Tag Archives: online-marketing

What Is PPC?

The post What Is PPC? appeared first on HostGator Blog . Marketers throw around a lot of acronyms.  For someone new to online marketing, it can be a little overwhelming to parse what people mean when they say PPC, SEM, SEO , CTA or one of many other common marketing acronyms.  This post will provide a thorough explanation for one of the most common and important acronyms online businesses should know about: PPC .  What Is PPC in Marketing? PPC in marketing stands for pay per click, the term used to describe a popular online ad billing model where the advertiser only gets charged for the ad when someone clicks on it.  This billing model represents a shift in how companies pay for advertising on the web versus what has long been common in other advertising formats such as magazine and TV spots.  Instead of paying a lump sum to reach a large number of people and hope some of them take an interest in your message, PPC marketing allows brands to pay only when consumers take a direct action. You don’t pay for the million people to view your ad, you pay for the hundred interested enough in your ad to do something about it.  The Different Types of PPC There are two main types of PPC marketing advertisers can take advantage of. Paid Search Ads Most of the time when you hear someone talk about PPC ads, they’re talking about paid search ads that show up on the search engine results page (SERP) of Google and the other main search engines. Depending on the search term and how much the advertiser has bid for the spot, these can show up above the list of organic results, to the right of them, or below them.  When you advertise with Google, you also have the option of placing PPC ads across their vast display network, which includes additional Google properties like Gmail and YouTube, as well as over 2 million other websites across the web, including popular media properties like the New York Times and Buzzfeed .  In other words, Google’s network for PPC search ads covers a significant portion of the web.  Social Ads The other main option for PPC advertising is social media. Most of the main social media platforms provide ad options using a similar PPC model to that of search engines. PPC social advertising is possible on LinkedIn , Facebook , Twitter , and Instagram .  With each social platform hosting over a million users (more than a billion, in the case of Facebook), many of them visiting the site multiple times a day, social PPC advertising is a strong option for reaching more of your audience.  PPC Terms to Know Before we get into more details of what’s involved in PPC advertising in digital marketing, you need to understand the language commonly used in the PPC world. Here are some terms worth knowing: CPA – This stands for cost per action . It’s a billing model offered on some PPC platforms in which, instead of paying for each click, you pay for a specific desired action, such as an email list signup or a purchase. In some cases, the acronym could also apply to the similar term, cost per acquisition, meaning you pay for every time you gain a customer. CPC – This stands for cost per click . In the PPC bidding model, keywords are assigned a value based on how competitive they are. So if there are a lot of businesses vying for a certain keyword, you can expect to pay more for each click than with a keyword that isn’t as popular to advertisers. Understanding the average CPC for the keywords you target is an important part of keeping your PPC campaigns profitable.  CPM – This stands for cost per impression , or more accurately, cost per a thousand impressions. For ad campaigns where visibility is more important than inspiring direct action, most PPC platforms allow you the option of paying based on the number of times someone sees your ad, instead of paying for each click.  CTA – This stands for call to action . It’s a term commonly used in all types of marketing, and plays an important role in PPC as well. It’s widely considered a best practice to include a clear call to action in every text ad you write. Some examples of common CTAs include “Learn more” or “Click here.” CTR – This stands for click-through rate . It’s a metric calculated by dividing the number of impressions (or times people have seen your ads), by the number of clicks they receive. It’s an important metric for gauging the performance and quality of your ads and campaigns. Long-tail keywords – The cost and success of paid search campaigns is directly related to the keywords and keyword phrases you choose to target. The term long-tail keywords is used to describe search terms that are more specific and therefore less competitive than broad keywords. For example, “flower delivery” is a broad keyword, while “same day flower delivery austin tx” is an example of a long-tail keyword that would cost less to target, but still reach a relevant audience.  Quality score – The placement of PPC ads depends on two main factors: the amount a brand is willing to spend, and their ad quality score . The search engine ad platforms want to deliver ads that are relevant to what people are looking for—they value delivering a good experience, in addition to getting money from advertisers. They assign ads a quality score based on factors like CTR and the bounce rate for people that click. If your ads are high quality, you’ll end up paying less for each click.  Remarketing – Any time you’re browsing the web and see an ad for a product you viewed recently, you’re the target for remarketing , sometimes called retargeting . On Google’s display network, you can target past website visitors with ads based on the pages on your website they viewed. This helps you stay top of mind for past visitors and increase the chances of a conversion. ROI – This stands for return on investment , and is a common business term. You may also encounter the similar acronym ROAS, for return on ad spend. It refers to figuring out how what you’re spending relates to the amount of new revenue you’re bringing in from your ads, so you can determine if your PPC campaigns are paying off. SEM – This stands for search engine marketing , the catch-all term for all digital marketing and advertising efforts focused on getting noticed in the search engines. It includes PPC and SEO, the paid and organic versions of gaining spots in the search engine results. SEO – This stands for search engine optimization . Where PPC ads help you gain spots in the advertising sections of the SERP, SEO is how you gain spots in the organic results. SEO is distinct from PPC, but most companies that do one will benefit from having a strategy for the other as well.  Now you can talk about PPC with your peers like an expert, and dig deeper into resources that explain how to do it well. 4 Reasons to Use PPC Marketing Businesses have a lot of different marketing tactics to choose from, and limited budget and resources to put toward them all. PPC is far from your only choice, but it’s one of the most popular online marketing tactics for good reason.  Here are four notable benefits of doing PPC advertising. 1. PPC advertising is targeted. PPC channels—both search and social—allow you to limit who will see your ads based on factors like demographic categories and online behavior. If your product’s target audience is middle-aged women who are really into sports, you can use your PPC platform’s targeting options to set up a relevant audience for your ads that’s more likely to respond to them.  2. You can reach a huge audience with PPC ads. A significant majority of people in the United States now use social media, and an even larger number of people use search engines. The main channels for PPC advertising allow you to reach a massive portion of the people online today—and that’s before you factor in the rest of the Google Display Network, which Google says reaches over 90% of all people on the internet.  PPC advertising allows you to get information about your brand, products, and content in front of just about anyone that uses the internet. 3. PPC produces detailed analytics. In addition to (hopefully) driving new visits and conversions, PPC campaigns produce another valuable result: rich analytics.  Every PPC campaign you launch will result in data that helps you better understand who your audience is, what language they’re using, and what kind of messaging they respond to. Those insights not only allow you to continually improve your PPC campaigns, they can also be applied to your other marketing efforts. You can strengthen your SEO strategy, your social media marketing, and content marketing plans based on what you learn from your PPC efforts.   4.  PPC gets results. Google estimates that businesses get a return on investment of $2 for every $1 they spend on the platform. Your success rates will depend on the quality of your campaigns, how good of a job you do targeting the right audience and keywords, and how well you monitor and adjust them over time. But if you do PPC well, you can count on gaining new leads and customers from it. How to Do Pay-Per-Click Marketing Well Anyone that decides to include PPC as part of a business marketing strategy needs to know a few main things in order to do it effectively. Here are eight PPC best practices to follow.  1. Perform keyword research. For paid search marketing, finding the right keywords is crucial for getting the results you want. Keyword research allows you to identify the terms and phrases your target audience is commonly using when they search for products like yours and answers to questions that you cover on your website.  When you enter a starter list of terms you’ve brainstormed into Google’s Keyword Planner , the tool uses historical data to provide: An estimate of how many times people will see ads that target that term (impressions) in a given period of time An estimate of how many times people will click on those ads The expected click-through rate The average cost per click, as well as the maximum cost per click The Google Keyword Planner will also help you build out a larger list of relevant keywords. You can plug in the list you have now, and the tool will both provide helpful data on your current keywords (average monthly searches, level of competition) and a list of related keywords with the same data provided.  There are also a number of other keyword research tools you can use to supplement the data and suggestions provided in Google’s Keyword Planner. Using what you learn, you can build out a campaign that targets the most relevant keywords your audience is using. 2. Set your budget. Once you set up your PPC account , the platform will let you set a specific budget for your ad campaigns and provide a daily maximum amount you’re willing to spend. Since PPC uses a bidding model, your ad placements will depend on the budget you set. If you’re hoping to show up for competitive keywords with a high CPC, you need a big enough budget to account for that.  Figure out what you can afford to commit to PPC advertising and consider how much the keywords you’re targeting cost in order to work out a budget that makes sense for your business. 3. Use negative keywords. With PPC for search, you have the option to include negative keywords that you explicitly don’t want to show up for. This can help you further refine who will see your ads based on relevance, so you don’t waste money on clicks from people looking for something different than what you offer.  For example, a florist that sells pre-made rose arrangements doesn’t need to show up for people looking for tips on how to grow their own roses. So they might add terms like “how to grow roses” or “rose pruning” to the negative keyword list.  4. Create relevant ad groups. PPC advertising platforms also let you set up specific ad groups so you can tailor your ads based on the specific keywords and audiences they’re most relevant for. That means a florist can use different messaging for a set of keywords related to Mother’s Day flowers than one related to bereavement, and can change the wording of ads targeting middle aged men looking to buy flowers for their wives than those for young couples selecting floral arrangements for an upcoming wedding. With ad groups, you can make your ads more relevant to the specific people who will see them, increasing the chances of success. 5. Choose your audiences. Very few businesses need to reach everybody. What you’re selling is most likely to appeal to a specific subset of the population. If you sell business software, then you need to reach professionals from certain types of businesses in specific roles. If you sell skateboards, you want to reach young people with an interest in skateboarding.  Both search and social PPC options let you choose who will see your ads based on some common categories such as demographics and interests. A click from someone in your target audience is worth much more to you than one from someone unlikely to buy your products. By setting up a specific audience for each of your campaigns, you ensure the clicks you pay for are more worth the cost.  6. Optimize your landing pages. Getting someone to see and click on your ad is a big goal, but that’s just the first step in what you ultimately want them to do. For your PPC spend to be worth it, you also need for them to take the next step you want them to, whether that’s clicking through to read more content, signing up for your email list, or making a purchase. Make sure that the web page those PPC clicks lead to is optimized to match the specific keyword and ad you use. The landing page should always be relevant and designed to achieve your specific campaign goal. Always design a landing page with a clear CTA, and try out different wording and designs to learn what works best.  7. Analyze your results. One of the big benefits of PPC is that you end up with a lot of valuable analytics you can learn from. Don’t set your PPC campaigns on auto pilot and hope for the best. Spend time analyzing the data so you can learn what your audience responds to and tweak your campaigns for better results over time.  In your analysis, make sure you factor in conversions, as well as clicks. In order to properly determine the ROI of specific keywords and campaigns, you need to know how often they drive people to take the specific actions you want them to, beyond earning that initial click. Analyzing your metrics can help you cut out costly keywords that aren’t producing the results you want, and help you put more of your budget toward ads that produce new sales and subscribers.  8. Use retargeting. How many times have you visited a website, checked out a product you liked the look of, but decided that you’d better not spend that money right away. It doesn’t mean you’re uninterested in the product, just that the timing wasn’t right.  Retargeting gives you a way to reach the people who like your products, but for whatever reason just weren’t ready to buy right away. You can re-capture the attention of someone who might otherwise forget about your brand. Get More Sales with PPC  A strong PPC strategy can help you gain more visibility with your target audience, and turn that attention into conversions. But it takes work to learn the ropes and do PPC effectively. If you want to give it a try, but aren’t sure how to get started, hiring a team of skilled PPC professionals can take most of the work off your plate, while increasing your chance of getting great results. Contact HostGator to learn more about our PPC services today. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading

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SEO vs. PPC

The post SEO vs. PPC appeared first on HostGator Blog . After all the hard work you put into designing and launching your website, now you get to the even harder part: getting people to visit.  A website can be a powerful tool for driving more awareness of your business and convincing people to buy, but it can’t do any of that unless people find it. And in an overcrowded online marketplace, getting noticed by the people you want to reach is a serious challenge. Once you start looking into online marketing tactics to promote your website, you’ll notice two marketing options get a lot of attention: search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click advertising (PPC) .  Often, new website owners with a limited budget try to figure out: “In the argument of SEO vs PPC, which should take dominance?” Before you can determine which tactic makes the most sense for your business, you need to understand what they are.  SEO and PPC are the two sides of search engine marketing (SEM). They have one main thing in common: they help you get found by people searching for what you do on the search engines, especially Google.  But they also have some notable differences. What is the Difference Between SEO and PPC? The difference between SEO and PPC is all about where on the search engine results page (SERP) you show up and how you get there.  What is PPC Marketing? With PPC, you buy spots on the SERP that show up at the top of page (if you pay enough), at the bottom, or to the side. PPC results often have the word “Ad” next to them, or show up in an image carousel with shopping details at the top of the page.   Brands get those spots by paying for them. Search engine ad platforms use a pay-per-click bidding model to sell ad results. The businesses willing to spend the most, get the best placements for the keywords they bid on, but they only pay when someone actually clicks on the ad, hence the name “pay per click.”  An SEO strategy operates differently. What is SEO Marketing? With SEO, you work to earn spots in the organic results—that’s the term for all the results on the page that haven’t been paid for. For many search terms, that means they show up below PPC results, but not always. Sometimes organic results can claim a rich snippet , like the answer box that shows up at the top of some SERPs. SEO results can’t be bought, they have to be earned. You claim organic spots by practicing a number of SEO tactics , including: Working to optimize your website for relevant keywords you want to target. Making sure your website provides a good user experience, especially when it comes to things like site speed and mobile friendliness.  Working to build authority for your website by earning backlinks from other sites.  Those are the basic differences between SEO and PPC to be aware of, but what does that mean for website owners? SEO vs PPC in 7 Categories Small business owners don’t have a lot of money to spend on an online marketing strategy, so what you really want to know about SEO vs PPC is how they shake out in comparison to each other in terms of things like cost and performance.  Here’s how the two SEM tactics compare in seven main categories.  1. Cost This is a tricky category for comparison. While it may seem like there’s an obvious answer, since PPC is paid advertising and SEO must be earned with work, you may assume PPC is more expensive. In reality, measuring SEO vs PPC in cost is complicated, as which costs more will really depend on how you approach each. To truly see results with SEO, most website owners will need to hire an SEO expert to help. A recent survey found that SEO consultants charge an average of around $500-$1,000 a month . While technically, you can spend nothing on SEO but time, more realistically, you should expect to spend around this amount.  One benefit of PPC is that costs are within your control. You can set a maximum daily spend within Google Ads , and the network will stop running your ads once you’ve gotten enough clicks to reach that amount. That means you can name your budget and never go over it. But if your budget is too low, you’ll run through your maximum spend too early in the day to get the results you want, and it will take longer to accumulate the data you need to build better campaigns.  According to one survey , small businesses that do PPC spend an average of $9,000-$10,000 a month. That doesn’t mean you’d have to spend that much, but it probably means that’s the amount others have found gets the best results. Winner: SEO, usually 2. Control SEO is all about doing your best to signal to Google the keywords you think you should rank for, and proving you’re authoritative enough to gain those rankings. While you can target specific keywords, you ultimately have very little control over what terms you’ll show up for, where you’ll show up in the rankings, and how your website will show up on the SERP.  For that last point, you can provide your own meta descriptions and use schema markup in the hopes that Google will display the information you’ve provided on the SERP. But it’s still up to the search engine how your website shows up—if it shows up at all.  With PPC, on the other hand, you have much more control. Paying for ads means you can decide: Which relevant keywords your ads show up for   Who sees your ads , in terms of categories like demographics, geography, and consumer behavior What your ads look like , since you decide on what the ads says, and can include elements that increase clicks like images, or ad extensions that provide useful information such as special deals and delivery information. Winner: PPC 3. Speed of results SEO is a long game. Expect to spend months, or even years, practicing SEO tactics before you start to see results. And even then, your first results won’t be for high-competition keywords.  For example, a small business that sells hot sauce will see results for long-tail keywords—the SEO term for keywords that are less competitive—like “hot sauce shop san antonio” or “ghost pepper hot sauce” long before it has the chance to claim a broad term like “hot sauce.” That doesn’t mean SEO isn’t worth doing. It absolutely is! There are plenty of benefits to SEO . It just requires patience.  With PPC, by contrast, you can start showing up on page one and getting new traffic the first day you launch a campaign. PPC is often a smart choice for businesses who are doing SEO, but want to start driving traffic faster while they’re waiting for SEO results to pay off. Winner: PPC 4. Amount of work Both SEO and PPC require ongoing work. With PPC, you need to complete keyword and audience research to figure out the best targeting for your campaigns. Then you need to set up your campaigns, monitor them to learn what’s working, and make updates to improve your results and make sure your budget goes further.  As with PPC, SEO should start with keyword and audience research, then you have a list of tactics to stay on top of: Optimize each page of the website for your chosen keyword by including it naturally in the title, headings, page copy and meta tags of the page. Consistently create high-quality content to keep your website fresh and target more of the keywords on your list. Undertake link building strategies to get other websites to link back to yours.  Maintain a SEO-friendly web design On the whole, doing SEO well usually requires more work than PPC. Winner: PPC 5. Trust As you’d expect, people generally trust the results that have earned top spots more than those that paid for them. 46% of people said they consider organic results more trustworthy than PPC ones, and 65% said they were more likely to click on an organic result for product-related searches. SEO is therefore a better way to earn the trust of people searching for the kind of products you sell. That said, a sizeable portion of the population— around 57% — don’t even register the difference between the paid and organic results on the SERP.  Google’s always changing how the SERP looks, so that number is subject to change, but there’s a certain type of consumer that won’t think any less of your PPC ad than if you earned that top organic spot. Winner: SEO 6. Click-through rate Recent data shows a clear winner in this category, but also shows that a lot depends on the type of device people are using. The click-through rate (CTR) for organic results on desktop computers is at over 65%, as compared to a little under 4% for PPC ads. On mobile devices, organic results get around a 40% CTR, with mobile earning a little over 3% (many searches on mobile don’t result in a click at all).  Either way, organic results get more clicks, making SEO rankings more valuable for traffic once you get them.  Winner: SEO 7. Analytics Analytics give you the power to consistently learn from everything you try, improve your campaigns based on that knowledge, and get better results over time. With both SEO and PPC, you can tap into valuable analytics.  Google Analytics , which is entirely free, provides a lot of data on how much of your traffic comes from organic search, where you rank for target keywords, and which pages people are finding through SEO.  And you can supplement all that free information with the additional data included in paid SEO tools that helps you clearly identify how your website compares to your competitors in rankings and what they’re doing differently to achieve the rankings they have, such as their backlink profile and the keywords they’re targeting. While SEO tools can provide a lot of useful information, ultimately there’s still a lot of guesswork behind why certain pages rank higher than others.  By contrast, the analytics provided in PPC campaigns can tell you exactly which ads perform well. And because you control every part of the ad, you can do A/B testing to gain insights into what your audience responds to—providing information you can apply not only to your future PPC ads, but also to every other part of your online marketing campaigns.  Winner: PPC SEO vs PPC Frequently Asked Questions Even with that extensive rundown, you may still have some questions. Here are answers to some of the common questions website owners have about the difference between SEO and PPC. Which Is Better: SEO or PPC? It depends on your priorities.  PPC drives faster results. You can start getting visibility and traffic on day one, but you have to continually pay for every person it sends to your website.  SEO is slower, but once you gain relevant rankings, the results last longer. A good ranking will continue driving traffic for as long as you stay near the top, and you can count on getting more traffic from a good SEO ranking than a PPC one. And while there’s a cost to the work involved in getting on page one, once there all the traffic it sends your way is free.  Does PPC Traffic Help SEO? Not directly, but some of the metrics SEO experts commonly believe to be ranking factors require getting more relevant traffic, which PPC sends your way.  For example, when people click on your ad and like what they see long enough to stick around, it results in a lower bounce rate and longer time spent on site—both metrics that signal to Google that people are happy with the page they land on.  You can’t buy SEO results with PPC ads, but getting traffic from relevant visitors is one of the first steps to doing a lot of things that do pay off in SEO. How do PPC and SEO Work Together? Good question! While the framing of this piece has pitted SEO and PPC against each other, for most businesses the goal should be SEO and PPC working together.  PPC helps you get the initial boost you need in visibility and traffic when your website’s new, or when it’s underperforming based on your goals. It’s a good strategy for short-term wins while you’re waiting for your SEO work to start coming through. SEO is the long-term strategy that delivers bigger and more reliable results once it starts working. But it’s hard when you’re starting from scratch, and PPC can bring some of the initial traffic and attention you need to get your SEO efforts off the ground.  For the Win: SEO and PPC Integration A good online marketing strategy combines the two tactics. If that sounds like a lot of work, well, it is. But you don’t have to learn both SEO and PPC from scratch to start getting more traffic for your website.  You’ll get better results, faster if you outsource the job to someone who already knows what they’re doing. HostGator offers both SEO and PPC services. Our team includes skilled professionals with years of experience in both types of SEM. If you’re ready for your website to start delivering bigger results, let us help . Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading

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4 Great Examples of Video Content that Converts on Social Media

The post 4 Great Examples of Video Content that Converts on Social Media appeared first on HostGator Blog . They say, “Content is king,” but that’s only true if you are creating the right type of content for your target audience. And when it comes to social media marketing, it’s all about video content. Text and blog content will always have a value and place of its own, but video is getting all of the attention, buzz and engagement when it comes to Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram users. When used correctly, it’s also been a huge influencer in higher site conversions as well. With this in mind, today we are going to be looking at four different ways to create video content for your social audiences, while also growing your reach, conversions, and engagement in the process. 1. Create Videos Based on Current Events and Existing Viral Content One of the many benefits to focusing your efforts on video content, is that most of the time a lot of the work is already done for you. With blogging, whall of your content has to be original, but things are completely different with video and images. Everyone is always sharing the same stuff, and making memes, and we often really never know who the original creator or uploader was. A perfect example of this can be seen here . We’ve probably all seen the video of the people in the boat, who aren’t sitting down and are going way too fast. End result, they fly all over the place and the video goes viral. But the reason why this particular example is so perfect, is because “ Rick Lax’s Favorite Videos ” (which currently has 1.6 million Facebook fans) is killing it with videos that have already gone viral. They simply add their own text and commentary to each and republish them under their own channel. This video example alone has more than 50k shares and over 17 million views. 2. Grab Attention with Whiteboard and Text Animation Videos As wonderful as video can be for social media, it’s not simply a matter of uploading a video and then seeing results. When the thought of video comes to mind, many people shy away because they either have no idea how to create them, or they don’t want to spend a lot of money on a design team. Just like anything else, you need to create content that grabs the attention of your audience and makes them want to stop scrolling through their news feed. An excellent way to accomplish this is through the use of whiteboard and text animation videos. These types of videos are also very affordable and easy to make. Using a tool like mysimpleshow makes the video creation quite simple, as you just need to grab images, add text, and then move them around to your liking. Then, once you find an idea and concept that works with an audience, you can continue to tweak and customize it until it’s perfect. If there was ever an example for how important and effective animation and explainer videos are, this video is it. I don’t know many people that actually care how deep the ocean is, or would even spend 10 second to read about it… but when it’s in visual form, it can result in millions of views and new social followers or customers. If you aren’t too familiar with the concept of whiteboard and animation video, or how you can start using them for your own brand or business, check out this article with 17 great examples . 3. Develop Brand Mentions with Industry Experts and Video Interviews How many times have you visit a top influencer blog or online marketing guru site and then started seeing their advertisements and videos on Facebook? It happens all the time, and we will actually cover this in more detail in the next point. What I want to focus on now however, is the importance of video branding and visual association with other experts and trusted brands within a given niche. These videos work well for many reasons. They improve brand awareness and build reputation points as well. It’s not just about people searching for your videos. It’s also about them searching for who you might be doing an interview with. There are a number of tools out there to help with the tracking of social media mentions, while also providing you with some valuable data on who the top experts are within your space — which could lead to more interview and partnering opportunities. The best examples of these co-branded videos are often seen with one-to-one video interviews and webinars, which are then turned into sponsored content on social media. It’s usually Q&A for the first half, then upselling for something in the second portion. If you see someone interviewing or having a chat with someone else you know and trust, you are also more likely to follow and trust them as well. Plus, think about how many people you could be reaching when the person you are interviewing also shares it with their audience. This is something Russell Brunson has been doing for a while to grow his company. Head over to his YouTube account and you can see one of his interviews with Tony Robbins. Once you have something like that in place, you can keep marketing it and milking it for all it’s worth — since Tony is such a well-known and trusted name. Also, once you start to secure bigger names for interviews and JV opportunities, it will make the process of bringing in other influencers much easier. By using social media to host and promote this content, you are also growing a community forum around the content with comments, questions, and sharing. 4. Set Up a Remarketing Video Campaign We’ve covered a bunch of different ways to create video content, but not so much on how to effectively target your audience. As with all advertising, it’s ideal to show your best advertisements and ad copies to audiences that are already familiar with your brand or what you have to offer. Once again, this is where the magic of social media advertising comes into play once again. Through the use of remarketing, one can create an ad campaign that will deliver specific advertisements to audiences that have either been to your site and left, subscribed to your mailing list, or are already a follower of your social accounts. These types of video campaigns are ideal with upselling and bringing users back to complete a process they might not have acted on. These are commonly used with webinars as well, often being reminders that a webinar offer is closing and to act soon. There are many different methods for setting these types of campaigns up, and Adespresso has an excellent guide on the different options available. Through the use of custom audiences, you can even create campaigns and retarget users based on how much of your video they watched. Another great thing about remarketing ads is that your advertising dollars are spent more efficiently. Since your ads are being seen by people that are already interested in something you offer, they are more likely to click and buy. Not only can this lead to increased conversions, but also lower ad costs as a result of a much higher click through rate. Video is Here and It’s Also the Future! After skimming through each of the video creation and marketing examples laid out above, you should have some nice ideas for implement similar concepts into your own business and brand. The concept of using video to create content and target your audience is nothing new, but the methods in which you are reach, engage and upsell your video marketing is. Be sure to start using these methods today, as video isn’t just here right now… it’s also the future of all online, offline, and social media engagement. Get started with these 7 video ideas every business should feature on their website. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading

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4 Proven Methods to Increase Your Website Conversions

The post 4 Proven Methods to Increase Your Website Conversions appeared first on HostGator Blog . Are you actively creating new content for your website or blog, only to find that you seem to be wasting more time than anything else? If so, then you will find a lot of value in today’s article. With more than a BILLION active websites and blogs on the internet today, there are a few things you need to know: There is now more competition than ever to rank in Google Every topic has already been written about a thousand times over For content to make money, it needs to have traffic and call-to-action The best business models are ones with a direct focus and need on their audience Remarketing similar products and services to your site visitors is key By reminding yourself of these five key points, you will find a lot more success in blogging and content creation . It’s also important to remember that people are using the internet for three main reasons, which are 1) to buy something, 2) to find information, 3) to be entertained. Cater to any of these needs with an ending call-to-action, and you are on the right track. At the same time, it’s extremely important to make sure you have a marketing plan in place as well. Just creating content and hoping to rank in the search results is no longer a viable plan. With all of this in mind, let’s take a look at a some of the many different ways to create valuable content and marketing methods that continues to make money time and time again. 1. Have a Great Call-To-Action on Your Main Page When you look at any of the top websites on the internet today (especially in online marketing and business services), you will see that most of them have a direct call-to-action, or CTA , on their main page. Here’s an example of HostGator’s: There are plenty of reasons for this, but two of the most obvious are that you only have a few seconds to make a great first impression and to get the user to act on whatever you have to offer. Another reason, is that simple micro-sized actions usually have much higher conversions and engagement in the long run. Let’s take a look at a couple examples of this below. With more entrepreneurs, content creators, and affiliates jumping into the world of ecommerce, there is a huge untapped market that is searching for answers daily. One of the biggest problems ecommerce sites are facing, is trying to find winning products that are in demand, have low competition, and also offer higher profit margins. All of this can be summed up nicely in the “Find products for your store in minutes” call-to-action that is found right on the home page of Oberlo . Throw in the addition of the product image and a visual on the retail price and potential profit, and you can only imagine the conversion rate on this homepage alone. At the same time, when having any type of product or service, it’s a huge benefit if your brand is actually using that same solution itself. Another example of this can be seen on OptinMonster , which is a popular WordPress plugin that has a whole collection of popup and call-to-action lead generation tools for site owners to use. Once you start to scroll away from their site and appear to close it out, they have a popup window that appears and discusses the topic of “Cart Abandonment.” For anyone already visiting the site, they are likely already interested in how to improve their business and user engagement for the better, and this is a perfect way to show not only what their service has to offer, but how it can work for other site owners and brands as well. These are just a few working examples of how to create excellent home page calls-to-action that grab the interest of your audience and make them want to convert and become a paying customer right away. 2. Focus on How To Content, Case Studies and Live Webinars When most people visit Google, they are often searching for information to solve a problem or to help them with a decision or process. By creating content that caters to this audience, gives them value, and then direction, not only will you be providing a service, you can also turn such traffic into leads and sales as well. “How To” guides and “Tutorials” are some of the best ways to accomplish this. Just think about what your service or business offers, then reverse the process and recommend it to your audience as the solution to their problem. For example, thousands of individuals and brands are starting a new website or blog for the first time. While this might seems like nothing for the majority of us, it can be quite a daunting task for anyone attempting this the first time around. HostGator has a whole slew of tutorials and reference guides on our site for how to get started, and we also offer several live webinars as well. And just like how millions of people will be starting a new website or blog today, the same is true with social media. It’s not just about how many people will actively go live on new platform, but also how they use it for their business or brand. Even if they aren’t new to the social platform, they might be new to the concept of advertising with them — and those businesses and services out there that cater to this need will continue to generate new business as well. Another example of how to use case studies and brand examples to provide new leads and sales for your business, is to show how other companies are doing something right (such as social media marketing), and then how your customers can follow along and do the same. This Zappos case study is a great example of how a site is leveraging the success and branding of another brand, then offering a relevant service to their audience — hoping to turn them into customers. Often times, these types of case studies and resource guides go into super detail on how complex and time-consuming it actually is to create a winning strategy, and then sell that formula and service instead. Again, this all goes back to knowing your target audience and catering to their needs. These are just a few examples to consider when trying to come up with new content ideas and calls-to-action for your site, while also driving new traffic and leads in the process. 3. Product Information, Review Articles and Testimonials Matter We already know that a ton of people are going to Google everyday to learn new things and to research processes to accomplish whatever their personal or business goals are. But what about product and service information? Sure, there are millions of websites about products and services out there, but some do it better than others. Just having a product page with generic information will get you nowhere. Instead, shopping comparison and niche review sites do this extremely well. This is something Amazon has revolutionized over the past several years. Just take a look at any product on their site, and then you will see a ton of product recommendations based on other customer viewing and purchases. Just imagine how much of an increase Amazon sees in order size, thanks to these little recommendations and ratings throughout their site. This method also works very well for affiliate marketing and commission-based lead generation as well. Since site owners and bloggers are pretty good at social media and SEO, it’s actually one of the most popular and effective ways to drive traffic and revenue to some of the top sites on the internet. A perfect example of this can be seen in this HostGator review , which highlights nearly all aspects of the hosting platform. You can bet that anyone looking for a hosting plan and coming across this page will find all of the information they need, and are most certainly ready to take action in the process. At the same time, there are also user reviews and ratings placed throughout the site as well. And with Inc.com recently reporting that “ 84 percent of people trust online reviews as much as friends ”, you can only imagine how well such testimonials and reviews work, even when we don’t actually know the individuals posting them. These examples show how product ratings and testimonials can make a huge improvement to conversions on a shopping or review site, but this method can be effective for any kind of business, from solopreneurs to small businesses . A couple more content ideas are product/service “alternatives” and “review” style posts. You can also write content on your competition and then recommend your own services or products as the better option. If you know your target audience, cater content to exactly what they are looking for, and provide them with real value — they will then likely take action while they are on your site. 4. Run Your Business with EverGreen Content Many of the methods highlighted in the points above are focused on engagement and impulse buying, while some are specifically targeted towards audiences that are already in buying mode. If someone is searching for information on an individual process or product, they are likely already in action mode. Why not create valuable content that can keep working for you for several months and years to come? This is often referred to as “ evergreen content .” In short, this means it’s something that is always in demand and won’t go out of style anytime soon. Here are a few ideas on winning evergreen topics: health/weight loss finance/making money education/employment birthdays, weddings & graduations If you have content (or a business) that caters to any of these areas, you can continually generate traffic and leads everyday of the year. This is usually easier for businesses that already have a focus in these areas, but there are also plenty of opportunities for any brand to tap into these evergreen markets as well. A winning evergreen content strategy can look something like the chart below. It’s not just about pushing out as much content as possible, but instead creating as much value within one post, which can also be promoted and referenced to time and time again. The good news is that this type of content can be created for nearly any type of business model or customer audience that you might have in place. For example, starting a new website or blog isn’t limited to just those who are tech-savvy. Through the use of articles focused on topics like “How to Lose Weight and Blog Your Journey ” or “ Create a Site for Your Upcoming Wedding! “, site owners can create compelling content for an audience, while also monetizing it through the use of HostGator and their affiliate program . Again, this goes back to the providing your audience with a “walk through,” having a call-to-action in place, and also adding in the “evergreen” component as well. How to Make a Solid Content Creation and Marketing Plan For the most part, content creation is the easy part. You can take any of the examples and concepts above, reverse engineer your end call-to-action or monetization process, and then create content around it. If you aren’t a good writer, you can simply map out these data points and then hand it off to a freelancer to complete. But as we noted, content creation is only half of the battle. With more than two million sites and blogs going live daily , you need to have an effective marketing strategy in place. It doesn’t matter if you focus on paid, SEO, or social media — as long as you have at least one in place. Before you leave this article, run through the list one more time, take some notes and then start thinking about how you can improve your business model and engagement with better main page call-to-actions, using reference guides and webinars, and also implementing evergreen content in the mix. Your competition is likely already doing many of these, and now it’s time for you to do the same. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading

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7 Things You Can Do with Gator Website Builder

The post 7 Things You Can Do with Gator Website Builder appeared first on HostGator Blog . Choosing the right website builder can be a little overwhelming. You’ve got a lot of options and reviewing the different features in each can lead to as much confusion as it does answers, especially if you’re new to building websites and don’t really know what you’re looking for. To help you out, we’ll explain seven useful things you can do with our new Gator Website Builder in clear terms anyone can understand—no confusing jargon for beginners or vague references to features you don’t really understand, just simple explanations of actions you can take once you invest in Gator. 1. Choose from hundreds of mobile-friendly designs. Part of what makes website builders easy to use is that you can start from a template—that’s a design that gets the basic structure and style of your website in place. Then all you have to do is change what’s there to bring it in line with what you want. Gator provides over 200 templates that have been designed by professionals that each: Are responsive , which means that the template can adapt to whatever browser or device size your visitors come from. You don’t have to do anything extra to make sure your website is mobile friendly, since you’ll be starting with a responsive design. Adhere to web design best practices. You don’t have to learn all the tips for what people respond to best in a website, because our designers have already done that and made sure your website design incorporates what works. Are useful for common website purposes . Whether you’re starting a small jewelry eCommerce business, building a website for your auto shop, or launching a photography blog , you can find a template designed with your purpose in mind. Having a good template to start with goes a long way to making the rest of the process of building your website easier. Gator has you covered on that front.   2. Personalize your website’s style and color scheme. With Gator’s intuitive editing software, you can easily change out the colors of your template to bring them in line with the color scheme you have in mind. Changing colors is as simple as clicking on the element you want to change, clicking on the color icon in the menu, and choosing your color. You can change the general layout of the page by clicking on “Change Design” and selecting from the options provided. You can change the background image, add in visual effects, or even bring an animation component in with the Style section. And you can move different parts of the page by clicking on the element you want to move, dragging it to the place you want it to be, and dropping it there. Even though you start from someone else’s design, you can quickly and easily make the website’s look and style your own with these intuitive features.   3. Load unique images, media, and copy. The other easy way to make the website your own is to add your original images and media to the site. Loading your own logo, photographs, or images you designed yourself is easy enough. You can use them to replace images already in the template, or drag them to the spot you want them to be in. You’ll also need to update the placeholder text in the template with words that accurately reflect what your website is all about and why your visitors should care. Simply highlight the text that’s there and type in new words. Or, to add text where there the template doesn’t have any yet, choose text in the Elements section of the menu and select either heading (for larger text that will introduce a section of the page) or paragraph (for smaller, longer blocks of text that provide more detail).   4. Easily find free stock photos. Images are a crucial component of any website. Not only do they make your web pages look better, but they play a big role in how people interact with them—to the degree that 80% are more likely to read your content if you include an image and they’re 64% more likely to remember what they read. But finding good, affordable images to use for your website can be a difficult and time consuming process. And it’s even more challenging if you’re hoping to stick with images you can use for free—unless you use Gator. Gator comes with dozens of stock images included. Each time you want to add an image to a page, you’ll have the option to click on a tab that says Stock Images, and browse photographs that are divided into useful categories. Easy access to a variety of high-quality images can make your life much easier when designing a new website.   5. Create and manage a blog. Blogs are useful for all sorts of websites. If you’re building a personal site, it’s a good way to share your thoughts with the world. For business sites, blogging is a powerful marketing tool. And for anyone who wants their website to be easy for visitors to find, it’s one of the best ways to help your website show up more often in Google . For anyone using Gator, adding and maintaining a blog is simple. You can choose your blog design and add new posts in the same menu you use for the rest of designing your website. Consistently writing really great blog posts that your visitors will love will still take time and work, but the technical side of things is taken care of when you use Gator.   6. Set up a store. Not everyone building a website needs eCommerce capability, but if you want the ability to sell products or services through your website and securely accept payment, then these features are a must. In Gator, a simple upgrade enables you to list your products, include a shopping cart, and set up a secure checkout experience for your customers. If you want your website to start making you money fast, Gator provides all the functionality you need without requiring any special skills.   7. Track your visits and visitor actions. If you want your website to be successful, you should pay attention to how people interact with it. Gator puts useful website analytics right in the same dashboard you use for the rest of your web design and management, including: The number of people who have visited your site How many of them are visiting for the first time (unique visitors) How many different page visits you got (which tells you how many visitors went to more than one page while on your website) And how many visitors clicked away soon after coming to your website (your bounce rate ) That information will help you understand if your website is doing what you want it to . If you’re not getting as many visitors as you want, you can figure out the best online marketing strategy to make it easier for people to find you. And if people aren’t sticking around or taking the actions you want once they’re on the site, you know to change up how your site looks or what your pages say to see if you get better results.   Get Your Website Going with Gator Website Builder Gator provides advanced capabilities accessible with a beginner’s level of knowledge. And it’s not only affordable, with plans starting at $3.95 a month, but it also comes with web hosting included in the price. That saves you time and trouble, while helping you get your awesome new website up ASAP. Build your website with Gator now. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading

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