Using the power of search engines to bring in business should always be a part of your digital marketing efforts. Search engines like Google have been proved to be incredibly powerful, and things like Search Engine Optimisation and Pay-Per-Click advertising that are optimised for Google (as well as other search engines) can help you achieve truly incredible results.
But with so many different digital marketing tools available to business owners these days, how do you narrow down what is really important and what is worth spending your marketing budget on? Well, two arenas that are definitely worth focusing on are PPC advertising and SEO.
While you may see these digital marketing efforts as an unnecessary cost for your business, you may think otherwise by the end of this article.
In this article by Real Business, we’ll have a look at how important SEO strategies and PPC advertising are to business, how SEO and PPC can work together to achieve incredible results, and what other forms of marketing can bring in business.
What is PPC advertising?
PPC stands for pay-per-click. This type of advertising is so popular because you only pay each time a user actually clicks on your ad. PPC advertising is mostly offered by search engines. Google offers their own PPC advertising called Google Ads. But social media platforms, such as Facebook, also offer their own form of pay-per-click advertising. In recent years, this type of advertising has gained immense popularity, and it is used by millions of businesses worldwide.
There are many different types of PPC ads, including:
Display ads
Remarketing ads
Video ads
Shopping ads
Social media ads
Gmail sponsored ads
Amazon advertising
And more
The Benefits of PPC advertising
PPC advertising would not be as popular as it is today if it weren’t for the many benefits that it has to offer businesses. Some of the benefits associated with PPC advertising include:
Get Immediate results – One of the best things about PPC advertising is that you start enjoying results almost immediately after your initial investment.
More web traffic – PPC advertising is a very effective way to bring more interested parties to your site.
Thrive despite the algorithm – Unlike SEO, you don’t need to take the Google algorithm into account when creating PPC ads.
Return on investment – PPC advertising is definitely affordable, and with the heightened web traffic, you’re sure to get a great return on your investment.
Generate leads by targeting specific areas – PPC advertising usually allows you to target specific areas.
What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. SEO is essentially a range of strategies that aim at optimising your website so that it will be favoured by Google (and other search engines) and therefore show up near the top of organic search results. In essence, SEO aims at making your website more user-friendly, authoritative, professional, and well-written. There are many different things that Google can crit you for, and the Google Algorithm changes quite frequently.
Some SEO strategies include:
Backlinking
Use of keywords in copy
Optimising loading speeds
Optimising meta tags and meta descriptions
Incorporating UX to your website
And more
It should be noted that SEO strategies can take a while to start showing results, and that is why patience is very important.
The benefits of SEO Brings in customers through organic searches – Most web users like to skip the paid ads at the top of search results and head straight to the organic search results.
Trustworthy web experience – When visitors browse your website, SEO ensures that your site appears trustworthy and professional.
Create a good user experience – SEO focuses on user experience and creating convenience, appeal, and easy navigation for the user.
It can be done on a budget – SEO strategies are relatively affordable to invest in.
Trackable – Your results can be tracked, and you can keep up to date with your various efforts.
Why SEO and PPC advertising is so important for businesses
What you need to understand is that it is highly likely that your competition has already invested in both SEO and PPC advertising, which means that they are getting ahead of you if you have not yet started your digital marketing efforts.
The other thing that you need to realise is that we live in a digital era. Everything we do is online, and this online existence has been heightened in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Your customer base is most likely looking for businesses just like you online, and if you are not at the top of the PPC ads or the organic results, then you can wave goodbye to those potential customers.
It is also important to note that SEO and PPC advertising cannot simply be generalised as passing fads. These are digital marketing strategies that have been around for a long time and have proved their worth by showing results when used correctly, again and again.
Using SEO and PPC cohesively
Many business owners tend to view SEO and PPC as two completely separate entities when the truth is that these techniques work best when used in unison. Both SEO and PPC are digital marketing efforts that aim at helping you grow your business, assert an authoritative brand voice, and attract new customers.
While SEO and PPC are different in many ways, their objectives are the same for the most part. Another noteworthy similarity is the fact that they are both keyword-driven, and the right keywords play a huge role in their success.
To get the most out of SEO and PPC, you should be using both simultaneously.
Investing in both SEO and PPC advertising can offer your business the following benefits:
Maximising your SERP coverage – For example, if you invest in both PPC and SEO and use similar keywords, when a user gets to search results and decides to skip the adverts to get to organic results, your site will still be near the top. That means you gain double exposure.
Play the long and the short game – PPC advertising gives you almost instant results, but when it comes to SEO, you are playing the long game and results can take a while to nurture. By investing in both, you play the long and the short game and expand your results’ lifespan.
Elevated brand identity – When a user clicks on a PPC ad and is taken to a completely optimised website for SEO, they are more likely to be impressed with the site, stay on the site for longer, and have a higher potential of converting to a customer. In essence, there is no real point in having a PPC ad out there if it is only going to lead the viewer to a poorly optimised website.
Is it worth the cost?
One of the greatest things about both SEO and PPC is that they are affordable to businesses of all sizes and budgets! The services are scalable and flexible, giving you a lot of control over how much you want to spend and can afford to spend. In many cases, SEO and PPC actually give small businesses the incredible opportunity to outrank their larger competitors.
In most cases, businesses get a lot of return on their digital marketing investments through more traffic, more leads, and ultimately more sales.
Does my business need a professional SEO and PPC specialist?
If you really want to make the most out of SEO and PPC opportunities, then you should definitely invest in the expertise of a professional digital marketer. Any good digital marketing agency should be able to offer you both of these services. Because of their experience, knowledge and skills, they’ll be able to best advise you as to how you should spend your digital marketing budget, which keywords to use, which search phrases to optimise for, and more. PPC and SEO definitely take a lot more skill than you might think, and it can be easy for business owners to make mistakes should they attempt to take on SEO and PPC themselves.
That is not to say that it is impossible to handle your own PPC and SEO if you are a business owner. Just understand that it will be time-consuming in the beginning stages and that you may not get the results you’re looking for straight away.
What you need to watch out for when it comes to SEO and PPC advertising
Just like with any form of online marketing, there are mistakes that you could make that could end up backfiring your marketing efforts. Some things to look out for include:
Hiring the wrong company – If you get your digital marketing done by a digital marketing agency, you want to make sure that you’ve chosen the right company with thorough research before signing. The right company can help you get results that exceed your expectations, while the wrong company could end up in wasted time and money.
Unsound SEO practises – Unsound SEO practises such as dodgy backlinking could result in your site getting blacklisted, so ensure you have a very clear idea of what you’re doing if you’re handling SEO yourself.
Expecting immediate results when it comes to SEO – Patience will get you far when it comes to SEO. It takes a while for the results to kick in, so it is important that you remember this when looking at your metrics each month.
Bidding on the wrong keywords for PPC – When it comes to PPC advertising and Google Ads, one of the most important aspects is which keywords you bid on. Bidding on the wrong keywords could end up with you blowing your PPC budget for nothing.
Not optimising for the right search engines – While there are many search engines out there, the fact of the matter (for now at least) is that Google rules and most of your potential customers are likely to be using Google for their searches.
Tracking and measuring performance
You should have clear goals in place and ensure that your SEO and PPC efforts are being measured correctly if you want to keep track of your digital marketing investments. You should know how much traffic you want to generate, the budget you have to spend, and the time frame involved with lead and traffic generation. There are dozens of effective tools that you can use to track your progress and provide you with weekly or monthly reports that give you a detailed breakdown of all of the relevant KPIs.
One of the best tools you can use, which is also free, is Google Analytics. Google Analytics can help you analyse the following:
Keyword rankings
Time spent on page by users
Organic traffic
Organic conversions
Other marketing techniques to bring in business
Apart from focusing on SEO and PPC advertising, there are a number of other marketing techniques that you can use to bring in business. This is not to say that you should forego SEO or PPC, or substitute them in anyway, but rather use them in conjunction with other strategies, such as:
Social media marketing – Social media marketing is a very powerful form of digital marketing in today’s world. By appealing to specific target audiences on specific platforms, you are able to entice your ideal customers from various generations.
Email marketing – No, email marketing is not dead. Email marketing can be very effective when done correctly, and email marketing often forms part of other funnels.
Content marketing – Through skilled storytelling and by making use of blog posts, whitepapers, etc., you’re able to give your brand a voice and reel in potential customers.
At the end of the day, it looks as if SEO and PPC will remain important for the foreseeable future, so it is well worth investing in both of these digital strategies. Every business uses some form of marketing to bring in business, and both SEO and PPC have proved their worth. It doesn’t matter whether your business is small, large, or medium-sized, these strategies will help you bring in more customers!
SEO Simplified: An Introduction to SEO in 2022
Over the past 25 years or so, the Internet has become the "front door" through which customers enter to interact with businesses. Apart from e-commerce (which is a huge sector in its own right), think about what a typical buyer's journey may look like today:
- The consumer discovers a brand, perhaps through social media or some other online channel
- They perform online research on the brand (for instance, by looking at customer ratings, reviews, and testimonials)
- They finally buy from the brand, either in-store or online
As you can tell, a company's online presence can make a world of difference in terms of customer engagement, lead generation, and sales. So the question is: How can a business improve its online presence and visibility? In many cases, SEO is the answer.
In this article, we're going to provide an overview of SEO: what it is, why it matters, and how it works. If you're new to the concept, don't worry: we're not going to dive into a lot of technical jargon. The details can wait for other posts. Instead, we're going to break SEO down into simple terms, and discuss why it should be a focus area for just about any business today.
Okay, what exactly is SEO?
As you may already know, SEO stands for "search engine optimization." In basic terms, you could think of it as a strategy to help your business website show up in Google's search results at the highest possible (i.e., the most visible) spot. So while SEO has a lot of moving parts, its main objective and purpose are to increase your company's online visibility.
Why is SEO so important?
SEO is important because it ensures that as many Internet users as possible see your business come up in their search results for certain keywords. And to illustrate the vital importance of making that happen, consider this statistic:
The number #1 result in Google search gets approximately 32% of all clicks.
Wow! That means that a business in Google's top-ranked spot will get 32 clicks for every 100 people who search for that keyword or phrase. As you can tell, this constitutes a huge advantage not only in terms of visibility but ultimately in terms of leads and sales.
Of course, you don't have to have the number #1 rank in Google to get clicks. But the further down the list you are, the less likely your business will be seen - and the less likely you'll receive any business from your listing.
So how can you earn the highest possible ranking? That leads to our next question...
How does SEO work?
As we said before, SEO has a lot of moving parts. But at its core, search engine optimization is based upon two basic principles: relevance and authority.
Relevance
Search engines are designed to receive query information from a user, determine the user's intent, and then search through their database (or index) to retrieve the most relevant results for that query. Logically, if you're in the concrete business, you won't show up for a query like "roofing contractors near me," and vice versa.
This is where keywords come into the picture. Keywords, and key phrases, are what search engines use to determine which websites align with a specific query. In the previous paragraph's example, your website would no doubt contain a ton of keywords related to concrete: "concrete pouring," "concrete finishing," "concrete near you," and so forth. It would be obvious to Google that your business is focused on concrete.
Fortunately, Google would also be smart enough to recognize keywords that are related to your core business. These are called LSI keywords and can be either synonyms for your main keyword, or terms that are conceptually related to it. For example, if someone types in "slab cutting service near me," Google will almost certainly pull up companies that offer concrete cutting to their customers.
Also, location can be a major relevance factor. After all, if someone is looking for a concrete company in Chicago, why would Google pull one up from New York City?
Why does all this information matter? Because it shows that how you develop and write your content is important - not only for your human audience but also for search engines like Google. Using the right keywords is critical to SEO best practices. Period.
Authority
Relevance is a fairly straightforward concept. However, authority is a little trickier to track.
"Authority," in terms of SEO, basically means how trustworthy your web page is. It involves its popularity, how it's set up, and even how long it's been around. Google has about 200 factors it takes into account when ranking a website, and most of them are related to domain authority, in some shape or form.
Think of it this way: Google wants its search engine to not only provide the most relevant results to users, but also the most helpful ones. Therefore, a web page that's been around for many years, and that other Internet users often share and link to, will usually rank higher than a relatively unknown page that's only been around for a couple of months.
A business' online reputation may also play a role in Google's algorithm. For instance, if your concrete company has a lot of 4 and 5-star reviews from customers, and one of your competitors only has 2 and 3-star ratings, it's very likely that your business will show up higher in the rankings.
How can you establish your site's authority? It will take some time, for sure. However, if you consistently create content that's valuable for your audience (and use strategies like internal linking), then your authority will certainly become stronger over time - which will mean higher rankings for your business!
Final thoughts In summary:
● SEO stands for "search engine optimization"
● It's an absolutely vital strategy for a business' online visibility
● Successful SEO is mainly based on the two principles of relevance and authority
We'll end the overview of SEO here, but rest assured: there's still much to discover about this essential marketing strategy! Make sure to follow me as I dive deeper into specific topics surrounding SEO and marketing.
Photo by Solen Feyissa on Unsplash
5 Reasons Law Firms Need Specialized Legal Content Marketing
The legal industry gets a lot of coverage in the marketing world, and for good reason.
It’s not only a highly competitive industry but also one where business owners struggle the most to create great content.
Lawyers must meet strict ethical and legal standards in their content marketing.
These include setting reasonable expectations in ad copy, avoiding unrealistic claims, remaining discretionary with user information, and much more.
Still, content marketing is essential for any law firm looking to generate more traffic and leads online.
And with that in mind, there are a few considerations lawyers should take when it comes to online content.
Why Law Firms Need Legal Web Content
According to the Legal Technology Resource Center’s ABA 2020 Legal Technology Survey Report, less than half of all law firms actually have a marketing budget.
This is quite surprising, as lawyers face a competitive landscape and almost require a marketing strategy to get and stay ahead.
But building a strategy and producing great content doesn’t always come naturally.
Working with a reputable legal content agency is one of the best ways to create thorough, optimized, and user-friendly content.
One of our clients, for example, started as a small solo-attorney law firm and within two years saw the firm’s revenue grow 5x.
He hired three lawyers to keep up and increased his marketing budget.
Legal web content (i.e., website content for the legal industry) is crucial for law firms looking to grow their online presence, traffic, and leads.
Here’s why law firms need content marketing, plus some tips on doing it right. - Legal Content Marketing Improves SEO
Every website needs content.
From the content on your service pages to the articles on your blog, your legal web content tells prospective clients what your firm is about.
Not only that, but your content also tells search engines what your business is about.
Content is important for SEO because it provides context to search engines regarding what your law firm offers, its location, who it serves, and much more.
This is important when ranking high in search and reaching users actively searching for services like yours.
Search engine-optimized web content helps you target the keywords users are searching for to find legal services in their area.
So, besides effectively describing your firm’s values and experience, your content can actively attract more users to your site.
Building an SEO-friendly law firm website includes content, keyword research, local SEO, and web development and design. - Law Firm Web Content Can Attract Backlinks
While your SEO content works to drive organic traffic, it may also attract authority-boosting backlinks to your website.
These backlinks occur when other websites love your content and choose to link to you.
Backlinks offer strong signals to Google that your law firm is reputable and offers valuable content to users.
So, beyond focusing on SEO, write content your audience will love to read.
At the same time, backlinks can drive referral traffic to your website from the websites linking to you.
So, it’s valuable to create web and blogging content specific to your niche and attract links from other businesses and blogs in your industry. - Great Web Content Drives Social Shares And Traffic
The Content Marketing Institute is a strong proponent of creating content that serves multiple purposes.
Your blog content may drive organic traffic and social shares.
For example, adding “social proof” such as client reviews and testimonials to your content can encourage clients to share your content with their wider network.
Experimenting with other types of content like video and infographics may also have mass appeal.
Don’t be afraid to get creative.
Legal content doesn’t have to be stuffy; there are many interesting topics people are interested in reading if you can put a unique spin on it.
Use this to your advantage to drive social shares and traffic to your website. - Conversion-Optimized Content Turns Traffic Into Leads
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the practice of optimizing your content, website, or marketing campaigns to convert users into subscribers, leads, or cases.
CRO is essential to your content marketing to ensure you’re gaining traffic and turning that traffic into leads for your law firm.
The basics of CRO include adding compelling calls-to-action (like “Subscribe here” or “Contact us”) on the pages and posts throughout your website.
This gives users multiple chances to take action rather than dropping immediately from your website.
Other factors influencing CRO are website speed, navigation, contact forms, and personalization.
There are many ways to personalize your content to increase on-site conversions. - Informative Content Increases Your Website’s Authority And Reach
Who and what you know often play a major role in your firm’s reputation in the legal industry.
Client reviews, referrals, networking, and guest speaking can all improve your law firm’s authority and reach.
Your content marketing can serve these purposes as well.
By publishing informative content on your website, you showcase your legal expertise and build trust with your audience.
And by guest posting and interviewing on other websites, you can earn backlinks, referral traffic, speaking opportunities, and more.
Clients want to work with lawyers who have a track record of success and are well-established in their industry.
Publishing great legal content is one way to nurture this trust and earn respect from other industry professionals.
Overhaul Your Law Firm’s Content Strategy
If you’re like most lawyers who don’t have a marketing budget, you know that creating content is one of the best and more affordable ways to market your firm.
It takes legal know-how, creativity, and the ability to write with your audience in mind.
Of course, a basic knowledge of SEO and content marketing principles can help generate better results from your content.
Over time, your content will earn dividends for your firm in terms of traffic, leads, social shares, and more.
More resources:
Featured Image: Flamingo Images/Shutterstock