There are several reasons why a landing page wouldn’t work. One of the reasons can be an unsuitable offer. Your hard work in creating irresistible expanded text ads will go down the drain if these ads are not supported by matching landing pages.

Therefore, it is crucial to optimize your landing pages. Make sure that they are not underwhelming and match in tone and design with the ad, so a user is impressed and goes through it.

The landing pages should be fine-tuned and consistent. If a visitor finds any inconsistency, there can be an expectation mismatch. As a result, they might get put off, leave your landing page unimpressed and go back to the search engine result pages. It is a marketer’s fiasco as you pay the advertisement platform to send these visitors to your landing page, only to bounce back as the landing page disappoints them.

A mismatched offer will not appeal to a visitor regardless of how powerful your ad copy is or how impressive your landing page design is. Make sure that your landing page carries an appealing offer along with some enticing benefits for your audience. It will push people to click on your call-to-action button. An attractive layout, typefaces, images, colors, and a natural person for chat support can be a big plus for an enhanced conversion rate.

The next most crucial step to ensure success with the above measures is to do A/B testing. It should be an ongoing process to hire a full-time guy for that. Regularly tweak your copy and design and cull the bad ones to see how the conversion rate soars.

4 Crazy-Effective PPC Landing Page Tips

We will not discuss these measures today that yield results in the long run. Instead, we will discuss four killer techniques and best practices for PPC landing pages that will help boost your conversion rate quickly. These are proven tips from the experts that work like magic.

1. Write Brief & Compelling Copy

People don’t read; they scan. So, make sure that you aren’t throwing an encyclopedia of information in front of a visitor. So, your ad copy should be compelling yet brief. Leverage bullet points to convey your message with more clarity.

Here are ten tips for writing an excellent ad copy.

• Show the customers how you can solve their problems.
• Use emotional triggers to generate sales (Fear, Anger, Excitement, Disgust & Love, etc.)
• Move away from features, focus on benefits (Comfortability, Faster approach, Effects, & Precision, etc.)
• Leverage FOMO (Fear of Missing Out, a deadline, etc.)
• Avoid generic and typical salesy language. Use specific calls to action.
• Use relevant keywords in your headline and description.
• Help the user decide within seconds.
• Keep your navigational funnel shorter and help users complete your CTA as quickly as possible.
• Use the power of suggestion. End your ad copy with persuasive but straightforward language.
• Do A/B testing of your ad copies and keep on testing.

2. Honeytrap Bots with “Honeypots”

Honeypots are used as software code snippets that you can embed into your landing page form to ward off unwanted spambots.

Sometimes, bots land up on your landing page when you expect to see leads and waste your precious time and money. The most common method to deal with such bots is to use CAPTCHA, which can badly impact user experience. Most people don’t get it correct the first time.

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So, while it's effective in keeping the spam away, it may also prevent otherwise serious prospects who might otherwise have converted easily.

How Does the Honeypot Technique Work?

Honeypots capitalize on the idiocy of the bots. For example, you can create a hidden field in addition to the actual field on your form. The aim is to trick the bots into filling this additional field too. Human prospects can't see that. So, when you receive leads, filter the ones that have completed the hidden field.

The code you can use on your PPC landing page looks like the one below.

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This code can create a hidden email field apart from the actual email field on your form. You should include a “display: none” CSS rule, as it will keep it hidden from the actual humans’ eyes.

You can also make your job easy and dive right into the place where leads land up if you use a WordPress plugin  Contact Form 7 Honeypot. Google Ads allows you to filter the IP addresses of these spammers forever.

You can exclude these IPs by navigating to the Settings tab in the campaign.

Then go to Advanced Settings>>IP Exclusions>>Manage IP Exclusions>>Edit

All you need to do is paste the list of IP addresses of these spammers into the given field. The upper limit of the bots you can flag for the exclusion is 500 in a campaign.

3. Manage Negative Reviews

Before we discuss it further, let’s understand the dynamics of customer reviews. The people who leave reviews on your website are either the most ecstatic or the ones who are incredibly frustrated with the overall experience. A tiny segment of highly delighted customers may not boost conversion.

What makes it worse is that it takes 12 positive customer experiences to make up for one unresolved negative experience.

The satisfied customers generally won’t leave any reviews. So the most visible reviews are most likely from frustrated customers. If you are paying for the ads, you can hurt your prospects by allowing unfiltered negative reviews on the landing page. These negative reviews might immediately change your customers’ decisions and send them back to the search engine results pages.

A prevalent technique to build trust on your PPC landing page is to curate social proof that showcases the excellent customer experience with your products or services. It’s the affirmation that every new customer needs. So, you can’t filter all reviews, but allowing all of these reviews unfiltered can devastate your marketing.

Remember, you are paying for every click in Pay Per Click ads, and allowing substandard reviews to remain on your page can be suicidal.

Many people tend to jump quickly and post a negative review even if they cannot understand something. People hardly contact businesses to resolve their issues or seek an explanation. When new customers happen to see these horror stories on your landing page, they leave your page to look for alternatives elsewhere.

Look at this positive review.

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But a few negative reviews might send the customer into a tizzy.

The negative reviews that you can see in the above screenshot form only 7% of the total Amazon reviews for the product “SAMSUNG Galaxy S20 FE 5G,” but they are enough to convince new visitors not to buy this product.

So, beware of posting unfiltered customer reviews where you decide to send the paid traffic. However, you can publish these reviews elsewhere, such as a separate testimonial page, and test it as a site link extension.

4. Create a Landing Page That Loads Quickly

Google loves pages that load quickly and reward them with higher rankings. The same is true for paid accounts and ad ranks. The account will not perform that well if it loads slowly. Furthermore, it will also increase its average CPC. If your website takes more than 3 seconds to load, most visitors will likely abandon it. It also decreases the trustworthiness of your site.

Improving the landing page speed shouldn’t be a one-time activity. Instead, you should make intelligent and subtle changes frequently. PageSpeed Insights is a tool you can use to check your page speed.

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Google will return the page speed score and the “how to fix links” and tweaks you can make to different elements to achieve blazing fast page speed.

However, you can first implement these alternatives.

1. Resize your images and optimize them for the web. You can use various free tools available online.
2. Limit of use of rich media (videos, HD images, gifs). You can also use Gzip, a software application for file compression.
3. Reduce the number of plugins you use
4. Optimize your code (Minimize CSS, JavaScript, and HTML)
5. Reduce page redirects

You can use Moz Pro to identify and fix page speed issues.

Pro Tip: You can create effective PPC landing pages through DashClicks’ white-label PPC services. This way, you can save the time and money you’d spend on hiring an additional PPC guy.

Conclusion

The four techniques mentioned above can drastically improve your landing page performance. Paid advertising can be risky if you aren’t cautious, and these small measures can change your game. Do you know any other technique that can improve landing pages quickly? Let’s know in the comments.

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Entrepreneurship provides you with the required freedom while minimizing the mounting uncertainty in the job market. That is probably why there has been a surge in the number of people opting for entrepreneurship instead of taking up a full-time job. However, not many entrepreneurs can sustainably run an SEO or a digital marketing business. Just one lapse on your part, and you start losing clients.

Success Mantra: Use the right approach and maintain direct and clear communication with your clients to succeed as a digital agency and maintain profitability.

This article helps you with the step-by-step approach to launch your SEO agency and take your startup from zero to a digital powerhouse.

How to Start an SEO Business From Scratch?

So, you've finally decided to launch your digital agency; let me start by saying congratulations! You are among the daring few who take the plunge and create job opportunities for many others. The journey is indeed challenging in the beginning. However, as you move ahead and start learning things, your online business will gradually become more manageable and start sailing smoothly. We have created a checklist to help you successfully start and run your dream business.

The Ultimate Checklist for Your SEO Company

Since digital businesses operate in a dynamic ecosystem, you might always feel the hesitation to take the first step.

Here is the 14-point checklist you can use before launching your SEO business to avoid surprise outcomes. It will help you start, foster, and scale your SEO or digital marketing agency:-

1. Manage Your Cash Flow
2. Learn SEO and Business Management
3. Complete the Legal Paperwork
4. Setup Your Payment Methods
5. Keep Your Invoice Templates Ready
6. Build Your Buyer Personas or Customer Avatars
7. Choose A Niche
8. Decide on the Services Your Agency Will Offer
9. Choose Your Payment Method
10. Build a Professional Website
11. Perform Local SEO of Your Website
12. Start Offering Local SEO Services First
13. Build Your Agency’s Brand
14. Fix Your Logistics

1. Manage Your Cash Flow

It is not a good idea to instantly quit your job to start your agency. You shouldn't quit your day job until you maintain the required cash flow that matches your regular income. Apart from the cash flow, you should also ensure that you have an adequate loyal client base to survive as a business. You will reach this stage when you become proficient in SEO services and successfully gain the trust of your clients.

Understanding various financial concepts is crucial for any business owner, including knowledge about a "voided check". A voided check serves numerous functions in bookkeeping, payroll set-ups, and direct deposit arrangements. Learning how to obtain such checks and their specific purposes in your finances could minimize unforeseen cash-flow interruptions as you get your agency off the ground.

2. Learn SEO and Business Management

Like any other business, you will need business acumen to run an SEO agency. You will also need some training and education. To save your money in experimentation, you can refer to many online resources and books on successfully running your agency business.

Here are some books you can refer to:

A. Starting an Online Business and Internet Marketing 2021

Guide to Setting up an E-Commerce Website, SEO, and Digital Marketing Strategies. By S. K. Holder

B. Change. Adapt. Rock.

The Ultimate Digital Marketing Book for Your Online Business

WildRock Public Relations and Marketing

C. The Seven Figure Agency Roadmap: How to Build a Million Dollar Digital Marketing Agency

Joshua D Nelson

You can also refer to Google support docs and online journals such as Moz, Quicksprout, DashClicks Blog, Neilpatel.com, Search Engine Watch, HubSpot, WordStream Blog, Search Engine Journal and Social Media Examiner.

How to Learn SEO?

SEO is not as complicated as some people try to make you believe. If you do things the right way and precisely in the same manner as Google wants it, you'll soon see your efforts being paid off. Moreover, if you follow basic Google instructions, you can achieve 95% of the results with just 5% effort.

Refer to Google's Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Starter Guide if you want to learn the basic guidelines to rank for the chosen terms without any external help.

To master SEO, you need to learn the following things:

1. Review and audit of your website content or structure
2. On-page and off-page SEO
3. Google Analytics (to identify UX signals)
4. The technical aspects of website development include redirects (301, 302, and 404, etc.), hosting, JavaScript, error pages, etc.
5. Keyword research
6. Content development based on user intent
7. Management of paid campaigns
8. Link building

Pro Tip: Launching an SEO company can be challenging. To create a wildly profitable 7-figure marketing agency, you can join our Elite agency coaching program "DashElite." As an Elite Program member, you get access to multiple white-label software programs such as DashClicks Platform, InstaReports Premium, and InstaSites Premium.

The Elite Agency Coaching Program DashElite

Apart from that, you'll also get access to our courses and training programs such as Dash University, DashElite vault of training programs, downloadable files, recorded accountability calls, and much more.

DashElite Agency Coaching Program

DashDay Organized by DashClicks

3. Complete the Legal Paperwork

Hire a legal expert and learn all the legal implications and specific regulations related to starting a digital agency. Determining your business structure before launching your business will help you understand how you will be filing your taxes to the IRS. You have several options, such as forming an LLC or establishing a sole proprietorship. If you decide to form an LLC specifically, seeking assistance from legal experts or utilizing resources from a reputable company like LLC University can be invaluable for understanding the process. Also, create your SEO contracts.

It is a crucial step because it states various terms and conditions of the contract and makes them legally binding. Beyond the legal aspects, it also serves as an agreement that includes the expectations from both parties. It also details how you will run your campaigns, including granular details of the processes involved in the ownership of assets and how long the contract will last.

4. Setup Your Payment Methods

Today, various payment methods are available that you can use. For overseas transactions, you can choose automated clearing houses or SCH transfers. In this method, clients can electronically transfer money directly from their bank account to your business account based in the US. You can also allow your clients to pay through credit cards.

This method is quite popular because it involves little hassle. After all, the client needs to set up the payment-related details only once over a secure network, and you can complete the transfer in a minimum number of steps. Additionally, for online payments, you can also try different online payment services such as Google Pay, Apple Pay, Alipay, and PayPal. However, you should choose the payment method at your client's convenience.

5. Keep Your Invoice Templates Ready

An invoice serves as proof of transactions with your clients. It streamlines your accounts and ensures that you get paid as per the terms mentioned in the contract. Your invoice should include a detailed description of the itemized charges for different services your agency offers. You should also add the due date and payment methods permissible. Moreover, attaching a number to each invoice makes tracking convenient.

6. Build Your Buyer Personas or Customer Avatars

Buyer persona mapping is a crucial step of digital marketing, where you create fictional but realistic profiles of your target customers. These profiles reflect the characteristics of your ideal customers, such as their demographics, income, lifestyle, motivations, goals, personality attributes, psychographics, and attitudes.

It helps you understand your clients, their pain points, goals and aspirations, and the objectives they want to achieve through digital marketing. We can divide buyer personas into two significant categories: demographics and psychographics.

Demographics have to do with physical attributes, such as location, age, gender, profession, financial status, etc. Psychographics refers to the behavior and psychology of an individual, so it deals with motivations, perceptions, preferences, brand affinities, attitude, buying patterns, etc.

Buyer personas are also known as customer avatars. Hereā€™s an example:-

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Customer avatars help you decide your positioning as an SEO agency. The most crucial utilization of buyer personas is its usage in crafting content for different stages in the sales funnel. So, a customer avatar can be extremely useful in nurturing and converting leads.

7. Choose A Niche

Not choosing your preferred niche is a crucial mistake most agencies commit. As per common logic, the wider your net is, the more fish you're going to catch. However, it doesn't work in a business where choosing your niche is essential.

Most of the agencies with loyal and growing customer bases are those that don't position themselves as "full-service digital marketing or SEO agencies."

If you position your agency that offers niche-based services, such as SEO agency for roofers, plumbers, or electricians, you're likely to attract customers faster. You can't sell your services to everyone, at least when it comes to positioning.

It's also helpful in scaling as you can easily set up the processes and scale them up. An SEO agency for small agencies may sound more appealing to real estate businesses than a full-service SEO agency.

Here are a few tips for choosing your niche:-

• Choose an industry you have served earlier
• Learn industry jargon to connect with your audience
• Use social circles and referrals to attract new customers
• Do market research for better prospecting and lead generation

8. Decide on the Services Your Agency Will Offer

Do you want to focus your services around SEO, or would you like to expand your services and offer paid ads, web designing, and social media marketing as well?

Now, let's discuss the pros and cons of choosing SEO as a core service.

Choosing SEO as your core service has many advantages. First of all, to succeed as an agency, you should go for the contracts with recurring monthly payments and consistent services, and SEO does just that. Your clients need constant optimization till their website starts ranking on the top with targeted keywords.

You might need web design services only once or twice, but SEO is a recurring service that you'll need consistently for a long time. It also has more flexibility so that you can upsell your clients.

When you get your first few clients and successfully retain them for a few months, you can now think of expanding your services. Paid advertising, social media, email marketing, and web designing services can be your options, and you can offer these services to your existing and new clients. This way, you will generate new business while successfully maintaining your cash flow.

9. Choose Your Payment Method

Here are four methods SEO agencies use to charge for their services.

• Monthly retainer: The client pays a monthly fee in exchange for SEO services.
• Fixed-price: The client pays a fixed charge for specific SEO services in such contracts.
• Project-based: The client pays a set fee for the entire project. Usually, these are small projects like link-building, etc.
• Hourly: Many agencies and established freelancers charge hourly fees for their services. It’s more prevalent in SEO consultancy etc.

10. Build a Website

A website is an absolute must-have for newbie agencies. It doesn't matter if they have built a highly professional website or just an essential website. To start with, you need to have a clutter-free website that provides all the relevant details about your services.

A professional and quick-loading mobile-optimized website is a must for conversions. It will help users enjoy a better user experience and help you rank higher on Google. A well-built website is also a must for user engagement and a lower bounce rate.

So, design a website according to your specific niche and add visual and text-based content to persuade and convert a visitor.

Pro Tip: Use Sites App by DashClicks to create a conversion-focused niche-based website. With this tool, you don't need to know coding to develop a professional website. These template-based websites are specifically designed for different niches to convert maximum visitors and provide ample information about your services.

11. Perform Local SEO of Your Website

To make a lasting impression about your proficiency in SEO, try to rank your website for the keyword - "SEO agency or SEO business or service + your location." This way, you'll also generate qualified leads you can nurture and convert. However, you might have to negotiate initially, but as your reputation and confidence grow, you can smoothly sell and quote your rates.

A successful SEO campaign is valuable for a business as their very survival may depend on their visibility and search engine traffic. So, as soon as you start getting clients, you'll have to hire a team, and then you'll be able to charge accordingly.

How to Create a Business Profile on Google?

For that, you can first create a Google My Business account and optimize your Business Profile on it. You can follow these steps to create your GMB profile and add your location on Google.

• Create your business profile on Google by creating a Google My Business account
• Follow their instructions and verify ownership of the business
• Add accurate and up-to-date information about your business
• Add your logo, opening and closing time, products and services, and images of your business premises and products.
• Ask your customers to leave reviews on your business profile
• Respond to customer reviews with courtesy and sincerity to keep your profile engaging and active
• You can also publish posts on your Google My Business profile and update your audience about products, events, and special offers using the GMB dashboard

12. Start Offering Local SEO Services First

Before you launch an SEO business, start offering local SEO services first. It's comparatively easier to achieve local SEO results than national or global SEO. Furthermore, you can offer it to virtually any business in town.

It will build trust and help in word-of-mouth publicity that youā€™ll badly need in the initial stages. It includes Google My Business setup and optimization, creating Facebook pages and local link building & listing, etc.

13. Build Your Agency's Brand

It’s a bitter truth that you can’t grow your agency beyond a point unless you work hard on its branding. Your brand defines why your customer should choose you over others. It’s a significant differentiation factor that is a prerequisite for an agency to survive and thrive in the long run.

Choose your SEO business name and logo, so people can easily recognize your business. Creating other branding assets such as a business card, a professional website, lead magnets will also be helpful.

Your banding assets should be based on the following factors:

1. Value proposition: What do you offer that others don’t?
2. Audience: Who exactly is your audience?
3. Personality: What emotion should your brand evoke, and how should they perceive it?

14. Fix Your Logistics

Save time spent on unnecessary things as your focus should be on delivering quality services, best results, and client satisfaction. You can hire an accountant for tax filing etc., use invoicing software, and get a multi-currency account to save your time.

It will be a great idea to leverage AI-based agency tools to save time and improve processes. For example, generating reports is a time-consuming and tedious task, and it eats up the precious time of your SEO managers.

Pro Tip: You can instantly generate professional SEO reports using AI-based tools such as InstaReports.

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are some FAQs startup owners will find useful:-

How Do I Offer SEO Services?

Here are the seven steps to market and sell your SEO services and attract more clients.

1. Develop SEO packages with different USPs
2. Work hard to build your brand and invest in it
3. Prioritize your own website’s SEO
4. Try to establish yourself as a thought leader
5. Get as many client testimonials as you can, including video testimonials
6. Leverage cold emailing
7. Focus on lead nurturing through content marketing and phone

How Do You Become an SEO Freelancer?

Here are the ten steps to becoming an SEO freelancer.

1. ‍Learn SEO best practices
2. Offer free services to your friends and relatives
3. Make a portfolio of your previous work
4. Get references, reviews, and testimonials
5. Launch your website
6. Optimize your website for popular keywords and promote it
7. Leverage social media and YouTube
8. Leverage the best SEO tools for better performance
9. Use job boards, freelance sites, and cold calling for projects
10. Hire white-label services for the services you’re less proficient in

How to Scale Your Business?

Once your processes are set up and you’re on track to perform and deliver results for your clients, it’s time to scale your business. The best way to scale your business is to leverage white-label digital marketing services. It allows you to expand your services and serve additional clients with the same team size and resources. What’s more, you stay profitable as an agency.

What Are the Risks of SEO?

It’s crucial to understand the risks associated with SEO as they can be disastrous.

1. Making sweeping changes in a website
2. Making small or large tweaks and testing those changes
3. Receiving and providing backlinks
4. Changing the URL Structure
5. Poor or no doorway pages
6. Buying expired or available domains
7. Disavowing neutral and non-toxic backlinks

Further Reading:

7 Steps To Launching Your Own Digital Marketing Agency

20 Most Common SEO Mistakes You Should Avoid in 2021 and Beyond

Conclusion

Starting an SEO business isn’t easy. It tests your willpower and persistence. There is no wonder the failure rate is so high. According to a study conducted in 2019, the failure rate of startups was a whopping 90%. If you’ve decided to launch your own SEO business, these stats shouldn’t deter you from taking the plunge. If you follow all the things in this checklist, you’re poised for success.

You can quickly move mental mountains, but if you need any further assistance ranging from coaching, software to completely white-label solutions, DashClicks can be your best partner. We have assisted thousands of SEO agencies worldwide to succeed in the changing digital landscape, and if you want to be the next, contact us today.

It is crucial for you to increase traffic to your website to succeed as an online business or digital marketing agency. It works in multiple ways and benefits your business by increasing brand awareness, sales, and revenue.

However, it is easier said than done. If you are running an online business and have ever tried to bring traffic to your agency website, you must be aware that it hardly works without a clear strategy.

It would help if you kept on doing a/b testing to check what works and what doesn't. This article will discuss different tactics and strategies to boost traffic on your agency website so that more and more people can find you through organic and paid searches. But before we discuss that, we would like to share some significant SEO mistakes that could cost you traffic.

What are the Major SEO Mistakes That You Should Avoid?

Here are some serious mistakes that will neutralize all your efforts to improve SEO and site traffic:-

1. Slow Page Speed

Slow page speed is not only bad for customer experience, but it also negatively affects your rankings. Google has added page speed as a significant ranking factor. There are several steps you can take to boost the speed of your site, such as optimizing the graphics and design elements on your website and removing unnecessary code. You should also work on your page redirects. When you speed up your site, you immediately see its benefits, such as increased engagement and improved search engine ranking.

2. Duplicate Content

Avoid similar content on multiple pages of your website. Google will not immediately penalize your site because of the presence of duplicate content, but it can hurt your SEO ranking. Google is committed to showing the most relevant results to searchers, so make sure that every page on your website has unique content.

3. Stuffing Keywords Unnecessarily

You should get rid of this old-school SEO practice if you want your website to rank high and attract web traffic in 2022. It is no longer recommended, and it may lead to a severe drop-in ranking. Occasionally sprinkling relevant keywords is not a deplorable act. Keyword stuffing refers to deliberately inserting short tail or long-tail keywords that don't look natural and negatively affect user experience on your website. According to Google, you should find a balance between creating valuable content for your readers and optimizing it for search engines. Google generally flags any repetition of long-tail keywords used deliberately.

4. Building Poor Quality Backlinks

Contrary to old-school SEO practices, a few backlinks from authority websites are far better than numerous backlinks from websites with low domain authority. The focus should be on quality rather than quantity while cultivating backlinks. A few backlinks from news and magazines sites, *.edu domains, and reputed websites like Wikipedia are better than dozens of links from ordinary websites.

5. More Pages With Poor Quality Content

Contrary to popular belief, more pages don't mean that they will receive tons of traffic. If your pages lack quality content, it will bring down the overall SEO ranking of your website. Always create a website with a sitemap to organize your content. It will make it easier for you to focus on quality rather than waste your time creating hundreds of pages with poor-quality content.

6. A High Bounce Rate

Besides irrelevant content that doesn't match the search query, a high bounce rate also signals a lack of engaging elements on a web page that capture visitors' attention. So, the first step to fix a high bounce rate is utilizing site elements to engage and capture users' attention and add content that increases site time.

7. An Unresponsive Design

If a website isn't optimized for mobile and has an unresponsive design, it is less likely to rank high on search engines. A responsive design ensures that the website looks perfect on all devices. Previously designers used to make different versions of a website to fit in various screens, but that is no more in practice now. Some of the elements may not be visible on mobile screens if the website is designed for desktops. As a result, you may miss potential leads and sales.

Some SEO tactics change with corresponding changes in Google's algorithm. However, creating high-quality content that adds value and answers users' queries is an evergreen tactic to rank high on search engines.

A good user experience is another essential requirement to rank in organic searches and attract search traffic. Sometimes, agencies don't have experienced SEO professionals on rolls. In that case, outsourcing white label agency solutions can be the best way to lead to high customer satisfaction and client retention.

How to Drive Traffic to Your Agency Website?

As an agency, your journey to earning profits starts from getting found online and goes through the funnel, converting visitors to leads, and finally converting those leads to paying customers. Driving traffic is, therefore, a crucial factor for the success of an online business. When you get traffic, you get new visitors, lots of eyeballs, and potential buyers. So, let's begin with the first step, and that is to get found by customers online.

Here are a few popular tactics to drive traffic to your website:

1. Advertising (Google, Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter, etc.)
2. Using social media to promote your content
3. Mixing different content formats (such as short-form blogs, news articles, long-form blogs, infographics, videos, and podcasts.)
4. Writing irresistible headlines
5. Fixing On-Page SEO (Metas, title tags, etc.)
6. Targeting long-tail keywords (to bring the desired and specific type of traffic)
7. Leveraging guest blogging
8. Implementing schema microdata and internal linking
9. Trying email marketing and posting on LinkedIn
10. Interviewing experts and thought leaders in your industry

How to Get Found by Customers Online?

People go to search engines to fulfil a need or to solve a problem. They type in a search query on a search engine or a social media site to find a solution for their concern, and the search engine returns relevant results. That is how they see the link to your website. You can employ several strategies to get found online and ultimately increase search traffic to your website.

The leading tactics marketers use to boost online visibility are as follows:

1. Search Engine Optimization and local SEO to generate traffic from organic searches
2. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) or pay-per-click (PPC) to drive paid search traffic
3. Organic traffic through social media channels
4. Paid social media traffic through advertising on Facebook, Instagram, and other social platforms

How to Get Targeted Traffic to Your Website?

You cannot drive organic traffic to your website unless you appear on top in organic searches. You need to research keywords that are relevant to your niche to achieve high rankings. To start with, you can target keywords with low competition so that you can rank early on.

The second step is to create high-quality content that offers value to your users. Headlines and titles also play an essential role in attracting web traffic to your site and getting clicks from users.

Once users come to your website, you can use internal linking to guide them to visit other parts of your site that might be useful for them. It would help if you also had quality backlinks from authority websites to rank higher on search engine result pages (SERPs). It sends a signal to search engines that your website is a trustworthy and authentic source.

Besides quality content that is optimized, here are some of the factors that affect your SEO ranking:-

• User experience on your website
• Relevant and quality content that solves users’ problems
• Faster loading pages
• Backlinks from high domain authority websites
• Site structure
• A responsive design
• Mobile-friendly SEO practices
• Web server and mail server issues
• Domain age and authority

Pro Tip: If you have expertise in content or backlinking, better outsource website design and SEO from pioneering white-label services such as DashClicks. This way you will save a lot of time and money. SEO experts usually charge around $100-$150 per hour for various SEO services, and a startup agency may find it exorbitantly high. You can contact DashClicks SEO fulfillment services today and get this done at a much cheaper rate.

How to Attract Customers Through Content Marketing?

Content marketing is not new. It has been prevalent for many centuries now. However, it was commonplace in other non-digital forms such as street art and print media, etc.

It is the simplest and most affordable form of marketing in the modern era. According to Inbound Writer, you can generate a lead through content marketing with an average cost of $143. In contrast, the cost of generating leads through outbound marketing is $373, which is twice as much.

You can create custom content through blogs. Blog posts offer 434% more indexed pages and twice as many indexed links. It clearly means that blogging provides you with more opportunities to attract potential clients than any other form of content on the web.

To attract more web traffic through content marketing, you can follow these tips:

1. Make Your Content Easily Navigable

Create relevant content for your target audience. Create various content pieces and make them sticky so that the customer can find a link to similar or related articles on the same page for further information. Use targeted keywords in your content, but don't stuff them. You can also add keywords in the right places to boost the visibility of your content, and these places include the URL, H1 tags, main title, first paragraph, and, if possible, the subheadings. You can also use them in image file names and meta descriptions.

2. Create Shareable Content

Offering value to the reader is the best way to create shareable content. Here are some of the features that make content shareable.

A. Be Informative and Helpful

People love to share informative and helpful content. It means that besides providing the required information to the reader, it should also resolve frustrating issues they are facing.

B. Supersede a Popular Theory

The second most effective way to create shareable content is to create content that disproves or supersedes a popular theory and promotes some offbeat idea. People love to share ideas that are against common beliefs and views.

C. Spread Kindness, Generosity, and Humanity

Use emotions, create humanitarian content, and show that you care for your audience. You can also use nostalgia. People love to share such content.

D. Follow Current Events and Trends

Current events always generate curiosity and have the potential to make your content shareable.

Use attractive graphics, images, and memes, and don't try to sound salesy. You can use your content to ask your visitors to buy from you. Always focus on quality rather than quantity because that's what makes a difference.

E. Use Content Repurposing

Repurpose your content and use it over and over again. You can convert a blog post into a podcast, a video, infographics, and a slide deck presentation. You can break the slide deck content into small chunks and use them on your social channels as posts. So, a single piece of content can be published on different platforms for an amplified reach, and a wider audience will consume it in their preferred content format.

F. Focus On Long-Tail Keywords

Focus on long-tail keywords in your blogs because they are responsible for 50% of the Internet traffic. The prime reason you should focus on long-tail keywords is that it's easy to rank with long-tail keywords. Furthermore, you receive the desired traffic through these keywords as they reflect a high purchase intent.

Long-tail keywords point to precise intent, allowing you to target specific demographics and increase conversion rate. Besides that, the competition is comparatively much lower in the case of long-tail keywords than short-tail keywords.

Long-tail keywords are effective in all the stages of the sales funnel, including the initial stages. If you sprinkle long-tail keywords throughout the body of the post, they help you keep your brand top of mind throughout the buyer's journey.

Pro Tip: Again, if SEO and keyword selection seems to be a Herculean task, don't do it yourself. Doing it poorly will not benefit you or your client, and it may increase the churn rate. Hire a white-label SEO fulfillment service today and get this done by experts at a fraction of the cost of hiring SEO experts.

How to Get Paid Traffic to Your Website?

Advertising is one of the best methods to attract visitors to your site. The people who click your ad have a high buying intent because they look for the same products and services you are selling. You only pay when the user clicks on an advertisement, so you can constantly refine your campaign if you are not getting quality leads.

Google offers rich metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of your PPC campaign so that you can judiciously use your marketing budget. If you are looking for immediate exposure, especially when you are not ready to attract visitors through organic search, PPC can be one of the best online marketing strategies.

It's hailed as the best tactic to drive instant traffic when you have new products and services to promote, even if your brand is already known and established.

A. Research of Your Target Audience

Paid advertising allows you to optimize the campaign after receiving the campaign data for even better results. To initiate a successful PPC campaign, you need to research your target audience in terms of their location and their expectations when they are looking for your products.

B. Research the Keywords

It's crucial to discover the keywords that your buyer personas might be using to locate your business and look for similar products.

C. Choose Different Themes

Themes can inspire your keyword selection and content creation. So, choosing a few will be pretty helpful.

D. Determine a Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

It's crucial to determine a USP for each product or theme for continued improvement through A/B testing. Create different versions of 100-character ads for each USP to highlight various features of your product.

E. Create a Conversion-Focused Landing Page

You need a user-friendly and conversion-focused landing page and a flexible ad budget to ensure your success at conversion. The budget should be flexible as you might need to stretch it when you see that your ads are working and successfully increasing visitors to your site.

Pro Tip: If creating a professional landing page is not your cup of tea, and you feel you need external assistance, better use the Agency Website Tool, save time and see your conversion rate soar.

How to Get Traffic Through Social Media Marketing and Facebook Advertising?

Focus on the social media channels where your audience spends their time. Create a Facebook page where you can regularly update your services, products, and offers. Engage with your audience through polls, surveys and questionnaires.

Perform influencer marketing on social media to promote your services. Research your target audience according to demographics and other personal characteristics such as age, buying habits, location, attitude, etc. It will help you design tailor-made ads.

Do A/B testing consistently for the paid advertisements to spot the best performing ad versions.

Keep track of the changing preferences of your target audience and design your ads accordingly. Update your Facebook page by adding new information.

Try to build relationships on social media and create communities on it. Remember, people don't go to social media to spend money or buy something. The prime objectives of social media are to join communities with shared interests and goals, catch up with friends and relatives, participate in conversations and share your thoughts, etc.

Conclusion

If you want to know what to choose between SEO and PPC, you must be aware that you might need to wait for some time to rank on the first page of Google, especially for your targeted keywords that will drive business and attract targeted customers to your website. So, until you work on your website content to organically appear on top of SERPs, it is desirable to use PPC and social media advertising to drive traffic, convert visitors and make sales.

Ideally, a marketer should aim at different strategies, i.e., SEO, PPC, and social media. However, your marketing strategy shouldn't be based entirely on the sales numbers. Brand building and gaining trust should also be on your to-do list.

These two factors can be crucial in the long run for driving consistent business as they influence the purchase decision of your customers.

Your marketing strategy should also strive to achieve a loyal fan base that you can count upon to sell your products and services.

Last but not least, you may need to hire SEO experts to implement various SEO tips mentioned above, which many agency owners simply can't afford. Hiring white-label services have become a trend in the US. Many smaller agencies, solopreneurs, and content marketers use these services to offer core SEO services to their clients. You can also use it as a strategy to scale your business and increase your revenue.

Having your own Digital Marketing Agency is like a dream come true for most entrepreneurs. However, making it churn out handsome profits for you is a whole different ball game.

In this article, we shed some light on the common issues faced by digital marketing agencies when it comes to generating business, and how to overcome those deftly.

If you are an agency owner, you must be familiar with a lot of these common issues including campaigns going awry, delays and difficulty in getting approvals from clients, and the need to satiate all of your clients' content and/or website-related requirements.

With a lot of competition in the digital marketing space, these issues can potentially snowball into a high client churn rate and ultimately a survival crisis for an agency. So, to become a profit-making business, you need to promptly address these issues and aim for higher customer satisfaction rates.

How to Build a Profitable Digital Marketing Agency?

Once you arrest the churn rate and successfully establish working processes that keep the customers' experience and satisfaction at the forefront, you can scale your agency and boost profits.

Do Digital Marketing Agencies Make Money?

Yes, of course. In fact, it is among the most lucrative businesses currently. However, your profit and revenue will largely depend on the number of clients and the services you offer. The average fee digital agencies charge for their services ranges between $2,500 to $12,000 per month. To make decent money from digital marketing services, you need to find at least ten clients and keep them happy with quality outputs and services.

What is Considered Profit in Digital Marketing Terms?

To calculate your digital marketing profit, you can use this formula:

cost + markup = price

Usually, agencies charge a markup of upto 20% to 50% of the service cost. Therefore, the average valuation of a digital marketing agency is estimated to be anywhere between five to ten times its annual revenue.

What Are the Most Profitable Niches for a Digital Marketing Agency?

The top 15 most profitable digital marketing niches are as follows:

1. Real Estate
2. Restaurants
3. Legal Services
4. Events
5. Musical Artists
6. Non-profit Organizations
7. Hotels
8. Dental Services
9. Financial Services
10. Retailers
11. Educational Services
12. Accountants
13. Medical Services
14. Photographers
15. Tourism

Below, we list a few tips for building a profitable agency which is a buzzing cash machine for life:-

1. Understand the Business of Your Client

When it comes to an understanding of the client's business, most marketers start with competitor analysis. This step is crucial as to chalk up effective digital marketing strategies, you need to be well-informed about the client's business.Analyzing your competitors' business strategies and tracking their moves will help you formulate a robust plan to map buyer personas and tap into their target audience.You may want to use buyer persona templates and other tools for this purpose if manual scaling isn't an option for your agency. Given below are a few examples of buyer persona templates that you can use for this step.

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How to Create Buyer Personas?

Once you choose an appropriate buyer persona template, you need to know how to create buyer personas. Below is a step-by-step procedure to help you:-

• Choose a Photo: You can use a stock photo that closely resembles your target customer(s).
• Carefully Study their Backstory: Use their personal and professional details to bring their persona to life. You can include their workplace, experience, career history, expertise, and hobbies when finessing your buyer persona. Primary research, social, and CRM data can come in handy to help with this step.
• Assign Psychographic Attributes: You can include their personality type, social behavior, content preference and consumption habits, buying habits, attention span, level of digital literacy and fluency, and favorite sites, etc. to customize and fine-tune the buyer persona.
• Assign Demographic Identifiers: Include basic facts such as age, gender, title, industry, geographic location, salary, family status, marital status, and the vehicle they drive to give the buyer persona a more intimate touch.
• Include Goals & Motivations: Their goals, passion, needs, and everyday issues such as performance drops, efficiency needs, performance boost and process needs, and personal reputation objectives, etc. can also factor in your buyer persona.
• Identify Roadblocks: Frequent shuffling and reorganization in the company that may affect individual performance, a rare or difficult niche, lack of understanding of problems and their resolutions, etc. can all be examples of such roadblocks that the target audience faces. Ensure to include these in your buyer personas.
• Consider Sales Objections: Factors that prevent people from buying from you, such as poor perceived quality, poor marketing, high price, and relatively new product without many reviews, are all factors that can affect whether someone buys from you or not. Consider these while designing buyer personas.

For a more detailed treatise on sourcing this data, you can go through this Kane Jamison article.

Tips to Understand Your Customers Better

So what can you do to understand your client(s) better? We list a few tips below:-

• Arrange a Direct Meeting to Understand Their Business

It is essential to meet your client directly to understand them better. Skip phone and Skype calls and arrange face-to-face meetings whenever possible. It minimizes confusion and paves the way for clear communication and transparency.

• Meet on a Monthly basis for Reviews and Goal Setting

Try to conduct one-on-one meetings with your clients for monthly reviews and expectation settings. It maintains transparency and prevents any unsuspecting surprises on either side. You should utilize these meetings for goal setting and performance evaluation. It would also serve as an opportunity to interact with your clients, take their honest feedback, and address any doubts and concerns they might have.

• Conduct Brainstorming Sessions

Conduct brainstorming sessions together whenever possible to develop better working relationships with your clients. Ensure that you leave no room for ambiguity in such sessions. The better you understand your client’s business and expectations, the lower would be the churn rate.

• Stay Cordial and Develop a Warm Relationship

Aside from monthly review meetings, try holding weekly or bi-weekly meetings too if possible. This helps you develop an intimate relationship with your clients that transcends boardroom boundaries. Utilize these meetings to share any innovative ideas your team has come up with, or simply to share any valuable insights on their business. Update the client on the current status of their services and maintain frequent communication with them for better engagement. It’s a powerful way to reduce churn while also making better relationships.

• Stay On Top of the Latest Trends

Following trends can be costly for an agency, given the limited resources and time it has. Hence, it’s important to zero down just which trends are relevant for your clients, and which ones are better left alone.

• Send Your Customers an Alert About Any Upcoming Trends You’re Going to Follow

Riding on the latest trends is the best way to follow top influencers and offer things that can be included in the digital marketing services package. Inform your clients about any upcoming trends you’re going to follow and how you plan on using those to gain an advantage.

• Be Transparent and Implement Cost-Effective Marketing Methods

Let the clients have the final word on the decision to boost sales and branding using the trend(s) in question. As an agency, it will reduce your burden and help your clients achieve more with less effort and cost.

2. Establish Robust Communication for Quick Approvals

If you are running an agency or working for it, you must be aware of the frustration that comes along with getting clients’ approvals. It is always an arduous task to get approvals from clients in time. Even if they say they’ll respond on priority, they rarely respond even after multiple reminders via emails or phone calls. It results in unnecessary delays, and might also affect the overall campaign performance. So what should you do if you are not getting quick approvals from your client?

A. Send Them Alerts About the Forthcoming Issues

Instead of getting involved in firefighting when the fire breaks out, you should proactively send them alerts about the forthcoming issues. It will help you to get quick responses in time and address the problem accordingly.

B. Talk Big to Attract Their Attention

To catch your clients’ attention, you should highlight the gravity of the issue using what they most care about, hard numbers. A plain fact without numerical data to quantify it can easily be ignored or overlooked. So ensure to back up any claims you make with solid data, preferably large digits.

C. Send Them Polite Reminders and Express Urgency

Always be polite when sending reminders. You can ask questions such as, “Any Updates?” etc., and follow those up with more urgent yet polite emails. Express the urgency and its possible outcome if it helps. For example, you can say, “Hi, as it’s the festive season, thousands of our fans are eager to hear from us, and we can’t just keep them waiting. We have created a few posts and need your quick approval to be scheduled and posted on time. Anticipating your early response.” This helps them understand the urgency of the matter at hand without sounding too desperate.

3. Reduce Response Time

To survive and thrive as an agency, it’s crucial to reduce response time. A study by Harvard Business Review reveals that businesses that respond within an hour are almost seven times more likely to have positive conversations with people in charge of decision-making. Companies that miss this time frame may miss the golden opportunity to talk to the right people and close the deal. So how to ensure that your agency’s response times are in single digits? Follow the tips listed below!

A. Have an Estimated Quote Ready for All Kinds of Industries/Niches

It becomes extremely tough to respond when customers ask for a quick quote. For a busy agency, it’s not always possible to provide quotes on short notice. A minimal analysis is always needed before you can send a fair quote.  Having estimated and pre-defined quotes for some of the most common industries and niches are a great way to go about doing so. It helps you save time and automate the quote listing process.

B. Seize the Opportunity in Time

Respond to hot leads within an hour. As emphasized above, you reduce your chances of closing the deals drastically when you respond after an hour or more. Response times are crucial and can easily make or break an otherwise profitable deal. According to the sales dynamics, your sales leads are at the highest point of interest in your brand, with the highest intent to buy. Faster lead response time ensures that you seize the opportunity in time before their interest fades.

C. Automate Reporting

Reporting is highly time-consuming and taxing for digital marketing agencies. Typically, reporting consumes precious employee hours and distracts from the essential tasks that need priority attention. Furthermore, reporting is a regular task that eats up your productive hours almost every week.

Pro Tip: Switch to automated reporting using DashClicks’ InstaReports tool. It builds reports instantly and highlights gaps within your clients’ marketing. It not only analyzes the gaps in marketing procedures but also provides relevant quick solutions.

It allows you to close more deals quickly by providing instant in-depth marketing reports showcasing the most significant pain points and potential areas of improvement for the business.

4. Be Transparent With Your Deliverables

Ambiguity can lead to frustration and sometimes failure to retain a client. In order to reduce the chances of that happening, mention the terms of the contract clearly in your quote.

A. Highlight if It's a Monthly or Yearly Package

It's important to highlight whether you're offering a monthly or a yearly package in your quote. In absence of clear instructions, your clients may confuse the two and take the annual deliverables as monthly, which may lead to unpleasant situations.

B. Give a Quotation Only After Performing a Detailed Analysis (Agency Performance)

Don't give quotes without carrying out a proper analysis first. It might lead to unwanted surprises and financial loss to your agency. You should determine the exact scope of work and an accurate estimate of the requirement of workforce and time before deciding the final price.

5. Promise Less, Deliver More

It's always better to under-promise and over-deliver than have it the other way round. It leads to customer delight and improved business perceptions. On the flip side, over-promising and under-delivering lead to frustration and dissatisfaction among the customers. It may also increase the churn rate dramatically.

A. Strive for Lead Generation in the Backend

Don't wait for the leads to automatically fall in your lap through campaigns or organic rankings. Instead, you should always strive for sales leads in the backend to receive a steady flow of leads. This will ensure that your clients are satisfied and happy.

B. Nurture the Leads Using a Telemarketing Team

It's also crucial for an agency to nurture the leads given the various steps it requires before a lead is converted. The funnel is getting complex and longer with increasing competition. Sometimes, in an increasingly uncertain case, the sales lead may even drop off. A telemarketing team can help you nurture the leads and convert those with increased certainty.

6. Invest in The Latest Tools and Technology

Digital marketing has become increasingly data-driven. Sometimes you need to work with real-time data, and it's impossible to collate it all manually. From decision making to achieving your objectives, the technology always helps you save precious time and money. This fact makes investment in digital marketing tools and technology inevitable.

Some popular tools and technologies that will help you speed up processes and reduce manual investment are given below.

1. SEO Keyword Analysis: Google Adwords, Ubersuggest, Google Trends, SEMrush, Spyfu, Bing Ads
2. Social Media Listening Focus: Brand24, Mention, BrandWatch, TalkWalkerAlerts
3. Social Media Publishing: HootSuite, Buffer, Sprout Social, Cision
4. Social Media Campaigns: ShortStack™, Pagemodo, Khoros
5. Website Builder: Agency Website (For creating an effective agency website aimed at conversion, InstaSites (For developing multiple professional niche-specific websites instantly)
6. AdWords Paid Search Analysis: WordStream, SEMrush, SpyFu, BidCops, Adthena
7. SEO Backlink Analysis: Google Search Console, Bing Ads, Majestic, Moz, LinkResearchTools
8. SEO Rank Checking: Google Search Console, Search Metrics, Ahrefs, Moz, SEMrush
9. Digital Analytics Tools: Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, Kissmetrics, MixPanel
10. Blogging: HubSpot, WordPress, Drupal
11. Site Audience Comparison: Google Analytics, SimilarWeb, Alexa, Compete, Experian

These tools offer a high degree of accuracy and the ability to quickly process a vast amount of data with brilliant presentation and reporting. They thus save you tons of time and energy in executing a medley of tasks.

7. Offer a Smooth Onboarding Experience

If you are serious about making your agency a money-making machine, you need to provide the smoothest possible onboarding experience for your clients. Onboarding can be a significant challenge, especially when face-to-face meetings have become difficult due to the pandemic.

Like reporting, onboarding is also a time-consuming task because it involves pushing lots of reminders to the client to complete the documentation and share it with the agency. Smoother onboarding processes reduce any unnecessary delays and help you move forward with the contract quickly.

It also helps you make an excellent first impression on the clients and enables you to convert one-time service seekers into long-term customers.

Pro Tip: DashClicks' white-label agency platform allows smooth and automated client onboardings through its user-friendly onboarding center that takes away all the hassles and stress associated with the process. The tool automatically gathers crucial information from your clients through an intelligent onboarding process, providing you with the freedom to complete the onboarding yourself or guide your client your way with your white-labeled dashboard. The AI-based software also sends reminders to them if they don't respond in time.

8. Optimize Your Website for Relevant Keywords

Optimizing your website with the right keywords is the first step to ensure that it reaches your intended audience through organic search, which still remains the most reliable way to attract customers to your solutions.

Properly optimized and quality website content answers users' queries helping them make the buying decision faster. Creating quality content is crucial to your success as an agency as it presents valuable information at the right time in the buyer's journey. According to Google, 80% of smartphone users will likely buy from brands whose websites or apps offer helpful and satisfactory answers to their questions. You can also create pillar pages and topic clusters to render this process even smoother.

According to another Google study, about nine out of 10 shoppers have no fixed mindset concerning which brand to buy from when they search for information on the Internet using their smartphones.

With the right content optimized accurately, you can grab this opportunity and position yourself as the one-stop destination for the services they are looking for!

9. Create Convincing Case Studies From Successful Clients

According to eMarketer, client case studies are considered one of the most reliable and proven marketing and promotion tactics by digital marketing agencies worldwide. These case studies are compiled to highlight the capabilities and strengths of the agency through real-life examples, numbers, and statistics.

Agencies use screenshots from Google Analytics and other tools to support their claims with evidence. Case studies and "how-to guides" can also serve as lead magnets and are usually posted in PDF format to attract potential clients. They can also serve as marketing collateral for your sales team to present during pitch meetings and closing discussions.

According to an eMarketer survey, 62.6% of respondents affirmed that case studies were highly effective in generating leads.

Case studies are revered as evergreen content that is versatile and long-lasting. You can also use them in email drip campaigns to make any potential clients aware of your agency and services.

Pro Tip 1: Speak to your existing or previous clients who can participate in the case study creation exercise and share their stories with your prospects. Back your claims with accurate and verifiable data and screenshots to win a potential client's trust and give your sales an instant boost.

Pro Tip 2: You can also create video case studies using tools such as Wave. video.

Tools like the one mentioned above offer several video templates that you can choose from and customize.

Here is an example of a case study related to an accounting & taxation business.

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10. Try Chatbots and Other Conversational User Interfaces

As technology advances, people get increasingly impatient and need instant responses to their queries. Google Assistant, Apple's Siri, Amazon's Alexa, and Microsoft Cortana are all here to fill this gap. Try to utilize such smart conversational assistants to help you streamline your response processes and reduce response times.

The latest in the series is AI-based chatbots that are integrable with your website and provide quick answers to customers' queries. They are digital marketers' preferred tools as alongside providing an enhanced customer experience, they also act as the "deal sealers" by giving instant answers to customers' queries at a time when the lead is hot'. In other words, they help you retain potential customers when their buyer intent is high.

For instance, some potential customers may wish to know the business's opening or working hours, and a quick answer helps them schedule their visit in a timely manner.

You can use chatbots such as Chatbottle, Botlist, Thereisabotforthat, etc. for this purpose, and integrate them into your client's website for better user experience and conversion.

Conclusion

Turning your digital marketing agency into a profit-making machine requires strategy and hard work. There is no shortcut or quick fix' here, but you will soon experience the tide turning in your favor if you follow the above-mentioned tips.

A successful digital marketing agency requires standard processes and strategies. Using white label services can be a game-changer for agencies of all sizes. It relieves them from the burden of managing an oversized team, hiring professionals to carry out tasks they don't specialize in, and investing in additional resources and tools.

This should be your cue to enjoy the benefits of investing in white-label services while remaining resourceful, agile, successful, and profitable in your client dealings.

We would like to hear from you about the tips that you found most helpful. Share in the comments below to give us more insights!

Every business aims to rank at the top of Google SERPs, so the number one position has become the holy grail of SEO. However, it takes a lot of effort, time, and resources to run count for specific keywords, especially in a highly competitive niche.

However, in the real world, to gain visibility, attract traffic and leads, the number one position on search engines is not always the be-all and end-all for the marketers. You have the opportunity to rank in position 0, where Google highlights your content with a featured snippet.

Search engines are constantly evolving. The prime objective of Google is to satisfy the search intent of users, and introducing featured snippets is Google's massive step in that direction. The user can instantly find the information he is looking for and on the first result page, enhancing the overall user experience.

Featured Snippet is a gift for marketers and businesses because featuring in position 0 doesn't depend on your website's link metrics or domain authority but more on the content quality on your web page. So, if you still have miles to go to cultivate genuine backlinks and improve user experience on your site, you can instantly leverage featured snippets.

But, it's easier said than done since the search engines are constantly evolving, with businesses jumping into the fray to reap the low-hanging fruits of featured snippets and position 0. It's primarily because, apart from desktops and smartphones, we use voice assistants such as Google Home, Microsoft Cortana, and Amazon Alexa.

But, before we delve into how to rank in position 0 on the SERPs, let's discuss Position Zero on Google and why is it so crucial for your SEO strategy?

What is Position Zero (P0)?

Position Zero (P0) is the crucial first position on the first page of Google search results visible because of the helpful snippet that Google features with it.

It appears above organic results and instantly attracts users' attention because of the snippet that Google adds below it, enhancing its visibility even on mobile devices.

It enhances user experience as they can immediately find answers to their queries without having to click on the search results links.

How Can I Get Google Position 0 in 2022?

To rank in position zero, you should make sure that:

1. Your content provides a detailed and satisfactory answer to the user’s query
2. Write content that promptly answers the FAQs and other common questions about your business. It should include answers to 5 Ws, i.e., Who, What, When, Where, & Why
3. Offer instructions and how-to articles, where you can use lists, text, images, and even videos to instruct your audience
4. Include definitions of intricate terms
5. Offer comparisons
6. Include the cost and features of your products and services compared to your competitors
7. Add listicles that include “bests,” “top,” “less than $X” lists
8. FAQs

Things to Remember

If you're wondering how to get a featured snippet, read on.

You cannot force Google to incorporate your content in featured snippets or Google position 0. Google itself picks it up based on its relevance and other search query optimization techniques.

All you can do is write insightful content and properly format it so that it has an increased likelihood of being featured as a snippet in SEO position 0.

What are Featured Snippets?

Let's have a look at what a P0 result looks like. If I search, "What is a featured snippet?," the Position Zero result looks like this:

So, here we see that the user doesn’t have to click the link in the search results to see the tips to make a cranky baby smile. The Google Position Zero result provides users with a direct answer to their query, with several tips on making a baby smile.

Here is another example, where Google directly answers a user’s query, “how to calculate ROI for marketing,” through a featured snippet.

Google introduced Featured Snippets to provide searchers a better user experience as they can directly pull information from the website copy. The results are chosen based on their relevance to the search query.

But how would Google determine where to pull the information from for this coveted position?

The methodology is simple. Google bots scan billions of web pages to answer search queries, and the most relevant results are displayed as Featured Snippets or Position 0 results.

So, apart from the direct answer of the query in bullet points or a paragraph, you will also find the page title of the specific web page where the complete information is published, making the P0 result so important.

According to Julia McCoy, strategist and author at The Content HackerTM, Google's featured snippets are the territories all marketers can use, regardless of their size, budget, tenor in the market, and SEO expertise. However, you might have to work hard to attain it.

How to Create Featured Snippets and Win Position Zero in Search Results?

How should you create your content to earn the top spot as Featured Snippets?

There are plenty of featured snippet opportunities out there. Here are some tactics I've used to create content that ranks in the snippets.This post explains exactly how you can create content and optimize it for featured snippets & other Google SERP features to easily earn SEO Position Zero.

1. Create Content to Answer Customer Queries

To land as a featured snippet, your content should be highly informative. According to Neil Patel, your content should provide detailed answers to the customer's questions. If it doesn't, it won't earn the top spot.

Google loves in-depth answers. When Google bots find the matching information and in-depth answers to popular questions from countless pages, the algorithms place it on top as a featured snippet. This way, users can quickly locate the desired information.

Before you develop the content, it is crucial to research the questions your audience is asking to frame your content around those questions.

Most of the search queries that begin with the following terms usually are responded to by Google through a featured snippet.

• What is
• How to
• How do
• How does

So, instead of targeting broad keywords like depression, you can frame a question a searcher can use, such as "how to deal with depression." Such long-tail keywords will convert your otherwise plain content into SEO-optimized content that the readers would also love. Such types of terms mimic the queries people use on search engines.

You can also find search keywords through Google suggested keywords when you type the main keyword into the search field. For example, let's have a look at the following screenshot, where Google offers many related popular search terms you can use in your content to satisfy search intent and boost your website traffic.

Similarly, you can also use a site, Answer The Public, to find such questions. Here are the 60 popular questions the site returns for the search term “content marketing.” So, if your niche is content marketing or you want to create content around this topic, you can use the suggested questions by the tool.

2. Create High Quality, Comprehensive and User-Focused Content

Google's algorithm is complex, and it will not pick your content just because it is snappable, written around a specific topic, and keyword-optimized. To rank high in search results, you need to provide informative, user-focused, entertaining, and comprehensive content. So, your content should always be relevant and of high quality.

How to Create User-Focused Content?

To create such content, you should know who your content is talking to. It is better to reach 500 of the right people than reach out to thousands of uninterested people.

How Should you Find your Target Audience?

The harsh reality is a big chunk of people aren't interested in your content. People want engaging content that addresses their needs across different industries. They are likely to reject poorly executed content that is irrelevant and insincerely written.

They do not want aggressive sales pitches or verbose. They want content that helps and provides insights and information they can successfully apply to solve their issues.

While creating customer-focused content, you shouldn’t commit the following mistakes:

• Bragging about your brand, size of the company, and plans
• Creating sales-focused content
• Using exaggeration and marketing buzzwords
• Dense information presented in a complex manner using industry jargon
• No clear value proposition or benefits
• Absence of a coherent content policy across different customer touchpoints

To avoid such mistakes, you should keep customers at the center stage before initiating any content conversation. Instead of thinking about products, marketing, and sales, you should think about the customer.

For example, Clara, a millennial career changer and fond of technology and gadgets, needs help solving an issue during her transition period. So, before you start creating content, research the who, what, and when drivers.

To get a clear picture of your audience, build their buyer personas. The following steps will help you in building buyer personas.

• Define their demographics and personality types
• Know their goals
• Find out the problems they are facing
• Find out the information they are looking for
• Discover the triggers that drive their needs and actions
• Know their mindset, beliefs, interests, passion, preferences, and viewpoints

What Are the Tools You Can Use to Create Better Content?

You can use the following tools to create better and user-focused content:

• Buzzsumo
• UberSuggest
• Awario (a social listening tool)
• ContentIdeator headline generator
• CoSchedule Headline Analyzer
• Portent’s Content Idea Generator
• Answer the Public
• SEMrush
• SEOMoz
• Quora
• Reddit
• Google Keyword Planner

What Type of Content Do Customers Need?

You can tap the following methods to gather valuable insights and customer data on the content type they are looking for.

• Analyze social media site behaviors, interactions (shares, likes, etc.), and social conversations
• Conduct research, surveys, and polls
• Assess content performance
• Conduct website analytics
• Monitor chat sessions and customer service logs
• Go through questions, discussions, and threads on forums like Quora, Reddit, and support sites
• Watch out for reviews, comments, and testimonials
• Use keyword research tools
• Perform secondary research

The users’ search data gathered through the above methods helps identify what type of content people need. It also reveals the demand for that content.

How to Write Customer-Focused Content That Converts?

Here are some of the tips you should follow to deliver user-focused content:-

A. Be consistent in your approach, creation, and publishing content
B. Choose the language according to the audience and keep it a bit informal
C. Personalize communications using data and past transactions and interactions
D.  Tap into users’ emotions and shared experience using storytelling
E. Be helpful in an exciting manner
F. Be genuine and honest about your brand and align the voice and tone of your content  with your brand

While delivering content, remember, it should be authentic and convincing, so it helps build confidence and convert people.

4. Strive Hard to Provide the Best Answer

Your content’s chances of landing the featured top spot depend on your ability to provide the best answers.

To provide the most helpful answers, you should know your customers’ psychology and how they think inside out. Provide detailed information and valuable content that helps them achieve their objectives and use relevant keywords and phrases.

With shallow content, you cannot earn the featured snippet spot.

Here are three tips for writing the best answers:-

• Dive deep into the topic and provide in-depth answers — Include most of the questions related to the topic.
• Split your answers into logical steps and bullet points.
• Use visual content such as screenshots, tables, infographics, and videos to illustrate and explain.
• Personalize your content to help even the absolute beginners.

Once one of your articles starts ranking in the Featured Snippets, visitors will identify your website as an authentic source for content and will likely revisit, increasing the overall brand authority and traffic on your website.

However, you need these three things to see success with snippets: Time, investment in resources, and patience.

If you work hard and strategically employ your resources, you'll likely land your article in the coveted Position Zero within a few weeks. You may require a few more months to rank on Google. Once you attain a top spot on Google, your post will likely remain there for years without spending a single penny on advertisements. It will also keep your conversion machine moving.

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Conclusion

With greater emphasis on user intent and user experience, Google is working hard to provide direct answers on the SERPs themselves. So, Featured Snippets will remain in fashion and acquire even more importance in the future. If your content is relevant, in-depth, well-researched, and helpful, it can easily capture the coveted Position Zero in search results.

It will boost your online engagement, improve your brand authority and make it easier for searchers to find your content and interact with your site. So, try the above tips and win the top spot as Position Zero on Google and reap its many rewards.

“88% of searches for local businesses on a mobile device either call or visit the business within 24 hours.” (Source: Nectafy)

With “near me” searches gaining momentum on the web, more than 95% of customers search online to find a local business. And nearly half of all Google searches seek local information. Therefore, it becomes crucial that you improve your local business ranking on Google.

Creating a Google My Business account and optimizing it is the secret recipe to improving your local rankings on Google.

How Do I Improve My Local Search Ranking?

Creating a business listing on Google My Business also helps you outsmart your competition and boost traffic and sales. Additionally, it helps you boost brand awareness and earn the trust of your customers.

However, creating a listing on Google My Business is not enough to achieve high local rankings. You need to rank your listing higher on Google, and the only way to do it is to optimize it using all of the GMB features and improve your local SEO.

How Can I Improve my Local SEO?

To improve your Google local SEO, you must first understand the following local SEO ranking factors.

Local ranking factors also depend on the following three aspects:-

1. Relevance
2. Distance
3. Prominence

To know more about these three factors, read the following article:-

12 Essential Google My Business Optimizations to Rank Higher in Local Search

This article contains important tips to improve your local ranking on Google in light of the above-ranking factors:-

1. Set Up and Optimize Your Google My Business (GMB) Listing

GMB or Google My Business has transformed the way marketers perform local SEO. This Google tool is specially developed to promote local businesses and give the best results for “near me” searches. Recently, Moz revealed that your GMB listing is one of Google’s leading ranking factors for organic search.

To begin with, go to the GMB website and start creating your listing.

Here is the checklist of the items you should fill out:

• Complete and correct business name (The same as you use it in your store, visiting card, or signage)
• Local store/office address
• The precise location on a map
• Business category
• Phone number and website (if applicable)

Once you complete the above steps, your GMB listing goes live. Google now initiates your business’s verification. They’ll do it either by phone or by sending a postcard to your registered address. The postcard will contain a code, which you need to enter into your GMB account.

After the verification is complete, you need to begin optimizing your Google My Business profile.

• Post photos of your business. In this section, you can include pictures of the interiors and exterior of your premises.

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• Add your business hours.
• Add the primary and other categories that define your business.
• Regularly share your business updates and fresh content to optimize your GMB profile further and enhance its visibility.

2. Optimize It for Mobile

Most of the “near me” searches are performed using mobile devices. According to an Uberall study, 82% of respondents used their mobile devices to conduct a “near me” search. So, it makes sense to optimize your GMB listing for mobile devices. Make sure your website is mobile-friendly.

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Mobile optimization of your business profile is incomplete without adding click-to-call buttons on your GMB listing. 60% of mobile users prefer to call a business directly from their search results. Therefore, ensure you add a click-to-call button to your GMB listing.

3. Focus On Getting and Responding to Google Reviews

According to Moz's local search ranking factors, review signals also significantly contribute to your local search and snack pack ranking. Star ratings and reviews help build trust. Having lots of reviews speaks volumes about your credibility and reputation as a business. It also enhances your visibility in local search.

Google considers star ratings as a ranking signal. According to a Blue Corona study, more and better reviews directly translate into higher search rankings, more leads and sales, and increased profitability.

So, you should set up systems and processes to earn floods of authentic reviews and train your teams to make it a regular occurrence. Encourage your customers to post reviews using free tools like a review shortcut link.

Apart from your GMB listing and website, you should also have reviews on other review sites. Google also collects your reviews from product comparison sites, consumer directories, and social media. Make use of the vast real estate of reviews that includes Foursquare, Thumbtack, Amazon, Facebook, BBB (Better Business Bureau), Manta and Angie's List, etc.

Apart from the number of reviews, Google also considers the following:

• Does the star rating accompany text + pictures also?
• Does the text include relevant keywords and terms in the review?
• What’s the average star rating given to the product by users?
• Are reviews posted consistently or occasionally?
• Is there a pattern being followed in your reviews? Check review sentiment.

Pro Tip: Don’t request for a review just after the sales as there is a likelihood that the customer hasn’t experienced the product yet. Give them some time and ask them for a review when you think they might have the time to thoroughly experience your product or service.

4. Build Local Links

Whether it is organic ranking or Google Maps, links have been one of the most powerful ranking factors for Google. Studies prove that building local links is vital for ranking in Google Maps. The backlink qualifies if it isn’t marked as “nofollow” for boosting local rankings. Local links are taken as essential factors for driving actual business.

Building local links isn’t rocket science. You can employ simple tactics such as utilizing your local relationships and the companies you have worked with. You can also collaborate with the organizations you support or serve. Tap the companies that fit into a “shoulder niche.”

It is better to tap the companies you are already familiar with. You can return the favor by writing or video recording a testimonial. You can also collaborate to create a piece of content benefiting both the parties and their audiences.

Some businesses and niches are interrelated, and they operate in the same neighborhood. They often complement each other but do not compete for head-on with you. So, when you develop a content outreach program, don't forget to involve these businesses.

For example, a landscaping business may decide to create a valuable piece of content about cost-effective ways to design your interiors or fix your roofing issues. They may also include tips about energy-efficient home design, landscaping, exterior waterproofing, mold damage, painting, and replacing windows and doors.

Before creating the content, you can reach out to a few service providers who provide these services in the neighborhood and ask if they would be willing to collaborate on the content and, if possible, provide a link to their resource pages.

Since it is a mutually beneficial process, it would work even if you don't have any prior relationship with that company.

5. Clear the GMB Spam in Google Maps and Rise in Ranking

If you take a close look at Google Map results in the local organic search, you will find lots of illegitimate entries that do not have a proper website, have an incorrect address, or something like that. To move up the ranking ladder, you must clear such spam so that you can appear above all others.

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Google Maps is full of spam, and you can remove it by using the following tactics:-

A. First and foremost, maintain the record of all the GMB listings you want to edit or report. So, you can identify if the info reverts even after editing.

B. Go to Google Maps>>Go to the listing>>Click on “Suggest an Edit.”

C. You’ll find two options here, and you can pick one according to the situation.

• “Change name or other details“
• “Remove this place.”

If you find keyword stuffing in your listing’s business name, you can suggest it. Choose the first option – “Change name or other details“>>make the required edits.

To remove spam, select “Remove this place” and then select the specific issue.

What if “Suggesting an Edit” Doesn’t Work

If you cannot remove a spam listing through this method, you can try using Google’s Business Redressal Complaint Form. However, Google needs some evidence before it takes any action. You can refer to this resource for more details.

Ensure Business Details (NAP) Consistency

According to Moz, Google seeks consistency in citation and NAP (name, address, phone number) across the web. It means your business information, especially the NAP, should be consistent everywhere, including citation websites, directories, GMB, Maps, Foursquare, Yelp, and Facebook, etc.

Watch out for discrepancies in spellings, business name, address, or phone number. Avoid duplicate listings. Resolving all such issues improves your local SEO to a great extent.

6. Use This Google Maps SEO Checklist

Finally, it’s time to ensure that you have taken all the steps to improve your local SEO and that no critical area is overlooked.

At this point, you must have learned why it’s crucial to fill out your GMB profile entirely and accurately.

But, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

To rank high on Google Maps, you need to perform a variety of optimizations at different levels.

It’s worth pointing out that you need to be meticulous in fixing your local SEO. Here is the Google Maps SEO Checklist for reference to make sure you omit nothing while performing the local SEO of your website.

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7. Track Your Performance

You can track your performance in local SEO by using the built-in analytics in your Google My Business account.

Steps: Sign in to your account>>Select “Insights.”

Here is how it looks like:

Analytics helps you in many ways, and some of them are:

• Identify the specific search queries and terms that triggered your listing. You can use a tool and expand them.
• Know the frequency your listing appeared in organic and local Google searches. If it’s too little, increase your digital footprint and optimize your listing completely using the above tips.
• Observe the customer actions taken (e.g., making a phone call, visiting your website, seeking directions, etc.).
• Create the customer journey map on the website.
• Know the days of the week you get the most calls and inquiries.

You can’t do rank tracking using GMB analytics. However, you can do rank tracking locally and dig into customer information using Moz’s Local Market Analytics.

Conclusion

Covering the Google My Business basics is essential, but comprehensive optimization and consistent improvement can change the game. Experimenting, testing, and tracking different optimizations is a consistent process.

Monitoring the results will direct you to take the right strategic step. If you aren't sure what to do, always put the customer first and do something in their best interest.

Invest your time and money in local SEO and Google Maps marketing, and you'll be able to drive local traffic and generate leads to your business invariably. Various case studies prove that local SEO can amazingly increase keyword visibility manifold and boost local rankings.