27% Of Keywords Searched For Are In Question Format June 21, 2015

27% Of Keywords Searched For Are In Question Format

According to study done by Blue Nile, 27% of keywords searched for in 2015 are done in the form of a question.

So in other words keywords like “average price of limo service” or “moving service near me”.

I’ve noticed the past few years, more and more, study after study is showing searchers getting more specific with what keywords they’re searching for.

And sure, in the auto repair industry, “auto repair” does get searched for more than any other individual keyword. But it’s not getting searched for as much as it once did.

Because there’s been a dramatic rise in how many people will search “brake repair” or “affordable auto repair” or “discount ford auto repair”.

I’ve been saying the same thing to our small business clients: there is a TON of opportunity targeting these specific keywords.

The rest of the search engine optimization industry hasn’t caught up yet. So it’s likely your small business competitors aren’t caught up either.

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Google: In 2015, Link Building Can Do More Harm Than Good June 21, 2015

Google: In 2015, Link Building Can Do More Harm Than Good

For years, search engine optimization companies used link building tactics Google wasn’t happy about to produce better rankings.

But since 2012, Google has slowly but surely wiped out nearly every effective link building technique.

And one Google spokesman has even gone as far to say that trying to do link building can do more harm than good.

And of course, Google could just be trying to scare people into not doing it anymore, but the past year or so, the SEO industry has formed a consensus to focus on content instead of link building.

The reasons are that Google is now confident in knowing if people are trying to game the link building system. So if you try it and Google catches you, Google might remove you from their search engine for a period of time, aka a Google penalty.

It couldn’t be any more clear that in 2015, the way to get better SEO rankings is through content.

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Majority Of Online Viewers Would Rather Watch Ads Than Pay To Watch June 21, 2015

Majority Of Online Viewers Would Rather Watch Ads Than Pay To Watch

The last few years, the advertising industry has been paying close attention to consumers preferences on how to pay to watch video on the internet.

Would people prefer to watch a quick ad before their video plays like on YouTube? Or would people prefer to pay like they do on Netflix or Amazon Prime?

A recent study suggests that people would rather watch a quick ad.

Which is great news for businesses considering how it’s still very possible in the next 5-10 years that people will cancel their cable and dish TV service to just watch TV through the internet.

The opportunities for small businesses to advertise for TV watchers will be plentiful!

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“Custom Audiences” Could Be The Next Big Thing June 21, 2015

“Custom Audiences” Could Be The Next Big Thing

What is a “custom audience”? It’s advertising to people who are already familiar to you.

In other words, a custom audience is made up of a list of email addresses, or phone numbers, or physical addresses, etc.

Facebook first tested a custom audience product back in 2013. Recently, it’s been opened to the general public.

The way the Facebook custom audience advertising works is you give Facebook a list of your contacts, and then instead of advertising banner ads to random people on Facebook, your banner ads will instead be advertised only to people on your contact list.

Currently Google and Bing are experimenting on a similar product where your search engine ad is only seen by people on your contact list.

So obviously a lot of people in the marketing industry are excited by this.

It’s no secret that one of the reasons email marketing can be the most effective marketing technique in 2015 is because advertising is always more effective when your audience knows who you are.

For those thinking that you don’t want to stalk your customers by doing email marketing with them, advertising to them on Google, Facebook and everywhere, there’s a way to tone down the stalking ; )

With almost every custom audience product, there is something called a “cap frequency” that limits how many times a day each person sees your ad. So you can limit each place you advertise to people only seeing your ad once a day to blend in with the other ads.

Collecting and organizing customers contact info has never been more important!

 

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Promoting Coupons Could Be A Difference Maker October 26, 2014

Promoting Coupons Could Be A Difference Maker

After digging through lots of data and consumer studies I think I’m starting to see an opportunity for clients to help them make more money.

One of those studies recently put out by research firm Forrester shows that 68% of consumers say coupons make it more likely someone becomes a first time customer and is likely to become a repeat customer.

It’s no secret in this economy, people love deals.

As a business, no one likes to give anything away for free decreasing the profit margin.

But if you need a ride to the airport. And you have no clue who to call. You go on Google and see a whole bunch of companies you’ve never heard of before. Then you see one of the companies has a special deal going on.

I’m convinced doing something like this will not only make the business stand out in a crowded search engine, but also make it more likely the customer comes back and does business with you again.

This area of promoting deals on ads in Google and on websites I think is one of the biggest opportunities for businesses to make more money off their advertising dollars.

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Small Businesses Not Branding Themselves Are Missing Out October 26, 2014

Small Businesses Not Branding Themselves Are Missing Out

It’s much easier to land new customers when they already know who you are.

Why do referrals work so well? Because people know who you are.

Customwave is much more likely to land a new client when the client is already familiar with our name and who we are.

Statistically speaking, when you’re advertising on Google and people have never heard of your company’s name, you’re going to get less new customers per click.

People literally ask me all the time, “What can we do to get more customers”?

The answer is building awareness for your brand. It’ll make ALL of your advertising and marketing more effective.

I know it’s a dull, boring, takes-forever answer. But it’s also the most effective.

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THIS IS WHY UBER IS SHADY October 5, 2014

THIS IS WHY UBER IS SHADY

Normally, I keep my articles on the topics of internet marketing, but because we at Customwave have so many taxi and airport transportation clients, I felt that it’s relevant to write about Uber.

Right now, Uber is severely hurting the taxi industry. Why?

Because of the way Uber hires independent contractors as drivers, they don’t have to pay for the same insurance, permits and other business costs that virtually all taxi companies pay for.

Some people have said that Uber’s rise has come about because of superior technology and the ease of mobile payments, but at the end of the day (and especially in this economy), it comes down to price.

With lower costs, Uber’s prices under cut the other taxi companies.

And Uber’s background checks on the drivers they work with is questionable too. The San Francisco Chronicle details a couple incidents that have happened and how the district attorneys of San Francisco and Los Angeles are stepping in for a joint investigation.

To make matters even worse, CNN did a story on how Uber allegedly has hired other independent contractors to sabotage competitors similar to them. CNN reports that these contractors make calls to rival airport transportation companies and cancel them at the last minute. CNN’s numbers say this has been done at least 5,600 times.

My message to taxi companies is hang in there. Uber is not going to be able to get away with what they’re doing forever.

The government is going to have to step in, but not to save the taxi industry. They’re going to step in because if Uber continues to get away with not paying for insurance, permits and other stuff, what’s stopping all the other taxi companies from operating the same way?

That’s why Uber eventually will be forced to play by the rules everyone else does.

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This Is Why You Can’t Do Email Marketing By Yourself September 21, 2014

This Is Why You Can’t Do Email Marketing By Yourself

Some small business owners make a decision to do email marketing themselves.

They figure, I have the email addresses. I can type up an email. Maybe include a couple graphics. Why would I pay someone else to help me do this?

I would bet that a majority of people that do this are unaware of the main obstacle to this task which is known as deliverability. Meaning the challenge of email marketing is getting your email to land in someone’s inbox instead of their spam box.

Each IP, the industry abbreviation for internet provider, requires email marketers to follow the rules in the CAN-SPAM Act from 2003 on what you can and can’t do in your emails.

So chances are, if you’ve been doing email marketing yourself and weren’t aware of these rules, there’s a pretty good chance a large majority of people you’re trying to send email to, are not receiving the emails because they’re going to spam.

Even worse, repeat offenders can sometimes be blacklisted from sending email. In other words, if you become a repeat offender with AOL, AOL might choose to blacklist not only from sending email blasts to anyone with a “@aol.com” email address. They might blacklist you altogether from sending individual emails to anyone@aol.com.

I strongly recommend to small business owners that are serious about their email marketing tactics being successful, to work with professionals that know how to get emails to people’s inboxes. Which, of course, is something we at Customwave can help you with ; )

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My Very Educated Guess On Why You Can’t Get Rid Of Your Bad Reviews On Yelp September 14, 2014

My Very Educated Guess On Why You Can’t Get Rid Of Your Bad Reviews On Yelp

I get asked these questions all the time: Why don’t any of my positive reviews show up on my Yelp page? My customers leave real reviews, but why do they never show up? But it seems like every bad review that’s left is always posted on my Yelp page. Why?

Small business owners continue to be angry at Yelp because it seems to them, and myself included, that it’s much easier to get bad reviews to stick on a business’ Yelp page than positive reviews. And they’re angry because it hurts their business.

Some small business owners have had experiences of Yelp sales reps seemingly telling them that if they pay for Yelp advertising, that it might help in getting the bad reviews to go away. Some have tried to sue Yelp, like this case in California.

I have no evidence. I have no inside information. Yelp is very secretive on how their website works in deciding which positive reviews show up and which negative reviews show up. The following is my educated guessing.

Yelp needs bad reviews to show up on it’s website. Yelp’s value to a consumer, is that with Yelp’s website, you can discern and figure out which businesses are good and which are bad.

If almost all the businesses on Yelp had good reviews, the website would be worthless. The consumer wouldn’t know which business to call if they all had 5 star reviews.

However, when lots of businesses on Yelp have bad reviews, now all of a sudden, there’s a value in the website. With Yelp, you’ll know which businesses are good and which are bad.

Theory or not, the irrefutable fact is that Yelp’s business model can not survive without bad reviews. Some businesses have to have bad reviews in order for Yelp to provide value to it’s website visitors.

So there you have it. This is most likely why it’s way easier for bad reviews to show up on your Yelp page than positive reviews.

Yelp needs some businesses to look bad so Yelp can make money.

Is there anything you can do about it?

Customwave’s current strategy in helping clients with bad reviews on Yelp is to get their Yelp listing off the 1st page of Google when someone searches for your business’ name.

Most people don’t go to www.yelp.com directly. They find Yelp through Google. So if you can get the Yelp listing off Google, almost nobody will be seeing the Yelp listing.

 

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Breaking News: People Do Not Like Being Tricked! September 4, 2014

Breaking News: People Do Not Like Being Tricked!

Contently has done a study asking if people prefer traditional “banner ads” versus the trendy “native ads”.

For those that don’t know the industry terminology, “banner ads” are regular website advertisements. It’s a square or rectangle that’s clearly an ad.

“Native ads” are advertisements that are supposed to be similar to content on the page to trick more people to click on the ads  ….errrrr…. i mean more people will click on the ads because people will be more interested in ads close to the content they’re already looking at on the page haha.

Yeah, survey says no. The study I mean, it says people don’t like clicking on ads they think are a part of the website only to find out they’ve been tricked and it’s an ad.

Study also shows that when people realized they’ve been tricked, they have less trust in the brand advertising. Yikes. Companies paying for people getting a bad impression of them.

Sorry marketers. The native ads were a cute idea, but it seems they do more harm than good. Back to the drawing board.

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