by admin | Sep 24, 2015 | Online Advertising, Uncategorized
A Beginner’s Guide For Online Ads
Paid online advertising is also known by names such as Search Engine Marketing (SEM) or Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing. What they essentially describe is the concept of purchased traffic for the purpose of going through online advertisements. The money spent worldwide on digitals advertisements is more than 130 billion dollars and continues to grow. It is about a fourth of the total money spent on advertising through media. If you are wondering whether this amount is paying off, it may be interesting to note that click-through rates had jumped to 200 percent of its value in 2011. Twitter delivered about 4 times its revenue per visit as it did in the year 2011. Paid advertising online is indeed a smart way to guide more traffic to your website if you have one. This article will provide some basic information on certain key channels, their pricing models, and their strengths and weaknesses. PPC ads on Google appear on the top of the search listing pages.
Google Adwords
Many businesses use Google Adwords to display text ads associated with highly searched keywords. Google Adwords will result from a higher ROI when the Adwords used are for longer periods. The quality scores assigned to long-standing Adwords by Google are typically higher.
Social Advertising
Social media networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, have grown immensely popular in the few years that have passed. Advertising through these social media sites are targeted and depend on factors such as geographical location, user preferences, and demographics. If you are planning to use social media advertising some care has to go into choosing the appropriate ad network because what works for one business may not just work for another. Factors to be considered while choosing an ad network are:
1. whether your ad would reach your customer at the intended time
2. whether your advertisement is for a customer or a B2B model
3. whether you are looking to target according to customer demographics or interest or both.
Whereas Facebook ads can help you to create awareness of new products, businesses, or services ads in LinkedIn would catch the interest of professionals with specific job titles. Typically, LinkedIn can be used for B2B marketing. Facebook ads work in a manner that is very similar to display ads. StumbleUpon offers paid advertising that is inexpensive and offers a near 100% click-through option. The superior content engages a potential client effectively. However, conversions have to be tracked.
YouTube provides a wide variety of advertising options for marketers who are looking out to reach a wide audience. The Homepage Red zone helps in branding and helps you to develop engaging, unique and creative content. The advertising options are customized to a large extent. However, it is expensive. YouTube is more suitable for global brands such as cars, movies, restaurant chains, consumer durables, etc.
Bing and Yahoo
These two offer advertising platforms that are very similar to that of Google. However, there is less competition. They display both text and display ads based on popular and targeted search words/phrases.
Pay Per Click (PPC)
This model delivers what it says: you do not pay anyone unless they click on your ads. They usually consist of text with small-sized images. The amount of money that you pay for the click determines the market value of the keyword that the potential client inputs and the quality score of their ad. PPC ad campaigns that are optimized have been observed to generate a considerable amount of traffic.
The strength of this model is that there is clearly no risk of overspending on ads since you are only paying for traffic that visits your site. However, when you are in competition with other more expensive PPC campaigners, the operation can become expensive. One should also understand that many of the clicks that take place may be accidental and may not convert to paying customers.
CPM
CPM expands to cost per impression. The billing rate is flat for a specific number of impressions. The impression means the number of times that an ad is displayed or has caused an impression on the user. There is no additional charge for any clicks that may have been received. In a majority of the cases, CPM ads are displayed ads.
The advantage of CPM is that you can work within a budget, and they are inexpensive. The advertisement will be displayed a specific number of times. However, if the conversion rate is low, the effort is a mere expenditure. It is difficult to assess the traffic until after the campaign has ended. As per statistics, a heavy rush of traffic is uncommon.
Paid Online Advertising Concepts
It is crucial that an online marketer is aware of a few paid advertising concepts so that it is easy to select a strategy that would help to reach the intended marketing goal.
These advertisements are geared to reach out to those potential clients based on their purchase activity in the past.
Day Parting
This optional feature allows you to choose the exact time of the day when the advertisement needs to be displayed.
Geotargeting
Advertisements that are more geographically relevant are based on this concept. The advertisement may be targeted audiences that belong to a specific part of the globe, Nation, area, etc.
Keyword Match Types
These control the audience that your advertisement will be seen by and are based on search terms. As an example, broad matches with the search term would display the ad to a big/wide audience. Similarly, a phrase match will display your ad if it is part of a set of words that are searched. An exact match would show your advertisement only if an exact match of the words keyed in is encountered in the search terms.
Quality Score
Google awards quality score depends on how well your advertisements align with what is on the landing page of your website. Higher quality scores are awarded to those with a lower cost per click to improve the quality of the advertisements that are displayed.
However, as an online entrepreneur, you have to understand that if you run out of money to put the advertisements up, your paid advertising online efforts will become expensive and counterproductive.
There is a lot of information to digest. Virtual Surge, Baltimore SEO, can help you learn more about online advertising and work with you to determine which avenue will work best for your business.
by admin | Aug 29, 2015 | Mobile Marketing, Uncategorized
Mobile marketing is massive already and is projected to surpass desktop Internet access in several developing countries. Therefore, every marketer needs to keep tabs on the opportunities of getting to their audiences via mobile devices and how to make their mobile websites and presence visible and accessible. Mobile Marketing involves reaching clients and prospects when they are using the internet away from the traditional office or home desktop environment. There are several tools and platforms businesses can make use of to market this way. But, not all forms of mobile marketing are suitable for every business. Aside from marketing to the mobile ready websites, mobile apps, SMS marketing, and proximity or location-based marketing are key mobile marketing approaches. Just like usual online marketing, the point is often to drive clients to online stores or have them give permission to send them updates.
Mobile marketing has become a big trend in marketing over the last couple of years and with the growing prevalence of mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets, and other devices, it is not likely to go away. Currently, over 4 billion people use mobile devices and 39% (around 2.34 billion) of the world’s population now possess smartphones. Mobile commerce has taken a big leap forward this year, growing more quickly than desktop e-commerce. This was particularly evident on major online shopping days and according to IBM’s Digital Analytics, sales via mobile devices accounted for 22% of online sales. Mobile marketing is expected to exceed internet marketing by six folds within a 4-year time span. Mobile marketing is, in other words, on the verge of becoming the most powerful and cost-effective way of marketing. For small businesses, the time to adapt to this market trend is now.
Mobile marketing can truly benefit the growth of your small business. The increased usage of tablets, smartphones, and similar mobile devices has already made mobile marketing a must for some online businesses. Most businesses can benefit in some way from some mobile marketing, actually for some it may be a requisite. According to Strategic Marketing Concepts, owners and marketers of small businesses favor high impact, cost effective approaches to increasing revenue. While the high impact may be easy to obtain, the cost-effective part might be somewhat more difficult. That is where mobile marketing comes in as being a handy tool for small business owners. Mobile Marketing can allow a small business to interact directly with their target audience. This one-to-one interaction will help both your business and clients understand your products and services better and with this customer feedback, you can develop better products shortly.
Also, with mobile marketing, your business will have total control over the content of the messages and the timing to send to consumers. This is particularly a great opportunity for industries that thrive on discount offers or promotional campaigns, such as discount shopping coupons and dinner discount coupons. Since everything is in real time, small businesses can expect a timely response from 85% of their target audience who use mobile devices. This promotes engagement and interaction between the business and its customers, the goal of every marketing campaign.
Virtual Surge, Baltimore SEO is available to assist you with your mobile marketing campaign. Contact us today! 443-840-8444
by admin | Aug 27, 2015 | Baltimore SEO, Uncategorized
Top 5 SEO Myths
Properly done search engine optimization (SEO) will do a lot of things for you. It will get you to the first page of search engine results, it will create more exposure for your site and most importantly, it will bring good traffic. But to enjoy these and many other benefits of well-done SEO, you have to stop believing some of the myths about SEO.
1. SEO Does Not Work
Believe it or not, there are people who still believe that SEO is a big scam perhaps by marketers who want to keep earning money. But the evidence is there for everyone to see. 44% of customers start the buying process from a search engine, most often Google. Also, the use of search engines is the fourth highest activity online after email, social media, and video. The services we provide at Virtual Surge Baltimore SEO, has proven that SEO does work, and it has worked for hundreds of businesses. Our clients are enjoying higher traffic flow, improved lead conversion and better brand exposure.
2. I Did it Once and it Was Enough
At least you believe SEO works, but there is still a lot for you to do. Doing SEO once, may have increased the flow of inbound traffic but as you may have noticed, traffic falls over time in the absences of sustained SEO. Search engine optimization is a not a once-off project, it is a continuous part of marketing. You have to keep writing good content, using the right keywords and so on. Get up and pick up from where you left off.
3. For SEO to work, keyword obsession is a must
There was a time when keywords did carry a lot of weight. But sites gamed Google’s algorithms by spamming their content with keywords, thus lowering the value of the content. With several updates, keyword obsession will get you penalized. If you fill an article with “Maryland Dentist” 10 times, Google sees that as spamming.
While you still should target certain keywords – especially in important areas such as titles and meta tags – you will find more success in trying to determine what your visitors want from your site. When you write good content meant for your visitors, you will find that you have used many other keywords that you did not even intend. For example;
• Baltimore dentist (the main keyword)
• Affordable Baltimore dentist
• Family Dentist Baltimore
• Invisalign treatment Maryland
• Baltimore deep teeth cleaning
Eventually, you realize that the long tail keywords splattered in your content are bringing in much more traffic than the main keyword that you were tempted to spam. This is because you have targeted specific needs of potential customers.
4. SEO is Expensive
If you get an offer of $200 per month for full SEO services, that is something to be concerned about. The most reputable companies cost a lot more however, your ROI will surpass your initial investment.
You may wonder why the cost of SEO can be so high. There is a lot of work that needs to be done on the back end that most people do not know about. The work doesn’t stop there. It can take months for a site to rank to the front page of search engines which means it takes months of work to get your site there. SEO involves extensive continuous research, content creation, technical work, site optimization, link building and many other things. What you get is a constant inflow of leads that consistently build your customer base. SEO is not expensive; it is an investment.
5. I can achieve top rankings in 2 weeks
There are marketing techniques that can speed up the process a little; PPC and social media are some examples. But with SEO, patience is a must and success are not guaranteed. You have to work hard, smart and long to get on the first page of Google. Of course, having a team of experts like Virtual Surge Baltimore SEO to help you, means you can focus on your business while they do what’s necessary.
by admin | Aug 14, 2015 | Lead Generation, Uncategorized
Almost every business depends on proper marketing and lead generation techniques and strategies to create a customer base hence boost sales. Unlike marketing where one advertises products/services to both interested and uninterested people; lead generation involves collecting valuable consumer information from an interested individual.
The customer information may be obtained with the customer’s knowledge and approval with the hope of converting him/her into a customer. Lead generation can be done through newsletter subscriptions, cross promotions, customer referrals, social media promotions, and signing up for promotional emails among other strategies. Outlined below are a few tips highlighting the importance of lead generation for all businesses.
1. Higher conversion rates: Organic lead conversion increases higher conversion rates as the target audience has already shown interest in the product. This allows the customer to decide on whether to buy the product or not. This is unlike in marketing where you may be advertising a product to the wrong audience. Using organic ways to collect and generate leads therefore helps boost sales remarkably.
2. Returns on Investment (ROI): The process of collecting or generating leads is very affordable, and at most times, free. Most marketers buy leads based on their set budget, with the price much lower than any other advertisement campaign would take. As mentioned above using qualified leads to promote a business, products or services help boost sales. The increased sales enables the business to record higher profits hence higher returns on investment:
3. Organic traffic generation: Organic traffic is very important for every online business. As long as your page does receive tons of traffic every day, you can then be assured of higher ranks by search engines. Traffic from these leads not only helps boost the page’s ranks on search engines, but also increases visibility. Higher ranks in search engines mean your business will be on the verge of being listed on most of the search engine’s top results (first page) thus exposing it to even more audience/potential clients.
4. Guaranteed returns: The greatest importance of lead generation for businesses is that, it guarantees returns especially in cost-per-action leads. By purchasing quality leads, you are almost assured of more traffic and lead conversions. Even though these leads may not convert immediately, visiting the page increases traffic thus resulting to higher ranks. Most of these leads eventually turn out to be customers in the long run hence worth the effort.
5. Builds customer base: Identifying potential customers from a crowd is every marketer’s nightmare. Nonetheless, collecting valuable leads from different sources (both online and offline) helps build a strong customer base. Any newsletter or promotional email you sent is received by an interested party, most of whom will eventually make an order. As long as these customers are satisfied with the quality of the products offered, they will most definitely make another order, or better still, refer their friends and acquaintances to your page. This cultivates a stronger customer relationship and base thus enabling your business to grow.
If you have been trying to promote your business to no avail, consider hiring Virtual Surge, Baltimore SEO. We can help you find your target audience and serve them even better.
by admin | Aug 11, 2015 | Reputation Management, Uncategorized
Virtual Surge – Your Top Reputation Managers – The Importance of Reputation Management
Reputation management is the process of identifying what individual customers are feeling or saying about businesses and taking the right steps to ensure that this status is monitored on regular basis. Online reputation is one of the greatest tools that are being used by many businesses to create a good first impression to potential customers. Having a positive online reputation is the key to increased sales, increased brand awareness, good press and more business customers or clients.
At Virtual Surge, Baltimore SEO, we recognize that companies and businesses need a well managed online reputation to be able to meet their blueprint goals and objectives. We have accrued necessary experience in reputation management and through our proactive strategies; we aid businesses to build strong online assets as well as suppressing negative hearsay and relegate detrimental results to invisible levels.
How do we achieve this?
We use coordinated programs to devise techniques and strategies that track any mention of your name, brand or business and respond to the results, by promoting you brand, name or business by use of positive content. This in turn suppresses any negative contented propagated in the online platforms about your enterprise.
Excellent reputation aids in maintaining good customer relations. Through our latest business reputation management tools, we assist your enterprises to create good customer relations by enabling you to receive alerts when a comment is made about your business. We provide a step by step guideline on how to handle the negative feedback on your company so as to maintain that healthy relationship with prospective clients and also real customers.
Virtual Surge also works closely with you in efforts to manage your social media presence. We build vital insights that improve your brand image and keep you relevant.
Is Search engine optimization necessary in reputation management?
Virtual surge understands that reputation management and SEO are inseparable. Being a provider of both, we understand that even if you create a good reputation, without an audience it’s futile. Optimizing you business site content so that It is highly ranked will enable more audience recognition and applause your highly reputable company or brand.
Strategies employed by Virtual Surge to elevate online reputation
· Existing content promotion
· Social profile building
· Online personal relation activities and
· Involvement in online blogs.
If you have a dire need to suppress the prevalent negative feedback and steadily improve your brand name, trust in Virtual Surge to manage your reputation management. By use of our tested and proven strategies, we will create an excellent reputation for your business that will foster increased growth. You can argue that you have a good reputation, but to manage this reputation calls for professionals such as Virtual Surge, your Baltimore SEO agency.
by admin | Jul 29, 2015 | Social Media, Uncategorized
Why Social Media is So Important to Your Business
Social media marketing via company websites and social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and the like has quickly become a very useful marketing tool and a necessary means by which to keep businesses on the cutting edge of their marketing efforts. There are very few businesses that do not have their own company websites and Facebook and Twitter sites which allows them to reach out to customers and their respective client bases. If your business does not have a company page on social media sites, you may want to hire a Social Media Marketing Manager as he/she can help you get your business on the cyber map.
Everyone has heard of Facebook and Twitter as well as the many other lesser known social media sites, but what exactly is Social Media Marketing? Social media marketing is considered to be a form of marketing done on the Internet which implements social media networks in achieving goals set forth in a company’s marketing, branding, and communication efforts. Social media marketing consists primarily of the activities which involve the social sharing of written content, images, and videos for marketing purposes. Generally Social media marketing and the managers within the industry analyze business trends within different types of businesses competing within the market that they are working in. For instance a flower shop would use their Social Media sites to reach out to their customers via posts and interesting articles that would be useful to the needs and concerns of their client base and the target market they share with their business competition. Social media managers would post either articles or blogs that they themselves have written online or that have turned up on the internet among the client base. Another function of social media marketing and managers is the company posts on Facebook and Twitter, which would be a monitoring of the trends taking place in the industry and any customer inquiries of the customers and potential customers who visit their company sites with engaging content that attracts the attention of prospective clients. A Social media marketing manager would carefully monitor the company social media pages to analyze what customers want and need and how the business can serve them better while also providing ways of drawing web hits.
Currently Twitter and Facebook are the big two Social Media sites while Pinterest has slowly begun to emerge as the new kid on the block. Sites such as YouTube, Yelp and Foursquare are also quite popular in the social media world as is Reddit, LinkedIn, and Google +. If you have a business and are not yet communicating with your customers via the various Social Media sites, you may be losing out on potential clients and business, thus consider learning more and hiring Virtual Surge, a Baltimore SEO, expert to help make your business thrive. Virtual Surge is based in Baltimore but provides services nationwide.
