Take more advantage of Google My Business

Take more advantage of Google My Business

by | Sep 30, 2021 | Blog, Brand, Business, Lead Nurturing, Marketing, P.R. & Social, SEO

Take more advantage of Google My Business

Owen Yorio

The Cowbell Agency

Google My Business (GMB) is a crucial element to your online presence. With a proper account, you are eligible for all of the advantages the platform offers. So as a start, make sure you claim your business. If you’ve been operating your business without creating a GMB profile, there’s a good chance Google has automatically created a shell of one for you already. This does make it easier for potential customers to find your business, but it doesn’t come with all of the bells and whistles that can optimize traffic to your business or website. Simply search for your business on Google, if a widget displays on the side with your information, you can claim the business (there should be a button). If you do not, you’ll have to navigate to the Google My Business homepage and set up your profile there.

Once you’ve claimed/set up your business (it should guide you through some relatively easy steps to do so), you can begin adding additional information. You’ll want to take the time to do this if you want to get the most out of GMB. You should see a tab on the left displaying different sections of your GMB profile:

All of these are important to most businesses, except for Products and Website, and we’ll get to those in a bit. Let’s go over these in order:

Home

This is your dashboard, it displays broad information at a glance, and allows you to monitor aspects of your business while giving you various alerts.

Posts

This section allows you to create content for your GMB page, like COVID info, offers, updates, events, and products. It is useful to keep updating in this section as our business changes. Google likes to reward sites that keep their GMB page up to date with posts that reflect what your business is actually up to.

Info

In this section you can change information about your business, things like hours and social links. You probably won’t be in this section too often after you create your GMB profile, but it is important to make sure you fill out as much information as possible here, so potential customers know enough about your business to make a decision on it.

Insights

This is a great place to get information on the visitors of your GMB page and people who call directly from GMB.

Reviews

This section compiles all of your reviews, and allows you to respond to them. One of the most important tips we can give is to reply to all reviews, good and bad. Potential customers can see all of these reviews as well as your responses to them. If you don’t respond to reviews, it gives the impression that you don’t care about your customers. A simple “We appreciate your kind review! Thanks for doing business with us!” or a “We’re sorry we didn’t serve you to the best of our ability, we hope to make this up to you the next time you visit!” can go a long way. Obviously, you’d want to make it more personalized than that, but generally a response is better than no response. 

Calls

This is a new offering of GMB, so it isn’t as fleshed out as other functions. But if you set it up, it’s helpful to have call history information to track.

Messages

Once this option is activated, customers can message your business directly through GMB, a helpful offering.

Photos

The photos of your business is one of the first things people will see when they come across your GMB page, so give them something nice to look at! Interior and exterior shots to give them a good sense of the space. It’s also helpful to keep this relatively up to date.

Products

This area allows you to upload product information, allowing people to see what you offer right on Google. If you offer any type of product, this is a great option for you, but as we said earlier, this doesn’t apply to all businesses.

Services

If you offer services, this area is extremely important. You want to display what you can do to potential customers as soon as possible, so make sure this section is as up to date and accurate as possible. This also helps Google index your website and GMB profile, and offer it to people who are searching for your services.

Website

If you’d like a barebones website, this section allows you to make one through GMB. We don’t recommend this, as the sites that come out of this have no personality or much in terms of functionality or style.

Users

The last option here is to add other Google users to have permissions on this GMB page. Helpful if you’d like other team members to help you out in creating or monitoring your business information. 

It is important to keep all of your pertinent business information up to date and accurate on Google My Business, as it helps you and potential customers. Don’t put it off as a waste of time, because you could lose out on business, it’s worth the time to set it up and update it. If you need any help setting up an optimized GMB profile, let us know by giving us a call or commenting!

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Famous Last Words – I Can Do It Myself

Famous Last Words – I Can Do It Myself

by | Aug 30, 2021 | Business, Marketing, Metrics, P.R. & Social, Performance

Famous Last Words – I Can Do It Myself

Olivia McDonald

The Cowbell Agency

There are no shortcuts when it comes to managing high performing Google Ads campaigns. 

Have you ever had a home improvement project that needed to be tackled and said to yourself “This should be easy. I can do it myself.” only to encounter unforeseeable roadblocks that left you feeling in over your head? And when it was all said and done, those roadblocks lead to far more of your time, energy and money than you expected, and it probably would have been less expensive to hire a professional to do the work?

This “I can do it myself” attitude is the same one many business owners take when they decide to get into the digital marketing space with Google Ads. At a glance, creating and managing your own account doesn’t seem all that overwhelming. However, like that home improvement project, you will soon realize that it is going to take far more time, energy and money than you originally anticipated, and the day-to-day operation of your business may be neglected as a result. At Cowbell, we have a team of certified Google Ads experts who have been trained in the best practices of Google Ads and know the best way to optimize campaigns based on your market, competition and budget. 

There are clear advantages to having an agency get behind the wheel of a Google Ads account and take the results to new heights. For starters, there will be no wasted budget. Your Google Ads Specialist has the skillset to take any budget and maximize results, from making adjustments to ads to improve quality score to reducing the average cost per click to increase the daily number of clicks. Next, Google is doing their best to persuade small businesses to adopt an automated bid structure. They make it seem as though they are helping you by taking the pressure off you to monitor and optimize as often as you usually would. In reality, this takes away the advertiser’s control and gives the advantage to bigger businesses with bigger budgets. More times than not, small businesses with smaller budgets end up paying more per click, quickly eating up the daily budget far quicker which leads to serving ads to less people. Lastly, without an automated bid structure, monitoring and optimizing campaigns takes a significant amount of your precious time. You can’t just set it and forget it. Passing the torch to your certified Google Ads expert frees up your time to focus on what is most important – running your business. 

Running a Google Ads campaign yourself only makes sense if you have extensive experience in Google Ads and its constantly changing landscape. If you don’t, you may be setting yourself up for a costly learning experience. If you want to see results without it costing an arm and a leg, it’s crucial to go to the experts. There are no shortcuts when it comes to managing high performing Google Ads campaigns.

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Beginning a Social Media Program

Beginning a Social Media Program

by | Jul 7, 2021 | Blog, Brand, Business, Marketing, Messaging, Metrics, P.R. & Social

Beginning a Social Media Program

Adam Latham
The Cowbell Agency

To some, getting a social media program off the ground seems like some sort of black magic. You have a Facebook page, but no likes or follows. You have a twitter handle, but no followers. So, you think, why even post. And if you did, what is the value?

You know you should, and you know that eventually it may be worthwhile, but getting started seems daunting. 

The first thing I like to do is forget about the woeful size of your audience right now and think about these channels or platforms from a purely strategic perspective. What is their purpose and how do they fit my needs?

Let’s start with your needs. Apart from just advertising your product or service, ask yourself what type of information do you want to deliver to your audience? What, from you, do they want to hear? 

The answer to these questions will vary widely based on what your organization does or produces.

To help you answer these questions, let’s create a few hypothetical organizations. Let’s say you were a government or NGO who has a vested interest in pushing out a lot of information to the public, as in activities and schedules of events. Every time you push out a press release, it costs money. So instead, you’ve decided to use Twitter as your distribution channel. You are not looking to get into a lot of discussions with your audience there, just a public channel to broadcast that something new is available. 

This channel is very effective at this because most of the media itself follows organizations they regularly report on. 

Let’s also assume your organization wants to also build a community with relationships and conversations. This will most likely take place on Facebook. 

But, if you want to reach the generation between 16 and 23, then you should also include Instagram.

Let’s say your leadership, C-level executive and management, wants to be seen as thought leaders. If so, you need to include LinkedIn as part of your strategy.

So, before I even concern myself with building audiences and managing the pages, I build a matrix that includes the types of information I want to disseminate, and I choose the platform on which I want to broadcast that information. 

Secondly, I then, knowing the culture of those different platforms, will know how many different topics and amount of posts I need to create. 

This is how you begin building a Social Media Strategy.

The next phase is all about tactics. Connecting and automating where you can, getting the resources to fill the pipes with content, measuring and building audiences. 

Notice I put building audiences last. There’s a reason for that.

Everyone usually likes to start there. They go to their platforms and don’t see any audience and they think what is the point. Well, the point is, if you don’t have a regular flow of information, nobody will ever follow or subscribe. It would be like trying to get subscribers to a streaming service without shows for anybody to watch. Unfortunately you DO have to show a value for others to value your content.

And trying to build an audience before you can show value, is like kicking yourself in the butt. Every time someone goes to your page and is disappointed, the least likely they are to come back. Remember, when someone shares some of your content, you want to build and convince others to get there first.

Once you have your channels ready… you know, a good amount of videos on YouTube, articles on LinkedIn, posts and events scheduled on Facebook, an active Twitter feed that is constantly sending out links to interesting articles… then you begin paying occasionally to boost your circulation on your best, most valuable content.

Lastly, be humble. Share other people’s information if it is of value. Now, this can get misunderstood. I’m talking about Ford sharing GM information. What I’m talking about is the reality that every industry has resources from other sources that their customers might find interesting. The more you look like a channel of non-stop advertising, the less relevant your channel will become. 

Lastly, don’t be afraid to have a personality. At the end of the day, beyond special offers and announcements, people want to be entertained. Never lose sight of that. The object is to get as much of your followers to want to share your info with THEIR followers and friends. It isn’t only about building your audience, but rather, inspiring your audience to spread the word for you.

Good luck and have fun.

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Understanding and Measuring the ROI of SEO

Understanding and Measuring the ROI of SEO

by | May 6, 2021 | Blog, Marketing, Metrics, SEO

Understanding and Measuring the ROI of SEO

Adam Latham
The Cowbell Agency

Communicating the true ROI of programs like SEO can sometimes be difficult. I recently completed a White Paper that looked at several different key metrics that can easily be measured in real-world dollars, which then allow an easy calculation based on the investment in SEO activity.

The program used for this study was a client that recently completed the first four months of an ongoing SEO program.  The strategy and tactics were developed by myself and colleague Owen Yorio (fast becoming a young SEO Jedi).  The resulting benefits could be measured both in monthly organic search traffic, annual organic search traffic, non-branded organic search traffic, and closing those gaps with their competitors.

If that sounded at all confusing (because you have a life), it probably won’t be after you’ve read.

The ROI of this program ranged from 3X to nearly 10X

Download White Paper: Understanding the ROI of SEO

Read on LinkedIn

 

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93% of all online interactions start with a search engine

93% of all online interactions start with a search engine

by | Apr 15, 2021 | Marketing, Metrics, Performance, SEO

93% of all online interactions start with a search engine

Olivia McDonald

The Cowbell Agency

Did you know? 

93% of all online interactions start with a search engine.

We’ll wait while you pick your jaw off the floor because that’s a pretty staggering statistic. Now you’re probably wondering what this means for you and your business. Well, it means your SEO game needs to be on point to ensure you are ranking for relevant searches so the right people are finding your business online. Before we get into how Cowbell can help, let’s answer the number one question you probably have right now.

What is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. To put it as simply as possible, SEO is the process of increasing the number of visitors to your website by ensuring that the site appears high on the list of results returned by a search engine. Optimizations can be as simple as applying a focus keyword to each webpage on your website along with SEO titles and meta descriptions, or it can be as complex as fixing technical issues that could be slowing down your website and affecting the user experience.

It’s complicated, y’all.

And you are busy actually running your business so you don’t have the time to fix all the issues on your own. But it’s extremely important that all issues are resolved so we recommend procuring the SEO services of a highly skilled digital marketing agency, such as Cowbell Agency.

Why choose Cowbell Agency?

We offer world-class global and local SEO programs. We would determine which program your company would be best suited for by assessing your needs and the scope of your clientele. From there, we would run a website audit to identify and fix all the issues that negatively impact your site’s search performance, like missing heading tags, duplicate content, broken links, and the list goes on and on. It’s all the things that, believe us, are killing your search performance. 

There are many other aspects that are included in both the local and global SEO programs, but we won’t bore you with all the nerdy details. Just know that you can count on us to provide you with results you can see and believe. Our SEO reports are honest and insightful. You’ll see exactly where you stand every step of the way.

So are you ready?

Contact us today for a free web consultation and let us take your business to new heights. Be seen. Be heard. Be more. With Cowbell.

Statistic source: Forbes, “How To Optimize Your SEO Results Through Content Creation”

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This guy had me at slide…well, somewhere in the mid ’30s. But don’t worry, it goes quick

This guy had me at slide…well, somewhere in the mid ’30s. But don’t worry, it goes quick

by | Sep 6, 2020 | Lead Nurturing, Marketing, Messaging

This guy had me at slide…well, somewhere in the mid ’30s. But don’t worry, it goes quick

Adam Latham
The Cowbell Agency

The word “marketing” to some, leaves a bad taste in their mouth. On the honesty scale, our public perception is somewhere a little better than politicians and used car salesmen. 

I lived in both the B2B and B2C world. I came across this presentation and something spoke to me. 

If I’m going to be completely honest, I think I like the B2B world a tad better. Although all of marketing is about making an emotional connection with any customer, in the B2B world, those emotions are about ease of use, simple to use, or better functionality. It rarely diverts into that B2C weird world where wearing a certain type of underwear will of a sudden make you “cool.” 

Or about cringe-worthy moments where Kraft cheese uses a backdrop of Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get it On” with third or fourth graders in their cafeteria. Let’s face it, you have to sell your soul to the devil sometimes in B2C. And we do it, because it is the right thing for our clients.

Here’s what I know about the company’s I’ve had the pleasure of working for in the B2B world. Their products make my life better. Period. Whether making my. phone smaller, or the battery last longer, or getting more power out of a solar panel, or, making sure my brakes are working on my car. And the type of marketing I do is about trying to figure out the exact value proposition that truly differentiates that improvement to the customer…who is making cars, phones, computers, etc.

In short, there is a higher level of honesty because the person doing the buying isn’t going to be fooled. They aren’t pimply faced, self-conscious teen agers trying to fit it. They are competent, confident buyers who just want to know the product will make their product better.

That isn’t exactly a purpose in life, but when the satellite places itself safely in orbit, and I know some of the products I’ve marketed helped it get there, I feel good about that. Is that wrong?

Anyway, hope you enjoy this slide deck.

 

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