Tag: Local Marketing

Drive Local Traffic to Your Business With Google My Business Posts

Posted on by Rebecca Reichert

Google My Business listings are one of the most effective ways for businesses to be discovered and engaged with on Google. We’ve marketed thousands of clients nationwide from apartment communities, senior living communities, auto dealerships, hotels and hospitals, and have seen first-hand how effective GMB listings are for local businesses.

Across a sample of 409 clients, we found that 28% of their website sessions came from GMB listings. These listings don’t only deliver more traffic than the typical organic search listings, they also deliver higher quality traffic. Website sessions coming from Google My Business listings convert 29% more than the average traffic source.

Google gives businesses plenty of opportunities to promote their company and improve their Google Business profile, but most local businesses don’t take advantage of them or don’t know they exist. In this blog post, we’ll explain how Google determines which listing to show to searchers, how you can use GMB posts to drive local search traffic to your website, and how you can use GMB to convert searchers into leads.

Continue reading…

Want to Improve Your Local Search Ranking? Focus on Mobile.

Posted on by Andrew

Mobile SearchWhen consumers search for local options on mobile, they usually have an immediate need and want quick answers, close to where they are. Optimizing for local search is important, but if you aren’t optimizing for mobile, you may miss out on your best source of local traffic. Many of those local searches come with a high purchase intent, making local mobile searches an incredibly important opportunity for your business. How can you structure your paid search campaigns to make sure your ads are appearing for local shoppers who want what you’re selling?

Use shorter phrases and keywords

Mobile users use short phrases and fewer keywords than desktop users. Go after short, concise phrases and keywords that your audience will be typing into their phones. For paid search ads, you can find mobile-specific keyword information by checking the Search Terms report in Google AdWords. This list will give you the searches people entered that triggered your ads.

Keep it local

Local searchers will be more likely to respond to ads from businesses that appear to be close to them. Clearly, state your city in your title and content to confirm that you are a local business. Break out your paid search campaigns according to the location to ensure that the location a potential customer is searching for shows up in your content. When searchers know you’re just down the street, your ad will be much more relevant to their query.

Use mobile ad extensions

Ad extensions can boost your ads by providing additional information to searchers. Experiment with different extensions and see which ones are the most effective. For mobile search, consider the following extensions:

  • Location extensions: Location extensions shows your address and lets searchers know just how local you are.
  • Call Extensions: If people often contact your business before they come in, you can eliminate a step for them by making the click on your ad lead to a call or text.
  • Sitelinks: Sitelink extensions let you focus on some of your site specifics that make your business stand out, like driving directions, special promotions, or a “contact us” page.

Test Local Search Ads on Google Maps

Local Search Ads or Promoted Pins increase the accessibility and visibility of your business for local searches by putting your ad right on Google’s Map. You can use this ad to feature promotions, incentives, and allow potential customers to search your real-time inventory before they head to your store.

Implement the right mix

Successful mobile advertising needs to be the right combination of keywords to fit Google’s algorithm paired with a great user experience to engage customers. When you create the right mix of keywords and relevant content, your message will reach your ready-to-buy audience. If you’re interested in learning more about mobile advertising contact us today. 

Get Local: 5 Tips to Reach Your Nearby Audience

Posted on by Andrew

Local Reputation ManagementAs mobile usage continues to grow, consumers are conducting more searches with local intent. In the past two years, Google saw a 2x increase in “near me” and “nearby” searches, with 80 percent of those searches occurring on mobile devices. Google refers to these geographic-specific searches as “I-Want-to-Go moments.” Google wants to better serve users by personalizing their results and delivering relevant information based on their exact location.

 

Hyperlocal targeting, or advertising to customers based upon their location, has the potential to connect your business with active buyers. How you optimize your content can make the difference between showing up at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs) or getting lost in the mix. Incorporate these five tips in your online strategy to establish your brand within the local market and drive traffic to your business.

 

  1. Adopt a mobile-first mindset

Make sure your business has a mobile-first mindset, including a mobile-friendly site design. Prominently feature contact information and include click-to-call or text buttons. The easier you make it for the mobile user to gather information, the more traffic you’ll generate.

 

  1. Complete your Google My Business profile

Every element added into your Google My Business page can provide important signals to assist with local ranking. Fill out every field relevant to your business and include high-quality images and other indicators that show a user a glimpse of your business.

 

  1. Get More Reviews

One of the biggest indicators of a successful business is positive reviews. Businesses with great ratings will always beat out those with mediocre or average reviews. Not sure where you stand on local performance? Take a look at our free local business listing snapshot report. We pull in all the data from our reviews and local listings and tell you where you’re doing great, and where you need some help.

 

  1. Include any schema data markup on your pages

Provide Google with as much information as possible about your business by incorporating schema data markup (for each location) on your applicable website pages. Using schema data markup, you can precisely define various business attributes, including business type, hours, address, phone number and more. By clearly telling Google what information is being presented on your page, you make it easier for your business to appear for relevant search queries.

 

  1. Monitor progress

Once you begin to optimize your content for hyperlocal targeting, track your keyword rankings at the local level. The closer you can get to your exact business location, the more accurate your information will be. Use this kind of data to gain insight to guide your strategy as you plan for the future.

Reaching Generation C – More Than Just Millenials

Posted on by Andrew

Google calls today’s modern digital consumer Generation C. This generation is not bound by an age demographic – instead they are bound by their use of digital media, social media, and online video (heavily Youtube of course).

Generation C mindset is characterized by its devotion to creation, curation, connection and community. They drive popular culture with photos, videos, memes and mash-ups.

Before you dismiss Generation C as an undesirable demographic to target, listen to this: they are responsible for influencing over half a trillion dollars in spending per year.

While 80% percent of millennials belong to generation C, this mindset is truly cross-generational, and includes members from Generation X and the Boomer Generation. In fact, because of this generation’s digital tendencies, they open up new advertising opportunities.

Google identifies 8 characteristics of Gen C:

Gen C is not a demographic – it’s a state of mind.

They’re the people who live digital. They spend more time online than they do watching TV.

Gen C strives for expression.

They are heavy users of social media and share photos and other content online.

Gen C is a taste-maker.
Made up of early-adopters, they set the trends that the rest of the population will soon follow. They also rely heavily on peer approval before making buying decisions.

Gen C defines the social network.

Almost 90% of Gen C has a social profile, and 65% of them update it every day.

YouTube is Gen C’s habitat for entertainment.

Gen C is twice as likely to be a YouTube viewer as the general population, and more likely to be a light TV viewer.

Gen C is constantly connected.

They eat, sleep and breathe the Internet and their smartphone. 91% of them sleep next to their smartphone.

Gen C connects on YouTube on all screens.
They watch mobile video on desktops, tablets and their smartphones

Gen C values relevance and originality.
They value conversation that aligns with their interests, and they aren’t opposed to ads that are relevant to them.

When you remove Google’s sales pitch for YouTube you’re still left with a compelling description of today’s modern digital consumers. These are the same consumers we connect with on behalf of dealerships across the country.

These consumers spend huge amounts of time on screens other than TV. They are mobile masters, using tools from Google, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, and YouTube. They may not know where their television remote is, but they definitely know where they can get online.

Their “water-cooler moment” is a link, a tweet or a tag. Instead of reaching them with a TV buy, you’re better off with pre-roll video and display advertising like retargeting or data-driven advertising like pixel targeting.

Learning to connect with Generation C will become more and more important throughout the next year and in the future. Remember, Generation C is a group of early adopters. As they go, goes the rest of the population. You want to make sure your advertising is primed to keep up.

The Final Part of the Boeing Classic Campaign: A Mobile Website

Posted on by Andrew

The third portion of the campaign was the mobile website. Since the rate of mobile Internet adoption is expected to pass desktop Internet useage in two years, it was almost essential to offer a mobile interface for Boeing Classic. The mobile page featured links to the Boeing Classic Facebook page, directions to the golf course, a schedule of events, and an embedded Twitter widget programmed to grab tweets about the Boeing Classic. The mobile site also featured a tee times page that we updated daily so tournament-goers could see when their favorite players were teeing off.

Overall, the campaign was a huge success. We brought more than 1,000 people to the Boeing Classic website, and delivered more than half a million ad impressions to Boeing Classic’s target demographic. Our ads were displayed on thousands of websites, spanning more than 50 ad networks. These results echo what we see with our clients every day. Boeing Classic wanted a far-reaching display campaign, and we delivered.

This is just one example of how our clients use our products to attract more people to their site. Go to our website to learn more about starting your own digital marketing program.

Boeing Classic Campaign Part Two: Pixel Targeting

Posted on by Andrew

The second part of the campaign was a Pixel Targeting campaign. Pixel Targeting is a unique product that we developed to find appropriate customers based on their purchase history, search intent, search history and more. For Boeing Classic, the Pixel Targeting campaign was aimed at Washington State golf enthusiasts. This allowed Boeing Classic to reach out to people who might not have heard about their website, but would be interested in attending the tournament.

The Pixel Targeting campaign used the same creative as the Site Retargeting campaign, and the eye-popping design grabbed the attention of golf enthusiasts as they browsed their favorite websites. This part of the campaign was focused on high-volume ad inventory and succeeded in reaching thousands of people in Boeing Classic’s target demographic.

Overall campaign stats were just as impressive as Retargeting: 301,051 impressions, 527 clicks and a CTR of .18%

AdsUpNow Sponsored the Boeing Classic

Posted on by Andrew

The Boeing Classic annual golf tournament draws large crowds throughout the Puget Sound Region and Washington State every August. The $2 million purse and $300,000 first place prize money bring out some of the best golfers on the PGA TOUR Champions Tour. To help promote this famous Washington State event, AdsUpNow sponsored the Boeing Classic with a full digital marketing package and mobile website. The end results were fantastic, as the various campaigns delivered more than 500,000 ad impressions and drove more than 1,000 people to the Boeing Classic Website. Over the next few days, I’ll take you through our campaign and what we did for each part.

The first part of the package was a Site Retargeting campaign. Site Retargeting allowed Boeing Classic to serve ads to everyone who expressed an interest in the Boeing Classic by visiting their website. This repeat exposure helped increase top of mind awareness as the event drew closer, and succeeded in bringing more than 600 people back to the website who otherwise wouldn’t have returned.

The Site Retargeting campaign was designed to grab the attention of Boeing Classic’s website visitors. It involved nine sets of creative, each one advertising different events that happened over the weeklong tournament. The campaign was hugely successful, and shows the power of following-up with your current website visitors.

Overall campaign stats were extremely impressive:  195,643 impressions, 606 clicks, and a CTR of .40%.

It’s Time to Start Targeting

Posted on by Andrew

Targeting is the new way to reach your customers. In a new study from ValueClick, more than half of all marketers said that they thought Retargeting was one of the most important forms of targeting available.

The reason is simple: you are able to advertise and reach out to your website visitors repeatedly, giving you more opportunities to bring them back to your site and heightening brand awareness so they’ll remember you.

You already spend money bringing people to your website, so don’t you want to have multiple chances to reach out to them? Retargeting increases the ROI on all your other advertising because it brings back people who you hear about your website through all other advertising.

There are other forms of targeting such as behavioral, contextual, pixel and search retargeting. Each one offers a different way to reach your customers, and can be combined to bring you the best mix of traffic to your site.

If you currently don’t do any targeting, however, Retargeting is a great way to start. It makes use of your existing advertising and the website traffic you currently have. Retargeting is so simple that if you aren’t retargeting then you aren’t even in the game. It’s time to step up and start Retargeting your website visitors.

Are You Doing SEO? Try Some SEM Instead

Posted on by Andrew

Don’t think of search engine optimization as the end of your online strategy. SEO should play an important role, but don’t get caught up in the hype of so-called “free traffic.” In fact, you are paying your SEO company to get you that “free traffic” every month.

A great alternative to spending money on SEO is SEM. Don’t listen to companies who say their SEO is foolproof. Purchasing ads in Google AdWords is the only surefire way to appear at the top of the search results.

The fact of the matter is that SEO is still a guessing game, and that’s the way Google likes it. Google doesn’t make any money off of SEO. Therefore, it doesn’t make sense for them to help websites optimize for higher search listings.

A simple search engine marketing campaign can help bring your website more traffic than you would get normally. Plus, in a report from Google, 89% of traffic gained from a search campaign was lost when the ads were paused. That means that an SEM campaign lets you reach an entirely different audience than you would get from organic results.

If you’ve never done SEM, give it a shot. Go to Google AdWords and create a test campaign and bring some new traffic to your website.

Add Search To Your Display Campaign

Posted on by Andrew

Display advertising has been around almost as long as the Internet; however, we’ve seen advanced changes to how display advertising works since those early days of the web.

We can now target every display ad to people based on their search history, what websites they’ve visited and what webpage they’re on currently. This gives us powerful tools to provide relative ads to all your customers.

Now, a new survey from Econsultancy says that adding search to display campaigns helps improve ROI across the board. In fact, 56% of marketers said they planned to integrate search with their banner campaigns.

One type of banner advertising that benefits from search is Site Retargeting. Site Retargeting delivers banner ads to people who have visited your website, helping you increase branding and mindshare throughout the buying cycle. By using search engine marketing to drive people to your site, you can target more people with your message.

At AdsUpNow, we provide a la carte packages for all your digital marketing needs. We can help you with search, display, SEO, local, and more. Contact us today to get started with your digital marketing campaign.