MRK 465 Test 1

Conversion Rate calculation

(Number of visitors who convert / total number of visitors) X 100

Forms

- # of fields - # of mandatory fields - Time to fill it out - CTA - What will users get when filling out the form? Benefit

SERP - Second page

-67% of click throughs are on the first five results -Organic search results are ordered based on their relevance to the search term the user entered -Only 9% click past the first page

Unique Value Proposition

-Also known as a unique selling proposition (USP), -a clear statement that describes the benefit of your offer, how you solve your customer's needs and what distinguishes you from the competition. -Your unique value proposition should appear prominently on your landing page and in every marketing campaign. Example: KIND makes wholesome, delicious snacks with ingredients you will recognize - like whole nuts and whole grains - along with a variety of fruits and spices.

The Fold

-Everything a user sees on the screen before scrolling is called "above the fold" -The fold is an invisible/imaginary "line" -The space above the fold differs with each device used

Wordpress.com

-For-profit, paid service -Powered by wordpress.org -You lose some flexibility

Why Google Analytics?

-It's free -It's industry standard (98% of businesses/sites use GA) -Simple to use -Highly customizable -Integrates nicely with other Google products (e.g., Google Ads) -Extensive online support and tutorials -Sufficient for most marketers - but there is paid Analytics software with more functionality

Types of traffic

-Organic Search -Direct Search -Referral Search

Trust symbols

-Return policy/ guarantees -Brand recognition/awards -Positive publicity -Social media presence -Video demonstrations / testimonials -Others like professional images, high-quality design, secure payment gateways, client logos, readily available contact information ...

What is WordPress?

-The simplest, most popular way to create your own website or blog -A third of all websites -Open source (free) content management system -No need to do any programming -Can create any type of websites (even ecommerce & social networks)

Successful landing pages

1. Don't send ad traffic to your homepage 2. use specific landing pages with information that matches the ad 3. the landing page should clearly communicate the desired action

Website design principles..

1. Follow conventions 2. Create visual hierarchies 3. Make it obvious what's clickable 4. Eliminate distractions

How does Google rank websites?

Relevance (Keywords in different places) and Popularity (Internal links External links Quality of websites Traffic) Google is ranking webpages, not websites

Is your website responsive?

Responds to laptop, phone, iPad format, etc Are there broken links and error messages? Does it use flash?

What are the different types of websites?

Retail/eCommerce Lead generation Search Engine Media Social Media Marketplace Corporate Wiki

Social Sharing

Share your own content on your social media accounts Include social sharing buttons to encourage sharing by your visitors Off-page SEO is like real-life networking

Meta Tags

Short pieces of text and descriptors of the content within the HTML code of a website that do not appear on the site itself. These descriptors tell the search engine what the website is about.

Writing CTAs

Short, descriptive instruction that explicitly tells a reader what to do Use active verbs, clear instructions, communicate urgency Often a button

Landing pages objectives

Should match the ad on three dimensions: Product/service Message Visuals

On-page optimization process

Style and Structure -Create a hierarchy of pages -Don't bury your content too deep Up-to-date content -New content is oftentimes more relevant than five year old content

Google autocomplete

Suggestions Real search activity Not everybody sees the same! --Takes location into account --Takes your personal search history into account

Conversion

Target action you wish a visitor to take The website owner decides what this is! (Buying, signing up for something, etc)

How did Google used to rank websites?

The Pagerank: mathematical formula that judges the "value of a page" by looking at the quantity and quality of other pages that link to it.

Search Engine Results Page (SERP)

The actual results returned to the user based on the search query.

Relevance

Which keywords are relevant for your website? Keywords should directly relate to the content Keywords should accurately represent your products and services

Click through rate (CTR)

click through rate = # of clicks/total # of views

On-site SEO

designing the content and structure of a website so that it will rank well on search phrases that are relevant to one's site (RELEVANCE)

Link URL

destination to which the link will lead the user

Search term

exact word or set of words entered by the user

Knowledge Graph

function in Google's search engine that displays a selection of facts related to your search term that you may be interested in knowing more about

Off-site SEO

improve popularity of one's site on other sites (POPULARITY)

Conversion Rate Optimization

improving the commercial returns from a transactional site through increasing conversion to key goals such as sales, quotes, bookings or leads. Combines customer and competitor research with evaluation of customer behavior using web analytics and AB/multivariate testing.

Direct search

is typing a URL into a web browser

User experience

is your website compatible with different browsers, such as Firefox, Chrome, Safari?

Paid link

link coming from advertising

Inbound link (also: backlink)

link coming from another website and directs a user to your website

Outbound link

link leading to another website

Internal links

linking within your own website from one content to another page

Description tag

makes up the second part of your listing. Should be between 150 and 160 characters. This is where you tell people why they should visit your website, purchase from you, or inquire about your products.

Quality of Content

maybe in the future Google will be able to determine a pages quality directly

Long tail keyword

multi word phrases

Keyword Cannibalization

multiple pages are targeting the same keyword avoid this!!

Fat head keyword

one core term as a key word

Organic search

search engine results returned and ranked according to relevance

Google updates

term used to describe a change affecting how rankings are calculated Some updates are major algorithm changes Some may be minor Panda, Penguin, Pigeon, Hummingbird

Link text (also: anchor text)

text that appears on the page

Responsive web design (RWD)

the ability of a website to detect the visitor's screen size and automatically resize and rearrange its elements (recommended) For mobile, laptop, etc.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

the efforts at improving the search engine rankings of a website for a specific keyword or set of keywords

Keyword mapping

the process of assigning or mapping keywords to specific pages on a website

Digital Analytics

the process of measuring, collecting, analyzing, and reporting the behavior of visitors on a website, in order to understand and optimize their online experience.

Landing pages

the web page that a person reaches when clicking on a search engine listing or ad Single objective --> CTA (call to action button)

Keyword

word or set of words advertisers or website creators enter into the text of the website

Referral search

you are referred from one site to another

Click through rates

Higher CTRs lead to higher rankings Remember: CTR = total number of clicks / total number of impressions x 100

Designing your website?

Hire someone to or use content management system

Off site SEO techniques

How can you improve your site's popularity? - Popularity is based mainly on the external inbound links to the page. You build links - Image based - Text based

Competiton

How many big retailers are competing for your keyword? Long-tail keywords usually have less competition, but also lower search volume (trade-off).

Main Content

Include your keywords, but focus on relevance **Bolding keywords in a section of text does not help!** Title tags are what makes a different Don't engage in **keyword stuffing**(load your website text with keywords, might lead to a site being penalized or banned Make sure to include the keywords or keyword phrase when it is relevant and makes sense to the user! 3-5% of the word count Have at least 100 words of text

Link building

Increase the total number of backlinks --Want to make sure there are other links linking to your site Get backlinks from relevant/related websites Don't get backlinks from spam websites Make sure all links work and get fresh links Quality over quantity!

Bounce Rates

Lower bounce rates have higher rankings Bounce Rate = percentage of people who go to your page and immediately leave it without engaging with any of the content Signal for low relevance to the search (Want this to be low)

An ongoing process!!

Maintain a weekly or monthly calendar measuring your performance Associate peaks in traffic with online or offline activities Spot trends resulting from SEO

Loading Times

Make sure your website doesn't take too long to load

Google's "Rankbrain"

Name for a machine-learning artificial intelligence system used to help process search results The machine teaches itself! Machine learning is where a computer teaches itself how to do something, rather than being taught by humans or following detailed programming.

The ultimate goal...

Number one (organic) ranking ... for a specific search term ... or at least first page ranking (there are 10 per page)

Key Performance Indicators

Position -What is your SERP position? Traffic -How much traffic is coming in? -Where is traffic coming from? Use Google Analytics or other tool Conversion -Is organic SEO creating conversions? (for example sales) -Measure sales, leads, inbound calls

Search traffic

Ranking well --> increase profit from purchases, leads, ad revenue

Google Ads Keyword Planner

Related ad words

Keyword Research

1. Keywords need to be relevant 2. Keywords need to generate enough search traffic 3. Keywords ideally have low competition

Where does traffic come from?

1. Search - Organic search (SEO) -Paid Search (Google Adwords) -Social media posts and ads 2. Referral -Email marketing -Content and blogs -Links from other sites 3. Direct -Website

What do you need for your own website?

1. URL 2. Hosting service 3. Website design

4 Types of Link Texts

1. Uninformative (vs descriptive, compare click here or more vs. take free skills test) -- Not good from a search opt stand point; doesn't have any keywords in it 2. URL link www.vidalsassoon.com a link that is the actual URL 3. Topic link -> a descriptive link to link the user to a site that has a similar topic, e.g. more on hair care 4. Keyword link -> a link with keywords such as hair styling with vidal sasson

What is the best kind of link?

3 and 4 ; have key words in them and more natural to read

Headings Example

<H1>Welcome to Digital Marketing</H1>

A/B Testing

A randomized group of experiments used to collect data and compare performance among two options studied (A and B). A/B testing is often used in refining the design of technology products, and A/B tests are particularly easy to run over the Internet on a firm's Web site. Amazon, Google, and Facebook are among the firms that aggressively leverage hundreds of A/B tests a year in order to improve their product offerings. (Ex: language on buttons)

Title tag

An HTML element Helps ensure your listing on SERPs says the right thing about your business. Should be between 50 and 60 characters (cuts off after 67) Keep under 60

Offline Keyword Research

Brainstorming Marketing collateral Customer surveys Listening to customers (salespeople)

Key Rules for Content Marketing

Continually create fresh content Write something new, that has not been seen before Create video and audio content (video gets ranked highly, it's more personal) Promote content (spend more time promoting than writing) There is too much content on the web

Content marketing - get editorial links

Create your own valuable, informative, and entertaining content in order to drive sales and conversions Examples: 1. Case studies 2. Blogs entries 3. White papers 4. Infographics --> Then share on social media

Black hat techniques

Duplicate content keyword stuffing link farming cloaking test and/or links re-directing to another site or page blog comment GOOGLE DISCOURAGED METHODS OF CONDUCTING SEO

Quantity of Content

Every page should have at least 100 words

Wordpress.org

Free, open source software Create a website that's 100% your own

White hat techniques

Fresh, relevant content linking to / getting links from relevant industry sources optimized image labels relevant page titles and tags natural keyword density GOOGLE APPROVED METHODS OF CONDUCTING SEO

Good Grammar and Spelling

Good Grammar improves quality rating

Who dominates the search market?

Google

Online Keyword Research

Google Autocomplete Google Ads Keyword Planner Google Trends Later: Google Search Console

Google Search Console

Google Search Console is a free service offered by Google helps you monitor and maintain your site's presence in Google Search results Every site will be listed, but using search console can improve and optimize results

RankBrain

Google's name for a machine-learning artificial intelligence system that's used to help process its search results

Navigations

Have changed in the last 10 years If a website has a clear conversion goal, does it need a navigation? --You might not need it, it may be distraction

HEADINGS

Headings range from H1 to H6 Primary headings should be H1, subheading of H1 is H2 and so on Search engines look for headings to get an indication on the content and what the keywords are Make sure headlines include keywords!

What is the conversion funnel?

The journey or "flow" a consumer takes through the internet and your page until he or she takes the desired action (=converts)

WordPress Design

Theme = set of design elements and color schemes that you can apply to your website. Designers upload their WordPress template creations and you can purchase them at low cost

Link farm

There are service providers who promise to help you boost your popularity by automatically entering you into link exchange programs Websites only created to increase link popularity - a website full of links Link farms will provide the links, but no traffic Can be penalized, is a form of spam!!!

Google trends

To analyze the rise and fall of keywords over time

Limited Ad space

Too much space devoted to advertising will lower your quality

Original Content

Unique content will increase ranking Don't copy and paste any text

Fresh Content

Update your website on a regular basis

Website design principles

Usability: the ease and efficiency to use a digital tool, matching the users needs and requirements Design for the "average" or "below-average" user Where do you place search box, logo, navigation, etc?

Images and Alt Text

Used by visually impaired to help read a website Search engines cannot "see" search engines use alt text and file name Insert keywords into the file name of image, alt text, and captions

Site map

Usually linked on bottom of page Can be submitted to Google's Search Console Allows search engines to crawl through and index your website