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Many companies complain that PPC campaigns are “hit and miss.” They either work so well that companies happily keep spending money to run them, or they just don’t work at all, and advertisers swear never to use them again. There isn’t really any mystery as to why this discrepancy occurs: display ads are either planned and executed to optimize them – or they aren’t. The following tips will help you ensure that your PPC campaigns are set up for maximum profitability.

Link your Google Ads and Analytics accounts

A common mistake that companies make is forgetting to link their Google Ads account to their Google Analytics account. Linking the two helps you to track conversions, which, in turn, enables you to optimize your ads. A vital feedback loop forms, which maintains and increases the profitability of your ads.

Set a specific goal for each campaign

No two PPC campaigns should be alike. Some are meant to drive direct sales, others to generate leads, and others for brand awareness. Display ads should always be used with one specific goal in mind. If you set the goal, you can optimize your ads to suit their particular purpose and track their success more accurately.

Use the right audience targeting options

Aside from setting a goal for each ad, you must also ensure that it is targeted at the right section of your audience and for the right reasons. You may need to test these options to find out which one is the most appropriate. The options include remarketing, demographics, affinity, in-market and custom intent. Targeting your ad in the right way will ensure that you reach the right people and improve your campaigns’ success.

Make your ads mobile-friendly

Since so many people access online content via their mobile devices, it is vital that your ads are optimized to be viewed on cellphones and tablets. For this reason, you should be sure to create responsive ads – these are display ads that change their size and orientation based on the kind of device on which they are viewed. If you don’t use responsive ads and make them accessible only on laptops and desktops, you are excluding a large part of your audience, which will reduce your visits and conversions – and thus your profitability.

WSI New Media Marketing is a full-service digital marketing and search engine optimization company in Greensboro, North Carolina. Contact us for expert help with your PPC and SEO marketing campaigns.

The change in lifestyle brought about by COVID-19 has highlighted the need for SEO services more than ever. Even demographics who would previously not have been big e-commerce shoppers have been persuaded to go online as the pandemic has kept them indoors. This makes logical sense, and the stats prove it:

• Compared to the same period last year, U.S. e-commerce sales in July increased a whopping 55%.
• As a total of retail sales in the U.S., e-commerce more than doubled from Q1 2020 to Q2. “That’s over a decade of growth in the space of just a few months.”
• Year on year, Amazon sales rose by 40% for Q2 2020 to $88.9 billion.

SEO and PPC tips for e-commerce success

1. Create a strategy for SEO and PPC synergy

Google Shopping has reintroduced free listings that are generated by the Google Merchant Center. Maximize your holiday shopping campaign by aligning your organic search (SEO) and paid search (PPC).

Use your PPC spend to target high-value queries on channels where paid listings lead the results.

Seek out opportunities to use SEO to rank for searches that attract a high click-through rate.

2. Analyze Search Trends

Take note of the top search queries in your category. Utilize the results to keep SEO core to your strategy, influence your marketing messaging, and inspire your paid search.

3. Plug Fresh Content

Use SEO analysis as a guideline to create current, pandemic-related content that develops trust with your readers by showing your understanding and support.

PPC can then be used to attract some immediate traffic and fill in any gaps. The best part? Informational queries are generally cheaper per click – extending your budget.

4. Test with PPC

Paid search provides feedback on what type of message and imagery works best – almost immediately. Use PPC to test various new ideas and tweak your SEO accordingly.

5. Lengthen Your Marketing Funnel

The more familiar people are becoming with using search engines, the more diverse their reasons for doing so.

Take time to nurture prospects during the consideration stage of the buyer’s journey using an appropriate blend of SEO and PPC efforts.

6. Draw your audience a picture

As part of your search plan, make sure to include images and videos to keep up with the increasingly visual nature of Google. Keep your visual content consistent in SEO and PPC.

7. Leverage Ad Extensions

Take advantage of callouts, structured snippets, and other ad extensions – such as Google’s beta “Curbside pickup” badge – to share extra information about your products and services.

8. Add to Google

As Amazon and Walmart’s advertising improves, you may want to spread your e-commerce budget across all retailers and search engines – adjusting as their ROI becomes evident.

9. Avoid Google

Consider how you can optimize your PPC spend and SEO efforts with alternatives to Google. Specialist search engines are slightly less competitive as they already have built-in customer intent. Video search engines are increasingly gaining popularity – an exciting way to showcase what you have to offer.

10. Make the Most of Automation

Wouldn’t it be awesome to get real-time insights in the face of such an unsure time? Automated rules and AI smart bidding for PPC does just that with a flexible solution to boost your SEO and PPC strategy.

If you are looking for a holistic approach to increase online leads and sales, WSI New Media Marketing in Greensboro, North Carolina is the perfect fit. For more information on how to get your business in the spotlight with SEO services such as SEO optimization, link building services, and PPC, contact our digital marketing agency in Greensboro today.

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising can be a potent digital marketing tool as long as you use it with clarity, intent, and to its fullest potential. However, this can be challenging at times because it is not an exact science. It can take a bit of trial and error to achieve a good return on investment. With some research and tinkering, you can reap excellent rewards – up to $2 in revenue for every $1 spent, according to Google. To fast-track this success, it is best to avoid these five common PPC mistakes.

1. Not paying attention to data

Before making any hard and fast decisions about how your campaign is doing, and which ads and keywords to target, carefully analyze all the available data. You may find that you are doing well overall, with plenty of clicks and conversions, and so you might decide to keep your current spread of ads as it is. However, parts of your campaign may be working well, while others are not working at all. One or two of your ads may be carrying your entire campaign. Analyzing the data allows you to shift your strategy and spending to maximize your results.

2. Not using negative keywords

Many marketers either forget, neglect, or choose to ignore negative keywords. This can be a big mistake. While it may seem counterintuitive to target keywords that are meant to keep people away from your website, it is actually one of the best ways to establish your niche and make sure that you attract only visitors who are most likely to become paying clients. You would be doing both yourself and internet users a favor by establishing these limits at the very beginning. Yes, negative keywords will lead to less traffic, but they will eliminate only the non-converting visitors and ensure that you get the right traffic.

3. Not using ad extensions

Ad extensions can increase your click-through-rate by 10-20% – and they don’t cost any extra – yet many people forget to include them in their campaigns. As extensions can increase your ad’s reach, they can provide better value for money, and they offer more ways to reach you while increasing your online visibility. They may include contact details, site links, invitations to download an app (if you have one) or testimonials from your customers, among other things. Be sure to include as many of them as you can.

4. Forgetting to bid on your own brand keywords

You should always run at least one campaign that is dedicated to your own brand keywords. The main advantages of doing so are that brand keywords are generally much cheaper, yield higher search scores and convert much better than generic keywords. By neglecting to set up brand keyword PPC campaigns, you miss out on opportunities to capture your market.

5. Targeting the wrong keywords 

Sub-optimum keyword selection is a mistake that many companies make in their search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. It can be particularly costly when it comes to PPC, as choosing the wrong keywords can result in either no hits at all or hits that don’t convert to sales, but which you still have to pay for. One of the best ways to target your PPC ads is with long-tail keywords. The main characteristic that distinguishes long-tail keywords from short-tail ones is that they usually consist of two or more words that resemble detailed queries. In contrast, short-tail keywords generally consist of single words or phrases without context. Using long-tail keywords will narrow your traffic considerably and help ensure that your PPC costs are worthwhile.

For an effective, error-free PPC campaign that gives you the highest possible ROI, it’s best to engage the services of a professional search engine optimization company. WSI New Media Marketing in Greensboro, a proud member of the global WSI family, is a digital marketing company with considerable experience and success in strategies such as SEO marketing, PPC, content marketing and more. Contact us for more information.

When it comes to improving your pay per click advertising, you’ve probably heard it all. Some marketers advocate for the sole use of content marketing, while others support the exclusive use of pay per click (PPC) to grow your business.

Combined, pay per click advertising can be a powerful tool that allows you to capitalize on your content marketing while waiting for search engines to start delivering search results.

Creating high-quality and relevant content should be your long-term strategy to boost your SEO ranking, improve the quality of your landing page and to build your brand’s standing.

We’ve listed four tips for you to do just this.

At WSI New Media, we provide a holistic approach to increasing online sales and leads. We specialize in designing and managing PPC campaigns by assisting our clients to see how this valuable resource will capitalize on your content marketing through improved click-through rates, conversions, and profit.

Contact us today for more information.

Have a small budget but still want big results? With a bit of strategizing and research, it is indeed possible to make your PPC campaignmore cost-effective without sacrificing on the number of people whom you are able to reach. Here is how:

• Geo-Targeting 

If your budget is tight, you need to target your PPC campaign very carefully to avoid ‘wasting’ clicks. Geo-target people within specific areas who would be able to access your products and/or services. Just because you limit your campaign to a specific area does not mean that you will restrict the number of people whom you are able to reach in it!

• Schedule Your Ads Carefully 

You are more likely to reach a higher number of people at certain times of the day, hence the reason why it is often smarter to schedule your ads to show only at these times, as opposed to in a more staggered manner. The pay per click advertising platform that you are using will provide you with these insights. Paying attention to them will help to maximize reach without taking you over budget.

• Track Performance 

When running your ads, make sure that tracking is set-up through the PPC platform and website analytics to effectively measure performance. This will allow you to learn more about who the campaign is reaching and how they are reacting to it. In short, you will have a much better idea of where and how to optimize the campaign in order to keep reach high and costs low.

• Research Keywords 

Generic keywords can be extremely costly. Therefore, it is always worthwhile to do some more intensive keyword research to see if you can save money. ‘Designer handbags’, for example, is likely to cost more than double a more specific keyword like ‘designer handbags North Carolina’.

• Include Ad Extensions 

While ad extensions may not increase reach, they will certainly improve the effectiveness of your campaign, all the while helping to boost the number of leads that you receive. Ad extensions include your company’s click-to-call phone number, site links, address, and structured snippets.

Need assistance when it comes to maximizing your PPC performance without paying a fortune? Here at WSI New Media Marketing,we not only specialize in pay per click advertising programs, we are also a trusted local SEO company and SEO service provider in North Carolina that can help you to achieve your digital marketing goals in a flash. Contact us nowto learn more.

Pay per click advertising is a great way to get immediate traffic to your website, landing page, or e-commerce product page. But what happens when you log in to your AdWords account and see that your impressions are through the roof, but your click-through rate is lower than 1%? Besides panic, what is the first thing you should do?

• Not Checking Your Settings

Many times, when we check a client’s PPC campaign that is underperforming, the settings are off. Perhaps you are targeting the wrong location or the budget you have set is incorrect. It is possible that an ad group did not get turned on. The first thing you need to do if you notice that a PPC campaign is not working is to check your settings.

• Redirecting Your Audience To Your Home Page

If you are marketing a specific service or product, then you shouldn’t direct search engine users to the home page of your website. Make sure you have a high-impact landing page that is professionally written, compelling, and that gives your potential client all the information they need to do business with you. Each ad group should have its own landing page for the best results. Keep your website’s navigation simple so that they can find what they are looking for, information about the credibility of your brand, shipping information, and anything else they might want to know.

• Neglecting Local Factors

All pay per click advertisers want the lowest possible cost per click (CPC), but it is virtually impossible to keep the costs at bay if you ignore local factors. Localize your PPC campaigns to ensure that you not only have local vendors in the areas that you are targeting, but that you are using everything from the right lingo and slang to the desired suburb areas.

• Not Tracking Fraud Networks

Whether you are advertising on social media or the major search engines, there will likely be networks that distribute your ads. Some of these networks are fraudulent, which means that the traffic they send to your website and landing pages are fake. Ensure your ads are distributed to the right network so that you get genuine visitors.

• Not Using Negative Keywords

There are many keywords that you do not want to rank for. Perhaps you want to avoid ranking for keywords such as ‘second hand’, ‘new’, ‘free’, or a specific color. Include all the negative keywords that you do not want to rank for to prevent your ad from being triggered by these words.

WSI New Media Marketing is a search engine optimization company in Greensboro, North Carolina. Contact us if you need help with your pay per click advertising strategy or campaign today.

It is an all too familiar story: you have created a great new online store and you are carrying products that you know people will love, but nobody is coming to your store. Why is that? There could be several reasons, but the most likely one is that you are not doing a good enough job of driving visitors to your online store. Here are a few practical and proven methods to drive traffic to your website:

1. Partner With Instagram Influencers

Instagram influencers have thousands and thousands of followers and these followers are very interested in the products they are promoting. As a company specializing in social media for business, we often advise clients with e-commerce websites to send free product samples to Instagram influencers. Instagram is quickly becoming one of the most effective marketing channels for e-commerce merchants. A recent study showed that Instagram provides brands with 25% more engagement than any other social platform.

2. Reach Out To Bloggers

Start thinking outside the box with your content marketing strategy. One of the best ways to drive traffic to your e-commerce website is by being featured in a blog or in the press. You do not have to target the biggest and most successful people. In fact, your chances of being featured are better if you aim for bloggers and media outlets with smaller audiences – because they are not constantly bombarded with pitches from companies. Target journalists who have written about your industry and bloggers who have a big following of people who would be interested in the products that you are selling.

3. Post Your Store On Reddit

The whole of the internet hangs out on Reddit and in addition to its front page that aggregates the most popular content on the web; there are also thousands of category-specific sub-Reddits. You can find a sub-Reddit on nearly every subject. Define sub-Reddits that are relevant to your industry by typing in the keywords you are targeting in Reddit’s search feature. Look at ways that you can contribute content to sub-Reddits without coming off as too salesy and spammy. This could involve posting a link to a blog that you have written or a video tutorial for a product that you are selling.

WSI New Media Marketing is a digital marketing agency in Greensboro, North Carolina, specializing in marketing strategy and social media for businesses. Contact us for digital marketing services such as pay per click advertising programs and SEO today.

Today’s consumers want to be able to find what they are looking for or complete an action within the shortest amount of time. Whether your website has been created to sell products online or whether it is an informative website to help people understand what types of services you offer and why they should partner with you, it needs to be user-friendly. If your target audience is not able to achieve whatever goal they had when they clicked on your website’s link, then it is not user-friendly enough and your resources are being wasted. Here are a few tips from a top website design company to keep in mind when you start creating your website:

• Get Organized

The way your content is structured needs to be carefully planned. This means that your navigation has to be well thought-out from the start. Consider the following:

• The different product or service categories you will need,
• the information (or even drop-down options) that will form part of your About Us page,
• what you are going to do to build trustworthiness and authority (such as testimonials or a secure payment gateway badge), and
• How many clicks a user will have to make if they simply want to contact you.

• Keep Your Content Simple

It can be easy to want to go into the finer points of who you are and the products or services you offer, but more content is not necessarily better. Hire a professional copywriter so that you are able to communicate your message in the simplest, most effective way possible.

• Fonts and Graphics

Some fonts are easier to read than others are, and darker fonts on lighter backgrounds are the standard. In some cases, website designers experiment with fonts, colors, and graphics to create a unique effect and while this can be an impactful way to differentiate yourself from the competition, make sure it is not taking away from the user-friendliness of your site. Keep in mind that some people have impaired eyesight, so anything that is slightly confusing or more difficult for a person with full sight ability may be near impossible for someone with a disablement to complete.

• Keep Your URL Simple

Your URL should ideally be your company name or the easiest derivative of it. This will make it easier for your customers to remember when they want to visit your website again.

• Make It Mobile Friendly

Google has started to penalize websites that are not mobile compatible and for good reason. The number of people searching the web from their smartphones continues to rise, so your website’s design needs to be responsive to the various devices a person could be using to browse your site.

WSI New Media Marketing is one of the top website design companies in Greensboro, North Carolina.  Contact us for SEO optimization services, pay per click advertising, web design and more today.

Whether you have already experimented with pay per click advertising campaigns or whether you are just getting started, it is important to make sure you are getting the best bang for your buck. Here are the top five ways to get the most out of your PPC programs:

1. Plan Your Campaign

It is not enough to have a broad goal such as ‘sell more of product X’ for your paid Google advertising campaign. Your campaign’s structure needs to be planned as opposed to setting it up haphazardly. Determine the following:

• How many keywords are you going to have in each ad group?
• How many ads will be in each ad group?
• Make sure that you are putting the right ads in the right ad group.

2. Have Options To Experiment With

As most digital marketers will know, your best bet is to have a few different campaigns focused on the geographic area and product you are targeting. This will give you options when it comes to tweaking your campaigns and ads for better results.

3. Determine Your Metrics

The metrics that you are tracking will depend on your business as well as the goals of your campaign. If you are tracking click-through rates and conversions, for example, you can go through the historical performance of your keywords to see which keywords can be considered ‘high performing’ so you can really zone in on those keywords.

4. Experiment With A Tiered Bidding Strategy

After you have determined the high performing keywords that you want to focus on, bid on the same keyword within the different match types, namely Broad, Modified Broad, Phrase, and Exact. If you are going to spend more money on one of the match types, let it be the Exact match type as this ensures you know exactly what a Google user has typed into the search engine. With broad match types, the person could be looking for information relating to the keyword phrase and the interpretation could be much broader, which could potentially lead to a lower return on investment.

5. Keep Adding To Your Negative Keyword List

Without a solid and comprehensive negative keyword list, you could be throwing away a lot of money. While you may have a few negative keywords to include right off the bat, it is important to continuously evaluate your results so that you can keep adding to that list.

New Media Marketing is a digital consultancy in Greensboro, North Carolina. Contact us for social media marketing, SEO, pay per click advertising, mobile content marketing, and more today.

What do you know about pay-per-click (PPC) advertising? Very little? Or do you already know that you want to use PPC to market your business? But you aren’t sure where to start? Well, you have come to the right place! WSI New Media Marketing in Greensboro, North Carolina, specializes in designing and managing PPC campaigns for our clients.

• What Is Pay-Per-Click Advertising? 

PPC advertising is an internet marketing model in which advertisers pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked. It is a way of buying visits to your site, rather than attempting to “earn” those visits organically. A lot goes into building a winning PPC campaign:

• Researching and selecting the right keywords,
• Organizing those keywords into well-organized campaigns and ad groups, and
• Setting up PPC landing pages that are optimized for conversions.

• Search Engine Marketing 

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is one of the most popular forms of Internet marketing. It involves the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages; primarily through paid advertising (PPC).

SEM may incorporate search engine optimization (SEO), which aims to adjust or rewrite website content and site architecture to achieve a higher ranking in search engine results pages to enhance PPC listings. It allows advertisers to bid for ad placement in a search engine’s sponsored links when someone searches for a keyword that is related to their business offering.

Search engines reward advertisers who can create relevant, intelligently targeted pay-per-click campaigns by charging them less for ad clicks. So, if your ads and landing pages are useful and satisfying to users, Google charges you less per click, leading to higher profits for your business.

Obviously, this means that if you want to launch a successful PPC campaign, it’s vital to choose the right SEO company. Enter WSI, who is expert in:

• Managing keyword and content optimization,
• Driving high-quality traffic to clients’ websites,
• Customizing paid search campaigns and overall paid advertising strategy, and
• Maximizing on ROI.

• Search Engine Optimization 

The only constant in SEO is change. Google makes anywhere between 500 and 600 algorithm updates each year. Most of these changes are minor. However, some can have serious effects on your rankings – businesses have been built and conquered on the search giant’s shifts in algorithm changes in the past – and no one wants to fall behind.

If your website has stale or irrelevant content, a heavy sales pitch and too many keywords, it could be damaging to your SEO efforts and directly impact your rankings. What is worse, the damage may already be done by the time you notice a decline in conversions and profits!

• You Need the Help of an SEO Company That Will Keep You Ranking High 

2018 is but an infant and already the “Speed Update” has everyone at the edge of their seats. The expectation is that it is going to be even harder to achieve and maintain high search engine rankings. What you need is a fool-proof digital marketing strategy to keep ahead of the constant changes and updates; while gaining a competitive advantage in your marketplace.

WSI New Media Marketing in Greensboro, North Carolina, is an SEO Company specializing in adaptive search engine optimization services that will help you maintain web integrity while attracting more visitors and achieving higher conversion rates. As a dedicated, hands-on SEO company, we not only aim to get more targeted visitors to your website, we convert them into paying clients. We have been assisting businesses large and small to conquer the world. Now it’s your turn!

Give the experts at WSI a call today to find out how PPC and paid advertising can drive your brand forward. Speak to our friendly team now at 336.279.7000.