Author Archives: Meghann Porter

Google AdWords Enhancements: Is Your Business Mobile-Ready?

Google AdWords has changed to adapt to mobile search. It’s now easier than ever to reach customers and make valuable connections with them anytime, anywhere and from any device. Let’s take a look at some of the main points and how they might impact your digital strategies.

Enhanced Campaigns: Is Your Business Mobile-Ready?

Mobile is no longer optional
Google mobile ads have been around for a while now. The biggest change we’ll see from these new enhancements is that there’s no longer an option for marketers to opt out of running ads on any device. Before enhanced campaigns, if you wanted to show ads on mobile devices, best practices called for setting up a separate campaign. Settings, keywords, ads and bids were all managed separately for optimum control. With enhanced campaigns, marketers have a default bid (for computers/tablets), and then smartphone bids can be a multiplier (positive or negative) of that.

Expect cost per click to go up
Rise in cost per click is inevitable. Because user behavior on tablets has been shown to closely mimic that of desktop users, Google has grouped tablets in with desktops for the default bid. This effectively puts an end to the deals marketers have seen from tablet clicks. Not only that, but making mobile a requirement for all advertisers is really going to increase competition over the next few months.

Opportunities in context
Now from a single campaign, marketers can take advantage of every opportunity that’s important to our business across all devices. Using factors like location, time of day, and the capabilities of the device being used, we are better able to determine context and ultimately show a more relevant ad to that user. We can also utilize powerful bidding improvements to take advantage of these key moments in context and make better use of our budget. For example, you can bid higher for customers who are searching from within a half-mile of your store, or lower during specific hours when your business is closed.

Enhanced campaigns also offer smarter ads that can be optimized based on user context and device capabilities. Headlines, ad texts, site links and ad extensions can be customized to speak to your on-the-go audience. There are several different features for mobile search ads –  all designed to help attract new customers, increase conversions and leads. Which features or formats work best will ultimately depend on your campaign goals. Here are a few examples:

  • Text ads with call extensions can include a click-to-call number that enables users to easily call your business directly.
  • Text ads with location extensions can be used to provide around-the-block directions and bring customers in the door.
  • Text ads with offer extensions can be used to promote special deals for users on smartphones.
  • Search app extensions and click to download features can be used to promote your mobile apps.

Along with new ad formats and features come advanced reporting metrics and new conversion types. For example, Google’s call forwarding feature now lets you count qualifying phone calls (say, those lasting more than 60 seconds) as a conversion. While it’s still difficult for some businesses to consider a phone call of whatever sort equal to a true “conversion,” there’s no denying that this is still an important progression.

So What Now?
With no opt-out option, you at least need a mobile strategy at the most basic level. Spend a few minutes searching Google on your phone. Search your brand and some of your top keywords. Are your competitors there? How might your message change to drive a better response from mobile users? Try browsing your site – are you able to easily find important pages and complete conversions? Make a list of what’s not working and talk to your developer about getting these things fixed.

Mobile searches have grown by 400% since 2010. Check your analytics. Regardless of these impending changes to AdWords, your site no doubt is already seeing a growing percentage of mobile visits. If your competitor offers a better mobile experience, why would your customers continue to struggle on your site?

Here’s a great resource from Google if you want to learn more: The Mobile Playbook.

Landing Page Testing: 10 Tips to Get Started

With the cost of digital marketing tactics like PPC and SEO on the rise, companies are looking for ways to make their budgets stretch further. A weak landing page can lead to money down the drain. In many cases, a few simple tests can uncover opportunities to increase conversion rates. Even the smallest percentage increase will add up over time.

The truth is there are actually very few “best practices” for landing pages that work across the board. That’s why you test. Sure, you want to write persuasive copy. You want to match the messaging in your ad text with that copy. And you don’t want anything extra that could distract visitors from your main purpose. But ultimately, there’s no way to say for sure what will drive conversions with your audience until you test it.

Here are a few simple tips to consider:



1)  Landing pages should be source-specific. Just as a targeted ad for one demographic might show poor results when displayed to another demographic, variations on your landing page will have a different effect depending on the source of your visits. But don’t let this overwhelm you; test broadly at first, then narrow down to optimize on your initial findings. The goal is to find the right combination of ad, demographic or source, and landing page.

2)  Be sure you’re working with a flexible landing page template from the start. This will allow you to test anything you can think of without having to make major adjustments on the backend. Optimizing your template for mobile devices will also help boost conversions.

3)  Remember to consider foreign audiences. This can involve more than just ensuring it’s correct linguistically. Is it designed with the target culture in mind? What variations need to be considered for payment options or form fields? Planning for these requirements from the start will help simplify and reduce costs down the road.

4)  Keep in mind your landing page may be part of a conversion funnel or a series of landing pages. By letting your visitors segment themselves, you can display the most relevant content possible depending on the path they choose. This will allow you to keep your landing pages simple, focused and highly relevant to the user.

5)  Remember, testing happens in cycles. There are many ways to test landing pages. Test every page element possible.

6)  Determine how large your test slice should be. The more data you have, the more confident you can be in the results.

7)  Collect enough data to be confident before you select a winner.

8)  Avoid inconsistencies in testing. Be sure to only change one element at time. For example, you can’t test two different calls-to-action if you’re using a different offer on each page.

9)  There are a lot of tools out there to help with landing page testing and website optimization. Google Content Experiments, Optimizely, Experiment.ly and Unbounce are just a few. What’s best for your project will likely depend on how much traffic you get and how extensive your landing page program will be.

10)  Keep testing!

 

Signal Opens Third Creative Studio in Nashville

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We're Branching Out!

Signal is pleased to announce the grand opening of our third studio in Nashville, Tennessee. We’re excited about the opportunity to bring our Creative Power to a whole new market in Music City USA.

Our Nashville operations will be led by Signal’s interactive director Adam Howard and account executive Ann Howard. Family connections and a yearning for new challenges got Adam and Ann interested in making the move from Wilmington to Nashville. After careful consideration and research, Signal came to the decision that the Nashville area would be a ideal place for us to do business.

“Nashville is a great market for Signal and we want to be a part of it,” says Signal president Rick Haynes. He expects the new venture to follow the successful example of Signal’s 1996 expansion into Wilmington, which was similarly pioneered by the husband and wife team John and Kristin Gibson.

Signal is finding that Nashville has a great entrepreneurial spirit.  Mere days after the move, Ann and Adam attended the Southeastern Regional SMPS (Society for Marketing Professional Services) conference, where they heard Economic Developer Janet Miller speak about the Music City Brand. As a city known for music, Nashville has created a creative, entrepreneurial environment that goes beyond the music industry and success stories abound.

Ann and Adam are working hard and finding that “America’s Friendliest City” is a great place to be in business. The new studio is located in the historic Stahlman Building in the heart of downtown Nashville. Got any advice for Ann and Adam? They’d love to hear from you!

Last Chance to Register for SMPS Conference in Nashville

nashvilleSignal is partnering with the Society for Marketing Professional Services to create promotional materials for their upcoming regional conference in Music City, USA – Nashville, Tennessee.

The conference is March 24-26 at the Doubletree Hotel in downtown Nashville.  The conference will bring together marketing professionals from service businesses in the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee.  There will be many opportunities to learn the latest techniques in service marketing, including branding, social media marketing, and winning the pitch.

Signal will also be attending the conference.  We’re excited to be attending sessions, manning our booth, and giving out fabulous door prizes.

Come on down!

New Translator Gadget Offers "Quick Gist" of Your Content in Other Languages

Google has a new website translator gadget that makes it quick and easy to make your site’s content available in 51 different languages. It’s easy to implement – just copy and paste a few lines of code into your webpage. After that, if the language specified in your visitors’ browser settings is different from the language of your page a translation banner will appear prompting your visitor to translate the page.

gadget1 copy

After clicking the Translate button, visitors see the translations directly on the page.

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This can be a great addition to pretty much any site, but particularly useful for site owners who know they have potential with international audiences and may not have the budget to pay professional (human) translators to do a thorough job. Keep in mind Google states that “Automatic translation is convenient and helps people get a quick gist of the page. However, its not a perfect substitute for the art of professional translation.”

If you’re worried Google’s “gist” may do more harm than help, test it! The gadget is powered by Google Translate – test your content here and get an opinion on the quality of the translation. You can also use the Google Translator Toolkit to edit weak areas in the translation of your web pages and set that version as a preferred, global translation.

Site owners should also keep in mind that although this gadget will help make their content more accessible, it will not help them increase visibility in international search engines. And the gadget can’t translate everything. If you’re using elements like text in images or Flash, it’s important to note they will remain in their original language.

On a related note, another new offering from Google Translate is 1-click translations from your browser’s toolbar! Just drag and drop your language from this page (scroll to the bottom) into your browser’s toolbar. Then whenever you want to translate a webpage, just click the new button on your toolbar.

Adding Keywords to Your URLs: Does It Help With SEO?

Yes, having keywords in your URLs does help with SEO, but search engines react differently to keywords in the actual domain versus keywords that appear tacked on to the URL string.

Keywords in the URL String
www.fakedomainname.com/widgets/
Say you’re trying to rank for the keyword “widgets.” Having “widgets” in the page URL string (after the .com) may affect rankings slightly. The real benefit is click through rate. Since search engines display the keyword you searched in bold in the search results, more people are likely to click on your listing. The key is that you have to be ranking well in the search engines for people to even see your listing. This is probably not worth rewriting all of your URLs for, but definitely worth considering for a new website.

Keywords in the Domain
www.widgetsrus.com
Choosing a domain that contains one or some of your keywords can have slightly more of an effect on your SEO efforts than just having the keywords in the URL string. In fact, if you don’t already have an established brand or domain, it’s helpful to even work keywords into your brand name and/or any tag lines associated with your brand. Just like people will begin to associate your brand with your keywords, search engines will recognize the relevance of your website to those keywords.

Exact Match Domain
www.bluewidgetsraleigh.com
If you don’t already have an established brand or domain, choosing a domain that is an exact match to a top industry keyphrase can have a major effect on your SEO efforts. Keyword choice and finding a domain that is available is the hard part. We can only speculate why having an exact match domain is worth so much, but it’s likely search engines think someone searching for “blue widgets raleigh” is actually trying to look up the bluewidgetsraleigh.com website.

It’s also possible that having a domain that is an exact match to a top searched keyphrase in your industry means that you were an early presence on the web for this topic and possibly a leader in the eyes of the search engines.

Signal's Kristof & Dowdy Speak at Annual SMPS Conference

web marketing 101 Raleigh NC

web marketing 101 Raleigh NC

Bryan Kristof and Hollace Dowdy presented at this week’s Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS) Conference. The seminar, entitled Web Marketing 101: Google, YouTube and Your Web Site, was held at the Raleigh Marriott City Center.

The seminar was a 60-minute no-nonsense crash course in search engine marketing, online videos & web site design, to help attendees achieve the highest impact possible from their web sites. The seminar also featured a case study discussion about the award-winning McKim & Creed web site, created by Signal and recently recognized by ZweigWhite and the Construction Writers Association for outstanding design.

Kristof is the director of marketing at Signal, where he helps clients build powerful brand strategies and integrated marketing programs. He also leads the company’s new media and web marketing initiatives and offers diverse experience with web strategy, search engine marketing, email marketing and web analytics. Dowdy is an account executive at Signal, and is responsible for new business development and managing client accounts throughout the Triangle area. She also serves on the SMPS SERC 2009 Communications committee, where she has been responsible for creating and maintaining the conference website.

You can visit that site, created by Signal, at http://www.smps-seregconf.org/ to learn more about this seminar and other conference highlights.