Finding ROI in Healthcare Marketing.

Healthcare Marketing is Challenging!

Healthcare marketing is a very competitive digital marketing space. Even more so in the midst of a dramatic shift as the ACA (Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare) will be modified or replaced. Marketers in the healthcare industry need to proactively research and implement strategies to stay at the top of search engine search results. Below are some steps we implemented to help the Center for Elder’s Independence (CEI) increase their organic search rankings and therefore bring in new healthcare consumers.

The Center for Elders’ Independence (CEI) is an Oakland, CA- based PACE affiliated healthcare organization. PACE is a Medicare and Medicaid program that helps low income elderly people stay at home. They also have their care needs met in the community instead of going to a nursing home or other care facility. CEI gets most of their new patients through online inquiries and phone calls. We wanted to get their listing moved to the top of search engine searches for elder care in the Oakland and San Francisco East Bay. We implemented several steps on their website to increase search awareness and new patient registrations. These steps will apply to any healthcare organization.

First, Find The Right Language for Your Site Via Keyword Research

Comprehensive Keyword and Key Phrase Research is Essential.

Your target audience finds your site through online searches using keywords or phrases. So, your first problem will be researching keyword or key phrases most frequently used by potential site visitors. In this case we were targeting a specific set of elderly healthcare patients. Start by reviewing both your website and your competitor’s sites. Talk to key stakeholders – the sales team, your product development team and, most definitely, your customers. Listen for key phrases that best describe the healthcare market niche you’re researching. Once you have a base of key phrases, then go to Google’s Keyword Tool, or SpyFu. Or, consider “Searches related to…” at the bottom of a Google search page to refine your research. Be creative researching the marketplace and the language your potential customers are using for both voice and traditional search.

One consideration for CEI was targeting clients in a small geographic area, the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area. Therefore, inclusion of geographic modifiers in key phrases was necessary to attract well-qualified local web traffic, i.e., “Oakland Elder Care Services” vs. just “Elder Care Services.”

The other consideration for CEI was potential changes to Medicare, so the best research information was found on government websites, such as www.medicare.gov or The Department of Health and Human Services.

Sources for reliable information are dynamic. So, don’t fall into the trap that what you knew a month ago still applies. It might, but be aware even subtle changes can add to the success of your campaigns. News sites are okay, but they mostly report what’s current for the day. Ultimately, you want to keep ahead of the game by following the data as it unfolds.

Secondly, Be Objective in Your Research, and Follow the Data

Secondly, objective and effective results come from following the data.

Opinion doesn’t matter. Whether your healthcare marketing target audience is local or national, as healthcare legislation changes appear you’ll need to objectively analyze the data. Start by setting a baseline search engine traffic measurement before you implement changes, then compare it to results post-implementation. Google Analytics is a great tool, and it’s free! As we rolled out changes on CEI’s website we closely monitored the search traffic generated by Google and the other major search engines. Were our changes to the language of the site demonstrating success or did we need to revisit our assumptions and tweak the copy more? Were we attracting well-qualified local East Bay traffic? Was the client satisfied with the results?

Third, Google’s Rules Rule

Google sets the rules on how it ranks a website for any particular search query, and we have to follow them. Understanding how Google analyzes your website is key to restructuring the content to get the broadest exposure within search results.

When writing META Tags (Titles, Descriptions) and headlines, front-load the target key phrase that best describes page content. Include the company name at the end of the Title, and with Descriptions be concise, close with a strong call-to-action.

Google uses Titles to rank web pages. Descriptions aren’t a ranking factor. But, they are critical in getting a viewer to click through for more information. Remember, they’re your sales pitch to get a click from well-qualified searchers.

Read details about Titles and Descriptions in Google’s Guidelines.

Content will remain king. A large part of Google page ranking is based on content focused on a topic, its authoritativeness, and the authority of links from other web pages to yours. It’s a vicious circle. To attract the best backlinks your content has to be among the best.

Lastly, maintain awareness of coming and current changes to Google’s search algorithm. Moz has a “Google Algorithm Change History” page. Also, run periodic searches for changes in Google’s search algorithm. While keeping up with digital healthcare marketing, you don’t want a surprise penalty because of a Google rule change.

Comprehensive Data Analysis Pays Off!

In conclusion, a successful healthcare marketing strategy.

Changes we made to CEI’s META data (Titles, Descriptions, Headlines), along with on page content, resulted in an increase in monthly traffic of about 6,500 new users. Further, potential clients on average visited 3 pages, reading each page for over 2 minutes. Thousands of Bay Area site visitors per month found the healthcare services they were looking for.

How can Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc.’s organic search marketing team expand your healthcare business? Contact us today and let’s get started.

We’d like to hear from you! Did this post help you understand part of healthcare marketing? Please leave a comment below!

Subscribe for Blog Updates to keep up on marketing best practices. And, and please share this post with co-workers and friends.

Link to this page. Add a link to your article or resources page!

Download the Case Study

Andrew Hoover has been a consultant in Internet Search Marketing, Web Site Optimization, and pay-per-click/CPM/Display for over 15 years. He has extensive experience with Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask, AOL and was a beta tester for Amazon’s search engine. Andrew started a Network Consulting corporation in 1999 (GLT, Inc.), and a search marketing company in 2003, Lead Adrenaline: he has worked with medical, financial services, real estate, retail, entertainment and high-technology companies. His educational background includes degrees from both the University of California, Berkeley, and California State University, East Bay.

– See the Beasley Team.

The post The Challenge of Staying on Top of Search Engines in Healthcare Marketing. appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising through Google and Bing is one of the strongest direct response mediums available today. Often though, a higher touch and more personal approach via a telephone conversation is needed to complete the sale for higher priced, complex sale products. This is the case for a recent regional mortgage lending client. They saw a much higher historical conversion from telephone lead-to-loan applications than from web form-to-loan applications. Our client wished to take advantage of this and drive more telephone leads via PPC. Driving these calls through PPC is a great way to increase call volume. It can be challenging to attribute the right call to the right campaign or ad group if you are using a third-party call tracking system. Our agency has dealt with call conversion tracking on several occasions. And, have developed a good approach to maximize our client’s return on ad spend for inbound calls.

Situation:

In this particular case, our client used a third-party call tracking package that reported weekly calls results via a spreadsheet. The client was using Google Analytics to track their AdWords. The AdWords call extensions were turned on, however it not was not counting completed calls as conversions. Because of this, there were no bidding rules set up to maximize call volume.

Our Solution:

We were able to provide a much tighter, more integrated attribution model for this client through the following steps:

Step 1

We implemented use of AdWords’ native call tracking. It counted the phone calls as conversions and shared the data with Google Analytics. AdWords offers a few different options for call tracking. The most powerful one involves using AdWords’ forwarding numbers for each call. It captures the broadest amount of data from the call. It will give you the time, date, area code and length for each call. Be sure to set a minimum length of the call before it can be counted as a true conversion. In this case, we selected 90 seconds based on call history supplied by the client.

Step 2

At this point, the client did have that call effectiveness tied to each campaign, ad group, ad and keyword. A decision had to be made if we were going to use AdWords’ automated bid strategies. Strategies included, “Enhanced CPC”, or “Target ROAS”, or if a third-party tool was going to brought in for a more robust solution. Marin Software Pro Edition was selected as the bid management tool at this point. Marin offers a great combination of bidding rules and tracking. Marin can import conversion data from Google Analytics seamlessly and allowed for the best results for the client.

Step 3

As the call conversion data was imported, the client was able to improve the call conversion rate by 15%, drop the cost per call lead by 20% and optimize campaigns to meet the monthly lead volume goals.

Step 4

The next step was to look at the final results of which calls were most likely to move from a lead to a loan application. Optimizing the campaigns for this aspect required a more manual analysis of the existing call tracking software reporting for conversion to a loan application, and comparing the date/time info with the AdWords results on a call-by-call basis. This led to an improved understanding of which ad copy and keyword combination drove the best quality phone calls. Over time, trends were identified that showed areas where the client could split campaigns into call only and onsite form only campaigns for more effectiveness.

Call Conversion Tracking: The Value of a Deep Review

By going through a deep review of the client’s offer, their customer profile and historical performance, we could blend diverse data streams and deliver improved performance to the bottom line. A little creativity and willingness to look for solutions across different tracking platforms such as AdWords native, Google Analytics and Marin Software allowed for an understanding of the full picture and achieving the best performance for the client’s ad dollars.

Download the Case Study on call conversion tracking.

By John Thyfault, Vice President of Search Engine and Social Media Marketing, Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc.

John Thyfault

The post Call Conversion Tracking: Connecting Offline Telephone Leads to Pay-Per-Click Leads Traffic. appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

MORGAN HILL, CA

News Facts:

Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc. (www.BeasleyDirect.com) of Northern California has been appointed as a search engine marketing and optimization agency for Foxit Software. The initial work will focus on keyword and key phrase research, content optimization and layout strategy, website technical and architecture analysis, and website link building.

About Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc.

Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc. (www.BeasleyDirect.com) is known for bringing the latest marketing strategies to online and direct marketing. Beasley provides services in inbound and outbound marketing including: content creation, email marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), print advertising, social media advertising, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, website design, media planning/public relations, direct mail marketing, lead generation and nurture campaigns, and database management. Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc. helps clients in both B2B and B2C marketing and is privately held and headquartered in the Silicon Valley suburb of Morgan Hill, California. For more information, go to www.BeasleyDirect.com.

About Foxit Software

Foxit is a leading software provider of fast, affordable, and secure PDF solutions. Businesses and consumers increase productivity by using Foxit’s cost-effective products to securely work with PDF documents and forms.

Foxit’s ConnectedPDF is a breakthrough technology that brings new levels of accountability, collaboration, and productivity to the creation, sharing, and tracking of PDF documents worldwide. Foxit’s Software Development Kits (SDKs) help developers reduce costs and improve time to market by easily integrating industry-leading PDF technology into application workflows.

Foxit has over 425 million users and has sold to over 100,000 customers located in more than 200 countries. The company has offices all over the world, including locations in the US, Asia and Europe. For more information, please visit https://www.foxitsoftware.com.

For More Information, Contact:

Laurie Beasley
President
Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc.
408-782-0046 x21
lbeasley@beasleydirect.com

The post Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc. Appointed as Search Engine Marketing Consulting Agency for Foxit Software. appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

Below is the intro we wrote with some topline insight into what’s happening in general with search marketing in the US:

“After a slow Q4 2014 and Q1 2015, overall paid search metrics rebounded with steady growth in Q3 2015 and Q4 2015. However, search is an ever-changing landscape in which what worked yesterday may be obsolete today. Google made major changes in some of its key ranking factors in the search algorithm during 2015, the most important being the inclusion of artificial intelligence (AI) driven machine learning into its analysis of the query stream with “RankBrain”. This AI learning helps Google understand the 15% of queries that have never been seen before and negative queries.” (Slegg, Jennifer, RankBrain: Everything We Now About Google’s AI Algorithm, TheSEMPost.com, October 27, 2015)

As 2016 progresses we have seen two additional major developments (both from Google, of course) near the time we went to press which will change the way marketers conduct their paid and organic search campaigns for the balance of year and into the future.

The first development is AMP (Accelerated Mobile Page), an open source project that competes directly with Facebook’s Instant Articles. AMP is designed to make pages load 4 to 10 times faster by slightly stripping out non-essential content such as JavaScript. Properly implemented, AMP can result in faster load times and up to a 70% increase in mobile conversion. AMP is a logical extension of the Mobile Friendliness update in April 2014. WordPress is going all in to support AMP, with an easy to install plug-in for self-hosted sites and full support on WordPress.com sites. AMP is a direct result of the continued growth of the mobile platform as a primary way to access the internet.

The second development is the major shift in the search results layout Google launched in February 2016. The ads on the right side column are gone. Up to four paid ads now appear across the top of the page with another 4-5 on the bottom of the page. This has radically reduced the impressions that an advertiser is able to get “above the fold”, driving up the average cost to appear to the user without scrolling. It also impacts organic results as well, driving them further down the page so only one or two now appear above the fold. How this expansion of paid real estate affects the user’s trust in the overall Google results remains to be seen.

The solution for paid search may be bigger budgets and/or higher bids to achieve a top 3-4 position listing, but the key to organic search success continues to be creating good, compelling content to draw the search spiders to websites and earn high positions on the search results page. Marketers have told us that creating content is rect Marketing Overview

both the most effective tactic for SEO and one of the most difficult to execute well.

A few more predictions and observations of the search landscape in 2016, as reported in our surveys and observed by search specialists:

• Lead generation remains the most desired outcome of paid search.
• Healthcare and Pharma lead in paid search usage despite being in a highly regulated market.
• Link building is still considered effective while remaining the most difficult to successfully perform. Google continued to refine its use of link analysis in 2015 with the Penguin update.
• Web traffic remains the most important goal for SEO, followed closely by leads generated and conversion rates.
• Programmatic Display continued to grow and mature in 2015, with spend rising 29% and eCPM rising 17%.

You can purchase the full Direct Marketing Association Statistical Fact Book 2016 by going here.  The report is well worth the investment!

The post Topline Insights on Search Marketing Statistics from the Direct Marketing Association’s “Statistical Fact Book 2016” appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

News Facts:

Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc. (www.BeasleyDirect.com) of Northern California has been appointed as the search marketing agency of the Center for Elders’ Independence (CEI) (www.cei.elders.org) of Oakland, CA.  The initial work will be search engine optimization (SEO) to increase qualified inquiries into the health services offered by CEI.  Specific SEO services strategy will include optimizing the website architecture for better search visibility, keyword and key phrase research, and website content and copy optimization.

About Us:

 
Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc. (www.BeasleyDirect.com) is known for bringing the latest marketing strategies to online and direct marketing for B2B and B2C clients. Beasley Direct provides services in email marketing, search engine optimization, print advertising, social media, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, website design, media planning, direct mail marketing, lead generation and nurture campaigns, and database management. Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc. 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.

The Center for Elders’ Independence (www.cei.elders.org)  is a non-profit program of all-inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) health plan for seniors age 55 and older who prefer not to move into a nursing home but whose health problems make it impossible for them to stay at home without the help of caregivers.

Contacts:
Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc

Laurie B. Beasley

President

Ph: 408-782-0046 x21

lbeasley@beasleydirect.com

Center for Elders’ Independence

Dianna Garrett

Director of Communication & Planning

(510) 318-7135 – direct line

www.cei.elders.org

The post Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc. Becomes Search Marketing Agency for The Center for Elders’ Independence. appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

Google Ad Extensions are offered in AdWords as a set of extensions intended to make your advertising more effective by refining reach and targeting. Google ad extensions also allow extra information about your business to display with your Google ad. This extra information may provide prospects with more reasons to contact your business.

The first thing to understand about Google ad extensions is they display automatically. But, only when your ad and keywords’ Quality Score allow you to appear in the top two positions in the search results. These extensions include seller ratings, consumer ratings, social extensions, and previous visits to the business’ site. Advertisers don’t have to do anything for automated extensions to appear.

Second, some Google ad extensions do not show unless your ad has achieved a high enough Ad Rank. This allows your ad to appear high enough up on the Google search results page. You earn this spot by making sure that your keywords have a high quality score. And, you are bidding enough per click to be competitive for the first two spots on the page. We’re going to cover each of the ad extension types here, and briefly discuss how to use them.

Ad extensions are available at no additional charge beyond your cost per click. So, you may as well take advantage of them. Google is not providing these tools out of charity, of course. The more successful your pay-per-click (PPC) ad is, the more money Google makes.

Google Ad Extensions

Site Links Extension

Site Links Extensions are designed to provide additional relevant links to your website beyond the one associated with the ad. One of our clients uses Site Links to point to catalogue and product support pages. This is one of the extensions you can take advantage of, But, only if you have a high quality score and appear in the first two ad spots on the search results page. Site Links show additional resources from your website, which increases click through significantly because the user may be looking for a variety of things. Furthermore, Site Links help you to showcase more of your offerings.

Figure 1: Example of Site Links Extension

Source: Google

Location Extensions

Location Extensions are designed to boost the effectiveness of local search. This is done by tying your ad to Google Maps, making your ads more relevant to the local searcher. Type in your retail locations and Google will serve up information on these locations along with the ad when somebody is searching nearby. Location Extensions are effective at driving traffic to local stores. Store location will appear within Google Map searches and help with positioning in locally based searches.

Figure 2: Example of Location Extensions

Source: Google

Call Extensions

Call Extensions allow you to add telephone numbers to your ads on an ad-group-by-ad-group basis, allowing people to call your business directly through the ad (particularly on mobile devices because of the click-to-call function). When you have a live salesperson interacting with your prospect, it makes for a more efficient sales cycle with fewer touches.

Call Extensions also allow you to collect details on length of call, area code of the call, time of day, and which campaign is associated with each call.

App Extensions

App Extensions allow you to promote your mobile app and drive customers to the website, to GooglePlay, or to the App Store for a download (note that this works with Android, but not with the Apple Store). You can use App Extensions to start the app download immediately by taking the purchaser directly to the appropriate page on the App Store or Googleplay, accommodating impulse buys of your new app.

Review Extensions

Review Extensions display reviews with your ad (but not from all sources). The best source of reviews (from Google’s perspective) is from your Google+ page, but many major ecommerce review vendors are also accepted as legitimate sources such as BazaarVoice. (Yelp! doesn’t share reviews with Google, unfortunately.) Additionally, Review Extensions can be powerful because they provide third-party endorsement of your business. Ratings stars can boost click-through.

Callout Extensions

Callout Extensions include additional descriptive text of 25 characters in standard text ads. The Callout Extensions have some restrictions with respect to trademark requirements, depending on the preferences of the trademark owners. For instance, if you sell athletic shoes and you want the callout to say, “Lowest cost Nike shoes,” your ability to use the phrase is gated by Nike’s willingness to allow their trademarked brand to be used in that context. Google enforces by exception. If somebody complains about an ad based on trademark violation, the trademarked word or phrase is removed from the allowable keyword list.

Callout Extensions are great for short-term offers or special promos. You will need to create multiple callouts for a campaign to give Google choices. The more specific the callout, the better. Be concise; two words are better than four. Google gives the example of using “Free shipping” instead of “We offer free shipping.” When composing a Callout Extension, use normal sentence case structure. The descriptions cannot feature excessive hyperbole, all caps, or exclamation points, and cannot duplicate the ad text.

Structured Snippets.

When you activate Structured Snippets, Google will review your site and look for snippets of information that apply to various sections of your site. They automatically generate these along with your ad. You have less control here than over other Ad Extensions. You can turn it off if you don’t like what Google does, but generally Google does a good job of pulling out the key points. Structured Snippets do increase click-through rates, and they also Increase the conversion percentage once prospects arrive at your page.

Figure 3: Example of an Ad with Structured Snippets

Source: Google

Why You Should Take Advantage of Ad Extensions

Ad Extensions help to improve the visibility of your ad in various ways, and you can use more than one extension with every ad, customizing these additional functions to suit the purpose of your campaigns. The extensions often appear above the search results, rather than along the sidebar. If your ad is in competition with another ad and your ad has extensions with it that add to impact and meaningful results for the user, your ad will appear higher than your competitor’s.

Ad Extensions have demonstrated higher click-through rates than ads without extensions, increasing traffic to your site by qualified customers.

Finally, Google Ad Extensions are free. This makes them one of marketing’s rare great opportunities to improve performance without increasing expenses. Who could resist a deal like that?

* * * *

John Thyfault

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

The post Google Ad Extensions and How To Use Them 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.

* * * *

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

The post Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, a Local SEO Company, has Been Named Search Engine Marketing Agency for Focus Product Design, Inc. 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

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.

* * * *

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.