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Pay-per-click advertising is a non-negotiable for any business looking to establish strong search engine visibility and to boost online conversions. You can’t simply rely on organic search, though a strong SEO component is certainly necessary. It only works when you pair it with PPC, canvassing the SERP and establishing brand awareness throughout the buyer journey.

Running a PPC campaign is not a passive thing, though; you’ll need to check in, review your campaign, and revise is regularly. Thankfully, there are apps that make it easy to do so from anywhere in the world. Here are a few that we recommend.

The Best PPC Management Apps

AdWords and AdWords Express

Our list has to start with these two apps. Given that AdWords is far and away the most popular PPC channel, the official app is a no-brainer. (The slightly pared-down Express version can also be helpful.) These apps will allow you to:

• Monitor your click-through rate and discover how people are interacting with your ads—real-time analytics!
• Update your bids and your budgets.
• Immediately implement any strategies you think of, based on your analytics and real-time alerts.
• Reach out to a Google expert with any troubleshooting needs.

Bing Ads

Though Google monopolizes the PPC conversation, don’t forget about Bing Ads, which can also be an effective place to promote your brand. Bing Ads allows you to:

• View visual account metrics, similar to what you’ll find in AdWords.
• Update your bids and your budgets.
• Reach out to Bing support experts with any troubleshooting needs.

Google Analytics

Are you using PPC ads to drive traffic to a website? The answer is probably yes, and if so, you definitely want to have the Google Analytics app, which will allow you to view layer upon layer of data about your campaign. Specifically, Google Analytics will furnish you with trends and reporting on:

• Your keywords.
• Your search queries.
• Display targeting.

… and plenty more besides! You can even customize it to ensure that the app only shows you the reports you care about. The bottom line: This is a powerful tool for staying informed, and for really digging into your campaign results.

Various Collaborative/Reporting Apps

Along the same lines, there are a number of apps you can use to easily transmit information and collaborate on your campaign, whether with your marketing company or with other members of your team. A few to consider:

• Microsoft Excel, which is invaluable for viewing data from your mobile.
• Google Sheets, another good tool for reviewing account data.
• Google Docs, which will facilitate easy file sharing and collaboration.
• Google Drive, a must for organizing and storing your team’s data.
• Dropbox, a noteworthy alternative to Google Drive.

CRM Apps

Finally, note that acquiring customers through PPC is just the first step in the journey. From there, you need to actively maintain those important client relationships. There are a couple of good apps to recommend here:

• Zoho CRM, which helps you manage leads and personalize customer relations.
• MailChimp, which can help you integrate PPC and email marketing.

Go Beyond PPC Apps

While good apps can make PPC easier and more effective, they’re no replacement for a robust marketing strategy, executed by seasoned pros. That’s where we come in.

Driven2020 takes a data-driven approach to online marketing, and that includes PPC. We can leverage paid ads to get results on your company’s behalf, and we can handle all the administrative stuff for you. Sound good? Reach out to us to learn more. Contact Driven2020 today.

Reach out to the Driven2020 team today to ask about PPC management!

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Are Twitter ads truly worth it? Is there a way to use them that actually adds value to your marketing campaign? The short answer: It just depends. Twitter ads certainly aren’t recommended for everyone, yet we’ve seen for ourselves that some companies can use them to tremendous effect.

As you consider Twitter ads as a possible component in your marketing plan, here are some factors to think about.

Deciding on Your Promotion

Start with some basic statistics. Currently, Twitter boasts more than 328 million monthly active users, sending more than 500 million tweets daily. This is obviously a large-scale platform on which your brand can advertise, and promoted tweets have been proven effective:  More than 40 percent of all Twitter users say they have purchased a product after being exposed to it through tweets.

Not all Twitter promotion is created equal, though; one of the first decisions you’ll have to make is the kind of promotion you want to try. Here are some options:

• Promoted tweets. These tweets show up in a user’s feed and look more or less like regular tweets—only they’re not necessarily from accounts that the user follows. Twitter draws on various signals to decide the “relevant” audience for these tweets. This makes for a great way to increase brand awareness, build engagement, drive traffic, or promote a specific sale or event.
• Promoted accounts. Rather than promote an individual tweet, you might try endorsing an account—which can help you earn more followers. This can also increase general awareness of your brand and potentially drive leads.
• Promoted trends. Finally, promoted trends will show up in the “trending topics” box, and can be helpful for brands trying to boost a specific hashtag. This is primarily an option for really big, enterprise-level brands; it’s quite expensive, and not something we recommend for smaller companies.

Selecting a Campaign Objective

In addition to choosing a specific type of promotion, you’ll also need to figure out what you’re trying to accomplish. There are a few different campaign objectives that Twitter offers.

• Awareness. When you launch an awareness campaign, it’s meant to help you get your message out to as many people as possible. The cost is based on how many impressions your tweets gather. This is a great campaign type to implement when you’re launching a new product, or if you’re new to Twitter and just want to establish your presence.
• Followers. Another good option for brands just starting out on Twitter, follower campaigns revolve around helping you build an audience. If you engage in this type of campaign, make sure you give people a good reason to follow and keep following you. Pair the promoted tweets with some good, organic outreach.
• Website clicks or conversions. If you have a guide, a blog, or a specific product page you want users to click on, conversion-based campaigns can sometimes be effective. Note that the cost will depend on the number of clicks you get.
• Tweet engagement. Finally, tweet engagement campaigns promote your brand’s tweets to a relevant audience, with the goal of striking up more conversations and general chatter. If you’re just looking to build buzz around your brand, this can be a good option.

Developing a Twitter Strategy

There are obviously a lot of considerations to make, and to make the wisest choices, you may want to work with the pros. Driven2020 provides integrative marketing solutions, and we can advise on whether or not your brand should be using paid Tweets—and if so, how. Ready to explore your options? Reach out to Driven2020 today.

Reach out to the Driven2020 team today to talk about Twitter advertising!

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With a new year approaching, now is an optimal time to take a long, hard look at your online content strategy—and to do everything you can to update and improve it. The good news is, there is much you can do right now to maximize your content success in the months to come. Here are a few best practices and general recommendations.

Preparing Your Content Strategy for 2018

Review all available data.

Look back over all your data and analytics from 2017. Which pieces of content got results? Which pieces of content fell flat? Where were your main sources of referral traffic? Of conversions?

With a full year of data available to you, you can make informed choices about where to focus or where to shift your attention over the coming year.

Select targeted keywords.

One particular thing you can look for in your analytics is a good sense of the keywords you should focus on in the coming months.

See which keywords got you the best results, then use the Keyword Planning tool in AdWords to find some keywords that are related to it. Start keeping track of these, as they can guide you in your upcoming content creation.

Start a list of topics.

Using those targeted keywords, you can begin to brainstorm some general topics and themes for upcoming blogs, press releases, or infographics.

Then, when the time comes for content creation, you’ll immediately have some ideas to start with. For best results, share this list in a collaborative document, and allow your colleagues to chime in with their own comments or ideas.

Rewrite your About content.

The new year brings a clean slate—and a fresh opportunity for branding.

It’s an especially good time to read back over the company bios you have on your website and social media profiles, and to freshen them up for the new year. You don’t want to leave them static and stagnant forever.

Audit your website.

Spend some time reading through your website. Take note of content that you like, but also content that could stand revision or updating.

Especially note any broken links, and either fix or remove them as soon as possible. The same with any broken or slow-loading image files!

Make an editorial calendar.

If you really want to get organized for the coming year, we recommend making an editorial calendar. Plan out all upcoming blog posts. Make a note of when they should be written, which keywords should be used, and which team member is in charge of writing and promoting them.

Include hot-topic press releases in your editorial calendar, too!

Research hashtags.

In sharing branded content through social media, hashtag use is key. Often, these hashtags will align closely with your targeted keywords.

However, you don’t necessarily want to use hashtags that are closely associated with a competitor. See which hashtags your competition uses, and compare it against the hashtags that have fared well for your own branded posts.

Invest in PPC.

Organic content reach is critically important—but it’s most effective when paired with a paid ad strategy.

Make sure to leave some room for this in next year’s marketing budget—and start thinking about your paid ad strategy today!

Get Your Content Ready to Convert

A good content strategy won’t just fall into place. You’ve got to build it, revise it, and fine-tune it on a regular basis. Take this opportunity to do so—and for help, reach out to our team.

Driven2020 has the expertise to help you drive traffic to your website. In the last year, our efforts have produced significant results for a variety of clients around the country after we audited their websites and optimized their online strategies. Are you ready to learn how we can help you build an effective content strategy? Call us today.

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Many a list has been written detailing the benefits of content marketing. For instance, you’ve probably heard that content marketing establishes thought leadership. It can cultivate trust, and position your brand as an authority. It’s valuable search engine fodder, and it also assists with online reputation management.

These points are all totally true, yet they don’t quite capture the underlying reality of content marketing—which is that it offers a tremendous return on investment, in concrete, bottom-line terms. This is especially true when you approach your content marketing efforts strategically.

Why Content Marketing Offers Big ROI

What makes content marketing so beneficial, from an ROI perspective? Here are some points to consider:

• The cost of content marketing is generally quite low. It may take you some time to write a blog post, but you don’t have to pay a lot of money to place it—unlike, say, PPC ads.
• Good content is evergreen, or at least long-lasting. A blog post you write today can still be useful in a year’s time, both as social media fodder and as a valuable SEO asset.
• Content marketing compounds, too; if you maintain a regular blogging schedule, you can really develop a broad online presence.

Clearly, the investment you make in content marketing can pay off—and in fact, there are some important steps you can take to really stretch your content marketing efforts.

Get More from Your Content Marketing

Here are just a few strategies to consider:

• Create content to serve multiple needs. A blog post can also provide you with some content for your email newsletter; you might also break out some of your more quotable bullet points into tweets, or expand a good blog post into a downloadable white paper.
• Keep our content evergreen. Posts written about timeless topics will generally prove more durable and more impactful than posts that are “trendy” in nature.
• Consider outsourcing your content production to a professional marketing team or writing company. Yes, this will make costs go up, but it can also ensure your content is lean, effective, well-polished, and strategically written to convert.
• Work in alignment with your sales team. Ask them about some of the key concerns of questions they get, and write content that’s designed to address those issues and educate your buyers.
• Be relentless in content promotion. Writing a blog post is not enough! You’ve also got to make sure it gets read. A good way to do that is through social media—and don’t forget your email newsletter!
• Run each piece of content you create past your SEO team. Make sure that your blog posts are optimized to be discovered by search engine users.
• Revisit your old content—especially content that got a lot of traction. Recycle old posts or write follow-ups to them. Milk those posts for all they’re worth!

With these strategies, you can position your content for maximum effect—and maximum value.

Take Your Content Efforts to the Next Level

Of course, content marketing works best when it’s synced up with your other marketing arms—SEO, PPC, and beyond. That’s something that requires a big-picture view, and wide expertise.

Driven2020 can deliver it. We develop marketing campaigns that combine the best strategies into a seamless whole—and we execute them efficiently, always using data to guide us. We’d love to talk with you about how you can get more out of your content campaign. To start the conversation, reach out to the team here at Driven2020 today!

Reach out to the Driven2020 team today to talk about content marketing!

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Online retailers want to know: How exactly do online shoppers discover the products they want to purchase? Do they search for them on Google, or do they head straight to Amazon to browse?

Of course, there’s no simple answer to this question, but by considering some of the data, we can come away with some key implications for ecommerce marketers. And as we’re now headed into the heart of the holiday shopping season, these considerations couldn’t be timelier.

In this post, we’ll consider three questions that retailers and ecommerce marketers should be asking themselves: Where do consumers look for products online? How do those consumers behave differently when they’re on Google versus Amazon? And can search and Amazon marketing efforts somehow work together in tandem?

First, where do consumers look for products online?

It is often said that the majority of online retail searches happen on Amazon—but this isn’t exactly the case. While it is true that Amazon is an important research for consumers, it’s used primarily for certain kinds of online queries.

For example, let’s say you’re in the market for a coffee maker, but aren’t sure which one to get. You might do a search for best coffee maker, what’s the best affordable coffee maker, or most popular coffee makers—just three examples of top-of-the-funnel queries that you might use to narrow your search.

These queries make a lot of sense for Google. They don’t necessarily make a lot of sense for Amazon. Once you get some information and determine which brand or model you want to buy, that’s when an Amazon search might come in handy.

The bottom line here is simply that marketers can’t rely solely on Google or on Amazon; they’ll need to consider both, and understand how consumers actually use these different platforms. And that brings us to our next question.

How do consumers behave differently on Google versus Amazon?

Here it is important to note that not every Google search takes a consumer to Amazon, or vice versa. What’s more, consumers might use these two platforms to search for different kinds of things.

Here’s an example of what we’re talking about. Unsure of which coffee maker to buy, you do a Google search, find one you like, and make a note to buy it the next time you’re at Target. Then you head to Amazon to buy some books for your nephew’s upcoming birthday. These two searches are, of course, unrelated, and show that there isn’t always a one-to-one connection between a consumer query on Google and a consumer query on Amazon.

In short, Google and Amazon are not only used at different stages of the consumer journey, but they may also be emphasized differently just depending on the type of product being sought.

Can marketers use search and Amazon in tandem?

To wrap things up, we come to our final question: What can marketers do to use search and Amazon harmoniously?

It all comes down to that sales funnel, and considering the ways in which you can appeal to buyers at every stage of their journey. That might mean ensuring ample brand visibility through organic SEO and PPC, but then also ensuring you have Amazon listings that are optimized to convert. Both elements are necessary if you want to be present for the entirety of the consumer decision-making process.

And that’s certainly a goal worth aspiring to. We’d love to help you achieve it. To learn more about harmonious, integrative online marketing, we invite you to contact us. Reach out to the Driven2020 team today!

Reach out to the Driven2020 team today to talk about the best retail marketing strategies.

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How can you get your company website ranked well in the Google search results? There are a lot of factors to consider, and the specifics of SEO ebb and flow all the time. Certainly things like social sharing, backlinks, and citations matter a great deal.

And then there’s on-page optimization. This refers to the technical dimensions of your website—the things you can do to make the page itself more attractive to Google’s algorithms.

Ultimately, there are a lot of opportunities to make your website better—more appealing to the end user, but also more compliant with Google’s established standards. Here are a few of the basics—the things you can do to ensure your on-page optimization is firing on all cylinders.

Guidelines for On-Page SEO

• Short URLs. Your URL itself should be both short and descriptive. Avoid URLs that are needlessly long and complicated, or that just have a bunch of random letters or numbers. Your URL should give a short and sweet indication of basically what the page is about.
• Title tags. The title tag tells the Google algorithms what the page is about, and helps them to categorize it appropriately. Make sure your title tag includes a keyword or two, ideally positioned close to the beginning of the title tag.
• Title modifiers. There are certain words that, when added to your titles, can help convey the value of your page—things like best, guide, and review are especially useful.
• H1, H2, and H3 tags. Essentially, you should have your content broken down with subheadings, making it easier for people to navigate your page—but also providing Google with a sense of how your page is structured. These section subheadings are great places to insert keywords, assuming you can do so organically.
• Rich content. Videos and images can help your readers stay engaged with your site for longer periods of time; this in turn cuts down on your bounce rate, and thereby increases your ranking potential. Of course, all media content should be relevant to the topic at hand.
• You don’t ever want to shoehorn keywords in where they don’t really belong, nor make your content so overstuffed with keywords that it’s difficult to read. Do try to include keywords wherever possible, though, especially in your opening paragraph.
• A call to action. At the bottom of the page, instruct your reader on the next action steps to take—and include keywords and content information where appropriate.
• Responsive design. Make sure your website automatically resizes to fit any device and any browser. Google will penalize you if your site looks bad on mobile devices.
• Outbound links to relevant resources, and internal links to related sections of your website, can boost the credibility of your content.
• Your business name, address, and phone number should be listed consistently across every page of your website. This helps with local search rankings.
• Meta description. Like the title tag, your meta description tells the algorithms—and search engine users—what the page is all about. Include a keyword or two here, as well.
• Site speed. If your site does not fully load within four seconds, you need to reconfigure it!

Is Your Site Fully Optimized?

On-page search engine optimization helps your website get discovered by potential customers and clients—so it’s critically important to get it right. It can also be a daunting task—but we’re here to help. Learn more about our website design and optimization services by contacting the Driven2020 team today.

Reach out to the Driven2020 team today to talk about search engine optimization.

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It’s tempting to think of social media as a “time waster”—and for many people, it is. However, the sheer amount of time that people “waste” on social media sites is staggering, which is why marketers can’t take it for granted. Regardless of the industry or vertical you’re in, your audience spends a lot of its time on Facebook and Twitter—and as such, you’ve got to invest some time there as well. This is true even for a field as sensitive and as specialized as addiction recovery.

Of course, there are right ways and wrong ways to market your addiction recovery center on social media. You don’t want to be flippant, because addiction is truly a life-of-death matter; at the same time, you don’t want to be morbid or hopeless. The important thing is to build authority and trust, underscore the importance of treatment, and emphasize the benefits of recovery.

That may sound like a tall order—but with the right social media marketing strategy, it’s ultimately attainable.

It All Starts with Content

In developing a social media strategy, the first thing to consider is always going to be content. That’s how online marketing lives and dies, and social media content for an addiction recovery center should fall into one of a couple broad categories:

• Content that educates your potential clients. Explain the services you provide, and show how clinical intervention can ultimately lead to life-long recovery.
• Content that delivers authoritative healthcare messages. This content doesn’t necessarily push your services, but it does convey your expertise, your thought leadership, and your desire to see clients live a healthy and balanced life.

Between these two types of content, you can brand your addiction recovery center as the source for long-term health and wellbeing—and a trusted ally in the fight against addiction.

What About Your Audience?

Of course, as you develop social media content, it’s always wise to have a specific audience in mind. Here, the addiction recovery field can be complicated. You might assume that your content needs to address people battling drug or alcohol addiction—and of course, that’s true to an extent.

Remember, though, that a lot of the people who’ll be making decisions about treatment and recovery aren’t the addicts themselves, but rather friends and loved ones. Make sure your content speaks to them, allaying their fears and putting their doubts to rest.

Is Organic Reach Enough?

The elephant in the room is Facebook Ads, which will allow you to pony up some additional ad dollars in exchange for highly targeted outreach. This is something we recommend precisely because of that targeting, which makes it possible to take your message directly to the people who need to hear it most. Ultimately, a marriage of organic content updates and paid ads is essential.

The Nuts and Bolts

One more thing we’ll note is that, with social media marketing, consistency is key. That’s why it’s important to actually appoint someone in your organization to post content updates according to a regular editorial calendar, as well as interacting with followers and fans. If you don’t make social media the responsibility of a specific team member, well, don’t be surprised if it slips through the cracks.

If you need someone to handle either that nitty-gritty stuff or the big picture, that’s when you call Driven2020. We’d love to work with your addiction recovery center on developing an overarching digital marketing strategy—one that fills beds and boosts your reputation. Start the conversation with us by contacting Driven2020 today.

Reach out to the Driven2020 team today to talk about marketing for your addiction recovery center.

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When you’re running a small or mid-sized law firm, there’s a decent chance that your clients are mostly locals—people who live in the same general area as you. What’s more, the odds are strong that you’re not the only game in town. Those local clients have a choice to make about which law firm they’ll choose for all their legal needs, and they will typically use Google to help narrow things down. The long and the short of it is this, then: your firm must be discoverable in local search queries, and that’s not something that happens by accident.

Setting Up a Google My Business Page

The question is, what can your law firm do to increase its local search visibility? There are a few basics that we’d recommend, starting with a Google My Business Page. This is one way to assist Google in serving your information to local searchers, and it will only help with your online visibility. As you set up a Google My Business page, make sure you include a full description of your firm, rich in keywords but also written to be readable and persuasive. Upload some high-quality images, and ensure that you have complete and accurate content information posted—including your website URL.

Optimize Your Website

Speaking of websites, it’s important to optimize yours with relevant, localized keywords. This is how you make sure Google knows how to categorize your site, and which “locals” to display it to, exactly. Some specific tips here:

• Make sure you include your city/region judiciously, including in title tags.
• Display your contact information, including local phone number, throughout the site.
• Include local keywords throughout the site—organically, not awkwardly.
• Include an embedded Google map on your Contact Us page, if you have one.

Take Care of NAP Citations

NAP stands for name, address, and phone number—the basic contact information that you should use throughout your website. What’s important is that you list this information consistently on your site, on social media profiles, on review sites, on local business directories, and on Google My Business. Precision is key; don’t use different phone numbers, and don’t state your street address differently from one site to the next. (For instance, don’t say 123 Main Street here and 123 Main St. there.) Be consistent in how you display your local contact information, as NAP is one of the key factors in Google’s local search distinctions.

Get Reviews

Getting user reviews is another important factor in local SEO—and Google reviews are especially important. There are many ways to encourage your clients to leave you their feedback, and one that we recommend is simply emailing your best and most loyal clients and asking them to help you out. Make sure you send them the link where they can leave their review! Including that link on your firm’s website is another smart move.

Generate Backlinks from Other Sites

Finally, do what you can to earn backlinks from other website—including local legal directors, small business associations, chamber of commerce pages, and authoritative law blogs. Backlinks from other sites prove your credibility, and make Google that much more likely to boost your rankings. For directory citations, remember what we said about consistent NAP.

Be Found by Local Clients

When locals go searching for a solid law firm, it’s important that they find your business—or else, that business might dry up. We can help you establish a strong local search presence. Reach out to the data-driven marketing pros at Driven2020 and start getting results today!

Reach out to the Driven2020 team today to talk about marketing for your law firm.

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Cosmetic surgery remains a competitive field—and the practices that stay on top are the ones that keep abreast of all the latest technologies and techniques. This includes not just clinical breakthroughs, but marketing trends, as well.

In particular, cosmetic surgeries need a robust online presence if they wish to remain successful. An overwhelming majority of consumers turn to the Web to research any major purchase, and plastic surgery certainly qualifies.

But what should your online presence do? How can you use online assets, such as a website and social media, to brand your plastic surgery effectively? We’ve got a checklist of best practices and rules of thumb for you, right here.

A Marketing Checklist for Your Plastic Surgery Practice

Prove that you’re an expert in your field. People are understandably cautious when selecting someone to perform cosmetic surgery, so your website should help instill trust. Show that you know what you’re doing; provide helpful information about the different procedures you do. Make sure your website is not just a sales portal, but a knowledge hub.

Optimize for local search. There are some simple but effective steps you can take to make your website more easily discovered in local searches. Include NAP information (name, address, phone number) throughout your site. (And make sure you list it consistently—e.g., don’t use different phone numbers, different street abbreviations, etc.) Start a Google My Business account. Get your practice listed in online directories, particularly localized ones. All of these steps can help you be found by the potential clients right in your own backyard.

Consider video. Video is the next wave of digital marketing, and can be a great way to humanize your practice and to convey your knowledge. A short video that explains a particular procedure, for instance, can go a long way toward building confidence in potential clients.

Don’t forget about social media. Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are all useful channels for distributing information about the procedures you perform; again, the goal is to build trust by asserting your knowledge, and proving that you know what you’re doing.

Invest in AdWords. Paid search is an important way to augment your organic SEO approach, and specifically to target potential clients at different stages of the consumer journey. Use AdWords in tandem with SEO.

Practice email marketing. A regular email newsletter can help you stay connected with past clients. Keep your practice somewhere close to the forefront of their minds, and encourage them to refer their friends to you.

Make sure your website is optimized for mobile users. View your site on a few different browsers and devices, just to make sure it looks crisp and sharp. If your site isn’t mobile-optimized, that’s something to discuss with your website designer ASAP.

Remember the personal touch. Pictures and bios of your team members, especially the clinicians, can really make your website more effective. Remember that you’re trying to build trust, so a warm and relatable touch is always a good idea.

Display trust seals on your website. Degrees, certifications, and professional affiliations can all be helpful ways to convey a positive, authoritative reputation—and, again, to foster a sense of trust.

Develop an Engaging Online Presence

One more thing: Driven2020 has unique experience working with plastic surgery practices. We take a data-driven, results-oriented approach to digital marketing, and know what it takes to help your practice thrive. We’d love to speak with you about it directly. To begin building your competitive edge on the Internet, reach out to the digital marketing team at Driven2020 right away.

Reach out to the Driven2020 team today to talk about marketing for your plastic surgery practice.