What do you think is a real game-winner for digital agencies? Is it mere creativity and expertise that attracts new customers? Creativity earns you accolades, but an unmatched customer experience makes them loyal customers, ensuring sustainable long-term growth.

However, achieving client satisfaction is easier said than done because of some insurmountable challenges, such as the ever-increasing expectations of customers. Another big challenge is increasing competition because of mushrooming freelancers and agencies across the globe.

Here are a few things that come in the way of client retention –

• Lack of a proper understating of the project
• Substandard work quality
• Tall claims and over-promising
• Lack of standard processes
• Poor project management and execution
• Lack of adequate communication

Client satisfaction is the biggest factor that ensures your agency’s success.

Challenges Preventing Agencies From Providing a Better Client Experience

Here are five challenges that most agencies face when providing a better client experience.

Challenge #1: Handling More Than You Can Manage

Most agencies fall into the trap of providing more services than they can handle. These services include web development, SEO, PPC, social media management, email marketing, affiliate marketing, content marketing, etc. However, these fields are entirely distinct and require additional hiring to keep up with the clients’ expectations and allow the processes to work smoothly.

If you don’t have the trained professionals to execute these processes, chances are you will not be able to achieve your client’s business goals through your campaigns. Some customers are extremely fussy about such issues, and they fire their agency when they notice that campaigns are off-track and results are not achieved.

Pro Tip: If you want to remain lean and thin and do not wish to add additional staff, you can simply focus on your core service and expand it. This way, you can not only market yourself as an expert in that particular niche but also charge premium prices.

To avoid hiring an additional workforce, you can outsource digital marketing services from DashClicks, a premium white-level company. DashClicks has large teams of trained digital marketing experts and certified SEO and PPC professionals who can help you achieve your client's business goals. The platform also periodically helps you generate comprehensive performance reports to update your clients on the campaign's performance.

DashClicks' platform and fulfillment services are designed to help agencies scale and accommodate new projects and assignments without worrying about their existing workforce.

Challenge #2: Lack of Proper Understating of the Project

Writing a proper brief is a major digital marketing agency challenge. Even the most creative campaigns suffer because of a lack of a powerful brief. A well-written brief ensures that the project is executed per your client’s expectations and delivers the best results. But, to work with a proper brief, you should avoid putting all the information in a single document. Using project templates for specific purposes is the best strategy. It makes execution easier for the executives and creatives.

Pro Tip: A creative brief is a blueprint that helps and guides all your team members to execute and complete a campaign from ideation to completion. The creatives involved in the project can use it as a manual. You can also use a reverse brief; it provides a bigger picture of the project and what a client wants.

Image Source: HubSpot

It should explain the timeline, project goals, and scope of work and provide clarity about deliverables. If your team members struggle with creating good briefs, you can use templates that will be extremely helpful. These templates will also enable you to ask your clients the right questions so you can have an enhanced understanding and clarity about the project. The templates also help the agency staffers to work in greater collaboration and the right direction.

Challenge #3: Lack of Standard Processes

Sometimes, a process is more important than what you will achieve. Creating websites according to the client's expectations is not a cakewalk. It involves the most intricate details and individual preferences of a client because it's crucial to branding and their overall business objectives.

It becomes even more challenging when you serve numerous clients daily. If you don't have a proper checklist, it will become a big mess that will leave clients unhappy and dissatisfied.

It will greatly help if you have standard processes to move ahead and offer a better client experience. Without well-defined processes, there will be bottlenecks in your projects, leading to disappointment for your team and your clients.

Pro Tip: If your team is facing stress because your project is getting unnecessarily delayed, you need to focus on building standard processes for greater efficiency. Identify your client's needs and what you need to do to resolve this, and then assign different responsibilities to each team member.

You might need several tools to execute this. DashClicks' platform offers you numerous tools for automation and project execution. Apart from that, it allows you to work from a single dashboard to have a bird's eye view of your project and immediately check the key metrics on the dashboard itself, giving you an edge over your competitors.

Challenge #4: Tracking Evolving Needs of a Project

When you start executing the project, you might need many things you initially didn’t plan or think about. Sometimes the project grows in size, and the client adds more features to their business portfolio. If you have a specific contract at the start of the project, it will save you from many issues emerging from such situations. You can effectively track the evolving needs of a project and communicate it to the client if it doesn’t match the scope of work initially agreed upon.

Pro Tip:  Your clients may not have the experience of handling a website or SEO project, which may come as a surprise because of the evolving needs. So, establish proper communication with your clients and educate them on the expectations as far as the scope and deliverables are concerned. It will prevent the project cost and time from getting out of control.

Challenge #5: Improper Handling of Feedback

If you have experience working with developers, you must be aware of the frustration clients go through when their feedback is not implemented as per their instructions by the developers. A lot of client churn happens when your project management is poor. If you continuously ignore emails from your clients and miss deadlines, you will quickly lose them.

Pro Tip: You can use DashClicks' white label agency software to keep in touch with your clients through instant messaging and emails simultaneously. Moreover, the entire communication is visible to your team. If a particular person cannot address any concern, another team member or project manager will notice it and alert the crew.

Final Words

You will likely increase your referral rates if you offer an amazing client experience. It will bring you tons of business without advertising for it. Happy customers keep coming back and refer your agency to others. So, if you can resolve the above challenges, you will be in a better position to offer an excellent client experience.

Take advantage of the DashClicks white label platform and fulfillment services and familiarize yourself with their tools. You can sign up for the platform free of cost and enjoy using it right away.

We can all agree on one thing ā Google has continually improved and optimized the manner in which search results are shown to a searcher. Rich results are a great example of this. All thanks to Google's rich results, web pages now have the chance to show more information in search result snippets.

Basically, Google's rich results include extra information about a web page based on the type of content it includes. For instance, a product page might show up along with price and reviews. A blog article, on the other hand, might show up with its publish date and an image.

If this is something that intrigues you as a marketer, keep reading to know more about the importance of rich results, their types, and how to enable them for your web pages.

What are Google's Rich Results?

Let's take a closer look at rich results.

Rich results are designed in a way to highlight important information. Their prime goal is to inform the searcher. They even reduce the guesswork for Google as the search engine is able to learn about a page's purpose in the most accurate manner.

Now, you may be wondering, where do rich results appear?

They are displayed right above traditional text results, at the so-called position 0. If you get featured in rich results, it's highly beneficial for your business. After all, it's a coveted position many businesses vie for!

Image Source: Backlinko

What Are the Advantages of Rich Results?

If you get featured in a rich result, you'll be the first thing searchers see after they make a search, even if you aren't ranking in the traditional results. Pretty cool, isn't it?

Also, here’s how rich results differ from basic search result snippets:

• Increased User Engagement: Rich results display more than just basic information about a page’s content and are more relevant to the searcher’s query. This helps searchers fathom exactly what they will get to know upon clicking your page. As a result, you get to divert more engaged users to your website and reduce the bounce rate.
• A Boost in Click-Through Rates: Rich results are made to stand out and help searchers get their answers more quickly. This can increase the likelihood of a searcher visiting your web page.
• Improved Rankings: Search engine algorithms see high click-through rates as a great sign, often rewarding you with an increase in your website’s rankings.

Types of Rich Results

1. Featured Snippets

A type of enhanced search result, a featured snippet usually appears at the top of search results.

There are different types of featured snippets. You may already know about the paragraph format. Other types include a list or a table featured snippet that can show up when you conduct a search on Google.

2. Knowledge Graph Cards

Knowledge graph cards are often associated with an organization or a business. These are the large cards that appear on the right of the SERPs. These don't require structured data to be displayed (but structured data can certainly help).

Google takes information for the knowledge graph cards from different sources, including Wikipedia, your GMB account, news articles, etc.

3. OneBox Results

OneBox is the immediate answer you get for very specific queries. You can see them appear at the top of the SERPs. For instance, you can see this type of rich result when you ask for a translation or simply search what time it is.

Image Source: Seobility

4. Discover Results

When you swipe right on your mobile device and see a few stories based on your recent searches, these are called Discover results.

Note: You can see Discover results on Android devices only.

5. Frequently Asked Question (FAQ)

An FAQ rich result has a list of questions and answers on a certain subject. The indexed pages that implemented the FAQ rich result schema for their content are the ones Google pulls these answers from.

6. How-To

A How-to walks users through a series of steps to complete a task utilizing text, videos, and images.

7. Reviews and Ratings

Do your customers regularly rate your products and services? If yes, you can collect and mark them as reviews or ratings with Schema.org/Review. This will help search engines identify your product reviews and even display them in the search results for products/services similar to yours.

How To Enable Rich Results?

Google's rich results rely on the use of structured data on a page. Most often, this is in the form of schema.org markup within your site code, either in microdata or a JSON-LD format. To make your content eligible for rich results, you need to use proper markup and include every required field.

To understand how structured data works and read guides to implementing it, click here. Remember, you need to implement structured data properly to appear in rich results. You can even check Google's structured data guidelines to learn about the implementation requirements.

Or, you can simply implement these steps to maximize your chances of getting rich results!

1. Check the Types of Rich Results and Select the Right One

When it comes to rich results, understanding the available options is vital to select the right type for your content.

We have already discussed the different types of rich results in the previous section. You can read the Google Search Gallery to check out all the types as well.

2. Check the Guidelines for Rich Results

Open the Google Search Gallery to view the requirements and guidelines you need to follow for each type of rich result. These concern the content requirements, tips, and technical guidelines needed to increase your chances for appearing in rich results. We also recommend going through the general structured data guidelines.

Note: The Search Gallery listing for any type of rich result displays which Schema types and properties are needed. So, be sure to check it out.

You also need to go through the Schema documentation to know what information and input you need to add.

3. Create a Schema Markup

Structured data's standard vocabulary is Schema.org.

You can implement schema on web pages in RDFa, JSON-LD, and Microdata formats. Out of these, JSON-LD is the most recommended format.

Note: JSON-LD is case-sensitive, so ensure to pay attention.

There are a few ways to create a schema markup. We take you through a few:

A. Manually Create Schema Markup

If you decide to manually create markup, Google has a Structured Data Codelab that sheds light on how to implement the markup yourself.

These essential resources, Google's Search Gallery and Schema's documentation, will come in handy.

B. Using a Markup Generator Tool or Plugin

Some tools also help in automatically generating structured data markup. They also eliminate errors and typos and save a ton of time. Here's a closer look at these tools:

i. CMS Plugins

You can try the following SEO plugins which include the structured data feature (if you are using WordPress):

• Rank Math
• Yoast SEO
• All In One SEO

You can also select a tool from a variety of schema WordPress plugins, such as:

• Schema & Structured Data for WP & AMP
• Schema

Tip: For Drupal, check out the Schema.org Metatag. And for Shopify, browse tools in the Shopify App Store.

ii. Markup Generator Tools

You can also use a markup generator tool and add the code to your website manually.We suggest you use Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper.

The markup helper asks you to highlight the relevant images or text strings (instead of copying and pasting or typing the correct information).

If you are unable to add any element by highlighting, add them manually by clicking on the ‘Add missing tags‘. On the right side, scroll down to the bottom of the markup and you will see the ‘Add missing tags’ option.

The tool allows you to choose between Microdata and JSON-LD. Once you select the format, you can download the code.

4. Add Your Markup To Your Site

To add markup to a page, you can use the CMS plugins ‘Rank Math’ and ‘Schema & Structured Data’ for WP & AMP.

Or, you can place the code in your website manually.

Include JSON-LD inside the <script> tag and place it either in the <body> or <head> of the HTML code.

Image Source: Backlinko

Note: You can also implement structured data with Google Tag Manager. This is a supported method to add structured data using JavaScript.

How To Test Your Markup?

You can know if your page is set up for rich results in a proper manner via these two methods:

• Using Google's Rich Results Test.

• Checking in the Google Search Console. In your Google Search Console account, visit the “Enhancements” menu. Here you can check for any type of rich results set up on your site.

Remember, after any structured data has been put in place, it can take two or more weeks to see rich results pull through. You need to note something else here too. Even if your pages are using structured data properly with all the required fields, it is not necessary that they will show up as rich results.

How to Optimize for Rich Results?

Optimizing your website to show up in rich results can increase your traffic and ranking. Here are some tips you can follow to do that:

1. Provide a high-quality on-site experience to users who click through to your website. You can ensure this with quick loading pages, in-stock products, the latest information, and an intuitive user experience.
2. If you are set on a specific rich result, ensure that the format of your content matches what’s ranking at the moment (it can be a long-form article, a listicle, a slideshow, or an FAQ page).
3. Ratings and reviews are typically included in rich results and can increase the likelihood of your site showing up at the top of searches. Hence, ensure you build up positive reviews as they  help users trust your site.

Conclusion

Rich results help boost the visibility of your web pages in search results. They also help you grab the attention of your target audience and increase the likelihood of them visiting your website.

If you, too, wish for your pages to show up in rich results, ensure your structured data is compliant with the guidelines Google has set for rich results. Also, take steps to optimize for rich results.

We hope this guide helps you get started with rich results. Now, it's time to get to work and implement what you've learned!

The digital marketing industry has undergone a significant transformation in the past couple of years. Increasing competition and the rise of social media have changed how companies advertise and interact with their customers. This shift in marketing puts pressure on companies to evaluate and pivot their marketing strategies and challenges agencies responsible for creating and managing these campaigns.

Social media is driving many changes in how people consume content, implying that agencies need to be more creative when connecting with their audiences. Not only do they have to create compelling content, but they also need to figure out how to get it in front of as many people as possible through social channels.

The challenge for digital marketing agencies is that these changes are happening so quickly that it's difficult for them to keep up with all the new trends and platforms.

The Benefits of Building a Strong Sales Pipeline

The benefits of a strong client base go beyond revenue & profits. Businesses that enjoy a pipeline of quality prospects can also test new marketing and business strategies. You should refrain from casting a net out into the air and waiting for someone to enter it. A company with a solid client base can continue to focus on its services and expertise without going overboard with its marketing strategies.

Companies using their marketing strategies to attract new clients are more likely to generate repeat business. Prospects with a strong interest in an agency's services are more likely to become paying customers and return for additional services.

Businesses that take the time to develop a solid client base are also better positioned to weather bad economic conditions or periods of slow sales. Sales may not always be consistent, but companies with a solid customer foundation can still keep their doors open. This type of resilience is key to long-term success.

However, there are a few steps agencies can take to ensure they stay relevant in this ever-changing industry.

Lastly, an agency needs to provide a good customer experience through customer service, which includes understanding their needs as well as being able to answer any questions they may have.

How to Get More Clients for Your Digital Marketing Agency?

Here are seven proven tips for finding more clients for a digital agency.

1. Use Your Website

Here are a few ways to get more clients from your website:

A. Create an Aesthetic Website

To explore how visitors behave on your website, use Google Analytics to analyze visitors' navigation paths.

To do that, first, generate the Navigation Summary report by taking the following steps.

Click Behavior -> Site Content -> All Pages.

It will tell you how clients find a certain page and where they click next on your website.

Image Source: Hostinger

You can also look at the Users Flow report under the Audience menu to see a more exhaustive visualization of how visitors navigate your website.

Image Source: Hostinger

B. Pay Attention to Your Web Design and User Interface (U/I)

94% of the first impressions regarding your website are related to your design and user interface (U/I). Highlight your specialties and develop a brand identity. Align your web design with the services you offer. As an example, look how Marie Forleo attracts budding female entrepreneurs through her website.

Image Source: Marie Forleo

C. Add an "About Us" Section

An "About Us" section tells your visitors about your brand personality, mission, vision, and how you can add value to their lives. So, use this section carefully to showcase your passion and expertise. Keep it short and simple, and remove all fluff.

2. Provide an Excellent Customer Experience and Support Service

You should improve your customer experience to make your brand stand out. As per Forbes, "Customer experience is today's business benchmark."

Apart from a good transactional relationship, customers cherish a positive and delightful experience.

Consumers expect a wholesome positive experience with the brands they flock to, not just a transactional relationship. If you want to stand out from your competitors, focus on providing a 360-degree customer experience.

Image Source: SuperOffice

Here are five practical tips to improve customer experience –

• Leverage the power of chatbots, Artificial Intelligence tools, and natural language processing that allows you to understand what people mean in free-form text messages.
• Make an omnichannel strategy for a unique customer experience.
• Deliver world-class customer service.
• Train your front-end staffers effectively.
• Include self-service options on your website such as support content, walkthrough videos, case studies, etc.

3. Use Your Existing Network

Start with the people you know and let your family, friends, and colleagues find out about your business. Distribute your visiting cards and mention your business everywhere possible, especially on social occasions and events.

Here are the seven ways to grow your business network –

• Use good networking etiquette. Avoid the hard sell and focus on “soft publicity.”
• Encourage your acquaintances to promote your business to their networks as well.
• Get involved in your community.
• Utilize all social media channels relevant to your business.
• Join local business groups or chambers of commerce.
• Attend networking events.
• Get involved in civic organizations.

4. Use Online Marketing Tools

Perform all the basic online marketing tactics, such as local SEO (registering on Google My Business maps and listing your business info), online directories, and platforms in your niche. You can also use Yelp, Thumbtack, UpWork, and Fiverr.

You can also try paid advertising on Google, Facebook, and Instagram. Try A/B testing and focus on one or two online channels only.

Make sure you have a strong online presence and that your marketing materials are up to date. Attend as many relevant marketing events and meetups as you can. Get active on social media and Increase your visibility through SEO and paid ads.

5. Cultivate Relationships With Potential Clients

Reward and incentivize your social media fans and followers and engage them with your promotions, special offers, and discounts. Encourage them to share their email addresses and contact details with you through google forms, newsletter sign ups, etc., and send them personalized messages like birthday and anniversary wishes through emails.

Here are nine ways to cultivate meaningful relationships with your prospects and social media followers:

• Communicate consistently and effectively.
• Prioritize timely, efficient communication and quick redressal of issues and query handling.
• Try to be as upbeat as possible in your tonality and messages.
• Treat your prospect as an individual and not just a business contact.
• Share knowledge and entertain.
• Be open-minded and ready to accept suggestions.
• Exceed expectations and deliver more than you promise.
• Gather insights about your client’s goals, values, ambitions, and pain points.
• Avoid jargon and speak your client’s language.

6. Make an Engaging Portfolio

A portfolio is a must for digital marketers and agency owners. It’s the first marketing collateral your prospect sees, so be careful, as the first impression is often the last. No two agencies are similar in approach, expertise, and processes, so use your portfolio to showcase everything that makes you stand out.

Here are a few tips to make an engaging portfolio you can use to market your services –

• Create insightful content
• Use SEO to improve the visibility of your portfolio
• Create downloadable case studies in PDF format and promote their URL online
• Display social proof on your website
• Distribute your portfolio on social media
• Include numbers and graphics to support your claims in your case studies

7. Use Webinars to Market Your Services

The popularity of webinars is steadily growing among marketers. It allows your targeted audience to access your marketing content online without physically attending an event or a training session. It also helps you generate leads, convert customers instantly, and shorten your sales funnel. Tap a broader audience using webinars as they become your content marketing assets, even if you can't attract enough attendees to your current webinar.

Final Words

With increasing competition, you should find innovative ways to attract leads and convert them into paying customers. We have discussed a few basic steps above that will help you outsmart your competition.

In the digital marketing industry, getting more clients is usually tough without creating a strong brand. So, focus on making a brand and providing outstanding services to your clients. Offer top-notch customer experience and help your clients achieve their goals through consistent innovation and efforts.

You can attract more clients to your agency by focusing on the best ways to stand out. It may include utilizing push notifications, sharing best practices and insights from industry leaders, or responding to client feedback on time.

Whatever route you take, ensure it leads to new customers and high retention rates for your agency. So there, you have it, happy marketing!

Ciao.

Lead generation is essential for your business. You cannot grow your agency without a constant supply of leads. Most agencies have limited budgets. Therefore, the cost of lead generation also becomes an important consideration. Your ROI is directly proportional to your investment in lead generation as it brings a lot of value to your enterprise.

If you want your organization to succeed, you need high-quality prospects. But, at the same time, you cannot afford highly expensive lead generation sources.

This guide will discuss the different aspects of lead generation costs and the factors that impact it. So it will also help you discover the most effective lead-generation strategies within your budget.

What Are the Factors That Affect the Cost of Lead Generation?

Agencies perform different activities to generate leads, and the most prominent ones include advertising on social media and creating landing pages. The effectiveness of your advertising campaigns on social media and search engines determines the success of your marketing campaigns. Your campaigns should generate leads that you can convert into customers with minimal effort.

The biggest factors that influence the cost of lead generation include media placement and distribution. It will also impact the cost of running ad campaigns on Facebook and LinkedIn and hiring third parties to receive or generate lists.

However, the cumulative cost may soon shoot up if you are not careful or your budget is small.

Image Source: SmartInsights

We can divide the lead generation cost into the following elements -

A. Salaries and Fees Paid to Freelancers and Experts

These include the cost of hiring full-time employees and freelancers to run social media ads and traditional advertising campaigns. You can easily calculate ROI on this expenditure based on how many leads they generate every month.

B. Content Production, Promotion and Distribution

To run both organic and paid campaigns, you need quality content, and that comes at a cost. The content you create should offer value to your prospects and should be helpful, interesting and engaging. Agencies create blog posts, social media posts, videos, podcasts, infographics and content for webinars and ad messaging. After producing customer-centric content, you must also spend heavily on promoting and distributing it.

C. Software Programs, Apps and Tools

Agencies use different software programs and apps to succeed in today's data-driven marketing environment. These tools allow you to scale quickly and automate numerous manual tasks that are quite tedious and time-consuming.

Pro Tip: If you use a white-label platform and fulfillment services, you'll also get access to many apps and agency tools that will be extremely cost-effective for your agency.

DashClicks white-label platform offers the following apps:

• Contacts (A CRM software that helps you store and organize your people and business contacts)
• Inbound App (A lead management software that streamlines your leads and notifies your sales team about them)
• InstaSites: (A bulk website builder that can instantly build dozens of professional content-ready websites for your clients)
• InstaReports (A reporting tool that can create hundreds of digital marketing reports in a few seconds)
• Projects (A project management software that helps you track and manage your projects swiftly)

Apart from these, the platform also offers numerous other highly useful apps for digital agencies.

D. Audience

Your lead generation cost also depends on the number and types of leads you want to generate. So, if you generate bulk leads and want to target new customers, it will definitely cost more. On the other hand, if you run an up-selling campaign for your existing customers, it will cost you much less.

Types of Leads

Before we discuss various lead generation costs, let's first discuss the types of leads most businesses generate. Marketers often generate (or wish to generate) two major types of leads.

1. Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs)

MQLs are the potential customers you're able to successfully target through your campaigns.

2. Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs)

SQLs are the customers already engaged with your business in some way. They are also more likely to buy your products or services. They may have signed up for your newsletter, attended your webinar, downloaded an ebook, purchased your products/services before, or booked an appointment.

Image Source: Instapage

How to Calculate Cost per Lead (CPL)?

Cost per Lead, or CPL, is one of the most popular metrics to measure the performance of a digital marketing campaign. Here is the formula that marketers use to calculate CPL.

CPL = Total cost spend on a digital marketing campaign/number of leads coming from that campaign.

For example, if you spent $3,000 on a pay-per-click (PPC) ad campaign and converted 100 people into leads, the Cost per Lead will be: $3,000 / 100 = $30.

Image Source: Pointerpro

Types of Lead Generation Cost

Here are the different types of lead generation costs that marketers need to consider.

1. Agency, Freelancers, and Labor: Many businesses either hire an agency or commission freelancers to run their digital marketing campaigns, such as SEO and paid campaigns. The cost of hiring an agency or the freelancers' payments is included in your lead generation cost.

2. List Purchase: You can't run a telemarketing campaign without a relevant customer database. List purchase includes the cost of buying phone numbers for telemarketing and address lists for direct marketing.

3. Campaign Creation: It involves the cost of researching keyword data to target the right audience for your organic campaigns. It also includes the cost associated with the following activities:

• Developing a campaign strategy.
• Creating marketing messages, an email or SMS/text message campaign.
• Creating keyword-optimized content for search engines to target the right audience, and the cost of editing, proofreading, adding graphics and publishing.
• Testing and tweaking your ad copy and design.
• Managing the website or landing page.

You can set up a campaign for as low as $10 per month for an bulk email service provider alone. Your cost may go up to as high as $12,000 per month if you outsource it.

4. Ad Campaign Management: This is the cost you incur to set up an effective online marketing campaign, such as setting up ad placement on different paid channels like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Google. It also involves various activities and messaging you use at other sales funnel stages to push the lead down the funnel for conversion. Focus on one product or service at a time while doing this to reduce your costs.

5. Incentive: Businesses sometimes incentivize their high-quality prospects with discounts and coupons when they exhibit buying intent.

6. Media Placement and Distribution: It is the cost of reaching your targeted audience through online campaigns.

7. Other: Apart from that, there are some additional costs of managing a campaign, such as costs incurred on influencer marketing, buying tools and apps, event participation, etc.

Most Common Lead Generation Pricing Structures

Here are some of the most popular and trending metrics you must be familiar with.

1. Cost Per Appointment

This metric ranges between $150 ā€“ $350. It involves the number of appointments you make with potential customers. It also considers the time a website visitor spends on your website. CPA is the easiest model businesses use to calculate costs without tracking every sale they make.

2. Retainer

This metric ranges between $3,000 ā€“ $10,000 per month. It comprises advertising and lead generation services. This cost model mainly considers lead generation while ignoring other campaign elements. It allows you to choose your budget for paid search and display ads.

3. Cost Per Lead

This metric ranges between $40 ā€“ $190 per lead. CPL reflects the cost of generating a new customer or lead. Businesses use this metric to maximize leads without investing too much time and effort.

4. CPL = Total Cost Spend / Number of Leads

For example, if you converted 50 people after spending $1,600 on an ad, your CPL would be: $1,500 / 50 = $30.

It helps you calculate your ROI and determine the types of resources you want to allocate to the activity the next time.

Conclusion

Many businesses employ robust lead generation processes and tools, and yet their quality of leads is dismal. You must invest time and money to generate quality leads and set up the right procedures to determine which tactics work best. You should also keep it within your budget, which you can easily achieve by consistently monitoring your cost of lead generation and tweaking your campaign accordingly.

Today, increasing organic search traffic is no easy feat. It demands plenty of upfront work, particularly when you have a restricted budget.

One of the most effective ways by which you can increase your overall search traffic is through the “Skyscraper Technique.”

Brian Dean of Backlinko developed this technique in the year 2015. It is a widely recognized method that helps build backlinks to your content. As you may already know, backlinks are one of Google’s top ranking factors. These links are extremely important in the SEO world because they signal to search engines that your website is high-quality, relevant and reputed.

Read on to know more about this technique and how to execute it in order to build high-quality backlinks.

What Is the Skyscraper Technique?

The Skyscraper Technique is a way to create engaging content, which will, in turn, help you earn high-quality backlinks to your content.

Here’s the technique broken down into 3 simple steps:

• Searching for link-worthy content
• Producing something better
• Sharing what you have created

In simpler terms, the technique helps you build upon the best content out there to create something even better, and then promote it to the right people.

But why is it called the “Skyscraper” technique? This is because you create the best piece of content on the internet for a particular topic. As it will be the biggest piece of content on the topic, it will stand above every other content piece (just as a skyscraper stands above every other building in a skyline!)

Image Source: Snov.io

How to Use the Skyscraper Technique to Build High-Quality Backlinks?

Now that you know what the Skyscraper Technique is and its benefits, let's discuss how to use it to get high-quality links.

1. Check What's Buzzing in Your Niche

There is no use putting effort into a content piece that no one's going to consume, right?

Hence, you need to produce content that is in some sort of demand at the moment.

We recommend that you find content that's buzzing in your niche right now. Using a tool like BuzzSumo will help you find such trending' topics. With the help of this tool, you can easily identify content with the maximum social shares. This will exactly be the kind of content you need to create your skyscraper piece on.

Another way you can find popular content topics in your niche is to check out famous online communities such as Reddit or Quora. The topics with a high number of “upvotes” will be the ones you should be writing on to create skyscraper content.

2. Search for the Topic In Google

Once you select the topic you want to build upon, type the topic into Google and hit “Search.”

Check the first two links (ignore any ads). Google finds these pieces the most relevant and hence shows them as the top two results. These are the content pieces you have to beat and build upon.

Note: When you go through the links, you will see that they are well-researched, highest-quality pieces available to your ideal audience right now. In other words, these pieces are the tallest skyscrapers right now. Now, what you need to do is build your own piece taller than them.

3. Research Your Competitors

The previous step helped you identify your competitors, now you need to research them.

Here’s what you precisely need to do:

Use the Ahrefs tool to get a list of keywords that your competitors are ranking for in organic search results.

Note: With this tool, you also get to know the amount of traffic your competitors are receiving.

Tip: You can also learn how to spy on competitors to monitor them closely.

4. Think if You Can Create Something Better

Now that you know about your competition and what you are really up against, you need to ask yourself this crucial question – “Can I create something better?”

If the answer is yes, it’s time to get going! Here are some tips on how you can create a better piece of content than the ones already out there:

A. Write Long-Form Content

You can significantly improve a content piece by diving deeper and going bigger. For instance, you search for the topic you selected for your skyscraper piece on Google, and the result shows “10 best…”

Now, how about you go bigger and longer and share “30 best..” ? (if, of course, you are able to provide quality tips throughout).

Another reason we say that you create long-form content is because it indicates that you have done in-depth research to create such a comprehensive piece. Also, when you offer people information on a particular topic in one single place, your content gets more shares and reaches more people. It even gives you a chance to establish yourself as a thought leader in your field. All of this means one thing – an increased chance of gaining high-quality backlinks to your content.

Note: If you want to deliver high-quality, fully-researched content to your clients, you can think about hiring DashClicks’ white label content services.

B. Lay Special Focus on the Headline

Writing an eye-catching, compelling headline is integral to the Skyscraper Technique. Think about it, if the reader is not convinced with your headline, will they even read the rest of the content? Hence, we recommend that you put special emphasis on coming up with a headline that captures the attention of the reader and convinces them to read your piece.

Here are some tips to create catchy headlines:

• Use when, why, how, and what
• Use numbers to offer key takeaways
• Make a promise that convinces the reader to read your content
• Demonstrate what the reader will get out of reading the article with the help of a unique rationale

C. Create the Ultimate Source for the Topic at Hand

To create a skyscraper piece, you need to create the best piece of content out there for the topic at hand.

To achieve this, plan your skyscraper piece in a way that it is complete in itself. The reader shouldn’t have to leave the page in order to search for further information on that topic.

Note: To create the ultimate content piece on the web for a topic, ensure you fully research, cover all the pain points, and incorporate the latest stats and case studies if possible. Also include graphics or images that back up your content.

Your content should also be:

• In an easy-to-read format.
• Grammatically correct.
• High-quality.
• Quality-checked by a professional editor.

D. Make Your Content Stand Out Visually

A poorly-designed page doesn’t exactly appear to be link-worthy. This is because it can give the impression of a low-quality page. Hence, ensure your content looks as good as it reads and stands out visually.

Add well-designed visual assets, infographics, and videos to make your page stand out even more.

5. Share Your Content

After you are done creating your content with the tips mentioned above, it’s time to share your content in order to land links.

Now, how to go about this step?

A strategy you can follow is to contact popular blogs in your niche with the intention of earning a backlink from them. Here are the exact steps to follow –

Step 1 – Open Google, search for “industry + blog” (for e.g. SEO + blog).

Step 2 – The search results will show all the famous blogs in your niche. Now, write them a polite email asking for a backlink. Here’s a sample email you can send:

Hi [name]!

I came across your blog while searching for information on [topic]. I really liked your insights! I also saw that you linked to this blog post: [your competitor]. I have also written a piece similar to this, which is more up-to-date and possesses additional information. Feel free to use this in your blog if you think your audience may find it interesting.

Thanks!

[Your name]

6. Measure Your Backlinks

After you create your skyscraper piece and start earning backlinks, your job isn’t quite done yet. You also need to know where the backlinks are coming from in order to fully leverage the skyscraper technique.

We recommend that you use a tool to access your backlink profile. The tool will show all the backlinks to your site which will help in monitoring.

Note: Make sure you also monitor metrics such as Domain Authority, Page Authority, and Spam Score of every backlink you are earning. Keeping a track of these metrics helps you build amazing backlinks that work in the favor of your website and business!

Offer Top-Notch SEO Services to Your Clients

Are you a digital marketing agency that wants to offer SEO as a service to your clients? If yes, you can think about hiring white label SEO services.

At DashClicks, we offer best-in-class SEO services to help your clients get on top of the search engine results. When you opt for these services, your client’s site will be regularly updated and optimized. This includes link-building as well.

The team at DashClicks even disavows links at its end to disassociate your client’s website from toxic backlinks.

Note: You can also consider using DashClicks’ InstaReports App, a digital marketing audit tool which includes your client’s backlinks data.

Conclusion

As you already know, backlinks are important to your SEO efforts. The Skyscraper Technique is a powerful link building tactic that helps you build backlinks from awesome content, giving you the chance to boost your website rankings and organic traffic.

Ensure you diligently follow all the steps we discussed that talk about how to use and execute the skyscraper technique, with the main steps being:

• Finding link-worthy content
• Creating something better than it
• And lastly, sharing what you have created

All the best!

If you want to know more about link building, here's a link building guide for beginners.

Most agencies really have a hard time finding the right set of keywords they should use for their SEO and PPC campaigns. Needless to say that PPC keywords won't necessarily work for the organic SEO ranking of your client's website.

This article will discuss different types of keywords that you should be familiar with as a marketing agency for maximum impact and to achieve astounding results for your clients.

Why Are Keywords Important?

Google is evolving and has been testing different algorithms to provide the best search results for its users. So, choosing the right cluster of keywords for your content marketing and SEO has become more important than ever.

There are many types of keywords prevalent to rank your website on top. From short queries to lengthy sentence-long search phrases, you can use a mix of different keywords to be an SEO superstar.

So, carefully choose your target keywords because they determine your page's visibility on search engines.

We can divide these keywords into the following categories.

• SEO Keywords By Length
• Short Tail Keywords
• Long Tail Keywords
• Mid-Tail Keywords
• SEO Keywords By Buyer Intent
• Informational Keywords
• Navigational Keywords
• Commercial Keywords
• Transactional Keywords
• Targeting Keywords For Specific Industry
• Market Segment Keywords
• Customer-Defining Keywords
• Product & Brand-Based Keywords
• Geo-Targeted Keywords

SEO Keywords By Length

As is evident from the name, these keywords vary by their length. Length is the primary consideration for this subset of keywords. It reflects the customer's intent regarding the information they are looking for.

What's more, you can also get to know the specific stage of a prospect in their buyer's journey through these keywords. These keywords are of the following tree types.

1. Short-Tail Keywords

People who used most of the search terms in the early stages of the Internet were short-tail keywords. These keywords are still highly popular and have a high search volume. From weather and news updates to celebrity searches, basic information and educational searches fall into this category.

We also refer to them as focus keywords. These are the top keywords, which you can further expand based on the need and search intent of the user.

Since these types of keywords contain broader and highly popular search terms, they have high competition. Single-word keywords are not necessarily precise and don't exactly reflect what a user is looking for.

Image Source: Sherpa Marketing

For example, "restaurants near me" has a much higher search volume than "restaurants" and "restaurant" because it is unclear what the users are looking for when they use the latter two keywords.

To make the search meaningful, we need to narrow the search using ancillary words.

Image Source: AHREFs

Here is the search demand curve based on the length of the keywords. So, technically, very short-tail keywords don't necessarily have a high demand except for informational keywords such as Amazon, Apple, iPhone, & Barack Obama.

Image Source: AHREFs

2. Long-Tail Keywords

These keywords comprise more than two or three words and are peculiar and highly useful for marketers as they are highly specific regarding search intent. Some examples of long-tail keywords are as follows.

• Best free digital marketing tools
• Can meditation make your smarter
• Free games download for PC

Despite their low search volume, these keywords have a high potential to boost your page's search engine rankings and visibility. Since these are highly intent-based search terms, their conversion rates are pretty high. They attract your target audience more precisely than any other type of keywords.

Image Source: Sherpa Marketing

3. Mid-Tail Keywords

The subset that falls between the short and long-tail keywords is referred to as mid-tail keywords. They have moderate search volumes.

In the previous example, you can see a long tail keyword ā Free games download for PC. "Free Games" is a medium-length keyword here.

SEO Keywords by Buyer Intent

Buyer intent is a powerful signal for search engines to filter searches for users. It is further divided into four categories.

4. Informational Keywords

People use informational keywords to learn about an object, fact, product, or service. Most of these search terms begin with interrogative words such as 'how,' 'what,' and 'where,' etc.

5. Navigational Keywords

People use navigational keywords to get more information about a product and brand. In that case, people are generally aware of the product and store but need additional information.

6. Commercial Keywords

This is typically related to the consideration stage of the buyer's journey. These searches are mostly about price or product comparisons with similar market items.

7. Transactional Keywords

These keywords are related to the final stage in the buyer's journey, which is the decision stage.

People use transactional keywords when they have already searched online and compared different features and prices. They are happy and satisfied with the product and are ready to make a purchase.

SEO Keywords For Specific Industries

These search terms are industry specific and can vary from one industry to another.

8. Market Segment Keywords

This set of keywords is generic and belongs to a specific industry or its verticals. You can use the keywords that best represent your products and can be understood by your target audience.

For example, a clothing brand can use 'suits' as a keyword.

9. Customer-Defining Keywords

These are customer-specific keywords. Businesses use them to target customers with common traits or demographic or psychographic features such as gender, age, etc.

For example, in the previous example, you can use 'suits for men', 'apparel for teens,' etc. You can easily notice that these keywords come with a context.

10. Product & Brand-Based Keywords

When keywords come with brand names in them, conversion rates become higher. These keywords are generally used to target brand-loyal customers.

Image Source: PPCexpo

11. Geo-Targeted Keywords

Marketers use location-specific keywords to attract traffic for local businesses. A HubSpot survey reveals that 46% of Google searches are about local businesses and information.

Search queries like 'where can I buy liquor in Texas' fall into this category.

Final Words

You can grasp a basic understanding of the different types of keywords used in content marketing and SEO here. It would help you in keyword selection to achieve high rankings for your web page on Search Engine Research Pages (SERPs.) Local keywords hold immense power.

As a marketer, you should know how to use keywords to attract traffic and high rankings. Ideally, it would help if you used a mix of short-tail, mid-tail, and long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords are highly conversion oriented and help you quickly rank on SERPs compared to short-tail and mid-tail keywords.

Similarly, intent-based keywords, industry-specific keywords, and keywords with demographic and psychographic context are highly useful in inbound and content marketing and help you gain high rankings and attract loads of traffic in much less time.