DMAnc.org

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Twenty-five is a number with a lot of significance in our world. It is the atomic number of manganese, it is the number reserved for the player deemed the best “slugger” on a baseball team, and it is the name of the national board game of India. To the hardworking men and women of the Beasley Direct and Online Marketing agency, however, twenty-five carries a much higher level of significance.

A Walk through History

The Beasley Direct and Online Marketing agency was founded in 1990 by Laurie Beasley after a successful career as a marketing manager for Borland International. After leaving Borland, Laurie began to consult for other software and hardware companies who all recognized the need for an upgraded revenue model. This was rewarding consulting work; however, Laurie began to recognize that companies were having trouble executing the plans. Direct marketing is both science and art, and companies were struggling with both aspects. Eventually, Laurie decided to switch from just being the consultant who built models, to a full-service agency that built the model and executed it using database marketing.

In 2001-2002 the U.S. experienced the dot-com crash. Many agencies went out of business then, but Beasley Direct and Online Marketing thrived by adding a full set of services to help companies get their digital marketing programs up and running, including websites, email programs, and online advertising.

In 2008 the world experienced the Great Recession. Many more agencies went out of business during that year and the years which followed. The members of Beasley Direct jumped in and helped companies shift a heavy proportion of their marketing budgets to online, including search and social media.

Beasley Directs Growth along with Marketing Advances

Despite the challenges of the past, technology moves ever forward. With the arrival of the Internet, a huge shift occurred in marketing. To stay ahead of the curve, Beasley Direct added creative and technical services for developing websites and online advertising. As Internet marketing has progressed, Beasley Direct fought to stay ahead with the addition of sophisticated email and search marketing services, and more recently content marketing and social media services.

“Marketing managers must understand and use a wide array of tools…. We help clients avoid letting the tools replace or hinder good strategy, and to the relief of most of our clients, we help in the day-to-day optimal use of the tools.”–Laurie Beasley, President of Beasley Direct and Online Marketing

With all these advances in marketing technology, a huge need grew in the industry for training marketers to keep up and stay ahead of changes. To meet this growing need, Laurie Beasley created and managed a Certificate in Direct and Online Marketing at San Jose State Professional Studies, and then cloned this program at UCLA Extension, UC Santa Cruz Extension, UC Berkley Extension, and the Online Marketing Institute. Many of the Beasley Direct consulting staff members now teach in these programs.

What Does the Future Hold for Beasley Direct and Online Marketing?

“I believe the future of marketing will evolve with social media and the internet. Mobile marketing will continue to force innovation on marketers to keep their websites, search and social media effective for the mobile user. The introduction of mobile apps, kiosks, and third screen interactivity will provide many more avenues for marketing messaging and lead generation.”–Laurie Beasley

A Message to Other Marketers

“Marketing never stands still, and you need an agency that will keep you ahead of the curve. Beasley Direct has stayed far ahead of the learning curve, adding technical and creative skills to an ever-growing list of media channels.”–Laurie Beasley

With a future that includes wearable technology and a technologically desensitized population, the fight to stay ahead of marketing curves will never be over. However, you can bet that Beasley Direct and Online Marketing will be at the front lines, ready to provide absolute top notch services.

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Elizabeth Beasley, Account Manager, Beasley Direct Marketing

This post was authored by Elizabeth A. Beasley, Account Manager, Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc.

Elizabeth Beasley serves as an account manager at Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc www.BeasleyDirect.com   Elizabeth manages new client onboarding and accounts, social media, corporate presentations, corporate website, and database maintenance. She also serves as an account manager for the Direct Marketing Association of Northern California www.DMAnc.org, managing event logistics, registration and promotion. She holds a B.A. in Communications from National University.

The post Beasley Direct & Online Marketing Agency Celebrates Twenty-Five Years of Great Service appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

By John Thyfault, Vice President of Search & Social Strategy, Beasley Direct Marketing

It can be a disappointing experience to set up a PPC (pay-per-click) account on Google AdWords or Bing! and see initial success—but then when you try to grow the program You see no improvement (or even a reduction) in the results. Sometimes there seems to be an invisible barrier that allows you to achieve early, easier successes. But, it won’t let you through to the big returns.

When this happens, you need to perform a PPC Optimization Audit on your PPC account. This is to analyze the setup and tune it for maximum performance. But don’t rush to a PPC audit too soon. You need to have your account up and running for at least three months. Six months is even better—or there won’t be enough data to be meaningful.

That being said, it is important to perform a PPC Optimization Audit before you get desperate. You don’t want to wait until things aren’t working to look at how to improve overall account performance to grow your business.

The person who set up the account should not be the person who audits the account. Fresh eyes are needed to catch some of the things you might be missing, question assumptions, and revisit decisions.

Day-to-Day Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

First, revisit the larger issues. Such as, where are your ads are serving, how they are set up, and your goals for the account (and have these goals been achieved?). This will allow you to judge whether or not the account is performing according to expectations. Additionally, it will indicate where the account needs to be tweaked if expectations have not been met.

The big three KPIs are click-through rate, cost per click and cost per lead or sale. All three are important, with cost per sale being the top concern. This is a good place to start, and where a lot of people put their focus.

Click-Through Rate:

Do an in-depth analysis to improve your overall click-through rate on the account. First, start to look at click-through on a keyword-by-keyword level. Often you may have keywords that are high volume but low click-through, dragging down the entire campaign. Identifying these high volume/low performance keywords and segregating them into separate ad groups and campaigns will allow you to focus on the top-performing click-through keywords to maximize potential. Because high volume/low performing keywords generate so many impressions, they can steal funds from more productive, lower volume keywords. There are times to outright kill these high volume keywords, and times to sequester them in different AdGroups where you can control how much you spend on them.

The higher the click-through rate you are able to achieve by doing this, particularly on the most valuable keywords, the higher your Quality Score will be, driving down cost per click and improving your average position.

While driven primarily by click-through rate, there are other factors involving Quality Score (which we will discuss in a future post). Quality Score is important because it determines where you appear on a search page. A high Quality Score results in higher page position and usually lower cost per click. We will be discussing Quality Score in depth during an upcoming post.

Cost per Click:

While it appears attractive and simple as a KPI, it isn’t necessarily the most accurate way to measure your account’s performance. Cost per click is often viewed in the aggregate, whether at the ad group, campaign or account level. Again, cost per click is most valuable when analyzing it on a keyword-by-keyword basis. Cost per click needs to be viewed as part of the larger cost per sale/lead equation. It’s important to know how valuable your keywords are on a keyword-by-keyword basis and how that relates to the eventual cost per sale/lead. Some high CPC keywords will attract more qualified customers, while lower CPC may attract more clicks, but convert fewer prospects. The average cost per click of the keywords reflect this; high-frequency/low CPC keywords can sometimes be more expensive than the lower frequency, higher CPC keywords with a stronger conversion rate. Focusing strictly on cost per click doesn’t tell you the whole story about how keywords are actually performing.

Cost per Sale or Lead:

We view this as one of our core metrics. Understanding cost per sale is vital to running an effective campaign over the long term. However, not all sales or leads are equal. As you are performing the account audit, look at the various units in your account—AdGroups, keywords, the ads—and map keywords to your cost per sale metric. Also consider the value of the sale. Is it a one-off or does it have higher value over time? Even if it is a one-off, is it a low revenue sale or high revenue sale? Figure out how to restructure your account to get good, smart, easy-to-use units that you can aggregate into one AdGroup. Give it a budget that will reward that value and form other groups with lesser-value keywords where you can control the costs.

Other Factors To Consider

Overall Impression Share:

Looking at all impressions for a single keyword, what percentage of these are you getting? Having a low Quality Score for the keyword can impact this. Quality Score reflects how relevant a given keyword is, based on its click-through rate, its relevance to the language of your ads and the final landing page(s).

Conversion Rate:

This is the conversion rate once people get to the website. Many people look only at the wide end of the funnel metrics (CTR, CPC, etc.), where the traffic starts, but forget to look at the narrow end—how the individual landing pages perform once a prospect gets to the site. There may be landing page elements that are causing drop-offs in conversions, which you can observe as partially completed forms and abandoned shopping carts. A good, hard look at landing page performance will often allow you to dramatically improve conversion rates and make your marketing dollars work more effectively.

Network Settings, Overall Account Settings:

Some of the elements you should examine include:

• The default setting for new campaigns is “Display Select.” This means that your ads will be displayed next to content on a publisher site along with being shown next to search results on Google. This generates a lot of traffic, but can drive down click-through rates overall because content ads are by nature interruptive; they requires diversion of the user’s attention from the content users are interested in. When your ads appear on the “search” network, they will be more productive because they appear in front of a person who is actively looking for what you are offering.
• If you want to be on the Display Network, examine where your ads are actually appearing and assure that the sites are relevant to your offer. This may curtail reach (and therefore traffic), but this is likely to result in lesser reach with better results, which is desirable.
• When using the display network, some graphic/display ads will work better than text results alone. Focus on immediately attractive offers. You need attention-grabbing graphics and copy to be effective here.

Are You Taking Advantage of Different Device Types?

If your ad is designed for the generous real estate of a desktop computer screen, it will probably not do as well on a mobile pad or smartphone. If you are targeting mobile devices, be sure to include location-specific ads, click-to-call and other techniques designed to optimize mobile ads.

Timing and Seasonality:

Analyze your account performance through the lens of whether your business is 24/7, or if there are days of the week and hours in the day that achieve better results. If the latter is the case, you may be paying for ads appearing on days or at times that don’t produce results. Adjust the timing, save money, and get more out of your investment.

If you have a nationwide business, you need to assure that your ads are set to run at appropriate times in each time zone. Remember that Google sets up the time zone on your account at its inception and this cannot be changed. Every ad you run under a schedule will be served based on this original time zone. You have to consciously set ad timing for other zones so that they are serving when your customers are looking for your products.

Localization:

Google rewards advertisers who go the extra mile by localizing their ads. For example, if you are advertising in France, Google will prioritize French language ads first. Your English language ad will trail far behind. This is a natural reflection of Google’s focus on delivering the best user experience possible—because that is what makes the most money for Google. Make sure that your landing pages are in the local language as well.

Using Ad Extensions on Google AdWords:

Ad Extensions will allow you to add a number of features to your ads, including click-to-call and location-based extensions that tie into a retail store. You can also set up ads so that online reviews show up next your ad. Site Links Extension can allow for additional pages from your site to appear with your ad if it is in the top two ads on the search results page. These often get double-digit click-through rates.

Using Google’s Upgraded URL Structure:

You can apply a template tracking tag set across the entire account that automatically appends to all URLs. This feature is very new, having rolled out on July 1, 2015.

A periodic PPC Optimization Audit of your PPC account will be highly beneficial. You can trim the deadwood activities, focus your dollars on the most productive areas, and lower your cost per lead or sale. More important, you can gain greater insight into what is driving your business and how best to approach it.

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This post was authored by John Thyfault, Vice President of Search & Social Strategy, of Beasley Direct Marketing. Contact John at jthyfault@beasleydirect.com.

John has more than 19 years of marketing, sales and product development experience, and he brings a proven track record of successful campaign, program and product development expertise. His knowledge of search engine optimization and marketing, combined with an in-depth understanding of customer identification, market analysis and segmentation, allows him to deliver high returns on our client’s marketing investment for both business-to-consumer and business-to-business markets.

Prior to working with Beasley Direct, John was Senior Client Services Project Director at ThirdAge.com, a first wave baby boomer lifestyle and community website. At ThirdAge he successfully led major client sponsorships for Fortune 100 companies in healthcare (Tylenol), financial services (American Century), technology (Intel & IBM) and consumer products areas (Revlon & Viactive). He was responsible for strategic and tactical goal setting, project management, new product creation and web site production. John previously worked in Channel Marketing and National Account Sales for IDG Books Worldwide, the publishers of the immensely popular “…For Dummies” book series. Additionally, he managed the wholesale distributor sales channel for Tor/Forge Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press.

John is active in local marketing associations, including the Direct Marketing Association, the Business Marketing Association and is currently serving on the board of directors for the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association.

John has taught search engine marketing fundamentals extensively. He has led workshops for the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association, Northern California Direct Marketing Association (DMAnc.org) and the Business Marketing Association. He also teaches Search Engine Marketing at UCSC’s Extension in Silicon Valley.

The post How To Do a PPC Optimization Audit on Your Account appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

MORGAN HILL, CA

News Facts: Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc. of Northern California, a local SEO company, has been appointed as the search marketing agency of record for Focus Product Design, Inc. (www.FocusPDM.com) of Menlo Park, CA. The initial work will be search engine optimization (SEO) and Pay-per-Click (PPC) advertising to increase qualified leads coming into the company. Specific SEO tactics will be to optimize the website architecture for better search visibility, keyword and key phrase research, and website content and copy optimization. Beasley Direct will also create and optimize PPC ad campaigns and landing pages to increase clicks and decrease cost per click and leads.About us:

Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc.  is known for bringing the latest marketing strategies to online and direct marketing. Beasley Direct provides services in email marketing, search engine optimization, social media, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, website design, media planning, direct mail marketing, lead generation and nurture campaigns, and database management. Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc. helps clients in both B2B and B2C marketing. Beasley Direct Marketing is privately held and headquartered in the Silicon Valley suburb, Morgan Hill, California. For more information, go to www.BeasleyDirect.com or call Laurie Beasley, President, at 408-782-0046 x21 or email lbeasley@beasleydirect.com.

Focus Product Design, Inc. www.FocusPDM.com is a custom product design and manufacturing partner located in Menlo Park, California — in the heart of Silicon Valley. Focus specializes in taking a new product idea from concept, through design and testing, and into production.

Focus is a one-stop shop built to guide entrepreneurs and companies along every phase of development and is manufactured with precision and brought to market based on a foundation of real-world research. For more information contact Rocco Santoro, VP of Innovation 650-300-4375 or rocco@focuspdm.com.

Contacts:
Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc.
Laurie B. Beasley
President
Ph: 408-782-0046 x21
Fx: 408-782-9604
lbeasley@beasleydirect.com

Focus Product Design
Rocco Santoro
VP of Innovation
Ph: 650-300-4374
rocco@focuspdm.com

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By John Thyfault, Vice President of Search & Social Strategy, Beasley Direct Marketing

 Local & Mobile SEO Go Hand-in-Hand

One of the great advantages of the Internet is global reach. For the first time in human history, anyone can send a message that potentially will be seen in every corner of the earth. It was only after we came down from this global high that we realized that most business is transacted locally, and we needed a way to make Internet searching effective at the local level. After all, 30% of all searches have local intent, and most of these searches are also commercially related—that is, the searcher intends to spend money.

This brings mobile SEO into play. Fifty-nine percent of all local-intent searches are performed on a mobile device, usually while the searcher is on the go, and often when the searcher is ready to purchase. So optimizing local search marketing also means optimizing mobile search.

In late 2014, Google began sending notices via Webmaster’s Tools, identifying issues for mobile search. In late February of this year, Google announced it will be incorporating mobile SEO ranking factors into mobile phone searches—meaning that if your site isn’t mobile, your site will not rank well on mobile searches and your traffic will suffer. (See our blog posting, “Get Your Mobile Site Ready: Google Making Changes to Mobile Algorithm.”)

Google noted the following common errors in the way mobile sites are set up. All of them make mobile searching more difficult and frustrating:

• Blocked JavaScript
• Unplayable content
• Faulty redirects
• Mobile-only 404 error notices
• App download interstitials
• Irrelevant cross-links
• Slow mobile pages

Most B2C local searches have a strong geographical component because the searcher is usually looking for the nearest location where they get can the product or service that you are offering. They do not want to wait for shipping of products and are looking for local help that can be accessed in person.

On the other hand, most B2B local searches are for professional services and products, so the geographical components are often focused on a service area instead of a store. For example, the searcher seeking “Bay Area copier repair” would be seeking a site that promises to have their local copier technicians arrive in a timely manner.

Best Practices in Local SEO

Google’s local search algorithm, known as Pigeon, brought more traditional factors into the local mix such as links and on-page content, and gives more importance to directories.

Google My Business (AKA “Google Places for Business” or “Google + for Business”)

Google My Business is the current incarnation of Google+/Google Places business focused pages. This has been a constantly shifting interface for the business owner to use over the last four years. It requires regular attention to build your visibility and assure its shelf life. Google My Business is the ideal place to add content so that Google can see it immediately. Business information, product and service offerings, and physical address need to stay current on your Google My Business page. The reviews that your customers post and the +1’s that they click will all help to drive your site up in the search results. You can also use Google My Business to post local news and events for your business that Google will instantly see and work into their search results.

To help your site appear on Google’s map thumbnail in the search results add a Google map page to your Google My Business page. Once that is done, copy the link from the Google My Business map and embed it as the map on your main website.

Remember not to use reviews or +1’s on your site from Google My Business. Google frowns on this practice as creating “duplicate content” and will treat the copying of the +1s and reviews from your Google My Business page to your site as a form of plagiarism, discounting the value of them on both your Google My Business page and your website.

Directories

Getting listed on directories thus becomes even more important. While directories assume greater importance and value under the new changes, it is still important to assure that the directories are curated and subject-specific. Google discounts directories that are a mishmash of unrelated business and services, or full of broken links and no-longer-extant businesses. However, even very locally focused directories are useful—neighborhood associations, local charities or a directory of businesses specific to a particular neighborhood, for example.

Once you’re in a directory, do everything you can to rank well within the directory. Local directories can get listed high in the Google search results when they are quality, relevant directories. Analyze the sites that are ranking well, learn from what they are doing successfully in the directory’s eyes, and use this data to drive your site to the top of the directories—and in turn, to the top of Google search results. This is called “Barnacle SEO,” with your directory listing being the barnacle on the much bigger “ship” that is the directory. Your listing “lives” on the ship and travels with it to the bigger Google search results. You can find some great best practices on barnacle SEO at Moz’s WhiteBoard Friday webcast.

Reviews

Reviews are extremely important in helping to boost your ranking locally and on mobile. Get reviews on your social media, such as Google My Business, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Third-party reviews on sites such as Yelp! are key drivers in the Apple (iOS) Maps app. There are tools out there to help you maximize the impact of reviews. Look into BazaarVoice and similar services.

Be sure not to duplicate content from one review site to another, as this makes it appear that the reviews are not from genuine consumers. Also, never engage a service that promises hundreds of great reviews. Search engines are smart enough to detect fake reviews through similar language patterns, and this will work against you, not for you.

Claim Your Social Media Territory and Work It

Social media is a hungry beast. You have to feed it all the time for it to be successful. Obviously, you can’t participate in every social media platform out there—nor should you. Pick the ones that are most likely to reach your audience. In B2B, these would likely be Facebook, Google my Business, LinkedIn and Twitter. For B2C, you might add others such as Pinterest or Tumblr.

Social media (if properly cultivated) is also a great, no-cost way to send out announcements and invitations to local events.

Consistency Is Key to Local & Mobile SEO

Google rewards sites that show local events, items that will interest the intended audience, and consistent new content. Work at refreshing site content frequently (and remember, it’s not all about you; it’s about your customers).

If your site is set up to generate sales or leads, that is a promise to your customers that you will respond quickly. Make sure you don’t break your promise.

Interact with your customers every chance you get. This demonstrates commitment to customer service and builds preference and loyalty.

For more information on local search marketing, read our guide Optimizing Local Search Marketing.

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This post was authored by John Thyfault, Vice President of Search & Social Strategy, of Beasley Direct Marketing. Contact John at jthyfault@beasleydirect.com.

John Thyfault, VP Search and Social Marketing, Beasley Direct Marketing

John has more than 18 years of marketing, sales and product development experience, and he brings a proven track record of successful campaign, program and product development expertise. His knowledge of search engine optimization and marketing, combined with an in-depth understanding of customer identification, market analysis and segmentation, allows him to deliver high returns on our client’s marketing investment for both business-to-consumer and business-to-business markets.

Prior to working with Beasley Direct, John was Senior Client Services Project Director at ThirdAge.com, a first wave baby boomer lifestyle and community website. At ThirdAge he successfully led major client sponsorships for Fortune 100 companies in healthcare (Tylenol), financial services (American Century), technology (Intel & IBM) and consumer products areas (Revlon & Viactive). He was responsible for strategic and tactical goal setting, project management, new product creation and web site production. John previously worked in Channel Marketing and National Account Sales for IDG Books Worldwide, the publishers of the immensely popular “…For Dummies” book series. Additionally, he managed the wholesale distributor sales channel for Tor/Forge Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press.

John is active in local marketing associations, including the Direct Marketing Association, the Business Marketing Association and is currently serving on the board of directors for the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association.

John has taught search engine marketing fundamentals extensively. He has led workshops for the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association, Northern California Direct Marketing Association (DMAnc.org) and the Business Marketing Association. He also teaches Search Engine Marketing at (UCSC’s Silicon Valley Extension).

The post Why Local & Mobile SEO Matters appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

By John Thyfault, Vice President of Search & Social Strategy, Beasley Direct Marketing

Starting April 12 of this year, Google will be making some significant changes to the algorithm that controls mobile perspective. The current algorithm labels mobile sites as “mobile-friendly” or “not mobile-friendly.” After April 12, Google will deliver all rankings, regardless of the device you are currently using, with mobile factors built in. While your mobile site may rank higher on mobile phone versus desktop search, the mobile factors will still impact ALL of your rankings, regardless of device. This weighting of ranking on all devices based on mobile optimization factors is a major departure in the algorithm.

The reason for this is the continued strong growth in people accessing the Internet via mobile devices. According to Morgan Stanley Research, 2014 was the year that mobile access overtook and surpassed desktop access. People are now using combinations of desktop and mobile in unprecedented ways; a user might search for something on Google Maps, then get in the car and access it with an iPhone on the road. People move back and forth almost seamlessly between desktop, tablet, smartphone and other devices. This multi-screen world affects how people search.

Often, people are doing parallel searches simultaneously on multiple devices. Someone might be watching the Oscars on the desktop computer while looking up information on different actors and directors on the smartphone. And while multi-screen use is growing fast in the United States, it is already more prevalent in Europe and the Far East.

Google is also modifying how it searches, indexes and ranks sites. Mobile apps have become so important in interacting with the Internet that Google will now incorporate its content into search results. Google will treat apps like web pages and will include your results with other search results in general. For example, you might have a recipe app on your smartphone that has many different recipes in it. Google can crawl that recipe database on your app and return the results to you. (This will initially be limited to Android, not the iPhone.)

What Does This Mean to SEO Professionals?

First and foremost, it means you need good mobile optimization best practices along with more traditional desktop development as you build your website. Set your site up with responsive design where content and layout adjust dynamically to whatever device accesses the site. Have a defined viewing area, known as a viewport, which automatically changes the layout and order of things depending on device.

This is especially important if you have a large chunk of content. You have to assure that scrolling works properly so people don’t have to scroll from side to side, which is annoying and may prompt a person to give up on your site.

Your overall visual design for mobile must take advantage of the smaller screens. Make sure your touchscreen visuals are large enough to touch with a finger on a phone screen. There’s nothing more frustrating than teensy little buttons, because they are hard to click on accurately—impossible if you have larger fingers. Minimize the amount of typing you require on mobile screens, using drop-down menus as much as possible.

Keep the mobile user in mind at all times when designing web sites. More than half the people online are accessing the Internet through a mobile device, partly through mobile websites, partly through apps. In December 2014, one-quarter of all Internet traffic was driven by Facebook. Of that, the majority was driven via mobile interface. The importance of mobile access has done nothing but mushroom over the past few years, and there appears to be no end in sight. Having pages that are well designed for mobile and touch-screen is an essential component of successful search engine marketing.

For more information on mobile and local search engine marketing, read our white paper Optimizing Local Search Marketing: A Hands-on Guide.

* * * *

This post was authored by John Thyfault, Vice President of Search & Social Strategy, of Beasley Direct Marketing. Contact John at jthyfault@beasleydirect.com.

John has more than 18 years of marketing, sales and product development experience, and he brings a proven track record of successful campaign, program and product development expertise. His knowledge of search engine optimization and marketing, combined with an in-depth understanding of customer identification, market analysis and segmentation, allows him to deliver high returns on our client’s marketing investment for both business-to-consumer and business-to-business markets.

Prior to working with Beasley Direct, John was Senior Client Services Project Director at ThirdAge.com, a first wave baby boomer lifestyle and community website. At ThirdAge he successfully led major client sponsorships for Fortune 100 companies in healthcare (Tylenol), financial services (American Century), technology (Intel & IBM) and consumer products areas (Revlon & Viactive). He was responsible for strategic and tactical goal setting, project management, new product creation and web site production. John previously worked in Channel Marketing and National Account Sales for IDG Books Worldwide, the publishers of the immensely popular “…For Dummies” book series. Additionally, he managed the wholesale distributor sales channel for Tor/Forge Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press.

John is active in local marketing associations, including the Direct Marketing Association, the Business Marketing Association and is currently serving on the board of directors for the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association.

John has taught search engine marketing fundamentals extensively. He has led workshops for the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association, Northern California Direct Marketing Association (DMAnc.org) and the Business Marketing Association. He also teaches Search Engine Marketing at UCSC Extension (Silicon Valley).

The post Get Your Mobile Site Ready: Google Making Changes to Mobile Algorithm appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

By John Thyfault, Vice President of Search & Social Strategy, Beasley Direct Marketing

Client:        A law firm specializing in family practice.

Issue:        The client wanted to reduce cost per lead, which was more than $220.

Solution:    Segmented marketplace to reveal which segments were most productive; refined keywords used in online advertising; reworded ads; analyzed lead history to optimize ad placement.

Results:     Within six months, reduced cost per lead by about 50%; increased conversion rate by about 15%.

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A law firm specializing in family practice in New Jersey asked Beasley Direct Marketing to reduce its cost per lead and acquisition. The practice handled a broad range of issues, including divorce, marriage, child custody, naturalization, immigration and pre-nuptial agreements. When we started with the firm, cost per lead was more than $220. The law firm advertised both online and in print in local publications.

Our first step was to determine if the client wanted to target all types of business that it handled, or only specific segments. We discovered that, historically, the types of clients providing the most revenue at the lowest cost per acquisition were divorce, child custody arrangements and pre-nuptial agreements. Further analysis showed that the quality of pre-nuptial leads was poor (lots of people were voyeuristically searching for celebrity “pre-nups”), and this was dropped from the ad program. In the case of divorce and child custody, we were able to identify clients, segment by male versus female, and target those who were in the process or just thinking about it.

The overall quality of the leads coming in from the firm’s advertising program was poor. Quality scores tend to vary by market; similar click-through rates in two different markets may yield very different levels of quality. We did geographical targeting, aiming at commuters in the bridges and tunnels in the tri-state area, and we also developed localized ads to support the firm’s different offices, getting the ads in front of people who worked or lived in proximity to those offices. So instead of bidding on “New Jersey family law firm,” we bid on specific towns and regions. This was especially effective on the New Jersey turnpike corridor, where towns tend to run into one another. (Geographical targeting alone yielded a 10% decrease in cost per lead.)

We analyzed the language of the online ads and refined them with cleaner, less cluttered language (keeping in mind at all times the restrictions on lawyer advertising by the New Jersey Bar Association). We also looked at the list of keywords to identify those that had historically converted well, winnowing out the less-productive ones. We continue to do this on an ongoing basis.

We also looked at timing considerations. When we first started with the firm, it was running all the ads at the same price 24 hours a day and seven days a week, all year long. Examining their Google Analytics data, we were able to identify where they derived their most leads by time of day, week and year. For example, Sunday evenings from 10 pm to 1 am were highly productive times; apparently, the end of the weekend is a time when many people begin considering divorce. Another spike occurred just after lunch during weekdays. We also noticed that suppertime on any day and mid-morning and mid-afternoon during weekdays were not productive. This allowed us to pare about 30% off the cost of acquisition, simply by running ads only during the times of greatest productivity. The remaining cost reductions came about through keyword expansion and refinement and constant ad testing, which allowed us to drop losing ads and retain or develop ads that were proven winners.

The client wanted to try remarketing—the practice of identifying a searcher’s interests and targeting ads that follow that individual around the web. We were not in favor of this because the client sells services with many privacy concerns. For example, if a man has been searching for divorce lawyers and his wife uses the same computer, she may be able to discern from the ads she sees that her husband is contemplating divorce—information that, if true, should come from her husband, not the Internet. But we did a limited test, and actually saw a decrease in click-throughs and conversions, so the downside was greater than even we had anticipated.

In addition to abiding by the advertising regulations of the New Jersey Bar Association, the client also wanted to stay within the bounds of good taste and a genuine concern for clients’ privacy and wellbeing. This concern extended to which keywords we selected, as well as the wording of ads. Despite these restrictions, we were able to slash cost per lead by about 50%, while increasing ad productivity by about 15%.

Of course, this kind of process is never “done.” We continue to keep track of keyword productivity, ad scheduling and other data to assure the client’s promotional program is cost-effective and productive.

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This post was authored by John Thyfault, Vice President of Search & Social Strategy, of Beasley Direct Marketing. Contact John at jthyfault@beasleydirect.com.

John has more than 18 years of marketing, sales and product development experience, and he brings a proven track record of successful campaign, program and product development expertise. His knowledge of search engine optimization and marketing, combined with an in-depth understanding of customer identification, market analysis and segmentation, allows him to deliver high returns on our client’s marketing investment for both business-to-consumer and business-to-business markets.

Prior to working with Beasley Direct, John was Senior Client Services Project Director at ThirdAge.com, a first wave baby boomer lifestyle and community website. At ThirdAge he successfully led major client sponsorships for Fortune 100 companies in healthcare (Tylenol), financial services (American Century), technology (Intel & IBM) and consumer products areas (Revlon & Viactive). He was responsible for strategic and tactical goal setting, project management, new product creation and web site production. John previously worked in Channel Marketing and National Account Sales for IDG Books Worldwide, the publishers of the immensely popular “…For Dummies” book series. Additionally, he managed the wholesale distributor sales channel for Tor/Forge Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press.

 John is active in local marketing associations, including the Direct Marketing Association, the Business Marketing Association and is currently serving on the board of directors for the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association.

John has taught search engine marketing fundamentals extensively. He has led workshops for the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association, Northern California Direct Marketing Association (DMAnc) and the Business Marketing Association. He also teaches Search Engine Marketing at UCSC Extension (Silicon Valley).

The post Case Study: Lowering Cost Per Lead/Acquisition with Data Analysis appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

By John Thyfault, Vice President of Search & Social Strategy, Beasley Direct Marketing

In Parts 1 and 2 of this series, we dealt with boosting your SEO using a technical site review and keyword research. In this installation, we talk about improving SEO through a web content audit. While there is significant overlap with keyword research, analyzing how your content is structured as a whole and what it contains has turned content into the kingpin of search engine optimization. You must have effective content that will resonate with your audience, directly addressing their issues and written in the same language that customers use to search for your type of product or service.

First, use the language that your customers use to search. Google, Bing, Yahoo! and the other search engines look at your website as a whole, not page by page. As you are doing your content audit, you need to take the same perspective. Search engines look for the content that best matches the language used by the searcher. You need to understand the language your users/potential customers are entering into search engines, as this will be key to ranking well.

There are many ways to discover this language. Probably the easiest is to speak directly to your customers. Ask how they would describe your products/services and what their benefits are. Also talk to your own customer support staff and sales people. Both groups have more day-to-day contact with customers and potential customers than anyone else in your company. They will often have the greatest insight into the language customers are using.

Beyond these, look at your competition. Examine how they structure their websites and what language they use to communicate their offerings. Look at industry-specific analysts, blogs, and press coverage to understand the language the industry uses to talk about your category of products or services. Frequently, third-party analysts will create an industry term or classification that gets picked up in common parlance.

As you study these four areas, you’ll begin to see common terms and phrases shared across the industry. Ideally, these phrases will be three or more words and will be specific to your own offering. Research has shown that “Nearly 60% of all impressions, clicks and conversions occur with 11-20 characters.” (Head vs. Long Tail Keywords Analyzed: Impressions, Clicks, Conversions & Profitability, Search Engine Watch, Thumasathit, 10/4/12)

Once you have a good list of keywords, study the potential traffic and competition associated with those terms (and try to expand the list if possible). There are a number of tools that can give you the numbers, such as Google Adwords, Google Keyword Planning Tool, WordTracker.com, keyworddiscovery.com and spyfu.com. Using these tools will allow you to expand your keyword list to give you new combinations and ideas. They will provide overall monthly traffic volume on competitive sites, giving you a relative benchmark for the amount of traffic competitors are experiencing using the same keywords.

Your next step in analyzing your site’s content is assigning these keywords on a page-by-page basis. As you go through this process, you can narrow down the number of keywords on the list by determining which ones are the most critical and eliminating the weaker ones. However, you may have one key phrase that works across all pages.

At this point, you move beyond keyword analysis and begin digging into the content of your site and its semantic structure. How the site is organized, the quality of the content and “shelf-life” of the content all come into play.

Take a step back and analyze how your site is structured and organized. Search engines award more points to sites that are well organized by subject. This is your opportunity to send the right signals to Google et al by having a site organized by subject, and where all pages related to and supportive of one another.

Create a semantic map of your site. This is done by taking each directory by page and looking at the page title, meta-description, headlines, and subheads on each page and laying them out on a spreadsheet. This is a relatively simple way to understand how your site is structured and how the different pages relate to each other. Once you have this semantic map, take your keywords and insert them into the content on each page where they are likely to draw search engines’ attention. These areas include page title, headlines and areas on the page with visual emphasis such as a bulleted list, italicized copy and subheads. Be sure that the keywords you’re inserting really encapsulate the essence of each page on the site. This careful and systematic mapping of keywords will help to increase your search engine visibility.

Let’s look at a sample site and create a quick semantic map of the creative services sections of the site, specifically the email, direct mail and search marketing pages.

Figure 1: Semantic Map Example

Source: Beasley Direct Marketing

While having descriptive keywords in the right positions is valuable, nothing trumps having well-written copy in active voice that encourages the customer to take the next step in purchasing your product/service. Google actually cares about active voice, so take a close look at this. Search engines look at how long people stay on each page and it’s been shown that passive voice tends to make people bounce of the page faster. (Understanding the Impact of Dwell Time on SEO, Search Engine Journal, Patel, 6/11/14) Many companies that sell technical products tend to fall back into passive voice as a matter of habit, so if yours is a high tech business, take a good, hard look at your content for passive voice.

Be sure to include longer-format articles, not just descriptions of your products and services. Google wants to see that you are providing information to the market that customers will find informative and helpful. There are several formats that come under this heading, such as white papers, tutorials and case studies.

When you are describing products/services, good copy includes not just features but customer benefits. Tell people why they want to buy and show them that you have solutions to their problems.

Refresh your content if it ages. It’s best to have content that can maintain its value over a long period of time, but when content ages, keep your site relevant by clearing out the deadwood. Make sure that your site (which Google and others examine as a whole, remember) tells a coherent story, supported by strong content.

Of course, in the final analysis, you are writing primarily for the customer, not for the search engines. Keep your customer firmly in mind when writing website copy—but be mindful of that list of keywords and mapped content at all times.

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John Thyfault, VP Search and Social Marketing, Beasley Direct Marketing

This post was authored by John Thyfault, Vice President of Search & Social Strategy, of Beasley Direct Marketing. Contact John at jthyfault@beasleydirect.com.

John has more than 18 years of marketing, sales and product development experience, and he brings a proven track record of successful campaign, program and product development expertise. His knowledge of search engine optimization and marketing, combined with an in-depth understanding of customer identification, market analysis and segmentation, allows him to deliver high returns on our client’s marketing investment for both business-to-consumer and business-to-business markets.

Prior to working with Beasley Direct, John was Senior Client Services Project Director at ThirdAge.com, a first wave baby boomer lifestyle and community website. At ThirdAge he successfully led major client sponsorships for Fortune 100 companies in healthcare (Tylenol), financial services (American Century), technology (Intel & IBM) and consumer products areas (Revlon & Viactive). He was responsible for strategic and tactical goal setting, project management, new product creation and web site production. John previously worked in Channel Marketing and National Account Sales for IDG Books Worldwide, the publishers of the immensely popular “…For Dummies” book series. Additionally, he managed the wholesale distributor sales channel for Tor/Forge Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press.

John is active in local marketing associations, including the Direct Marketing Association, the Business Marketing Association and is currently serving on the board of directors for the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association.

John has taught search engine marketing fundamentals extensively. He has led workshops for the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association, Northern California Direct Marketing Association (DMAnc.org) and the Business Marketing Association. He also teaches Search Engine Marketing at UCSC Extension (Silicon Valley).

The post SEO Audit Part 3: Web Content Audit appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

Many people view search engine optimization (SEO) as existing in a vacuum, unaffected by what happens via other channels. But tweaking SEO without gathering input from other marketing channels is sort of like treating one body part in isolation from the rest of the body. It’s all part of a continuum, which means you can derive actionable SEO data from other marketing initiatives, such as using PPC testing.

As an SEO manager you have a great opportunity to determine what kind of language and keywords potential customers are using to search for your category of products or services. You can also determine which keywords translate more effectively to your website by using PPC testing without setting up new content on your site and waiting for Google to crawl it. You can use low-cost pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns to better understand your customer, and what language works most effectively to get site visitors to convert once they get to your site.

For example, let’s suppose I sell motorcycle accessories online. I have a list of keywords that all seem pretty good:

• Motorcycle helmet
• Men’s motorcycle helmet
• Womens’ motorcycle helmet
• Ladies motorcycle helmet

…and so forth. They are all fairly similar, so how can I tell which phrase my audience will use most frequently? PPC can test large sets of keywords in an organized and systematic way—in near-real-time. Using something like Google AdWords, I can set up test campaigns for a very small investment to run for two or three weeks. Each campaign uses a different set of keywords. Then, using Google Analytics or something similar, I can see which PPC ads enjoyed the highest click-through rate and drove the most traffic to my site. I can also see which ones successfully converted the most customers. This can be done much more quickly than waiting for Google to crawl my site and rank it.

In addition, I can take a look at the Keywords Detail Report within AdWords and understand the nature of actual searches driving the click-throughs, versus just the keywords I happened to be using. For example, if I am bidding on the phrase “women’s motorcycle boots,” I could go into Google AdWords and see that perhaps the phrase most people used was “red motorcycle boots.” (That would also give me useful information about customer needs.)

AdWords can also be used to drive inbound traffic to different landing pages to determine which page will be the most effective in gaining conversion. This allows me to shorten my keyword and content development timeline.

Last but not least, this data can tell you a great deal about the value of different searches from a competitive standpoint. By looking at the cost per click for the different terms you want to use, you can see which keywords and phrases are the most valuable, as the cost is determined by how highly they are valued by the marketplace (your competition). The higher the cost per click, the more value that click will have when a prospect gets to your website, based on the fact that your competition won’t spend money for clicks they can’t convert.

So don’t “silo” your SEO efforts. PPC testing is a quick, easy way to obtain valuable data to boost SEO effectiveness.

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John Thyfault, VP Search and Social Marketing, Beasley Direct Marketing

This post was authored by John Thyfault, Vice President of Search & Social Strategy, of Beasley Direct Marketing. Contact John at jthyfault@beasleydirect.com.

John has more than 18 years of marketing, sales and product development experience, and he brings a proven track record of successful campaign, program and product development expertise. His knowledge of search engine optimization and marketing, combined with an in-depth understanding of customer identification, market analysis and segmentation, allows him to deliver high returns on our client’s marketing investment for both business-to-consumer and business-to-business markets.

Prior to working with Beasley Direct, John was Senior Client Services Project Director at ThirdAge.com, a first wave baby boomer lifestyle and community website. At ThirdAge he successfully led major client sponsorships for Fortune 100 companies in healthcare (Tylenol), financial services (American Century), technology (Intel & IBM) and consumer products areas (Revlon & Viactive). He was responsible for strategic and tactical goal setting, project management, new product creation and web site production. John previously worked in Channel Marketing and National Account Sales for IDG Books Worldwide, the publishers of the immensely popular “…For Dummies” book series. Additionally, he managed the wholesale distributor sales channel for Tor/Forge Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press.

John is active in local marketing associations, including the Direct Marketing Association, the Business Marketing Association and is currently serving on the board of directors for the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association.

John has taught search engine marketing fundamentals extensively. He has led workshops for the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association, Northern California Direct Marketing Association (DMAnc.org) and the Business Marketing Association. He also teaches Search Engine Marketing at UCSC Extension (Silicon Valley).

The post Boost SEO Effectiveness through PPC Testing appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

Drive Ecommerce and In-Store Sales Using Local Search and Mobile Search Marketing

John Thyfault, Vice President of Search & Social Media Marketing for Beasley Direct Marketing, delivered the following presentation at the CohereOne Executive Summit in San Francisco earlier this month. John covers the reach of local mobile marketing and local search online and best practices for mobile organic search and pay-per-click (PPC). He also discusses how businesses can deploy local search marketing to drive traffic to brick-and-mortar stores.

To view the presentation, please click the following link: Mobile Local eCommerce CohereOne 090414

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John Thyfault, VP Search and Social Marketing, Beasley Direct Marketing

This post was authored by John Thyfault, Vice President of Search & Social Strategy, of Beasley Direct Marketing. Contact John at jthyfault@beasleydirect.com.

John has more than 18 years of marketing, sales and product development experience, and he brings a proven track record of successful campaign, program and product development expertise. His knowledge of search engine optimization and marketing, combined with an in-depth understanding of customer identification, market analysis and segmentation, allows him to deliver high returns on our client’s marketing investment for both business-to-consumer and business-to-business markets.

Prior to working with Beasley Direct, John was Senior Client Services Project Director at ThirdAge.com, a first wave baby boomer lifestyle and community website. At ThirdAge he successfully led major client sponsorships for Fortune 100 companies in healthcare (Tylenol), financial services (American Century), technology (Intel & IBM) and consumer products areas (Revlon & Viactive). He was responsible for strategic and tactical goal setting, project management, new product creation and web site production. John previously worked in Channel Marketing and National Account Sales for IDG Books Worldwide, the publishers of the immensely popular “…For Dummies” book series. Additionally, he managed the wholesale distributor sales channel for Tor/Forge Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press.

John is active in local marketing associations, including the Direct Marketing Association, the Business Marketing Association and is currently serving on the board of directors for the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association.

John has taught search engine marketing fundamentals extensively. He has led workshops for the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association, Northern California Direct Marketing Association (DMAnc.org) and the Business Marketing Association. He also teaches Search Engine Marketing at (UCSC Extension, Silicon Valley).

The post Using Local Search Marketing & Mobile Search Marketing To Drive Ecommerce & In-Store Sales appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.