April 2014 - Webwise Marketing Solutions

April 17, 2014

PPC – Why Companies Should Consider Paid Advertising?

Online Advertising Paid Advertising, paid search, Pay-Per-Click, ppc 0

Online shopping has increased by over 40% in the last two years according to Nielson’s Global Online Survey. That is over 875 million consumers which represents a huge opportunities for new businesses.

Paid Search or Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising is an effective and powerful marketing tool which allows your company to create online brand exposure to your target markets. Additionally, PPC gives you the ultimate control over your marketing budget while allowing you to capture the attention of the booming number of online consumers who are ready to spend money on your products and services. Obviously you need to be there but it’s like having an advert in your local newspaper and only paying for the prospects that read it!

Five reasons to consider Paid Advertising (PPC) are as follows:

Targeted marketing – you don’t have time to waste pitching to consumers who may have no need for the products or services you provide or located outside your operating area.
Instant traffic – acquiring inbound links and domain credibility to move up in the organic results can take a while. Paid search offers a quick ticket to immediate visibility, and can be especially helpful for new and small businesses facing competition with national chains and long‐established brands. Local Ads do sell!
Marketing during the purchase phase – impulse shopping is currently a thing of the past since buyers are now thoroughly researching and performing price comparisons on even small purchases. With PPC marketing and custom landing pages, you can include specific messaging and resources that give consumers the information they need.
Measured budgets – only spend what you can afford. As sales and your profits increase, you can adjust your PPC budget accordingly.
Higher conversion rates – the number of sales and leads you will get per pound spent on PPC marketing exceeds the averages for traditional media like direct mail, telemarketing, TV and radio and it’s important to note that Newspaper, Trade Show, and Magazine advertising campaigns are extremely difficult to measure effectively.

Developing and maintaining a paid search campaign requires constant attention and analysis and while selecting a long list of keyword phrases and letting the costs accumulate may increase sales, this could be at a much higher cost than is necessary. By investing in PPC management services and targeting your advertising spend, your budget can stay the same while your sales increase and awareness of your brand builds a solid foundation for your company’s future. In tough economic times, the highly qualified, relevant traffic you need can be brought to your front door through PPC advertising.

Please contact us if you would like advice with regard to setting up your PPC campaign.

April 10, 2014

by admin

The Advantages of Blogs To Get Your Messages Across

Social Media blog, blogging, blogs 0

Although a website can be a very powerful business tool for distributing your information and messages, they can be complicated to edit and add information to for the average person. However, maintaining a blog and blogging is the quickest and easiest way to get your online message noticed and it can be placed in front of targeted audiences almost immediately. If you already have a website you either want to be heard or you want your message to be read and most businesses with blogs agree that is very easy to maintain and publish new information on the web since updating a blog is as easy as posting to a forum or sending an email.

The following points highlight the benefits of maintaining a blog versus updating or adding content on your website:

Blogs are active and websites are passive and with blogs you can broadcast your content via RSS every time new information is available. Normal websites must wait before they are discovered by search engines.
Blogs are faster and RSS syndication is instantaneous. Technorati and other blog search engines index your new content within minutes after you have published the content.
Blogs build readership and it is very easy for your blog’s visitors to subscribe to the blog so that they can be notified of any new content you release. Blogs also encourage repeat visits with content being delivered to your favourite reader or by email.
Websites are clunky and expensive whereas blogs are lean and cheap.
Updating a blog is a quick process and you can update your blog at an airport, while you’re on the move, whereas you have to call your webmaster and wait to update your website.
The media are more likely to find you on a blog.
You can learn more about your audience from a blog.
You market automatically with a blog but not with a conventional website.
Blogs have newer fresher content and have regular updated content that is usually more up to date. Blogs also tend to deal with breaking events and technology insights.
Interaction and participation – Blog conversations are encouraged and multiple viewpoints can be discussed and comments can be made easily from each page on the blog.

April 8, 2014

by admin

Generating Leads Using Twitter

Social Media generating leads, SMM, Social Media Marketing, twitter 0

Social Media Marketing (SMM) is in the process of becoming a mainstream advertising channel because it provides the perfect platform to find and attract people real-time that are looking for your products and services. Methods such as cold-calling to find your prospective customers are now being used less and less as prospects are waiting to be found through Social Media. Twitter is the social networking platform at the heart of this revolution so it makes sense to sign up to Twitter immediately so that your business doesn’t miss out on the opportunities. If you are already on Twitter then make sure that you are ready and willing to respond to the wants and needs of your prospective customers out there with your products, services and solutions. In order to effectively generate leads from tweets the following tips should help:

Use Twitter Geo-targeting – use Twitter Search to find Tweets in your region and use a Twitter Client like TweetDeck or Seesmic to receive real time results so you can reply on time. TwitHawk is a tool that finds tweets for you and this tool uses custom search queries to target potential clients and then sends you an email notification when it finds a match – it is perfect for those who simply don’t have enough time for Twitter.

Participate in conversation – always respond to Tweets directed at you or your organisation and try to respond to Tweets that are about your industry. Tweeters will feel special if they find a deal through Twitter, for example, if you run a pizza restaurant and you come across someone Tweeting about pizza, then you can respond with a Tweet like “@pizzafan come in and order a pizza from us and receive a free drink.” Using TwitHawk you can setup a list of auto-responders that can rotate in reply to Tweets but make sure you keep an eye on the results so you can reply personally when necessary.

Offer an alternative – turn your virtual followers into customers by offering something different on Twitter. A good idea is to distribute discount codes that are for exclusive use for those following you on Twitter.

Run a competition – offer a prize that will make your followers Retweet your message. Competitions run on Twitter are attractive to Tweeters because they are easy to enter and free.

Twitter marketing works and if you spend enough time with it you are going to reach a level that few businesses achieve without spending huge amounts on traditional media channels. If you become a thought leader in your industry on Twitter then people will follow you and they will be influenced by what you have to say and start buying from you because they will be confident that they are getting good service and a reliable product from you.

If you have any questions regarding lead generation using Twitter or if you would like more information on social media marketing please contact us.

April 3, 2014

by admin

Adding Value To Business Processes Through Social Media

Social Media business processes, Social media 0

In order to comprehend the fundamental concept of social media think of traditional mainstream media turned upside-down. With “top-down” delivery of content through traditional channels such as TV, radio, papers, magazines, media companies and advertisers are telling you what to consume, when and how to do it but at a fixed time and location. On the other hand, social media delivers content from the “ground up,” which is why it’s often referred to as a “grassroots” media. Said another way social media is all about content on demand – sometimes even in real-time, and always available to download and be watched, listened to when and where we feel like doing it.

In terms of Return on Investment (ROI), Social Media brings value to the following business processes:

Human Resources – social media boosts a company’s brand online, therefore attracting more job candidates, and if social media use by employees is encouraged (such as corporate blogging, running company Facebook group), and staff is happier and tend to stay longer. Bottom line is reduced employee turnover; lower hiring and training costs; lower costs for job advertising.
Customer Service – Social media means open lines of communication between consumer and company, so customer problems and needs can be addressed in a real-time, transparent environment. The result is accountability and trust by consumers and less customer churn, lower customer acquisition costs; higher customer conversion rates.
PR and Media Relations – Social media is used more and more by mainstream journalists, as well as journalists and bloggers, for spreading the news and views of a company with easy dissemination of photos, videos, and links. A higher profile means more business leads, more sales per customer and for corporate communications and shareholder relations, social media allows a company to keep close tabs on what the public at large, as well as investors, competitors and consumer groups are saying about it which leads to enhanced share value; online reputation management; crisis aversion management.

In every one of these scenarios, increased revenue is the end-point of a strategic social media program’s development and careful implementation. If you have any questions with regard to using social media to add value to your business processes or if you would like more information on social media marketing please contact us

April 3, 2014

by admin

SEO Tips For Success

Search Engine Optimization Search Engine Optimization, SEO 0

The primary objective of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is to attract more visitors to your website. However most experts also agree that organic search results are more effective for conversion and producing positive results and therefore websites that have a higher organic search ranking are usually more trusted by people for a service or product since it shows that the website has authority. The following steps, if followed, will improve your website rankings through SEO.

Research – Start your SEO campaign with keyword research and in doing so select key phrases that are highly relevant to the services that your business provides. Specific key phrases with 3-4 words are best if you want visitors that are ready to purchase from you.
Structure – Use keywords in your domain name, page names, titles, headings, folder names, etc.
Navigation – Use keywords in your navigation links and make your website easy to navigate both for search engines and visitors. Include a XML sitemap if your website navigation is complex.
Meta Tags – Use keywords and key phrases in the title, description and keyword tags. Each page in your website should have about 4 keyword phrases that are highly relevant to the content found on that page.
Content – Use keywords in your content and as a general rule use keywords 1-2 times in the first 25% of the text.
Local – Take advantage of local search opportunities by using your town, city, county and community names in your body text and on your contact page.
Valid Code – Validate your code and remove coding errors since these errors interfere with spiders crawling your site and they affect browser compatibility and usability. There are many online code validation websites available.
XML Sitemap – Include a XML sitemap for your website and submit the sitemap to Google Webmaster tools and Yahoo Site Explorer.
Links – Gain backlinks to your website from highly relevant blogs, authority sites, directories and other websites that are part of your industry.
Blog – Start a blog either as part of your website or on a separate domain and link to relevant pages on your website using your keyword phrases. Comment and participate on other blogs.
Web Analytics – Install website analytics on your website to monitor progress and monitor not only your overall visitor count, but which keyword phrases are bringing visitors and from which search engines.

Archive for April, 2014