PPC

Top six PPC trends we expect in 2019
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Top six PPC trends we expect in 2019

PPC, AdWords, Blog, Keyword Research

23 12, 2018

Top six PPC trends we expect in 2019

By Stephen|2019-01-30T21:20:46+00:00December 23rd, 2018|PPC, AdWords, Blog, Keyword Research|0 Comments

2018 was an exciting year in PPC advertising writes Digital Web World’s PPC Manager, Arun. We saw Amazon rise as the first place audiences search for products, AdWords rebrand to Google Ads and Bing launch a huge range of new advert features.

So, will 2019 have as many developments? In this blog we’ll explore some of the new features & trends that might come to PPC in 2019. If you are a PPC agency or want help with PPC marketing, read on.

Audiences rising in prevalence for PPC

Next year we expect to see that keywords will become less important to PPC as the primary focus to trigger delivery of adverts. We expect to see audiences becoming more and more important, quite simply if you’re not using them, you need to start now.

This development will go hand in hand with a move towards greater personalisation in the delivery of Adverts which will entail using other Data Collecting products on PPC channels. These Audience Networks will aid delivery Adverts to individuals that have previously shown an interest in your website or products that are similar to yours.

Automation not keywords

In 2018, we saw a move from many search engines towards Automation, this was key in Google’s Responsive Search Ads (RSAs) and in changes to Exact Match Keywords, symbolising a move away from the traditional manual management of PPC Campaigns.

We expect to see Bid Management & Keyword Variables become managed by the platform you are using for delivering campaigns. We’ll have to be keeping a closer eye on that Negative Keyword List!

Alternative Advertising Platforms for PPC – maximise visibility of your adverts

If you are a PPC agency, you know that traditionally Google is king for PPC. It still is, but we might see alternatives rise in popularity. A good example of this would be Amazon’s “Sponsored Product Ads” in 2018 it emerged as not only a viable platform but an essential one, especially for our B2C clients.

However, other platforms are realising updates that potentially might be just as game-changing.

Bing: Currently in beta, Bing Ads is testing local inventory adverts that display product stock availability nearby. (Currently in the US, but we expect to see this soon in the UK)
Facebook: Improved adverts to include a new instant storefront template format that can automatically generate a video with products personalised to users.
The return of Pinterest: New features allow users to buy directly from a product pin with price and inventory availability. Not only that, but they will also be able to make personalised product recommendations to users.
Google: Putting mobile first, Google’s local catalogue adverts feature local in-store availability and pricing in an easy scrollable mobile layout.

Credit for these insights (Lisa Raehsler, 2018)

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

So, this one is also referenced in my second entry, but it’s very important to mention. 2019 will be the year where we see roles change in PPC. AI is allowing any PPC marketer in a PPC agency to become more and more efficient. It means we can spend more time where we really need to drill down into the Performance Data we see from our campaigns. Allowing us to Leverage Automation for us to use new markets and Cross-Channel Strategies.

I personally think we are a quite a long way off from a completely automated AI advertising process, but it’s a key step in this direction. Maybe this will come in the future.

Cross-Channel advertising is the way forward for PPC

We expect to see more Cross Channel Advertising. Platforms are more aware than ever that we don’t just use Google or Facebook, we use them all, so delivering on multiple channels will be essential to successful advertising in the future.

We might see this through a tighter blend of social, search and e-commerce, which will deliver a more complete and engaging process. So using and delivering a coherent campaign will become essential.

New Adverts & Extensions

In 2018 we saw game-changing innovations in PPC. As a PPC agency, the announcement of RSA’s and other Ad types allowed us to target audiences in a completely different way. Using Googles’ AI, gave us an opportunity to identify which adverts were the most engaging with our target markets. In 2019, we expect to see these evolve, we anticipate it will include many other products within the Google marketplace. A current trial to keep a close eye on will be the rollout of “Local Services Ads” which has been gathering a lot of traction in the US.

For a PPC Manager in a PPC agency, these developments are gold dust, but it will ultimately mean that we have to create better and better copy for our campaigns. The insights that a client can provide are more important than ever as they are the experts and they have unique requirements about how we have to approach and satisfy their needs.

If you want to find out more about PPC and the trends we expect to see, subscribe to Digital Web World’s, newsletter below and we’ll send you an update from time to time. Otherwise, if you want to maximise your PPC in light of any of these trends, don’t hesitate to get in touch with your PPC agency.

This article was written by Arun who manages PPC for Digital Web World.

SEO vs PPC
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SEO vs PPC

SEO, Google, Keyword Research, Keywords, PPC

17 01, 2017

SEO vs PPC

By Stephen|2019-01-30T21:20:49+00:00January 17th, 2017|SEO, Google, Keyword Research, Keywords, PPC|0 Comments

SEO vs PPC

“I want to grow my business in the online world, what do I focus on and the question of SEO vs PPC is maybe not a clear cut as we think.”

This is a question that digital firms hear all too often. Both can have a massive impact, but the answer depends on your business. Are you large and established? Do you sell a product or service? What are your budgetary needs and concerns? Are you a local business?

The Benefits of SEO

What’s it all about and what is it useful for?

Now, it is important to know that SEO is not simply about optimising your content with keywords (although the use of ‘Semantic keywords’ is very helpful in organic search). Consider the plethora of information search engines use to measure a company’s online potential. Amongst many other factors, search engines monitor your services in the offline world, your social media interactions and the ‘relevancy’ of the content you produce to help prospective clients at crucial touch-points. This information has much larger ramifications on your overall marketing strategies outside of the digital world, as well as in. In fact, one of SEO’s primary functions is about discovering and finessing these touch-points.

In practice, SEO is a long process of measurement and research. It is heavily content driven and time consuming because of Google’s semantic search technology. Your primary goal should be to understand the keyword landscape of your market, honing in on the variety of search terms the consumer is using and gaining a better understanding of their intent. Investigating the why, as opposed to the what, is a much larger benefit to your future marketing efforts. So, SEO is very useful for businesses that have some time. Getting your pages to be indexed for ideal keyword search terms is a gradual process and fluctuations are to be expected in highly competitive markets. The margin for error is much larger and strategies are as exploratory as they are results driven. From a UX point of view, one serious benefit of SEO is that your efforts will have made your site a lot cleaner. On a bridal website, for example, instead of having headings like ‘Wedding Dress Accessories for Vintage Weddings’, you can go with ‘Wedding Dress Accessories’ or the more specific but still high volume ‘Vintage Wedding Dress Accessories’.

Don’t be discouraged by the indefinite nature of SEO. It will bring you the most qualified leads over time and will directly influence your PPC results. Since SEO has no fee per keyword, you shouldn’t shy away from high competition words, especially as it will help you to qualify for longer tail keywords (something particularly useful for local businesses). Primarily, SEO is an integral framework for your digital marketing efforts. In the short term, it is a form of good ‘house keeping’ that can be used as a solid jumping off point. Everything counts towards understanding your market’s behaviours and this is why a good SEO strategy can often be useful for small and local businesses, if they have the time. SEO vs PPC is the question that we have been asked more times than any other. Its generally good practice to engage with your knowledge and we think that writing at least one article of 300 – 600 words.

The Benefits of PPC

How does it differ to SEO and how can it benefit my business?

PPC is a great way of kick-starting your business’s digital efforts. It is a very concentrated way of driving potential leads to your site. However, it is a vastly different process to SEO. PPC consists of bidding on and competing for specific search terms that appear in display networks. As a result, you need to be absolutely precise with your keywords and copy, always keeping one eye on the cost per click and one eye on the quality score. You must make absolutely sure that your ad copy is tightly correlated with the corresponding landing pages and that your campaigns are tightly categorised. This approach makes it much easier to cut away ads that are not working. Due to the fastidiousness of PPC, the margins for error are much smaller, simply because it costs you money every time a mistake is made. Although Google does not always put the ‘highest bidder’ at the top of its sponsored results, affording PPC long term can be tricky.

In practice there should not be a choice between SEO vs PPC, PPC is very useful to a business that does not have the time to wait for the long-term benefits of SEO. Lets say you have a brand new product that has to be launched in the next 3 months. You could use a campaign to gauge the demand for the product, by bringing attention to it quickly and taking an early look at its reception. This data will not only inform your longer-term SEO efforts, but also your overall marketing strategies. Another huge benefit of PPC is something called the ‘panic scenario’. With many small businesses that are still trying to establish a steadfast form of revenue, PPC offers the possibility of gaining traffic quickly. And, because of its highly targeted nature, this can be relatively inexpensive in the short term.

However, if budget is not a large problem, PPC does have some very serious long-term benefits as well. Often, SEO consultants cite the classic ‘most people have trained themselves to actively ignore the ad spaces on search engines’. Whilst this might be true sometimes, they are forgetting the deeper value of a high-ranking ad in the search results. In an article from Search Engine Land, a study found that 82% of ad clicks are incremental when the associated organic result is ranked between 2 and 4, and 96% of clicks are incremental when the brand’s organic result was 5 or below. Google says that those visits would not have occurred without the ad campaigns. What is important to consider here is that as a result of having a strong ‘ownership’ of Google’s ad space, the appearance of that business in the organic search section seemed more ‘clickable’. Thus, the biggest long-term benefit of a PPC campaign is reputation, and how that reputation directly affects clickthrough rate and conversions.

Conclusion of SEO vs PPC?

Whether it’s a much-needed source of traffic, or necessary architectural changes that will stand up in the long run, both PPC and SEO have their separate uses. In fact, the only way to ensure success in the digital landscape is to use both in tandem at different times. A good digital firm knows this. So don’t be swayed by a consultant that offers you one service to fix all as this really isn’t good practice. The question of SEO vs PPC will not disappear for a while and will be enhanced even further with Google and Bings increasing emphasis on Semantic keywords becoming more important. So SEO vs PPC will never a choice between the two, but the two being used in a smarter way together.

Please see other articles that you might find interesting.

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PPC Marketing £2 Made For Every £1 Spent Really?
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PPC Marketing £2 Made For Every £1 Spent Really?

PPC, AdWords, Blog, Keyword Research, Keywords, SEO

5 08, 2016

PPC Marketing £2 Made For Every £1 Spent Really?

By Stephen|2019-01-30T21:20:49+00:00August 5th, 2016|PPC, AdWords, Blog, Keyword Research, Keywords, SEO|0 Comments

PPC Marketing – Where Do You Make Your Money?

PPC Marketing – Jupiter Research a Forrester Research company said that 81% of users find their desired destination through a search engine. Broadly speaking, you need to be in the top of the SERP (search engine results page).

PPC marketing is still a relatively new concept and from the outside looking in it can look a bit daunting. What with it looking like a war zone with multiple companies trying to outbid each other on keywords to get their ads to the top. There are many more business not doing PPC Marketing than there are, so therefor Google and Microsoft stand to get even larger in size.

But its important to be aware of whether or not it is right for your business. There have been multiple success stories when it comes to PPC, but it has also seen its fair share of companies who haven’t seen success with the advertising platform.

I want to share with you some amazing statistics before I get into the good & bad of PPC Marketing.

When it comes to AdWords, businesses make an average of £2 in revenue for every £1 they spend PPC Marketing on the platform.

Organic results are 8.5x more likely to be clicked on than paid search results! However, PPC holds a slight edge in conversion rates, as paid search results are 1.5x more likely to convert into sales or email sign-ups for example than organic search. After all the average click-through rate for a Google ad is 3.16%

While those may be huge positives, let me share with you what I found to be the bad points of PPC……

The Bad

It can get very expensive

PPC Marketing costs money, after all its in the title Pay Per Click, you pay up every time someone clicks on your ads. Depending on your experience with the advertising medium it can appear like you are burning cash with no return on investment. So it is essential and good practise that you have defined objectives before you start. Keep your PPC objectives and strategy at the forefront of your mind. What is your CPC (Cost Per Click) target. Even then with the fact that you are bidding with hundreds of other companies for keywords – costs can still skyrocket if you want to see your ads in the top 3 of the first page in Google or Bing.

As an example, “Insurance” is the most expensive keyword at £55 per click! Now can you imagine if 100 people clicked on your ad. That would end up costing you £5500!

Of course this is all relative depending on the size of the business and how much a conversion is worth compared to the PPC spend. Another essential element of effective PPC management is knowing how much you are making in profit margin terms. The product or service you are advertising will have a profit and this should be included as a goal to measure against your PPC efforts.

Did you know, a YouTube homepage ad can cost on average £4,000!

Constant management

One thing a lot of companies don’t realise is the constant management required to run effective PPC Marketing campaigns. A lot of companies start out not knowing this fact and believe it is a set and forget job, burning cash and not achieving results in the process.

For small companies this can be a problem as they usually do not have the resources or time to allocate to manage PPC on an ongoing basis. Many get disillusioned and will say ‘it doesn’t work after trying it briefly’.

Keeping up to date

This almost ties into the previous point in some respect, as being on the ball with PPC Marketing will make sure you are aware of the latest updates and changes. Looking at AdWords for example and Google being Google, they are constantly updating the algorithms and if you are not aware of the changes until its too late, then your campaigns suffer. A good example is Google expanding the character limit for text ads. If you weren’t made aware of this, then you’ll be losing out as your competitors will be one step ahead of you, all because they are constantly aware of what Google have planned and act upon it.

The Good

Instant results over SEO

It’s a fact that SEO takes times before any improvements or changes take effect within the search engines. While that’s not necessarily a bad thing, its not great if you are looking for results in a short space of time.

This is where PPC Marketing comes in! you can put together a campaign with ad groups, keywords and ads – set it live and the next morning see results from the get go. These may mainly be impressions and only a few clicks but results nonetheless. Getting these results instantly also enables you to make changes whereas you would have to wait for SEO to take effect before seeing if you need to make any improvements.

That’s not to say you should neglect SEO entirely, as they both go hand in hand in improving your visibility.

Data, data and more data!

Using AdWords as an example again, there is so much data you can pull from campaigns that help you make smarter decisions and optimise effectively. Data like quality score, average CPC, average position, impression share, % impressions lost and the rules around these.

As an example of how data heavy PPC Marketing can get, the Google Display Network serves about 180 billion impressions (views of an ad) each month, which is about 6 billion a day!

You can also pull data from Google Analytics to find out the effect the campaigns are having on traffic, bounce rate and new sessions.

Some may also see this as a negative because of the overwhelming amount of data, but I like to look at it in a positive way. The more data means the more opportunities you have to make smart decisions that improve your campaign and therefore improve click-through and conversion performance.

Specific Customer Targeting

This is great for businesses of any size, location and target market.

For example you can specify locations down to individual counties which is great for local businesses, this means you won’t waste money from clicks by individuals who are not in your location.

Another great feature is the ability to schedule when your ads are shown. Like the previous point, it helps to reduce click wastage by making sure your ads are shown when your target audience is at its most active.

Conclusion

I have aimed to provide a completely even view of the benefits & negatives of PPC Marketing, to summarise it works for some companies and others not so much. It requires diligence, understanding and real commitment to see true results that become conversions for your business.

If you find that the process puts you off, then we would love to help manage your PPC and show you just how successful it can be for your business. We have years of experience and proven results! If that interests you Click Here!

Some further reading we would recommend includes :

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Essential Elements Of Great Website Design
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Essential Elements Of Great Website Design

Design, Branding, PPC, SEO, Training, Website Design

26 05, 2016

Essential Elements Of Great Website Design

By Stephen|2019-01-30T21:20:50+00:00May 26th, 2016|Design, Branding, PPC, SEO, Training, Website Design|0 Comments

Essential Elements Of Great Website Design In 5 Minutes Without The Sweat And Tears

First impressions are everything and you never get a second chance with website design. Your homepage should stand out from first site. Your website should encourage users to dwell more, click further and continue exploring. We have collected our thoughts here at Digital Web World on some of the key elements of great website design and have shared these for you.

Create A Killer Headline (And Sub-Headline)

You only have literally seconds to make the first impression with your headline. It should give the viewer a clear idea of the subject of the page they are about to read/view.

Clear enticing headlines pulling the viewer into the Webpage, clearing Sub-headlines to give you a chance to share more information about what you do and offer.

Here is a top tip for creating Killer headlines instantly. Think about writing headlines for Web, blogs etc in this format.

What the customer wants + In a time period + killing the objection.

So for example great headlines are offering the viewer something that is relevant within a time period say 3 minutes or 30 days, whatever the time period is.
The killer objections are defusing the normal objections you will get from any person viewing

Here are a few examples.

Totally Clear Skin in less than 90 days without the use of drugs.
Become a Web Designer in 3 months by studying only 1 hour per day.
You can make £300 per day with just one hour per week of time without expensive Web tools.

Remember the offer comes first in your Website landing page headline.

Second top tip is to limit the use of ‘best ever’, ‘most popular’, ‘greatest ever’, all of this is considered rubbish for the viewer of your webpage who will read every day. Try being accurate with data that supports claims ‘3x as effective’ works a lot better in text.

The Most Important Design Element – Your Visual Hierarchy

Most people like images (or videos), they are simple to digest and help to get across a message without the need for words. Think about what your business objectives are. What solutions are you selling to customers problems? Make sure that the visuals on the page are viewed in a hierarchy. 1, 2, 3, 4 etc placing a number against the visual that is most striking on your website.   Do it now?

Look at the following image and place a number against the visual hierarchy on the page.

The Golden Ratio is very similar in its Fibonacci Sequence and describes the rule of thirds for great Website Design, but is also applicable to design in general.

The Golden Ratio

Also proportioned to 1.618* the Golden ratio is a statement on design proportions which has been designed into great aesthetically pleasing design for well over 3,000 years. The principle is based on a rectangle whose ratio of the longer side to the shorter side is 1.618. The classic view of this is the Pantheon in Athens where the design can be applied to the building of the Pantheon in its form.

This same principle is now used by many designers most notably in the designing of Twitter where you have probably received this notification from.

Display images of the office you work in or create a short video that showcases what the business does and/or the products/services you offer. Try and place these at the top of the page (or if not, anywhere above the fold works well) as people will want to see some visual elements when they first enter on a page.

Call To Action (Sometimes Referred To As Fitts’s Law)

Each page on the website should have a compelling call-to-action that draws the user to a conversion. For example, linking to a page where you can make a purchase or including a sign up form built into the page). This also benefits SEO in a great way because you will be interlinking between pages, giving authority to pages that may not get enough traffic otherwise.

However there is a designer ‘law’ that determines the size of the button’s that decides on the priority of the buttons. This priority ’size’ is purely to get the user to take action, more specifically a ‘call to action’. This is called Fitts’s law and stipulates that the time required to take that call to action e.g. hit that call action button, is a function of the distance from where the mouse currently is to the button and the size of the respective button. So the larger the object from where your mouse currently is and your eyes are. Fitts’s law follows a logarithm and therefore is a curve and not a straight line, so overdosing the size of a button will equally have a detrimental effect on its use.   The proportion of button size is equally important and should therefore be larger for the actions you want a viewer to take.

The ‘Law’ of Choice

Choice is good right?

…Well to a point it is, but if the choice becomes too great on a Website you will cause paralysis of the viewer. They will simply have too many options to choose from and they will become paralysed by choice. So how do you know what is the correct number of choices?

Well you don’t, but you can make it easier for the viewer by providing filters to enable them to change what they are selecting and help them narrow down the choice. This self selecting use of menus is the best option. Limit the number of options and get the customers to eliminate by the use of filters.

Testimonials And Portfolios

Having case studies from real clients gives your website a huge boost in terms of creating trust. It’s a good idea to show off your portfolio and any short, written testimonials from previous customers on the homepage. Make sure examples in the portfolio include a lot of information and images, so potential clients get an idea of what you could do for them.

Put a name and image to testimonials as well (with consent of the individual of course).

Navigation

The crux of any website, visitors need to be able to access different areas of the website with ease. Include primary, secondary and tertiary drop down menus as necessary and create compelling headers so users will be interested and know what they are clicking on.

Visibility is key for a website and users should be able discover what they are looking without hardly any efforts.

Resources

You need to slowly build up trust with viewers before they will decide on whether to make purchase or not. One way of building this relationship is to include resources on certain pages where they can learn more and make an informed decision, statistically speaking after the 5th visit.

Recognition

Show off any awards or badges you have earned on your website. These can include SSL badges, website security and recognized partner badges (like Google, Bing, BIMA or RAR+ awards, if you are an agency for example).

This shows credibility trustworthiness in your field in addition to any testimonials that you may receive.

So in summary:

Use Visual Hierarchy – build using this key principle.
Create Killer Headlines that show off your offers.
Use the Fibonacci sequence and the Golden Rule.
Call to Action and Fitts’s Law.
Law of Choice remember to use filters to get your viewer to narrow down their choices.
Testimonials and Case Studies – make sure you have some.
FREE Resources – make some resources free on your Website.
Recognition – show off your credentials.

Your website is a Funnel and the home page is the beginning of that journey. According to an excellent article first published by Affiliate Marketing back in 2015: http://www.affiliatemarketertraining.com/good-average-time-site-per-visitor/ dwell time on a Website if under 30 seconds is considered awful anything up to 2 minutes is considered Average and anything over 2 minutes is considered outstanding. How good is yours ?

We know that the end of the funnel occurs when the user has gone through the whole process and made a purchase or signed-up to the mailing list. Your design objective has been achieved when your user has completed your objective. The user experience and the objective for the page will be aligned. Remember this when utilising these essential elements of great website design.

How To Do Keyword Research In 2016
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How To Do Keyword Research In 2016

Keyword Research, AdWords, Keywords, PPC, SEO

17 05, 2016

How To Do Keyword Research In 2016

By Stephen|2017-01-24T11:35:17+00:00May 17th, 2016|Keyword Research, AdWords, Keywords, PPC, SEO|0 Comments

Updated Practices For Keyword Research In 2016

One thing that won’t change for Inbound Marketing is keywords, but what has changed is how you effectively research and come up with a strategy for the right keywords that will drive traffic.

Keyword research in it’s simplest form is looking at when users input words and phrases into a search engine and taking that data, then forming it into a strategy of keywords that your website could rank for.

Let’s have a look today at how to effectively keyword research in 2016!

Understanding your business and the relevant topics associated with it

How much do you know about your business? If you struggle to answer this question then maybe you need to take a step back and understand your business a bit better before delving into keyword research.

What are the most important topics for your business that you want most users to find you by? Create a list of these 10 keys areas, as these will form the basis for coming up with more specific keywords at a later point.

Understanding your audience (and/or any customers you may have had) is key to knowing what keywords should be targeted. For example if you are a company that sells shoes and a customer who has made a purchase started the journey to that purchase by inputting red trainers into the search engine. That is a keyword you should use.

Of course finding that information is not easy. You need an analytics tool that will trawl through all the search data. The best tool I can recommend to you is Google Analytics, it’s free, comprehensive and will give you all the information you need to find and fine-tune the keywords your audience is using.

Starting to flesh out the keywords

Now that you have got your list of the 10 key areas of your business, it is time to identify and narrow down keywords for each of those areas. For example if one of the key areas of your business is SEO, one keyword you might use is backlinks as it is relevant to the topic of SEO. Another example (long-tail) may be search engine optimisation services.

Come up with 3 keywords for each key area you listed. Doing this will give you a good start at 30 keywords, enabling you to increase as your SEO efforts expand in the future.

A good practice is to put yourself in the customers shoes, use the search engine as if you were looking to buy a product/service you sell. Look at the results that appear and see if there are any keywords you can put to use.

Looking at the competition

Similar to understanding the business you are in. It is paramount that you know who your competition is. Get a list together of your main competitors and research each of them individually, using the search engines to discover any keywords that may be ranking well for them and improving upon it yourself.

Another good idea is to look at keywords that the competition may not be fully behind. These represent a great chance to rank well for keywords that are not being utilised by your competitors.

Make use of related search

A good way to find inspiration is using google’s related search feature at the bottom of the SERP (search engine results page). This is a great way to find keywords you may not have found or realised could be put to use.

I would recommend this strategy only if you are really struggling to meet that 30 keyword target as the related searches are sometimes not that consistent nor contain useful phrases.

Finalise that strategy

Using these updated practices for keyword research in 2016 I have mentioned above, you should be close to having a strategy in place that can be carried out onto your website.

Of course that doesn’t mean keyword research is over once the website has been optimised, it is a constantly evolving process that requires you to be on the ball the whole time. Continue looking at the competition and expanding the keyword goal every couple of months to rank well for even more keywords and boosting your website in the search engine rankings.

For more information on keyword research, visit our dedicated page on PPC

Image courtesy of patpitchaya/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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