Awesome Reporting for Winning at PPC #HeroConf

Today I had the pleasure of speaking at the first ever Hero Conf in London. This is an event that has been running in the US for years but has only just headed over the waters to the UK. It has been a great event and one of the only events in the UK that is fully dedicated to PPC.

The event attracted around 200 attendees and 40 speakers from around the world and there have been some great sessions. In my session, I spoke about making use of Google AdWords, Google Analytics and Excel to really make the most out of the data you generate off the back of running PPC campaigns.

It’s all about the money

Google and Bing are super smart and essentially, they rely on advertisers not always using their platforms properly because they generate a lot of revenue off mistakes being made.

Last year in 2014, 90% of Google’s revenue came from their advertising platforms such as AdWords, YouTube and AdSense. When you look at this as a value in revenue, it was in excess of $59 billion dollars! The graph of their annual revenue year on year is a trend that any business would love; a nice steady increase every single year.

Now this increase is not only a result of advertisers not all understanding how to use the platforms properly, it is also down to the sheer amount of changes that happen across the AdWords platform and the features that become available to us.

HeroConf Slides

My slides from the event can be viewed below and as you work your way through, you will be able to uncover some of my favourite and sometimes underutilised reports available across AdWords and Analytics.  Each slide should be pretty self explanatory but if you do have any questions, feel free to tweet me (@Koozai_Sam) or get in touch here.

Awesome Reporting for Winning at PPC #HeroConf from Samantha Noble

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Web Design: Be My Judge

Your website is a static advert that customers will consider when deciding whether they want to go into business with your company or not.

It represents your brand and should therefore show off what your brand is all about and offer a positive experience for every user. As it’s out there for everyone to see, it should be something that you are proud of and what your users want.

I’ve worked on a number of web development projects and in doing so have identified a number of common errors made by webmasters when developing a website. These vary from opportunities missed to elements not executed well.

User Intent

One very important factor in web design is clear channelling. Your site design should clearly illustrate to users the path they should naturally take through your site to get to where they want to be.

You want to make it very easy for a user to reach their ‘intent’, be it to convert or to gather information. If you’re making it difficult for them, what’s stopping them from going to a competitor?

Quite often web designers get lost in ‘what looks pretty’ and forget ‘what works best for the user’. Design for your user and their intent – the rest should come afterwards.

So how can you clearly channel intent?

Get your conversion optimisation up to scratch with clear and unique CTA’s, buttons and navigation, all designed with the user in mind. Compliment this by continually asking what users are coming to your site for, and provide that valuable information, product or service offering where applicable. You can do this by looking at the search queries that brought users to your site within Google Search Console, and then build on this, amending it gradually for continuous improvement.

One Goal For Every Page

Ideally you should have one goal per page: when you’re looking at a page, you want to be able to answer ‘what is the goal of this page?’. If you struggle to answer this yourself, how is your user supposed to know? Users will struggle to make a decision when they’re given too many options.

Decide what each page’s goal should be before filling the page with content and styling, as this will save you time in the long run. Work out whether this is a learning resource, or whether you want users to sign up to contact forms or encourage a purchase.

By ensuring you have one set goal for each page this will improve time on site, bounce rate and other key metrics that help you assess site performance.

Avoid Clutter – White Spacing

Whilst your call to action is arguably one of the most important components of any page, its position and the space around it is almost as vital as the CTA itself. Make sure there’s a big enough space around the CTA so that it stands out; if you clutter this up, your message will be lost and users will be less likely to convert. Remember: the more space there is, the more the CTA will stand out for the user.

Site spacing is probably one of the most important aspects of your website. White space is vital – a bit of simplicity never hurt anyone and some colour also wouldn’t go amiss. I’m not suggesting that web design should work against SEO (i.e. you must have some content above the fold) but I just mean it should look appealing. After all, your website says far more about you than a business card ever will. Your site is an open book that users will judge to assess whether they want to work with you or buy from you.

Navigation

There are numerous sites that have failed because users either can’t understand how to use it or they can’t be bothered to work out the snazzy navigation the web developer has worked tirelessly to put in place. Either way, this isn’t going to help users navigate your site or helps drive conversions.

To ensure that visitors find your site easy to use, I recommend running some simple usability tests with a small number of people from your target demographic(s). Just ask them to perform a few simple tasks on your website, such as navigating to one of the main service pages, sending an enquiry through the contact form and downloading a white paper, for example. You may find there are some surprises to help you realign some of your site’s navigation to make it clearer for users to understand.

Content

With accessibility in mind, managing content correctly is also an extremely important aspect to consider when building a website.

The importance of content on a website can often be overlooked in favour of web design. From an SEO perspective, this is detrimental as you’re missing an opportunity to provide relevancy for certain keywords to crawlers. From a user perspective, you’re not giving them much reason to stick around on a website.

All too often I have seen websites with next to no content and it just makes no sense. If you’ve worked hard to create a website, why wouldn’t you enrich it with content that’s going to help you build links, engage audiences and enable your company to excel in your field?

Get to the point quickly and concisely, your user won’t stick around for very long to try and find what they’re looking for. The more concise the content of your website is, the quicker the user can decide whether you’re offering what they’re looking for.

On the flip side, content is often ignored when there’s too much waffle.

Use Of Multimedia

I can’t stress enough how important good images are for your site. They allow you to say less in a simple and effective way. Branded images are a definite bonus, as are images of staff members to help build trust in the brand and to allow users to relate to your company and even see themselves working with you.

It’s also advisable to use a vector image for your logo so that it isn’t distorted regardless of screen size – there’s nothing worse than a low-res, pixelated logo. To me, this instantly sends alarm bells telling me not to trust the site as it’s such an easy fix, so why wouldn’t you just do it?

Good images will sell your product or services, while bad images will do the opposite. There are so many royalty-free sites now, so there’s no excuse to not use these resources to your advantage.

Using photos and videos in the right way will help transform your content from a word-heavy page to an appealing page that’s broken up and engages users.

Avoid Clutter

Although I mentioned this earlier from a channelling perspective, you should also avoid clutter from a content perspective. Having a page that’s covered in images and text can be daunting for a user visiting your page for the first time, and they’re likely to bounce back to the previous page.

Make sure you’ve got a page with a nice balance of text and white space, as this will make it easier for your user to digest information and will also increase the likelihood they’ll engage or take the desired action.

Contact Details

Whilst including contact details clearly on your site is an essential trust signal, it also helps the user get in touch, alleviating the user’s confusion with important CTAs.

For the most clear and consistent layout, I recommend including your company phone number within your site header and your full business address within your footer.

If users can see that your company is legitimate and easily understand where to find more information, they will be more likely to perform each page goal that, in turn, will help generate site revenue and enhance your return on investment.

Final Thoughts

I’m not sure I believe that anyone’s site is beyond optimisation, but if you feel you’ve done all of the above then awesome – you’re well on your way to a site that’s optimised for your users in terms of usability and the overall look and feel.  As it’s out there for everyone to see, it should be something you are proud of. My main tip from this post is:

Look to continually improve your site, and make sure it is designed for your user and what they want

Tweet this

If you think of any other web design features that I should have included, please comment and let’s chat about it. Alternatively feel free to ask me a question on Twitter via @Koozai_Sally.

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14 ways to reduce your site's bounce rates

Here are several suggestions for ways to keep visitors from leaving your site and enticing them to stick around and view more pages.

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Ad Blocking and The Future of Online Advertising

(This is the transcript from our new video so it may not read as well as a normal blog post would)

Pills, buy them now. Weight loss, buy it now. Earn five grand a week now. These are examples of the annoying ads that everyone sees every day. They’re on sites you love. They’re on sites you’ve only visited for the first time. They’re everywhere.

Well, people started getting annoyed with them, and that’s why ad blockers were invented. So now, instead of going to your favourite site or one you’ve been to for the first time and seeing annoying ads pop up everywhere and jiggle about and do that kind of thing. “You’re our thousandth visitor today. You’ve won an iPad. Just click here.” You’ve not won an iPad. Everyone knows you haven’t won an iPad. But there it is anyway.

Ad blockers let you get rid of those now, and they’ve become pretty popular. It’s kind of a big deal now that Apple has introduced them on their mobile browser, because it means there’s a huge, extra big chunk of audience that’s not going to be able see ads on their mobile if they choose.

So what does that mean? Well, it means one thing for a start. It means that ads have been ridiculously, badly targeted for so long. All of these things here, they’re not of interest to me. They might be of interest to some people. The point is that the advertisers just sort of threw them against the website and let them land wherever they may and hope for the best.

The only times I ever click on these kind of things and most people I’m guessing is by accident, when I’m scrolling through something. That’s not just a waste of money for the person advertising. It’s kind of brain killing as well.

So I don’t see how this sort of stuff ever really worked. But hey, you know people are still doing it, and people are still annoyed by it. So they skip that kind of stuff on YouTube that isn’t really targeted. They’ll block everything else that they can with a content blocker.

Now it’s not really Google’s fault. I personally think that their search ads are really useful now. Stuff like PLAs and Google shopping is amazing. It’s really, genuinely useful. You can search for something. Find it straightaway. See what it looks like. Find prices and compare stuff. And even the search ads themselves, they’re actually useful. They serve a purpose. They can get you to the right location. They can get you to the right landing page like that, and that’s genuinely good stuff. So they’re kind of an innocent bystander in all of this, which is a shame because they’ve only just really gotten good.

So with all these ads stalking around, appearing everywhere, not really targeted, totally irrelevant to the site you’re on, it’s not really any wonder that people have decided to block them. But it doesn’t mean that the PPC is dead or anything like that. It doesn’t mean that at all.

All it means is it’s really time to start thinking about doing it right. You have to target the right people. You can’t just use your TV ad on YouTube any more, because people just hit the Skip button. It doesn’t translate. The attention span is too short. So you can’t have a 30 second ad on YouTube for a video that’s 15 seconds long or whatever. It’s just not fair. It’s annoying. People don’t get their point across quick enough. You’ve got to do that sort of thing when it comes to video ads. You really just have to bang. You just be there straightaway, and it’s done. Two seconds later no one bats an eye. No one is really phased by it.

But please, everyone, just start targeting your ads properly. Think about who you’re going for. Stop the scattergun approach. It just doesn’t work. If all your eggs are in the advertising basket, if you’re a publisher and you rely on your income from advertising, start thinking about other means, because if people start using ad blockers on scale, your whole income is all in one place. You can’t really have that.

Start thinking about apps. Start thinking about merchandise. Start thinking about other avenues that you can get your income from. Or be more sort of discerning. Be a bit more sort of strict on what kind of ads you want on there. Obviously, an advertiser will choose where their ads go for display. But be a little more sort of scrupulous with it and think about the kind of content that you have and the kind of people that are coming in. Just think about the audience a bit more. That’s all I’m really saying, because we’re kind of tired of all this stuff.

Another knock-on of ad blockers is content blocking in general. So JavaScript won’t fire with some of them, and that means that Google Analytics that it can be skewed. So just be wary of that as well. So if you start seeing a lot of traffic coming from unknown places or you just get naught set or none, I think it will just be flagged up as general direct traffic. That means that it could be from an ad block enabled browser as well.

So just be careful with this kind of stuff. But I guess the moral of the story is don’t ruin it. Don’t ruin it. Ads are still good. There’s still hope. There’s still life in the old dog yet. But just stop with this stuff. Stop chucking it in our faces. We’re done with it.

Thanks, guys. I am @Koozai_ali. You can find me on Twitter. Follow our other social media channels as well. Thanks. See you later.

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How paid search marketers can prepare for the 2015 holidays

For paid search marketers the holiday season is already in full swing and competition is going to be tough.

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Using Facebook Insights to Monitor Your Social Campaigns

Social media is a powerful tool, which all businesses should be using if they want to prosper in the digital age. However, it’s all very well using platforms like Facebook, but without tracking what works and what doesn’t, how can you be sure that you’re using social in the best way possible? As Facebook is the largest social platform in the world, we take a look at how the network’s Insights tool will help you to maximise this channel.

What Is Facebook Insights?

Facebook Insights tracks user interactions on your own business Facebook page and allows you to view which type of content is performing well on your page. Access to Insights is given to all of the admins who are permitted to view and/or edit your profile.

Why is this information so valuable? Because it allows you to establish:

• The posts that have received the most likes, shares and comments
• The exposure and reach of all your updates
• The percentage of males and females who follow your page
• The city and country your fans are located in
• The most popular times/days to post content

All of this information can be used to work out what type of content you should be sharing from your Facebook page and when’s best to share it.

Accessing Facebook Insights

When you log into your Facebook account, you’ll find the ‘Insights’ button at the top of the page next to ‘Notifications’ and ‘Publishing Tools’, as shown highlighted below.

Click on the Insights option to take you to an overview of your data. By default, the range of information displayed usually spans the last week.

This time frame can be extended by clicking on some of the individual tabs at the top of the page, such as, ‘Likes’, ‘Reach’, ‘Visits’ and ‘Videos’.

So now you know how to access the data, let’s get stuck into what Insights can offer.

The Best Time To Share Content

Navigating to ‘Posts’ will allow you to work out the amount of active users online on a given day and also the amount of users online at a specific time.

In the example below, we can see that the most popular day in the week was Sunday, with 8pm being the most popular time across the whole week.

What the data tells you: Understanding when the largest proportion of your users are online, as well as which day and time they’re most active will allow you to target your posts to the widest audience possible.

You should monitor this on a regular basis so that your social media posting plan and strategy can be adapted to meet any changes you spot.

The Type of Content to Share

The ‘Post Types’ button under ‘Posts’ (as displayed below) will also give you some decent insights into the type of content to share in order to maximise exposure and engagement.

Once you click through to this section, the following information will display:

Here you can see which form of content has the widest average reach; in this case, the running order from top to bottom is shared videos, photos and links.

This doesn’t mean to say that links should be neglected. It depends what you are trying to use social media for. As an example, you might want to draw attention to a particular news story on an external site and build relationships with specific sites, so in this case links would be worth investing your time in.

However, if you want the widest number of people to see and engage with your content via likes, clicks, comments and shares, shared video content would be the best approach in the example above. If you’re after post clicks, the same content type would also apply based on the data we can see.

What the data tells you: Viewing this information allows you to use social media to meet the goals of your campaigns – so if you want comments in the future for example, you’ll know which content type is best for this.

Demographic of Your Users

Finally, to work out the percentage split of male and female users who like your profile, the most popular age categories and where your followers are from, click on ‘People’ and ‘Your Fans’.

This section in Facebook Insights will also show you the countries and cities your users are from and the languages they speak.

This provides you with in-depth and interesting information that can be used to target a particular audience based on gender, age, city and more.

The data you view is easy to analyse and will be displayed like so:

Using this data as an example, you could determine that in order to gain the most interaction you should share content with females aged 35-54 who are based in London and speak English.

Alternatively, if you wanted to increase male followers, you could create social updates aimed at those aged 35-44, again who are based in London, as this is the majority male audience.

What the data tells you: Having access to these insights allows you to work out which demographic, or segment of a particular demographic, you need to target in order to maximise your Facebook activity.

Final Thoughts

Start using Insights on your own Facebook Business profiles and you’ll soon discover how accessing this knowledge will make your social strategy more targeted and successful than it’s ever been before.

If you need more advice on creating a social media campaign or you’d like a professional Digital Marketing Agency to manage your social accounts, speak to Koozai today.

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How To Create a Successful Content Marketing Strategy

We all want to create successful content marketing strategies and have our clients’ names up in lights receiving the acclaim they deserve. But how achievable is this?

In truth, it’s not an unreachable target; it just requires a vast amount of preparation and dedication, which is where some companies fall short.

When you consider the supporting role that content plays for SEO, it seems a shame to let all that hard work go waste. Here are just a few effective methods for creating a successful content marketing strategy.

Creating great copy doesn’t guarantee you instant social media shares and high-quality backlinks. There’s no magical ‘go viral’ button you can hit. Instead you need to make sure that your content marketing strategy is targeted from the get-go.

Defining Goals

Before you start your campaign, make sure you take the time to clearly define the main goals. These will be the backbone of your strategy and will help ensure that your content marketing efforts are driven towards an end goal. Whether this is increased brand awareness, boosting traffic, link acquisition or social shares, putting definitive aims in place will help you achieve them.

When your client first comes on board, set up a meeting to talk through their current content marketing strategy and establish what has and hasn’t worked for them in the past. This will save you time when you come to the ideation stage later on.

Micro Goals

Once you’ve established the main goals of your campaign, it’s time to think about your micro goals. These are the individual goals that you want each piece of content you create to achieve. Your content won’t stay the same, so neither should your targets.

Both your main and micro goals need to fit in with your overall strategy so always make sure that your content ties into the bigger picture.

Audience Identification

Before you start creating your amazing content with its sights set on success, you need to establish who your audience is. This may be one particular demographic, but in most cases your audience will be made up of several groups of people.

A handy way to segment your audience is by defining their characteristics and social standing. Sites like YouGov Profiles are an effective tool to use for this.

Take a look at the example below:

Group name

• Age
• Gender
• Social grade
• Interests
• What they are looking for

By establishing the groups of individuals in your audience, you can include content tailored to them in your Content Marketing plan. This ensures that your content resonates with the right people. Otherwise you’re just creating content and hoping for the best – and your clients deserve better than that.

Title Creation and Content Ideation

On-page SEO isn’t something that you should shy away from. By using tools like Übersuggest you can strengthen your copy, help support the SEO strategy and make your content more targeted.

Übersuggest is a free keyword tool that provides targeted suggestions based on a base term. It’s an effective resource if you’re struggling to come up with strong titles, or just need some content topic inspiration.

“Being noticed is not the same as being remarkable. Running down the street naked will get you noticed, but it won’t accomplish much. It’s easy to pull off a stunt, but not useful.” – Seth Godin

When it comes to creating your content, the tried and tested approach may work for you, but it’s well worth trying alternative methods. For example, larger pieces of content can offer you a great deal of value that you may struggle to achieve in the same timeframe with smaller content pieces.

Ahrefs is another fantastic tool at your disposal. In addition to the backlink analysis you can run, the software also allows you to search for the top 10 most shared pieces of content by topic. So it’s great for getting an insight into what your competitors are creating and also the topics that your intended audience are interested in. When you come to plan the content you will create, this will help to support your strategy and ensure that it is as targeted and relevant as possible.

Tracking Results

So you’ve put your content marketing strategy in place and have achieved great things, but rather than patting yourself on the back an idly continuing, you need to compile your results.

Once your content goes live it’s important to ensure that you track how it performs. Using software like Google Analytics, you can collect a whole range of information that will give you an invaluable insight into its value.

These include, but are not limited to:

• Unique page views
• Downloads
• Average time on page
• Bounce rate

Having access to this data will help you identify what content is and isn’t working and gives you the opportunity to refine your plan. Remember that your strategy doesn’t have to be set in stone. Ideally it should as flexible as possible.

Get In Touch

Let me know your thoughts on what makes a successful content marketing strategy. Leave a comment below or tweet me @Koozai_Ruth.

If you don’t have time to resources available to create a comprehensive content marketing strategy then contact Koozai today.

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