Google Analytics Training: 6 Tips for Analyzing Data

Google Analytics is the ultimate gift from the highest search engine god.

It’s not only essential for navigating Google’s own algorithms, but it will completely change the way you run your business – for the better.

But there are so many features in Google Analytics that it’s nearly impossible to know about them all much less use them unless you’ve graduated from the black-belt level of Google Analytics training.

We’re always looking for new tips and tricks for using Google Analytics not only more efficiently but also more effectively.

So, we put together six of our hidden favorites here.

Here are a few of the things these features will allow you to do:

Understand the monetary value of every site visitor
Create a site optimized for your REAL customers (wherever they are)
Generate the data you need and automate it
…and make more sales!

Have you already set up Google Analytics and are ready for a bit of Google analytics training?

Let’s go.

1. Add Monetary Value to Your Goal Flow

You should already be setting goals in Google Analytics. If you aren’t you’re looking at a bunch of numbers and metrics without any way of engaging in meaningful measurement or comparison.

If you’re already setting goals – excellent. We’ll move on. If not, come back after you’ve learned more about goal setting.

We’ve recently learned that you can assign monetary value to your Goal Flow.

The Goal Flow report demonstrates where your traffic travels to reach you. You can see:

Where users enter your funnel
What unexpected visits occur in the middle of the funnel
Where traffic may loop back
If one segment has different behavior compared to other segments

With a bit of Google Analytics training, reading the report is straightforward. You’ll see where your traffic comes from (directly, through Google, via social, etc.) and where they go once they’re on your site.

You’re tracing the customer journey from discovery to arrival to (hopefully) conversion or exit.

So, why assign monetary value?

Monetary value allows you to see how much you’re losing whenever a lead exits your funnel before conversion.

How to Set It Up

Set-up is straightforward.

Head to the Admin section and click on “Goals”. Click the Goal Flow option in your list, and when you click on it you’ll see an optional place to enter “Value”.

Enter the worth of an individual lead in this box; we can’t tell you what that is, it’s highly individual to your company or product.

What You’ll Learn

By turning on this feature, you’ll start to see precisely how much money you lose every time a lead exits your funnel. It’ll also prompt you to start asking questions about optimization, adding navigation to re-direct customers back to the funnel or re-consider issues that may be harming conversions.

2. Collecting Data with Google Tag Manager

Even with Google Analytics training, most of us may still take the data available to us for granted and at face value.

But thanks to Google’s relentless pursuit for generating and measuring more data, there’s no reason to take big chunks of data for granted because now, we have tags.

Tags are tiny strings of code found in the web page. They allow for more analysis, reporting, and 3rd-party tracking. But you can also use them for conversion tracking, advanced customer insight services, and remarketing.

Ultimately, adding tags allows you to better optimize your site without calling a developer and worrying about a rebuild.

Why Tag Manager?

Tag Manager automatically adds tags to your site. It’s a simple solution that takes care of tagging from within Google Analytics rather than forcing you to return to your source files.

Essentially, it’s making it easier to not only add tags to your site from one place, but it’s also easier to get more and more significant data from the tags.

To Set Up

Google provides simple instructions for setting up Google Tag Manager over in their Google Analytics training section:

Head to tagmanager.google.com
Create a container for the site
Add the container snippet
Migrate tags from your source code over (if applicable)

3. Think About Long-Term Statistics

The default Google Analytics setting displays results from the previous 30 days. Too many marketers leave that setting there to see what recent changes have made a difference.

It’s easy (and fun) to get excited about huge spikes in traffic because it means your strategy is working.

But you also need to look at data across 3 to 6 months and even as far out as a year.

By extending your results, you’ll be able to see larger trends. More importantly, you’ll see what pages are seeing the most traffic overall.

Why Long-Term Statistics?

It’s easy to get caught up in weekly and monthly strategies. After all, the internet changes remarkably fast, and you’ve got to keep up.

But those strategies also need to be part of long-term growth patterns across your content, digital marketing, and your business as a whole.

Hitting publish and expecting to blow up in a few months is risky. More importantly, if you do achieve monumental growth, you want to be able to sustain it by keeping your website up longer than your competition.

You can’t do this if you don’t have long-term data.

So, even if it’s painful and the numbers aren’t as exciting, it is important.

4. Automate Automate Automate with Google Analytics Add-On for Sheets

You’re more likely to engage with your data if you didn’t go through the long slog of accessing it.

And if you’ve ever been in charge of generating those reports, you know it can take up a full day of your time. No amount of Google Analytics training can take the sting out of trudging through all that data.

But how do you fix this? You have to be sure that you’ve got the right date ranges, segments, metrics, and that you’re even on the right profile.

It’s possible to fix. In fact, it’s easy and one of our favorite Google Analytics training hacks. How?

Well, you can schedule reports in Analytics.

Or you could also let it leave your mind entirely with the Google Analytics Add-On for Sheets extension.

The add-on pulls data directly from Google Analytics into Google Sheets. More importantly, you’ll never have to log on to Google Analytics API to do it.

Simply configure the settings to include the accurate data and run the report.

It’s automagic!

All you need to do is update your date ranges at the beginning of the month and the extension collects all the data you need.

5. Check Out Your Audience Locations

You know where they’re coming from, but do you know where they live?

You might be surprised to find out you’ve got an impressive size audience in Japan, and you never knew it.

How to Track Locations

Grabbing audience location data is simple.

Head to Audience then Demographics then Location.

You’ll see a map of your visitors as well as the percentage who come from specific countries. Darker green means you’re getting a more significant set of visitors.

Why Does It Matter?

If you don’t know where your traffic lives, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to capitalize on this traffic.

Why create a marketing strategy solely targeted towards the U.S. if half your traffic comes from the UK or Canada?

Use the data to create ads or full marketing campaigns to convert more of these overseas visitors.

6. Grab Web Browser Data

Web browser data is currently available, but it’s not often used. However, it’s a good time to get acquainted with it. And using it could give you an extra edge in conversions.

Yes. Knowing who’s arriving on Internet Explorer could make you more money.

Google Analytics provides the following data:

Web browser (& version number)
Flash/Java version
Operating system
Screen resolution

How to Use Browser Data

Why do you care who uses Internet Explorer, Safari, Chrome (unless you’re judging them)?

Because HTML5 is not yet at a point where we’ve got a fully unified web. Your website may not support older or even recent versions of some browsers.

Read: Your website may prevent people with certain browsers from even hitting your home page.

Your data may reveal that people using certain browsers or browser versions have unified experiences on your site. For example, Internet Explorers may bail after only three seconds, which may be caused by loading time or a bug in the layout.

Understanding where customers come from provides an incentive to look into how your website appears to people running different systems.

Optimizing it for your customers ensures they navigate it easily and avoids those bugs that may kick them out of the funnel prematurely.

Google Analytics Training – Never Stop Learning

The key takeaway from any form of Google Analytics training is to never stop learning about your customer or about the advancements in analytics.

It’s not enough to drive traffic to your site, you need to know everything you can about them to increase your chances of keeping them in the funnel.

Learning more about how analytics (and Google Analytics training) keeps you ahead of the game and on top of your customers.

At Digital Neighbor, we live and breathe Google. Let us know how we can help you make the most of your digital strategy.

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Here’s how to find the right SEO Expert For Your Business

Digital Neighbor Finding the Right SEO Export Tampa

It might seem like SEO experts are practically growing on trees, however, there’s a big difference between hiring some guy that says he can do SEO and partnering with an SEO expert.

Consider Your SEO Options

When it comes to SEO, there’s a lot of information freely available on the web. Many individuals have taken the time to learn some of this content and others have been studying it for years and implementing best practices. Who you need for your business will depend on what you need done.

DIY?

If you have an aptitude for computers and marketing, you may consider doing your own SEO. As previously mentioned, there are a lot of great sites out there sharing valuable information regarding SEO best practices. It’s important to note, however—and many of the sites do—that SEO is not a science. Google, Bing, Yahoo!, and other search engines hold their algorithm cards close to their chests. While Google is happy to share some pointers and tell people what not to do, they won’t be spilling all their secrets any time soon. If you aren’t up to the task of the trial and error that is teaching oneself SEO, then you may want to consider hiring a freelancer, a consultant, or a digital marketing agency.

Freelancer?

Outsourcing has been a great way to reduce costs for businesses. Hiring freelancers can make it easier to manage overhead. The gig economy has exploded over the past decade thanks to how easy the Internet has made hiring a freelancer. Freelancers, however, run the gamut from highly skilled to trying to pass. Differentiating between the two can be difficult. You’ll need to ascertain the freelancer’s skill level, ask for examples of previous work, and question their methods. If you can find a freelancer that has the skill set you need, that’s great! If, however, you need more assistance than someone working remotely can provide you, you may consider a solo consultant or an agency.

Solo Consultant or Agency?

An SEO consultant can help audit your site and let you know about how you can improve your SEO. They may or may not implement those solutions. An SEO agency, on the other hand, is able to not only run an audit on your site but also able to help implement any solutions and even run PPC campaigns to help point more traffic to your site. Consultants can help you understand what’s going on with the current iteration of your site and some may be willing to fix any issues they find. Often, however, the expectation is that a consultant will come in and point at your problems and that you will then have your own team fix them. An SEO agency removes this burden and can be especially beneficial for smaller businesses that don’t have anyone on staff to take care of their website and online marketing. In addition, some SEO agencies offer consulting and training services to help you bolster your team’s knowledge and keep them up to date on the latest SEO practices and analytics.

Ask the Right Questions

Once you understand what type of help you are looking for, it’s important to meet with potential candidates to get a grasp on how they work and what they can do for you.

You’ll want to inquire about what type of businesses and websites they’ve worked with, how they’ve helped past clients, and how they measure success. Some agencies require a minimum engagement time and will need additional information from you in terms of an initial interview or survey. Understanding what will be expected of you can help you plan accordingly once you make a hiring decision.

For an agency, you’ll want to know who your main point of contact will be and how often you can expect communication.

Communicate Your Goals

It’s important that any SEO you choose understands your goals. Whether you are seeking to reach a larger audience, improve your page rank, or update your site infrastructure, sharing your goals helps set you up for success. Once your SEO partner understands what you are looking for, they can share their experience and give you better estimates regarding how long it may take to see an ROI. An honest SEO will help you understand how their methods can help you reach your goals and provide a clear picture of what they’ll be doing to get you there. While most of us want everything to have been completed yesterday, a skilled SEO expert will provide you with a more accurate timeline so you can manage your expectations. SEO is part of a long game. If someone tells you they can increase your organic page rank immediately, they are no expert.

Speak With Your Neighbor

You’re the expert on your business. When you need an SEO, make sure you seek an expert. Partnering with the right SEO can help you propel your business forward. At Digital Neighbor, we believe that every business deserves a digital marketing strategy that is crafted to meet their goals. That’s why we offer both agency and digital consulting services to businesses in the Tampa area. Whether you need a little help or want to outsource your digital marketing, we’re here to lend a hand. If you’re ready to learn more about what Digital Neighbor can do for your business, contact us today.

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10 Reasons to Hire a Digital Marketing Agency Right Now

Well, you’ve finally decided to leverage online tools to grow your business, right?

But, looking at your shortlisted marketing options, you’ve got SEO, email, PPC, social media, blogging among other options. Something is amiss; you just don’t know where to get started.

That’s normal.

You see, digital marketing is an all-encompassing term representing different online methods of marketing and growing your business. So, it can be somewhat complicated to launch a robust or large-scale campaign if your company lacks the resources, time, and expertise for such an undertaking.

For that reason, it makes sense to work with a digital marketing agency. In this post, we’re going to explore some of the reasons for working with one.

Let’s get right into it and find out why you should hire a digital marketing agency.

1. Focus On Running Your Business

In most cases, online marketing means hiring new talents outright to run the campaigns. Plus, it will need some of your attention since you’ll be working with an in-house team. Don’t forget that it will also take resources and time to just set up the team and the campaign itself.

This can be quite time-consuming, and an agency can come in handy to lift this burden off your shoulder. You don’t want to spend months training your team. That time can otherwise be used for growing your business from the inside.

With an agency, you simply need to share your goals and their timeframe.

There is no training, onboarding or managing another team. All the elements of your online marketing are handled internally by the agency’s team. This frees you up to run your business better.

2. You Cut Down the Overall Costs

When deliberating over hiring a digital marketing agency, many businesses usually compare the cost of an in-house operation to the price of the agency. You’ll be surprised to learn that an agency is much less costly over time.

Agencies work as independent contractors, so you eliminate the need for payroll taxes. You also cut the recurring costs of having full-time employees such as benefits, health care costs, and salaries.

Some of the tools you need to run the campaigns can also come at a hefty one-time payment or subscriptions. Most reputable agencies already have the essential digital marketing tools, so you won’t need to spend a dime to get one.

3. Work with Experts a hire Digital Marketing Agency

For most small businesses, you just can’t hire a digital marketing agency or consultatns on the onset of your campaign. This is something that takes time and thorough consideration. Plus, it can be time-consuming for your team to understand all online marketing techniques, such as SEO strategies and social media marketing.

Instead, you can get access to a team of experienced and qualified experts by working with a digital marketing agency. Some big companies are paying the top buck just to hire and retain top talent. This means that the cost of hiring such experts can be quite high.

The benefit here is that these experts have worked on similar projects in the past. So, you don’t expect to cough up for costly services to leverage their expertise.

4. Stay Relevant to Your Industry

At this point, you must understand that research is important before launching any campaign. You need to learn amount your industry well, your competitors and the latest marketing practices in your segment.

The onus of industry-relevant marketing practices is in the agency. They’re tasked to research on your market and identify your competition. Plus, they follow the latest developments in digital marketing to ensure quantifiable results.

They also identify and research your target audience to learn and understand their behavior, preferences, and interests. This is to ensure the adopted marketing strategies yield the maximum results possible and to keep your business abreast of relevant developments.

5. You Can Get New Ideas

In digital marketing, it’s important to note that not all things will work for you. Some can offer disappointing results while others can be quite useful.

A good agency will give you great ideas on what techniques will give you results. They’ll provide a new perspective to some of the things that your team had already been doing. They will assess your marketing efforts and created new ideas based on the viewpoint of the consumers.

For example, when it comes to social media marketing, a digital marketing agency will help you know where your target audience is mostly available. They’ll determine what content appeal to the most and how they share and consume it. This will help to streamline your social media campaigns.

6. It’s a Scalable Service

One thing that makes a digital marketing agency your best bet for online growth is their scalability.

In a normal setting, you’ll need to increase the size of your team whenever your business needs grow, or you want to launch something news. This means that your business will need additional resources to support and fuel the growth.

With a marketing agency, that’s not the case. There will be no constraints on your current team and no need to expand your team.

A good company usually accommodates your needs as your business grows. They offer several plans and packages that best suit your business size.

Ideally, having a scalable and flexible agency is important, especially when you’re targeting a new market.

7. They Offer Measurable Results

No business wants to make investments that bring no results.

With so many marketing methods in digital marketing landscape, it can be difficult to know the real ROI. However, an agency helps by determining the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). These indicators help to figure out how your marketing campaigns are performing in relation to your objectives.

Also, they will identify the important metrics to follow across different channels to determine the effectiveness of each campaign. You’ll also get monthly or quarterly reports on your campaigns and a website audit to help you make sound marketing decisions.

Typically, a digital marketing agency offers clear insights into how your keywords are performing and how potential customers are engaging with your content and brand.

8. They Have the Tools

Let’s face it. Digital marketing requires the use of different tools to streamline each campaign. Unfortunately, there is nothing akin to a one-tool-for-all when it comes to marketing.

Most of these tools are premium services, and the costs increase with the addition of certain features or an upgrade. You will need analytics, keyword research, competitor analysis, paid search management, and automation tools.

The cumulative cost of using these online marketing tools can be quite hefty for small and mid-size businesses. Digital marketing services already have these tools in place to help you make the most of your campaigns. You don’t need to worry about the recurring costs that you’re likely to incur with their use.

9. You Get Professionalism for Your Native Ads

With the growth of native advertising, marketers are spending time and resources to learn more about it. The ability to display organic ads on various media platforms changes how customers interact with content.

Unfortunately, knowing where to show your native ads can be an arduous process. As such, your benefit can benefit from data-driven solutions offered by a digital marketing agency to determine the best placement and content distribution plan.

Native advertising offers a natural and organic way to display ads. When done right, it can provide a robust experience to boost your ROI.

10. Enjoy the Power of Storytelling

Your in-house marketing team works tirelessly to promote your products and services. This helps you to know what to improve and what to eliminate to make the product as attractive and viable as possible.

While all these happens, your digital marketing agency is busy defining and spreading your brand’s message across different channels and platforms. They help to generate positive PR about your products and services. This contributes to improving your visibility and image.

Ideally, story telling involves creating compelling and engaging messages that connect and resonate with the target audience. Your agency achieves this by understanding your audience’s needs and pairing them up with the right solutions.

Choosing the Right Agency

Before you wander off in search for a marketing company to work with, you may want to hold your brakes first. There’s a good number of businesses out there, but not all of them will offer what they claim.

Digital marketing is a slow and continuous process, so choose the right firm. Run away from those companies that promise instant or quick results. Determine the main limitations and specialties of a firm before making your decision.

Let them tell you the primary industries they cover, and they must share with you some of the tools and techniques they use. If necessary, you can ask for reports of their past and current projects to examine their performance.

Also, determine the online performances of the agency’s web properties. Their ranking on search engines helps to reinforce your relationship with them. Don’t forget to confirm their experience in the industry.

Grow Your Business With a Digital Marketing Agency

One fact is that digital marketing has the power to grow your business fast than most marketing techniques.

Hiring a digital marketing agency allows you to get started with your campaigns almost immediately. You don’t need to navigate the learning curve or set up a team. It’s possible to see your campaigns live within weeks after creating a strategy.

Start by first understanding your needs and sharing them with the agency. Digital campaigns work best if all parties are on the same page. Plus, your agency should enjoy the freedom of making decisions that best suit your interests and budget plan.

Do you have any question on digital marketing? Feel free to reach out to us.

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SEO vs PPC: See How They Can Work Together on Your Website

Just because you have a website doesn’t mean people will find it. That’s because right now, there are over 1 billion websites out there. That’s a lot of competition.

But that doesn’t mean you should throw in the towel. It just means you have to make sure that you have the right tools to help get your website noticed.

In the past, it was always SEO vs PPC. You chose one or the other. But now we’re pairing those enemies together on the same team because when they work together, they can pack a powerful punch to help your website get noticed. Here’s how.

SEO vs PPC – What’s the Difference?

SEO or search engine optimization is the process of gathering traffic on the web using natural or organic methods. Basically, if you use SEO yourself, it’s free. It’s all about using the right keywords, links, and making it easy for search engines and customers to find and use your site.

While it sounds easy and hey, who doesn’t love the word “free,” SEO done properly is a bit more complicated and takes some time to learn the basics and perfect.

PPC or pay-per-click is what it sounds like. You’re paying search engines to increase the traffic being sent to your website. This works by placing an ad on their sites to increase visibility. When done correctly, pay-per-click can lead to a lot of traffic and business, making the fees small in comparison.

Why It Shouldn’t be SEO vs PPC Any Longer

With so much competition these days, it makes sense to no longer think of SEO vs PPC but rather SEO and PPC as team players because the more traffic you receive, the better chance your business has of being successful.

It’s no longer enough to just rely on one method, but rather, to incorporate as many methods into your marketing strategy as possible. What’s exciting is that there are many ways in which SEO and PPC actually compliment one another. Let’s take a look how.

Why PPC’s Keyword Data Is Instrumental for Great Success with SEO

If you’re just relying on SEO to figure out what your keywords are, you might be leaving a lot of money on the table. The problem started when Google removed keyword level data in its analytics. All of a sudden, no one knew which organic keywords were working and which weren’t.

Which is why SEO vs PPC no longer works. You need PPC to be able to view which keywords are driving the most revenue to your site. You can also use PPC to target keywords that aren’t ranking organically…yet.

Also, if you pause your PPC in order to use those same keywords organically, approximately 89% of the traffic generated from PPC won’t be replaced organically. Using them in tandem just ensures you’re going to get plenty of traffic from both sources.

SEO vs PPC Works Against You When Engaging with Search Engines

Search engines can be both a blessing and a major frustration for business owners. On the one hand, you need search engines to help your customers find you. Other the other hand, they keep changing their rules and it’s difficult to keep up with them.

Which is why it makes sense to use keywords both organically and as a pay-per-click option. But why would you want to pay for something you’re already getting for free?

If you use the same keyword with a bid that’s high enough, it will only mean your ad is sure to appear near the top of the page when a potential customer searches for that keyword.

Since about 91% of people searching won’t venture to page 2 on a search engine site and approximately 50% won’t venture towards page 3, you want to do everything you possibly can to ensure your site comes up at the top of the first page of search engine results each and every time.

Using PPC and SEO together merely doubly ensures your keywords are working 100% of the time.

PPC Helps Reconnect You with Previous Shoppers

Not everyone who finds your site online makes a purchase that same day. Sometimes, people start shopping, place items in their cart and then mysteriously disappear.

If you choose to use an SEO v PPC approach, there’s little to nothing you can do to entice those potential leads to come back. We all know that out of sight often means out of mind. Which means you’ve lost out on business.

However, when you use PPC in tandem with SEO, there are opportunities to reach those customers and convert them into shoppers. With PPC you can purchase an ad from a website in Google’s network.

The ad will actually show those shoppers the exact same items they were thinking of purchasing but had abandoned in their cart. It allows you a great way to send an easy reminder for them to continue shopping on your site.

More Data Means More Information and Smarter Decisions

When you’re doing business online, it’s much more difficult to figure out what your customer is thinking. You can’t see them, which means you can’t engage with them face to face.

At a brick-and-mortar business, if you saw a customer becoming upset, you could approach them and ask them directly what was wrong. Now, you may not even realize a customer had a bad experience, you’ll just never hear from them again.

Also, because you’ll never see or meet them, it’s more difficult to ascertain and understand their shopping behaviors. However, when you no longer are adopting the old SEO vs PPC approach, there are plenty of easy ways to get a ton of helpful information on your customers.

You can gather a ton of data by using both SEO and PPC’s data and comparing them together. Data such as:

Click through rates
Bounce and exit rates
Time spent on site
Conversion rates

When you compare both sets of analytics together, you’ll have a much more accurate idea of what is working on your site and what isn’t. Which allows you to make smarter decisions regarding your business.

Since the results from your SEO campaigns take time to start generating statistics, it’s extremely helpful to utilize the instantaneous information that your PPC campaign will generate for you.

E-Commerce, SEO, and PPC

Most e-commerce sites are set up using SEO strategies. If you have a product to sell, you have to find the right keywords that will attract a customer to your site and entice them enough to buy the product.

However, Google now allows you to link specific product pages to PPC ads. What’s even more amazing is that the PPC ad will not only feature the product but often it allows the products reviews to be posted as well.

As if that’s not awesome enough, it also takes the customer directly to the product page meaning you’re more than likely to end up with the customer making an immediate purchase. Staying with the old SEO vs PPC model won’t allow you to take advantage of this amazing opportunity.

Fight Negative Reviews

If you’re lucky, you have set up a great company that sells fabulous products and provides amazing customer service. But even when you do that, more than likely you’ll get some negative feedback.

If you stick with an SEO vs PPC approach, you only have one option in combatting negative feedback. Since people put a lot of faith in online reviews, you want to ensure you have every opportunity to do damage control when, and if, that happens.

If you’re smart enough to control both SEO and PPC then you have an opportunity to control your company’s visibility. Using PPC will actually allow you to control the conversation in the direction you want it to go.

Remember the Gulf oil spill? Everyone was horrified and angry at BP. If BP had relied solely on SEO, then they would have had little control in how their company was viewed.

Instead, they wisely invested in an SEO and PPC approach by linking the keywords “oil spill” to a page on their website that talked about their efforts to clean up the mess.

By ignoring the SEO vs PPC approach commonly used at the time, they helped control the conversation rather than allowing the court of public opinion to dictate their company’s future.

Social Media Visibility

Every company with a website also needs to be on social media. Your social media strategy should never just take an SEO vs PPC approach.

That’s because it’s now incredibly easy to use social media to find specific groups of people whom you feel are most likely to want and use your products and services.

Even better, the data that social media PPC offers can help you discover even more details about your customers. The more you know and understand your customers, the greater ability you’ll have to refine your SEO strategy.

Benefits of a Digital Strategy

Without a SEO Agency, you’re really just throwing money out the window. Throwing out the old SEO vs PPC approach is just the beginning.

Hiring the right team of marketing professionals will help you save time, money, and a lot of frustration. Contact us to see how we can help you develop a great digital strategy.

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The Advantages of WordPress

Digital Neighbor Advantages of WordPress Tampa Web Design

WordPress is a free content management system (CMS) that allows you to create a beautiful website that truly represents your business.

At Digital Neighbor, we appreciate the versatility and ease of use that the WordPress platform provides. It’s a great solution for many businesses as it can be used for everything from e-commerce sites to portfolios or professional websites. In fact, over a third of websites use WordPress.

Not sure whether you should make the switch? Here’s what you need to know about WordPress, plus 9 advantages of WordPress that truly make it stand out.

What is WordPress?

I mentioned that WordPress is a free content management system, or CMS. But what is that?

Basically, a CMS allows someone with limited tech skills to build a beautiful website. It provides a user-friendly or intuitive interface to make it easy to create and publish content. A CMS is a content management application and a content delivery application combined. There’s no reason to learn HTML or CSS; a CMS has this coding built-in.

WordPress came about in 2003 as a way to make it easy for people to create websites and blogs. Over time, it’s evolved and grown, and its popularity continues to grow as well. So why should you create a WordPress site? Let’s dive into the 9 advantages of WordPress over other CMSs.

9 Advantages of WordPress

It’s Free

Had to start with the big one. One of the reasons that WordPress is so popular is that there is little barrier to entry. You can start off with a free website hosted by them, or you can pay for your own hosting. You don’t have to buy an expensive theme to customize your site; there are plenty of free ones available.

It’s Easy To Use

All of the advantages of WordPress wouldn’t mean much if they were hard to use. Even if you’re not a tech expert, WordPress makes building a site simple. At its most basic, WordPress allows you to choose a theme and then start uploading content such as images, copy, and blog posts.

You Can Edit Your Site From Anywhere

WordPress sites can be edited from anywhere. You can write a blog post from your phone while waiting for appetizers and run updates from your home computer. You and your team can log in from any computer to make changes to your site.

No Need for Additional Software

Life before WordPress meant using HTML editing software and FTPs to code your site and upload content. These programs lived on a specific computer, which limited where you could work on your website. With WordPress, everything is online. You don’t have to install anything onto your computer. Even when you want to change up themes or plug-ins, they all live online.

It’s Customizable

Your business is unique, and your website should be too. Thanks to different themes (both free and premium), your WordPress site can help capture your brand and share it with the world.

WordPress developers have created themes to showcase images, products, services, and more. Some are meant to be online magazines, others function as online curriculum vitae. With numerous developers constantly creating new themes, there’s bound to be one that resonates with you.

In addition to the various themes which can craft the layout of your site, WordPress allows developers to create plugins. These plugins can help you ensure you are using good SEO practices, make it easy to tweet your latest blog posts, or help you build a custom contact form. Plugins can help you unify the different services you use to reach your target audience.

Mobile Responsiveness

Most of us look up sites on our smartphones when we’re out. We expect a site to load quickly and to look good on the smaller screen. Chances are you’ve come across a website that wasn’t easy to navigate on your smartphone screen. When that happens, we are likely to leave the site and look elsewhere.

This is a big problem for businesses, however, because mobile search is continuing to grow, and potential clients expect to be able to navigate websites on their phones and tablets.

Many WordPress themes are mobile responsive, meaning they change how a page is displayed depending on where it is being accessed. This makes it easier for mobile users to clearly read your site and get the information they need. Yes, you can make a custom website and have it be mobile responsive, but it will cost you a lot more than a WordPress site.

Scalable

It’s very easy to add pages to your site as you increase services or to publish to your blog more frequently. You can edit your menus to make your info easier to find, even as you grow your site. Want to add an e-commerce component? Check out Woo-Commerce. With so many plug-ins and widgets available, you can build out your site to meet your needs.

Easy to Optimize

SEO plug-ins make WordPress easy to optimize. With tools like Rank Math and Yoast, you can check whether your pages and posts meet SEO best practices. You can see how many times you are using your keyword, whether you have internal and external links, if you’ve used appropriate headings, and more.

Multiple Users

No need for multiple installs. With WordPress, you can have multiple users accessing your site so your team can make changes or upload new content. You can restrict what users can do so you can protect your website, too.

Need a New WordPress Website?

Your website is a vital part of your online presence. Make sure it represents you and your brand. Whether you’re in the market for a new website or considering revamping your current site, consider trying to WordPress.

If you’d like to learn more about how a WordPress-based website can help you better communicate with your target audience, drop us a line. We’d love to discuss how our experience with WordPress has allowed us to craft custom solutions for our neighbors. We work with our neighbors to determine their needs and offer everything from design and copywriting services to SEO.

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The Importance of Fresh Content for SEO

Trying to pinpoint which aspects of a search engine’s algorithm are most important for increasing page rank is no easy task. The internet is constantly evolving and search engines have a lot to do with that.

The goal of a search engine is to provide users with links to the best possible information that matches their search query. To maintain their relevancy, search engines must continually alter how they determine factors like relevancy and usefulness. One concept that has gotten some recent airtime is the notion of “freshness”. (Why? Well because Google has patents on it.)

What is Fresh Content?

Fresh content is new or updated content. Pretty simple, right? However, determining how exactly a company like Google determines whether a page is fresh enough is another story. Creating new content and new pages is one of the easiest ways to ensure your site is viewed as fresh.

When is Fresh Content Necessary?

Not every site needs fresh content, though most will benefit from incorporating new content. Sites that provide information about current events necessitate fresh content. Without it, those “current” events go stale. Similarly, sites that provide services and products can be helped by providing their visitors with industry relevant information or service specific information on a regular basis. (Kind of like what we’re doing here.)

The internet is a treasure trove of content. There are plenty of pages that have not been refreshed for years and have maintained their dominance on the search engine results page. In most of these cases, those pages are considered authority sites. As long as the domain names remain active, they will likely maintain their dominance until someone else provides better, more relevant information that searchers prefer. For example, a Wikipedia page on a historical event may continue to be the first search result despite your latest entry on the Gettysburg Address. Why? Because searchers have clicked on that Wikipedia page repeatedly and have stayed on the page (yes, Google tracks that, too) and engaged with it.

Keeping Your Page Fresh

You don’t need to post new content daily to keep your website “fresh”—unless you’re a news site like CNN. One way to add new content regularly is to maintain a blog. Every blog post generates a page on your site, which is a measure of freshness. Posting twice a month can help you engage more with your audience and add valuable information to your website.

Link building, which is a popular SEO tactic, also helps signify freshness. Essentially, a search engine will recognize increased links as a sign of relevancy. Now, this doesn’t mean you should get involved in some black hat link-building scheme. Rather, make sure you are asking for a link when you provide quotes for an article or do a guest blog post. If you’ve presented at an industry conference, ask them to link back to your site. These links are invaluable and can help increase your pageviews.

Ensure your site is user-friendly. Make sure navigation is easy and that potential visitors can easily find what they need. Point them to similar content on your site so they can make informed decisions and further engage with your site. The longer someone stays on your website, the better! Both in terms of sales and your freshness rating.

Need a Helping Hand? Consult with a Digital Marketing Agency!

Fresh content isn’t just about words on a page. It also deals with your layout, images, videos, etc. A commitment to providing a user-friendly experience can help you ensure your content remains fresh. Revisiting older pages and revamping them as necessary can lend a much-needed boost and provide your visitors with the information they need to set up an appointment or make a purchase.

If your website is in need of freshening up, have no fear. Digital Neighbor can help! At Digital Neighbor, we focus on creating eye-catching websites that garner pageviews. We create unique content that your target audience wants and ensure that your site is not only optimized for search engines but is also fresh. Contact us today to learn more.

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5 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Site

Who doesn’t want more exposure? Driving traffic to your website is a great way to increase your visibility, generate leads, and to increase sales. While there’s no magical formula, there are plenty of ways to increase pageviews among your target audience. With time and dedication, you can generate more traffic consistently and begin to capitalize on your increased pageviews.

Increase Pages and Content

To improve your organic search rankings, consider how many pages you have and the kind of content you’re producing. Knowing which keywords you can rank for locally or nationally can help you evaluate what kind of content to create. For example, if you’re running a dog grooming business in Tampa, you’ll likely have pages with keywords such as “Tampa dog grooming” and “Hillsborough County dog grooming.” But let’s say you’re the only dog groomer in town that uses organic products. Chances are, no one is ranking in your area for “Tampa organic dog groomer”. This is a prime opportunity to organically rank for that keyword. Not only should you create an informative page that details your methods, but you can also help potential customers understand what makes you stand apart from other dog groomers in a series of blog posts about organic dog grooming. This unique and useful content adds value for your customer and it helps you get your message heard—that’s win-win.

In addition, creating pages and content around long-tail keywords provides an easy way to rank and build a customer base. While these keywords don’t see as much search volume, they still provide the opportunity for quality pageviews. Not sure how to capitalize on (or even find) long-tail keywords relevant to your industry? Work with a Tampa digital marketing agency! A skilled digital marketer can identify keywords for you and build out your site to make sure no digital stone is left unturned.

Revamp and Refresh Content

If your content is going stale, Google will notice. Taking the time to revamp and refresh pages that aren’t ranking well can help improve your visibility. Make sure that all your information is up-to-date and consider setting up a schedule for updating your pages. For example, if you know business is always slow in January, why not update your “About Us” page every year around that time? It will give you an opportunity to share any new awards your business has won or to spruce up your service descriptions.

SEO

Search engine optimization isn’t about keyword stuffing, it’s about creating content users want to see and that adds value to their lives. While keywords are important because they tell readers (and search engines) what the page is about, having unique content that tells potential clients and customers about what you do and the services or products that you offer is essential.

While some of the other items we’ve mentioned in this post also fall under the SEO umbrella, there are some behind-the-scenes things like utilizing meta descriptions and title tags, properly tagging your images, and creating a mobile-friendly site that can boost your SEO standings. Because Google and other search engines want to ensure that they point their users to the most useful and relevant pages for each search query, making your website user-friendly goes a long way towards proper optimization. That means ensuring you’ve optimized your visitor experience. Few people have the patience to wait for a slow website to load. Make sure your images or host aren’t slowing you down.

PPC

If you’re looking for a traffic boost, a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign can help point searchers in your direction. By bidding on relevant keywords, you can better help your target audience find you when they need your services or products. A good campaign requires keyword research as well as a bit of copywriting magic. PPC also allows you to limit how much you spend on advertising a day, which helps you budget your marketing dollars. When you partner with a digital marketing agency that has PPC expertise, you gain a partner committed to finding out the best PPC methods for your particular business and budget.

Social Media Advertising

With over a billion people on Facebook, ignoring social media is a mistake. That doesn’t mean you need to be on every platform, however, you should be where your target audience is. If they’re tweeps, make sure you’re @ing and tweeting along. If they’re pinners, start a board and promote your pins. And it’s almost guaranteed that some, if not most, of your audience is also hanging around Facebook for about an hour a day.

Facebook makes advertising easy. They want to show people ads they will want to click. You can easily create an effective campaign by targeting the right demographics and presenting a relevant product or service in a creative or engaging way. That might seem like they’re asking for a lot, however, a reputable Tampa digital marketing agency can help you craft a campaign that attracts the eye (and the clicks) of your target audience.

Drive Traffic with Digital Neighbor

When you’re only seeing a trickle of traffic, it can seem like a monumental task to increase pageviews. Thankfully, you don’t have to do it alone. Digital Neighbor is here to help. At Digital Neighbor, we know you’re the expert on your business and that your time is often best spent running your company or working with your clients. Rather than attempting to learn Google Analytics, let us do it for you!

Digital Neighbor can help you revamp your website, run a PPC campaign, optimize your website, and more! If you’re ready to investigate how you can increase your web traffic, contact Digital Neighbor today to schedule a consultation.

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Leearn Why SEO Still Matters Today

There are numerous ways to boost your business visibility both online and offline. When you’re divvying up your marketing dollars, you may be tempted to push more towards techniques with a faster turnaround time like pay-per-click advertising and to ignore the more infrastructure-related search engine optimization (SEO). However, the utility and importance of the search engine aren’t going away anytime soon. Ignoring SEO is a huge risk that business can’t afford to make. Why? Because SEO still matters.

People Continue to Search

The biggest reason why SEO still matters is that search has become an indispensable tool. Search engines remain popular and not just for finding out obscure facts. Search capabilities allow individuals to locate the nearest Indian restaurant, the best green cleaner, or a reputable nursing home. Local search is increasingly important for service providers thanks to the domination of the smartphone. Google and other search engines have made themselves into invaluable tools for consumers—and businesses. Listing your business with Google is a must—as is maintaining an active web presence.

The Algorithms are Frequently Altered

No one gets to the top of their game by standing in place, and no search engine comes to dominate the market without constantly improving its search algorithm. Google is well known for consistent updates to ensure they serve users with the most appropriate results. That means businesses intent on maintaining good standing in search results need to keep up, too. Now, Google’s algorithms are understandably secret, however, they do clue in SEO experts and webmasters on some of the things that help determine page rank.

For a site to show up during a Google search, it must be relevant to search users, meaning it should contain useful information that the user wants to find. It should feature healthy internal and external links to authority sites and have the appropriate metadata. Basically, it needs to appeal not only to human metrics of readability and usefulness but to a search crawler, too. This doesn’t happen on its own. It’s part of a process of content creation and continual optimization.

(We’re focusing a lot on Google here for a reason—they are still the number one search engine and the number one PPC platform. While Bing and Yahoo! still own a chunk of the market, the things that will get you a good ranking in Google will also likely get you ranked well on Bing and Yahoo!)

Often Results in Higher Quality Leads

People who are searching for your optimized keywords are already interested. That’s part of the appeal of inbound marketing. By focusing on offering useful, relevant information around the keywords your target audience is likely to use, you can help them find you more easily. How do you get those keywords? There are various tools you or a local Tampa SEO company might use to locate which keywords are being used to find your site, what keywords your competitors are using, and which keywords may be underused. Consulting with a local SEO company can help you discover how you can take advantage of your industry keywords and what possible paths you might take to expand your customer base.

Yes, SEO Still Matters

SEO isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it quick fix to get your company page ranking better. It’s a long-term engagement that can result in a better page rank for your website and a more useful, relevant site for potential customers and clients. While tactics have evolved, SEO remains relevant and necessary, especially for those who rely on the internet to generate business.

If you’re ready to focus on your SEO and create a digital strategy that will help propel your business, Digital Neighbor is ready to lend a hand. With years of experience crafting and running SEO campaigns as part of a customized digital strategy, Digital Neighbor is committed to helping you connect with potential customers and clients online. Ready to learn more? Drop us a line today!

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Find Out Where to Funnel Your Digital Marketing Dollars: PPC vs. Social Media

You’re probably aware that Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising and social media are important components of any digital strategy. Along with a well-developed website that has been properly optimized for search engines, PPC advertising via Google and other search engines can help increase page views and direct your target audience to your site when they most need you (i.e. when they’re searching your keywords).

The PPC game has grown since Google AdWords first disrupted the online advertising scene. In addition to the behemoth search engine, Yahoo! and Bing both operate PPC ad companies, as do social media giants Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. When trying to determine whether or not to run a PPC campaign, it’s important to consider where to feature your ads. Many companies focus on Google and Facebook as a large part of the market uses those two resources.

With the ubiquity of social media, however, many business owners may be questioning whether they should drop PPC in favor of organic social media growth. It’s almost like free ads, right?

Well, not quite.

Pros and Cons of PPC vs. Social Media

PPC is targeted, while social media is not.

With a well-crafted PPC campaign, your ads appear when your chosen keywords are searched for. Using social media to post doesn’t have the same effect. While you can certainly spark awareness of your brand and enter into dialogues with potential or current customers and clients, your messages may not be visible on their timeline when they’re ready for more information.

The life of a social media message is short. Estimates place the lifespan of a tweet around 18 minutes. That means that your highest chance of engagement will be within the first 18 minutes of posting your message. Afterward, it will get pushed further down your followers’ timelines, making it less likely that they’ll see it. While you could post variations of your message every twenty minutes or so, that’s annoying. Not only is it a bit time consuming (even with auto schedulers), but your followers will probably start unfollowing.

Both methods take dedicated time.

To ensure a successful PPC campaign that not only increases page views but that leads to conversions and further interaction with your site, you’ll need to spend time honing your campaign. You’ll need to focus on monetizing the keywords that your target audience is searching for. Even when it appears that your campaigns are operational and drawing traffic, you’ll want to monitor your KPIs and ensure that it’s the right type of traffic. You’ll likely need to tweak campaigns as you go in order to ensure you’re getting the most for your money.

Social media campaigns are similar. Whether you’re committed to organic social media growth or are planning on promoting your posts and tweets, you’ll need to take a look at what is working and what isn’t. If you’re interested in real-time engagement, you’ll need to set aside dedicated time or delegate the task to someone who can commit to conversing with your followers in a brand appropriate way.

PPC leads to faster results.

Most businesses looking into increasing their pageviews are focused on results. While page views don’t necessarily equal sales, there is generally a positive correlation. PPC has proven itself as a mechanism for increasing page views, though a well-laid out SEO plan is the most effective way to establish your site as an authority page.

Though the effect of social media on page views isn’t clear, it has been shown that customers appreciate the ability to reach out to companies and connect via social media. It allows organizations to provide better customer service and to learn more about their target audience. Because of this, it remains an important part of any digital strategy.

Find Balance for Digital Marketing Success

If you’re thinking of focusing on either PPC or social media, we advise you to consider a more balanced strategy instead. Both PPC and social media have their benefits. By crafting a digital strategy that makes use of the best parts of both, you can increase your chances of success and better invest your time and money.

Researching your target audience and learning about how they prefer to find information and which social media channels they frequent can help you create a balanced plan that takes into account your target audience’s preferences.

At Digital Neighbor, we understand that crafting or revising a digital strategy can be difficult. That’s why we’re glad to offer our neighbors multiple services to fit their needs. From Local SEO to PPC campaign management and digital strategy creation, Digital Neighbor is ready to help you elevate your brand and share your message.

If you’re ready to learn more, contact Digital Neighbor today to discuss your business’s needs.

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Want to learn even more?

Whether you have a simple SEO question or want to have a deep conversation about your digital strategy, we’re all ears. Contact us today for a chat or to learn how we can put our digital marketing expertise to good use for your business.