Last updated 1 year ago
As many local businesses know, online advertising tactics like search engine advertising, display advertising, and social media marketing are effective ways to drive local prospects to your website – but how do you keep them there? And an even more challenging task, how do you get those visitors to convert into customers?
One small business website best practice is to include multiple ways for visitors to contact you on your website to increase leads. In addition to offering only a contact form or phone number, you can also add live chat technology to drive more— and better quality—leads from potential customers visiting your site.
What Are the Benefits of Adding Live Chat to Your Website?
By offering an alternative to traditional website conversion methods like a phone call, email, or web form, live chat can turn many prospects who may not have contacted you otherwise into actionable leads for your business.
- Immediate Leads – The visitor can connect with a representative of your business in real time without having to worry about being sent to voicemail or waiting for a response from an email or contact form. Additionally, live chat enables prospects to connect with the business outside normal hours of operation. By engaging prospects immediately and proactively, you’re more likely to convert them before they leave your site.
- Improved Customer Experience – You can use web chat to provide a basic level of customer service and answer questions about your business, such as hours, location, and products or services offered, helping drive the visitor closer to a sale. This can provide a personalized customer experience and leave the visitor with positive impression of your business, so they are more likely to leave their contact information. Then, you can follow up with the visitor via email or phone to provide additional details and close the sale.
- Affordable Solution – Most website live chat solutions provide a pay-per-lead model, meaning you only pay for qualified leads obtained via the chat. That means you don’t pay for visitors who leave the chat without providing relevant contact information.
Live Chat Case Studies
Many of our TotalLiveChat clients have seen a significant increase in quality leads from their online advertising campaigns by adding live chat to their website. For example, two of our TotalLiveChat clients have improved their results by using live chat on their websites. In addition, after implementing live chat and seeing the results, both clients increased their initial budgets to convert even more site visitors. Here’s a quick look at these case studies:
Cutler & Associates
- Cycle Spend: $600
- Leads: 75
“The TotalLiveChat program that Reach[Local] offers is wonderful. What is allows our potential clients to do is speak to somebody when they hit our website. A box pops down, clients click on it, and are immediately engaged with another human being.” Stewart Swanson, Partner, Cutler & Associates
Fast Lane Classic Cars
- Cycle Spend: $2000
- Leads: 250
“The amount of money that we spend with chat, in relationship to the increased revenue that we get from chat is absolutely a wise investment for any business.” – Joe Clark, General Manager, Fast Lane Classic Cars
About TotalLiveChat
TotalLiveChat is our live chat service that uses live specialists to capture leads from interested prospects when they visit your website. Now, this service includes Call Connect, a feature that allows a visitor to connect with the business in real time, increasing call conversions from the site. See more client reviews at reachlocal.com/reviews.
Tamara Weintraub helps equip small business owners with information about local online advertising, social media, and content marketing as a writer for the ReachLocal blog.
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Last updated 1 year ago
Springtime. It’s often associated with warmer temperatures, blossoming flowers, and the widely known, yet often unpopular task – spring cleaning. But homes and gardens aren’t the only places you should consider tidying. As a business owner, setting aside some time to clean and organize your digital life can not only help clear up some computer space, but it can also set you up to run your business, and your personal life, much more efficiently. Try out some of the following tips to get digitally organized this spring.
Clean out your email inbox.
Is your email inbox filled with unread emails? Set aside an hour – or several – to go through as many emails as possible. For those who have hundreds, or even thousands, of unread messages, this may only be a starting point, but developing a habit of cleaning your email inbox on a regular basis can help you get on the right track for managing your emails in the future. If you struggle to get your inbox to zero, address the most recent or important emails in your inbox and then move everything else into an archive or separate folder. This way, you can still access old messages, while creating an empty inbox to make the process more manageable going forward.
If you often receive unsolicited mass emails, marking them as Spam will not only keep them out of your inbox, it also helps email clients like Gmail detect patterns within emails that you and other users mark as Spam to automatically redirect them to a separate folder. Another handy tip to manage your email is to set up folders, rules, or filters that will automatically manage certain types of emails to keep them from filling your inbox.
Organize your computer desktop by moving to the cloud.
Can you see your desktop background or is it covered with countless icons? Cleaning your desktop by creating a filing system for all of your documents is a great way to clear the clutter and helps you find documents at a glance when you need them. And if you aren’t familiar with cloud computing, you should definitely consider using it for your business. Cloud storage services like Dropbox and the new Google Drive provide you with space online to store your documents, pictures, and other important files and easily share them for collaboration. Once you create an account, you can upload files directly from your desktop to your online storage space and access them anywhere you have an Internet connection, even on your mobile device.
Upload your images to a Web album.
Do you have folders on your computer full of business, product, or service photos that you haven’t used? Instead of keeping these photos to yourself, take some time to set up an account on a photo sharing site like Flickr or Picasa. You can also upload images to your business’ Facebook Timeline page, which now makes displaying and sharing images with your fans. Not only can sharing your photos increase engagement with your fans and followers, Google has recently updated its image ranking process to make more relevant images appear higher on image search results pages, even if they are on a lower-performing landing page. This is especially important if images can display your products or services, like photography, construction, landscaping, or even restaurants. So, make sure to include detailed descriptions and appropriate tags with the images you share.
Move your contacts online.
Have you ever noted a business contact’s information on a piece of paper and misplaced it moments later? As a small business owner, you may connect with prospects, new customers, and other professionals interested in your products or services. So, make sure you get the most out of your networking by saving their information digitally. One simple way is to save them as a contact in your email address book or on your smartphone. And if you are one of the growing number of small business owners who have adopted mobile technology to run their businesses, there are many mobile apps that can help you organize your contacts.
Assess your reputation management strategy and respond to outstanding reviews and comments.
Another area you may not have considered cleaning up is your online reputation. When is the last time you checked the status of your business on top review sites? Have your customers left comments or reviews about your business online, but you just haven’t had the time to respond to them or manage your social Web presence? Responding to comments on your social media pages and review sites affects how your business will appear when customers search for your business online. And as more customers value online reviews as much as personal recommendations, developing and sticking to your online reputation management strategy is key to making sure customers see positive results when they search.
Finding the best way to digitally organize your small business may take some time and effort. But much like cleaning out a garage, it gives you a fresh start, allows you to find what you’re looking for, and gives you the opportunity to develop new habits.
What are some other ways you have found that help you organize the digital life of your small business? Let us know in the comments!
About the Author
Tara Banda writes about how small business owners can reach local customers through online marketing for the
ReachLocal blog. You can connect with her on
Twitter.
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Last updated 1 year ago
If you’re running a search engine advertising (pay per click) campaign, chances are you’ve heard the phrase “quality score”. But like many small business owners, you may be wondering what quality score is, and what exactly it means to your search engine advertising campaign. Quality score is an important factor that affects your search advertising, so here are a few things you need to know about it.
What is Quality Score?
Quality score is a rank of how relevant and useful a search engine thinks your business is to someone searching for your products and services online, which impacts both the cost and rank of your pay per click ads. Search engines evaluate your text ad(s), keywords, and landing page, and the higher your score, the more relevant your business appears to be to a related search.
How Does Quality Score Affect My Search Advertising Campaign?
Your quality score affects a number of factors related to your search engine advertising campaign, including the actual cost-per-click of your keywords, the minimum bid estimates of your keywords, and the position of your text ad on the search engine results page. Higher quality scores tend to result in lower cost-per-click as well as lower bid estimates for your text ad to appear on the first page or in the top position on the page. A high quality score means it’s cheaper and easier for your ad to appear in a prominent position when someone searches for your keywords.
How is Quality Score Calculated?
Search engines evaluate a variety of factors when determining your quality score, including your keywords’ clickthrough rate (CTR) history, the quality of your landing page, the relevance of your text ad, and the relevance of the keywords you are bidding on. Google has recently addressed some of these factors that go into determining quality score:
Keywords
Keywords play a major role in determining quality score. Google Performance Specialist Tanmay Arora addressed how keyword relevance is determined, including:
- Keyword Relevance: Keyword relevance is not just determined by a keyword's presence or frequency on the landing page, but also how appropriate Google thinks consumers will find the keyword in relation to the content on the landing page.
- Historical Performance: When you bid on a keyword, Google assigns it a base quality score based on its historical performance on Google’s search engine, looking at factors such as the keyword's clickthrough rate for other search campaigns. Quality score is re-evaluated over time as it gathers data from your campaign.
- Clickthrough Rate: Google takes into account the exact match clickthrough rate, or the number of times the keyword triggers a search ad when the keyword exactly matched a search term and was clicked on by the consumer who searched for the term.
Text Ads
Text ad relevance is also a key factor in determining quality score. In addition to bidding on keywords, you should also include a primary keyword in your text ad. Search engines like Google factor the overall effectiveness of your ad, including how often it is served in relation to a search query as well as how many clicks it receives when displayed on the search engine results page, into your quality score.
Landing Pages
In addition, Google recently announced that landing page quality would have more weight in determining the quality score of a text ad. It’s extremely important for your landing page to display content that a user would expect to see after clicking on your ad, like content related to the topic of your ad such as product or service information.
According to Google’s director of product development Jonathan Alferness, Google’s intent with this factor is to improve the user’s experience when clicking the text ad and visiting the business’ website. According to Alferness, this change means “pages that seem to be about the topic of the user’s search will do better here [on Google’s sponsored results] than general landing pages.”
How Can I Improve My Quality Score?
Because there’s no public formula to tell us exactly how search engines calculate quality score – only an estimate – there is also no single way to improve your quality score. However, there are some best practices you can follow.
Search engines are looking to see how well your keywords, text ads, and landing page work together in getting a consumer to the right place. Because broad keywords are typically more competitive, it’s in your best interest to bid on some geo-targeted and long-tail keywords related to your business. Using local and product- or service-specific keywords in your text ad can help your ad appear in the sponsored results when someone searches for those terms.
For instance, if a consumer searches for “organic fertilizer Houston”, a text ad has a higher chance of showing up if the business is bidding on an exact or closely related keyword, rather than a general keyword like “gardening.” In this example, this likelihood is further improved if the text ad also contains content related to the topic of organic fertilizer in Houston.
It would also boost the campaign's quality score if the landing page linked to from that text ad is related to gardening supplies in Houston. If you include any offers on your ad, like “get a free lawn evaluation”, content related to that offer should also appear on your landing page to increase your text ad effectiveness.
Have you taken steps to increase your search engine quality score? What keyword, text and, or landing page tips have you implemented that have improved the performance your search engine advertising campaign?
Tamara Weintraub helps equip small business owners with information about local online advertising, social media, and content marketing as a writer for the ReachLocal blog.
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Last updated 1 year ago
As using search engines to find local business information gains popularity, search engine advertising is an effective tool to get your business found by local searchers. It’s important to write a clear, engaging text ad that is optimized for both consumers and search engines so you can drive more clicks from relevant consumers looking for local products and services. Avoid these five common text ad writing mistakes to ensure you’re getting the most clicks from your search ads.
1. Using Ad Copy that Doesn’t Match Your Landing Page
One of the contributing factors to a high bounce rate is visiting a site that has nothing to do with the text ad that brought them there. That’s why the products or services mentioned in your ad, the keywords used, and any offers being promoted should also appear on the landing page your ad links to. This communicates to the prospect that they’re in the right place, which reduces bounce rates and encourages conversions. In addition, it can have a positive impact on your quality score, a measurement that examines factors like how relevant your text ads, keywords, and landing page are to your search campaign. In fact, text ads that are seen as relevant by search engines like Google may be rewarded with lower cost per click, higher ad position, and better availability of ad auctions.
2. Not Geo-Targeting Your Text Ads
If you’re a local business, there is no reason you shouldn’t be using local keywords in your text ads. Just like with SEO, using local keywords can increase your relevance with local searchers looking for products and services that you offer. Plus, local keywords used in a search query like “Kitchen remodeling Atlanta,” can impact which ads are shown on the search engine results page. By using local keywords in your text ads, you can drive more targeted traffic to your site and increase the likelihood of conversion.
3. Using Generic Keywords
The more generic keywords you use, the more you’ll likely have to pay for clicks on your ad. When selecting keywords, it’s important to understand how and why people are looking for businesses like yours. For instance, consumers looking to remodel their kitchens may be searching for more specific terms like “kitchen granite countertops,” so they are more likely to click on an ad that includes keywords specifically related to what they are looking for. Do research to see which long-tail keywords – phrases that typically include more than three words – have a high search volume and low competition, so your ads have a greater opportunity to show up when someone searches for those terms.
4. Forgetting a Call to Action
No matter what kind of marketing you’re doing, writing a strong call to action is imperative to get consumers to take action, and your text ad is no different. Having a clear call to action can increase your click through rate (CTR) and conversion rate on your site, especially if your call to action is related to the call to action on your website. For instance, the call to action “Book Online and Save” tells a prospect what they can expect to do when they land on your site.
5. Including Your Business Name in your Ad
You only have a limited number of characters for your headline and body copy. So, unless your brand is well-known, it’s not in your best interest to waste valuable ad copy space on your business name. Instead, use that space to convey your unique selling point or offer, since consumers searching for a business type may not be familiar with your business name anyway. However, don’t confuse this with the strategy of bidding on your business name keywords, which is a good way to help your text ad appear when a consumer does search specifically for you!
Have you made any of these search ad mistakes? What other tips do you have for writing text ad copy that gets clicks?
About the Author
Tamara Weintraub helps equip small business owners with information about local online advertising, social media, and content marketing as a writer for the ReachLocal blog.
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Last updated 1 year ago
No matter the size of your business, it’s no secret that
companies are spending more on online marketing as more local consumers look for them online. And if the marketing plan for your small business is still primarily offline, you could be missing out on reaching more local customers. But, there is good news – you don’t have to start from scratch when developing your online marketing plan. You can transition many types of offline advertising you may be doing now to the Web. Here are a few ideas to consider.
1. Yellow Pages to Search Advertising
2. Billboards & TV Ads to Display Ads
Offline display advertising can help you share your brand with a large general audience. Using online display advertising allows you to not only build brand awareness with a more targeted audience, but it also helps you measure more effectively. And,
marketers are now spending more money on display ads than ever before, with estimated growth of 24.1% from 2011. In other words, if you aren’t targeting consumers through online display advertising, your competition might. If you’re currently investing in offline billboard or television advertising, you might consider transitioning some of your budget to targeted display advertising online.
3. Comment Cards to Online Reviews
Comment cards are a great way for your customers to share their ideas about your small business with you. So are online reviews. Asking satisfied customers to leave reviews about your business online can significantly help build a positive Web presence. When you do, consider developing a
reputation management strategy in order to monitor and manage what others are saying about your business online.
4. Direct Mail to Email
If you currently use traditional forms of direct mail advertising – flyers, print ads, coupon ads, circulars, etc. – then you realize the importance of sharing information about your business to your local consumers. But are you also reaching your potential customers online? According to recent research, marketers are already shifting spend from
traditional print advertising to online advertising. Fortunately, you can take much of what you’re already using in print and implement it through email marketing. This can help your small business become more competitive, and make your marketing more efficient. For example, most email marketing platforms track items like click-through rates to evaluate what content performs best. This then allows you to focus more of your advertising dollars on lead generation and measurable online marketing.
5. Offline Coupons to Online Offers
If you promote coupons and special offers offline, there is a large subset of consumers you could target by distributing these coupons online as well. You can promote your offers on your blog, website, or even on your social media pages to boost engagement and build brand awareness. Plus, offering deals on social media as “first come, first serve” is a great way to build excitement around the offer. There are also many sites that can promote your specials, including
Groupon,
LivingSocial, Google Offers,
AmazonLocal, and
Facebook Offers. And with the growth of mobile phone usage, a growing number of
consumers now prefer receiving offers on their phones. So the next time you have an offer, consider promoting it online as well.
6. Analog Guestbook to Email Subscription
If your local business has a guestbook or sign-in sheet that you use to collect your customers’ information to mail them advertising material, you can use this tactic online, too. Collect email addresses both online and offline to build a valuable email subscription list, and make sure to notify your customers that by sharing their email address they are opting in to receive communication from your business. Also, if you
include SMS marketing in your strategy, make sure to ask users for permission to opt-in when they provide a phone number.
Implementing any of these forms of online marketing can help you build your Web presence and increase brand awareness with your local consumers. Plus, online marketing tactics can provide insights defining your marketing strategy’s performance, allowing you to determine the most efficient way to spend your time and money. What types of online marketing are you doing now – and which are you considering?
About the Author
Tara Banda writes about how small business owners can reach local customers through online marketing for the
ReachLocal blog. You can connect with her on
Twitter.
