What is Google AdWords?

Advertising through Google AdWords allows an immediate and targeted reach in relation to potential customers.  The ever changing applications within AdWords allow a more defined and effective campaign to be set up, run and adjusted in response to performance. Varying methods of campaign delivery and cost application ensure a totally flexible solution to paid advertising online.

How Can We Help?

Google AdWords is a powerful, cost effective way of promoting your business online – if planned and set up correctly.  Many people who contact us already have campaigns running and are looking to improve the ROI (return on investment) – we often review their campaigns and find that in a few simple steps we can save them a considerable money and ensure that their daily budget is spent wisely.

We have extensive knowledge and experience in setting up and running Google AdWords campaigns and can assist any business, in any market, with any budget.

We review/paln any campaign by:

• Fully reviewing campaign to date (in consultation with client regarding campaign goal specifics)
• Researching new keyphrases
• Creating new AdGroups more focused to the chosen phrases
• Re-grouping phrases
• Matching phrases correctly
• Reviewing daily budget and keyphrase CPC levels
• Creating multiple, effectively optimised AdText
• Reviewing delivery methods
• Scheduling campaign effectively
• Creating campaign reports to deliver as required
• Integrating campaign performance data with online marketing reporting

We can help you get more from Google AdWords | Contact Us Today

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• What is it?
• How does it benefit my business?
• How do I get started?
• How long do I spend per day/week?
• … and many more

Social Media (should) mean different things to different businesses – what channels to use and when, how long to spend, what type of content to put out and how to get involved in online conversations with potential customers.

Most of the answers depend on specific online business goals and a social media strategy should be planned around these, planning is everything along with monitoring and measuring the success of your efforts.

There are many companies that can help you with this but ultimately it is time and budget which drives business marketing decisions.  Being as informed as possible is the key when considering such an essential part of a  businesses online marketing – and to muddy the waters further, the face of social media marketing is constantly changing.

It is a core part of our ethos when providing SEO services to Scottish businesses that we keep our clients informed of changes to this marketing ‘landscape’ and provide information, content and links to all the key resources that will help their online marketing decisions.

With this in mind Jennifer Laycock, editor of The Search Engine Guide has recently posted a great article::
Understanding the Three Primary Goals of Social Media (highly recommended reading)

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When you make a search within Google you will note that more often than not the top results are related to ‘local business listing’ (including location maps).  We are regularly asked by our customers how to get their businesses listed in these results and what additional value it will have in relation to their sites’ SEO – the method of listing your business is easy (you just need a Google account) and the value in terms of SEO is huge and best of all … it’s free to list!

• How does it all work?
  
• How do I claim my listing?
  
• How do I make the most of it’s features?

Google have recently combined its Local Business Centre and Place Pages into one entity, and in addition added some new features.

In order help you get listed properly and make the most of the service, Google have recently published an in depth webinar explaining all. If you looking for more information or are new to the Google Business Centre/Google Places we highly recommend that you watch this, it really is a must see:

It is widely understood that your website should become the definitive online business/product range information repository and meet the requirements of all customers, markets and occasional site users.  The functionality should facilitate and enhance any online marketing activities e.g. links to business blog, social media pages/profiles and news/press article related pages.

A business blog is a key part of  any online marketing strategy and will create a point of connection with local and regional customers  – it is an essential ‘interest generator’, creating an online buzz about your business and introducing the news, new product information and offers to the target audience.

A business blog is an effective link generator – Google has recently adjusted its search engine results pages to include additional social media filters, allowing users to filter results by type such as blogs, news, video etc.  From this transition it is now widely recognised that Google index blog posts within a very short period of time – sometimes within hours! This change is extreme beneficial when considering SEO.

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Further Reading:

Getting Your Blog Posts Right
Blog Post Checklist: 10 Questions to Ask before you publish

With Google Local listings taking the top spot in most searches, it’s critical that you claim a listing for your business. Once done it is essential that your listing is set up correctly – below we have included some guidelines to help you:

• Claim and update your listing (and only one listing) – make sure the description is as relevant and keyword rich, in relation to your products and services, as possible. Select the correct business category and make sure you use all contact numbers complete with area codes. Include any additional content in line with other web listings to ensure continuity.

• Upload images and videos – ensure that you have logos and images of any products in relation to your business type.  Place description tags for each but don’t overdo it and avoid ‘spammy’ labels

• Cultivate Reviews – this is good for user recommendation – other will be more likely to buy from a previously used and endorsed source, this is your opportunity to get business via online ‘word of mouth’. Encourage your client base to use your business listing as a point to leave reviews and refer to them in additional listings and blog posts

• “More about this place” – This section is a listing of mentions on the web that Google consider to be relevant and authoritive. It will usually list key listings, blog entries and social media profiles.  This provides the user with a point of reference to find additional information about your business.

• User Content – this section lists additional user generated resources & mentions of your website and will list mainly sites that allow users to tag and mention additional sources such as Flickr, Google maps and Wikipedia

The Google Local listings are a very powerful (free) resource available via your Google account and we cannot stress enough the value of getting this right.  So, make time to ensure your listing is as good as it can be – and if you don’t have the time, we are happy to help you or do it for you – contact us now.

The Early Years – offline marketing

Tracking the return on marketing spend

Before I started my own SEO & Internet marketing company I worked in the hotel business for over 20 years and latterly up until 2003 in the marketing of hotels.  One of my tasks was to source associations, organisations and companies such as Visit Scotland, the AA, Best Loved Hotels – that would work to raise the profile of the hotel whilst generating enquiries that would create bookings.

In order to merit the annual fees these sources had to generate business and it was a difficult task ensuring that each enquiry/booking could be attributed to a referring source. The correct processes and procedures had to be in place in order to ensure that all enquiries were sourced correctly – and human error played it’s part to muddy the waters!

In the early years most of the associative marketing activities were done offline but as time has gone on this has changed and online marketing has become the key business driver of any hotel or accommodation provider – gone too are the days of large budgets available to hotels in an ever more competitive market.

Online Marketing – taking control

online marketing - hotels and accommodation providers

Most (if not all!) hotels and accommodation providers have websites and many have taken control of their own online marketing.  Arguably cheaper and more effective than offline (traditional marketing) many have sought the help of companies like ours who understand their industry and can provide effective SEO (search engine optimisation) in order to achieve good search engine rankings and stay competitive within their market sector.

Whatever the activity, whoever provides the service and whoever your business is listed with online – all must be able to be measured in terms of what business through enquiries and bookings is being generated.

Many of the services purchased in the pursuit of effective online marketing are ‘untried’, you will have only heard about their ability and effectiveness to generate business – whether through recommendation or word of mouth.

Measuring Online Success – ROI (return on investment)

You must be in a position whereby you can make an informed decision as to the ongoing validity of continuing to use a particular online marketing service and for this you must be able to measure its success – each must pay its way!

If I pay company £X /year to be listed on company Y’s website and it generates £Z in business, my ROI is ABC%

————————————–

In part 2 | How to – measure your online marketing efforts

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Google Ad Innovations

Google are currently testing a new type of paid advertising, specifically geared towards e-commerce websites.  Much the same as traditional AdWords, the new innovation will incorporate a CPA (cost per action), whereby the advertiser only pays for the ‘click’ when the user click on the ad and completes a purchase on the website.

This new type of PPC, called Google Ad Innovations, integrates with the Google Merchant Centre account and is still only in early Beta testing – only a few advertisers have been given access to it’s developing functionality, but more will follow over time until it is rolled out within the Google service portfolio.

This could be major development in how many and how often e-commerce businesses utilise Google products for selling products online.

More information at http://bit.ly/dbJ4cc | More about SEO and Internet Market at www.aviemorebusiness.co.uk

NEW! AdWords search funnels

True to Google’s tradition of constantly adding new stuff, AdWords search funnels have now been added to Google AdWords (found under the reporting tab > conversions).

AdWords Search Funnels are a set of reports describing the ad click and impression behavior on Google.com that leads up to a conversion. In addition to a Top Conversions report, Search Funnels consist of 7 reports including Assisted Conversions, First and Last Click Analysis, Time Lag, and Path Length. For an overview of these new reports, see the intro video

So our competition is as follows, actually you dont have to do anything onerous, just follow us or become a fan in March or April and you go into a draw.  The winner – totally and utterly picked at random – will get one of our SEO First packages  to the value of £360.

To all our fans and followers that are already signed up, dont worry we will enter you too, as long as your business is within the Park boundaries all you have to do is message or DM us and into the pot you go.  Winner will be notified by email and also blogged about here in the first week of May….. good luck!

However, it is a shame to say it, but for all their preaching about good customer serice, the customer being number one priority, the customer being the driving force of your business, their customer service has badly let them down.  The list of bad service experiences goes on and on so I wont bore you with the details but it ranges from losing our account details completely to the latest being that they dont like sending information overseas anyway and are thinking of stopping doing this.  So, therefore our UK money and business is clearly no good for them anymore but it has been good enough for them for the past year even when we were not receiving the products they promised.

So, before this becomes a complete rant I also want to point out our dissapointment.  The work that Stompernet does is fantastic, the results speak for themselves and their profits show that their practices work.  Unfortunately they have got too big for us little guys and the UK £ is of no consequence to them anymore.