Blog – Page 60

REPORT: Images of Cats Nearly Double Your Site Traffic

Last Updated: April 1, 2015

Jack
A brand-new study from the Pew Research Center was published today, and as always, it contains lots of relevant and actionable information for us advertisers. However, there was one finding in particular that startled us. According to the study, which examined the analytics of thousands of websites, there is a correlation between website traffic and the presence of cat pictures. As the number of cat pictures increases on a site, the volume of site traffic does as well. In fact, site traffic increases by an average of 93%!

What’s Behind This?

If that sounds too bizarre to be true, we couldn’t agree more. But the numbers don’t lie. While correlation doesn’t always mean causation, it’s still a significant trend that you shouldn’t ignore. Websites from all different industries saw that their SEO efforts were greatly improved by simply adding cat pictures to their sites and sharing those pictures on their various listings on Google, Facebook, Yelp, Angie’s List, and so on.
Emmett2
We aren’t exactly sure what’s causing this phenomenon, but there’s been lots of speculation that one of Google’s newer updates could be behind it. A study like this hasn’t been performed before, so there’s no telling for how long this trend has existed. While our industry’s technical knowledge of the relationship between web traffic and cat pictures is still very limited, it feels safe to say definitively that cat pictures improve your SEO.

What About Dogs?

Emmett
Shockingly, dog pictures had the opposite effect. According to the study, sites that contained images of dogs saw, on average, 36% less traffic than sites with no dog photos and 72% less traffic than sites with cat photos.
We urge you to read the full report here.
The takeaway? Find a cat picture and add it to your site today.

For Businesses, Facebook Is Now Pay to Play

Last Updated: March 16, 2015

If you’ve been paying attention to our blog lately, you’ll know that Facebook is starting to replace Google as the destination for local search. That’s because it’s easier to ask your Facebook friends for personal recommendations than it is to comb through Google’s search results looking for a seemingly well-reviewed business. If you think about it, it’s a logical reaction against the overwhelming amount of information that comes from a Google search. Plus, the feedback you get from Facebook crowdsourcing is often much more reliable because it comes from people you actually know and trust.

That’s why Facebook ads and promotions are so popular right now. Local businesses are taking advantage of how many ready-and-willing customers are right there, searching for a plumber, electrician, or handyman for their latest project or emergency. But Facebook is smart, and it now wants you to pay for that advantage.

Sites, They Are A-Changin’

Just like all other marketing platforms, Facebook is rapidly growing and changing. We’re all taking advantage of Facebook as much as we can until it fades out of relevance and a more vital, effective platform comes along. After all, it wasn’t so long ago that Facebook was a small site populated only by college students. Then, Facebook opened its doors to everyone over the age of 13. Soon after, companies and organizations were allowed profiles, and advertisements quickly followed.
Now, Facebook is swimming in content and status updates, and it has realized how much money there is to be made in advertising. As a result, Facebook has significantly limited the “organic reach” of business Pages—in other words, they’ve restricted how many people a Page’s content will reach for free. This forces businesses to pay for sponsored ads and “boosted” posts in order to reach their fans and followers. (When Google rose to power, it did a similar thing by launching AdWords.)

Small Businesses Are at a Disadvantage

But here’s the kicker: Most small business owners aren’t well versed in the complexities of paid online advertising, so they’re at quite a disadvantage with this new restriction. And even if a business owner is somewhat familiar with paid advertising from working with Google AdWords, they’ll face some confusion because Facebook’s model is substantially different from Google’s.
The difference is that Google uses a CPC (cost-per-click) model, while Facebook primarily uses a CPM (cost-per-impression) model. CPM is based on how many times Facebook shows the ad to a user, rather than how many people click on it. Facebook’s advertising options also allow you to choose an “objective,” but your ad will only perform well if you optimize correctly for that objective. That means, in some cases, you can choose a CPC model if it makes sense to do so; however, you’re all but guaranteed to spend a lot more money. At the same time, if you stick with CPM but fail to target the proper demographic, or fail to write an ad that’s compelling, you will still spend a lot of money and get dismal results.
And these are only the basics! It gets much more complicated as you dig deeper.

Grabbing Attention Is Hard

Aside from the payment models, sponsored advertising also presents another difficulty: creating effective ads. This is particularly important if you’re paying for impressions, because you want the people who see your ads to actually be affected by them. Many small business owners are exceptionally skilled at their trade but don’t necessarily know how to create attractive, eye-popping ads or how to write powerful calls to action.
Even if local businesses are able to figure out which payment model works for them, they face a whole new battle in creating ads that will stick in people’s minds—and that’s before even worrying about generating new leads!

Act Fast, Be Smart

While Facebook’s new pay-to-play model may seem like a giant hurdle, that shouldn’t stop you from using it. The reality is that Facebook is the most fertile ground for local advertising these days.
But while it’s crucial to get in on the ground floor of Facebook advertising while it’s still relatively affordable, don’t be too hasty. Make sure you do plenty of research and know exactly what your plan is before putting down your company credit card. If you don’t have a plan for ad messaging, testing, rotation, and bids, then you aren’t ready to do it yourself.

Don’t Be Afraid to Call for Backup

If that all sounds like a lot of work, that’s because it is. The time-saving alternative, of course, is to hire an advertising professional. This decision might even save you money. The reason is simple: By specializing in online advertising and doing it all day, every day, professionals have gotten really good at it. In this case, “really good” means driving down the CPM and making your dollars work harder for you.
As a prime example, take a look at what Prospect Genius achieved with the last campaign we ran for ourselves. We spent less per Page “Like” than 99% of other Facebook advertisers. Why? Because we eat, sleep, and breathe online marketing. By doing it every day, we’ve reached a level of expertise that, according to Facebook itself, 99% of other people have yet to reach. In fact, by the time we ended this campaign, we drove that cost-per-Like down even further to just $1.65 over the life of the campaign!

Whether you decide to advertise on your own or with a professional, make sure you aren’t missing out on the endless possibilities that an effective Facebook advertising campaign can create for your local business.

Mobile-Friendliness Is Now One of Google's Ranking Factors

Last Updated: March 9, 2015

Does your website have a mobile version yet? If not, you only have one month before your rankings will begin to suffer. Starting April 21, your ranking on Google will be affected by whether or not your site is mobile friendly.
The new update, which was announced by Google on February 26 and takes effect on April 21, will impact all Google searches that take place on mobile devices. We’ve been expecting this move for some time now, as Google has been gradually making changes to increase the importance of having a mobile-friendly site. For instance, back in November 2014, Google rolled out a “mobile friendly” label to mark mobile search results that meet its criteria for mobile-friendliness. It even sent out notifications to website owners earlier this year, advising them to fix their sites’ mobile usability issues before their rankings were affected.
As Search Engine Watch’s Jay Taylor concludes, “This announcement eliminates any doubts regarding the beneficial treatment mobile-friendly websites will receive in the way of better rankings moving forward. If you don’t yet have a mobile-friendly website, it’s time to get to work.”
If you’re a Prospect Genius client and have a LeadTrax™ site from us, then you have nothing to worry about! All of our LeadTrax sites are automatically designed to be mobile friendly. But if you’re using your own site, the time to act is now. Conduct a mobile-friendliness test on Google’s webmasters page to see if your site meets Google’s criteria. If it doesn’t, then you better give us a call for help.

Facebook Is the New Google

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

Facebook isn’t just for stalking your old classmates anymore. In the past few years, Facebook has evolved into a hub for exchanging information—everything from political opinions to diet tips to breaking news—among friends, coworkers, and relatives. People even outsource their own questions, asking trusted friends who they recommend for local doctors, dentists, hair dressers, repairmen, contractors, and so on. That means local businesses and service providers have a unique opportunity on Facebook: They can take advantage of this crowdsourcing trend and promote themselves right on Facebook, where people are already looking for info about them.
In fact, Facebook is slowly replacing Google as the go-to resource for local search. People used to turn to Google to find local appliance repairmen, plumbers, landscapers, and the like, but there was no way to know whether these professionals were actually reliable or not. Hence the uptick in crowdsourcing on Facebook. Now, people realize it’s much more easy and effective to ask the people they know and trust for their personal recommendations—instead of taking a gamble on the business that happened to have the best ranking on Google.

Optimize Your Facebook

To take advantage of this new opportunity, you must make your Facebook presence as appealing as possible to prospective customers. Here’s what you need:

Page “Likes.” A Facebook Page without fans is like a restaurant without patrons. People passing by will not go in because the restaurant is empty, implying that it’s unpopular. In other words, more “Likes” on your Page will give your business more credibility.
Reviews. Customer reviews used to just be nice to have. Then, they became integral in attracting new customers. Now, they’re a vital part of your local search rankings on Google. You simply must get your customers to leave reviews on your company’s Facebook Page.
Page activity. Your Page is a showcase for your company’s personality and expertise. You should be posting status updates, uploading photos, and sharing helpful articles on a consistent basis (at least a few times a week), otherwise your audience will see no value in following your Page.
An attractive profile. Your company’s description should be well written and captivating. Your profile picture and header should be unique, high-quality images that are relevant to your business—not grainy snapshots of your own face. You want Page visitors to see how professional your team really is.
Regular engagement. To show your audience that you care, you should be interacting with them regularly. When they comment on one of your posts, respond. When they leave a review, good or bad, thank them for their feedback. This is your chance to hear what your customers and prospects are thinking and to let them know that you’re listening.

What You Can Do Yourself

There are many aspects of social media marketing that you can take care of yourself. Maintaining a presence on Facebook is something that’s entirely within your abilities if you have the time and energy. Here are some of the Facebook tasks that are pretty DIY friendly:

Sharing status updates. It only takes a minute to share what your company has been up to for the past few days.
Uploading photos and/or videos of your work. Smartphones make it super easy to take photos and videos, and the Facebook app makes it even easier to upload them straight to your timeline.
Sharing links to relevant articles and/or blog posts. If you come across an item online that you think your audience would appreciate, it takes almost no time at all to copy and paste the link on Facebook.
Interacting with your audience (e.g. posing questions, replying to comments, etc.). As soon as you get a notification that someone has commented on a post or left you a review, take a quick moment to read it and respond. It’s also easy to engage with your fans simply by asking them about their plans for the weekend or an upcoming holiday.

What You Should Leave to Us

Of course, having some extra time on your hands isn’t always enough to make an impressive Facebook presence. If you really want to promote your brand and put yourself in front of local prospects, then you’ll need to consider some more advanced strategies. However, advanced strategies call for advanced expertise. The below tasks require the kind of experience you can only find at Prospect Genius:

Promoting sponsored ads. We have years of experience working with paid ads. We use those countless data points to identify trends and help your ads get the most visibility and highest conversion rates possible. Plus, since Facebook uses a CPM model instead of CPC (in other words, you pay for ad impressions instead of clicks), you’ll need a team that knows how to set up your campaign so you aren’t hemorrhaging money.
Implementing a “Like” campaign. Again, since we’re able to draw on our wealth of experience with paid ads, we know how to test and rotate ads so they drive the most “Likes” to your page.
Continuously sharing content. Even if you have the time to post on Facebook, you may not know exactly what to say. That’s where our SocialStream package comes in handy. Our professional writers will add a certain number of blog posts each month to your LeadTrax™ site, and our production specialists will share them on all of your social media accounts. It’s the best way to share useful, high-quality content with your audience on a consistent basis.

Lather, Rinse, Repeat

Social media is a lifestyle. It’s not a one-and-done campaign. Maintaining a solid Facebook presence requires lots of repetition. You need to be continuously active on your account. Your activity can’t just last for one month and then taper off, or else you’ll miss out on countless potential fans. If you don’t think you’ll be able to maintain consistent activity on Facebook, then you should seriously consider calling for reinforcements. Our professionals will give you plenty of valuable content to share and can even promote your brand through sponsored ads. You can’t afford to ignore such a vital (and mostly free) advertising platform… Give us a call and start coordinating with our team today!

Online Advertising Guarantees Are Just Tricks

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

Let’s say you’re an appliance repairman. If you were to install a new part in a washing machine, you would most likely guarantee the quality of your handiwork, but you probably wouldn’t specifically guarantee how clean your customer’s clothes would come out of the wash. Why not? Because there would be too many variables out of your control, like whether the customer added enough detergent, whether they packed the machine too full, or how dirty the clothes were when they were put into the wash. While you can advise your customer on how to best use a washing machine and explain what normally happens when clothes are put into a washing machine, you can’t actually guarantee specific results. A lot of that is up to the customer and the washing machine itself.
Man lying with fingers crossed
This scenario translates to online advertising. Advertisers are the appliance repairman, Google is the washing machine, and quality lead generation is the clean clothing. While it may seem reasonable at first to ask for guaranteed results from your advertising provider, it’s just not something we can do because there are so many variables that are out of our control. We can give you a ballpark estimate of results based on the typical trajectory of a campaign, but we cannot guarantee you specific results. And you should question any provider who does.
In this post, we’ll take a look at some of the most common types of online advertising guarantees and explain why you should think twice before believing them.

Guaranteed Number of Calls

There are plenty of online advertising providers who guarantee you’ll get “X” number of calls through their campaign. But here are some questions you should ask:

What kind of calls count?
Are they counting unique calls or repeat calls?
Are they counting existing customers?
Are they counting misdials?
Are they counting solicitation calls?
Are they counting calls for services you don’t offer?
Are they counting calls from totally different geographic areas?
Are your calls being sent to multiple other businesses at the same time?
What kind of timeline are they using to count the calls? Is it per month? per year?

Providers may guarantee a certain number of calls, but when you start digging for answers, you’ll usually see that their guarantees mean nothing. Even if they do fulfill their guarantee of “X” number of calls, they could be sending you lots of calls unrelated to your services, calls from outside of your service area, or calls that have been shared with your direct competitors. And unless they say otherwise, it could take the entire span of your campaign to reach the promised number of calls. In short, a certain number of calls does not guarantee success for your business.

Guaranteed Number of Leads

Meanwhile, some providers guarantee that they’ll send you a certain number of leads. In this context, the difference between leads and calls is that leads are sent to you in the form of a prospect’s contact info, and they require you to track down that individual in order to obtain their business. If an advertising company guarantees you a certain number of leads, here’s what you should ask:

Are they sending live leads to you?
Are they also sharing those leads with your competitors?
- If so, how many?
Are they sending leads that aren’t actually relevant to your service offerings?
Are they sending leads from the wrong geographic areas?
Are they counting leads from existing customers?
Are they counting leads from repeat customers?
Are they counting spam e-mails?
What kind of timeline are they using to count the leads? Is it per month? per year?

Just like providers who guarantee a certain number of calls, providers who guarantee leads will always find loopholes to get around their own promises. To satisfy their guarantee and provide you with the highest number of leads possible, they might just send you leads for any old service, even if you don’t provide that service. They also might be sending you leads that are simultaneously going to other clients, who are most likely your direct competitors. By sending you poor-quality leads or leads that aren’t exclusive to you, they’re able to fulfill their promise without actually helping your business.

Guaranteed Search Engine Rankings

One of the most common guarantees floating around the online advertising industry is for “first-page” rankings on search engines. If they say that they’ll put you on page one, there are a lot of technical loopholes that they might be going through in order to make that happen. Here’s what you should be asking:

Are you ranking in organic search results, as a sponsored ad, or in the maps section?
Who is performing the search?
Which search terms are you ranking for?
Which search engine are you actually ranking on?
If they’re using Google, are they searching while signed in to their accounts?
Will they clear their own search and browsing history before performing the search?
Do they turn off their browser cookies?
Are they using a proxy server?
Are they always using the same IP address?
Which web browser are they using?
What location are they searching in?
Are they searching from a desktop computer or from a mobile device?
How long will the page-one ranking last?
Are they just going to take over your existing Google My Business listing?

As you can see, these guarantees can get extremely complicated because there are so many technical factors that play a role in rankings. It’s easy for a provider to work around their page-one guarantee by simply manipulating all the right variables. Normal searches aren’t going to produce the same results.
For instance, if it’s a PPC campaign, then it won’t take much–aside from a lot of money–to get your business on the first page of Google, as sponsored results automatically display at the top of the first page. The specific search terms that they’re using to determine your ranking also matter: Are you ranking for natural search terms like “appliance repair in Albany, NY,” or are you ranking for “Bob’s Appliance Repair, 123 Main St, Albany, NY 12203″? You’ll probably rank at the top when someone searches for your exact company name and location, but that’s not what makes an advertising campaign effective or successful.
The final bullet point is especially important. If you already have a Google My Business listing in good standing, there are many providers who will seek you out because all they have to do to satisfy the guarantee is take over your listing, even though most of the SEO work was done before they even got there. It’s a dishonest tactic, but many providers fulfill their guarantee this way.

Guarantees Are Traps

Providers offer guarantees because they know how to grab your attention. But the takeaway from this post should be that online advertising guarantees, when boiled down, mean nothing. Just like with every other form of advertising that has ever existed in the world, online advertisers can’t actually guarantee results that are ultimately out of their control. If a provider does guarantee you specific results, you should be very, very skeptical.

Prospect Genius

REPORT: Images of Cats Nearly Double Your Site Traffic

What’s Behind This?

What About Dogs?

Mobile-Friendliness Is Now One of Google's Ranking Factors

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