Google Makes Massive Changes – Does It Affect You?

Google Makes Massive Changes – Does It Affect You?

On Tuesday April 21st Google unleashed what could be a massive disruption for a large portion of the world wide web. The good news is everyone knew that it was coming and most website owners have made the needed adjustments. Although the roll-out started Tuesday, it can take up to ten days for everything to go into full effect. Is your site ready?

The change now seriously demotes your website if you are not mobile friendly. With the massive amount of internet traffic taking place on mobile devices, Google has now proclaimed if your site doesn’t display properly on mobile devices, you will get a serious ding in your search results.

Google made the announcement last fall that this was coming, so everyone could make the needed adjustments. For many, that meant a total redesign of their website. Some have chosen to create a “M dot” site which displays an abbreviated version of their website on a sub-domain if you are on mobile. Some people estimate that over half of all internet traffic is now on mobile devices and Google feels that if your site doesn’t react well to over half of the world, you don’t deserve to rank well. I cant really blame them on that.

Its Not Really a Bad Thing

We have seeing rankings slowly decrease on sites that are not mobile friendly for years, but for more organic reasons. For instance, Google looks at how relevant your site is to a particular search query by analyzing bounce rate, time on site, pages per session and so forth. Those “quality metrics” for sites not mobile friendly have decreased. They have decreased naturally because when people visit those sites on mobile devices, they leave sooner. When Google sees the decrease in those “quality metrics” they don’t give you as much credibility for that search query.

“It’s important to keep in mind that the changes are limited to mobile search”, said Jaffe Digital Strategist Melanie Trudeau. “However, the effect on small and mid-sized sites still could be profound”. According to Trudeau, websites that aren’t mobile ready can expect zero traffic from smartphones and tablets.

What Can You Do?

The first thing you need to do is check your site for what Google calls “mobile friendly”. They have set up a page that will test your site and let you know if it passes muster. If you already know that your site is not mobile friendly, or you fail the test, you need to correct that quick fast and in a hurry! I personally recommend a two step approach. Step one is to quickly generate an “M dot” version of your site on a sub-domain. This can be done relatively easily and with relatively low cost. This will keep you from disappearing all together but I really don’t recommend that for long term. Step two is to redesign the site to be responsive. That means that your site will adjust to different screen sizes. It will reformat itself to layout correctly. A good responsive site will have multiple layouts — for desktop, tablet viewing and for smaller phones. This takes time to design but is what you will ultimately want. If you pay someone to currently maintain your site, truthfully the FIRST thing you should do is FIRE that person for letting this happen!

Here is your Google Tester Page

Shameless Plug

If you have found yourself without a mobile friendly website, we can help. We can quickly get you with a mobile site to hopefully avoid the ding and do the redesign as a fully responsive site.

April 3, 2015July 26, 2022

Facebook Ads – How To Create a Successful Ad Yourself

Facebook Ads – How to Create a Successful Ad Yourself

We all know that Facebook Ads are all the rage for an affordable, effective digital marketing campaign. In this article, we will cover some of the most important aspects of creating a great Facebook Ad.

Many people are under the impression that Facebook Advertising simply means to “boost” your post. Although that is the most common option that people aware of, it is the one thing we recommend NOT to do. The beauty of Facebook Advertising is that you can hyper-target your ad to only run on certain people’s news feed. You don’t get that functionality with “boosting” your post.

Here are a handful of things to consider to make your next Facebook Ad successful.

Targeting Your Ad

Creating your target audience is one of the most powerful pieces of Facebook Advertising. This is where you choose who will see your ad. You really need to think this through as you want the right people to see the ad and you don’t want to pay for putting your ad in front of people who wont convert.

Facebook Demographics

Facebook Demographics let you choose the TYPE of person that will see your ad. Do you want to get in front of Parents? Homeowners? Small Business Owners? Or are you looking for someone that works in a particular field? Keep in mind, these do overlay, so if you choose someone that is a Mother, has a net income over $100,000 and is currently away from home– your ad will be limited to that exact demographic. This is extremely powerful for hyper-targeting your potential clients.

Facebook Interests

Facebook can help you reach specific audiences by looking at their interests, activities, the Pages they have liked and closely related topics. You can combine interests to expand your ad’s reach. Unlike Demographics, every interest that you add will be a larger group you are advertising to.

Facebook Behaviors

Facebook Behaviors let you market to people that do certain things. You can specifically reach potential customers based on purchase behaviors or intents, device usage and more. Within behaviors you will find options such as “Likely to Move” or people who have made donations to Cancer.

Between the Demographics, Interests and Behaviors, you should be able to laser target your ad to exactly who needs to see it. This makes your advertising spend very efficient.

Choose Your Placement

When placing a Facebook Ad, you can determine exactly where you want your ad to be displayed. You can choose to have it displayed within the News Feed on Mobile, Desktop, or both. You also have the option of placing your ad on the right side of the main Facebook page and on their Audience Network.

Most advertisers think its best to put their ads everywhere thinking it does not effect the end result. That’s not a very efficient way to go about it. Someone viewing your ad on a mobile device won’t behave the same way as someone sitting in front of his or her computer in their comfy chair. You can preview what your ad will look like in each placement by clicking the “Ad Preview and Placements” in Facebook Ads and in Power Editor just check the “Placement Section” under the “Ad Sets” tab.

Use Different Photos

Social Media is very visual. Facebook allows you to add several different photos for your ads, so try different ones, review your results and keep the ones that work best. It is worth noting that Facebook only allows 20% of the photo to have any type of copy. They will reject your ad if you put too many words on the photo—so if you are putting copy on the photo, be choosy and very specific. I have noticed that even after you get a notification that your ad was approved, you can later receive another e-mail saying it was rejected. So after seeing that “approved” e-mail, don’t jump up and down quite yet.

Don’t Forget the Call To Action

Facebook lets you choose a Call to Action to place on your photo. Different Calls to Action should be used depending on what you are advertising. The “Calls to Action” are simply the little grey buttons that you see on Facebook Advertising. I am of the belief that every ad should have a Call to Action, so If nothing fits, at least use “Learn More”.

Your Ad Copy

You have a variety of places that you can put copy on your new Facebook Ad. You have your Headline which is actually directly below the photo. You are limited to very few characters here so be precise. You have Text which is where the majority of the copy will be placed. The text ends up being placed directly above the photo and gives the most characters for your description. The last place you can put ad copy is a little hidden. You must click “Show Advanced Options” then you will see that you have the NewsFeed Link Description. The copy you place here will be BELOW your Headline. They give you a lot of characters to use here, but be aware it still may be cut off in your final ad.

Track Your Success

One fantastic feature of Facebook Ads is the ability to track your ad. You can use Conversion Pixels to track overall conversion on your website for the most full featured analytics. For more information on how to use Conversion Pixels, click HERE. At a minimum you should look daily at your Reach (which is determined by your spend and the size of your target group) your Number of Clicks (if your ad is driving traffic to your website) your Click Through Rate which is the number of clicks divided by the number of impressions and your Cost Per Unique Click. They have a ton of other metrics that you can use and most of them are very informative. Once you place enough ads and review your success statistics, you get a really good feel for what works and what doesn’t.

Shameless Plug

Creating a Facebook Ad is not brain surgery. It does take a little technical skill and a understanding of basic marketing practices. If you find yourself in a position to not have the time or desire to create your own ad—or simply want to hire a professional to get the best results…you are in luck! DEAN Knows Social Media creates Facebook Ads for all types of businesses at very affordable prices. We also provide SEO and SEM services, Reputation Monitoring and even post on all of your social media networks for you with industry specific posts. For more information on what we can do for you, visit our main site at www.DEANknowsSocialMedia.com or Contact Us directly.

March 26, 2015July 26, 2022

LinkedIn Basics – Guide to Success

LinkedIn Basics

LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site. LinkedIn was launched in May of 2003, and it is mainly used for professional networking. In 2006, LinkedIn boasts 560 million hits per day and is ranked the 13th most visited site in the world. With that type of engagement, with all sorts of business people, you can’t afford to NOT take LinkedIn seriously. We will cover some of the basics for getting started.

The basic functionality of LinkedIn has its user base to create profiles and “connections” to each other. The overall goal is to build the online relationship to assist with real world business relationships. Within the LinkedIn world, you will want to connect with anyone that you know from the business community. Upon inviting someone to be a connection, if they say they “don’t know you” this can harm your overall account status. Connections within LinkedIn work in degrees. Someone that you are directly connected to is a 1st degree and the people that they know are 2nd degree connections and so on.

This list of connections can then be used in a variety of ways.

Employers can list jobs and search for potential candidates.
Job seekers can review the profile of hiring managers.

LinkedIn Users Can

Obtain introductions to the connections of connections (termed second-degree connections) and connections of second-degree connections. — Man, that’s a lot of connections! You can see that LinkedIn is all about “connections”.
Find jobs, people and business opportunities recommended by someone in one’s contact network.
Follow different companies and can receive notifications about the new joining and offers available.
Save jobs that they would like to apply for.
“Like” and “congratulate” each other’s updates and new employments.
See who has visited their profile page.

Your LinkedIn Profile

You should fully complete all sections of your LinkedIn Profile linking each previous job to its respective LinkedIn Business Page. Be sure to add all correct dates for employment, schooling a professional photo etc. You will also want to build a Company Page for your business.

Optimizing your LinkedIn Profile allows you to showcase what you have to offer. On your Company Page you should build up the “products and services page” where you can showcase what you are about and give people compelling reasons to follow. Company pages are also very SEO-friendly. Google previews up to 156 characters of text from each business page. As a result, make sure your description leads with powerful, keyword rich sentences. Plus, members can search for companies by keyword on LinkedIn, so you should also include words and phrases that describe you, your business and your industry focus.

Engage With Your LinkedIn Audience

With LinkedIn company pages, you can “like” and share content as a company, similar to how you would do on Facebook and Google+. Therefore, you should use LinkedIn to share your own articles, as well as other industry news, with an audience that may not be active on one of the other social networks. You should post a minimum of one time a day but up to four times a day to ensure that articles are being seen. Similarly, company page admins can “like” and respond to member comments generated from posts. In addition, as you see a connection celebrating a work anniversary, be sure to comment.

With LinkedIn’s targeted updates, you can tailor certain messaging if desired. For example, when creating an update, you can choose to share it with “all followers” or to a “targeted audience.” Choosing the latter allows us to send an update to a subset of followers based on geography, industry, company size, or level of seniority. For example, if you were having a meet-up in a certain city, we can tailor updates toward people in that region.

Attracting More LinkedIn Followers

You must continuously be looking through the “People You May Know” and your existing connects–looking at their connections (your second degree connections) to attempt to grow your network. It is critical to NOT spam out many invites as this will diminish your presence on the site and could even result in your account being restricted or closed.

To additionally grow our LinkedIn followers, you should spread the word internally within your organization and encouraged all team members, contributors, etc., to follow and engage with the page. Use a multi-channel approach. Add a link to the company page to email signatures and add a “Follow” button to the website, which shows that you are on LinkedIn and makes it easy for people to follow.

Measure Your LinkedIn Success

Use LinkedIn Analytics to help better engage with followers and monitor your success. There is an array of insights available to help you focus and refine your strategy, including:

Engagement % — Engagement = interactions + clicks + followers acquired. In other words, this metric answers the question, “Of those who’ve seen my update, how many are truly engaging with it?” Looking at updates with higher engagement rates, and noting the type of content, people targeted, date and time, helps us learn how to optimize future content around what is proven to work.

Demographics — From seniority and industry to company size and function, demographics provide a snapshot of followers. With this information, you can tailor the type of content shared as well as the tone in which it is delivered. Demographics will also help determine which segments to focus on for targeted status updates.

How You Compare — Knowing how our company page compares to the pages of our competitors is a great way to determine whether we should change our strategy. Since your LinkedIn page is new, you may not have many benchmarks yet.

Shameless Plug

Needless to say, this is only some of the basics of how to use LinkedIn. They have a ton of ways to leverage your LinkedIn profile to acquire new talent, promote a lunch and learn, create sales, build new business connections and advertise. Here at DK Social Media we consider Social Media the most cost effective way to advertise. We also understand that many businesses don’t have the time or manpower to utilize social media to its fullest extent. Because of that, we offer many services to fully manage your social media persona and grow your business including Daily Industry Specific Posting, Social Media Marketing Campaigns, Reputation Monitoring and much more. Contact Us Today if you want to leverage the power of social media for your business.

March 6, 2015July 26, 2022

Facebook Advertising in 2015 – What You Need To Know

How Facebook is Changing Digital Advertising

Facebook Advertising will revolutionize marketing just as Google did in the early 2000’s. Facebook has an immense amount of user data on their over 1.23 Billion active users; and they use that data for advertising purposes. You no longer have to place an ad somewhere hoping that your target audience will see it. Facebook Ads give you the ability to hyper-target your customers and only pay if they see you advertisement.

With over 76% of Facebook’s monthly user base accessing Facebook on their mobile devices, you can now get in front of your clients wherever they are, at any time. Since Facebook went public in 2012, they now have officially migrated from a “free” social networking site to an advertisers dream. Don’t misunderstand, Facebook is still free to their user base and I’m sure they will never stop that, but to get your brand in front of their user base now costs money. In January of 2015 Facebook announced that they would substantially decrease the viability of business pages unless that page was paying to “boost” their post or otherwise partake in Facebook marketing. It does bring an end of an era where you could create a Facebook Business Page with a little skill, get in front of your audience. The glory days of Facebook Marketing for Free are over.

The Similarity to Google

Many digital marketers went ballistic when Facebook started running ads and letting people into their immense amount of data. Its a similar transition to what Google did in the early 2000’s, which single handedly put a major strain on the financials of almost every newspaper and periodical in the world. Prior to Google, if you wanted to say, sell boots–you would take out an ad in the local newspaper about your awesome boots selection. The idea was if the paper had a large enough circulation, that hopefully a small percentage of those people would have an interest in boots, see your ad and become a customer. This was how almost all advertising worked up until Google. Google changed the game by saying we will only show your ad to people looking for boots and you would only pay them if someone clicked on your ad to fully see your advertising. This is a major shift. Needless to say, they simply put your website link at the top of a Google Search for boots. But this led your target market to people specifically looking for what you are selling. This is still the cash cow of Google that lets them pay for silly stuff like this Insane New Office Headquarters and lets them afford all the other crazy things that most companies can’t afford.

So… On To Facebook Advertising

You may be aware that your Facebook Business Page has seen less traffic recently. They have consistently been Reducing the Visibility to Facebook Business Pages for some time with a death blow in January of 2015. Even people that “like” your page will most likely not see what you are posting unless they come to your page. You may have noticed that you now have the option of “boosting your post” so people will see it. In early March, Facebook has said that they will remove the “likes” of “non-active” Facebook users too. For most things, I don’t recommend simply boosting a post, you have much more powerful options.

The Power Of Facebook Advertising

Lets say you are a real estate agent and want to market to first time homebuyers. With the tremendous amount of information that Facebook has on their users, you can create an ad and have only people that you choose see that ad in their Newsfeed. So for that real estate agent, they could make an ad that says, “Buying Your First Home — Its Easier Than You Think” and give some other reasons for that target buyer to click the ad. The beauty of the system is that in setting up the audience that will be served by the ad you could choose: people that currently rent their home, people with at least two lines of credit, people that are engaged to be married, people that have gotten married within 6 months, people that make over 65K per year and people that live in the geographical area that you work in. WOW…think about that for a moment…That real estate agent would only pay to have their ad seen by people that may click on it. This makes the ad very effective and cost efficient. You can even choose how much money per day you wish to spend, which ultimately dictates how many people will see you ad.

How To Make Facebook Advertising Work

Just because you have a Facebook Ad that is hitting your target audience, that doesn’t mean you’re putting money in your pocket. There is another piece to the process which is a landing page built on your Business Website that is designed in the same vein as the ad. The landing page needs to have a similar look and feel, and back up what you have said to get them there. Needless to say, it needs to have multiple Calls to Action to have the user give their information. Many businesses, miss the final and most important part—–which is following up IMMEDIATELY when a new client gives their information. That doesn’t mean an automated e-Mail, it needs a phone call or a personalized message.

Shameless Plug

Needless to say, this is not brain surgery but Facebook Advertising does require the ability to create the ad, choose the correct audience and build the corresponding landing page on your business website. If you don’t feel comfortable doing this…DON’T FRET!!!! DEAN Knows Social Media can help! We have built many ads and corresponding landing pages, all with tremendous success. We also handle Social Media Management and Reputation Monitoring so you can focus on running your business. If you would like us to give you a hand with Social Media Advertising, Contact Us Today!