Search Engine Marketing

Search Engine Marketing

4 Reasons Why Your SEM Strategy Won’t Work

Failed SEO Strategy

SEM strategy makes up a big and important part of most business marketing strategies in Philadelphia. This is so because this marketing tactic is highly effective and has a proven track record of generating results. However, certain marketing mistakes often result in the failure of SEM strategies, and most businesses just cannot seem to decipher the reason for it.

You might be guilty of making some of these mistakes yourself and might not even be aware of it. This article is missioned to shine a light on these common marketing mistakes that prevent your SEM strategy from working.

4 Common Mistakes that Fail Your SEM Strategy

You Have a Substandard Website

Search engines such as Google create an ad rank for your website based on a few factors and then list your ads according to that rank. One of the factors that the search engine algorithms weigh in when creating an ad rank is the quality and experience of your website.

A substandard website that lacks adequate information, has a slow loading time, stutters and lags a lot, and is complicated to use can hugely impact your ad rank. Moreover, if users are presented with a never-ending collection of spam content, that too will worsen your ad rank. It would be better to hire a professional web developing service and have your website properly optimized in such a case.

You’re Only Using SEM

One of the biggest yet also the most common mistakes that new businesses tend to make is not to use SEO in conjunction with SEM. Although the two may seem like polar opposites, on the contrary, they go hand-in-hand by promoting both your organic and paid traffic. The best part is that SEO doesn’t cost you anything meaning that you won’t have to stretch your marketing budget beyond what it already is.

Furthermore, SEM is a more conversion-focused strategy, meaning that it can get you a better SERP ranking, but without good SEO content, you won’t be able to retain the traffic you’re getting. Poor traffic retention also plays a vital role in bringing down your ad rank, thereby failing your SEM strategy as a whole.

You’re Advertising on Multiple Marketing Platforms without Tracking Results

The thing is that advertising on multiple marketing platforms does not necessarily mean that you’re advertising to a larger audience, as some of these marketing platforms may not have a substantial amount of your target audience.

So essentially, what you’re doing is, that you are allocating your financial resources to markets that do not give you a justifiable ROI wasting your valuable time and capital. Tracking your results will help you determine which platforms are worth investing in, thereby allowing you to allocate a larger portion of your marketing budget for the said marketing platform.

You Do Not Have a Dedicated Landing Page

As mentioned before, SEM is a conversion-focused strategy and so the landing page your traffic is routed to should contribute to that purpose with as little effort as possible. Irrelevant or overly lengthy landing pages will drive away traffic which will directly result in a lower ad rank.

Final Thoughts

To execute an effective SEM strategy, you need the assistance of a marketing agency that has the knowledge and experience to plan and constantly improve upon your marketing approach so that it does not lose its effectiveness over time. Philly Online Marketing is a professional digital marketing agency that has served many businesses across Philadelphia with their marketing strategies. For more details about their services, visit their website.

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Search Engine Marketing

The 4 Big Differences between SEO and SEM

SEARCH MARKETING

SEM and SEO marketing are two of the most effective elements of any marketing strategy of a modern-day business in Philadelphia. However, many business owners appear to be unaware of how these two marketing strategies differ. This article will help you understand the biggest differences between SEO and SEM strategies.

What Are the Differences between SEO and SEM?

SEO and SEM have the same end purpose; to get your business website on a search engine’s top result slots. However, the way in which they achieve this slightly differs; the following are some of the main differences between SEO and SEM:

SEM Appears as an Ad While SEO Does Not

On the search engine’s result page, the search results that you are presented with as a consequence of SEO or SEM are distinguishably different. If you invest in SEM to get your business ranked on the result page, your business website appears as an advertisement with an icon saying “Ad” labeling it so. Meanwhile, if you use SEO, on the other hand, no such marking appears on your business website, and it looks like just any other search result.

SEM Results Have an Ad Extension While SEO Results Don’t

When comparing SEM with SEO, you will notice that other than the “Ad” icon, there is another distinguishable difference in the appearance of the search results due to the two respective marketing strategies. Ad extensions, which might include additional links, callouts, and phone numbers, often accompany SEM search results. On the other hand, SEO results may appear in search with featured snippets that give the users a quick glimpse into the content of your website.

You Pay Each Time a User Clicks on an SEM Result

SEM strategy is a paid form of advertisement in which you will be charged for each click a consumer makes on your site listed on the result page of a search engine. As a result, you will need to allocate a budget to keep running your SEM advertisements. On the other hand, SEO marketing is an organic form of marketing and so is completely free.

However, it is important to note that with SEO, the competition is very intense, with thousands of businesses competing for a high rank on the result page of a search engine. With SEM, although you do have to bid for a keyword, the competition is not nearly as intense as with SEO.

SEM Gives Immediate Results While SEO Takes Time

Since SEM is a form of paid advertisement, your ad starts appearing on the result page of search engines as soon as you commence your ad campaign as is the case with all forms of paid advertisements. Additionally, you have the flexibility to pause and resume your ad campaign at any time in accordance with your budget and preference.

In contrast, SEO takes time to improve the SERP rank of your website. SEO works by manipulating the rank-determining factors used by search engine algorithms into placing your business website among the top ranks. This is a slow process and can take months for your site to gradually make its way into a noticeable SERP rank.

Concluding Thoughts

Knowing the differences between SEO and SEM strategies is not enough to properly integrate them into your overall marketing strategy. You need the assistance of a professional. Philly Online Marketing is a professional digital marketing agency that has served many businesses across Philadelphia to perfectly execute SEM and SEO marketing strategies. For more details about their services, visit their website.

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Online Marketing | Search Engine Marketing | Uncategorized

Important – Add Your Business Website to the FREE Google Search Console.

Google Search Console

Philly Online Marketing has been doing internet marketing for local businesses over 20 years. Consistently we are finding businesses that had no idea they needed the Google Search Console(Formerly: Google Webmaster Tools). They thought all they needed was a website or that there website person took care of it..sorry its not that easy. The Google Search Console is an extremely important necessity for your business and the health of your website. The more places your Business is found on Google the better chance you have of getting someone to find your website. The Google Search Console assures that everything on your website is being indexed and if not it will tell you why and what needs to be fixed. It will give you most everything you need to know about the health of your website and getting your website indexed on Google correctly.

Discover how Google Searches—and the world—sees your website. These are all GREAT reasons why you need the Google Search Console:

  • Which queries(Search words) caused your site to appear in the search results?
  • Did some queries result in more traffic to your site than others so you can get more!
  • Are your product prices, company contact info, or events highlighted in rich search results?
  • Which sites are linking to your website?
  • Google’s Mobile First Indexing just rolled out July 2018 – Is your mobile site performing well for visitors searching on mobile?

Why use the Search Console?

Monitor your site’s performance in the Google Search results:

  • Make sure that Google can access your content
  • Submit new content for crawling and remove content you don’t want shown in search results
  • Create and monitor content that delivers visually engaging search results
  • Maintain your site with minimal disruption to search performance
  • Monitor and resolve malware or spam issues so your site stays clean

3 Steps To Adding Your Website Property to the Google Search Console

  1. Add Your Website to the Search Console – Try to sign in using the same Google account you use for all your business needs. When adding your website to the Search Console any change from HTTP to HTTPS represents a different website. Any change from a WWW subdomain to no subdomain is different. Your data will be wrong if the property that you have verified with Google Search Console differs from the website that Google is serving in the search results. You can tell Google your Preferred Domain
  2. Submit your XML sitemap – Its a map of all the links on your website.
  3. Verify ownership – May need to click on the “Alternate methods”

Typically it now takes a day or 2 until Google completely crawls your website. Once crawled by Google review the Search Console for website errors blocking your site from being indexed and get them fixed. You may have notifications from Google that were never addressed. It may tell you to set up Google my Business – If not set up already by all means DO IT. See what words and how many words your site is being indexed on Google as well as where each word ranks on Google(Page Position). I’m finding may of my clients are getting indexed on average for 500 to 1000 search terms(This can very widely depending on your type of business). If you see that your website is showing below these figures its probably time to get to work. You’ll need to update your website or build a new site or call in an SEO professional.

Also take a look in the Search Console under Search Traffic – Links to Your Site

Other websites that link over to your website play a primary factor in Google’s algorithm. Links Are Credibility..they give your website Authority. When many sites link to one of your web pages, even better. Link popularity works like any popularity contest. You want a lot of votes from businesses local to you and in your field of business. Preferably from other sites that already have high Credibility/Authority. However don’t buy links they need to be earned slowly over time. Buying links is a good way to get your site penalized at Google. This Links section helps you understand who links to you, what content gets linked most, and what anchor text other sites use to link to you. If you are a US based business and see several overseas URLs unrelated to your business you may have an issue which could be hurting your rankings.

Who should use the Search Console?

Anyone with a website! From generalist to specialist, from newbie to advanced, the Search Console will help you grow your business online to its fullest capacity.

Even if you don’t think you know how to use Search Console, you should be aware of it and become familiar with the basics. You might hire your webmaster or a marketing specialist to help you set up your website with Search Console. In that case, you can work with that person to ensure you have access and control to all of the reports for your website. In addition, it’s a good idea to learn all you can about how your site is performing in search results so you can make important business decisions about your site.

Once you are comfortable with the Google Search Console step 2 is to do the same for Bing by adding your website to their Search Console/Webmaster Tool.

Need Help getting Started? You can reach us at our Website – As of today the Search Console has our website indexed for 834 Search Terms!

Philly Online Marketing has helped businesses develop unique and effective digital marketing programs that drive incremental revenue opportunities so your business can get more sales and leads. Highly proficient in digital marketing including SEM, SEO, Display, Remarketing, content syndication, mobile, web design and social networking. We are Google and Yahoo/Bing Certified, Google Adwords, Google Analytics & More.  Call 215-384-4568 if you have any questions of concerns. Find out how much you never knew about your Website and how you can gain more Customers.

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Digital Marketing | Search Engine Marketing | Search Engine Optimization

3 Ways Combining Search Advertising + SEO Enhances Your Digital Marketing

SEO + Search Marketing

By MELISSA WOODRING

Many people look at search advertising and SEO as two separate marketing strategies. And, while they do yield different results and can help you reach different goals, there are many ways that your search advertising and SEO efforts can complement each other and lead to a more successful strategy online. Here are three ways using search advertising and SEO can enhance your digital marketing.

1. Increase Brand Awareness

Combining search advertising and SEO provides extra exposure on the search engine results pages (SERPs), which can increase brand awareness. Even if you rank in the top spot in organic SERPs, a PPC ad at the top of the page can improve traffic by 50%. If you’re dominating both the organic and paid search results page, then your website traffic is more likely to increase.

Additionally, SEO is a long-term strategy, and it can take a little time before you start to notice your efforts paying off. So, running a paid search campaign while you’re building up your organic presence can help you see more immediate results as your ad can show while you’re working to make search engines love your website.

Increases visibility and reach: Search advertising and SEO work hand in hand to increase your online visibility and reach. SEO helps you rank higher in organic search results, while search advertising allows you to place paid ads at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs) for specific keywords. By combining these two strategies, you can dominate the search results page and reach more potential customers.

2. Provide Insights to Help You Improve Campaigns

The data you get from your search advertising and SEO campaigns can be analyzed and applied to other aspects of your digital marketing. Through your search advertising campaigns, you can check which keywords and text ads have the highest conversion rate and use that information to improve your SEO strategy. You can also see which keywords or phrases are bringing in the most organic visits, and use those insights to refine your PPC ads. For example, if you’re a mechanic and notice that “Tire Repair Dallas” is your top-performing organic keyword phrase, you can run search advertising campaigns around that portion of your business to attract both paid and organic traffic.

Provides valuable data and insights: Both search advertising and SEO provide valuable data and insights that can help you optimize your digital marketing campaigns. Search advertising allows you to track the performance of your ads, including impressions, clicks, and conversions. SEO provides data on your website’s traffic, user behavior, and keyword rankings. By combining this data, you can gain a deeper understanding of your target audience and how they interact with your website.

3. Help You Target the Right People & Try New Things

The data you collect from your PPC and SEO campaigns can also help you uncover details about your target audience, which can help you launch an even more integrated strategy to boost your brand and reputation online. It also gives you the flexibility to try new things. Since search advertising often yields quicker results, it can be a good way to test out a new target area to see if you can draw in customers from a different location. From there, you can implement the strategy into your SEO campaign.

Increases overall ROI: Combining search advertising and SEO can lead to increased ROI (Return on Investment) for your digital marketing campaigns. By targeting both paid and organic search results, you can capture more clicks and conversions. Additionally, optimizing your website for SEO can lead to increased website traffic and improved user experience, which can lead to more conversions over time. By combining these strategies, you can maximize the impact of your digital marketing budget and improve your overall ROI.

A combined search advertising and SEO strategy can help you in many areas of your online marketing. To learn more about how using multiple digital marketing strategies can help you improve your online presence and see more results, visit our Solutions.

Brian Brown
Digital Marketing Consultant

215-384-4568

150 Monument Rd. | Suite 207  | Bala Cynwyd, PA 19004

Email: [email protected]

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Search Engine Marketing | Search Engine Optimization

How to Improve your Google Places Listing in Philadelphia, PA

Google Places listings on Google search results plays a crucial part in how your local customers contact or get in touch with you. Not long ago when you searched for a local business Google would show a map with about 7 businesses listed next to it. Google now moved the map to the top right of your screen and those Google Business listings are getting listed at the top of the search and, quite often, above all that time and effort you spent doing SEO.  So your Local Business Listing is now called your Google Places listing and its now more important than ever.  Below is a 2 part article that I recommend not only Philadelphia Businesses to read over but all local businesses who find it important to be at the top of the Google search.

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Search Engine Marketing | Search Engine Optimization

Tips on Improving your Google Places Rankings – Philadelphia Internet Advertising

Improve your Google Places Business Listing rankings in Philadelphia, PA with these 3 Easy to follow tips steps. Google is now ranking business’s “Google Places Listing” above all that hard work they put in trying to get top rankings through search engine optimization(SEO). With that in mind your Google Places Listing has become very important to business owners. Here are parts 1, 2 and 3 on how to improve your Google Places rankings.

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Digital Marketing | Online Marketing | Search Engine Marketing | Search Engine Optimization

Philadelphia Small Businesses Are Discovering Local Online Marketing

When is the last time you picked up the Yellow Pages to find a local Philadelphia business? If you’re like most people, it was probably years ago. Now think about the last time you used Google to help you do the same thing. It was probably a matter of days. Local online marketing is the future of small business. In fact, it’s not just the future; it’s the present.

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Search Engine Marketing | Search Engine Optimization

Philadelphia SEO – Follow Theses 8 SEO Rules and Your Website Will Do Well

I read this 8 SEO Rules article a couple months ago but find myself sending it out to one client after another.  I fully believe it makes a lot of sense.  There are over 200 variables you can manipulate on your website to help increase your rankings on Google.  Trying to do that many would drive anyone crazy.  However if you keep to these 8 basic steps you will do well.  If you are a local business I highly recommend reading this very carefully…any questions feel free to give me a ring. Philadelphia SEO can be achieved by following these 8 SEO Rules.

Brian Brown at Philly Online Marketing 215-384-4568

SEO can be overwhelming so here are 8 basic steps.

8 Durable SEO Elements
by Erez Barak, September 26, 2011

Recent changes to Google’s search ranking algorithms and highly publicized search penalization of well-known brands, have caused much angst in the SEO community. However, Google’s changes to its algorithms aren’t new. Seasoned SEOs have experienced major algorithm changes over the last decade. In fact, Google has confirmed making on average at least one change per day to its search algorithms. Clearly change is here to stay.  How do you minimize the impact of these inevitable changes? Focus your efforts on the durable elements of SEO. These are the cardinal elements of SEO that will stay true regardless of Google’s ongoing improvements to its algorithms. These eight durable elements will withstand the test of time because they are aligned with Google’s explicit statements and implicit motivations. Here’s a rundown of these elements and practical steps you can take to align your website with them.

1. Basic On-Page SEO Rules
The basic keyword SEO rules per the Google Webmaster’s SEO Guide are easy to communicate and easy to follow. Google wants you to follow these rules, because it makes crawling easier for their bots, which leads to better results for users, and in turn, helps Google with market share. Make sure your pages are optimized for these basic SEO rules. Include target keywords in your URLs, titles, meta tags, H1s, etc. Determine which pages rank for which keywords. Then use the right keywords to double-down your efforts on these pages.

2. Inbound Quality Links
An inbound link from an external website to your website signals to Google that the content it’s pointing at is relevant to the subject surrounding that link. Quality inbound links aren’t easy to amass and they require your content to be good enough for someone else to reference. For these reasons, quality inbound links are believed to have the biggest impact on ranking. Continue building your inbound links through white hat content syndication and promotions. Create unique content that others will want to reference and link to. Build relationships with other web writers, so they are aware of your content. Link Building

3. Authority
Google’s Internet is a meritocracy and authority is essentially your assigned status within this order. To date, Google has confirmed using only Google PageRank and social media authority as the two types of authority signals in their ranking algorithm. A website’s authority is factored into rankings. There will always be those who attempt to game the system rather than advance on merit, so diminished authority is one way Google punishes fraud. Build your authority by creating unique content and follow white hat practices. Build relationships with authoritative sites and users. Pursue links from them to benefit from their authority too.

4. User Experience
Google wants their users to be satisfied. If Google gives high ranks to bad websites, with terrible designs, slow page load speed, and difficult-to-navigate pages, users will look for alternative search solutions. A fast page load speed and a low bounce rate are two measureable indications of a good user experience. Additional qualitative measures include a nice design, easy navigation and a good UI. Basically, anything that makes a user remain on your site and read more. Keep your site updated, measure your bounce rate and page load speed, and create clear alignment between the keywords you target, your content and the experience you’re creating for your visitors.

5. Freshness
If relevancy is the name of the game, then freshness is its nickname. The world is evolving and so is the web, and freshness of co

ntent will always be an indication of a site keeping up with the world. Freshness is a supporting factor to a site’s authority and plays a huge part in news ranking. Keep creating new content as well as updating existing content. Link to it internally from indexed pages as well as syndicate it on social media. Register your site and submit a sitemap to Google. If you have a news site, register to be on the Google News Index.

6. Diversity
To borrow from the capital investment world, diversification minimizes your systematic risk allowing you higher overall return on investment, and it would appear Google follows this rule. Google prefers diversity in the format and content of its results. Use multiple formats to deliver your content on the same page – video, presentations, images – and publish unique pages for diverse content to optimize for long tail terms. Submit a unique sitemap to Google for formats other than text.

7. Feedback
In order to gauge their effectiveness, Google must collect feedback on its work. From machine input, like click through rate and bounce rate, to human input, like human evaluators, Google’s “manual intervention” and Google +1, Google will keep collecting feedback to improve its results. Use only white hat tactics, be relevant and optimize your pages to the actual content on them. In addition, syndicate, promote and give people an easy way to share their feedback.

8. Compatibility with Updated Technology
Being compatible with new technologies such as new browsers is important to the overall user experience. Freshness is always good practice when it comes to being on top. As an example, consider mobile devices. With the emergence and rapid growth of the mobile market, we can see how and why, in the future, Google will discount sites that aren’t mobile device-compatible. Make sure your site is up-to-date with the latest mainstream technology. For example, verify that your mobile site is indexed by Google and submit a mobile sitemap.

Summary
These are the eight durable rules of SEO. Follow and implement them on your website to maximize your SEO results and maintain your website rankings over time.

 

Brian Brown is a Digital Marketing Consultant in Philadelphia with over 20 yrs experience.

Brian Brown
Digital Marketing Consultant
215-384-4568
Email: [email protected]
150 Monument Rd | Suite 207 | Bala Cynwyd, PA 19004

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Online Marketing | Search Engine Marketing | Search Engine Optimization

More Metatag Help for Local Philadelphia Businesses

I have done several posts about the importance and value of meta tags. However, I still see clients regularly with wrong meta tags or typically they use the same tag on every page of their website.  I read this good article below that I feel can help local Philadelphia business owners have a better understanding about meta tags to gain better rankings and more sales.  While the article points out that meta tags are not the one key to top rankings they due stress there importance and how to best use them. Be sure each page of your website has a unique Title Tag and Meta Tags. Remember each word in your tags MUST match words that are listed on the web page exactly.

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Digital Marketing | Online Marketing | Search Engine Marketing

How to Find Free Ways to Market Businesses Online – Philadelphia Internet Advertising

I just read the article below this morning and found it very helpful so wanted to share. I find so many businesses not doing #12 and you’ll see my previous blog posts talk about this. Some of the techniques are more effective than others, some have a faster learning curves than others but I tend to agree with these suggestions. I hope you find them useful.

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