×

Let us help you get your project started.

  • Leading Digital Marketing Agency
  • 900+ Websites Launched
  • $100M+ Client Revenue Generated

Start Your Project








    855.686.4649 ext.707 Get A Proposal

    Category: Marketing Strategies

    4 digital marketing ideas for Halloween

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    The spooky season is upon us! Whether you handle your business’ digital marketing or you work for an agency, there are so many creative and frightening ways to orchestrate Halloween marketing campaigns in 2021. So, if you were looking for the perfect way to break out of your traditional digital marketing mold, take a leap this year and start brewing up some creative Halloween-inspired marketing ideas.

    Curated videos that celebrate the chilling season

    We’re living in a digital age where many people are learning to engage with brands and businesses through video content. Since this type of digital marketing gets the most organic engagement, it’s important that your business learns to utilize video regularly—the same goes for Halloween marketing campaigns. Consider taking a stab at creating a product, service, or even staff-related video but be sure to include a spooky twist. Even if this strategy doesn’t offer scary-good conversion right away, it shows that you’re an edgy, up-and-coming company that’s committed to catering to societal trends. 

    Display ads that target a more devilish theme

    When creating a pay-per-click ad, it’s important to create personalized displays that meeting the browsing habits of your target audience. That said, building an ad that does all of the above is easy, but breaking the mold of a typical advertisement to get the attention of viewers can be challenging. It’s ingenious to give your PPC campaigns a little revamp by adding a creepy message, using a frightful font, or even changing the colours to orange and black to reflect the theme of traditional Halloween marketing campaigns. Your next data-driven campaign could use a little hocus pocus. 

    Social posts that are eerie-sistably boo-tiful 

    While sending a shoutout to Halloween day-of is the easiest way to get into the spirit of the season, giving your campaigns some added spooky energy leading up to the special day is far more exciting and memorable. That said, as soon as October rolls around, you’re in the clear to formulate some devilishly dark social media posts. Whether you do a quick disguise of your product with some enchanting props, snap a photo of it out in a pumpkin field, or simply advertise your service with a ghostly touch, there are so many opportunities to jump onto the bandwagon with a social media Halloween marketing campaign. 

    Blog posts that brew spooktacular ideas

    Since content can take a bit of time to create traction and spur engagement, it’s best to get on this opportunity as soon as possible, especially if you’re hoping to boost your SEO with a Halloween marketing campaign. The spooky season is a time of year for trendy searches since lots of people are on the hunt for the perfect costumes, decor, and party ideas. So, if you can find a way to create some spooky blog posts while using keywords that are trending, you can find a way to stay relevant during Halloween Google searches. 

    What is your favourite option from our suggestions above? Drop a comment below to share. 

    What’s the difference between SEO content writing versus SEO copywriting?

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    Search engine optimization (SEO) is a digital marketing practice that enhances a search query for a website or page’s ranking order by improving its visibility on popular search engines like Google or Bing. Since the number one goal of SEO is to improve the user experience, this practice allows search engines to display the most relevant topics, products, and services based on the searched keywords. That said, if you want to take your website to the next level it’s important to employ the correct style of writing to achieve your desired results. 

    What is SEO content writing?

    Based on the explanation of how SEO works in the introduction above, it’s easy to see how SEO content writing plays a key role in where a page or website will be positioned. When users are on the hunt for specific information, they enter their queries into the search engine hoping to find places where their questions will be answered, problems will be solved, or where they can be entertained or educated on a specific subject. Creating high-quality, key-word focused content that ranks well in these search engines will help to generate organic traffic to the desired website or page.

    What is SEO copywriting?

    On the contrary, SEO copywriting is slightly different than SEO content writing. While it’s capable of doing many of the same things, the primary difference is that SEO copywriting is used to convert traffic into leads and sales. 

    While the two types of strategic writing often have the same result, listed below are some examples of how you can distinguish between them:

    • SEO content writing gets the page found, whereas SEO copywriting explains it in more professional detail.
    • SEO content writing is sometimes repetitive to get a higher ranking, whereas SEO copywriting is higher quality. 
    • SEO content writing drives the search intent based on keywords, whereas SEO copywriting distinctively expands on the website’s page, service, or product information. 

    How do you hire someone to handle both SEO content writing and SEO copywriting?

    The truth is, depending on the needs of your project, you may want to hire an SEO specialist to manage your organic traffic needs and a copywriter separately to use keywords to write optimized content. While an SEO specialist understands search engines and knows how to write relevant copy that drives clicks, attracts backlinks, and directs users to an internal page, they aren’t always the most effective when it comes to writing content with an intent to drive conversions, which is why it’s essential to have both people collaborating to find the best success.

    What do SEO specialists do:

    • Increase keyword rankings
    • Drive clicks from search engine results pages (SERPS)
    • Attract high-authority backlinks
    • Convert visitors into buyers or leads

    What do copywriters do: 

    • Write SEO-friendly blog posts using keywords
    • Write SEO-friendly service pages using keywords
    • Handle SEO business content
    • PPC landing pages
    • Link-building content
    • Provide guests posts

    Choosing the right digital marketing team to work with is essential for the success of your online business, so be sure to read reviews of the company and look through the online portfolio. 

    Did you learn anything new after reading our blog above? Please share the information in the comment section below. 

    Your beginners guide to how search engines work

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    When it comes to search engine optimization, not are search engines are equal, which leads many beginner entrepreneurs to wonder how their website will gain relative importance among the largest search engines on the web. While Google undoubtedly has the largest market share, it remains essential to optimize on other search platforms like Bing and Yahoo if you’re hoping to capture your audience. That said, here’s a beginner’s guide to how search engines work and why you might need to up your SEO game.

    How do search engines work?

    Search engines crawl billions of pages on the web by following the links to a variety of websites and downloading their content. This process works through the use of three stages: 

    1. Crawling: The search engine scours the internet for content based on the user’s search terms. During this process, the code and content are being looked over for each URL found. 
    2. Indexing: The content found during the crawling process is then stored and organized for future use. This indexing stage allows results to be displayed after relevant search queries. 
    3. Ranking: Pieces of content are provided that best answer the searcher’s query. This means that websites and ads are ordered by most relevant to least relevant based on the search terms provided. 

    What is search engine crawling?

    Search engine crawling is a process in which search engines appoint robots (aka crawlers) to find new or updated content. While the type of content varies depending on the user’s search query—a webpage, image, video, PDF, etc.—it’s discovered through links.

    Those wondering how search engines work likely think about the most popular search engine out, Google. Googlebots fetch web pages, follow the link it provides and hops on a path of links where the relevant content is now indexed to the search engine’s database. These links are later retrieved for the searcher who’s seeking information relating to that previously searched content. 

    What is the search engine index?

    The place where information is processed and stored is referred to as an index. This huge database holds the content deemed good enough to be found by the crawlers.

    What is search engine ranking? 

    When an internet user performs a search, their search engine responds to their inquiry by looking through their index for highly relevant content. It then orders that content to the frontlines of the search in the hopes that it will answer the searcher’s question or statement. The ordering of the displayed search results is then placed based on their relevance, which is known as ranking. In general, one can assume that the higher a website is ranked, the more relevant the search engine believes that link is to the search query. 

    While it is possible to block search engine crawlers from a small portion or the entirety of your website, it would never be advisable to do so, as indexing ensures that your business page remains accessible to the crawlers alongside potential customers.

    What did you find most interesting about our search engine guide? Drop a comment below if you have any further questions for our team. 

    Interested in learning about how Google Shopping can grow your business?

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    Are your traffic and leads drying up? Our digital marketing team takes the time to understand what you do and how to make you money, which is why we are happy to manage your Google Shopping ads as part of your online advertising services with us. Google shopping allows vendors an opportunity to reach bottom-funnel customers, giving them an easy way to stand out in search results. For those who have more questions about the advantages of Google Shopping ads, read the information in the article below. 

    How does Google Shopping work for the consumer?

    When a person uses Google Shopping, they can easily browse products from sellers who have chosen to feature their goods on the platform. All offers are ranked based on relevance, the user’s Google activity, and the search terms they choose to use. There will also be some ads peppers in to improve the quality of the search results. However, these offers will have a “sponsored” label underneath, indicating that their spot is based on paying Google rather than the influence of the items displayed. Google will be compensated for any clicks to the ads as well as receiving a commission for each purchase that’s made. 

    Consumers can customize their Google Shopping results by sorting and filtering elements like the price, product category, or brand. This can be viewed under each shopper’s activity section of their Google account. They can also block specific advertisers and opt-out of personalized ads by visiting Google’s Ads Settings page. That way the products displayed on Google Shopping are tailored to each shopper’s experience. 

    When you find a product that you’re interested in on the Google Shopping platform, you’ll then see the item price along with applicable taxes. There is an exception on “Buy on Google” offers, which once clicked upon will take you directly to the seller’s site to make the purchase. Keep in mind that shipping costs vary depending on their final destination, along with shipping method and any applicable information about insurances or warranties. 

    How does Google Shopping work for the vendor?

    Sellers and advertisers who feature products on Google Shopping must comply with all policies to keep their place on this prominent platform. Those that chose to ignore any of the rules may be suspended or have their items removed. To ensure this doesn’t happen, vendors need to provide detailed information about their products and update their listings regularly. 

    To add your products, follow the instructions below:

    1. Log in to your Merchant Center account
    2. Select products from the navigation menu, then click all products
    3. Click the plus button to add the product
    4. Fill out the data fields for each product
    5. If your product has varying colors, sizes, or other attributes, you will want to add these values
    6. Click save

    Why do consumers and vendors alike enjoy the Google Shopping experience? 

    In a world where you can buy products anywhere you go, it’s important to make the experience memorable for the consumer and simplistic for the vendor.

    Google Shopping is a powerful technology that allows consumers to research the products before being pointed towards the vendors who sell them. The best part is that it’s known for its speediness and will instantly provide photos and information, including stores that sell said product, instantly after entering the search. Lastly, the experience is very comprehensive and allows shoppers to find both common and unusual varieties of their search terms. 

    Have you ever purchased a product or sold one using Google Shopping? Drop a comment below to share your experience. 

    4 reasons you need a digital marketing strategy and shouldn’t wing it

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    It’s 2021 and there’s no questioning that digital marketing is becoming a must for growing businesses around the world. Whether it’s through SEO, email marketing, Google Ads, or blogging, crafting a digital marketing strategy is crucial if you hope to compete in your industry. Aside from hiring a full service digital marketing agency, the information below can help you understand the benefits that digital tools possess when combined with a kickass strategy.   

    What is encompassed within digital marketing?

    While the realm of marketing is vast, a full service digital marketing agency utilizes large amounts of technology and digital tools to achieve a wide range of marketing objectives. 

    These tools may include: 

    • Online search engines 
    • Mobile apps
    • Websites
    • Social media pages
    • Email
    • SMS marketing
    • Digital partnerships

    The key to integrating the above digital marketing strategies is to create some business goals with clear benefits that meet your future objectives. This will ensure that each strategy possesses an incentive aimed at growing your business.

    Reasons that you need digital marketing

    There are so many ways to improve your customer relations and outreach through the use of digital marketing. Listed below are some benefits:

    1. Measure success: With the use of traditional advertising methods, it can take a long time to analyze the progress your campaign has made, but with the help of digital marketing solutions, you can complete progress reports in a few hours through the use of digital analytics tools that bolster your digital efforts. Leads, conversions, and impressions are just a few of the tools that you can use to measure your companies success and the best part is that you can optimize your strategies as you go.
    2. Levels the playing field: Whether you own a tiny startup or a small, established business, it can be challenging to compete with the big brands. Although promising digital marketing can give your name recognition by adding a little flair to some cost-effective ad campaigns. Using elements such as Google Ads and SEO trends, over time you will generate strong customer relationships and have more visitors flocking to your website. 
    3. Reach a large audience: The internet is a vast network filled with tons of impressionable users, so it doesn’t matter how big your brand is, all that matters is that you use the right digital marketing tools to help you make valuable impressions. Social media marketing is a great way to reach your target demographic and if your level of reach is strong, you can use information collected in your campaigns to target customers outside of your general geographic region. 
    4. Increase revenue: The purpose of any digital marketing strategy is to lead to increased revenue, and with trusted customer relations, your followers will spread the word to their friends and family, helping to generate more online conversions. Even a simple shoutout holds the power to draw more people to visit your site, which offers a greater chance for you to make a sale. 

    Are there other reasons that you feel should be included in our list above? Drop a comment below to share with our readers. 

    What is SMS marketing and how does it work?

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    With the ubiquity of smartphones in recent years, wouldn’t it make more sense to drive engagement through a more direct marketing approach? While email marketing and social media marketing strategies are great for high engagement rates, SMS marketing helps businesses close the gap and is the perfect method for emerging marketings. Continue reading to learn more about this powerful, communicative strategy. 

    What is SMS marketing?

    By definition, SMS marketing means short message service marketing. This technique uses text messages (SMS) to communicate time-sensitive offers, updates, and reminders to customers who have consented to receive these types of messages from your business. While SMS marketing is a great way to enhance your digital marketing strategy, it’s no for everyone, which is why it’s important to analyze how it’s done and emulate if it would work for your target audience before investing the time and money into developing a platform to send out texts. How’s that for proactively developing a relationship with your digital marketing strategy? 

    What are some industry best practices for SMS marketing?

    As consumers become more attached to their phones, text message marketing for small businesses can quickly become the most direct line of contact and effective form of communication. 

    Here are some rules for SMS marketing:

    • Ensure that your contacts have opted in to SMS: Like any type of digital marketing, you need to receive permission from your customers to send them straight to their phones. 
    • Be mindful of the time you’re sending: Unlike email, which is likely only checked by users a couple of times a day, when a text message is received, people tend to open these messages almost immediately. So, when you’re crafting texts, ensure that you’re not disturbing your contacts at odd hours. 
    • Don’t forget to include your company’s name in your message: How awful would it be if your text message generated a lot of interest, but the users couldn’t remember what businesses they’re subscribed to. 
    • Combine text message marketing for small businesses with other elements of your digital marketing strategy: There are a variety of channels to interact with consumers, so be sure they tie together to create a marketing communication system that works to build up these customer connections. In our professional opinion, both SMS marketing and email marketing complement each other quite well!

    What is SMS marketing used for?

    There are two types of messages that you can send with SMS marketing, a campaign message that is linked to coupons or an upcoming event or a transactional message that is triggered by a certain behaviour (order confirmation, shipping notification, etc.). However, text message marketing for small businesses can be used in several ways.

    • Short-term promotions for retail and other e-commerce businesses
    • Urgent updates about events or customer orders
    • Appointment reminders
    • Internal alerts

    Are you ready to start SMS marketing? If you have any further questions about how it works, please drop them in the comments section below. 

    3 SEO insights that Google Analytics offers

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    Are you new to the game and looking to learn a few simple, yet useful insights you can take from Google Analytics to help identify opportunities within your organic search engine optimization (SEO) strategy? There’s a wealth of information right at your fingertips to help identify performance and optimization issues.  Check out these three high-level actionable insights that may help you to improve your organic strategy.

    Utilize/create custom segments

    Using segments helps you to learn more about the users who are visiting your website and how they’re engaging with it. These features allow you to see traffic by channel, visitors who have completed goals, and vast demographic data, including further customized segments created from many facets of user data, such as time spent on site, visits to specific web pages, location of visitors, etc. 

    Another insightful segment to explore when utilizing Google Analytics for SEO purposes is to create an audience tab. To do this, navigate to Audience > Interests > Overview to find a display that examines the following three interest reports: Affinity categories, in-market segments, and other categories. This will allow you to look at a graph showing what percentage of users are shoppers and of these shoppers, what percentage have an interest in certain products or services. To dive even deeper, you can navigate from there to the Demographics tab under the Audience tab to view the age and gender of your website’s users. 

    Monitor mobile traffic

    Anyone in e-commerce knows the importance of mobile traffic is huge, however, rather than simply monitor mobile traffic to your site, Google Analytics allows users to monitor the engagement of these mobile visitors. 

    Here are some features that you can assess: 

    • Add a mobile segment and you can view the number of mobile conversions at the individual page level. 
    • Monitor your mobile bounce rate so that you can hone in on potential issues on a certain page. This is an incredible benefit SEO opportunity offered through Google Analytics. 
    • Compare both mobile and desktop bounce rate metrics to differentiate between the two types of experiences. 
    • Compare new and returning mobile users to see if there’s any value in the content that translates to a one-time customer or recurring client. 

    Focus on site search

    If there is a search bar on your website there’s an enormous SEO opportunity that Google Analytics can offer you! Aside from learning about what visitors are looking for once they reach your website, you can also gain insight into how many people are searching for the same items. Also, if a large percentage of your search traffic is relying on the search bar, this is a strong indication that your main navigation features on the website are lacking and not providing visitors with a clear idea of the location of what they’re searching for. 

    Another opportunity, especially on the SEO side of things, is to take the terms that are frequently searched for and generate a page with a good amount of information to make sense of that term. If the term is a product or service, use this as an opportunity to create insightful content that will benefit your shoppers and also consider highlighting the product or service prominently on your website to generate more clicks and create easier accessibility.

    What did you find most interesting about SEO and how it works alongside Google Analytics to reveal incredible insights about your business? Drop a comment below to start a conversation.

    2 digital marketing trends to keep an eye on

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    While it seemed like the world was stopping at the beginning of 2020, there has been a lot of e-commerce growth since then, paving the way for a variety of promising digital marketing trends to continue evolving far into the future. Those that shopped online pre-pandemic have continued to support this method of acquiring goods and services and for individuals who preferred the in-person experience, many are now comfortable with e-commerce and have become a huge part of the digital revolution. Needless to say, whether you work for an online marketing agency, run an e-commerce company, or simply enjoy perusing digitally for your shopping needs, it’s clear that many digital marketing trends are progressing and revamping the buying process for consumers everywhere. 

    E-commerce sales are at an all time high

    Many businesses that were digitally equipped throughout the pandemic saw their sales soar to an all-time high, with the rise of smaller chains and startups heavily investing in their digital marketing efforts to grab the attention of online audiences. Those that were brick-and-mortar only also jumped into the digital world in order to survive while they awaited the return of their traditional foot traffic. Needless to say, this influx to the digital marketing ecosystem is a great trend for business owners who are prepared to build their brands a powerful online presence. 

    Prompt shipping methods are necessary 

    Shipping has become a growing digital marketing trend that has reshaped the way that businesses interact with their customers. There was once a time where shoppers would get excited simply having the ability to have purchases shipped directly to their homes. Those days have come and gone! Consumers now see shipping as a service they shouldn’t have to pay for and they also expect a much quicker fulfillment. 

    As a result, many businesses rely on fulfillment centers to manage their inventory and streamline any returns to ensure they’re able to keep up with their competitors. Some also offer curbside pickup and free shipping for the ultimate convenience. While shipping can never truly be free, business owners are able to strategically select local fulfillment centres and increase the selling prices of their products to combat these challenges. 

    What other digital marketing trends have you been experimenting with since 2020? Drop a comment below to share with our readers.

    Why do business owners need to be more cyber vigilant with their marketing strategies?

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    With technology vastly advancing every day, it’s becoming increasingly important to find new ways to protect your business against the threat of cyberattacks. While virtual assets such as customer information and company financials are at risk, your brand’s reputation is another element that requires businesses to be more aware of cyber-vigilance. So, are you ready to learn about how to better secure your online shop? 

    Bots can affect your marketing strategy

    A bot is a software program that operates on the internet and performs repetitive tasks. While most bot traffic is good, some bots have a negative impact on a website or application and will maliciously attack to collect data. So, if you’ve got a killer marketing strategy, you need to be cyber vigilant to ensure that you’re protected. While Google Analytics can do some of the work for you, this program will miss things that the human eye can catch, which is why it’s always a good idea to have a professional take a look at your digital marketing efforts to ensure good cybersecurity. 

    You want to protect your customer’s information

    While you may not examine your customer’s information daily, its collection is essential to the operation of your business, especially if you have loads of recurring orders. That being said, customer-associated data is very precious and should be stored in a protected order management system to track visitor movements and protect names, addresses, and credit card numbers in the event of a data breach. 

    Since digital marketing is a data-led game, it’s important to carry out security checks to ensure any risks or vulnerabilities within your chosen software are removed. We also recommend that you change your passwords often and keep employee access only to those that require it. 

    Avoid plagiarism of content

    It’s challenging to share content in the online world without the risk of competitors copying your style. While the first step is being aware that plagiarism tends to happen, the next is ensuring that your content creation remains focused on building informative copy that’s written in-house or by a trusted third-party digital marketing company that will write original copy geared towards your brand. 

    If you think you’re a victim, use an online plagiarism checker and once found, contact the offender to have them remove the copy. If they refuse, the next step is to contact their web hosting service with the proof. 

    Remove the risk of brand damage

    Another reason that business owners focus on digital marketing cybersecurity is to ensure their brand’s competence isn’t destroyed due to aggressive or obscene messaging. Many consumers are fixated on a company based on this relationship and if emails or social posts go live with other motives in mind, it can be very challenging to apologize and make a comeback. 

    Are you ready to reduce any threats to your businesses’ security? 

    Have you ever been a victim of a cybersecurity breach? Please share your story in the comments section below with our other readers.

    How to use cross channel insights in digital marketing

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    Competition can make or break an online business and if you’re at a crossroads where you feel it’s time to take on a new approach when it comes to strategizing your digital campaigns, cross channel marketing might be just the breakthrough your business needs to better serve your customers! A business needs to move beyond usual resources to find insights that allow them to grow, especially when looking to gain efficiency channel-to-channel. 

    Pay-per-click advertising (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO)

    While both of these digital marketing services are good to focus on when you want to increase the sales and conversion rates of your business, one focuses on targeting a niche audience through paid search results while the other utilizes keywords and builds up the organic traffic to the website over time. That being said, cross channel marketing comes into play when the above two services work in conjunction with each other and use the power of high-converting target keywords to focus on building clicks through organic search results. Cross channel marketing also looks at longer-tail variations of targeted keywords and considers the intent of the user who’s searching. 

    While paid search is a low funnel approach that often sees high intent-based users that are ready to immediately purchase, organic search is more likely to draw in information-seeking users that may peruse your website and shop at a later time. With this in mind, both services have the potential to increase the behavior metrics of your website such as time on site, pages per visit, and the bounce rate when working alongside each other. 

    Google My Business and paid search/social

    If your business has the funds to expand your cross channel marketing efforts, there are also some other ways to refine and target your audience! Aside from researching your potential customers interests, geographies, affinities, you can also utilize Google My Business (GMB) data from users that request directions to your brick and mortar location. 

    While it’s always a great idea to nurture your existing customers, GMS insights provide excellent opportunities to expand on paid searches and open new opportunities for modified social targeting. 

    Polling and content marketing

    While polls are not a new concept, in the world of digital marketing, they’re a great way to see what gets your social audience excited! Businesses are able to utilize polls to learn more about their customers and the type of content that they enjoy seeing, topics that interest them, and issues that may worry them. Aside from gaining valuable insights, this type of cross channel marketing also allows you to draw on social engagement to determine a new perspective on where you should invest your time and resources. 

    Are there any other ways that you use cross channel marketing for your online business? Drop a comment below to share with our readers.