Digital Marketing, Facebook Ads, marketing Archives

26 Aug 2019

Sticky Post By Edgar Guillen Posted in Digital Marketing, Facebook Ads, marketing, Uncategorized Permalink

Six Ways to Optimize Google My Business For Local SEO

Sticky Post By Edgar Guillen On August 26, 2019

Are you familiar with Google My Business? If you’re not, you should be- here’s why.

Google My Business is a free and easy-to-use tool that Google launched back in 2014 for companies and organizations to manage their online presence across Google. It is a simple way to make your business more discoverable, but most importantly, to stand out from the crowd.

Having a fully optimized listing in Google My Business is crucial for local SEO (search engine optimization). Google offers an array of valuable features that, when properly utilized, can maximize the impact of your business listing.

First things first: if you don’t have an account yet, refer to this article on how to create an account and claim your business. Then, visit Google My Business and create your listing.

Ready to go? Great! Here are our six recommendations on how to make the best use of Google My Business for local SEO:

#1: Tell the story of your business.

The first step is to provide a description of your business in 750 characters or less. That’s not much, so your goal is to be concise. Give honest, relevant, and essential information that will give a searcher the clearest possible understanding of your identity from the jump.

The description appears when a user searches for your business on Google. If your business is well-known and has a significant web presence searchable by Google, the description may come from other sources, like Wikipedia, instead. (Bonus tip: if you want this to be true for you, too, and you think your business is significant enough for its own Wikipedia page, create one!)

In the ‘Info’ section of Google My Business, make absolutely certain that all your identifying information is current and complete: provide a current address, phone number, contact numbers, website address – as many ways of being found as the form allows and you can provide!

#2: Share photos of your business

Share photos that capture what your business is about. Images are vital for SEO- Google reports businesses with photos to receive 42% more requests for driving directions and 35% more clicks to websites, than businesses that don’t have images in their listings.

A new feature in Google My Business is that you choose the main image for your listing, and provide logos at the top-right of your profile. Upload photos of your business, products, and events so that your customers can learn more about your business.

What are some good images to include?

Exterior views of your business location. This is a must for anyone that will visit your site.
Highlights of your physical site. Are you a school with a beautiful front garden? A nursery school with an attractive playground? A shopping or business center with an iconic piece of art on your grounds?

Products. Obviously, you won’t provide a complete photo catalog, but show an image or two of what you’re most associated with: an attractive shot of clean, shiny cars in your dealership, or your sales floor with well-arranged appliances or other goods. If you’re a restaurant, your most Instagram-worthy platings had better be here, too.

Your team in action. This is especially useful if your team has visible branding, like uniforms, T-shirts, or caps. Pictures of your team helping customers or showing clients merchandise create emotional resonance!

#3: Add call to actions for bookings

If you enable this functionality, customers can easily book your service (a hotel room, restaurant reservations, appointments, etc.) when they find you on Google Search and Maps. This is HUGE- allowing visitors to engage with you immediately, without having to pick up their phones, visit a site, or otherwise click away will give a big boost to engagement. Link your account with a participating booking provider to enable this functionality directly on your Google search results.

Local restaurants have enthusiastically embraced this feature, using “Reserve a Table” CTAs where people, with just one click, can book a table to the restaurant without visiting the website. Users can also check the available tables for other days.

#4: Create great business posts

With your Google My Business listing, you can publish updates and offers directly to your Search and Maps results page, like:

News and announcements
Events such as open houses, a special brunch, upcoming performances
Sales and discounts, including coupon codes
New arrivals of products or advance orders

You can also include an image and a call to action in these posts. The available calls to action are Book, Order Online, Buy, Learn More, Sign Up, and Call Now.

#5: Get messages from your customers

One of the most amazing new features of Google My Business is the ‘Messaging’ section that allows customers to contact you immediately upon finding your listing. You can respond to questions, and share information directly, for free!

Using this feature requires the Google My Business app on your iOS or Android device. Once you turn on messaging, users will see a “Message” button on your Google My Business listing. Your customers will then be able to message you at any time.

#6: Manage your business’ reviews

Did you know that 90% of people read online reviews before visiting a business, and 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations? Google reviews are one of the most important ranking factors for local SEO.

Having a lot of good reviews can help new people find you online and trust your business. Always encourage your customers to leave you a review!

Customers can post reviews your business listing. Respond to them. It shows your customers (and searchers) that you care about them, but also that you’re active and engaged. Always respond to your reviews, whether positive or negative.

Conclusion

If you don’t have a Google My Business listing yet, you definitely need to create one. Using this free and easy-to-use tool is necessary to be easily found online by your customers and potential customers. Leveraging all its amazing features, and it won’t just be a listing- it’ll be marketing!

Want to make sure your Google My Business listing maximizes attention and traffic? Contact us. We’ll create an amazing Google My Business listing for you, or any other channel for boosting your web presence!

Sources:

https://neilpatel.com/blog/google-my-business-optimization/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=email

https://blog.hootsuite.com/google-my-business/

https://www.brightlocal.com/blog/new-google-my-business-features-june-2019/

https://www.reputation.com/resources/blog/the-top-6-google-my-business-features-for-marketers/

11 Mar 2019

Sticky Post By Ana Cristina Posted in Content Marketing, Content Marketing, Facebook Ads, Digital Marketing, Digital Marketing, Facebook Ads, marketing Permalink

Are You New To Facebook Dynamic Creatives?

Sticky Post By Ana Cristina On March 11, 2019

Here’s Everything You Need To Know

Dynamic creatives allow advertisers to create and deliver different combinations of ads, finding the perfect match of headline, text, image, description, and call-to-action that are more relevant and engaging to their audience.

How do Facebook dynamic creatives work?

Take John, who lives in Miami. John has never really thought about his eating habits but has decided today that he’d like to lose some weight because his “date jeans” don’t fit anymore.

There’s also Laura, who also lives in Miami, and enjoys eating healthy and exercising every day. Laura should probably teach John about portion control, and John could probably help Laura not be so maddeningly perfect. But that’s another story.

Then there’s YOU: the owner of a health food company doing business in the Miami area. You want your marketing material to deliver a message to John AND Laura that will resonate with them, but it may not be realistic in your marketing budget to design a “John-type ad” and a “Laura-type ad”- to say nothing of your other market segments- from scratch. You know messaging is never one-size-fits-all, and that different audiences will respond to individual creative elements- image, copy, timing- differently as well.

It sure would be great to get that all done in one shot!

Here’s where dynamic creatives come in handy. Using them, you’re able to test different creative components to define which combinations give you the best response- mixing and matching creatives and testing the various combos, all live. This lets you maximize the value from Facebook ads budget.

Remember that dynamic creatives are different from dynamic ads– this tool is for testing a variety of creatives around the SAME product. Dynamic ads retarget users with different products.

So, how do you do it?

Step #1:

Source: Facebook

Step #2:

Source: Facebook

Step #3:

Source: Facebook

Let’s see how to create dynamic creatives:

When you create a new campaign on Facebook, after selecting the objective and name of your campaign, go to Ad Set and turn on the “Dynamic Creative” button.

After selecting your audience, placements, budget, and schedule, continue to the next section to edit your ads.

In “Media,” you’re able to add up to 10 images, videos or slideshows. Add ALL the visual creatives you want to test in dynamic ads.

Then, you’re able to add up to 5 texts, headlines, link descriptions, and calls to action as shown below. Again, add all such copy that you want to test, in any combination.

There’s a maximum of assets in each category for a dynamic ad campaign:

Image or video/slideshow: maximum of 10 images or 10 videos
Headline: maximum of 5 titles
Text: maximum of 5 bodies of text
Description: maximum of 5 descriptions
Call to action: maximum of 5 CTAs

When you finish editing your dynamic creatives, click Confirm to publish your campaign.

Facebook will automatically generate multiple combinations of your creatives, varying the mash-up to assure each asset is used at least once.

Pretty cool, right?

Why are dynamic creatives awesome?

Glad you asked. After using this new feature for a number of different client campaigns, we’ve gotten consistently positive results in a few areas:

1. Testing

We’ve actually found that dynamic creatives are a better testing tool than the split testing feature. Seriously! (We were surprised, too.) You can test up to 30 components at the same time while simultaneously measuring efficacy, which is the equivalent of running a couple of dozen split tests (and measuring KPIs over weeks of separate campaigns).

2. Efficiency and budget

Dynamic creatives allow you to learn which assets are performing better, faster, letting you optimize content for the best performing ads and move on to your next project. Getting your best material out sooner means quicker campaign results, which translates to lower costs for running or boosting ads.

3. Mastering personalization

John and Laura from our first example will probably respond to very different content, with the same hopeful outcome- buying your health food. John might be motivated by content emphasizing results- eating right will take the unwanted weight off- whereas Laura will likely respond better to messaging that your health food fits into her existing lifestyle of wellness and self-care. Using dynamic ads will let you try a potentially wide range of combos for John AND Laura, letting you learn how their demographics respond- simultaneously.

Bear in mind also that dynamic creatives aren’t intended as a long-term strategy; this is a research tool, designed to help you quickly sort out what works. As a long-term campaign, it is less effective than a targeted campaign using creatives in combinations that you know to be successful.

Conclusion:

It’s important to highlight again that dynamic creatives are different from dynamic ads. Dynamic creatives are used to find the best ad combination around the same product.

Dynamic creatives, used properly, will let you maximize the value of your Facebook campaigns, and save a lot of time and money. Does it sound great, but overwhelming? Can’t wait to try it, but you don’t have a ton of creatives (or want better ones)? We should talk, right now- we’re passionate about great advertising, creative content, fun design, and helping people succeed in telling their brand’s story.

So, what do you think of dynamic creatives? Have you tried this feature yet?

Sources:

https://www.facebook.com/business/m/facebook-dynamic-creative-ads

https://www.growwithbamboo.com/blog/4-dos-and-a-dont-facebook-dynamic-creative-optimization-best-practices/

https://medium.com/@ayranamongush/5-reasons-to-use-facebook-dynamic-creative-optimization-8687140175e3

26 Sep 2018

Sticky Post By Edgar Guillen Posted in Digital Marketing, Facebook Ads, marketing With No Comments Permalink

15 Common Facebook Ad Mistakes You Need to Avoid

Sticky Post By Edgar Guillen On September 26, 2018 With No Comments

So, you’ve decided to start advertising on Facebook: you set up a few campaigns and start them running. You’re seeing some results, but they’re not what you expected. You think to yourself, “Facebook advertising doesn’t seem that complicated, so what am I doing wrong?”’