What is PPC and How It Works

PPC - Pay Per Click - Also called Cost Per Click / CPC is a form of online advertising that uses real time bidding to direct traffic to websites. Advertisers only pay when the ad is actually clicked by an end user. The end user or searcher types a search query or search term into their web browser, as the searcher looks for an answer to their search query, the advertiser has an opportunity to connect with the user by bidding on those search queries or keywords. Each time a user sees an ad containing their keyword(s), it is called an Impression.

Once the searcher finds a potential answer to their search or query, they’ll be inclined to click on the link that directs them to the website they are looking for. For our purposes, this could be a paid listing or an organic listing. The paid listing is what we call Pay Per Click.

Search and Display Ads - Are The Two Main Kinds of PPC

Search ad is when a user is searching for a query on search engine, a text ad shows up at the top of a SERP (Search Engine Results Page). Based on the advertiser’s bid, and ad quality/ ad rank, the ad will appear higher on the top of the SERP.

Display ad is when a searcher or user is reading content about their query and a display ad is shown to them based on the content of the relevant webpage or landing page.

It is good to note that Search and Display ads typically reach potential customers at different points in the buying funnel. Most likely, someone clicking on a Display ad is in the process of learning about a product or idea. Still they are towards the top of the buying funnel, in the discovery phase. A searcher who clicks on a Search ad is usually closer to making a buying decision, and is therefore more likely to convert. 

Lets have a look at how you can use PPC?

Google offers a lot of training and certification materials to become familiar with PPC. While PPC is available through several platforms, Google is having the best training content for beginners and is a well known search engine in the world, so Google AdWords is a good place to start your PPC campaign.

To start a PPC campaign you will need 4 major items:

• Budget 
• Ads or ad copy 
• Keywords 
• Billing information 

Google makes the process of planning easy by providing a Keyword Planning tool that can help you create keywords, as well as give you an estimate of daily traffic and spend and it even shows you an estimated budget for your PPC campaign. Hence two major things in your PPC campaign set up are answered. 

As for ads or ad copy, it is always recommended that you use two forms of ad copy so that you can test which ad performs better. Once A/B testing is done, you can optimize from there. Also keep in mind that it is a good practice to use keywords in the ad copy to make the ad copy more relevant to the searcher/user. 

For billing, just enter in your credit card information and you’re ready to go!

Now that you’re all set up, you can move into the optimization and maintenance part of your PPC campaign. You should look at the past 30 day trend for position, click through rate, impressions, clicks, cost, cost per conversion, quality score, and bounce rate. Once you are familiar with optimization and maintenance, you can work on increasing your campaign budget, so long as the margins remain profitable.

There you go. A brief explanation of PPC campaign set up - what it is, and how it works. Want to get your own campaign set up but aren’t sure how to dive deeper? Approach the experts at a renowned PPC company to help you in setting up your PPC campaign.

How to Make a Website Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners

First thing you need to do is choose which platform to build your website on. There are many different content management systems (CMS) to choose from,Some platforms require you to know a little bit of coding (HTML/CSS). If you are a beginner then it would be best to choose WordPress.

To get a new website online, you need two basic things:

• A domain name (a web address like yourbusinessname.com) 
• Hosting (a service that connects your website to the internet) 

Once you’ve bought your domain name and set up your web hosting, you’re ready on your way!

Now it’s time to get your site up and running. The first thing you will need to do is install WordPress to your website domain. 

Installing WordPress

You have 2 choices here. You can install with 1-click installation or manual installation. 

1. One Click Installation Process For WORDPRESS, JOOMLA and DRUPAL

Most web hosts will have the 1-click-installation integrated as standard within their dashboard. In your web hosting account you will find the “1-click-installation” in your account control panel.

The following are the steps you need to follow with the “1-click-installation” process. This will be the same or very similar on all other major web hosting companies websites.

• Log in to your Web hosting account. 
• Go to your control panel within your hosting account. 
• Click on “1 Click Installs” 
• Find the “WordPress” icon and click.
• Choose the domain where you want to install your website. 
• Click the “Install Now” button and that’s it! You’ll get details of how to access your new WordPress website. 

2. Manual Installation

Follow these quick and easy steps to install WordPress manually onto your server.

STEP 1:

Download WordPress official website and save it on your computer.

STEP 2:

Create a new folder on your desktop or somewhere on your computer and unzip WordPress in that folder.

STEP 3:

Find the file named wp-config-sample.php and change the name of it to:wp-config.php.You can do this by right clicking the file and selecting the option “rename”.

STEP 4:

Open the wp-config.php (with Notepad or Dreamweaver) and fill in the following lines:

define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘database_name_here’); – Database name (if you don’t know it, ask this from your hosting support)

define(‘DB_USER’, ‘username_here’); – Your hosting username

define(‘DB_PASSWORD’, ‘password_here’); – Your hosting password

Once you’ve filled in all the areas noted in the above example, save the file.

STEP 5:

Now log-in to your hosting ftp (download FileZilla for that). The FTP address is usually ftp.yourdomain.com, username and password are the same that you used to register to your host.

STEP 6:

If there is any file named “index” – delete it. After that upload all the files from your WordPress folder to your FTP server. I believe you can use “drag n drop” function in FileZilla.

STEP 7:

Once you have completed the previous steps, go the URL:yourdomain.com/wp-admin/install.php

Choosing a Theme To Make Your New Website Look Awesome!

WordPress will automatically installs a very basic theme to get you started. With WordPress you have access to thousands of themes designed by professional website developers to help you make your site look great.

You can access these themes from the “Appearance” section on the left of the dashboard. Click “Appearance” then “Themes”. Then click on the “Add New” button, select the theme you want for your website and you’re ready to install it. This is really simple. Click on the option “Install” then click “Activate”.

How to Create A New Page In Your Website

In the WordPress Dashboard sidebar look for the section called “Pages” then go to the option “Add New”. 

You will land on a page which is some where similar to Microsoft Word. It’s very similar in function too. You can add text, images, video, shortcodes and loads more. 

Once you have added the text that you want on the page, click the “publish” button.

How to Add Pages To Your Menu

To show your new page in the top navigation bar of your website, you will need to do the follow 3 steps. 

To make sure you don’t lose any of your content that you’ve created on your page, click “Update” Save your work.

In the wordpress Dashboard sidebar Click “Appearance” and then “Menus”

The page that you’ve just created will be displayed in the “Pages” box to the left of center. Click on the tick box to the pages you want added to your menu, then click “Add to Menu”.In the “Menu Structure” section, you can move the order of the pages around by just clicking and dragging into position.

How to Create Blog Post Pages

 

“Posts” are web pages where you will publish content from your blog. If your website is going to have a blog section, then “Posts” is where you’ll need to go to publish this type of content.

If you want to include a blog to your website, you can use different categories and posts. Let’s say you want to create a category named “blog”. To do so, simply add it to your menu and start making posts.

How to Create a Category

To create a new category for your blog, simply go to “Posts -> Categories”

Another way is to create a blog post by doing this…. “Posts -> Add New”. Then with your completed blog post, you just assign it the right category and you’re ready to publish.

So you’ve created your category for that particular blog post. You can then just add it to the menu, so that it’s easily accessed by one and all!

How To Install A WordPress Plugin To Help You Get The Most Out Of The Platform

Wordpress Plugins are modules or extensions that are installed into the WordPress CMS to increase the capabilities of your website. Plugins add extra features, usability, tools and much more to your site.

Plugins can turn a normal website into an online shop in just minutes. Or it can help you get up to speed on your SEO for your site, add a photo gallery, forum and just about everything else!

Installing A Plugin

To install a plugin, go to the “Plugin” section in the Dashboard menu and then select “Add New”. Use the search function to find the plugin you want for your site. Installation is very simple. Just one click and you’re done.

Conclusion

website design and development can be quite complicated and daunting for someone who have never learnt how to code or had any experience with websites. This guide helps people to get online quickly , effectively and without the need of a web developers. If you have followed all these steps in this guide, then chances are you now have a website!

What is SEO and How It Can Help Your Business?

What is SEO ?

SEO also referred to as Search Engine Optimization is the process of increasing the visibility of a website on SERPS (search engine results pages). There are many factors that need to be taken into consideration as a part of your SEO strategy.

It should include consideration how search engines work, which search engines are being used by your target audience, and what your customers are searching for. The goal is to improve the relevance of your website so that it is indexed and well positioned by the search engines.

Search engine optimization is not only having a lot of content. It also includes making sure your website is well structured with user friendly interface. It’s about making sure that you not only have content, but that it’s the right content. When “ranking” a website search engines take the quality of content and the structure of a website into consideration.

Search Engine Optimization isn’t something you do once and then you are done. The playing field is constantly changing as the search engines refine the way they work. The goal of a search engine is to deliver the most relevant results possible to the searcher.

Why is SEO Important?

90 out of 100 people use the internet to shop.

Search is the onset. bookmarks is outdated along with customer loyalty. Today’s consumer is in charge. They know what they’re looking for and they know how to find it.

If your business website is not on the first page of results it’s practically invisible.

• 97% of US internet users shop online 
• 70% of all click-through traffic in Google’s search results go to the #1 position on the page
• Organic search results are a compliment to a paid search campaign 
• Improve search engine position 
• Drive qualified traffic to your site 
• Increase conversion 
• Reduce Bounce Rate 
• Engage Customers 
• Be recognized as an authority in your niche 
• Promote your local business 

How Search Engine Works

Before we begin explaining how SEO can actually help grow your business, allow us to first explain how search engines work, and how each site is ranked accordingly. You just need to remember three things: Relevance, Importance, and Popularity. 

Relevance

How applicable or appropriate is the website to the consumer? Is it something that will help them get the answers that they need?

Importance

Does it offer crucial information or content? How good is the content?

Popularity

How much traffic does this link get as compared to others ranked in the same page? Why are more people visiting this site than the other?

If you think about it, these three are very simple and make so much sense. It represents Google’s goal of bringing good, quality content to the searching public in just a click of a button. SEO is a long-term investment that is definitely worth the costs. Though it takes a while to actually propagate (3 to 6 months, depending on how competitive the keywords being targeted are), the key results improve website traffic, lead generation, and even conversions (particularly for e-commerce websites).

The processes of Search Engine Optimization can sometimes be complex, but to give a rough breakdown of how it goes, it’s always important to start with the first step: Keyword Research. Google keyword planner tool can help with keyword research, using keyword planner tool you can see the estimated traffic that a potential keyword can get. The more frequent a keyword is searched, the more competitive it gets, and the more effort should be exerted in order for your site to rank when that specific keyword is used.

How Can SEO Help Your Business?

Increased Traffic

Top positions on the search engine result pages receive a majority of the impressions and clicks, so ranking in these top positions can result in significant traffic increases for your website. SEO also focuses on creating informative and keyword relevant title tags and meta descriptions, which show up in the result pages. Having optimized tags and descriptions helps to increase click through rate, which also promotes increases in qualified web traffic.

ROI 

SEO provides traceable and quantifiable results, regardless of whether you are an ecommerce or non-ecommerce site so there are no qualms when it comes to ROI. SEO agencies are able to track nearly every aspect of their strategy, like increases in rankings, traffic and conversions. Comprehensive analytics also provide the ability to drill down at a granular level and see demographic information and other engagement metrics for individuals who have interacted with your website. 

For Ecommerce sites, SEO Companies can see which paths users take in order to complete a sale, all the way down to which keyword they used to search for you prior to purchasing. For non-Ecommerce sites, you can attribute values to your lead conversions, like a 'contact us' form fill-out, and calculate the value of your SEO strategy that way.

Cost Effectiveness

SEO is one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies because it targets users who are actively looking for your products and services online. SEO's inbound nature helps businesses save money as opposed to outbound strategies like cold-calling. While cold-calling can still be an effective strategy, the leads generated cost 61% more than leads generated by an inbound strategy like SEO. And since SEO also targets users who are actively searching for products and services like yours, the traffic resulting from SEO is more qualified than many other marketing strategies, resulting in cost-savings for companies.

Increased Site Usability

In an effort to make your website easier to navigate for the search engines, SEO simultaneously helps to make your website more navigable for users as well. SEO consists of rearranging the site's architecture and links to make pages within the website easier to find and navigate. This not only makes it easier for search engines to crawl your site and find pages, but also makes it easier for users to find information on your website as well.

Brand Awareness

Since top position rankings result in significant impressions, having your website in these top positions on the result pages translates to more exposure for your website. Plus, being on the first page for your targeted keywords not only helps users to associate your brand with those keywords, but it instils trust, since businesses on the first page are generally perceived to be more trustworthy. The more your pages and content rank in high positions in the search engines, the more chances you have for users to see your content and associate with your brand.

Conclusion

The statistics don’t lie. Everyone is always searching for something, and what better way to take advantage of this than to show up just when they need you most? Being on the first page of Google works. Being ranked high gives back your investment. And the most effective way you can reach the first page of any search engine is through Search Engine Optimization.

What Is Digital Marketing and How It Can Help Grow Your Business

What Is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing is an umbrella term for the marketing of products or services using digital technologies, mainly on the Internet, but also including mobile phones, display advertising, and any other digital medium.

How Digital Marketing Can Help Grow Your Business

Digital marketing can drive traffic to your business and convince new visitors to become paying customers, and often at a fraction of the cost of a billboard!

Let’s take the billboard example.

When you put a billboard up, you don’t know how many people even look at it in the first place, and there’s no way of reliably tracking how many new customers you’ve acquired as a direct result of the billboard.

With Digital Marketing Companies , you’ll never have those issues again. A properly structured digital marketing campaign allows you to track individual users throughout your sales funnel, from initial contact to conversion.

Digital marketing is more of a science than anything else, and that’s excellent news for your bottom line.

So how exactly can digital marketing help your business?

On this page, we’ll explore ways that you can grow your visitors and increase conversions with proven digital marketing tactics like SEO, PPC advertising, social media, emails, and many more.

Search Engine Optimization

Without SEO, businesses may find it difficult to rank on search engines like Google for the keywords that they associate with their products or services.

Studies have found that being at the top of the first page of search results can earn you more than 50% of traffic. However, that percentage drops all the way to a mere 4% for the fifth spot. So if you’re not showing up on the first page for a specific keyword or phrase, you can forget about getting visitors that way!

Below points help you rank high on SERPs:

• Analyze your competitors 
• Identify the key phrases and words you want to rank for 
• Optimize your website titles and meta tags 
• Optimize your on-page content 
• Submit your site to search engines 

SEO Services Providers helps you to increase your online visibility and put your brand in front of the right audience, on the right channel. SEO allows for a potentially incredible return on a relatively small initial investment, when executed properly.

Pay Per Click Advertising

PPC - A method of driving traffic to your website by paying a publisher every time your ad is clicked. PPC, or Pay Per Click Advertising, is another way to bring new visitors to your website. PPC ads are displayed along with search results, and entice users to click on them to find what they are looking for.

Below are the type ads we can run:

• Text ads 
• Responsive ads 
• Video ads 
• Display ads 
• Remarketing ads 
• Product Listing ads 
• App promotion ads. 
• Call only ads. 

PPC ads can drive a great deal of traffic, and may sometimes have a very high conversion rate if they are targeted toward specific search phrases.

Social Media Marketing

Increasing Your Fan base with Social Media channels, like

• Facebook 
• Twitter
• Pinterest
• Instagram
• G+ 

are great methods for growing your business with digital marketing. Companies can set up official brand pages or accounts on social media sites, and post updates to fans however often they choose.

If someone follows you on Twitter because they like what you have to say, they might eventually make a purchase from your website. Or, if someone joins your Facebook Page because a friend recommended it, they may already trust you enough to subscribe to your service when the time is right. To put it simply, social media growth = business growth.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is one method of growing your digital business that seems like it will last forever. Although gaining a dedicated following can take a long time, brands with large email lists know that there is great value in this method.

By sending out periodic emails about

• New products 
• Specials or sales 
• Interesting additions to your website 

you can drive shoppers back for repeat purchases.

Emails can also easily be forwarded to others, so subscribers to your list might send one of your marketing messages to a friend or family member if they spot something of interest to them. That can lead to more subscriptions, more clicks, and more sales.

Content Marketing

A solid content marketing strategy can help you grow your business online in leaps and bounds. Believe it or not, customers love original content, and some studies have shown that brands that offer original content are more trustworthy than brands that don’t.

Content marketing can also come in the form of downloadable, long-form content, like

• whitepapers 
• guides 
• ebooks

Though this kind of content can take a long time for a brand to produce, and requires more research and resources than a simple blog post, it can be very rewarding.

When executed correctly, content marketing will keep your customers interested in your brand. They will be willing to come back and visit your site regularly for new things to read and digest.

Link Building

Links are another way that potential customers may find your business. If someone is visiting a website that they trust, and they see a link to your site, they are far more likely to trust you than they might if they had stumbled upon you in some other manner.

But getting links on other websites isn’t all about trust: it’s also about your ranking. Links to your site help indicate how well you should rank in searches for specific keywords or phrases.

So, in order to get these good links and improve your ranking, you will need to undergo a process called link building. This refers to the process of building links to your site from other sites through manual actions, Like,

• Article Marketing or Guest Posting
• Web Directory Links 
• Forum and Blogposts Comments 
• Web 2.0 Submission
• Press Release Submission etc.,

If you can build up a lot of high-quality links to your business online, this will indicate to both search engines and shoppers that they can trust you. This will not only improve your ranking, but also increase the amount of traffic that comes to your site.

Go Mobile for Even More Sales

To grow your business online, you may find it necessary to create a mobile-optimized website, or even a completely mobile version of your site.

Creating a mobile version of your website, or using responsive design to ensure that your existing content appears properly on all devices, can potentially increase your conversion rate dramatically. If a shopper visits your site on their phone and finds it easy to navigate, they are far more likely to buy from you than from a business who does not have a mobile-friendly store.