Fanatically Digital

Category: search engine marketing

  • Google Automated Campaigns…use with caution

    Google Ads is a great advertising tool for businesses of all sizes. From international organizations to local car repair shops, Google Ads can drive revenue. With the push into automated campaigns, it may be easy for businesses to set it and go simply. In our experience, that would be a mistake.

    Issues with Google’s Automated Paid Search Campaigns

    While using Google Ads’ fully managed/optimized settings can be beneficial for some advertisers, there are also several potential drawbacks to consider:

    • Limited control: Using fully managed/optimized settings means that you are giving up some control over your campaigns. Google’s algorithms will make decisions about which keywords to target, what ad copy to use, and how much to bid for each click. While this can be convenient, it can also lead to missed opportunities or suboptimal results if Google’s decisions do not align with your business goals.
    • Higher costs: Because fully managed/optimized campaigns rely heavily on automated bidding strategies, they may end up costing more than campaigns that are manually optimized. This is because automated bidding algorithms may bid more aggressively than is necessary to achieve your desired results.
    • Less transparency: Fully managed/optimized campaigns can be less transparent than manually optimized campaigns. With less control over your campaigns, it can be difficult to understand how Google is making decisions and what changes you can make to improve performance.
    • Limited customization: Using fully managed/optimized settings means that you are limited to the options and features that Google offers. This can be a disadvantage if you have specific campaign requirements that are not supported by Google Ads.
    • Potential for misalignment: Google’s automated algorithms may not always align with your business goals or audience preferences. This can lead to wasted spend or missed opportunities if your campaigns are not reaching the right people or driving the desired results.
    • Overall, fully managed/optimized settings can be a good option for some businesses, especially those that are new to Google Ads or have limited resources for campaign management. However, it is important to weigh the potential drawbacks against the benefits before deciding whether this approach is right for your business.

    What type of program is good for fully optimized campaigns

    To get the most out of a fully automated campaign, you need to provide valid input for Google’s algorithm. The best is e-commerce/sales with a Shopping campaign. While we’ll still manually edit titles and descriptions, letting Google manage the bidding and placements usually provides good results. The returning revenue data back to Google, the algorithm has a direct metric against which to optimize the campaign.

    Campaigns that should be managed manually

    On the opposite end of the spectrum are programs where leads and calls are generated, but there is no quality indicator. A spam lead counts as much as a prospect. Google may optimize the spam sources because they are getting more leads. It almost becomes a game of generating more traffic rather than qualified leads.

    How to Approach Paid Search Campaign Settings

    Before launching a fully automated campaign, advertisers should create and manage campaigns manually. Even after the automated campaigns run (if you decide to do it), you may want to set up a manual campaign periodically to learn about the landscape. To understand the metrics you see in an automated campaign, approach the manual paid search campaign in the following way.

    Search Query Reviews

    Check on the queries where Google is showing your ads. Do these make sense? Should they be negatives or have their own ad group? This is a typical manual management program. 

    Since Google is basically ignoring your target search term match types, and even venturing pretty far afield in the queries where they show your ad, this gives you an understanding of how Google will treat your ads in a fully managed campaign. This is one of the best ways to see what will happen. It can also help you set up the rails you want to apply to the automated campaign where possible.

    Paid Search CPCs

    Get a handle on the cost per click for a search campaign that is managed manually. Assuming well-structured ad groups with built-out negatives, you will have a good idea of what the competitive landscape looks like. Having this information will provide an understanding of your CPC for the automated program.

    We’ve seen automated paid search campaigns with CPCs that were 1/10th the manual campaign. Knowing the details of the category through manual bidding, we knew that Google was not showing the ads in the best way. This proved out with the quality of (or lack of) the leads; a lot of spam. Learn where your CPCs need to be not just to drive traffic and form fills but to gain quality leads.

    Set Geos for observation

    Each area of the country has a different competitive environment. This may impact search results. The CPC may be different, or the conversion rate may be different for the various search terms. You may also see that copy performs differently.

    With this understanding, you may decide to be more aggressive in certain areas. With a fully automated campaign, Google will likely push your ads to where it is the least expensive. On the surface, this may seem fine. But, you lose the opportunity to penetrate more competitive areas. 

    Depending on your category, there may be other metrics that are important for you to understand before starting a fully automated paid search campaign on Google. Configure your search campaign settings in order to gather the data. Once done, you’ll have a better idea of how well the automated campaign is performing.

    As Google pushes for advertisers to adopt its AI (fully automated campaigns), it will be tempting to let Google have your budget and run with it. Avoid doing this. Adopt a cautious approach to using AI, and gather information so you will understand the results. Absent the basic information about paid search performance in your category, you will not be able to tell if the automated campaign is performing as well as a campaign can.

  • B2B SEO: Content-Led Strategy

    B2B SEO: Content-Led Strategy

    Business-to-Business SEO Strategy

    B2B SEO is an important strategic marketing tool for companies looking to increase their visibility, gain website traffic, and create a strong presence online. 

    While the core components of SEO will remain the same regardless of your business objectives, your overall strategy and the specific tools you’ll lean on will vary depending on your industry.

    An eCommerce platform will have a very different SEO strategy compared to a B2B SaaS company.

    In this post, we’ll take a look at Business-to-Business (B2B) SEO strategies generally differ from B2C SEO strategies, how critical differences in the sales process produce these different strategies, and how B2B marketers can implement successful SEO programs focused on content and thought leadership.

    Cornerstones of B2B SEO

    Who’s Buying?

    Businesses typically aren’t making one-click purchases from their couch like many B2C buyers. The sales process is usually longer, higher stakes, and therefore, much more involved. 

    Typically, you’re selling to professionals who know their industry. More likely, you’re selling to a team of professionals. Or at the very least, someone who needs to justify their purchasing decision to company stakeholders.

    This means that your strategy will need to appeal to multiple decision-makers, each of whom might be looking to solve their problem in different ways.

    While this can be intimidating, it can be a good thing because it provides a ton of opportunity to leverage your content marketing.

    How so?

    Well, a big part of B2B SEO is “thought leadership.” And while it makes me cringe just to type that term out, it’s a critical part of any professionally-focused marketing strategy.

    Demonstrating your expertise on multiple fronts within your own industry is a big component of building trust within a sales prospect. Better still is demonstrating how you’re able to leverage that expertise (via your product or service) in order to address the pain points your potential clients/customers face.

    If they know the extent to which you understand the challenges they face within their industry, that gives the decision-makers more confidence to pull the trigger on your product or service.

    So, building trust within your prospect is important to closing sales. 

    No duh.

    The question is, how do we leverage this into an SEO strategy?

    Building Trust Through Content

    It starts and ends with good content.

    Whether in the form of blog articles, whitepapers, guest posts, eBooks, or podcasts, your content strategy should address customer pain points, provide not-so-obvious answers to common industry questions, and on the whole, work towards building the all-important trust factor.

    This type of content serves multiple purposes.

    As mentioned, it can build trust by playing an ongoing role in your sales process and can be provided or referenced by your sales team to nurture prospects.

    However, as a factor within your SEO strategy, it will play an important role in increasing visibility and acquiring high-value traffic from the SERPs.

    It’s important to remember users who land on your site aren’t likely to convert right away. That’s just the nature of B2B sales. 

    But by creating a memorable experience, you’re establishing an organic relationship between your brand and the potential customer. The next time the customer searches a relevant question and it’s your website that shows up, you’re furthering that relationship.

    If the user has another question and types it into Google, he or she might be actively looking for your site in the SERPs because you’ve established yourself as a reliable source in the field.

    That’s the essence of thought leadership.

    Now, how do we go about creating this type of content? How do we become “thought leaders.”

    Long Tail, Low Volume

    One mantra you’ll often see when comparing B2B and B2C is “B2C = high volume keywords and B2B = low volume keywords.”

    And to a certain extent, this is true. 

    Targeting potential buyers throughout the sales funnel will require answering specific questions and addressing pain points. This means the search queries will tend to be more obscure and specific. Hence, low volume.

    Because they will often be in the form of a question, the queries will be longer. Hence, long tail. 

    In order to optimally perform this strategy, marketers can leverage two different tools: keyword research and customer surveys.

    SEO tools such as MOZ and SEMRush are great for performing keyword research. They allow users to identify relevant search queries within their industry and develop content around them.

    Customer services are fantastic because they allow you to obtain direct feedback from your customers about issues they struggle with, major pain points in their industry, and ways to make their job easier.

    By speaking directly to them, you’ll gain first hand knowledge of how customers talk about your products and services, allowing you to further optimize your content.

    B2B SEO Success

    By implementing a content-focused SEO strategy, B2B companies have the opportunity to become thought leaders in their industry and establish themselves as a pillar of trust for their target markets.

    While it’s not the optimal strategy for every enterprise out there, the general focus of B2B SEOs should be establishing their business as an authority with the solutions your customers need.

    And if you’re looking for B2B SEO services, Fanatically Digital has the thought-leading, web-optimizing team for you!

  • SEO Timelines: How Long Does SEO Take to Work?

    SEO Timelines: How Long Does SEO Take to Work?

    How long does SEO take to work?

    It’s a pretty straightforward question with a less straightforward answer. Because that answer (like it always seems to be) is a frustrating it depends.

    Sorry. I know, that’s never any help. But the answer will never be the same for any two sites because, quite simply, no two sites are ever the same.

    So, while I cannot give a straightforward answer to ‘how long does SEO take to work,’ what I can do is offer a typical timeline for a generic SEO strategy as well as the factors that determine how quickly a site might respond to that strategy in each phase. So let’s dive in.

    Typical SEO Timeline

    Compared to PPC campaigns which provide almost immediate results, SEO is a long haul that can take months to build a strong foundation and years to create a powerful, sustainable search presence.

    Most SEO strategies can be split up into four phases with distinct levels of activity. If you’re considering hiring an agency, they’ll likely follow a similar timeline.

    Phase One

    Defined: The first phase is almost always dedicated to research and review. If you’ve hired an SEO agency, they’ll likely spend the first month or so researching your industry, niche, or market, keywords, competition, as well as become acquainted with your website and tracking schemes.

    Time: Phase one is usually about a month or so. If you’ve hired an agency or SEO that is already familiar with your field or niche, this will be even quicker.

    Expected Results: don’t expect any.

    Phase Two

    Defined: Phase two is when activity really begins. If the agency discovers major technical issues or finds areas to improve the code or structure of the site, these are typically tackled in the first round of activity. We want to make sure that search engines can easily access and read your site. This is also the time in which we’ll begin our link building efforts.

    Time: For small, healthy, or young sites, phase two may only take a couple of days if it’s even necessary at all. But for larger sites that may be older (especially if multiple developers have managed it over the years) and less technically sound, this process can take a while; sometimes up to several months.

    Expected Results: Once the technical aspects are fixed, it is certainly possible to see improvements in impressions or positioning. But technical fixes alone won’t make a successful SEO strategy.

    Phase Three

    Defined: This is where content production and improvement begin. Once we have a solid technical foundation to build on, agencies will start to optimize current landing pages as well as schedule and publish new content to drive inbound traffic. By this point, link building outreach is in full swing.

    Time: Phase three will take anywhere from one to six months. By the end of the third phase, once technical fixes are made, existing content has is optimized, and new content is published, by this point, there should definitely be some favorable movement in the organic search metrics.

    Expected Results: This doesn’t necessarily mean you’re getting new clicks left and right. It could simply mean a respectable bump in impressions for a handful of landing pages. Which brings us to…

    Phase Four

    Defined: Phase four is really just a continuation of phases two and three. Agencies will make adjustments according to search performance, client feedback, and changes to the almighty algorithm.

    Time: Phase four is indefinite. By now, enough time has passed to collect data on those initial changes from which we can fine-tune and further optimize our strategy moving forward

    Expected Results: Phase four is where you’ll see sustained, steady growth. This is where SEO is really meant to shine and the results you can expect will depend on just how good your SEO team is. But with a solid team, year over year increases should be expected and great SEO teams can double organic users every few years.

    So… How Long Will This Take?

    It will probably be a number of months before your SEO agency will be able to offer any evidence of progress. As a business, it’s important to understand that going in. SEO requires patience and long term strategizing and any agencies that guaranteed they can get you to rank #1 in “x” months should be viewed very skeptically.

    If you’re considering SEO for your business, check out Fanatically Digital’s services as well as our SEO pricing.

  • Why Utilizing PPC Media is Key for Your Business

    If you want to grow your business, increase brand recognition, and get a great ROI from your marketing dollars, then PPC media is a great way to go.

    As agency people, we are in the business day to day and sometimes have to remind ourselves that our terminology is not always understood or known. Once in a while, we have to take a step back from our work in digital marketing and start at the beginning. So…

    What is PPC media? It’s a marketing tool called pay per click (PPC) that allows a business to advertise digitally and only pay for that ad when someone clicks on it.

    This simple tool allows you to reach your audience and specify your investment only into your customer leads, or people that are actually interested in your business enough to click on your ad.

    This advertising method is so popular, in fact, that more than 96% of Google’s total revenue comes from paid digital advertising. All that money spent means it works, but it also means there’s a lot of competition out there so you have to do it right.

    In this article, we’re breaking down the benefits of great PPC media and how you can use PPC media to increase your bottom line.

    Why PPC Media Is So Valuable and How to Make the Most of It

    PPC media is a great way to cast a wide net for free, (minus the cost of design), and only pay for the fish you catch.

    If you want your business to succeed, you can’t just rely on a quality product. You have to seek out customers and convince them that your product is better than the competitions. In some cases, you just have to get there before the competition. Here’s how.

    1. It’s Simple

    The world of digital marketing is complicated and can be intimidating.

    Many other content marketing strategies can require a lot of time and effort before the results of increased traffic and more sales are seen. Plus, these results can be very hard to track.

    Thankfully, this is not the case when it comes to PPC media. Especially when you find a great PPC agency to get you ten steps ahead with their years of experience.

    With PPC, you have the ability to target the exact customers you want, through the use of specific keywords.

    It’s a very simple system with easy to track results. This will provide you with valuable data that can help you get to know your target customers and market to them most successfully.

    Since you agree on a set price for each person that clicks, the goal is clear. To profit, you must bring in higher sales dollars per click than you are spending, even though not all of those customers will convert.

    2. It’s Worthwhile

    PPC’s outdated step-sister, CPM (cost per impression) would charge advertisers per view, rather than per click.

    That just means the ad loaded on the site they were viewing. They might not have even looked at it!

    With PPC, you know you’re getting your money’s worth because you only pay when customers engage with your ad by clicking on it.

    This means less money wasted and it puts you a step ahead in the sales funnel.

    Your goal is to draw in customers and then seal the deal by providing an excellent customer experience on the page they click through to.

    3. Pinpoint Your Customer Base

    The digital age has brought advertisers more information about their customers than ever before.

    Think, for a moment, about the pre-internet world.

    If you wanted to advertise your guitar lesson business, you would be wise to post a flyer in a coffee shop with a popular open mic night.

    Hopefully, the inspired audience members would notice your flyer while waiting for the bathroom, take a tab, and call you up to learn! This might reach a handful of customers a month and bring in healthy business for you.

    In this digitally dominated age, now those “flyers” can be posted on hundreds of places where your client base might gather.

    You can find these “coffee shops” through social media interest pages, keyword searches, and even more specific criteria such as time of day, proximity, and type of device they are using.

    4. Specific Targeting Options

    Expanding further on #3, let’s talk for a moment about keywords.

    With PPC media, you have a lot of control over how your keyword targeting works. With Google AdWords, specifically, you can optimize your PPC media for broad match, phrase match, and exact match keywords.

    • Broad match keywords will display your ad for any combination or order of the keywords you choose, plus misspellings, synonyms, and similar searches.

    For example, if your broad match keywords are “noise canceling headphones,” alternate search words such as “sound proof headphones” or “headphones with noise cancel” will still trigger your ad to show up.

    Phrase match keywords will display your ad for any searches that include that specific phrase, even if there are additional words before or after.

    This means the ad will show up so long as your chosen phrase or a similar variation of that phrase is included in the search. For example, if your keyword is “women’s running shoes” the ad will display for a “buy women’s running shoes.” It won’t show up, however, for a “women’s shoes” search since one word in the phrase is missing.

    Exact match keywords are just what they say: exact. The ad will only display for searches that match those keywords exactly or are a close variation with the same meaning.

    Exact keywords are perfect for your business name to ensure customers can find your site when they search it.

    5. Free Brand Recognition

    You may have heard that it takes 7 touches to reach a customer. This is called the Rule of 7, and it refers to the fact that it takes several exposures for a customer to recognize your brand as an authority.

    PPC media is beneficial not just when clicked, but also for building brand awareness and recognition within your specifically targeted customer base.

    For this reason, the displays that don’t generate a click are not wasteful in any way. They don’t cost you, and they are even benefitting you if you have excellently designed PPC campaigns.

    There You Have It!

    Fanatically Digital is here to help you with all of your digital marketing needs.

    Questions? Contact us and we’ll be happy to help.

  • Changes With Google and Bing Search

    There have been a lot of changes in search this year and some big changes in store. You have likely seen many of these, but since they tend to come out in a fairly ad hoc fashion, I am bringing together some of the bigger changes.

    Bing and Yahoo! are breaking up their deal. While there is a lot of behind the scenes organizational stuff, for advertisers it means that Bing is no longer the exclusive provider of search ads on Yahoo!. However for the short term, Bing continues to provide most of the ads we see there.

    Bing is now the provider of search ads on the AOL network, once served by Google. This should give Bing another small boost.

    The bottom line is that if you have the resources and are not already doing so, you should explore Bing. I’ve seen it do really well on some programs vs Google, on par for others and not so well on a few. But, worth exploring.

    Google… Lots of stuff here.

    The Ads on the right rail are gone. We’ve seen some minor price pressure for the top of page positions. It hasn’t been too bad so far though. A little more explanation and early on impressions of this change here (https://fd.idatatools.com/blog/2016/02/big-changes-coming-to-google-paid-search-results/)

    Google Local / Map advertising has moved out of Search Partner status. This means advertisers can opt out of the Search Partners (Google.com only) and still show up on the maps as long as they have location extensions.

    Google up and coming
    Google is changing the text ad format. Currently there are 25 characters for the headline and 35 each for the two description lines. Pretty soon we will have 30 characters for the headline and a single block of 80 characters for the copy/ description. This means more copy rewriting ahead. Also, the display URL will be automatically pulled from the final URL, but we’ll be able to append sub paths.

    Device bidding is coming back. For those who have been in the game a bit, you remember being able to create campaigns specifically for certain devices (mobile vs desktop). Google did away with that and incorporated bid adjustments instead. In the near future, we’ll be able to create device specific bids again. This will help for some programs that see very different behavior between devices.

    While the above is not exhaustive, it does touch on some of the main changes so far this year. If you have any questions about it or other areas of digital marketing, please drop me a line…happy to talk.

  • What to look for in a search marketing agency

    Organizational and cultural fit.

    There are a lot of search marketing agencies out there. And, putting our competitive natures aside, there is a lot of good talent spread throughout. Often it is not the competencies of the search marketers themselves, but the culture of the agency that will determine if they are a good fit for your company.

    Because of the nature of search marketing, virtually all agencies share characteristics. The difference comes in the mix of things such as reliance on bid management automation, reporting tools, processes and procedures, newbies vs highly experienced staff, and media partner relationships. Where companies put their focus directs where their culture goes, or their culture drives their focus, depending on the agency. Even this nuance says a lot about the fit.

    Price based agency

    Some client companies are price driven. There is a culture of tough negotiation and getting the cost for everything to the bare minimum. There are some search marketing agencies that thrive in this environment. Some characteristics include very regimented processes, standardized reporting and a heavy reliance on automation to offset a higher mix of newbies vs experienced search marketers. Essentially these are good for marketers who are purely price driven and don’t need / want high touch search management.

    Cutting edge agency

    I’ve seen clients who are heavily focused on being cutting edge. They like the bragging rights that come with always being the first to try new technologies, be in all the betas, and blog about how they were “there first”. Search agencies that do this well tend to be larger, often combined with other digital marketing capabilities, have a lower dependence on automation and standardization. You’ll typically find a higher mix of more experienced search marketers vs newbies. Generally, these elements have a higher price tag, but that comes with the ‘cutting edge’ search marketing label. For some brands this is a great fit.

    Performance focused agency

    Performance based search marketing agencies focus in on maximizing a client’s goals for each dollar spent. We didn’t say ROI because some companies can’t directly measure it. But, they do have goals that are important such as leads, content consumption, engagement, sharing etc. While the ideal is to measure direct ROI, the inability to do that does not preclude these companies from setting goals and optimizing their search marketing accordingly. These agencies tend to be more balanced in their approach because optimizing programs depends on the nuances of the programs; they can’t be too rigid yet they need the capacity to focus. They test into new areas (usually a predefined portion of the budget) and keep what works, trash what doesn’t. Often this is where knowing what to do when search marketing best practices aren’t working and how to integrate that with automation tools comes into play. Clients who can or want to start setting goals and developing reporting to guide decisions (not just fill up in boxes) work well with these agencies.

    Starting down the right search path

    For those looking for a search marketing partner, the trick in all of this is to be honest with your assesment of your own company. Too often, we’ve seen companies say they are performance based yet negotiated for a price point that simply cannot support the mix of talent to do that. Or, they’ll say they are performance based, but then constantly push for the new stuff (ie, unproven). Not properly managed, new stuff blows up performance based search marketing programs. As companies seek a new search marketing agency, they first need to prioritize their own objectives. One isn’t better than the other, but they all require different approaches and most agencies are simply better suited for one versus the others.

    So, what kind of search marketing agency is Fanatically Digital?

    • We focus on our clients’ program performance.
    • We use bid automation and reporting software to help manage the daily flow of search efficiently.
    • We employee search marketing experts to oversee programs and develop recommendations to make them more effective.
    • We implement Google Analytics to provide nuanced understanding of users activities.
    • Our reports are developed for each client to focus on the key elements of their program so we can, together, make well informed decisions.

    We offer our clients the option to be deeply involved with access to our own project management tools so they can (if they desire) know exactly where we are in our program management and optimization processes.

  • Bing makes a profit

    Bing makes a profit

    Bing LogoBing is profitable (Fortune Bing story ) and the search engine broke the 20% search share threshold. So, are you still ignoring the search engine?

    Paid Search
    Google seems to get all the attention from many advertisers. But those who have taken advantage of Bing paid search have often seen their advertising dollars generate more efficient sales than on Google. We have developed Bing paid search programs for clients that proved more effective in generating profitable leads than google.

    With limited budgets it makes sense to explore the most efficient options. Google, as the default ppc option, usually gets first shot at ad dollars. However, for those with more limited budgets, it is possible that the entire budget can be absorbed efficiently on Bing. Better yet, find a blend with the two to get the best of both engines. For paid search, if you’ve only worked with Google, start testing into Bing.

    Yahoo is pulling in about 10% of the search share, making it a minor contender for attention. With the new Google deal, combined with Bing, advertisers will some of the Yahoo impressions with ads in either.

  • Google and Yahoo; Friends Again?

    Yahoo! announced an agreement to tap into Google Search and image ads as part of its ongoing quest to deliver results that ‘don’t suck’. Yahoo! will determine which queries to send to Bing (that agreement still stands) and which to send to Google. Each will then bump the query against their own algorithms to deliver the best ads. Essentially, Yahoo! gets the best of both worlds.

    I think this is an great agreement on Yahoo’s part. They’ll never beat Google, and Bing will be there to give them options. Meanwhile, Yahoo! will continue to work on its core content and mobile strategies, which is where it’s future lies.

    This past weekend, Yahoo streamed the Bills / Jaguars game ($17M for the right to do so), as it explores streaming pro sports and looks at more content across Yahoo properties.

    At the same time we are told that Yahoo is also looking to develop mobile search, which is much more influenced by localization. This may be another case of Yahoo! going head to head with Google only to end up falling back and leveraging someone else’s (Google’s) technology down the road. Not so long ago Yahoo! was hot into desktop search. Those of us in the game for a while remember when they came to us and sold us on the platform that was essentially a google me-to. It will be interesting to see how far Yahoo! can take it’s mobile play.