn of new and valued customers pledging their loyalty to your brand.

The bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits. A high bounce rate is expected for low-quality web pages, and most site owners feel that when users leave their pages without engagement, their content is not valuable and relevant. Google only tracks the interaction for only 30 minutes. Suppose a user reads your page for 20 minutes, goes to another site, reads their mail, comes back after 10-15 minutes, and clicks on another page; Google will still record that as a bounce. If the user is using multiple tabs for different pages on your site, it still counts as a bounce since Google does not seem to know the difference.

Here is how to get Google to give you the actual bounce rates.

Track In-Page Events and Not-Page Views

Google needs to track events and page views to get the correct bounce rate. Events are essential since they allow you to count the interactions that do not involve the other pages loading, but you need a customized code to track them. You will need to create an event goal on your Google Analytics account. Your website will then track the event, but you may require the services of a developer to input the code to your website.

Use Inbound Traffic Segmentation

One of the biggest problems with Google Analytics is that it cannot tell the difference between your direct traffic and other traffic sources. The solution is to create different landing pages for different sources of traffic; this is inbound traffic segmentation. The reason for this is that warm and cold leads are coming to your site, and segmentation allows you to see the channels generating the needed engagement. Be on the safe side by optimizing your site, especially the landing pages for mobile, since the device used accounts for bounces.

Test Your Site for Phantom Bounces

Phantom bounces are bounces that happen because visitors click away because the pages take too long to load. If you have a bounce rate of 50%, one of the things to look at is the speed of your site without going through Google Analytics. You can use Google’s Page Speed Insights and test your site’s speed.

Delay the Timing of Pop-ups

Pop-ups give your visitors a way to interact with your site, which will push down your bounce rates. If you have not designed them according to Google’s specifications, it might lead to increased bounce rates. This is because Google sees them as intrusive, especially on mobile sites. Delay the timing of the pop-ups by 3-5 seconds, and Google will not penalize your site and thus lower your bounce rates. The alternative is to have exit pop-ups that load when the user signals that they are leaving your page.

Look Into Your Exit Rates

Exit rates are calculated based on the last page a user visited before leaving your site, and they have a direct correlation to your bounce rates. If you notice certain pages with a high bounce rate but low exit rates, then look into your user’s behavior and not the page views alone.

In conclusion, Google will tell you that a user left but not why they left. It is, therefore, necessary to do your analysis by event tracking, creating separate landing pages, test your site speed, conversions, pop-up timing, and exit rates. Do not take Google’s word on bounce rates lying down; be proactive.

 

Scanning through images has become an excellent way for online shoppers to find what they are looking for and to stay entertained.

Lots of visual social sites like Instagram and Pinterest are hugely popular because of the visual appeal of the content displayed on these sites.

Google’s image result is also very popular for entertainment, business, educational, and shopping purposes.  People and especially online shoppers love to scan through Google’s images for some inspiration for personal style, home décor, fashion ideas, and much more.

It is very important to optimize your images so they will appear on the first page of Google’s image search results because the images on the first page are most likely to result in conversions.  It is also important to optimize images so the right image will, in fact, be displayed when related keywords are used on the search engine. With the right image, you can inspire more conversions and even boost your sales.

But image optimization isn’t as easy as it might sound.  In fact, it is quite time-consuming to optimize your images but well worth the extra time and effort you spend.

Here are a few tips to optimize your images for Google so you can inspire more conversion rates.

The Right Image is Essential

It is so important to find the right type of images for your content.  Images should match your business style, vibe, and tone and it is absolutely critical for your images to be good quality.  The more visually appealing, interesting, or captivating an image is the more reaction you will get from your posts.

There are plenty of popular sites where you can get stock images for great content for free such as the following;

–    Free images

–    New Old Stock

–    Public Domain Archive

–    Unsplash

–    Pexels

Your File Format Should be Correct

Images should be accessible from a great variety of devices such as tablets, smartphones, and PC.  It is important to export the image to a format that is functional for most internet users so they can access the image quicker without having to install additional apps just to view your content.

Here are the most popular file formats to save your images at all times;

Jpeg – This is the most common image format and one of the best to consider.

GIF – This bitmap image can be animated and is also a good yet low-quality solution for your marketing content.

PNG – PNG enables you to save or share files with transparent backgrounds and is compatible with most devices.

Web Optimised Images

The first thing you need to do for web optimization is to reduce your image size as much as possible so it will be easy and quick to open even on slow internet connections.  Compression tools like Compress JEG, TinyPNG, and even Microsoft Office Picture Manager are great for compressing web images. Adobe Photoshop is a great program to consider if you want to keep quality loss to a bare minimum.

Use the right file name

Give your image a descriptive file name.  This will make it easier to find the image whether on a PC or on the internet.

Get the right alt text

“Alternative text” or alt text is used to enhance the identity of the image when you hover over the image with a mouse cursor.  Use keywords and a description of your image.

Use image sitemap

It can be good to add a sitemap to your webpage, especially for images that are loaded with JavaScript.  The sitemap gives Google more information about the image and makes it easier to find.

Use social media

Add social media buttons to your images so customers can easily save or share the images on their sites or pages.

These are all great methods to boost image optimization so your marketing images can hit their mark and lure in more conversions.

 

 

When you implement digital marketing into your business strategy, there are many different things to remember and different marketing areas to focus on.  Most companies dish out a lot of money to create brand awareness for their business so anyone can easily recognize them. Plenty of companies do everything they can to ensure that their products or services are promoted on all popular channels.  But one big mistake that most companies make is to fail to create a brand voice.

What is your brand voice?

Your brand voice is how you say and talk about things and how people talk about you.  Your brand voice is one of the most essential parts of your brand since it communicates your values, beliefs, principles, and way of doing things to the audience.  Your audience also recognizes your business through your brand voice.

Why is a brand voice so important?

Your brand voice sets the tone for online marketing and can even set the tone for your company’s vibe. When your brand voice is out of tune, your business image can easily sustain damage.  According to statistics,81% of Facebook audiences will stop following your business or un-like your page if your brand voice isn’t steady. It is also true that 97% of e-mail marketing content is immediately marked as spam because the brand voice in e-mails is too generic or if the voice isn’t stable.

Why is it so hard to create a perfect brand voice

Creating a brand voice for your business is like creating characteristics for a fictional book character.  The audience immediately identifies the fictional character and knows what to expect from the surface. The same goes for your business.  Your brand voice creates an identity for your company.

It is already hard enough to create an identity for a materialistic entity like a company, but your brand voice should also be in tune with your customers.  The way you talk about your business and communicate with audiences should match the general vibe or preferred communication vibe of your audience with regard to age, gender, culture, and more.  For example, the brand voice of business-to-business companies tends to be goal-oriented, focused, and professional. The brand voice of business-to-consumer companies can be more focused on fun and adventure, kind of the way Coke promotes to its audience.

Brand voices can also vary between business types within a specific sector.  Different company-to-consumer businesses will have different brand voices based on their services.  A good example is your local bank compared to a local fashion store. The bank will have a much more professional and business-like brand voice, while fashion stores are much more focused on style, image, and look great and can be a lot more casual with regards to the content.

Tips to help you develop a unique brand voice

Creating a brand voice isn’t easy, but it is necessary if you want people to see your business as an individual identity.  The first thing you need to do is consider your services. Do you provide highly professional services such as accounting, or are your services more casual, like accessories and gadgets?  The next thing to do is to consider your target audience. What are the age and marketing preferences of your target audience? Youths prefer a casual approach, whereas seniors prefer a professional approach.  With these factors in mind, you should be well on your way to creating a good brand voice that suits your business and audience perfectly.

The right brand voice makes engaging customers and capturing their attention easier.  It might even be wise to use a professional digital marketing company to help you establish your brand voice so you can build your company on a solid foundation.

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