Any business owner that ventures a look online is aware of SEO.

Understanding what effective SEO strategies are and how to implement them is a different story entirely.

The issue becomes further muddled as Google continuously updates and refines its search algorithm to adapt to a changing internet. Thus we find ourselves with countless how-to articles online that are likely filled with outdated info and misleading tips.

Thankfully, getting your brand’s SEO in order is not impossible, but doable by anyone with the proper knowledge and SEO management tools.

We’ll define the three main types of SEO, why they matter, and finish with solid SEO strategies for 2022 and beyond.

The Three Types of SEO

Before you can begin to improve your SEO, you need to understand what it involves.

Currently, there are three key areas of SEO that go into an overall effective strategy.

On-Page SEO

On-page SEO applies to everything that you place on the web page.

This type of SEO helps dictate what search terms your web pages rank for as well as how high you rank for them. Ranking factors for on-page SEO include:

• Content quality
• Keyword selection and placement
• Titles
• Headers
• Images
• Meta descriptions
• Alternative text

In addition to this, Google utilizes a rating system to grade the trustworthiness of your content overall. They readily provide their full book of rater guidelines here.

Off-Page SEO

If On-Page SEO applies to everything “on-page,” the same is true for the alternative.

Off-page SEO refers to any ranking factors found on another domain aside from your own.

Examples of off-page SEO ranking factors include:

• Backlinks from other domains
• Directory listings/citations
• Business reviews

If Google finds that other trusted domains regularly point back to your site for information, it lends credibility to the quality of your content. Similarly, having listings that match the business info on your site builds confidence with Google’s search crawler.

Technical SEO

Finally, technical SEO refers to factors that affect site performance as well as Google’s ability to index your content.

Technical SEO ranking factors include:

• Page loading speed
• Site mapping
• Internal and outbound links
• Duplicate content
• Website security
• Schema markup

All of these factors can make it easier or more difficult for Google to crawl your site. The better Google’s crawler can access and index your content, the more likely you are to improve your rankings.

Creating a Comprehensive SEO Strategy for 2022

Understanding the different types of SEO points you to the ranking factors you need to address.

However, you still need to understand what the most effective strategies are to get those ranking factors trending favorably.

Without further ado, let’s get into the most important tactics you need to be using to help your website rank higher.

On-Page SEO Strategies

1. Map Your Site for Keywords

Anyone remotely familiar with website rankings knows one important term – keywords.

Optimizing a webpage for specific keywords will help that page rank on search engine results pages (SERPs) when a user includes that keyword.

However, the biggest mistake website owners make is attempting to rank multiple pages for the same keyword. While it seems intuitive to include an important keyword as much as possible, doing so can hurt your results.

Attempting to rank too many pages for similar keywords and content is what is known as keyword cannibalization.

Here’s essentially what happens.

Business A attempts to rank for “SEO strategies” on multiple web pages. Each page has great, informative content.

However, when a user searches this keyword, Google finds multiple pages on the same domain. These pages end up competing against one another, lowering the potential results for each.

This is a primary reason why successful SEO strategies include keyword mapping. This helps brands ensure that they have a specific page dedicated to content for a specific keyword they’re attempting to rank for. Furthermore, focusing more high-quality content on one page will improve the value and quality of that page for search rankings.

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Selecting specific pages for keywords becomes increasingly important as you add more content and pages to your site. Then, as your brand creates more valuable content, you can revisit pages and update them as necessary. This also helps your domain to appear timely and up-to-date to Google’s crawler.

2. Create a Content Blog

Content marketing and SEO work in perfect harmony.

To improve your SEO, you need more high-quality content that’s relevant to your industry and offerings. A blog gives you the space and freedom you need to accomplish this.

Successful blogs can include everything from industry updates to business insights, to educational pieces. All of these present an opportunity to provide something free and of value to your prospects and customers.

More pages dedicated to high-quality topics means that you’ll have more gateways for users to find you. A potential customer might not search with terms that land them on your home page, but a well-placed blog topic could be just the key to gaining their attention.

Here are some tips for getting the best results with your blog.

• Keep a list of interesting topics based on keywords you want to rank for
• Don’t forget about long-tail keywords, which are generally less competitive
• Focus on writing a great article, not on stuffing keywords (Use 3-4 times throughout)
• Aim for a minimum of 1,000 words (but always choose quality over quantity)
• Create opportunities to include call-to-actions
• Create opportunities to naturally link to other pages or blog topics within the article
• Include relevant high-quality images

Furthermore, be sure to keep a map of all of your blog topics. This will help you to avoid the problem of keyword cannibalization in the future as discussed above.

Instead, you can refer to your keyword map, revisit your published blog, and update it with new information when applicable. Not only does it strengthen keyword rankings, but it will inform Google’s crawler of new content and help your pages appear up-to-date. This can help your content appear more useful and worthy of ranking than similar content that’s older.

3. Optimize Titles and Headers

Titles and headers are huge for SEO for both general web pages and blog pages.

The reason for this is that Google’s search crawler looks at these H1-H4 tags to interpret and understand the content. Likewise, headers also allow readers to decipher the content meaning and layout quickly and efficiently.

This is especially effective for long-form content. Readers might have an interest in the overall topic, but you can maximize engagement by specifically highlighting key points throughout the article that are more captivating than others.

Titles and headers are the road map for everyone that visits your page. Make it easy to get to the destination by thoughtfully planning yours ahead of time.

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4. Don’t Forget Meta Descriptions and Miscellaneous Tags

A web page’s meta descriptions and tags further assist in your keyword rankings.

The meta description is the short text that appears below your page name in SERPs. It’s your opportunity to quickly gain the attention of users so that they choose your result over competitors.

A great meta description consists of roughly 155-160 characters. This helps to keep your message concise and prevents it from being cut off by display limits. Furthermore, any keywords you use within the meta description get highlighted in bold to help users identify them.

Every page on your site needs a well-written meta description. You can typically find this within your CMS by accessing your page settings.

There are other similar tags and descriptions you can add to your page when applicable. Among these includes alternative text for your images and videos. This helps users understand the content if it fails to load, and also allows you to add keywords once more if applicable.

Off-Page SEO Strategies

Off-page SEO goes beyond the content found on your domain.

To maximize your SEO efforts, you’ll need to establish your brand in other locations online. This can be relatively simple to difficult depending on the resources you have available.

Here are some key ways that you can start generating some external references as soon as today.

1. Social Networking

Social media is the way of the internet.

There are an estimated 4 billion active users on all platforms with that number expected to rise each year. It’s a primary way for users to connect and that also includes brands.

If you’ve yet to get your brand on social media, your SEO is just one of many excuses to start.

A regularly updated social media account can allow you to:

• Share content with users on new platforms
• Provide more effective customer service
• Generate brand awareness and followers from new demographics
• Connect with peers in your industry

Establishing a following with your audience on social media is a great way to generate inbound links to your domain.

Similar to your content blog, getting more links directing to your domain helps with boosting your daily traffic and engagement. You can use your social profiles to promote your new articles and benefit both channels simultaneously.

A bigger benefit of social media is the ability to like and share. When you post content on social media, your followers can like and share it with their associations. This acts as free marketing and gets your content in front of more eyes that can choose to engage with it.

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The more links you have pointing to your domain, the more likely you are to gain more traffic. The more traffic your website receives, the better your SEO will be.

2. Guest Blogging

Guest blogging will also require social networking.

However, getting your brand name published on someone else’s domain is powerful for SEO. Like social media, it builds awareness with new audiences. You can then take advantage of the opportunity to plug your domain, which adds one more backlink to your profile.

Whenever you obtain backlinks from highly-ranked domains, that authority and trustworthiness transfers to your site by association.

Many website owners will be eager to entertain guest blogs in a mutual exchange. Rather than paying money for the work, you will typically write for their site while they write for yours. Both sites benefit from gaining new, interesting content while giving both website owners a quality backlink.

The type of content depends entirely on your agreement. You may need to create a full-fledged article for their website or simply provide a short snippet for a roundup piece.

In either scenario, the ultimate goal is to acquire that backlink and get your name seen by new prospects.

3. Use Local Directories

Signing your business up for local website directories is great for building local SEO.

Local SEO refers to any strategies designed to help your website rank with users searching for businesses within your area. You can improve your local SEO by circling back to your keywords. Terms like “plumber near me” or “best Thai restaurant” are examples of local SEO keywords.

You can also bolster your SEO strategies by using a directory. This includes platforms like Google My Business, Yelp, or Yellow Pages.

Whenever you create a profile for your business on one of these sites, your brand has a chance of appearing in local searches.

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Much like the content on your site, you should optimize your listing profile appropriately. This is a great opportunity to rank for local keywords or any other terms relevant to your core offerings.

You should also ensure that your business information is up-to-date and accurate. Include images of the workplace or your offerings to give users a better idea of your brand.

When your listing profile is optimized and strong levels of engagement, it will be more likely to show up at the top of search results.

Technical SEO Strategies

Finally, your company can cement its SEO strategy by taking care of key technical SEO ranking factors regularly.

1. Optimize Your Page Loading Speeds

According to Google, as your loading time increases from 1 to 10 seconds, your bounce rate increases by 123%.

The bounce rate refers to any time a user clicks on your page but leaves without taking any action. The visitor doesn’t just hurt you immediately, but the heightened bounce rate will negatively impact your overall SEO.

Fast loading isn’t just a preference for most visitors, it’s officially a ranking factor for Google. Not only is it their goal to provide searchers with accurate information, but to also ensure that the user experience is ideal.

For starters, you can utilize a tool like PageSpeed Insights to test your loading times. While it’s possible to attain near-instant load times, it’s a difficult task. You ideally want to shoot for roughly 3-5 second load times at the maximum.

You can improve loading times by:

• Minifying HTML, CSS, or JavaScript
• Utilizing asynchronous script loading
• Optimizing on-page images
• Hosting videos on external servers
• Enabling browser caching
• Upgrading or switching to a faster website host

2. Optimize for Mobile

More than half of all web traffic is now coming from mobile devices.

You can test how friendly your site is for those mobile users by using Google’s test here.

The test will tell you the exact health issues present on our site that are negatively impacting the mobile user experience. Work closely with your web developers to find convenient ways to improve your website design and layout to remedy these problems.

Many common mobile site issues can be remedied by implementing the strategies above regarding improved loading speeds. Phones generally have less internal power and weaker internet connections, so less content to load will greatly improve the process.

Furthermore, most modern CMSs allow you to create separate layouts for desktop and mobile. Always be sure to test out how your content appears and loads on a mobile device before publishing it to the internet.

3. Implement a Link Building Strategy

We mentioned this above regarding your content blog, but internal link building is an aspect of technical SEO.

The reason for this is that the Google search crawler follows internal links found on your site. It uses this to better interpret the purpose of your content and how it interacts with other pages on the site.

The more quality internal links a page has, the more likely Google may be to feature that page in relevant search results.

Furthermore, well-placed internal links should keep your readers interested. When you link from one topic to another of immediate interest, the user is more likely to spend more time on your domain. This will boost your page clicks, average session duration, and potentially other metrics that can drive up your overall SEO value.

4. Audit and Repair Broken Links

While quality links help your SEO, broken links can harm your website in several ways.

As described above, the Google search crawler will attempt to follow any links either internal or outbound on your site. If the link is broken, Google may abandon the crawl early, preventing it from indexing any other content on your site. This can make your SEO work for naught.

Secondly, a broken link leads to a poor user experience. If users attempt to click a link on your site and end up with a 404, they’re far more likely to bounce away from your domain. A higher bounce rate is a red flag for Google and hurts your SEO value.

Broken links happen for several reasons, including:

• Entering a URL that no longer exists
• A typo in the URL
• The URL leads to a redirect that is unsuccessful

Fortunately, all of these are easy issues to correct. Simply edit the link on the page to feature the correct URL where applicable. You always want to minimize the number of redirects you use on the domain as this will also help with overall loading times.

5. Omit Duplicate Content from Indexing

Duplicate content is always a red flag for Google.

It can confuse the crawler and prevent it from properly judging the quality of the content. It can also be an indicator that the content is not original and plagiarized from another source. In either case, the content appears less valuable than a page with unique material.

However, there are rare cases in which using duplicate content on more than one page is a necessary strategy. You might have duplicate content if you are in the process of migrating content from one URL to another. While the old page still exists, you end up using a redirect to send users to the new page version.

If you have a scenario in which you must have duplicate content, there is a way to avoid SEO penalties.

You will need to use what’s known as a Robots.txt file on the site. This is an HTML file that essentially instructs Google’s search crawler on which URLs to crawl and which to avoid. This way, you can highlight the correct version of the page and skip over the other.

Robots.txt is useful for several reasons and can help you to conserve your crawl budget. Google’s crawler may only crawl a certain number of pages on your domain per month, so it’s ideal to be mindful of this when creating new content.

6. Secure Your Website

Another ranking factor for SEO with Google is website security.

Specifically, you’ll want to upgrade your website from the HTTP protocol to HTTPS.

HTTPS stands for “Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure,” and is a way of securing any communications that happen between the end-user and your website server.

While it’s perhaps less important for a general informational site, any pages that collect data or feature financial transactions require it.

Not only does Google use HTTPS as a ranking factor, but seeing the secure logo on your site is more likely to inspire trust and confidence in your users.

To make this change, you’ll need to purchase an SSL certificate for your site. A basic certificate should cover most websites, but domains that feature a large number of information exchanges like an eCommerce site may want to upgrade to something more sophisticated.

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Check with your current domain host as they likely sell SSL certificates within their platform. This should make the transition much easier than purchasing from a third party and setting it up manually.

7. Utilize Schema Markup

Finally, schema markup is an SEO tool that can further assist Google in identifying the content on a given webpage.

Schema markup, also referred to as structured data, is a coding language that you can use to tag and classify content on your page. With the right schema applied, Google can better index the site and deliver high-quality information to users.

Schema markup can be used to identify several things including logos, company names, ratings, dates, important personnel, and much more. There are hundreds of schema available for anyone to use.

This language not only helps with content on the page but can improve the way your result looks on a Google SERPs.

For example, check out this result for “iPad Mini Best Buy.”

With schema markup, we know a lot about the result without clicking. We can see star ratings, numerical rating, reviews, pricing, and stock. This has more value than a result that would lack this information without schema markup.

Schema markup is an advanced SEO tactic and requires some studying to properly implement. You can start learning more about it here.

Implement These SEO Strategies in 2022 for Business Success

SEO is an ever-evolving practice, but these tactics will always remain relevant.

Furthermore, your competitors will also be implementing these tactics, which is why improving your search rankings is never an easy task.

However, actively monitoring your site’s health and content performance will point you in the right direction. Take advantage of free tools such as Google Analytics and PageSpeed Insights to stay up-to-date with both.

Other SEO management tools such as SEMRush can further assist with areas such as link audits and keyword research.

Ultimately, you will need to determine what your best offers as well as your goals to create the perfect SEO strategy. This will dictate what types of content to create so that you can measure, rewrite, and re-engage with the audience for optimal results.

Instagram features over one billion monthly users.

That figure alone makes it apparent why brands and marketers are capitalizing on the platform.

However, every other brand has the same idea. Hundreds of thousands of brands are vying for any given person's attention daily.

The result is a highly competitive environment that amounts to a densely packed minefield. One false move could cause users to reach for the unfollow button.

If this is happening to you, you're not alone. Let's take a look at what you're doing wrong so that you can learn how to stop losing followers on Instagram.

1. You Cheated the Game with Fake Followers

You're likely sitting there saying, Not me!ā

However, studies otherwise indicate that more than half of influencers on the platform are using fake followers. Nearly half of all accounts may be fake.

It's an extremely common tactic for new brands to buy followers. The more followers you have, the more likely you are to attract new attention organically. Instagram may also recognize your follower account and be more likely to promote your posts.

The problem is that it can catch up to you eventually. Instagram knows that this is a prevailing problem and is taking a proactive approach to banning these accounts.

Furthermore, if they can connect the accounts to yours, there's a good chance you can receive a full ban or a shadowban.

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You'll know if your account is banned as you will no longer be able to log in with your username.

A shadowban is more subtle as it still allows you to access the account. However, Instagram will prevent your content from appearing to new users with this type of ban.

If you engage in these tactics and find your brand losing Instagram followers, you need to take a closer look.

You may be losing followers simply because those bots are being discovered and deleted. You may also want to do some testing or reach out to Instagram to determine if you are in fact on a shadowban list.

2. All of Your Content is the Same

Instagram is unlike your other marketing channels. You cannot expect to rely on similar strategies for too long and expect great results.

Social media works much more like a local, social hangout spot. People will drop in and out as they please. They typically only stick around if there's something new and exciting happens to keep their interest.

Unfortunately, most brands go on with a full business-centric mindset. You end up being the most boring person at the event that everyone can't get away from fast enough.

They know your brand and they've heard the same pitch one too many times. Instead of being a part of the conversation, you're now talking at users instead of inviting them to join you.

One of the reasons this happens is that many brands do not devote the necessary resources to create a legitimate social media strategy. They end up creating an account, drafting up a few posts, and scheduling them to go out never to think about them again.

In reality, your brand requires a dedicated social media specialist. This person can consistently be active with other users on the platform. Not only does this provide firsthand insight into what's trending or interesting, but it also gives them more freedom to test out different types of content.

Don't be afraid to explore all types of media. Use pictures, create interesting infographics, and be sure to rely on video. Use Instagram photoshop actions to keep it quick and engaging, and always leave users hungry for whatever might come next.

3. Your Content is All About Trying to Make a Buck

Instagram users, and any social media user for that matter, are constantly bombarded with advertisements.

Any number of brands are vying for their attention on a given day. The result is that users automatically filter out promotional, salesyā  content without thinking. If all of your content is about selling, you might as well not post at all.

An effective social media strategy can and will help drive sales. However, your Instagram account is typically not the place to perform the hard sell.

Instead, social media is the place where you want to discover new leads and nurture those relationships naturally. It's about being a part of the greater conversation and convincing your following that your content is worth seeing daily in their timeline.

That isn't to say that you can't or shouldn't promote a sale or product. Highlighting a big sale or a hotly anticipated item is a great thing to include in your collection of posts. But, it shouldn't account for all or even most of them.

Great content can be educational. It can give customers a look behind the scenes. It can even just be a humorous post meant to brighten someone's day.

Brands must experiment more with different types of content to determine what resonates right now with the current audience. Just be sure that your content is consistent with your established tone and values.

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4. Your Posting Frequency is Off

In addition to creating great content, the timing of that content must also be consistent.

Many social media users are creatures of habit. They have their social routine which may be checking before work, on lunch, or strictly on the weekends. If you establish a routine of posting new content on schedule, they'll be sure to see it.

Conversely, posting on a haphazard schedule will cause users to miss your posts entirely. For example, posting during prime working hours may be a surefire way to alienate much of your would-be audience.

Different social platforms seem to have their peak times for ideal posting, and Instagram is no different. Sprout Social finds that the hottest times to post are during weekdays just around lunchtime. However, there also seems to be strong engagement throughout the afternoon before tapering off into the evening.

Your posting schedule may also vary depending on your audience's behaviors as well as your industry type. Just like with content, you will also want to perform some testing to see which hours are the best for your brand to post.

Once you find a schedule that works, it's imperative to show consistency. When users are clicking and following, don't push them away by changing things up unnecessarily.

5. You Failed to Establish a Unique Voice

Finally, your brand needs to have something unique and interesting to say. If you fail to make yourself stand out, nothing is stopping your audience from unfollowing and discovering countless other brands in your industry.

It's worthwhile to investigate the competition and analyze what's working in their social media strategy. However, your goal should not be to directly copy their voice and style.

Instead, it's time to do some deep reflection and think about what your brand has to offer that's different from the other voices on Instagram. If you have a unique value proposition worth listening to, the followers will come naturally.

If you're observing a loss in followers, it can be a result of this. Users may scroll through the timeline and one-day question why they're following an account that is too generic or too similar.

Find ways to separate yourself from other voices in your industry. Furthermore, you can also use your Instagram account to survey your followers directly. Not only are users generally willing to provide insight, but adding this type of engagement to your repertoire could help facilitate better relationships in the long term.

Stop Your Brand from Losing Instagram Followers

Seeing a loss of Instagram followers is disheartening. However, we are lucky to have such immediate access to analytics and insights as this alerts us to a fixable problem.

Instead of panicking, stop reflecting on your current Instagram strategy. Review the types of content you're sharing, think about your voice, and monitor your frequency. Some issues may be easily corrected, while others may require you to head back to the drawing board.

Marketing, in general, is a rapidly changing industry. However, social media is that much faster. Interests and trends can change without warning. The best brands on social are agile and ready to adapt to anything.

If you want to rebuild your Instagram follower base, then your brand, too, has to be dynamic. Create engaging content, target users at the right times, and results will come.

Most business owners are aware of marketing strategies that supposedly work.

Run paid ads, build a great landing page, and target the relevant keywords. However, insights from Google Analytics drastically refines your business strategies, so that you're able to make more money while spending far less for better results.

Actionable insights are why small businesses need to rely on a Google Analytics marketing strategy.

For zero cost, your company could benefit from:

• Audience insights
• Campaign performance metrics
• Web traffic data including sources
• On-page user activity data

Here's how to adjust your small business strategy with Google Analytics and start improving your campaign results immediately.

Learn About Your Web Traffic

A good first step for your new Google Analytics measurement strategy is to look into the metrics regarding your regular web traffic.

You can use GA to gather insights about your main website pages or for any one of your PPC campaign landing pages.

Let's start with some of the basics.

How Much Traffic Are We Getting?

Daily website traffic is a simple metric to understand. This number accounts for the total number of visits the domain receives on a given day.

This number includes any number of sources including organic search, paid ad clicks, or social media links. It's good to keep tabs on this metric if one of your small business goals is to simply boost awareness and get more people circulating the storefront.

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However, while website traffic tells us your business is getting attention, it offers little regarding optimizing your marketing and small business strategy.

We're more interested in what comes next.

Where is the Traffic Coming From?

This is where we begin to get into the real meat of our GA insights.

Understanding the primary sources of your website traffic is a marker of where your small business is gaining traction.

This can be a sign that your primary audience is located on that channel, that your marketing strategies are working, or both.

For example, if you're currently running a Facebook Ads campaign and receiving a lot of referred traffic to your landing page, you can infer that your paid ads are gathering attention.

Likewise, an influx of traffic from organic search can indicate that your SEO strategy and/or choice of targeted keywords are resonating with those interested in your products or services.

High-performing channels are where small businesses will want to invest most of their budget due to limited marketing resources.

However, you'll want to take note of underperforming channels and devote some of your budget to researching alternative strategies. GA will provide you with the necessary insights to determine if it's your team that's ineffective or if the channel is a bust for your particular industry or brand.

What Devices Are Visitors Using?

Knowing whether your audience is visiting your site via desktop or mobile device can help you prioritize certain types of ads and web design choices.

If a bulk of your visits and conversions are coming from mobile browsers, your team will want to prioritize making your brand's mobile experience even better.

As a rule of thumb, you'll always want to optimize your ads and web pages for both whenever possible. Thanks to how easy it is to utilize most modern web builder technology, there's seldom an excuse to ostracize potential customers from one device or another.

Furthermore, know that around 55% of all global web traffic now comes from a mobile device.

If Google Analytics is noting that your site has low overall traffic or low mobile traffic, then it's time to optimize your mobile UX.

Gather Insights from Your Marketing Campaigns

With your website traffic analytics telling you where to look, you can use GA to extract actionable data regarding your performance.

What's Our Average Cost-Per-Acquisition (CPA)?

When it comes to actual dollars and cents, your CPA will tell you a lot about your campaign performance.

Paid advertising can be affordable or expensive depending on your budget and how effectively you monitor your campaign. Ideally, small businesses want a steady volume of new leads for a relatively low CPA. This means your ads are offering you a solid ROI.

Conversely, a high CPA may or may not be a red flag. Thankfully, Google Analytics can also show your immediate competitors to see where you stand in comparison. Some industries like the legal business naturally have a higher cost-per-acquisition than something like entertainment.

However, it can also mean that your campaign strategy requires some attention. If you're overspending compared to your competitors to get the same or lesser results, it may be time to reassess, so that you avoid overutilizing your resources.

How Are Your Keywords Performing?

Another killer for small businesses is bidding on keywords with too high of a cost-per-click.

Keyword bidding can get cutthroat fast in competitive industries with big-budget brands all too happy to drive up keyword costs to hurt the competition.

For most small business strategies, you're going to want to recognize these trends early and seek out alternatives if you're not keeping pace. In these cases, you'll likely want to pull back your spending and research terms that feature lower costs with similar returns.

Do Certain Channels Produce Better Results?

While it's ideal to gather steady leads from different sources, your options may be limited on a small business budget.

For this reason, you'll want to compare GA's findings for each channel to determine which marketing channels are more deserving of your attention.

You'll not only want to investigate your average CPA, but also look into the actual quality of the leads you obtain. A PPC campaign may boast a high volume of leads, but it amounts to nothing more than wasted money if a majority of those leads are duds.

Google Analytics provides businesses with the numbers they need to run an effective cost-benefit analysis of different marketing channels and the resources your brand allocates to get results.

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If the cost is worth the volume and quality of leads your business obtains, then the next step is to examine the actual campaign content.

What's the Typical Visit Look Like?

Google Analytics not only tells you where your visitors come from but can also tell you a lot about the average user's behaviors.

Those behaviors share a direct relationship with the quality of the user experience that your website provides.

You can see exactly how long visitors are spending on a page, what they chose to engage with, and what actions they take (clicking links, filling out a form, etc.).

GA even allows you to set up your own custom goals so that you can better track certain actions that directly reference what you're attempting to track.

All of this will help you to conclude different aspects of the experience including:

• Headlines
• CTAs
• Images
• Videos
• Forms
• Copy

From there, you can begin to make adjustments as necessary and observe how this affects your metrics in GA. The platform even allows you to A/B test two versions of one page and automatically direct traffic to the one that performs best.

Better Understand Your Target Audience

Your campaign insights will tell you the areas that require improvement. However, you'll struggle to make meaningful changes unless you better understand who is listening.

This leads us to our final tip - use Google Analytics to gather powerful audience insights to guide future marketing campaigns. When your small business strategies involve highly-personalized targeting, you're far more likely to discover success.

What Demographics Are Expressing Interest?

In addition to telling you where your visitors originate from, Google Analytics will also unveil important data about your audience members.

This information can include:

• Age
• Gender
• Location
• Affinities/interests

Using this qualifying data is essential for truly understanding your target audience. With this information, you can begin to explore the unique value proposition your small business offers to different audience segments.

Segmenting your audience is also the best way to perform more effective marketing. While your business may benefit a large number of groups overall, each group will have its intent and reasons for interacting with your company.

Eliminate Low-Quality Demos and Focus on Key Performers

To keep costs low, it may be worthwhile for your small business to eliminate underperforming demographics from contention for now.

When you identify who is more likely to convert, you can focus more of your budget on capitalizing on that group. That means more resources are spent on getting results and less on trying to mass appeal to uninterested segments.

However, keep other potential audiences as a footnote. As you use GA to discover newfound growth, you can begin to experiment more with those underperforming demographics to find new strategies that perform well.

Create Different Campaigns for Important Audience Segments

Use your GA audience data to guide future campaign creation.

Now that you understand who to target and who to avoid, you can split your budget between the campaigns that have potential.

As an example, many local services often benefit both homeowners and commercial properties alike. The actual prospects you're selling to will differ, however. You wouldn't offer the same sales pitch to a homeowner and a business owner. The same must apply to your advertisements.

After you refresh your campaigns, you can circle back to all of the points previously discussed in this article. Watch your traffic sources, track engagement, and test out different creatives to extract even better results from an already interested audience segment.

Create Lookalike Audiences

If your sales pitch worked on a particular group of individuals, wouldn't you want to reuse that proven strategy on similar groups?

That's why Google Analytics offers the ability to create lookalike audiences based on your current findings.

Google search accounts for about 94% of the total market share. This means that Google possesses an incredible database of marketing knowledge from an incredible amount of users.

You can use your segmented audience data and instruct GA to find and create lookalike audiences. These groups will contain users that match similar attributes and interests to those that are already likely to convert to one of your campaigns.

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This means that your small business can continue to improve its ROI by cutting down on discovery time and focusing more on acquisition.

Create a Google Analytics Measurement Strategy for Your Small Business

Data-driven marketing is smart marketing.

Small businesses will especially benefit due to the need for optimal results with a much smaller budget than their larger counterparts.

Google Analytics is a free tool that makes this not only possible but easy for any marketing team. However, it will require persistence, attention to detail, and continuous testing to make your data work for you.

Welcome to episode nine of Whiteboard Wednesday. In this episode, Chad Kodary, CEO of DashClicks, discusses creating Remarketing campaigns on Facebook for increased conversions.

We discussed real-life experiences in our Whiteboard Wednesday sessions from its first episode, as we don't believe in boring theoretical stuff that adds no value.

Our company DashClicks helps you scale your business and get more leads. In this session of Whiteboard Wednesday, we will share some tips and tricks to run better Facebook remarketing campaigns to drive better conversions and bring your cost per conversion down.

Before running remarketing ads on Facebook, it provides you with a code known as Pixel. You need to install that code on your website, usually in the header or the footer. Installing Pixel also sets up conversion tracking.

Conversion Tracking

I’ll try to explain conversion tracking with an example. Suppose you create a webinar opt-in funnel for a landing page with the help of a “two-step opt-in”. In your first step, you have a form. When somebody fills out a form and clicks “continue,” a thank you page pops up which is considered an event for tracking.

The next event you create is the lead event, named so because it triggers a conversion event in your Facebook Ads account. Suppose we are sending a lot of traffic through the webinar registration page and other tactics to our website.

If we receive 100 visitors on our landing page, only ten are expected to make it to the “thank you” page the first time. Meaning, only 10% of people actually filled out the form on their first visit.

Now, what to do with this 90% of people? We create a bucket in the Facebook Ads manager – called the remarketing bucket – and put them all into it.

Source: Ep. 9 ā 04:08

In other words, we set up an audience in the Facebook ads manager which tells Facebook that these are the people who visited our website but didn't take any action, and we want to retarget them now.

After that, we create an ad set in our campaign and target this audience using that ad set. We can retarget people for up to 180 days.

As discussed above, 90 out of 100 visitors will not convert on the first visit, so we will target those 90 visitors every day for the next 180 days. Facebook keeps replenishing this list, which is a fantastic FB ads feature.

Create Multiple Ads for Different Needs

We can make an ad group composed of the specific people we want to target with some actual ads for our remarketing campaign. Apart from that, we create multiple ads where the magic happens. Most people do it wrong by making just one ad and running it repeatedly. The key is in variety.

Source: Ep. 9 ā 07:39

You must know that this bucket comprises a tiny saturated group of people. So, when the frequency of ads increases, people may not like to watch them. Usually, you can show an ad up to seven times a week. More than that could be too much and may decrease your conversion rate.

At DashClicks, we try to keep the frequency below seven. It would be best to consider the frequency on the ad level and not on the group level. The idea is to show a new ad every time so that you can create multiple ads for the same bucket.

Try Different Ad Formats and Ad Copy Combinations

You can create an ad in various formats such as image, video, or carousel. To keep your messaging different, you can experiment with different forms, variations, and copies.

Experimenting with a variety of messaging has some considerable advantages. At DashClicks, the visitors might be interested in different things such as white label fulfillment or software, etc. So, we run multiple ads where an image-based ad may talk about software, and other ads can highlight white label fulfillment services. Similarly, we can create video and carousel ads for different audience groups and services.

Pro Tip: Keep your messaging different. You can try different ad variations to achieve this. Experiment with different types of ads such as image, video, and carousel ads with different ad copies to keep people from getting bored and annoyed.

So, if someone visits your webpage and leaves it without taking action, such as filling out an opt-in form or making a purchase, you can retarget them using remarketing ads. Wherein the next time they sign in to their Facebook account, Facebook will show them your ad as a reminder.

If you keep reworking the ad strategy and targeting them with 10-12 different ads with different messages, it will have a greater impact than flashing only 2-3 ads with limited messaging.

Pro Tip: Every ad should have a different reason for the users to buy your products and services.

For example, at DashClicks, our ads may convey why users should sign up to our dashboard and get their free account.

It will decrease your lead generation cost, i.e., cost per lead. Our cost per lead floats around $15, which is good.

People come to our website for different reasons, and one of these ads is likely to address their needs. That's the reason why you should create excellent remarketing ads.

Pro Tip: Create an ad group and run multiple ads with different product/service benefits and messaging. It will ensure success with your remarketing ad campaigns.

With this, we sign off on today's Whiteboard Wednesday session. I hope our sessions are adding value and helping you in becoming a successful digital marketing agency.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel to be the first to watch these valuable tips every Wednesday.

Please leave your comments below, and if you are happy with this session, feel free to leave some positive feedback here to encourage us!

See you in the next session of Whiteboard Wednesday. Have a fantastic day!

Understanding the user's intent is the key to success in marketing and advertising. Since it's difficult to crack the user intent code, you can use user data to solve the sales riddle. Your message should match with the people's needs and wants. And Google Ads has been developed to help you with this.

The only platform that can compete with Google in terms of sheer vast user data is Facebook, and Google wins hands down because of its ever-increasing search query volume. The latest data by Statcounter suggests the share of searches on different platforms is heavily tilted in favor of Google and its properties.

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Search query becomes a powerful indicator of intent as it reflects the searcher's state of mind. It proves that Google Ads is the king of all the ad platforms when it comes to creating adverts based on user intent.

Therefore, Google Ads is still the most popular advertising platform compared to Bing Ads and social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, etc.Now, it's crucial to understand the paid search metrics that matter the most for marketers. This article will provide you with the top 10 Google Ads metrics that marketers are using across the globe.

1. Impressions

Impressions are simply the number of times an ad appears before a user. Usually, it's flashed either by Google or Google Display Network. However, it can't be determined if every time an ad is shown on a SERP, it's indeed seen by a user or not.

2. Clicks

Clicks is a highly relevant metric as it reflects the active responses your ad receives. When your ad catches someone's attention and they feel compelled to click the blue link, it's known as a clickā . It will still be counted as a click even if users aren't able to reach your website after clicking the blue link, because of issues such as poor Internet connection or a 404 error.

3. Cost

Money is an important consideration as it decides whether you're able to achieve your goals within your budget or not. It tells you how expensive your campaign has been so far.

4. Average Cost Per Click

This metric tells you how expensive the clicks have been in your campaign. Divide the overall money you've spent on your campaign by the number of clicks you have received and you'll find out the CPC.

5. Conversions

Conversion is a metric that shows whether a user has taken the desired action or not after clicking the blue link. It can be a newsletter sign-up, filling up a subscription form, web page visit, a pdf download, a survey, landing page views, or simply impressions.

6. Impressions by Campaign

Impressions by campaign is used when you need to compare the performance of different campaigns. Classify the total number of impressions by each campaign you ran and you'll receive the numeric value of this metric.

7. Click-Through-Rate (CTR)

CTR is a critical metric that tells you the rate or ratio of people actually clicking your ads out of those who just happen to see your ad. Divide the total number of clicks by the number of impressions your ad receives and you'll get the CTR.

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8. CTR by Ad Groups

When you run Google Ads, you divide the ads based on the set of keywords targeted. These divided segments are known as ad groups. So, CTR by ad group stands for the CTR of each ad group.

This metric helps you discover the keywords and topics that have the necessary volume to generate results.

9. CTR by Campaigns

When the click-through rate is studied with respect to individual campaigns, the metric is known as CTR by campaigns. This metric helps you in multiple ways. For example, you get to know which keywords, ad groups, and campaigns are yielding the best results and generating engagement.

10. Cost Per Conversion

This is one of the most critical metrics that determines which strategy to continue with and what to chuck out. It gives you the average cost per conversion in a campaign. To determine this metric, divide the total cost of the campaign by the number of conversions.Remember, conversion is not always referred to as a prospect turning into a paying customer. A conversion is the attainment of anything that you set as your campaign objective, such as a signup or download, etc.

Track All Your Crucial Paid Search Metrics in One Place

As discussed above, there are several crucial metrics that marketers need to track for an actual assessment of your campaign performance. However, it can be a nightmare to track them separately. One way to remove this hassle is to go for Google Ads Integration into DashClicks' white-label platform. It lets you visualize your campaign performance in a single dashboard with the help of graphics and tables. It also allows you to generate ad reports instantly for your own review purposes, or share them with your clients along with your branding on them.

Google Ads Integration with DashClicks' White-Label Platform

When you avail DashClicks' Google Ads Fulfillment service, you get access to our white-label platform trusted by thousands of agencies worldwide for its quality Google Ad services.

Google Ads Campaign Interface

When you implement our Google Ads Integration, you get detailed reports at the ad sets and campaign level. These reports facilitate you to analyze numerous pieces of random data by presenting them at a granular level. They also provide you with the insights into the campaigns and ad sets that are performing at the top and what you need to do to further improve their performance.

KPI Reporting and Campaign Monitoring

What sets this platform apart from others is the fact that it allows you to get the desired KPIs with a single click. So, you don't need to dig through loads of complicated datasheets. Differentiate between what's performing and what's not without getting into the tedious process of analysis and manual reporting. With Google Ads Integration into our White-Label-Platform, you can streamline everything and save hours of productive time from being wasted in manual processes.

Search and Shopping

Another feature of our Google Ads Integration is that you can combine both search and shopping ads through it. You can easily separate both types of campaigns to discover the ones that are delivering the best performance and ROI. With it, there is no place for guesswork and exporting numerous reports to understand the campaigns.

Conclusion

DashClicks' white label Google ads service is a boon for all kinds of agencies worldwide. With Google Ads Integration into our white-label platform, agencies get re-sellable plans that lead to huge profit margins for them. We also don't force you to choose a bundle of services and allow you to select only the ones you need. Automated ordering makes the entire process of getting the fulfillment services easier than ever. It ensures quality services, satisfied clients, and recurring revenue. Click here to get instant access to the platform.

Facebook ad campaigns can be unpredictable. Sometimes you work rigorously and still are unable to achieve any significant results. Some of the campaigns turn out to be so ineffective that you don't see any noticeable leads, impressions, or sales regardless of your hard work and the tactics and strategies you employ.

So, what to do when you see that your campaign isn't moving in the right direction? In this situation, reporting and tracking become crucial. It allows you to adapt and learn from your campaign and make necessary changes to achieve desired results.

In this article, you’re going to learn:

• Track data on your current and previous Facebook campaigns
• A deep analysis into the most relevant metrics by using campaign breakdowns
• Generate automated reports for your campaigns
• Overview of campaign objective and advertising objectives
• Add the metrics to a report
• Examine data at the ad set and campaign level
• Collate Ad Set results at Ads level
• Analyze frequency data
• Analyze frequency and data at the Ad level

So, let's dive in.

The sales funnel is relevant even in Facebook ads. Ad objectives and content are chosen according to the target user's stage in the sales funnel. The goal is to create the desired impact on users. It can be raising awareness, generating sales, or raising consideration.

Let's discuss an ad campaign to understand its objectives. Open your Facebook Ads Manager account and analytics dashboard and click the buttons in the following order.

When you click on the Create button, a separate window will open where you can choose your campaign objective.

The metrics will change according to the campaign objectives. So, the metrics for a sales campaign will be different from brand awareness. The emphasis should be on the metrics that can denote ROI on the ad. The metrics will also change according to the targeted stage in the sales funnel.

The first stage is the sales funnel, also known as the upper funnel, and it denotes the stage where a business tries to attract the audience. The second stage is the middle funnel, also referred to as the consideration stage, and this is where your target audience converts into qualified leads. The lower funnel metrics measure conversions and sales because a prospect becomes a paying client.

Hence the best metrics for the upper funnel can be click-through rate or impressions. The most relevant metric for the lower stages can be the cost per lead, which denotes the ROI on the campaign. The less cost per lead you achieve, the more cost-effective your ad campaign would be.

The selection of Facebook ad metrics to track the campaign performance mainly depends on the purpose and logic behind the metric.

We will try to explain it here. But, before we do it, we will explain how the Facebook Ads dashboard works.

How Does Facebook Ads Dashboard Work?

Facebook Ads Analytics Dashboard allows you to track your paid campaigns. It also helps you analyze what works and whatnot. So, it serves as the best tool that provides you deep insights into how to optimize your future ads and increase their ROI.

How to Create an Ad with Facebook Ads integration?

Facebook Ads integration allows you to amplify your marketing campaigns by tapping into social media audiences. With Facebook Ads integration, you can create ads for Facebook and set a budget for them. Facebook allows laser-sharp targeting through its various targeting options.

Make sure you follow Facebook ad requirements, or else Facebook can reject your ads.

How to Integrate Facebook Ads?

1. Look for Menu > Integrations.
2. Look for Facebook Ads integration and Click Details over it.
3. Click Connect.
4. And the integration will start.
5. Enter your login details and start the integration process.

How to Create a Facebook Ad?

To create a Facebook ad, take the following steps.

1. Look for Menu > Facebook Ads.
2. Click on Create ad.
3. Name the ad campaign.

How to Create an Ad in the Conversion Funnel?

Follow these steps to create an ad directly in the Conversion funnel:

1. Look for Menu > Conversion funnel
2. Choose your Conversion funnel
3. Click on Create an ad.
4. Name the ad campaign.

How to Add the Metrics to a Campaign Report?

To create your view of the Ads metrics, use the customize columns function.

Can you see the bulleted list of metrics in the picture above? These are the metrics you can choose for your custom view in the Facebook Ads Manager.

On the same screen, if you look at the list on the right side, you'll find a list of Facebook campaign ad metrics that you already use.

The items in this list can be dragged, removed, or arranged in the order you want.

If a suitable metric isn't available in the given list, create a new one by clicking on Create Custom Metric.

Now, we will explain how we add metrics.

For precise tracking, the following four metrics are pretty significant:

1. CTR (Link Click-Through Rate): This Facebook ad campaign metric is relevant for precisely tracking link clicks and not all the irrelevant clicks while monitoring the campaign performance.
2. CPM (Cost per 1000 impressions): The metric indicates the effectiveness of an ad.
3. CPC (Cost per Link Click): It gives us an idea about the ROI.
4. Frequency: The number of times a user views a particular ad.

You can search each of these metrics through the search field and check them as they appear in the search results. This way, you can set up your custom view to analyze Facebook Ads data.

Facebook Ads Integration with a White-Label-Platform

You can use DashClicks' Analytics app to manage your ad campaigns and collect leads on a single dashboard through Facebook Ads integration. It makes ads management easy.

Use DashClicks Agency opportunity and offer Google and Facebook ads services, among others. It has the following three features.

A. Facebook Ads Campaign Interface

Dashclicks displays granular level reporting for campaigns and ad sets to help you thoroughly analyze and review your ad strategy. It's challenging to analyze multiple pieces of disorganized data unless it's presented as meaningful reports that help identify which ads are performing better than others. With the help of DashClicks' InstaReports, you can also specify the best performing ad sets and the ad strategies yielding the best results.

B. KPI Reporting and Monitoring

Managers don't need loads of data. They need the KPIs that matter the most. After your Facebook Ads integration with the DashClicks' white-label platform, you get the desired KPIs with a single click. These metrics will help you dive into the nitty-gritty of ad analysis within seconds. Say goodbye to the old-fashioned tedious manual reporting and analysis. You'll find everything in one hub.

C. Facebook and Instagram Integration

With DashClicks' beautiful interface, you don't need to pull and export multiple reports to analyze your ads' performance. Pull and report on Facebook and Instagram metrics simultaneously, all at one glance.

Agency owners use InstaReports to generate multi-channel business reports on the fly for their prospecting campaigns.

Analysis of the Results At the Campaign Level

It is the most popular method to check a campaign's performance. The relevant metrics are impressions, reach, results, and Cost per Result. If you want more adjustments, analyze data at the ad level.

First, determine how much you can afford to invest in your ad campaign. You can decide this amount based on the niche you are operating in and your business requirements.

Paying a high Cost Per Click or Result isn't logical when promoting a free webinar or boosting branding. It won't pay off. On the flip side, if you are selling a premium product such as VIP coaching or a high-end course, paying a high Cost Per Result may be justified.

Similarly, we can also track data at the ad set level.

Analysis of the Results At the Ad-Set Level

Let's begin by pressing the Ad Sets tab.

Even if some ads perform better than others, it won't signal a campaign success. Good results of an ad set don't mean that the campaign is achieving its desired objectives. If you dive deeper, you'll find that Impressions and the Cost Per Result are useful metrics here.

You need to keep a tab on your overall ad spend and keep low-paid ad sets running. You should control your spending by paying a higher amount per Result to allow this to happen. It becomes even more critical if the ad-set yields more results.

If you want to make a cost projection and are clueless about it, use Ad Set Budget Optimization. Doing a campaign budget optimization wouldn't be helpful here.

To do that, go through the following steps.

Find the Campaigns tab>>Press the Edit button>>Uncheck the Campaign Budget Optimization box.

If you don't check the campaign budget optimization, you let Facebook decide which ad-set to focus on and spend more funds on. However, if you uncheck it, you get complete control over which ad to focus on and divert your funds.

You can also check the Ad Set Optimization option. Another option is to create different Ad sets with similar ads running. So, the change in results would not be because of the ad variation but due to the audience.

Pro Tip: To see normalized Cost Per Result, you may require at least 50 events, such as conversions and purchases. So, you can delay your budget decision till you complete this many events. If the number of events is less than 50, your budget estimation may be slightly skewed.

How to Compare Ad Set Results at the Ad Level?

Regardless of the number of ad sets running, Facebook will pick only one to utilize the budget and get more reach, even if it's a bit expensive.

Sometimes Facebook chooses a particular adset simply because it has more ads. More variables and formats mean more data to analyze and, therefore, more leads. It also allows Facebook to serve people's needs with greater flexibility.

Besides the number of ads, another crucial consideration is frequency while analyzing Ad Set level data.

What is the "Frequency Metric" in FB Ads?

Frequency is an exciting factor while running ads. You might have seen irritating ads appearing over and over again while using Facebook. It often leads to user frustration and ad fatigue. Apart from that, this will increase your Cost per Result, squeezing your budget faster.

To prevent this from happening, reschedule your ads as soon as the frequency value crosses two. It's possible to analyze frequency at the Ad set and Ad level.

Frequency again becomes a crucial metric when running retargeting campaigns. You don't have a vast audience compared to the primary ads while running "retargeting" ads. When running several ads, your frequency may go down, but it will increase if you have a high budget. Increased funding becomes a prerequisite since you target a smaller audience during a retargeting ad. You can use Ad Set Budget Optimization to resolve this issue.

How to Analyze Data at the Ad Level?

If you are looking for the ads data, go to the Ads tab. You can easily find the specific ad sets with the most impressions and reach.

Many factors can cause the difference in the engagement levels for different ads, such as background, colors, message, etc. You can remove the ads with poor results and divert your resources to the best-performing ads.

Now imagine another scenario. Spot the ad with higher reach and lower Cost per Result. You must be wondering what caused such gaps in ad performance even though the target audience is the same. Let's analyze this.

Visibility and size of the various elements on the ad, such as logo, etc., can also be responsible for this variation. For example, smaller icons have more visibility for users familiar with your brand. A large logo can be distracting and difficult to identify and differentiate. If you dig into why some ads aren't performing that well, you can vastly improve your future ads. Once you form an opinion, test it by adding new test ads.

Now, test an ad within an ad set to see why it's performing better than others.

You will achieve a higher click-through rate if the featured images in the ad are known faces for your target audience. A straightforward ad strategy analyzes different ads and adds the features of the best performing ads in your next ad. Combine the best ad features identified after a deep analysis. Still, the best performing ad would be the one with reduced Cost per Result.

How to Analyze the Frequency at the Ad Level?

Now, you'll learn to monitor the frequency metric at the ad level. You can't dramatically increase the frequency value by just multiplying the number of ads running. So, when frequency increases, the Cost per Result should go down. It would be a folly to pause an ad even if it's generating leads and attracting eyeballs. It's time to halt an ad set at a high frequency when the cost per click increases.

However, you can still tweak that ad for better performance, and in most cases, this strategy will work. There is no need to pause an ad that's performing even if it's less than other ads.

To tweak an ad, you can analyze it as explained above. Take care of the user perspective while making any changes to an ad.

Conclusion

We have summed up some practical strategies and tactics you should know as a marketer. You can create a few templates for a fair analysis of the ads if you're still a beginner. But, once you understand how Facebook's ad platform works, you can create your custom views and custom metrics for better analysis. You can download various pre-made templates from the Internet. If you can collect more data about your customers, you can create custom ads based on those insights into user preferences. The objective should be to minimize the Cost per Result.

Facebook also offers a fantastic feature known as Facebook audience interest suggestions. You can use this feature to create laser-sharp targeted ads.

If you want to boost the performance and ROI of your Facebook ad campaigns, you should consider hiring our white label Facebook ads services.

Share the metrics you would use in your custom view. Is there any metric that works better than the ones we have mentioned above? What else would you do to analyze Facebook ads data? Let's know in the comments.