Although businesses can technically employ all the digital marketing strategies out there if they have enough budget, it’s still important that they first gain an understanding. For businesses with limited budgets, it’s even more important they choose the right strategies to invest in.

When it comes to cheaper options with more readily apparent results, two strategies come to mind – Search Ads and Display Ads.

Understanding the differences between these two and the situations in which they thrive is essential in maximizing their use. If your business is interested in PPC ads in Vancouver, WA, Read on.

Search Ads

Search Ads or Search Network Advertising or Pay Per Click (PPC) Ads are those text-based ads you see when you use search engines like Google to search for something. And as one of its names implies, it uses a pay-per-click model which means that you only pay when a user clicks on the ad.

This seemingly simple setup offers a lot of benefits for brands. The model allows businesses with a limited budget to keep track of how much they are spending. They can even set a budget cap. Google estimates the ROI for these ads at $2 for every $1 spent.

It’s also incredibly useful for capturing user intent. With cleverly targeted ads and well researched keywords, businesses can capitalize on people who are ready to buy. This means those clicks will likely translate into sales. Tapping into local markets, for example, is an ideal application for search ads.

Using search ads is also an excellent strategy for products or services that have a short sales cycle. It’s very effective for addressing an urgent need. Those looking for HVAC repair services, for example, want something quick and easy to deal with their issue. They will likely click on the first thing they see on the search results page.

Display Ads

While browsing through websites or social media, the ads that you see are display ads. They often use images, graphics, or even videos to market their goods. This is also one of this strategy’s best advantages – its customizability. This gives marketers more leeway to choose the right size, shape, and design for their ads.

Its main difference from search ads is it creates a demand rather than solving a need. Using display ads is like playing the long game with building brand awareness as the top priority. People don’t go on social media in the hopes of finding a solution to a problem they’re having. Instead, display ads are more subtle.

This strategy is best used for products or services with longer sales cycles. Leads are the target here, not immediate sales.

Display ads are also excellent for remarketing – the process of advertising to the people who have likely been on your website before.

Conclusion

Digital marketing strategies have their own different uses. For best results, and if you can afford it, use them in tandem with each other. But why stop there, other strategies like content marketing, social media marketing, and search engine optimization are also very effective options that will complement each other.

For more information about search ads, display ads, and other digital marketing strategies, gives us a call today.

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In an age where people do most of their shopping online, there’s no chance of growing your business without a strong online presence, no matter how competitive or high-value your products and services are.

At Foxhound Digital, our PPC management services in Vancouver are designed to boost ROI and conversions. We’ll oversee every detail from setting up your campaign to thorough monitoring and retargeting.  As your PPC partners, we ensure your paid ads are reaching the right audience at the right time.

What is PPC marketing?

As the name implies, PPC or pay-per-click advertising means you’re charged only when a user clicks on your ad. Google Ads is currently the most popular PPC platform, although paid search is also widely used on social media platforms including Facebook and Instagram.

PPC ads follow a bidding system. This means businesses must bid on the specific keywords they wish to display their ads. Doing so lets you maximize brand exposure and target more qualified leads.

Many businesses leverage PPC because of its reliable geo-targeting features. You can target a local audience or even aim for global reach. PPC also lets you set a budget limit on your campaigns. This way, you can easily track your ROI and maximize your total spend.

Should I invest in PPC?

Absolutely. 

As more businesses go digital, attracting traffic and reaching sales targets has become more challenging. Because of this, more businesses and marketers are turning to PPC ads. 

Unlike SEO and content marketing, PPC results are immediate. You can implement your campaign within minutes, and receive highly targeted traffic within 24 hours.

Simply put, PPC offers a faster and more cost-effective way to rank for relevant keywords and build revenue. No other marketing strategy can give you instant visibility without breaking the bank.

Turn clicks into conversions

PPC campaigns need daily monitoring and maintenance to ensure long-term success. A PPC expert can help you select the right keywords, target quality leads, and ensure you’re getting the most out of your ad spend. This way, you can put all your time and energy into running your business.

At Foxhound Digital, we’re focused on delivering fast and measurable results with an eye on the long game. We’ve mastered the art of using PPC to convert leads into loyal, paying customers to raise your bottom line. Unlike other agencies, we guarantee upfront pricing and clear communication. Your success is our success. Let us help you kickstart your PPC campaign today. Call us at 360.718.3055

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Building the right website requires a trained eye. Unless you have extensive design and coding know-how, it’s better to leave the job to professionals. At Foxhound Digital, our expertise is creating sites that drive action. Through our web design services, we help clients in Vancouver succeed with fast, functional, and results-driven websites.

Whether you’re building a new website or your current one needs a refresh, here are some reasons you need a professional web designer:

Rank higher on search results

Your website needs to be optimized for search to target the right leads, build credibility, and outrank competitors. No matter how beautiful your website looks, it won’t serve its purpose if potential customers can’t find it.

A web design expert can help your website rank higher through clean coding, reliable web hosting, and mobile optimization. The higher your ranking, the more visitors and potential conversions you draw in.

Achieve a seamless user experience

A website that loads slowly is not only bad for user experience, but will cost you your authority in search domains. Similarly, a website with confusing navigation and overwhelming color schemes can drive visitors away.

When you hire a skilled web design company, expect a unique and responsive design that perfectly captures your brand story. Strong and eye-catching web solutions will encourage visitors to stay and interact with your brand longer. In addition, experienced designers have the technical skills to choose the right features and plugins for better security, site speed, and seamless navigation.

Save you time and prevent costly errors

Designing a website can be time-consuming because of the extensive planning and research involved. Hiring a website design company saves you the effort and helps you focus on running the business.  This also means your site is set up in less time than if you take the DIY route. 

It also helps that professional designers are trained to spot issues from the get-go. They can help prevent potential downtime and maintenance costs down the road.

Speak to an expert web designer today

Your website is your home base. It’s the backbone of all your marketing efforts. That’s why at Foxhound Digital, we’re focused on making your website as professional and user-friendly as possible. It’s not just visually and functionally stunning, but also meaningful to your brand.

As a leading online marketing and website design agency, we bring expertise, precision, and creativity to catapult you to success. Unlike other agencies, we guarantee upfront pricing and clear communication. To know more about our web design services, call us at 360.718.3055.

The post Top Reasons to Hire A Professional Web Design Company appeared first on Foxhound Digital.

Besides searching for a specific business, you can search for specific services, for example, if you need a roofer to fix a leaky roof, typing “Fix a leaky roof” exposes an cluster of local businesses. Checking out these businesses helps potential customers review companies and make their choice.

Now, what if you’re a company seeking to expand your footprint in a local territory? The best way to do so is with getting your customers to review your work. The more testimonials you have, the better your business rates with new customers. People trust the words of others in their position, therefore you need good reviews to secure lucrative opportunities.

Understanding Google Reviews

Google Reviews are done on a 1-5-star scale. This scale informs customer understanding of your company’s ability to perform a specific task. It’s easy for customers to put in reviews – they just click on your business and click on the “Write a Review” option. The more detailed review, the better. Especially if your customer gives you a 5-star review! As your business earns more reviews, it appears higher on the Google search rankings. This is also an advantage for your business.

Getting Good Google Reviews

There are many ways to get good Google reviews. The simplest way is to do great work. If your company routinely performs well, people will give you positive feedback. Understand that if you do a poor job, a customer is more likely to give you a bad review. They will go not just to Google, but Yelp and many other review guides. Performing good work is the secret sauce to ensuring that you get the reviews you need to instill confidence in new customers.

Make sure that you perform all the customer service best practices in your industry so that you consistently secure high marks from your clients. Be on time, courteous, polite and respectful to your customers. Doing these basic tenets of customer service will ensure that your customers consistently give you high marks for professionalism, even if the job somehow doesn’t meet their approval. Being professional – even when responding to negative Google reviews – means much to prospective customers.

Tips for Getting Good Google Reviews

There are multiple ways you can get good Google reviews. Following these tips and using an integrated customer acquisition and retention strategy utilizes these reviews most effectively. Not to mention, when you have a strategy making it easy for customers to provide reviews, you are more likely to get great reviews. All the tips listed below are ways that you can attract great Google reviews to grow your customer base.

1.Asking Customers to Provide Google Reviews

Spending time seeking out each customer to get reviews is tedious and takes away from the work you do. However, you must have processes in place where you seek out reviews from your customers. There are several ways you can ask customers to provide reviews:

• When a Job is Completed: If a customer is asked to give you a review after you complete a job to their satisfaction, often you will get a fantastic review! Take the time to leverage the good vibes so that their positive energy helps you acquire new customers.
• The Last Customer Interaction: Every time you interact with a customer, you should ask them for reviews. On e-mails, phone calls, and even face-to-face interactions, these are the best times to bring up reviews. You are speaking to the customer, why not ask them to rate your performance – especially if they are happy!
• Use E-Mail Response Programs: These are passive ways to generate reviews. When you e-mail a customer, include a link in the signature that takes a customer directly to where they can leave a review. Doing this will increase the number of reviews you get without you having to do any of the legwork to ask.
• Include a Review Link with a Bill: When customers go to pay – especially if the bill is online – this is a great way to use funnels to take them straight to a review. Happy customers pay their bills with little fuss, and when you include a review at the end they are more likely to give you a good review. Even if a customer doesn’t wish to be effusive with praise, the 5 stars alone is worth the investment.
• The conclusion of Phone Conversations: These are times when customers are happy because you have generally solved a problem they have. At this point in the phone call, ask them for a review. A great thing to do is direct them to your website where you have a link ready for them to send you a good review!

Take any and every opportunity you can to ask a customer to review you. Don’t be annoying about asking for reviews. The rule here is making sure that you are courteous. Don’t follow up more than once and if the customer still has not provided a review, move on to the next customer. Having procedures in place that help ask for reviews is a great way to avoid the in-person haranguing but still express interest in feedback.

2. Make the Review Experience Personal

For customers to leave a review, they must feel impacted. If the impact is a negative impact, they will leave a negative review. This is a problem. You want your customers to feel like what you did for them was over the top in terms of service. Forging a personal connection is the best way to make your customer feel like they had a unique experience. When they feel like you invested in them, they are more likely to invest in you with the submission of a review.

3. Simplify the Process of Writing Reviews

When it is easier for someone to submit a review, they are more inclined to write a review. This is where linking really helps. Copy-paste instructions include links, and basically, do anything necessary to make the step to submitting a review a simple click. When your customers have simplicity, they will oblige with a positive review!

4. Multiple Points of Contact

Your customers come from many different types of places. For example, you could be getting customers from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and your regular website. Wherever you are getting your customers from, make sure they can give you a review from them. If you have social media profiles, linking to where one can leave a review is a great way to ensure that your customers will give you the positive feedback that’s so essential to the health of your business.

5. Use Incentives to Generate More Reviews

Restaurants are great at doing this! A Chinese food restaurant that offers a free egg roll whenever you leave a Google review is more likely to get reviews. Who doesn’t like free egg rolls?! The best part for the restaurant is the egg roll is a very low-cost product. For other businesses, you can offer discounts or extra work. Think about the parts of your profession that are in demand and have low cost. Those are the best items or services to offer for free. Customers feel like they’re getting something for nothing! The truth is the review is more valuable to you than whatever you are giving away.

6. Review Responses

Want to show new customers that you are engaged? Simply respond to the reviews of your old customers! These are perfect for when you have bad reviews. When you respond to a review apologizing for the customer being unhappy and offer constructive ways to solve problems, the prospective customer has it in their mind that your business is responsive to their needs. A bad review is hard to work around, but when you use good customer service practices on a bad review, that’s a great way to arrest any negative fallout.

7. Make it as easy as possible

The easiest way to get customers to review you on Google is to make it easy, as we have established. The e-mail signature is the easiest way! All you do is create a signature and then every e-mail you send has a Google review link. How easy is that? What took you two minutes to create is now giving you gobs of leads! Using e-mail signatures and other automated review processes allow you to passively generate reviews, which are essentially income because they create new leads.

8. Get Reviews from your Vendors

Your vendors are a fantastic source of reviews. They know your business and your professionalism first hand, so having them review your business and in turn, you provide reviews for them is a great way to make that partnership more meaningful. Fortunately, most vendors are very happy to oblige! Make the process easy for your vendors the same way you would for your customers. These are the best ways to build your network as well.

The Benefits of Reviews

Google reviews provide tons of benefits. Your website immediately gets greater prominence and this prominence manifests itself through increased rankings in Google. Here are some ways that pursuing customer reviews will benefit your business:

• Better Rankings Within Local Search Environments: Trustworthiness is one of the most important ways that Google figures out how to rank searches. The better your business’s reputation is on Google means that your business gets ranked higher in search results. The more positive reviews, the better. If a business has a slew of terrible reviews, Google is not going to rank them high. Therefore, when you search hotels the prominent hotels rank highly while the fleabag inns are barely red dots on the Google map.
• Increased Click-Through Rate: The star rating is essential and when you have a greater number of stars on your rankings, then you are guaranteed to get more customers. There are many customers who view the star rating and then click the link. Searchers must click your listing to get more detailed information. Doing this only enhances your reputation. The greater the click-through rate, the more customers you end up having. Your star rating is the key to unlocking click-throughs. Make sure that at the very least your customers give you 5 stars.
• More Organic Search Traffic: Using proper SEO techniques means that you have a greater chance of being on Google’s Page 1 thanks to great Google reviews. When you have good Google reviews, you have an easy time attracting new business because of your business’s presence on Google’s search engine. The algorithm is very complex, but the way to make it easy is to have great reviews so your business is constantly moving in the right direction on Google searches.

There are many different reasons for businesses to get great reviews. Word of mouth is perhaps the best way to attract new business. Your clients trust reviews from customers just like them, and that’s why it is very important to use different methods to get customer reviews. Use all the different methods above to get your customers to give you positive reviews. As with anything in business, the key is making sure that you have good customer service backing up every action in your business. Good customer service has the potential to turn even the most negative experience a customer has into a net positive.

Whether it is through active or passive measures, getting lots of positive reviews for your business can lead to higher rankings. This means you’ll show up more often in the Local Map section of the Google results page when potential customers are searching for the products or services your business provides.

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