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Tag: digital marketing

Things To Know Before Running an AdWords Text Ad

There will come a day when all businesses in the Philippines will shift online. And as of today, there’s a big chance that a sales executive will knock on your door and tell you, “Ma’am/Sir you need to advertise your business online, it’s the best way for you to get noticed without a big budget.”

What comes after are the feelings of amazement and confusion. Questions like, “Does it really work? Will it really work for my business? Do I need to allot more budget? How will I know if I am getting more from it?”

I am pretty sure that these are the things that you have in mind and you’re probably seeking for someone to guide you in making a decision whether to go or not.

At iManila, we encourage you to go for it. However, we first make sure that our prospective clients know the following things before we actually proceed to do the Google Search Ads for them.

  • First Mandatory: Website

One of the primary goals of a Google Ad is to bring web traffic through web clicks. The ads serve as a portal to bring them to a website of the client. If the client doesn’t have a website, we advise them to consider having one before we proceed with the ads.

A website serves as a primary online contact point of any online searchers to a prospective firm or business. The website must contain all vital information about the business including all contact numbers, email addresses, and physical address. We also highly recommend that the website contains all the offerings be it products or services.

Having a Website is NOT Enough

The website is mandatory but that doesn’t mean that having one is the end of it all. A website should be regularly updated. It should be well-designed and easy to navigate; otherwise, visitors will just bounce off.

The experience visitors have with a website is what matters to Google. If visitors are having a hard finding what they need to see on your website, then that means that the website is not well-made or it lacks content and substance. In return, Google will remove you from ranking high in the Google Search Engine Results Page, and it can also affect your ad rank in Google ads.

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  •  Second Mandatory: Research

We ask our clients if they have an accurate knowledge and sharp business intelligence about their competitors and their industry. This is for them to brief us about their positioning, prices and same with their competitors. If they don’t have one, we do some research to better understand their business and the competition within the industry.

What do we mean by competition?

We do not limit our research to offline must-knows such as location, prices, and their offerings. We also try running some keywords about the business and see if they are doing Google Ads as well. This will help us determine how tight it will get for our prospective clients should they push through with the service. And that’s how we adjust in terms of budget suggestion, keywords and even the landing pages of their ads.

  • Third Mandatory: Landing Page

A landing page is a specific page in the website that serves as a catch basin of incoming traffic from the Google Ads. It is the first page that they will see, hence the importance of having a well-designed and well-written one.

A landing page should be well-made and simple to understand. Moreover, it needs to have one explicit and achievable goal. Goals could be sign-ups, purchases or downloads. These landing pages offer valuable materials that are needed to be a downloaded from a portal going to an e-commerce page to convert them into a client.

What we always tell our clients is: Landing pages should contain a relevant and easy to understand core message. It either instructs to download, persuades to buy or begs for sign-ups.

  • Fourth Mandatory: Budget

Launching an ad means you are willing to pay a certain amount to post the ad. The same goes with Google Ad. It is universal for all ad platforms (both online and traditional) that an ad budget is required.

The difference between Google and other online platforms is that you have the power to dictate what budget works for you, unlike the traditional ones.

Fifth Mandatory: Understanding the Idea of the Bidding Scheme and PPC

Google Ads are created to operate on a specific model which is the pay-per-click type. Pay-per-click or PPC means that the advertiser gets charged for every click. If there are fewer clicks, there will be fewer charges as well. However, if there are a greater number of clicks, the higher is the possibility of spending your maximum allocated budget.

The bidding scheme, on the other hand, pertains to who gets the top spot in the allocated areas on the first page of Google based on the willingness to spend greater amount. However, Google rationalizes their bidding rules by incorporation of a quality score. Those advertisers whose ads obtain a high-quality score gets the spots.

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How to Achieve Better Quality Score?

Quality scores of Google ads are computed using the following elements:

  • Bid – refers to the amount the advertiser is willing to spend
  • Ad Relevance – The resonance of the ad message to the online researchers. It is sometimes evaluated by Click-through rate. Click-through rate is the number of clicks your ad gets over the number of times it was shown by Google.
  • Landing Page experience – The behavior of the visitors as they land on your page. The higher the bounce (quick and unexpected movement of visitors out of the website) rate is considered as bad landing page experience.

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As mentioned from the items above, clients need to make sure that they have everything in their arsenal before actually going for a Google ad – and one of those is having a well-made website with compelling landing pages.

Taking into considerations the ‘mandatories’ above will result in a higher success rate when doing the Google ad.

For further questions and inquiries about the Google Ad or with Website Development and revamp. Contact us at (02) 490-0000 or send us an email at [email protected].

 

 

 

Facebook or Google? This could be one of the common questions business owners kept on asking themselves. One of the digital truths that you need to deal with is that a business cannot grow online on organic alone. That is true in some cases, especially when venturing into digital marketing for the first time. But with so many platforms available, from search engines, apps, websites, and to social media networks – you might be wondering which one to choose when advertising your business online.

The truth is, these overwhelming choices shouldn’t be your primary concern.

Why?

Because there are only two dominant leaders in online advertising today namely: Google and Facebook. And you should stick with them quite often when dealing with digital ads,

The Duopoly

Admit it or not, there are only two entities in so far, who have valuable profile data of online users in the world – Google and Facebook. They are the two titans who earn a lot from their ad platform businesses, thus calling them a duopoly.

Why duopoly? You probably asking yourself.

To begin with, Facebook owns Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp. These four are the top social media networks and social messaging platforms in terms of numbers of active users.

In the recent quarterly report of Facebook, the flagship platform has reached a 1.9 Billion user base per month. Instagram has 700 million each month while the two leading social messaging platform – Messenger and WhatsApp – both have 1.2 billion user base.

Facebook earns a staggering 97% of its 2016 revenue from its digital advertising business.

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Meanwhile, Google – a world renowned search engine brand that reached immense trust and popularity for having a spot in the Oxford dictionary is also a leader in transforming digital marketing these days. This brand has earned an accepted scholastic use of its verb variations such as “googled” and googling” making Google undeniably one of the greatest modern enterprises of the millennium.

Google owns YouTube – the world’s largest video streaming site. It also expands its services through consolidating its core businesses under the name Alphabet Inc. Alphabet is responsible for developing and reshaping its services that are linked with their core mission to improve the user experience. Alphabet Inc. from the name of the company itself covers almost the entire Roman alphabet including the Ad platform of Google for search and display networks.

Google digital ad business generates 32.8% of the total revenue of this tech conglomerate.

Which One is Right for Your Business?

A good approach to this question is to try both and see which works well with your business. But since most of the SMEs marketing budget are strictly limited, doing so is not in your priority list. To weight which one is right for your business. Below is our weigh in:

 

  • B2B and Service-oriented business

Does your business belong in this category? If YES, then Google search engine marketing (SEM) fits your business well. Why? The reason is plain and simple. A B2B model relies heavily on website transactions, and this is out of corporate custom revolving around the idea of legitimacy. When a website is your primary contact point online, Google’s search engine marketing is a go-to platform.

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  • B2C and Consumer Goods / Retail

The good thing about this category is that the risk of losing money when investing in both platforms is low compared to B2B and Service-oriented businesses. The reason is, reaching the end consumers with products (tangible trades) that they really need is one foot ahead than business offering services (which are intangible).

In this kind of business, if one looks after brand awareness, social ad via Facebook is a good avenue. With most retail business in the country relying on brick-and-mortar store than e-commerce, social ads by Facebook fits just fine. Be it engagement or web clicks (or visits), Facebooks ads can surely reach to the end consumers with ease.

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In the Philippines, there is a preconceived notion of having comfort in purchasing tangible trades than the intangible ones. If you are in the business of providing services, you got to build a solid reputation to compete well with your competitors online. If you are dealing with consumer goods and retail, the challenge is to create a way to sift through the clutters of other consumer-centric ads online.

Be it Facebook or Google, the success of an online ad relies on understanding your audience and your business. Once you all had it in your mind and in your heart, sending the message across these two platforms won’t be too much of a pain.

If by chance that a business like yours is looking for an assistance in starting your brand presence online either through Facebook or through the search engine of Google, iManila is capable of helping you get noticed by your target audience online.

Give us a call at (02) 490-0000 / (02) 565-4064, or send your inquiries through our website portal at https://imanila.ph/lets-talk/

Usual Mistakes SMEs Do with Their Websites

 

Doing business this 21st century means having a website – even for the small businesses. However, in the Philippines, there are only a handful of small businesses who realized the use of the website in their operations. However, despite this realization, small businesses and even medium scale ones are prone to crucial mistakes with their websites.

Below are the usually mistakes that SMEs do with their websites that they need to address before its too late:

Top 6: Bad Mobile Experience.

  • In the Philippines, 66% of the population uses a smartphone in doing their searches or in doing inquiries in websites. Having a non-mobile responsive website ruins search experience that may lead to bounce rate.

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Top 5: Fonts that are hard to read.

  • Simple and readable texts deliver more results than fancy and hard-to-read ones. Why? It is obvious for one good reason: readability. No one wants to go through a website word per word just because the fonts are outrageously exasperating to the eye. If you want your audience to digest the essence of your content or to grasp the exact message of your branding in your website, you should make every character easier to read for all – regardless of the ages.

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Top 4: Unprofessional design or color scheme.

  • Design and colors are as equally important as the website’s content. The overall look and feel of your website are what greets your audience. And if they don’t like what they see, the greater the chances of moving out of your website (hence the higher bounce rate). Just like having fonts that are hard to read, a very strong and striking colors on the website – that don’t match – can hurt the eyes even more. Color schemes should be pleasing to eyes. Choosing the right Pantone for your website is the first step in correcting this mistake.
  • Tacky and obsolete designs can ruin a website surfing experience. Filipinos are natural suckers for beauty. It is always the things that are pleasing to the eye which always get more attention.

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Top 3: No Product or Services information.

  • This is one of the most unforgivable mistakes in some of SMEs websites. One of the key search intent of users is informational (know). And usually, most of the key phrases searched in Google or in other search engines have products and service search strings.
  • In the Philippines, 60% of the population with access to the internet still uses search engines as their portal for searching products and services. If your website doesn’t have any substantial information about your products and/or services, then the higher the likelihood that you’ll lose business online.

Top 2: No address, directions or business hours.

  • Number two in the list is not including the business address, map, and business/operation hours. These details are some of the crucial information that should be reflected on your website especially if your business is gearing towards the retail side. This information should be present not just in your contact us page, but also in every footer of the pages in your website.

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Top 1: Outdated Contact information.

  • Of all, this is the most unforgivable mistake businesses do. You are putting up a website online as a tool to help or boost your online operations. And one of the most important information in your website is your contact information. Outdated contact information only assures you a failing online business.
  • It is a rule of thumb that as you change contact numbers, it is immediately updated on your web page to refrain from confusions.

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Keeping a website surely takes some resources. But keeping it well and updating it always pay you back. If you are having a hard time making your website look fresh and updated, iManila is the best digital service provider that you are looking for.

For more information about our web design and development service, email us at [email protected] or at [email protected]. You can also give us a call at (02) 490-0000 or at (02) 565-4064.

 

#Achieve: The road towards a successful SEM campaign

 

On an average, Google processes over 40,000 search queries every second. If you do the math, this means that 3.5 billion searches are made per day and more than 1.2 trillion searches per year worldwide. Given these numbers, how do you think can your business manage to compete online? How can you make your business be seen on search engine results? The answer is simple: Use search engine marketing.

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Search engine marketing is an internet marketing strategy that is utilized to improve the position of a website in search engine results through online paid advertising. It’s a big competition. You cannot just shoot and pay Google to get your online ads visible on search engine results. It needs precise planning like any other marketing strategy. In case you are planning to give SEM a go for your business, we laid out a few things you can contemplate on before launching your online campaign.

  • Know what your campaign goals are
    There are many reasons why you want to put up an ad campaign. You might want to increase brand awareness, increase web traffic, or increase your sales. Each goal requires different approach that leads to different directions. So, for you to prevent the incident of mismanaging your campaign specifically your budget, you must deliberate your campaign’s objectives.
  • Use the best and the right keywords
    In SEM, keywords are your bread and butter. It is important to select the most relevant keywords for your campaign. When this step fails, all else will. It is also important for you to think like a client searching for your business. Think what keywords and terms they might be using in the possibility of looking for your products or services. You can use Google AdWords’ Keyword Planner tool to have an idea and an estimate if the keywords you have selected fit perfectly for your campaign.
  • Optimize your landing page
    Another crucial facet of creating an SEM campaign is the optimization of your landing page. Google’s algorithm also considers the landing page of your ad. The relevance and coherence of your ad to your landing page is one factor that Ad Rank takes into account. Start with putting up informative website copy that viewers can view and visible call to action buttons that will lead the web visitors to your contact page outright.
  • Set the right bid for your campaign
    Of course in any marketing campaign, budget is significant. You should determine the period of your campaign and allocate budget for how long you planned it to last. You have to bid strategically with your desired keywords to stand the pace with your competitors.

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  • Evaluate results
    One of the advantages of online ads is its capability of showing immediate results. You can monitor your campaign on a regular basis to know its performance. See if you are really meeting your goals or ensure that you are gaining high ROI from it, because it’s what this is all about. Moreover, since you have the full control with your campaign, you can also make certain adjustments if necessary.

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These are but basic factors in achieving success with your SEM campaign. There are many other strategies you can experiment with. But if you experience trouble in making your own campaign, better opt hiring a professional help. For more than two decades, iManila have helped many businesses reach their marketing and business goals through its experienced and knowledgeable digital marketing team. Want to know more about SEM? Contact iManila now, give us a call and we’ll be happy to accommodate your concerns.

 

Reference: SVM E-Marketing Solutions

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