Google Ads is one of those breakthrough platforms that have dramatically contributed to the transformation of the marketing world in the past years. Today, these ads are regarded as one of the most effective and result-driven mediums of paid online advertising.

How do you define Google Ads?

These ads let businesses reach users searching for products, services, and information on Google.

If you correctly execute your Google Ads campaign, it holds the potential to make your company more successful. But in order to do this, you need to know about all the latest changes to these ads. In other words, you need to know about the latest Google Ads updates and trends to plan for 2023.

In this post, we discuss the same in detail. Without any further ado, let's begin:

1. Cost Per Lead Increased for 91% of Industries

An important change to Google Ads you need to know is that the cost per lead (CPL) has significantly increased for 91% of industries.

But what's the reason for such an increase?

Factors such as ads appearing for low commercial intent queries and higher prices due to inflation have resulted in reduced conversion rates, leading to increased cost per lead.

Note: The Travel, Furniture, and Arts/Entertainment industries saw whopping increases of 69%, 54%, and 134%, respectively.

The average overall increase is 19%.

The above data is as per Google Ads benchmark report by WordStream.

2. Expanded Text Ads Are Now Over

For more than two decades, advertisers have been manually writing and optimizing their PPC ads on Google. In these years, Google rolled out a number of new search ad formats. If you observe the past years, Google made the size of standard text ads twice with Expanded Text Ads. And then in 2018, it increased the size of Expanded Text Ads.

Fast forward to today, one of the most important changes to Google Ads you should be aware of for the year 2023 is ā Expanded Text Ads have finally met their end. Now, Google's new default ad type is the Responsive Search Ad (RSA). The not-so-great thing about this ad is that it limits the control brands have on the messages of their ads on the SERP.

What RSA actually does is that it allows advertisers to provide a number of different text assets for Google. Then, Google pieces these assets together and creates an ad that appears on the SERP for every search.

3. Specific Industries Now Have Several Unique Ad Formats

To assist certain industries in adjusting to today's dynamically changing needs, Google rolled out a number of unique ad formats for them. For instance, verticals such as finance, auto, and travel got new ad types.

One example of the new ad types is the Vehicle Listing Ads. Google rolled out this ad format to help car dealerships showcase their old and new cars. This ad is shown predominately at the top of the search engine results page (SERP). You will find a car's price, image, location, and condition on this ad.

Note: The Vehicle Listing ad bears similarity to the already existing Local Inventory Ad by Google. Essentially, the Vehicle Listing ads require an active inventory feed to be submitted on a regular basis, which needs approval via Google Merchant Centre.

4. Text-to-Speech Voice-Overs for YouTube Ads

One of the most crucial Google Ads updates for 2023 that advertisers will definitely benefit from is The addition of a text to speech voice over tool to the Google Ads platform. Google has added it within the asset library.

Why use this tool? It will help convert your written script into natural-sounding speech. And it does so with the help of AI.

As creating voice-overs is supremely time-consuming for brands, this update will definitely help advertisers save up on a lot of time and effort.

If you want to try the tool out, here are some simple steps you need to follow:

• Open your asset library.
• Choose the video ad you wish to add a voice-over to.
• Enter your script and select a voice style that matches your brand voice.

And that's it! Your voice-over will overlay onto your video ad.

5. Google is Automatically Upgrading Smart Shopping Campaigns to Performance Max

Performance max campaigns generated a lot of buzz last year. Now, the news is, this campaign type will be completely replacing Smart Shopping and Local campaigns. Google stated that it will start automatically updating Smart Shopping campaigns to Performance Max in July of this year.

Don't worry, you will receive a notification from Google 2-3 weeks before it makes the upgrade. Your campaign's historical data and settings will transfer over by default.

Tip: You can be proactive and make the switch yourself with the Performance Max self-upgrade tool. Switching as early as possible will arguably give you an edge over others who haven't. And the best thing is, the upgrade happens in just one click. Yes, it's that simple!

Image Source: Google Ads & Commerce Blog

6. You Will Now Get Diagnostic Insights for Performance Max Campaigns

Our list of changes to Google Ads will not be complete without talking about this update. In July, Google included a new diagnostic insights view to the Overview page and Insights page within the platform.

How will this help advertisers?

It lets you know if anything is slipping through the cracks in your Performance Max Campaigns. The tool assists you in recognizing issues related with:

• Billing
• Ad strength
• Budget
• Conversion tracking
• Strategy targets
• Policies
• Status

7. New Business Name and Logo Ad Assets

Verified advertisers are now getting some level of protection from Google with new business name and logo ad assets on the SERP. Take a look:

Image Source: Google Ads Help

Incorporating these new assets have also given businesses a chance to stand out on the already crowded SERP. These assets even work as a great visual addition to their ads that may help improve performance.

Note: To use these new features, advertisers need to complete the verification process with Google.

Partner With Reputed Google Ads Outsourcing Agency DashClicks

Are you a digital marketing agency struggling with this one question ā whether you should outsource Google Ads or not?

Outsourcing Google Ads will aid in the growth of your agency. Also, as the work is carried out by experts, the work of your clients will be in good hands.

So, you can always decide to outsource these ads.

In case you think about outsourcing, consider hiring white label Google Ads services by DashClicks.

Why?

DashClicks’ conversion-focused Google Ads campaigns help drive leads and sales for your clients. Here are a few important things you can expect when you decide to hire these services from DashClicks:

• The white label agency carries out maintenance and optimization for campaigns once a week at a minimum.
• The agency will also create outstanding ad copy variations so that a campaign reaches more leads.
• You receive a weekly optimization breakdown that you can share with your clients.
• The agency’s experts are certified and officially trained to create and manage Google Ads campaigns.

Tip: Here is a Google Ads optimization checklist that you can also refer to.

Wrapping It Up

From doing away with Expanded Text Ads to adding a text-to-speech voice-over tool to the Google ads platform, a plethora of updates have taken place this year that you should know of going into the new year.

Yes, we don't have certain features in Google Ads anymore. But, there also have been some great additions to our PPC campaigns this year.

Now that you are well aware of the latest Google Ad updates for 2023, you can start adapting your strategy accordingly. Now, get cracking!

Do you know what differentiates targeted advertising from generic advertising and makes it so effective? It’s the holy trinity of the following three elements that targeted advertising is based on, and it makes all the difference.

• Specific Traits of the Individuals
• Their Interests, Desires, and Needs
• Shopping & Browsing Behavior

Marketers use consumer data to segment their customers according to these three factors.

What Is Targeted Advertising?

Targeted advertising is an online strategy focusing on a customer’s specific traits, interests, and preferences. Marketers constantly need to track their online activities to dig into this information.

Target advertising helps brands cut through the noise the Internet is so full of. People are more likely to engage with personalized ads rather than generic ad messaging as they are bombarded with random ads everywhere.

Retargeting can further boost its overall impact. It takes ads personalization to a whole new level and helps if you push the prospect down the sales funnel by reminding him about the product pages that he had visited on your website.

Benefits of Targeted Advertising

Ad personalization has a deep impact on customer acquisition and retention. It improves the click-through rate (CTR) and customer lifetime value (CLV).

Additionally, target advertising enables marketers to send customized messages to different individuals based on the information collected about each customer. Your brand’s effectiveness lies in its ability to craft custom messages for its customers as per the information per its understanding and knowledge of its customers’ needs and wants.

The chances of customers responding to advertisements and engaging with a brand drastically increase with custom advertisements. Tailoring ads to niche audiences, like readers of crypto news, can significantly boost engagement and CTR.

According to research, 71% of customers prefer personalized advertisements. The study further reveals that 44% of customers become repeat customers with ad personalization.

Tips for Using Targeted Advertising for Digital Agencies

Agencies should ensure that their paid advertising campaigns achieve a high ROI. It is crucial for the acquisition and retention of customers as the agency business is already striving to sustain with increased competition. Many companies opt out of paid ads when they get poor or no results from paid advertising.

However, paid ads can be extremely effective, provided you avoid poor targeting and irrelevant ads. New and upgraded ad-targeting features of platforms like Facebook and Instagram help businesses effectively reach their target audiences.

Here are some tips for implementing targeted advertising for maximum impact –

1. Avoid Irrelevant and Generic Ads

Marketers make the grave mistake of filling a customer’s browser with irrelevant ads that are randomly displayed, and it hurts the brand’s reputation. In an age where artificial intelligence is everywhere, random ads may damage your prospects rather than boost them. You should ensure that your ads are not generic or badly placed.

Generic ads are created to promote commodities in general. Here is an example –

Image Source: Berkeley University

As it's obvious, these ads are not so effective or engaging.

2. Pay Attention to Ad Placement

Here are a few ads that ended up looking funny because of their bad placement.

For example, see this ad mentioned in Reddit chats:

Image source: Reddit

The “Adult Video” ad is overshadowed by the “Jesus Is Watching” billboard. Both ads have different intentions and messaging, but their placement makes them horrible.

Similarly, look at Monster.com’s ad below. Its placement makes it too hilarious.

Image Source: Bored Panda

The headline “seven new jobs” announced by Monster unintentionally coincides with a Fox News headline, “seven shot at Florida nightclub.” It looks as if the seven new jobs will replace these seven dead persons.

3. Avoid Unintelligent and Poor Targeting

Another problem with targeted ads is that sometimes they become “badly targeted” ads. The agencies should be watchful of these mistakes. Sometimes, the algorithms are responsible for such errors, but most of the time, marketers can avoid them by being mindful and alert.

See how every baby boomer is targeted with crypto, investment and mutual funds ads, even though they might not be interested in these things. It makes these “targeted ads” so annoying.

Similarly, lacking information about your audience can be a recipe for disaster for targeted advertising.

And this one, where a young person receives an ad for shoes meant for older adults.

And how can you even dub someone "broken" without sufficient information about them?

Poor targeting can annoy customers and leave them disinterested and confused. It's an utter waste of your marketing dollars.

4. Try Automated Targeted Advertising

Facebook introduced automated lookalike audiences to save hundreds of hours for marketers. Since Facebook is armed with a larger database of people and advanced automation tools and algorithms, the “lookalike” audience became an instant game-changer.

With these automation techniques, you can quickly reach your target audience more than anything else. So, why not make good use of it?

5. Keep Track of the Federal and State Data Privacy Laws

Last but not least, marketers should keep tabs on federal and state privacy laws around consumer data. People in the US and Europe are waking up to consumer data privacy laws.

Some of the annoyed customers even sue the brands for violating consumer data privacy laws. So, if someone opts out of automated profiling, you should respect it and not include them in your targeted audience.

Final Words

The digital marketing ecosystem is expanding like galaxies, and you can see ads everywhere. People are so used to seeing ads that they either turn a blind eye to them or eagerly wait to locate the cross or "skip ad" button as soon as an unwanted ad appears. It's also counterproductive for brands, as they waste thousands of dollars to display these ads to the wrong audiences.

So, they should serve the targeted ads with personalized content, keeping their needs and desires in mind. Social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram offer amazing audience targeting features to engage with your prospects and existing customers. If you need strategic guidance, contact the DashClicks team.

The latest statistics reveal that 82% of marketers are actively investing in content marketing, and for a good reason. It's simply one of the most powerful strategies for boosting website traffic, obtaining qualified leads, and increasing conversions.

If you are not currently leveraging content marketing for your brand, it's about time you do so. Although a word of caution here. Staying abreast with the latest trends is important owing to the ever-changing nature of content marketing. It's key to creating a solid content strategy.

In this post, we discuss these trends that will help amp up and fine-tune your strategy for 2023 and set your brand up for success!

Let's begin:

1. Create Long-Form Content

Why produce long-form content?

The answer is simple long-form content provides the most value to your audience. Also, when you offer your audience comprehensive information on a topic, they are curious to learn more about your business and stay on your pages longer. This way, you generate more leads for your business. You also gradually start to become their go-to information source for getting valuable information, further giving you a chance to establish yourself as an authority in your field.

Note: if you publish a long-form, high-quality content piece, Google will rank your page higher.

Image Source: Bramework

In all, long-form content is a win-win both for your business and your potential customers.

2. Focus on Voice Search

In 2022, voice search accounted for around 20% of total searches and is continuously growing. As more and more people opt for voice search, this will cause a change in content in the coming years.

When voice searching, the content we speak is not always parallel with the content we put in a search box. So, marketers will have to adapt their content to natural language; this includes questions and answers as well, since 50% of the voice searches depend upon featured snippets.

For this, marketers can use common words, include long-tail keywords in heads and titles, and utilize FAQs. For example, "what are the strategies for optimizing content?"

Tip: Take the lead by optimizing the natural language of the pages for "near me" searches.

3. Repurpose Content

One of the top B2C and B2B content marketing trends of all times is repurposing content. When you recycle or repurpose your content, you are able to:

• Re-use content on separate channels, such as social media and email.
• Update old content and augment your content marketing tactics.

Pro Tip: When you repurpose content, don't copy and paste. We recommend that you make changes according to the channel you will use. For instance, don't send a complete 1500-word content piece over email. Instead, trim the content to around 200 words and send it to your email subscribers along with a link to the full post.

4. Create Interactive Content

As you may already know, reaching and engaging today's consumer is becoming more of a challenge. With so much content out there, it is increasingly becoming hard to stand out and be memorable. People's limited attention span only adds to the problem. But we have a solution that can help you engage your audience and make a lasting impression Produce Interactive content.

You may have seen interactive content around you in the form of polls, quizzes, surveys, and calculators. Interactive content, as the name suggests, is interactive in nature. Hence, your audience is able to interact with such content rather than passively consuming it. And the amazing thing is, they enjoy the process!

This content doesn't even take much time to create and helps successfully drive two-way conversations.

Note: Create interactive content that offers your audience insights/tailored results on topics they care about or a problem they are struggling with.

5. Produce Niche Content

One of the latest content marketing trends to follow is creating niche content.

For those new to the term, niche content lays focus on a certain subtopic associated with your industry or business. The aim of the content is to appeal to a small group of individuals.

Let's take an example to understand the importance of creating niche content:

Suppose you own a bakery and you publish content on different baking-related recipes. As the content is generic in nature, it will appeal to anyone who is interested in baking. But, you can also create content that interests lactose-free, vegan, or gluten-free bakers.

Why do this?

This is because it will enable you to target smaller niches of bakers and get them interested in your content. If you think about it, it acts as a great way to attract specific leads, which you can then nurture to conversion.

6. Content Experience Is Paramount

Content experience is the manner in which your content is presented to your audience, from the way it engages your users to the page it lives on. Always remember to tailor your content experience as per your target audience. It will only lead to a boost in engagement and overall interactions.

Image Source: MKTR.AI

Keeping tabs on the latest customer preference and trends will also help you provide an optimum content experience.

Note: Always remember that your audience will consume your content only if it is convenient for them to do so. A video that takes a lot of time to load on their browser or a blog post containing a lot of pop-up ads isn't something that will keep their attention for long.

7. Use Videos

You may instantly think of blogging when it comes to creating content. But, it's about time that videos get their due credit.

Utilizing videos is hailed as one of the biggest content marketing trends that you need to follow for the coming year.

Why create videos?

This is because they are highly effective in engaging your audience and can influence their decision to buy. Take a look at these stats:

• 94% of marketers are of the opinion that videos have helped boost user understanding of their service or product.
• 90% of people are of the view that videos assist them in making a purchase decision.
• According to Hubspot, 83% of video marketers have said that they have acquired leads with the help of video content.

You can produce a variety of videos for your audience, such as live videos, informational videos, webinars, and explainer or how-to videos.

Here are some tips you can follow to create the most effective videos:

• Capture your audience’s attention by talking about an interesting fact or telling a story.
• Create mobile-friendly videos so that your audience doesn’t face a hard time watching them on their smartphones.
• Nowadays, people tend to have a lower attention span. Hence, make it a point to put important information in your video first.
• Follow a consistent posting schedule so that you don’t keep your audience waiting.

8. Optimize Content for Search Engines

This is one trend that never gets old.

Make sure you adequately optimize your content for search engines. It boosts the likelihood of search engines finding your content and increasing its ranking in the search results.

Take a look at some of the steps you can take to optimize your content for search engines:

• Use proper keywords and phrases. Learn how to do keyword research for SEO.
• Check how Google ranks its content. Optimize your content with EAT (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness).

9. Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is one of the top content marketing trends for both B2B and B2C businesses.

For those new to the term, influencer marketing means partnering with influencers for the promotion of a service or product. Essentially, influencers are individuals on online platforms such as social media who can reach a massive audience via endorsements.

As you already may know, influencer marketing has long been famous with consumer brands. But, it's increasingly become the preferred choice for B2B businesses as well. The biggest benefit of using this type of marketing is that it helps get your brand in front of a large audience that you wouldn't have been able to otherwise. You don't even have to shell out loads of money in order to use this marketing.

10. Build Personalized Content

Personalized content is regarded as one of the most important trends of content marketing. Building such content helps provide a better and more unique experience to your audience.

But what really is personalized marketing?

Basically, it's a one-to-one marketing strategy that helps you offer a customized experience to your potential customers.

Image Source: Automatad

Let's understand this kind of marketing with the help of an example.

Suppose a person lands on your website to take a look at the ebook you are offering. In exchange for the ebook, you ask for their name and email id, which they provide. Now, the next time they visit your site, they receive a message on their screen that reads “Welcome back, [name]!” This kind of personalized message can create a lasting impression in the mind of the visitor. They get the feeling that the content on the website was created just for them.

Tip: When a visitor returns to your site, apart from showing a personalized message, you can also present them a list of recommended content for them to look at next (the content will be based on their previous interaction with the site). This creates a different kind of user experience altogether.

In all, personalized content helps you stand out and can very well be the reason for a visitor to choose you over your competition.

Rely on DashClicks to Get Relevant, Engaging Content for Your Clients

If you are a digital marketing agency that wishes to outsource content, then you can always rely on white label content services by DashClicks. The expert team at DashClicks creates content that will help generate more organic traffic for your client's website.

Here’s what you can expect when you decide to hire these services from DashClicks:

• Deliver 100% unique, supreme-quality content to your clients.
• The content will be well-researched.
• A team of accomplished writers will carry out the work.
• SEO specialists and writers will inspect the published copy to ensure that it brings the desired results.

Wrapping It Up

So many marketers are already planning to increase their content marketing budget next year. Hence, it's essential that you gear up and implement the latest content marketing trends for your business. It will help differentiate your brand from the others in the year 2023. From utilizing videos to content repurposing, the trends we have discussed so far will help set you up on the path to success and catapult business growth.

Ensure you implement the trends that will best suit your business and you will start to reap their benefits in due course of time. Best of luck!

Apart from an agency’s craft and quality, a strong agency-client relationship can help you achieve great results as a client.

A seamless client-agency communication results in exciting and encouraging campaigns. In a digital marketing environment, it is crucial that your agency understands your needs and frequently communicates with you. They must be willing to take the initiative and produce new, innovative ideas to ensure success in this dynamic and competitive field.

When you sign a contract with a digital agency, you trust it; therefore, much depends on your relationship. So, apart from skills, which matter but are not a decisive factor in your success, other things matter more.

Maintaining a healthy long-term relationship with the agency is important. So, if there are cracks in it or your agency is not giving its 100 percent, you can be on the receiving end of the deal.

Regularly evaluate your relationship to ensure that you are getting what you need. You should also ensure that your agency is committed and dedicated to helping you achieve your business goals.

7 Ways to Spot a Great Agency-Client Relationship

Here are the seven tips for finding an agency that offers a great agency-client relationship.

1. Seek Transparency

Most businesses hire digital agencies because they don’t possess the expertise and skills required to achieve the desired results online and don’t want to expand their team size.

But, in the real world, finding a committed agency is not child’s play. Many mushrooming agencies say “yes” to every question you ask or request you make as a client. They act positively during conversations, but it can be a huge red flag. Transparent agencies don’t say yes to everything, especially the expectations that are irrational and unrealistic.

Image Source: Cascade

Pro Tip: A genuinely committed and professional agency will not say “yes” to all your demands. Instead, they will tell you upfront things that are achievable and that you shouldn’t expect in the given time frame. You can use it as a litmus test.

2. Get To Know Your Team

Professional agencies will provide you access to the entire team executing your campaign. Substandard ones will keep these things private. They can even go to the extent of introducing you to the senior team members, who will not supposedly handle your project.

They can assign your project to junior staffers or freelancers that can be incompetent.

This is not a good situation. You need to know who is handling what so that you can monitor your campaigns and provide your input wherever required to achieve the best results.

So, just after your sales meeting, ask the agency to arrange a meeting with the individuals handling your account.

Knowing the people involved with your campaigns and people you can refer to for feedback and operational details is crucial.

3. Have Flexible Processes

For better project management, your agency should have an adaptable and flexible process. You should clearly define every project’s scope of work (SOW). It should be properly mentioned in the contract, so everyone is on the same page.

You should precisely define the processes and document them for your reference.

However, it doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be any flexibility in the process. If you feel that something extra needs to be done urgently, you should be able to immediately change the course and do it.

Suppose you change your mind after signing the contract and want to pause a Google ads campaign for two weeks. A competent agency should be able to understand this and be able to pause the campaign without offering excuses and adhering strictly to the process.

4. Ensure That Your Needs Are Prioritized

It’s quite strange, but it is frequently observed that most agencies focus on generating as much money as possible from their clients. It’s justified if they offer value and charge for the premium services, but what makes it worse is that they aren’t willing to put that much effort and time into your project. Instead, they do as little as possible if you don’t track it regularly.

As a business owner, you should be aware that it is quite prevalent in the market, which is why businesses fail to get the best results and ROI on their campaigns. However, it does not apply to all digital marketing agencies.

Professional agencies focus on your business objectives to ensure your success because that gives them tons of business as referrals and positive reviews.

5. Ensure That You Can Communicate Smoothly and Effectively

You must ensure that you can communicate with your agency without hesitation or curbing. For a successful project, seamless communication should happen at all levels.

You should be able to communicate via email, SMS, phone calls, chatbots, or even WhatsApp messages if needed.

You should also conduct frequent meetings so everyone can sit down and get updates across teams. You should also have access to the analytics platform if they use one because that will maintain transparency.

Agency Tip: With DashClick’s white-label agency platform, an agency can offer their clients a unified dashboard through which they can track everything using the analytics software.

With the DashClicks’ Analytics software, you can change the settings and view the most crucial metrics on the homepage to instantly track the metrics that are most important for you.

6. Don’t Hire a Passive Agency

Even though it is an essential ingredient of success, few agencies are proactive and innovative. If an agency wants to add value, it must suggest new approaches and ideas to the clients to help them outsmart their competition.

A passive agency would follow the scope of the work and will do just what is needed and agreed upon initially in the contract.

Suggesting new ideas, tactics, and ways requires expertise and willingness to excel and supersede the competition. Sadly, it’s outside the DNA of every agency. So, choose the best agency that thinks out of the box and is highly innovative.

Image Source: Semrush

The most successful agencies in the world in which team members suggest new ideas and share possibilities with their clients.

It’s crucial to boosting their online presence and conversions. It is also observed that most agencies are interested in earning regular money without providing any value addition, and they consider it a success. They call it “business on autopilot.”

Brainstorming new ideas and processes takes a lot of work, and most agencies are not ready to put in that kind of effort.

Trading your expertise, following the latest trends, and sharing strategic possibilities are top signs of a reliable agency. Such agencies are always willing to research market trends and implement innovative practices.

It gives their clients an edge over others. Clients can greatly benefit from their knowledge and expertise to break barriers and achieve new heights of success.

7. Find an Agency That Is Passionate About Digital Marketing

Last but not least, you can easily assess whether your agency is passionate about digital marketing. They should love the work they are into. They shouldn’t do it just to add another income stream.

And if you feel that your agency is not working wholeheartedly, you should approach another agency. Be ready for the tough conversations because they will bring great value onboard.

Final Words

We have discussed a few red flags above to help you differentiate mediocre agencies from great ones. Use these tips to spot a great agency for your digital marketing campaigns. Make sure your agency is transparent, professional, and open for regular communication. Make sure that they use the latest tools and software and are data-driven.

Headings are the phrases at a section's beginning describing what the section is about. All thanks to a page's headings, visitors can quickly scan the page and search engines can easily fathom the structure of the page.

But, the more important thing to know here is, headings can also help boost your brand's rankings if you use them in the correct manner!

How, you may ask?

Headings shed light on the relevancy and hierarchy of a content piece to both search engines and visitors. Headings, when correctly used, quickly help describe a page to both your site visitors and search engines.

Wish to know more about headings and SEO, and heading tags in more detail? Keep reading!

What Are Headings?

Headings are the phases that describe what the specific section is about.

In total, there are six levels of headings you should be aware of H1 through H6. These are defined in the HTML of a page.

The H1 heading is usually called the main heading, whereas the H2-H6 headings are called “subheadings” as they denote sub-levels. The H1 heading is the supreme one and the H6 heading is the least important one.

Image Source: Sitechecker

Fact: Headings H1, H2, and H3 are the ones used most frequently.

What Are Heading Tags?

Whenever the subject of headings comes up, people often refer to headings as “heading tags.” However, this is not the case.

Let's take an example to understand heading tags. For instance, you find this in your page's HTML code:

<h1>This is the H1 heading</h1>

Let’s break this H1 heading element down to understand what it means:

• <h1>: H1 heading’s opening tag
• This is the H1 heading: The text that will show as the H1 heading to the visitor
• </h1>: H1 heading’s closing tag

What's the Importance of Headings?

Headings hold importance both for search engines and visitors. Here's how:

Headings help visitors quickly navigate a page and find content that holds relevance to them. Also, visually impaired visitors take the help of screen readers for browsing, and these readers depend on headings to learn about pages.

As far as search engines are concerned, headings help them understand a page's topics as well as page structure. Also, when you incorporate keywords in headings, it positively impacts SEO performance.

Note: The correct use of headings improves user experience, eventually improving SEO performance.

Pro Tip: Headings improve your rankings because they help communicate relevance for keywords to search engines.

How Are Featured Snippets and Headings Linked?

You might have seen a featured snippet appear in SERPs after conducting a search in a search engine. These are special snippets that show an extract from a web page.

Now, the thing is, search engines need to know well enough about the content in order to choose these extracts. And you know what helps them in these? Headings!

If you use headings correctly and smartly, you increase your chances of appearing in featured snippets. And you know what this means a boost in your visibility in the SERPs that leads to more organic traffic to your website.

Heading Hierarchy

When it comes to headings, you need to follow a logical structure. Here's everything you need to keep in mind in this regard:

A page begins with the H1 heading and then follows the H2 heading. If you need another sub-section, the H2 heading can be followed by an H3 heading.

Also, in case you require more sub-sections, you can include H4-H6 headings.

Check out these headings levels that will give you an idea regarding what we are talking about:

Note: Never skip levels in the hierarchy.

An instance of correct heading usage is:

<h1>This heading explains the page's topic</h1>

<h2>An H2 subheading</h2>

<h3>An H3 subheading</h3>

<h2>Another H2 subheading</h2>

<h3>Another H3 subheading</h3>

Also, take a look at a second example to understand the levels of headings in a better manner:

<h1>This explains the topic of a page</h1>

<h2>An H2 subheading</h2>

<h2>Another H2 subheading</h2>

<h3>An H3 subheading</h3>

<h4>An H4 subheading</h4>

<h5>An H5 subheading</h5>

Image Source: Seobility

Sizes of Headings

The H1 heading should be the largest heading on a web page.

The H2 heading, on the other hand, is a little smaller than H1 and the H3 heading is a little smaller than H2.

And so on..

The thing is, the deeper you go with headings, the smaller their sizes become.

Take a look at this illustration to know the difference in heading sizes:

Image Source: Ilya Birman

H1 Heading

So far, we've established that the H1 heading explains the main topic of a page.

Here's another fact you need to know about this heading:

In case your page title doesn't pass the relevancy standard set by the search engines or if you don't clearly define your page title, the search engines may show the H1 heading of your page as the title in the search engine results of the page.

A few other important things you need to know about the H1 heading are:

1. A page should have only one H1 heading.
2. An H1 heading should be unique across your site.
3. Your H1 heading and page title can be the same. But we recommend that you create an H1 heading that doesn’t match your page title. This is because visitors tend to note the H1 heading more than the page title.
4. Don’t make an H1 heading too lengthy. Why so? It’s because it can hinder your user experience because of reduced readability. We suggest a length of 60 characters at max.
5. Ensure you create an H1 heading that makes sense for your readers.

Read More: How to Create the Perfect H1 Tag for Top Google Rankings

Other Heading Levels (H2-H6)

To further structure content, you can use subheadings H2-H6.

Use these subheadings only if you feel the need to include them in your content.

Deliver Impressive Results With DashClicks

Some digital marketing agencies can struggle to deliver SEO services or produce relevant content for their clients. This can happen due to a variety of reasons, which include the lack of time or resources. At this time, such agencies should consider hiring best-in-class white label SEO or content services.

At DashClicks, we provide reliable white label SEO and content services, combined with a fantastic software platform. Our partners trust us with their clients all over the world. The expert panel of professionals at DashClicks work to deliver only the best results for your clients.

Here’s what you can expect from our white label SEO services:

• Regular website optimizations
• 24/7 analytics and keyword tracking
• Link-building strategies
• Regular reporting
• Competitor research

And this is what you can expect from our white label content services:

• Well-researched, original content
• Work carried out by accomplished content writers
• 6-point inspection process to produce content that delivers the best results

Wrapping It Up

Headings are useful both for search engines and visitors. Visitors can take a quick scan of a page, all thanks to the headings used on it. Search engines, on the other hand, are able to understand the topics of a page and the page structure with the help of headings.

Now that you know what headings are and how to use headings for SEO, you can begin to incorporate them into your pages the right way. Headings are known to improve your rankings because they help convey relevance for keywords to search engines. So, ensure you use them wisely in your content in order to extract the maximum out of them.

Worldwide, businesses are waking up to the distinctive edge that digital marketing can provide by increasing their sales and boosting their web and social media presence.

According to a study by Bigcommerce, online stores pumped up their sales by 32% by growing their social presence compared to the other stores that neglect it.

However, selling digital marketing services is slightly different from selling other services. This article will discuss a complete sales plan for selling digital marketing services to local businesses and SMEs.

How to Sell Digital Marketing Services to Local Businesses & SMEs?

Based on our expertise, here are the five tips for selling digital marketing services to startups, local businesses, and SMEs with a high success rate.

1. Provide Clarity on Your Offer

Most people confuse SEO services with online marketing. However, that's not the truth. SEO is also a subset of digital marketing. SEO tactics are employed to optimize content to rank higher on search engines and increase your website's visibility.

According to Wrike, online marketing refers to marketing activities targeting consumers using digital channels.

Digital marketing has different streams, some of which are as follows:

• SEO
• Social media marketing
• Pay-per-click marketing
• Email marketing
• Content marketing
• Marketing Analytics
• Mobile Marketing
• In-Game marketing
• Influencer marketing
• Video Marketing
• Affiliate marketing

The greatest benefit of digital marketing is that it easily scales, is engaging, and is cost-effective.

Pro Tip: If you are a young digital marketing agency, you can choose one area of specialization, such as SEO or PPC, and later expand your portfolio or you can outsource your requirements.

2. Know Your Target Customers

Every industry has a different set of challenges and market trends. They have different needs, so they prefer an agency that understands their pain points, bottlenecks, and requirements. Similarly, an agency should do a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis and choose its niche accordingly.

Image Source: WordStream

Also, when you understand your client's business, you can serve them better and achieve better results using specific tactics.

Pro Tip: As a young agency, focus on just one niche, and specialize in it. For example, you can promote yourself as a digital marketing agency for dentists or educational institutions. When you start getting good results for your clients, you will get numerous client referrals.

Read More: How to Do Niche Marketing For Tiny Audiences

3. Create Customer Avatars and Buyer Personas

If you are a new digital marketing agency with no experience in selling, you can start by creating your customer avatar or buyer persona, representing your ideal customer.

A customer avatar has distinct personality traits and demographic and psychographic characteristics, so you can easily target them and create a suitable marketing strategy to address their needs.

Image Source: Dubsado

Identify three major types of your potential clients and target markets and do a split test study.

The best analytics tools will reveal which client is best suitable for your agency.

It would help if you also researched their budget and their specific objectives. Most agencies have common goals, such as increased engagement & traffic, more conversions, more sales, and increased brand awareness.

In the meantime, remember that your target audience is not imaginary-they are real people with real needs.

So, gather more information about them. It will help you make better decisions and formulate better strategies.

When clients choose you, they pin their hopes on your agency for their most crucial goals.

So, the more insights you have about them and their business, the better it is for your digital marketing campaigns.

Pro Tip: Get more information about your prospects and insights into their pain points.

Ten years ago, awareness about digital marketing was minimal, but things have drastically changed. According to a study by ZDNet in 2020, 70% percent of businesses underwent a digital transformation.

The trend is continuing, and more and more SMEs and startups are undergoing digital transformation, and it is not happening just in the US but across the world. So, the business prospects are quite bright for digital marketing agencies. The only requirement to succeed is to do some due diligence before approaching their prospects or making sales calls.

4. Go to the Right Places

You should also know how to find your clients in the right places to succeed. For example, suppose you have chosen gaming as your niche, and your audience is millennials; you can find them on social platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. If Instagram is your target, then build a customer base by getting some followers till you build an organic follower count.

If your target audience is the adult population, you can find them on Facebook, local directories, LinkedIn, their website, their social handles, and in-person meetings.

Image Source: BenchmarkONE

If you're selling digital marketing services, ditch old practices such as cold calling and spamming potential customers digitally.

Pro Tip: Clarity calls or chemistry calls without the right mix of coaching, strategy, and action will also not work.

Have you ever received those dubious tech support calls from scammers that tell you how horrible your antivirus protection is on your PC or laptop? Or how dangerous it can be for your banking and personal information?

Sadly, such intimidating tactics don't work in digital marketing. It would help if you sounded more helpful and empathetic in this field to win your clients. Do your homework proactively and learn about your prospects' pain points.

Image Source: Brian Tracy

Research their business, market trends, target audience, and the best ways to tap the market. Analyze their current marketing strategy and find the cracks in it.

Suggest the best solutions to address those pain points. If possible, make the entire digital marketing roadmap to meet your prospects' goals and present it using PowerPoint and videos. You can easily create your Slides using AI powerpoint generator.

This way, you will earn their trust and gain credibility.

You also make an impression that you are not after your clients' money and genuinely think about their well-being and success.

You can instantly win the contract if they are happy with your analysis and how you can help them.

If possible, go for in-person meetings. Powerful conversations happen in face-to-face meetings. It allows you to ask questions about their pain points without attempting to promote your agency.

5. Appeal to Your Prospects Passions & Emotions

Know their passions, life goals, and things that matter the most to them. Don't try to put them down. Connect to their desires. Engage in meaningful conversations and things that bother your clients the most.

Image Source: Reve Chat

This approach will bring you more business than any other thing on this planet!

Ask about their struggles and aspirations and look at the bigger picture. Recently, PR Newswire conducted an interesting study that revealed that 79% of customers buy from brands that can prove that they care about winning their business.

Customers need to be assured that the agency they hire the services from deeply understands and cares about their needs.

You must convince them that your services will make their life easier and better. This strategy alone will keep you in business and help you attract more and more clients.

6. Offer Additional Value

Competition is heating up in the digital marketing industry. On average, every business receives three to four calls weekly from a digital marketing agency in the US. In such an environment, it becomes important that you use a unique marketing strategy. For example, you can offer something different than what others are. For example, many agencies provide free audits, SEO reports, etc.

DashClicks CEO, Chad Kodary, takes an entirely different approach. If you sign up for the DashClicks platform, you will get access to a website builder tool, InstaSites which you can use for prospecting.

It allows you to build a niche-specific professional website of 30 to 40 pages for your client. It would be free of cost and content ready. All you need to do is make a cold call to your prospects and ask them to look at the website that you have created for them free of cost.

Here is the YouTube playlist where you can watch Chad Kodary explain the whole strategy -

Also, read this blog for more information on how to sell using DashClicks proven sales formula.

Blog Link: How to Use InstaSites Software to Super Charge Your Sales

During the call, please don't ask for their credit card number or anything like that. If they like the free website preview, you can seek their permission to activate the website for them.

This can be the starting point of a long-term relationship with your client. Make another courtesy call after a week and ask if they liked the website. If they are happy with the website, you can offer additional services such as SEO or PPC.

Since this approach is based purely on good intentions, you're more likely to win the contract. You can use this strategy to win more and more digital marketing clients every month, and you will never have to look back.

7. Use the Terms That Your Clients Understand

Assess the expertise level of your clients and use the language accordingly. Don't use industry jargon if they are beginners, and be very cautious if they are experts in this area. Don't make any false claims, and keep your conversation logical.

8. Learn More About Selling Digital Marketing Services

You should constantly update yourself and keep abreast of the latest market trends, tools, and technologies. Regularly attend webinars, seminars, and events related to the digital marketing industry and participate in professional sales training workshops.

Read More: How to Get Clients for Digital Marketing: 7 Steps to Building a Strong Sales Pipeline for Your Agency

Final Words

If you follow these tips, you are more likely to win new sales contracts and retain your clients for the long term. The key is to be honest and offer value. Try the DashClicks proven sales formula. It is a valuable proposition proven by hundreds of agencies worldwide. It minimizes your prospecting efforts and raises your success rate, As the approach differentiates you from others and gives you an edge over your competition.