Archive for category: Online Marketing

Taking the plunge to outsource your online marketing can be daunting. It is normally up to the agency to present the options and the strategies to get the best Return On Investment.

In this conversation we discuss the difference between clients that pay you the money at the end of each month expecting to ‘get the results’ Vs clients that work hand in hand with their agency to leverage their efforts.

You’ll learn 4 benefits in working closely together and ‘How To’ get the maximum bang for your buck.

Time Stamps

The Online World Is A Land Of Opportunity – Time: 00:50
Clients That Just ‘Pay’ And Expect Results – Time: 1:42
Working together ensures you are able to cover the clients Do’s and Don’ts – Time: 2:51
Ensuring Your Message Is Delivered The Right Way – Time: 3:50
Identifying Other Opportunities – Time: 4:40
Combining Your Online to Offline Efforts – Time: 5:20
In The Next Session – Time: 6:52

Transcript

Hey, David Judge here and today we’re going to discuss How much involvement should you have when working with an online marketing agency.

This is a really important conversation especially as a lot of offline marketing efforts are starting to align more closely with online efforts.

I’ll explain exactly what this means and then touch briefly on how I believe businesses should be working with online marketing companies to get the best bang for your buck.

First things first, when I’m talking marketing agencies we’re including any company you employ to help you with your online marketing. This includes a local guy that may be helping you with your SEO and paid ads, right up to a full service agency offering a variety of services from Data Analysis to Online Reputation management.

The Online World Is A Land Of Opportunity

And this raises a really good point around all of this online conversation as the internet has totally changed the way we do business offering more opportunities than ever before.

When I say opportunities I mean more than online advertising, I’m also referring to really valuable information including the number of people that see your ads or website, where they are from, how long they stay and how they interact.

All of this valuable information can paint a picture about your customer and you can use this information to make your business more attractive to your potential leads. Also, businesses that work closely with their online agency can gather insights into this valuable intel as opposed to just paying a bunch of money and not accessing this information.

Clients That Just ‘Pay’ And Expect Results

And this is a good point that I’ve noticed when working with different clients. I’ve found clients that pay you the money and expect the results to be delivered to them nearly always end up dissatisfied as there’s no communication and consultation between the 2 parties.

After a period of time you end up trying to justify your existence as there is a gap. This may be (as an example) where the agency don’t quite work to target the right visitors and the clients aren’t getting access to valuable intel that could improve how they do business.

As you can tell I am definitely for clients and agencies working together. Of course there is an additional investment to run this way, yet the actual return is far more solid especially if you run it as a 2 way relationship with the focus of both parties getting the best results for the client. Meaning you and I working for you.

So lets break it down further and discuss 4 more benefits of online marketing agencies working closely with their clients.

Working together ensures you are able to cover the clients Do’s and Don’ts

This should be a conversation both parties should have at the beginning and will evolve over time as the agency gains a better understanding of areas they can and cannot touch. There is nothing than can impact the way your business is seen online if the agency you’re working with delivers the incorrect message.

This happened most recently working with a client assisting with around SEO to find another company managing their Social Media weren’t aware of a specific subject you simply don’t discuss in their industry.

Fortunately this was picked up and removed as the potential for it to go viral was huge which would have damaged that businesses reputation. This could have simply been avoided if the agency worked more closely with their clients company and discussed the do’s and don’ts at the beginning.

This leads me onto the second benefit…

Ensuring Your Message Is Delivered The Right Way

Whilst an external company will understand how to implement multiple strategies to bring visitors to your business, it’s important to ensure that message is being delivered in a way that fits inline with your overall direction.

This applies from smallest campaigns up to multinational campaigns and like the first benefit it will ensure your target customers are receiving your message the way you would like it to be received.

One other point on the flipside is there may be times where you want to deliver a message a particular way and the company you’re working with will have valuable intel that could show you a slightly different way to tweak and deliver that message. Which leads me into the next benefit…

Identifying Other Opportunities

Some of the greatest business decisions in relation to online campaigns we’ve managed have come as a result of working with clients to get the best result.

Like I just mentioned this could be in the form of how you deliver a campaign and tweaking how you could deliver it (through the sharing of valuable info around reverse engineering other campaigns and how they’ve worked best) through to brainstorming the best approach within your own industry to set up link relationships.

There are many benefits in communicating with between each other, which brings me to my final benefit…

Combining Your Online to Offline Efforts

This is about leveraging what you are doing in your business offline and how you can best use to the advantage of your online efforts.

This can be something as simple as an event you’re hosting and writing and distributing an online press release around it. This can result in additional search engine visibility and public visibility.

We’ve had a number of instances where a client has spoken with us about an upcoming event where we’ve created a few online strategies around that event eventually landing free TV, Newspaper and Radio exposure. This can turn into excellent exposure, online traffic and SEO benefits if set up correctly.

So, there are many benefits in working more closely together as you’re able to maximise how you can really get your business found especially if you can focus on multiple rewards with the one strategy.

As I mentioned this can be through combined SEO and Offline efforts (where an offline project can help your rankings). This can also show you the people that buy from you, what they when they visit your website, how they interact with your website, and finally devising additional ways to improve conversions and targeting your content in the future.

These are just a few examples and by working closely with your agency you get the maximum bang for your buck.

In The Next Session

Ok, lets wrap up… in the next video we’re going to discuss ‘What a CMS should allow you to do when designing a website’.

This includes SEO, Paid Advertising and Social Media functions and how they should all fit together within your website.

If you have a question you would like me to answer make sure you get in contact and I love to hear from you.

As always this is David Judge talking online marketing and showing you how to grow your business online.

If your website is penalised it can be a big problem for the website owner especially if they rely solely on the search engines for traffic. As time has passed, Google have become more transparent on ‘how to’ identify a penalty and many SEO’ers have developed processes to follow to reverse those penalties.

In today’s session we discuss the different types of penalties, how to identify if you’ve been affected and the steps to reversing a penalty.

Time Stamps

What is an SEO penalty? – Time: 00:24
The 2 Types Of Penalties – Time: 00:43
Algorithmic Penalties – Time: 2:13
Panda Algorithm – Time: 2:34
Penguin Algorithm – Time: 3:05
Pigeon Algorithm – Time: 4:01
How To Identify The Type Of Penalty – Time: 4:39
The Steps For DIY Penalty Removals – Time: 6:25
How To Reverse Pengiun Penalties – Time: 7:10
How To Reverse Panda Penalties – Time: 8:07
In The Next Session – Time: 8:56

Transcript

Hello and Welcome, David Judge here and today we’re going to discuss SEO Penalties.

We’re going to talk about the idea of what an SEO penalty is, the different types of penalties, and what you can do if you’re penalised.

So Let’s jump in as this is a really juicy subject.

What is an SEO penalty?

An SEO penalty is when your site goes against the webmaster guidelines of a search engine (specifically Google in today conversation) and as a result loses it’s search engine visibility.

In plain english, this means your site loses its rankings.

The 2 Types Of Penalties

There are 2 ways a penalty can occur… a Manual penalty, where a human finds an area of your site violates their guidelines and pushes the big red button of doom or Algorithmic which is when Google’s algorithms (their computer language) picks up an area and algorithmically penalises your site.

If you think you have a penalty, the first step is to check and find out. If it’s a manual penalty Google will tell you if you install a handy little add-on called ‘Google Webmaster Tools’.

If you’re in the manual doo doo they send you a message, that will look a little something like this –

So you can see a variety of penalties here, which as I said are manually activated.

The most common manual penalty you would find was related to the types of links you have pointing back to your site… more about that in a minute.

There are also algorithmic penalties which occur when Google roll out a change on how they measure the elements of a quality site. When these occur you’ll normally notice a change in the traffic that is coming to your site from Google.

Google’s algorithm (the way it chooses which websites rank where) is so huge and complicated that they broke it into a few different areas to allow people to focus on specific areas of improvement.

Algorithmic Penalties

They’ve also given these different areas of their algorithm cute animal names to lead you into a false sense of security as they pounce and attack your site.
You may or may not have heard of these animals so we’ll share each one and what purpose it serves within the overall algorithm.

Panda Algorithm

So first is the Panda – This was the first of the 3 animals that measure your websites content, the quality of that content, as well as the structure of that content. Panda has always focussed on understanding how well your content relates to the words you would like to rank for and is constantly improving how it measures the theme and structure of your website.

Of all of the algorithms Panda is one of the most overlooked as most people are missing out on massive opportunities to improve this area of their online presence.

Penguin Algorithm

The next is the Penguin – Penguin is all about links that point back to your website and is an area a lot of SEO’s have focussed on as it was the most widely abused techniques people used to get websites ranked.

Google have always reinforced that someone linking to your website should be to pass value onto that visitor and of the examples I showed before the most common reason was due to spammy links.

We’ve had to work with a number of clients to correct issues with Penguin and the most common type of spammy links were an SEO person arranging 1000’s and 1000’s of links from directory sites and any other site they could find to get a backlink.

When businesses find their traffic has dropped a lot think it is as a result of Penguin where it can also be a result of Panda.

Pigeon Algorithm

Of, the last one we’ll mention is Pigeon. This was released on 24th July 2014 and had a heavy impact on local businesses and how they ranked Google. This is still in a lot of ways in it’s early days and expect to notice more around this in the future.

So those the 3 animals to be aware of and as they ‘Roll Out’ an algorithm change you can see if your site has been impacted or not. So rolling out means they make a change to the algorithm (like when you upgrade software with new features).

How To Identify The Type Of Penalty

As I just mentioned, this is the best time to see if you’ve been impacted or on the flip side you can look at the historical traffic (that comes from Google) to your website and see if there are any great drops in traffic.

This is usually a good tell tale sign that you’ve been impacted. The best way to measure this is through ‘Google Analytics’ where you can drill down and see traffic from the search engines.

How would this look?

Well, in the instance of ebay, it looked like this where they experienced a 220% loss in Search Engine visibility:

[insert as an image on the post] http://screencast.com/t/CzboaWoI55

or for RetailMeNot it looked a little bit like this where they experienced a 139% decrease:

[insert as an image on the post] http://screencast.com/t/vi9oQiSO

Now, the best way to see what penalty you’ve been affected by is to take the drop in traffic you’ve experienced and to compare it to the dates Google have rolled out updates.

You can do this by Googling ‘Moz Algorithm Change History’, or check out the link I’ve included below.

In both examples I mentioned just now, these sites drop in search engine visibility were as a result of Panda updates, so it’s important to understand why before you react or ‘do’.

Ok, we’ve covered a lot already so lets cover off the last section before we wrap up… What do you do if you’ve been impacted by a Penalty?

First step is to understand what that penalty is by using the technique I mentioned just now.

The Steps For DIY Penalty Removals

Once you understand the type of penalty from there it’s time to react.

In my opinion, I think you should contact a company that can help you strategize and correct the issues. I am biased as this is a service I offer, but I know the complexity associated with getting a site back into the search engines. I have also seen the result of a person trying to correct the issues by digging deeper holes by using old school SEO methods.

Let’s say you don’t want to get someone else to do it and you want to tackle it yourself, I’ll touch briefly on what I would do and then we’ll finish up. Warning… if you don’t have a great deal of knowledge around this subject I am about to get technical.

How To Reverse Pengiun Penalties

Ok, if you find you’re impacted by Penguin you need to clean up your low quality links. You can use software like Link Detox to flag the low quality links and then you need to contact the webmaster of where the links are located and ask them to remove.

You should also look at the remaining links you have pointing back to the site and the anchor text they use. If they are too keyword stuffed (meaning keywords you want to rank for is the anchor text you’re using) then you need to change them and focus more on brand links.

Next, you need to look at other strategies to naturally attract links to your site. This can be relationships you form where you create valuable content for them, referencing a page on your website that expands on a topic and many, many other ways of getting links.

Finally, you should look at how your site is structured and any opportunities to expand on the content of your site, really focussing on how you can deliver value to the end user.

How To Reverse Panda Penalties

Ok, if it’s Panda you should look at the content on your site.

Is it original, does it offer value, does it delve deep on a subject, does it link to other supporting content on that subject. If you’re a shopping cart, are you offering an interactive experience? Do you have reviews of your products, allow others to rate and review, do you have supporting content that expands on the back story of your products, do you have suggest other similar products.

Panda is all about making sure you are delivering the best experience to your users and as a result of offering that great experience you’ll naturally gain higher rankings. In other words focus on your users first and you’ll be rewarded second.

In The Next Session

ok, great… Let’s wrap up. In the next video we’re going to cover

Ok, great. in the next video we’re going to talk about redesigning a website and the areas to be mindful of from an SEO perspective. I’ve witnessed so many sites firsthand that have redesigned their websites have flicked the switch and have totally dropped out of existence as they didn’t cover the basics to make sure all of their previous work gets counted.

If you have a question you would like me to answer make sure you get in contact and I love to hear from you.

As always this is David Judge talking online marketing and showing you how to grow your business online.

Resources

Moz Algorithm Change History – http://moz.com/google-algorithm-change

Link Research Tools – http://www.linkresearchtools.com/

 

Have you ever created a landing page for your business and the result was no where near where you expected? The reality is a good landing page comes as a result of lining up a number of critical components which would be best described as putting all of the pieces of a puzzle in the right place.

We talk about the importance of landing page (especially if you’re using paid advertising), and demonstrate live examples of landing pages that WORK and the Why’s.

Time Stamps

What Is A Landing Page? – Time: 00:16
The 2 Types Of Landing Pages – Time: 00:57
The Purpose Of A Landing Page – Time: 2:25
The Key Elements Of A Landing Page – Time: 2:54
Your Ad Must Match You Offer – Time: 3:23
Other Critical Elements Of A Landing Page – Time: 4:08
Look At The Opportunity Of Landing Pages For Yourself – Time: 5:04
In the Next Video – Time: 5:44

Transcript

Hey David Judge here and today we’re going to talk about…. Landing Pages and we’re going to explore the purpose of a landing page along with the key elements every landing page should have.

Now, before we get started and for those of you that are thinking ‘What’s a Landing Page’, let briefly jump in and explain….

Now I’m grabbing this from unbounce as I love the way they explain the idea of landing pages.

What Is A Landing Page?

Ok, as unbounce says, in the world of the online marketing a landing page is ‘standalone page that is separate from your main website’ that is designed with a single focus or objective.

This also means that your landing page keeps visitors separate from your main website.

The reason why this is set up this way is you want to make sure you are MAINTAINING the focus of the visitor to that action you want them to take, without allowing any distractions to get in the way.

The 2 Types Of Landing Pages

There are 2 types of landing pages…

‘Click Through’ and ‘Lead Generation’.

Click through pages are designed to educate a person around the benefits of a product designed to warm a person up and to assist with their buying decision.

The error a lot of businesses make when they are using ‘Paid Advertising’ to direct toward a site, is they direct visitors directly TO the product without warming them up first with all of the benefits of that product.

The other type is a ‘Lead Generation’ where you capture user data like their name and email address. The SOLE purpose of this page is to get peoples contact details so you can market to and connect in the future. When you use this type of landing page you need to give them a reason to complete their details.

A few examples that come to mind include:

A free e-Book
If you’re running a webinar
Discount coupons / vouchers
Entry for a competition
A free trial
A gift (like a physical gift)
Getting alerted to a new product

There are other examples that can be applied to your business with this giving you a basic guide.

The Purpose Of A Landing Page

So, why would you want to use landing pages?

Landing pages are most commonly used for paid advertising and are used to increase your conversions.

Lets face it, you’re paying every time a person clicks you want to maximise the possibility of getting a conversion and the ‘concept’ (as we said earlier) of a landing page is to Maintain the focus of the visitor.

If this is the first time you’re looking at this it should be starting to come together for you…

The Key Elements Of A Landing Page

Ok, lets now talk about the elements of a landing page, and to do that we need to talk about the ad you use to click to a landing page…

The ad you use should have a call to action. For example:

Get 10% off today Pink Lashes
Check out my new turtles
101 dog stories that’ll blow off your socks

Ok, maybe not the last one, but keep going with me here…

Your Ad Must Match You Offer

When I click on your ad, guess what I expect to see when I go to your landing page????

That’s right, that single offer. So if I’m clicking on a link about 101 dog stories to blow your socks off, I expect to see why 101 dog stories will have that effect as opposed to a generic home page where there are simply too many choices and distractions.

Now, I invested a little time on that first pointer as this is one of the biggest gaps businesses that use landing pages miss. They have a totally different message from the ad to the landing page and if I ask for a salad I don’t want to be given a cheeseburger. (is my analogy too left wing???).

Other Critical Elements Of A Landing Page

Anyway, let’s cover off a few other important elements of a landing page:

A headline that matches your ad
A sub headline that shares that same message as your headline
Your call to action above the fold
Testimonials that demonstrate why your product or service is sooo good
Benefit statements that explain the reasons they would want to use that product / service
Demonstrations of the product / service in use (video is great as it’s proven to increase conversions)
Social indicators (allow people to share on social channels and to like the product / service)
Any other cred builder (as used by …. or as featured in…)
And finally, the same congruent message throughout the whole page remembering your looking at a SINGLE message

So I have a little exercise for you as we finish up.

Look At The Opportunity Of Landing Pages For Yourself

Go to Google and perform a few searches and click on the paid ads related to that search and see how many businesses are following these basic principles. Every time I look I am awestruck at how many people are throwing their money away by not looking at these basic principles that are PROVEN to work!!!

What that means is there is a lot and I mean a LOT of opportunity here to get the maximum result by following this simple little formula and will ensure you’re getting the maximum ‘Bang for your Buck’.

Ok, let’s wrap up…

In the Next Video

In the next session we’re going to talk about The Top 5 Ways you can understand what your customer wants.

This won’t be a ‘what women want’ video as in all honesty it’s a lot easier to understand what your customer wants than a woman. (ha,ha,ha,ha)

If you have a question you would like me to answer make sure you get in contact and I love to hear from you.

As always this is David Judge talking online marketing and showing you how to grow your business online.