The Inboundo Blog

How to Advertise in the Age of Cambridge Analytica

August 2, 2019 By schhay Leave a Comment

It’s perhaps not surprising that the Cambridge Analytica scandal did serious damage to the trust that many Americans have in Facebook.

Nearly two-thirds of social media users – 65 percent – are familiar with the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which has become the embodiment of people’s eroding trust in social media. Some 44 percent of those users view Facebook more negatively as a result of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, according to a recent survey from The Manifest.

What’s important to remember is that just because people view Facebook more negatively does not necessarily mean they have abandoned it. According to the survey, some 58% of people still use Facebook as often or more often than before the Cambridge Analytica scandal. A lack of trust doesn’t cause a lack of use, apparently.

For businesses, the reality is Facebook remains a hugely effective way to reach customers, and businesses shouldn’t shy away from advertising on the platform.

This creates an interesting dynamic for businesses, which still need to engage customers on Facebook but need to do so without damaging the trust customers have in their own brand.

The Staying Power of Facebook

For advertisers, the attraction of Facebook has largely not changed.

“Never before in the history of mankind have we ever been able to target exactly the person that you’re looking for based on so many metrics,” said Shawn Alain, president of social media agency Viral in Nature. “And they’re accurate metrics. They’re metrics that people have entered in themselves. They put in that they like horses or that they are getting engaged. In that respect, that’s even better than any of the other platforms – that ability for a marketer to target one of their customers is bar none.”

A big reason why more users have not abandoned Facebook despite Cambridge Analytica is the lack of good alternatives.

“Right now, Facebook is still the single best destination to connect with people of all groups in your life, be it friends, family, professional contacts, childhood, colleagues, etc.,” said Josh Krakauer, founder and CEO of Sculpt, a social media marketing agency in Iowa. “You really don’t have a replacement for a service and utility that’s been an essential part of someone’s life for a decade. Quitting is not easy.”

But Facebook’s continued strength comes with an important caveat. The distrust could reach a tipping point, particularly if some viable options for connecting with people emerge in coming years.

Find Alternatives to Facebook

Cambridge Analytica was “an important warning call to remind businesses that Facebook … shouldn’t be their only primary social media channel because there’s a large risk associated with it,” Krakauer said.

Krakauer recommends being active on another social media platform or two besides Facebook and building an audience on each. “There’s an opportunity to start building a presence across other social platforms and make a bold move to embrace that community and its features fully even if it’s unpopular at the time,” he said.

Working with a social media agency can help your business figure out the right platforms to use.

It’s also worth noting that the younger the user, the more damage the Cambridge Analytica scandal has done to the use of Facebook. Among millennials (ages 18-34), 41 percent use Facebook less often because of the scandal, according to the Manifest survey.

This compares to 37 percent Generation Xers (ages 35 to 54) and 24 percent of baby boomers (ages 55 and older).

“It’s a combination of the Analytica scandal stacking on an already growing idea of Facebook becoming more of an older generation-type platform,” said Keith Kakadia, founder and CEO of Sociallyin, a social media agency in Birmingham, Ala. “In combination of all of that, it has sort of stewed this pot of millennials thinking that Facebook is probably not the place for them.”

The younger your customer base, the more you need to develop alternatives to Facebook.

Build Trust With Transparency and Community

With consumers more wary of privacy violations, businesses should make a point of transparency on Facebook in order to build and maintain trust in their brand and keep from being similarly tarnished.

It’s possible that some users who have lost trust in Facebook, particularly millennials, “would be more prone to engaging with a brand that has clearly shown us what their targeting strategy is … and what they’re doing to not violate privacy,” Kakadia said.

This could be in the form of a link to a privacy policy or a short video that explains how your company is – or is not – using Facebook features or data points to reach users. “Maybe being transparent with their strategy could alleviate some friction that may come from the millennial side or just the general population,” he added.

The more you can create a sense of community through shared values with your audience expressed in your social media campaigns, the more comfortable they will be with sharing their information with you.

Keep Social Advertising Targeted, but Tread Lightly

People are still willing to endure advertising to access content they desire. Just make sure you know what the audience you are targeting wants the content you are offering before you start a campaign.

Tread lightly with targeted ads. Now that the worst suspicions have been confirmed, many users are on guard about how their personal information is being mined. They may react with hostility if ads that pop up seem too personal. To the extent possible, make your advertising seem organic, rather than obviously leveraging user data.

Cambridge Analytica Didn’t Kill Facebook

Facebook remains the king – for now.

“I wouldn’t give up on Facebook just yet,” Krakauer said. “The data is still showing that what businesses seem to see right now, which is that their user base is still largely on and active on Facebook.”

By building up social media alternatives to Facebook and working to earn the trust of users through transparency and community, your company will be better positioned to navigate the growing concerns over social media privacy.

Kristen Herhold is a Senior Content Developer for Clutch, the leading platform for B2B research, ratings, and reviews. Her research focuses on digital marketing, social media marketing, and advertising.

15 Local Businesses That Need Facebook Marketing (Offers and Lead Ideas Inside)

August 1, 2019 By schhay Leave a Comment

For a long time, local businesses survived (and even flourished) without focusing much on their marketing side.

Some attractive flyers and word-of-mouth referrals were enough to bring in more customers.

But now the times have changed. Competition for local businesses has multiplied, and old methods are not enough to stand out anymore.

Luckily, there is a platform that you can use to show off your local business to thousands of new potential customers all at once and earn qualified leads.

Yes, that’s Facebook.

“But why Facebook instead of other social platforms?” you may ask.

Why You Need Facebook Marketing

Although many social networks are available for advertising, Facebook is the king for two main reasons.

#1. The volume of users: Among all the other platforms, Facebook has the highest number of users. It has more than 1.5 billion daily active users which means a whole lot of people spend a crazy amount of time on Facebook. This is the place your audience hangs out most of the time.

#2. The ability to customize a target audience: Whether you like it or not, everything you do on Facebook is constantly being tracked.

What you like, what you watch, what you type, and everything else in between is recorded in the database, and Facebook compiles a detailed profile of each user based on his information and activity.

The Facebook advertising platform gives you the ability to target users by their location, gender, age, income, interest, preferences, and behavior.

Now the question is, “Will Facebook advertising work for your business?”

To answer this question, I have listed 15 types of businesses (with some ad ideas) that can leverage the Facebook platform for advertising their brands.

I’ll explain how you can determine your target audience and what offers you can throw out there for them with the goal to turn them into leads and sales.

Let’s get started.

#1. Dentist

By 2021 the dental industry is projected to be worth around $37 billion. This means people are spending money on their teeth.

Determine the target audience:

Being a dentist, you can target large segments of people. However, I’d suggest you target one small section at a time, and create an offer specifically for that particular audience.

For example, you can target women who are over 24-35 years of age and need to be ready for some important events like an anniversary or a wedding. They tend to like having their teeth cleaned and whitened.

Offer you could test:

You can provide a free teeth whitening session for new patients.

Limit this offer to the first few (15-20) patients only. As they become a lead and happy with your service, you can leverage them into actual sales via follow-ups and special discounts.

#2. Chiropractor

According to Chiropractic experts, Facebook advertising is one of the best ways to attract new patients.

Determine the target audience:

You can target men (or women) who are CrossFit enthusiasts. Since they regularly run, jump, squat, do push-and-pull-ups, and are super tough with their bodies, they often need a chiropractor.

Offer you could test:

A compelling and feasible offer you can try is a consultation, exam, adjustment, and massage at a heavy discount for new patients.

Build trust with new customers over time and increase the odds of them returning to you over and over again.

#3. Veterinarian

The demand for veterinarians is increasing at a high rate. In fact, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, the number of licensed and practicing veterinarians will increase by 12 percent by 2022.

Determine the target audience:

As a veterinarian, your audience may vary depending upon the animals you deal with.

For instance, if you’re a cat veterinarian, you can select people who own a cat and have shown interest in reading about cat’s health or cat food. Since they already show concern for their cat, they most likely need your service.

Offer you could test:

Give a free health exam for first-time visitors.

Again, you can limit the availability of the offer to create urgency for the special deal.

#4. Spa/Massage Therapy

Everybody wants to look good. It’s not a coincidence that the global spas and beauty salons market will reach $190.81 billion by 2024.

Determine the target audience:

Since you’re in the business of beauty, your target market is huge. You can target all men and women over 18 years of age in your locality.

However, you need to remember that it’s best to always target one specific segment at a time (with relevant offer), and choose people based on their income level so that your ad reaches the audience who can afford you.

Offer you could test:

You can share some beauty tips in exchange for their email to get the leads or you can try to give a heavy discount for new customers.

#5. Gyms

The fitness industry is growing at a rate of 2.6% globally and has reached $87.23 billion in 2018.

Determine the target audience:

Although you can target large segments of people, I’d suggest focussing on one at a time.

For example, you can target Moms with early school age children or grade school kids as they often feel like they are out of shape. They always want to get back in shape but they get busy with parenting, work, and other parts of life.

Offer you could test:

Free 2 weeks personal training session for the next 20 people.

Build trust with customers over time and increase the odds of them returning to you over and over again.

#6. Restaurant

The food industry is the most stable business on the planet because food is not just a factor of our greed but our need for survival. The growth rate of the food and beverages industry is 11.4% and expected to reach a market volume of $144,162 million by 2022.

Determine the target audience:

With a restaurant, you can appeal to different types of audience – from families with small children to sports fanatics, younger couples, and so many more. But again, the key is to focus on one audience at a time.

For example, you can target women who are between the ages of 20 and 40 and have a birthday in the next 30 days. Plus, you can add friends of women who also have a birthday in the same month.

Offer you could test:

A delectable and feasible offer you can provide is a buy one, get one free birthday dinner.

#7 and #8. Yoga and Pilates

People are adopting Yoga all over the world. In 2012, the number of yoga participants in the United States was 20.4 million which is expected to grow to 55 million by 2020.

Determine the target audience:

Target men or women in your local area between the ages of 18 and 65 who are interested in fitness, health, hatha yoga, kundalini yoga, yoga journal, yoga mat, yoga pants, pilates, studio pilates, etc.

Offer you could test:

You can provide a 50% off discount for all your programs if someone brings a friend. To make the deal more lucrative, you can say that the 50% discount deal is good for both parties.

#9. Real Estate

According to data from the National Association of Realtors, 5.51 million existing homes were sold in 2017.

Determine the target audience:

Finding your audience in a real estate business is a bit tricky. Here the important thing is not who needs your product or services but who can afford your product and services.

While customizing your audience, remember to select people who are above a specific range of age, have plenty of income, and are interested in buying a new house.

Offer you could test:

You can use a carousel ad format and show multiple properties in a single ad. It’ll be easy to lure as you have more options to capture the buyer’s eye.

#10. Accounting/Financial Planner

Earning money is hard. Saving money is harder. Investing your money in the right place and achieving financial freedom is the hardest.

Determine the target audience:

Select people who are between the age of 35 and 55, have income above a specific range, and are running a small business. Since they have money and stay busy with their business operations, they most likely need your help to plan their finances.

Offer you could test:

You can run a slideshow or a video to explain who you are and how you can help. Try to show some testimonials to build up an initial trust.

#11. Pet Supplies

In 2017, Americans spent $69.5 billion on their pets. And of course, this figure is expected to grow in the future.

Determine the target audience:

You can target men (or women) in your locality who have a pet, show interest in pet food, and concern about the health of their pet.

Offer you could test:

You can try to give some kind of discount for new customers, or show off some new supplies you have recently added to your inventory.

#12. Wedding Planners

On average, 2.4 million weddings are performed in the U.S. every year. The average amount spent on an American wedding is $22,000. But the more interesting thing is, 72% of all brides say they would have spent more time choosing their reception entertainment.

Determine the target audience:

Target men and women in your area with the status ‘engaged.’ Since they’ll marry soon, obviously they need someone to help them plan their wedding.

Offer you could test:

Based on your customer’s lifecycle, you can develop different ads for different stages. For example, if couples are newly engaged, and the wedding is a few months ahead, you can share some helpful planning tips and maybe get the lead.

As the prospects get engaged with you, you can nurture them for sales.

#13. Local Photographers

Even though everybody has a decent camera on their mobile phones now, professional photography is still a rare talent. You can use props and advanced editing to stand out from the crowd.

Determine the target audience:

As a professional photographer, you can target a wide range of events and audience – from a birthday party to an engagement ceremony, wedding, model’s portfolio, and many more.

However, as I mentioned earlier, focus on only one type of audience at a time. In fact, you can run a seasonal ad for a specific event. For instance, you can target married women in your locality on Mother’s Day who has kids at home and a household income above $100k.

Offer you could test:

Give a Mother’s Day special discount for early bookings.

#14. Car Dealerships

In 2016, some 17.5 million cars and light trucks were sold in the United States. Sales in the U.S. for new car dealers are expected to reach $916 billion by 2020.

Determine the target audience:

You can choose people in your area who are interested in buying a car. An important thing you need to consider is the ‘income range.’ Filter out to people with a high-income range so that your ad reaches the right audience.

Offer you could test:

You can show off your new model and offer a free test drive.

Give a simple signup form to the users. Personally follow up on each of them and close the deal.

#15. Home Improvement

Owning a home is a dream for most people. And when they get it, they don’t hesitate to spend more money on its renovation.

According to a report, the total sales of home improvement retailers in the U.S. will be $409.2 billion in 2019.

Determine the target audience:

If you’re in the business of home improvement, you have to be careful while targeting your audience. Just targeting all the people who own a house wouldn’t be a smart step.

You need to consider other aspects such as age, net worth, home’s value, and interest. You should also target commercial properties as they tend to provide more ROI.

Offer you could test:

You can provide free roof inspections for the first 25 customers. And then give a reasonable discount for roof replacement if needed.

What Next?

So, now is the time to try Facebook ads. If you have already tried, how was the response? Let me know in the comment box.

Facebook Ads Guide for Gyms and Personal Trainers (Strategies & Examples)

November 2, 2018 By schhay Leave a Comment

Are you struggling to add new paying memberships to your gym or personal training program?

Well, you are in the right place. I believe that Facebook is the #1 platform to effectively create awareness for your gym or personal training program in order to build a predictable source for new leads, prospects, and paying members.

I walk you through the entire set up process for a Facebook ad campaign to generate leads for a personal trainer or gym.

If you’ve tried Facebook advertising and it didn’t work, this post will reveal why you failed at it before.

Conversely, if you haven’t tried advertising on Facebook for your gym or personal training business, then this post will give you a blueprint to work from.

Let’s get started.

Goals for your Fitness Facebook Ads

Before you post a single ad or write a line of copy for a fitness or personal training Facebook ad you need to know what your goals are.

Too many gyms and personal trainers rush off to start advertising on Facebook, because they’ve heard “it’s the thing to be doing these days” but spend ZERO time considering what goals they have for their campaigns.

Potential goals for your gym or personal training business might be:

Generate Opt-ins to your email list
Get requests for 7-day Free Trials
Generate Requests for a free Personal Training Session
Acquire free consult requests (this is what everyone does I recommend avoiding this)

The overall goal of any Facebook ad campaign for a gym is to attract new members and clients, but if you just post an ad saying “Hey, our gym rocks, we’re wicked trainers, come join” you’re going to be severely disappointed with your results.

For example purposes in this post we’re going to be using a two step fitness Facebook advertising campaign. First the campaign will get a potential new client to opt-in to our email list and then we’ll convert them into a trial or free training session/consult.

IMPORTANT:

Only have one goal per ad. If you want to get people to opt-in for a free report or ebook and then you’ll convert them into a free trial or session with email marketing, just focus on getting the prospect to opt-in. When you give two options to take action in an ad, more often than not, you get worse results.

What’s Your Offer For Your Fitness Ads?

An offer is a thing you want a prospective new client or member to take you up on.

Offers should have the following characteristics

Solve a problem for your prospect or answer a burning question
Have MASSIVE value (ideally a monetary value even if it’s free)
Be very specific
Be time-bound or have some form of scarcity

The fourth item, be time-bound or have scarcity, is the hardest for some people to work into their offers. Strive to ensure you always have at least the first three items.

Your offer will align directly with what your Facebook ad campaign goal is.

So example offers might be:

Free 1-Hour Personal Training Session to the Next 17 People
7-Day Free Pass to all our Classes and Open Gym Time
Free Body Weight Workout Routine and 30-Day Nutrition Plan to Lose 5 lb next Month

Each of the examples offers above

Solve a problem (in most cases people want to lose weight or get fit)
Have real value (you can attach the value of a PT session or 25% of a monthly membership or make-up a value to the workout routine and nutrition plan)

They don’t all have scarcity or a time frame attached, although the first one does.

You could use any of those ideas above, or come up with your own, but remember your offer will greatly dictate the success you have with your gym Facebook advertising campaigns.

A bad offer to the perfect audience bombs, but a great offer to a lukewarm audience usually garner at least some results.

Who’s your Target Market?

You can have more than one target market (men, women, 20-30 somethings or older boomers), but not often in the same ad.

You must decide who you are going to target with each ad to maximize results.

Who are your best personal training clients? What’s similar about them? Are they all men? All women? What age are they?

Do the same with your members.

The simplest form of targeting of Facebook ads for Gyms and Personal Trainers is creating one warm up ad (I’ll explain what this is below) that is the same for men and women and then when you retarget/follow-up with the prospects who engage with your retargeting ad you segment them into men or women.

What is Segmenting?

A Fancy way of saying you’ll separate out the women and men and show them different ads. Ideally an ad with a man in it for the men and vice versa for the women.

Not all industries need to do this with Facebook ads, but when you’re in a market like fitness women will respond better to women in an ad and talking about certain benefits while men will be more likely to respond to men in an ad and possibly different benefits of your offer.

For our example we’re going to market our first warm up ad to everyone between 25 and 50 in your local area and then segment them into men and women in the second ad step.

This will all make sense when you’re done, I promise!

Warm Up Facebook Ads

I am a big believer in running two sets of Facebook ads for gyms and personal trainers.

The first ad is targeted at everyone in your serviceable area, this may be your entire city, neighborhood, suburb or grouping of postal/zip codes. The only targeting outside of geographic area you want to use is possibly age and sex, for our example we’ll target all men and women between 25 and 50.

The purpose of this ad is to determine who in your local area is interested in what you’re selling. In this case gym memberships, personal training, nutrition coaching etc.

A warm up Facebook ad for a gym could be a slideshow video with text you create using an app like Animoto. The video would be 30 seconds long and take an angle of why your gym is great, the results your members achieve etc.

Click here to see how I use Animoto to create slideshow videos for Facebook Ads.

The formula for creating an effective warm-up ad is:

GRAB ATTENTION FAST -> EXPLAIN THE NEED -> FILL THE NEED -> MAKE THE OFFER OR CTA

Don’t make a commercial that talks about your brand. Unfortunately no one cares , they care about them and what you can do for them to solve their problem or fill their need.

The idea is someone interested in joining a gym, getting fit and/or losing weight will see this video in their newsfeed, stop their thumb scroll for a moment and watch some if not all of it.

You want to ensure the images, video clips and text you choose speaks to the problem the viewer is having and how your gym can solve it.

If you’re a personal trainer, same idea. Focus on how you help bring accountability and structure to your clients fitness programs.

Blog Posts as Warm Up Ads

Another type of warm-up ad is a blog post or article that follows the same formula I outlined for a video.

For the purpose of this gym and personal training Facebook advertising guide we’re going to assume you use a video. Videos tend to work better for how we’re going to do things, but if you have an article written, or could write one that grabs attention, explains a need and then fills a need, it doesn’t hurt to test it with an ad targeting the same demographics in your local area.

An example article might be: Why You’re Doing Weight Loss Wrong and the Two Changes that Can Make it Right

I don’t know what would be in that nutrition article exactly, maybe why following fad diets is stupid, why weight loss is calories in and calories out and how tracking your intake each day and replacing all empty calories with vegetables would get you to your goal. At the end of the article introduce your free session, trial or consult. Maybe even a nutrition consult for a topic like that.

Whether it’s a video or article, the most important piece is when someone watches or clicks and we can discern that person likely has the need or problem we spoke about. In this case they want to lose weight or get fit.

Set-up your Warm-Up Ad

The final step is to launch the fitness ad on Facebook for your warm up ad.

If you have never set up a Facebook ad before then you’ll want to check out this video here. It’s a beginners tutorial on how to set up a Facebook advertising campaign.

For those that know how set up your ad here are the parameters to follow, assuming it’s a video.

Campaign should be for video views
Choose a budget of at least $5.00 a day, but if your area and target demographics has more than 100,000 people in it I would advise a budget of $10 to $20 a day
Target the geographical area around your gym that makes the most sense. Don’t try to get too broad, you’ll only waste money.
Target the demographics we discussed above (men and women, 25-50)
Edit your placements to be only Facebook News Feed for mobile and desktop (we’ll discuss Instagram later on)
Create your ad with no call to action button

Done!

Next step is to create a custom audience of people we can remarket to who watched at least 75% of your video.

Not sure what Remarketing/retargeting means?

Simply put it’s the process of creating an audience of people who have engaged with your website, videos, or Facebook page over a set period of time (e.g. 7 days, 14 days, 30 days) and then targeting them again (hence retargeting) with another ad.

Creating Facebook Custom Audiences for Retargeting

Lets create a custom audience on Facebook of people who have watched 75% or more of your fitness or personal training video ad.

For those that aren’t familiar, a custom Facebook audience is a group of people who have engaged with our ads, website or Facebook page. If you’re not familiar with how to create one check out this video.

We’re going to create an audience of people who have watched at least 75% of our warm up ad.

Why?

Because 75% is long enough that we know they were engaged. You don’t accidentally watch twenty-two seconds (75% of 30 seconds) of a video on Facebook do you?

These are the people we’re now going to make an offer to by retargeting them with another ad.

Make them an Offer They Can’t Refuse

To this point we’ve setup your warm up facebook ad for your gym or personal training business and we’ve created a custom audience of people on Facebook who watched at least 75% of your video.

Now it’s time to make those 75% viewers an offer.

Let’s keep it simple, and we’ll make an offer for either a Free Personal Training session or Free 7-Day Membership to your Gym.

A word on consults. People don’t want a consult, they want to lose weight, get lean, get strong, get bigger, have more energy etc. No one wants a consult, so don’t call it that.

Here are better ways to say it:

Free Fat Burning Personal Training Session
Free 7-Day Membership to Calorie Burning Classes

It’s saying the same thing, I know, but just add in those “buzz words” to let the prospect know “Yeah, that’s what I want!”. Small words are powerful.

Two options to setup this Facebook retargeting ad for your gym or personal training business.

An image ad that links to a landing page where prospects can give you their info to take you up on your offer
Use a Facebook lead ad to collect prospects info without them having to even leave Facebook.

Image Ad and Landing Page

You need two things to make this ad work.

Image(s) to use for your ad(s)
Landing page to collect leads from

I recommend having at least two different images (although more to test isn’t a bad idea) but at least have one that appeals to women and another for men. We’re going to set up two different ads, one for each sex.

You’re also going to need a landing page to send prospects to where they can give you their information. This could be a simple page on your website with a form, or you could create a landing page using a tool like Instapage.

Whatever page you send your prospects to make sure it’s to the point, has a form to fill out to claim your offer and talks about the benefits of taking your offer.

I suggest collecting the following information from your leads:

Name
Phone number (you MUST call and follow-up fast)
Email

Once someone submits your form I suggest you follow-up ASAP. This person is never more ready to take action then they are right at the time they fill out that form, so don’t wait a few hours or worse a few days before contacting them and they have time to decide “Nah, I don’t really want to get in shape and lose that weight”

Getting into building a landing page and creating images is outside the scope of this article. To learn more about that I suggest grabbing my Local Business Facebook Ads program.

Facebook Lead Ad

A lead ad, if you’re not familiar, is the same setup as an image ad but rather than linking off Facebook to a landing page, when the prospect clicks the ad it opens a form right on Facebook with their details already filled in from their Facebook profile.

The pros of going this route are that people don’t have to leave Facebook and they don’t have to fill anything in, so the barrier to claiming your offer is VERY low.

The con of this method is you only have your image and copy above the image to persuade the prospect to claim the offer. If you keep it simple in your ad and say something like:

“Claim your FREE 1-Hour Fat Burning Personal Training Session with TRAINER NAME now. Only 4 left for this month.”

That’s pretty straight forward, and I feel would work well.

The technical side to setting up a lead ad and getting your leads information is a little strange, so check out this video if you’re not familiar with how to setup a Facebook lead ad.

I suggest collecting the same information from your leads with a a Facebook lead ad as you would with a landing page.

What Goes in my Offer Ad?

Since we’re talking about Facebook advertising for gyms and personal trainers you want to use images of people ideally doing the thing you’re making the offer for or people who look happy that they’ve succeeded at something (e.g. lost the weight they wanted).

Selling the Transformation

The term transformation is used a lot in Fitness marketing. Your images and landing page copy, whenever possible, must sell the transformation people will experience in your program from the current discontent state they are in now to the after state which is when they will be lean and stronger.

f it’s a 7-Day pass to your classes, then use an image of people in your classes. If it’s a free personal training session then use an image of someone in a session.

If you can, avoid using stock photos. Use actual photos of your actual members and clients (with their OK of course).

As I mentioned above I suggest creating one ad for women and one for men, also if you want to get more specific you can make four ads:

Men & weight loss
Men & muscle gain
Women & weight loss
Women & toning/muscle gain

The copy of your ad should be to the point. Something like:

“Claim your FREE 1-Hour Fat Burning Personal Training Session with TRAINER NAME now. Only 4 left for this month.”

Let’s break that ad down a bit.

You’re asking them to do something (claim their free session)
You’re calling it something specific (1-Hour Fat Burning Personal Training Session)
You’re personalizing it to a trainer
You’re creating scarcity with stating there’s only 4 left this month.

The 4 left this month is for illustrative purposes only, but creating some form of urgency in your marketing is essential, especially when running ads on Facebook for your fitness business.

I’m not suggesting you should lie in your marketing. To be 100% ethical I would suggest only offering so many of your packages each month. Then letting them know they only have 24-hours to claim it and sign-up for their session or start of their membership.

You may not get as many leads, but you’ll get quality ones that actually come in the door. I know from working with and talking to gym owners, getting leads is one thing, but getting them in the door to talk with is a whole other story, hence why I said call ASAP after someone submits a form.

That’s the final step of your facebook ad funnel for gyms and personal trainers.

I know we covered a lot in this post, but if you’ll take the steps outlined and just get started I guarantee you will find success with this.

Just a quick word about Instagram

What about Instagram?

I know a lot of fitness professionals use Instagram. I didn’t mention it in this guide because we were focused specifically on Facebook, but you can use a similar method to advertise on Instagram.

I would create a separate campaign that specifically targets Instagram, because the images and videos on Instagram are formatted slightly different than they are on Facebook.

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed this post and it gives you a clearer picture about how to succeed with Facebook ads for a gym or personal training business.

There are a lot of moving pieces to this I know. But I know that you can do it.

6 Proven Steps To Plan A Remarkable SEO Strategy

October 18, 2018 By schhay Leave a Comment

Want more traffic from Google?

Great!

While doing your research, you must have seen this…

A business which has just started a few months (or a year) ago eventually gets to the top of a Google search and makes a lot of buzz on the internet.

How did they do it? Do they know some secret SEO strategy? Or maybe they bribed Google’s employee to give them an advantage?

Fortunately for everyone, bribing is not the secret to their success.

It’s a simple, solid SEO strategy they adopted to make it possible.

In this post, I’m going to expose the full SEO plan that growing brands follow to skyrocket their ranking on search engines.

It’s a six-step process, and I’ll explain everything step-by-step.

Ready?

Warning: If you’re lazy, want some kind of shortcut, or think SEO is a one day game, I’d suggest you leave this page right now. It’s not for you.

Still here?

Awesome!

Here are the six steps (you can skip ahead by clicking on the links below):

SEO tool setup (Monitor performance and growth)
Keyword research
Content strategy
On-site optimization
Off-site optimization
Technical SEO

Let’s get into each section one by one.

Step 1: SEO Tool Setup (Monitor Performance and Growth)

An important thing you need – before anything else – is a proper system in place so that you can easily measure your website’s performance and growth from day one.

SEO is a long-term investment. You can’t afford to run the whole strategy and end up with no metrics to measure your ROI.

Though there are many tools available in the market, the following two tools are essential when you start.

Add your website into Google Search Console

Google Search Console a.k.a. GSC (formerly known as Google Webmaster tool) is a free web service by Google for webmasters that helps you monitor and maintain your site’s presence in Google search results.

GSC has many valuable features including:

indexing your content fast
knowing which queries your site appears in the search results
monitoring backlinks
fixing website errors
Submitting your sitemap (more on this later)
and lots more

Here’re the steps to add your site to Google Search Console:

#1. Login to your GSC account and click ‘Add Property’

#2. Next, add your homepage URL into the given textbox.

That’s it!

The last step you need to do is verify your website.

Here’s a detailed guideline on how to do it:

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35179?hl=en

Setup Google Analytics

Another tool from Google’s family is Google Analytics. It allows you to monitor your website traffic and analyze the visiting pattern and behavior of your readers.

Here’re some cool things you can do with Google Analytics:

Determine the source of your website traffic
Identify your top performing pages
Identify your worst performing pages
Determine where your best visitors are located
Find out where people abandon your site
and much more

Again, adding GA to your website is simple and straightforward. Here’s the process:

#1. Login to your GA account and click Admin

#2. In the left panel, select the account in which you want to add your website, and then click “Create Property” button

#3. Fill in your website details and click “Get Tracking ID”

Now you need to add that tracking code to your website. Refer to this guide for more details.

Pro Tip: Integrate your Google Analytics account with Google Search Console. You’ll get a whole lot of useful SEO information inside your Google Analytics account.

https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1308621?hl=en

Step 2: Keyword Research

Keyword research is the first step of any SEO strategy.

You can’t rank well until you know what words or phrases you want to rank for, and what content you need to develop for that.

The purpose of keyword research is to find the right keywords for your business, to know what it’ll take to rank for them and come up with some content ideas as well.

Let’s see how to do it effectively.

Collect core keywords

A common mistake most businesses do is jumping straight into a keyword research tool from the beginning.

And it can costs them big sometimes.

They end up wasting hours and found nothing suitable. Or worst, come out with a wrong targeted list of keywords.

The first thing you need is to brainstorm and jot down some words and phrases that you think relates to your business goals.

For example, if you’re a sports shoe manufacturing company, you may come up with terms like jogging shoes, sportswear, running tips, buy running shoes, and many more.

It’s basically your brain dump process. And these words and phrases will push your keyword research process in the right direction.

At this stage, some unrelated terms will come to your mind but don’t worry about that. Just jot down everything. You’ll filter those irrelevant terms later on.

Pro Tip: Think of angles and demands you want to cover and then think of possible search queries people may use for that.

Discover long tail keywords

Okay, now you have a list of some keywords. But obviously, these aren’t the words you want to target.

Most of them will be useless to you. And some of them will be so competitive that ranking for them is almost impossible.

For now, you need to use these terms as a base to go further in your keyword research process.

You have to find some long tail keywords that are less competitive and have the potential to bring you the moderate amount of targeted traffic.

If you don’t know what long tail keywords are, these are phrases (3+ words long) that are highly specific, and the people using these keywords are more targeted to their problems and tend to buy more often.

Though broad keywords holds huge amount of traffic, long tail keywords have a much higher conversion rate.

And the best part is, long-tail keywords account for 70% of all web searches.

In other words, long-tail keywords are how people actually search the internet.

To find long tail keywords for your website, there are many tools available online. Here are a few of them:

Study your competitors

Every story has a villain.

And SEO is no exception.

Many other websites are targeting the same keywords that you have in your list. And some of them already rank on top.

To beat your competitors, you must know them well. You must know their strengths and weaknesses. You must know exactly where they stand so that you can make a plan to beat them.

So the question you may ask is how can I spy on my competitors.

Well, that’s not the right question. There are many competitor analysis tools available for this like Ahrefs, Semrush, SpyFu, and Moz.

The right question is what to spy. What information you should look for when studying the competitors.

When you enter your rival’s website address into an analysis tool, you may get bombarded with random numbers and complicated metrics. You may feel overwhelmed.

That being said, to know what to find is more important than knowing how to find.

Initially, you should be interested in only 3 things.

What keywords are your competitors targeting?
What content do they have based on those keywords?
What are the sources of their backlinks?

That’s it.

Use any of the competitor tools listed above to spy on your competitors for the metrics I’ve listed. You’ll have a better understanding of how you measure up against them.

Identify the intent and context of each keyword

An important part of your SEO strategy – that is often overlooked – is finding the intent of your target searchers, and then understanding the possible contexts so that you can develop specific content that will solve a very specific problem.

When people start searching, they may have a specific goal in the mind. Or maybe they’re just looking for general information about the topic.

For example, when someone searches “interior house paint,” are they looking to buy the paint, tips on interior house paint, or design ideas for the phrase interior house paint?

Once you get the intent of your target searchers, you have to find the context of their search.

For example, a searcher looking for design ideas for interior house paint may want to brighten his kitchen, while another one may want to make his living room look bigger.

You see, that is two different context behind the same search (intent).

You have to brainstorm possible context for each keyword so that you can develop the specific content for the user.

Group the keywords and create a final list

The last critical part of your keyword research process is keywords grouping.

When you generate a lot of keywords, things become chaotic. Everything looks random and difficult to grasp. You need to organize the list and create metrics that you can easily understand and make a plan out of it.

Filter all the unwanted keywords. Separate broad keywords and sub-keywords. Add additional data like average monthly traffic, and competition.

Map out what keywords belong to what pages so that you can avoid creating pages that compete against each other for the same keyword.

It may feel tedious and boring, but this step is necessary.

Step 3: Content Strategy

You’ve figured out what your target audience is searching, and you’ve finalized the keywords you want to target and the intent and context behind each search.

Now it’s time to develop content around these topics.

Write Crazy, In-Depth Content

More than 2 million articles are published every day. And most of them are dreaming of ranking on the first page of Google search results.

But that doesn’t happen.

You can’t just churn out some random articles and expect results. That’s like throwing a dart at a bullseye… blindfolded.

You need to be strategic, aware of the existing top content, and able to find the gap you can fulfill.

Here’s the process:

#1. Enter your targeted keyword in Google and open the first result (not sponsored)

#2. Carefully look at the content and analyze everything. Content type, the structure, content length, keyword density, angle of coverage, usage of tags, and more. The more information you get, the better it is.

#3. After analyzing the content, ask yourself what more you can add to this. Are there any gaps that needs attention? Or maybe you can cover this topic from a different angle.

#4. Repeat the same process (from 1 to 3) for the next 9 search results.

#5. Now after analyzing the top 10 pages based on your targeted keyword, it’s time to write your content. And aim to write 10x better than all the existing content.

Add an ascension path to each page you publish

So what is an ascension path?

An ascension path is the next step that you’d like your readers to take after consuming your content. Whatever that next step is depends on your goal.

If your goal is to generate leads, then you can offer a lead magnet in the form of an easy to consume checklist. Your reader would need to enter their contact information in order to gain access to this valuable piece of content.

The most effective form of lead magnet aligns with the content they are currently consuming.

For example, if your article is about “11 Best Vegan Weight Loss Foods”, then you can offer a lead magnet called “The Vegan Diet Checklist” to generate qualified leads for your business. After reading your article, the next ascension path is crystal clear.

Regularly publish new content

SEO isn’t a one day game. It’s a long-term capital investment. And you need to be consistent with publishing new content.

The more quality content you publish, the faster you’ll grow. Search engines will get the impression that you’re active, and readers stick with you, too.

So, is there any standard or mark for how often you should publish?

Fortunately not. It varies depending upon your niche, business model, and market demands.

For example, if you’re an online publishing brand who writes about businesses, you may need to publish dozens of articles in a day. On the other hand, if you’re a small company providing website designing services, publish one post a week would be enough.

So, is it necessary to write long, in-depth content only?

Absolutely, not.

You don’t need to write something groundbreaking every time. You can also try some short posts – not to rank for search engines but improves your authority.

What matters is that you’re consistent.

Update the old content

Some businesses make a mistake of focusing more on producing new content but forget their old content along the way.

Unfortunately, search engines don’t forget your content. It stays indexed in Google’s database for as long as it’s accessible on the internet.

As the time passes by, your content becomes old. What is fresh today, becomes outdated and stale tomorrow. And neither search engines nor your readers would prefer old, musty information.

You should keep your content updated because…

- It gives the impression to search engines that you care enough to provide updated information to your audience, which gives a performance boost to your ranking.
- Updating existing content is much easier than writing it from scratch
- It gives you another chance to promote and reach to the new audience

Pro Tip: When you update your content, show “last updated” date instead of “published date.”

Step 4: On-site Optimization (a.k.a On-page SEO)

Writing great content is just one part of the deal. You have to optimize the web pages, too, so that the search engine algorithm can understand your content with ease.

Make SEO friendly URLs

Look at the following URL:

http://www.example.com/index.php?id_sezione=360&sid=3a5ebc944f41daa6f849f730f1

Does it make sense? Can you guess the content of the page by reading these numbers?

You can’t.

It’s complicated. For both, humans as well as search engines.

Now look at this:

https://example.com/content-marketing

Easy. Isn’t it?

It’s short, clear, and you can get the idea of what the content is about by reading the URL.

Google prefer URLs which is:

short and easy to understand
have the primary keyword
Use a hyphen to separate the words. For example, https://yourwebsite.com/seo-strategy

Write an SEO friendly title

I won’t sugarcoat this.

The title (headline) is the most vital part of any web page. It’s even more important than the actual content.

The headline is the first thing people read on a web page. If you fail to get the reader’s attention there, you’ll lose a potential buyer. And the fewer clicks you get, the more your position will go down in search engines.

Here’re some of my tips for writing headlines:

Keep the headline under 65 characters. Longer than this will cut in the search results
Include your targeted keyword in the title. Earlier the better
Make sure your headline awakes curiosity or promise something

Create an optimized meta description

A meta description is an HTML tag that summarizes the page’s content. Search engines mostly show the snippet of meta description below the headline when someone searches for phrases.

Here’s how it looks:

Search engines examine the meta description to get the idea of page’s content so that they can serve the best results to the user’s query.

Keep the following points in mind while writing a meta description:

Keep it around 155-160 characters only
It should contain the focus keyword
It should contain the call-to-action

Link to authority sites in your content

When you mention some facts and figures in your content, you refer to the sources.

These external (outbound) links help to increase your credibility because

It shows you’ve done your research and have expertise in the subject matter
It builds your relationship with other domain experts
It makes visitors want to come back for analysis on future topics

Create internal linking

Internal linking is cross-referring to different pages of your website.

It’s as significant as external linking because a well-structured interlinking distributes link juice between the pages and enhances the site’s overall authority in search.

Create an excel sheet (or some other system) to archive all the important pages of your website and categorize them according to the topics and keywords so that you can easily find and refer to a relevant page when needed.

Fix broken links

Over a period of time, some links get broken in your website. It happens because the web page you have linked may not be available anymore. It might have been deleted or redirected to some other address.

Broken (non-working) links annoy users and discourage them from using the website which gives a bad experience to the user, and it’s not good from the point of SEO.

Search engines take broken links abnormally as it restricts the flow of link equity throughout your site. The more you have it, search engine robots mark you as a low-quality website.

To find broken links on your website, you can try any of the following tools.

Pro Tip: Look at your content archive and check if you have a related page that you can replace to fix that broken link.

Use ALT and H tags properly

ALT tag is used to give names to images.

Search engines are unable to identify images accurately, so a proper name is given to them in the form of text. If an image doesn’t load on the browser for any reason, the ALT tag description associated with that image will be displayed on the screen.

Another influential HTML tag is H (or heading).

It indicates the priority of the text as H1 for the main title, H2 for the subtitle and so on.

Use breadcrumbs

A breadcrumb is an internal navigation scheme that reveals the user’s current location on a website.

If your website is small or the structure is pretty simple, you don’t need breadcrumb. But if your site’s structure is complicated, you have to guide the users through the website in a logical way.

Again, it generates a better user experience which means more points from search engines.

Use schema markup

It’s a technique to structure and optimize your content in such a way that it stands out as a rich snippet in the search result.

For example, you search “best tools for SEO” on Google, and you’ll get the following result (things change with time so you may see a different image).

As you can see the result on top is coming from a website that ranks on position number 3 in the actual list for this keyword.

This is the rich snippet, and you’re seeing this result from “Oberlo” because they’ve optimized this page using schema markup.

For those who don’t know what schema markup is, Schema markup is code that you put on your website to help the search engines return more informative results for users.

It helps your website to rank better for the variety of content types like articles, local business, reviews, and more.

Learn more about it here.

Maximize readability

Did you know when viewing a website, it takes users less than two-tenths of a second to form a first impression?

Of course, users couldn’t read the content in such a short time. They get a sense of how your website is designed and structured.

If they see a page with a long wall of congested text, full of distracting images or ads, they’ll quickly click the back button.

Content matter but if the design and appearance of the website aren’t good, even your great content can’t help you.

You have to present and design your pages in such a way that it appeals to your readers, instead of pushing them away.

Here’re some of my tips to enhance readability:

Write short paragraphs and use bullets whenever possible
Give proper white spaces between words and paragraphs. Let your content breathe
Don’t use non-relevant images or other graphics that distract the users

Optimize your website load time

How long do you wait before you leave a website if it doesn’t load on your browser?

Let me guess …

Is it 3 seconds?

Or, if you’re a man of patience – like me – you still couldn’t wait more than 5-7 seconds.

No, I’m not making up these figures. A study says that consumers expect a web page to load in 2 seconds or less.

Source: https://www.relentlesstechnology.com/insights/page-speed.htm

In fact, Google has also confirmed that they take website speed as a ranking factor.

To get Google’s love, you need to speed up your website. Optimize the code, compress images, and kill anything that makes you slow.

Following are some free tools where you can check your web page speed:

Create liquid pages (mobile friendly websites)

Your web pages should be like water.

You put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot.

In other words, you should have a responsive website that has the ability to restructure itself according to the screen size of the user.

Why?

Because the number of people browsing the internet on mobile has already surpassed the number of people using the internet on desktop.

A study found six in 10 internet users start shopping on one device but continue or finish on a different one. People are constantly switching between devices and expect a website to give a soothing experience across all the platforms.

And so does Google.

Note: Don’t create a separate version of the website for mobile users. This will steal authority and link equity from your primary domain.

Step 5: Off-site Optimization (a.k.a Offpage SEO)

This is probably the most challenging part of an SEO strategy. Here you take actions outside of your website to impact your rankings in the search results.

Let’s learn about this.

Create a link building strategy

Link building is so important that some people call it off-site optimization. This is the most influential part that affects your search engine ranking.

In fact, I wouldn’t mind saying the difference between a website that ranks well and the one that doesn’t depend on the quality of your backlink profile.

You can’t just rely on your quality content and on-site optimization techniques to get SEO traction. You have to generate some quality inbound links to see the actual results.

Though I can’t cover everything in this post, the following are some tips:

Simply ask your colleagues, partners, clients that have a website or blog to give you a backlink
Guest post on other related blogs and add a link to your web page
Find where your competitors are generating links from, and reach out to those websites.

Here’s a detailed SEO link building strategy that you can follow.

Create your social media strategy

Almost half of the earth’s population is on social media. That’s the biggest market in the world.

Your content is a waste if it doesn’t reach the right audience. Social media is an opportunity to reach the maximum number of people at any given time.

You need to develop a social media plan so that you can reach maximum people in a more efficient way.

The more people know you, the better your brand will be. The better your brand, the authority will boost. The more the authority, your ranking will increase.

Here’re the steps you can take to use social media to amplify your message:

Get crystal clear on who your audience are, their demographic, their interests, and the social network they like to spend their time online
Create a business profile on each social network
Create a social media calendar to share your content, quotes, tips, and your industry expertise
Engage with every person that interacts with your business’ social media account
Build a community

Participate in the top industry forums

What do you do when you can’t find an answer on Google?

You ask a friend, or you get into a related industry forum and post your question there.

A whole lot of users are browsing related forums, searching new information, tips, reviews, and much more. There you have a chance to participate in the discussion, answering questions, and leave a backlink to your relevant page for more information if needed.

You’ll get new readers which means more traffic and ranking.

Here’re some big Q&A platforms where you can find industry-specific boards:

Register a local business in Google map (Local SEO)

Let’s do a task.

Open up Google on your mobile and ask “Thai food near me.” Magically Google will display you the location of a nearby restaurant where you can enjoy Thai food.

So, how does Google know about these businesses? It’s because these businesses are listed in Google’s database.

If you have a brick and mortar business and you want to target a particular area, you should add your business to Google business listing so that local users can find you easily.

Here’s the guide of how to add your business to Google map

https://support.google.com/business/answer/2911778

Collect positive reviews about your product and services

People read reviews before they take a purchase decision. What others think about you does matter to people and search engines, too.

Search engines evaluate mentions and reviews of a website to adjust their SERP – especially in local SEO.

So, encourage your users to write reviews about your services so that you can get some SEO boost.

Here’re a few tips from Google on how to write great reviews.

Step 6: Technical SEO

Besides on page and off page SEO, there are some technical aspects that affect your search ranking. You have to consider them on the website.

Run your website on HTTPS

Security is a top priority for Google.

And Google wants all other businesses and webmasters to make sure they secure their website with HTTPS.

HTTPS (HyperText Transfer Protocol over SSL) creates an encrypted link between a server and a browser so that all your data and communication happens coded and securely.

In short, HTTPS is a ranking factor. And Google has already confirmed it on its website in 2014.

Create and submit your website sitemap

A sitemap is an XML file containing a full archive of all the webpage’s URL of your website.

It helps the search engine crawlers find all the web pages and index them faster.

If your website is small (just a few web pages), generating XML sitemap is not necessary. But if your site is big (have hundreds or thousands of pages), you must create an XML file.

If you’re using a CMS like WordPress, chances are your sitemap file is already there. Enter the following address, and you’ll get it.

yourwebsitedomain/sitemap.xml

Though Google will find this XML file by itself, you can submit it manually, too.

#1. Login to your GSC account

#2. Navigate to “Sitemaps” from the left pane

#3. Submit URL where your XML sitemap file exists

Create a robots.txt file

A robot is a text file at the root of your site that tells Google what not to crawl and index from your website.

You may have some data (or files) on your web server that you don’t want to share in the public domain. It could be personal profiles, internal database information, or any other sensitive data.

And you want the crawler to ignore a specific directory or page from indexing into Google search database.

Is it important for SEO?

No, it doesn’t impact your SERP. It’s just that you help search engines to crawl relevant pages but not waste time indexing unrelated data.

Creating robots.txt file is quite easy.

#1. Create a text file and rename it to “robots.txt.”

#2. Enter the following code into the file (modify according to your need) and save it.

#3. Upload this file to the root directory of your website.

Create a custom error page (404 page)

If you open a page on your website that doesn’t exist, you receive an error with a message like “Page not found.”

The problem with this type of soft 404 error page is, though it says the page not found, it sends a success code (200) to the browser. Now search engines get the impression that this page exists and they index these non-existent pages in the search.

So, you should have a custom 404 error page on your website, and redirect all the ‘not found’ pages there so that users and search engines can figure out what has happened.

Define a preferred domain (WWW or non-WWW)

You may have noticed that some websites don’t have ‘WWW’ in the domain name while others have. It is because of the domain preference they set.

For search engines, “www.example.com” and “example.com” are two different pages. It’s your responsibility to tell Google what domain version of your website you want to use in the search results.

To set domain preference, follow these steps:

#1. Login to your GSC account

#2. Click “Site Settings”

#3. In the preferred domain section, select the version you want.

It doesn’t matter what you choose (WWW or non-WWW), but the significant point is you choose.

Set the website language

Do you have multiple versions of your website for different languages or regions?

If so, you should tell Google so that it can fetch the appropriate version of your page depending on the language and region of the searcher.

Though Google is smart enough to find the alternate versions of your websites, it’s better if you specifically direct search engine in the right direction.

Here’s the complete guide of how to do it.

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077?hl=en

Bonus Step: Keep Updated With SEO

SEO is evolving. What’s is working today may fail tomorrow. New updates and techniques are coming up regularly.

That said, you can’t rely on one technique permanently. You have to stay on your toe and stay updated on the latest SEO trends.

Here’re some useful blogs you can follow to keep updated with SEO:

Over to You

I won’t bore you anymore. You’ve seen all the steps, and it’s your time to take action.

See you on Google!

How to Create a PPC Campaign to Get More Traffic to Your Website

August 20, 2018 By schhay Leave a Comment

Most online entrepreneurs prefer to use SEO over PPC to drive traffic to their website. For them, SEO is better because its free and you can maximize the benefits you get out of it.

Then again, according to a study conducted by digital.gov entitled “HTTPS and Other Ranking Factors,” the downside of solely relying on SEO is it will take time before you can reap the traffic that you need for your website. The process of writing the content, building the links, page optimization, and Google indexing will take more than a month. This means that you would also have to wait to see if your effort will pay off.

PPC, on the other hand, gives an almost instant result. Google, Facebook, and other ad platforms provide insights and data to advertisers.

So, the question now is which should you choose – SEO or PPC?

According to a study entitled “Search Engine Optimization and Pay-per-Click Marketing Strategies,” the clear and direct answer to this is you need both SEO and PPC. However, since much attention has been given to SEO as a strategy to improve site conversion, this time we will explore the ways to use PPC as a complementary tool to SEO.

Below are three ways PPC fills in the gap of SEO in sending the message to your target market:

1. PPC improves website visibility on search engine

If you were able to land first by an organic search result of keywords, you did well! Then again, before you celebrate, check what are the other 4 pages listed before your website.

These 4 sites listed higher than your website are PPC ads. The point is you have to use SEO along with PPC to maximize results. To make sure that your target market sees and clicks your website first, complement your SEO strategy with PPC ads.

It’s also important to show ads with target keywords that you’re not using yet for organic keyword search ranking. This is an easy method to improve your visibility on SERPs while waiting for your SEO strategies to show positive results.

It’s a fact that ads shown on the first page have low rates in terms of click-throughs compared to organic search results on the same page, but a study shows that people still click on these ads. As a matter of fact, almost 70% of searchers click on PPC ads while they search for a service or a product.

Being the first in both paid search results and organic keyword search will speak a lot of how established your presence is in the market.

2. Utilize PPC ads to increase site traffic and links for SEO

According to OCLC in a recent study they conducted, SEO strategy banks primarily on content. Content drives domain authority, traffic, and links. Then again, for you to reap the results of your SEO strategy, people have to read, share, and link to your content.

As opposed to SEO, PPC is an easier way to advertise your content and get your target market to read your content. Aside from that, PPC ads are also cost-efficient compared to SEO because you only need to bid on keywords. In SEO, you have to bid on conversion-based campaigns.

Lastly, the best thing about PPCs is that you can choose the market to whom you will show your content. By using Google, you can choose your target market by viewing their browsing activities. Also, social networking sites allow you to target particular interests and job titles.

3. Make use of PPC as a test environment for SEO

As cited earlier, the challenge of SEO is you have to wait before you can check the effectiveness of your strategy. You have to give time to see if your content works, if your backlinks will convert better, or if your optimization efforts served its purpose.

Things are different with PPC. You can simply bid on a keyword, push it live, and generate the necessary data afterward.

In Adwords, for instance, you will see these:

What keywords are clicked the most?
What pages get a good quality score?
What keywords have the best quality scores?
What are the exit rates, time on page rate, and bounce rates?

The data you will get from these questions will tell you all that you have to know about your audience’s reaction to your content. This data will, in turn, tell you how organic visitors perceive your content, how impactful your headline is, and many more. The results will help you adjust your input accordingly.

With all the pieces of information that are shared here, you know by now that SEO and PPC are better together. To increase traffic to your website, to make your target market read your content, and to help your website convert better, you have to complement SEO with PPC.