PPC Marketing Coquitlam

The online marketing world has changed dramatically in recent years. Google AdWords is one of the platforms creating this change. Google AdWords is a paid advertising or pay-per-click (PPC) service offered by Google. It is one of the most effective methods of paid advertising online.

Google AdWords is used by organizations of all sizes. These organizations all have one thing in common. They want to reach a large number of people who search for information, products, and services online.

What is PPC Marketing Coquitlam?

PPC stands for pay-per-click. It is a type of internet marketing in which the advertiser pays a fee each time their ad is clicked. When clicked, the ad directs the searcher to a landing page. The goal of the advertiser is to get the searcher to perform a predetermined task. Generally, this task is to purchase a product or service. Essentially, PPC is a way to buy visits to your website, rather than obtaining the visits through organic methods.

How Does PPC Marketing Coquitlam Work?

Let’s take a look at the image above. In this example, I searched for Website Design Coquitlam in Google. As you can see, a PPC ad for Longevity Graphics appeared at the top of the page above the organic results. This ad includes the same information as the typical Google search results. Additionally, it includes:

Address
Phone Number
Hours of Operation
Highlighted Services

PPC Marketing is Good for Everyone

Searchers – Research indicates that searchers click on paid search ads more than any other form of digital marketing. This means that people don’t mind being advertised to through this medium, as long as the products and services that appear actually fit their needs.

Advertisers – Through their search query, searchers reveal their intent to purchase. Using the results from Google AdWords and Google Analytics, advertisers are able to measure the quality of traffic that results from PPC clicks. They can then refine their ads to achieve different results.

Search engines – PPC Marketing allows search engines to cater to searchers and advertisers simultaneously. As long as search engines continue to display relevant ads to searchers and provide measurable information to advertisers, then both parties will remain happy.

PPC Keyword Research

Conducting keyword research can be a very time-consuming task. However, it is incredibly important as your entire PPC campaigns are built around the keywords you choose. An effective PPC keyword list should be:

Relevant
Exhaustive
Expansive

If Google AdWords and PPC Keyword Research are tasks you would rather leave up to the professionals, then get in contact with Longevity Graphics for your PPC Marketing Coquitlam services, today! We provide a FREE 1-Hour Consultation so you can learn about the services we offer.

FREE 1-Hour Consultation!

Email Scams: What To Look Out For

At Longevity Graphics, we regularly receive emails and messages from less than reputable sources. As convincing as these emails appear, there are some clear, tell-tale signs that the communication is a scam. In this blog post, we will discuss some common email scams that we have received and how you can avoid falling victim to them.

In order for these scammers to gather personal information quickly, they create a sense of urgency. In their message, they will say:

Your account is being threatened
You need to provide them with access
They will provide you with a link to a legitimate looking website
The will ask you to input your login credentials

After they have your personal information, they can then use it as they please.

How can you spot these scam emails?

Here are some things to look out for when you receive an email or message from an unknown source.

Spelling errors
Poor grammar
Lack of capitalization
Mention of another country
Offers that are too good to be true

Sales Email Scams

A common scam that we have received are emails from internet marketing companies saying that we have inquired about their services. They structure the email in such a way that it appears as through we have contacted them and requested information about their services.

They will include re: in the subject line of the email. This makes the email appear as though it is a reply. When in fact, it is not.

In the body of the email, they will say:

Thank you for reaching out to us…
Thank you for inquiring about our services…
As requested, here is more information about…
We can provide your company with…

The email will contain links to “further information”. Ultimately, they will make claims about their product or service that are just too good to be true.

Phishing Email Scams

Phishing scams are emails or messages from someone pretending to be from a reputable source with the goal to gain access to your personal information. The cyber criminal will attempt to trick you into giving them access to your account.

The most common information they are looking for are your passwords for:

Bank Accounts
Social Media Platforms
Work Accounts
Cloud Storage
Personal Information

In order to appear more convincing, these messages appear to be from a reputable source such as your bank or other financial institution.

Have you ever received an email or call claiming to be from Google Adwords? Google has made it very clear that they will “never send you an unsolicited message asking you to provide your password or other sensitive information by email or through a link.”

Greeting Card Email Scams

As the name suggests, a greeting card scam is an email you receive containing a link to an e-card. The email itself appears to be from a friend, but if you open the email and click on the link, malicious software will begin to download and install onto your computer.

Since the beginning of the twenty first century, technology continues to connect us to each other as never has before. Society has experienced many positive advancements from technology; however, it has also opened our lives to the threat of cyber criminals. By using your best judgement and following the tips above, you will be better equipped to navigate through the digital era.

Longevity Graphics is a leading web marketing agency that helps business owners grow their business. Since 2001, we have been been building successful web site designs and implementing internet marketing strategies, by providing across-the-board internet services to businesses looking to take advantage of their online marketing potential.

Are you thinking about starting a business in Port Coquitlam? We’ve gathered some resources to help you get started.

Visit the City of Port Coquitlam Website

The City of Port Coquitlam website is a great place to begin when thinking about starting a business in Port Coquitlam. The website has many resources that will help you, prior to ‘opening your doors’. Click here to visit the City of Port Coquitlam’s Starting a Business page.

Get to know the area… and your competition

If you don’t already live in Port Coquitlam or the Tri-Cities area, it is a good idea to spend some time in the city. This will allow you to get a sense of the successful businesses that are currently operating in the area – including businesses that you will be in competition with. If your business is going to have a store front, you can use this time to search out potential areas for your business to operate.

Create a Website and Social Media Pages

If you’re thinking about starting a business in 2016 – you MUST have a website and social media pages. There is a vast amount of competing businesses in Port Coquitlam and the surrounding areas.

In order to be discovered by potential customers online, you must have an experienced, knowledgeable online marketing company who will be able to optimize your website and social media pages for optimal rankings.

Your online marketing company should be able to:

Help your website gain top position in search result lists
Perform keyword research to discover vital search combinations for your business
Perform meta and title tag development
Establish HTML code optimization
Perform inbound link building

If this sounds like something that you will need help with, contact Longevity Graphics for a FREE 1-Hour Consultation. We specialize in working with local clients and helping them rank for their industry specific keywords.

Are you considering outsourcing your website design?

Below are some Pro’s and Con’s of hiring a local web designer vs. outsourcing your web design.

Pro’s of hiring a local web designer:

Personalized, one-on-one service
It’s easy to get in contact with your web designer if you have any questions
You know exactly who will be working on the design of your website and social media pages

Con’s of hiring a local web designer:

Well, we sure can’t think of any con’s!

Additional Resources

Sign up your business on the Shop PoCo BIZ Directory; Click Here
Join the Port Coquitlam Business Improvement Association (BIA); Click Here
Join the Tri-Cities Chamber of Commerce; Click Here
Contact Longevity Graphics for a FREE 1-Hour Consultation to learn about the online marketing services they offer; Click Here

As a student, I was extremely grateful to receive an internship at Longevity Graphics. Knowing that marketing and design are the fields I wish to work in, they gladly welcomed me. My first internship took place last summer, and I am happy to say that I have come back for the second year!

When I first came to Longevity Graphics, right away, I was accepted into their team. The atmosphere and the knowledge of the office made it easier to learn new things. Coming into the office, I was surely not as experienced as others. But soon enough, thanks to their help, I feel I have become much more knowledgeable about marketing and design.

Here are some of the things I have learned:

While designing projects for customers, keep key ideas of what they suggested in mind. Your job is to create their visualization, not your own.
Make tons of different drafts for the customer to choose from.
While on the phone, don’t be afraid to ask for what you want.
While making your first campaign on Google Ad words, make sure it is perfect. If it’s not perfect, you might mess up future campaigns.
Save everything. Twice even.
Don’t be afraid to ask questions.

Working at Longevity Graphics has been a great opportunity and I am very grateful for the experience.

Thank you Longevity, you guys are the best!

Looking to drive more traffic to your website? We all are, aren’t we? Ever hear of Google Adwords? Most business owners have either heard of it or have even tried it out themselves. Google offers a free $100 coupon for first time business owners and even offers to help you setup the account. Sounds good, right? Business owners beware!

I have been setting up Google Adwords accounts for business owners for over 10 years and have learned from experience the best ways to optimize your Google Adwords account to get the most return on your ad spend. I charge all of my clients a fee to setup their Google Adwords accounts up because it’s takes time to setup the campaign correctly the first time. This saves our clients money in management fees in the long run. Management time is much easier and time effective.

Frequently clients hear about the Free $100 coupon for Google Adwords which includes a Google specialist assisting them on setting up their accounts for free. They often ask why I charge a setup fee when they can get Google to do it for them. Here is a little case study that we recently did to test Google’s free account setup.

CASE STUDY

A local Ranch in BC providing horseback trail rides to BC residents approached us to setup their Google Adwords account up. We contacted Google Adwords free account services to help with the setup. The Google specialist was very pleasant to deal with and set the whole campaign up for us in about 20 minutes. After the campaign was setup, this is what we found.

The campaign was setup to geographically target all of the United States (not BC)
There was only one ad group setup
All of the keywords were included in the one ad group (this will lower the quality score)
The keywords selected included horseback vacations (which the client does not provide)
The ad copy was again promoting horseback riding vacations
The ads were being pointed to a generic landing page instead of the landing page specific to horseback trail rides

If we were to let the campaign go live the way that it had been setup by the Google Adwords specialist, my client would have been wasting their money, and the end result in their mind would be that, “Google Adwords does not work“.

WHAT WE DID

We modified the campaign to target local searchers using keywords that described the service being offered. We created multiple ad groups of unique keyword phrases so that we could target the ad copy to the search query. We sent traffic to the landing page describing the horseback trail rides. Within the first 2 days of the campaign that WE created going live, our client is already receiving requests for their services.

We are a fully certified Google Adwords agency and take the time to get to know our clients, the services that they provide, their target audience and their competition. We take pride in helping our clients grow their businesses and are only happy when our clients are happy.

If you are considering implementing a Google Adwords campaign, please contact us first for a free consultation so that we can help you save money in the long run and build your business with strategic internet advertising planning.

Lindsay Viscount, Owner / Creative Director
[email protected]

Longevity Graphics has been building websites and implementing internet marketing strategies since 2002. Our competitive advantage is the experience that we bring to the table, the extensive knowledge of Google Webmaster standards, ranking factors, conversion optimization, and the personalized customer service that we provide to all of our clients; big and small.

When working with our clients on an internet marketing campaign, we utilize many different platforms to get the best results for the unique needs of the client. 3 platforms that we almost always recommend include:

Google Adwords
Google Places
Google+

Google Adwords is a pay-per-click option that allows our clients to drive immediate targeted traffic to their websites. We can control the placement of the ads (whether you come up first, second, third or on the side), the cost of the clicks and the daily/monthly budget and target the ads geographically. This is a great platform to start receiving great results when implemented correctly. If you have tried implementing a Google Adwords campaign and failed to see results that were bringing you a return on your investment, it is worth speaking to an expert who knows how to optimize your campaign.

Google Places is a great way to target geographical search queries interested in working with a business with a specific geographical region. The benefit to Google Places is it’s FREE, the listings out rank organic results and your customers can add reviews to your listing which can help to promote the benefits of dealing with your company.

In the example below, you can see that The Last Door is coming up for the search querie “Recovery Centre For Men New Westminster” within the Google Places section of the search results page which is out ranking the organic search results.

Google+ is an interesting new platform that we are urging our clients to take advantage of. Google is starting to display Google + profiles within the search results pages (seen below). Not a lot of companies have started using this platform for marketing and you can really get a jump up on your competitors by utilizing this platform.

In conclusion, when developing an internet marketing strategy don’t forget to utilize these great Google platforms to help boost your exposure. Gaining targeted traffic in all areas of the internet will help to develop your brand, increase your leads and at the end of the day you will see an increase in your return on investment

Pay-Per-Click/Google Adwords Landing Page Recommendations

When designing the landing pages for the pay-per-campaigns like Google Adwords or a Yahoo/Bing campaign it is good idea to start by designing 2 completely different designs (1 short page, 1 long page). You provide all of the most important information above the fold. (The fold is everything that is on screen without having to scroll.)

Important elements include:

Above the Fold:

Heading – Repeat the Ad Copy Title and Search Query (Needs to be attention grabbing)
Relatable Image (Unique to the target audience) or video
Feature a incentive or offer (Fill out this form to download a brochure)
Limit the amount of navigation (To prevent the PPC campaign from being penalized in quality score, Google likes the user to be able to navigate other aspects of the website; however, we want the user to do one thing, sign-up for a membership. Limiting the amount of navigation will prevent the user from losing focus on the page goal)
Dominant Call-to-Action (Get Brochure Now)
Credibility (Affiliation, association and accreditation logos.)
Security Logo for the form or call-to-action button
Key Benefits in list format 5-7 (Keep it simple)
Client testimonials highlighting the benefits (include pictures to add credibility)

Below the Fold:

Additional call-to-action buttons throughout the landing page
Features
Repeat benefits throughout the page
As much information as the user needs to decide to contact you

Landing Page Testing

Once you have launched a pay-per-click campaign, it is a good idea to test certain aspects of the page to identify what your audience will respond best to in order to achieve the best conversion results. You can easily test different aspects of your landing page by implementing Google Website Optimizer. Here is what I recommend testing:

Short Page vs Long Page
Heading Content and Placement
Main image size, content and placement
Promotion
Call-to-action placement, wording, size and color

Building websites and landing pages for conversion optimization is something that I love to do and have developed skills in for many years. If you are creating a landing page and would like a second opinion on what you have developed, I am always happy to give you my opinion, so send me an email. [email protected]

Google Adwords audits are something that we do quite frequently. I run into tons of small businesses that setup their Google Adwords accounts on their own hoping to gain new business leads. The thing that I find most often, is that businesses that setup their own accounts usually make some common mistakes that can cost them big. Their budgets get eaten up and the leads that they receive are not very relevant. Something that I often hear is “Google Adwords doesn’t work!”

Well if you setup your account to target relevant traffic, Google Adwords can be a very cost effect way to increase your business leads and your ROAS (return on as spend). Here are some tips that will help you to improve your campaign.

Tip #1 – Campaign Setup

When setting up your campaigns, it is a good idea to break the campaigns up by geographical region and by the network that you choose to market your ads on. This will help you in the future to allocate more budget to the campaigns that are performing at a higher level, converting, and bringing you more of a return on your ad spend.

Tip #2 – Ad Group Setup

When setting up your ad groups, it is a good practice to setup many ad groups that will incorporate unique targeted keywords. This will allow you to develop targeted keyword rich ad content to display to your audience that is relevant to the search query. Implementing this strategy will increase your chances of a higher click-through-rate which will in turn increase your quality score giving you a better cost-per-click and higher placement than your competitors based on a usability experience.

Tip #3 – Keywords – Broad or Match

When selecting keyword match types for a PPC campaign, it is important to take into consideration many factors; fist and for most, conversion rate, cost-per-click, conversion rate and quality score. Adding broad matches will get you more volume but will cost you more per click. The quality score on the broad match keyword should be lower than an exact match on and hence cost-per-clicks should be higher. You can run a low cost-per-click, high click-through-rate campaign on exacts but your ads will only reach a small audience.

Recommendations for setting up the pay-per-click campaign are to use broad match for longtail keywords and test broad and match types for higher traffic keywords. Since longtail keywords are already very targeted they will receive less traffic and convert at a higher level. However, the higher traffic keywords need to be tested to determine which convert better and have a higher return on ad spend. Once return-on-ad-spend has been determined, we will select the best method for specific keywords.

Tip #4 – Longtail Keyword Strategy

Within the pay-per-click channel, best practice strategies indicate that using more descriptive longer search phrases (longtail) convert at a much higher rate and cost a lot less than broader terms. Using geographical terms matched with broader terms is a great way to create longtail keywords. This is a strategy that we will implement.

Tip #5 – Hire A Professional

If all of this sounds foreign to you, hire a professional to setup your account for you. We setup accounts for clients all the time, and once your account is setup right from the beginning, it’s takes very little time to manage it. If you have already setup your Google Adwords account, we can audit it for you as well.