4 Secrets to a Great Landing Page

4 Secrets to a Great Landing Page

Landing pages have one goal: convert. Done right, they can be a huge driver of lead generation for your brand. But landing pages that are poorly executed don’t have much to offer — for you or your audience.

Whether you’re creating a new landing page from scratch or are looking to improve an existing one, here are four tips to help you knock it out of the park.

1. Ace Your Headline

A great headline sets the tone for what does (or doesn’t) happen next. Keep it concise and on-brand, and make sure that it accurately conveys what the user will find on the page — such as a gated asset, special promotion or webinar access.

2. Use Simple but Attractive Design Elements

There are a lot of places where your brand can show off its graphic design skills, but with landing pages, simpler is usually better. Use your landing page design to reinforce your brand identity but avoid making it overcomplicated.

3. Write Clear Copy

Your landing page copy should be clear and concise, describing the features and benefits behind its purpose. Keep it skimmable, using creative formatting to highlight your key points.

4. Have a Strong CTA

The primary intent of a landing page is to drive action. Instead of leaving visitors to figure out what you want them to do, create a strong CTA that’s easy to spot. This can make or break your conversion rates, so consider A/B testing CTA language and placement to get it right.

Want more landing page advice? Get in touch and we can help. 

 

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Six (6) Reasons Why You Should Have Google Reviews Embedded Into Your Existing or New Website

Six (6) Reasons Why You Should Have Google Reviews Embedded Into Your Existing or New Website

Google Reviews is a great tool for any business wanting to expand its potential customers. It can give a big credibility score to a brand without the need to spend much time and money. In these recent times where everything is digital, you need to step up your game if you want to advance your business. Maximizing the use of Google reviews by having them embedded into your website gives your business a huge advantage over your competitors. The power of positive reviews, particularly in today’s online world, is smart. That is why your business will need a good strategy on how to best utilize Google reviews to help drive more success your way. This article focuses on the six (6) reasons why you should utilize Google Reviews to better promote your business, with one new and exciting option of having LIVE Google Reviews embedded into your existing or future website.

 

Here are Top Reasons Why You Need Google Reviews Now:

1. Customer Trust

With the changing consumer behavior nowadays, people are more concerned with transparency when it comes to business. Consumers tend to associate transparency with the accessibility of information by any given business. Some of them conduct thorough research about the company or business before deciding to buy their products or service.

According to recent studies, around 88% of consumers read reviews in order to determine the quality and credibility of a given business. A big chunk of this research is mostly done through Google reviews. Recent surveys also imply that 72% of consumers assert that positive reviews make them trust the business more. Thus making a great opportunity for businesses to achieve a competitive advantage over competitors through Google reviews.

2. Transparency

If you respond to Google reviews, you are also telling your consumers in a way that you want to stay transparent. Maintaining transparency in your business is essential especially with the rampant privacy issues surfacing over the years. Without transparency, you will not be able to establish trust with your customers and brand loyalty. Aside from that, transparent and honest reviews will allow your business to offer peace of mind to your consumers. Staying open and transparent offers social proof that your business is indeed trustworthy. 

3. Search Engine Optimization and Online Exposure

In the online world, search engine optimization (SEO) is a vital tool if you want to step up your digital marketing strategy. People online use Google to search for answers every day. In order to be visible to your potential customers, you need to optimize your content in order to gain a higher rank on search engines. If you rank high, Google tells the consumers that you are a trusted source.

When it comes to Google reviews, using this tool can increase your SEO. Google has a complex search algorithm. Though this is the case, Google reviews have a great impact on Google Search. Around 9% of its search algorithm is directed by review signals similar to those with Google reviews. These signals are mostly focused on the number of reviews (quantity), the speed you receive reviews (velocity), and various sources your reviews come from (diversity). It can help your business rank higher over competitors on the search page. We have noticed that client sites that have been embedded with their Google Reviews have experienced a nice bump in their search rankings.

4. Brand Awareness & Recognition

When your local SEO improves, you are also expanding your online exposure. The longer time people see your business name, the more likely they will recognize and remember your business. Improving your brand awareness can help you remain on top of the customers’ minds. If you have a limited budget for your marketing and advertising campaigns, a Google review is a great resource. If you encourage your customer to leave reviews, you can increase your brand awareness and you will be able to keep up with your competitors.

5. Website Traffic

Having Google reviews can likely increase the number of visitors to your website. Leading someone to click on your link through a search engine will help you increase your website traffic. This will tell Google that you are a credible and relevant source, thus improving your SEO ranking. When you increase your Google review, you are also improving your click-through rate. These Google reviews can help you increase your website clicks. As a result, you are able to encourage more people to visit and explore your website and help them learn more about your business.

Aside from that, you can also use Google Reviews as additional social proof for your website by embedding them on your site. These Google reviews are actual reviews from your Google My Business page so no need to update them since it’s fully automated.

It’s a simple yet powerful way of getting customers to trust your brand the moment they open your website and learn more about what you do and how you do it.

6. Return on Investment (ROI)

Most people buy products and services from businesses they trust. If they are searching from brands they have never heard of before, the tendency is that they will look for legit and valid reviews. They tend to read online reviews from verified customers and purchasers in order to determine if the product or service is indeed worth every penny. When a potential customer clicks to your website, they will be able to see what your business can offer. They will be enticed to buy and avail of such service.

Another advantage of Google reviews is that it can increase conversions. When customers find you as a top-rated business, they will be inclined to trust you and as a result, they will be enticed to buy from you. Since you did not spend expensive campaigns nor advertising, you will then improve your return on investment (ROI) with that purchase. Embedding your Google Reviews on your site is a one-time fee.

 

Final Thoughts

In summary, Google reviews can certainly improve three key areas of your business. These are brand awareness and trust, search engine optimization, and feedback. Using Google reviews is a great way to help your business step up, especially in the online world we live in. Google reviews come with excellent advantages that you can use. Missing out on this resource can be a drawback since your competitors may be using this one too. If you want to stay ahead of the competition, then boost your awareness, website traffic, and sales with an active and consistent Google Reviews marketing program.

Smith Marketing, utilizing special software, can embed LIVE Google Reviews into your website, whether on an existing page or on a new reviews web page. This one-time service fee will publish your actual Google Reviews on your website. It’s also auto-updating, so immediately after a new review is published on Google, it will show up on your site. The software also gives you the ability to show only 4 and 5-star reviews if you prefer.  Contact Smith Marketing for more details and pricing on this unique marketing opportunity.

 


5 Ways To Help Bounce Back From The Pandemic

5 Ways To Help Bounce Back From The Pandemic

The year 2020 was like nothing that we’ve experienced in our lifetime. It was a year of economic collapse and all industries were affected by it. Businesses were closing down, travel restrictions were imposed, and the spending habits of consumers totally changed.

But pharmaceutical companies have started developing vaccines just a few months after the pandemic broke out so we can expect that towards the end of 2021, the vaccines would be fully distributed to all Americans and that the economy will be bouncing back.

However, the damage has been done and it’s not that easy for businesses to just get back into the market after months of economic collapse. We’ve listed down some helpful tips on how to help your business bounce back from the pandemic.

1. Adopt Remote Working

 

The pandemic has forced a lot of companies to allow their employees to have a “work at home” setup in order to adhere to social distancing guidelines. The result was that it gave companies some breathing room to operate at a minimal level just to keep the entire business alive until everything goes back to normal.

However, what most companies don’t know is that remote working actually helps increase efficiency and productivity. Even before the pandemic, remote working has already been adopted by most businesses especially in the digital marketing industry.

It’s already a tried and tested work setup so it’s just about time that businesses catch up to it. What remote working does is that it lessens operational costs such as rent or bills since your employees would be working at home.

Now, if you had some expansion plans before the pandemic took over, you might need to go back to the drawing board and apply a “work from home” setup for your business. Also, there are productivity benefits that come with it too! According to a recent study, remote employees actually work 1.4 more days per month compared to regular office employees. It’s because employees can work around the clock to get tasks done and they’re not constrained to set work hours.

2. Stick To Repeat Customers

 

You’ve probably lost a lot of customers during the crisis and now you’re itching to gain more customers to bring the sales back up again. However, now is not the best time to go hunting for new customers because you’d have to set up a new sales funnel all over again – which is pretty expensive.

Why not focus on existing customers? Go after customers who have already come across your product at least a few times. For example, if you’re running Facebook Ads, you can retarget audiences who have already seen your past videos before. Now, if you’re running a physical store, why not create a promotion for existing customers like discounts and sales to encourage repeat purchases.

Another great idea would be setting up a customer loyalty program. All big and small businesses do it so you should too. It can be as simple as a loyalty card where you provide incentives to customers for every purchase they make.

3. Provide More Employee Benefits

 

2021 is the best time to scale your business and if you have plans to do it, it’s important to consider that you’d need more employees to help you operate your business. But you need to consider these questions first – What sets you apart from other employers? What will make your employees stay with your company? What makes you an attractive employer to job seekers?

Obviously, higher salaries would be the answer but since you’re slowly bouncing back from a pandemic, it’s not really a good financial decision to do it. The most cost-effective way of providing incentives is by introducing employee benefits such as health insurance, housing loans, paid vacation, and more. Reward and recognition programs are also helpful because it motivates employees to reach a certain level of performance.

Sometimes, the best talents in the market aren’t really after high salaries, what they’re after is flexibility, security, and a good working atmosphere. Just make sure that you’re sticking to a certain budget when you do offer these benefits.

 

 

4. Digitalization

 

During the pandemic, there were some sectors that experienced positive growth such as the healthcare and e-commerce industry. However, there were also some that experienced negative growth such as the travel, dining, and hospitality industry.

Now, if your business is a part of the industries that were affected negatively, you can still bounce back! What you need to do is to digitize and diversify your products and services.

What do we mean by that? For example, if you’re in the food industry and you can’t fill up your restaurants because of social distancing guidelines, why not take the food to your customers? A lot of consumers are dying to eat out but they’re just trying to avoid going out because of the fear of getting infected by the coronavirus. As a business owner, you can digitize your business by partnering with various food delivery apps.

Also, if you own a physical store, why not put up an e-commerce store instead? You don’t need to put up a website but you can start selling your products on online shopping apps like Amazon.

5. Position Your Brand

 

It’s important for businesses to position their brand in the post-pandemic world. It means that your consumers should know the role your business plays in the market. Remember that buying habits have changed, the landscape of the economy has changed, and it’s going to take years before everything goes back to the way it used to be.

A great example for this would be the fashion industry. Now, people won’t be buying clothes anytime soon because their priorities are focused on essentials at the moment. Does this mean that the fashion industry is dead? No!

What they can do is they can add facemasks and other protective wear to their product line to meet the demands of pandemic related products. This helps the brand position itself in this post-pandemic market.

 

 


Paid Marketing vs Organic Marketing

Paid Marketing vs Organic Marketing

Starting a business is already hard work, but what makes it even harder is marketing it. You’ll also feel a lot of pressure seeing other businesses implement different kinds of marketing strategies that you’re totally new to. So let’s step back a little bit and talk about the two different types of marketing: Paid Marketing and Organic Marketing.

Whatever niche market your business is in or target market that you serve, marketing will fall into these two categories fields. Paid marketing and organic marketing are often used together, but knowing the difference between the two will help you better plan your campaigns so that they’ll result in higher brand recognition and increased sales.

What is Organic Marketing?

The overall goal of organic marketing is to tell your brand’s story and develop customer loyalty whether it’s interacting with them on social media, providing valuable/educational content or showing some behind-the-scenes action of what happens in your company.

A strategy can be considered organic if it meets the following criteria:

  • Authentic
  • Natural
  • Value-Based
  • Long-term

Let’s take Business X as an example, who sells juicers and blenders online, and come up with a simple organic marketing strategy. Don’t worry if you’re not in this line of business because the concepts can still be applied to any kind of business.

  • Business X sells blenders and juicers but there are also other companies who do that. In order for Business X to stand out from its competitors, it can publish weekly videos on YouTube about juice/smoothie recipes that its customers can follow while using their blenders.
  • The weekly videos can be posted on the company’s website and social media accounts too. They can even come up with a unique name for this weekly segment so their audience have a name to associate it with.
  • The company can also re-purpose the videos into blog posts to cater to those people who don’t always spend their time on YouTube or people who prefer reading than watching a video.
  • Working with influencers to promote the blenders and juicers can also work! Business X can contact influencers who are in the fitness, health, and other relevant industries that they think would attract potential customers.
  • After implementing these organic marketing strategies, Business X can now analyze the data and information it has gathered to think about its next strategies. A few examples that the company should look at would be the top-performing blog posts, most-viewed videos, and high-engagement social media posts.

 

Try to look at the strategies mentioned above, you’ll notice that there’s no aggressive selling involved. The purpose is to create a community around the brand and eventually gain the trust of the consumers. Always remember that trust is one of the most important things in business and organic marketing is the best way to achieve that.

Key Performance Indicators for Organic Marketing

Even though organic marketing is all about authenticity but it doesn’t that you don’t track your strategies’ performance. If you want to know whether your efforts are paying off or not, here are some KPIs that you would want to track:

  • Leads or Sales – You need to track the number of sales or leads you get from your videos, blog posts or social media posts. What you can do is you can put discount codes, CTAs (Call-to-Actions), and product links on your content so you would know which specific content the sale or lead came from.
  • Traffic – Whether it’s website, social media or landing page traffic, the purpose of measuring this is to understand what content works best for your business. This will help you to better understand the needs of your customers so you can serve them better.
  • Formats – Tracking formats (social media, blog posts, videos, and etc) is important for a business because even though it’s important for a business to have marketing campaigns on all platforms, you need to put into consideration on what works best. For example, if Business X (as mentioned above) gains more traffic from social media compared to its newsletter, then it’s safe to say that it should exert more efforts on social media.

 

What is Paid Marketing?

While Organic Marketing aims to build brand identity, Paid Marketing aims for conversion in a swift and straightforward manner. It doesn’t tell a story to its audience but it tells them exactly what it wants them to do.

You don’t just rely on natural traffic but you put money in to push your strategies forward. For example, instead of waiting for people to naturally discover your video on Facebook or Instagram, you try to push it by making it a sponsored post (ad) with the goal of either getting traffic, followers, email subscribers, etc.

  • Artificial
  • Aggressive
  • Short-term

Now, let’s continue what we’ve discussed above and come up with a Paid Marketing strategy for Business X.

  • Business X aims to hit its target sales for its blenders and juicers for the last quarter of the year. Since the holiday season is coming up, it needs to come up with a winning Facebook Ad that will produce sales. To do this, the team creates 10 ad sets that will be subject for testing for a month.
  • After the testing period, the marketing team will determine which ad worked best so that they can scale this and put more budget behind it.
  • Once the campaign is finished, the Business X will now look at all the data and check their return on ad spend.

In this case, the goal of paid marketing is sales and you can see that there’s a timeline set for it which is to achieve a desired amount of sales before the year ends. There is hard-selling involved because those ad sets will be shown to consumers multiple times within a day.

Key Performance Indicators for Paid Marketing

  • Platforms – You need to measure the kind of traffic, engagement or whatever metric you’re using to track the performance of the ads you’ve placed on different platforms. For example, your ads may work better as messenger ads compared to the normal ad that shows on your feeds.
  • Conversion Rates – This would refer to the desired result or outcome that you’d want your ads to have. These can be email sign-ups, purchases or webinar registrations.
  • Ad Engagement – Ads have components that you can optimize to boost its performance such as images, text or call-to-action. Measuring these components during the testing phase will allow you to come up with better ads in the future.
  • Ad Types – This measures the performance of the different ad types you’ve used for your paid marketing campaign such as look-alike audience ads, re targeting ads, and more.

Paid Marketing and Organic Marketing are both important. The two can be combined together, but you need to assess which one should focus your efforts on.

It usually boils down to sales and marketing goals you’ve set for your business. Now that you know the difference, which type of marketing do you think would best serve your business right now? Is it Paid Marketing, Organic Marketing, or a mix of both?

Boosting the Conversion Rate of Your Website

Boosting the Conversion Rate of Your Website

While you may spend a great deal of time and money driving traffic to your company’s website, what is your site’s conversion rate?

This is the measure used to see what percentage of visitors to your site take action, whether that includes a purchase, filling out a contact form, downloading your eBook, or initiating a phone call. The higher that number, the greater your chance of achieving online success. To figure out your conversion rate, take the number of conversions (visitors complete a desired action) and divide it by the number of visitors to your site. For example, a site with 100 conversions out of 10,000 visitors has a conversion rate of 1%.

The conversion rate metric is a critical tool for your company’s online marketing success. Because of the increasing cost of PPC campaigns, a higher conversion rate means a higher return on your investment. What I’ve learned over the years is that it’s essential to continually enhance and improve your company’s web presence. It’s never fun to get left in the dust by your competition, that’s why you have to be on the constantly moving forward on improving metrics like conversion rate.

Focus your efforts by taking a visitor’s point of view when designing your website. Greater user experiences are the heart of having a great website. How easy it is to navigate through your site? How quickly can someone find your phone number or contact form? Consumers tend to better engage with what they can relate to and when they read something that’s relevant to their lives. This perspective is an important exercise to utilize when looking to improve the user experience with your site.

That said, let’s get to the heart of this article and help you find ways to maximize your company’s site conversion rate. Working on just these few simple items will pay off for your business in so many ways:

Have a Clickable Phone Number In Your Site’s Header

How crazy is it when you find a site that you like and you can’t find the company’s phone number to call them? Make it easy for someone to get in touch with you by having a clickable phone number with an auto dial for those visitors using a smart phone.

Use Action Words In Your Site’s Headline

Let visitors to your site know what you’re about and what action you expect from them. Make it easy for your audience to understand the value that your site is going to bring to them, and why they should keep reading.

Have Engaging Content

Text and images need to motivate your site’s visitors. People want to read what seems interesting to them, and if they can’t really get attached to what they are reading, you might as well have lost them at word one. Plus, if there is an action desired for your audience, make sure there is a clear picture or understanding of what that might be, so they don’t have to spend time wondering.

Add a Call to Action On Every Page

Every page on your site needs to “ask for the sale”. In this case, that compares to whatever action is anticipated of the audience. You want to ensure that each page a visitor sees has a specific purpose, and isn’t just a “filler” page.

Include a Short Contact Form On Your HOME Page

Now that you have visitors coming to your site, it’s time to get their contact information to follow up with them in future marketing efforts. You don’t want an uncharted visitor, that could potentially be valuable, to miss out on a contact opportunity with you and your services.

Use Testimonials

People love to read about personal experiences with a business and service they are considering utilizing in the future. Great testimonials can build not only instant credibility with potential customers, but a person that the visitor can possibly relate to, whom saw value previously.

Use Video to Enhance Your Message

A growing trend to give your company a personality. A video is nearly impossible to ignore and a great way to entertain and engage with your site’s visitors at the same time.

Each Key Company Product/Service Should Have Its Own Landing Page

Landing pages are a great way to dramatically improve your company’s visitor conversion rate. They are a great way to segment your market, whether by product/service offering or by target audience. Landing pages can also be used in conjunction with PPC campaigns.

Digital Marketing: A Common Sense Explanation

Digital Marketing: A Common Sense Explanation

Digital marketing is a term that encompasses all of your online marketing strategies and efforts, which includes the Internet and mobile technologies. A business can have multiple digital marketing channels in place at the same time, including their website, SEO, PPC campaigns, email marketing, social media and more.

You might be asking yourself doesn’t digital marketing simply just consist of social media? Well, you’d be partially correct, as the term includes a wide array of media channels to promote your product or service to potential customers. Digital marketing is a term that encompasses all of your online marketing strategies and efforts, which includes not only the Internet, but mobile technologies as well. A business can have multiple digital marketing sources in place at the same time, including their website, SEO, PPC campaigns, email marketing, social media and so much more. In today’s business world it’s essential to extend your digital marketing footprint far beyond an Internet search. Plus, with the utilization of such media allows a business to leverage those channels and engage with potential and existing customers in a way that wasn’t possible ten years ago.

What Are The Benefits of Digital Marketing?
So now that you have a better idea of what digital marketing is, you still might be pondering what are the specific benefits to your business. Most business owners are looking for ways to promote their products and services to a large of audience as possible, and with digital marketing that is now possible. It used to be that a Google search listing was the only way to gain new business through the Internet, but now there are so many more options out there. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have become a highly mainstream strategy for people to search for services and products. Plus, the great thing about these other digital media channels are that they are usually an affordable option versus traditional advertising.

Digital Marketing Trends
Across the past several year digital media footprints have become the root of a company’s success. Before the digital age a target market was more difficult to reach as not everyone had accessibility to digital channels. Although much easier, not everyone has access these day either, but more than ever do. So you and your company cannot get caught behind, or else you may feel as though you are becoming less relevant to the rest of the market.

Here is a List of the Most Common Digital Marketing Elements:

Your Website
Web pages are the foundation of digital content marketing. Every business should utilize their own website since it’s a convenient way for an audience to grasp what products or services a company offers. So, it is important to have an organized, well thought out website, where individuals can click on a tab and be confident they are going to find what they need. Additionally, you want your website to be engaging for visitors. Simply, think about how your audience will be drawn in and engaged. Another essential point is to make sure your website is mobile friendly, in that it looks great on a desktop, laptop, tablet and smartphone. According to Google, more than 50% of search queries come from mobile devices.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO, otherwise known as Search Engine Optimization, is a valuable way of gathering potential consumers via free (organic) results on search engines like Google and Bing. SEO is a collection of techniques and best practices that involve competitor and industry research, page content writing, keyword research and writing, descriptions, programming and more. The goal here is to increase your site’s rankings, drive more traffic to your website and increase visibility in search engines. It can certainly be challenging to do on your own since search engines like Google and Bing regularly update their search algorithm, but be weary of seo companies that promise the world but under deliver.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) – GoogleAds and Facebook Ads
PPC is when your company could choose to place a paid ad on Google and Facebook. The purpose of a Pay-Per-Click strategy is to draw in immediate traffic to your website for those individuals who are ready to purchase. Every time a potential customer clicks on your ad, your company is charged. The cost of the ad varies by keyword popularity and size of the market, as well as bidding against competitors for the same premier 1, 2 or 3 ad spot. Google AdWords is the most popular PPC option out there. The key to being successful in the world of PPC is to be organized, efficient and do your homework so you know who your target audience is and is not. Your goal is not to have a ton of ad clicks and spend a ton of money, but to have the right people who are ready to buy your product or service click on your ad and connect with your business.

Blog Articles
Blog articles are a great way to share your expertise and gain credibility with people that want to read your blog posts and share them with others. Every time that you write a new blog, a new page is indexed in search engines like Google. This additional indexing and the content of the blog article itself can lead to higher search engine rankings. Another benefit of writing blog articles on a regular basis is to establish authority (credibility) with your target audience.

Social Media
Social media platforms are one of the most utilized resources for digital marketing today. Three primary channels include Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Additionally, depending on your target market using a Geo-Filter on Snapchat can be beneficial too. Know that while social media is mainly a non-paid digital media option, spending some money can enhance your social media presence. This is called “Boosting” a post. When “Boosting” your social media posts you can personalize your target audience by multitude of demographics including age, gender and more.

Conversion Rate Optimization
The best way for Conversion Rate Optimization to make an impact for your business is to find take visitors to your website and transform them into customers. This means getting site visitors to take action, whether that is to buy your product, sign up for your newsletter, register for a webinar, download your eBook, complete your request for estimate form, etc. Another idea is to have separate landing pages for each of your key products or services, especially if you plan on doing Pay Per Click (PPC). Use these suggested ideas to improve your site’s own Conversion Rate.

Email Marketing
Never underestimate the value of a cost-effective email marketing program to market your company products and/or services to potential customers. While this might seem like an outdated option compared to other digital media methods, it can be an economical and cost-effective way to reach new customers or engage with your existing ones. I suggest your website have an embedded email capture form so you can market your products and services to those who opt in.