The importance of AMP and ranking high on local search.
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The Importance of AMP “accelerated mobile performance” A site must be mobile-friendly

 

AMP is a new open source initiative that stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages. AMP is meant to improve the web browsing experience by decreasing page load times and is Mobile friendly. 

Here are a few of the most exciting advantages of AMP: 

  •  It speeds up website load time 

According to a study from Google, 53% of website visits are abandoned if a mobile site takes longer than 3 seconds to load. AMP has a set of standards which all contribute to decreased page load time. A few of these guidelines include asynchronous JavaScript, resources sized statically (such as images and ads), only inline CSS, etc. Page load times have been shown to have a great influence on traffic and user engagement and are always a very important measurement for site owners to be monitoring.

 

  • Enhanced SEO 

As the web becomes increasingly mobile, it is important for publishers to pay attention to their search rankings beyond the desktop browser. Because page load time is already a factor in SEO, and since this initiative is being speared by Google, AMP pages will eventually be prioritized in their search algorithms and have a positive effect on SERPs.

 

  •   Low bounce rate 

A great side effect of faster loading pages is that your visitors are less likely to leave. Publishers who implement AMP should see a decreased bounce rate and most likely overall increased time spent on site stats. 

 

  •  The potential for increased ad views 

Because the HTML is coded in a way to enhance the overall usability of banners and images, there should be a higher ad view-ability rate, hopefully also increasing a publisher’s ability to monetize their site.

 

Please contact Savvy Sister to evaluate your website to see if it is a good candidate for AMP.

 

 

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Using chat can help you qualify leads and turn browsers into buyers!
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Qualifying Leads Using Chat and Chatbots

Push leads down the sales funnel using chat (Chatbots)

In business and in marketing – it’s all about the leads. But today, with so many choices, options and research available, getting the average visitor to take action is a lot more challenging than it used to be.

Take a step back and look at ways to educate, rather than persuade the customer. At this point in the funnel, they’re not looking seriously at solutions. They’re involved in the discovery process – learning what’s out there and what options they have available. You need to prove you’re even worth listening to by illustrating your expertise in a way that’s helpful and knowledgeable, not pushy

The first thing you should do is use chatbots as analytic tools. This allows you to effectively develop bot scripts optimized for conversions.

Using chat can help you qualify leads and turn browsers into buyers!

Using chat can help you qualify leads and turn browsers into buyers!

Chatbots can be programmed to track purchasing patterns and monitor data from consumers. This tells a company which products to market differently, which to market more and which to redevelop for relaunch.

Most digital marketing platforms and campaigns have countless data sets. However, a chatbot can sift through that data at lightning speed, picking out the most relevant bits.

Once you have collected your chatbot analytics, you can optimize it by writing sales funnel minded scripts. This can be done using different messages to see which ones fuel the most engagement, and thus more likely to lead consumers down the sales funnel.

Using email integration, chatbots can nurture leads and push customers farther down the sales funnel. This is due to their versatility and ability to compile valuable consumer data in an effective and efficient way.

This greatly speeds the time it takes to nurture leads. Did you know it takes a human eight hours, on average, to follow up with a lead and 50 percent of leads are never followed up on. That is a lot of potential sales lost.

Automating your follow up efforts via chatbots ensures all leads are attended to. They can also qualify leads based on the consumer data they collect, including location, product preferences, buying habits, age, gender, etc.

If you’re a small business owner seeking digital marketing help, contact us here at Savvy Sister Marketing. Whether you’re looking to understand your marketing ROI, increase market share, achieve on social, or just feel more confident about your online presence, give us a call today!

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Using PPC and Direct Mail together can help with branding and promotions.
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Coordinating PPC Targeting With USPS Every Door Direct Mail

Combining traditional and digital marketing tactics is a very smart strategy for local small business owners.  Using pay-per-click  (PPC) Google or Bing campaigns in conjunction with an Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM) campaign provides an impact on your target audience that reinforces your brand, or serves to remind customers of your specials or limited-time offers.

Let’s say, for example, you’re a local yoga studio and you want to publicize a new offering of classes for seniors two mornings a week.  Coordinating an awareness PPC and retargeting campaign with a USPS EDDM campaign can get the attention of potential new customers who are geographically close.

Using this scenario, one could create a PPC campaign that would very specifically target “Senior Yoga” using Keyword insertion {Yoga for Seniors} (or something similar) in the headline. It would also be smart to set “exact match” on terms like “senior yoga” and “senior fitness” so that your ads are only showing for that exact type of search.

But in addition to making sure your ads only show for the right search query, you can set your ads to only show in specific zip codes where mostly seniors live. How do you know what those zip codes are?  That’s where USPS Every Door Direct Mail can help.

When you go to the EDDM website, you can begin to do a little research on exactly where (down to the delivery route) your potential customers are.  You can see average income, number of single-dwelling homes, number of apartments, and average age range as you hover over the map of a zip code you’ve selected.  If your target audience for your Senior Yoga classes is people between the ages of 50 and 85 with an average income of $50,000 and up, you can find which zip codes most closely fit that demographic, and set your ad campaign to show exclusively in those zip codes.

Simultaneously, you can launch a EDDM postcard mailing campaign for those same zip codes, setting the start and end dates of your PPC campaign to wrap around the date of the direct mail campaign.

Detailed? Absolutely, but this kind of thing is right up our alley!  The geeks at Savvy Sister Marketing are committed to providing our clients tailored, strategic marketing ideas that will provide the best ROI with as little waste as possible.  If you’re a do-it-yourselfer, that’s great… enjoy!  If this all seems like Greek, go ahead and contact us today, and WE WILL HELP YOU!  Marketing doesn’t have to be guesswork… strategic, targeted marketing CAN bring results.

 

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Social Media Data Analysis Small Business
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Using Social Media for Market Research

Market analysis and gathering data on your potential and existing customers can improve your ROI, help you find weaknesses in your customer service or channels of communication, and highlight potential new audiences.  Understanding your customers and potential customers, and being able to predict their behavior can be VERY profitable.  That’s why huge corporations pay tremendous amounts of money for “big data” market research and analysis.

If you’re a small business owner, you may think that market research is beyond your budget.  It’s not. If you’re on the right social media platforms, and using best-practices to schedule relevant posts, provide engaging content, and interact with your audience, you ARE doing market research!

Reactions to posts or content on Twitter, Facebook, Pintrest, FlipBoard, Tumblr, your e-mail service, or your website can tell you what topics or products your customers are most interested in.  Evaluating analytics on these platforms can provide the small business owner with insight into what time of day followers are online, look-alike audiences, gender, age, and even other interests.  When evaluated correctly, patterns may be found that can provide enormous opportunities for you to enter into a users’ day and insert your product or service as a solution to a problem, or a complimentary addition to their lifestyle.

For example, if you are a small cafe that serves pastry and coffee in the morning, you’re probably posting “foodies” on Facebook and Instagram galore.  Which ones performed the best? Chocolate, cinnamon, something with a cute design, or maybe an image of a PERSON enjoying the delicious pastry performed best.  When you look at the data, and find a pattern or insight, you’ve just done market research!

Using that same example of the cafe, let’s evaluate what time of day most followers are actively using that platform.  If most users are busy working people who login during their lunch break, make sure you’re running tomorrow’s breakfast special when they’re most likely to see your post – during the 11 to 2 window.

Now let’s have a look at this same cafe’s email data. What is in the subject line of the emails that are opened the most? If “Monthly Newsletter” is in the subject line of the (wait for it…) Monthly Newsletter, but you’re not happy with the open rate, try putting “Pastry of the Month” in the subject line instead!  Let that run for a couple months, and see if your open rate goes up.  After that try “Images of Fun Latte Art” in the subject line, and see how that performs.  Collecting this data, and searching for patterns over time is a form of market research.

So at this point I’m going to shamelessly promote the Savvy Sister Marketing Team because whether you’re using primarily social media, PPC Ads, or relying on email, you probably do not have the time or energy to look at the data and determine what information will help you make the key business decisions that will move you forward.  WE CAN HELP YOU!  Data analysis is one of our strongest offerings for our clients.  By providing business owners with the data they need to make key business decisions and improve their profit margin, the team at Savvy Sister Marketing allows small business owners to confidently make smart choices. Get in touch now.

If you want to learn analytics, we can help.  If you want solid business analysis based on your online performance, we can help.  Contact Robyn at Savvy Sister Marketing today!  I’ve got 10 minutes, let’s talk… 727-742-6473

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Local SEO Best Practices
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Smart Local SEO Practices for Small Business

The query “…Near Me” has become one of the most prolific search queries within the past couple of years.  If you are a brick and mortar business, it is absolutely essential that you understand local SEO and how your business is showing in a SERP.  Location specific queries are managed differently by search engines, so it’s important to understand which elements of your website are the most important with regard to local SEO.

When search engines, specifically Google, determine that the user is searching for something geographically near them, the results page has a “local pack” showing the data that Google has on file about relevant businesses in a specific geographic region.  This information is geography based, and the listed choices are featured on a map to the right.  Below the “pack” local organic results appear based on page rank as determined by that search engine at the time of that query.  The search engines are using the data that is currently on your website to display this information, so if your business is not updated with current info, phone number, hours of operation, and service description, you may be losing a sale.

Because it is still the most widely-used search engine, making sure that your Google My Business page is current is foundational to local SEO.  (If you don’t know how to update, edit, post, and reply to rankings on your Google My Business Page, become a member now for an in-depth tutorial on Google My Business or contact Savvy Sister Marketing for help.)

Local directory sites such as your local Chamber of Commerce website, BBB, Patch.com, Local.com, and the local online paper are important as well.

Contextually relevant citations in review sites like HomeAdvisor, BBB, Yelp, Manta, Trip Advisor, Wix, and FourSquare should be consistent across all sites.  Another important element is having “on-page signals” for the search engines that alert them to your physical location.  Your site should list the names of the cities, counties, zip codes, and regions that you service.

If your location is incorrect in Google maps, and you provide goods and/or services at your brick-and-mortar location, this must be addressed immediately.  If you have customers telling you that their GPS sent them to the wrong location, or they cannot find your location in their GPS, correcting this is also a priority.  For more in-depth information on how to ensure your business is showing properly in maps and GPS systems, become a member to access our tutorial, or contact Savvy Sister Marketing today.  Don’t put this off – you’re losing customers.

Getting good local SEO established can be very time consuming, and if you’re a busy business owner, it may be worth it to source this out so that you are certain it is done correctly and consistently across all relevant platforms.  Good local SEO depends on good website content as well as relevant inbound links, reviews, and citations.  It can seem an overwhelming task, but when done correctly it can be a game-changer for a local small-business owner in dominating the local SERP.

If you want an audit of your “local” presence, or if you want help making sure you’re listing properly in local relevant sites, contact Savvy Sister Marketing today.  We Will Help You!

 

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