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Most Asked SEO Questions in 2023

Most Asked SEO Questions in 2023

by | Apr 26, 2022 | Advertising Wollongong, Digital marketing wollongong, local seo, Online Advertising Wollongong, SEO Wollongong, Uncategorized, YouTube SEO Wollongong

What is SEO marketing?

SEO stands for search engine optimization, which is the practice of increasing the amount of visitors to a website by ranking higher in search results.

Search engines like Google and Bing use robots to crawl the internet, looking at websites to determine how they should rank them in their search results. SEO marketing is the process of improving a website’s content and code so that it ranks as high as possible in these searches.

When beginning an SEO campaign, marketers need to consider how people search for information online and what search terms they might use when looking for your products or services. More and more consumers are using longer phrases called long-tail keywords when searching online. For example, someone trying to buy a laptop might type “best laptops under $500” into Google rather than simply “laptop.”

Marketers then optimize the website’s content and technical components, such as image tags and headers, so that these keywords appear throughout different parts of the site. This encourages Google’s algorithms to rank that website higher in search results for those keywords. The process is ongoing because what works today may not work tomorrow—search engines are constantly updating their algorithms to provide users with better results.

What is local SEO? What are the benefits of local SEO?

The term local SEO generally refers to the optimization of online marketing campaigns for small, local businesses. It’s a strategy for achieving higher organic rankings for relevant search terms that comes with numerous benefits. First, more traffic can result in more revenue as a result of superior organic ranking within search engine results. On top of that, local SEO allows businesses to target nearby audiences and offers increased trust among potential customers.

Free Standard Professional SEO SOPs

How much should I pay for SEO in 2023?

Your SEO cost will depend on the level of support you need and the size of your business. If you’re just starting out, you might only need one or two people to help you with SEO. On the other hand, if you’re an established company with lots of customers, it might make sense to hire an entire team.

The average SEO cost is $1200 per month. The cheapest SEO packages we offer start at $650/month and go up to $6000/month for larger companies with more complex needs, so there’s something for every budget! For example, if you’re looking for local search engine optimization services our agency charges $650-$2000 per month depending on how competitive your market is from both an organic and paid perspective.

Do you think SEO is still a valid way to get traffic to your website?

SEO, or search engine optimization strategies, are tactics designed to improve your website ranking and visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs). When executed correctly, SEO can be a very effective way to increase organic traffic without having to pay for ads.

SEO is a proven and cost effective marketing strategy, which enables companies to build quality and relevant links to their website. Over time these links can help non-brand aware consumers find your brand, driving more traffic to your site. There are many methods of SEO in order to effectively grow links, such as on-site optimization, quality link building, or social media optimization and promotion.

How many headings in the article should I put the keywords?

Well, it depends on the article. For example, if you are writing a short article about how to build a bookshelf level and put in place, there is no need to put too much headings. The reader will be able to understand what you are talking about quickly. However, if you are writing a longer article on how to build an office building or a hospital, we suggest that you use more than 2 or 3 headings. Why? Each section within the main article should be relatively independent from other sections, so that each heading can incorporate the keywords well.

How can I create backlinks for free in 2023?

One of the best ways to create backlinks for free in 2023 is by participating in online communities and forums. Share your knowledge, help others, and you’ll be rewarded with free backlinks.

But remember: creating backlinks for free on a forum can be a time-consuming process if done incorrectly.

Reverse engineer your competitor’s backlink strategy

What is a good SEO score out of 100? How can I check my website SEO status?

The first thing to know is that there is no such thing as a universal “perfect” score out of 100 when it comes to SEO. In fact, there may be no such thing as a perfect score at all. What matters most is increasing the number of people who visit your site and converting them into paying customers. The higher you can get that number without sacrificing your other goals, the better you will be able to rank in search results.

There are a few different ways to check your website SEO status:

1. Google Search Console

2. Bing Webmaster Tools

3. Moz Free SEO Checkers

4. SEMrush Site Audit Tool

Can deleting posts hurt SEO?

Yes, deleting posts can hurt SEO.

SEO is short for search engine optimization. It’s the art and science of making your website more visible to search engines by targeting keywords, producing quality content, and building backlinks (linking your site to other sites with similar content). When you delete a post or page, it becomes inaccessible to the search engine crawlers that visit your site. When they can’t access the post or page because it’s gone, they alert Google that there’s a broken link on your site. That negatively impacts your SEO score.

The best way to avoid this is to make sure that any posts or pages you want deleted are redirected to another page on your website through a 301 permanent redirect. You can manage redirects in the WordPress admin panel by going to Tools > Redirection and adding the URL of the post or page you’re removing from your site along with the new URL you want it redirected to.

Is it possible to rank #1 for competing keywords in a week?

What if I told you that you could rank #1 for your desired keyword in a week? Is it possible?

While it’s not impossible to rank #1 on Google in a week, we should first discuss what this means. Google is the most widely used search engine in the world, accounting for about 90% of all searches. For this reason, “rank #1 on Google” can be taken to mean “appear at the top of the first page of results when someone searches for your keyword.”

This is difficult because Google changes its algorithms frequently, and competitors are always updating their content and staying competitive. In fact, according to Backlinko’s study of 1 million Google search results, it takes an average of 3.8 months for a given page to reach the top 10 search result positions for a specific keyword.

While there are ways to speed up this process—such as through high-quality content and well-placed backlinks—nothing can guarantee ranking #1 on a search engine in just one week.

A lot of factors go into where you land on search engines (including things such as your geographic location, what device you’re using, whether or not you’re logged into your account, etc.), so it would be nearly impossible to get ranked in such a short space of time.

How can I find the right keyword?

The most important part of finding the right keyword is to understand what it is you want to rank for. Do you want to come up in the search results when someone searches for “leather jackets”? Or do you want to rank for “leather jackets in Denver”?

Think about where you want to rank, and try searching for it yourself. What results show up? If it’s a local business, does Google Maps dominate the results? How does your competition appear? What are they doing, and how can you do better?

Once you have a sense of what your goal is, it’s time to start doing research. Use all of the available tools: Google’s Keyword Planner in Google Ads, Moz’s Keyword Explorer, Ahrefs’ Keyword Explorer, Ubersuggest or Rank Tracker—the list goes on! The more information you can collect about keywords, particularly their search volume and difficulty, the better prepared you’ll be to select a keyword that perfect keyword!

Reverse Engineer Your Competitor’s Organic Keyword Strategy

When should long-tail or short-tail keywords be used to optimize SEO?

Long-tail and short-tail keywords are used to optimize SEO in different ways.

Long-tail keywords are used for more specific searches. For example: “blue down coat with hood” is a long-tail keyword phrase that indicates the searcher is looking for a very specific type of product. These can be particularly useful when you don’t have a high search volume for your product, or if you have a lot of competition. It’s easier to rank highly on a long-tail keyword search because there won’t be as much competition, and by targeting your audience more directly, you’re likely to receive higher quality site traffic.

Short-tail keywords are used for general searches. For example: “coat” is a short-tail keyword that could refer to any kind of coat, so it’s much less likely to convert into sales than the long-tail keyword phrase “blue down coat with hood.” However, short-tail keywords can bring in a lot of traffic and can be useful if you have products that are relevant to lots of different kinds of searches.

How do you select keywords and rank high in a search engine?

Developing a list of keywords that search engines can use to find your site is an essential part of your online marketing strategy. But what exactly are keywords? They’re the terms that customers type into search engines when they look for goods and services. When you research, select, and use keywords properly, you’ll not only increase your visibility on the web, but you’ll also drive more targeted traffic to your site—people who may just turn into new customers.

Here’s how to select keywords that will help you rank high in search results:

-Step 1: Research and analyze. Research other sites in your industry to see what keywords they’ve chosen. Also evaluate how relevant those keywords are to your business. If you sell snowboards, but other sites in your industry use the keyword “skis,” you won’t get much traffic if you choose this term yourself.

-Step 2: Use tools like Google’s AdWords Keyword Planner tool to choose terms that will be most effective at getting you ranked high in search results. You can also try WordStream’s Free Keyword Tool.

-Step 3: Create a plan for implementing them in various areas of your site, including URLs, page titles, headings, content, meta descriptions, and images

In order to rank well in a search engine, you need to know how to select the right keywords. You should select keywords based on their popularity and relevancy; ideally, they should be popular with consumers and relevant to your company’s products or services.

A good keyword is one that potential customers are actively searching for in order to find products like yours.

You can also improve your ranking by making sure that all of your website’s pages have content using relevant, high-performing keywords. You want every page of your site to be linked with a relevant keyword so that search engines can understand what each page is about and rank it accordingly.

 

Why are SERP features important?

SERP’s is an acronym of Search Engine Results Page. SERP features control what parts of your website appear in the search result, which reduces user clicks to other sites or competitors. They also improve the user experience by giving them a quick snapshot of an answer, rather than forcing them to click through multiple links to find what they want.

SERP features are a vital part of search engine optimization. The most common SERP features currently in use include featured snippets, image packs, local packs, and ads. Each type of SERP feature has its own strengths and weaknesses for the user, and each one is treated differently by the search engine.

They are important because they can add value to your site. The more SERP features you have on your site, the more information Google has about your website.

Your site has different types of content that Google can use for each SERP feature. It could be a blog post or an article that your company wrote, or it could be something from another website that you think can help with your business.

How do you target SERP features?

If you want to improve your visibility in search engines, you need to make sure that you’re targeting SERP features.

SERP features include:

– Featured snippets (a box at the very top of the SERP that contains information related to the user’s search)

– Knowledge panels (informational panels on the right side of the page)

– Maps (maps and listings of local businesses)

– Top stories (news articles listed at the top of the page)

– Image packs (images from around the internet related to your query)

– Video packs (videos from around the internet related to your query)

How do you get these featured spots?

You can target SERP features by using schema markup on your website. Schema is a language that helps Google and other search engines understand what parts of your web page are important.

This type of mark-up can help you to appear in SERP features such as Knowledge Graphs, carousels, top stories, and more.

How do I find low competition keywords for my new channel? 

FREE YouTube Keyword Research tool 

When you’re launching a new channel, you have to make sure you know what keywords to target. If you just throw up your content and start posting, you risk getting buried in the sea of YouTube competitors. So, how do you find the low competition keywords that will help your videos stand out?

Now, there are two ways to approach this:

The first is to look for what’s already popular on YouTube. Use TubeBuddy’s keyword finder tool to search for any top-performing videos. Look at their titles and descriptions and see what they’re doing differently from other videos in the same niche.

The other option is to do a little digging—literally into Google Keyword Planner—and find out what’s already popular with people searching for content on YouTube. You can also try looking at your own website analytics to see what people are searching for on your site that sends them over to YouTube. Once you’ve found some keywords, then it’s time to optimize!

How do you optimize your content for SEO and social media marketing?

Optimizing content for Google, and social media has become a key component of any social media marketing strategy. In order to effectively utilize the three platforms and bring in more traffic, businesses need to understand how they work and how to plug their content into them.

Optimize your content for Google

Google is the largest search engine in the world, so it’s important that your website is indexed by Google’s search algorithm. Content optimized for Google can be found using relevant keywords or phrases. Include your keywords in your title tag and meta description to help Google index your page for those terms. You should also optimize your webpage for mobile devices, as most Google searches are performed on mobile devices.

Follow these tips to optimize your content for Google:

* Make sure you have original and unique content on your website

* Make sure that you have a sitemap on your site that tells Google where all of the pages on your site are located (you can make one with our sitemap generator!)

* Make sure that you include relevant keywords in the page’s Title Tag and Meta Description tag

* Create quality backlinks to increase external traffic to specific pages on your website

Optimize your content for social media

Social media marketing is a rapidly-changing industry, and staying on top of the latest trends and tools can be challenging for most companies. Here are some tips for keeping your social media marketing up to date:

1. When you’re deciding on the type of content to post, keep in mind that certain types of posts tend to perform better than others. For instance, videos, photos with text overlay, and live streaming tend to get the best results.

2. When you’re deciding which social media platform to post on, remember that each platform has a different audience and purpose. For example, Facebook tends to have more family and friend connections, while Twitter tends to have more professional connections.

3. When you’re choosing when to post, remember that you do not want to post too frequently or at odd hours; it’s best to post during peak hours between 10am and 5pm.

4. When you’re determining how often you should be posting new content, keep in mind that it’s best to post about once a week for each social media page that you maintain; this will allow your audience to see new content several times a month rather than having them view the same content multiple times in one day.

Is it worth putting time into SEO for Bing if you’re already optimizing SEO for Google?

If you’ve optimized your SEO for Google, do you need to put time into Bing?

Some businesses are worried that they don’t have the resources to optimize their SEO for Bing. After all, Bing is much smaller than Google. That’s true: Bing doesn’t get as many search queries as Google does. However, if you’re already optimizing your SEO for Google, it’s worth putting some time into Bing optimization as well.

Here’s why:

The purpose of SEO is to help people find your product or service. If someone searches for a keyword on Google and your site isn’t showing up in the top 10 results, they’re not going to be able to find you. But if they search that same keyword on Bing and your site ranks #1-3, they’ll see your site and be able to click through to get the product or service they want. Even though less people search on Bing than on Google, it’s still important to make sure your site shows up in top results for both search engines!

Bing for Business is a free service that allows you to manage your business listing data on Bing.com and sync it with your Google My Business account.

How do I start a Bing for Business account and sync it with Google My Business?

If you have already registered your business on Google My Business, you can connect your accounts and start managing your listings on Bing.com immediately.

The first step is to sign up for a Bing for Business account here .

Once you have signed up, please follow the steps below to connect your Bing for Business account with Google My Business:

– Log in to the Bing for Business portal and go to the Manage Organization page.

– Click on “Add an organization” and enter the email address associated with your Google My Business profile.

– Follow the instructions in the email sent to you by Microsoft.

– When asked, enter your password associated with Google My Business.

After entering your password, you will see a message that says “Congratulations! Your Bing for Business organization was successfully connected to this Google My Business account.”

How important is keyword research when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO)?

Keyword research is a very important component of search engine optimization (SEO). Search engines aim to deliver relevant results to their users, and keywords are often the best way for them to understand what a page is about.

When you’re performing keyword research, you’re looking for high-volume words that people might use when they’re searching for your product or service. These high-volume keywords are often very competitive and difficult to rank on the first page of Google for. However, there’s an entire spectrum of words from “very specific” to “very general” that your customers might use when searching for your product. By focusing on lower-volume but more specific keywords, you can avoid the fierce competition at the top of the SERPs (search engine result pages) and still get traffic from your target audience.

When you do keyword research, you’re looking for words and phrases that tons of people type into search engines like Google, but that don’t have a ton of competition. You want to find those long-tail keywords—the phrases that are specific enough that they are only searched for occasionally, but which have a high conversion rate because when someone does search for them, they’re ready to buy something. A long-tail keyword is a phrase that contains between three and five words, like “how to find a job after college.” It’s more specific than shorter keywords like “jobs” or “college.” Long-tail keywords are better because they’ll bring in more targeted traffic that’s likely to convert into sales or

As a result, long-tailed keywords help sites appear more frequently in searches without driving up their rates, making them an excellent choice for small businesses on a budget who want to maximize their visibility within their industry without going bankrupt trying to do so.

Free Professional Standard “How To” Keyword Research SOP 

 

Do upper case or lower letters as keywords affect search engine optimization?

There is no difference in how search engines, like Google, Bing, or DuckDuckGo, regard upper- or lowercase letters when indexing and ranking results.

Search engines use “normalization” to convert all terms into lowercase when they index the page. This means that it doesn’t matter what case you use in the URL or title tag—it’s all converted to lowercase.

Therefore, there is no reason to worry about how you capitalize your keywords in web pages and links—they won’t affect your search engine optimization (SEO).

However, if you want to be consistent in your own website’s URLs, it’s a good idea to pick one format and stick with it for all of them.

How does a snippet work?

A snippet is a short piece of text, usually between 1 and 4 sentences long, that can be used for many different purposes. Many companies use them to increase their SEO (search engine optimization). They are aware that Google gives higher rankings to websites that have a lot of content, and snippets help them create more content without having to write an entire article or blog post.

Snippets can help with a variety of purposes! For example, they can be used as a store description on Etsy or the ‘About Us’ section of your webpage, or as an email introduction when you’re reaching out to potential clients.

There you have it, not an exhaustive list but they are the most asked about SEO questions we get around here..

If you’re looking for more answers regarding SEO, we are only too happy to help. We have comprehensive SEO plans for any requirement you may have.

Or, if you just want some free advice, check out our SOPs (standard operating procedures).

Dedicated To Your Marketing Success

John

wollongong digital marketing

8 Ways to Lowering Your Facebook Ad Costs in 2022

8 Ways to Lowering Your Facebook Ad Costs in 2022

by | Apr 19, 2022 | Advertising Wollongong, Digital Marketing SOPs, Digital marketing wollongong, direct response marketing, Lead generation, local seo, social media marketing

Have you been wondering how to stretch your Facebook ad budget? You’re not alone. Many marketers are still wondering how to grow their organic reach, avoid the Facebook penalty and keep up with all of the changes at Facebook. It’s for these reasons I’ve put together a list of 8 ways to stretch your Facebook ad budget in 2022.

Factors that affect the cost of Facebook ads

Just like Instagram ads costs, Facebook ad costs are influenced by a number of variables.

First and foremost, the campaign objective you select for your campaign will have a significant impact on pricing since it relates to the value of the desired goal and where in the funnel your users are. For example, Brand awareness or Engagement campaigns will cost less than lower-funnel campaigns like Conversions that drive purchases. It’s easier to get someone to engage with an ad than it is to entice them to click through, open up their wallet, and complete a purchase.

Next, audience size plays a role in Facebook ad costs as well. Ads targeting larger and broader audiences will generally cost less than ads targeted at smaller audiences. You will typically see lower costs in prospecting, upper-funnel, cold-audience campaigns compared to retargeting, lower-funnel, warmer-audience campaigns because the audiences of the latter tend to be more specific and smaller in size—therefore more competitive.

Facebook’s algorithm is in constant learning mode, so it will continue to optimise your ads over time. The longer your campaign runs, the more data Facebook has to work with, which can result in lower costs.

This is where a high daily budget comes in handy. For example, if you have a $5 daily budget for a new ad set and only spend $1 on a given day, Facebook may take longer to exit the Learning Phase because it received less data to work with. The same will happen if you have a very low-performing ad set — if the ad set doesn’t reach Facebook’s minimum goal for engagement or conversion volume by the end of the day, then it may not be able to learn enough to optimise your ads well.

If your daily budget is on the higher end, Facebook may be able to exit the Learning Phase faster because it has enough data and a large enough audience pool to draw from. With a higher daily budget, Facebook also has more room in its budget optimisation algorithm to push your ads out more frequently, increasing your chances of getting new conversions and engaging with new users.

Bidding strategy is another factor that influences the cost of your Facebook ads.

A bidding strategy is the way you instruct Facebook to spend your ad budget, and there are a variety of options.

If you choose a lowest-cost bidding strategy, it will try to spend as little money as possible while focusing on getting the most out of your ad for you. A maximum value strategy prioritizes maximizing the value of each conversion. A cost cap strategy is more expensive than a lowest-cost option but allows you to set a limit on how much you’re willing to spend on each click or conversion. Similar to cost cap, minimum ROAS (return on ad spend) involves setting a specific dollar amount that you want to get back from each dollar spent. Finally, manual bidding gives you direct control over your bids for clicks or impressions, with no optimisation by Facebook’s algorithm.

Click-through rate can also play a role in you Facebook ad costs. If click-through rate is low, especially in a website traffic campaign, you may then see higher costs as Facebook understands that there may be some disconnect between your target audience and the messaging in your ads.

A healthy Facebook click-through rate is about 2%. More often than not, the higher your click-through rate climbs, the lower your cost per clicks will be.

There are many factors that influence the cost of Facebook ads, and the most important one is industry.As you saw in our benchmarks above, Facebook costs vary by industry, which also includes varying click-through rates. It’s also important to look at the ROI by industry. For example, the average CPA for restaurants is $12.91. But if your customer spends $50 and keeps coming back for years to come, you’re essentially making money off of that ad.

Of course, other factors play into ad costs as well, such as:

The level of competition in your industry (for example, in real estate)

How many times a user has converted on your site or app

Whether or not you’re advertising mobile or desktop apps

The cost of your product or service

Seasonality: Historically speaking, in the latter part of Q3 and Q4, costs tend to temporarily increase as the advertising landscape changes for the holiday ecommerce season. Competition ramps up as brands increase their budgets and gain more impression share, thus, increasing costs for all advertising brands.

Keep that in mind as you budget for the year and if you aren’t in ecommerce or running promotions during the end of the year, you may want to strategize on whether to keep a presence or to scale back.

Location: If you’re targeting a smaller metropolitan area like Peoria, IL versus New York City, your costs may be lower given that there will be less competition for those impressions.

Competition: The more saturated your industry is with advertisers, the higher costs will be. There are simply more brands vying for those same impressions and clicks from your target audience.

facebook CPC per industry

Source: Wordstream.com

Lowering your Facebook ad costs

Running a Facebook ad campaign isn’t easy! Success comes as a result of constant testing and optimisation. There are ways of making things easier and reduce your costs without having to take shortcuts. We’ve put together 8 proven ways to help you lower your Facebook ad costs.

1. Create a full-funnel strategy

To use your budget wisely, choose funnel-appropriate campaign objectives. In general, Awareness and Consideration campaigns are suited for the top of the funnel; Consideration and Conversion campaigns align with the middle of the funnel; and Conversion campaigns are best for bottom-funnel conversions.

In short, begin with upper-funnel campaigns to reach more people in your target audience at a lower cost, and then move your way toward conversion campaigns that optimize for your purchase-driving conversion events.

Note that some brands can certainly run a Conversion campaign targeting upper-funnel audiences with lower priced products or something that may make for a good impulse buy.

People can and do make purchases upon first interaction with a brand on Facebook, however, most will need more touch points from a brand so you can gain their trust, showcase your benefits, and entice them to convert.

facebook full-funnel strategy

Source: Wordstream.com

2. Use the Automatic Placements setting

While it can be tempting to pick and choose where you want your ads to appear within the Facebook network, the best way to save money is to start with the default Automatic Placements setting. In fact, not doing so is on our list of 7 Budget-Wasting Facebook Ads Mistakes. By appearing on all placements, Facebook can get a better idea on where to best serve your ads, thus lowering your costs. You’ll also get out of the learning period faster so that you can apply data-informed money-saving optimizations as soon as possible. Your targeting conditions will remain the same regardless of placement, which means Facebook can then serve ads to user in a lower volume, but lower cost placement that can help drive incremental revenue for you.

facebook automatic ad placements

3. Broaden Your Audience

Your audience size impacts how much Facebook ads cost. So while you want to keep your targeting narrow, you should strive to make those targeted audiences as large as possible. This has become trickier as a result of privacy measures implemented by Facebook, but the benefit is increased privacy for Facebook users and the opportunity for marketers to target more precisely and identify more effective strategies for reaching their target audience. If you’re not sure where to start, look for commonalities among your current customers and try targeting people in your own network who share those characteristics.

  1. Check audience overlap

Check audience overlap. Facebook’s audience overlap tool can be instrumental in saving money. Let’s say you have one ad targeting an audience of people interested in startups and another ad for people interested in entrepreneurship. You have different Facebook ad copy and creative to appeal to these different audiences. However, the overlap tool shows you that half of the startup audience overlaps with the entrepreneurship audience. Knowing this, you can use exclusions so those ads don’t overlap. Otherwise, you’d lose money bidding against yourself.

facebook ads audience overlap tool

Source: Wordstream.com

5. Bid caps

Bid caps are the manual bidding strategy in Facebook ads, where you can set a maximum bid instead of allowing Facebook to dynamically bid based on your goals. But this should be used with caution. It’s for advertisers who have a solid understanding of the conversion rate and profit margin, and requires regular maintenance. If you set your bid cap too low, Facebook might have a hard time spending all of your budget.

6. Use the Pixel and the Facebook Conversions API

The goal of both of these pieces of technology is for you to track your ad performance. With visibility into what’s working and what’s not, you can allocate budget accordingly. You can also gain insights about the people viewing your ads, which you can use to further optimise your campaigns and maximise your budget.

The Facebook Pixel is still a thing, but it is losing its power since it’s cookie-based and cookies are crumbling. The Facebook Conversions API does not rely on cookies, but it doesn’t pick up the same exact information as the pixel. So, using the two together will ensure you capture the most accurate data. Refer to SOP “Installing facebook pixel on your site” below.

SOP 005: Install the Facebook Pixel on Your Site

7. Run Facebook A/B testing

Facebook isn’t the set-it-and-forget-it type of platform. If you want to get the most bang for your buck, you’ve got to stay active, and that includes running tests at the ad level.

Running tests can help improve your engagement rates and CTR, which will stretch your budget further. Here are some tips on how to lower your Facebook ad costs through testing:

  • Run A/B tests on ad sets
  • Run A/B tests on ads

Lowering your Facebook ad costs can be tricky. If you’re reading this, you know as well as anyone that Facebook is constantly making changes to its platform, and sometimes those changes aren’t so great for advertisers.

But there are still plenty of ways to make sure your campaign achieves the results you want while keeping costs low. We put together a list of the top 8 ways we’ve found to help lower your Facebook ad costs—and get more bang for your buck.

A/B ad testing

8. Target your page fans separately

1. Target “People who like your page and their friends” with a different ad than what you’re showing other audiences because this audience will convert at a much higher rate than cold traffic, but remember: just because it converts better doesn’t mean you should spend more in this audience than other audiences.

2. Don’t target people who like your page if all you want them to do is engage with an ad, not convert—that will just cost you more money because they’re already familiar with your brand and content.

3. Target only the interests that are relevant to your business, even though Facebook gives users the option to select multiple interests when creating campaigns on its platform (such as beauty products or tech gadgets).

4. Use remarketing ads instead of retargeting

SOP 074: How to select your Facebook Ads Targeting
SOP 075: How to plan your Facebook Ads Campaign
SOP 007: Creating a Cart-Abandonment Remarketing Campaign Using Facebook Ads

Considering the above facts, it should come as no surprise that Facebook Ads are more cost efficient per thousand impressions than other social media platforms. However, there are other factors to consider when making a final decision on where to spend your ad budget. No matter what platform you choose, keeping your costs down will always be an important element of running successful campaigns.

Dedicated to Your Marketing Success

John

wollongong digital marketing

The Value of Lead Generation

The Value of Lead Generation

by | Apr 9, 2022 | Advertising Wollongong, customer retention strategy, Digital Marketing SOPs, Digital marketing wollongong, Google Ads, Lead generation, local seo, niche marketing, Online Advertising Wollongong, word of mouth marketing

Whether you’re a B2C or a B2B, if your business has sales, it should be generating leads. A lead is a potential customer, and lead generation is the process of creating and nurturing those potential customers.

The benefits of lead generation include:

Credibility: By offering valuable, reliable information to potential customers, you establish your business as an authority in your field. This means that when they’re ready to buy, they’ll be looking for you first.

More sales: You’re not only attracting new customers when you generate leads, you’re also working on keeping them around for the long haul. Leads are carefully cultivated through the sales process so that by the time they reach conversion, they are ready to do business with you.

Less effort: Lead generation allows you to have more control over the sales process while simultaneously reducing your own workload. By automating certain steps of the process and making sure every lead gets a personalized experience, your team will spend less time chasing down leads and more time closing deals.

What’s the real cost of lead generation?

Lead generation is a valuable marketing tool. It helps businesses build their pipelines and drive sales, and for those who are just getting started with it, it can be a game-changer—especially because there are so many free resources available.

But what’s the real cost of lead generation? And how can you make sure that you’re actually getting your money’s worth?

One of the more popular methods for generating leads is to “buy them” from lead generation companies like Hipages, Oneflare, Airtasker and Service Seeking.
It seems easy enough, pay your hardearned, get a lead, and go from there..

So what’s the catch? Lead generation companies are expensive. They charge a percentage of the total job value, in most cases is 15% plus a monthly fee plan which can be anywhere between $99 to $1200. In fact, on average, it ends up costing you more than $30 – $60 per lead in some cases. That’s per lead. Not per job or sale.

It’s for this reason that we don’t recommend using pay per lead platforms such as those mentioned above. We’ve had dissatisfied clients who’ve used these sites, and generally speaking, each lead they accepted was 30 to 40 dollars. Often once accepted the “client” wouldn’t answer calls or they were just curious as to the cost. After a few leads like this it becomes extremely costly. This only bumped up the price for the next client as we couldn’t afford to keep paying for such expensive leads.

If you own a franchise and are required to pay a set monthly fee regardless of your revenue, it can be costly, and most large franchises will sends leads your way for a price, which on the surface may seem low, anywhere between $4 – $10, but factor in the complusory monthly fees and those leads could be upwards of $60 plus each.

marketing budgets

So what is the alternative?

Google or Facebook?

Search is no longer just a place to discover new products and services. It’s become the go-to destination for consumers who are ready to buy. Even if they aren’t sure exactly what they want, search engines are where most people start their research.

So why not get in front of those potential customers at the moment of highest purchase intent?

In a recent survey, 71% of respondents said that search engines were the first place they looked for information about products or services. And with paid search ads, you can show up at the top of those search results—and beat your competitors to the punch.

Paid search ads are highly effective because they put you in front of consumers when they want your product or service most.

Google and Bing Search Ads: Average Cost Per Click, Click-Through Rate, Cost Per Lead, and Conversion Rate by Industry

If you’re considering running Google or Bing search ads, you’ll want to first get an idea of what you can expect to pay for cost per click, click-through rate, lead cost, and conversion rate. These factors will play a large role in how much your ad campaign costs overall.

To help you get a sense of what’s possible in your industry, we’ve compiled the top 20 industries that run Google and Bing search ads (according to their own data). The data is broken down by industry so that you can get an idea of where you need to improve to stay competitive.

Also read: “The cost of Google Ads in 2022”

Pay only for interested leads

What is cost per lead?

Cost per lead, also known as cost per action, cost per conversion, or cost per acquisition, tells you how much you spent in order to get someone to complete a desired action—whether to fill out a form, call you, or make a purchase.

How much does it cost to get a lead?

According to Wordstream market research, the average across all industries is $41.40. This overall average is lower than what we’ve seen in the past, which is good news for advertisers. The automotive vertical has consistently been in the lowest bracket in our past findings.

Which industries have the highest cost per lead?

Industries with the highest cost per lead include attorneys and legal services ($73.70), furniture ($64.72), and finance and insurance ($62.80).

Which industries have the lowest cost per lead?

Industries with the lowest cost per lead are animals and pets ($14.88), automotive repair, service, and parts ($17.81), and restaurants ($20.49).

 

average cost per lead

Which industries have the highest conversion rates?

The conversion rate of an ad is the number of people who clicked on your ad and then did what you want them to do (like contact you or buy something from your site). This is one of the most important numbers you’ll ever look at, because it tells you whether your marketing dollars are being spent in a way that creates value for your business.

We found the average conversion rate across all industries to be 8.82%, ranging from 3.25% to 19.19%.

Industries with the highest conversion rates include animals and pets (19.19%), physicians and surgeons (19.15%), and automotive repair, service, and parts (15.23%). Industries with the lowest conversion rates were furniture (3.25%), apparel/fashion and jewelry (3.6%), and real estate (3.93%). Our past data also finds the highest conversion rates in the legal and automotive verticals and the lowest in real estate and apparel.

On the other hand, the personals conversion rate has historically been higher than what we’re seeing here.

average conversion rates

I am not a marketer, I run a business, so how can I do both successfully?

You’re not alone. You think you’re the only one who’s ever been through this, but we’ve heard from many business owners just like yourself.

You’ve built your business on passion and hard work, so it can be a rude awakening when you realize that you need to give all that same passion and attention to crafting an effective marketing strategy.

For a lot of people, it’s especially hard because they don’t have a background in marketing—they’re just business owners. But the good news is, we can not only help you with that, we can also help turn you into a marketer who happens to own a business.

Here’s how:

Three Words: “Standard Operating Procedures”
We have been developing and using our marketing SOPs to great success. Our SOPs provide you with step by step instructions that make setting up effective ads simple and straight forward. They are easy to follow even if you are a beginner or don’t have any experience in creating Facebook or Google ads.

Our SOPs come with detailed instructions on how to set up your ads, tricks of the trade that save you time, money, frustration and improve your results. We have been working with different audiences over the years and have tested what works best for your market.

SOP 047: How to Create a Lead Generation Landing Page

Like to know more? Click this link 

Dedicated To Your Marketing Success

John

wollongong digital marketing

3 Easy Steps To Get More Customers, Than You Ever Thought Possible!

3 Easy Steps To Get More Customers, Than You Ever Thought Possible!

by | Mar 6, 2022 | Advertising Wollongong, Customer experience wollongong, Digital marketing wollongong, direct response marketing, local seo, niche marketing, word of mouth marketing

Step 1: Select A Narrow Target Market

A 100 watt light bulb, like the kind of lightbulb we normally have in our homes, lights up a room. By contrast a 100 watt laser can cut through steel.
Same energy, dramatically different result. The difference being how the energy is focused.
The same is true of your marketing. You have a limited amount of money. If you focus too broadly, your message will be too scattered to be relevant to anyone.
The goal of your ad is for prospects to say, “hey that’s for me”.
Take the example of a photographer. If you look at ads from most photographers you’ll often see a laundry list of services like:
Portraits
Weddings
Family photography
Commercial photography
Fashion photography etc..
The technical way photography is done may not change very much from situation to situation, but let me ask you a question. Do you think someone looking for wedding photography would respond to a different ad than someone who’s after commercial photography?
Do you think a bride-to-be looking for a photographer for her wedding might be looking for something radically different than a purchasing manager from a heavy machinery distributor looking to photograph a truck for a product brochure of course!
However if the ad just rolls out a broad laundry list of services, then it’s not speaking to either prospect, therefore it’s not relevant, therefore it will likely be ignored by both market segments.
That’s why you need to choose a narrow target market for your ad.
Being all things to all people will lead to marketing failure. This doesn’t mean you can’t offer a broad range of services, but understand that each category of service is a separate campaign. My advice is first dominate one target market, then move onto the next.

Step 2: Create A Lead Generating Ad

Even in a narrow target market, all prospects should not be treated equally.
All other things being equal, the more money you can spend marketing to high probability prospects, the better your chances are of converting them to a customer.
Just like our proverbial archer, who has a limited number of arrows, you have a limited supply of money for your marketing campaign, so it’s essential you invest it wisely.
For example if you have $1,000 to spend on an ad campaign which reaches 1000 people, you’re essentially spending $1 per prospect.
Now assume that out of the 1000 people the ad reaches, 100 are potential prospects for your product. By treating them equally, as you would have to do with mass marketing, you’re wasting $900 on uninterested and unmotivated prospects to reach the 100 who are interested.
What if instead of treating them all equally you could sift, sort and screen so that you were only dealing with high probability prospects and not wasting valuable time and marketing dollars on uninterested and unmotivated prospects?
You could then spend the whole $1,000 on the 100 high probability prospects. That would allow you to spend $10 on wooing each of them instead of the measly $1 per prospect you’d have if you treated them all equally.
With ten times the firepower aimed at the right targets, do you think we’d have a better conversion rate? of course!
But how do we separate the wheat from the chaff? The short answer is we bribe them into telling us!
Don’t worry there’s nothing underhanded here. We offer an “ethical bribe” to get them to identify themselves to us. For example, our friend the photographer could offer a free DVD telling prospective brides exactly what they should look for in a wedding photographer and showcasing some of his work.
A very simple lead generating ad could be headlined: “Free DVD Reveals The 7 Costly Mistakes To Avoid When Choosing A Photographer For Your Big Day”.
Anyone requesting this “ethical bribe” would be identifying themselves as a high probability prospect. You now have at least their name and address which would go onto your marketing database.
Remember the goal is simply to generate leads. Avoid the temptation of trying to sell from your ad. At this early stage you just want to sift out the uninterested and unmotivated so that you can build your database of high probability prospects.
Here’s the other big reason you want to avoid selling directly from your ad: at any given time (on average) about 3% of your target market are highly motivated and ready to buy immediately. These are the prospects most mass marketing hopes to convert. However there’s a further 7% who are very open to buying and another 30% who are interested but not right now. The next 30% are not interested and finally the last 30% wouldn’t even take your product if was free.
If you tried selling directly from your ad, you’d be targeting only the 3% who are ready to buy immediately and losing the other 97%. By creating a lead generating ad, you increase your addressable market to 40%. You do this by capturing the 3% who are immediate buyers but also by capturing the 7% who are open to talking as well as the 30% who are interested but not right now. By going from a 3% addressable market to 40%, you’re increasing the effectiveness of your advertising by 1,233%

Step 3: Follow Up Until They Buy Or Die

So now that you have your database of high probability prospects, what do you do next? Quite simply you market to them until they buy or die.
It may seem like I’m advocating being obnoxious and pestering people to buy until they cave in. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Traditional selling is focused on pressure tactics like “always be closing” and other silly little close techniques which are based on pressure.
It makes the seller a pest who the prospect wants to avoid.
Instead of being a pest, I advocate becoming a welcome guest. Send your high probability prospects a continuous stream of value until they’re ready to buy.
This could be in the form of tutorials, articles, case studies or even something as simple as a monthly newsletter that’s related to their area of interest.
This builds trust, good will and positions you as an expert and educator rather than just a sales person going for the jugular.
Various technology tools make it easy to automate this continuous follow up mechanism, making this a cost effective and scalable way of building up a huge pipeline of interested and motivated prospects.
Some of these prospects will convert into customers immediately, while others will do so weeks, months or even years later.
The point is that by the time they’re ready to buy, you’ve already built a solid relationship with them based on value and trust. This makes you the logical choice when it comes time for them to make a buying decision.
This is one of the most ethical and painless ways of selling, because it’s based completely on trust and an exchange of value.
While your competitors are blindly shooting arrows every which way in the hope of hitting one of the 3% of immediate buyers, with “The Visible Target Technique” you’re focusing all of your firepower on a clear and visible target.

Tune in to the minds of customers. Find out all you can about their wants and needs. And, above all, do what you do best – market your services! If you are in a niche business and want to increase the possibility that people with that need will find you Stop waiting for things to happen and make them happen yourself. Your destiny is just a click away!

To Your Success

John

Big Business vs Small Business Marketing

Big Business vs Small Business Marketing

by | Aug 11, 2021 | Advertising Wollongong, Customer experience wollongong, Digital marketing wollongong, direct response marketing, local seo, niche marketing, Online Advertising Wollongong, website design, website hosting, word of mouth marketing

Does Size Really Matter?


Well in marketing your small business, it most certainly does. In this article I’m going to show you one of the biggest marketing miscalculations made by small business when it comes to getting their message to their target market.

I can’t tell you how widespread this problem is, and it’s at the very core of why most small business marketing fails.

If you’re a small business owner, you’ve almost certainly given some thought to marketing and advertising, things like; What approach are you going to take? Where are you going to advertise? What are you going to say in your advertising? 

The most common way most small business owners decide on doing this is by looking at large, successful competitors in their industry and copying what they’re doing.

This seems a pretty smart thing to do right? Copy what other successful businesses are doing and you will also become successful?

But honestly, this is one of the quickest ways to fail and I’m very certain it’s responsible for the bulk of small business failures. Here are the two major reasons why I think that is..

Large Companies Have A Different Agenda


Large companies have a very different agenda when it comes to marketing than small businesses do. Their strategies and priorities differ from yours significantly.

The marketing priorities of a large company looks something like this:

  • Pleasing The Board Of Directors
  • Appeasing Shareholders
  • Satisfying Superiors’ Biases
  • Satisfying Existing Clients’ Preconceptions
  • Winning Advertising And Creative Awards
  • Getting “Buy In” From Various Committees And Stakeholders
  • Making A Profit

The marketing priorities of a small business look something like this:

  • Making A Profit

As you can see there is a world of difference in the marketing priorities of small and large companies. So naturally there is a big difference in strategy and implementation.

Big Companies Have A VERY Different Budget


Strategy changes with scale. This is very important to understand.

Do you think, for example, a large property investment company has a different property investment strategy to the average small property investor? Of course they do..

The large company’s strategy simply won’t work on a small scale. You can’t just build one floor of of a skyscraper and leave it at that. You need them all.

If you have an advertising budget of  millions and years to get a profitable result, then that’s going to be a very different strategy to needing to make a profit immediately with a $5000 to $10,000 budget.

Using a large company marketing strategy, your $10,000 is going to be a drop in the ocean. It will be totally wasted and ineffective because you’re using the wrong strategy for the scale that you’re operating at.

Branding and ego-based mass marketing is the domain of large companies. To achieve any kind of cut through requires an enormous budget and the use of expensive MASS media.


So What’s left For The Little Guy?


Direct response marketing gives small businesses a way to compete on a small budget. It’s designed to be accountable and ensure you get a return on investment that is measurable.

Following the path of other successful businesses is smart, but it’s vital that you understand the full strategy you’re following and that you’re able to implement it.

Strategy from an outside observer’s perspective can be very different to the reality. If you’re following a strategy that has different priorities to you or has a vastly different budget then it’s highly unlikely it will generate the kind of result you’re hoping for.

Yours In Market Success

John

Thanks go to Allan Dib from Successwise for his insights

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