Fun facts aside, this projection isn’t really surprising (at least not to us). Not only are consumer eyeballs migrating away from cable TV to digital mediums like smartphones, streaming services, and social media networks, but television cannot compete with digital ads in multiple categories.

Let’s not jump ahead, though.

Exults Projections About TV Advertising

Diving more into expectations regarding future TV advertising, the following are 5 predictions you should know about.

Industries Matter

The top industries advertising on national U.S. broadcast and cable TV:

• Consumer Packaged Goods
• Pharmaceuticals (the United States and New Zealand are the only countries that allow this type of advertising)
• Media and Entertainment
• Insurance
• Technology

The top industries advertising locally on broadcast and cable TV:

• Automotive
• Communications
• Legal Services

If your business falls under any one of these categories, you may want to consider whether TV advertising can help your business scale up.

Streaming Platforms Will Grow

Ad spending on streaming platforms is projected to jump to $40.9 billion by 2027, a 63% increase from 2023. Most live TV viewers are 65 years or older. This is largely because younger demographics don’t pay for cable TV services. Instead, they rely on streaming services for their TV entertainment.

Storytelling Wins

Traditional TV has the most success with storytelling ads. For large and small companies, storytelling is a vital advertising tool. This type of ad resonates with viewers because it helps them connect with a particular brand on a human level, increasing trust. The more an audience trusts a brand, the more likely they are to make a purchase.

Political Ads Will Dominate

Political ad spending is expected to reach $15.9 billion in 2024. Most businesses want to stay out of politics. However, as the U.S. approaches another political campaign season, it’s important to plan your digital marketing strategies with those ads in mind. This is especially true if your business is heavily impacted by global and/or national events.  

If you’re in construction, for example, your business may feel the ups and downs due to an increase in international taxes and fees for foreign materials like aluminum and steel. If these are materials you use every day that are essential to your business, it’s important to consider what it means by asking questions like…

Do I need to adjust my brand’s main messaging, tone, and voice for future ads?

Should I use more left or right-wing channels to reach my ideal audience?

How will others view my business if I were to advertise during campaign season?

Is now the time to use TV advertising to stand out from the noise? 

Regardless of what you choose, remember that there will be more content published for politically charged ads, meaning more competition to reach the top of search results.

Unsure about how any of this applies to your business? Talk to Exults about the best digital marketing strategy for your business. 

Overview Of TV Advertising For Businesses

TV advertising (like print) isn’t completely dead. And if you use it the right way, it can result in a good number of customer conversions. For this blog, we define “TV advertising” as promoting a product or service through commercials or sponsored content on cable, satellite, or streaming services. 

TV Advertising Costs

The cost of TV advertising varies depending on whether you’re thinking local or national. On the local level, cost will also depend on the exact area you are hoping to target. Overall, you’re looking at spending a few hundred to a few thousand dollars per local ad. Nationally, you can expect to spend about $350,000 for a 30-second spot, and primetime slots can reach up to the millions.

Pros Of TV Advertising

While digital advertising is huge for marketing strategies, television ads do have their perks.

Reach A Broad Audience 

In addition to digital marketing, TV advertising can help you reach an older audience who may not be on social media or streaming services. This can be especially helpful to know if your target audience leans on the more mature side – a solid strategy for advertising packaged goods, insurance, legal services, and pharmaceuticals.

Increase Brand Authority

Look, you’re on TV! Now, people can not only recognize you when your brand appears in front of them, but it can build your credibility as a business. This is an essential part of the marketing process to keep your consumers engaged and looking up to you as an authority figure in your respected industry.

Spread Brand Awareness

As your business and brand become more recognizable, you’re able to build an authority-type relationship with your audience. Again, this is hugely important for businesses wanting to establish a trusting relationship with their ideal customer. Remain consistent with your messaging to ensure your marketing efforts stick.

Want to include TV advertising in your marketing strategy? Call Exults today.

Projections About Digital Ads

5 predictions about digital advertising you should know more about.

Intent Is Key

46% of Google searches have local intent. We’ve discussed the importance of using local SEO to attract more customers and scale your business. And, until words and phrases like “near me” or “nearby” remain popular, local SEO isn’t going anywhere. When improving your business’s online visibility, local SEO needs to be part of your digital marketing plans.

Ad Budgets Will Be Spent Here

Nearly 70% of global advertising revenue goes to digital platforms. In conjunction with fewer people using cable, most searches are conducted online through mobile devices. Now more than ever before, people expect to be able to find answers and solutions instantly when searching online. If you’ve fallen behind in growing your digital presence, partner with a digital marketing agency to get your SEO back on track.

Social Media Advertising Will Grow

40% of young people prefer to use TikTok and Instagram for search rather than Google. If you haven’t started building a social media strategy for your business, you must consider digital marketing’s ever-shifting landscape. Optimizing your content for Google is one strategy. Optimizing content for emerging markets and social media platforms is another. Either way, tailoring your content to the platforms your audience is on most is essential for online marketing growth.

Talk to Exults today about SEO, social media marketing, and other digital marketing solutions.

Consider Voice-Enabled Search

50% of the U.S. population uses voice-enabled search each day. As technology improves, other features like AI, photo search, and voice-enabled searches are also becoming common practices among younger generations. As voice-to-text searches increase, they may influence keywords and search terms, search volume, and local SEO results.

Digital Advertising Summary

The problem for TV though is that digital ads have all those same perks, plus wayyyy more. First, we’ll review the cost of digital advertising.

The Cost Of Digital Ads

Because digital advertising spans multiple platforms and channels, it’s tough to determine a reasonable price range for them. However, they’re almost always a more cost-effective way to market your business.

A Cost-Effective Solution

When you’re focused on spreading the word of your business’s message far and wide, having more budget-friendly advertising options helps. This is where digital advertising rules. According to WebFX, the average cost of a digital marketing campaign is between $1,250 to $10,000 per month. Sure, it’s a wide range but you can do much more than you may think when you prioritize your digital marketing goals.

Precise Targeting

There are all sorts of potential customers online. Which makes reaching them feel challenging. But with digital advertising, you have access (with user permission) to regularly tracked data that can pinpoint who engages with your brand the most. This data can also reveal a ton of other valuable insights like age range, political views, occupation, and beyond. You can then use this information to refine your ad targeting and focus on the customers you want to acquire most.

Enhanced Accessibility

Just about everyone is online. Long gone are the days of entire families sharing a single PC in a designated room in their house. From tablets and smartphones to high-tech watches and more, accessing the internet is easier now than ever. You can even watch a movie on your phone while you’re in the shower! Because online use is so common, digital advertising is increasingly available to both large and small businesses.

The Preciseness Of Digital Ads

What’s amazing about the technology is you are now able to dial in your advertising to be precise, targeted, and efficient. Let’s take a look at a couple of examples of how you can use digital ads to reach your target audience.

How Targeted Facebook Ads Can Be

Facebook or Meta is a great tool to use to laser-focus on a specific goal. Let’s pretend you sell baby products. You want to reach pregnant women, new moms, and expectant parents. You have $1,000 to spend on an ad. You could run a TV ad and hope that the viewers fit your target demo. Or you can launch a Facebook Ad that precisely targets only that target demographic. 

According to the mothership (see screenshot below), a Facebook Ad that targets your exact target demo for $1,000 is projected to get anywhere from 380,000 to 1,000,000 impressions on Facebook, plus another 81,000 to 210,000 impressions on Instagram. 

Worst case scenario, you get a total of 461,000 impressions at $2.17 per 1,000 impressions (CPM). In the best-case scenario, you get a total of 1.2 million impressions at $1.21 CPM. 

Those Facebook ads targeting options aren’t blind guesses – Facebook knows that level of detail about their users. Good luck finding that price on an effective TV ad!

Remarketing With Digital Ads

This refers to targeting internet users who’ve visited your website (AKA retargeting). Businesses can reconnect or target people who have already shown interest in your products either by engaging with you digitally, visiting your physical location, or navigating through your website. You can run website remarketing on many digital ad platforms including (but not limited to):

• Google AdWords
• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter
• Pinterest
• TikTok
• LinkedIn
• Bing

Here’s an example of an AdWords remarketing ad…

I was recently looking for a new TV, so I visited Best Buy on my cellphone and desktop. I didn’t buy it on my first visit, but I’m still thinking about it and have a few models in mind. These ads showed up while I was looking for a good blueberry muffin recipe….

In addition to website retargeting, you can also target audiences that have engaged with you on social media, watched one of your videos, or signed up to be on your email list. Again, these are audiences that are proven to be interested in your products.

Search With Digital Ads

AdWords works so well because your ad only shows up when someone is looking for your product (assuming you have a good AdWords setup).

You’re looking to buy a new car. You’ve done your research, and you know you want a Honda Civic. You live in Fort Lauderdale. Here’s a search you might do: “honda dealerships in fort lauderdale”

That form of targeting is powerful because everyone who searches “honda dealerships in fort lauderdale” is approaching the bottom of the sales funnel. They’re close to purchasing a vehicle.

Needless to say, you can’t do these things with a TV ad.

Digital Ad Features

So what features does a digital ad boast?

Action-Oriented

You might run a brick-and-mortar, but you also have a presence online. Maybe you sell your products online. Maybe you just have key information on your website that leads to a sale. Regardless, your website or other online channels are more important than ever for growing your customer base.

Which ad seems more effective?

1. A TV commercial that quickly relays information about your business or promotion, and flashes your website URL and/or phone number for 5 seconds
2. A YouTube Ad that has a clickable link to your website or promotion, and can be re-watched or paused if needed

Yeah, #2 is going to be a lot more effective.

Highly Flexible & Adjustable

A television ad lives in just one place – the television. It requires you to be actively watching your stationary TV.

On the flip side, a digital ad lives everywhere. It lives on your smartphone, your apps, your email inbox, your games, and yes, even your TV via tech like Roku, Apple TV, or Chromecast.

Also, you can run your ad on countless ad networks including (but definitely not limited to):

• Google
• Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, Reddit, etc
• Google Maps
• Content networks (look up Outbrain and Taboola)
• Amazon
• Apple store

And (not to rub it in), a digital ad can also be dynamic. It can automatically change according to a consumer’s interest. Someone who visits Amazon to look at soy candles will see a different ad than someone who visits Amazon to look at toolboxes.

Digital Versus Television Advertising FAQs

Have questions? We thought you might. Find the answers to common questions asked about digital versus television advertising.

How Do You Measure ROI On Digital Versus Television Advertising?

There are many ways to measure and track your advertising ROI. Both digital and television ads can benefit from A/B testing and using a dedicated phone number or website to see how many users take action to call or shop.

If you’re tracking your television advertising, you will want to pay attention to data regarding your commercials:

• Reach
• Conversion rate
• Customer acquisition cost
• Customer lifetime value

When analyzing digital advertising, you will want to explore the data behind your business’s:

• Click-through rate
• Cost per click
• Conversion rate
• Cost per lead

Need guidance? Call the digital marketing experts at Exults today.

What’s A Good Cost Per Click On Digital Ads? 

According to a Wordstream report on Google Ad benchmarks, the average cost per click is $4.22. 

Overall, there is no one true answer to this question as the results of a digital ad depend on your initial target ROI and several other factors. You should also find your cost-per-click (CPC) rate, which measures how much you pay each time a user clicks on your ad.

Do I Need An Ads Specialist To Help Me With My Digital Ads?

It is possible to create and monitor your own digital ads, but you should know that it takes a good amount of time to track and understand the results. If you don’t have time to spend on your digital marketing efforts, you should consider hiring an experienced digital marketing agency.

What Should My Advertising Budget Be?

A recent survey suggests that businesses spend 9.1% of their total company revenue on marketing. Allocating those funds further takes strategy with help from an advertising agency familiar with the metrics behind your business.

Wrapping Up Digital Versus Television Advertising For Businesses

There will always be a place for TV ads in a robust advertising strategy, especially for big brands with deep pockets. We just wanted to highlight that TV ads are becoming (and should be) a smaller percentage of advertising budgets. If you want to remain competitive going forward, you need to increase your digital ad budget and stop wasting dollars on television.

We’d be glad to offer you some advice. Give us a call at (866) 283-6027 or reach out to speak with one of our digital marketing specialists.

The post Digital Versus Television Advertising appeared first on Exults Digital Marketing Agency.

On top of website copy, blog posts, and everything in between, small business owners trying to maintain an online presence face an uphill battle with such a crowded marketplace. Technology changes so quickly that keeping your name at the top of the search engine queue feels like a full-time job. And, it can be (we would know). 

One factor that many entrepreneurs miss is the power of online reviews to benefit search engine optimization (SEO). You may not be surprised to know that 90% of consumers read online reviews before visiting a business. And, of those consumers, 88% treat online reviews like personal recommendations.

If you’re having trouble understanding the role Google reviews play in your business, follow along for how they can help (or hurt) businesses like yours.

Ready to team up with an experienced digital marketing agency? Contact Exults to get a quote.

10 Ways Real Google Reviews Help Add Value To Your Business

Google reviews affect your presence on Google’s search engine, which makes sense. But not everyone understands why. 

For search engines like Google, customer reviews have less to do with what your customers are saying, focusing instead on how they’re saying it. Entrepreneurs typically care tremendously about Google reviews because they want to know what their target audience thinks in real time. This means addressing anything from inconvenient parking to poor customer service. 

Ironing out the details of your business using reviews is important. But depending on what your customers experience, their ideas can also translate into data you can use to improve your SEO in the following 10 ways…

1. Less Time Spent Marketing

Time is huge for entrepreneurs. Whether you feel as though you don’t have enough of it or have ideas about maximizing it, time is a fickle friend for business owners. Regarding your bottom line, saving as much time as possible is a priority. 

However, simply saving time is easier said than done. This is where many business owners feel stuck when it comes to their SEO strategies. In fact, according to Forbes, SEO teams say their biggest challenges are a lack of resources and strategy issues. 

One way to push past strategy challenges is by making your Google reviews a part of your digital marketing strategy to support your SEO team’s efforts. This gives your SEO team access to a ton of content they can track and filter through to boost your online presence. 

2. Money-Saving Hack

Before you decide to invest your entire marketing budget into paid advertisements, think about using Google reviews to attract your audience. 

In case you haven’t seen this suggestion so far, you don’t (and shouldn’t) use your time as a business owner to write your own Google reviews. But when a legitimate customer takes their time to write a positive review of your business, you should use it for your…

• Website’s testimonials
• Social media content
• Blogs
• Landing page copy
• Advertising

Their honest insight translates into free creative content you can use to market your business. Using Google reviews throughout your digital marketing saves you the typical time and costs needed to otherwise create unique content for your business. This brings us to the next big benefit of using Google reviews to help SEO…

3. Creates Fresh User-Generated Content (UGC)

In addition to time and money-saving perks, Google reviews serve a particular purpose for a user’s entire experience online.

Google’s algorithm weighs connected and linked content, focusing on content’s…

• Uniqueness
• Device friendliness
• Social sharing capabilities

When a customer or client writes a genuine review of your business, that’s a piece of fresh, new content for your site. The author’s voice is likely more genuine than anything you could draft yourself. Especially when changes are constantly being made to Google’s Search Engine Results Page (SERP), you can never have too much original and unique information. 

For example, ever since Google enabled its continuous scroll results, zero-click searches have increased. This sounds like a disappointment but offers an opportunity to explore digital marketing strategies you haven’t tried before. Who knows? You may be surprised by how effective a refreshed digital marketing strategy can be.

4. Effective Local SEO Tools

Unsure about the power of organic engagement? In 2022, organic clicks accounted for 45.1% of all search result clicks. This is huge news for businesses as they can use their Google reviews to increase their visibility in local search results. 

The best way to use reviews is by using those with trending search terms and keywords. These are the reviews that will attract consumers to your business by optimizing terms like “near me” to bring in local, organic traffic. But that’s not all you can do to improve your search rankings…

5. Increases Online Search Engine Ranking

Did you know that over 90% of searches online happen on Google? The #1 search engine in the world knows this as well. Google uses customer reviews shared on social media platforms, takes notes, and accounts for the information given in its search ranking algorithms. 

The more links and websites associated with your website and brand, the more valuable Google deems your website. If Google sees that you are rated favorably and have relevant content to what people are searching for, your website ranks higher. Having a high rank in search results improves your brand’s overall visibility.

Organic results that initially appear on a search results page have an average click-through rate of 27.6%. But to achieve this, you must add Google review monitoring to your digital marketing strategy. Most people won’t scroll for too long before either adjusting their search or starting a new one when they can’t find what they’re looking for quickly. 

Partner with Exults and start implementing a comprehensive digital marketing strategy for your business.

6. Builds Business Credibility

Consumers prefer to buy a product or service from a business they feel as though they can trust. Keep this in mind when thinking about the words your consumers might use when Googling your business. When they search for your products or services, what do they see?

The reviews your customers leave should describe a business that presents itself as a professional and informed authority figure. The more (especially positive) reviews, the more credible and trustworthy your business appears online.

7. Boosts Long-Tail Keyword Traffic

According to Hubspot, Google has about 8.5 billion searches per day worldwide. This increases your chance to be seen as your audience most likely uses the same or similar words to describe your business. You can take advantage of this by refining your long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords usually have 3 or more words and are much more detailed than general search terms. 

Examples include phrases like…

Men’s extra large flamingo shirt with short sleeves

Best gluten-free sugar cookie recipe for kids

Antique gold silverware set for wedding gift

Honing in on your long-tail keywords won’t assist too much with improving organic traffic. But it will attract more of the traffic you’d like to target moving forward. Read Learn the Difference Between Long Tail and Short Tail Keywords. 

8. Answers Questions Without Lifting A Finger

Googling is an everyday activity for many. Just like taking a shower and brushing your teeth, an increasing number of people now use Google as an “answer” engine rather than simply browsing. 

The average internet user inputs about 3 to 4 searches per day on search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. As part of its process, Google crawls through billions of sites daily to retrieve the answers to your questions in a matter of moments. Doing so allows it to bring answers directly to users with rich snippets at the top of SERPs.

Remember, Google does this type of work all the time, so it’s up to you and your marketing team to ensure your business FAQs are answered and easy to find on your website. You should also have a section for FAQs anywhere else that might be appropriate like on separate landing pages, blogs, social media accounts, etc. You can avoid repeating yourself multiple times a day AND still offer the answers your customer base is searching for. It’s a win-win!

9. Increased Social Hype

Impressive reviews can trend, ignite a viral conversation, or simply boost the sales conversation you’re having by offering real customer feedback. Share that awesome feedback on your social media channels and watch what happens. Showcasing client testimonials proves they love your offer and subsequently trust in your brand, which Google tracks and values in SERPs. Adding unique content in the form of genuine reviews increases your social reach and has the potential to boost lead conversion rates.

Advertising via customer reviews is nothing new. While it was once in-person, word-of-mouth interaction, now your clients can share their views with the whole world rather than just the neighbor next door. Most likely, online reviews of your business are going to happen. 

Why not take advantage of them to raise your online profile within the Google search engine? Contact Exults today, and we’ll show you how.

10. Enhanced Relevance Online

Google rewards businesses with more reviews (especially good ones). This is largely because they favor bringing “relevant” content to their users. It might sound complicated, but it’s a way for Google to help filter through results that use questionable SEO methods. 

Keyword stuffing and publishing duplicate content are 2 outdated digital marketing strategies that produce questionable results. Keyword stuffing is plugging in as many keywords as possible into any online content to boost its ranking. Publishing duplicate content is also done to achieve the same results. 

However, a major problem linked to these strategies includes promoted search results that have nothing to do with the search term or topic at all. This type of content is not only irrelevant but also negatively impacts Google’s user experience. This is why Google makes frequent updates to its operations to discourage the use of these SEO strategies. Engaging in these poor digital marketing practices allows Google to remove your website from its search engine results entirely, leaving you buried under your competitors.

How do I use Google reviews to improve my business’s SEO? Explore digital marketing solutions with Exults today.

General Best SEO Practices For Businesses

Tap into the following digital marketing tips for your business:

Use popular keywords. About 95% of keywords have a volume of 10 or less searches per month. Even with the help of an online keyword planner, they aren’t always accurate and can offer skewed results. It’s best to team up with an experienced digital marketing expert like Exults to find the right formula for your business.

Regularly dedicate time to SEO. Many online searches are brand new and equate to ample opportunity for your digital marketing strategies. You can target new searches by researching and updating SEO yourself or by hiring a digital marketing agency like Exults to dedicate time to your SEO strategies. 

Know what to track. Pay attention to your organic traffic, search volume, keyword rankings, click-through rates, bounce rates, engagement time, and conversion rates when reviewing SEO data.

Ask questions. Start by asking questions to find relevant keywords or phrases your potential and current customers are searching for. Simply asking a question can spark plenty of ideas for other questions, hot content topics, and beyond.

Use backlinks. Also known as an inbound link, you should add links to other relevant companies and resources in the content you create and publish to your website. These links act as a tool to build your business’s credibility and improve your search engine ranking.

Don’t leave meta descriptions blank. Meta descriptions exist for a reason so avoid leaving them blank. It only takes a few extra minutes to fill out and provides a summary of what users can expect before they click.

Google Review FAQs

Continue scrolling for answers to the most commonly asked SEO questions.

Should I Respond To Negative Reviews On Google?

Yes. You should respond to every review you get on Google, whether positive reviews or negative. Not only will this help with your SEO ranking, but it will also help your brand’s image to potential customers.

How Many Google Reviews Do I Need To Increase My Rating?

Generally, having at least 20 reviews on your Google Business Profile (previously Google My Business) is enough to get you a good and reliable rating and help your SEO strategy.

Does Google Remove Reviews?

Though it is not common, Google will sometimes remove reviews under the appropriate circumstances.

How Often Should I Update My Website For SEO Purposes?

Not spending enough time thinking about your business’s Google reviews? Think again and get to transforming your SEO strategy. Unfortunately, high search engine rankings don’t happen overnight. With patience and hard work, you can slowly but surely watch your pages jump up in rankings.

Have questions? We thought you might. Support your digital marketing strategies with a team of digital marketing experts. Contact Exults today to get started.

The post Do Google Reviews Help SEO? Everything You Need to Know appeared first on Exults Digital Marketing Agency.

Memes have taken over the internet, but their awesome power isn’t exclusive to just getting a good laugh. Many entrepreneurs have found success by using memes to reach their audience and leave a lasting impression. Here’s how to use and not use memes for online marketing.

Go With What Fits Your Brand, Not Always Just With What’s Trending

Using or adapting the newest meme so that it’s relevant to your business might seem like a good idea, but this must be done with care. If done right, it is extremely powerful, but if it’s irrelevant to your brand then you may just be posting a meme about a donut when you are trying to sell skin products… You want to avoid coming across as insincere and just trying to ride the coattails of the trendiest images on the internet. On the contrary, if the meme can be used or applied in a way that relates to your brand or puts a funny spin on something, then using a trending meme can actually bring more visibility to your page if you hashtag it.

For example, the trending ‘Tide Pod’ memes where people were posting photos and videos of them eating Tide Pods (It’s unbeknownst to us WHY, but it happened so we are just going with it…). A dessert company or restaurant trying to highlight their dessert menu, may jump on the bandwagon and say “Why eat tidepods when you can eat the ‘XYZ’ cheesecake from ‘Yada Yada Bakery’?”

This puts your product (mouthwatering cheesecake) in the front of the consumers mind while ‘making a funny’ and showing your customers your brand has personality and is personable! It’s becoming more and more prevalent that consumers are more willing to spend money with a brand they can relate to – USE SOCIAL MEDIA TO YOUR ADVANTAGE!

Memes Are Dessert, Not the Main Course

A meme is no substitute for quality, original content. They should only be used to enhance your content or clarify a point you’re trying to make. They’re a great way to get attention, but make sure you’re providing substance beyond a quick laugh. Otherwise, your content will just get ignored along with the thousands of other people using memes every day.

Know That Memes Appeal to an Internet Subculture

Will your current audience like memes? Or will using them make readers feel isolated or that you’re just trying to be trendy? If you want to use memes, decide whether it’s to appeal to current users or attract a new audience. Also think carefully about how this will affect current or new users or take your brand in a different direction.

Used with care, memes are a powerful tool to keep in your marketing arsenal. If you want to tap into their potential while maintaining authenticity and staying true to your brand, reach out to digital marketing professionals. Specialists can go over your business goals with you and help you decide whether memes are an untapped marketing resource for your enterprise.

Memes and Big Businesses: Do They Mix?

When corporations try to piggyback off of viral social media movements, the outcomes are usually unoriginal and/or overly promotional. The latter is the worst offense because it showcases a brand’s lack of understanding about social media.

For the most part, users don’t log onto social media to see brand posts. They log on to see what their friends are up to, and if they happen to see a brand’s post, it better be damn interesting. There’s a reason why social media marketing is nicknamed “interruption marketing”– you are interrupting a person’s news feed to talk about your product.

Rule of thumb: Keep your organic posts light, fun, and interesting. Make your key promotional posts into social media ads. 

I mention all this because, social media is an art form. It takes a clever and creative person / team (hint, hint, nudge, nudge) to make brand posts interesting — to make them SO interesting that a consumer will willingly share your company’s post on their own profile (your mom, friends, and employees don’t count).

All this leads me to the inspiration for this post…

Memes

These occasionally funny images with sans serif text overlays have been around for a while, and brands have tried to incorporate them into their social media strategy since the beginning. Most brands either overuse memes, share other people’s memes, can’t come up with anything funny, or all of the above.

Here’s an example a brand failing with a meme. Student loan company got killed on Twitter after tweeting (and eventually deleting) this tweet.

Looks like @FAFSA deleted its tweet. Screenshot: pic.twitter.com/ucFOTbLAvq

— Jacob Fischler (@ItsFischy) June 25, 2014

When used sparingly and intelligently, memes can be a good way to connect with their audience. Typically, if the meme is a winner, you’ll get increased engagement and viral reach.

Zoom-in memes

The latest meme craze is the zoom-in memes. These memes are like pinch-and-zoom scavenger hunts. You get directed to zoom in on a certain part of the image (ex: bottom right corner), only to get re-directed to another part of the photo (ex: upper right corner), only to be re-directed to another part of the image, and then redirected to another part of the image (ex: the subject’s ear) that contains a final message.

Here’s an example of a good zoom-in meme by Denny’s (works best if you’re on mobile)…

zoom in on the syrup pic.twitter.com/omRBupjrXq

— Denny’s (@DennysDiner) March 1, 2017

This simple tweet with this zoom-in meme became a viral hit. Why? They opted to come up with an entertaining message rather than a “Come eat at Dennys”-type message.

Our attempt at a zoom-in meme

I’ve now spent 300+ words bashing brands for coming up with unoriginal memes. The pressure is on. Here’s what I came up with:

ZOOM IN ON TOP LEFT

Kop (the office dog) approves this message

Need social media marketing help?

If you’re looking to boost your business’ social media presence and/or brand awareness, you should probably have a conversation with one of our experts. Reach out at (866) 999-4736 or head to our contact page.

The post How To (And How Not To) Use Memes For Online Marketing appeared first on Exults Digital Marketing Agency.

5 Benefits of Content Marketing Your Business Can’t Ignore

1. Content Helps People and Google Find You

What are the chances that you’ll find your site at the top of the results page when you look it up on Google?

One of the reasons why a site comes up at the top of the results page is because of content marketing. Search engines like Google look for quality content. The more you put up content that’s related to your product, the higher your chances of being one of the results that Google shows to your customer.

For example, you write a blog on the beautiful beaches in the Caribbean and use long-tailed keywords your customers would look for.  Now, your travel and tours business is a step closer to being the top result.

2. Communication with Your Audience

Other than customer reviews and inquiries, blog posts are a great way to connect with your customers.

Creating blogs can be a little tiresome if you’re not the type of person to sit down and write. Although, it is great content marketing for small business owners.

Your blog posts don’t always have to revolve around your products, but they must be in some way connected. Your initial goal here is to get attention. In time, that attention will gravitate to your products and services.

Your blog posts can be about the make and mold of your unique products, or how your customers can use your products in other unusual but effective ways. Your ultimate goal here is to humanize your brand and approachability.

3. Better Brand Awareness

If you want higher brand awareness, create as much content as you can.

In any case, the more you put blog posts, pictures, videos, and such out there, the more people are aware of your brand. Use social media to your advantage. Create relevant and informative posts on Facebook or Twitter.

4. Makes Your Brand Trustworthy

Content like the ones we’re about to share with you will help you build authority and credibility.

Infographics are great tells of a dependable site. Short articles, checklists, and graphs are more creative examples as well.

If you are a person who enjoys writing, you may want to try long-form writing. If you are the type who likes to talk about things but would rather not show your face, start a podcast.  If you are a people person, host a live interview or circulate a poll.

5. Economic Benefits of Content Marketing

Good marketing strategies provide more sales. Thus, great content marketing strategies give you more profit and decreased marketing costs.

With as many as 1.92 billion digital buyers expected in 2019, you’ll want to invest in a few content marketing strategies soon.

The wonderful thing about content marketing is that it is inexpensive and available to anyone. With enough effort, you can do everything without paying a penny. Write your own blogs, record your own podcasts, or shoot your product photos.

How Resharing Your Content Impacts SEO

SEO strategists agree that search engine web crawlers often prefer fresh, changing content. However, your search rankings will also remain strong if your content is frequently reshared. In addition, reshared evergreen content will be viewed over and over, unlike content that will only be relevant for a short time. It’s often both easier and more effective to choose this type of content.

Media Evolution

Remember MySpace? If you’re in your 20s, the answer will probably be no. New channels of media are constantly in development, creating audiences that are both younger and older than the previous ones. Folks all over the world are being connected to the internet for the first time. There will always be new people to see your content, and if it’s evergreen and withstands the test of time, it will resound with new viewers year after year.

Social Evolution

As we all know, history repeats itself. Evergreen content is crafted to endure the changing whims of trends and society. Once one fad fizzles out and the next one replaces it, your content will still be valid and applicable. It’s vital to create greater social engagement and always have something valid to say. Resharing content can help you achieve your goals.

Networking Evolution

Just as the world is constantly changing, so are the companies and individuals with whom you connect. Sites all over the internet will link back to your content, and the web of places that funnel traffic to that site is always expanding. When visitors finally end up reading your content, it should still be applicable. The internet is a circle, not a line, so resharing does — and always will — be a factor. Your content should be ready for it.

How to Ensure Your Content is Long Enough for Google

Quality content is key for ranking well in Google search results, but length also plays a factor. Years ago, the ideal word count for a blog article was between 500 and 700 words. These days, that number has grown to 2,500 because readers want well-researched, in-depth content.

Produce Higher Quality Content

Studies have anticipated this trend of long-form content for quite some time because length tends to characterize higher-quality content. Producing better content means researching, vetting data sources, and considering analytics. A 2,500-word post takes hours, even days to research, draft, format, and edit, but it communicates ideas more effectively than a tighter word limit. Whether you’re writing the content yourself or enlisting the help of a digital marketing agency, don’t be afraid of making a bigger investment.

Aim for 1,000 Words in General Posts

Writing 2,500-word posts for every publication seems daunting, but the good news is you can reserve that number for high-competition posts. In general, your regular content strategy should involve 1,000-word weekly blog posts and even the occasional 300- to 700-word post when the subject matter doesn’t require longer content.

Throw in the heavy-hitting, 2,250- to 2,500-word articles whenever you can, but make sure they’re easily scannable with subheadings and images to break up the text.

Spend More Time Promoting

The ideal blog post in 2017 takes longer to write, which means marketers and bloggers are posting them less frequently. When you create longer, more in-depth pieces, you can spend extra time promoting them instead of churning out frequent mini posts. You should still post at least once a week, but don’t sweat it if you can’t produce more content than that.

Is Anyone Even Reading Your Content?

Creating interesting content is crucial to your website’s success, but even posting the most informative articles doesn’t ensure your pieces will attract an audience. That’s because there’s an overwhelming amount of content on the web, and yours needs to stand out. If your page analytics aren’t matching your expectations, here are some things to consider.

Start With the Important Stuff

Studies have shown that readers are more likely to be engaged if you start your content with the important stuff first. As such, you may want to include facts or definitions about the article’s subject right off the bat, and then follow up with specific details.

Write Content People Want to Read

Maintaining a conversational tone throughout your content allows people to connect on a more personal level. People love to read stories, so consider how you can create captivating content the average reader will want to explore in full. Even as a business, sharing stories can boost your conversion rates and build better business-client relationships.

Craft Creative Subheadings

It’s essential to break up your text in a way that makes it easier on the eyes. The best way of doing this is to use subheadings. Creative subheadings attract attention and inform the reader what sort of information lies ahead. They also make the content easier to scan, which encourages readers to move on to the next section.

Include Images

Failing to use images in your content doesn’t encourage your audience to keep reading. Rather than bombard readers with an overwhelming amount of text, break up the content with suitable images. You can start with a primary article image and use carefully chosen images throughout the post, especially if your post is long. Images can also work similarly to subheadings because they create a visual break in the text that make the content easier to scan.

4 Article Writing Tips to Use When Writing Long-form Content

Gaining organic traffic sets you higher than your competitors, costs less than sponsored search, and can gain your brand more credibility over time.

One of the best strategies to gain organic traffic is posting great long-form content on your website. But, it can’t only be good quality content. It has to follow the SEO fundamentals to gain organic traffic.

We’re going to tell you 4 article writing tips you should follow to write great long-form content to grow your organic traffic. Ready to learn more?

Putting out great content on a website is a feat for any company. You want to sell your products and services without sounding like an advertisement. Your company website is a great opportunity to provide value to your customer in a personable way.

How can your business achieve this? One of the best ways is by sharing great relevant content. Yet, you must ensure it follows SEO best practice.

After all, you want your content to help your current customers in addition to bringing new customers through your door. Here are 4 long-form website content writing tips to grow your organic traffic:

Write Content for Your Target Audience

All your website content must be relevant to your customer. Sometimes businesses miss the mark in their content because they want to cater to a larger audience. Your content can be diverse but, it must be about your industry.

Great relevant content should aim to appeal to the audience’s interests and answer their questions – Not all your posts should be about selling your products. You should tell the audience about your expertise and why they should choose your company over your competitors.

Write Comprehensive Long-Form Content

Your long-form content should be comprehensive and lengthy. It can’t just be a quick overview with a hundred words – You should choose some important points about a topic and discuss them in detail, which will provide value to your customer that they can’t find anywhere else.

Use SEO Headlines and Subheadings

Many content writers underestimate the power of headlines and subheadings. Your headlines and headings have to be powerful. The best way to do this is by optimizing them for SEO.

Your content headlines and subheadings should include rich keywords. They should be able to catch the readers attention but include words that will help Google read the “skeleton” of your content. Each heading and subheading Google reads as a “chapter name” and will help Google categorize and read your content easier. In turn, your website will rank higher and your have more long-term standings in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Include Your Focus Keyword and Keyword Phrases in the Body of Your Content

We can’t deny that organic traffic depends a lot on your ranking. To rank well on search engines, you must use your focus keyword and keyword phrases in the body of your content. When Google spiders your website, it’ll look for relevant content that matches what the user searched.

Although, you should be careful not to overdo it. In the past, it was best practice to jam pack as many keywords into your website’s content as you could with no requirements of readability and sensibility. Times have changed and Google has become smarter. Now, although keywords are important, Google algorithms look for readability and natural.

Additionally, keyword research can help you assess what keywords will rank better in your industry.

Can High-Quality Long-Form Content Grow Your Organic Traffic?

Yes, high-quality long-form content can grow your organic traffic. Remember that good content is part of the equation.

What’s Missing From Your Content Marketing Strategy?

No matter your industry, your content marketing can’t achieve its objectives without a well-developed strategy. Find out what your content marketing strategy is missing and discover how to get it back on track.

A Voice — or Two

When you’re developing a content marketing strategy, one of the first things you’ll need to settle on is a voice. One isn’t usually enough, though, which is why most brands develop buyer personas. Take the time to chart your typical customers, their problems, their needs, and the type of voice that speaks to them. Then design each blog post around one of these buyer personas to ensure you’re speaking to the right type of customer at the right time.

Eye-Catching Visuals

Even if you think your existing customers won’t mind reading blocks of text without images, you’ll struggle to attract a larger pool of interested buyers without eye-catching visuals. While still images can go a long way, consider taking your visual strategy to the next level, too. Consider incorporating great infographics and high-quality video content into your strategy to reach a wider audience. Experts say brands that use video marketing grow their year-over-year revenue 49% faster than brands that don’t.

Lead Generation

No matter how much fun it is to read your content, it won’t help you achieve your goals if it doesn’t prioritize lead generation. Whether you’re encouraging readers to sign up for a list, download a free product, or consider a purchase, your content needs to generate leads with the appropriate calls-to-action. From there, it’s up to you to help guide your customers through your sales funnel and toward purchases they’ll love.

Accurate Metrics

You’ll never know how effective your content marketing strategy is without the appropriate metrics. Before you launch your next campaign, be sure you know what to measure, how to monitor, and when to respond for optimal effect. If you don’t understand how to accurately measure the success of your campaigns or the best marketing strategy, Exults can guide you in this process.

Not sure how to incorporate these components into your content marketing strategy? Contact Exults for all your digital marketing needs.

The post 9 Essential Content Marketing Tips For A Winning Content Strategy appeared first on Exults Digital Marketing Agency.

Different Ways to Target Audience with Facebook Ads

Identifying a target audience and actually having your ads appear in front of them are two unique challenges. But with powerful tools like Facebook Ads available for any business owner to use, it’s never been easier to create a target audience of real users and have them see your content. Check out some strategies you can use to create target audiences with Facebook Ads.

Exclude Customers From Your Target Audience

If you want to move customers through your sales funnel and avoid wasting advertising revenue on people who’ve already made a purchase, exclude paying customers from your target audience. Instead, prioritize people who have either visited your site or added items to their shopping carts and not checked out. Use website retargeting to display ads on Facebook for visitors who have been to your site without making a purchase.

Use Facebook’s “Saved Audience” Feature

Once you know your ideal customer demographic, you can use Facebook’s “Create a Saved Audience Button” to build an audience to use in your ad campaign. The button to do this can be found on the Audiences page. You can then define your audience based on factors such as age, gender, and location.

Narrow Your Audience Further, Based on Their Likes and Interests

You can further target an audience by narrowing your search criteria — either for a Saved Audience or a Lookalike Audience — by including specific likes, interests, and even life events to create an audience. For example, an author can limit a target audience to those who like a genre or a certain book, and a jewelry company can target individuals in relationships who have an upcoming anniversary. You would never imagine the ways you can actually target people on Facebook, things can get weirdly specific!

How to Get Your Ads to Convert on Facebook

Developing strong ad campaigns on Facebook can help you drive traffic to your website, boost brand awareness, and generate conversions. Find out how to get your ads to convert on Facebook and learn how to meet your objectives.

Know Your Target Audience

No matter which type of Facebook ad campaign you’re planning to run, creating the right target audience is essential for social advertising. You can create a lookalike audience that’s similar to your existing followers, build one using relevant interests, or select one based on device usage. The specificity of options is exponential. You can target any group ranging from single mothers to home gardeners, to people in specific neighborhoods. Choose the combination of targeting that works best for you to make sure you’re targeting the right users.

Utilize Photos and Videos

Photos and videos offer a great platform for expanding brand awareness, building your audience, and even driving conversions. People scroll through timelines and newsfeeds so quickly, using a photo or video can be one of the only ways to grab the attention of people with crowded social media platforms. To get the most video views, start by choosing an eye-catching thumbnail and ensuring your video file uses the optimal aspect ratio. Try to use photos that convey your message or an emotional connection to attract attention. Because people lose interest easily, aim for a video between 15 and 30 seconds to maximize views.

Optimize Ads for Landing Page Views

Pushing traffic off Facebook and to your website is ideal if you have a high-performing landing page that creates conversions. To make the most of Facebook’s landing page views option, use a strong creative and an effective call to action (CTA) to get the high-quality traffic you want. Try out a few different versions of your landing page to make sure it gets the results you’re targeting. You can do this by creating different ad sets that include different pictures, carousel ads, and different CTA or ad copy content.

Drive Specific Actions With Website Conversions

To attract users who are primed to make a purchase, download content, or complete another type of conversion, you’ll need to tweak your audience to make it as specific as possible. Use copy with a specific CTA and test your landing page to make sure it converts effectively. Identify what your ultimate goal is and gear your ads from there.

Facebook Gets Rid of Accidental Ad Clicks

Creating and monitoring Facebook ads isn’t as easy as it might look, especially when you have to account for users accidentally clicking your ads. Find out why Facebook has taken steps to eliminate accidental ad clicks and learn what this means for advertisers.

Facebook Establishes a Two-Second Threshold for Ads

It’s happened to even the most frequent social media users. When scrolling through an article or your news feed, sometimes you accidentally click on an advertisement. In the past, Facebook levied charges for every single click-thru, even those generated by users who unintentionally clicked on the ad before returning to the original page immediately.

As of August 2017, however, that’s no longer the case. Facebook has established a two-second threshold for its Audience Network ads, which appear in non-Facebook applications. Essentially, a user clicking on one of these ads and returning back to the original page within two seconds will no longer count as a click. In the future, Facebook may shorten this length of time or even extend it to other aspects of its advertising platform.

Advertisers Can Expect More Accurate Metrics

This two-second threshold is good news for advertisers, as Facebook will no longer charge for these unintentional clicks. The benefits extend beyond budget alone, though.

Since advertisers will no longer see these accidental clicks in their reports, they can look forward to more accurate metrics. This change could help businesses improve their ad targeting, increase lead generation, and spend their budgets more wisely.

Facebook Discontinues 5,000 Ad Targeting Terms to Prevent Ad Discrimination

Facebook announced it is removing 5,000 ad targeting terms that could potentially allow for bias against different religions, races, and cultures.

If you’re not sure what ad targeting is, it is a strategy for advertisers to reach certain customers based on demographics, psychographics, behavior, and interests. Simply put, when advertising using Facebook paid ads, you have a plethora of options to create campaigns that target your most valuable customers ranging from zip codes and marital status to interests such as “Latin America” or “Medicare”.

While Facebook does not categorize people by their race or ethnicity, advertisers could target people “interested in” certain cultures. For example, a person interested in “Passover” could be Jewish. Under bad practice, a person could use these targeting options to discriminate against Jewish people by not showing them ads for housing, jobs, or educational opportunities.

So why would this happen?

Advertisers must have some sort of strategy to get their ads to the most valuable customers whom will end with a conversion. Businesses are paying to get their ads to the right people, so typically they exclude certain segments from seeing their campaigns to avoid serving ads to unnecessary or redundant audiences.

Although excluding certain audiences can be a very useful tactic, Facebook has received scrutiny due to the tool’s ability to discriminate. By excluding someone interested in “mobility scooters” or “child care”, advertisers could potentially prevent disabled renters or working parents from seeing their ads.

This isn’t a subject that has been tread on lightly either. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) filed an official complaint against Facebook for violating the Fair Housing Act by allowing landlords and home sellers to use its advertising platform to engage in housing discrimination.

The Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination in housing transactions including print and online advertisements on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, disability, or familial status.

According to the press release HUD distributed, Facebook’s platform violates this act by enabling advertisers to:

• Display housing ads either only to men or women.
• Not show ads to Facebook users interested in an “assistance dog,” “mobility scooter,” “accessibility” or “deaf culture.”
• Not show ads to users whom Facebook categorizes as interested in “child care” or “parenting,” or show ads only to users with children above a specified age.
• To display/not display ads to users whom Facebook categorizes as interested in a particular place of worship, religion or tenet, such as the “Christian Church,” “Sikhism,” “Hinduism,” or the “Bible.”
• Not show ads to users whom Facebook categorizes as interested in “Latin America,” “Canada,” “Southeast Asia,” “China,” “Honduras,” or “Somalia.”
• Draw a red line around zip codes and then not display ads to Facebook users who live in specific zip codes.

This isn’t the first time either. The discriminatory misuse of its advertising product has been on Facebook’s radar since at least 2016, when ProPublica published an investigation on how the tech giant enabled advertisers to exclude specific groups based on race and gender, according to Gizmodo. Facebook was again found guilty of enabling this troubling practice at the end of last year—another ProPublica investigation found it was still letting housing ads on the service effectively exclude black, Jewish, and disabled users—after the company said it would no longer allow it.

Facebook has reportedly denied that the removal was in response to the HUD complaint. In Facebook’s blog post about the removal of potentially discriminatory ad targeting options,  “While these options have been used in legitimate ways to reach people interested in a certain product or service, we think minimizing the risk of abuse is more important.”

Facebook is constantly updating its platform to better cater to users and improve user experience. They plan to share more targeting updates in the coming months as they continue to refine they tools for people and businesses.

In an effort to underscore the difference between acceptable ad targeting and ad discrimination, Facebook is requiring a continuing education certification for all advertisers. In order to continue advertising on Facebook, all advertisers will be required to complete the certification.

From Facebook to Google, all advertising platforms are always evolving and as a digital marketing agency, we always strive to communicate and apply these industry updates to all our clients to ensure we are strategizing effectively.

If you have any questions about increasing your leads, ROI, and valuable customer base through social media marketing or Google Ads, give us a call for a free consultation!

The post Facebook Ads: Tools, Tricks, Updates and More! appeared first on Exults Digital Marketing Agency.

The social media sharing software offers users a platform to post pictures and videos, comment on them, and save them. Instagram is especially popular with Millennials and Gen Z users, making is a top ad platform for certain products and services.

Generally, young urbanites prefer Instagram as their social media platform. More than 70% of Instagram users are 13-17 years old, and another 64% fall into the 18-29-year-old age group. In addition, four out of every five users live outside the United States. More than 25 million companies rely on Instagram, and when you consider that the platform hosts one billion users, that’s a market size worth noticing.

If you’re not active on Instagram, you’re missing out on an opportunity to be relevant because you (and your product or services) aren’t in front of your fans.

Initial steps

First, download the app to your mobile device or computer. If you already have a personal Instagram account, you can easily switch it over to a business account. Doing so sense if you already have a following. If you’re new to Instagram, however, begin with a business account.

Once you’re logged in to the app, you’ll need to set up your Business Profile by following these five steps:

1. Sign up by entering your email, creating a username (short and memorable), and answering the registration questions.
2. Select continue to get to the option that says, “Connect the Facebook Page.” Link your Facebook Business Page to your Instagram Business Profile for instant sharing between platforms. Only business pages can be linked. Your Instagram Business Profile lets you share a little about yourself beyond the basics, like your name and website. You can also sign in by using Facebook, which owns Instagram.You have the option of creating a short bio, and we recommend you take advantage of it. It’s an excellent opportunity to introduce yourself and tell about your brand. Keep it short and friendly, like you would an exchange between friends.You’ll also need a profile picture, either your logo or a picture of yourself. First impressions matter on this visual sharing platform. Your picture must be sharp and fit within the frame.
3. Begin following, posting, sharing and liking – similar to how Facebook functions.

Check back often in the settings of your Instagram Business Page to review how well your posts are performing among various demographic groups. If the results aren’t what you’d hoped for, it may be time to look into ad placements.

Develop an Instagram strategy

Your Instagram Profile has to lead your brand. Every post has the ability to make an impression on a customer. The more posts your customer sees, the more they recognize who you are and what you stand for. To do this, make sure you create a consistent image using a style and tone that fits your brand. Additionally, your brand must:

• Be true. Think about your mission and vision. In two or three words, what would it be? Focus your content on that brief explanation. Talk about what matters most to you and your customers. Share your passion for what you do, and people will follow you.
• Be engaging. Boring doesn’t sell. Being yourself sells. Consumers want to know that you are just as fallible as everyone else, and they’ll love you for sharing your defeats and mistakes. Talk about what is most interesting in your business or industry – trends, tips, anything that brings people back again and again to see what you’re up to.
• Create connections. Respond to comments, like and share other posts as the ambassador of your brand. Engagement gets you noticed.

Your Instagram Business Profile and a little strategy are all you need to get started. If you haven’t established your business Instagram account yet, what are you waiting for?

The post The Business Instagram Account Strategy You Must Have in 2023 appeared first on Exults Digital Marketing Agency.

In today’s digital landscape, nearly anyone can design and run a website, but not everyone succeeds at making their website truly effective. A website is much more than just pretty pictures and text—it requires strategic planning, well-crafted content, and seamless functionality to stand out from the competition, especially for industries like law firms where professionalism and clarity are paramount.

Ultimately, the success of a website hinges on how user-friendly it is. This guide will walk you through the key elements of a user-friendly website and how to win over your audience with a website homepage that excels in law firm website design and beyond.

What Should Be on the Home Page of a Website?

The homepage is often the first interaction users have with your website, making it the most crucial page to get right. Whether you’re focusing on law firm website design or another industry, your homepage should immediately communicate who you are, what you do, and how users can benefit from your services. Here are the essential components that every website homepage should include:

• Clear Value Proposition: Your homepage should clearly state what your business offers within seconds of landing on your page. This is especially important in law firm website design, where clarity and professionalism are key.

• Easy-to-Find Navigation: The main navigation menu should be intuitive and accessible, guiding users effortlessly to the information they seek. User-friendly website navigation is critical to keeping visitors engaged.

• Engaging Visuals: Use high-quality images and graphics that align with your brand’s message. Avoid clutter, but ensure the page is visually appealing.

• Call to Action (CTA): Encourage users to take the next step with prominent, strategically placed CTAs. This could be scheduling a consultation for a law firm or exploring services.

• Social Proof: Include testimonials, reviews, or client logos to build trust and credibility with new visitors. Social proof is an important element of a good website, particularly in industries that rely on reputation.

5 Important Elements of a User-Friendly Website

Many businesses, including law firms, make the mistake of prioritizing aesthetics or content over usability. However, user-friendly websites prioritize the user experience, making it easy for visitors to find what they need and take action. Below are the elements of a good website that are critical to user-friendly design.

1. Simple Website Navigation

A well-planned and easy-to-navigate website is crucial for user-friendliness. Clear, concise page titles and a logically organized menu bar are essential. Overcrowding the menu or burying important information can frustrate users and increase bounce rates. For law firm website design, it’s important to ensure that key information like practice areas, attorney profiles, and contact information are easy to find.

2. Aesthetic Appeal

While aesthetic appeal isn’t everything, it plays a significant role in user experience. A visually appealing website with professional, high-quality images and a clean layout can enhance usability. Consistent branding across your website strengthens your brand identity and makes your website more recognizable and trustworthy. This is particularly true in law firm website design, where a professional appearance can set the tone for client trust.

3. Responsive / Mobile Compatibility

With the majority of users accessing websites from mobile devices, mobile compatibility is non-negotiable. A responsive website adjusts seamlessly to different screen sizes, ensuring a smooth user experience regardless of the device. Test your site with Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to ensure it meets mobile usability standards. Designing user-friendly web design that works well on mobile devices is crucial, especially for industries like law, where clients may be searching for legal services on the go.

4. Simple, Scannable Content

In today’s fast-paced world, users don’t have the time or patience for long blocks of text. Most users skim content, looking for key information. Make your content easy to scan by using clear, bold headings, subheadings, and bullet points. This approach helps users quickly find the information they need, improving the overall user experience. This is a critical aspect of creating a user-friendly website.

5. Quick Loading Time

A slow website can deter visitors and harm your search engine rankings. In fact, if your page takes longer than 6 seconds to load, you risk losing potential customers. Optimize your website’s speed by compressing images, minimizing the use of heavy scripts, and utilizing fast hosting solutions. A faster website not only enhances user experience but also boosts SEO performance. This is a key aspect of user-friendly website design.

Additional Resources for Creating a User-Friendly Website

Creating a user-friendly website involves understanding both your audience and the technical aspects of web design. Below are some additional resources that can help you refine your website:

• Google PageSpeed Insights: Analyze and optimize your website’s speed to ensure a user-friendly experience.

• Mobile-Friendly Test by Google: Ensure your website performs well on mobile devices.

• Yoast SEO: Improve your on-page SEO, making your site more accessible to search engines.

• Hotjar: Gain insights into user behavior on your website to make data-driven improvements.

Indicators of Website Success

Success in web design isn’t just about aesthetics or content; it’s about how well your site performs with its intended audience. Key indicators of a successful, user-friendly website include:

• Low Bounce Rate: Users engage with your content and explore multiple pages.

• High Conversion Rate: Visitors are taking the desired actions, whether it’s scheduling a consultation, filling out a contact form, or subscribing to a newsletter.

• Positive User Feedback: Consistent, positive feedback from users suggests that your website is meeting their needs.

• Search Engine Ranking: A user-friendly website often ranks higher on search engines due to better usability and optimized content.

The Importance of Social Proof

Incorporating social proof into your website design is a powerful way to build credibility. Whether through client testimonials, case studies, or user reviews, showing that others trust your services can significantly influence new visitors. This is especially important in law firm website design, where trust is a crucial factor in converting visitors into clients.

The Benefits of a User-Friendly Website

Investing in a user-friendly website offers numerous benefits:

• Improved User Experience: Easier navigation and faster load times create a more enjoyable experience for your visitors.

• Higher Search Engine Rankings: Search engines favor websites that provide a good user experience, which can boost your rankings.

• Increased Conversions: A well-designed website that’s easy to use encourages more visitors to convert into clients.

• Enhanced Brand Reputation: A professional, user-friendly website strengthens your brand’s reputation, making it more appealing to potential customers.

Looking For Professional Website Design?

If you’re in need of a user-friendly website that stands out in today’s competitive digital landscape, Exults is your go-to partner for internet success. Whether you need a website overhaul or a completely new design, our team has the expertise to take your project from concept to completion.

Ready to Elevate Your Online Presence?

Learn more about our mobile compatibility web design services and how we can help you create a user-friendly website that not only looks great but also drives results. Contact Exults today for a consultation.

The post Key Elements Every User-Friendly Website Should Have appeared first on Exults Digital Marketing Agency.

Curious about the newest PPC trends?

Google reported $33.74 billion in the third quarter of 2018 in ad revenue. Facebook reported $13.54 billion in that same quarter for ad revenue. This is significant for two reasons.

First, other PPC platforms, such as LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Bing are galaxies away from contending with these digital ad giants. Second, the sheer number of marketers you must contend with for PPC space is colossal. To get ahead of the competition, you must master the process. And use the most up-to-date information.

And that’s why we’re here today. In the sections below, we outline the biggest PPC trends for 2019, so you can be on the top of your game. Read on when you’re ready to discover the newest advances and blow away your competition.

PPC Trends: #1 Decline of Keyword Importance

The days of keyword stuffing are long gone. The keywords themselves also seem to be losing their value for PPC campaigns. What do we mean? Let’s take a look.

If you’re a marketer, you’ve already seen the expansion added to Google’s Remarketing Lists. We’re talking Customer Match lists, Search Ads, and Similar Audiences for Search. Well, now marketers must power to target their audience by both demographic AND life events.

That reduces the significance of keywords.

Google promises to soon offer the ability to target users based on their other behaviors:

• Frequency visiting real-world stores or restaurants
• Frequency researching and comparing products or services

With this, marketers can target prospects based solely on behavior. It may completely revolutionize your lead generation strategy.

#2 Voice Search

Finally, voice-supported technology reigns. Both pc and mobile devices offer a range of compatible voice recognition software. Think Siri and Alexa. Other stripped-down devices, such as Amazon’s Echo, Google Home, and Apple HomePod, offer voice-only web searches.

Voice support is becoming ubiquitous.

By 2020, over 50% of all web searches will be voice searches. That’ll make a difference to your PPC strategy. People use different language and phrasing when performing voice searches.

In other words, you’ll need to figure out how to add natural language into your website copy. After you update your web copy, consider adjusting your AdWords account:

• Match your keywords to voice searches.
• Use longtail, 5- or 6-word phrases
• Use phrases that incorporate “near me”

Try to focus on the prospects intent when searching. For instance, traditionally, users may have performed a search using the query, “Trendy Bars San Francisco.” With a voice search, the same user may say, “I need a trendy bar that serves marguerites near me.”

#3 Visual Search

Now, this is futuristic technology coming to life. Services like Pinterest Lens and Google Lens can now search the web for items you snap pictures of. You just take your phone, snap a picture of whatever you’re looking at, and Lens performs a search.

This will affect search dynamics, and therefore PPC. Unfortunately, nobody’s sure quite how. Keep your eyes peeled for this new technology and how it’s impacting marketing.

#4 Video

Did you know that YouTube has become the second most used search engine? Yeah, so if you’re thinking of branching out, the video ad market is the place to be in 2019. Things like Google’s recent vertical video ads are taking advantage of mobile content over performance.

We recommend you investigate this option before 2019, so you can hit the ground running in the new year.

#5 Amazon Rising

Amazon is building its innovative advert platform to compete with Google and Facebook. The online store is offering marketers a greater scope of options to generate sales. Experts argue that Amazon is going to dominate the market, just as they dominate seemingly every other market.

Once again, keep your eyes peeled. This time, for Amazon’s advert platform in 2019.

What’s Next?

Well, now that you know the newest PPC trends, please spend some time evaluating how they’ll affect your marketing strategy. If you can get in on the ground floor, you’ll see a surge of both conversion rates and ROI.

Did you find this material valuable? We’d love to help you get your PPC campaign started. Contact us today for more information!

The post Top 5 PPC Trends to Watch Out for in 2023 appeared first on Exults Digital Marketing Agency.

If so, you know how hard it can be to stay up to date. Missing an update may mean that your website’s ranking starts to fall.

If you’re not keeping up, now is the time to start. But knowing all the updates can be difficult to do on your own.

Lucky for you, we’ve written a short guide to help you know the SEO trends of 2018. Read on for the top 5.

1. Voice Search: The Newest Search Trend

One new search trend is the option for users to do a voice search. While this is a new trend, it’s one that is becoming quite popular.

In fact, 1 in 5 online searches comes from a voice search. This is astonishing because voice search came out 10 years ago.

Searches that come this way are more conversational. This means you should start optimizing some pages to the way people ask questions.

This also means that you can’t rely on keywords alone. While they are still valuable, you should focus some of those efforts on voice.

2. Site Speed: The One We Knew Was Coming

For some time, experts have expected Google the make site speed an important factor in SEO. This year they made it official.

You have to be able to make your site work quick. While this is important for SEO, it’s also important for your users. Nobody wants to stay on a slow site.

3. Video Seach: The Search of the Future

Experts also expected video search to be a new factor in SEO. Predictions say that this aspect of SEO will continue to grow in importance.

In fact, by 2021, over 80 percent of consumer traffic will be video content. That far surpasses any other type of content.

Part of this is because YouTube continues to grow, and at the moment, it is the second largest search engine. Google owns the company, so this may be why Google is emphasizing this.

Video content is a great way to show your knowledge off. If your site isn’t taking advantage of this format, you’ll need to do so soon.

4. Long Form Content: No Suprise Here

Although video content is growing, Google search continues to reward long-form content. Users also tend to like long-form content over any other kind.

Long-form also tends to have more information than shorter articles do. Because of this, there’s a good chance other websites will link to your long-form content.

This content has to be more than long though. It also needs to have great SEO, and because it is longer, you have more opportunities to include keywords. Make sure to begin doing this soon.

Looking for More About the SEO trends of 2018?

Are you looking for more about the SEO trends of 2018? Check out our SEO blog for more information.

Doing SEO and online marketing on your own can be difficult. If you’re searching for a professional service to help, please give us a call at 866-999-4736 or request a quote from us on our website.

The post Top 4 Standout SEO Trends of 2023 appeared first on Exults Digital Marketing Agency.

But, how do you do that?

Ads are a great way to send targeted traffic to your website, but if you’re not using proper PPC optimization, then you’re going to miss out on a lot of leads.

Keep reading to find out everything you need to know about PPC marketing.

What is PPC?

PPC stands for Pay Per Click. It’s a type of advertising you can do in which you pay when somebody clicks on your link. When you do a Google search, the ads at the top are PPC ads.

Compared to other types of ads, PPC is more cost effective because you only pay when someone actually interacts with your link. This means that the number of people that see the ad is irrelevant.

However, you can also end up wasting a lot of money on PPC advertisements if you’re not optimizing your landing pages. Landing pages are where a potential customer ends up after they click on your PPC ad.

If you have a lot of people clicking the link thatddoesn’ttake any further action on your website, then you won’t make your money back on advertising. This is why PPC optimization is vital.

How to Optimize Your Site for PPC Marketing

Here is a brief guide to optimizing your website for PPC campaigns:

1. Related Content

When someone clicks a link, it’s important that they get exactly what they’re looking for. For example, if someone searches for “how to tie a shoelace” and your ad pops up, the page that ad takes them to needs to be about tying a shoelace.

2. Visuals

We can not emphasize enough the importane of appealing visuals. The brain processes images significantly faster than it does text, so it’s crucial to include images and videos on your landing pages. You want a visitor to quickly be drawn into your site, and visuals are a great way to do that.

3. White Space

As important as visuals are, white space will also allow a visitor to hone in on only what’s most important.

Picture a web page where every inch of it is covered in blocks of color, tacky banner ads, and excessive text. How much time would you spend on that page trying to find useful content?

Make sure you have plenty of white space so the images and text stand out.

4. Easy to Read

Don’t have a rainbow of colors in fancy fonts moving across your page. You want the content to be easy for your visitors to read. Include headings, small paragraphs, bulleted lists, and tables where you can.

This is especially important because of how many people use mobile devices to browse the web. Keeping things easy to read keeps visitors on your site.

5. Clear Call to Action

Your call to action (CTA) needs to be clear. Once you’ve provided a visitor with the answer to their question, tell them what you want to do next. Should they order a product from you, sign up for your newsletter, or schedule an appointment?

Pick just one action you want a visitor to take, then let them know and make it easy for them to do so.

Get Help with PPC Optimization

By preparing your landing pages and carefully selecting keywords, you’ll be able to grow your business by capturing targeted leads.

We want to provide a free assessment of your website today, so fill out our form and we can help you implement PPC optimization for your business.

The post The Importance of Optimizing Your Landing Pages for PPC Campaigns appeared first on Exults Digital Marketing Agency.