Google's 100 Most Expensive Keywords: How Geo-targeted Long-tail Keywords Could Be Your Bread Winner

Businesses large and small typically are aware that bidding on the right keywords is the key to a substantial ranking in Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) and in return, increased revenue. However, what are the right keywords for your company and can you even afford them? SEMrush (with the help of Google) was able to determine the top 100 most expensive keywords on Google, and 78% of them were all in the “legal” category. So how can your small legal firm in Fort Lauderdale, Florida rank at all? Since the price of a keyword mostly depends on how often it is searched, if you are a small business owner it can be easier for you to dominate a different variation of that keyword.

For example, one thing that Tandem Interactive focuses on when it comes to keywords is LOCATION, something that we call geo-targeted keywords. A location specific keyword can target your area and allow you to rank highly for your industry in your designated area. According to Google, 73% of online activity is local content. When it comes to geo-targeting, it is best to use long-tail geo-specific keywords in order to rank for your precise location.

Some long-tail geo-specific keyword examples for businesses in Florida are:

Hurricane Shutters Sunrise Florida

SAT Prep Class Boca Raton Florida

Pizza downtown Fort Lauderdale Florida

In order to rank for geo-targeted keywords you have to think like a consumer. Thinking like a consumer is one of the best tactics you can use for nearly any part of your SEO and PPC campaigns. If I live in Florida and I am in downtown Fort Lauderdale after a night of partying and I want pizza, I will most likely search in my phone for “pizza downtown Fort Lauderdale”. Whatever the case may be, I am typically not searching for your company’s name.

Keep in mind that your website will also play a part in your ranking in search results. If your company has a well-established website it will organically rank better. If your website is new you can expect it to be one of the very last results. “Pizza Fort Lauderdale” yields 12.4 million results. So if you are a smaller and newer pizza restaurant and you are located in the heart of downtown it is easier for you to rank for “pizza downtown Fort Lauderdale Florida”, which yields less than 500,000 results instead. You want your keyword to still be something that locals would search, but also specific so that it is easier for you to rank in a category that yields less results.

Once you have searched Google to find which geo-targeted long-tail keywords would be best for your company to rank for, Tandem recommends that you keep an eye on your website’s analytics to see if your geo-targeted words are increasing traffic. If your new keywords are increasing traffic through your PPC campaign, find out where that traffic is coming from and then focus more pages and blog content around those keywords to help your organic rankings.

Check out SEMrush’s One Hundred Most Expensive Keywords on Google:

PPC Checklist You'll Want to Keep Handy

Whether you are a PPC guru or a PPC virgin you will want to keep this awesome PPC checklist handy when duplicating a new campaign by copy and pasting an old one.

Within AdWords Editor you can have a copy-and-paste frenzy. Copy and paste entire campaigns, keywords, negative keywords, locations, and sitelinks…copy and paste all the things!

However, copy and pasting leaves room for several errors. If you are not OCD or you are pressed for time, you may miss a crucial detail that can cost you (or worse your client) money. 

Fortunately, Tandem Interactive’s very own PPC Ninja has laid out a checklist of criterion that must be changed when copy and pasting ad campaigns.

AdWords Editor Check List:

Campaigns & AdGroups

□        Rename the Campaign & Necessary AdGroups

□        If location specific, assess the keywords (CRTL + H to find and replace text)

Keywords and Targeting:

□        Evaluate which negative keywords are not inhibiting the new keywords

□        LOCATION! If your campaigns are location-specific, then make sure that you are targeting the correct area.

Ads and Extensions:

□        Change “Final URLs” – formerly known as “Dest. URLs”

□        If necessary, change the Display URL. Making the Display URL specific to your campaign and AdGroup will allow your quality score to increase even further!

□        Sitelinks will also paste across campaigns in Editor; however, if you directly edit the copied sitelink it will affect the original campaign’s sitelinks as well. If the sitelinks need rewording or a different Final URL, then be sure to delete the pasted ones and create brand new ones that are specific to your new campaign. 

AdWords Check List:

       Once the new campaign is posted, there are a few more areas to double check:

□        Callout Extensions: These will not paste over. You need to manually add callouts to your new campaign.

□        Call Extensions: Don’t forget to manually add the phone number to your ad.

       Other miscellaneous options are as follows:

□        Add the new “Structured Snippet Extensions”

□        If you had Day Parting on your previous campaign, double check whether it suits the new campaign.

□        Double check that the campaign is optimized for mobile devices.

Lastly, set a reminder to double check your new campaign 24 hours after going live to ensure that everything is tracking and performing accordingly!

5 Good Things That Can Come From a Negative Review

Perfect customer service is what every business strives for, but as we all know, perfection is not realistic. So, how can we take negative customer feedback and turn it into a positive? Here are 5 optimistic ways to interpret negative reviews, and why your business should be proactive when it comes to poor feedback.

1. Customers Trust Businesses With Varied Feedback – A lot of the time, customers can become suspicious if a company has only 5-star reviews. On the other hand, if a businesses has more of a variation of reviews, customers are more likely to believe the truth behind all of the feedback.

2. There’s Opportunity to Show You Care – You may have lost a customer for one reason or another, but there is opportunity to gain more when you respond publicly to a negative review. Customers appreciate when a business tackles poor feedback head-on, and attempts to correct a problem with an unhappy consumer.

3.  Try to See the Good in the Bad – When reading reviews, it’s common for potential customers to go straight for the negative to better understand what past customers have been displeased with. If the reasoning behind the negative feedback is something the potential customer feels they can live with, chances are your company is still in the running for their business (especially if they can see you have responded to the negative review and made an effort to correct the problem).

4.  Negative Feedback Can Lure Customers That Are a Better Fit – Just because one customer doesn’t like an aspect of your business, doesn’t mean other customers will dislike it. In fact, a negative review can show a potential customer something they really like about your business.

5. Audit Your Negative Reviews – If you are seeing a distinct pattern in the negative reviews of your business, think of it as a free auditing tool. Your customers are repetitively telling you they don’t like something - so change it!

To learn more about the pros and cons of online reviews and how you can use them to increase the business of your company, contact Tandem Interactive. We are a well-established, trendy online marketing agency specializing in search engine optimization, search engine marketing, PPC, analytics and online reputation management.      

Are You Missing Out on Business From Our Northern Neighbors?

It’s Canada Day, so let’s talk Canadian conversions and your company’s potential for international business. In 2012, The Canadian Internet Use Survey reported that 56% of Canadians used the Internet to make online purchases. Of that 56%, the survey stated that 63% of them ordered from a United States-based company. So, if you think Canadian internet shoppers shouldn’t be a part of your online marketing strategy, you may want to rethink incorporating them as a target.

4 specific industries that benefit from directing online marketing efforts to Canada:

Travel - According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, 23 million Canadians spent a whopping $27.2 billion dollars in 2014, on traveling to and within the United States.

Retail - eMarketer reported that Canadian retail e-commerce sales reached $22.97 billion last year and they are expecting that amount to rise 16.8% this year.

Software and Technology – Much of Canada’s language and culture is parallel with that of the United States. Therefore, U.S.-based software and technology companies that choose to market online to Canada have much to gain from their northern clients.

Machinery – According to U.S. Government statistics, U.S.-based companies exported a combined $124 billion worth of machinery to Canada in 2013. This machinery included automobiles and other vehicles like trackers and heavy machinery.

Before marketing online in Canada, U.S. companies should do their research and pay attention to significant differences in Canadian dialect of English, and the use of measurements. For example, in the U.S. we use the word “color” while Canadians use the word “colour”. We use miles to measure distance and Canadians use kilometres.

5 Ways to Dominate Local SEO

 If you are not optimizing your business locally, chances are you are missing out on exposure while your competition scores customers. As smart phones continue to play a larger role in our mission to search for local businesses, it is less likely that we will be cracking open our Yellow Page directories. With that being said, local search engine optimization should be an important piece of any company’s marketing strategy.

Tandem Interactive has a few tips to get you started:     

1. Get Your Google My Business Page Created and Build it Out - You may think customers don’t run to Google+ for local business information; however, when searching for a specific business or service, this is often what results on a SERP (search engine result page). You want to keep your Google My Business page updated with correct contact information and posts about what is going on in your industry. Also, acquire reviews! These are not easy to come by, but if you can get them - the more visible your company will become.  

2. Create Your NAP and Stick With It - Your Name, Address, and Phone number identify your business and should be as consistent as possible. Each mention (known as a “citation”) on a local directory or website, is a feather in your business’ cap, as long as it is a relevant directory or site.

3. Good or Bad…Respond to Reviews - Consumers respond to both great customer service and businesses that are proactive about negative feedback. If a customer leaves a positive review, thank them for their support. If a customer is unhappy about your services, publicly apologize and try to rectify the issue, it could lead them to gain respect for your company.

4. Be Mobile-Friendly - Again, customers are likely searching for your business on their mobile devices, you don’t want to scare them away with an ill-equipped site.

5. Acquire Local Citations - The more accurate citations you have on other websites and local directories, the better your local search engine rankings will be. Use a local citation finder to optimize your efforts.   

Whoop Whoop! New Changes to AdWords

In the digital marketing industry, marketers understand that our space is always changing. With an awesome partner like Google, the innovation and design made to enhance search results and to help consumers find what they are looking for has endless possibilities.

Those familiar with AdWords knows that Google is always updating their system based on complaints and rolling out new features to help with better reporting – better reports mean better understanding of your demographic, which will allow you to serve better ads and HOPEFULLY result in more sales.

Here is a breakdown and explanation of the new features introduced by Google AdWords in the past 5 weeks.

Dynamic Sitelinks.

If you have seen ‘really long sitelinks’ appearing in your PPC ads that you didn’t create, DON’T PANIC! Dynamic Sitelinks, similar to traditional sitelinks, are pages within your site that you enable to show in addition to your PPC ads. When a search query is performed, Google will match your websites content to the search and link directly to the page. These dynamic sitelinks are not only relevant, but include many more characters than traditional sitelinks – consuming more real estate and therefore improving your chances of clicks and conversions.

You do not need to sign up for Dynamic Sitelinks, Google will automatically enable the feature when their algorithm believes it is a relevant fit.

True View Shopping.

If your company is currently participating in YouTube video ads and are an E-Commerce store get ready for YouTube’s newest roll out. In addition to showing a video ad on YouTube you now have the ability to feature your product as a Product Listing Ad within the video so your customer can purchase!

What this means is if you have a video running on “Best Make Tips for Contouring” by Sephora, Sephora now has the capability to showcase every item they are using in the video with a “Buy It Now” option in the corner.

Wayfair was among several companies that trialed the feature and showed 3x revenue increase per impression compared to their previous campaign; other companies have seen brand lifts as high as +80% and +54% in ad recall.

Enhanced MCC Reporting.

For agencies that manage multiple accounts, or franchises that monitor multiple locations within one MCC, your complaints have been heard! Google AdWords has recently released enhanced MCC Reporting that will allow high-level access and reports for up to 20 accounts.

Some of the formatting that has been enabled in this new reporting system are: columns, segmentation, and filter application. You are also able to make bulk edits to budgets and activating/pausing campaigns.

Keeping Your Website Safe From Malware

If your business depends on its website in any way, keeping it secure should be a top priority. While it sounds like obvious advice, many business owners and webmasters do not take even the simplest of steps to ensure their site’s safety. If this sounds like you, here is your warning!

With a few of Tandem Interactive’s easy tweaks, you can take preventative steps to secure your website:

1.     Logins and passwords. It is really common for websites to have an “Admin” login. Do not be one of these sites! Hackers know this is true, and if they have your login, they have won half the battle. You should also steer clear of logins that are simply your business’ name. When it comes to passwords, avoid using your business’ name or consecutive numbers. Incorporate random words, numbers and symbols.

If your CMS allows it, you should also limit login attempts. This will prevent a hacker from having unlimited “chances” at guessing your login and password combination. And it is also important to protect your login information. Only make logins for those who absolutely need it, and do not give out the information to just anyone who asks.

2.     Update everything. When using a CMS, you may have several plugins, extensions, applications and themes. It is important to keep these updated. When you do not take this precaution, you are pretty much inviting hackers in. Updates repair security issues, so take advantage of the bandages they provide. You should also ensure your website is running on the latest version of your CMS.

Before you install any plugins, extensions or applications, make sure you really need them.  Since they can cause vulnerabilities, you only want to install something if it is really necessary.

3.     Work with those you can trust. When you work with an internet marketing company, web developer, or programmer, make sure you trust them. If you were not referred, ask for former or current clients you can talk to. Your website is an investment that likely cost a lot of time and money; do not give just anyone access to your baby.

The same goes for your hosting provider. It is important to choose a reputable company, because they will have strong security measures in place. And if something does go wrong, you want a company with a responsive and helpful customer service team that will try their best to rectify the problem.

4.     Back it up. Back up your website’s files and database! If you do not do this, and you do not have a web developer, it is likely not happening. This small step can be the difference between your entire site being wiped out or not. Ask your hosting provider about site backups, and keep a recent backup on a local drive just in case.

5.     Monitor your web property. While it is important to check on your site and make sure everything is running smoothly, you need to put in just a bit more effort. That is because malware can be added to your site, and everything can look a-okay on the front-end (scary, we know!). Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools) makes monitoring your website’s health pretty simple. The “Security Issues” section of Search Console will keep you up-to-date if it detects any malware, hacking or security issues. You just need to make sure to connect your web property to Search Console and keep an eye on the email address it is connected with. It also does not hurt to login from time to time. The same goes for Google Analytics. Monitor your traffic, and look into any irregular spikes.

While managing a website can be stressful, there are a few simple steps you can take to safeguard it from a security attack. Because trust us, there is nothing more stressful than trying to put the pieces of your site back together. Once your site is secure, contact Tandem Interactive for any of your site’s organic, paid search, or local needs!