Active Business Growth https://activebusinessgrowth.ca/ Digital Marketing For Local Businesses Fri, 03 Feb 2023 15:37:18 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.2 https://activebusinessgrowth.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/ABG-icon-rounded-white-bg-150x150.png Active Business Growth https://activebusinessgrowth.ca/ 32 32 Creating a Brand Story Through Slideshows: How to Use Photos to Connect with Your Audience https://activebusinessgrowth.ca/creating-a-brand-story-through-slideshows/ Thu, 02 Feb 2023 17:35:01 +0000 https://activebusinessgrowth.ca/?p=15708 Introduction Are you tired of boring, dry brand presentations that put your audience to sleep? Well, it’s time to shake things up and bring your brand story to life with slideshows! In today’s fast-paced world, attention spans are shorter than ever, and it’s more important than ever to connect with your audience in a meaningful …

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Introduction

Are you tired of boring, dry brand presentations that put your audience to sleep? Well, it’s time to shake things up and bring your brand story to life with slideshows! In today’s fast-paced world, attention spans are shorter than ever, and it’s more important than ever to connect with your audience in a meaningful way. Slideshows offer a solution, serving as the ideal means for crafting a brand narrative that appeals both visually and emotionally.

Picture this – you’re sitting in a meeting room, staring at a whiteboard with a bunch of bullet points. Yawn. But what if, instead of a boring presentation, you were treated to a slideshow that brought your brand story to life through captivating images, thoughtful design, and a clear, concise message? That’s the kind of brand presentation that will keep your audience engaged and leave a lasting impression.

It’s time to bid farewell to dull and text-heavy presentations. Embrace the potential of slideshows to convey your brand story in a captivating manner. Whether you’re an experienced marketer or an entrepreneur seeking to establish your brand, this article provides the guidance you need to create a slideshow that resonates with your audience and makes you stand out. Get set to narrate your brand story in a fresh and innovative manner!

What is a Brand Story?

“What is a Brand Story?” you may ask. A brand story is a narrative that conveys the values, personality, and unique qualities of a brand. It’s not just about what a brand does, but why they do it and what makes them different from its competitors. A strong brand story helps to build a connection with your audience and differentiate your brand in the market.

Think of it like a good old-fashioned fairytale. Just as a fairytale has a hero, a journey, and a happy ending, a brand story has a protagonist (your brand), a mission, and a purpose. By telling your brand story, you give your audience a glimpse into the soul of your business and help them understand why you exist and what sets you apart.

So, what makes a great brand story? A brand story should be authentic, relatable, and consistent across all touchpoints. It should also evoke emotion, and offer a unique perspective on the world. Remember, your brand story isn’t just about selling products or services, it’s about building a relationship with your audience. So, let’s get creative, have some fun, and start crafting that brand story!

Why Slideshows are a Great Tool for Telling Your Story

Slideshows are a fantastic tool for telling your brand story, and for good reason! First of all, slideshows are visually engaging. They allow you to showcase images and graphics that bring your story to life and capture the attention of your audience. With a photo slideshow maker, you can easily create stunning presentations that communicate your brand’s message in an impactful way.

Another reason slideshows are great for telling your story is that they allow you to break down complex information into digestible chunks. No one wants to sit through a 60-slide presentation filled with dense text and bullet points. But with a well-designed slideshow, you can simplify your message and present it in a way that’s easy to understand and remember.

Finally, slideshows are an effective way to evoke emotions and build a connection with your audience. Whether you’re trying to make them laugh, cry, or simply nod along in agreement, slideshows allow you to tap into your audience’s emotions and create a memorable experience. So, whether you’re using a simple photo slideshow maker or a more advanced presentation tool, slideshows are a powerful tool for telling your brand story and connecting with your audience.

Steps for Creating an Engaging Slideshow for Your Brand

Are you ready to create an engaging slideshow for your brand? Great! Here are the steps you need to follow to create a slideshow that will connect with your audience and tell your brand story in a compelling way.

First, start with a clear understanding of your brand and your target audience. What message do you want to convey, and who are you trying to reach? This will help you determine the tone and style of your slideshow.

Next, create a strong narrative structure for your slideshow. This could include an introduction, body, and conclusion, or a more creative structure that aligns with your brand story. Remember, your slideshow should be easy to follow and understand, so keep your text brief and your images visually striking.

Finally, choose the right tools to bring your slideshow to life. There are many options available, from simple photo slideshow makers to more advanced presentation tools. Choose the one that works best for you and your brand, and don’t be afraid to get creative with design elements and animations.

With these steps in mind, you’ll be well on your way to creating a slideshow that captivates your audience and tells your brand story in a way that sets you apart from the competition. So, let’s get started!

Tips for Making Your Slideshow Stand Out

Want to make your slideshow stand out and leave a lasting impression on your audience? Here are some tips to help you create a slideshow that’s memorable, engaging, and effective.

First, focus on storytelling. Your slideshow should have a clear narrative structure and communicate your brand story in a way that’s easy to understand and emotionally resonant.

Next, pay attention to design. Choose high-quality images that are relevant to your brand and your message, and use visual elements like color, typography, and animation to bring your slideshow to life.

Finally, keep your audience in mind. What are they interested in, and what will capture their attention? Make sure your slideshow is visually engaging and emotionally compelling, and consider using interactive elements like quizzes and polls to keep your audience engaged and invested in your story.

With these tips in mind, you’ll be well on your way to creating a slideshow that connects with your audience and tells your brand story in a memorable and impactful way. So go ahead, get creative, and make your slideshow stand out!

Conclusion

In conclusion, creating a brand story through slideshows is a powerful way to connect with your audience and communicate your brand message in a visually engaging and emotionally compelling way. With a clear understanding of your brand and target audience, a strong narrative structure, and the right tools and techniques, you can create a slideshow that sets your brand apart and leaves a long-lasting impression on your target audience. So why wait? Start creating your brand story today, and watch as your audience falls in love with your brand and your message.

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5 Ways To Drastically Improve Your Google Ads https://activebusinessgrowth.ca/5-ways-to-drastically-improve-your-google-ads/ Wed, 02 Feb 2022 20:10:21 +0000 https://activebusinessgrowth.ca/?p=12982 Google Paid Search ads are one of the best digital advertising methods to target people who are actively searching and in the market for the products or services that your business offers. However, if you’re not experienced with Google Ads then you may find yourself going through your budget quickly and not getting many results …

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Google Paid Search ads are one of the best digital advertising methods to target people who are actively searching and in the market for the products or services that your business offers. However, if you’re not experienced with Google Ads then you may find yourself going through your budget quickly and not getting many results to show for it.

In order to help guide our readers on getting better results from their Google PPC ads, we’ve prepared this handy guide on quick and easy things that you can implement that often results in much better performance.

1. Location Options

When you create a new Google Ads campaign, one of the first steps you’re taken through is choosing your target locations.

So, you go and type in your location, choose whether you want to target the specific location or a radius around it, and click save. Seems simple doesn’t it?

But wait! If you were to leave it at that, then you would be missing one critical aspect. That part could be found in the the blue dropdown button just below your location settings screen that says “Location options“.

When you press this button, you will see 3 different options that you can choose to refine how your defined locations are targeted. These include:

  • Presence or interest
  • Presence
  • Search interest

By default, location settings are set to target by “Presence or interest”. This means that, as it is clearly outlined, your ads will show to “People in, regularly in, or who’ve shown interest in your targeted locations”.

Where the problem arises for a lot of advertisers is the part about targeting people “who’ve shown interest in your targeted locations”. What this means is that with this option on, your ads may be showing to people who don’t actually live or pass through your targeted location on a regular basis, but instead have “shown interest in” your location – meaning, they have searched information about your target location. This can include people who, for example, have searched the location that you’re targeting for travel plans.

Lets use this in an example. Let’s say you run a Thai food restaurant in New York, and want to show up for the phrase “best Thai food restaurants”. As many advertisers do, you’ve left the default targeting option as targeting by “presence or interest”.

Now imagine someone is making a search – let’s call him Bob. Bob lives in Chicago and wants to find a Thai restaurant near him, so he goes and searches that very same phrase “best Thai food restaurants”. Let’s imagine also, that a few days before that, Bob was searching for travel plans to take a trip to New York. Because of that, he may be classified as someone who has “shown interest” in New York, and because of that, your ad that’s targeting New York may show up for him even though he is currently in Chicago. For the most part, this is probably not what you would want to have happen.

There are, however, some cases where you would want to target by “interest”. Hotels, airlines, and travel companies use this targeting setting a lot, as they want to target users in another location before they travel. However, as in the prior example, this is not what most local businesses are usually trying to do. So therefore, in most cases, you will want to change your target setting to “Presence: People in or regularly in your targeted locations”.

2. Quality Score

One of the overarching goals that Google has is to show the best search results for any given search, in order to provide the best experience to those using the search engine.

For search ads, that means:

  • making your ads relevant and useful in relation to what a person is searching for
  • pointing your ads to a page that is relevant to what the person is searching for, and one that provides a good user experience

In order to measure how ads perform in regards to these factors, Google created a metric called the “Quality Score“.

If you do want an in-depth understanding of quality score and exactly how it’s determined, check out this guide on what the quality score is and how it’s calculated.

The main thing that you need to know, however, is that having strong quality scores is very important! Why is it important? The main reasons are that:

  1. The higher your quality score for a keyword, the more visibility your ads will get when people search that keyword
  2. The higher your quality score for a keyword, the less you actually pay when your ads are clicked on

That’s right, you will actually pay less per click for ads with higher quality scores!

And as you’ll see throughout this post, improving your quality scores is one of the keys to improving your Google ads performance more broadly.

So how do you achieve high quality scores?

See Your Quality Scores

First, let’s quickly go over how do you actually see your quality scores.

In Google Ads, click on any of your campaigns or ad groups and go to Keywords -> Search Keywords

Then, just above the table with all of your keywords, click on Columns and then Modify Columns.

Here, you’ll find the Quality Score selection under the Quality Score dropdown.

Select Quality Score and press Apply. You’ll now be able to see a quality score column, next to all of your keywords.

How to improve your quality scores

There are a lot of resources that discuss quality scores and how to improve them, so I won’t be covering everything here. However, I’ll share one unique tip that many don’t go over.

First, very briefly, let’s look at how quality score is measured. It’s based on a 10 point scale that looks at three things:

  1. Expected Click Through Rate (CTR): How likely the ad will be clicked on.
  2. Ad Relevance: How relevant the ad is to what the person is searching and looking to find.
  3. Landing Page Experience: How relevant the page that the ad points to is, and whether it’s easy to use, easy to navigate through, and whether it provides useful information.

So, the more likely someone will click on your ad, the more relevant your ad is to the keyword the person is searching, and the better your landing page is, the higher your quality score will be.

The part that I’m focusing on is #1 – Click Through Rate (CTR), which has been argued to be the most important factor to impact quality score.

And what is Click Through Rate (CTR)? It’s simply the percentage of how many times your ad was clicked on when it was seen. It’s essentially a direct measure of how likely someone is to click on your ad when they see it.

So let’s say that your ad was seen 100 times and out of those 100 views it received 15 clicks. Your CTR then is 15%.

And this is where my tip on improving quality scores comes in.

Since having a high Click Through Rate is one of the most important factors to achieving a high quality score, then your goal ultimately should be to make your ads in a way that maximizes their likelihood of being clicked on.

However, one of the built-in features that exist when you create an ad may mistakenly guide you to writing ad copy (headlines and descriptions) that may not be optimized to reach a high Click Through Rate.

When you create a Responsive Search Ad (which is now the standard of how you create search ads), you will see this blue bar at the top:

As you input your headings and descriptions, you will see this Ad Strength score change, going from “poor” all the way to “excellent”.

As many many people do, you may be inclined to keep adjusting your headlines and descriptions to reach the “excellent” score. However, in pursuit of reaching this excellent score, you may be writing headlines and descriptions that are bland and generic.

Why is that? Because one of the main things that this Ad Strength score assesses is whether your target keywords are mentioned in your ad copy. In fact, you’ll only reach an “excellent” Ad Strength score if you more or less mention every keyword phrase that you’re targeting in your headlines and descriptions.

So, if you have 10 different keywords that you’re targeting in an ad group, and you’re trying to get an “excellent” Ad Strength score for your ad, then you’ll end up filling most of the 15 available headline slots with phrases that directly mention your target keywords.

This isn’t to say that mentioning your target keywords in your ad text isn’t important – because it absolutely is important, especially in order to score well on the other quality score factor, Ad Relevance. However, if you’re primarily focusing on including all of your keywords in your ad copy – which is one of the requirements for achieving an “excellent” Ad Strength score – then you may be writing ad copy that is bland and generic, and doesn’t increase the likelihood that someone will click on your ad.

Let’s show this in an example. Say your target keywords are: “dentist toronto”, “dental services”, and “local dentist”. To reach an “excellent” Ad Strength score, you might be adding headlines that may make your ad end up looking like this:

Dentist Toronto | Professional Dental Services | Local Dentist

Because these headlines directly include your target keywords, your Ad Strength score will go up. However, these generic headlines typically won’t intrigue people to click on your ad. And because these headlines won’t intrigue or interest people that see your ad, your Click Through Rate will suffer, and so will your quality score as a result.

What’s missing here is unique headlines that will generate interest in people to click on your ad. And a lot of times, these types of headlines won’t directly mention your keywords.

For example, an ad such as this would likely get a much better Click Through Rate:

Dentist Toronto | Over 20 Years Experience | Book An Appointment Online

But again, if you’re targeting 10 different keywords in your ad group, then you’ll end up using most of the 15 available headline slots with just phrases that directly mention your keywords – if you’re trying to achieve an “excellent” Ad Strength score.

If you’re fixed on achieving this excellent Ad Strength score, then you may not be including other phrases in your headlines & descriptions, which are not related to your keyword phrases, but may be more intriguing and would likely get higher Click Through Rates.

To Summarize

The suggestion is, don’t get fixated on adjusting your headlines and descriptions just to achieve this “excellent” Ad Strength score, but rather keep in mind what it is that actually leads to high quality scores. With this in mind, make sure to write ad headlines & descriptions that not only mention your target keywords, but ones that also include unique phrases and calls to action that will increase the likelihood that people will click on your ad (i.e. give your ads better Click Through Rates).

In simple terms, it’s alright to have an Ad Strength score that’s “good” and not “excellent”, if that means that your Click Through Rates will be much better.

However, there is a way to adequately include all of your target keywords in your ad copy (which in turn helps to achieve an “excellent” Ad Strength score), while including unique and appealing phrases that aren’t related to your keywords to maximize your Click Through Rate. One way to do this, is to make your ad groups be tightly and neatly organized, which is discussed in the next section.

3. Organized Ad Groups

When you create a Google Search campaign, the campaign is broken down on different levels, including the campaign, ad group, and keyword levels.

I won’t go into discussing this too much as it’s very fundamental knowledge. If you want to get a better grip on these concepts, check out a resource such as this one.

My main tip here, however, addresses a common mistake that advertisers make when structuring their Ad Groups.

Ad Groups are a way to organize your keywords and ads into different parts. Each Ad Group should have a distinct theme, and the keywords and ads in that ad group should be directly related to that theme.

Let’s first take for example a poorly designed Ad Group structure:

What a lot of advertisers do, as in this example above, is create just one Ad Group in their campaign, and input all of their keywords there. This is not the right way to do it, as I’ll address in the next section.

Instead, your campaigns should have multiple Ad Groups, with each one focusing on a specific theme or keyword area. For example, like this:

Why is Ad Group structure important?

The main reason why Ad Group structure is important is because you can carefully control which ads show up for specific keyword areas / themes.

When you create an ad, you create it inside a specific Ad Group. That ad, then, will only show for the keywords that are in the same ad group. So, in the example above, the ads that you create inside the “Crowns” ad group will only show for those specific keywords in that ad group, and those ads won’t show for the keywords in the “General” Ad group.

What this means is that you can very carefully and strategically create ads that tailor to the different keywords that you’re targeting. So, for the keywords in your “crowns” Ad Group, you can create ads with headlines and descriptions that specifically talk about dental crowns.

And why does this matter? It largely ties back to the previous point, about quality score. If you have fewer keywords in your ad groups and if all of the keywords in each ad group are closely related, then it’s much easier to both a) include all of your keyword phrases in your ad copy to maximize Ad Relevance; and b) have sufficient space to include other text such as unique phrases and calls to action that will boost your CTR.

4. Strong Ad Copy

Having strong headlines and descriptions for your ads is very important. Once again, if you write better ad copy, then your ads are more likely to be clicked on, which in turn improves your quality score.

However, sometimes it’s hard to come up with good headlines. Here are some general tips to help makes the process easier:

Basic Guidelines

Relate to what the person is actually looking for

This point also goes back to quality scores (I know you’re probably sick of hearing about quality scores, but bear with me).

Remember, that one of the major factors that determine quality score is how relevant your ad is to what the person is searching for. If you really think about it, this makes perfect sense.

Imagine you search for something like “denture clinic Toronto”. You see several ads from various local dental offices. Some of them have generic phrases about their dental services, but don’t mention anything about dentures. Others on the other hand, directly talk about dentures and how it’s one of their specializations. Which one would you most likely consider and click on? Probably the latter!

So the basic suggestion here is to make sure to include your target keywords in your ad headlines and descriptions, and make your ads relevant to what people are searching for.

What is unique about your business or your products / services?

If you’ve ever studied marketing to any degree, you likely would have heard of concepts like “Unique Selling Proposition” (USP), and “differentiation”. What these concept essentially refer to is what makes your products / services unique or different than others and why should customers choose you.

Imagine seeing an ad headline like this:

Local Window Cleaning | Best Window Cleaning In Town | Call Us Today

Seems pretty mundane, doesn’t it? It probably wouldn’t intrigue much people to click and learn more. Compare this with a headline like this:

Local Window Cleaning | Using the XYZ Streak-Free Formula | Same Day Service

The fundamental difference here is that the business differentiated itself from it’s competitors, on the types of high-quality products it uses and that it offers same day service, which is something that many customers look for.

So when thinking about differentiation, think about things like this:

  • Methods / processes / technologies: Do you use products or technologies that are better than what competitors use? Do your processes make things easier for customers?
  • Convenience: Do you offer things like online scheduling? Do you do same day service / delivery? Do you offer complete full service from start to finish?
  • Experience: Do you or your team have significant experience in your field?

This is just scratching the surface, but the idea is to really think through what is unique and desirable about your business and its offerings, and include these points in your ad copy.

Leverage consumer psychology

Various psychological principles are effective in influencing behavior and prompting action. For example, sales promotions with a clearly defined expiration date enable the scarcity principle, and prompt users to act. Showing reviews and testimonials serve as “social proof”, and play a significant role in people choosing one business over another.

You can go very deep on this topic alone. If you’re interested in exploring this area, I would recommend the book Influence by Robert Cialdini, which is arguably one of the best books ever written on this topic.

The point that should be underlined here, however, is that the key to using psychology in your ad copy is to be genuine and honest on how you use these types of principles. If you have great online reviews, be sure to highlight that in your ads. If you have a limited time promotion going, make sure to mention it. The point is to present your core strengths in a deliberate way, and not make false or hyperbolic claims.

Researching ad copy

The aforementioned tips can be useful, but sometimes you may just get stuck and have trouble with coming up with good ad copy. One way to get the ball rolling and to get some inspiration on coming up with good ad copy is to look at what competitors are doing.

The best way to do this is to use Google’s ad preview tool. You can use it to see the search results for any keywords across any geographic locations.

Seeing what other businesses are doing in other areas can be a good prompt and provide good inspiration. The point here is to only use this if needed, and to use it for brainstorming or inspiration. In the end, you will want to make ad copy that is fully unique to your business.

5. Use Automated Bidding Strategies

Automated bid strategies are an excellent way to make the most out of your budget while achieving your desired outcomes.

Rather than inputting manual bids for your keywords, automated bidding allows you to choose your desired bidding option, and lets the Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered system adjust and make bids automatically, to achieve your desired goal.

The most popular automated bidding options are:

  • Maximize Conversions: The AI algorithm will make bids that are most likely to lead to the conversion goals that you set (such as clicks on your ads, lead form submissions, etc.)
  • Maximize Clicks: The AI algorithm will make bids to get the most clicks for your budget

Both of these automated bidding strategies are viable options, depending on what it is you’re trying to achieve.

However, where a potential unintended consequence can arise is when you use specific automated bid strategies with specific keyword match types.

Specifically, if you use the Maximize Clicks bidding strategy with Broad Match keywords.

As a quick reminder, when you input keywords as Broad Match, then your ads will show for a wide range of related keywords, and not just the one you inputted.

For example, if you input the keyword “baseball shoes” as a broad match keyword, your ad may show up for keywords such as:

  • men’s baseball shoes
  • baseball equipment
  • sports shoes

Where the problem arises with the Maximize Clicks bid strategy setting, is that it aims at getting the most clicks for your budget. And, in order to get the most clicks for your budget, it will aim to get clicks from search phrases that have the lowest costs per click. Typically, the search phrases that have the lowest costs per click are ones that are more obscure and more loosely related to your inputted broad match keyword, and not the major keywords that you likely want to show up for.

Instead, if you’re using broad match keywords, you’re usually better off using an automated bidding strategy that aims to maximize conversions.

In fact, in a lot of cases, conversion goal bidding strategies are the typically the most desirable options. This is because these bidding strategies aim to get more conversions, and conversions ultimately is a measure of actual results & performance.

So, the general point is to make use of the benefits of automated bidding strategies. However, when doing so, make sure you choose the right bidding strategies that match your desired goals, and take into consideration how different bidding strategies may interact with other factors such as keyword match types.

Summary

These are a few fairly easy tips and principles that you can take into consideration in order to improve your Google Paid Search ads.

The common thread between all of these points is to get the most and best results possible for your budget. However, keep in mind that these are just a few general tips, and to truly to get the most out of your campaigns requires comprehensive planning and execution.

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What Does A Digital Marketing Company Do? https://activebusinessgrowth.ca/what-does-a-digital-marketing-agency-do/ Mon, 09 Dec 2019 01:17:19 +0000 https://activebusinessgrowth.ca/what-does-a-digital-marketing-agency-do/ If you’re a business owner needing advice with some aspect of your business online, it may be within your best interest to seek out a digital marketing agency for help. But what exactly can a digital marketing agency do for you? A “digital marketing agency” seems like a broad, esoteric term. Let’s discover what they …

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If you’re a business owner needing advice with some aspect of your business online, it may be within your best interest to seek out a digital marketing agency for help.

But what exactly can a digital marketing agency do for you?

A “digital marketing agency” seems like a broad, esoteric term.

Let’s discover what they can help you with and what services you should seek them out for.

Roles of an advertising company.

What Is Marketing?

In order to understand what exactly a digital marketing agency does, we need to break this term down into bite-sized pieces.

In terms of services they can provide you with – digital marketing agencies help businesses promote and sell their products and services.

They perform market research, awareness, and advertising to help you increase your top line.

Marketing Vs. Digital Marketing?

There is a difference between marketing and digital marketing, though.

Digital marketing is more specified than just marketing as a whole.

Digital marketing is simply promoting and selling your products and services online.

 

What Is A Digital Marketing Agency?

This is exactly what a digital marketing agency does.

A digital marketing agency is a company that specializes in online marketing.

They stay away from traditional advertising channels such as newspapers, television, radio, and print.

Instead, they focus on marketing your business’s service through search engines, social media platforms, display ads on other websites, and more.

Marketing Agency Vs. Digital Marketing Agency

This is what differs a traditional marketing agency from a digital marketing agency.

For small and local businesses, the odds stack up in favor of going with a digital marketing agency.

This is because the barrier to entry in the digital realm is comparatively low, it’s much cheaper, and there are many more options and channels to choose from to market your business online with digital marketing.

Your report will be generated instantly in about 30 seconds. You can also download a PDF copy for future reference.

What Exactly Digital Marketing Companies Do

Okay, so now that we know what a digital marketing company is and how they differ from a traditional marketing agency – let’s discuss what exactly it is that they do.

Sure, they market your business online – but let’s get more granular than this.

List of digital marketing agency services.

Goals Of An Online Advertising Company

When engaging in an online advertising campaign, there are many goals that they can help you achieve.

Below are some of the 5 most common and useful goals that a digital marketing agency can help your company with.

Improve Your Online Presence

You need to fill up the top of your funnel with as many leads as possible.

This means you need to spread awareness and improve your online presence to reach more people.

Digital marketing agencies will use your niche and industry to determine what will be the best online marketing channels to engage in to get the most out of your target customers.

Then, they build a campaign to spread as much awareness for your business as possible.

Increase Leads

The next step in the funnel would be to increase the number of leads your business is receiving online.

This could be a stand-alone problem in itself.

You could already have great brand awareness and traffic visiting your website, but you may be having trouble converting this traffic into qualified leads.

It could be a conversion rate issue, a marketing channel issue, a lead magnet issue, or a whole plethora of other variables.

A digital marketing agency will be able to help you identify the problem and to fix it for the long term.

Increase Sales

They will also help you increase your online sales.

Your overall online presence, visibility, and ability to generate leads are all related to the amount of sales you end up making.

By increasing your visibility and pumping up your number of total leads, sales will naturally follow.

Increase Your Top Line (Revenue)

Ultimately, the goal of engaging with a digital marketing agency is to promote and sell your products and services online so that you can increase your business’s revenue.

Everything that the agency does for you is aimed at this north star.

The visibility, the leads, and the sales all line up to increase your top line.

Achieving a return on investment on your digital marketing campaign is the whole reason you want to engage with a third-party marketing agency in the first place.

Increase Return On Investment (ROI)

Speaking of ROI – this will determine the effectiveness of the agency you decide to work with.

The goal of the agency is to create a win-win scenario for both you and them.

They want you to see a high ROI.

If you do, and you continue to see an increasing ROI, the idea is that you’ll stay with the agency as long as they produce these numbers for you.

Because who wouldn’t spend $1 to make $2 back?



Provide Different Types Of Services To Achieve This

Now that we know the results that a digital marketing agency can potentially give you, we need to discover how they actually go about doing this.

Let’s discuss the many different methods agencies use to increase your business’s online visibility, leads, sales, revenue, and ROI.

Content Marketing And Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

If you optimize your website’s SEO properly, you will be able to show up in both the Google Maps section and the organic results results for keywords relevant to your business.

This will help send targeted traffic to your website from people that are actively in the market for your products or services.

SEO and content marketing involve optimizing different aspects of your website better than your competitors so that Google will understand that you are the best possible result for a particular search phrase.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Campaigns

They will also run PPC campaigns for you.

These are run on platforms such as Google Ads where your business is put in front of consumers, but you only actually pay when they click your ad.

If your conversion rates are high and your cost-per-clicks are low, you can generate sales for your business at a very efficient cost on a predictable basis.

Social Media Marketing (SMM)

Business owners don’t have time to be posting to social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter all the time.

Digital marketing agencies will take this over for you and post on your accounts on your behalf.

They will grow your following, brand your business, and push traffic to your website from these social media platforms.

Different social media icons.

Website Design And Development

Your website is the hub of your business on the internet.

It is where you have free reign to brand yourself and communicate with your customers however you like.

Having a beautifully branded website that is fast, converting, and professional will help your business gain new customers.

Online Branding

They will also help you brand your business across all platforms.

Whether it be your website, social media, ad platforms, business directories, or wherever else – having uniformity across your business profiles is of the utmost importance when it comes to branding your business online.

Reporting And Tracking

Performance tracking and benchmarking is important in business.

Digital marketing agencies will set up your Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and other tracking software in order to measure your online performance.

With these tools, you will be able to see the number of leads you’re converting, the amount of traffic that’s visiting your website every day, the number of followers your accounts increased by this week, and so on.

A picture describing what internet marketing companies do.

Comprehensive Packages

Some digital marketing agencies are specialized and only focus on one of these types of services.

They’re great if you want to work with the experts in that certain marketing channel.

However, some online advertising companies are generalists and offer all of these services.

With these agencies, you can choose from different comprehensive packages that include a bit of everything.

Conclusion

Digital marketing agencies do a lot of things.

When it comes to outcomes, they help business increase their online visibility, leads, sales, revenue, and ROI.

When it comes to services, they offer online marketing solutions like content marketing, SEO, PPC, website design and development, branding, and reporting and tracking your campaigns and performance.

If you’re looking for a 100% customized advertising solution for your business, contact Active Business Growth today!

We look forward to working with you.

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The Ultimate Guide To SEO For Dentists And Dental Practices https://activebusinessgrowth.ca/dental-seo/ Sat, 07 Dec 2019 18:41:21 +0000 https://activebusinessgrowth.ca/dental-seo/ Are you looking to leverage digital advertising to drive more patients to your practice? If that’s the case, then you definitely need to seriously consider SEO as a means to do this. The Importance Of Dental SEO Marketing There are many different types of online marketing initiatives you can employ in order to generate leads …

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Are you looking to leverage digital advertising to drive more patients to your practice?

If that’s the case, then you definitely need to seriously consider SEO as a means to do this.

Google Maps results of dental practices.

The Importance Of Dental SEO Marketing

There are many different types of online marketing initiatives you can employ in order to generate leads for your dental office.

There’s social media marketing (SMM) like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising like Google Ads, email marketing using an existing email list, and much more.

But search engine optimization is a beast of it’s own.

When used properly, it can be the most lucrative online marketing channel for your dentistry by a long shot.

Organic Search

Firstly, SEO allows your practice to show up in organic search results.

These are the results that appear directly the paid ad positions in Google.

It’s important to note that most people don’t click and actually skip the paid ad positions, as they know businesses are being paid to be there.

They want the organic results – AKA the earned positions.

If your website appears here, you have a high likelihood of being clicked and visited by interested searchers.

Google Maps

SEO can also put you in the Google Maps results.

For example, if someone searches “dentist near me”, a Google Maps results of their area shows up.

In these results, there’s usually 3 websites that appear.

If you’re one of these websites, you gain incredible visibility in front of searchers looking for directions to a dentist right now.

How Can SEO Help My Dental Practice?

Now that we know the importance of SEO marketing – it allows you to show up in both the organic search results and Google Maps results in front of high-quality prospects) – let’s discuss how exactly this helps your dental practice.

Increase Your Online Visibility

At the most basic level, SEO helps improve the online presence and visibility of your practice.

But the importance of this visibility is that it is targeted towards high-intent searchers.

This means that you’re not getting more visibility in front of just anybody – rather, you’re getting visibility in front of people that actually want and need and are actively looking for your services.

More Online Traffic And Foot Traffic

SEO leads to both more online visitors on your dental website and more foot traffic to your physical office.

The more visitors organic rankings push to your website, the more people that will actually show up to your office in the real world.

A clean set of teeth.

Become A Local Authority

By appearing for many different types of keywords in your local area, the more you will be seen as an authority in your city.

Think about it – if a prospect types in various different searches to find a new dentist, and your website is the one that keeps coming up, chances are that they’ll take notice and put your practice as their #1 option.

Drive New Patients To Your Practice

Ultimately, this visibility, authoritativeness, and real world visits equates to more new patients for your practice.

The goal of SEO is to increase your top line – your revenue will naturally increase as you reap these SEO benefits over time.

The SEO Process For Dentists

There is a typical process when it comes to performing dentist SEO.

Keep in mind that although this process is typical, each step is 100% customized to your specific dental website.

1. Competitive Analysis And SEO Audit

This is where you audit your website’s current SEO metrics and determine the strengths and weaknesses in your current strategy.

Along with this, we compared this to all of your top competitors to see what they’re doing differently and how we can replicate their success.

We also look for weaknesses in your competitors’ strategy.

By doing this, we can surpass their rankings by matching what they’re doing right, and improving upon what they are doing wrong.

2. Keyword Selection

The keywords you decide to target for your dental SEO campaign is also extremely important to your success.

We perform deep keyword research to determine what are the best terms to target that will generate the best and most highest quality traffic possible to your website.

Some common keywords that are great for local dentists to target in general are:

“dentist near me”

“dentist office near me”

“best dentist near me”

“dental office”

“dentist + city”

“city + dentist”

“city + dental clinic”

“emergency dentist”

“emergency dental clinic”

“invisalign + your city”

“your city + invisalign”

Picture of toothpaste.

3. Strategy Development

Once we discover the strengths and weaknesses of your own website plus your competitors’ websites, along with the precise keywords that would be best for you to target, we then develop a strategy to actually rank for these keywords.

This will be a 12-month strategy that we believe will be best to get you the results you’re looking for.

After 12 months, we then develop a new strategy based on what you want to accomplish next.

4. Implementation

Over the next 12 months, we then implement this outlined strategy.

What we implement each month will be defined in the monthly deliverables we outline at the very beginning of the campaign.

5. Tracking And Reporting

Each month, we send a monthly report of everything that has been done as well as the results of our optimizations.

This includes website traffic, keyword rankings, total leads generated, etc.

With these reports, it will be easy to see the general upwards trajectory of our campaign, as our numbers will be increasing and improving every single month.

How To Use On-site SEO To Optimize Your Dental Website

Now that we know the process for setting up, implementing, and tracking a dental SEO campaign, let’s discuss how we actually perform search engine optimization on a dental website.

Before we get into it, here is a video of Brian Dean from Backlinko discussing how to do dental SEO properly:

Now, we will break this up into both onsite and offsite SEO strategies.

Note that the following are simply examples of some of the optimizations we will perform – there are many, many more optimizations that will be performed month over month.

Site Loading Speed

Website loading speed is a huge search engine ranking factor.

A slow website can be detrimental to your rankings.

This is because people’s attention spans are extremely short nowadays.

Meaning, they simply don’t have time to wait for a website to load for a few seconds.

If your dentist website takes more than a few seconds to load, users will simply click back to the search engine results page (SERP) and click a competitor’s website instead.

Over time, this will cause your rankings to drop off the first page of Google.

Design

When users land on your website, you want your site to give off a professional vibe.

An old, outdated website will give the impression that the operation you run is also old and outdated.

You want to show your potential patients that you’re a company they can trust with their business.

Professionalism is a huge trait you need in order to establish this trust.

Call-To-Actions (CTAs)

What do you want your visitors to do while they’re on your website?

Book an appointment, request a free consultation, refer a friend?

Whatever action it is that you want your website to ultimately incite needs to be as clear as possible to your visitors.

This way, you increase the chances that your visitors will actually take these actions.

Security

Website security is another important aspect of your dental website.

Google wants to send its users to websites that are secure and free from cyber attacks, hacks, vulnerabilities, etc.

Ensuring your site is equipped with the “https://” protocol is of utmost importance.

Google Analytics And Google Search Console

The ability to track your user metrics and site traffic is paramount to measuring your key performance indicators (KPIs) and the overall success of your SEO campaign.

Both Google Analytics and Google Search Console are free tools you can install on your website today to accomplish this.

There are many both benefits to both tools, and you can read about the precise benefits of Google Analytics here.

Icons of different dentist tools.

User Metrics

Making data-backed decisions will help optimize your dental SEO campaign.

By installing the tools mentioned above, you will be able to see your exact numbers and metrics that are needed to make these decisions.

By identifying your key pages, user dwell time, landing page conversions, and more, you can then use this information to make SEO decisions that will help improve your overall site performance.

How To Use Off-site SEO To Optimize Your Dental Website

Now let’s discuss the optimizations you can make off of your actual website to improve the rankings of your dental keywords.

Citations

Citations are mentions of your website’s name, address, and phone number (NAP) around the web.

They signal to Google that you are indeed local to your specific area.

This will allow you to rank for dental keywords for users searching in and around your target service location.

You can learn more about Google My Business citations here.

Backlinks From Dental Websites

Backlinks are links on other websites pointing back to your own website.

The relevance of your backlinks helps Google identify what niche you are in.

By building backlinks and getting other dental websites to link back to your website, the more Google will understand that dentistry is the industry you are in.

Thus, allowing you to rank for more dental keywords.

Local Backlinks

Local backlinks are similar to citations in the sense that they help communicate to Google where you are located.

They are simply links on other local websites pointing back to your website.

For example: if you are doing SEO in Toronto for your Toronto-based dental practice, having links point to your website from other Toronto-based websites will help you rank higher in Toronto.

These could be links from Toronto news sites, publications, press releases, and more.

Social Media

Social shares indirectly help with your SEO efforts.

Social shares are the number of times your website gets engagement and shares on social media channels such Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

They help drive traffic to your website, thereby giving Google more data about your user metrics.

This, combined with the fact that this engagement shows Google that you are a legitimate business will help your dentistry SEO rankings overall.

Dental SEO marketing.

Frequently Asked Questions

Below are some commonly asked questions about our SEO services from dentists and dental professionals.

1. What’s The Differences Between SEO For The Dental Industry As Opposed To Other Industries?

Dental industry SEO is typically much more competitive than other local service-based industries.

This is because the revenue dentists make is generally much higher than other less specialized industries.

Because of this, dentists need much more time and attention put on their website.

To be successful, there needs to be serious deep research, analysis, and continual optimization in order to achieve your desired rankings.

Active Business Growth provides this required attention to detail.

2. How Much Will A Monthly Dental Website SEO Campaign Cost?

Around $1,500 per month is a good ballpark estimation for dental SEO services.

Although, this can vary immensely based on website metrics, location, and level of competition in your local area.

3. How Long Does SEO Take?

This will again depend on the factors mentioned above.

Typically, within 3-6 months you will begin to see solid upward movements in your target keywords.

From months 6-12, these keywords should start popping up to the first page.

And from months 12+, continual optimization will be needed on a monthly basis to slowly push your way up to position #1 and stay there for the long term.

SEO is an investment in your practice.

A worthy investment when done right.

4. How Do You Track Campaign Success?

We use tools such as SEMrush, Ahrefs, Mangools, Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Hotjar, and more to track your campaign over time.

With these combined tools, we have the ability to track almost anything and everything you wish.

Contact us today to learn more about how we can use these tools to your advantage to increase your rankings for the long term.

SEO For Dentists: Bringing Your Practice Local Patients Through Online Marketing

If you’re looking to generate more leads online to your practice, leveraging dental SEO marketing is the best way to do this.

By building backlinks and optimizing your on-page content, you will have the opportunity to appear in both organic search results and Google Maps.

By doing this, your practice will gain more visibility.

Ultimately, more traffic, leads, and patients will come your way as a result.

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32 Popular Website Types (With Examples) https://activebusinessgrowth.ca/types-of-websites/ Thu, 05 Dec 2019 11:02:02 +0000 https://activebusinessgrowth.ca/types-of-websites/ In this day and age, the internet has transformed since it went mainstream in the early 2000’s. With websites costing tens of thousands of dollars back in the day, while adoption transforming the technology to the point where you can now create a website for pennies on the dollar, it is an understatement to say …

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In this day and age, the internet has transformed since it went mainstream in the early 2000’s.

With websites costing tens of thousands of dollars back in the day, while adoption transforming the technology to the point where you can now create a website for pennies on the dollar, it is an understatement to say that things have changed.

Along with these radical decreases in costs also came the advent of different types of websites.

Nowadays, there are many different kinds of websites that you can create.

This leads people to ask questions such as:

“How many types of websites are there?”

“What are the types of websites?”

Below we have answered these questions by digging deep to provide you with a list of many different types of websites with examples.

Before we jump into it, here is a video that is still relevant today that explains some of these websites in video format:

1. Small-Medium Business (SMB) Website

Small businesses take up a large portion of today’s economy.

With the world going online, small to medium sized business owners need to establish an online presence.

These websites are usually small, consisting of maybe about a couple dozen pages about the business’s products and services.

Examples of these types of websites are your local mechanic, dentist, or barber shop websites.

2. Corporate Website

These websites are for large corporations with many employees.

Naturally, these types of websites are quite large, consisting of hundreds or even thousands of webpages, and can include many different types of useful information, content, and webpages that are helpful to different constituencies.

Sites such as IBM and Rogers come to mind.

Types of websites.

3. Landing Page Or Single Page Website

On the other end of the spectrum is the single page website.

There are many purposes of a website, and for the single-page site, it is usually to incite one main action.

Such as a visitor becoming a lead.

Many marketers create multiple different landing page websites for the purposes of generating leads for their clients.

4. E-Commerce

E-commerce websites are becoming increasingly popular.

These websites are simply sites that sell products to customers online.

Amazon is the largest e-commerce site in the world.

Ecommerce webpages.

5. Branding Or Biography Website

Having a professional digital presence is also becoming increasing popular today.

A website that consists of “yourname.com” is a great way to reserve your digital presence and have a space that is your own to brand yourself.

Entrepreneurs use this technique quite often.

Tai Lopez is a great example of this.

6. Portfolio Website

This is a website that is dedicated to putting all of your projects in one place.

It is typically linked to in a resume when job seekers apply to jobs.

7. Resume

This is very similar to a portfolio website in the sense that it is used by job seekers, for employers.

The main difference is that a resume website takes a comprehensive view of all of your past work experiences on puts it all in one space on the web.

8. Personal

A personal website is a website that people create for own personal purposes.

This can be to express themselves, to have a place to write, vent, share their stories, etc.

It is a great way to put all of your thoughts in one place and express your unique personality to the world.

9. Entertainment

These websites are created for the sole purpose of entertainment.

The better these websites can entertain their audiences, the more money they can potentially make.

A good example of this is Barstool Sports.

10. News

News sites are just as they sound – they’re about the news (who would’ve thunk!)

Newspapers are quickly becoming old and outdated, and so now newspaper outlets are coming online.

CNN and Fox News come to mind here.

11. Media

Media sites are very similar to news sites, except they have additional elements to them.

They can be both about the news as well as entertainment.

They’re not fixed to one niche of business and can include many different types of content.

12. Political Website

These websites focus on politics.

They are even more granular than news sites because they focus on just the political niche.

Politico is a great example.

13. Government Website

A government website is simply the official website of a government entity.

This could be the official website of Canada, the United States, or any other government body.

Example of a government website.

14. Educational Website

These are created for the sole purpose of education and informing an audience.

These websites are everywhere – and can be found via virtually any type of online search.

Be careful, though – not all information out there is truthful!

15. Nonprofit Or Charity Website

Nonprofits and charities need websites, too!

These websites were created to support a worthy cause.

Jumpstart Charities and SickKids are examples of websites that are trying to make a difference in the world.

16. Web Portal

Web portals are websites that require a log in to gain access to.

They contain restricted content only meant for certain people.

Educational institutions and college are great examples of this, as they require they students to login in order to access their courses, funding, etc.

17. Community Forums

These are websites where a community can come together and communicate with one another.

There are many niche forums on the web that focus on a particular topic.

People who are interested in said topic can come to the forum and the subject with like-minded people.

Reddit is perhaps the most popular online forum in the world.

18. Blog

Another website type is a blog.

This is a type of website where usually an individual or a small group of people update it on a regular basis, and has an informal tone to it.

These can be personal blogs, niche blogs, informative blogs, etc.

These are millions of blogs on the web.

19. Catalog Or Brochure Website

This is a type of business website where a company creates a small website with only limited information about their company.

This is typically to show off a small number of products or to provide basic information to potential customers.

Businesses know that they need a website nowadays, and so a brochure website is a minimal website just to show that they have some sort of online presence.

20. Crowdfunding Website

This a platform for the purposes of raising money for a venture.

Lack of funds is one of the most common reasons for why businesses fail.

Today, you can go to a crowdfunding website such as Kickstarter to pitch your idea and have hundreds of small investors pool their money to get your business off the ground.

21. Social Media Network

Social media is the hype nowadays.

Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are all the rage.

Social media networks are platforms where you can engage, create, and interact with other users in a social environment online.

Social media sites.

22. Search Engine

Search engines are websites that are used to find and discover other websites.

Google is the most popular search engine on the market.

Yahoo and Bing are other examples.

23. Wiki Website

Wikis are websites where you can edit and collaborate content.

Wikipedia is the most popular example, but there are many others, too.

They allow users to update and correct content on webpages to come to the most true, correct answer.

24. Video Streaming Website

Video streaming is becoming an extremely popular service.

People are moving from television to video on demand.

Netflix is the most notorious streaming service today, but Disney Plus may give them a run for their money.

25. Photo Sharing Website

Photo sharing websites are just that – websites where you can share photos.

Pixabay is a great example.

It allows you to search a key phrase and have relevant pictures be returned.

It is great to share your work and explore the work of others.

26. Business Directory

These are websites where you can search businesses based on their category and industry.

Yelp and Yellowpages come to mind here.

27. Review Site

These are sites created solely to review certain products and services.

Some review sites only focus on specific niches, and provide reviews on as many products within a particular industry as possible.

If you’re passionate about a certain topic – such as woodworking – you can most definitely find a review website that reviews the most popular woodworking tools on the market.

28. Question And Answer Website

Quora is perhaps the site that shows up most when you type a certain question into Google.

It is dedicated to answering any and every question that can be asked.

If you have a question about any topic under the sun, chances are that it has already been both asked and answered on Quora.

29. Job Boards

Looking for a job?

Workopolis or Indeed has the job for you!

These sites have taken the job search online, and provide job listings to job seekers looking for employers.

30. Coupon Website

Who doesn’t love a good deal?

Coupon sites allow you to search for any existing coupon for a particular brand or company you would like to purchase a product from.

Groupon is a leader in this industry.

Example of a coupon site.

31. Affiliate Website

Affiliate websites exist to make money from the commissions of product sales.

There are affiliate websites for every single niche you can think of, that focus on generating as much traffic to a website as possible in order to get as many eyeballs on their products where if a user buys, the website owner receives a commission on the sale.

This can be a very lucrative space to get into, as there are even full-time affiliate site owners that do this for a living.

32. Auction Sites

Auction sites are websites that auction off products online.

An example of this is GoDaddy.

Their particular product is domain names.

Here, you can bid on specific domain names that you’re interested in.

Conclusion

There are many different website types on the internet today.

There are personal blogs, corporate websites, web portals, forums, job boards, and many other types of websites that you can explore.

If you’re particularly in the market for a new WordPress website for your small business, contact Active Business Growth for a free quote today.

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SEO For Accountants: Marketing Services For CPA Firms https://activebusinessgrowth.ca/accountant-seo/ Wed, 04 Dec 2019 08:02:37 +0000 https://activebusinessgrowth.ca/accountant-seo/ At Active Business Growth, we take the marketing of your accounting firm very seriously. And you should, too! That’s why if you’re thinking of engaging in online marketing services for your CPA practice, you need to consider what search engine optimization can do for you. The Importance of SEO For CPA Firms SEO is an …

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At Active Business Growth, we take the marketing of your accounting firm very seriously.

And you should, too!

That’s why if you’re thinking of engaging in online marketing services for your CPA practice, you need to consider what search engine optimization can do for you.

Digital marketing services for accountants.

The Importance of SEO For CPA Firms

SEO is an important part of internet marketing.

Especially in the accounting and finance industry.

This is for many reasons.

Show Up In Organic Search Results

A successful SEO campaign will get your practice to show up in organic search results.

This is the area of a Google search that is directly under the paid ads results.

Most users understand that the first results are paid advertisements, which is why they usually skip them and go straight to the organic section.

This is great for you.

This means that when they scroll down to the organic section, there is a high chance of them clicking your result and landing on your website.

This discovery process is the first step to acquiring a new client for your accounting firm through online means.

Appear In Google Maps

SEO also has the ability to get your firm to show up in Google Maps results.

Appearing in Google Maps can be extremely powerful.

When users find you in Google Maps, it’s because they are directly searching for directions to a certain location.

Of course, your practice would only appear if they search a term relevant to accounting.

And if they do – then they are most likely looking for an accounting firm right now!

These users are “buyers-in-heat” who are ready to take action immediately.

Example SERP of SEO for accountants.

An Online Lead Generation Channel

If you’re looking for an online lead generation channel for your practice, SEO is the way to go.

It is specifically powerful for businesses that serve a local area.

This is because you can target local areas using local SEO – thus, giving you the ability to dominate your service area with your accounting services.

Benefits Of SEO For Accountants

It is clear that SEO is extremely important for accountants.

Let’s discuss the precise benefits of search engine optimization in greater detail.

Higher Conversion Rates And Easier Sales

Users that find you through Google Search usually close at a much higher rate than users that find you through other means.

SEO is a form of intent-based marketing, where you target keywords that signal an intent to buy.

For example: “best accountant near me”, “local tax expert”, or “tax preparation + city” are all keywords that show a high user intent for purchasing these services.

When these users find you through SEO and then contact your firm, the sale is naturally much easier to make, as they are pretty much already sold on your services and ready to buy.

Position Your CPA Firm As An Authority

One of the reasons why they are so ready to buy at that moment is because they see your CPA firm as an authority in the space.

People generally trust Google – this is why when they need a quick answer to a specific question, they simply do a Google search.

So when users do a Google search for accounting services and your firm is the first organic result to show, they inherently trust your practice from the start.

Being perceived as an authority figure makes the process of selling your services much easier.

Leads On Autopilot

Once your accounting website hits the first position of Google and becomes established in this position as time passes, you have essentially created a lead generation machine for yourself on autopilot.

The SEO leads will come in on a consistent basis without you having to do much work – the leads all flow in the background.

This allows you to focus on what you do best – servicing your clients.

How To Do Search Engine Optimization For Accounting Firms And CPAs

In order to reap the above mentioned results, you need to properly implement SEO on your website.

Depending on your location, the accounting field can be very competitive in the search engine results pages.

This means that you have to be at the top of your game and ensure you perform SEO at the highest level possible for your CPA website.

Keyword Targeting

Targeting the appropriate keywords is essential to your SEO campaign.

You need to ensure that the accounting keywords you target actually have enough monthly search volume and intent to drive both impressions and clicks every single month.

Here are sample CPA keywords that are common in the industry:

“accountant near me”

“best accounting firm”

“CPA tax specialist”

“affordable accountant + your city”

“tax service + your city”

“tax planning + your city”

“bookkeeper + your city”

“your city + audit services”

“your city + financial accounting”

“your city + forensic accounting”

Onsite Optimization

Next, you need to focus on nailing the onsite optimization of your website.

This includes website speed, HTML tags, content, interlinking, indexing, and much, much more.

Making sure this is up to par and even better than your competitors’ websites is a must.

Offsite Optimization

Offsite optimization is also important in getting your website to show up in front of users looking for basic accounting services.

Offsite SEO has to do with everything that is done for your business off of your website.

This is namely backlinks.

A tax specialist with a calculator.

Backlinks From Websites In The Finance And Accounting Industry

Google needs to understand what your website is all about.

Having content on your website that talks all about accounting, tax, auditing, and other relevant topics will help, but it is not enough by itself.

To complement this, you need to build backlinks to your website from other websites that are within your industry.

This will show Google that, since other websites in the accounting and finance industry are linking to your website, you must be relevant to this industry as well.

This will help you rank for relevant keywords in the long run.

Frequently Asked Questions

Below are some commonly asked questions pertaining to accountant SEO.

What Can SEO Do For My Firm?

As discussed, search engine optimization can do wonders for your accounting practice.

It can drive more organic traffic to your website, improve your visibility, and increase your sales.

How Much Does SEO Services For CPAs Cost?

This is highly dependent on your current website metrics as well as the level of local competition in your area.

Generally, SEO costs about $1,000 per month for a small business website.

This is a good ballpark range to go off of.

How Long Does SEO Take In The Accounting Profession?

Typically, you will begin to see strong keyword movements between months 3 – 6.

Then in months 6 – 12, these keywords should start popping up to the first page.

If you want long-lasting rankings in the first positions of Google Search, a 1+ year SEO campaign is very common.

CPA professional doing taxes.

Accounting SEO – A Summary

All-in-all, SEO can be a very lucrative investment for your accounting and CPA firm.

It will allow your practice to be found in organic search and Google Maps.

It will also build you an online lead generation machine that works for you on autopilot.

If you’d like a free SEO quote for your accountant services, please do not hesitate to contact us today.

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32 Amazing Benefits Of Google Analytics https://activebusinessgrowth.ca/google-analytics-benefits/ Wed, 04 Dec 2019 08:44:52 +0000 https://activebusinessgrowth.ca/google-analytics-benefits/ Google Analytics is a great tool that will allow you to better understand your website traffic. Whether you run a business, a news site, or a personal blog, Google Analytics will be beneficial to gathering visitor insights and making data-backed decisions. What Is Google Analytics The Google Analytics tracking code is a snippet of code …

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Google Analytics is a great tool that will allow you to better understand your website traffic.

Whether you run a business, a news site, or a personal blog, Google Analytics will be beneficial to gathering visitor insights and making data-backed decisions.

Data from Google Analytics.

What Is Google Analytics

The Google Analytics tracking code is a snippet of code you place on your website.

The code allows you to track website visitors and the actions they take while on your site.

It is an extremely beneficial tool that you should implement today, if you haven’t already done so.

The Benefits Of Using Google Analytics

Okay, so Google Analytics allows you to track your website visitors – but what exactly does this mean?

Let’s discuss the many different Google Analytics benefits and why you should install the tracking code on your website today.

1. Free

First off, Google Analytics is a free tool.

For the amount of data and insights that it provides you with, taking advantage of the tool is a no-brainer.

2. Simple To Install

It is also extremely simple to install.

Simply copy your tracking code and paste it into the header of your website.

You can learn how to do so for WordPress and other websites here:

3. Set Goals

With Google Analytics, you can set website goals.

Anything from contact form fills, a scheduled call, a landing page view – you name it.

Simply set up your most important business objectives as goals in Google Analytics, and track them week over week, month over month, etc.

4. Optimize Your Website According To Real Metrics

Now that you have access to your website metrics, you can now make business decisions based on real data.

This is extremely lucrative, as you no longer have to make blind decisions based on assumptions – the data is right there in front of you!

5. View Real-time Visitors

You can view real-time visitors on your website.

Meaning, visitors that are on your website at that very moment.

This includes their location, how they got to your website, what page they’re on, etc.

6. Most Popular Pages With Metrics

Discover which of your pages are most popular.

By understanding the pages your visitors are visiting most, you can then begin optimizing and focusing on these pages to drive action.

7. Bounce Rate

This tells you who lands on your website and leaves before ever visiting another page.

A high bounce rate can signal a low website loading speed or poor page content.

A low bounce rate means you have a very engaged audience.

8. Average Time On Page

For each specific webpage, discover how long each visitor stays on each page on average.

9. Session Duration

This differs from average time on page because it measures the average time a visitor spends on your entire website as a whole.

10. Users

One of the other great benefits of Google Analytics for business is that you can learn how many users visit your website each day, week, month and year.

See what days of the week drive the most traffic, and what times of the day produce the most visitors.

11. Age

Another benefit of Google Analytics is that it shows your different site demographics.

It even has an age metric, which shows you the ages of the users that have visited your website.

12. Gender

Another demographic it can show you is gender.

It will measure the percentage of your website traffic that is male, and the percentage of your website traffic that is female.

Male vs. female visitors.

13. Interests

Learn what your audience is interested in based on affinity category and in-market segments.

This categorizes your audience into segments based on the websites they’ve visited in the past, their behaviour and actions, and more.

This is based on Google’s past knowledge of these users.

14. Country

Google Analytics also allows you to see the country your users are coming from, and breaks down into percentages what users are coming from where.

Visitors by country and city.

15. City

It even gets more granular with the ability to track users by city.

16. New And Loyal/Returning Users

Discover how much of your website traffic is from completely new visitors, or loyal visitors that are returning to your website again.

17. Levels Of Engagement

See how engaged your users are by bucketing them into groups based on the number of seconds they were on your website.

This is another way to visually understand your users.

18. Technology Used

Learn what browser your visitors are using and what network they’re with.

This section will show you whether they use Chrome, Safari, or Firefox, and are with Rogers, Sympatico, or Bell.

19. Desktop Vs. Mobile Vs. Tablet

This shows you what percentage of users come a mobile phone, a desktop computer, or a tablet.

Digging into these analytics can tell you if there is a problem with your website on any one of these devices.

20. Devices

This will tell you the actual device your visitors are using, whether it be a Google Nexus 5, an iPhone 8 Plus, a Samsung Galaxy S9+, etc.

Showing the benefits of Google Analytics.

21. Acquisition Channels

This is another Google Analytics benefit that shows you where your traffic actually comes from.

It is broken down into direct, organic search, paid search, social, referral, and more.

Top acquisition channels.

22. Source/Medium

The Source describes precisely where your visitors came from, and the Medium describes how they go to your website.

For example: if a visitor came from “google/organic”, this tells you that this particular visitor found your website through organic Google Search.

23. Google Ads Metrics

If you run Google Ads, you can link your Google Ads account to Google Analytics.

This will show all of your Google Ads metrics including your accounts, campaigns, keywords, bids, display targeting, and more.

It is very convenient to have the ability to view all of this data under one tool.

24. Organic Search Queries

Discover the search queries that are typed into Google which generate impressions and clicks for your website.

Here, you can also view the average positions and click through rates (CTR) of these keywords.

25. Top Organic Landing Pages

Learn which landing pages generate the most clicks from Google Search.

See what pages your visitors from Google are landing on, and where they go from there.

26. Site Search

If you have a particularly large site, then the site search section will show you exactly what keywords are typed into the search box on your site.

If many users are searching the same thing, then maybe you need to redesign your website so they can more easily find the specific thing they are looking for.

27. User Management

You can also manage the users that have access to your Google Analytics account.

Along with this, you can set the permissions for which you would like to grant them with – owner, manager, editor, etc.

This will allow you to work with many vendors at once, without compromising sensitive, proprietary website data.

28. Link Data To Other Apps

Google Analytics can also link with other apps such as Google Ads, Google Search Console, AdSense, BigQuery, and more.

Sharing data across platforms will allow all apps to function more effectively.

29. Filter IP Address

One of the other great benefits of using Google Analytics is that you can filter specific IP addresses from being included in your website metrics.

This means that if your team is constantly working on your website from your office, this may skew your data.

Filtering your office IP address will solve this issue.

30. E-commerce Functionalities

If you run an E-commerce store, you’re in luck!

Google Analytics comes with many e-commerce functionalities including the ability to view and understand shopping behaviour, checkout behaviour, product performance, sales performance, and more.

The analytics of an e-commerce website.

31. Automated Analytics Intelligence And Insights

You will also be shown insightful analytics on a daily basis.

You will get notifications for week-over-week website performance, bounce rate increases or decreases, anomalies, etc.

These prompts will show you what Google thinks is data that would be useful to your understanding of your website visitors.

32. Insights On Demand

You can also request a wide range of insights yourself.

There is a section where you can view different insights based on category, such as content analysis, trends, user behaviour, geographic analysis, etc.

Within these sections are useful questions such as “How many visitors did I have last week?”, “Why did my users change last week?”, ” What are my top pages in terms of pageviews?”, and much, much more.

Conclusion

Overall, there are dozens upon dozens of benefits of Google Analytics.

From acquisition channels, to user behaviour, to bounce rates, demographics, geographics and more – the list goes on and on.

Google Analytics proves to be a powerful tool that should be taken advantage of immediately.

The benefits of using such a tool make it so that it is a clear no-brainer to use it for your website.

Contact Active Business Growth today to help install your Google Analytics and see for yourself!

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Top 17 Tips To Improve Your Brand Communication Strategy https://activebusinessgrowth.ca/brand-communication/ Mon, 02 Dec 2019 02:47:25 +0000 https://activebusinessgrowth.ca/brand-communication/ It is one thing to be known as a well established company, but a whole other thing to be known as a reputable brand. The journey from a company to a brand is a difficult, long road. But a rewarding road if done correctly. Creating a recognized brand that resonates with your ideal customers can …

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It is one thing to be known as a well established company, but a whole other thing to be known as a reputable brand.

The journey from a company to a brand is a difficult, long road.

But a rewarding road if done correctly.

Creating a recognized brand that resonates with your ideal customers can be one of the most important business objectives you ever meet.

Showing a successful brand communication strategy.

What Is Brand Communication?

Your customers and stakeholders are the ones who ultimately determine whether they will accept or reject your brand image.

You as a company need to implement a brand communication strategy in order to persuade and influence your stakeholders to look at you in a certain way.

Brand Communication Definition

Brand communication refers to the activities you engage in to influence consumers opinions’ of your company.

Having powerful strategic brand communication initiatives in place will help you convince your consumers of the specific look and feel of your business that you want to portray.

Advantages Of Brand Communication

A successful brand communication strategy will reap heavy rewards.

Whether you’re a small, local business or a large, multi-national corporation, it can be the aspect of your business that catapults you to the next level.

Creates A Relationship With Your Audience

Communicating your brand in a meaningful way will create a trusting relationship with your audience.

Consumers buy from who they know and who they trust.

If you can create this relationship in a way that you audience resonates with, it will convert loyal customers over the long run.

Differentiates Your Company

The more that you can differentiate your company in the marketplace, the better.

One way large corporations do this is through branding.

You may have similar products and similar prices to your competitors, but what they can never truly mimic is your brand image.

Creating a unique brand image is therefore critical to long term business success.

Being differentiated in the market.

Gives Multiple Reasons For Consumers To Buy

A successful brand will communicate many different qualities of their business to their customers.

It can let customers know that you are environmentally friendly, family-oriented, health-conscious, financially-minded – the list goes on and on.

Having a brand that communicates all of these important aspects to your customers will give them many reasons to buy from you.

Here is a video that outlines the basics and fundamentals of branding:

How Do I Communicate My Brand?

There are many ways to communicate your brand.

A best practice to move forward with is to think of all the ways in which you can communicate your brand, and build a brand communication strategy around it.

Below, we have listed 17 tips on how to successfully do this.

How To Create A Successful Brand Communication Strategy

A brand communication strategy comes in many moving parts.

It is your job to put all of the individual pieces together to create a seamless brand image to project to your customers.

1. Customer Avatar

Creating a customer avatar is one the most important things you can do when initially creating and setting up your brand strategy.

Who are you marketing to?

That is what the customer avatar answers.

It is essentially the specific characteristics of your perfect, ideal customer.

When creating your messaging, marketing and branding, it should speak exactly to who this person is – AKA your customer avatar.

2. Core Message

Now that you know your customer avatar, how can you formulate a message that will speak directly to them?

What do they resonate with?

What will they respond to?

Any great marketer and brand strategist know what buttons to press and levels to pull to get a positive and actionable response from their ideal customer.

Create your messaging around this person and speak directly to them in all of your marketing material.

3. Unique Value Proposition (USP)

You also need to understand what benefits you have to offer your consumers, what makes you unique in the market, and why your ideal customers should buy from you.

What value are you giving them in return for their money?

This needs to be crystal clear – as the value you communicate to them should far exceed the price you asking them to pay for it.

Marketing from a strategic perspective.

4. Marketing Mix

Next, you must understand how you will communicate with your customers.

This comes down to the 4 P’s of marketing: price, product, place, and promotion.

Price

The price point that you are selling your products and services at.

Product

The product or service you are offering to your customers.

Place

As the saying goes: “location, location, location!”

Define the point of sale in which you will be selling your products.

Is it in store, online, or both?

Promotion

The exact marketing activities you will engage in to sell your product.

This includes methods of advertising, deals and discounts, contests and prizes, and more.

5. Brand Personality

Define the personality you would like to portray for your brand.

It should be memorable and something in the realm of which your ideal customer will remember.

A good example of this is Old Spice.

They’re known for their funny and over-the-top manly commercials.

Because of it, consumers remember their brand and their products.

Try to emulate and illicit a similar response from your own target customers.

Old Spice advertisement example.

6. Brand Positioning

How do you want your customers to perceive you as – a premium or low-cost brand?

Brand positioning is the component of the brand communication strategy that will help you justify higher prices if you so wish.

In your messaging, you must brand yourself in a way that aligns with your pricing model.

If you market yourself as a low cost brand, but your prices are very high – this confuses customers and as a result, makes them question your validity and intentions.

And vice versa.

If you have you position yourself as a premium brand but your prices are very low, it is again a cause for concern.

7. Brand Uniformity Across Touchpoints

This is where brand uniformity comes into play.

However it is you choose to brand yourself – you must communicate this across all marketing channels.

An integrated brand communication strategy is vital when you are playing on multiple different platforms.

You need to make sure your messaging is uniform everywhere your customer goes, or risk appearing unprofessional and questionable.

8. Authentic And Genuine

It is important that you actually walk the walk, not just talk the talk.

Consumers are getting smarter and smarter.

With the internet at their fingertips, consumers are more knowledge about brands than ever before.

If your branding is inauthentic and disingenuous, potential customers will be able to see this from a mile away.

Don’t brand yourself in a way in which you can’t honestly commit.

9. Promote Transparency

Promoting transparency helps build trust.

Showing a clear effort to promote your brand in a transparent way proves that you have nothing to hide.

This even goes into owning up to your mistakes as a business.

If there is a product recall, for example, instead of playing the blame game and making excuses, making a public statement and giving the actual reason for why this happened – and why it won’t happen again! – can go a very long way.

Yes, you messed up, but in the long run, customers will notice that you took ownership and did not try to hide.

10. Brand Salience

The best of the best companies have created incredible salience with their brands.

Brand salience is simply the ability to be the “top of mind” or “first to mind” brand when a particular subject is mentioned.

This is extremely apparent in the alcohol industry.

A great example is Corona.

Corona has created brand salience with the beach – whether it be summertime, on vacation, or laying by the pool, chances are, when you think of these types of activities, the first brand that comes to mind is Corona.

This is the definition of brand salience.

Sample Corona ad.

11. Valuable And Helpful Content

You always want to provide more value than what the customer is willing to pay.

Knowing your customer avatar, you need to think of ways in which to best communicate with them.

Providing free value on a topic in which they resonate with is a great way to build trust and create a relationship with your audience over time.

12. Have A Conversation With Your Audience

This goes into having an actual conversation with your audience.

Seek their input and involve them.

Providing free value as well as reacting to their responses to this free value further creates a relationship with your customers.

13. Engage Customers

This is where social media managers can come into play.

Having your social media team respond to social media posts, go out and like customer photos, create engaging surveys, and involve them in giveaways and contests are all great ideas to starting a conversation with your audience.

14. Showcase Consumer-Generated Content

The more you engage and create a relationship with your customers, the easier it will be to ask them for reviews and testimonials.

Leveraging this consumer-generated content creates social proof for your brand.

Showcasing this social proof to potential customers will make them feel more inclined to trust you, as so many have clearly done so in the past.

15. Don’t Be Overly Promotional

When you’re overly-promotional, it becomes less about the consumer and more about yourself.

You never want to come across in a way that implies that you’re just trying to make a sale.

Consumers want to feel special and feel like they’re buying for their own benefit – not because you’re trying to grab their money.

This loss of connection with your customer is harmful to your overall relationship.

Never come across as overly-promotional.

16. Show Your Company Culture

Showing your company culture to the world proves that you are actually the way you promote yourself to be.

Your culture matches your brand, and so everything adds up.

This helps further establish trust.

Showcasing your company culture also shows consumers that you are real people – not just a company.

Portraying real people with real lives deepens the connection your brand has with its customers.

Showing company culture with integrated brand communication.

17. Tell Stories

The last aspect of the brand communication strategy is to tell stories about your business.

The greatest marketers in the world are storytellers.

As humans, we naturally relate to stories and put ourselves in others’ shoes when a story is told.

Portraying your brand image through storytelling is the best way to relate to a customer, and should therefore always be included in your strategic brand communication.

Conclusion

There are a lot of moving parts to a brand communication strategy.

When done right, branding your company can help you get a foothold in the marketplace.

From your initial customer avatar, to your brand positioning, to your brand salience and company culture – implementing an effective and integrated brand communication strategy can soar your business to new heights and create loyal customers.

If you’re looking for advice on your small or local business’s branding efforts, check out Active Business Growth today.

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SEO For Moving Companies https://activebusinessgrowth.ca/moving-company-seo/ Sun, 01 Dec 2019 17:11:14 +0000 https://activebusinessgrowth.ca/moving-company-seo/ SEO is performed much differently in the moving industry than in other industries. This is because different industries have different needs and requirements, and, as such, we need to approach SEO for moving companies much differently than we do for other areas of business. Let’s get started. Why Do Moving Companies Need SEO? When implemented …

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SEO is performed much differently in the moving industry than in other industries.

This is because different industries have different needs and requirements, and, as such, we need to approach SEO for moving companies much differently than we do for other areas of business.

Let’s get started.

Services that moving companies provide.

Why Do Moving Companies Need SEO?

When implemented correctly, search engine optimization can be one of the most profitable marketing and sales channel for your moving company.

This is for many reasons.

Free Traffic

SEO brings free traffic to your moving website.

SEO results are the 10 results that are shown in search engines directly under the PPC results.

They differ from PPC results because with PPC, you need to pay for every click the ad generates.

If you’re able to appear in the organic search results directly under this, though, every click that this result generates is free for your business.

Therefore, organic search engine traffic from SEO = free traffic for your moving company.

Ready-To-Buy Movers

When targeted correctly, your website will show in front of users that are “buyers in heat”.

Meaning, they are actively expressing intent to purchase your moving services.

Examples of such keywords are: “moving company near me”, “best moving company in my city”, “affordable moving services”, etc.

By appearing in front of these high-intent users, you will convert these visitors at a very high rate.

Industry Authority

People naturally trust Google results.

Whenever they need a question answered or are looking for a piece of information, they turn to Google.

If you appear first in search results for search terms relevant to your business, users will instinctively trust your brand.

Create A Google My Business Profile

Your Google My Business profile is the business listing that shows up in Google Maps.

This means that when a user is looking for directions to a moving company in Google Maps – you could be the first to show up!

This is extremely powerful because these users are literally ready to drive to your business location to hand you over some money.

Creating and optimizing a Google My Business (GMB) profile is an important step to SEO and generating organic, free traffic.

You do can this here.

Local Google My Business Maps results for a moving company query.

Understand What Keywords You’re Targeting

Next, you need to select the keywords you want to target.

The keywords you target should be relevant to your location as well as your most profitable services.

Service Keywords

First, you must identify what services you would like to push and what terms users would type into Google to research and choose a moving company to provide these services for them.

Here are some examples of moving keywords that are popular in the industry:

“Commercial Movers”

“Residential Movers”

“Long-Distance Movers”

“Local Movers”

“Furniture Moving Companies”

“Home Moving Companies”

“High-rise Movers”

“Apartment Movers”

“Moving And Storage Service”

“Full Service Moving Companies”

Location Modifiers

Note that the above keywords do not specify your service location.

In order to drill down into keywords that users in your area will search to find you, you will want to consider adding location modifiers to your keywords.

“Your City + Moving Company”

“Your City + Local Movers”

“Your City + Moving Services”

“Best Moving Company + Your City”

“Residential Moving Company + Your City”

“Local Movers + Your City”

Search engine optimization for moving websites.

Create Separate Landing Pages For Your Target Keywords

Now that you know what keywords you’re going to target, the next best practice to implement is to create a separate landing page for each individual keyword phrase.

This will allow you to properly target each keyword by landing page level, allowing each keyword to get its own special treatment.

This practice will give you the highest chance of ranking for each keyword phrase.

Improve Your Website Performance

In order to rank for your target moving keywords, your website needs to perform at a high level.

This means improving your website speed, navigation, content, and more.

Navigation

Users need to find what they’re looking for when they initially land on your website.

If they don’t, they’ll leave and go to your competitor’s website instead.

Google will take note of this, and ultimately end up ranking your competitor’s website above yours, since the user deemed them as a better result.

To avoid this, you need to have an intuitive website that is easy for users to navigate.

Page Speed

Speed is also a massive factor when it comes to SEO.

People’s attention spans have become so slow that they don’t have the patience to wait a few seconds for a website to load.

If you website does load slow, you will end up having a high bounce rate on your site – meaning, a user came to your website, it didn’t load fast enough, and so they left right away.

In Google’s eyes, this is a bad thing.

To avoid it, you need to increase the page speed of your website.

Duplicate Content

When you break out your website into separate landing pages based on your target keywords, you can’t just copy and paste content onto each landing page.

This is bad for user experience, and Google has been known to ding and penalize websites that do this.

This is why each page must have original content.

Build Backlinks

Another factor to consider when doing moving company SEO is to build backlinks.

A backlink is when one website links back to your website, thus the term “backlink”.

When building backlinks for your local moving company, there are two main components you must consider: industry relevance and location relevance.

Moving Industry Relevance

Google needs to know that your website is relevant to the moving industry.

To establish this, you must build backlinks from other websites in your niche.

This means building backlinks to your website from as many other moving company websites as possible.

Location Relevance

When ranking for local keywords, industry relevance isn’t enough.

You need to establish the area in which your business is located as well.

Citations

This is where citations comes in.

Citations are simply mentions of your name, address, and phone number on other websites.

By building citations, Google will be able to understand where your business is located and the areas that you serve.

By building both industry relevant backlinks and location relevant citations, you will be well on your way to ranking for your target keywords.

Frequently Asked Questions

Below are some commonly asked questions about moving company search engine optimization services.

Can I Track My Keyword Rankings Progress?

Of course!

At Active Business Growth, we track each individual keyword that you’re looking to target.

With our tracking software, you will be able to see the daily fluctuations of each individual moving keyword and how it slopes upwards over time.

You will be able to visually see the progress of each of your keywords and the amount of traffic they’re pushing to your website month over month.

How Much Does SEO Cost For Moving Companies?

This depends on the level of competition in your area as well as the difficulty of the keywords you’re trying to target.

Typically, though, the average moving company SEO services costs about $1,000/month, with a range of anywhere between $500/month – $1,500/month.

A man loading a truck.

How Do I Know What Marketing Agency To Choose?

Since the cost of starting a marketing agency is so low, there are agencies out there that have just started and claim that they are experts.

You need to do your due diligence to find out which companies actually know what they’re talking about.

Look for things such as: if they keep all their SEO work in house, if they’re based in North America, case studies, etc.

Conclusion

In conclusion, there are many aspects of SEO you need to take into consideration for your moving company.

Aspects such as the type of keywords you want to target, where you are located, who your competition is, your site performance metrics and more.

Overall, if you do your due diligence and partner with the right company, you will be well on your way to ranking for your target keywords and generate free traffic to your moving company website.

Contact us today if you’d like to learn more about Active Business Growth’s SEO services.

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Top 26 Benefits And Advantages Of WordPress https://activebusinessgrowth.ca/wordpress-benefits/ Sun, 01 Dec 2019 02:28:04 +0000 https://activebusinessgrowth.ca/wordpress-benefits/ When it comes to a content management system (CMS), WordPress is seen as #1. Although there are dozens of competitors out there, WordPress is the most widely known and used. This is because there are many benefits of WordPress that other CMS’s just don’t have. Let’s discuss. What Is WordPress? WordPress is an open source …

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When it comes to a content management system (CMS), WordPress is seen as #1.

Although there are dozens of competitors out there, WordPress is the most widely known and used.

This is because there are many benefits of WordPress that other CMS’s just don’t have.

Let’s discuss.

Wordpress logo.

What Is WordPress?

WordPress is an open source content management system that allows you to build websites on it.

In fact, it is the most commonly used CMS in the world, taking up over 76.4% of CMS market share.

Started in 2003, WordPress is older than both Facebook and Twitter.

With almost 2 decades in operation, WordPress has become adopted as the go-to CMS on the web.

Let’s look into the reasons for how this happened and why this is the case.

Who Does WordPress Compete Against?

WordPress competes among the likes of Wix, Squarespace, Joomla, Drupal, Magento, Weebly, and so on.

Although there are a lot of competitors, none of these competitors come even close to the market penetration that WordPress has.

WordPress is the clear winner in CMS market share, as its next closest competitor doesn’t even take up 5% of the market.

Why Is WordPress So Popular?

WordPress is popular for many, many reasons which we are about to discuss.

By being present in the market for so long, they know what their customers and users want.

They have done such a great job at this that the advantages of using WordPress far outweigh the disadvantages of using the CMS.

Before we get into it, here is a short video explaining just a few of the many benefits of WordPress.

26 WordPress Benefits And Advantages

There are many advantages of WordPress – this is in no way an exhaustive list.

1. Easy To Install And Setup

WordPress is meant for both the very beginners and the seasoned professionals.

For both parties, WordPress is extremely easy to setup and install.

It comes down to a simple one-click installation with no coding required.

2. Simple, Straightforward, And Easy To Use

WordPress was created for even the most non-technical to use.

It comes with intuitive design, directions, and tutorials to get you started and keep you going.

So easy your grandmother could use it!

3. Cost Effective And Cheap

You can even get WordPress for free!

That’s right – for free!

Even if you opt for a paid version or use hosting or plugins that cost a few dollars here and there, the total all-in cost for using the WordPress platform will most likely cost you less than $100.

This is extremely cheap compared to other alternatives.

4. Search Engine And SEO Friendly

Another WordPress benefit is that it is built and structured with search engines and SEO in mind.

Most people aren’t just creating a website for themselves.

They want to share their content with the world and have eyeballs and traffic on their website, too!

To do this, you need an SEO-friendly site.

This means that your website needs to be easy for search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing to crawl through and parse your data.

With WordPress, this comes built-in.

By building your website on WordPress, you can get lots of search engine traffic to your site over the long run.

Content management systems.

5. Responsive Website Design

In 2020 and beyond, you need a website that is responsive to a large variety of different devices.

You don’t want to have a website where the words get cut off on an iPhone, the design looks poor on a tablet, but on a desktop everything looks great.

You want your whole website to look amazing no matter what devices your visitors are using.

With WordPress, they have responsive website designs and themes built into their platform for you to choose from.

6. Mobile Friendly

WordPress is also mobile friendly.

Now that more than 50% of the world’s internet traffic comes from mobile devices, it is of the utmost important that your website is mobile friendly, legible, and easily usable for mobile users.

Because of this fact, search engines also use mobile-first rendering.

Meaning, your website is first and foremost judged by its mobile version by search engines.

So if your mobile usability is poor, your rankings will also be poor.

Therefore, both the front end user experience and back end technical components of a website are taken into consideration when it comes to mobile friendliness.

WordPress knows this, and have given you mobile-friendly themes to choose from.

7. Access Your Site From Anywhere In The World

You can access your website from any computer in the world, so long as you have internet connection.

This is extremely important if you’re a travel-minded person – as you could realistically travel anywhere in the world and still work on your website!

Digital nomads and travelling website owners have grown in popularity over the past decade because of this functionality.

8. Regular Automatic Updates

As the internet is ever-changing and evolving, website CMS’s need to keep up with the changing environment and update their platforms accordingly.

WordPress is always on top of this and continues to update their platform to stay line with technological advances and best practices.

The best part about this is that the updates are automatic, quick, and only require one click.

9. Easy, One-Click Updates

As stated above, updates are as simple as a click of a single button.

This is convenient for website owners who can have peace of mind that they are operating their business on a fully updated content management system.

10. Most Plugins And Apps

WordPress has over 54,000+ plugins.

Plugins are applications that help you customize and run WordPress however you like.

They include email marketing plugins, design plugins, speed plugins, and more.

WordPress has the most available plugins by far, and allows the most customization among all other CMS’s.

11. Website Security

Some of these plugins are also security plugins, allowing you to enhance the security of your website from hacks, vulnerabilities, etc.

Although, WordPress even comes with security measures such as “https://” built-in should you so choose.

This will give you peace of mind knowing that your website is free from hackers and other security mishaps.

12. Lots Of Design Options

WordPress also comes with many different website themes.

These themes allow different functionalities for your website, and different looks and feels based on the theme you choose.

This will allow you to choose a theme that perfectly matches your niche and what it is exactly you’ll be using the website for.

13. Built-In Blog

Blogging is an important part of SEO, as well as a great addition to most websites.

WordPress websites come with a blog section available should you choose to use it.

This is convenient for anyone who wants to add extra content to their website – for businesses and bloggers alike.

14. Flexibility

With all of the apps and themes available, WordPress websites provide virtually unlimited flexibility.

This is great for businesses and those who are more advanced and would like to build their website whichever way they want.

This eliminates most excuses by those who want to hard-code their website from scratch for pure flexibility.

In most cases, WordPress can attend to these website developers’ needs.

15. Functionality

As with the flexibility in the way you wish to build your WordPress website, WordPress also allows for much functionality.

This comes in the form of plugins, where 54,000+ applications will get your website to do pretty much anything you want it to.

16. Speed And Convenience

Another WordPress advantage is that it is both speedy and convenient to create or make changes to your website.

Both the flexibility and functionality of the platform allows you to create a website almost instantaneously and make changes and optimizations immediately.

This allows you to create many websites at once (if that’s of interest to you) or create a new website and build it up from scratch really fast and conveniently.

17. Intuitive Interface

The backend interface of WordPress is very intuitive.

Easy labels, navigation, and design allows anyone to get started with relative ease.

After playing around in the backend for an hour or two, even the most novice beginner will become confident in building their new website for the first time!

Easy of use is an example of an advantage of WordPress.

18. Large Community

WordPress has a large community behind it.

With over 1.2 million Facebook followers and 631,000 Twitter followers, you’ll never be alone if you need any help with your website.

Jump into the community forums and ask a question – somebody will surely get back to you in no time!

19. Support Forums

WordPress also has support forums, where frequently asked questions are pinned for those who have the same problem.

This is convenient for you if you do need help with you website – before you ask a question to the community, chances are that somebody already asked a similar question and had it answered!

This makes troubleshooting your website very easy and convenient.

20. Open Source

Open source simply means that the WordPress’s code base is public and any developer can go in and make changes.

This is great, as the collaborative effort of the smartest computer engineers in the world combine their expertise to provide you with the best content management platform platform possible.

21. No HTML Or Code Editing Needed

Since WordPress is create with beginners in minded, there is absolutely no changes to the code necessary to build your website.

Of course, the option is there should you need it, but 99% of users will be happy that they need zero coding knowledge to build their website from the ground up.

This allows for an extremely low barrier of entry for website development and creation.

22. 100% Customizable

No coding necessary, but the option is there!

Should you want to customize your website to your own specific preferences – you can.

WordPress allows for complete customization of their database, making both beginners and experts happy in the process.

23. Infinite Scalability

Although most website owners and small businesses will have small websites with very few pages, should they ever want to expand their business and blowup their website with more pages – again, they can!

WordPress allows you to continue to make your website larger and larger with more and more pages with zero compromise to site performance.

This is great for anyone that wants to take their website to new heights.

Another benefit of WordPress.

24. Multiple Users With Different Permission Levels

If you do decide to grow your website and compete with the bigger players, you may need help from others.

This, or you may be a small business who hires others to help work on your website.

Either way, having different website permissions and access levels helps you to mitigate risk from bad actors.

By having these different levels of owner access, manager access, editor access, etc., you will be able to have many people work on your website without ever having to compromise sensitive backend information.

25. Self-Hosted Platform

WordPress also allows you to self-host your website.

Meaning, you can build your website on WordPress, but then host it with a third-party company.

This can help further improve website speed and performance, and gives you the flexibility to use any hosting provider you want with your website.

26. E-commerce With Woocommerce

WordPress is also competitive in the e-commerce arena.

By allowing you to connect your website with Woocommerce, WordPress competes with the likes of Shopify, Magento, and other exclusively e-commerce related content management systems.

If you wish to run an e-commerce store, WordPress essentially allows you to receive all of the advantages listed in this article, along with the benefit of running an e-commerce store on their platform.

WordPress Advantages: A Summary

There are many advantages and benefits to using the WordPress platform.

From ease of use and intuitive interface, to scalability and speed, WordPress is the perfect all-in-one platform for virtually any website.

If you’d like a WordPress website build for your small business, contact Active Business Growth today.

We look forward to hearing from you!

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