The way people find your business is changing. Nowadays, online search dominates the market for small businesses and large brands alike.
Every day, masses of potential customers will search online for companies just like yours – whether it’s fashion, food or financial services. In fact, a massive 69% of consumers search for a local business online at least once a month. If your business doesn’t show up, you can wave goodbye to those invaluable customers.
So, how you can make sure potential customers find you online? And should you join the wonderful world of Google Ads?
How to be seen online
When it comes to being seen online, there are a few different areas to consider:
- Social media – Sites like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter have become increasingly popular when it comes to finding businesses. Facebook even has its own recommendations feature, where users can ask their friends to recommend anything from cafes to plumbers. With that in mind, it’s a good idea to keep your brand active on different social media sites.
- Directories – Remember the Yellow Pages? It’s now known as Yell.com, with a number of similar sites online. Customers often use these to find local businesses, so it’s always a good idea to have your business listed with a few basic details.
- Search engines – Without a doubt the most popular way to find businesses is through a search engine. Google, Bing and even Yahoo are used by customers to search for specific products, services and businesses, making it vital for your company to have a strong presence.
Search engine results
If your business is serious about attracting new customers, you really need to be on the first page of the search engine result for your chosen key phrases. Research shows that the first search engine results page (SERP), comprising the top ten organic results plus paid ads, attracts over 95% of traffic.
So, if you want to get your business onto the first SERP? You have two options – SEO or PPC, or both.
SEO (search engine optimisation) is the act of making your website search engine friendly. So, what do search engines want? Simply put, they want to recommend great websites to their users – and people like fast, mobile-friendly websites that are useful and easy to navigate.
SEO requires time and effort but can pay off in the long run. It’s a slow burner, but the results are long-lasting.
Alternative, you can opt for PPC (pay-per-click) advertising. There are many different platforms that you can advertise on, such as Instagram and even Yell – but Google Ads is the daddy if you want to attract traffic from search engines.
On Google Ads, you create adverts and then bid on the search terms you’d like them to appear against. These ads attract around 65% of clicks, with the remaining 35% going to organic results. While SEO delivers long-term results, PPC can drive traffic instantly when it’s deployed effectively.
Key steps to successful PPC
PPC allows your business to target people who are actively looking for your products and/or services. Not only that, you can track results with a number of metrics, making it one of the most effective ways to reach your audience.
When we are launching PPC campaigns for our clients, we take the following steps to ensure they are getting the most out of this powerful platform:
1) Research: We conduct ongoing research into the business, industry and competitors and work with clients to constantly adapt the portfolio of keywords. By taking the client’s budget into account, this portfolio forms the initial basis of the campaign.
2) Creation: Our team will write compelling, effective adverts to funnel traffic to specific landing pages. We also set up additional features such as Ad extensions and Shopping feeds to ensure that every PPC campaign is fully equipped. This ensures the highest possible conversion rate and the largest return on your investment.
3) Implementation: We implement and manage the campaigns.
4) Monitoring: We’ll set up and use analytic tracking on the website so that we can make informed decisions as your campaign progresses.
5) Optimisation: After launch we will regularly optimise the campaign to ensure that ROI is maximised.
6) Reporting: We provide regular reporting, so clients can see the success of the campaign and how much the budget has generated.
Want to find out more?
If you want to discuss how we can drive traffic to your site using PPC, the team at Hoopla Marketing are always ready to talk. Give us a call on 0161 731 0048 or email info@hoopla-marketing.com.