How Digital Marketing will Shift in the Coming Years

With the continually rising popularity of the internet, many companies have found it very effective to advertise online. The practice of marketing a service or product on the internet is called digital marketing. Digital marketing has evolved a lot since it began when the internet was just becoming common in the average household. As the internet becomes a larger part of the daily lives of millions of people around the world, companies have turned to digital marketing as a primary source of advertisement. With the rise in demand for digital marketing, there has been a push for another evolution in the industry. In recent years, companies have tried to seek out the most effective style of advertisement and digital marketing companies have helped to make it happen. This has pushed the digital marketing industry as a whole to focus more heavily on conversion rate optimization and user experience in online advertisements.

Local Digital Marketing Services – Helping a Variety of Industries Achieve New Success

For years, companies have focused almost solely on search engine optimization when thinking about their digital marketing. Search engine optimization occurs when an advertiser works to increase the visibility of their online advertisements in order to get more potential customers to see their product or service. Although important, search engine optimization is meaningless if the people who see the advertisement immediately scroll past it and fail to purchase the product. That is why conversion rate optimization has become much more important to many businesses in recent years. Conversion rate optimization is a company’s process by which they attempt to convert more people who see their advertisements into actual paying customers. Digital marketing is becoming more and more important to companies every day, and that is why the industry is evolving to better serve the needs of advertisers. The more actual customers a company gets from an online advertisement, the more likely they are to pay digital marketing firms to put out more advertisements. This allows both the digital marketing firms and advertisers to make money. As more and more companies look to get into the digital marketing sphere, there will be a natural shift in focus from search engine optimization to conversion rate optimization.

One very important part of a good conversion rate optimization strategy is a focus on user experience. An online advertisement that is not accessible and user-friendly will not lead to an increase in customers. Digital marketing firms in recent years have discovered this very quickly. Potential customers do not have much patience for poorly designed digital advertisements. If they have trouble accessing or interacting with an advertisement, they will simply move on. To keep this from happening, digital marketers will continue to evolve their practices as they come up with new ways to increase customer satisfaction. One very important and easy way that a company can improve upon their user experience is by making sure that their advertisements are compatible for smartphones. By making a digital advertisement accessible on computers, phones, and tablets, a company can further increase their potential customer base. In the coming years as companies search for new customer bases, widening the platforms on which their advertisements are accessible will give them a wider range of potential customers.

The digital marketing industry will also seek to enhance the user experience by making advertisements more interactive. Most traditional advertisements today do not require any action from a potential customer except perhaps to click a link to a company’s website. The future of digital marketing will likely include advertisements that engage a viewer by asking them questions or even asking them whether or not they are interested in the product or service in the advertisement. By doing this, digital marketers hope to set certain advertisements apart from others and improve conversion rate optimization. There are a limitless number of new ideas that could potentially enhance the user experience in digital marketing. There is no doubt that the future of digital marketing will focus specifically on conversion rate optimization and enhancing user experience.

How the Covid-19 Pandemic Will Speed Up Digital Transformation for Small Businesses

During the Covid-19 pandemic, many small businesses have been forced to change how they operate on a day-to-day basis. Whether that be finding new suppliers, changing how they deliver their product to customers or any other change, there is no doubt that Covid-19 has changed the lives of small business owners across the country. However, not all changes during this time are immediately noticeable. While many small businesses have chosen to become more involved with technology to continue their business model, what they do not realize now is that many of these changes will become permanent even after the pandemic is over. The Covid-19 pandemic will surely speed up the digital transformation of small businesses across the country for years to come.

One of the main ways that small business owners have already seen a speed up of their digital transformation is through employees working from home. Even though many small business owners have the ability to let their employees work from home, many still choose to require them to work in an office space or building because that is the traditional work model that has lasted for hundreds of years. However, times are changing. As technology continues to progress, many jobs that could only be done in person a decade ago can now be done from the comfort of an employee’s home. The Covid-19 crisis has forced some employer’s hands, with stay-at-home orders outlawing the gathering of more than a certain number of individuals in one space. While employees are working at home, many small business owners realize that this model is actually more cost-effective in many ways. First of all, allowing employees to work from home can save money because less office or building space is necessary. This extra space can be used for an alternative purpose or sold altogether. Additionally, many employers have found that employees are even more productive when they can work on their own schedule at home. Even when the pandemic ends, it is likely that many small business owners will speed up their digital transformation by allowing many of their employees to work from home full time.

Digital Marketing Likely To Play A Larger Role In Small Businesses

With many in-person meetings and conferences being canceled, some small business owners have decided to conduct these events online via video streaming apps. While many small business owners shy away from this method of communication before, they now realize how convenient and helpful it really is. Instead of choosing a mutual meeting point, with some of the small businesses’ employees and customers being forced to travel long distances, every one can meet to conduct important business from the comfort of their home. Additionally, this digital transformation will help the environment by limiting the time employees and customers need to travel via car, plane, train, etc. Even after normal life resumes, many small businesses will choose to hold important meetings over video conferencing apps, as they have realized how convenient it is.

Online Meetings and Virtual Conferencing Likely To Grow in 2020 and Beyond

During the Covid-19 pandemic, many small businesses are spending more time developing unique software that will make running their business online a lot easier. Of course these decisions were spurred by necessity, but the improvements made now will certainly be used for years to come. Some small businesses are converting a lot of their business model online. Other small businesses which were already online are spending more time improving their operation. Without even realizing it, small business owners are speeding up their digital transformation which will pay dividends even after they are able to resume business as usual. While some small business owners will certainly opt to return back to their old business model after the Covid-19 pandemic ends, many innovative employers will use their new technologically advanced strategies to improve their business in the coming years and decades. Without even realizing it, many small business owners have used the Covid-19 pandemic as an opportunity to speed up their digital transformation.

How Citations and Backlinks Help Build Your Business’ Trust Profile with Google

If you own a business and participate in any form of online advertisement, citations and backlinks through online business directories such as Yelp, Yellow Pages, or Angie’s List can be either your best friend or your worst enemy. This is because citations and backlinks can make or break the success of your advertisement campaign. Without proper citations and/ or backlinks in online business directories, your business will have a poor trust profile on Google.

A strong trust profile on Google is crucial to any business with an online presence. Google’s trust profile is Google’s way to determine the legitimacy of your business. A strong trust profile on Google will let Google know that your business is serious and not just an online scam. However, if your business has a poor trust profile on Google, they will have no way of knowing if you are running a legitimate business, and therefore will treat you accordingly. Not too much is known about the complex algorithms involved with Google creating a business’ trust profile. However, from what is publicly available, it is known that business citations and backlinks help improve the strength of your trust profile.

Small Business and Local Google My Business May Gain Visibility Through Good Citations

Trust profiles on Google specifically are so important because Google is the most popular medium for searching on the internet. If your business has a strong trust profile, Google will push its advertisement or home page farther up the page when a potential customer searches for services that your business offers. This will lead to more clicks on your business’ home page, which therefore results in more customers requesting your services.

Citations Are A Key Part Of Local SEO Services

Citations and backlinks are the easiest way for you to help build your business’ trust profile. However, there are a variety of factors to consider when deciding how to approach creating either citations or backlinks.

When considering where to use citations, you may want to target well known online business directories such as Yelp or Yellow Pages. Because these are so popular, your business’ citations will be seen by more people. However, because so many businesses use these directories for citations, the field will be very crowded. You may instead choose to use a directory that is industry specific. Although these may be less frequented, you can be sure that anyone who sees your site will be looking specifically for your services.

Backlinks are also very helpful in building your trust profile on Google. Backlinks are simply links from one webpage to another. The more backlinks your business has on reliable websites, the more likely it will have a strong trust profile on Google. Backlinks can be especially helpful because they can grow naturally if your business is very reliable. Although you can create your own backlinks to promote your business, if a customer has a particularly good experience with your business, they can link your business’ home page to their own website. In this scenario, your business will be getting both a free referral and a boost in its trust profile on Google without any work on your end.

Important Steps for Personal Injury Lawyers to Follow When Marketing Themselves Online

 

  • Make sure your website is smartphone friendly: The first step to marketing yourself as a personal injury lawyer is to make sure that your website is accessible to smartphone users. More than half of all internet searches are now conducted on smartphones. This means that it is absolutely crucial that your website and any advertisements you run can be viewed not only on computers but on smartphones as well. Most modern websites will be built on a responsive platform, that will adjust the size based on the device, from computers to mobile phones. If you do not take the time to make sure your website is easily accessible for smartphone users, you run the risk of losing 50% of potential customers simply because they could not access your website on their smartphone.

Digital Marketing Strategies that include SEO, PPC and YouTube Marketing are Key Factors for Attorney Marketing in 2020

  • Use advertisement extensions: Whenever you purchase internet advertisements, make sure you spend the extra money to add advertisement extensions. Advertisement extensions are links that are displayed under the large text of your advertisement. They often come in the form of location extensions, sitelinks, or call extensions. Although often overlooked, advertisement extensions can increase the number of people who click on your advertisement by up to 15%. This can translate to thousands of dollars in extra business based on just a single internet advertisement. Advertisement extensions are particularly valuable to personal injury lawyers because they will make your specific advertisement stand out from the hundreds of other personal injury lawyer advertisements, especially as you are working to build up your organic search profile through search engine optimization. Additionally, advertisement extensions will allow your advertisement to take up more space, which pushes competing advertisements farther down the page.
  • Get a high google review score: When someone searches for a personal injury lawyer online, one of the first things that they will see is a list of law firms in their area with the firms’ Google reviews. This score is the average google review out of five stars. If your firm either has a low google review score, very few reviews, or no reviews at all, potential clients will view this very unfavorably. You may spend thousands of dollars on advertisements, but all that money may be wasted if the first impression potential clients get from your law firm is that it has negative reviews. To make sure you have a good google review, ask your clients to rate you on google. It may make sense to give them a small discount if they rate you with a five-star review. Although you may make less money from that particular client, the high google review score will attract new clients, which will increase your profits. 
  • Test out call-only advertisements: Call-only advertisements are a new alternative to traditional online advertisements. These advertisements feature a phone number alongside a description of your services as a personal injury lawyer. If a potential client clicks on the advertisement, they will immediately be prompted with a message that asks them if they want to call the phone number. Call-only advertisements are great because they create many more phone calls directly to your law firm. Once you have them on the phone, you can make your sales pitch much better than an online advertisement can. 
  • Use online retargeting services: For an additional fee, you can add retargeting services to your internet advertisement. Retargeting services push your advertisement to potential clients that have already clicked on your advertisement at least once. Without retargeting services, you may be spending money targeting people who will never actually click on your advertisement. By using retargeting services, you can make sure that the money you spend on advertisements will target potential clients who are most likely to actually hire you to represent them as a personal injury lawyer. 

 

5 Tips For Marketing Your Plumbing Business Online in 2020

Are you keen to gain more customers for your plumbing company online in 2020? The online world is constantly shifting. Here are some of the best marketing tips that will help you find success in the digital realm.

Deliver The Right Content

When you are creating content for your plumbing business website, you need to consider the latest search trends. Over the last two years, there has been a significant increase in both smart home devices and voice control software. This has allowed people to become more direct when searching on Google and other engines. Rather than typing a keyword, they are more likely to deliver a full question. This provides a fantastic opportunity for businesses to create content around answering that question.

That’s particularly true for the typical plumbing business. Many of your potential customers will often search Google for the answer before they call in a professional. By delivering content that is helpful, you can also direct a user to contact your business for the right level of support. You can use the content to deliver value while also presenting the dangers of attempting a DIY fix.

The trick here is to ensure that content does match a high standard of quality and seek out the most frequently asked questions, you can do this by exploring the recommended searches in Google related to target keywords and phrases.

Improve Your Website

Content is just one of the ways that you can improve your plumbing website. There are various other steps you can take. The aim of SEO will always be an increased level of traffic. When exploring how to improve the site design, you will be focusing on the issue of conversions. Ideally, you need to ensure that you gain the greatest levels of conversions possible.

Generatore More Plumbing Leads in 2020 With A Proactive Digital Marketing Plan

You should also ensure that you work to reduce your bounce rate. This is the rate of users that are leaving your site without committing to a sale. Your site should have the right structure. Ideally, it shouldn’t take users more than three clicks to find any page on your site. You can achieve this through the correct use of links.

It should also be easy and straightforward to find the answers that users want or potentially arrange a service. One of the best ways to do this is with a chatbot. A chatbot can answer various questions and also connect a user to an employer of your business when they are ready to commit to a service or find out more information.

Get Reviews

If your business doesn’t have any reviews this is always going to lead to issues. It suggests that you are either new on the market, inexperienced or untrusted. Alternatively, a customer might believe that you are hiding negative reviews. Remember, more than 80% of users will seek out reviews before committing to the purchase of a product or service online.

To gain more reviews for your business, you simply need to ask. You should do this once you have completed a service for a client. It is possible that they leave a negative or mixed review. You should not avoid or ignore negative reviews. Instead, you must handle them and offer to fix the issue. You should do this with a public response somewhere like Google Reviews. This sends a clear message to potential customers and clients that you are prepared to address issues.

Get Mobile Responsive

The majority of customers will now be using a mobile device to view your business website or search for a solution to their issue. You must ensure that you are prepared for this. You can design your site to be mobile responsive. This means that it will load on different devices and still provide a great solution to customers. You should also check to ensure that the site is loading quickly on a variety of devices.

You can also consider using a call-only ad. Call-only ads are perfect for emergency situations. They will appear on a smartphone with direct click-to-call functionality. This means a user won’t need to waste time filling out a form.

Think About Google Business

Finally, you can’t underestimate the importance of search engines when gaining new business. If you want them to find you, you need to set up the right Google listing. This is easy to do and it’s just a case of ensuring that all the information is correct. You can add more content here to make it valuable to different users.

We hope this helps you gain the results you want for your plumbing company.

Four Creative Ways That Contractors Can Market Their Business Through Social Media Channels

Social media platforms are everywhere, and they aren’t going away anytime soon. When used properly, social media can be a contractor’s best sales tool. Social media presents the opportunity to engage with clients, learn about your target audience, and meet new leads. Basically, social media is the way to get your name out there digitally.

To effectively market your business through social media, you must first choose a platform or two. There are several platforms to choose from, but the social media sites best suited for contractors, home builders, remodelers, etc. are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Here’s a quick breakdown:

Facebook: This platform allows you to share photos, articles, and blog-style content. Visitors can view your contact information, ask questions, and interact with your posts via likes, shares, and comments. Clients can also leave ratings and reviews on your page.

Instagram: Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, is best for showcasing the beauty and reliability of your work via pictures. Like Facebook, viewers can interact with your posts through likes, comments, and questions. It is also useful to observe other contractors’ content.

Twitter: Twitter is best for forming ongoing relationships with clients, referral partners, and experts in the field. It’s also good for industry conversation.

LinkedIn: This platform is best for establishing professional credibility. You can make individual pages to highlight your team members or business pages to highlight your company as a whole. It is useful for finding new hires as well as new business partnerships.

Once you have chosen a platform or two, here are four creative strategies to help market your business:

  1. Humanize your content

Your social media usage should be a natural form of communication between your business and your consumers that explains what you do and how well you do it. Posting relatable content is the best way to connect with your viewers while also demonstrating your passion. You could even post a real photo of the business owner to build legitimacy or occasionally post something more personal not related to your business.

  1. Excellent visually imagery

A picture is worth a thousand words – excellent visual imagery shows customers what you’re capable of. People like to see pictures. It gives them something to scroll through and even save to their feeds. At the end of the day, outstanding imagery corresponds to value.

  1. Become involved in other profiles

Becoming involved in other profiles is simpler – tweet at them, post questions and comments on their Facebook page. You could also join a LinkedIn group. Both these strategies can get your business noticed by potential customers or industry leaders.

  1. Maintain an active social media presence

While it can be busy running a full-time business and maintaining an online presence, it is critical for finding customers and showcasing your work. Some businesses have even hired social media managers or other professional marketing services. If you chose not to use outside social media assistance, make sure to allocate time for maintaining an active online presence and interacting with your followers.

Google’s Record Revenue Is Propelled By Adwords

Google (GOOG) on the Nasdaq reached record highs this week as the company reported over 27 billion dollars in revenue for the third quarter of 2017. The companies record revenue is being driven by explosive growth with the you tube platform and advertisers using Google adwords.

Google adwords continues to be the dominant revenue generator for the company and industries such as water damage have seen a 25-50% increase in the CPC or cost per click in many markets across the United States over the past 24 months. In markets like Denver Colorado the average CPC for water damage is now in excess of $85 per click. The service industry continues to feel the pinch from Google and their desire to favor ranking directory websites such as home advisor, thumbtack (a Google prooperty) and the yellowpages. With directory websites holding many top ranking positions, it reduces the potential for consumers to make buying decisions in the Organic space and further positions adwords placements in key CTR areas, helping to drive engagement and the potential for consumers to interact in these areas.

With Google holding a monopoly position in the United States in search, the likelyhood they will continue to find ways to drive revenue growth likely means that they will continue to diminish the position available to business in the organic space and make it harder for SEO companies trying to promote hyperlocal businesses against dominant directory positions.

3 Tips for Improving Your Search Engine Rankings in 2017

There are several factors that Google take into account when ranking a website. No one knows exactly what factors are being used for ranking a website but you can try various SEO tips to get your website rankings moving up in Google in 2017. The following are 3 tips on how you can get your website ranked in 2017.

1. Keyword Optimization for Every Webpage

Optimizing your webpage with the right keyword is important if you want people to easily find your website on the search engine. You should invest in a good keyword research tool to look for keywords with high conversion rate. It is best to look for long tail keywords with 4 or more words as these words have lower competitions. Most of the short tail keywords are reserved for authority websites only so new websites that want to rank on the search engine should be optimized with long tail keywords. The keyword should be something that your prospective customer is looking for. Keywords should be mentioned in the content, content title and meta tag. You should also blend in your keyword into the anchor text of the external link that is pointing to your site.

2. Spying on the Competitors’ Sites

You must spy on your competitors’ websites and find out information such as ranking position in the search engine, number of backlinks, popularity of the sites that link to them, keyword used in the webpage title, and MozRank. You should find out how much traffic your competitor is getting and how much of the traffic is organic or paid. If the traffic is coming from from organic search result, you must find out the keyword that they are ranking for. You can go through your competitors’ websites to find out what type of content you should also include on your website. By spying on your competitors, you will know how to optimize your website and outbeat their search engine ranking.

3. Make Sure Every Post is Long and Detailed with Relevant Content
Typically Google’s search engine likes to rank pages that have long and detailed content. You should try to make your post long and cover as many information as possible. Most of the authority sites that rank on the first page of the search result have long post. For example, Wikipedia comes up on almost every keyword that you enter into the search box because almost every entry in Wikipedia offers thousands of words of high quality content that is rich with information. The ideal length of the blog post in 2016 should be at least 2,500 words. If you cannot come up with any idea on producing the in depth content, you can visit your competitor’s site and take some of their ideas.

What Factor Do Citations Have With Helping Business Owners Gain Visibility in Google

Citations refer to making available your business name, address and contact information on the internet. The reason why small businesses should obtain citations is that it can help them to easily get ranked in the local search result. When your business has citation, your website will gain trust with Google and have a much more likely chance of ranking in the Google Maps. It can take some time to build your citations so you must be patient.

Usually, citations of small businesses are found in the online yellow pages directory, local chamber of commerce, portals and business association sites. Citation is especially important if you don’t have a website. You should try to get as many citations as possible for your business on well indexed sites that are reputable and have a high volume of traffic. The more citations your business have, the higher your business site will rank on the search result and this impacts your local SEO specific to Google My Business rankings.

It is important that the citations are at the right site that is relevant to your niche. If you have no idea where to obtain the citations, you can do research on your competitor and find out where they obtain their citations. Before you visit sites to submit a request for citation, make sure you have type down the complete business information such as business name, address, ZIP code, hotline number, operation hours, and promotions. You must double check these information and make sure that they are correct before you proceed in building the citations.

You should first submit your business information to local directories that specifically list businesses in your location. After you finish submitting to all the local directories, you can visit general business directory sites to get your business listed there. There are several types of directories including directories based on industry, local area, and national directories.

You can search for your keyword + area where your business is based in the search engine to see what directories come up in the search results. Examples of the top directories where you should be building your citations are Yelp, Thumbtack and Manta. You should place more importance on directories that have traffic as doing so will allow your prospective clients to immediately find you on the search result. Directories that have traffic usually also have high domain authority.

Since the directory is getting lots of traffic, your listing will surely be found by a lot of potential customers. This prevent you from having to rely on the visitors from organic search result. Even though it is better to get listed on directories with traffic, that doesn’t mean that you should ignore directories that do not have a decent amount of traffic at all. The more directories you get your business listed, the more the potential customers will find you.

Should Your SEO Company Help You Optimize Your Google My Business Listing?

Many local SEO companies are offering Google My Business listing optimization services for small businesses in the local area. Google My Business (GMB) refers to the search result that shows the local businesses operating in a particular area. It will include a map with red balloons to show the shops located in different places of the local region. It provides information about your business address, closing hour, reviews and directions in going there.

Google My Business used to be known as Google Places or Google Local in the past. GMB listing is vital for small businesses operating in a particular region because many people like to search locally when they are looking for shops that sell the products and services they need. Most of the people that arrive on your site by searching on a broad region are unlikely to be your prospective customers. The advantage of getting your website ranked well in the GMB listing is that it will enable you to get a lot of free traffic from the local search result to your website. These free traffic have high conversion rate as they are customers that are likely to buy.

You have to submit your business information on the Google My Business site in order for it to appear in the local search result. The local SEO company will fill in the correct information and choose the right category for your business at the Google My Business website. If your business has been listed on Google My Business for a long time, you may get a request that ask you to resubmit your business information. The local SEO company can resubmit your site to get it verified again for the Google My Business listing.

If you hire a local SEO company, there will be expert staff managing your GMB listing so that they rank on top of the search result at all time. They are equipped with staff who are knowledgeable in the complex algorithm in Google My Business. They can help you to submit your website to the local directories that are trusted by Google. These directories include authority directories like Yelp as well as other high quality directories. The local SEO company can help you to verify your business for the Google My Business listing.

They can get your customers to leave positive reviews on your GMB listing. Having a lot of positive reviews that offer more than 4 stars rating will allow your website to rank higher than other local businesses in the Google My Business search result. On top of that, the local SEO company can promote your site on the Google Plus One social media site. Google has put priority on Google Plus Ones over other social media sites. They will also promote your site on social media sites increase the ranking of your website in the search result.