SEO strategy

Jan 25 2021

6 Different Types Of SEO Techniques

SEO is a practice that consists of many different tactics, strategies and efforts. It’s an umbrella term that can cover a wide spectrum of different types of SEO techniques that will make your website more optimized for search engines.

Types of search engine optimization techniques

Some websites will need more than one type of SEO than others. Knowing which types of SEO techniques your website needs puts you in a position to improve your search visibility for target keywords.

The following are some of the major types of SEO techniques that you should be aware of. All SEO practices can be classified into one of three categories: White, Black and Grey hat SEO.

Although it would be rare to find an SEO company that operates using black hat SEO, it’s important to know what it is and how it can affect your website.

#1-Black hat SEO

Black hat SEO has a very negative connotation attached because it consists of SEO practices that deliberately break the rules search engines try to enforce. Black SEO is any practice that is considered to “game the system” such as sneaky redirects, doorway entrances, automated link building, paid links and type of activity that provides an unfair advantage in the ranking.

Is blackhat SEO considered unethical?

Blackhat SEO is considered an unethical practice in the context of a client and SEO provider relationship unless the provider is being upfront with their practices and explains the risks. If not, the provider could be taking on high (and unnecessary) risks for a quick gain, jeopardizing the status of the clients’ website.

The penalties for violating Google’s SEO best practice guidelines and terms can range from a mild slap on the wrist (decrease in the ranking from an algorithmic filter) to a full-fledged de-indexation of your website (Google exile enforced by a manual penalty).

The only way to recover from a manual penalty is to reverse any wrongdoing and submit an appeal for re-evaluation. Even if your re-evaluation is approved, many violators have said their rankings are never the same and it’s more difficult to gain Google’s trust again.

For this reason, black hat SEO is not an option for most legitimate SEO companies.

An image of two types of SEO techniques: black and white hat seo

#2-White hat SEO

White hat SEO is all of the recommended practices for developing a website and improving its search visibility that fall within Google’s guidelines. White hat practices include publishing high-quality content, natural link building, on-page optimization, and off-page optimization.

White hat SEO is usually a longer process because it takes time to develop content and even longer to accumulate links naturally. The fact that pure white hat link building takes so long has influenced even SEO companies to dabble in grey hat link building.

#3-Grey hat SEO

Grey hat SEO is just as it sounds. It’s the in-between area or “grey area” that neither completely falls within the guidelines, but is not exactly punishable by definition.

Link building, for example, is an issue that many SEO companies struggle with at scale because it’s important to get results for clients in a relatively short amount of time.

Grey hat SEO are the types of SEO techniques that are in between white and black hat SEO

Google’s perspective on link building

According to Google, links should be acquired naturally, which means users not only have to find your website but like it so much that they link to it to share it with others. This is all good in theory but with 2 million blog posts being published every day what company wants to wait around hoping people are going to link to their website?

Outreach is a white hat SEO practice that is still heavily favoured by SEO companies because it’s reaching out to people asking them to link to your website. This can take an enormous amount of effort and time and at the end of the day, you’re at the mercy of other website owners to give you a link.

Enter grey hat SEO.

The devious nature of PBN’s

Many SEO companies will build their websites and link to their client’s websites. There are already a few of your reading this, pointing your finger and screaming,

“Witch! Black Magic! That’s a PBN! Private blog networks websites are illegal”

Fine. You may be right however, there is a grey area that this falls into when the website is built, developed and nurtured as a real, purposeful website. How can Google tell the difference between a PBN website and a normal website?

Example of how PBNs are set up to raise authority and ranking ability

PBN’s were targeted a few years back when they were extremely effective and working to rank websites quickly. All you had to do was buy an expired domain, slap an article on the homepage and link to your website.

Here is what a bad PBN website looks like that leads to a Google penalty.

What about this website? Is it a PBN or a real website?

A good PBN website is one of the many types of SEO techniques that are used today

If a website is publishing articles regularly and has real traffic flowing through it, who’s to say it’s being used solely for link building?

That is an example of grey hat SEO link building-when white hat practices are bent to give more control over the links that a website acquires. It happens all the time and it works very well if you’re good at it.

#4-On-page SEO practices

The optimization of a web page can go into many different degrees of compliance. There’s the technical aspect of optimizing a page to account for what search engines reward as well as the overall user experience that it provides. After all, what’s good for users is good for search engines.

Keyword optimization

One of the more infamous forms of optimization is keyword targeting. To influence a stronger appearance in the search engines for a target keyword, the keyword should be placed in specific parts of a page to enhance on-page optimization. These areas include but are not limited to:

Title
URL
First 100 words (the first paragraph is even better)
Keyword synonyms in subtitles
Image alt tags
Meta Description

It’s important to note that this method of optimization is not as powerful as it used to be. The days of ranking pages according to keywords on-page is now over. Search engines will use the topical optimization of the page as a larger ranking factor.

keyword optimization has been replaced with topical optimization as one of the newer types of SEO techniques

Keyword topic optimization

It should be noted that search engines have evolved past the point of relying on keywords in the metadata to define what a page is about. The ability to provide information in a way that users engage with is a major aspect of how well your page ranks for specific search terms.

To improve the way your page performs in a search query it should have the ability to satisfy search intent by covering a keyword topic in its entirety (as it pertains to the search). This type of coverage creates a resource for users and makes the page relevant to related searches since it is likely covered within the content.

Search intent optimization

The true intent the user has for initiating a search is referred to as user intent and/or search intent. When a user can end their search on a page it is considered to have satisfied their need to search further and thereby satisfies search intent.

To enhance the ability of a page to satisfy search intent you can link to related content that enhances the user’s experience. The connection your page has to relevant resources improves the amount of information you’re providing to the user. This helps the user in their search and therefore contributes as a positive ranking signal for searches related to your keyword topic.

Search intent optimization image that shows the steps to solve and satisfy user intent

User experience optimization

One of the aspects of optimization means making your page more user-friendly by providing an enjoyable experience. This task can sometimes be fairly technical, while on the other hand there is a creative aspect to improving the user experience.

Technical improvements

Page experience can be accounted for systematically since Google provides the exact formula for performance. Your website needs to perform in the following categories to be compliant:

Core web vitals
HTTPS
Safe Browsing
Mobile-friendly
No interstitials

Creative improvements

On the creative side, the user experience improves according to your decisions regarding the uniqueness of your page. For instance, the type of multimedia you choose makes a difference to how the user interacts with your content.

Video content

If you have a video to explain your page, it provides an additional way for your content to be consumed. Since 0ver 70% of users prefer video as a means of learning about something, it means you’ve improved the user experience for at least 70% of your audience.

Slideshows

In some cases, having a slideshow may work even better than a video. As an alternative form of content, you can create a unique experience for users and in effect, separate your page from the masses.

Audio files and podcasts

Podcasts have taken off over the last few years and more and more people are gravitating towards them as they’ve found a place for them in their everyday lives.

Adding multiple types of media can improve the quality of your content and therefore help to rank higher in the search results. One way of looking at is to ask yourself,

“Would the world miss my content (or website) if it were to suddenly fall off of the face of the universe?”

If it would leave a gaping hole in your niche, then you know you’ve done a great job in providing users value in your content. If your pages are easily replaced and are as similar as everyone else’s, you have room to improve the quality of your page and content.

#5-Off-page optimization

Optimizing your site off-page is one of the more well-known types of SEO techniques. Search engines, especially Google, consider off-page optimization to be a highly relevant ranking factor that can heavily influence where your website appears in keyword searches. PageRank is what Google uses as one of the major indicators for determining the order in which websites are displayed in the search results.

Establishing credibility and authority

PageRank refers to a page’s ability to rank based on a scoring system that is designed to reflect the popularity, credibility and trust of a website. PageRank is often misinterpreted as domain authority, which is also a term that alludes to ranking ability.

Example of PageRank visualized by a web of websites linking to one another

Domain authority is primarily based on backlinks, but rather than using Google’s proprietary formula, it is based on the quantity and quality of backlinks by third-party companies. These companies provide a metric for the authority of the domain as well as a page itself. It can be measured in a few different scales of measurement:

DA/PA (domain authority and page authority) was invented by Moz.
DR/UR (domain rating and URL rating) was invested by Ahrefs.
TF/CF (trust flow and citation flow) was invented by Majestic.

Why is domain authority important?

The ultimate goal of any search engine is to provide the most relevant and helpful results to a user when they type in a keyword. To do this the search engines not only need to assess the relevance of the content, but also the authority and credibility of the website that has published this content.

How to improve domain authority and credibility

Authority and credibility are measured by the overall number of websites that vouch for their content by linking to their pages. The quality of the linking websites plays a big role in the impact of the links that are acquired.

To improve the authority your domain has in its niche you need to acquire backlinks from other quality websites that have authority and credibility in the same niche or a close vertical to it.

Link building is one of the most powerful types of SEO techniques to use for increasing search visibility.

Build citations

One of the first steps to building links is to acquire citations from popular directories and review sites. These types of sites are already trusted by search engines such as Yelp, Yellow Pages, Manta, Foursquare, etc. They provide the first layer of trust and can be considered a natural way of acquiring backlinks.

Build high-quality links

As the name “The web” infers, the internet is a web of linked websites. The PageRank theory precludes that the most credible and popular websites should have the most backlinks because they are being shared the most because of the quality of their content.

The secret to a higher ranking is to therefore build high-quality links from websites that are relevant to yours.

HIgh quality link building means moe time spent on quality content

What is a high-quality link?

A high-quality link comes from a website in which its visitors would be interested in your content. That would prove the relevance between websites and therefore be good for both users and search engines.

The linking website will power up this type of link if it has a high volume of search traffic or a high number of quality links (from websites that would be a good fit to link to yours).

The effects of a quality link should do one or both of the following;

Provide quality referral traffic: The visitors that arrive on your site via the link should be engaged with your content for the link to be effective. Engaged visitors eventually lead to a goal conversion-which can be anything from an opt-in to an email list, on-site purchase or a phone call.

Possess powerful authority: When a website’s authority metrics are powerful enough to lift your website’s authority metrics, it can be considered a good link. Higher authority means more ranking ability.

The off-page optimization is not only limited to external links. Internal links can also be a powerful form of optimizing a page for a keyword topic or specific search term.

Internal link building

You can optimize a page for a specific search term or topic by linking from other internal pages within your website. Internal links are a way of pointing users to relevant pages that relate to the content they’re currently consuming.

Make use of optimized anchor text

By linking with the keyword as anchor text you can enhance the optimization of a page. When search engines see that a specific term is being used to link to the page, it directly communicates the importance of the term.

There is the possibility of over-optimization so the use of keyword synonyms is highly recommended.

Share link equity

Internal link building spreads link equity. A page that has a high number of links, and therefore a high page authority, will pass on authority when it links to another page on your website.

Increase authority by sharing link equity via internal links.

Build topic clusters

Topic clusters are an effective way to create a content hub that links related content together. The structure of linked content will often point to one core page, known as the pillar page, which covers the topic in breadth.

Example of a pillar page with cluster content which forms a topic cluster.

Linking to a pillar page within a topic cluster improves the authority of the page, which contributes to higher rankings.

Technical optimization

Not all off-page optimization comes in the form of content. There are also things you can do to improve the technical performance of your website and its pages.

Page speed

The time it takes your pages to load is a direct ranking factor. Off-page optimization tactics could include the implementation of a CDN, choosing the best hosting options and leveraging browser caching-all tactics to increase page speed.

Indexing issues

The issues that affect indexing can often be found off-page. For example, search engines use the robots.txt file as an instruction manual for which pages to index. If there’s a mistake in that file it could stop your pages from being indexed-which means no one will see them at all.

#6-Negative SEO

Negative SEO is a way of attacking the credibility and authority of another website by linking it to unrelated websites. This unethical practice is one of the types. of SEO techniques that usually come in the form of automated link building where the victim site is targeted and the software will automatically build thousands of links to its pages.

Google has become fairly good at detecting malicious attacks and will for the most part ignore massive amounts of links when it’s obvious they aren’t aimed at manipulating ranking.

The more devious attacks can be successful when the attacker uses relevant anchor text repeatedly and links to sites that will negatively impact credibility.

The solution to negative SEO

The solution to negative SEO attacks is to use the Disavow links tool. Google provides this tool to exclude links that are being built to your site which you can’t control.

Upload a disavow file to the tool and once it’s processed, the links will be discounted from your backlink profile.

This tool is a must if you’re issued a manual penalty for link building and can’t get the website owners to delete your links (as is commonly the case when links are automated).

Choose the types of SEO techniques that works best for your website

As you can see, there are many different types of SEO that are available to improve your search visibility as well as SEO practices to hurt your or other people’s websites. Not every website will require the same approach so it becomes necessary to prioritize a list of goals and assign the correct strategies and tactics to achieve them.

If you have any questions about the SEO strategy your website should implement, feel free to call or send us a message for full website analysis. Our team will develop a custom strategy to include the exact types of SEO techniques that make your site rise in the SERPs and dominate the competition.

Christian Carere

Christian Carere is the owner and founder of Digital Ducats Inc. in Toronto and heads the SEO team at Austin Bryant Consulting in Plano, TX. Christian has been published on publications such as Search Engine Watch, Venngage, Small Biz Daily, Grasshopper, Data Box, Socialnomics, and Mention.

old.digitalducats.com/

Jan 22 2021

11 Tactics To Increase Landing Page Conversions

Landing pages are an essential part of the marketing funnel. The sole purpose of a landing page is to achieve a specific goal conversion that moves visitors closer to purchasing from your company (deeper into your marketing funnel) or guides them to the purchase itself. When you are able to increase landing page conversions you directly increase the number of leads and revenue your website generates.

Before we go any further, let’s take care of the basics.

What is a landing page?

A landing page is a page that is specifically designed to explain an offer to visitors, demonstrate the benefits and guide them to a specific conversion. Landing pages are used for lead generation and increasing sales a company generates from its website.

Why are landing pages so valuable?

Ultimately, landing pages are used to increase revenue. The average conversion rate of landing pages (across industries) falls between 3-5.5% according to a recent study by Unbounce.

Bar chart showing the average conversion rates by industry on landing pages

Create multiple landing pages on your website to facilitate more conversions and ultimately increase the revenue your website generates. Here are a few tips and tactics to help you increase landing page conversions.

#1-Update your headline for higher CTRs

Your headline is the main attraction when a user is choosing between pages in a search result. Spend time crafting multiple headlines to get the most attention from your audience and increase click-through rates.

Infographic showing catchy headlines and how they improve click-through rate

Update your headline periodically to keep it fresh and relevant to users. When you find a headline that is working well you’ll need to split-test before making any final decisions.

There are dozens of tools you can use (see AdEspresso below) that allow you to test the effectiveness of multiple headlines.

Adespresso example of a headline split-test to increase landing page conversions

#2-Use social proof within your copy to boost confidence

Did you know that 72% of people trust an online review just as much as a personal recommendation? Think of the impact reviews and testimonials can have on the credibility of your business. It’s imperative to include social proof of your product or service within the copy of your landing page.

Freshdesk is an example of how to use social proof to increase landing page conversions by showing how many clients already use their service

If possible get a few clients to write a testimonial specifically speaking about what your product or service has done for their lives. Include a photo to give your testimonial the most credibility.

Increase landing page conversions by using the testimonials of clients and influencers

If you have a strong social media following or a large subscribership, that can also be used to provide social proof of the value of your content.

#3-Focus on one Call To Action

Choose a single CTA to limit your visitor’s options for what they can do on your landing page. With only one option, you increase the probability of your visitors completing the goal conversion since there are no other distractions to lead them away from making a decision.

If you give your audience more than one option it can confuse them as to what they need to do which in many cases results in no action. Constant prodding and guiding in the same direction is a recipe for success on a landing page.

Here is an example of a good single CTA by Digital Marketer. The only option is to fill out the contact form in order to receive the download. No confusion there.

Use a single CTA like Digital Marketer to avoid confusion and increase conversions on your landing page

#4-Use contrasting colours on your CTA buttons

It’s just common sense to make your CTA buttons stand out as much as possible. Use colours to make your CTA stand out and scream “Push me” to increase landing page conversions from more user interactions.

Example of how to make a CTA button stand out by using contrasting colour

The more the user is drawn to the button, the more likely they are to push it. Make your buttons noticeable and attention-grabbing for the best results.

#5-Split test everything

To maximize the conversion rates on a landing page you have to split test everything interchangeable. For example, it’s impossible to know whether a green CTA will be more effective than an orange CTA without getting the data from real user interactions.

Test different headlines, length of opt-in forms, background colours, CTA buttons, images, videos and everything that can be tested. Split testing the things on your page that could affect the conversion rate will optimize your page and maximize your results.

Here are a few examples of the difference split-testing has made:

Three examples of companies that experienced growth in landing page conversions

#6-Make sure your headline matches the offer

One problem that site owners can encounter is a mismatch between the headline and the actual offer/content. Avoid sensational headlines to attract more visitors without actually backing the headline up with the content.

If a visitor doesn’t see what the headline promises, they’re going to leave the page immediately. A misleading headline leads to higher bounce rates and lower conversions.

#7-Use high-quality images

The use of images has been known to help users retain more information as well as make content easier to digest. Use high-quality images to help convey a stronger message and set the tone of your offer. It’s no secret that visual content is an essential part of creating high-quality content. As the list of multimedia continues to expand, users expect more than just text to consider a page worth reading.

#8-Embed a video

If a picture is worth a thousand words, you can only imagine what a video will do for your message. Videos have been known to increase conversions by as much as 80%.

Increase conversion rate of your landing page by 80% with a video

A video provides a more personalized touch and is the preferred method of consuming information by over 70% of users. Try using an explainer video to provide an additional method of getting through to your audience on topics that range from basic to advanced.

Vidyard created a landing page and split tested the results of using a video using Unbounce.

The results were definitive.

Video landing page results show increase in conversions

#9-Touch on a pain point

One of the most powerful reactions you can elicit from your audience is the avoidance of pain. People want to avoid pain at all costs. Touch the most common pain points associated with your product and then explain how your product provides the perfect solution.

The connection between your product as a way to eliminate the pain associated with a problem increases conversion rates.

Here is an example of how this landing page plays on the frustration of low conversion statistics.

Example of headline that addresses pain points to increase landing page conversions

#10-Touch on a pleasure point

Paint the picture of the most attractive benefits of using your product to elicit feelings of pleasure. By creating the scenery and most desired situation of what you’re offering you can show your audience the feelings that could be theirs should they decide to move forward in the buyer journey.

Here is an example of Fastrack using the idea of selling your home quick and painless as a way to increase landing page conversions.

Example of Fastrack using pleasure points to increase conversions on their landing page

#11-Remove links and navigation

Landing pages are highly focused on achieving a single conversion goal, which means there is no need to lead your visitors to other pages. Remove all links and the navigation bar (if possible) to eliminate the distraction of clicking through to another page on or off-site.

Landing pages that only allow one action-the goal conversion, tend to convert at higher rates than those that allow users to leave without achieving the goal.

Here is an example of how Shopify corners users into one option on their landing page.

Shopify is a prime example of a website that removes navigation to increase landing page conversions

Watch landing page conversion rates rise dramatically

One of the most important things to remember when optimizing your landing pages is that there are no absolute rules that apply to every industry. To maximize conversions you have to monitor, track and split test results. This leads to a better understanding of your audience and how they react to various aspects of your page.

Most companies find that creating more landing pages raises the overall conversion rates of a website. Use landing pages for specific keywords and remember that the way your users are finding your page is important to how you optimize your page.

Mobile optimization will be different from email marketing or pay per click optimization. Either way, you choose, continue to discover the options that will increase landing page conversion rates to generate more revenue and new clients for your business.

Christian Carere

old.digitalducats.com/

Jan 11 2021

Email Marketing Strategies To Increase Engagement

You may be wondering why email marketing has made it this far in the digital marketing spectrum. This strategy is undoubtedly one of the oldest online marketing tactics and you would think eventually, people get tired of it and it would just not work as well. Wrong! Email marketing is just the opposite. With an average of 3800% ROI and one of the best conversion rates in the business, email marketing strategies have evolved to make it more effective than ever.

It’s never too late to start building your email list. Dozens of platforms are fairly inexpensive (free versions as well) to get you started. If you’re planning on scaling up, make sure you’re aware of the options and features that you’ll need as your list gets bigger and demands more management. Automation will be your best friend so plan ahead and in the meantime, here are some tips that will get you that extra-large audience.

Confirmed opt-in
Choose the right frequency
Choose the right time
Make your email accessible
Pay attention to deliverability
Split test your subject lines
Follow your subject line up with a headline
Use images and video whenever possible
Include a CTA
Include a welcome email
Publish pages to create a marketing funnel

Use a confirmed opt-in

A confirmed opt-in box requires your subscribers to confirm their email address when signing up for your list. The reaffirms the interest in receiving emails from your business.

Some may think this is a double-edged sword. If you double confirm your subscribers, won’t you wind up with a smaller email list? Absolutely. You wind up with a smaller list of a more engaged and more responsive audience.

A confirmed opt-in keeps your list clean. Rather than have a lot of “undeliverable” emails from the user typing in the wrong address, you have a list of confirmed subscribers. This saves you the trouble of pruning and weeding out bad email addresses and keeps your engagement reports more accurate.

Go for quality rather than quantity. Use the double opt-in for less headache and a more responsive audience.

Choose the right email frequency

Are you wondering how many times a week you should be sending your list an email? The industry averages indicate that once a week is the best frequency for optimal results.

A chart showing the relationship between email frequency (an email marketing strategy) and open rates

There are benefits to emailing your list more than once a week but they also come with a trade-off. The more you email your list, the lower your open rate becomes. There’s a drop off in engagement as people start ignoring your email after a certain point.

Start with sending an email a week and test whether your audience responds positively when you add one more per week. If you’re getting more traffic and conversions, there’s a positive correlation with the additional email.

If there’s a steep drop off in engagement and your list starts unsubscribing, you know you’ve reached your limit and need to back off with the additional emails.

Choose the right time

Did you know that there’s a perfect time to send an email to each of your list members? Unfortunately, it’s different across the board for people but there are options using software that can help you send email to each of your list members based on historical open rates.

If your provider doesn’t offer this option, stick with the general bell curve for the most success in getting your email to the top of the inbox. If your email is the first one that a subscriber sees, it will have the best chance of being opened.

Make your email accessible

Thankfully, we live in a time of equality and are always looking to make things easier for our prospective customers. Approximately one-fifth of the world population has some sort of visual impairment so you mustn’t exclude this group from your audience.

Make your content accessible by including descriptive alt tags in your images. The alt tags will at least describe to your reader what the image is about.

Example of alt text being used to describe and image in an email to make it accessible for the visually impaired

Many people use software to have their email read to them so make sure you use the punctuation marks within your alt tags. The reader will pause at the appropriate times and make your content more enjoyable for your audience.

Pay attention to deliverability

It’s important to keep track of the email that ends up undelivered. It may not be the provider or a misspelled email address that is causing your email to fall short of its destination. There are multiple reasons why an email is undeliverable.

Check your email spam score to make sure you’re triggering the spam filter. If your email is ending up in the junk folder then it’s time to reassess the content you’re sending and how you’re sending it.

Monitor the open rate, churn rate, bounce rate and complaints. Identifying the underlying reasons for these metrics will improve the quality of your campaigns.

Split test your subject lines

An email list is an excellent place to test the effectiveness of your content. Use split tests to see what subject lines generate the biggest open rates. Identifying what gets the best response from your list will indicate what type of content to continue sending to your list.

Example of implementing an email marketing strategy called split testing the headline

Personalization is a major theme in creating successful campaigns. The more you see what triggers responses from your audience, the more you can effectively engage them in your offering.

Follow your subject line with a preheader

The headline that you start your email with should complement your subject line. It’s a way to follow up with the initial message you’re sending to your readers. Emails with preheaders get an average open rate of 29%.

Remember that the content above the fold is the most important part of your email. It’s what will essentially hold the attention of the reader and entice them to read further and scroll to the bottom.

If the subject line was enough to get them to open the email then your headline will help maintain that initial interest.

Use images and video whenever possible

If an image is worth a thousand words, how many words is a video worth? It’s not always possible to send a video with every email but the use of visual content is vital to getting the most out of your email marketing campaigns.

Videos are the most preferred form of content so it remains your first choice above all. Videos increase engagement, conversions and reportedly generate a 13% open rate.

Strategize your email marketing with a video in your email (as this image is of a funny faced dude in a video)

Images are the next best thing to make your email more appealing. People retain 10% of the information from text-only but retain 60% of the content they read when there are images to explain the talking points.

Use both images and video whenever possible to enrich your content and make your message much more memorable. The result is more click-throughs and higher conversions.

Include a CTA

People need to be told what to do. Never assume that they will know exactly what you want them to do so include a call to action to increase the desired action you want your audience to take.

Be specific with your CTA and provide marked links, buttons or forms to get your audience to take action.

Include a welcome email

Always have a welcome email sent to your list when they first subscribe. Welcome emails get the highest open rates providing a big opportunity to communicate with your list.

Welcome emails can give your audience a breakdown of what to expect and provide options on what they can do and what you’re offering. You can introduce your new subscriber to new content and get more out of your list by making sure they receive a welcome email.

Publish pages to create a marketing funnel

Make sure you have pages that will ultimately lead your subscribers to purchase or completing an action. There are emails you can automate to make sure your audience is being guided in the right direction. Here is a list of the forms that will make a difference in converting your visitors to clients.

example of the pages in a sales funnel (one of the email marketing strategies to implement)

Use email marketing strategies that make a difference

There’s no excuse for not starting an email list. You have a variety of options when it comes to providers and there are plenty of free services to get you started.

When you want to take your conversions to the next level implement these email marketing tactics and strategies to get a boost in the traffic and revenue your website generates.

Christian Carere

old.digitalducats.com/

Jan 10 2021

Data-Driven Marketing: Invest In Effective Solutions

If you travel back in time to the turn of the century, you would find that in the year 2000 marketing was a very different animal. Most marketing was dominated by radio, television and ad placement in magazines and billboards. Fast-forward 20 years and the bulk of the spray and pray tactics are now obsolete since data-driven marketing has proven to be the best way to increase leads and revenue.

There is a much higher demand for personalization from consumers and a world of data to pull from. In fact, if you’re not appealing to specific desires from your target audience, you’re losing them to other companies.

The customers demand for personalization requires the use of data-driven marketing strategies

Today’s consumers are naturally trained to glaze over advertisements. There are so many ads that are in our face every day that it’s become a natural response to automatically close popover, pop-ups and generally skip paid ads to get to the organic results.

This behavioural pattern has given rise to the power of inbound marketing and the importance of becoming specialized in a specific area of expertise.

In order to cut through the noise and separate yourself from the masses, you need to apply data-driven marketing strategies to reach the audience that will engage with your brand the most.

By applying statistical facts to your marketing decisions you can outperform the old methods of operating on gut instinct. This is how companies are increasing profit and successfully expanding their audience.

What is data-driven marketing?

Data-driven marketing gives companies insight into the preferences and behaviour of their target audience based on big data and statistical facts. Companies then use this information to make more informed decisions on the marketing tactics and strategies they choose to employ for increased engagement.

Without measuring the impact of your efforts, it’s difficult to optimize your campaigns to be more successful. When data is collected (preferably from a large sample size) it is then used to increase key performance indicators that will result in more leads and revenue.

Example of data driven marketing

Here’s an example of a data-driven marketing campaign: Assume your company is running a PPC campaign where the target city is Toronto. After one month, you assess the results and notice that the majority of clicks are coming from similar postal codes.

You research the average household income for the areas in Toronto, and find that the majority of the clicks is coming from the postal codes where income is the highest.

Based on the results of your first campaign, your data would suggest that you need a different type of advertisement to get lower income areas to click on your ads.

You would need to cater to the lower income households by creating a more appealing-perhaps one that communicates more savings.

This approach would increase the number of clicks and conversions by simply changing your copy to something more personal and applicable to the demographic.

This is data-driven marketing in action.

Who uses data-driven marketing?

You would be hard-pressed to find an industry leader that isn’t using data to help make informed marketing decisions. Here at Digital Ducats, we use Google Analytics to collect data on visitor behaviour and website performance daily. The more time and visitors that pass through a website, the more accurate the data becomes to make informed decisions.

The data we use tells us where visitors enter your website, how much time they spend on each page and where they leave. Analyzing the flow of visitors on your website allows us to identify the improvements they need to make to keep users on your site longer and guide them to pages that convert at the highest rate.

Behavioral flow in analytics provides the means for data driven marketing decisions.

If there are pages that generate high bounce rates, we find the underlying cause why your website is losing traffic to the page. Through testing and making changes, your website becomes streamlined for conversions and leads visitors to purchase decisions or becoming a qualified lead.

Tools for automation

There are tools to automate everything when collecting data on your business. Depending on what your marketing goals are will depend on the tool you need to employ. Here is a list of tools that can generate useful data for making informed decisions on improving performance.

Google Analytics

The fact that the tool is free is a bonus being one of the most comprehensive solutions for tracking website data. Analytics tracks every major metric you will need to monitor your website’s performance when it comes to user behaviour.

The most commonly tracked metrics are: monthly search volume, unique users, traffic acquisition channels, flow of visitors, average time on page, bounce rate, conversion tracking and more.

Google search console

This tool is the go-to source for everything that’s happening with your website behind the scenes on Google. As an owner, you are entitled to a free account and can access website performance data such as impressions and clicks to every page.

Core web vitals will officially become a ranking factor in May of 2021 so there is the importance of being alerted to any changes, errors and improvements that need to be made in this department.

You can connect your search console and analytics account for more streamlined and accurate reporting.

Analytic keyword tools

Every SEO company will use a few different tools to provide the best scope and range of information when making decisions on keywords and competition. SEMRush, Moz and Ahrefs are among the top industry leaders for providing access to valuable keyword data and assessing the competition.

Not only do these tools provide keyword generation ideas, they generate loads of information that come with each suggestion to allow greater insight into the keyword.

Information about the level of competition, the average monthly searches, the cost per click, the level of competition, the organic click-through rate and the SERP features that the keyword triggers.

SEMRush keyword analysis is required to make a data driven decision on whether to pursue the search term

Most of these tools also provide intensive competition analysis allowing you to see what keywords your competition ranks for and the volume of traffic they generate. You can see whether they are paying for traffic as well as the backlinks that point to their web pages.

Reverse engineering a competitor is a way of making data-driven marketing decisions

No SEO campaign would be successful without being able to formulate informed decisions based on the information provided by these types of software.

Google Ads

Running a PPC campaign generates an enormous amount of valuable data that can be used to create more successful marketing campaigns. The detailed creation of PPC campaigns coupled with the amount of data that comes back in the reporting can speak volumes about your target audience.

PPC campaigns provide volumes of data regarding the user behaviour and how they respond to your sales copy, landing pages and products.

Google Ads report is a gold mine for making data driven marketing decisions

What’s more, is the data that is returned can help you build more accurate buyer personas for more effective content and targeting.

Email marketing software

Email marketing software provides you statistics on the success of your email marketing campaigns. Use this data in conjunction with your Analytics to segment your lists and create more personalized content for your audience. You can use tools like Mailchimp, Aweber, Get Response, Campaign Monitor or any you deem worthy.

Campaign monitor sample report that shows data you can use in making future marketing decisions

A simple metric like the open rate can provide you insight into the effectiveness of a subject line in an email. A high open rate would indicate your audience is responding to the topic and delivery of your subject line-which makes it ideal to use variations of it as a title or headline for a blog post or article.

A high click-through rate of an email would indicate the body of content is appealing enough to get users to read further. This gives you a proof of which topics to pursue and build more content around to maintain high levels of engagement.

Tips to create a data-driven marketing campaign

Here are a few tips for creating campaigns that continually become more effective in targeting your audience and more optimized for conversions.

Create a well defined goal

Define the goal that will create a competitive edge in your marketing. You need to have a major objective in your campaign with a clear set of values you can walk away with and use in your next campaign. A clearly defined goal will keep you on track and provide a specific benchmark that can be measured for effectiveness.

Select your tracking tools

Choose the tools that will give you the data you need to make better decisions in the marketing campaigns that follow. Make sure you’re setting up your campaign with the tools that will give you the most accurate values for achieving your objective.

Setting up analytics means creating conversion goals and trackable links to see what’s actually happening on the pages you’re testing. Without using the proper tools your values can be skewed so make sure you’re getting the most from your campaign by using tools that will provide the metrics you need.

Incorporate data from past campaigns

Always make use of previous data to make informed decisions. If you’ve already run a campaign that has presented a set of data, incorporate that data into your next campaign. This creates a more effective, optimized campaign.

Use data-driven decisions to increase your bottom line

Use as much information about your products and consumers as possible to create highly targeted marketing campaigns. The demand for personalization has been made clear and it’s up to you to meet the demands of your ideal audience.

Applying data-driven marketing strategies are the norm for creating the means for more informed decisions on your marketing campaigns. Make use of statistical facts about your audience to see more engagement, leads and revenue on a regular basis.

Christian Carere

old.digitalducats.com/

Dec 23 2020

Organic SEO Vs. PPC: Which Is Better?

It’s impossible to claim whether one form of traffic generation is better than the other. Like so many things in SEO, the truth is, it depends. To debate over organic SEO vs PPC and which is better, you’re going to need to consider a few important factors that go into making the decision on which avenue to pursue.

What is organic traffic generation?

The organic search results are the portion of the search engine result page that is generated based on the websites that have the best answer to a search query. This segment cannot be bought by anyone as the results are generated by the algorithm search engines use to display the best results to a search query.

The organic search results are more trusted when comparing organic SEO vs. PPC

For this reason, the organic results tend to instill the most confidence in users and attract the most clicks.

What is paid traffic (PPC campaigns) generation?

The top of Google’s search engine result page is typically reserved for 4 four paid results that are marked with the word “Ad” to indicate they are paid placements. Google Ads uses a Pay Per Click model that has been adopted by social media websites and of course, is used by the other search engines as well.

The paid search results on Google are Google Ads and cost more in the long run when comparing PPC and organic SEO

The concept requires you to pay for every click that a user makes to your website when you’re in a paid position on the SERP. This is your cost per click (CPC).

Advantages of organic search engine optimization

More traffic
Lower cost
Continuous
Adds value

Drive more traffic from organic search results

On average, the organic search results take up 40% of the click on mobile and 60% of the clicks on desktop. It is undoubtedly the largest source of traffic that is available.

People tend to avert advertisements, and will naturally skip over them and click on an organic result because it’s the most unbiased result. Of course, it depends on the type of keyword but for the most part, the organic results win the lion’s share of available clicks.

Lower cost alternative

Although there is still a cost to driving organic traffic, it becomes a fraction of the cost of what you would pay Google for the same traffic in the long run. This is because once you have a page that drives traffic, clicks to your site are free.

The major burden is the cost it takes to rank a page into the top 10 positions. With more traffic flowing abundantly to your website, your cost per acquisition lowers over time.

Provides continuous traffic

Organic traffic is continuous in regards to the fact that once you rank on the first page, you can stay there indefinitely. Even if another website happens to outperform your page, a drop in position does not stop the traffic to your website.

Holding a position on the SERP means driving organic even after you’ve stopped paying for SEO services, whereas with PPC your traffic stops when you stop paying.

Adds depth and value

Organic traffic generation involves publishing content that is being searched and found by users. As your site continues to target and rank for keywords that are important to your business, your website develops authority and depth. This never disappears.

Top keyword rankings for content that people are looking for is a valuable commodity. Your site becomes a resource the more SEO content that you publish for your audience. Therefore, the process for developing organic traffic raises the value of your website by adding depth to the niche-oriented content you publish.

Disadvantages of organic SEO

Takes longer to generate traffic
Mostly informational searches

Longer incubation time

There is typically an incubation period for being able to drive organic traffic with new content. The process for keyword research, content creation, optimization and link building can take months before a page begins to drive traffic from the organic results. In a study by Ahrefs of over 2 million websites, they found that the average time for a page to rank in the top 10 positions is over a year.

The time it takes a page to rank (over a year by this chart) affects your decision when choosing between organic SEO and PPC

Only 5.8% of the websites they studied were able to rank on the first page in less than a year, and even so-they average over 2-6 months.

Graph showing the how long it takes the lucky 5.7% to rank on the first page within a year

Bottom line is that driving traffic using organic SEO takes time.

Mostly informational searches

Since 80% of the searches made are informational, many of the keywords that are targeted to drive organic traffic typically attract visitors that are not yet ready to buy. This means there is more educating and nurturing the visitor before they can become a qualified lead and new client.

This means that there is more strategy involved for developing a marketing funnel and addressing the various stages of the buyer journey in order to convert visitors to clients.

When should you opt for organic traffic generation?

If you’re building an authority website, you’ll need to build your organic traffic. The content on your website will need to reflect what users are searching for and be the best solution to search intent.

If you’re a local business, you’ll want to build your organic traffic. Optimize to be found in local searches and the local finder.

When you’re invested in your business for the long run, organic traffic generation is the solution. As the highest source of targeted traffic, it will lead to the most revenue at the lowest cost.

Advantages of PPC

Instant traffic
Control over audience
More insight into converting keywords
Search visibility for competitive keywords

Receive instant traffic

Once you’ve created a PPC campaign you receive instant traffic. It’s not always going to make you money immediately as there is some time required to optimize your campaign. But as soon as you activate your campaign you will be getting clicks to your website from instant search visibility.

Control over your audience

You have the option to select the demographics of your ad campaign. You can literally choose who sees your ads by choosing preferred age, city, times, gender and a whole myriad of options to personalize the audience your ad appears in front of.

Insight into converting keywords

PPC campaigns are an excellent way to conclude what keywords are the best-converting terms for your business. You have access to the behavioural patterns of the users that click on your ad for every keyword within your campaign. This allows you to double down on the search terms that work and get rid of the keywords that don’t convert.

Search visibility on competitive terms

PPC allows your business a fair shot at appearing for search terms that would otherwise be difficult to rank for organically. When the first page of search results is littered with titans like eBay and Walmart, you can bid on those terms to get your product on the first page as well.

Disadvantages

Higher CPA
Traffic stops when you stop paying
Less traffic
No long term benefits

Higher cost per acquisition

One of the biggest downsides to PPC is it’s considerably more expensive than organic traffic generation. The average cost per acquisition will generally be the same throughout the life of your campaign as opposed to organic traffic which declines over time.

In fact, the CPA could rise should more competition for your keyword decide to join in bidding for the top position.

PPC is not a cheap solution and in many cases it takes money to make money. There is a learning curve to optimizing your campaigns to reduce the cost and increase the revenue you’re making.

Traffic stops when you stop paying

Unlike organic traffic generation, PPC is a pay to play type of format. You have to pay for your position on Google and when you stop paying, so does your lead generation, sales and new clients.

This presents a problem for businesses if the only way to generate leads is through paid traffic. If the price goes up in their niche, this could spell disaster for a company that solely relies on PPC for sales.

No long term benefits

Unlike SEO, PPC does not provide any long-term benefits to a website. With SEO, intrinsic value is constantly being added to the website through researched SEO content. Over time, a website can develop a strong reputation as an expert and authority within its niche.

PPC does not add value to content or alter your website in any way. It is simply a paid position in the search results to get visitors to your website.

When should you invest in pay per click (PPC)?

PPC is good for short-term or one time promotions. When you need traffic fast, PPC is the way to go. PPC can deliver you the traffic immediately from the audience you select.

This makes PPC a good option for companies that are just starting out and need new clients to get the ball rolling.

A new website will need time to develop content and strengthen their search visibility. PPC campaigns can supply the traffic required in the meantime to supplement the lack of search visibility.

Organic SEO used in conjunction with PPC

The best-case scenario is to use organic SEO in conjunction with targeted PPC campaigns. As an aggressive marketing strategy, the two working together should be synergistic in the sense that the data obtained from each PPC campaign can be fed into the SEO strategy.

Having more search visibility is never a bad thing. Even if you’re making less money on PPC than organic SEO, using the two together is simply working to increase your total revenue.

When to debate SEO vs. PPC

The choice between SEO and PPC is not one that you can make without exploring options, assessing your current website development in relation to the competitive landscape.

For example, if you’re in a local market or extremely small niche, you may be able to achieve search visibility with simple DIY SEO tactics within a short amount of time.

In a non-competitive environment, it would make more sense to focus your time and resources on developing your website with targeted SEO content.

However in a more competitive environment, having your website appear in the paid results as well as the organic results could be the right balance that pushes your website to new heights in search traffic and record-breaking revenue.

For more information on how to develop your online strategy, give us a call and we’ll give you our best advice on how to make your business more profitable.

Christian Carere

old.digitalducats.com/